Research Unleashed - Version 2.2

[Niels]

Sorry, not working. Negative research race bonus is simply not working with only txt editing. Disallowing all standard 8+ techs for Mechs, and maybe give them their own tech branches in return for a vastly higher research cost maybe a better idea?! I will look if a special tech might allows for negative bonuses, maybe in combination with a "wonder"...
But dislike the wonder because it might be conquered....

[Tanaka]

Hi Osito interesting to see how you changed the Pirates. Does this affect the way you play them or how the AI plays them? Or is everything the same except for Pirates just having specific ancient warp drives? The reports that more Pirates become empires in your mod that may be a cool feature depending on how you look at it. The way you did things seems like this would open up a lot of interesting possibilities of Pirate specific techs. Such a shame you are no longer updating your mod as DW2 seems to be in a galaxy far far away... [;)]


[EDIT]

Also I have discovered that some races are missing the Pirate portion of your mod? These are:

Banoserit
Enton
Kiadian
Lemeresh
Lipid
Mechanoid
Napoar
Ortain
Quemeno
Visareen
Zenox

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

EnergyResearchProjectOrder ;123, 95, 105, 363, 166, 465, 477, 479, 115, 106, 167, 501, 120, 468, 124, 116, 107, 96, 74, 157, 133, 145, 89, 172, 158, 487, 108, 90, 75, 159, 134, 146, 121, 469, 488, 109, 91, 80, 173, 395, 130, 550, 117, 110, 103, 81, 396, 546, 101, 174, 122, 470

Above is an example of how far I had to script UE2 (soon to be 3). The AI by itself chooses research very poorly. I've watched hours of AI play, and cannot find a pattern to AI research paths. The only way to guarantee smart research is to script it, and scripting makes a hard AI (which most of us want). I just finished scripting 40+ races, and let me tell you, it gets old fast. UE scripts may be compatible with RU though, since UE integrated your research.

On a side note, the AI doesn't upgrade fighter bays in UE (most likely RU too). The higher researched bay shows up on the component side of the builder window, but the AI doesn't upgrade. What I have found by experimentation, is that the AI doesn't recognize an increased repair rate as an upgrade. What I have changed is the number of fighters instead. Normal hanger bays go 4, 6, 8 fighters, and the racial bays go 6, 8, 10 fighters. This has fixed the AI upgrade path for me. This is a suggestion only.

I only see the one racial bay? Where do you get the three upgrades?

[leo321]

Can you help me, fix it out?[8D]

Do you ever see this erro[8|]

It happens when i swich the mod

thx

[Retreat1970]

Can you help me, fix it out?

Maybe. Are you fully patched? They fixed the max number of components in a patch.

[leo321]

Its v1950;
I must install the pacht 19512,or there's a other order before the last update?

[Retreat1970]

I think it's all inclusive. So install .12

[leo321]

Yes, its the best game ever i had play of strategy, thank great game!!!

[Tanaka]

Volcanic Colonization seems to have the tech outcome missing?

[apd1004]

After a long hiatus I am back at DW:U again and am trying out RU 2.2. Ever since I started using Research Unleashed, I haven't been able to play DW:U any other way because I totally enjoy the game this way.

One of the things I used to do in the vanilla game (maybe I'm the only one that does this) is to use the number of Hab/Life Support modules to drive the size of the ships I design. For instance, Escorts and Explorers would always use only 2 H/LS modules throughout the duration of the game. Frigates would have 3 H/LS modules, Destroyers would have 4, etc. on up the size chart. As the H/LS modules improved technologically over the course of the game, it would allow me to put more 'stuff' on a ship while sticking to those guidelines because the natural progression of technology for the most part means that components get smaller but their capability increases. This equation forces me to have ships designed for a specific task rather than just building the biggest ships possible. An escort should be fast but lightly armed & armored, frigates maybe a little bit better armed & armored but still somewhat fast. Dreadnoughts should be slow but very heavily armed & armored.

