AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release)

[Icemania]

All:

I've updated the OP with the 1.02 Release including the Changelog. The only change from the 1.02 Beta was docking bays on the Gas Mining Stations.

As posted earlier more Developer support is required with Tractor Beams on Spaceports.

Cheers,
Icemania

[Hawkeye_BF]

Thank you so much!!! [&o]

[Blackstork]

[&o]

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

All:

I've updated the OP with the 1.02 Release including the Changelog. The only change from the 1.02 Beta was docking bays on the Gas Mining Stations.

As posted earlier more Developer support is required with Tractor Beams on Spaceports.

Cheers,
Icemania

Thanks Ice! So the only change from beta was to the designs file?

[WaflHead]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

All:

I've updated the OP with the 1.02 Release including the Changelog. The only change from the 1.02 Beta was docking bays on the Gas Mining Stations.

As posted earlier more Developer support is required with Tractor Beams on Spaceports.

Cheers,
Icemania

Thank you Icemania for continuing to update this mod. You've made the game so much more interesting for us.

Regards,
waflhead

[Sithuk]

Ice: Congratulations on the latest release. When can we hope to see a game report of your play on the hardest settings with the mod? I know there would be interest in an experienced player's strategy with the more challenging AI.

[Icemania]

Cheers all.

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
Thanks Ice! So the only change from beta was to the designs file?

Yep.

ORIGINAL: Sithuk
Ice: Congratulations on the latest release. When can we hope to see a game report of your play on the hardest settings with the mod? I know there would be interest in an experienced player's strategy with the more challenging AI.

It's not a written report but refer here for the start of 15 screenshots on Extreme difficulty and lots of restrictions.

[Blackstork]

Hey Ice.
Are you free now?
Do you want to work on megamod project together in form of excel automation building in order to assemble queues for lurchi mod and other features? This will mainly benefit integration between you and lurchi's mod, and move things toward completion of mega-thingie... also if you have some time i would be happy if you glimpse into Beyond adaptation made by me (i will update .6 with your 1.02 so we can polish it afterwards)
Cheers

[Icemania]

Hey Blackstork:

I have a very busy period at work coming up over the next month or so. I certainly intend to help with the mega-mod and will be around the forums, but any serious modding will have to wait until that busy period is finished. In any case it looks like you and lurchi still have plenty of work to do for your 1.0 releases, when I really need is your Mods integrated to really get into the AI.

That said applying the design templates and policy files changes in the AI Improvement Mod should generally be in place as you've already applied them well to Beyond. It's the Research Build Orders that will need some thought with lurchi's new tech tree as they will need to be reworked entirely. This phase should wait until lurchi's new tech tree has been Beta tested (and I also wouldn't recommended integrating with Beyond until that is done either). We should maintain the same weapon type (e.g. phasers) and energy research themes for each race but focus on using the specific branches lurchi is introducing in the Research Build Orders. lurchi's mod may lead to some better builds/strategies and it will also be important to do balance testing. I'd also like to play a few game with lurchi's tech tree before designing the Research Build Orders i.e. keep them blank initially.

A few additional volunteers with interests in particular balancing areas would be very useful for the team.

[Blackstork]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Hey Blackstork:

I have a very busy period at work coming up over the next month or so. I certainly intend to help with the mega-mod and will be around the forums, but any serious modding will have to wait until that busy period is finished. In any case it looks like you and lurchi still have plenty of work to do for your 1.0 releases, when I really need is your Mods integrated to really get into the AI.

That said applying the design templates and policy files changes in the AI Improvement Mod should generally be in place as you've already applied them well to Beyond. It's the Research Build Orders that will need some thought with lurchi's new tech tree as they will need to be reworked entirely. This phase should wait until lurchi's new tech tree has been Beta tested (and I also wouldn't recommended integrating with Beyond until that is done either). We should maintain the same weapon type (e.g. phasers) and energy research themes for each race but focus on using the specific branches lurchi is introducing in the Research Build Orders. lurchi's mod may lead to some better builds/strategies and it will also be important to do balance testing. I'd also like to play a few game with lurchi's tech tree before designing the Research Build Orders i.e. keep them blank initially.

