IRM v 0.8a released!

Ah gee, you just had to release this as I was thinking of having an early sleep (GMT+0 timezone) didn't you?
---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.

I'll miss my saved IRM game, but, really, I think the upgrade bulloxed it.

I use my old Stock game for my game-testing - the AI really has improved-
but even so, when I'm sick of laughing at the AI i'll be right in 8a!

impressive speed on that!

i noticed 2 things in the 0.8a update :

1- only 1 set of design names ?

2- i just begun a game using a large star heavy map and i can't see the edges (right and left ) of the map even by making the view smaller

Hmm... explain the logic of this new Basic Sensor scan range? Is it deliberately made extraordinarily tiny now, to offset the fact that its upgrade cost was ludicrously cheap previously (and still is)?

Oh and by the way, BM manged to remove the 'duplicate flags and shipsets' thing eventually (on empire creation). It's a minor thing, as is the Society bonuses which I feel are somewhat... slightly unbalanced... though I can't quite figure out exact details just yet.

---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.

Good looking forward to this will give it a whirl can sort the design names thing out for 0.8b surly if we dont fix it ourselves. Hope you put the teeth back in the AI

Anyway sensors. No, I don't mind the change - it just means I need to restart my 1 turn game because I spent the initial bonus all on sensors, which now means I made it 1 hex wider in width. I had to restart anyway because of the design files issue when I thought all the AI ships might have to share that same design file.

Yes, separate combat sensors from basic sensors. On a related note, is ECM research supposed to be so expensive? I guess we want ships to be hitting each other most of the time.

Come to think of it... Strategies.txt doesn't update the default strategies when one starts a fresh game (I grow tired of tweaking the strategies each new game, on top of empire options)... or was I clumsy when I tested this way back then?

---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.

Like I said, it's a minor issue so we don't need to think about it urgently. Hmm... I was going to suggest making the basic sensor initial range be larger but I remembered your mod allows planets to be seen on a new system. Warp points can always be inferred from the system map so I may as well switch them on too. Ok, that was the biggest concern I had - early game exploration. Knowing where planets are makes this moot.

Oh and "System Point Radius From Center" must also be set to 410.0 if you don't want the new big hexes

---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.

Curious..... Can you tell if a planet is habitable without getting into sensor range? Or do you have to get in sensor range to find out any information about it?

Thanks,

Javaslinger

Wow that was fast... let´s see how macho it is now =)

Hm... I didn´t have the time to see all posts I don´t know what Fyron´s mod is... What´s the purpose of Fyron´s Beta 2 on IRM?

See ya

by all means seperate combat and basic sensors if you wish it would fit the spirit of the Mod I feel or add a tech which if reserched in conjunction to sensors gives combat sensors which would also fit I think as the techs would be inter related

I actualy like the larger hexes and did not notice the foreshortening of the basic sensor range thats it for now as I do occasionaly need sleep

Oh and are the new scripts necessary to play the mod? What difference they do in the game? Thanks

no they are for those who might want to use them in their own mods all you actualy need is in the interrealted foulder I belive

Mmmm, well you learn something new constantly: changing the Hex settings is game breaking - you need to make a new Map on a new Game to get the changes to be acknowledged - else you get desynched from the graphics and the actual positions.
---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.

i realize this isn't about IRM in particuklar, but i ALWAYS disliked that you knew how many warp points a system had B4 exploring it...

Anyone know how/why, etc?

Oh btw Fallen Haven, do look at the autocomplete mode. It's still putting 2 Lv 1 Life Supports with a Lv 1 Crew Quarters when this is completely unnecessary.

---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.

Lol, well I certainly got on the war path earlier this game - enemy empire found next door to me. Your AI has already been reported to be weak against early-game rushes. Oh dear, this game will again turn into a 'tech rush' for me ^^;; Well we'll see what else happens.

Oh and your Population Ministers half work - they didn't know where to put the people after picking them up. Either that or they too are affected by this "can't load/drop/launch remotely" issue.

