DW2-XL v1.11.7 Available

[mordachai]

Why don't you do exactly that and add some flag files for each of the playable races?
do that, and I'll integrate that into this mod.
Alternately, you might be able to use the mod manager and create a mix-in mod for that - which folks could use to augment this themselves?
I do not know if that allows for these sorts of changes? Or if it's like my mod - where really you're forced to overwrite the vanilla files to make it work?

[frankycl]

Why don't you do exactly that and add some flag files for each of the playable races?

No, sorry - you wanted to add/edit the flags, not me (at least not now). I just tried to help you and showed you a way how it might be possible.

Alternately, you might be able to use the mod manager and create a mix-in mod for that (...)

You can't edit ANY assets / pictures / icons, etc. with the mod manager (from Eventure). It only loads and processes the XMLs in the data-folder (similar to your mod, except that you dont have to exchange them manually).

(What >marksmango< did was only possible with the mod-loader from Tyler; - but I guess you could do the same things with manually exchanging the things in the bundle-files (just an idea, though). )

[mordachai]

...

Ah - apologies - I was lazy and didn't realize it was Airborne who asking for the flags, not you!

I appreciate the pointers, but at this time I doubt I'll do anything with that. I am happy to mod the XML files - but taking on the compiled files is another level of pain that I just don't care enough about to do.

So my comment then is to you, Airborne - if you want those flags and can't wait for the devs to deal with this - then it's on you to take Frankycl's advice and figure out how to compile new db / assets and let me know what paths to include, and files, etc. But I figure that the devs will get there soon enough (they cannot leave it like it is - it's borderline unusable when it spawns 5 nations with the same flags, 3 of those with the same name, 2 of those with the exact same colors to boot! That's not even beta... alpha at best... level incomplete code, imo.

But they will get there, and that's not really a modding concern, but a finishing the base game concern.

[Airbourne]

I think I will leave flags to the devs. The level of skill required to make the necesssary changes myself is way beyond my pay grade.

[Airbourne]

Just want to say that having tried both 1.1 and 1.5, I prefer the way the research works in 1.1. It seems to me that it develops more naturally. That's a purely personal view, of course.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Some look at the engine lines again... there is almost no point in the efficiency line (quantum engines). First of all it has a higher static draw which is completely counter productive to it being more efficient. The other is that energy consumption during use is not really that important, especially to a none combat ship as the small amount of extra fuel it cost is usually so very small, more speed almost always translate into less fuel used anyway due to static energy costs. Speed is always more important.

In order for the the efficient line to be worthwhile I would increase the static draw of all other engines to 2 and the efficient one to 1, I then would make the efficient engines cruising speed better than all the other engines, the purpose with an efficient engine is high cruising speed not peak sprint speeds. This is the only way to make the efficient drive worth using.

[mordachai]

More work can/should be done on the engines, agreed. I'd love to balance the efficient ones to have a good cruising speed but lower sprint.

The static cost is inherited from vanilla. nothing i configured, but I agree, it makes no sense at all.

I did increase the energy use for cruise & sprint over vanilla for all engines (except efficient - since they're by def. efficient).

But... they still feel too anemic to me. I will likely substantially increase the cruise and max energy use of all lines - and make a lot more room for efficient to be... efficient.

Cheers.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm using your mod as the basis for my own private mod... some ideas I have been working and seem to work well is...

For reactors I basically made the Quantum reactors have twice the amount of power to the Fusion but at 50% more weight. This means you can save a slot by using the Quantum reactor for worse fuel and better power to weight ratio and one guaranteed less slot used for reactors. This is the best balance I found on these two reactors to make both fulfil their niche roll.

I also rebalanced the warp drives as the drives as they are in the mod have big issues with range and fuel use, especially if the AI use some of them for their merchant fleets. The AI almost always end up with the slower more fuel efficient engines though, but that also makes their fleets super slow, but at least it does not tank their fuel economies.

I basically rebalanced them a bit closer to vanilla as too great speed differences will impact the range of the fleet in an unbalanced way, saving slots used for fuel is too important on many ship hulls. It also is almost impossible to regulate with energy usage of the drives themselves.
So... the quick jump drive will have "normal" speeds but is very quick to jump, this is their niche. The fast drive has roughly a 15% faster speeds and the highest energy draw. The fuel efficient drives are roughly 15% slower and worse jump times but significantly more energy efficient, this means almost all civilian ships need only on e fusion reactor, this is important. The Gerax drive is a "neutral" drive that all of the other are derived from so has medium energy, speed and jump times of all the drives.
In my opinion the way the drives are done in the mod seem well intended but is very problematic to balance as some are just categorically better than others. It also is too easy to abuse this over the AI and we don't need to make the AI worse than it already is, in my opinion.

