MarvinKosh's Space Weapons Fix Mod v5E

for Twilight of the Arnor

By MarvinKosh on November 21, 2010 2:49:45 PM from

MarvinKosh

Join Date 08/2005

+48

Some time ago the modding community started poking around in the TA tech trees to see why the AI was reluctant to develop certain techs. We found that some weapons techs were categorised as PD, instead of Military, meaning that unless missile weapons were deployed, those techs would never be researched by the AI. Obviously, an AI that can't fight back isn't much of a challenge.

The idea behind this mod was originally just to get the TA AI on the right track as far as weapons are concerned. However as suggestions have been put forward by the community, more improvements have been made to the tech trees. Some features have been driven by my own need to fix annoyances.

For example there is the AI's passion for spamming factories or labs onto every tile, crashing their early economy. These basic improvements would get upgraded and then cost the AI even more in terms of miantenance and production cost, forcing the AI to run inefficiently with the production slider at far less than 100%.

All that's needed there is for the AI to be tweaked to skip building basic structures except on key planets where a boost is needed, and if it can be afforded. Since nothing like that is forthcoming right now, the next best thing is to deprive human and AI alike of early structures that can cause economic meltdown, and in their place have Super Projects which allow for some single-planet focus.

N.B. Use the external link above or choose one of the versions below. The successive versions are not patches, they contain all the features of that version of the mod. Extract the ZIP folder to your mods folder - if one doesn't already exist, create it. If your mod select screen in-game is broken, see here to fix it.

Version History

v1: Re-categorises Space Weapons in the Weapons branch and as a Military category tech, for Altarians, Terrans, Drath, Korx, Thalan.

v2: Obsoletes Armor Plating, Chaff, and Superior Duranthium. Missile Defence Theory leads to Smart Chaff now.

The basic defence components yielded by early research into defences all start with a defence rating of 3. However, they cost three times as much and are three times bigger than before. Along the rest of the defence tech tree I have made the components take up more space and cost more but given them a proportionately better defence rating. This includes any components that require Good alignment to unlock.

At various defence tech milestones however, you will get two components where you previously got one, the second component being a smaller (miniaturised) version of the first. The list of these new components are:

Tritanium (5 Armour, requires Superior Tri-Strontium)
Duranvium (6 Armour, requires Kanvium III)
Zeronium (8 Armour, requires Zero-Point Armor)
Miniature Deflector (4 Shields, requires Barriers III)
Force Shields (7 Shields, requires Superior Force Fields)
Micro Barriers (9 Shields, requires Ultimate Invulnerability)
Micro ECM (6 Point Defence, requires PD Combo III)
Autodefence Turrets (9 Point Defence, requires Aereon Missile Defense)

What this new mod means is an end to all those AI ship designs (sometimes based around a small hull) which have a point or two of defence that doesn't do any good. A ship will have a minimum of three points of defence if a defensive component is added. By the time components that can give benefit to fighters are available, it's more likely for medium and large hulls to have been researched.

v3A: As Version 2, but with subtle changes to the Terran tech trees. When playing against an AI using this tech trees, you may notice that they rotate their research projects more effectively. Or not. It's a beta, but I have seen it work really well so far. In particular I have upped the value of a technology victory for the Yor tech tree, because they don't exactly have a lot of techs to help them do an Alliance or Culture victory.

As of version 3A the ultimate weapons are changed so that, as with the defences, they cost more, take up more space, and as compensation they do more damage. You will still get a pretty mean weapon by doing the research, but you won't be able to fit so many on your ships.

Comparison of old and modded ultimate weapons
Weapon	Old Damage	New Damage	Old Cost	New Cost	Old Size (small, large)	New Size (small, large)
Doom Ray	22	48	150	330	11, 14	29, 39
Black Hole Gun	16	48	100	265	7, 10	33, 43
Nightmare Torpedo	25	50	160	280	12, 13	43, 48

v3B: Changes to the Terran, Yor, Altarian and Thalan tech trees. When playing against an AI using those tech trees, you may notice that they rotate their research projects more effectively.

Terran and Altarian tech trees have been altered a bit. Instead of the single Planetary Improvements tech branching off from Artifical Gravity, you now have a group of four as follows -

Economic Improvements: opens up Xeno Economics
Research Improvements: opens up Xeno Research
Industrial Improvements: opens up Soil Enhacement, Extreme Colonisation, Xeno Farming, and Xeno Industrial Theory.
Starport Upgrades: opens up Interstellar Warfare, Interstellar Construction, Basic Logistics.

