This mod (available on Nexus) is the updated version of what was just a Resource Anomalies Mod.
May 30, 2017 Update:
Overview:
The three components to this mod work together to create a new and improved array of anomalies. In addition to adding new anomalies that offer Crusade-specific rewards, the mod adds the potential for all anomalies to be defended--and if defended, the anomalies display a warning in color. For the new anomalies, I added flavor text that I believe enhances immersion.
Balancing the expanded number of anomalies is a work in progress, and any feedback is appreciated.
Details:
This mod adds the following Resource Anomalies:
Artifacts:
Capsules:
Ship Graveyards:
Additionally, the mod adds the following rare Unit Anomalies:
The mod also includes a replacement AnomalyDefs.xml (which is read by the game instead of the base AnomalyDefs.xml). This part of the mod removes the 75% chance encounters from Ship Graveyards and adds a duplicate of each original anomaly that is defended 100% of the time. Doing this makes it possible to label the anomalies as defended. The defended anomalies appear with less frequency than the standard anomalies, but are otherwise the same.
Within the AnomalyDefs.xml and SoL_DefendedAnomalyDefs.xml, I added three new anomalies that award ship defenses (each with undefended and defended counterparts) to match the new Crusade anomalies that add weapons ("Mysterious Weapon Hardware").
Space Junk:
As for the defended anomalies, the encounters in this mod are tiered as follows:
These encounters currently use only the standard pirate ships in increasing numbers. I ultimately intend to create new encounters that are a bit more diverse.
If you have any questions, suggestions, criticisms - or if you find a bug or typo - please let me know!
Enjoy!
This looks great, will try for sure.
I'll be downloading this when I get home.
I will check this out. I'm using my own anomalies mod and want to see if they will work together. Thanks.
The mod adds three new anomaly groups (one for artifacts, one for capsules, and one for ship graveyards), so unless the anomaly groups or anomalies themselves use the same internal names as those in your mod, this should be compatible.
One potential issue I could see is balance--if your mod changes the weights of anomaly groups from what is in Crusade's AnomalyDefs.xml, the frequency of anomalies from my mod would be affected.
Thanks
I'm 50 turns into a game attempting to use both this mod and krbjms's anomaly mod. So far I've seen a few of his, but none of yours. And I have anomalies on abundant, so I've explored a lot of them.
Do yours show on the map as "Artifacts", "Capsules", and "Ship Graveyards"? I've noticed there are a lot (relatively) of Precursor Artifacts, and I'm wondering if some of those are yours. Prior to 1.2.4 Precursor Artifacts were broken (at least I never saw any). I guess I'll have to build a fleet powerful enough to explore some of them.
So krbjms weighted his anomalies the same as the base anomalies, which means they should be showing up about half the time if only his mod and the Crusade anomalies are in play. Mine are less weighted, and the effect of the lower weights will be substantial with krbjms's mod and mine both installed...
Crusade weights are Artifacts 20 - Capsules 35 - Ship Graveyards 5 - Space Junk 40 - Wormholes 1
My mod has weights of 14 for each of the three anomaly groups...
If I'm thinking of this correctly, that means with only my mod installed, the chances of getting one of my anomalies is weighted at a total of 42 vs. 101. I wanted the prevalence to be about 33% (it currently works out to about 29.4%), and this feels about right for me with only my mod installed.
But adding krbjms's mod in, the weights become 42 vs. 101 vs. 101, meaning mine would only have a prevalence of about 17.2%.
I'm considering bumping the weight up to about 16 or 17 for each to get it to almost exactly 33.3%. If I did this, it would bring the prevalence of the resource anomalies up to just over 20% with krbjms's mod installed.
To answer your other question, yes, mine are only Artifacts, Capsules, and Ship Graveyards--no Precursor Artifacts.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to be updating the mod probably tonight or tomorrow... it'll likely have slightly higher weights.
Ok, thanks. I was wondering if the fact that you had created new anomaly groups in the XML had anything to do with it. I should try a game with only your mod.
I hadn't noticed that krbjms's mod doesn't create new anomaly groups--so some of my response may have been inaccurate.
I was under the impression that by using the same internal name for the anomaly groups, the mod would replace the original anomalies, and so I never thought to try that... but even if I were to work the resource anomalies into the existing anomaly groups, I believe the problem would remain. I'll have to ponder this a bit more.
So, after some testing, I found that even if you use the same internal name of an anomaly group, I believe the game treats the mod as a separate group. I modded the original AnomalyDefs.xml to have only one Artifact and modded in a separate append mod with a single Artifact using the same internal name for the anomaly group. Only changes to the group weight mattered. If set to the same value, the anomaly frequency was 50/50 and the anomaly weights themselves had no impact (only one anomaly in each group).
