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

[Bork]

To the guys playing AI. You are probably missing elementary ship design. 1. You should always have missiles as fodder so PD doesn't get to your good Mirv or EMG missiles. 2. If you pull up fire 1 missile the spats/pulsars will fire and then you fire a mirv to get through the shield if any and EMG to kill it.

If you intend to fire and run you should have large numbers of missiles arriving at various times so the spat/pulsar or PD only picks up part of the wave.

Missiles do plenty of damage in the early to mid game but to be effective later (against a good human opponent) they need to be used creatively.

[Fisherman Bob]

Not sure why this happened, but I was playing a new race and every single antaran attack hit my star system.

Small/Impossible/8 Players

I went:
Repulsive
Ground Combat - 10
Spy -10
Creative
Sub
Cybernetic
Ship Defense +50
Industry +1
Artifacts Home World

I mean EVERY atanaran hit came for my star system, (I only had one in each game). I can't figure out what is different either. I've played this race before I went on holidays and wasn't getting this. It can't be coincidence, as I played through to turn 200+, and not a single attack went to another star system.

[Overlord2]

Antarans attack the player who got the most pop (or maybe most score, though not sure about it). Since I nerfed antarans in VDC 51 they should be easy to handle now. If one can't beat antarans on easy level... I'd suggest playing without antarans
The race you took is too slow, +80 pop and rich hw instead of +50 defense and arti hw would have been much better. So, sub, cyber, +1 prod, +80 pop, rhw is considered one of the best creative races in mp community.

[armuss]

(My latest post is disappeared).

Ok, but in game in 1.40b24 Antarans is "an additional difficulty in the galaxy". In VDC (superb mod)
attacks Antarans is too many. All games end in Antarans. This is not good.

PS.I play only versus AI.

[Overlord2]

(My latest post is disappeared).

Ok, but in game in 1.40b24 Antarans is "an additional difficulty in the galaxy". In VDC (superb mod)
attacks Antarans is too many. All games end in Antarans. This is not good.

PS.I play only versus AI.

As I have pointed before, if someone finds antarans too difficult he is free to adjust their strength at his discretion via ocl_improved tool, monster section, antaran fleet build rate. Current level of antarans is meant for advanced players.

[Pawlys]

So, in other words, if you can't beat current VDC antarans - you're newb, right?
On the same note, is it even possible to capture an antaran ship early on? I mean 10 of their marines wipe out full crew of battleship/titan raiders, until you get ground combat to at least 100.

[Overlord2]

So, in other words, if you can't beat current VDC antarans - you're newb, right?

In all likelihood...since v.51 it should be really simple. Just need to be able to build good economy by t100.

On the same note, is it even possible to capture an antaran ship early on? I mean 10 of their marines wipe out full crew of battleship/titan raiders, until you get ground combat to at least 100.

Antarans gc bonus is hard coded, didn't change anything on that part. But frigates, destroyers and cruisers* have quantum detonator installed, so you couldn't capture it anyway.
*Cruisers on normal difficulty only - on hard and impossible it gets Lightning Field instead;

Edit: tested antarans, they are times weaker now. So I should correct my previous statement: now a player, which got some basic skills, should be able to defeat them. Personally I was even disappointed how weak they appeared.

[armuss]

Thanks:)

I find bug: Leader Rash-lki have Battleoids, but in bulding list is Armor Barracks & after build is... Battleoids.

[Fisherman Bob]

Just FYI, I'm going cyber for fun, not about maximization or power gaming. Defense 50 plus cyber plus max tech is fun for trying to do a single doomstar ship design vs AI on HARD. I'm not playing easy either. Hard or Impossible only.

Found what I consider a bug. If playing on hard and impossible, transporters make damper field completely useless. The ai will just raid the ship, and there is very little if anything a person can do about it. Shields plus full shield buffs even have more space than DF plus HA plus RH.