(Xeno Communications is unlocked by Xeno Research)

The technologies unlocked change in later versions of the mod.

The basic idea here was to make sure that the AI unlocks the technologies which would have been unlocked by researching Planetrary Improvements.

Improvement changes:
Research Labs, Traditional Factories and Market Centers have been chucked. Instead you will get three new Super Projects. The idea here was to not waste the opening of a game by building lots of rubbish improvements that will need to get upgraded anyway (wasting more time) and give both the player and AI some special improvements to use right away where they see fit.

Also in 3B are some new weapon sound effects. Not strictly a fix as such, but it began to bug me in my last game that Quantum Drivers sounded really dorky. Initially I changed them to use the newer sound that was shipped with Twilight of the Arnor, but it didn't quite jive with the animation so I ran some effects on it and eventually mixed in the crisp firing sound of mass drivers. You may like it, or you may not. You can always delete it.

Plasmas, Particle Beams and Lasers should also sound different.

v3C: Same as 3B but with fixes for Torian tech tree. This adds a similar four-part structure for Planetary Improvements to try and stagger the development of economic improvements, research improvements, and everything else. Schools are replaced by a Super Project, which helps to avoid an early-game choke.

Some Torian techs have been moved around and new ones have been added:

Advanced Space Liberation: Leads to Advanced Manufacturing, Planetary Bombardment, Planetary Defence, Advanced Logistics, More Space Weapons and Even More Space Weapons.
Advanced Manufacturing: Leads to Xeno Factory Construction, Fusion Power Plants.
Planetary Invasion : Leads to Advanced Troop Mod. All the other invasion techs are part of the Advanced Space Liberation branch now.
Interstellar Construction: Is broken into parts I and II.

v4: Introduces Technology Progression research to the Terran tech tree.

These techs are fairly lengthy projects which serve to split the tech tree up a bit. Because the TPs required for these have been borrowed from elsewhere in the tech tree, it doesn't slow you down by much, but it does encourage the AI (Terran AI at least) to develop its early technologies properly before moving on to the advanced stuff.

v4A: Adds Technology Progression research to Torian and Altarian tech trees. I've limited the early choice of technologies in the Torian tech tree in an attempt to speed them through the early stuff faster.

Also in this version, defensive and offensive starbase modules require additional techs (from the weapon and defence trees) to unlock. The Warp Disruption Field requires Warp Drive now, and the Yor get a module that reduces ship speed by 1, making it harder to travel through their territory.

The Torians and Altarians have new industrial improvements. I've worked up some recoloured icons for them and the other improvements I've added. Nothing fancy, just so you can tell them apart from other improvements.

v4B: Scales back the Torian mines to two-thirds what they pulled in 4A. Adapted Factories lose a point of industry. They still put a lot of colony ships out there, but the rush is not so overpowered now.

v4D: Fixes some of the mistakes I made when editing Starbase Modules. Adds new starbase modules and makes the Stellar Fortification modules a bit less powerful (but they're still free, which is nice). Version 4C was just an earlier version of this fix.

v4F: Scaled back the module requirements for the weapon and defence starbase modules. So for example, Laser Cannon now only requires Battlestations, before it required Battlestations II. Also, fixed module requirements (they were broken, you could add modules without having pre-requisite modules).

v4G: Adds Technology Progression and Core Technologies to Yor tech tree. Collectives are initially limited in number per planet, but gain small manufacturing bonuses. Research Matrix gains a research bonus. Terran tech tree is changed around slightly - New Propulsion Techniques isn't opened until Starport Upgrades.

v4H: Yor improvements toned back a bit, Collectives have an increased maintenance, but are still cheaper to build than they were. Logistics, miniaturisation and manufacturing techs moved to later positions in the Yor tech tree.

Revised Yor/Iconian starting weaponry and research time.

Also, made Mass Drivers or Ion Cannons research a bit cheaper because it seemed totally overpriced in comparison to Yor or Iconian mass drivers research. That basically affects anyone who is not Yor or Iconian.

Also adjusted cost of Technology Progression II in Terran tech tree to make it cheaper, redistributing TPs back to techs which come after it.

v4I: Dialed back the maintenance on Research Matrix a couple of bc, given that it's a one-per planet building. More streamlining of the early tech tree for teh Yor and Terrans. made Xeno Communications and Universal Translator part of Core Technologies II for Terrans.

Moved Xeno Communications and Universal Translator to later in the tech tree for the Yor because, basically, they do not need to be negotiating with other races in the early stages of the game.