A few additional volunteers with interests in particular balancing areas would be very useful for the team.

I agree with you, but simply saying the problem not with Beyond integration, as you said the most complex thing is AI mod research queues with research mod tech tree. Implanting the queues and building few more techs for additional races uniques is all is needed in order to fit it into Beyond, and thus Beyond could be the last stop, but with preparation. Like when you build something you need just to leave some sockets to insert last pieces. This will be easiest and shortest way to combine all, for everyone. This is specially actual because Beyond is completely integrated with AI mod, and wont be compatible with research mod without queues build for at least default races. I propose to build something that serve all of us in single puprose at rapid integration. It may be more some work at start but will allow easy modifying and integration in case one of mods have changes (and they will happen because devs of DW keep updating the game)

If we will continue to mod all the changes manually, the final project (Beyond receiving your mods and your names as devs mod-team as it seems to be) will need constant manual tiresome updates. I propose to workout some excel automation so it will allow very simple integration between research mod and ai mod, and will benefit ease of implementation and updates within megamod project. This could also benefit updates on separate mods (AI mod and research) - simply the way you made your bias table can solve and make implementation of policies, research queues and many other things much easier. I see you are good in excel, and i know it well too. It might be good thing to invest some though into automation (for example building sub-queues for different design focus races, so in race's tab the queue will update itself and will be ready for copying into race.txt)

Obcourse RL time is above all, but as far it is possible even at low pace - we could do it to prepare the ground and make it very modular.

[Icemania]

Blackstork, if you have the time to do some automation between the Excel file and race files, please go ahead. However, as I've already mentioned, it's a very busy period ahead.

[SirFinbar]

Thanks so much for this mod, really improves the AI.

I've found a nice way to play for my skill level. I play on normal, assign myself a 'Standard' system, then create the other empires manually. I keep everything random, apart from the AI's home system quality and tech level. For the systems, some get 'Standard' then others 'Great' then a smaller percentage 'Excellent'.

Seems to create a nice challenging campaign. I just really dislike games that hand the AI artificial bonuses on higher difficulties.

I also don't fiddle with taxes, to keep it fair. Promotes strategy. (I'm sure there's a ton of other exploits that I also don't use)

[Icemania]

Thanks SirFinbar. I share a similar preference to avoid AI artificial bonuses but what can be done with the AI has it's limits. Please keep in mind the Mod about text that recommends Hard as a minimum. The extra cash on Hard and above helps the AI a lot to manage areas that can't be further trimmed by Modding ... and limits the artificial bonuses.

[SirFinbar]

Perhaps I will consider playing on hard and above.

Am I right in thinking that you must play a pre-warp start, in order to have the improved research paths used by the AI?

[joproulx99]

Just passing by to say GOOD JOB so far!

PS: non english dude so sorry for ruined grammar!

YOU CAN SKIP THIS PART:
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I just recently upgraded to universe, bought this game at shadow's release, and although ive never been here(lol), i think back then i spent more time trying to mod this game AI to a point where i lost interest because of the limits and unresponding policies etc...

Basicly most of the time i had to find solutions that the ai was actually responding to through (exausting) trials and errors, instead of what I was originaly setting him to...

All in all the game seem to become more and more open and this can only be a good thing! I wish that all this modding community ask for get done by the dev team for the sake of it!

