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

Information, How-to's, and discussion about mod'ing Master of Orion II.
Ethan
Posts:6
Joined:Wed Jun 11, 2014 7:51 am
Re: "Very Difficult Choice" Mod, irc channel: irc.quakenet.org/vdc

Postby Ethan » Wed Nov 02, 2016 7:18 pm

"...is there any way as tech race you can take Sub farm over Clones?"

So I'm that weird player that does that. And it is definitely important for my strat, unless I've got 1 natives and know of another. I should note I'm solid, but not that good - some here are much stronger.

The key conditions that make sub farms much better are the following:
Cybernetic - first and foremost... doubling the effect, at the cost of production. (Also a fun little bonus for wartime.)
Only 1 pop mod - I take sub, which is the strongest of them, and also fits the next point.
No food mods - Demo -.5 (and cyber) food has lower moral, no uni mod, and is only 1.5 at start.
Growth mods - your natural growth must be covering some of the gap for you.
High value per pop - saved pop now really needs to help.
Lower production - you are already cyber, so you are part way there... but if you can spam CShips, just send excess pop there.

So I often end up with something like:
Demo, Sub, +2 sci, +60% Growth, Cyber, Large, Arti (er... can it still do 80% growth?)

By the time you get Sub farms, they save you 3 people working on food, which turns into (3 + 2 + 2 + 1) * 1.5 = 12 sci per, or 36 total, if you can get them working on your home planet. That thing is better than an autolab!

Combined with Hydro farms (that didn't used to oppose biospheres) you could feed 18 pop without any farmers. (And thus take more pop growth instead of soil enrichment.) The blitz of tech meant you pushed up to robofactory before you got serious about housing, and those would put out about 1/3 a pop per turn, so from there pop growth was good. I've surpassed the pop of Dict Creative races *without* clones, so it can be quite good (although creative is always slow to get going). And remember, no farmers means the "effective" pop is even better.


All that massive wall of text said... cloners is usually the better choice. I wonder if lowering the gc to maintain on sub farms would help a tiny bit (don't want to make them stronger at start, since that is already their big advantage).

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

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

Postby Overlord2 » Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:30 am

Hi Ethan,
Some comments on your post:
Cybernetic is not good with the race you pointed. From economic point cybernetic is +2 food & -1/2 prod. If you take -prod as -12 it will be +8-6=+2. Additionally since this race lacks production, it will be particularly vulnerable in production sphere and not enough cash to compensate it. Basically cybernetic trait is war pick and should be treated respectively. While your race is a tech race, mixing war race strategy with one of the tech race is not good idea. From this point Sub, demo +80 pop, +1 food, +2 research, large, arti hw, -def, poor hw, repulsive will produce much better results, but you need clones with this race.

Ethan
Posts:6
Joined:Wed Jun 11, 2014 7:51 am

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

Postby Ethan » Sun Nov 06, 2016 11:47 am

I hadn't thought of poor hw, that is a good improvement. I will have to test that setup out. While poor hw will slow the first cBase... all following cBase and cShip will be much faster.

Without taking poor hw, the only other ways I had found to get the -12 that these races really want involved -spy or -1/2 food. I've had demonstrated that demo and -spy is a really bad idea, often losing the game before it even starts. That left -1/2 food, which then precluded +1 food at the same time... thus either aqua, sacrificing end game pop, or cyber. But the idea of poor hw fixes all of these problems, and makes +1 food a much nicer choice.

I did try to use the cyber pick as a war pick as well... with mutation going to +def, sometimes I could make a few titans that would face tank ok. Was unreliable though, simply having more ships due to a better econ is a stronger choice. Also when hydro farm was on the way to autofactory (first priority for a tech race like this) that made a small bonus to cyber since the hydro-farm feeds 4. But the newest setup doesn't give you that along the way, making cyber even worse of a pick for econ since you have to wait longer for it.

And, as you noted, now that this race uses +food, cloners is much better for it. And soil enrichment (psionics for spying defense - it is still a problem!)

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

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

Postby Overlord2 » Sun Nov 06, 2016 12:42 pm

Cybernetic was nerfed indeed especially when combined with -food due to moving hydrofarms to biology branch. As a counter measure I was thinking to add gaia for tolerant race with -tgaia switch. But you do get a valuable tech in construction branch in return.

As for Psionics for demo, it is a tough choice. One could try to get other tech and mutate to espionage before meeting the opponent, but it has a downside of not getting additional offense. Or take a risk and stay without full spying defense, while research other spying techs...

