Project origins
There was some discussion on the Steam forums as to how to get an update to GalCiv 2 out there.
Draginol popped in and suggested that an update incorporating the expertise of the fanbase would be the best way forward. A bugfixing update would soon be on the way.
I sent a message to the other tech tree modders, and luckily secured the assistance of Gaunathor, and later MabusAltarn, as well as some dedicated members of the community who posted some valuable feedback. They have been instrumental to the success of the community update, and I'm glad to have played a small part along the way.
Progress report
The community update has been released as part of a rollout of Stardock products on GOG.com and is also available as an opt-in beta on Steam!
Downloads and links
Issues which can't be fixed with XML manipulation.
The file archive folder, hosted by MabusAltarn.
The list of bugs which can't be fixed with XML manipulation.
The spreadsheet of data changes, hosted by MabusAltarn.
Initial discussion on Steam forums
Credits for community member and Stardock staff involvement
Gaunathor - Tech tree changes, descriptions and standardisation. AI value adjustment. Planetary improvement changes and fixes. Keeper of the change logs, spreadsheet and file archive.
MarvinKosh - Typo and description changes (English.str, Techtree.xml). Additional spreadsheet analysis.
DARCA1213 - Tech descriptions.
MabusAltarn - UI changes, tech tree changes, AI value adjustment, keeper of the file archive, spreadsheet and change logs.
Maiden666 - Suggestions for improvement (technology victory bonuses).
OShee - tech descriptions.
SiliasOfBorg - tech descriptions.
Frogboy - executable code changes.
I think that's fine. At least they have some starting buildings to fill up their tiles with. Depending on the setup, it's usually only a small amount of techs that will be missing from them - so in many cases, they should be able to upgrade most of their improvements.
But doesn't that get overwritten by choosing a difficulty level during the games setup? At 50 AiAbilities will he use all algorithms available?
Perhaps the Pirates need some of the suicidal bonuses by default irrelevant of the diff level - such as no FOG, increased sensors or whatever cares about their range. From that it would make sense.
I knew that the sentence wasn't correct but for the exact number had to ask wikipedia as well^^
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Size_of_the_universe
"The proper distance—the distance as would be measured at a specific time, including the present—between Earth and the edge of the observable universe is 46 billion light-years (14 billion parsecs), making the diameter of the observable universe about 91 billion light-years (28×109 pc). The distance the light from the edge of the observable universe has travelled is very close to the age of the Universe times the speed of light, 13.8 billion light-years (4.2×109 pc), but this does not represent the distance at any given time because the edge of the Universe and the Earth have moved since further apart.[51]"
"Over time, the Universe and its contents have evolved; for example, the relative population of quasars and galaxies has changed[57] and space itself has expanded. Due to this expansion, scientists on Earth can observe the light from a galaxy 30 billion light years away even though that light has traveled for only 13 billion years; the very space between them has expanded. This expansion is consistent with the observation that the light from distant galaxies has been redshifted; the photons emitted have been stretched to longer wavelengths and lower frequency during their journey. Analyses of Type Ia supernovae indicate that the spatial expansion is accelerating.[58][59]"
Yes on both counts.
Yes, that's possible.
I've been playing around with increasing the Logistics and CPUUsage of the Pirates, and here are the results:
With CPUUsage at 100 the Pirates still behave the same as before. Attack and follow ships, if they get too close. Otherwise, stay where you are. It's all very basic. Asteroid mines are also still the Pirates arch-nemesis.
Doubling their Logistics-ability didn't allow the Pirates to keep more fleets. If the previous owner had multiple fleets in the same tile, then only one fleet stayed intact. All of the remaining fleets got disbanded. I also haven't seen the Pirates create new fleets during my observation, though I'm certain that I've seen them do that before. Maybe I simply missed it, or it just didn't happen this time?
Maiden I'll try the control shift p command.
how did you create the pirates in the first place? surrendering as player doesn't seem to work for me...
Take control of another race (preferably evil aligned), build some combat ships with it, and then give away all of its planets. Go back to your old race (or any other one), and end the turn. At the start of the next turn, the test race will be declared destroyed, and some (or all, if evil) of its ships will become pirates.
By the way, I ran some tests with changing the UpgradeTarget of the race-specific improvements again, and its looking good so far. The Drengin keep using Slave Pits/Canyons instead of factories, and so is everyone else with their respective stuff. There was one outlier with the Iconians (they've built an Adv. Market Center instead of a Barter Station), but that's it. In other words, there was indeed something wrong when I first tried this.Also, the Iconians and Yor continue to use Robotic Farms/Charging Stalks now, instead of switching to regular farms. If it stays that way in subsequent tests, I may make the farming techs tradeable/stealable again. The Thalan may rejoice.
Edit: Or maybe not. The Thalan suddenly thought having a pop-cap of 22b+ on Thala is a good idea. Strangely enough, this only happened in the CU. When I was testing this with AT, the Thalan didn't build any farms on their homeworld. I think that the percentage-bonus for food is at the root of this problem, but that's just based on conjecture. For now the farming techs stay untradeable/unstealable in the CU.
Here are the updated files and the new changelog.
thanks that worked well
I've justed done a single test using the unmodded 2.04 vanilla game albeit with new exe. The only single change was done to Raceconfig.xml to increase Pirates' logistics from 8 to 40.
Then I used Control+B to spawn several battleships on a single spot, used cheats to research all techs to get logistics high. I've put the battleships into 1 fleet with over 50 logistics (so the pirates can't hold this together), another with 28, and then a lot of single ships - all at the same spot.
In the turn they became Pirates both fleets got disassembled. Thus there were around 20 single ships in one spot.
The following turn the Pirates assembled a fleet of 5 ships (5*7 = 35, the possible maximum for 40 logistics) together and headed towards a close constructor. The other ships stayed singled out in the spot.
The next turn the Pirates repeated this behaviour, just that the fleets had different targets.
A turn later the last remaining single ships were formed to a fleet, but they just remained in that spot, not getting any target. At this time no more single ships were present.