Imma sleep now. Conquering the next-door neighbours will be tomorrow.

---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.

He yes I recall that... just wondering if there was another purpose besides modding.

So far so good... it´s turn 16, I have 6 planets and the 1st player has 7, so it´s probably expanding well. I´m producing 18000 RP and the 2nd player 12000, but since the AI has small bonus it´s ahead of me in levels.

Well since in IRM you can see the entire star system, the smaller radius of the sensors isn´t an issue, at least for me.

I have sounds at 20% and the warp sound is RIDICULOUSLY loud... Is this a bug??

Also, can I change some of the sounds back to stock? I'm afraid I'm not a big fan of the ship create sounds.. when adding components...

I was using somebody's sound mod.. Is it possible that these new sounds are the stock sounds??

Thanks,

javaslinger

Just to see if I can't figure out this sound issue... I previously only played the BM with the sound mod and never had these issues... Should I reinstall the sound mod perhaps into your mod folder?

The warp sound is DEAFENINGLY loud even at 20%....

Thanks,

Javaslinger

It's not my sound mod.. It's one I got off here sometime ago.. someone elses... Can't think of the name. But it's doing this also with stock now...

I did install FQM recently so perhaps it's causing the issue as it's part of your mod as well.

Strangely I'm not having this issue on my laptop, but I don't think I've tried your mod or FQM on it yet... I'll have to test that tommorow... may be an issue with either FQM or a combo of FQM and the sound mod...

does FQM alter the sound files also?

Ah... It's Tampa Gamers Sound Mod v1.1....

Javaslinger

Ouch...

Nope.. that didn't fix it... The warp sound is CRAZY loud...

And many of the other sounds are totally different.... but not loud...

Javaslinger

is there an overview of the tech-tree available somewhere?
as it is very different than in stock it would be nice to have an overview to know what to research.

Hmm... considering I want to see what the AI can do over a decent (read: peaceful) early-game, I'll be re-starting anyway. I'm only what... 8 turns in anyway?

ETA on 0.8b? Oh and will you be changing the "Settings.txt" file in any way? I always make a number of changes to it (e.g. number of computer players, combat map radius) so I need to know if I can just copy/paste or do it line by line.

---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.

Would it be possible to make the flags smaller in 0.8b, just like in balance mod ?, That would be cool

Hi everyone

So far I have only played 1 game on 0.8, but I was able to draw a lot of conclusions on it. Why? Because I never started a SEV game in such a horrid setup... Medium map; medium players (13 empires total); high AI difficulty with small bonus. Of the three WPs of my initial system, 2 lead to Neutrals, and the other lead to a system that was quickly claimed by the Phong. Yuck! On the spirit of playtesting through, I´m going through it, and made some interesting conclusions. Here it goes:

-AI still not agressive enough. To be able to expand, I attacked the weakest neutral empire; my initial fleet was decimated, but instead of counterattacking and destroying my colony on their system, they did nothing. Note: the colony was 2 hexes away from their homeworld, so it could see it was defenseless, and remained so for more 3-4 turns.
-I also colonized 1 of the planets on the system the phong claimed before me... Sure it´s mood became "angry", but they didn´t attack the defenseless planet yet... and they have been angry for 20 turns, at least. But that is typical in SEV, so far I don´t recall a single game (stock, BM, IRM) the AI declared war on me, ever.
-Weapons are balanced, through a early missile rush IS effective until PD weapons. I defeated the Neutral using missile ships versus its uranium cannon frigs, I was outnumbered 3-2.
-to spice things up I declared war on the Phong... instead of attacking the colony on their backyard, they are sending frigs piecemeal to attack my home system. Right now I´m amassing a fleet of missile + PD ships to attack, let´s see what happens.
-Ministers working fine (cheers!)
-I liked the new homeworld setup.

I can send the save game files if you want to analyze them FH.
It was the most exciting SEV game I played so far =) See ya

Oh I almost forgot FH... after capturing the Neutral homeworld I found out that the AI didn´t use the space (it was still 29000/32000)... so perhaps you should fill the Homeworld with facilities?