Also, split up extreme planet terraforming technologies, the first stage can be researched fairly early on, the second comes a bit later with Advanced/Expert Colonisation. Well, not for all races, because I haven't had nearly enough time to look at all of them, but the basic idea here was to stop the AI from burning lots of turns trying to make a few worlds 100% productive.

v4J: Overhauled the Drengin tech tree. Obsoleted Basic Pits, Slaveling Imagination Lab, and Black Market, but added three Super Projects for the Drengin to build at the start.

v4K: Added a new firing sound for the Ion Cannon (Drengin). Nerfed Torian Basic Mine and removed the Core Mine altogether (the Adapted Factory now upgrades the Basic Mine). Limited the basic Particle Beam to just the Drengin, Korath, Arcean and Thalan racesm and added 5bc to its cost. Reduced the cost of Ion Cannons. Massively reduced the research time for Drengin to research Planetary Invasion and Ultimate Shock Troops. However all but the first in the line of Planetary Defence techs is stripped from their tech tree.

v5: The last tier of weapons on the tech tree before Ultimate weapons take much longer to research. This makes it worthwhile pursuing weapons research that takes less time. Ultimate weapons research takes significantly longer than before.

The Nano Ripper (new name: Singularity Ripper) has been scaled up so that it is more of a capital ship weapon.

A number of starbase modules have been stripped along with their pre-requisite techs. There are still defensive and ship assist modules available, but not as many. Some production assist and culture modules have been removed. All but one of the sensor modules have been removed. Mining modules are basically untouched.

The reason for this is because as has been mentioned, the AI cannot read past a certain arbitrary limit. Accordingly, the module list below has been shortened.


Module	Properties	Requires Tech	Requires Module	Cost (bc)
Laser Cannon	+2 Beam Attack (Starbase)	Laser V	Battlestations	50
Kinectic Diffuser	+2 Beam Attack (Starbase)	Kinetic Streams III (Yor)	BattleStations	50
Railgun Battery	+2 MD Attack (Starbase)	Mass Drivers III	BattleStations	50
Pulveriser Cannon	+2 MD Attack (Starbase)	Scatter Blaster III (Yor)	BattleStations	50
Stinger Missiles	+2 Missile Attack (Starbase)	Stinger IV	BattleStations	50
Seeker Missiles	+2 Missile Attack (Starbase)	Seeker III (Yor)	BattleStations	50
Nordstrom Shields	+6 Beam Defence (Starbase)	Shields	Battlestations	200
Duranthium Plating	+6 MD Defence (Starbase)	Duranthium	Battlestations	200
PD Batteries	+6 Missile Defence (Starbase)	Point Defence	Battlestations	200
Plasma Diffuser	+7 Beam Attack (Starbase)	Plasma Weapons	Battlestations	200
Graviton Mauler	+7 MD Attack (Starbase)	Graviton Driver	Battlestations	200
Photonic Charges	+7 Missile Attack (Starbase)	Photonic Torpedo	Battlestations	200
Nordstrom Force Fields	+12 Beam Defence (Starbase)	Force Fields	Battlestations	400
Kanvium Plating	+12 MD Defence (Starbase)	Kanvium	Battlestations	400
Drone Sentries	+12 Missile Defence (Starbase)	Droid Sentries	Battlestations	400

v5A: Reworked the Terran and Drengin tech trees, just moving stuff around here and there. Sensors techs are now spread out through the tech trees. Techs which give access to a research facility cost 20% less. Added Super Projects for Tech Progression research. Added GC2Ships.xml which contains the nerfed Arnorian Ranger and Super Dominator Corvette designs. Fixed up the Arceans to be more predatory with a +1 speed bonus instead of a speed nerf, but they take a -20 to Defence. Various silliness fixes in Iconian tech tree.

The new Super Projects are:

Infinity Tech Labs: 18 tp, 14 bc maintenance.
Pear Shaped labs: 4 tp, +20 to Research ability, 8bc maintenance.
Nordstrom Technologies: +15 to Hitpoints ability, 2tp, no maintenance.

v5B:

Added Technology Progression and Core Technologies to Korx tech tree.
Added Technology Progression and Core Technologies to Arcean tech tree.
Restricted the number of money-sucking improvements the Thalans can build.
Added Universities to Core Technologies for Torians.
Reworked Korx tech tree slightly for visual consistency, altered pre-requisites for Cut-Throat Competition and Mercenaries.
Reworked Torian tech tree slightly for visual consistency.
Bugfixed Arcean tech tree and reworked for visual consistency.
Sparrow missile costs more but takes less space, though not as space-efficient as Stinger or Seeker I.
(Advanced) Navigation Centre takes less time to build, +5% HP bonus added.
Removed some extra files from the package that were in the wrong directory.

