The Planetary Defense branch was recategorized to Planetary Defense for just that reason. Unfortunately AIP7 isn't fond of researching tech tagged as Defense.

I've seen this too with the Korath and Drengin but I haven't found a good way to fix this. AIP7 is very peculiar about it's research.

The AIValue is as low as it can go and the category of the later techs are set to Research in the hopes of keeping the AI out. This doesn't always work though. Lowering the TP will make these techs more accesable to players and in the hands of players military starbases can really shine. So, I'm hesitant to do that purely because those stupid AIs keep researching this stuff.

I suppose I could set this branch to Computing/Research after the first three techs, that usually works but it will look a bit weird.

Both are run by AIP11 which isn't the brightest in the bunch. Can you narrow down why they fail though? Is it their research? Performance in war? Planetary development?

I was sure they were set to Computing/Research but it turns out they're set to Weapons/Starbase. That explains why AIP8 went for it. I'll fix it for the next release.

They're required by the campaign and part of the Twilight of the Arnor story line. They cannot be removed.

I'm okey with buffing the SB modules a little but for the most part installing defenses on a SB is something you do to protect them as a last resort. The AI will sacrifice it's entire military to kill one starbase. If it fails the SB will level to godlike strength. This cannot be allowed to happen under any circumstance. Starbases are not intended as AI fly zappers.

We can't have that.

It is. I'm not to fussed about this.

Feedback summary:

- BattleStations need to be buffer a little
- Attack/Defense modules need to be buffed a little
- Thalan defense module (is it actually in use?!) needs to be nerfed.
- Terror Star Research needs to NOT happen
- Military Starbase construction needs to NOT happen.
- AIP7 UT research is unreliable
- Altarians underperform for some reason.

I'll see if I can sit down and do something about this later today.

It is currently commented out.   This is fully intended,  if I recall correctly from earlier discussions about the Hyperion Starbase modules.

Ok with these.   Valuable mid-endgame feedback.

Like others,  I have on occasion seen AIP7 ignore basic dip. tech. 

I have also seen it race for StarDem,  ignoring other tech branches.

Most often,  though,  it is somewhere in the middle.  So I'm not sure you can do much to affect this in the XML...

No comment here;  they've been too embarassed to appear in my last couple test games I guess. 

Version 5.3.3

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9mgy512s9m52tar/Community%20Update%20V5.3.3.zip?dl=0

Changes logs moved to seperate directories.

I've begun using an SVN to keep track of updates. This will save a lot of time updating change logs.

Changes:

=TechTree

TerrorStar0:
-Category from Starbase to Research. Stops AI research.

StarbaseMobilization:
-AIValue from 3 to 1

StarbaseProjection:
-AIValue from 3 to 1

=All Race TechTree

TerrorStar0
-Tag from Weapons to Computing. Hopefully this will stop the AI from researching this tech.

Military Starbases.
-AI will research 1st tech. Remaining tech set to Computing/Research.
-Grouped up techs.

DivergentEvolution
-AIValue from 35 to 30

DarkEnergyResearch
-AIValue from 45 to 35 

=Drengin
Xeno Communications & Universal Translator:
-AIValue from 10 to 120

=Yor
Xeno Communications & Universal Translator:
-AIValue from 10 to 120

=Korath
Xeno Communications & Universal Translator:
-AIValue from 10 to 120

=Altarian TechTree
-Reduced Lab costs by 20%. They got nerfed hard when they lost their +weapon bonuses and they didn't get anything in return.

=PlanetaryImprovements

BasicLab
-AI from 20 to 30. AIP11 was underbuilding labs.

Research Center
-AI from 20 to 30. AIP11 was underbuilding labs.

=Modules

Buffed Tier 1 & 2 SB Attack modules as suggested by OShea
Buffed BattleStationsFour as suggested by OShea
Singlularity Armor isn't in use. Removed from SB Modules.

I made several attempts to boost the Altarians but their weakness didn't have anything to do with their tech. They hardly build labs! They were being outresearched by the Drengin, Yor, Korath, etc. That's odd considering they get the best research bonus in the game. The Iconians don't have this problem they get the Precursor Archive which is build on every planet and because of this their early research skyrockets.

Setting the first two labs to 30 ensures the AI builds more labs at the beginning of the game, mostly on it's homeworld. The Torians lack industrial tech at the beginning of the game so they end up building a lot of Schools. At least, that's the theory.

