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I'm happy I'm not the only one that finds it difficult.

Oh yeah, it certainly is. I would like to start an AAR on this game, but... I'll go a bit further and judge my likelihood of survival. [;)]

Does this include the current versions of AI Mod 1.05 and Research Unlimited 2.2?

Does this include the current versions of AI Mod 1.05 and Research Unlimited 2.2?

I use AI Improvement Mod 1.05 and RetreatUE Mod. My understanding is that there is not a huge amount of difference between Research Unlimited 2.2 and RetreatUE (Unleashed/Extended).

Of course, I might be mistaken on that count.

RetreatUE has its separate AI mod. It is fine tuned for UEII. Therefore I hope it's better.

Mordachai's UE mods follow a similar research tree to Research Unlimited. RetreatUE didn't change research from UEII (except error checking).

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

RetreatUE has its separate AI mod. It is fine tuned for UEII. Therefore I hope it's better.

Mordachai's UE mods follow a similar research tree to Research Unlimited. RetreatUE didn't change research from UEII (except error checking).

Yeah thanks Retreat was just not sure which version of Research Unlimited Mordachai last updated with and thus your mod as well. For example I see that Osito's Pirate changes are not included from his 2.2 version?

So your Retreat UE has a modded AI Improvement Mod 1.05 to improve things to be more compatible with UEII but an older version of Research Unlimited?

Could you link your most recent modded Retreat version? I downloaded your last post that says 2.5 but in game it says 0.1A?

I named it 2.5 at first because Mordachai said he was making a third version. Then we decided on RetreatUE, and I never changed the version number. I haven't made an update so whatever you downloaded is the latest.

Yes I reworked race, policy, templates, and research scripting just like Icemanias mod, but more. RetreatUE is UEII but with all I mentioned before. There is no modded AI improvement 1.04(5). Mine is stand alone.

RetreatUE has its separate AI mod. It is fine tuned for UEII. Therefore I hope it's better.

It can be a right royal pain in the arse! But loads of fun; even the frustration has a certain fun value... mayhaps it's the soundtrack? [8D]

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

I named it 2.5 at first because Mordachai said he was making a third version. Then we decided on RetreatUE, and I never changed the version number. I haven't made an update so whatever you downloaded is the latest.

Yes I reworked race, policy, templates, and research scripting just like Icemanias mod, but more. RetreatUE is UEII but with all I mentioned before. There is no modded AI improvement 1.04(5). Mine is stand alone.

Gotcha thanks! And just found your Readme! Very helpful!

----------------

RetreatUE

All of UE2's credits still apply. If anyone is missed, my apologies.

My desire was to make UE2 hard, or at least as hard as I could within the AI's limitations. I feel I have done the best I could.

Changes from UE2:

5 new races. I didn't have to add any since I already feel there are too many, but I did it for fun. I stopped at 5 because I hit the shipset limit of 50.
Abiddon, Amonkrie, and Drushocka. Three races from the Space Empires universe. The Drushocka adds the Silicoid race family. Unfortunately they are the only one.
Arm and Core. Some of you older players may remember these guys from Total Annihilation (my favorite RTS). The Core has its unique Government The Core Consciousness,
and a unique leader character.
There is more about these races in their help files.

All design templates have been edited for every race. The goal was to streamline builds and make things efficient not wasteful. For example: The Atuuk are railgun.
They're not Ion, missile, or Gravity. Therefore all Atuuk builds are heavy railgun and ZERO everything else. Think that's weak? Wait until you meet them. Since they're
only railgun they tend to research railguns pretty fast.

Added two files to the help folder. Adamantium and Uranium. I still need to make a core consciousness help file, but I'm lazy.

All policy files were edited. The biggest changed were: research industry focus, troop loadouts, ship capture settings, population limits for construction etc...

Race files. All race files have a research script for all three branches. They all extend to end game. They all will research certain wonders (depends on race).
None push for wonders, so it should still be possible for the player to get one or two.