I have also raised the maintenance on some facilities to some degree, some are just too cheap... even for the AI.

You also should look at ground batteries... I have basically made them have five banks of weapons instead of one, the current one is too feeble. Though I raised the maintenance to roughly the double from what you have.

Don't take this as criticism it is just suggestion from my own modding experiences and tests of balance and how the AI works.

[Franky007]

@Jorgen_CAB, would you post your 'ComponentDefinitions.xml' file here, i would try it.

[mordachai]

I'm using your mod as the basis for my own private mod... some ideas I have been working and seem to work well is...

For reactors I basically made the Quantum reactors have twice the amount of power to the Fusion but at 50% more weight. This means you can save a slot by using the Quantum reactor for worse fuel and better power to weight ratio and one guaranteed less slot used for reactors. This is the best balance I found on these two reactors to make both fulfil their niche roll.

I also rebalanced the warp drives as the drives as they are in the mod have big issues with range and fuel use, especially if the AI use some of them for their merchant fleets. The AI almost always end up with the slower more fuel efficient engines though, but that also makes their fleets super slow, but at least it does not tank their fuel economies.

I basically rebalanced them a bit closer to vanilla as too great speed differences will impact the range of the fleet in an unbalanced way, saving slots used for fuel is too important on many ship hulls. It also is almost impossible to regulate with energy usage of the drives themselves.
So... the quick jump drive will have "normal" speeds but is very quick to jump, this is their niche. The fast drive has roughly a 15% faster speeds and the highest energy draw. The fuel efficient drives are roughly 15% slower and worse jump times but significantly more energy efficient, this means almost all civilian ships need only on e fusion reactor, this is important. The Gerax drive is a "neutral" drive that all of the other are derived from so has medium energy, speed and jump times of all the drives.
In my opinion the way the drives are done in the mod seem well intended but is very problematic to balance as some are just categorically better than others. It also is too easy to abuse this over the AI and we don't need to make the AI worse than it already is, in my opinion.

I have also raised the maintenance on some facilities to some degree, some are just too cheap... even for the AI.

You also should look at ground batteries... I have basically made them have five banks of weapons instead of one, the current one is too feeble. Though I raised the maintenance to roughly the double from what you have.

Don't take this as criticism it is just suggestion from my own modding experiences and tests of balance and how the AI works.

All good ideas!

I think you must've started before, or missed my latest -- because I totally overhauled my warp engines to all be closer -- more in line with one another - so there isn't a massive discrepancy that makes the quick-jumps just better (and I balanced out the energy draw of all of them to be more balanced - totally redid them so trade-offs are more incremental than cliff-like). You can't go wrong with any engine, and they each have a small advantage in their area of expertise - Quick to jump, Long range, Fastest raw speed, or incremental improvements in all areas but king of none.

I made a bunch of other bug fixes and improvements - but I love what you did with the reactors. That was where I was thinking I would go with them - but only recently have understood how they're configured in the components.xml to do them right -- and just haven't gotten to them yet. Having the Quantums guarantee one less slot for worse efficiency is precisely what they should be. But part of me is annoyed AF about the base game ship designs which offer too few slots to make it possible to really have different types of components with genuine trade offs of slots vs. weight / efficiency / etc. There's simply so few - that you pretty much have to choose less slots by their game-design. However, adding more general slots to designs is a major programming effort to write a script that reprocesses all the right designs to add a couple (or scaled by ship class) - and so I haven't touched that. Your approach is solid, I'd just want to be able to do even more and let that get in my way.

The facility maint. is too low. Agreed. It was too high in vanilla - esp. since the AIs are morons and build everything and tank their economies always. :'( I wish I could do more for them -- not sure how yet? They just over extend themselves no matter what and deadlock themselves so that they can't grow. Every single one. Every single game. Sucks. Sucks hard. I can't seem to get a game where they're anything but a joke - even on extreme difficulty and giving them 1-2 tiers of advancement and multiple worlds to start with - unless I just happen to start right next to a bunch of those and they beat me out of sheer early advantage.

By mid-game - they're always self-destructing by overextending their econs - building too many pointless non-fleet ships - too much of everything - and not able to grow / not able to react because their econs are maxed out. They have no sense of buffering for an eventual war / recession due to conflict with a neighbor.

