Master of Orion 3 v0.91bETA [WIP]

[lazyzbox]

Greetings,

I am an avid Distant Worlds player and have been silently watching the forums over the years as this wonderful game has developed. I had all the expansions and purchasing DW: Universe was a no-brainer. I made a mod for myself some time ago based on Master of Orion 2 but was disappointed in lack of access to that games assets.

Fast forward to now and the expanded capabilities of Universe. I decided to take another crack at modding. I have spent the last month developing Master of Orion 3 mod for DW:Universe and decided to share it with you all.

I have borrowed from other mods (listed in the about.txt) to improve visual effects. I have used original art assets from Moo3 in this mod and edited them myself to fit DW formats.

This is being posted for your enjoyment. I ask that any feedback you give me be centered around race balancing specifically. Not really getting the "feel" of the races after a few games play testing. Some insight would be helpful.

I will be releasing a few more versions with updates suggested by users and an updated Galactopedia with MOO3 lore. In the meantime, head on over to Strategy Informer and download this mod.

Look forward to hearing the feedback. LazyJ @ Haze Wizards...

strategyinformer.com/pc/distantworldsuniverse/mod/53094.html

[Retreat1970]

Thanks lazyzbox, I will look at it when I can. I'll see what I can suggest about race feel.

[lazyzbox]

For some reason it wouldn't let me post full link but the address is at the bottom of my OP. Just copy and paste into a browser and you will be good to go. Thanks.

[Retreat1970]

No, thank you for modding. Everyone here is great, and I try all mods out. I'm helping fierceking a little bit on Starfall mod, but i'll look as soon as i can.

[Solarius Scorch]

Hi Lazyzbox, congrats on undertaking this ambitious project.

I am sort-of-making a MoO 2 mod; if you want to use any parts of it, feel free: tm.asp?m=3622126

[mensrea]

Good stuff, man. I'm glad to see there are others who harbor something other than hate for MOO3. Now all we need is the ability to settle gas planets so you can add those gasbags.

Do you plan on adding Ithkul?

[lazyzbox]

I absolutely do like Moo3 in a modded state. The amount of stuff I could directly add in the mod was great. I have added Ithkul and set them to be as close to Moo3 as possible. Obviously I couldn't add the ability to "eat" other races on planets they invade. The closest I came was to set them up where everyone hates them, and set empire policy to exterminate everything.

I wish the ability to colonize gas giants was there. I thought that was a really cool and unique feature. In the interim, I made the Etherean more of a desert species. Thinking they hang in the atmosphere.

[mensrea]

Yeah it had a lot of good features that got overlooked because of bugs that the mods mostly fixed, especially the approach to habitability (pressure,temperature,gravity) and weapon types (point defense all the way to spinal, actually having to make ships face something to hit it). You can make the Ithkul have a higher pop growth rate if their policy is set to exterminate, which could be construed as eating them/parasitizing them. Just check near the bottom of the race file for "ColonyPopulationPolicyGrowthFactorExterminate ;1.0" and set 1.0 to something higher.

Maybe the full version of 1.5.5.6 will let us colonize gas giants? We can always dream...

[lazyzbox]

That is a really good idea. I will put that in my next batch of changes. This is exactly the reason I wanted this out in the wild. I played ALOT of Master of Orion series and really want to get the race balancing right.