This change effects ALL civs that use Basic Labs and Research Centers:

• Altarians, 11
• Arceans,11
• Korx,11
• Iconians,11
• Terrans,8
• Krynn,8
• Drath,8
• Yor,7

Thanks Mabus!  Will play a bit longer game to see how the midgame goes (if I live that long, hehe!).   I think the early game is in a really good spot right now.

Thanks.

I'm currently taking a look at Drengin/Korath research. Their TP cost for research is just so... low. I mean really, really low. Currently they can grab their best labs at a fraction of the TP other races spend and it really, really shows.

So I'm going to adjust the cost of their reseatch tech to 83% of the equivalent standard tech. However, their labs will be cheaper to build and have lower maintenance their their standard counterparts.

After doing so I reran my Drengin vs Altarian simulation. The difference was massive. The adjusted Altarians kept ahead of the Drengin in research for most of the game and the fight was even. I expect a similar result with the Korx.

I like the chance, the Drengin/Korath were practically given their research tech on a silver platter. They still get it for less, pay less and game good research they just don't get it as easily as before.

Okay, I don't get it. Can someone explain how the repair stat works, in terms a really dumb person could understand?

I was imagining that "+1%" meant percentage of total hitpoints, which of course rounds to zero for most ships.

First of all, repair that does come from a starbase works different than the repair that is racial.

Starbase-repair simply gives you a fixed amount of HP every turn, in our case it's 1 HP. The % shown is a bug. Simply exchange it with HP then everything is right.

Racial repair gives you a random amount of HP, the range from which it is chosen is dependant on how high your repair-stat is.

Planetary orbit doubles the amount in both cases.

Bugreport:

Racial traderoute picks give 10/20/30 routes for 1/2/3 points. Please change to:

<Ability Name="Trade Routes">
<AbilityIndex>19</AbilityIndex>
<AvailableOptions>3</AvailableOptions>
<Option0Text>Gifted Traders</Option0Text>
<Option0Bonus>1</Option0Bonus>
<Option0Cost>10</Option0Cost>
<Option1Text>Superior Traders</Option1Text>
<Option1Bonus>2</Option1Bonus>
<Option1Cost>20</Option1Cost>
<Option2Text>Master Traders</Option2Text>
<Option2Bonus>3</Option2Bonus>
<Option2Cost>30</Option2Cost>
<BonusUnits>rts</BonusUnits>
</Ability>

1. Frictionless Clothing and Ultra Spices are both unlocked by Xeno Cultural Trends. Ultra Spices used to be unlocked by Extreme Entertainment. It should be moved back where it belongs or at least moved somewhere else, 2 TG unlocked by same tech and giving almost same bonus is looking bad.

2. Hyperion Shipyard - briefdescription says it increases military production, but description mentions only quality.

3. Fertility Acceleration unlocks Aphrodisiac - which doesn't make much sense for Yor to have it. I suggest cutting out this tech completely from their tech tree - they won't miss it that much. 

4. Empathic Tactical Center - both briefdescription and description still mentions weapons instead of defenses.

I'm running games to test how AIs fare against each other on Large maps with fast tech speed, painful, all planets/habitable/stars abundant, scattered, extreme occasional, rare anomalies, no tech trade/stealing, no mega events. First 5 games show problems with balance of some races.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wszwfrdz15npct/Balance%20test1.zip?dl=0

This is still work in progress, I'm giving points for each AI according to it's performance, giving highest scores for research and economy, as in my opinion those are most important statistics and it's easiest to determine who is the greatest badass around. If AI is in a position I would not want to start the game (far away stars, being stuck in between other civs, starting in a corner) I give it +1 point. If it has great starting position (isolated with stars around it), I subtract 1 point.

Thalans are way ahead of everyone else in research and income. In all games they have twice as much research/economy then 2nd best civ. Their Influence is so scary, in game 3 they covered Korx completely in pink shroud. Honestly, something needs to be done about them. 

Terran is doing fine. Just an average civ (average among strong civs)

Torians are ahead at the start of the game, but lose their steam towards the mid game and fall back to average. In other words strong, but still balanced.

Korx are doing bad, once or twice had good positions, but it never done them any good. They do get all the important techs, problem is they just aren't that good at colonizing.

