Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available! |

Greetings.
I've posted the v1.14a patch for the Balance Mod to be used with the new SE5 v1.71 patch released today.
It's savegame compatible with v1.10+ games. You need to have v1.14 installed before applying the v1.14a patch.
You can find the patch here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php
Besides a couple of small script compatibility issues, I threw in a couple of items from the pending Balance Mod v1.15 as a bonus. 
Here's the details:
Version 1.14a on 26-March-2008:
1. Fixed - Damage types Only Engines, Only Weapons, and Only Shield Generators were not set to skip armor properly
2. Changed - Increased shield points for Small Shield Generator
3. Changed - Damage amount for Shield Disrupter
4. Changed - Damage amounts for most warhead weapons and reduced their cost
5. Fixed - Error in the amount of crew Boarding Parties could overcome
6. Fixed - Some engine details were described incorrectly for Carriers
7. Changed - Reduced the number of engines on Carrier hulls to 15
8. Changed - Updated the maximum allowed unit settings in VehicleUnitTypes.txt
9. Changed - Reduced seeker supply usage
10. Changed - Increased seeker defense bonus from Defense Systems tech area
11. Changed - Increased range and effect amounts for Tractor, Repulser, and Wormhole Beams
12. Changed - Increased cost for Anti-Proton Beams
13. Changed - Removed to hit penalty form High-Energy Magnifier
14. Changed - Energy Refractor can only be placed in armor slots
15. Fixed - AI was unable to add Energy Refractor to their ship designs
16. Fixed - Some AIs were not adding weapons to Fighter Bomber design types
17. Fixed - Sometimes a player's design type did not have the correct internal design type and ministers wouldn't work properly
18. Changed - Updated event and intel scripts for planet conditions event/intel project

Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Thank you VERY much.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Is BM 1.5 going to be savegame compatible with a new game started with 1.71 and BM 1.14a? Seeing that there's this new patch I wanted to get back to the game, but if you release a new version of the mod in a week or so that wouldnt make much sense if I can't continue with the new version.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Hopefully in a week or so, I'm gonna be making a new mod. mind if I use BM as a starting point?
Escrisma gave me an idea, and I like it. 
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
This is probably the wrong thread to be asking, but I'm new to this mod and SE5 in general. I'm generally confused with the function of ministers, and I figure it's probably simpler than I'm making it. In a nutshell; how do the minister toggles in the Empire window work? For example: If I have the toggle to handle fighter launching at planets, do I still need to toggle the minister on for every planet that I want fighters handled at? Or, are all the minister toggles in the empire screen global?
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
ministers are global.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Thanks Kwok. I'm pretty sure that I caught my minister pulling fighters back into the planet after I launched them earlier without minister control on though; so it certainly appears they're global.
I could be crazy too, as I'm still pretty new to SE5; but unless fighters automatically recall themselves if they're left in orbit of a planet I have to assume the minister did it. This game's got a pretty steep learning curve compared even to MOO3; and I thought it was pretty deep. Mastering this game's going to take some time.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Escrisma gave me an idea, and I like it. 


Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
marhawkman, as far as im aware matey, the general etiquete for the game is that ya welcome to use pretty much anything from any mod as long as you give credit where its due, with links if possible.
_____________________
Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Kwok, could you please add the ability of the AI to research Mineral,organics,radioactive extraction upgrades. When Maintenance supply exceeds overall supply.
The last two games that I have played, The AI_empire tends to have a economic crash when I take over one of their high mineral extraction worlds. And if several high mineral extraction worlds are taken over, the AI never truly recovers. (1.14 version)
Its rather depressing when a good game gets ruined by a Ai that can't balance its budget.
(Of course, with the recent US economic slump. Maybe a balance budget is a fantasy, not a reality? And the AI is modeled after US capitalism 101.
)
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Er... I'd actually have it research once it's used 75% of resources. But only research while at 75% or more. Otherwise it won't be able to build the upgrades once it has them.
Now to get started..... I still am waiting on computer. 
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
I've got a question on the subject of AI as well. Does the AI design its ships using the same auto design feature the player has? If so, there's some kind of issue with the organic tech tree at least where the auto design prefers to use the small ordnance vats over the normal sized one on every ship I've tried to auto design right up to dreadnoughts. Not sure if it's your deal Kwok, but based on the numbers 4x smalls are quite inferior to a single normal sized one and a waste of tonnage that could be spent elsewhere. Not sure if any other racial techs have this issue; but I did notice the AI designer never seems to want to use the religion based ship fittings either. It also prefers my level 1 depleted uranium cannons over my level 5+ organic weapons systems.
Personally I wish there was an auto design feature that would just fill in the necessary components to get rid of all the requirements, so I just had to add the extras. I've become pretty efficient and fitting out ships by this point though, so it's not a big deal to just do everything by hand.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
maybe several different design types for varying weapons?
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
You're right about the supply ship being the biggest problem. It ended up filling my middle deck of my dread with tons of the little green buggers. It's good to hear you're going over the ship building logic in 1.15; especially if it helps the AI put up a better fight.
I did notice one other odd issue, but I'm not at my PC to give you the proper name of the facility. It's the organic facility that adds 2m population per turn, and it doesn't always show up as being queued in the same system when you're looking at the build queue of another planet in that system. It shows 0 queued, which in my case led to me building 3 of them in a single system until I realized the error. It's hardly a show stopper, but I found it odd since the rest of the organic facilities didn't seem to have the same problem.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Which is part of the problem, once the AI out spends itself, It rarely recovers.
I've had many games ruined. When the AI lost a Armada, and\or Mineral extraction planets. And then it never truly recovers.
(It would be nice if the AI placed some of its research focus on building up its resources\economy. Along with balancing its budget, and not spending itself into oblivion.)
Now to get started..... I still am waiting on computer. :(
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Now I'm really looking forward to 1.15.
Thanks for the information kwok.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Is it capatible with 1.74?

Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
AndreyKl, Captain Kwok mentioned he's making a special 1.14b to make sure it's compatible with v1.74 SE and 1.15 will be out later. I believe he said the 1.14b would be tonight? Very soon, in any case.
Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
Thanks, that is what i wanted to know.





Re: Balance Mod v1.14a Patch for SE5 v1.71 Available!
What about v1.71 compatibilty with BM 1.09PBW?