"Very Difficult Choice" Mod, irc channel: irc.quakenet.org/vdc

Information, How-to's, and discussion about mod'ing Master of Orion II.
Muton
Posts:4
Joined:Sat Mar 28, 2015 7:35 am
Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Muton » Sun Apr 26, 2015 7:01 am

Referring to an old bug from October 2014, the Antaran Harbinger bug occurred to me also:
Played a new single player game with VDC 57g.
I was creative, end of tech tree. When an Harbinger attack my full fledged Star Fortress, the game freeze.

the savegame link: http://speedy.sh/brvwE/Harbinger-bug.GAM

workaround:
I can load the save in vanilla MOO2, pass the turn, save, and load with VDC again

Thank for your time and work Overlord2!

User avatar
Rocco
Posts:242
Joined:Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:16 am
Contact:

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Rocco » Tue Apr 28, 2015 7:46 am

Interesting little bug, at first I thought it must have something to do with the Stasis Field of the Antaran Titan, coz when I was modding Defending Antarans to have stasis fields, I experienced some strange behaviours, like the Antaran ship exploding upon use of its Stasis Field. However the game seems to crash at the point when it wants to write RAID results to the screen. Titan fires its stuff, deploys the BHG, then raids and then game crash (before the Stasis Field is deployed).

I read in posts from last year that this happens from time to time and it might have something to do with Star Base specials.
@ Overlord2- As my mod is also build on the VDC 57g exe, I loaded the save game in there too. In combat, the Star Fortress has VDC specials (from the save) and not the ICE specials. Surprisingly there is no crash, which is really puzzling.

Star Base specials comparison VDC (and in brackets ICE if different):
Mostly, some change in order of things, and only two specials (***) are different.
S= special of Star Fortress in savegame.
S Zero ; Heavy Armor
S One, 5, 305; battle scanner
S Two, 10, 339; energy absorber
S Three, 13, 360; hard shields
S Four, 19, 381; lightning field
S Five, 8, 332; displacement device (38 WAJ) ***
X Six, 38, 478; wide area jammer (21 MW ECM)
X Seven, 21, 390; multi wave ecm jammer (9 ECM) ***
S EIght, 37, 475; warp dissipator
S Nine, 15, 364; high energy focus (29 Sec. Stations)
Ten, 32, 454; structural analyzer (20 Multi Ph. Shield)
Eleven, 1, 280; achilles targeting (15 HEF)
Twelve, 20, 391; multi phased shields (32 Struct. An)
Thirteen, 29, 438; security stations (1 ATU)
Fourteen, 35, 469; transporters (25 Rangem. Unit)
Fifteen, 25, 430; rangemaster unit (35 Transporters)

I don't really have a solution but maybe this info helps looking in some direction...
(if I would guess, I'd say it has something to do with the 3 excluding slots 5-6-7.
Last edited by Rocco on Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Overlord2 » Tue Apr 28, 2015 8:48 am

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. I was looking into this bug sometimes before and found out it was connected with starbase specials. The bug replicates after I changed order of specials on starbase (not on the first time, one of the further changes..don't remember now). It looks like the key is certain special, which should be situated strictly in one place. When AI performs raid action if this special is not in place the game hangs. Couldn't figure which one is critical though. Anyway in multiplayer there is no bug, so I am going to leave it as is.

User avatar
Rocco
Posts:242
Joined:Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:16 am
Contact:

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Rocco » Sun May 17, 2015 5:09 am

In VDC MP games, does anyone ever use the -0.5 BC / Is it possible to construct a viable MP race, using this -money ability?

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Overlord2 » Sun May 17, 2015 8:20 am

It is viable only together with Expert Trader. Btw, I am going to update the picks costs in the next version, allowing -12 max negative. Then -BC should become more attractive, since it will be possible to get -12 with it.

Edit: VDC 58b was released with new, completely reworked AI races.

Edit#2: Re-uploaded once again fixing small error of the new version of mapgen.

dark dendroid
Posts:2
Joined:Tue Oct 07, 2014 10:42 am

Creative on impossible not occur with Meklars or Humans AI

Postby dark dendroid » Wed Jun 03, 2015 10:01 am

VDC 58c
From 500-600 starts (impossible, huge, mineral rich, 8 players, average tech, tactical combat, random events, no Antarans) even one not occurred, where Meklars or Humans AI have creative pick. Tolerant Sakkra - yes, stealth Darlocks or Mrrshan - yes. I Want creative someone, not only Psilons.

After next start, pressed omniscience cheat Alt + ISEEALL
lines in bat file:
MAPGEN.EXE -t toxic -t upoor -t tiny -t small -f SAVE10.GAM
vdcreg.EXE /nobh /nowh /hugestart /goodstart /planets=5 /monsters=39

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Overlord2 » Wed Jun 03, 2015 2:16 pm

Thanks for the feedback, I will look into it.

