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

[PHXHaleX]

Excellent work on VDC.

One bug I've come accross: I can't use my captured Harbinger in battle - monster.lbx [entry 43] exceeds number of LBX entries.

[Overlord2]

Excellent work on VDC.

One bug I've come accross: I can't use my captured Harbinger in battle - monster.lbx [entry 43] exceeds number of LBX entries.

Could you send a save, so I had a look at it?
Thanks for high appraisal of the mod, btw.

[PHXHaleX]

Excellent work on VDC.

One bug I've come accross: I can't use my captured Harbinger in battle - monster.lbx [entry 43] exceeds number of LBX entries.

Could you send a save, so I had a look at it?
Thanks for high appraisal of the mod, btw.

Unfortunately I'm long past that point (overwritten the save).
I captured it mid-game using transporters - I noted that my leader then switched to that ship (perhaps his was destroyed in the battle) but moving him out made no difference. I tried to attack Orion with it first to get this message and then loaded the save game and tried to attack another race with the same result. I think that's all the info I can give you.

Of course I scrapped the Harbinger which was generous in its technology salvage.

I picked up Moo2 again recently after a gap of several years. This mod has certainly given a new lease of life to one of the best games of all time.

Now I've just got to work out how to defeat an AI that can add thousands of specials to their ship design. Can I do the same or am I still limited to 8?

Antaran attacks are great - timing seems a little odd in that once they get going in the early game they come every 1-2 turns and then they seem to disappear for ages on end.

[Mormegil]

Hi, at first I want to say thanks a lot to Overlord for work on MOO VDC mod - it's great!

Is there any manual 'How to effectively defend from Antaras gangs' special for VDC mod?
I've recently started to play in MOO2 in general and in VDC particularly. When I set normal difficulty - have no problems with beating AI, but with Antaras attacks = ON game turns into 'Who will survive' challenge after 85 turn

[Overlord2]

Now I've just got to work out how to defeat an AI that can add thousands of specials to their ship design. Can I do the same or am I still limited to 8?

No, human players are limited to 8 specials - interface issue, cannot be overcome at the moment. Also not sure if it will be balanced introducing additional specials to the ships.

Antaran attacks are great - timing seems a little odd in that once they get going in the early game they come every 1-2 turns and then they seem to disappear for ages on end.

What version are you running? I hoped in 43d and higher "disappearing" was solved.

Hi, at first I want to say thanks a lot to Overlord for work on MOO VDC mod - it's great!

Is there any manual 'How to effectively defend from Antaras gangs' special for VDC mod?
I've recently started to play in MOO2 in general and in VDC particularly. When I set normal difficulty - have no problems with beating AI, but with Antaras attacks = ON game turns into 'Who will survive' challenge after 85 turn

Hi,
Thanks for appreciation of the mod. Were you speaking about beating AI in VDC or in regular moo2? Since in VDC AI is much stronger.
About antarans - either missile base or fighter garrison should solve the problem of early attacks up until destroyers. Then you'll need some additional forces.
Anyway, I believe antarans have been weakened since 43d. In 43c they were much tougher. Still difficult defending from them?

[Mormegil]

I mean VDC - in original MOO antarans aren't such problem

Missiles / fighter garrisons are great, but as soon as I kill the first single scount invader, large numbers of them begin to arrive in my systems (4-5 scouts in pack or 3 destroyers some later). And in this case MB or FG are inaffective, even they are supported by some fleet - armor is not strong enogh yet, antarans make turn before my ships - and beating most of them...

[Catalyst_Kh]

Mormegil, there are many ways to counter all of that and beat Antarans invaders with your fleet. To find any way to do that is a big part of what makes a game interesting once again. Take a challenge!

[Overlord2]

I mean VDC - in original MOO antarans aren't such problem

Missiles / fighter garrisons are great, but as soon as I kill the first single scount invader, large numbers of them begin to arrive in my systems (4-5 scouts in pack or 3 destroyers some later). And in this case MB or FG are inaffective, even they are supported by some fleet - armor is not strong enogh yet, antarans make turn before my ships - and beating most of them...

Hehe, you need to get Zort by the time of destroyers and build one missile BB. If you see you can't get Zort (not fast enough) take trit. But then you'll probably need to combine it with heavy armor or it might be insufficient.
The problems really start when it begins sending cruisers. But that shouldn't happen before t125. You can get Neutronium armor by that time.

[Mormegil]

Maybe the reason why I failed is in my non-standart race picks.
I found interesting idea to combine Trade Gods and +2 Food to get much gold from food over-production Don't like researchers - will try to win with my race...

[PHXHaleX]

Now I've just got to work out how to defeat an AI that can add thousands of specials to their ship design. Can I do the same or am I still limited to 8?

No, human players are limited to 8 specials - interface issue, cannot be overcome at the moment. Also not sure if it will be balanced introducing additional specials to the ships.