As for tech rushing, I always research RC ASAP, alocating right from the start 70% until I level up. That´s why I always end up ahead of the AI... So maybe, just maybe there should be some pre-requisite for RC level 2... physics level 1 perhaps? It is a simple, ellegant and very effective counter to early tech rush.

AS FH posted, after seeing stock, none of the IR-M AI quirks seem at all severe.
I also always start by maxing out research, btw.
and the set-up you bemoan is exactly what i like. Of course, i lkie aragon in M>Total war, so...

Let me get to the meat:
the AI.
I think this has been said before, it looks as though it is still true.
The Kwok & haven AI's are improved...
If you're noticing they aren't perfect, well, keep in mind they didn't design the game from scratch and have to script the AI's "instructions" from within those constraints. It is going to have SOME of the same flaws.
The AI seems to Colonize very aggressively - which especially at first is wise. That it will keep building colony ships when at war with 3 or 4 empires worries me, but FH's seem less likely to do this.
the sending single ships off, i keep trying to figure out.
i don't know WHAT that is about, but it is a stock problem, not an IRM problem.
AT WAR - don't you get the messages, we are about to clear so-and-so system, your ships might get hurt?
I must be doing something wrong, because in both stock and IRM, i get the murderous mood, quick. I had never seen bloodthirsty until lately, in irm. But in both games, I constantly find myself at war. In the game i took over, of 13"real" empires (and 3 new ones- revolts), of which 9? maybe are left - almost every single one is at war with at least 2.
So in my opinion, the AI doesn't mind DECLARING a war.
It how it FIGHTS them that worries me.
The single ships? I don't understand why they never DO much.
I put that on a seperate thread - if they would just raid, pillage, and blockade...
The fleets - in stock, i saw 1 FORMAL fleet - sitting overa planet it couldn't bombard, actually blockading it. i bet it was waiting for a troop transport, too.
That impressed me.
and we all know Fh has put ALOT of work into his AI using fleets-
the problem , so far as i can see, isn't irm- its that our modders are only having so much luck "arguing" with the ai, so far. These are stock problems (read my post) - i personally think they are much LESS true in IRM.

the issue of the AI reacting to a new threat - you moving into a system - i've purposefully done that to provoke it into attacking. sometimes it works... My concern is it just has a habit of "half-stepping" it - by which i mean, so far as i've gathered, none of the AI's change their priorities if they are AT WAR. Sounds odd?
This related directly to what you said about the Phong as well as the neutral - its tough to get the AI to REACT to change - to actual conditions. Even a defensive AI personality SHOULD have called the warp point you came through a defensive point and sat/mined/shipped/fightered it up.
It does that SOMETIMES.
What it seems tome is that once you break the back of the Ai's "home fleet" -hi clausewitz - even IF you gave it time to recover (which you did)& react - it never really does.
Missiles - i've done much nastier with them, even in IRM, even with my anti-parthian (1 missile "just in case" the ai starts using max range) ships. It's in your tactics... but at least in irm you have to RESEARCH to get that long range, which has always been my point.

In sum - these are all things worth posting, but i wanted to just point out, not one of what i read is an IRM problem.
At worst its a still-not-there-yet problem.

sounds like you're making good progress...
First, i hope to see the "utility ships" - i'm not even going to say 'freighter' anymore - in 8b. the "battleship" drone carrier 9in stock)last night just pushed me over the edge.

second, and i think this is in the spirit of your mod - I notice you have explosive as a damage type - good job - but since projectiles are fairly prominent in IRM, i think you should incorporate a "kinetic" damage type - such as sabot, armor piercing, shards, etc - that has better armor piercing qualities than "normal" damage type.
I was going to do this to the AC, (and slightly reduce the damage to make it balance, and efectively less effective vs. shields)when i realized it would no longer work for stock;
which totally defeats my purpose...
all i really wnated to do was give the stock AI ships a fighting chance. Part of why i was so bitterly disappointed with lst night's eval of stock - just because its ships are no longer "Sitting DUCs", doesn't really help if its doing things like that.