Research Unleashed has kind of put a kink in my system. Looking at the Enhanced Hab / Enhanced LS modules (2nd tier), their Size=2, Static Energy Used=1, and Support Size=100. So for my Escort I would have 2 of each which would give me a size 200 ship with a total usage of 8 size points and 4 static energy points. Skipping ahead to the next tier, which is Hab Complex and Life Support Mk II (actually tier 4 since this tree skips tier 3), they are each Size=6, Static=3, and Support Size=180.

Doing the raw math using my vanilla equation, an escort would now be a size 360 ship but at a cost of 24 size points and 12 static energy points. Most people probably think 'who cares' because now I have a size 360 ship. This could cause problems if you aren't advancing your ship construction tree at a greater pace than the crew tree because now using the same formula a Frigate would be a size 540 ship which you can't even build until construction tier 5. It is actually cheaper and more efficient to buy 6 of the regular Habs & LS modules for 24 size points and 12 static energy points, but you get a size 600 ship out of it. Even the very final tier of this tree is only equal to the 2nd tier in cost/yield. The only difference is at the final tier you can do the same thing with one module each Hab/LS instead of 5 each, but the cost and yield is the same.

I haven't sketched out an alternative Hab/LS tree to fit in with my vanilla ship size equation yet and I can't seem to force myself to abandon that formula because it would mean a total re-direction of my ship design methods. I am thinking though that the basic systems should have larger size but not much effectiveness, and as the tree progresses, their size gets smaller but their efficiency increases. Right now I see no need to advance the Hab/LS tree beyond tier 2 because those modules give the most bang for the buck.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: apd1004

After a long hiatus I am back at DW:U again and am trying out RU 2.2. Ever since I started using Research Unleashed, I haven't been able to play DW:U any other way because I totally enjoy the game this way.

One of the things I used to do in the vanilla game (maybe I'm the only one that does this) is to use the number of Hab/Life Support modules to drive the size of the ships I design. For instance, Escorts and Explorers would always use only 2 H/LS modules throughout the duration of the game. Frigates would have 3 H/LS modules, Destroyers would have 4, etc. on up the size chart. As the H/LS modules improved technologically over the course of the game, it would allow me to put more 'stuff' on a ship while sticking to those guidelines because the natural progression of technology for the most part means that components get smaller but their capability increases. This equation forces me to have ships designed for a specific task rather than just building the biggest ships possible. An escort should be fast but lightly armed & armored, frigates maybe a little bit better armed & armored but still somewhat fast. Dreadnoughts should be slow but very heavily armed & armored.

Research Unleashed has kind of put a kink in my system. Looking at the Enhanced Hab / Enhanced LS modules (2nd tier), their Size=2, Static Energy Used=1, and Support Size=100. So for my Escort I would have 2 of each which would give me a size 200 ship with a total usage of 8 size points and 4 static energy points. Skipping ahead to the next tier, which is Hab Complex and Life Support Mk II (actually tier 4 since this tree skips tier 3), they are each Size=6, Static=3, and Support Size=180.

Doing the raw math using my vanilla equation, an escort would now be a size 360 ship but at a cost of 24 size points and 12 static energy points. Most people probably think 'who cares' because now I have a size 360 ship. This could cause problems if you aren't advancing your ship construction tree at a greater pace than the crew tree because now using the same formula a Frigate would be a size 540 ship which you can't even build until construction tier 5. It is actually cheaper and more efficient to buy 6 of the regular Habs & LS modules for 24 size points and 12 static energy points, but you get a size 600 ship out of it. Even the very final tier of this tree is only equal to the 2nd tier in cost/yield. The only difference is at the final tier you can do the same thing with one module each Hab/LS instead of 5 each, but the cost and yield is the same.

I haven't sketched out an alternative Hab/LS tree to fit in with my vanilla ship size equation yet and I can't seem to force myself to abandon that formula because it would mean a total re-direction of my ship design methods. I am thinking though that the basic systems should have larger size but not much effectiveness, and as the tree progresses, their size gets smaller but their efficiency increases. Right now I see no need to advance the Hab/LS tree beyond tier 2 because those modules give the most bang for the buck.

Interesting analysis. I am thinking of modding them myself. Making the basic designs bigger in size would mess with Icemania's designs though and put them over limits.