v5C:

Arcean tech tree fixes:
- Moved Xeno Business (Xeno Anthropology) because early on in the tech tree it could be an unnecessary distraction for the AI.
- Moved Interstellar Navigation in the tech tree to match the order it appears in its group.
- Miniaturisation techs are split into three groupings.
- Xeno Engineering is now Industry branch, Manufacturing category
Reduced the build cost of Invention Matrix and Discovery Sphere to be more in line with the cost of Research Academy.
Iconian tech tree now features Technology Strategy techs. These are basically the same deal as the Technology Progression techs, but the Super Project list is different:
Technology Strategy I - Centre for Intellect Studies, +20 to Research ability and +4tp

Technology Strategy II - Precursor Weapons Lab, +20 to Weapons ability and +4tp

Technology Strategy III - Galactic Technology Centre, +150% research on planet and +22tp
Four new Iconian improvements:

Precursor Repository - upgrade for Precursor Library, +20% research on planet and +16tp (respectively, 10% and 4tp better)

Precursor Matrix - upgrade for Precursor Archive, +40% economic bonus on planet +10% influence bonus and +12tp (respectively, 30% better on economic bonus and 2tp better on research)

Enhanced Invention Matrix - 17tp, 3tp more than the standard Invention Matrix

Enhanced Discovery Sphere - 21tp, 3tp more than the standard Discovery Sphere
Research Centre has a new look to set it apart from the Iconian refinery.
Unbuildable stock ships left over from DL and DA are now hidden so they don't show up in the tech tree.
Farms are now one per planet, and give a percentage boost of 25% or 50% rather than a straight +mt food increase.
An Improved Colony is now available for construction, technology needed varies depending on tech tree.
Thalan tech tree reworked using Technology Adaptation I through III as separators. They now start with Planetary Adaptation instead of Interstellar Construction (you may need to press Clear on their race config screen first).
Devils' Forge upgrades to Slaveling Training Center.
Slaveling Training Center boosts production by 25% and adds 10 mp, and upgrades to Artificial Slave Pods.
Artificial Slave Pods boost production by 30% and adds 12 mp.

v5D:

Engines re-costed as follows:
Speed 1
- Hyperdrive, Hyperdrive Plus: 20
- Ion drive, Stream Drive: 15
Speed 2
- Impulse Drive I - III: 30
Speed 3
- Warp Drive I - IV: 45
Speed 4
- Warp Drive V: 60
- Hyperwarp I: 55
- Hyperwarp II: 50
Speed 5
- Hyperwarp III: 75
Speed 6

Stellar Folder: 120

New defences for Good-aligned civs:

Duranthium Battle Armour, +9 Armour, cost 95
Prerequisites for research: Duranthium III and Good alignment.
Psionic Defence, +16 PD, cost 140
Prerequisites for research: PD Combo III and Good alignment.

Sensors and sensor array re-costed and re-sized, research cost for sensor array reduced by quite a bit
Re-costed the Yor Doom Ray research project.
Added a custom race as an opponent, with a close copy of the Yor tech tree and the Super Warrior ability.
Added the Omega Beam research project to the tech trees with Disruptors. It replaces Doom Ray and makes it more worthwhile picking beam weapons in the end game with those races.
Omega Beam: Damage 66, Cost 405, uses the Disruptor II weapon model. Custom sound effect based on the disruptor sound effects, but same Doom Ray animation.
Hopefully fixed Arceans getting stuck on Weather Control research.

v5E:

Trimmed Minor Tech Tree so that they have a headstart.
Minor XML tweaking in the main tech tree.

v5F (Unreleased):

Weather Control Zenith improves PQ by 4 instead of 3, has maintenance 2 and improves food production by 50%.
Farming techs removed from Arcean tech tree (otherwise they could have large unhappy populations!)
Arcean first-tier weapon tech costs reduced by 50%.
Arceans have earlier access to a low cost version of Advanced Logistics, but later logistics techs in their tech tree cost more.
Minor races did not have Hyperdrive defined as Propulsion category, fixed.
Made some consistency changes and fixes to Krynn tech tree.

Extra:

Patch to radically lower research output. Extract to Mods\SWFix_ModV\Data and overwrite PlanetImprovements,xml if prompted. You may want to backup that file first.

