Matrix Games Forums

Just a few questions that popped up as I read through.

1. Sound effects - can they be tied to events somehow? Saw a sound effect for "discovery" which seems to be from the ruin discovery effect... but in the events/actions section of the mod guide didn't see anything that would let me run a sound effect..

2. Design templates - Do they take a median amount of components from the maximum of each component in the template based on the total size, or do they just take as many components up to the listed amount in the template until the maximum construction size is reached? I would like to have the "Frigate" design change in size as the technology level of the race grows... if it just piles up components from the template without thinking about total current max construction size it seems we are locked into the AI's ships always being the same size after they have the tech to put everything required in the template on it.... I hope this is not the case.

Also, how does OverallShipDesignFocus from the races file interact with these ship design files? Can I have multiple design template files for, say, "Frigate" available and then it chooses based on power/speed etc..?

Same goes for ShipSizeFactorMilitary .. does this mean that the race is able to tack on extra stuff not in the template or is it just referring to image scaling?

3. Is the AI smart enough to detect when a too-peaceful galaxy is preventing it from winning the game? IE, if a race has an 80% galaxy conquest win condition but is allied with the only remaining race left alive and cannot control more then 50% of the galaxy unless it declares war on the allied race. In this case, would the AI just sit there not declaring war or would it be able to pursue it's goal and break the alliance?

4. Is there any way to introduce any randomness into the events/actions system? Seems a bit boring if scripted events have to always start from the same planet...
4a. Related to this, is there any way to have the action take place a certain # of days/years after the trigger runs? I didn't see anything related to this either
4b. Also related - no way to have an action trigger off of research being finished? Are we tied directly to map objects to have events trigger?


Think thats it. [8D]

Would really appreciate any inputs from some of the modders who have had access to the tool for awhile! Hoping there is some way we can at least tie sound effects to our custom events...

Answers:

1. Pretty sure you can't. Haven't found a way to do it yet.

2. To an extent. I've personally modded the files where the Frigate is too big to be built with the normal empire starting tech, but the AI reduced the weapons to keep it buildable. This is not true of my destroyer, cruiser or capital ships though.

The overallshipdesignfocus just tells the AI how to design ships when left to its own devices. Power puts more guns on it, etc.

Ship size millitary gives the AI a size bonus on ships, meaning if I set it to 1.2 then that races ships may be 20% larger than current building tech would otherwise allow.

3. The AI is smart enough to accomplish its victory goals no matter what those goals are. Not all victory conditions are war related. I have set up an empire that actually attempts to be at war the least and makes the most friends in the galaxy, so that empire rarely goes to war, though they will defend themselves.

4. Right now the events are tied to a trigger, however using a galaxy wide event does not tie the event to a certain planet you find. Also, depending on the trigger, it may or may not happen. I just set up an event that happens only if Empire A and Empire B form a Free Trade Agreement for example. In the game we don't know when Empire A will meet Empire B, and we don't know if they will ever form a Free Trade Agreement, so in that sense it is a random event.

4a. Events may have a time delay from point of discovery to happen. The example from #4 causes Empires C and D form a Mutual Defense Pact, and I've set that to happen to a time period from 365 days to 1000 days after Empires A and B form their Free Trade Agreement.

4b. Absolutely. You can set a research project being finished by a particular empire as a galaxy event trigger.

Cool. Thanks for all the responses Shark7. Think I should be able to do everything I want.. except... the complete and utter lack of any way to do anything with the sound.

I suppose music wise, it's random sound track or bust... unless we can find some way to trick the game into running our own custom sounds off of galaxy wide events... somehow..

On point 4, you can't set a random trigger event (in other words it will always be triggered by the same event) but you can create a list of reactions to that event and have the computer do one randomly. For example, if you wanted a specific ruin to trigger the creation of a new empire in the galaxy, rather than selecting one specific planet for the empire to spawn you can select several and set it to random. You could also have different kinds of events, so if you had a ruin you wanted to always give out a big reward (something better than the generic cash/map/research points), but for it to vary each time the map is played you could.

It is either one random from a list or everything in the list though, you can't set off a random chain at least not without thinking outside the box (I have a bit of an idea how to do that actually).

On a side note on question 2, on top of what Shark said it's worth noting your policy file will also modify the design templates. If you go for speed/agility the AI will add more engines to your ships and I believe it does something similar for raw power. I had a lot of fiddling about with the files and found sometimes the problem was not taking into account the policy setting so figured it was worth mentioning.

Perhaps it would be useful to have a more in-depth guide on creating design templates for the AI that actually present a challenge to players.

ORIGINAL: swizzlewizzle

Perhaps it would be useful to have a more in-depth guide on creating design templates for the AI that actually present a challenge to players.

They had that with Legends, the optimized designs, created by a player for a race, ditched in favor of the not so useful design templates. Rumor has it though that they still work, I keep meaning to investigate that, they were a much better idea and the AI IRC worked it's research off those designs.

Darkspire

The problem with optimized designs is the sheer time it takes to flesh out all possible ship options.

The A.I using better fleet composition and tech larger ship sizes would help more.

Mod your design templates to consider the end game, then they work much better. I personally like them.

The problem with any template system is that while it can make the AI strong against the AI, so long as players can design ships they will always go for max power over the AI.

Are these templates you speak of a Universe thing?

ORIGINAL: FireLion1983

Are these templates you speak of a Universe thing?

No, a Shadows thing.

Darkspire