I like your giving the defensive facilities more bite. I had toned down the planetary fighter bay based one - but was thinking I overdid it and needed to boost it again. The others - I literally can't ever tell that they're work at all. They're all so damn anemic -- not sure how to balance that area better. Making them stronger is good - but I wonder if they also need to be boosted in their to-hit % because I think part of the issue is that they always just freakin' miss their targets because a planet doesn't have a + to hit to counter the malus that ships all have in terms of countermeasures. Not sure how to test this - since I can't actually see jack coming from planets either.

Anyway - glad to have another thinking / modding this stuff. Fresh insights / alternative directions welcome!

[mordachai]

Updated to incorporate changes for 1.0.6.4 (OP has newest links)

[Jorgen_CAB]

I have managed to get the AI economy to a decent level... but you need to edit how much they spend in the policy XML file for each race. Increase their spending on exploration and construction ships is a good idea for example and lower their spending on facilities and troops. As you lowered the maintenance you also need to tell the AI to spend a bit less maintenance on troops and facilities as well.

Here are some examples that I have modded...

<TaxRateTargetApprovalSmallColonies>40</TaxRateTargetApprovalSmallColonies>
<TaxRateTargetApprovalMediumColonies>20</TaxRateTargetApprovalMediumColonies>
<TaxRateTargetApprovalLargeColonies>5</TaxRateTargetApprovalLargeColonies>

Here I made sure that the AI try to have a 20 happiness on colonies until the planet is half full, vanilla is 10... the value 20 is the optimal growth number. After half the planet is full the gain in economy is not as important so 5 for the rest is OK. I tend to not optimise this in any other way myself when I play to not give myself an advantage in this field. But it should have been a value of 20 for medium colonies in vanilla, don't understand why not.


<CashflowColonyGrowthFunding>0.67</CashflowColonyGrowthFunding>
<CashflowResearchFunding>0.33</CashflowResearchFunding>
<CashflowStateShipMaintenance>0.85</CashflowStateShipMaintenance>
<CashflowTroopMaintenance>0.05</CashflowTroopMaintenance>
<CashflowFacilityMaintenance>0.1</CashflowFacilityMaintenance>

Here I made sure they spend more on their ships and much less on troops and facilities in maintenance, especially with lower maintenance fees the AI still build enough troops.


<ConstructionSpaceportLargePopulationRequired>1E+10</ConstructionSpaceportLargePopulationRequired>
<ConstructionSpaceportMediumPopulationRequired>5E+09</ConstructionSpaceportMediumPopulationRequired>
<ConstructionSpaceportSmallPopulationRequired>120000000</ConstructionSpaceportSmallPopulationRequired>
<ConstructionSpaceportNearestDistance>5E+03</ConstructionSpaceportNearestDistance>

Here I made sure the AI ALWAYS build at least a small spaceport, just the lab on its own is worth having a small spaceport on every colony, the vanilla Ai don't build ports unless the distance is at least 500M and that is huge distance. With these setting they should build them even in the same system. I also increased when the AI upgrade to medium and large stations... so they so that much later, just having the small one is important... more shipyard and more labs... always worth it.

<ConstructionLevelSpaceport>1</ConstructionLevelSpaceport>
<ConstructionLevelDefensiveBases>0.75</ConstructionLevelDefensiveBases>
<ConstructionLevelMonitoring>0.5</ConstructionLevelMonitoring>
<ConstructionLevelMilitary>1.25</ConstructionLevelMilitary>
<ConstructionLevelExploration>1.5</ConstructionLevelExploration>
<ConstructionLevelConstruction>1.25</ConstructionLevelConstruction>
<MilitaryShipsNotInFleetRatio>0.05</MilitaryShipsNotInFleetRatio>
<ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioEscort>0.13</ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioEscort>
<ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioFrigate>0.21</ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioFrigate>
<ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioDestroyer>0.21</ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioDestroyer>
<ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioCruiser>0.15</ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioCruiser>
<ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioCapitalShip>0.1</ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioCapitalShip>
<ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioCarrier>0.1</ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioCarrier>
<ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioTroopTransport>0.1</ConstructionMilitaryBuildRatioTroopTransport>

Here I made sure the AI build much more explorers, just like a humans usually does... and construction ships... the AI don't build enough in space otherwise... more mining stations means bigger civilian fleets... more trade and more money which equals more fleets etc...

