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

[Overlord2]

Wrong quote (partial and out of context) to prove something. You show that you only see what you want to see and I had to rewrite the same thing three times:

I wrote it to emphasize how you conduct dialogue. I have explained it several times where you miss the point, but you keep pushing your idea for unknown reason. If you don't understand what I mean, you should just ask me to explain it different way.

Somewhere after the third rephrasal you took the time to explain that you were fitting points of positives to standard builds and negative costs are intentionally exaggerated, because otherwise it would "ruin balance or make for crappy race designs"

This was about repulsive, but it doesn't concern other negatives, which in your opinion are supposedly exaggerated, starting from -population growth ending by production minus.

What did I base costs on? Comparison to other costs, my belief in their effectiveness, etc. What else?

In this case you shouldn't come and categorically say that "I have those picks wrong and I'm missing something". Instead you should have asked why I did assign those values. Besides, I have mentioned that anyone who doesn't agree with the suggested values is free to alter them at his own view. I welcome it.

PS. I'll be back shortly on pick assessment in more details.

[Ai_Mania]

Perhaps this will help you understand my point:

2 players: 10 base points each

10 10
16 10 -> first takes -20 attack
10 8 -> second takes +20

In both "taking" cases the first player is behind on attack (and terefor initiative)
It should be obvious that the two cases are unbalanced.

You argue that taking bonus attack prohibits you from other vital picks, while picking the negative is just a chosen penalty to ammount for -10.

I argue that in taking +20 or not taking, a player "pays" a lot more for his attack value than he should. There is a difference of four points. I also argued that if the difference were 1 point, it would be reasonable as the player risks not catching up to his opponent.

You choose to ignore values in order to fit builds. That is not a reasonable attribution of pick points as it eventually leads to false builds.

More than that, with mostly huge (and truthfully exaggerated) negative values, most of them, there is no way to fit two of them together unless one of them is defense, combat or spying.

Example:
-8 for low g is valid only for the most extreme expansionist way, of which YOU play ALL the time. A democracy which keeps research close behind its colonisation would suffer less, say -6, while a rusher would consider this full 8 free points. Therefor, giving it a valid value of -5 or -6 would allow for intelligent pick combinations (you wouldn't pick it for an expansionist build, you would always for a rusher).

-I can, mostly, agree with values set for feudal and uncreative, they most likely make success impossible. However, your tech tree assures that people always get the important techs -> that would bring uncreative down to -8 or less. Feudal is awful but I'd think twice about -10. You're supposed to pay those negatives and make up with what you buy from the extra points, remember?

I agree more with your set values than vanilla values, but as I said, not entirely.

[Astax]

That makes comparison makes no sense AI Mania.

HOWEVER, if you knew exactly what your opponent was going to take, if you knew he was going for +20 attack pick, then you could take -20pick yourself because you would be behind initiative anyways! In such case the negative for ship attack might seem more out of whack. But it is not possible to know what your enemy will take.

[Ai_Mania]

That makes comparison makes no sense AI Mania.

HOWEVER, if you knew exactly what your opponent was going to take, if you knew he was going for +20 attack pick, then you could take -20pick yourself because you would be behind initiative anyways! In such case the negative for ship attack might seem more out of whack. But it is not possible to know what your enemy will take.

Wrong: the difference in the ability to hit your opponent would be a major drawback (if it happens in singleplayer..), especially if he uses defense enhancers. Plus it counts in the way you choose targeting technology if you want beams. Otherwise, you can use missiles.

Doesn't the ship with more speed act first? If a ship is faster in combat (aug engines and better drives) doesn't it act first? What of missile boats with removed or inferior computers?

Anyway, if the game gets far enough, I assume beams obsolete missiles (kill instantly).

[Overlord2]

Unfortunately I couldn't finish my article on approaches to pick values assingment due to my preparation and departure to other city, I hope I can post it when I'm there. Or in the extreme case I'll post it when I'm back in several weeks time. Sry for letting you wait.

[Parabola]

But you have to read manuals or game faqs sometimes. I cannot write precise description for every tech in game and give precise definition what it's doing in all cases.
Just speaking of your case it's clearly written in description for cybertronic computer that it gives bonus to beams. If you use logic a bit you can extrapolate it to other computers as well.

Sorry, I understand what the computer techs do. I do not like how they are not worded the same with different %'s. Example: Ion Drive increase speed by 3, anti-matter by 4 etc whereas computer tech's say different things. I think all computer tech should say something standard like:
"increases chance to hit with beam weapons by +X"

This is misconception: it doesn't matter where the tech is placed, the main thing is the choice alternative in the tech field. Thus for me it was unfair that you couldn't take EMG or Range Master Unit when Cybersecurity link was 10.

Ah I see.