This will not only limit the output of research structures, it will also restrict how many of them you can place on one planet. Some 1pp research boosters have been turned into Super Projects.

I've posted a new version of the mod with the changes I have described. Also, the External Link at the top now points at the most up-to-date version of the mod.

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So, new test game.

It's turn 103 and the colony share is as follows:

Drengin: 56
Torian: 40
Terran (me): 29
Yor: 24
Altarian: 15

I suspect that this is partly down to the Drengin having a good start position with lots of nearby planets to colonise, and partly due to switching them to AI 8.

So far nobody has weapons, but the Drengin are on track to obtain the technology, producing the most research at the moment. However the Altarians have the most consistent research progress.

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So I'm now on turn 167. The Drengin have not researched their basic particle beam tech (they are the only race in the game that gets it) or their amazingly cheap planetary invasion techs. I think this has something to do with them still building things up (as noted by the + to diplomacy from 'Too busy to risk war with us') otherwise they would have started churning fighters out.

The distribution of colonies is about the same as above, just a few more apiece, so the first colonisation phase has basically ended.

The Drengin are in the lead technologically, having finished Tech Progression I first, and now have the most consistent research progress.

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It's turn 194. The Drengin have begun producing fighters (crude things with Space Cannons mounted, but Ion Cannons are only a turn away). Still no transports, but it's just a matter of time now.

Turn 196 arrives with a declaration of war from the Drengin. They also delcare war on the Altarians, which prompts the Torians to declare war on the Drengin, even though they have no military to speak of. Way to go, you green morons. We're all screwed, at least for a few turns.

Turn 206, the Drengin begin researching Planetary Invasion. The Altarians and Yor are busy researching Space Weapons, I'm still on Beam Weapon Theory, the Torians are a bit behind and still working on Universities, which will be their first research improvement.

Turn 210, the onslaught begins. I've rush-built labs to try and speed things up (and besides, what with having no military, I have the cash to do so) but the Drengin squadrons are going to be free to shoot up the nighbourhood for a while to come.

Turn 218, I'm finally starting to build my own fighters. But they're not quite as impressive as the Drengin designs, or the Super Dominator corvettes. Thankfully, the Altarians are not far off having their own fighters, but I don't think they'll be much help since they had the worst start. The Yor, yeah they're never going to help me, and the Torians are still way behind.

Turn 228, I have a new fighter design.

It's expensive compared to the earlier version but what the hey, I can afford to rush buy about five of them. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to hope that I can manufacture enough to keep up with the Drengin death machine.

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It's turn 233 and the Yor have declared war. It's a good versus evil showdown, and the good guys are losing.

Turn 237 brings bad news as the Drengin claim one of my worlds. What with the planetary bombardment, they take no casualties. If this is the shape of things to come, best see if I can sue for peace.

As it turns out the Drengin would accept a peace treaty... if I hand over 5 trillion credits. Now on the one hand, a war on two fronts is a bad thing, and I might just be able to stand against the Yor. But, as one TotA reviewer has pointed out, buying peace is never a good idea. Especially not when you're fighting the Drengin. They will happily declare war the next turn if you're that gullible.

On the other hand, for a higher price (about 6 trillion credits) the Drengin will agree to a peace treaty and happily go to war with the Yor. Hmm, not a bad idea to have those two shooting at each other. I agree to those terms.

By turn 246, things are starting to look up. I have completed research on Space Mining, which will allow me to draw more resources from asteroids. And I'm building Advanced Factories to ramp up my production. I'm still nowhere near a match for the Drengin but they have enough wars to fight right now. I should be able to hold the Yor for long enough to make them think twice about having started a war with me.

It's turn 259 and the Yor are open to a negotiated peace. But funnily enough, I don't much like the idea of making peace without a more substantial settlement. Cough up some more dough, you tightwads.

As it turns out, the Drengin were playing me for a sucker all along, and they declare war again on turn 269. Now that peace treaty with the Yor isn't such a bad idea. They accept.

What I didn't realise is that all along the Drengin have been going after Medium Hull Construction. The first of them that I lay my eyes on (in turn 272) has five ion cannons. Ouch. How screwed are we all now? Very.

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It's turn 287 and the Drengin have taken another one of my planets, and tried to take another but failed. I am attempting to consolidate what forces I have on a few worlds, and I'm having a little bit of luck setting up military starbases to improve firepower, but teh Drengin are quite skilled at knocking them down even when I put a fighter screen in front. I just don't have the numbers, and they know it.

