Once again, Quiet_Man,  thanks for your thoughts.

"I would recommend you try this setting."
Will do.

"Interestingly in another game the AI TEC where dominating the other AI races."
Maybe they colonised some juicy planets

"About the fighters, I find the Replicator fighter (I think the same model is used for "Hord frigade"?) somehow unfitting. Maybe swap it with the Nolamins fighter?"
I'll have a look.

"About hord frigates: Once I had some fleets with Dreads cruising around and they were all over the place."
Yes, there is a number of options to try. They will be re-balanced for issue 2 of the mods.

Hi Volgun,

Thanks for the feedback. My response follows ...

Mines

I see your point, I'll look into it.

Capital Ships

I like your ideas.

Replicate ability

I'm looking at re-balancing anti-matter regeneration rate and such for this ability.

NEW planets

Extint planet: small populations

Dyson Swarm: good ideas. I'll have to check on some, as to whether they can be implemented.

Legendary planet: looks a bit plain by its self. I'll look into adding some more features.

"and ideas for a non cognizable area. A neutral trade port ,refinery and phase inhibitors (since vasari found them in space) which can be captured and maybe a few nebulas with a variety of effects like healing/disables shields/ slows speed/ damages hull/ amplify shields"

I have been testing some ideas for the milita and pirates , i.e increasing their strength and adding additional ships (a Capital that colonizes, a Carrier, colliding asteroids). Also, I've added a Stellar Anomaly (animated 10 stars i.e spinning and rotating).

Hi frenzzee,

Glad you are enjoying the Sins mods. There is a lot of good work out there.

"Everything I've played so far in the MOD is exceptional down to the last detail, which a lot of groups/designers don't always think of" It takes alot of time to add the details and each team has its own priorities.

Look for to your feedback

Currently working on effects.

Have you implemented the flair?

Just real fast one thing I'be noticed playing the Normlins, the dread naught capital ship seem a little over powered. I only say this b/c i have 1 with a fleet of 16 squadron fighters and nothing can kill me or it. Seems that it upgrades the fighters faster then the lv. it has to many. I'm  not tech'd up very much yet and playing one of the newer star systems, i think it is ancient stars of something, 14 star systems, I've conquer 4 of them with one ship. I just built my 2nd dread naught  now going to conquer the others. I'm playing against hard AI, just seems like with some mineral upgrades, all you would need are these capital ships.

My spelling sucks, im in the middle of class, bare with me lol

Frenzzee

Hi Syneptus,

Look forward to seeing your work.

Yes I've tried the flair, also I am reworking and adding a number of planets, so the binary, and other planets, are a work in progress.

Hi frenzzee,

Yes, the Dreadnoughts are overpowered.

Enjoy it while it lasts as issue 2 of the mods will see a lot of re-balancing.

Kool, as I see the class being a very nice addition. The ability to not wipe out everything with 1 would be wonder lol.

Thanks for responding.

Please don't nerve the dreads totaly, I love them as they are and just raising the fleet support cost to 200 helped lots to balance the game, but yes the Nolamin and the Alliance dreads seam pretty strong. I just played with the Advent and their Dread is nowhere near. Even with Starbase upgrade it had less than half the firepower of an alliance dread. I increased the strike craft to 3 per level to compensate which feels right playing it. Maybe change the ship type from Battleship to carrier to have the AI hold it back a little? The high support cost makes it still a hard decision to normal carrier. 200 fleet support are four normal capitals or LOTS cruisers & frigates and each increase in support level cuts of 10% of ALL income, which hurts pretty much specially early on.

PS: I had an Advent fleet with two dreads ~50 bombers + two cap ships + 8 carrier cruisers with 24 fighters for cover cruising around a sun when some enemy ships jumped in and the bomber/fighter went of in a big wave in front of the other ships, it was a great picture

fyi: I did a little test game with 9 AI I set all to start in my team in an random large multiple starts system all parameter on normal. I had eased diplomatic difficulty (and researched the Advent diplomacy bonus) keep peace and after little expansion just left the AI playing. The game went on for about 4 hours then suddenly it slowed down went on for another hour and finally came to an hold when I was just zooming into a planet system with many ships. It looked like frozen but I could see process activity on the task manager and no error messages or crash. RAM was at 1.7 Gig (I have patched the game to use up to 4). I loaded a save game I made when it became slow which really loaded after some time and worked, but still slow. I did not had the time to leave it run to see if it would stop again.

It could be just a game limitation, at this point all 9 AI had build up their fleets and where happily battling over two star systems. Might be the graphic engine having problems with the many ships as the only crash I had so far was when zooming fast to a system just after loading a (much smaller) game, a very similar scenario like above?