The Pirates AI then went on to chase individual target that came close to him. However, his ships just had speed 3, so most targets got away and he didn't pursue them much, though they would follow endlessly if target has same speed.... If no target was close by his ships just stayed at their respective place.
--> speed is absolutely necessary for them.
--> logistics will help to make it harder to defeat them, also, they could take on stronger targets like warfleets or starbases with defenses. however, too much logistics could bear the danger that alot of non-militarized craft could successfully evade them. in such cases, swarming space might be more effective.
***
I made the second test with the latest CU
repeated basically all steps
fleets were also formed. but initially the pirates had no targets to go after in the near proximity. So they stayed dormant + non-fleeted. But whenever a suitable target appeared they would first form a single fleet, then send this fleet against the target.
That would explain what I was seeing. With the exception of the occasional scout, there were no targets in the area.
Happy New Year! My, you lot have been busy. Here, have a few more screens! Here's a rundown of what's been done:
TitleWnd: the UI and logo have been fully decoupled from the backgroundGalaxyWnd: extended the combo boxes for custom map and scenario, they were absurdly inconvenient to useRaceWnd: "fixed" the scrollbar on the political box, aka the slider from hell! This thing was fiendishly uncooperative...CustomOverViewWnd: extended the political box at the expense of Tech and added a slider to the scrollbar; much better behaved...EventWnd: horizontally restricted the video panel to its native aspect ratio, minor graphical touch-ups to accommodate the changeTradeWnd: horizontally restricted the video panel to its native aspect ratio
Please do your utmost to test these out. Further, there's only the Invasion screens that I still wish to tweak. The robots in the Headlines are also stretched but... well, I say they can stay fat! It's a progressive future, right there!
Here's a breakdown of the game's resources: there are 183 unique dxpacks with references in the exe (145 in TA, 4 in DA, 34 in DL). Additionally, the exe references SummaryEpicWnd.dxpack, which is not present in the files. Of the files in TA, PlanetDetailsGridEntry and OptioneEntryDeviderWnd are not referenced in the exe. I rummaged through the whole lot, trying to find cases where resolution distortion may occur.
There are a few outstanding problems that I'm unsure how to address:
Options: in the Browse popup to change the Mods folder, the Cancel label is misaligned on the button. However, I'm unable to find where this popup is controlled. Help?
Tutorial: There's a slim blank button under the video. Is there any purpose for it or can it be ignored/erased. Also, the fullscreen videos are cropped, but this seems to be a coding issue, not fixable from the dxpack.
Finally, can we remove the ending period in the special ability descriptions, the one-liners that appear in the race selection screen? The text handler has a nasty habit of treating it as a separate word and, occasionally, placing it alone on the last line. Since these are brief one-liners, scrapping the period seems both acceptable and more reasonable than tweaking the UI over it.
TitleBack really isn't ready for consumption, it was just a quick job to serve the immediate purpose. The right side should be entirely starscape, no planet (duh!) and hopefully no demonic presence right in the bloody centre of the picture. It should preferably fade to black at the far-right.This picture is used in a number of screens, so it can't be glossed over, I fear. If there's no one else who can try to do it, I could give it my best shot, but an experienced hand would be far more helpful in this manner!
I'm not sure what I'm looking for here. Nevermind, I'm seeing it now. They look fine to me.
I actually never had any problems with that scrollbar.
Hm...
It's odd seeing part of the map in the background. The whole screen also looks just weird this way. Maybe it would look better, if the part with the text was horizontally restricted, too? I really don't know.
Not a fan.
The black borders really feel out of place. I find them highly distracting.
Thing is, I would also like to replace this file with the original. The removal of the ability to buy planets from the AI smacks like a "Thou shalt not exploit the AI!" It's a singleplayer game. So why would you care how other people play? If anything, this should be in a mod, not the official game. After all, the devs intended for the player to be able to buy planets. Why else would they put the option in?
Then there are the changes Mabus made to the Set Rally Point screen. Granted the map of the old screen was entirely useless.
It was supposed to show where all your existing rally points are. However, unless you played on a tiny map, you couldn't easily tell where they are, because the map could get very crowded. On the other hand, if you are playing on a tiny map, then you don't need this map to find the rally points.
For this reason Mabus decided to remove the map.
However, that wasn't an improvement either. Now there is this huge space between the buttons, making it harder to reach them. I'd rather have the useless map than this. Though I'd be grateful for any kind of improvements to this screen.
I can understand the changes made to the CivManagerGovernorWnd.dxpack and PlanetWnd.dxpack. They were (sort of) necessary, because the food bonus tiles have become pointless due to the change to the farms. However, I am considering to change the farms to provide proper food production again, instead of percentage-bonuses, which would make it necessary to "reactivate" the bonus tiles (unless everyone is against that). I did that in AT, and it's working fine. Sure, the AI occasionally builds too many farms on its planets, but that still happens in the CU, too. I don't consider it that big a deal. Well, not anymore at least.
Lastly, there are the FleetManagerEntryWnd.dxpack and SaveItemWnd.dxpack. I could never tell what exactly Mabus changed. Maybe I'm just blind, or looked at the wrong place.
Here are the original files. Maybe you can figure out what Mabus did or how to improve them, Spinorial?
I think that is part of the Epic Generator Stardock intended to add. It was supposed to automatically create an AAR while the game is still in progress (make screenshots, write an epic narrative, etc.). However, the devs abandoned the idea, because it was just too hard to implement. The Events screen in the Civ Manager is all that is left it.
Sorry, but I'm unfamiliar with the files controlling the UI.
No idea what it does. It has been there since DA. The Governors screen in the Civ Manager also has that.
Done and done.
I just added it, so it could be easily accessed for testing (no need to go back several pages to find the link).
Sorry, but I can't help you there. I have neither the tools nor the talent for this. Just drawing stick-figures is difficult enough for me.
Besides changing farms to give proper food production again, there are some other things I'd like to implement. However, I'd first like to hear your opinion.