-50% growth maybe too cheap?
Don't understand. Is it underpriced or overpriced, i.e. is it a good choice at -8 or bad?

Sorry, I meant to say -50% Growth @ -8 is not enough, it is too big of a handicap should be -10? I don't think anyone would take it anyways but...-50% growth seems to be almost as bad if not worse then -1 prod..

Edit: Does anyone else crash consistently around t285 (dosbox/vdc)? On LAN and SP I experience this.

[Ai_Mania]

Sorry, I meant to say -50% Growth @ -8 is not enough, it is too big of a handicap should be -10? I don't think anyone would take it anyways but...-50% growth seems to be almost as bad if not worse then -1 prod..

FIRST about the quote:

If you take cloning center, which is a relatively early tech, this disadvantage is greatly reduced as cloning center is beyond what even the +100 pop growth could provide.
The thing is it forces you to take cloning instead of another tech. Meaningless if you have creative.

SECOND about a bug:

I'm not sure if this is a 1.4 bug or a VDC bug:

For singleplayer, the score bonus for turns is reversed: for doing x turns, you get x score. It should be the less turns it takes you to win, the more score.

[Parabola]

If you take cloning center, which is a relatively early tech, this disadvantage is greatly reduced as cloning center is beyond what even the +100 pop growth could provide.
The thing is it forces you to take cloning instead of another tech. Meaningless if you have creative.

Yes cloning centers are good at generating pop - you left out a very important part of balancing the game for MP (which this mod intends to do) : what if he takes cloning and your at -50% pop growth with cloning? Also what about the 600 RP minimum or so before you can get cloning, in addition to rlab/afact which you will want to research before it where his population will be growing a whole hell of a lot more than yours? I don't think anyone would want to punish themselves that badly by taking crea/-50 growth, the 7 picks used on crea already hurts your ability to produce..

Back to the Mod:
Make Loknar a normally purchaseable captain if /noorion is on? might help make rep more painful (if its hardcoded then just give one of the crappy captains his stats and flag as legendary?)

[Overlord2]

I'm back in town, will be back on the topic shortly.

[Martind Forlon]

Hello.

I have game crash ( turn before multiple ships battle). Game runs in DOSBox 0.73, vdc mod ver 20a, exe vdcgm2. I try more tomorrow this game on my home PC (clean install orion2).

I upload save game here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/271820015/SAVE4.GAM.html

here I upload all saves
http://rapidshare.com/files/271852678/SAVE1.zip.html

I try give (gift) system to another race, but game crashes even though the system was a different race.

[Overlord2]

Hello.

I have game crash ( turn before multiple ships battle). Game runs in DOSBox 0.73, vdc mod ver 20a, exe vdcgm2. I try more tomorrow this game on my home PC (clean install orion2).

I try give (gift) system to another race, but game crashes even though the system was a different race.

This is rather moo bug than vdc bug. I have loaded the save in 1.31 and it does the same thing. Possibly some numbers exceed max allowed. Playing so long with large AI empires emerging is inclined to crashes (due to unknown bugs) At turn 241 of your save giving systems to other races works OK...
Try to simulate the same situation and see if it appears again.

[Martind Forlon]

Please look at this save - battle after end of turn.

http://rapidshare.com/files/279422426/SAVE4.zip.html

Crash when AI move (second move) with doomstar (or maybe another ship with enegry absorber, there in AI fleet is at least one) . I try several tactics (except capture/dostroy both doomstar ... defence AI is strong, I capture destroy one d.) I would like to know if the bug is in somewhere in my settings or it is again an unknown internal orion2 error.

Thanks.


... i use several settings for my dosbox with no success (work PC). At home pc (win XP) and vdm sound game hangs in the same case.

EDIT: if the bug is in energy absorber ... is some possibility that this progress(energy absorber) to exclude?

[Overlord2]

Of course if it happened on AI move it was orion bug. I tried to replay the battle in autocombat and I think it was tractors...
On the other hand you could edit the save (make AI player human) and replay battle manually for both sides...You can see then if bug reappears and where exactly it appears.

[Martind Forlon]

2Overlord: Could you please advise where and how to edit? ... and then goes to play on one PC per both parties? I do not have much experience with self modifying this game.

... beside: tractors bug hmmm ... when I play this battle many times ..game freeze always when AI move doomstar or ... there is in upper part AI formation one ship with absorbers, if I do not capture this ship in my first turn, then game freze when she move next turn. Tractor beam was not in this case active (all stopped ships were captured)


In any case, it would be interesting to see when and what exactly makes a bug. Q: Is it possible edit ship equipment in saves?

EDIT: I found some tools here: http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005/01/download.html. I try this

[Overlord2]

you can edit saves with corion tool, its pretty easy.
as for the bug - there are too many ships from each side to understand where exactly bug occurs...but in case when human takes AI's part bug may not appear at all