Expansion mod

[Retreat1970]

Request: Change the AI tax ceilings from 0k, 1000k, 2000k (low, medium, and high). I'm unsure about the medium number it may be 500k.

Reason: As soon as the AI hits 2000k it imposes as high as a tax that it can on the colony (keeping happiness around +10). Needless to say it destroys growth.

I have no data to suggest a higher number, but my gut thinks a 5x increase.

[Alvek]

I think it is reasonable to change numbers for tax bracket. And 50% tax limit too, if I got lot of happiness wonders stacked on planet then adviser won't rise tax above 50% even with 30+ happiness and maxed population.

Few questions for you as you have more experience with game:
1)If planet is a low quality and reached max population then it use current tax bracket or go for 10+ happiness and max tax?
2)Changing tax bracket could affect AI empires as they will lose lot of money from capital planet for few years until they reach max population. At hardcore difficulty it will have small influence due to x2 modifier, but at easy and normal AI could struggle to get enough ships. What you think?

[Retreat1970]

1. The AI won't colonize a 49% or below, but a small 50% could be stuck in the middle bracket since it would have a smaller population in theory, but a small 50% would be insignificant towards total taxes anyways.

2. Early games are about growth. Early AI builds too many troops and ships (which seem to ignore some limits in the policy's), and cripples itself. This alone sets the AI back which takes time to recover. The impact of a few years more of lower taxes to fuel population growth, instead of troop/ship growth, should help in the long run. I understand the power of population. I wish the AI did as well even just a little bit. An alternative might be to adjust the population growth rates at the different difficulties to a higher amount (AI not player).

It's all based on conjecture though.

[Alvek]

AI with BaconMod don't colonize below 50% and don't use terraformer to fix them? If not, then that should be fixed as player can spam colonization on all planets and upgrade their quality.

Definitely will look into tax. Maybe additional option to go maximum tax that will give 10 happiness for planet with maxed population regardless tax bracket.

Not sure about changing AI troops count on colonization as it could cripple empires due to pirates raids instead, maybe I will find something in code.

[Retreat1970]

There are potential issues with the AI colonizing poor planets. The terraforming tech is deeper than colonization tech. Not all race AI's (RetreatUE specifically) use terraforming tech (race diversification). How would the AI select colonization targets? Would prime targets get selected first? Would the AI wait to colonize poor planets until terraforming is available? Poor planets are a drain on the economy as somewhat explained here: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... s#p3480781

I've watched the AI with pirates, and it's managed fairly well imo. They use agreements and search and destroy ok. Raiding is an unjustified fear because 3 to 5 infantry (depending on race) will repel most attacks because the pirates come in uncoordinated. Ships are more important imo. Blow up the ship = no invasion.

Of course all of this is my opinion and observations.

[Alvek]

AI definitely should wait for terraforming tech before colonizing low quality and prioritize 50%+ first.

Not sure what to do with mods that don't use terraforming tech for races as it will unbalance them after change implemented.

[Retreat1970]

I mean there are some things that totally benefit the player (terraforming, tech trading, research acceleration, homeworld max pop rush, min/max designs etc...), and that's ok really. It's a single player game only and if you choose to use things the AI doesn't, well, that's a choice and I love options. There are many ways to make competitive games.

[Alvek]

[29.07.2023]
Version 1.09
https://shorturl.at/acdkK
Repair templates to change repair priority on components (See pdf for details)
EM inits on startup instead of new game start or saved game load
Pdf with explanation on what differs from BM and what new features are

On new game start or game load all ship designs without repair template will use player\ai respective template from settings. To reset designs to new template change default settings in file, restart game and use commands to reset them (See pdf)
Zip password: 1234

[Alvek]

If anyone have free and working mht editor I will convert pdf to mht. This will enable use of help file via ingame F1 help like BaconMod help files.
I stopped trying after few hours of loosing text in bugged editor or looking for working online editor.

