No Install.exe

[TerminatorII]

I have had my copy of OrionII since 98' and it has no install.exe on it anywhere.... Just thought Id bring this up... (the game runs fine for me but I can't play 1.4 due to the fact I am running the 95' version on XP)

Also if anyone has any ideas on the problems I'm experiencing modding the game http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.p ... ost4222868


(specifically shield trouble...)

[Cabman]

http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2004 ... 9255475969
everything is explained there
About modding... talk to our Royal MOO Modder and Patcher : Lord Brazen ,owner of this site ..
(Taken from Apolyton forum) :@siron: I play strategic exclusively... you loose at least half of fun from the game then... Ship design and fights are even sweeter than economic stuff
Regards

[siron]

I am not familiar with the win version...but of course there should also be upper bounds for the values you can choose there (powers of two). Your values seem far too high so they "consume" more space and the following values are at wrong places in the exe. IMHO such a mismatch could cause your problem.

About the last column in the shields table. I doubt that it refers to "base size". When I altered the values I didnt saw any effects in battles (strat combat). Grig de Griz pointed this out to me. I assume they have sth to do with strat combat though. When I altered the last column in the ship specials table the AI ship design decisions were altered. Mebbe thats also true for the shield table. But I am unsure.

[TerminatorII]

Okay I meant Tactical not strategical... oopps... anyways I figured out something in the shield tables... after about 6 hours of nonstop tweaking.... Shield streangths are determined (Ill aproximatethe formula as I don't know what it is...) (ship size)*(shield value)*(shield capacity)

where Capacity is the farthest right value
and Value is the coloum before all the zero values


this lead to the finding that the game only recognizes numbers in the rightmost coloum that are divisale by 50 and less than 300 to 400 ish..... (any more and doomstars have negative shields when they have multiphased shields.)

Also about Armour for stations...
I found that you can't increase a stations max armour value above 1000 any more and they get negative armour...



About the mod

I still need to balance the shields...500 stopping power is just too much.

I have also started tweaking the weps to better balance one another.

for instance

Laser weps are small and do low damage

Graviton cannon is Large does anywhere from no to massive amounts of damage

Projectile weps are small and deal tremendous damage... but are expensive they also don't shrink a lot

Fusion weps are average in size shrink a ton and deal average damage.

torps are small with low damage yields

Missles need to be ballanced but I can't figure out how to change them.

shields need to be tweaked but that is a tough one as to much damage blocked no one can hurt you and too little and you might as well not have shields...

@Lord Brazen Is there a way to easily mod the shield recharge rate? I don't know anthing about programming...

[siron]

Shield streangths are determined (Ill aproximatethe formula as I don't know what it is...) (ship size)*(shield value)*(shield capacity)

where Capacity is the farthest right value
and Value is the coloum before all the zero values

I dont think so. I dont know what the last column represents what you call "capacity". When I alter the values I see no effect in the design screen.

AFAIK the formula is:

(ship size)*(shield value)*5

and doomstar has ship size value 7 (instead of 6).

[TerminatorII]

Quote:
Shield streangths are determined (Ill aproximatethe formula as I don't know what it is...) (ship size)*(shield value)*(shield capacity)

where Capacity is the farthest right value
and Value is the coloum before all the zero values


I dont think so. I dont know what the last column represents what you call "capacity". When I alter the values I see no effect in the design screen.

AFAIK the formula is:

(ship size)*(shield value)*5

in the combat screen you have 4 areas that can take damage.

Shield Capacity
Armour
Internal Structure
Internal Systems

they are represented by

Green glow aroud your ship
Blue bar
Red bar
Yellow bar



In the shield variables table we have 2 areas that we need to worry about. in the standard game the values are

"No Shield", 0, Tech0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0;
"Class I Shield", 1, Tech33, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 50;
"Class III Shield", 2, Tech34, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 100;
"Class V Shield", 3, Tech35, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 5, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 150;
"Class VII Shield", 4, Tech36, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 7, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 200;
"Class X Shield", 5, Tech37, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 10, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 250;



Yellow is the blockage value for that shield.

class 1 blocks 1 damage
class 10 blocks 10 damage

Red is the armour value of that shield

class 1 is 50
class 10 is 250


Now the game takes those two values and multiplies one or both of them by the ship size to get the ships actual shield armour value.



"No Shield", 0, Tech0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0;
"Class I Shield", 1, Tech33, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 10, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 50;
"Midget Shield", 2, Tech34, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 20, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 100;
"Rhino Shield", 3, Tech35, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 150;
"Atenuator Shield", 4, Tech36, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 200;
"Mellinium Shield", 5, Tech37, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 150;


From calculations you can do and from my experiences in game the Mellinium blocks double the damage of the Atenuator but is only slightly larger.


Does my explantion make sense?


BTW I have MOOII on CD but nowhere on the CD is Install.exe instead I have an Install.lbx
I would love to play online but as I can't run the 1.4 patch......

[siron]

I think I have understood what you said. But I still dont think that you are right.

The amount of hitpoints a shield can absorb is determined by the formula I have mentioned above:

(ship size)*(shield value)*5

Example: Battleship with C3 is:

4 * 3 * 5 = 60

This value is displayed in the ship design screen and in battle.

You have 4 shields as you know. So the whole amount of Green glow aroud your ship could absorb 240 damage.

I tested it a few months ago in battle IIRC and I have just tested yesterday (just ship design screen) that by altering the red numbers above these values are not changed.

You have just changed it with by varying the yellow numbers.

So I understand your hypothesis but dont believe it. You should offer a save of a hotseat battle where I could see a different battle result when I change just the red numbers. IIRC I couldnt build such a save so I dont think these red numbers are for tactical combats.

I assumed they are for strategical combat. But also here I wasnt able to build a save with different battle result. see here:
viewtopic.php?t=94

They could be some evaluation for AI decisions. At least the AI ship design is altered when you change the last column of the ship specials table.

BTW I have MOOII on CD but nowhere on the CD is Install.exe instead I have an Install.lbx
I would love to play online but as I can't run the 1.4 patch......

Check out my kali guide (in my signature). It is explained there...the 1.31 patch contains the dos version. rkernel.com file is prolly missing. Add it...this works for most mooniacs....

[TerminatorII]

okay that is wierd.... I can change just the yellow numbers and shield value changes... then I change just the red numbers (keeping in mind that they must be divisable by 50) and shield values are changed in game as well.....

[siron]

then I change just the red numbers (keeping in mind that they must be divisable by 50

Yes, I kept this in mind. I tested this OCL change with dos 1.4, 1.31 and win 1.31. I verified (observed with hex editor the changes) that OCL was not bugged. I saw no changes in combat or design screen.

IIRC you talk about win 1.3. Just icq me your exe. I will look what happened there.

[TerminatorII]

I don't understand though... as per what I mentioned you would expect following values


Atenuator = 20000 shield absorbtion
Mellinium = 30000 shield absorbtion which is what I get when I run MOOII


Then I can change the Mellinium to

Mellinium = 37500

by changing the red 150 to 250

(this causes negative shields if you apply multiphased though)

Ill have to look into this this weekend.

(Ill compose a list of changes and my results as well as copies of the .txt files for each one.)

[Lord Brazen]

Then I can change the Mellinium to

Mellinium = 37500

by changing the red 150 to 250

(this causes negative shields if you apply multiphased though)

The game likely uses 16-bit signed integer math here so values are limited +/- 32767. In which case adding 1+32767 = -32767 (yes thats negative).