IRM v 0.7c released!

will do

Alright great-o~! Though right now I'm now waiting for patch v1.26+ as it's a great pain not having "load/drop/launch cargo remotely" working properly - execution on the previous hex. That and Drones got almost-fixed.

Ah... I'm permanently waiting for a new patch these last few weeks ^^;;

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

What have you changed in this version?

Or is it more of a patch to get it working with 1.25?

Thanks,

Javaslinger

woot just in time for my Bday
thx for your effort!
my latest Bm game stoped processing end of turn in turn 54, that never happend with your mod, so naturally i like it a lot more

ten years into a game works fine with 1.25 couple of coments

1 did you mean to change the tech tree to make misiles avalible more quickly as I have noticed nuclear weapons tech is avalible form the start now but you have to reserch several other techs to get any thing other than a troop weapon

2 I found one of Badger of faverite ships a "UNIT HUNTER" with no less than five DU auto canons this defected to me and is now on its way home.

general point which would be nice would be the ability to copy alien shipa under certain circumstances.

List of minor quirks:
- Ship Auto-complete always puts 2 Life Supports when only 1 is needed at the start.
- What do higher levels of Bridge do? *reads Components.txt* Oh, a multiplier bonus. Guess I'll have to push some Armour then.
- Colony ship size increasing in steps of... 45? This is a non-useful jump, since we're not looking to outfit (short-range) colony ships with 5kT sized components beyond Basic Sensors.

I'm far too used to Balance Mod. Is it your intention to make it easy to develop good Basic Sensors (explorer ship can see entire system just by flying through the centre) and all 3 colonisation techs before 20 turns have passed? Granted I started with 5 homeworlds, immediately built up 3 more research centres on all homeworlds (torching storage facilities as need be) and I've only met 1 other race in the many systems I have explored, who have agreed to a non-aggression treaty so I have had a peaceful expansion phase. Still... it seems really easy to expand very quickly and... resource production and space yard construction rates are going to take some getting used to I suppose.

Hmm... let's see what the AI (no computer bonus) will do when a war comes around... I've set Combat Map Radius to 1000 as I don't believe it's hard to chase down retreating ships (block them off from the other side) but that's a human tactic the AI won't know how to use at present.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Fh:
Because i got careless, i kept the mulitplex ON the AC after saying it shouldn't have it, that should be a benefit of a Dedicated PD system..

As a result, the question came up whether or not your multiplex enables.

i sent a 6 or 8 AC gunship thru a warp point to besige sat's, and i can say WITHOUT DOUBT, the multiplex function was working. The ship was firing in several directions at once, gunning down satellites AND seekers.. not too shabby.
One ODD thing i noticed, though: towards the end, it looked as if ALL the beams weapons were coming from a single satellite (which ironically was seeker mounting!)...
seems i read that was an old bug?

i was also considering if multiplex could be an ability of higher level bridges..
would it work to add an ability with a requirement (e.g.:point defense tech level 2) for that ability, as opposed to the requirement for the component itself?

Fallen Haven,

It sounds like you've got a number of new improvements in the works....

ARe these something that may be released soon or should I not hold my breath? Basically, I'm wondering if I should wait a day or two to start a new game or just go ahead.

Thanks,

Javaslinger

Java, you've waited ages already. May as well get started to get a rough feel for how things are now. Both 1.25 and IRM0.7c have bugs but they're tolerable.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Are you supposed to be able to see all the planets when entering a new system? Before you've explored it?

Thanks,

Javaslinger

haven, i just kept my old game, so this may be it - lets see what players of new games say to this -
but its offering me cloak options for ships and planets-
yet i have none of these components/facilities, nor the req'd technologies.

Glad you got your game running again.

we were playtesting the ac for old stock games to protect the Ai from not being good at rock/scissors/paper-
i accidentally left the mulitplex IN the ac component
but the point was, yep it works nicely.

I was just saying i'd assign multiplex tracking as an ability you earn by research, not because i forgot to edit the weapon.
Ac's certainly shouldn't be what gives you that ability .

Just now i was thinking of making bridges that require PD research to achieve but give the ship multiplex as an ability...
but then my concern becomes that the AI won't add it unless i script that into it - and i'm not comfortable at that level yet-
the same reason i was concerned about using the engines per move point setting, in fact...

fallen:
Just to keep you posted- since this is really about multiplex, not my mod...
Re: just so you realize
Submitted by Phoenix-D on Sun, 2007-02-04 22:37.

Badger wrote:
Phoenix-D wrote:
Just so you realize, the multiplex tracking ability doesn't actually DO anything...

Sir, i believe you are mistaken:
http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/2441#comment-13811
all i can say is sim it and double-check.

I removed the multiplex ability, and a ship still fires on as many targets as its firepower and strategy will allow..

» reply | quote
Re: Put your Mod Where Your Mouth Is > BillyGoatGruff Game
Submitted by Captain Kwok on Sun, 2007-02-04 22:11.

