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Tcby was going to have a look at governments, note the mod you've linked to isn't balanced yet.

Personally I like the Wonders we currently have. If some AI Empires become stronger as a result it helps add challenge for human players. Play the AI Improvement Mod on Extreme (in particular) and you could be facing a few AI Empires with Wonders. In comparison with Vanilla on Extreme, I manage to get almost every Wonder. That said, some more Wonders would be good, but I'll leave that to lurchi.

Hi Icemania. I've finally gotten around to starting a game with your mod on Extreme difficulty. I loaded up a small map with 400 stars and few pirates. I've never played Extreme difficulty before, and so far it been well... quite a challenge. I already lost 2 mining stations to pirates because I couldn't afford their protection. I'm not sure if I can play in Extreme difficulty, I mean I'm in the red, and getting pulled by pirates. And I haven't even discovered warp drives yet. If you have any tips you can provide, that'd be wonderful though.

However, I will say one thing, the pirates' fleets are quite a bit stronger. They've ganged 6 frigates on my station. And these frigates are the size of destroyers if this were vanilla (size 300)! I really like the improved fleets.

Here's a screenshot to show what it looks like:



I will take a break from this game for now, but yeah Extreme difficulty is no joke, and the add your AI mod, it makes things ever tougher. I'll be back with another update once I've seen the real empires (if I make there lol).

Icemania

YOU NEED TO MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT

^Also, I'm so happy I have modded planets, the defaults are so meh.

ORIGINAL: Cmiller

Hi Icemania. I've finally gotten around to starting a game with your mod on Extreme difficulty. I loaded up a small map with 400 stars and few pirates. I've never played Extreme difficulty before, and so far it been well... quite a challenge. I already lost 2 mining stations to pirates because I couldn't afford their protection. I'm not sure if I can play in Extreme difficulty, I mean I'm in the red, and getting pulled by pirates. And I haven't even discovered warp drives yet. If you have any tips you can provide, that'd be wonderful though.

However, I will say one thing, the pirates' fleets are quite a bit stronger. They've ganged 6 frigates on my station. And these frigates are the size of destroyers if this were vanilla (size 300)! I really like the improved fleets.

I will take a break from this game for now, but yeah Extreme difficulty is no joke, and the add your AI mod, it makes things ever tougher. I'll be back with another update once I've seen the real empires (if I make there lol).

Hey Cmiller, glad it's making you sweat!


If you haven't played on Extreme before maybe consider restarting using the difficulty level that you normally play with. That way, it would be a challenge, but an achievable one, perhaps!

This Extreme Difficulty AAR may also help.

ORIGINAL: ParagonExile

Icemania

YOU NEED TO MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT

Don't worry I have a "Rise of the Iceturi" scenario in the works, once I finish this Mod

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Tcby was going to have a look at governments, note the mod you've linked to isn't balanced yet.

Personally I like the Wonders we currently have. If some AI Empires become stronger as a result it helps add challenge for human players. Play the AI Improvement Mod on Extreme (in particular) and you could be facing a few AI Empires with Wonders. In comparison with Vanilla on Extreme, I manage to get almost every Wonder. That said, some more Wonders would be good, but I'll leave that to lurchi.

Well thats a shame but I do understand it is your mod after all. I just wish it were possible to add the wonders balance mod to your mod on my own but unfortunately they both touch the research file which they should not because it makes it too hard to combine mods. I just want to change the effects not the research.

The OP has been updated with the 1.01 release for both Vanilla and Extended (both versions now have the same features).

Changelog: 1.01 Release
1. Fixed some design templates with Gravitic Weapons races to ensure that there was a mix of Gravity Beams and Area Gravity Weapons. As it takes a little time to research Area Gravity Weapons, some designs in the previous releases had no weapons until Area Gravity Weapons had been researched, putting those AI's at a disadvantage.

2. Advanced Colonisation Research is now completed by the AI much earlier in the Build Order i.e. so the AI uses the largest colonisation module more quickly. Inserted Optimized Cargo Storage in High Tech Research Orders to ensure Advanced Colonisation is researched, this was an error in the previous release.

3. Reduced Gerax hyperdrive speeds and increased late-game hyperdrive speeds. This helps prevent the AI from sending ships and fleets unreasonable distances before they are ready to do so. Pirates will be a little less effective which helps the AI Empires. Late game mop-up operations can be done more quickly. It should also help the Shakturi if the human player has not given hyperdrive research sufficient focus.

4. Modified AI Energy Research Build Orders to more strongly reflect the styles of each race i.e. balanced / speed & agility / power / efficiency. In the previous release, while Special Technologies always had focus, the Energy Build Order was fairly generic since I always felt AI Empires that focused on speed/agility were at a disadvantage. However, now that the benefits of hyperdrive research are greater, there is more balance.