Invasion Tactics:
-Remove the tactics Intimidation and Marines. Intimidation is identical to Information Warfare, making it redundant. Marines doesn't add anything new. Plus, Stellar Marines already unlocks Core Detonation.
-Reduce the max PQ-damage of Gas Warfare from 20% to 10%. The penalty is simply too high. Nobody in his right mind would use this tactic, when there are better options available.
-Change the TechRequirement of Information Warfare from Advanced Diplomacy back to Planetary Invasion. I don't understand this change, and the inclusion of Intimidation. It feels like an attempt to prevent the Yor from gaining access to this tactic. But why would you do that? Because the Yor want to wipe out all organic life? So? The Korath want to wipe out all non-Drengin life, while anybody joining up with the Drengin would end up in a Slave Pit (if they are lucky). Yet both of those races got access to this tactic. Isn't this contradictory?
-Increase the bonus of Core Detonation from 40-50 to 50-70. This tactic is underpowered. There is no reason to use it over Tidal Disruption.
-Give Mechanized Warriors the following stats: Cost 500 (from 800), bonus 100-200 (from 40-50), PQ-damage 10-30% (from 0), improvements-damage 80-100% (no change). This tactic was overpriced compared to what it did. The tech-description of Mechanized Warrior doesn't state anything that could justify this ridiculous cost. It does state, however, that "As a result, our troops are immensely powerful per man." Yet, the actual tactic is weaker than the Drengin Shock Troops. The Thalan don't have any other advanced tactic available in their tech tree, so I decided to use Mass Drivers as a base for Mechanized Warriors. I also want to change the description of the tactic to this: "Mechanized Warriors are armies of robotic troops that can be controlled from afar. They are immensely powerful. So powerful, in fact, that using them will cause significant damage to the surface of the invaded planet."
-Give Terror Drones the following stats: Cost 300 (from 250), BonusType 3 (from 1), bonus 50-70% (from 20-20%), improvements-damage 50-70% (from 25-25%). In its current form, this is the weakest of all the invasion tactics. It also provides an attacker-bonus, which the Yor already have in form of the much stronger Mass Drivers. To fix this, I decided to give it a penalty to the defenders. As base, I used Tidal Disruptions. Here is the new description I want to use: "Terror Drones work alongside our soldiers and are extremely effective in adapting to every kind of combat scenario. As their name implies, the primary function of Terror Drones is to induce terror into our enemies, thereby greatly reducing their capabilities to fight back. The only downside is that the resulting panic causes widespread damage to planetary improvements."
Political Parties:
-War Party: change the Soldiering-bonus from +10% back to +15%, and remove the Hit Points-bonus. The HP-bonus on top of all the others felt like overkill. Plus, it didn't really mesh with the rest. The War Party is all about combat-equipment and training, not expertise in ship-construction.
-Pacifists: change the Influence-bonus from +15% to +10%. The bonus felt a bit too strong.
-Mercantile: replace the +10% Purchase Now Reduction-bonus with a +10% bonus to Influence. A PNR-bonus is too powerful, in my opinion, to be granted from a political party. Plus, a culture-bonus is more fitting. As the description states: "Exporting goods and culture to other civilizations will make them more dependent on our prosperity for their own success."
The map of the old rallye points screen would have been more useful if the zooming-out would work correctly....
I never considered the stretched screens as a problem, over time you get just used to it....
Planet trading is extremely exploitably, in that it would goof up any game playing Terrans or having Korath as enemies. SD actually took other stuff out (for example setting CivCaps) so they actually have an interest to not make OP stuff available to the player - esp. when an AI can't defend against. For a strategy game such implements are always bad. Ofc it would have been better if the AI would better evaluate his planets, but, as of now, he sees them in accordance to their econ-income.
If they are red, he wants to get rid of them. He doesn't evaluate their potential strength 20 turns later.
Ironically you can't trade for Colony Ships, but once that Ship turned into a Colony you can get it - although a Colony is of more worth than a ship!
So he's coded to get as many planets as possible which is the intent of the colonial rush, but he will then try to get rid of them? That doesn't make sense, even more so that the starting colony ship with only 100m spawns alot of superlowpop colonies around ~25m ppl which are economically negative like forever - as are Korath spored planets.
The overall intent to care about a general balance is give players a satisfactory experience, and because GalCiv is a strategy game, it's ment to posse a thinking challenge. The potential existance of such exploits make a game too easy, and you simply can't expect that any & all player know about weak AI routines, unfair tactics or what better not to use in order to still have a challenge.
On that note, trading influence points also shouldn't be possible - it's clearly bugged.
As for Post #1535, I like all your proposed changes (sound reasonable), except the Political Party change. I find that party actually super-weak when compared to the other parties. Are we talking the same stuff? Infl+15 Diplo+10 Esp-25
That's already far weaker than Technologists, Universalists, Industrialists or Populists (who happen to also give Influence which is a bit lacking of idea IMO). Perhaps have one party enforce more on moral, the other on influence. In a way let each party have their own resort - ofc except Universalists (for obvious reasons)
BTW I find the implementation of the -25 esp bonus into the political parties rather ugly. Because you see it too often in the various setup screens. Wouldn't it be possible to integrate that penalty to a starting tech, so anybody still has it albeit more "silent"?
edit:
just thinking over it again, the lack of the planet trade screen prevents you from checking on how many planets an AI gathered, which may later translated into his potential strength.
but it made techtrading more easy. wouldn't it be somehow possible to make the space for tradegoods somewhat smaller and give that then to the techlist-panel?
Shrinking everything was the easy fix and I tried it. It's worse: you get not only the map, but the UI on the sides. Even if I were to apply a black background over them, the decorative graphics on the borders were made to hug the screen and end in sharp edges, yielding a very ugly presentation. Plus, it prompts the obvious question of why there's total blackness on the sides. This way, the entire event window looks like a natural outgrowth of the game interface at the bottom; personally, I find it satisfyingly immersive, and it works better than I ever imagined it would.