Phoenix-D wrote:
Just so you realize, the multiplex tracking ability doesn't actually DO anything. Its just a leftover from SE4.

To further that thought, multiplex tracking isn't even intended to divide up fire in the fashion being described. It allowed a ship to target other ships after destroying since SE:IV weapons fire was sequential and didn't suffer the same damage overkill problem that SE:V does.

Do you REALLY think you will subvert System Vampyre before it subverts YOU?

I hate to repost, but I didn't see a response for this. And I don't see anything in your readme file relating to this. Is this intentional?

Thanks,

javaslinger

Thanks for that I had had a suspicion that Ministers where not working for some time. I have a suspician that some of the issue might have been inhereted from the Ballence Mod as when I played that the ministers dident seem to work all that well individualy. I also know that you borrowed some of the good captains code at one point

Hmm... is the AI balanced to "start with 1 Homeworld" as well? Or is the AI still being adapted to v1.25? Currently I'm way ahead of all the AIs on tech and colonies. I'll still play a bit more of this version to see what they're like in a fight, but the AI won't have a chance at this rate in this game. Then again, I'm waiting for v1.26+ as well, which will fix this "load/drop/deploy cargo remotely" bug as well as MAKE DRONES FAIR ^^;;

For reference:
It's 2402.8 and the AI races have expanded from 5 homeworlds to 11~13 colonies now. I'm at 70+, double their resource income and more than double their research generation.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Hi guys. this is my first post and I am from brazil... so please forgive any english errors =)

I have run into the same problems as psieye. I´m currently playing a game on a computer high difficulty, medium bonus, medium map with medium number of empires... It´s turn 33 and I have 13 planets... and the 2nd highest empire only 6.

Besides, the AI isn´t agressive at all... And is starting to lag behind in research as was usual in stock.

There is a lot to improve indeed, especially making the AI expand more agressively, perhaps by building a higher proportion of colony ships in the initial game... And also to agressively attack isolated and defenseless planets, like it did in SE IV, so that you would be forced to stop colony ship production and expansion. But I´m sure you´re up to the task FH =)

Bheusi, how many homeworlds did you start with? One?

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

two quick notes..

1. about the Ai - i mentioned the Ai had been a little odd since the 1.25?
i thought it was just bcas my 1.20 game got updated.. now i wonder.
But consider this- irm's ai is a definite improvement... but look at what he's working with.
the minister thing got my attention: you might recall iasked kwok a while back if ai=ministers.
i have NEVER been impressed with the ministers settings.
MINE - ships and colonies- irm and stock - seem to do little or nothing... always made me wonder about the AI.
probably why i was so excited by IRM and Balance mods' AI's...

2... even IF multi DOES do nothing, why take it out? Doesn't seem to hurt anything, and its always poosible it's gotten discussed enough to be on a fix list.

Do you REALLY think you will subvert System Vampyre before it subverts YOU?

*nods* yeah, I had space yards on every single planet, including tiny domed colonies. The resource production is high enough that I never have to worry about 'over-expanding'.

Furthermore, I'd suggest changing the starting facility set-up slightly - there's no need for that many storage facilities at the start (replace with research facilities?). IMO, Storage Facilities are only useful in mid-late game when you have save up a lot to retrofit a massive fleet all at once. Much faster to just make more in the early-game than bother with worrying about storage.

No rush, I want to wait for v1.26+ as well. Tired of having to form massive population transport fleets to facilitate population transport due to lack of the remote cargo orders.

Oh and I presume the "Nuclear Weapons available earlier than intended" issue is sorted.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Yep, I started with just one homeworld.

Hm... I think it´s going to work great, because the only major problema was the lack of expansion. Perhaps space yards should be restricted, but only on non-breathable, tiny/small worlds. Maybe medium too.

That, and perhaps a bit more testosterone for the AI will make the mod a real thrill to play =)

I also found that there are too many storage structures on the initial homeworld... And storage is only useful in the endgame, when there is a lot of ships to refit. If you edit homeworldstartingfacilities.txt and replace most of them with research centers, it helps both the player and the AI, of course, but especially the AI, since it doesn´t scrap them in the beggining, making the game more challenging.

He psieye and I had the same idea ; ) Well I say just replace the storage with RCs and perhaps some intelligence buildings.

Then I would make my Homeworld start with:
1 Spaceyard
1 Spaceport
1 Resupply Depot
1 Intelligence centre
2 Organic farms
2 Radioactive extractors
10 Mineral miners
17 Research centres

Exact ratio of Mineral/Research facilities is debatable, but the rest should be as I've listed for maximum efficiency. Minerals and Research are the only things you need in mass quantity at the start. IRM Resupply Depots produce far more (20k supplies per turn) than any early game fleet could ever hope to use.

I never was much of a rusher but some players will probably want to raze some research and rebuild for more minerals to rush with. Let them scrap manually - your AI (and tech tree) is designed for a non-rush strat.