Great changes, i will do reintegration again, now its easier and easier to track, your mod already will be merged at alpha stage with beyond in today's night alpha.4 release.

I will also upload table file to google drive for our use and fill it with updates done for beyond.

for large scale ships of Dlakar (130% size) it makes sence to add stuff to battle ships / bases only, fuel cells to explorers, and nothing to civil/contruction ships to prevent high maintenance (as far as i see they being updated by the game themselves anyways)?

Cheers

Sounds good Blackstork. Yes for races with larger sizes, add components to the ship designs to align with their bonuses. For civilian ships, maintenance doesn't seem to be much of a constraint, so you probably could add some more components (probably engines) if you wanted to.

Anyone have feedback on what happens when this is used with lower difficulties?

Is it possible to specify degrees and frequencies of randomness in the AI's research behaviour? That might be all you need to scale back difficulty.

ORIGINAL: spiralaxis
Anyone have feedback on what happens when this is used with lower difficulties?

For most of my test games I've been watching the AI on Normal Difficulty i.e. the human players race on Full Auto. The Mod works well enough although it's a little easier for the AI's to struggle with cash hence the recommendation to use Hard and above. If you want to scale back the difficulty give Normal or preferably Hard a try.

Maybe do a Normal rather than Prewarp start to ensure the AI's have more cash as they do struggle on a tight budget.

ORIGINAL: spiralaxis
Is it possible to specify degrees and frequencies of randomness in the AI's research behaviour? That might be all you need to scale back difficulty.

The research orders are specific to each race.

If you want random Vanilla delivers that in spades.

Dude I love it - thank you!! =)

Mate, i really deapened in all your work and i (with alot of effort heh) completely made Beyond and Your 1.01 DWU-E version integrated. Completely. Awesome work, i tracking all changes, so perhaps as you almst finished base releases perhaps we could polish beyond/megamod project thingy, and at mirror any future releases on it? I will release integrated version in 2 hours from this post timestamp, and xlsx file is on google drive already .

Also i noted something important: for Enton designs who base on stealth technology none of designs use stealth. Is it your design because some problem with stealth i am unaware of, or you just didnt reached so deep into tweaking stealth?

This is also because of Dlakar also have some technologies which base on that tech tree.

(i also didnt adapted race biases but thats small thign to do)

ORIGINAL: Blackstork
Mate, i really deapened in all your work and i (with alot of effort heh) completely made Beyond and Your 1.01 DWU-E version integrated. Completely. Awesome work, i tracking all changes, so perhaps as you almst finished base releases perhaps we could polish beyond/megamod project thingy, and at mirror any future releases on it? I will release integrated version in 2 hours from this post timestamp, and xlsx file is on google drive already .

Very cool Blackstork. I'm looking forward to playing more than Modding for a while, so happy to share any updates I'm working on.

ORIGINAL: Blackstork
Also i noted something important: for Enton designs who base on stealth technology none of designs use stealth. Is it your design because some problem with stealth i am unaware of, or you just didnt reached so deep into tweaking stealth?

The Enton Designs for Cruisers, Capital Ships and Troop Transports, as well as every Enton Pirate Military Ship, use Stealth Cloaks. Stealth Cloaks require 35 space so I'm not convinced they add enough value on other ships where space is at a premium.

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

ORIGINAL: Icemania

So when are you all going to start posting your own screenshots?

The only way this Mod becomes worth the effort is screenshots from you of crazy battles or getting destroyed by the AI ...

I think its safe to say you will see a lot more playing and testing from most people when the extended version is out.

now also this mod completely integrated into Beyound (which extends even extended :V) ALPHA version
(sneaky promotion / add, isnt it? )

When the patch 1.9.6 is released I will start a real game and see if for myself the improved difficulty.

ORIGINAL: Icemania

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

ORIGINAL: Icemania

So when are you all going to start posting your own screenshots?

The only way this Mod becomes worth the effort is screenshots from you of crazy battles or getting destroyed by the AI ...

I think its safe to say you will see a lot more playing and testing from most people when the extended version is out.

Ha don't worry man Ive been playing and observing and its great the AI is 100% better! Haven't found any problems yet but will let you know if I do! Ill be able to play more next week when the official patch is out!

For those waiting for the next patch, just keep in mind that as far as I can tell it's working fine now. While I expect the new patch will only make things better, particularly if more items on the developer support wishlist are addressed, there is also the possibility of surprises that I can't anticipate.

I keep getting this error after playing for a bit: