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

[Redarmy]

This isn't exactly VDC related, but I figured I might as well ask. When I copy - paste my MOO2 directory and try starting it up ( I try starting vanilla or VDC or warmoo), it just tells me fullscreen is not supported and won't work. If it helps, I have GOG's MOO2, which comes with both patches pre-loaded in the game.

[Pawlys]

Well Moo isn't well supported by win7, you need dosbox to run it.

[Holy13]

Yes well, GoG automatically does all the configurating of DosBox for us simple folk, I never had to mess with it until today while trying to run this mod.

Short answer, you can't just run the vdcgm exe by clicking on it, you need to tell dosbox to run it.

You have a shortcut on your desktop(or in your start menu) put there by the GoG installer that does all this for you for the vanilla moo2 game, but you have to change something to make the mod work.

Instead of running the vdcgm exe, just delete the "orion2.exe" file, and rename vdcgm.exe to "orion2.exe" and then just run the old shortcut on your desktop. If you create a new custom race and it shows 32 picks then the mod is working.


(sorry if this is already explained elsewhere)

[Malekeith]

Hi, great work on the mod btw. I play alot against ai, and found the vanilla and warmoo mod too easy. Finally the antarans are decently difficult, and allround early to midgame is enjoyable in your mod.

One of the problems with vanilla and warmoo, was the lategame AI ship design beein way too easy to beat. but in VDC the ai lategame has like 10+ subsystems on their ships, is this intentional? Makes it tedious to kill the massive AI fleet. especially with your shield changes, when they have heavy armour, heavy hull, 100% extra shields, hard shields ++. I mean theyve got 6k armour, 6k structure, 2k shield with recharge. And ontop of that theyve got weapons systems too.

and on a sidenote, would it be possible to add a quicker auto resolution of battles? for the huge ones, takes forever.

nice work man, keep it up!

[Overlord2]

Hi,

Thanks for appreciation.
About AI ship design, in VDC it gets +50% more space for the specials and due to game mechanics (no limitation on number of specials) it can get more than 8 special on a ship, what makes AI ships much stronger. Considering that AI is weak by itself, I find it justified with aim to get more challenge vs AI.

and on a sidenote, would it be possible to add a quicker auto resolution of battles? for the huge ones, takes forever.

If you mean enabling strategic combat game back it will be very tedius for me to fix it, though most likely possible. If you mean adding a new feature, to make each combat optional - either tactical or auto combat resolution...it will need additional reprogramming, which is beyond my capabilities.

[Overlord2]

Yes, unpleasant bug. I will look into this as soon as I solve the technical problem, hopefully in the nearst future. The data of old versions is kept on broken hdd, which I need to repair.

to Parabola: could you please use other fileserver, for instance speedyshare? Can't download from this one.

http://speedy.sh/Kga2h/SAVE5.GAM

let me know if that one works.

If anyone kept this save, could he share it with me please? I lost the one I downloaded, but I need it to work on the bug. The current link is already obsolete.

[dark dendroid]

https://yadi.sk/d/OUXRhreUbsBFe

[Overlord2]

Thanks dendroid! The save helped a lot.

After great efforts put to find the cause of this bug, I finally arrived it was connected with starbase specials, but according to ingame data there was no error and it should have worked. The only reason why it couldn;t may be the fact that starbase specials data is recorded into the save. And replaying an old save on newer version may have caused the crash. Need test of Harbinger action replayed in the same version in which the game was started.
@Parabola
Do you have a save with Harbinger produced with the latest version of VDC mod?

[Haelkyon]

Odd possible little bug happening here, don't know if anyone can reproduce. Silicoids in single player aren't expanding 99.9% of the time. Don't know when or how it stared, just noticed when I was messing with "Omniscient". This is at the very start of the game. They'll send out the 2 scouts and colony ship, and immediately pull them back; and do nothing for the rest of the game.

I've seen them pull back from a GAIA first expansion, just to sit on their homeworld. Only times they seem to consistently expand is if a first expansion happens to be an Artifact, or Gold Deposit Planet.

This is on Stock VDC56, haven't used OCL or anything on it. Using Elerian for their Omniscient and just quick clicking through the first couple of turns to see what the Silicoids do. Not Game Breaking by any means, just odd.

[Overlord2]

Hi,

AI bugs isn't what I can fix, unfortunately. Need some programmers help.

[Rocco]

Hai Overlord2,

So I have studied VDC in detail now and spent more hours than is probably healthy for me

First of all BIG thanks to anyone that has been working on this exe, the bug fixes are amazing!
A joy to see that MOO2 is being kept alive. A few things;

* The strategic combat bug is caused by three elements simultaneously;
1. Techfield 56 Tractor and Shield Cap are both excluded in Strategic, so you have an empty field and it will crash
2. Techs that are excluded in SC cannot be made known techs, thus Reinforced Hull causes crash
3. Leaders cannot bring techs that are excluded; 23 APU, 28 Bio Term, 161 Multi-Phased Shields,
4. Sidenote: in SC, Warp Dissipator should be 0 and Warp Interdictor should be 1 a ships never retreat in this game mode.