However all is not lost. With the Yor now in the fight against the Drengin and researching Advanced Logistics, it may be soon that the tide turns. Or they may just switch sides and start wiping me out again, we'll see.

One sobering piece of information is that the Drengin have almost finished Tech Progression II. With that out of the way, they'll be able to start researching big guns. Though of course, they already have enough guns to wipe the floor with all of us, it would be silly if they didn't press their advantage, wouldn't it?

On turn 290, I'm finally ready to start researching Tech Progression II. There aren't many options but to try and catch up with the Drengin. Only trouble is, if I continue building fighters to try and stave off the assault, it will take at least 28 weeks. If I shut down the factories completely and max out research, the earliest it can be done is 17 weeks. But that will leave me utterly defenceless should the Drengin send transports at my worlds. I decide for a compromise between the two, setting military production at a decidedly low level so that I can build basic fighters to prevent invasion, allowing research to be finished in 22 weeks.

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Turn 312 arrives and with Tech Progression II completed I have an unenviable choice to make. There's Advanced Space Weapons, which would take 14 weeks. It would unlock more powerful weapons, something that I'm sorely lacking at the moment. It would also add more offensive starbase modules (which cost a bit of cash to add, and require Battlestations II). Or, I can go for Advanced Starbase Construction and Starbase Fortification afterwards, which unlock much less powerful starbase modules (since yours truly nerfed them) that are free and only need Battlestations.

At the moment, the Drengin are going to wipe out starbases either way. Being able to manufacture more powerful fighters might keep me in the fight.

Enhanced Logistics would take 6 weeks and would do me little good because the Drengin have already finished Advanced Logistics. I have to try and repel them at my planets, where I actually have a slight advantage, and then think about taking the fight to them.

Warp Drive (9 turns) for a +1 speed bump is a good idea, because one of the problems I currently face is that my ships are too slow to escape the Drengin death squadrons and escape to a fortified planet. But before I do that, I need to be making ships with better weapons. Advanced Space Weapons it is, then, and another nail-biting 14 weeks.

Turn 319 and I'm still waiting for research to finish. Unfortunately, the Yor have pulled out of the fight, they see which way the wind is blowing and stupidly agree to a peace treaty with the Drengin.

Turn 321 brings more bad news, one of my high-influence planets has fallen to the Drengin.

On turn 327 I choose Particle Beams. I want to go for Harpoon, but if I keep losing planets the extra firepower isn't going to do me any good. Besides, I have to get to Medium Hulls to stay competitive.

On turn 346 I've got finished with Particle Beams and Basic Miniaturisation, which I needed to fit two particle beams per small hull. I've cranked up the production, so it's going to take a while to get to the next tech milestone, especially since I lost one of my productive research planets. The Drengin are basically owning the galaxy, and I don't see that changing any time soon. While I've been struggling just to keep up, they have mastered Large Scale Building. So I expect to see some battleships coming my way.

Turn 356, the Yor have delcared war again. I decide that the only way I'm going to have a chance is if I eschew research and put everything I have into production.

By turn 370 I have been able to negotiate peace again with the Yor and I'm continuing to produce fighters. I'm able to stave off incoming fighters thanks to my numbers in orbit, but this means I'm lacking research progress.

Turn 379, it becomes clear that three-fighter squadrons are not going stop Drengin frigates, and I retire.

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So, learned some important things. First of all, never underestimate the Drengin. Second of all, there's no way any race is going to use the naff Particle Beam unless they are forced to research it, so I think I will just eliminate it. Besides, the Drengin have shown that they are more than capable of getting the weapons research done.

I have moved some techs around in some of the tech trees, making Enhanced Logistics available earlier (previously you would need to get to Tech Progression II first). I have also placed the Drengin invasion research in between Space Weapons and Medium Scale Building.

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Another new test game (this is with what would be version 4L).

It's turn 103 and the colony share is as follows:

Drengin: 53
Torian: 36
Altarian:32
Yor: 30
Terran (me):22

I'm dead last. I blame the Altarians, who started next to me. Not that there was a whole lot of good quality planets to compete for. I did get a sweet planet with three bonus research tiles.

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It's turn 157 and the colony share is now like this:

Drengin: 62
Torian: 52
Yor: 40
Altarian: 32
Terran (me): 26

The Drengin are nearly finished Tech Progression I, while I'm still a bit behind (but gaining).

Turn 210 and everyone but the Torians are busy developing weapons. I have made the most of my super tech planet and beelined to Advanced Space Weapons. This time I'm going to be ready for the Drengin.