I also changed the fleet templates and beefed up the AI fleets... especially I override the AI ship tactics with fleet tactics... this is so I get the AI ships to escape when it looses 20% shields or 50% armour instead of always sacrifice themselves to the last, this makes the AI allot less suicidal.

Now I can have major battles with the AI where we only loose a couple of ships on each side... If I overpower the AI it can usually limp home with more than half the fleet still intact (if not more sometimes). The AI raiding fleets are particularly hard to pin down, as it should.

Another thing to mitigate the AI discrepancy is to reduce the amount of research we get from labs by about 20-25%, the AI are not as aggressive to build research stations for some reason... at least now they build ports, but still.

When I play now the AI usually start at expanding or young at tech level 2, with very slow technology development it will usually take me a VERY long time to get tech equal the AI, especially the more powerful AI empires.

[mordachai]

cool - I had looked for those policy files but had been blind before. all good changes. I prefer .7 / .3 for the growth & research funding -- even .85/.15 often works better -- growth is king. I also use the 40/20/5 for happiness.

going to try some of your settings for funding troops only at .1. I don't see how that will actually work - my budget is usually .2 or more - and I usually exceed even that... but we'll see.

I also reduced their savings from .3 to .1, which is what I use in my games.

Not sure on pushing out so many explorers and colonizers. The Automation is always nagging me to make more than I need, but I'll try your values and see how they do.

Love the military ships not in fleet ratio. I'm going to try .01. I really see no value in having ships just soloing -- other than as a way to empty your coffers uselessly...

I typically run games with the AI at young or expanding, L1, and fast tech. Sometimes I'll play on slow, but I find this game too tedious usually for that (and so many games are pointless by midgame anyway -- drawing that out even longer doesn't do much for me.

I like 1000 stars and max galaxy size, irregular, with normal habitability and low frequency of independents.
Sometimes I'll do 1500 stars, same settings. With the faster jump drives in my game you can have larger empires with fewer worlds - which works for me. I still end up in 150B range by the time I get bored and stop (and the AIs are in the 50B range, so still plenty of expansion). Would love to see the AI's prioritize colonization techs and use terraforming to make borderline worlds viable when they run low of naturally good worlds. But... will have to wait on game engine to do that I think (or mod at the code level at some point).

I took the plunge and made all of the reactor lines go to L8 in tech -- cleaned up the tree to split up at L2 -- so you get a choice on branch fairly early.

I went with 16,24,32 size (fusion, fission, quantum), and 1.0, 1,2, and 1.8 as factors (compared to fusion) for fission & quantum for storage capacity. Thus Quantum take 2x the size, but 1/2 the slots, are less efficient than either other tech, but have nearly 2x the capacity. Hope that ends up a solid trade-off. Going to play test this now. Cheers!

[Jorgen_CAB]

Sounds like nice changes... will try you latest version when I get the time.

One note on the policies... many of the policies only apply to AOI factions, not the player automation AI since the player have to set the values using the automation tools. Some settings will be default values others not... it does not seem to be consistent.

The values I chosen have more to do with the AI factions and how they grow their empires... the ratio of explorers and constructors are not likely applied to the player empire automation AI. The same with economy settings.

I use very little automation when I play, only to support the most minutia work... I usually give intelligence missions to the AI as stealing tech is sort of too good in my hands, better to just randomly get whatever tech they choose to get. I would never ever allow the automation to design and build ships and stations (except mining stations that is), that is too fun to decide myself... ...do the strategizing of placing fleets and how to patrol space etc... that is one of the reason I play the game.

My usual settings are 2000 stars (spiral with dense nebula), rare colonies, rare independents. AI empires start at tech level 2-3 with a mix of young and expanding empires (about 10-12). Very slow tech development, normal and strong pirates.
Slow tech will make it take a considerable time to catch up with the other empires in tech level, sometimes the entire game versus the most lucky AI empires. The low number of colonies also makes it more challenging as the AI also there usually have a head start too. I'm lucky to have three to five colonies by mid game, just hope I don't get some strong aggressive neighbour that I have to shower with money not to attack me.

[bluestrike15]

Yesterday's update fixed a few of the fixes this mod has so it probably is no longer completely compatible. regardless this is probably one of the best mods out so far and I look forward to the next release!

[mordachai]

Yesterday's update fixed a few of the fixes this mod has so it probably is no longer completely compatible. regardless this is probably one of the best mods out so far and I look forward to the next release!