One last thought:
perhaps a large "bombardment" railgun that has insanely long range (relatively) but can only target non-moving targets: bases, satellites, maybe planets - since you have projectiles, why not at least represent the range effects we spoke of - range against something that can't move is a whole new story.

good luck, thanx for the work on the AI.

oops -repost.

while i'm back, qq:
IF i took that one fellow's advice to set fighterbay's release to ultraslow, would that not affcet the first launch as well?
if it deos - why wouldn't it? - it will never launch fighters at all.

"The first launch get delayed as well as the following ones. But it doesn't matter that much as long as the fighter/drone wave is large enough to cause significant damage."
absolutely.
i was referring to the fellow who suggested that i set the launch to 30 minutes for my 1 bay = 1 fighter Anti-Exploit.
i don't think he realized it would effectively prevent launching at all. I was afraid it was and so asked someone who'd no doubt fiddled with it.
Now go mod, sorry!

kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic kinetic

Except in close-range fights, like warp point assaults. If a carrier can't get its fighters off before the enemy can catch up, its got a problem.

I did notice an odd thing while starting a game. One of my frigates was able to cloak for some reason. (EDIT: No cloaking device nor stealth armor on this design. Just to be clear. )

Checked the vehiclesizes.txt file and under "Abilities" for the frigate there is a cloak level in the second ability, though it looks like it should be inaccessible because the "Number of Abilities" line only lists one as available.

Is this something for a future tweak to this mod?

Sinapus wrote:

I did notice an odd thing while starting a game. One of my frigates was able to cloak for some reason. (EDIT: No cloaking device nor stealth armor on this design. Just to be clear. )

Checked the vehiclesizes.txt file and under "Abilities" for the frigate there is a cloak level in the second ability, though it looks like it should be inaccessible because the "Number of Abilities" line only lists one as available.

Is this something for a future tweak to this mod?

I noticed this as well on the first 'scout' frigate I built (just engines, sensors, DUC, nothing special - certainly no cloaking device or stealth armor). Going through the orders looking for 'survey', I stumbled across the 'cloak' command - which, well, seems to cloak my scout frigate as far as I can tell, that can't be intentional?

i cloaked a planet in my old game of IRM, see if its on the plaet order list.
i haven't started my new game.

Couple of comments

1 Ministers work fine only one I have had an slight problem with was the systems to avoid one which took some time to kick in and far too many of my ships took a short cut through a black hole system with a damage causeing warp point in and out bound early game scouts are very fragile

2 We need a ship repair minister especily with the inclusion of the FQM and the more frequent occurence of damaging warp points as I seem to spend a lot of time stoping damaged ships and sending them off to be repaired. Non combat damage was much rarer without it.

Looking forward to IRM 8b

Something strange I noticed, not sure if this is a bug or intentional:

I lucked out and had a large planet of my race's atmosphere near my homeworld (6 hexes away), conditions "good". I put a colony of 10M on it, and started building a freighter to shift more population over.. the next turn to my amazement the new colony had 51M population. Then 91M next turn, 135M, 179M, etc.. the only explanation I can think of is migration, as my homeworld seems to perpetually be at 3950M/4000M as people, I assume, migrate as fast as they're born. Is this intentional? Considering how important population is for production in IRM, and how slowly most colonies develop and how difficult it is to populate them in early game at 20M people per light freighter - having a 400M colony with half as much construction rate as my homeworld 1 year into the game feels horribly imbalanced.

refit minister quirk growing lazy and wanting to try this one out I found it works well but noticed that on occasion it will try to refit a ship at a planet without a space port generating an error message.

---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.

Which is what I ended up doing freighters having the space to do this tl1 scout frigiates dont. One quirk of the refit minister seems to want to refit all your ships regardless of class as the most advanced of the type. Mostly fine but annoying when all your scouts get unexpectedly refited as defence ships as soon as you design one.

