Krynn tech oddities - The Coordination Temple is the first unlock in this tree, and appears to be the best giving +10 adjacency to everything. The level 2 building only gives + 5 to the big 3 (manu/science/wealth) and the 3rd level gives +10 to only those 3 as well (compared to level 1 building that buffs everything).

Also, I'm wondering about the math on that building / tech line. Even the second level needs quite a bit of adjacency to make up for replacing one building. IE one basic factory building is 25% so in order for the 2nd level hub to beat 1 factory it would need to connect to 5 factory (giving each a 5% bonus) in order for it to be equal to just building a factory, wouldn't it? As near as I can this building doesn't do anything else other than apply adjacency?

The order of Service actually reduces influence growth. Not sure if this is intended as it also minuses maintenance cost? Perhaps that balances.

The tech celestial tourism has a cost that seems 3-5x higher than it should be.

Due to an outdated UI file. Have already fixed it for the next release (some time this week). 

I was intending for one, but work had the Christmas Party on Friday and frankly I've been massively hung over all weekend. I hate red wine with a passion.

I've got an early build for 1.5.2 which reconciles more of the 1.5 changes. Trying to decide what I'm going to do with coercion, and whether I want to use the wheel as a default (I can just set the colony capitals to unlock it now), or if I want to keep people locked on focuses. I'm kind of hoping focuses get short-cuted somewhere and then I'll just lock the wheel out and set them to 100% tbh.

I'm ok without the wheel. I

Personally, I reckon that focuses are just as good, since I only ever put the wheel at 100% in whatever direction anyway and just let it build everything on planet and then build the 'correct' project, so 0 and 100% are the only things needed for the military slider either (and the manufacturing on the colony hub means I can just leave it there. This is also what the AI does in the mod). I have to say, I was very relieved when focuses turned out to be the replacement system. I still think that if they'd been set at 100% in 1.4 there'd have been less outcry about it.

But I know my playerbase tends toward the hardcore wheel-lover end of the argument, and unless we get some kind of quick way to change focuses from other screens I don't see much advantage to the focus method either (aside, maybe, from it helping the AI out a little by putting the player on an even footing). 

Helpfully, the prefs.ini thing still works, so I can stick with focuses for now and have the option to switch to the wheel if required. If I get more feedback asking for it in the base mod, then I'll consider it.

I'm much interested in coercion. Something about this mechanic fascinates me, tbh. I think I'll see if it's possible to add coercion modifiers to things; it's currently set in the global defs, which suggests there's no modifier value for it as yet, but being able to adjust this rate in-game for different races, techs, buildings, ideologies, maybe even governments etc would certainly incline me to bring the wheel back full-time.

I'm noting that the AI has trouble researching defensive techs OR is having trouble placing them on their ships. They often have best available (and max tech) weapons paired with entry level defenses. Current game is 240 turns in, and I'm looking at the two strongest AI's, both of whom have researched nightmare torpedoes and are churning out ships with them equipped, but both powers are still using only the basic deflectors, chaff and hull plating modules.

I'm hoping SD didn't bork the component command in favor of the 'bestdefense' command in the files ...

Sneak Peak at the next lot of release notes:

SB spam is somewhat reduced, but I may need to push it further still tbh. The new nebulas are pretty cool - you get really giant rambling ones in some maps now. And pirates remain relevant for a lot longer, but may need further buffing.

I don't have the precursor DLC, so can't do much on that side; I'm loathe to include DLC stuff in the mod anyway in case I release something SD are trying to sell. Also can't find this speed event that you mention, so I'd assume that's another DLC thing - I've certainly never had it pop. 

I'll look at the Altarian thing. The Krynn will be getting a release to themselves at some point, as will most of the other races, so I'm not overly bothered about their special buildings atm.

Either today or tomorrow. I think it'll basically be the above set of changes, but I want to see how the AI does with them so I'm running a couple of soaks.

For reasons unknown the latest version .rar is corrupted. Dont know if this is a problem with the nexus or just me. The downloaded archive is 0kb instead of the ~300kb and cannot be opened. Has anyone else run into this problem? I should propably add that the other .rars load just fine.

Edit: Well it was solved by switching the dl location. Some sort of nexus server related problem.

Yeah, the Nexus is just being really bizarre right now. I've re-uploaded, and it clearly has the file with the correct size, but it told me the new one was hidden, then let me download, then corrupted the DL... I think the problem is something their side and will hopefully be cleared soon.

Take a guess?  

It's just UI text. The things it says on the UI in various parts of the game. It was only changing a few things like 'weeks' to 'months' and making a few other bits of text clearer, but this file gets so heavily altered with each SD patch that keeping it up to date is a real ball ache - the entire UI, from menus to in-game to everything else is in there. I'll probably bring it back one SD have stopped fiddling about with it so regularly; there's likely to be a large UI patch soon enough anyway.

also, one thing that may help with constructor spam is if the AI actually used constructors for things other than mining/economy. Some time ago they simply stopped building defensive upgrades on starbases. I'm not sure what caused it , and have not gotten much feedback on the regular forums as to wether or not its a problem in the base game, but it is (not) happening in the mod for sure.

They still build and move constructors as if they were going to upgrade the starbases, but never actually follow through. The later the game gets the more of these units parade across the map from base to base doing nothing

I haven't the slightest idea as to what would cause it, or what file the behaviour would be located in.