Ah, very well. Population Transport minister works standalone well enough? You mentioned some ministers only work well if another minister is on, but I presume "load and drop population" is simple enough once you get the AI to recognise player-designed population transport (which I presume need to be of "Ship - Population Transport" type).

Edit: Oh and could you put in the readme.txt the seeker HP/Dodge formulae? Just as a heads up to people that seeker Structure improves with armour as well (missiles -> torpedos -> caseless torpedos in order of structure). It's an important piece of information - that caseless torpedos are tough things.

While on the topic, I see that weapons improve very gradually as we go up their tech levels. Ok, I can accept that - just have to make a mental note that it's not a big deal to only get a Lv 1 weapon and stop there if I don't plan on staying with that weapon type long (e.g. I'm getting to Gauss fast). Also that I'd need to research a vast batch of levels all in one go to make retrofitting worthwhile. I hope the AI doesn't clutter up its designs with too many extremely similar ships?

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Then the alternative is to have more mineral facilities and make the AI build a lot of research centres on its colonies. In particular, if it's not Organic or Crystalline, then it should consider building some research centres on huge Farming/Refining colonies. It's not ever going to need to keep a surplus of NET 400kT+ organics/refining which is what happens when you build 40+ farms/extractors on a 140+% huge planet.

I have a tendency to micromanage how many facilities I build based on what my Net income is - too much surplus is inefficient. Oh and ALL my domed colonies (didn't matter if it was a nice 150%) were research centres - with 2 production/intelligence facilities to fill up space. In fact, anything that wasn't 120+% in something became a research colony. Conceivably I could focus on intelligence instead to make a super intel crippler empire.

Mid-game when various booster facilities appear (e.g. Mineral Scanner, Robotoid Factory), your AI will need to raze facilities to build these. I think 1.25 had a 'scrap facility' script now?

Resource production also seems bloated. IRM Mineral/Organic/Radioactive facilities are 75% of stock in size, yet pump out 4000 a turn at Lv 1. With so much surplus, it's just another excuse for me to make even 120% planets into Research colonies and get away with it. More research = I get Robotics Factory, Centralised computer systems and can upgrade my resource extraction techs easily if I ever need more money.

The inherently fast build speed of space yards, I can accept. It makes for a faster game and bigger fleets. It's resources that should limit our construction, not build speeds (assuming we have a big population).

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Hmm... Tech-wise I like how you have a "Nuclear Weapons Technology" pre-requisite before we get to a really really cheap "Nuclear Weapons" tech that actually produces the warheads. That makes the low-tech cost and extremely high max level acceptable.

I wonder slightly at how cheap the colonization techs are though. The ability to colonise a new type of planet is extremely powerful for expansion. I'll have to try a 1 Homeworld game next time I get some time with the new version. I will probably try to find an empire to trade colonisation tech with to save the time, but IMO making it more expensive will really make such a political deal much stronger.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Myself, i would suggest the AI be ready to call more colonies - not necessarily the homeworld - research centerses, and hopefully from that type build accordingly. perhaps based on threshold of planet worthlessness, or on, as humans do, PRIORITIZATION.
i will say this - in irm i have seen the AI colonize VERY aggressively, perhaps not always fulfill its facility potential, and research techs sometimes ahead of mine.

I don't mind if spaceyards are more than one for planet, or, as i've said before, i like the idea of as in the star trek movie, the huge star-born shipyards. (vulnerable to shootin' and boardin'!)
My point being, however, PsiEye is right - it shouldn't be # of planet facilities that controls production- you can always build more of those. Resources - including maintenace - should be the real limit.

Do you REALLY think you will subvert System Vampyre before it subverts YOU?

No, I think space yards are fine as they are but I won't complain if you put them back to stock values (as your population boosts are something indeed). I have to remember this isn't balance mod where you couldn't upgrade space yard rates too much.

Population eating more food would be a big improvement yes.

Yes, so long as supply/ordnance storage on planets remains big, it's ok to nerf the rate they are produced.

Making Research Centres very high upkeep is a good idea. It'd give me a good enough reason to build some resource facilities and there sure is an endless surplus of planets that ought to be producing resources.

--

Finally, regarding the 'we need to raze something to build this Robotoid Factory' issue... don't worry about this for the next release. It's not relevant until mid-late game so let's get the early game tested more while you figure this out slowly. All else fails, we can go back to giving the AI a small bonus to offset these limitations.

I expect that I'd need to give it say a small +50% construction rate bonus or something once I'm used to IRM since at even-tech, even-numbers an AI fleet will not be able to beat me (I always use tactical combat and micromanage). I do expect your AI to produce a worthy fleet to fight though, even if I don't expect it to micromanage that fleet too well at this stage (that'd require a re-writing of Strategies to be individual-weapon-tailored). Even with such an advanced Strategy, it'd need to know things like "set up a strong point of deployed satellites here and flank" or other such Tactics which is way beyond the scope of the AI at present.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.