This is fine for an AI but I would rather the minister did not do it for a player. None the less I like the new ministers.

Do you have an expected release for 0.8b? Only asking because you appear to be close.. Not meaning to rush.

I'm really enjoying IRM version 0.8a right now... haven't gotten far as I've mostly been trying it out and figuring out its little nuances.. ie. I keep starting over...

Keep up the wonderful work!

Javaslinger

Yes... you can only do so much until MM finally gets things right =(

Oh and aren´t you going to consider adding a pre-requisite for RC level 2? Sure the new centers are much more expensive, but that wasn´t an issue in the 2 games I´ve played so far... With the extra RP you get from an early tech rush, you can always research a few levels of mineral exctraction etc. effectively negating the cost problem.

Keep up the great work =)

No I hardly think "death because we were boxed in" is a serious flaw. Space Yards take a long time to set up on new colonies, so it does have a time limit of sorts to try and break out of the box. If it was unfortunate enough to be placed with little resources and space to expand, then it will naturally die if it can't fight its way out. That's true for human players too - just that a human is better at combat and rushing than an AI.

---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.

You have to consider that you can't plan for every AI. If one is boxed it than another isn't... Sometimes starting conditions may dictate that one AI does poorly where another thrives... If you can make 4 of 10 AI's challenging in a single game, than I think you have done very well.

My 2 cents,

Javsslinger

Hi!

Great work on this mod, thx!

But I have 2 questions:

1) There seems to be a bug with the Freighters:
I cannot create a repair freighter. It seems like the repair bays are not recognized. The freighter has 525 tonnage, and 2 repair bays (150 each). The warning, that at least 40% have to be used for ... still remains. Is it a bug?

2) Ministers. I have to add that I did never use them before. So its perhaps a general misunderstanding of this feature.
I thought it would be possible to build a "Ship - Supply", activate the Minister for "Ships - (All)Resupply", and hand the supply ship to the minister, to make it fly to my scouts and resupply them. But it does not. Also, in the readme, you write that an attack ship the size of a frigate would be used as scout. But neither this nor the "Ship - Scout" designs are used to explore by the minister. I also could not find a minister for "Ship - Supply" or "Ship - Scout". What do I have to do to get some ships scouting and being resupplied by supply ships automatically?

Thanks in advance!

The thing that seemed imbalanced about the migration to me is, your freighters are carrying maybe 1/10th the population that stock does, yet migration seems to be going at full strength - more people migrate on their own than I could move with 4 light freighters dedicated to that colony alone, it seems an extremely powerful advantage. A colony of your atmosphere in your home system quickly becomes a 2nd homeworld in a game where your enemies only have 1.. oh well, I'll just restart if it happens again, I'd like more of a challenge.

Another quirk; are fighter bays supposed to count towards the 40% rule on freighters? (edit: Not talking about the 'exploit' of giving a freighter 1 fighter bay and 40% cargo bays to hold more fighters - my freighters have no cargo bays at all, nothing but fighter bays). My freighters make much better carriers than my carriers.. seems odd, I didn't see fighter bays in the list alongside cargo bays, supply storage, remote mining, etc.

Haven:
Re: Repair Freighter problem Coolinger reported.

Your source files show the use of freighter hulls for Repair Ships and Space Yard Ships. Space Yard components have the cargo storage ability, but Repair Bays don't.

I think Sinapus' point would be that a player (not the AI) couldn't make a repair freighter since the Repair Bay doesn't count towards cargo space requirements.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

so now repair bays DO count towards the freighter requirement?

i can build "tenders" with Light freighters (at low hull tech) wihtout choking?...

LONG LIVE UTILITY SHIPS!

Fact is, it's just like coming across an enemy homeworld in 5 turns and conquering it not so long afterwards - there will be quirks in starting conditions that sometimes make it really easy to suddenly get the upper hand. See the "Bigger is Better?" thread for a lengthy discussion on this situation.