The black borders really feel out of place. I find them highly distracting.Thing is, I would also like to replace this file with the original. The removal of the ability to buy planets from the AI smacks like a "Thou shalt not exploit the AI!" It's a singleplayer game. So why would you care how other people play? If anything, this should be in a mod, not the official game. After all, the devs intended for the player to be able to buy planets. Why else would they put the option in?
Sigh. I thought a lot about the best way to change it, and this still seems like the optimal solution. Firstly, my basic premise: the stretched videos were ugly. Simply put, you could tell they were distorted. As I pointed out with the news robots, I will happily let sleeping dogs lie if it's not bothersome. With the leaders, though, it is. And while I appreciate how old-school fans are used to them and don't mind, there's planet-loads of whiny people who immediately go for this sort of stuff. Then there's folks like me who can live with it, but would rather fix it when possible/practical. And, it turns out, it is!
Now then, that was the why I'm going through all this trouble. Here's the situation with this particular case: the black parts are non-functional, anyway. If the choice is between a visibly distorted video and a regular video with black bars to the side, I pick the latter. The alternative solution was to stretch the video down, at the expense of the message boxes. This might seem like a good idea, in theory, until you realise just how obtrusive Lord Kona's mug becomes at wider resolutions. Worse, at some point the message boxes become too small, and the overall aesthetic of the screen becomes ugly. Same thing if I try to expand the side columns, at the expense of the message boxes. Plus, there's many dozens of elements at play, each needing to be corrected individually, so the work will be appallingly tedious and the chance of errors exponentially greater. And I'm not a pundit, so I know just what "exponentially" means
As to the planet trading exploit, though I'm not on your level in understanding the workings of the AI, I've actually had similar discussions on the feasibility of province-trading in Europa Universalis. Swapping, actually - money for land was usually quickly dismissed. There's very little historical precedent for the practice, and it usually required significant financial strain on the part of the seller. Land was always seen as a status symbol and giving it away should be overly expensive at the best of times. Space, especially GalCiv-space, is no different. Which is all to say, I'm in favour of the in-game practice, but only if it can be implemented well. In this case, it's not. I gather that the economic-draining aspect of inconvenient rush colonies is more tolerable than the exploitability of trading by a strategically-prescient mind. So, unless you know how to modify the selling price to be consistently and significantly over-priced, I'd say keep the feature off.
Sure, I'll take a gander at'em. At the very least, I'm confident I could shrink the rally point screen down to size. Then again, I was confident I could handle that stupid slider, but it sucked the life out of me
I'm still hoping Mabus, when he's back, can help out with that Cancel button, maybe with some of the other screens. As for the graphics, Maiden, would you be able to help with TitleBack?
Yes, they do give that impression sometimes. Especially when you consider their nerf of the engines in DA and TotA. And then there are situations like the overpowered sensor-stacking in GalCiv 3, where Frogboy explicitly said that he sees no problem with it, because he uses those super sensor-boats too. Am I the only one who gets mixed messages here?
Overall, I agree with you. However, if fixing an exploit also removes otherwise viable player-options, then we should think twice whether doing so is a good idea. Especially when the game in question has been out for a long time, and people have certain expectations as to what's possible and what's not. Plus, not everybody plays the same way or wants the same out of a game. What may be a "satisfactory experience" for one persion, may be an utter nightmare for somebody else.
Trading IP is a intended feature. It's mentioned multiple times in the manual that you can do this. Yes, IP are basically worthless, but that doesn't change what the devs intended to be possible to do with them.
You mean the Pacifists? I actually thought that the Diplo-bonus by itself is already pretty good. But, if you think that the party is too weak, then I could change the Influence-bonus back to its vanilla value of +20%. Would that be better?
I gave Populists a Influence-bonus, because I thought that just a +10% bonus to Morale and Pop-Growth wasn't good enough. However, I didn't want to make either bonus too high, because they are already rather easy to get.
Yeah, I don't like it either. I could move the penalty to the history-techs of each race. That would make it a bit less in-your-face.
Which reminds me, I'd like to reduce the Espionage-bonus of the Krynn to +25%. They would still be better at training spies than the rest of the races, but would spend less money doing so. Plus, I also want to remove the Diplo-penalty from the Yor. They already have a hardcoded penalty. No need to give them another one on top.
If that's the case, then I will need to learn to get used to it. After seeing them for so long, it just feels odd that those screen suddenly have a different look to them. Like a new frame on picture that you had for years.
That's the thing. We can't change how that price gets calculated. All of it is hardcoded.
Thanks, and I know what you mean. I felt the same way regarding the AIs handling of farms and morale improvements. However, I've since learned to live with it. Healthier that way. My depression is bad enough already. I don't need an AI to make it even worse.
I'm for eliminating planet trading. I never knew you could Mod that in how do you do that. By the way last thing froggy said is that they are bringing back sensor caps to three.
Yes I remember that he said that in a DevStream, but still some time later the sensors got nerfed a bit which then cooled the discussion down. I wouldn't put too much weight on such as statement. Also GalCiv3 is far from finished.
I still have DL 1.0 here, if I take that and examine what has been done until 1.53, then DA, and finally TotA, you get a pretty good sense of how they learned from OP stuff and subsequently dealt with them. There's so many features but since you're the person with the uttermost knowledge of this game, you'll know. The game got considerably better over time IMO. Unfortunately there were also new bugs introduced - eg IP trade was nowhere near profitable in DL
That's true. I just speak for myself in this regard, without any intention to enforce this standpoint. If you're the opinion the game should have the option back, do it. There's already a new thread about it so you could be on the right track.
Thing is, diplomacy is only good if you play game with techtrade/brokering enabled. Without, and that's what I personally find more challenging, it looses alot of value. In contrast a Econ, Tech- or Production bonus always stay strong. Also, there are so many ingame bonuses on diplomacy from techtrees - some races can have up to +300 if build all wonders - a +-10% makes no real difference. In contrast the bonuses to esp. MP & SP are rather limited, so I consider these very precious. And a good techbonus is mandatory from Maso onward because of the hidden researchmultiplier etc
Yeah I would like it to increase it to 20% influence.