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Turn 216 and I'm amazed to see that the Altarians, Yor and Drengin are all developing missile weapons. Last game they all fancied themselves the kings of Mass Drivers.

Turn 224 and while I'm still developing Harpoon, the Drengin declare war. I divert some limited cash to making constructors to add battlestations to my starbases, but it slows my research down a bit.

Turn 241, my mistake was assuming that the Drengin would just send their weakest fighters to attack starbases. Instead they use their Super Dominator corvettes. D'oh! Oh well, I am finally ready to roll out my nasty dual-Harpoon fighters, although I still need to catch up on some industrial techs

Turn 261, much to nobody's surprise, the Drengin have built up a massive fleet thanks to their Super Dominator ability and large empire.

So first thing's first, that's getting nerfed. They can build better, let them bloody well build better. They don't need such a huge influx of military power every time they start a new war.

Second of all, I may need to take another look at the changes I made to Drengin improvements. It may just be that they are supposed to be this strong (it wouldn't surprise me) and I just need to figure a way of beating them, or I may have done something to inadvertently make them godlike. Nah, that's not it.

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Interesting to see your test results.

One thing I might note is that it's possible that the Drengin were such a menace because of the relatively low number of races. They were fighting at most four civilizations, and it sounds like the Altarians and Torians weren't much of a problem. In my own games, I've observed that the Drengin tend to be an early menace, but routinely lose because they try to fight too many wars at once - there are multiple games I have on record where they have declared war against literally the entire galaxy, and it's virtually impossible for any race to fight nine others and win. I don't know how much you've modded the civilizations you're not using in those tests, but it might be worth trying a full-player game and seeing how the Drengin do then.

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Well I suppose it is a combination of factors in the end. The strong AI personality, leading to an impressive colony grab, creating a strong research base and making Super Dominator more worthwhile.

Now, if they had to compete with more races for planets, it's quite possible that they would be challenged.

Btw the nerf I have in mind is to just have one railgun on the Dominator corvette. I don't know how that will change things, because I don't know if the game simply calculates how many corvettes to give based on the might of one corvette. I might end up with the Drengin having so many corvettes that the light from the stars gets blotted out.

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Oh yeah. I've noticed just now that apparently I did not give the Drengin a new starbase module for researching Ion Cannons III. Or I have but I didn't document it. Either way, needs looking at.

My new test game I am playing against nine opponents as the Drengin. I will get to see just how many corvettes are generated when war is declared.

It's turn 80 and the colony share so far looks like this:

Terran: 35
Torian: 24
Drengin (me): 22
LMT Corporate: 21 (Terran custom race)
Altarian: 20
Yor: 15
Thalan: 15
Korx: 11

I haven't met the Iconians so I have no idea how many colonies they have, but from the way the reports go they're right next to the Terrans so they're screwed.

Being third isn't too bad considering how all the AIs scoff up as many planets as they can get ships to. At the moment I have the highest population in the galaxy.

I've picked all the evil ethical choices offered during colonisation and my alignment is already Demonic.

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Is it actually possible to edit the Super Dominator corvettes? I know that they use one of the stock designs (the "Thunder", I believe), but I've never been clear on whether editing that would change the corvettes.

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Yes, it works, just have to mod GC2Ships.xml - there's a bunch of ship designs in there which cannot be built, but can be created by events and by the Super Dominator ability. I was able to mod them to use Ion Cannons instead of Mass Drivers, but unfortunately they retained the old firing sound for Ion Cannons, which indicates that they pull that information from the original GC2Types.xml file.

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I played some games with your mod and with it TotA was a lot of fun. While evil races seem to be a bit underpowered in the long run, all races tried their best in building up and expanding, so the A.I. players were a real competition on tough with maximum cpu usage.

Thanks a lot MarvinKosh, great job and I wish Stardock would sign your mod for Metaverse submissions.

One minor things I would love to see improved, it seems A.I. players never research the Alliances tech. As I always play with tech trading disabled, I wonder if you could tweak that a bit. It would be nice if Alliances would be availiable later in the game at least when one wants to end a succesful session in a peaceful way.

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Well I don't know why they're not going for it. It's a fairly cheap tech with only Interstellar Governments as its prerequisite. I'll look into it.

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In my experience, the AI does research Alliances, just not particularly early on. In my most recent test everyone got it eventually.

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Yeah, that tallies with what I've seen. I think the AI researches the fist tech (Interstellar Governments) for the bonuses and because it's cheap, then when itssees Alliances and that there isn't as much bonus to be had, it decides to go for something else. I do much the same thing when I play, despite the economy bonuses that you can have from the government types. There just isn't enough incentive provided.