Weapon branch notes: Beam races research to superbeam. Gravity and Area were combined for grav races because of the dependancies. I cut the size of all grav weapons
by half. I think grav weapons are weak, but I didn't want to alter them much, so I got lazy. Most everyone researches point defense to terminal. The hanger bays were
changed. Normal bays make 4, 6, 8 fighters per tech level. The racial bays make 6, 8, 10 fighters per tech level. I did this because the AI was not upgrading bays before.
Now they do. All races research armor to reflective. They all research armor, defense, and special forces. All research Elite Troop Project and fortified bunkers.

Energy branch notes: Extended Keskudon reactor to end game. Extended and altered Dhayut drive to end game, and it's formidable. Extended and altered the Riktoh space
denial. Changed space contruction sizes to 250, 500, 800, 1200, 1600, and 2000. There was a reason which was certain ship classes (capital, carrier, resupply), if they
didn't have sufficient space, would use older tech and never upgrade (applies to AI not people). Bumping up the size limit a little seemed to help. Changed sized of engines.
AI wasn't upgrading from Ion in some cases. All research planetary shield, and remote shielding.

Hitech branch notes: All races with a spy bonus (human, lipid, etc...) research out to stealth and use it. Everyone researches out to fleet target and ecm. Everyone
researches out to deep space arrays. I wasn't sure if the AI needs to see, but I added it in anyways.

Just a note about research scripting: everyone researches out 30 techs per tree (more or less). They all basically research the same because I wanted everyone to be relatively
close in tech power (+/- 1 tech level). This leads to competitive games. Races stick to their weapon of choice. If its missiles, its missiles. Remember this only applies to AI behavior.
You can do whatever in your designs. Games should be challenging. That was the whole purpose. I've seen the Ugnari pummel my fleets with planet busting rail guns before I finished
the phaser line. It was not good. Luckily the AI doesn't follow up on things too well. I was vulnerable, but they left (thank god). Some of the warrior races research army upgrades
pretty far. Be wary of invasions. Bring alot more than what you think. Especially since they'll build the elite troop building and fortress.

Added Moo2 and SE5 music. I feel Moo2 music is the best space music ever made, so simple yet haunting.

There's alot more I probably missed. All of this was because of the love I had for UE. Thank you Mordachai.

ORIGINAL: mordachai

Here's my notes for III:

Hiigarans correctly have desert world priority / bonuses
Hyperdrives are in the correct order (quick/slow, medium/medium, laggy/fast)
Added Advanced versions of all hyperdrives
Fixed errors in napoar race file (duplicate entries)
There are now three distinct lines of reactors:
Fusion (good capacity, low output rate, good fuel efficiency)
Casalon (decent capacity, decent output rate, decent efficiency)
Helium (okay capacity, great output rate, worst efficiency)
Top-end reactor (quantum) is now hydrogen based, and fantastic efficiency & output & capcity (but an extra tier more expensive)
Many tweaks to balance of hyperdrives and reactors to give a better relationship amongst them
Revamped colonization research & bonuses:
Ocean, Desert, Continental, and Marsh/Jungle all have affinity, with Ice and Volcanic being more difficult to research and produce colonizers on
Ice has affinity with Ocean, Desert, and Continental, with Marsh and Volcanic being more difficult to research and produce colonizers on
Volcanic has affinity with Marsh, Desert, and Continental, with Ocean and Ice being more difficult to research and produce colonizers on
* Overall, colonization research is cheaper - you should be able to expand a bit easier