Any suggestions on a DF build that can stop raiding?

[Overlord2]

Hi,

I find bug: Leader Rash-lki have Battleoids, but in bulding list is Armor Barracks & after build is... Battleoids.

It's not a bug, but the game feature - tanks are substituted with robots after you get the respective technology. You may read about it in the Moo2 manual.

Just FYI, I'm going cyber for fun, not about maximization or power gaming.

Everybody plays for fun, while I made more powerful antarans for the challenge. So with weaker races or weak play it's likely to lose vs antarans.

Found what I consider a bug. If playing on hard and impossible, transporters make damper field completely useless. The ai will just raid the ship, and there is very little if anything a person can do about it. Shields plus full shield buffs even have more space than DF plus HA plus RH.

Any suggestions on a DF build that can stop raiding?

I reduced amount of marines, which passes through DF with transporters to 5%. Originally it was 33%. If 5% is still game breaking I could reduce it to zero.

[Fisherman Bob]

I reduced amount of marines, which passes through DF with transporters to 5%. Originally it was 33%. If 5% is still game breaking I could reduce it to zero.

Wow. It certainly felt like more than 5%. Then again, on hard/impossible the AI will have so many ships with so many buffs like transporters and troop pods, and I was a low G race, so that could explain the massive losses.

On another topic, I'm doing a high G race with +20 combat bonus. I seem to be doing MUCH worse in ship boarding than I do when I invade a colony. Any insight on this? Or how security stations play a factor in? I know there are two scores that play into effect when invading a colony, amount of hits each unit has and the attack score. Is this is the same when boarding a ship, because it doesn't really feel that way.

And thanks a lot for all these quick replies. It's so cool having people still play this game!

[Fisherman Bob]

Also wanted to mention something about antarans again. The titan and doom ship they send both don't have quantum det. on them. After capturing two titans I was able to take my impossible game into a game that was so utterly easy. Sub space plus stasis for the star base/fortress, plus enough fire power to kill all planet defenses! However, I then captured the doom ship they sent and the game crashes any time I try to attack a colony with it.

[Pawlys]

I believe antaran doomstars are bugged.

[Overlord2]

Wow. It certainly felt like more than 5%. Then again, on hard/impossible the AI will have so many ships with so many buffs like transporters and troop pods, and I was a low G race, so that could explain the massive losses.

If you had all ground combat techs 5% raid shouldn't have caused big damage. What were the bonuses in fact?

On another topic, I'm doing a high G race with +20 combat bonus. I seem to be doing MUCH worse in ship boarding than I do when I invade a colony. Any insight on this? Or how security stations play a factor in? I know there are two scores that play into effect when invading a colony, amount of hits each unit has and the attack score. Is this is the same when boarding a ship, because it doesn't really feel that way.

Security stations when installed on a ship provides +30 gc bonus [VDC]. This is substantial bonus, so no surprise it's much more difficult to win marine combat in such condition.

Also wanted to mention something about antarans again. The titan and doom ship they send both don't have quantum det. on them. After capturing two titans I was able to take my impossible game into a game that was so utterly easy. Sub space plus stasis for the star base/fortress, plus enough fire power to kill all planet defenses! However, I then captured the doom ship they sent and the game crashes any time I try to attack a colony with it.

Such thing used to happen before. Either number of ships exceeded the limit or you just can't use captured antaran ships in combat. Not sure what causes the crash.

And thanks a lot for all these quick replies. It's so cool having people still play this game!

You're welcome

I believe antaran doomstars are bugged.

There is no crash when antarans themselves attack with that class of ship. What is really the bug needs clarification.

[Ethan]

Creative gets you to antarian titan cause of fighter base. On older *hard* difficulty. Buys time to get the last few techs (alone it only beats 2-3 FF) to make Missle Base beefy enough.

Might be bad MP, but SP vs. antarians creative tech races are great.


Great mod, gotta find time to try MP at some point!