Agreed, as this party was in vanilla it has been way too weak.
By all means, good. The AI - all of them - are really better without any espionage. Reducing that will always boost their economic game. They only pump money into it senselessly, store their spies, and start a bombardment mid or lategame against the topleading faction. In a way it's a good design to make midgame more dynamic, but on harder diff levels the increasing economic bonuses will net the AI an enormous cashflow into spies anyway. And as a player, it's really frustrating to be bombed.
On the Yor thing, like it, but could you then perhaps eliminate the diplomatic bonuses from StarRep, StarDem & StarFed - they got that penalty when they became access to these 3 techs. (ironically the Iconians got these, too, even in a buffed version, but they never saw a racial penalty....). I like the Yor to be a serious startup threat - I believe most evil races are designed that way (eg. they got better tier1 weapons, and strong racial setup at the expense of some missing branches of the tree)
No, although we did some stuff to mitigate it a bit. The increase of the colony pod has been a huge step into the right direction, as some other stuff that did help the AIs early economic game. Once planets have around 2.000b pop the usually become untradeably to my experience. Sadly a SporeSA is superbroken in that regard....
I've no idea what you - or whoever - did to the packs.... so I need help here.
Your new TitleBack.png has size of 1792*768, while the orig one is 1024*768 (4:3)
My monitor is 1920*1080 which represents a ratio of 1,777777. A 1365*768 pic would represent the exact same HD ratio - looking into my VidCard panel there is really a 1366*768 setting.
So what I did is simply crop a small junk of the pic at its head, so I could resize without aspect ratio change to 1366*768.
There is however one problem. If I take that pic into the CU mod folder it'll be displayed by chunking a good piece of the right side away from it. Resulting in the game having to zoom into it and changing its ratio and it's just trash.
If I take that pic into the vanilla folder it works just fine (although I have no idea how to re-create the background of the Terror Star...)
In any case here's the pic
Your new TitleBack.png has size of 1792*768, while the orig one is 1024*768 (4:3)My monitor is 1920*1080 which represents a ratio of 1,777777. A 1365*768 pic would represent the exact same HD ratio - looking into my VidCard panel there is really a 1366*768 setting.So what I did is simply crop a small junk of the pic at its head, so I could resize without aspect ratio change to 1366*768.
What I did was modify how the terror star and the background png are scaled, so that the star no longer looks stretched. For this reason, the background also needs to keep its ratio. I can do what you say, crop it, but because the terror star is at the top, the cropping needs to happen at the bottom. This cuts off most or all of the planet and makes the terror star too big on the screen. So, the extension should happen to the right.
1792x768 is 21:9, which is the extreme range of the common aspect ratios. The fix is meant to work for any resolution, not just 16:9, so that's the limit I chose. Anyone who uses a lower ratio will only see the left-most part of the total image, with the terror star properly overlaid. Anyone who uses a higher ratio would see beyond the end of the image, which is a problem but surmountable: if the image fades to space-black in the far-right I can simply put a sublayer of pure black that stretches arbitrarily.
So, what I need is some way to extend the starscape of the original to the required length. Simply stretching it produces too many artefacts, plus it has to be done without touching the borders of the terror star video. So, I've tried to mirror the original image, copy it to the right, smear over the gluing line, and then attempt to deform the right part to eliminate the mirrored planet. Since you were providing some graphical tweaks, I thought you might have facility in such matters. I could get back to the problem eventually, but right now it would just eat up too much time better spent on those other dxpacks.
Not at all - I'm just a gamer dabbling around^^ I can't create new graphics - instead I use existing parts and manipulate them via rotating, color adjustment, some ony by one pixel corrections. "Improvising"
The basic problem with this pic is that the nebulae to the right is quite bright and ends sharply. I fear there's no way around to copy and mirror the right side in order to have a gapless transition. Also, adding about 700px calls for multiple copies...
Further if I darken the nebulae it gets somewhat blueish/lila - before fading to black, I can't seem to avoid this. So if you take this as a feature the following pic might look okay, if you think it's annyoing then it's unacceptable ofc.
I could still do more diversifying to the middle of the very right side where some duplicate nebulae exists but even if some folks have a 21:9 res then the menu buttons will overlay this, in other res it won't even be on screen.
On my monitor it looks like this:
There's still some duplicate stars which could be dealt with, but I thought I just ask some feedback if it's even acceptable or if I have to discard it entirely. (also, some black voids could easily get new stars as well....)
It's been a while since I've played DL, but if I remember correctly, IP trading was pretty much pointless. You couldn't get anything for it. In TotA you can at least buy something with it. Though it is a bit too strong now.
All right. Planet-trading is going back into the game. Still, we could make a separate version of the trade screen available as a mod. One without planet- and IP-trading. This way, people have the option to choose. Spinorial, are you up for this?
Consider it done.
So, should the Populists party stay as it is then?
Sure, no problem.
Here are the updated files and the new changelog. I changed the farms to provide proper food production again, as well as tweaked several other improvements and techs.
English.str[ArtifactsBonus]: removed "100% Research bonus."[FertileSoilBonus]: changed "Sector suitable for building." back to "Rich soil and varied Mineral Deposits make this quadrant well-suited for the construction of a Farming District."[MineralDepositsBonus]: removed "100% Manufacturing bonus."[MysticSpringBonus]: removed "100% Approval bonus."[RuinsBonus]: removed "100% Influence bonus."[PrecursorArtifactsBonus]: removed "300% Research bonus."[SplendidSoilBonus]: changed "Sector suitable for building." back to "The splendid soil, excellent drainage and easily-managed topography make this quadrant perfect for the construction of a Farming District."[RareElementsBonus]: removed "300% Manufacturing bonus."[PrecursorLibraryBonus]: removed "700% Research bonus."[PrecursorMineBonus]: removed "700% Manufacturing bonus."
