Matrix Games Forums

I have some ideas for a marginally drastic technology overhaul; the game is nearly perfectly suited to allow me to make simple modifications and get it going.

I've not modded much in the past, as I understand it most modders start modding when they love the game they are about to mod, so I had a couple from the ground up questions:

If the way technology is awarded is changed (in terms of raw techs) how well can the AI be expected to respond? Does the AI currently just pick a few paths and emphasize them, or are they randomly selecting technology, and then building whatever they can with the new technology?

I really just want to know how much I can expect to change-- for example, including some theoretical steps intersperced between practical techs-- are possible without breaking the way the AI treats research.

Good question thiosk

The answer is that the ai should stand up reasonably well to tech tree changes, as it cares about the capabilities techs provide, rather than being hard coded to go after certain techs. It also looks ahead to see what other techs depend on a tech when evaluating it, so it may handle theoretical steps ok.

However, it does need a little guidance on technology strategy, and you can find this in the file AIStrategy.xml. You can mod this to help it navigate your new tech tree, and to push it pass any theoretical humps it may get stuck on.

This forum is a bit quiet at the moment, but there are several active modders who post on the Ntronium site. http://ntronium.com/simplemachinesforum/

The new version 1.02 also allows you to mod the game without changing the standard files. Again the Ntronium forums for details