Warhammer 40k DW:U Mod

[mensrea]

Thanks Icemania, I appreciate that. Glad to hear the mod is working as intended, though I did reign in the massive incomes a bit with this update as it seemed like there was so much money sloshing around that it became meaningless. I also wanted to thank you again for your AI work. Based off your findings I completely reworked the policy files. I noticed that AI's actually explore now, and have real research bases! I also noticed that while at first they don't obey the fleet split, often building loads of escorts and frigates, as the game matures they will actually obey it and only build capital ships. It's too bad about the minimum troop garrisons not working though...and it seems like the AI doesn't obey the tax settings either.

Blackhelm - I addressed your concerns with the Auretians and set their income bonus to rare minerals as 2 STC bonuses was a little redundant. I already took that route with the Lacrymole being obsessed with biodiversity.

I also did something a little different with this update aside from the usual and included a lot of new characters. In addition, all the characters are named after people who have commented on the forums here or on steam, in addition to some others who I generally admire. There were 2 people I couldn't because they had nothing near a name I could use. I also took some creative liberties with some names to make them fit but all in all you should be able to recognize yourselves.

Here are the named:
-Eldar
Cypher
Solarius
Andydis
Manth the Icy

-Ork
Zhukov da' Beard
Brain-Boy Haree
Boss Rutins
Elliod Krushteef

-Auretian
Sabel Cask
Oos
Raruto Kazzumaki

-Lacrymole
Konrad Fanakrå
Strelov
Bochenek
Gaskell
Cyrtis
Seelöwe

-Loyalists
Andreus Plowden
Christus Ardryn
Michael Leroux
Derrickas Moore
Maximus Moore

-Heretics
Frederick Bellander
Bokar Jamesen
Arnoldas Rimkevicius
Antonius Luke
Andre the Silent

-Imperial
Kevinus Ellison
Phocian Moranis
Richard Elias

My apoligies if you didn't get the faction you want. You can always weigh in and let me know. There is also a lot more room for others so I would be glad to name whoever, just let me know.

Finally, here is the mod: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/561 ... %20v.8.zip

It took a while this time but I think the wait was worth it. Lots of fixes, too many to detail even (I lost count), so I just summarized most of them. Here is the changelog.

v.8 changelog
-complete rework of weapons tech tree and components
-implemented noteable changes to policies and research station/spaceport designs as a result of Icemanias AI improvement mod findings
-finished Auretians, Gykon, Megarachnid
-fixes and balancing to the following: governments, races, policies, components, resources, images, facilities
-at least 5 characters for the following races: Eldar, Ork, Auretian, Lacrymole, Loyalists, Heretics, Imperials, Gykon
-leader character for every faction
-Ork character names
-several new wonders
-varying chance for race events
-new Human ship names
-improved legacy facilities
-added named characters

[SF-Inc]

Is there something wrong with Enhanced Energy Collection in the Energy tree? Always start with Energy Collection researched but then the next level tech tells me I must research the preceding project.

[mensrea]

Yes, there was an error in the energy tech tree. I'm surprised no one had pointed it out before now actually, I hadn't worked on the energy tech tree for a while. Its fixed now so it will no longer be bothering anyone. If you downloaded the mod already I am attaching the fixed research file, just overwrite the one in the WH folder with it. Everyone downloading it after I post this will be fine though.

[SF-Inc]

Well I only ran into the problem with it last night after trying out the weapon tree teaser file so you must have changed something in that tree accidentally.
Thanks for the quick fix though

[Capshades]

Yeah I've been using a "planetary base" starbase with med facilities and recreation center to calm populations down, but by the time they get built the world has stopped revolting. Generally only keep 1-3 full construction stations.

Currently playing the Diasporex, having last played the Imperium it's pretty intense how serious the initial boost is of a strong trade economy and the early-access hyperdrives.

I flipped through a random codex at a bookstore the other day, written about the Tau Empire. Will you be adding them soon, or are they already in under a different name? Excuse my lack of WH40k knowledge.

[SF-Inc]

Our buddies in the Tau Empire were not around at this time period. This mod takes place during the Horus Heresy which was in the 31st millennium. I think there was actually something about an Imperial surveying ship that went to the Tau home world at this time but they were still in a barbaric non-spacefaring state XD

Edit: Got me curious again [:D]
"What is known is that only 6,000 standard years ago, in the 35th Millennium, an Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleet discovered the Tau homeworld of T'au and determined that its population of sentient xenos were a primitive people at the Stone Age level of development, having only just mastered fire. Since then, the Tau have developed very rapidly to a space-faring species."

[mensrea]

SF-Inc is correct. Though I can add one race that has been asked for: the Necrons. It will be difficult to play as them though, as the population will basically not grow, just make up for losses. They will also constantly go berserk on any races sharing a planet with them, so forget about cheesing it, hehehe.

On the other hand they will be incredibly powerful, and even one planet of Necrons will be a danger to the galaxy. God forbid they manage to link up with other sleeping tomb worlds...

I also want to start rounding up more and better ship, troop and GUI art. In light of recent modding changes that will allow race specific GUI's I would like to have ones for the Imperium, Eldar and Ork at the least. If anyone knows of any good artwork we could start adding to shift away from vanilla models please help me out. I'm not really big on art and stuff, so I can definitely use outside help.

[Capshades]

Uh, I think i have a bug. Just tried V.8 for the first time as Imperium with prewarp tech, and the AI isn't adding weapons to the space ports other than anti-fighter. I've researched several weapon techs and despite prompts to upgrade designs with them, it's not adding them to the space port...

[scouseern]

Great work as always my friend.

Like the Andreus Plowden a lot!

[mensrea]

Thanks scouseern, glad you like Andreus, I hear he's one of the finest warriors in the Astartes!

Capshades - I altered AI research base and port blueprints to put an emphasis on research, construction and longevity (much more armor and shields) rather than weaponry, as I figured that weaponry is mostly covered by defense orbitals. I do plan on adding weapons back to ports but to do so will mean I have to look at every races preference and incorporate those specific weapons. In the meantime I figured proper research systems are more important so they can get the good stuff for their fleets and not always be left behind in research (not to mention actually have the capacity to build the fleets this mod enables them to have). I'm not sure why they are not following your orders, though, as we are not even able to mod stuff like that. Have you tried manually adding what you want to it through the design screen?

I was also wondering how the new weapons tech tree is working out and what you guys might think about me expanding it even further. Now that the framework is in place adding more upgrades is almost trivial, but I realize not everyone wants to be stuck researching stuff forever. Of course, users can simply select faster research rates at game setup, but who knows.

[Capshades]

Well, I'm just used to not bothering with defense orbitals haha, I can manually add weapons. I was just surprised when an ardiulus came at the station and it didn't do anything...problem solved though.

Tech tree is fine imo, better early-game options, however the Medium-Ranged category seems a bit redundant. I like what you did with the armor system, though it would be nice if the game considered both reactive and passive armors to be up-to-date all the time, and didn't switch between them.

Did you modify something in the AI's motivation to get Wonders faster? The AI beat me to four Wonders which is very unusual....

[mensrea]

All MR weapons, or one type in specific? My aim was to really give a middle option to those who didn't want to pick SR or LR that sort of combines them both. If you tell me which ones (or all) I can take a second look and see if we can make things more diverse. Sadly you can't see resource costs at a glance because sometimes that's where the bigger differences are.

I know how you feel about the armor, too. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not but keep this in mind: rating is how much damage the armor can take before it breaks, reactive rating is how much damage the armor will outright ignore (to an extent). I would say reactive armor is best against weaker weapons while passive armor+component repair would be better vs. stronger ones.

I didn't set the AI to favor wonders yet but with the improved research they will naturally just discover things much faster. The Eldar in particular are usually hogging up all the wonders in my games.

