[DWU] Balance Mod v0.9 (extended TechTree) [Cancelled in protest]

[CyclopsSlayer]

Interesting mod. I like the way the Wonders are split off into their own tracks.
As well I like the the Racials aren't clearly better, just faster tracks, while eventually the base lines seem to catch up, just taking a lot more steps.

Regarding the CounterMeasures/Target Tracking tech lines. The 1st and 2nd tech ranks have the same effects and system costs. Rather than going 10% > 10% > xx%, might it not be better to make some minor upgrade, like 10% > 12% > xx%.

[Tanaka]

Shame it looks like the energy and resource mods have been abandoned I hope you will take up the torch and combine into a great mod!

[Unforeseen]

This mod already does touch the energy tree i believe. I think he also plans on working the high tech tree.

[Enderbou]

Passenger and troop compartments are just that, compartments or "rooms". That passengers or soldiers sit in/live in for transport. They don't need energy because their needs are supplied by the life support systems including energy for lights and such. It would be silly for them to pull energy from the reactor on their own.

But almost every other component does. As it states now in description Passnger Compartments carry 1200K people. It would require A LOT of energy - these are not only rooms, but whole cities.
And comparing sizes of LS and Hab to for ex. weapons - it's inadequate in my opinion. LS+Hab=3 points of space, Long Range Gun=6

[Unforeseen]

I'm not understanding your logic Please forgive me lol. Think of a passenger compartment as the inside of an passenger airline. You can't really think about the number of people it's carrying because it is unrealistically scaled for game play purposes. There is no way we would be able to ever construct a commercial liner that could carry 1.2 billion people on it in a normal capacity.

Also, the compartment itself would require no energy because it does not directly use energy. The systems within it[life support]are what use the energy from the reactor thus the zero energy requirement.

Basically if you were to mod the passenger and troop compartments to use static energy you would be doubling your energy usage while still accomplishing the same goal as without.

[dwaine]

Impressive work locarnus !

I'm trying this right now, and the feel of slow progress is nice, not the usual "jumps" in technology in vanilla.
Overall very impressive ! I noticed that you didn't really touched the fuel storage, this is a shame, maybe more steps would be nice, and a 2 or 3 steps haakonish specialized tech tree. Let me explain.
After "Compressed fuel storage" for 90 instead of 140 fuel (wich is already a 50% upgrade from the original), add something like "Hyper compressed fuel storage" for something like 120 finally the ultimate tech for haakonish, a 150 fuel storage wich would be +10 better than the normal one. And this would avoid the specialized tech allowing to have a better fuel storage than the last one from the very beginning, this is so badly unbalanced. I find the storage part being very unsatisfying, that's what I would do.
Here is fast pic I made to show you the global idea :

Bigger resolution here.

I worked again for you, here are the images from the 3 tech trees without and with your mod :

---

WEAPONS

Before :

Bigger resolution available here.

After :

Bigger resolution available here.

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ENERGY & CONSTRUCTION

Before :

Bigger resolution available here.

After :

Bigger resolution available here.

---

HIGH TECH

Before :

Bigger resolution available here.

After :

Bigger resolution available here.

---

One last thing, did you have problems with more than 13 tech level ? Did you find any prob with too many tech too many rows or tech levels ?

[Unforeseen]

This mod is amazing lol. I do agree with the earlier comment about construction size though, 2k size ships would be nice.

Edit: Ooh hey btw i'm planning on taking msnevil's weapon mod and adding certain colors to it. One of them is going to be the "proper" star trek themed color for the phaser portrayed in TNG and beyond which was Orange Red rather than Orange. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but i'll send ya a link when it's done.

[hewwo]

real bummer to read about the bugs! That part of the tech/component tree is my nr.1 thing I would want to be changed. Oh well. I'm sure it'll get patched eventually.

[bugbear777]

Thanks Locarnus.

[Unforeseen]

Annnnd nvm i crushed three of my fingers at work.

[hewwo]

owww:( I hope that is crushed in the least damaging way of the word.

[Sithuk]

The 1.9.5.3 patch just got published. The fix for the designer to auto add enough reactors to reach full hyperspeed doesn't appear in the changelog. Has it been fixed?

Hi Locarnus

The AI ship design will add as many reactors as required to meet your energy output needs, not just a single reactor.

However the current logic to drive hyperdrives at full speed does add only a single reactor.

We'll add a fix for this in the next update (1.9.5.3)

Thanks
Elliot

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

Annnnd nvm i crushed three of my fingers at work.

Ooooh, very sorry to hear that. Hope you don't have severe damage or lose them. Hope
your recovery is swift.
[:(]

[pycco]

how goes the mod?

imo the only way to compensate for the new requirements of energy is for you to make the designs your self.