Migration should not be nerfed. It's hard enough getting alien immigrants as it is, it shouldn't be cut even more just to try and smooth out the lucky breathable planet nearby at the start.

Edit: Ok so it got nerfed. Very well, it'll just push me to war even more then, and micromanage the population transport to siphon off loyal people.

Edit 2: No wait, I can just change it back on my own copy. nvm

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Thing about Carriers from my perspective is that you can put on ship mounts on them earlier than other ships. They probably are the best model for a "Flag ship" that's meant to sit back and command instead of being on the frontlines.

Oh and until the "units launched into existing group don't get initial supplies" bug is fixed, having 2 ships have the same capacity of 1 carrier is NOWHERE NEAR equal. You'd only have half the fighters be able to shoot if you launched from 2 separate ships. Now mind you, often you don't need to deploy so many fighters, but if you want to deploy everything with supplies, you need a single ship to do it in one go.

---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.

Thank you Fallen, that's good to know - but if freighters are actually intended to act as poor man's carriers, shouldn't the carrier be a bit more cost-effective to compete? It takes 300 crew (6 life support, 6 crew quarters), my basic light carrier ends up costing 14k minerals! While a freighter-carrier is 5k.. the carrier may have 2x the fighter capacity, but at nearly 3x the cost? As a dedicated ship that can only fill one role, the carrier should be better than a freighter at it - as is I'd rather have 3 freighters for the same cost and more capacity.

the original american carriers, btw, were converted battleships

but quality costs.

i have no problem myself with the poor-man carrier...
what i was seeing is i would put 1 fighter bay
ONE on my "utility ships" and suddenly had, basically a system control ship. (unless at warp point seiges, as we have all agreed)
i no longer had to keep ships in reserve.
i'm talking about cargo bays as fighter holders, thats the "exploit".
with carriers, you are trying to make what effectively IS a big freighter into a vessel with combat abilitieis - speed, power, engines, hull integrity , etc.

there is a reason they are expensive.
wiki or google up comparisons of supertankers vs. carriers if you want real life a an example.

In short, such a 'poor man's carrier' freighter is unsuitable for combat. Especially if you want to carry a vast number of fighters and launch them such that they all have supplies to start with - and in a meaningful time. Therefore, you need Carriers for proper Fleet to Fleet fights.

If I simply want fighters around to defend my home system, why do I need carriers at all? I launch from a planet where I can send much more fighters with supplies onboard. I can even launch in advance and have them patrol around the system. v1.25 fixed a slightly different bug that this is now a perfectly viable maneuveur (as in, the fighters will share their supplies evenly such that all of them can shoot at the start of combat).

---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 i did forget, that i agrere with revery,
is that the crew quarters would need to include not only for pilotsa but for the support staff

that is why i keep saying fighters ARE more than cargo- they are ALOT to support.

my navy friends aren't on, but... we can call an USAF LT.
in on this if you like...

i think revery is going to bring us full circle back to the discussion of fighter bays: CARRIER ONLY.

and i hope in that we will get that 30kt of fighter support DOES NOT EQUAL 30 kt of fighters!

I'm not seeing why - again these are freighters loaded with fighter bays and a few supply/ordnance storage, -no- cargo bays whatsoever. They can launch fighters exactly as fast as a carrier can.. and while they do lack capacity on the individual level, I can put out 2-3 'poor man's carrier' for the price of a real carrier, and surpass the capacity of someone who spent an equal amount of resources/SY time on carriers. They accomplish exactly what a carrier does, except cheaper.

Edit: Yeah, I agree with Badger - the extreme amount of crew quarters/life support on a carrier makes sense realistically, this is required to support all those fighter crews.. the issue is freighters can accomplish the same thing with no extra crew space. The best balance might be just making fighter bays carrier only.. if it's not possible to force freighters to bring along extra crew space if they plan to carry fighters.

Sorry to derail the mod thread, we bug ya because your mod is the best Fallen..