Pawlys
Posts:10
Joined:Sat Sep 28, 2013 3:33 am

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Pawlys » Fri Jun 26, 2015 2:40 am

I may be a scrub and all, but for the life of me I can't deal with antareans during early phases of the game. Most of my encounters went like this:
I expand to like 4-5th system, they start attacking, sometimes not right away onto me, but eventually they come with like 2-3 frigates. Being the commander I am, I usually fend them off with like 5-6 destroyers and up to 10 scouts, equipped with either kitted out nuclear missiles or lasers. Then, after like 20 or more turns, with them attacking every other one, they start coming in with either 3-4 destroyers or even a battleship and all my armada just gets completely wiped, even if I manage to upgrade to cruisers or even battleships myself.
Could any experienced players share with me their strat to beat those pesky invaders (without editing their values) or maybe even do a quick youtube video of how they go about early game defense? :?:

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Overlord2 » Fri Jun 26, 2015 4:04 pm

Hi,
Can you please tell what were the settings for the game and what race did you use?
The main strat is to achieve high economy with high research and production output, which will allow to get the required technology and fleet to defend from antarans.

to dark dendroid: I've updated the AI additional picks to add more creative races. Check for the new VDC 58d version.
Btw, Rocco was right. AI doesn't get line 4 or line 5. Seems like it needs some special conditions to appear, which I couldn;t reproduce. Or perhaps I was wrong and couldn't see line 5.

Pawlys
Posts:10
Joined:Sat Sep 28, 2013 3:33 am

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Pawlys » Sat Jun 27, 2015 2:27 am

Tbh I've tried many different race picks trying to find one that works for me, but what I could get from my latest autosave, before getting wiper by Bulrathi was:
Feudal
+60 pop
+75 ship offence
+20 ground combat
HG
Aquatic
Subterranean
Omni
Warlord.
Tactics with this race (starting pre-warp) was to spam out a lot of destroyers with scout labs to fuel my research output and spread to like 5 closest starts, with ships and then building colony bases to completely fill in the rest planets, but antareans kept on popping out and wiping out my planets and fleets faster than I could rebuild em (had me fleet made of of destroyers with either kitted out nuclear missiles or laser cannons)

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Overlord2 » Sat Jun 27, 2015 6:32 am

Well, this race is very, very slow.
+60 pop - 6 points
+75 ship offence - 9 points
+20 ground combat- 3 points
HVG - 4 points
Aquatic - 8 points
Subterranean - 8 points
Omni - 2 points
Warlord - 4 points
Total - 44 points spent, while economic picks comprise only 6+8+8+1/2*4=26 out of 44 plus fuedal research penalty. The only way this race can do well is to conquer nearby opponents asap, but because this race is not well optimized conquest will take more time than you will be able to research technology to meet antarans. Basically there are two strategies with AI involved - either telepathic blitz or building economy based on own pop and beating opponents with it. In the latter case you can't spend more than 4-7 points on war picks or the race will be slow. Any good eco race is doing 1k research per turn by the end of 80s and 1.5k research by the end of 90s (average start). Add +15 turns for prewarp start. Whereas antarans start attacking seriously not earlier than t100 for average start (115 for pre-warp start). By t100 (t115) you can get military tech enough to beat antarans.
Additionally I should mention that initial settings mean a lot too. If you play without any switches you may get 1 planet of doubtful quality in hw and then economy growth will be problematic.

Pawlys
Posts:10
Joined:Sat Sep 28, 2013 3:33 am

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Pawlys » Mon Jun 29, 2015 2:13 am

Yes, judging by what you're saying, I am doing indeed something wrong with my colony management. (+500RP in 10 turns? do you people breed like rabbits?). I can barely get to 500rps in 100 turns :/

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Overlord2 » Mon Jun 29, 2015 4:39 am

+500RP in 10 turns? do you people breed like rabbits?
Setting two additional colonies to research after building up can produce up to 500 Rps/t. Or getting autolabs in case of unification. Timing for getting autolabs with unification is about t96-100.
judging by what you're saying, I am doing indeed something wrong with my colony management.
Rather the race you used can't achieve such results. Good economy race can though. Atlernatively you need to conquer someone :) and put its pop to research, but there is a risk that conquest will be slow, or building up conquered planets will be slow. For this reason telepathic is a good pick, since it eliminates conquered pop penalty.

Here is an example of fastest attack race based on tolerant pick:
http_://speedy.sh/CPDQg/SAVE3.GAM
http://speedy.sh/tJSj3/SAVE4.GAM
http_://speedy.sh/78sCk/SAVE6.GAM
http://speedy.sh/95cJf/SAVE9.GAM

With this race I had my first battle ship built at t50 or so, unfortunately didn't save then.
As one can see conquest of opponents doesn't produce steady results. At t100 I got only 170 pop, while if I was playing other race and was relying on own economy, I could get about 200 pop and better tech advancement. Otoh I would be taking risk that someone could attack me or hamper my development. Then results would be worse.

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Overlord2 » Sun Aug 02, 2015 12:19 pm

VDC 58f released:

- Picks cost reverted back to the VDC 58c; I believe this will be final version of the picks;
- AI races revised and adjusted for the current costs;

User avatar
Rocco
Posts:242
Joined:Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:16 am
Contact:

Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod

Postby Rocco » Mon Aug 17, 2015 7:59 am

Have just found bug fix for the Avenger ship (6th weapon slot corrupted and Avenger looks like scout):
Replace '00' at DDbDD with 'C6'.
It is basically a restore to classic code, error must have accidentally slipped in at some point.
Last edited by Rocco on Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.


Return to “Game Modifications”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 36 guests