[mensrea]

Ahh, and the mystery of the Communist Orks has been solved. While reviewing stuff I realized that the governments Orks can't access started with 1, but this game starts everything at 0, and thus my mistake was illuminated. I also think the reason people are having crashing economies under anarchy is due to the level of corruption so I asked one guy who had the problem to cheat some regional capitals in each sector of his and see if that addresses it. I imagine with anarchys heightened corruption levels coupled with bigger empires and pirates setting up shop all over the place an empire could be so wracked with corruption that they would no longer make any money at all.

I do have a pretty cool solution in mind but I will wait to hear back before I fix something that may not be broken.

[SF-Inc]

Well I haven't been able to recreate the bug but I feel like something needs to be done about the Orks...Can't go 5 years into a game against them without having all my planets bombed to Hell or assaulted by hundreds of troops supported by 5000 size ships with thousands of shields and firepower.

I understand they are supposed to be powerful but they are just a brick wall in any game I decide to put them in.

[mensrea]

That's strange about the Orks. In every test game I have run they are always doing so-so. However, I run games on the smallest maps with every race, so that might be affecting things. Can you tell me what version they have been doing this since, what your map and difficulty settings are and what race you play as? No race should ever be a brick wall (aside from maybe the forces of Chaos which are meant to be teamed up against) so I do want to address this especially if others are experiencing the same problem. I'm thinking that perhaps the recent addition of improved research and the Orkimedes character may have given them the edge they need to explode across the galaxy.

I would also suggest going after their leader ASAP. If you can manage to kill him it will bring their reign of terror to a quick end and maybe give you enough time to turn the tides back on them.

I would also suggest using LR weapons against them. Maybe a combination of LR torpedoes and LR ion cannons? Their main weakness is that they have a -99% research malus, basically making it so they are stuck with the techs I give them to start with. Which means, no ion defense, relatively weak shields, etc..though it sounds like they are making due by just stacking roks with more of everything. Kind of scary actually. Now I know how those poor bastards on Armageddon must have felt, and that WAAAGGHH wasn't even one of the larger ones.

[SF-Inc]

I was using the latest version while playing and I was playing as Imperials on a smaller map (400 stars 8x8). One of the main problems I was having was that Imperials need to spend so much to get a decent warp drive even though, as far as I know, the Imperials have always had the tech to make fast warp engines. The only reason the human empire fell before was because of the Eldar screwing with the warp and preventing ships from traveling in it. Might be a good idea to give all the races some form of decent warp drive from the start, while obviously leaving the legacy stuff to keep the smaller races with their advantage.

[Capshades]

Or perhaps just add the Imperial faction to the spacefaring legacy tech?

To answer your first question mensrea, I meant that just the MR weapons in general seem a bit redundant, though I see your point.

What I meant about the armor is that it seems the way you've changed it makes it viable to use both armors at the same time in a design, the AI just doesn't want to do that.

On the point of the Orcs, I don't even bother playing with them. I only play the extra-large maps, and they have too large an advantage to be considered fair, especially when I play Imperial. They're really interesting to play as though haha

[mensrea]

To be honest I always start out the Imperium and Eldar as having slightly developed empires and everyone else starting with nothing, to keep up with the fact that they did already know most of that stuff. I'd highly suggest doing that when running a game as the Imperium as you will start out with at the least the second warp tech. I'm not sure if giving both races another buff is a good idea as they are already significantly better than every other race. I will be balancing the energy tech tree for the next update though, so I may just make it so the Gerax doesn't have such a high cost for its tech level.

I'm also wondering if your the victim of the Commie Ork bug. Can you check their government type? I was waiting on some guy from steam to report back on a potential fix for the broken economy thing but I will just release a fix for it and the Red Ork menace shortly.

[SF-Inc]

Alrighty, starting games that way should be more helpful.
I did not have the Commie Ork bug, just their collapsing economies; though that was several versions ago. In the game I just got spanked in they were still good ol' Anarchists luckily. Couldn't even imagine them waving the Red.

[Capshades]

No they're always anarchist