So while krbjms's mod uses the same internal name for the anomaly groups, I believe the game treats them as separate groups--which means the frequency of his anomalies vs. the standard anomalies would be about 50% (if only his mod is installed)...
Balancing multiple anomaly mods will be tricky because each additional group changes the weight totals for all groups.
Note that using my mod and/or krbjms's mod will also lower the frequency for Precursor anomalies (normal frequency ~20%; with both mods, only ~9%).
I have a fix in the works for my mod's frequency that I think will help balance things out, but I don't think I'll have it ready for a couple days.
I've noticed this as well with my personnel mod so I just took the files out of the main galciv directory and put them into a mod folder with new anomaly weights. I also put the DLC4_AnomalyDefs in there with new weights since it was either way to many spawning or hardly at all. I was finally able to find the right balance doing this.
I would do this, but I am seeking to make something modular. I am planning a series of additional anomaly mods that I want to work together but at the same time give others the option to use any number of them. As a result, your solution isn't what I'm after. I also don't think it'd be right to publish a mod that contains DLC content, so in connection with my mod(s), I'm going to simply offer suggested changes to the weight of the Precursor Anomaly group to keep the weight equivalent to the setup without mods.
So, what I'm going to try is weighting the anomaly groups the same as the base anomalies and then adding additional anomalies to my anomaly groups that award credits to create the desired rarity for those anomalies that award resources.
By doing this, I believe the resource mod will maintain a greater share of overall anomaly distribution when additional anomaly groups are in play... we'll see.
I just wanted to increase the variety of anomalies in my game so that it would not be so repetitious. With yours I had hoped to get even more. Sorry I am messing up your percentage of occurring.
They should. I've noticed that even with anomalies set to abundant, that they don't show a lot, I use to play with them only as common, and seem to get a lot more. Also to think about it I have yet to see a ship graveyard.
Oh you're fine--it isn't anything to worry about.
As for Ship Graveyards, they got set to a weight of 5 (with the Crusade expansion, I think, but maybe before that). As a result, they are weighted at a little less than 4% (with Precursor DLC)...
I think the overall frequency of anomalies is governed by the MapSetupDefs.xml in combination with the Base value in MapSizeDefs.xml, but I'm not sure... I may mess with that at some point going forward, but I don't think anomaly frequency will be able to be manipulated without affecting everything else.
Updated the mod--hope you like the additions/changes.
I've been using this mod in my current game and have been enjoying it - especially when I get something rare that I really need. After reading about all the "goodies" that you've added to the new version of the mod, I'm tempted to start a new game with it before finishing my current one.
Thanks so much! Glad you like it.
Maybe once you get a new game going, let me know what you think of the overall balance. Between adding a lot of stuff and the seemingly enigmatic way anomaly group weights work, I'm not sure how this will all pan out.
For instance, the unit anomalies may be too rare. Testing something intended to be rare but not nonexistent just takes lots of time.
The more feedback I get, the better things can be.
Thanks again! Enjoy!
Oh shoot. I started a new game before checking here, so I'm using the old version of your mod. Anyway, I wanted to let you know that after dropping krbjms's mod to see if yours would work better without it, I found it does. I've collected several resources from anomalies due to your mod in my current game.
Thanks, Publius. The updated version may be a little too lightly weighted. Just hard to get a good balance without several games on different map sizes. I'm going to try to get a few more hours into some games over the next couple days and may update it again this next week. Have some other fixes/improvements to put through as well.
For anyone trying this and seeing a lot of defended Artifacts, it's because I made an error in the text file. Most of those defended Artifacts are actually defended Space Junk. I'll have that fixed in an update this week.
Updated - see OP for details.
installed and liking it! good job.
BUG sometimes when i do battle at one of your anoms (and win) the anomaly is still there and i can't move on it. only happens with your anomalies
I had this happen to me on the stock game v2.2, so it isn't the mod.
Not sure how to reproduce the issue, but the one i encountered yesterday was the second defended anomaly i hit on the same turn. Maybe that has something to do with it.
I never got my loot <-- me sad
me sad too. Any way to color the actual anomalies? iirc Paul said this would be tricky
Will check out update. I've liked this so far, but I've had one bug..
sometimes I'll get a defended anomaly, and will get the "fight" screen, but there is never a fight, it just closes out. I believe it is always a Capsule-lightly defended which does this. It stays on the screen forever.
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