Iconians are doing good all things considering, twice they started in the center sandwiched between other civs. Twice they started in good positions, and were at the middle of the rankings. They start with very strong research in the begining, but their economy crashes frequently starting from 50-60th turn, and doesn't stabilize until turn 80-110. I've seen it many times on Medium maps, but I do not know what causes this. You can see what I'm taking about by looking at manufacturing or research graphs, their line goes up and down all the time. All I can say, if their economy doesn't crash, their research can be equal to Thalans. In other words, if their economy is somehow improved, they will need to be nerfed, as their research can start growing exponentially and I've seen it twice on Medium map. Trust me, it's scary ^^  

Yor if lands a good spot and colonizes on par with other races is also at the top (not including Thalan) in statistics. If they start close to influence of others and are cut off from the center or some stars that only they can grab, they suck like Korx. Most of the time I ctrl+n for them to have at least a fighting chance, so maybe unintentionally I rolled few maps in their favor. All in all, they are doing fine.

I was going to include Krynn instead of Korx, but I changed my mind as I didn't want all the good civs to gang up on lone evil Yor. Korx weren't happy with this choice, scrapping the bottom in every game.

Torian, Terran and Yor seem to be equally strong. Iconian underperformed because of their economy, but I've seen enough from them to know they have same potential as Thalans if they manage their spending well. Korx is not ready to fight alongside big boys, and Thalan is the man of the house who most likely will need to be nerfed in some way.

"Fun" game,  5.3.3,  Large/Scattered/Abundant/Painful,  10 players.

Keep in mind I haven't entered cheat mode and looked at anything yet.

Another game with the Drath (started next to me,  and I decided to make nice with them -- their SA terrifies me),  so lots of wars broke out early.  The Terrans attacked me,  and the Torians,  Iconians and Altarians piled on,  and it looked bad for a while (the Terrans had nabbed a class 17 and TWO class 26 colonies!). 

Oddly enough the Drengin and Drath saved my bacon,  by attacking the Iconians and Altarians respectively.  This was a golden opportunity for me to sue for peace and concentrate on the Terrans,  and when the dust settled around turn 120 I'd stolen half their planets.   They're still a threat,  and the galaxy is still a very dangerous place (everyone but the Terrans and I are at war!),  but I have a bit of breathing room.

All I can say is..  holy crap.  It is taking all my skill at this game just to keep my head above water on Painful.    I love it.

More as it happens,  I think I'll actually make it to mid-game this time. 

Can't really be fixed unless we take away their freighters. That's been tried and it didn't work to well. I guess we'll have to come to terms with the Korx being a below average race.

AIP11 bombs it's economy and it takes a while to recover. It is good to know that it does. Several texts point out the Iconians have no experience with running an economy so this makes sense total sense.

I've taken a look at the changes and I think what went wrong.

Vanilla

Start

• Penalty -30
• Xeno Bio 0
• Xeno Med 10

Remains: -20

• Techs: 
• Xeno Col 10
• Alien So 10
• No recruiting center

Sum = 0

So they end up at 0 Pop-growth

In vanilla the Economic Direction Unit grants a bonus of 25%. 

CU

Start:

• Penalty -50
• Xeno Bio 10
• Xeno Med 10

Remains: -30

Techs:

• Xeno Col 10
• Alien So 10
• Recruiting Center +20

Sum = 10 on each planet with an RC.

In vanilla the Economic Direction Unit (EDC) grants a bonus of 50% (!?).

So it's pretty clear to me what happened to the Thalan. Their "slow beginning" is gone thanks to the RC and on top of that the make heaps of money off their homeworld thanks to the  buffed EDC. That means they can afford their early production and build tons of colonization ships and grab a staggering amount of worlds.

Here's what I'm going to do:

Pop-Growth penalty from -50 to -60.

EDC from 50% to 25%. 

That should slow them down in the beginning.

Then you'll cripple any custom race that uses a different SA than Super Annihilator using the Korath techtree.

Nice catch. Ultra spices will be moved back to Extreme Entertainment.

Fixed in next release.

No it doesn't make a lot of sense but I'll let them keep it just for the humor of it. Watch Robot Chicken. You'll get it

Fixed.

As for the Korx... I'm not sure what to do about them. I'll look into it but I doubt there's much we can do. Super Traders unlocks any tech that gives the trade module so no matter what we do, the Korx get freighters at the start of the game and will build them as well.

One option would be to remove their SA and give them Advanced/Master trade as a default tech but according to the manual Super Traders make more money from trade. Not only that, it will look out of place.

So... yeah. I think the Korx are in the same boat as the Arceans. They're weak because their defining mechanic cannot be handled by the AI.

Nice to hear . I'm experiencing the same thing. Tough is doable, but crippling is a fight for your life.

Hi, maybe it's my fault but I just started my first game with this mod and I cannot build production boosting modules on economy starbases. Even if I have researched the related tech, the only modules available are trade related. Any advise?