This mod is on 1.0.6.4 - I've updated it for all of the beta patches as they've made them. Should be fully compatible!

[GHerr]

Is there a game setting recommended for difficulty, size, number of races, aggression?

[mordachai]

Is there a game setting recommended for difficulty, size, number of races, aggression?

I try different combos constantly to try to find "good games" --
But the problem is that this "good" is relative - your "good" may not be mine, and vice versa.

Most often I have a fairly enjoyable game (on my beefy rig) with:

• Maximum galaxy size
• 1000 stars
• Normal colony frequency
• Fewer independent colonies
• Normal or Fast tech
• Any Race that you fancy
• 2-4 or 4-8 starting colonies for AIs
• Tech level 1 (the minimum allowed) for AIs
• Fixed research paths (NEVER choose random with this mod)
• Hidden tech (though you can reveal if you prefer)
• Pre-warp or Starting for myself
• Normal, Difficult or Very Difficult depending on how much of a boost I gave the AIs (e.g. if I gave all of them 4-8 starting worlds, and myself pre-warp, then I might play on Normal, but if I only give them 2-4 worlds, or I start further along, then I usually play on Very Difficult).
• 15 AIs

But I've had some good games on smaller maps, or with fewer AIs. My most recent three games:
1 & 2. I gave them 2-4 worlds each, otherwise on the above settings - Fast tech - I played Hakoonish and Ackdarian - and they were both runaway games for me. Fun until it was abundantly clear that the AIs had no ability to compete.
3. my current game - Boskarans, pre-warp (true of all 3 games) - Fast tech - I gave AIs 4-8 worlds, all 15 of them - and I ended up with Zennox knocking on my doorstep before I had even one colony. I had no real ships, nor weapon, no real defense, nothing. It sucked. I'll probably ditch that game.

I really try to create games where empires really start clashing with L2 or L3 tech, and enemies can sustain both the war they're in and some expansion in other directions - where it's challenging to be smart as a strategic commander as to where to put my forces - where I can't defend everything - where I have my own growth objectives to try to juggle while trying to minimize their gains against me while I get to the point where I can turn the tables.

Anyway - my 2c - this mod doesn't require anything of you in terms of your game-choices - but it does try to make the first two tech levels (0 + 1) to be fun / light / exploration, and level 2+ to be where you make real strategic choices and define yourself as an empire. So starting the AIs with multiple worlds means they have the essentials - but haven't researched every freakin' weapons line yet. They have real decisions to make - so hopefully their "personalities" can still come to fore - with Boskarans doing their specialized weapons, Ackdarians focusing on fighters/bombers, humans with their big slug guns, etc.

Let me know if you have settings that give you your favorite kind of game - and what that means to you?

[GHerr]

Thanks. my play stile is usually expanding but not instigating. I like it when others try to pick fights with me since i don't generally do that to them. unless they started it earlier in the game. vanilla even with aggressiveness turned up feels passive. i like all the changes you have listed, especially for fighter/bombers.
two last questions. i was just about to install and saw there was an update today. Should i assume you are always rolling with beta ? Also, instruction say to merge the data folder from the .zip you expanded into your version of \data. there are a lot more files in the zip than just the data folder. lots of .xds for example, and .vscode folder. what about those ? i just moved them where i thought it should go. seems to work.
is there a way to put something about this mod being in installed on the splash screen where it has the game version ? just think that would be a nice cosmetic touch.
starting run now. lets see how this goes

[mordachai]

I am always rolling w/ betas. Please note that when they update the game - they sometimes overwrite the mod files in their data folder. So to be safe, you should re-merge this mod's data folder into theirs after a beta update. It's extremely unlikely that this mod wouldn't immediately be compatible with their latest beta - so I wouldn't (*yet*) be concerned about whether this mod has updated for a given beta version or not. It should just work with a fresh merge.

Perhaps later on, when they start making more radical changes - that will no longer be true. e.g. they might come out with a 1.1.x.y -- instead of the 1.0.x.y they're currently doing. Such a more major change might indicate that this mod needs my attention to make it compatible. But in general - I just do the same procedure as above - merge after they update, and all is well

You can ignore everything but the data folder (and subfolders). That's all programming related junk - the .xsd's define what's allowed in those .xml files - so a syntax checker can flag if I've made an egregious mistake, and other files related to my self-organization / notes / whatever.

Later on once this game better supports mods - like makes it easy to have my own splash - I will definitely do that!
For now, it's more work than I want to worry about - too much is still WIP.