PoliticalParties.xmlremoved Espionage-penalty from all partiesFederalists: changed -10% Purchase Now Reduction to -10% InfluenceWar Party: changed Soldiering-bonus from +10% back to +15%, removed Hit Points-bonus, changed Influence-penalty from -15% to -20%Pacifists: changed Influence-bonus from +15% to +20%, changed Soldiering-penalty from -10% to -15%, removed Hit Points-penaltyMercantile: changed "and they enjoy a discount when buying ships or improvements." to "and they enjoy a bonus to influence.", changed +10% Purchase Now Reduction to +10% InfluenceIndustrialists: added -1 Sensors to penalty
PlanetImprovements.xmlCivilization Capital: changed Food from 8 back to 16, changed Moralebonus from 35 back to 25, changed EconomicBonus from 25 back to 10, changed PlanetaryDefenseBonus from 50 to 25, removed FoodProductionBonusInitial Colony: changed Moralebonus from 15 back to 10Cultural Exchange Center: changed Cost from 60 to 90Propaganda Center: limited to one-per-planet, changed Type from GalacticAchievement to Normal, changed Maintenance from 0 to 1, changed Cost from 600 back to 150, changed BriefDescription from "Increases morale." to "Increases loyalty.", changed Description from "To keep the people in our empire happy, the Propaganda Center will advertise the strengths of our culture." to "The Propaganda Center will advertise the strengths of our culture, thereby increasing planetary loyalty by 20%.", removed 20% Loyalty-bonus, re-added ResistanceBonus of 20Order of Krynn: changed Cost from 75 back to 200Traditional Factory: changed UpgradeTarget from None to MinorBasicFactory, changed Cost from 35 back to 50Advanced Factory: changed Cost from 70 back to 75Xeno Factory: changed Cost from 105 back to 100Manufacturing Center: changed Cost from 140 back to 150Industrial Sector: changed Cost from 175 to 250Dread Factory: changed Cost from 210 to 350Slave Canyon: changed Cost from 105 to 100Industrial Replicator Lv 1: changed Cost from 70 back to 50Industrial Replicator Lv 2: changed Cost from 105 to 100Industrial Replicator Lv 3: changed Cost from 140 back to 150Minor Traditional Factory: changed Cost from 35 to 50Manufacturing Matrix L3: changed Cost from 300 back to 400Central Mine: changed Cost from 50 back to 25Basic Collective: changed DisplayName back to Collective, changed UpgradeTarget from None to Industrial Sector, changed Cost from 45 back to 70Manufacturing Collective: chanaged Cost from 85 to 105Manufacturing Collective II: changed Cost from 125 to 140Manufacturing Collective III: changed Cost from 165 to 210Manufacturing Collective IV: changed Cost from 205 to 350Research Lab: changed UpgradeTarget from None to MinorBasic Lab, changed Cost from 40 to 50Research Center: changed Cost from 80 to 75Research Academy: changed Cost from 120 to 100Invention Matrix: changed Cost from 160 to 150Discovery Sphere: changed Cost from 200 to 250Neutrality Learning Center: changed Cost from 300 to 455Slaveling Imagination Lab: changed UpgradeTarget from None to Discovery Sphere, changed Cost from 25 back to 40Improved Slaveling Lab: changed Cost from 55 back to 60Advanced Slaveling Lab: changed Cost from 85 back to 100Ultimate Slaveling Lab: changed Cost from 115 to 180Minor Research Lab: changed Cost from 40 to 50Technology Matrix L3: changed Cost from 300 back to 400University: changed Cost from 70 to 50Market Center: changed Cost from 30 back to 40Trade Center: changed Cost from 90 to 80Stock Market: changed Cost from 150 to 200Barter Station: changed UpgradeTarget from None to StockMarket, changed Maintenance from 0 back to 1Merchant Emporium: changed Maintenance from 0 back to 1, changed EconomicBonus from 15 back to 14Merchant Trade Complex: changed Maintenance from 0 back to 1Black Market: changed UpgradeTarget from None to StockMarket, changed EconomicBonus from 10 back to 8Trader's Den: changed EconomicBonus from 15 back to 12Malicious Bazaar: changed Cost from 90 to 120, changed EconomicBonus from 20 back to 18Minor Market Center: changed Cost from 30 back to 40Entertainment Network: changed Maintenance from 2 back to 1, changed Cost from 55 to 50, changed Moralebonus from 15 back to 10Multimedia Center: changed Cost from 110 to 75, changed Moralebonus from 20 back to 15Extreme Stadium: changed Cost from 165 to 100, changed Moralebonus from 25 back to 20Zero-G Sports Arena: changed Cost from 220 to 150Virtual Reality Center: changed Cost from 275 to 250Traditional Temple: changed Moralebonus from 15 to 10Temple: changed Cost from 100 to 55, changed Moralebonus from 25 to 18Minor Hatchling Mound: changed Moralebonus from 15 to 10Hatchling Mound: changed Moralebonus from 25 to 18Arena of Agony: changed Moralebonus from 20 to 18Slaughtertorium: changed Maintenance from 1 back to 2, changed morale bonus from 30 back to 25Dream Conclave: changed UpgradeTarget from None to Virtual Reality Center, changed Maintenance from 2bc to 3bcFestival of Capitalism: limited to one-per-planet again, changed Type from SuperProject back to Normal, changed Maintenance from 0 back to 1, changed Cost from 80 back to 100, changed Description from "A empire-wide celebration of the pursuit of money. It also increases the economy of the planet it is built on, thanks to all the tickets we sell." to "A planetwide celebration of the pursuit of money. It also gives a small boost to the economy, thanks to all the tickets we sell.", removed 25% Morale-bonus, re-added Moralebonus 25, reduced EconomicBonus from 2% to 10Minor Entertainment Network: changed Maintenance from 2 back to 1, changed Cost from 55 to 50, changed Moralebonus from 15 back to 10Healing Pools: changed UpgradeTarget from None to Virtual Reality Center, changed Maintenance from 2 back to 1Hot Springs: changed Cost from 220 to 275Maintenance Grid: limited to one-per-planet again, changed Type from SuperProject back to Normal, changed Cost from 80 back to 50, changed Description from "The Maintenance