* The Leaders with Telepath ability are still funny. Example Cassandra is +6% telepath. but Spies increase by 7% and agents by 13% in overview, but only agents should increase by 6%. (and is leader set at 6.5%?)

* Single Player games with Antarans on are easy, because all my enemies are dead before T250 before i have fired a single shot due to relentless Antaran bashing, I can take the back seat and win Just info, i can change in my own mod offcourse.

* read through the whole Revion history and noticed Robotic Factory changed a lot. i would propose 6-9-12-15-18 as an option that could be tried.

* Nano Dissasemblers is set at Octo, I thought i was radical in my mod, setting it at quadruple! Made me think about another option; swapping techs: PP, AR, ND >> ND (650 RP), PP (1150), AR (2000). ND set at quadruple is pretty good when production values are still low and no need to build it so is better then PP. AR against Zortium could be a tougher choice... what do you think?

? In the excel it says that fighter base armor is tritanium. Does this mean if you have only titanium, fighters are at tritanium anyway? And is this a VDC change? I always assumed fighters follow normal armor like ships.

? When I apply my mod, I have tech fields electronics and cold fusion appear in average game. Can you show me how to revert?

* Lastly I am very happy to mod on this up to date build, so thanks!

[Overlord2]

Hi,

Thanks for high appraisal, it's really been hundreds of hours of work to get to what it is now. Additionally thanks for the insight about strategic combat errors. Although it seems I am not going to fix them because it will contradict to the main goals.

The Leaders with Telepath ability are still funny. Example Cassandra is +6% telepath. but Spies increase by 7% and agents by 13% in overview, but only agents should increase by 6%. (and is leader set at 6.5%?)

Cassadra brings neural scanner tech which gives 7% bonus. That;s the way you get 13%.

Single Player games with Antarans on are easy, because all my enemies are dead before T250 before i have fired a single shot due to relentless Antaran bashing, I can take the back seat and win Just info, i can change in my own mod offcourse.

Some people complained they were too strong before, so I decreased their strength. Can increase back to old.

read through the whole Revision history and noticed Robotic Factory changed a lot. i would propose 6-9-12-15-18 as an option that could be tried

The reason behind was not balancing the factory itself, but balancing races. Because robotic factory affects housing, races with 60 pop growth, but other picks assigned to cash or prod, could get better results than the races with pop growth 100. But it was also connected with Colony ship cost. Cheaper colony ship allowed to produce larger number of housing farms and pop growth skyrocketed.

Nano Dissasemblers is set at Octo, I thought i was radical in my mod, setting it at quadruple! Made me think about another option; swapping techs: PP, AR, ND >> ND (650 RP), PP (1150), AR (2000). ND set at quadruple is pretty good when production values are still low and no need to build it so is better then PP. AR against Zortium could be a tougher choice... what do you think?

No, quadruple is not worth it. Also swap is bad because AR is main pollution tech, while placing it with Zort armor it prevents taking the armor. Also immediate pollution removal is attractive thing to be taken at 2k compared to a building, which has to be built everywhere. This way ND helps a lot new colonies to build up faster.

n the excel it says that fighter base armor is tritanium. Does this mean if you have only titanium, fighters are at tritanium anyway? And is this a VDC change? I always assumed fighters follow normal armor like ships.

I made that test long ago, but it showed that on titanium level armor of fighters was only 1/2 of the base armor set in the exe, while zort armor doubled base armor and so on. No changes to original, only statement of the fact.

When I apply my mod, I have tech fields electronics and cold fusion appear in average game. Can you show me how to revert?

I need to look it up, will pm you later.

Lastly I am very happy to mod on this up to date build, so thanks!

You're welcome.

[Rocco]

Ah, the Neural Scanner, yeah I missed that...

Some people complained they were too strong before, so I decreased their strength. Can increase back to old.

Actually I meant they are too strong still, because they kill all my enemies before I have the chance to start a fight. If antarans are not used in MP, then I can work out some new numbers for VDC, if you wish, to entertain the singleplayers in such a way that Antarans are strong and at the same time the a.i. opponents survive. just let me know.

[Overlord2]

Well, antarans usually attack the one who got the most pop (less likely the most score). And usually it's a human player. So strong Antarans were supposed to increase challange for single player games...If antarans attack AI first (which means AI is doing better than human) and you hide behind AI's back...then this is not what I was aiming at. Dunno how to address it. I will think about it.

edit: just arrived at idea of adding lucky pick for all AI races; interesting to see what will happen.

[Rocco]

Nice idea to add the lucky pick. If i play lucky, Antarans attack me much less than they should (<<50% of the attacks)