[Retreat1970]

I don't have an mht editor so I just did this quickly by hand. Some of the punctuation symbols weren't displaying correctly so I removed them. It's ok for a starter. Any word editor will work I think if you want to add something.

[Retreat1970]

Quick question:

If I upgrade from 8.1 to 9 can I just replace the exe or do other things need to be replaced as well?

Edit: NVM

[Blueinstinct]

Hey Alvek, i just found out about your work on Bacon Mod and i want to express my gratitude, thanks for this !

Reading through the discussion, i wanted to add my thoughts regarding QoL in DWU and Bacon.

I frequently ran into the issue where my new warships got produced in a spaceport that was inside the Stars gravity well, thus disabling warp drives, and there was no fuel left in the port, so the ships came out without fuel, and sometimes it took them years to reach the next gasmining station, in one instance, my new carriers could not even catch up with the planets orbiting speed, and just never reached its target.

So i wonder if you could fix setting in the bacon.txt (noFuelCruiseSpeedMultiplier, noFuelTopSpeedMultiplier) they never worked in original Bacon.

best regards, Blue

[Retreat1970]

Just to further the AI tax thought, a 20.0k planet at 50% quality will have a max population (native) of 2.75B and 2.5B (non-native), but that's a small planet with bad quality so a high tax wouldn't contribute much anyways. If we took a more normal 28.0k size and 80% quality the population numbers are 13.8B (native) and 12.54B (non-native) so a high tax rate at 10B might work or maybe 8B. Just thinking out loud.

[Alvek]

I frequently ran into the issue where my new warships got produced in a spaceport that was inside the Stars gravity well, thus disabling warp drives, and there was no fuel left in the port, so the ships came out without fuel, and sometimes it took them years to reach the next gasmining station, in one instance, my new carriers could not even catch up with the planets orbiting speed, and just never reached its target.

So i wonder if you could fix setting in the bacon.txt (noFuelCruiseSpeedMultiplier, noFuelTopSpeedMultiplier) they never worked in original Bacon.

1)There is -- name prefix to disable building on colony or base. I only used it with colonies and it sometimes queued building colonizers at planets with prefix so that need to be fixed too.

2)Will look at noFuel multiplier bug

[Alvek]

Just to further the AI tax thought, a 20.0k planet at 50% quality will have a max population (native) of 2.75B and 2.5B (non-native), but that's a small planet with bad quality so a high tax wouldn't contribute much anyways. If we took a more normal 28.0k size and 80% quality the population numbers are 13.8B (native) and 12.54B (non-native) so a high tax rate at 10B might work or maybe 8B. Just thinking out loud.

I thought about making config to change this values instead of hardcoding them. This way you can adjust them and test them.

[Alvek]

I don't have an mht editor so I just did this quickly by hand. Some of the punctuation symbols weren't displaying correctly so I removed them. It's ok for a starter. Any word editor will work I think if you want to add something.

Nah, editing mht for adequate display in text editors is pain. Pdf is easier to edit with all formatting and all.

[Blueinstinct]

1)There is -- name prefix to disable building on colony or base. I only used it with colonies and it sometimes queued building colonizers at planets with prefix so that need to be fixed too.

2)Will look at noFuel multiplier bug

Much appreciated !

[Retreat1970]

1.09

I've been getting a wrong target pop up when assigning missions to passenger ships. Private. The bacon.txt setting is set to true. I tried changing hotkeys.

[Alvek]

[31.07.2023]
Version 1.09.01
https://shorturl.at/irwxT
Fixed assign mission "Wrong target" pop up. Error in detection ship is private.

[Alvek]

So i wonder if you could fix setting in the bacon.txt (noFuelCruiseSpeedMultiplier, noFuelTopSpeedMultiplier) they never worked in original Bacon.

Cruise, top and warp multiplier are working.

There is problem with BM that you need use your current system decimal separator in BaconSettings.txt file, otherwise BM can't parse float value and use default.
Current behavior for EM with BaconSettings.txt is to use point separator only, but I will change this to support both separators in BaconSettings.txt file.

Check what separator currently in your file.