[Unforeseen]

Thanks guys, the damage was thankfully minimal. The doc was shocked that my finger bones didn't splinter into hundreds of pieces. Just small little hairline fractures and some bad flesh wounds. I'm actually already able to use them again for the most part, it just hurts a bit.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

Thanks guys, the damage was thankfully minimal. The doc was shocked that my finger bones didn't splinter into hundreds of pieces. Just small little hairline fractures and some bad flesh wounds. I'm actually already able to use them again for the most part, it just hurts a bit.

Great to hear that Unforeseen! Hope to hear you back kicking Shakturi butt real soon.
Get well buddy!
[:)]

[Locarnus]

@Unforeseen:
I m very glad your fingers are not as bad as they first appeared.
Had my hand in plaster once and it made me realize how valuable a working hand is.
I wish you well and hope for a quick recovery!

If I understand Haree78 correctly, the StingerBeam was designed as a higher power/longer range phaser lance. I left the branching as Haree78 decided. They just omitted the phaser step.

The weapons graphics selection sounds great, looking forward to it!

@Wanabe:
I plan to fill in the "missing" sizes and may change the starting sizes as well in the next major patch (not sure when it comes, depends on the fixes and my rl time constraints now).
Something along the line of 180(160), 240 (230), 300(300), 360 (fill in), 430(400) or so.
As you said, it is quite a problem with current template systems to make some which work for early and late game, especially if the differences between the 2 get larger.

@Enderbou:
I m not sure about the term "size" in DW. It seems to be some kind of abstraction taking both volume and mass into account. While I agree that hab modules should have larger volume than now, the mass is pretty low. I dont want to stray too much from vanilla, DW:U modding does not seem to be made for that.

@Tehlongone:
I m still not sure how to balance the racials. With the current design logic, if I make the Zenox shields 9 size and the template calls for 3 shields, the "advantage" is only 3 less size (ie just higher speeds, if not cut off by size). If I leave them at 10 size and raise the recharge rate by 0.1, it would mean 0.3 more recharge rate with 3 shields. The latter would really make the Zenox shields have faster recharge and thus reflect their tech advantage in that area.
Will probably just do that (with a minimal advantage on last tech step, like the proposed 0.1 or so), but in no way decided yet, if anyone has objections. After all they reach that step much faster now.

@CyclopsSlayer:
Corrected the countermeasures and targeting in 0.87.
The branching off of the wonders was also some kind of preperation, if Elliot implements "national wonders" and makes the facilities more worthwhile to mod.

@Tanaka:
Yeah, I havent heard from Foma, so I might need to try to balance the hyperdrives myself.

@dwaine:
Thanks for the full trees! I linked your post in the OP. A great overview!
I will include your fuel suggestion in the next version as proposed, although that might be out some time, as 1.9.5.3 did not balance the energy needs/production.

@hewwo, Sithuk & pycco:
Elliot has stated that he is working on it, unfortunately it didnt make it in 1.9.5.3, just tested it.
So I ll have to wait for that to happen, cant edit the design templates in such a way, if I want to keep the mod compatible with themed mods.

@bugbear777:
You are welcome .

[Tehlongone]

Well a 0.1 recharge advantage doesn't bother me, and for all the racial techs I'm fine with a tiny advantage at the last step it just bothers me when they are in a whole other league to conventional tech as that kinda belittles the accomplishment of it and seems, well, weird considering tech is broadly something that could be discovered by anyone.

For the record I believe size 9 is a pretty big advantage, I usually have more than 10 shields on my primary ships and that means 10+ extra space for other things or an entire shield extra. Two extra for a capital ship.

Anyway again thanks for the mod, it's awesome.

[FingNewGuy]

...and with high research costs, the pre warp start grants the pirates a major advantage over normal empires.

Yes it does! I am kinda enjoying that added excitement though, TBH- especially at Extreme difficulty. However, I am eager to try this out too! Thanks, [8D]

[Locarnus]

@FingNewGuy:
At the moment I like to play on expensive research settings. Although the AI empires still seem to struggle to get out of their home system.
It kind of has a nice balance between pirate strength (some are powerful, but most are average) and some independents are forming empires while most are still ready to be conquered when you come out of your home system.

Unfortunately the AI research problems are a direct result of the research mechanic. It is just too easy to exploit for humans by just building a spaceport with only energy labs to rush warp precursor and ship size in the beginning and then retrofit for more diverse research.

edit:
@dwaine:
There are some max research costs. Over that, the game crashes without error message.
So on tech level 13, with the exponential function used by the game, the reasearch costs are 2^(13-1)*basecosts = 4096*basecosts.
Which means that somewhere above 30k basecosts in the startup should be the threshold to crash the game if you have a level 13 research project with no set cost factor in the tech tree.
I manually limited all level 9+ research project costs to level 8 standards (128 factor) to make the mod compatible with 999k base cost settings. The manual set factor overrides the exponential function thus the cost is not anymore based on the level the project is in.