Antaran attacks are great - timing seems a little odd in that once they get going in the early game they come every 1-2 turns and then they seem to disappear for ages on end.

What version are you running? I hoped in 43d and higher "disappearing" was solved.

8 specials for humans and 16 for AI is good balance.

I'm using 43e as far as I can tell.

Am I right in saying also that Stasis field can't be researched?

[Overlord2]

8 specials for humans and 16 for AI is good balance.

This is how AI was programmed, there is no limit for number of specials for AI as long as the space allows it. It puts it automatically. What I did was increase space for AI ships by about 50% compared to human players and changed allocation percentage between weapons and specials. The rest is game mechanics.

I'm using 43e as far as I can tell.

OK, so the dissapearing issue hasn't been solved.
Can you please tell the time when it stops sending the ships altogether?

Am I right in saying also that Stasis field can't be researched?

Yes, it was removed from the tech tree. Makes it interesting the point if you could get stasis from antaran ships....

Maybe the reason why I failed is in my non-standart race picks.
I found interesting idea to combine Trade Gods and +2 Food to get much gold from food over-production Don't like researchers - will try to win with my race...

What can I say, antarans were made not to be an easy walk...if you find them too strong you could try playing on normal or hard diffculty.

[PHXHaleX]

8 specials for humans and 16 for AI is good balance.

This is how AI was programmed, there is no limit for number of specials for AI as long as the space allows it. It puts it automatically. What I did was increase space for AI ships by about 50% compared to human players and changed allocation percentage between weapons and specials. The rest is game mechanics.

I'm using 43e as far as I can tell.

OK, so the dissapearing issue hasn't been solved.
Can you please tell the time when it stops sending the ships altogether?

Am I right in saying also that Stasis field can't be researched?

Yes, it was removed from the tech tree. Makes it interesting the point if you could get stasis from antaran ships....

I'm guessing they disappeared around turn 150-200 but it's hard to tell. Not soon after each turn begins taking quite some time to micromanage in a huge galaxy.

Actually I asked the Stasis field question by accident then - I salvaged it from that captured antaran... I've been using it to hold my own against fleets that were going through mine like butter.

Yes, I've seen many more than 16 now on an AI ship. I do note that my DOSbox has crashed a few times - in battle if I scan an enemy ship or view the status of my own specials then the cursor can pick up some screen buffer and corrupt - then it can crash.

Is the stellar converter too powerful? Once it starts minitiarising you can fit an awful lot of power in one ship.

[Overlord2]

Ok, seems like antarans need more work.

Yes, I've seen many more than 16 now on an AI ship. I do note that my DOSbox has crashed a few times - in battle if I scan an enemy ship or view the status of my own specials then the cursor can pick up some screen buffer and corrupt - then it can crash.

Probably it crashes when the list of specials cannot be drawn because of limitation of the screen. I will look into it.

Is the stellar converter too powerful? Once it starts minitiarising you can fit an awful lot of power in one ship.

It could be powerful if it was possible to fit into a battleship. However since it gets max miniaturization only 50% it will be rather problematic.

[PHXHaleX]

Ok, seems like antarans need more work.

Yes, I've seen many more than 16 now on an AI ship. I do note that my DOSbox has crashed a few times - in battle if I scan an enemy ship or view the status of my own specials then the cursor can pick up some screen buffer and corrupt - then it can crash.

Probably it crashes when the list of specials cannot be drawn because of limitation of the screen. I will look into it.

No need to look into it on my part

Is the stellar converter too powerful? Once it starts minitiarising you can fit an awful lot of power in one ship.

It could be powerful if it was possible to fit into a battleship. However since it gets max miniaturization only 50% it will be rather problematic.

If I can fit a 200 size Stasis field on a cruiser then I can easily fit a 250 stellar on a battleship (two in fact if I strip most of the specials)... It may be the 4000 damage it now does that caused me to mention it. Damage to cost and sizes ratio are high.

PS Is there any particular feedback that you would find useful?
I found VDC gave me a much better game than vanilla.

[Catalyst_Kh]

Maybe the reason why I failed is in my non-standart race picks.
I found interesting idea to combine Trade Gods and +2 Food to get much gold from food over-production Don't like researchers - will try to win with my race...

You can get much more money by other ways. For example, you may put "extra" workers from surplus food to production and set +10% taxes. That will give you more money and you will save many race picks from taking +2 food and traders. Of course taking +0.5BC or democracy will get much more money, but as you told you don't want to take those. But if your race generally already harmonically uses +2 food pick, only then it is reasonable to take traders, because before pollution controls (or leaders) pollutions makes taxes idea less effective. Also, there is the standard way to get more money, production and research – spend race picks for more pop growth and more pop capacity on planets, thus extra pop will make a lot of extra money automatically right from the game start.