On the other hand I was really surprised that the save game worked at all. So other than the slow down the mod seams to run rock stable on normal SOASE.

I can't do justice to your reply ... but rest assured it is very helpful, thank you.

However, I will say this ... now you know why I am busy with issue 2 of the mods, which will address these problems.

It make my Trinity crash , how to use it on Trinity's Diplomacy ?

Follow the Recommended Game Setup, Effects Settings.

now the Nolamins are the secret super power for me

I tried them on a random medium game, put everything on "low" in game settings and beside the fact that the AI had problem starting up, I was swimming in resources before I had researched 1/3 the production upgrades and bonuses they have in their research tree. The armor and shield bonuses make their ships practically invincible.

They look so   but with a little time for research I think they can beat anyone else just with a single asteroid

Hi Quiet_Man.

Yes, the Norlamins do not have upgrades to their weapons but are very strong in shields and armor. Have you used their Malladax (or Skylark 2) cruiser with the capture ability?

In terms of resources, are you sure you didn't get a rich planet or two? Or where you using a number of their Mining Explorer scouts?

"I think they can beat anyone else just with a single asteroid" I don't know how you came to this conclusion. What I've seen ( with AI players) is that it is the TA that are the strongest, though the Norlamins can take off too.

sorry, the single asteroid thing was just a joke. The real point I wanted to make is that they have strong resource boost plus cost reduction, which seams a bit overkill? Because if you just research the first levels of both, there seams to be no need for further research.

I had an very interesting game. Random-Medium single star

6 Player, I took TA and gave each AI a different type.

I started very defensive. Exploration and building a Dread (with 200 fleet cost means you first need research). I managed to make peace with most AI, took some strategic planets which reduced the entries to my empire to four and secured them with fleets (per fleet one dread, three capitals some cruisers) and let the AI play. In this game indeed the Norlamins dominated.

The advent had three systems surrounded by Norlamins worlds and did war with Replicators, Vasari and TEC on the other end of the system. They never got a foothold and where stuck.

Replicators, Vasari, TEC and Norlaims fought each other with Norlamins taking more and more worlds. I think the main reason was the capture ability. At the end they had a huge funny fleet with even pirate ships. When I returned to the game the Norlamins had about 1/3 of the systems, I took over the TEC worlds and had also 1/3.

The I joined the Norlamins and Advent to fight the Vasari and Replicators. The Vasari where history and I was just to take over the last world of the Replictors while the Advent started a hopeless war against Norlamins when I had the slow down. I checked the game time and it was ~4:30 hours played. I saved and the game went on for another 10 Minutes then stopped. I ended the task loaded SOASE new and loaded the saved game. It run again for another 10 Minutes then the graphic stopped. I thought a moment and hit menu bottom. After a few seconds indeed the menu opened and I could end the game normal.

I watched more closely this time and the slow down was of the kind that the game would run normaly for half a second than stop for a few millisecond then run again for half second on so on. So in between the stops, it seamed to run fine.

As this game was much smaller and from the behavior, could it be some script/function problem? It is curious that it happened after nearly precisely the same time frame and reliable.

I hope it helps to find the problem.

I assume you mean you don't need to do further research in the Technology tree ... how about the Art of War research tree?

The Norlamins need to build and research rapidly to survive.

sorry, I meant the resource research specifically.

to explain more precisely: to survive and to complete the initial research items you already need a solid income and have build out some worlds. If you have reached this lets say "medium" level the Norlamins income/spending balance seams to go through the roof. So the higher research items for resources and building bonuses simply don't kick in. So after a slow start they suddenly take of and there is simply nothing that is expensive enough to spend all the resources.

It might be that I just had the feeling coming back from trying the vanilla races. Also the TA have after a short time a strong income. So maybe just a point of overall balance.

I think about a way to balance this. The fleet support value is a very good thing to level the field a bit. Maybe add something similar to other research items? e.g. reduce the cost of buildings for  an overall reduction of resource production? Something like "keep local resources". Or connect culture bonuses to an reduction of tax?

No need to apologize. Your feedback is very valuable.

Now regarding your Reply #291, yes I have noticed that the game slowed down when a number of players are fully developed, i.e most of the research has been done and fleet logistics are maxed out. Original Sins has been known to slow down also, particularly on huge maps at the end of the game.

Some have speculated that it is caused by the number of trade/refinery ships. I have halved their number.

Some have speculated that it is caused by the number of strikecraft. I have halved their number.

Entrenchment and Diplomacy have "mine" problems. I have halved their number.