ON TOPIC:
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(i got Universe 2 days ago so bear with me)(or beer with me im a beer truck driver lol)

- I havent look at all ships yet but i know that humans capital ships have 2 ion defenses atm, 1 is max needed, it doesnt stack. Unless its a back up one (cough)

- I would suggest the devs to make fleets stop hyperdrive at weapon in range for standoff and very close at point blank. This IMHO is critical...I just ran a small test last night and my missile using fleet stop too close on enemy target...they SHOULD stop at max range seriously, think melee vs range dps, why would i stop melee range when im using long range tactics? make no sense lol (i come to this because id like to make the range of some weapons alot longer and it works well beside this)

+/- ON TOPIC:
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Im just going to throw some ideas here that comme to mind, im still unsure if that should go to your balance weapon thread though but here it is:

Imagine gravity well stopping ships at 10000 instead of what? 2800 but make some weapons like missiles having very long range! like 15000(end game) instead of 990 (lol), you'd be able to defend a system (to some degree) with only that missile spaceport! because you make the decision to research missiles and gravity well to be a careful and defensive race. Now those race would be easier to defend but the idea of going far in space and get GW hyperdenied and outdps hard at closer range would give some very fun moments/choice.(anyway you get the idea)

I prefer the idea of weapon's role vs the early/late game idea...right now (idk in you're mod,havent test enough yet) but torpedos were just plain OP not because of dps or energy used no,just too high damage per shot compared to anything else making them remove chunk of shield that cant recover fast enough and in a sense bypassing armor rating way too much making armor a joke. Making them be all end all, oblitaring at short range and same range as missiles late game to boot(damage loss per sec, pfff my ass)

The problem with torpedos is they are magnified beams with a different name and stat and given a tech path...i think only 1 weapon should be jack-of-all-trade, beams are them and torpedos should be beams called torpedoes lol. I remember having test this to death, armor and shields were outclassed by torpedos high damage per shot, not dps or energy or anything. in a 1v1 vs long range missiles it might look ok...but in reality, in a real fleet vs fleet the torpedos will break your day.

-i suggest:
a)remove them!
b)make them join beam weapons becoming a preference path, like long ranged but less damage or something in beam tech path
c)make them a weapon that you find through exploration,and slighlty OP, possible?

-make phaser a unique path not part of beams, they have a unique role after all!

- I think some races should get locked researches, like armor, gotta fear these railgun guys since im playing x race that have none! :O
- in this line of thought we can create race specific techs, so why not abuse it to make so much more unique techs, is it possible to make a race unique armor tech but deny them the original one? if races can have multiple race specific tech it can be very easy to make all armors / shields / weapons different from race to race etc...so much potential...and work!

another thing

I think damage vs size vs energy used vs range vs damage lost per 100 vs generators energy etc..is a mess atm lol, ( not in your mod, i mean in general) who's the math guy behind this xD, it almost look as if it was purposefuly done to be as confusing as can be so its stay an enigma for everyone. I think it should be uniformed a bit more so that each value is given a ''price'' and converted to a general value/per size, then its a matter of +1 -1 system where if i chose 1 more weapon i have 1 less armor or one less engine, giving intuitive results. and since they all have same size / energy use per/second per/tech level i know the result of adding/removing a component much better etc...idk

Ion weapons need a serious buff, having to research them and all...they should compete with shield and armor

oh well i could go on and on but thats it for now

[joproulx99]

ive been doing a little test and when i set my game to max level tech, the game actually not your mod set the capital ship to having 2 area shield recharge and 2 ion defense...although you only ask for 1 in design template

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: SirFinbar
Perhaps I will consider playing on hard and above.

Am I right in thinking that you must play a pre-warp start, in order to have the improved research paths used by the AI?

Glad to hear it!

You can start wherever and the AI will apply whatever is left in the Research Orders as they are fairly long.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: joproulx99
All sorts of ideas

I would recommend talking with lurci for Research Reloaded. When that is complete, and I have enough time to do more than a few forum posts, I'd like to apply the AI Improvement Mod to it (along with the unbelievable amount of material Blackstork is adding in Beyond which is already integrated with the AI Improvement Mod).

[SirFinbar]

I envision a mega-mod!

[Jethro420]

ORIGINAL: SirFinbar

I envision a mega-mod!

There's a lot of that going around...