Grid ensures that citizens in the empire are in tip top condition." to "The Maintenance Grid ensures that our citizens on this planet are in tip top condition.", removed 20% Morale-bonus, re-added Moralebonus 20, removed PopulationGrowthBonusXeno Farm: changed UpgradeTarget from BasicFarm to None, changed Cost from 50 back to 40, changed Description from "Grow enough food to feed 3 billion more people." to "Grow food for your colonists using the latest in sustainable intensive farming.", removed FoodProductionBonus, re-added Food 2Enhanced Xeno Farm: changed DisplayName to Xeno Farm II, changed Cost from 75 to 80, changed Description from "Grow enough food to feed 4 billion people." to "Grow food for your colonists using the latest in sustainable intensive farming.", removed FoodProductionBonus, re-added Food 3Robotic Farm: changed UpgradeTarget from None to XenoFarming, removed FoodProductionBonus, re-added Food 3Harvester: changed Description from "increase food production by 4mt." to "increase food production by 3mt.", removed FoodProductionBonus, re-added Food 3Basic Stalk: changed AI from 10 to 50, changed UpgradeTarget from None to XenoFarming, changed Moralebonus from 10 back to 5, removed FoodProductionBonus, re-added Food 1Charging Stalks: changed AI from 10 to 50, changed Moralebonus from 20 to 10, removed FoodProductionBonus, re-added Food 2Advanced Charging Stalks: changed AI from 10 to 50, changed Maintenance from 1 back to 2, changed Cost from 75 to 100, changed Moralebonus from 30 back to 20, removed FoodProductionBonus, re-added Food 3Secret Police Center: changed Type from GalacticAchievement back to SuperProject, changed Cost from 300 back to 600, changed BriefDescription from "Improves loyalty." back to "Improves approval.", changed Description from "By suppressing the spread of dissident ideas, this center will give a 20% boost to our empire's loyalty rating." back to "By suppressing the spread of dissident ideas, this center will give a boost to the base approval rating of whatever planet it's built upon by 20%.", removed 20% Loyalty-bonus, added AbilityFactor 0.2 (it now really does increase base approval by 20%)Hyperion Matrix: removed FoodProductionBonusGaia Vortex: FoodProductionBonus
Screens.str[SuperAbilityDescription0] - [SuperAbilityDescription11] and [NoSpecialAbilityDescription]: removed fullstop from the end of the sentences[AlignmentBonuses3]: changed "+ The Propaganda Center Galactic Achievement improves the empire's approval rating" to "+ The "Propaganda Center" improvement makes planets less susceptible to rebelling", changed "+ The Secret Police Center Galactic Achievement makes planets less likely to rebell" to "+ The "Secret Police Center" Super Project improves a colony's approval rating"[AlignmentBonuses4]: changed "+ The Propaganda Center Galactic Achievement improves the empire's approval rating" to "+ The "Propaganda Center" improvement makes planets less susceptible to rebelling", changed "+ The Secret Police Center Galactic Achievement makes planets less likely to rebell" to "+ The "Secret Police Center" Super Project improves a colony's approval rating"
TechTree.xmlXeno Propaganda: changed Category from Culture to Pure ResearchXeno Brain Washing: changed Category from Culture to Pure ResearchDark Influence: changed Category from Culture to Pure ResearchLaws of Krynn: removed Morale bonus +5%Order of Krynn: removed Morale bonus +5%The Way: removed Morale bonus +5%Xeno Public Relations: changed Category from Culture to Pure ResearchXeno Entertainment: can be traded again, can be stolen again, changed WillingnessToTrade from 0 to 100Extreme Entertainment: can be traded again, can be stolen again, changed WillingnessToTrade from 0 to 50Zero-G Sports Arenas: can be traded again, can be stolen again, changed WillingnessToTrade from 0 to 50Virtual Reality Centers: can be traded again, can be stolen again, changed WillingnessToTrade from 0 to 50Slaughtertoriums: changed Morale bonus from +10% back to +5%Xeno Farm Construction: can be traded again, can be stolen again, changed WillingnessToTrade from 0 to 50Xeno Farm Construction II: can be traded again, can be stolen again, changed WillingnessToTrade from 0 to 30Space Weapons: changed Military Production bonus from +10% back to +5%Planetary Bombardment: changed Soldiering bonus from +15% back to +5%Mechanized Warriors: changed Soldiering bonus from +40% back to +30%A History of Benevolence: added -25% Espionage-penaltyA Glorious History: added -25% Espionage-penaltyWay of the Drath: added -25% Espionage-penaltyHistory of the Dread Lords: added -25% Espionage-penaltyA Ruthless History: added -25% Espionage-penaltyPrecursor Legacy: added -25% Espionage-penaltyA History of Mercantilism: added -25% Espionage-penaltyThe Path: added -25% Espionage-penaltyA Minor History: added -25% Espionage-penaltyInnovative History: added -25% Espionage-penaltyTemporal Mechanics: added -25% Espionage-penaltyA History of Perseverance: added -25% Espionage-penaltyCybernetic History: added -25% Espionage-penalty
Yor_TechTree.xmlCollective Evaluation: set Diplomacy-bonus to 0Collective Planning: set Diplomacy-bonus to 0Collective Thought: set Diplomacy-bonus to 0
Screens:CivManagerGovernorWnd.dxpack (added the original file)CustomOverViewWndEventWnd.dxpackGalaxyWnd.dxpackPlanetWnd.dxpack (added the original file)RaceWnd.dxpackTradeWnd.dxpack (added the original file)
is there any way to tie IP trading into the UP voting screen when its most relevant?
Spinorial, I just realized that the loading screens also shows TitleBack.png - but the full pic stretched to the screen. Can that be fixed?
It's clearly bugged in DA & TotA. The game mistakes IPs for cash, if you offer in between the range of 1-999. You can easily corroborate that by instead offering the same amount of money, resulting in the same payment. But once you cross 1000 IPs their value defaults to the normal level back.