Some have speculated that it is the memory footprint and other "bugs" that the "Sins Optimization Project" has discovered and has fixed. I have tried a lot of their fixes.

So far slight improvements.

You asked "could it be some script/function problem?"

I think that it is the raw number of ships and in battle - maneuvering, targeting, firing - and their use of abilities. You mentioned "script problem", yes, abilities. In one of the Sins release a Advent capitals ability could stop the game. When you think of how many targeted ships can be affected by an ability and how many ships their are with abilities - its a large number.

Basically, the next solution I am going to try is reduce the number of ships, for the new races, by half. Also I will revisit some of the key abilities, maybe remove some, reduce their area of impact, etc.

After I optimize,  I will rebalance [Reply #293]

more feed back for just Normilins

Research
alot of research only needs 1 point to get the next level even if the previous level has 2 or more points

EG. you only need 1 point advanced culture (which is 2 points to max out) to get knowlage is power. This happens with all culture research, hull, armour and shield it also happens on an antimatter and resourse upgrade after the refinery but these ones needs 2 points out of 3

sheild migitation upgrade 1 point increase it by 0% 2 and 3 points 1 % so overall by 1 % it think this is wrong since level 1 and 3 do nothing

sheild mitigation with culture and research upgrades all together it gives you 54% and my in battle ships that were focused on had 101% doesnt that mean all damage is blocked? and this is only in your own culture, the base mitigation is 71% while idle (with the shield upgrade too)

the Kondalian Carrier captical ship dosnt seem to fire at any thing

some of my Frigates and cruisers randomly get pushed out of the grav well like they got hit by a telekinetic push and i dont know why 

all there ships have a huge turn radius, if they are at the edge of a grav well they will go out of it by about the radius of the well ( i think this happened after the mass reduction research )

resource

I agree with quietman in the match im doing i only researched the first crystal upgrade and didnt need the rest due to all of the cost reduction upgrades after i did get all the resource upgrades i had more than i could spend.

so with the best extractors, cheap ships, and high shield strength and mitigation my ships rarely die in a defensive fight and can replace then in seconds and in an offensive i have re-enforcements very quickly and you can capture there ships putting the odds even more in your favour. and to top that off you will most likely have the biggest fleet first due to having the best extractors, cheap ships, and near invincible ships.

super weapon

isnt it the same as advents but only takes half the slots or is half as effective

I loaded the game with the slow down again and let it run. After 10 Minutes it seamed to stop but this time I just waited and really after 2-3 minutes it continued, not smooth but it would progress. It is a medium galaxy and most races except me (TA), the Norlamins and the Advent where gone. The last two Advent plants where just being terminated by a huge Norlamins fleet. After the Advent fleet was gone there wasn't much going on beside the Norlamins bombing the last advent planets. From time to time there where some "mini" freezes which seamed to be related with the Norlmanins AI sending parts of it's fleet forward and backward.

Badly I couldn't load any save games from after the big freeze. So not much possibility to test.

The Norlamins fleet was not on the game limit, but pretty big. Larger than the "normal" fleet support setting would normally allow. It could be that there is some issue with path finding when exceeding a certain ship limit in one fleet?

Is it possible to stop ship stealing when exceeding fleet support?

my next post will most likely be about TA when i do a long game with them

Quiet_Man,

"Is it possible to stop ship stealing when exceeding fleet support?" unfortunately not.

Been busy with optimization for the next release. Have had some success. Converted all texture files to dds (from tga) for all six races and for UI and fixed particle file (all this from TSOP).

Result, Random Huge Map, AI's all unfair (i.e 10 players in total), also massive pirate fleets with up to 20 caps, 10 carriers, 10 heavy, 30 anti-fighters, and at multiple planets

1. Original Sins slows down late in game but does not freeze

2. Entrenchment does not noticeably slow

3. Diplomacy still testing

... on to phase 2 of the optimization.

Hi Volgun,

Some excellent points, will not reply at the moment, however feedback has been noted. 

I am in the midst of optimization ... following which I will be re-balancing.

Till then your feedback is always welcome.

I tried the save game again and the slow seams to come when a certain amount ships in one fleet is reached and becomes real worse when they fight. As I said it was a medium system and basically only me (TA) and the Norlamins. So the total amount of ships, structures or activity was not high. "Just" two major and two minor fleets battling.

I had a major fleet of three dreads (level 10, 9 and 7), 9 capitals (level 7 to 5) and ~30 cruisers which got stolen pretty fast against a fleet of unkown size (300? just to many different types to count) defending the last Advent planet. An left over advent fleet including a dread where supporting. Another dread and 3 capitals where defending my worlds.

The game went slower and slower with some freezes until final stop.