[Osito]

First, thanks for the positive feedback. I still keep an eye on these forums, but I'm not as active as I was, and probably won't be until DW2, as I'm having too much fun doing map mods for Stellaris!

On reflection the change I made to hab/life modules may not have been one of my finest ideas. I think my goal was laudable (to reduce the number of clicks needed to put hab/life on ship design), especially for people like me who design every single ship manually. But I didn't think through the consequences properly. I did make an update to try to improve things back in February, but there's certainly more that could be done.

I don't think I'm going to have the time to look at this personally. But if someone else wants to try to fix this issue, or any others in the mod, you have my support to do so and to release an update of the mod. Alternatively, if you provide me with the changes, I will incorporate them into my own mod, as long as I'm comfortable with them. However, I don't think the answer is to do bigger hab/life modules. it may be that the best solution is to return pretty much to the vanilla system, possibly with a few larger structures at the end of the tech tree.

Osito

[NZFade]

Hi Folks,

Just got back to DW:U and amazing to see Osito has done one more update since I think I was last on.

I see that apd1004 has raised the issue about Hab and Life Support progression, I too found this a little outside my preferred option. Attached is a edited research file where I have changed the research streams.
Hab Modules now progress under "Enhanced Hab Module Mk<II/III/IV/V>" upping the support of each module to 110,115,125,130 respectively.
Life Support now progresses under "Life Support Mk<II/III/IV/V>" upping the support of each module to 110,115,125,130 respectively.
The last tech is still named "Integrated Life Support" which improves both Hab and Life Support to 140 each.
No other dependencies have changed, the other components are there still, I have just made all the upgrades to the initial Hab and Life Support components.

I have also fixed a minor error where it was possible to skip "Enhanced Storage Systems" (Research Project 235) and go directly to "Optimized Basic Storage" (Research Project 456).

Outside of this I have made zero other changes to the research.txt file, I only down loaded it from the link at the start of this thread about 3 hours ago.

The basic reasoning I used for the improved numbers was an additional 5% efficiency for each research level with a bonus 5% at the end tech going from 130 to 140.

@apd1004 - Given that the components are still there you could easily change them so the second generation, currently "Hab Complex" was size 4, energy usage 2, supporting 220, with an upgrade to 230. This would keep in line with that basics of the formula but also reward you for your time in re-designing ships to use better tech instead of the instant upgrade they would get using the file I provided. If you or anyone else would like that I am happy to help, while hardly a modding guru I think I could probably manage that.

Thanks again for the update Ostio.

Regards.

[Dipluz]

I love Distant WOrlds U, and after playing Stellaris. There is more and more of me that just wants to delete Stellaris and go back.
Though I did 1 game, which ended up with exception error CTD ( too bad I deleted the logs) and I don't know if it is the mod but the game went quickly to exceed its 32-bit ram limit. Where Windows 10 would just let me know Distant Worlds dosen't have enough memory available. Any tips ?

[Dipluz]

Found it!

Distant Worlds - Crash Dump - 1.9.5.12

13:44:10 29. august 2016


System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file 'C:\Users\Dipluz\Documents\Distant Worlds\Autosave2.dwg' because it is being used by another process.
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share)
at System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog.OpenFile()
at DistantWorlds.Start.qyAqyrwhbgUBVhfEaoR(Object )
at DistantWorlds.Start.xWC0wxJokl(Object , EventArgs )


--- COMPLETE ---

[tofudog]

So, I have been in a galaxy far, far away too and just got around to play the research unleashed mod.
First of all: Thank you for your work, on the whole it really does change the game for the better.
What I wanted to point out (which nzfade, tanaka and dipluz have started already) is the life support/hab question.

Hab modules in addition to everything else they do, also give 15 points of boarding resistance each (which cannot be modded), so it might be beneficial to have more of them just for that (assault pods also give an amount of boarding resistance, but especially the smaller designs might not want to commit to a full 8 points of size to get one).
How about leaving hab modules alone entirely (or even make a size 1 capacity 45 (or something like that) module available for defense) and implementing the efficiency gain through life support only?