All races use fighters!
All race policies updated to prioritize the correct techs, below, in addition to fighters,
All race design templates updated to align with the following tech-design priorities:

ackdarian torpedo
atuuk rail gun
banoserit phaser
boskara torpedo (point blank + suicidal)
caleph torpedo (racial fighters)
dhayut rail gun
enton gravitic weapons
gizurean beam + bombard (point blank + suicidal)
haakonish gravitic weapons
hiigaran rail gun
human missile
ikkuro phaser
jintus rail gun
keskudon torpedo + bombard (point blank + suicidal)
ketarov gravitic weapons
kiadian torpedo
lemeresh phaser
lipid phaser + ion + boarding pods
mechanoid beam (point blank)
mortalen missile
napoar missile
naxxilian phaser
ortain rail gun
paratis missile
phaerax beam + bombard (point blank + suicidal)
quameno gravitic weapons
riktoh missile
securan torpedo
shakturi torpedo (racial) (point blank + suicidal) (implicit bombard)
shandar missile
sluken beam + bombard (point blank + suicidal)
tairoshan phaser
tarapin missile
teekan torpedo
ungari phaser
visareen missile
wekkarus beam (racial) (point blank)
xhuman gravitic weapons
yl'ta beam + bombard (point blank + suicidal)
yor phaser (racial)
zenox torpedo

I guess version III was never released?

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

Mordachai it's good to see you. I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds.

All I'm doing is adding a icemania AI mod, but on steroids. So UEIII won't be for everyone, but if you want a challenge then it's for you. I'm almost done, but work is getting in the way of finishing. There are a few things you might want to know for UEI and II since I've been watching the AI for the past 3 weeks.

The AI doesn't upgrade fighter bays. It shows as an upgrade for players, but the AI never upgrades. I've found the repair rate isn't the indicator for an upgrade. I changed the fighter capacity to 4, 6, 8 and the racial to 6, 8, 10. It worked. Size may work also.

I was having a problem getting the AI to upgrade from ion engines to proton. Again no problem for player. I changed the size from 6, 7 to 7, 6 which worked. A straight size 6 for all engines may work as well.

The AI won't upgrade from gerax to phoenix. I assumed it was because of the energy usage which it was.

A few other things: I extended the dhayut drive line and the keskudon reactor line. Altered the haakonish fuel cell to be more competitive. Added 5 races (could've done more but I'm at 50 race shipsets). I know there's more but I don't remember. Oh, I changed all of the policy files, because some of the settings actually matter lol. Tech focus (AI builds more research stations in that focus). Capture settings were wrong etc...

I've enjoyed your mod, but I didn't know if you were ever coming back. I'll quit messing with it if you want.

Where can you find the racial bays? I looked in the components file but only see the normal bays? What changes did you make from Gerax to Phoenix to get AI to upgrade?

Racial fighter bays are for the Caleph race, and they are named All Dimensional Fighter Bays or something like that.

I reduced the power requirements for the Phoenix if I remember right.

UEIII was Mordachai's next update, but he disappeared again.

Bump.

is it safe to follow all research paths in this mod?

I just downloaded this and there seems to be a few extra races that I don't recognize as being from other mods in there including one called "arm" and one called "core". What are these? Core doesn't even have a race pic, it's just a symbol.

The Core and Arm races are taken from another game called Total Annihilation.

ORIGINAL: Sabranan

The Core and Arm races are taken from another game called Total Annihilation.

Interesting, thanks for the heads up!

The Core and ARM were locked in a 4000 year long war that started over the ethics of transferring human consciousness to machines.
However 4000 years later, the ARM, the remnants of "normal" humanity are nothing more than the clones of clones of clones of the ARM's greatest warriors.

It's a great game, predecessor to Supreme Commander.

Ya I had to put the arm and core in. Snuck a few space empire races in too. That put me at the limit otherwise I would have done more. Those are only in my modification retreatui. If you get a chance tell me how hard it is. It challenged me greatly, and I think it broke Twigsters computer (jk but check out his aar.)

I think I need to be on extreme difficulty, the AI doesn't seem to be expanding half as rapidly as me.
I've got 14 colonies right now in this latest match and growing, the only people stronger than me are the Ancient Guardians.

However there's something weird going on, admittedly it's been like 3 months since my last game but I distinctly remember there being tooltips for character traits, yet I'm not getting tooltips for character traits anymore.
Am I getting mixed up, were there never tooltips for character traits, if there weren't how the hell do you find out what traits do in clear terms? I'm asking because the modding guide is only telling me roughly what they do, not in exact numbers.