Oh, and ability bonus for trade routes are bugged, it allows to get 10 additional routes for 1 point, should be the opposite.

Make sure you remove all your race customizations prior to beginning a CU game.

Thanks. This bug will be fixed in 5.3.4.

@Marvin

Marvin could you remove the download link to the latest version of the CU and replace it with a link to the file archive instead? I'm worried people are downloading 5.3.1.

Also, could you post a link to this document so it's easy to find? It lists issues we cannot work around and will be a handy reference for Frogboy.

Version 5.3.4. Minor update

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dtvyehxgpu22qmv/Community%20Update%20V5.3.4.zip?dl=0

Added a Progressive Changelog to the main mod folder.

=AbilityBonuses
-Fixed Trade route cost/bonus. 

=PlanetaryImprovements

Economic Direction Unit
-Economy from 50 to 25. Thalan nerf as suggested by OShea.

EmpathicTacticalCenter.
-Fixed brief description/description.

HyperionShipyard
-Fixed brief description.

Drengin/Korath labs
-Cheaper than their standard counterparts in build cost and maintenance.

UltraSpices
-Requirement from Xeno Cultural Trends to ExtremeEntertainment

SlaveLabs 1 & 2
-AI from 20 to 30

=RaceConfig

Thalans
-Pop-growth from -50 to -60

=TechTree

Drengin/Korath labs:
-Cost = 0.83 * Standard Equivalent. This results in a steep raise in TP.

MerchantTradeComplexes:
-Cost from 800 to 1100. Seemed very cheap by comparison.

The Thalan's early colonization should slow down significantly after this update. Their pop-growth and economics are back to vanilla values. If this nerf proves to much I will bump up the values.

I could not come up with a solution to the under-performing Korx. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to let me know. 

I was playing as Terrans; following your suggestion I have reset all race customization points, for every race, tried again without spending the customization points for any race, same problem.

Tried vanilla, built two constructors asap and built economy starbase; I could build the starbase factory module, so it worked.

Tried again your mod, as Iconian Refuge, and it worked, just the module name is "Basic starbase replicator", or something like that, but anyway it's the starbase factory equivalent and I could build it.

Tried again as Terrans, and still same problem. I can check other races, but looks like you have disabled that module (at least) for Terrans.

Hello there. Thanks for trying again. If you made a custom race make sure you select Basic Space Construction as one of the techs to start out with. That's the technology that unlocks the first starbase modules and you need it to build more.

If that doesn't solve the problem I'll have to look into it tomorrow.

Regards,

M.

Tried also Thalan and they have the module, Arcean and Torian don't. If it can help, I can try with all races, let me know.

Hello. No custom races, I tried to keep things as simple as possible, used only default races and didn't spend any customization point before starting a new game. The result of the test is that only some races can build the module; if it can help you, I can try all races to check exactly which ones are nerfed.

Bye

Works fine for me. You might have an issue with the mod itself. Could you go into the game and see if the specific starbase-module-techs are present?

The CustomRace tags aren't taken into the game - the overview screen stays blank - and seems to default to the unmodded one ("Please write a description for me!") once you select a techtree. Does anyone else encounter this issue?

I think your answer came before my edit^^ nevertheless the point still stands:

Korath don't have planetary defense although they are the one who need it more than any other race.

Because of spore they will never research planetary invasion techs and are therefore stuck at there starting soldiering racial.

All of their spored worlds can/will be taken on the first try (if they aren't cultureflipped) so it would be fair if their populated core worlds are harder to take.

And if a player wants to get his soldiering high for that single purpose he has to spend a boatload of RP for techs that get him alot of additional stuff which is useless for him: troops module, invasion techniqus, and the fact that the soldiering stat only has defensive potential for him. So in a way the immense costs of these techs don't justify for a SporeSa - they give other races the ability to forcefully take planets - but a SporeSA can already do that more easily.

One solution would be to let Korath have the Planetary Defense branch, and make them research this in midgame.

Another thing would be to incorporate an additional planetary defense structure into "germ warfare" - so that all SporeSA races (irrelevant of the techtree) can protect their planets.

Talking about Terrans, I have researched techs which should provide advanced starbase factory modules, but the modules are not available when trying to upgrade economic starbases. Probably because the basic factory module, that should be available from the beginning, in fact is not.

If Basic Space Construction is needed as a prerequisite as MabusAltarn says, then I can tell you I cannot see this tech among the ones available to the Terrans at the beginning, and it is not researchable, either.

Before trying this mod, I played a little bit with Autumn Twilight mod. Is it possible that mod changed permanently some of the default races techs in my installation?