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Okay, thank you both! Must have been real bad luck on my side then, since I didn't see Alliances under Inteligence Reports in any of my Space Weapons Fix Mod sessions nor did the option show up in the diplomacy screen.

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Hello MarvinKosh!

I have been a full-time lurker on these forums for many years, but a recent discovery during the testing of my own mod forces me come forward as it also affects your work. The AI is unable to use starbase-modules if they are below a certain point in StarbaseModules.XML. It literally can't "see" any applicable module if it is to far down.

Let me explain how I came to this conclusion:

One of my changes to the game was, to change the requirements of the standard Mining and Production Assist Modules to 'Industrial Revolution' and to give the Drengin/Korath, Iconians, Torians, Thalan and Yor a complete set of their own. Testing these changes showed that, while the Terrans and other factory-users were making full use of their Mining and Economy Starbases, the others were not adding any of their Mining and Production Assist Modules. The effect was quite devastating, as you can imagine.
After I made certain it wasn't an error on my part, I remembered, that I had noticed this behaviour in the un-modded game before, but always assumed that the AI of those races either had not yet researched the necessary tech or just had no time to install the module. This assumption was quickly proven wrong in my latest tests, as the AI was happily adding any Defense Modules they had access to, but none of the Mining Modules I knew they had the tech for. The AI was even going so far as to re-route their constructors after they arrived at the starbase, if they had added all of their Defense Modules.

I spent the last week, trying to find a solution for this unbalancing problem and, during my latest attempt, have found it. One of my theories was, that the modules in StarbaseModules.XML needed to be ordered in a certain way to be fully usable by the AI. So I began to split the race-specific modules up and added them to the end of their respective module-type. After testing this change I thought at first that I had solved the problem. The Drengin & Co. were now using their Production Assist Modules. Then I noticed that they were still didn't use the Mining Modules. Worse still, so were the factory-users now, too.
This gave me an idea. I removed all of the Defense Modules from the beginning of the file (I had added quite a lot of my own) and tested. It worked. Now, every race used all of their Mining and Production Assist Modules, as long as they had researched the tech for it.

This is what lead me to my conclusion. To be absolutely certain it wasn't an error in my XML-files, I began testing it in both your mod and Tolmekian's. The same thing happened again. In your mod the AI was also not using any Defense Modules. Looking at your XML I noticed, that you have moved 'Battle Stations' close to the end of the file, which, again, confirmed my suspicions regarding the AI not being able to "see" modules.

As far as I can tell, the only solution to this problem is a drastic removal of modules and unnecessary lines. Though it is hard to know, how much is necessary. My StarbaseModules.XML is currently 1257 lines long and the AI is still not using certain modules.

I would greatly appreciate it, if you could test this yourself, too. Just to absolutely sure it isn't a bug on my end.

PS: Sorry for the wall of text, but I wanted it to be as clear as possible.

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Well to be frank, I have better things to do than sit down and tediously re-order all the starbase modules to something which might work. It is high time Stardock got off their encounter-suited butts and did something.

Like writing more than one pass of the modules XML to find modules which have pre-requisite modules so that the AI can in fact see them and choose them. And cache that data until the end of the AI's turn so that we're not needless thrashing the XML file (even if it is loaded in memory) each time a constructor docks. Or fixing it so that's what actually happens.

At the moment modules do have to come in a certain order, even in the mod, because otherwise they show up when they're not supposed to or they don't show up even when they should.

If the game isn't programmed correctly, I can't do anything about that. Sorry.

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It's your call/mod. I just wanted to inform you of the problem. So, no harm done.

And I certainly agree with you, that Stardock should come back to fix the bugs. Hopefully after E:FE gets released. Hopefully.

PS: Nice B5 quote.

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I would really love to finish and finalise the mod, but sadly the combination of AI behaviour, radical tech tree modifications, and repeatedly and tediously testing is just killing my enthusiasm for the game.

I have done nothing that couldn't have been done by any one of you, I did so because I was frankly a bit annoyed. There I was, with more warships that you could shake a stick at, and the other empires simply quivered and did nothing to defend themselves. I decided that I would look into it and sure enough, after ten minutes of puttering about in the tech tree editor, I found something to explain the complete lack of ability for AI races to muster a defence.

Well I'm not annoyed any more. It's hard to maintain that intensity of annoyance suitable for modding. Mine is completely spent. It's time to let someone else continue the mod.

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