If you agree you could let them have 20% moral 10% popgrowth and no influence. If a player wants to go for high influence there is Pacifists. If he needs strong moral he has Populists. For good popgrowth as well, considering the strong ties of growth with moral. The Universalists still stay strong & unique because of their luck bonus.
I find Mercantile also weak now, although I understand the thematic. The problem is that trade doesn't do anything for you initially because you first need to research it, and build freighters. Later on many traderoutes are cancelled due to wars. Additional traderoutes would be nice but a neutral Korx already can have 12. Perhaps range? Would make sense in that you could set up more distant trade routes, and before, will help with the colonial rush. Would also be a unique stat for a Pol. Party.
Seems reasonable.
Yes, it does seem a bit weak now. However, I'd really like to keep the theme. I could increase the Influence-bonus to +20%, and basically turn Mercantile into a second option for Culture-players.
Yes, that would be unique. However, I'd rather add Range to a more fitting party. I also have a prime candidate. The Example mod by Stardock has two unique political parties: Totalitarians and Expansionists. The Totalitarians provide +10% Economy, +20% Military Production and +10% Loyalty, whereas the Expansionists provide +10% Speed, +20% Pop-Growth and +10% Range. Their stats could use a little tweaking, and they require unique symbols (they are currently using the symbol for the Federalists), but we could add them to the game. That would give the players a couple more options. What do you think?
^ that's a brilliant idea I already have some symbols present (from my personal mod) which were derived from some of the old symbols, if you find one appealing take it. Back then I've tried (unsuccessfully) to create new ones - basic problem was that they looked rather differently in their style than the existing ones....
http://www.xup.in/dl,35315760/PoliticalParties.7z/
Expansionists seem very strong considering how expensive speed is in the distribution points spending screen. Though their rangebonus is rather lackluster - this will add just +1 square on most maps.
Loyalty is also one of the rather weak stats, that might be safely increased.
Thanks. I think Automatists.png should work for the Totalitarians, and Explorers.png for the Expansionists.
Yeah. I was considering to remove the Speed-bonus. Though that would make the party less unique. At least the Pop-Growth-bonus should be reduced to compensate. Maybe down to +10%?
True. However, the customisation-option gives the same bonus and costs 30 points currently. There certainly is a bit of a disconnect between the power of the bonus and its cost.
Agreed. I was thinking of increasing the bonus to +20%.
The Totalitarians are currently set to oppose the Federalists, and the Expansionists are set to oppose the Universalists. While it kinda fits for the Totalitarians, I'm not so sure about the Expansionists. An Isolationists party would fit better.
Good
This is remniscient of vanilla, 1 sct for 3 points. Looking over the old distribution points balancing, I feel inclined to say that there was some wanted disbalance. I mean, 50% MP for 4 points, 25% luck/courage for a mere point.... There were strong options & weaker ones. The AIs pick randomly, perhaps an intent to create factions with different strengths even at the same diff level.
I just made a quick test in order to find out how range-bonuses relate to range-mods (because, in my personal mod, these are all gone so I had to increase rangebonuses enormously).
Setup is medium map, with 0% range, and 10% range, respectively.
I checked on initial range of an empty cargo hull, then gave that 1 basic rangemod, then 2, then 3.
Racial bonus: 0%:___10%
No mod:_____16 pc___17pc
+1 mod______25 pc___25 pc
+2 mods_____34 pc___34 pc
+3 mods_____43 pc___43 pc
there I stopped because a ship can already reach any place on a medium map. Is this WAI? the same range (except when not using any mods - which are available right away and deadcheap). And at that, only a single pc while a mod will bring 8-9!
Well you got still 2 places left on the selection screen. No idea what an Isolationists party could do though
Maiden, that looks great! The purple part, too, but it looks out of place in the centre. It would go much better near the end, to resemble a thinning cloud effect. So, yes, keep at it! As I said, if we can get a smooth transition to black, it would work perfectly with the extra background later.
That and a few other ones. It's a big part of the reason why it's not enough to gloss over seams and artefacts, relying on the menu to cover it up. It could be fixed, but there's all manner of mishaps might arise from doing so, since UI elements almost always derive their positions and sizes from a "background" element, rather than the screen resolution. So, while not particularly hard to do, it will be tedious. Honestly, the background always looked fine - stretched or squeezed - so long as the terror star wasn't there to spoil the effect. Distorting a large portion or a full circle is much more visible than a small one like the planet slice here. There's mathematics to back that up, but it should be clear enough visually.
In short, I'd rather keep those as they are. The one problem this might cause you is in your own work above, not trying to draw too much attention to the right part with too much black or purple. However, you seem to have a capable hand and a good eye, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Here's the Invasion screen. I wasn't able to test this yet, so it could be very wrong. PLEASE TEST EXTENSIVELY! I've resized the video container, as in the trade screen, plus a little bit of the fluff around the map - I'm really uncertain if it worked out, so testing is mandatory. Additionally, I'd be curious if people see any distortion in the Invasion options screen. It seems fine, but again I've not had a chance to run a visual check on it. Is the fleet and planet in the bottom all right?
Also, Gaunathor, here's your old Trade screen with the video fix applied. I'm not sure if that's what you wanted, but it's all I can manage for now. A lot of stuff was changed in that file, with whatever special software generates these screens (Fences perhaps?), but I'm working by hand in Npp. So, again, the results aren't guaranteed. Please test them. That file's ginormous, so further editing will take a lot of work.
Regarding the other old screens, Mabus mostly moved stuff around. In the Governor and Planet sceens, all the elements are still there, they've just been resized and moved/hidden. So, adding the old food tiles back requires merely subbing the old screens back in. The FleetMan entry is just a minor tweak, for clarity I guess, while the SaveItem window was just expanded. Actually, there could be more changes there, stuff was moved around, but that seems to be the main point of the edit.
Next, I'm on to the Rally Point window. I've a notion to put a large map next to the list, but that might sound better in theory than in reality. Just letting you know...
I got that bit, but is there any way to come in at the very end, take that output and jack it up? I'm guessing not, but worth asking all the same.
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