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

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

Postby Overlord2 » Wed Dec 07, 2016 7:27 pm

Updated VDC to X3_V61_B4 supporting 1.50.6.1 version of the patch;
Check the patch readme for full reference: http://moo2mod.com/patch/README_150.TXT
The VDC changelog is included in the installation package.
Edit:
Reuploaded VDC, correcting few mistakes. New version is X3_V61_B5
Edit#2:
Found another bug in config, but not going to re-upload for a while;
To correct the bug change manually the line in VDCGM3.CFG or VDCREG.CFG
starbase_special special_slot_11 = 19 112
for
starbase_special special_slot_11 = 19 102
Corrects the tech for which Lightning Field appears on star bases.

Narn
Posts:3
Joined:Mon Dec 19, 2016 3:04 pm

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

Postby Narn » Mon Dec 19, 2016 3:18 pm

Hi after what seems like many years i have returned to play moo2. starting off with he 1.50 patch and trying your vdc mod.

I have a question/query

how does the ai get tech in this mod, is it different from vanilla? i ask because i started a game on normal difficulty and i notice some of the ai is getting advanced technology despite not researching prerequisite tech. for instance in my game i have found out the klackons have phaser technology despite not even researching fusion physics yet. similarly they also have both planetary supercomputer and virtual reality network despite not researching the tech artificial intelligence. as they are uncreative that seems unlikely they would have both and neither have they traded or stole that tech from anyone since nobody else in the galaxy possesses this tech. Does the ai get given free tech automatically every few turns? this dumbfounded n00b needs help :shock:

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

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

Postby Overlord2 » Tue Dec 20, 2016 6:25 am

Hi,
...as they are uncreative that seems unlikely they would have both and neither have they traded or stole that tech from anyone since nobody else in the galaxy possesses this tech....
If technology wasn't researched by the player, it could be gotten other way either from tech trade or a leader (and from lucky event, though unlikely in this case). Uncreative doesn't forbid tech trade. Check all AI players and see if they got phasor. Looks like some other AI player got a leader, which brings phasor and traded it to Klackon.

Narn
Posts:3
Joined:Mon Dec 19, 2016 3:04 pm

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

Postby Narn » Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:20 am

had a look, for phaser technology it is indeed possible they traded that tech with someone as maybe 3 other races had it however not for both planetary supercomputer and virtual reality network. they were the only ones who had that tech. but you might be right i didnt check the leaders though, i guess its possible they got both of them from leaders they hired. maybe they got lucky or something

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

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

Postby Overlord2 » Tue Dec 20, 2016 1:19 pm

Planetary SuperComputer and VRN are not supplied by any leader. Could you upload the save, so I could check it too?

Narn
Posts:3
Joined:Mon Dec 19, 2016 3:04 pm

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

Postby Narn » Tue Dec 20, 2016 2:44 pm

unfortunately that moment has long since passed: i got sick and tired of them and teamed up with the psilons and we destroyed them. i can only say i'm nearly 100% sure they had both planetary supercomputer and virtual reality network despite nobody else having that tech and they weren't even close to getting that far in the research tree.
anyway i'll continue with new games and see if i notice anything else. i got the game recently on steam and patched up to latest 1.5 version before downloading and installing your excellent mod

Edit- started a new game on normal difficulty, the year is 3508 and i see the elarians already have plasma rifle technology. they have hired 3 leaders - administrator yota, commodore tulock and captain jarred. does plasma rifle come with any of them?

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

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

Postby Overlord2 » Tue Dec 20, 2016 4:09 pm

Yes, Tulock. You may check the leaders stats in the xls file supplied with the installation package.

Catalyst_Kh
Posts:119
Joined:Sat Aug 25, 2012 7:49 pm

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

Postby Catalyst_Kh » Tue Apr 25, 2017 5:07 pm

Hello Irakly. Please have my lowest bow for all your great work! I play your mod with friends time to time, very rarely though, so it is always several new versions between games, which only adds additional interest.

The link to v60 at first page is outdated - file is deleted.

User avatar
Overlord2
Posts:661
Joined:Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:25 pm

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

Postby Overlord2 » Wed Apr 26, 2017 10:35 am

Thanks for appreciation. BTW, how do find the 1.50 patch? The 1.50 version of vdc was a big change compared to 1.40...also, any difficulties when installing it?
ps. obsolete link removed.

Catalyst_Kh
Posts:119
Joined:Sat Aug 25, 2012 7:49 pm

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

Postby Catalyst_Kh » Wed Apr 26, 2017 3:02 pm

The existence of 1.50 was a big surprise. It is very comfortable, no need to restart the game to use map gen is already big hit on its own, but many other handy improvements are also nice. And there were no difficulties with installation, all works well instantly.

So we all are very happy with it (all moo2 fans).

MadViper
Posts:46
Joined:Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:40 am

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

Postby MadViper » Fri May 05, 2017 5:17 am

Hello!
The new Mods are very impressive.
I have an Issue altering the Amount of Stars in the \VDC\REG_MAP.CFG
Whenever i lower the Amount of "stars_in_galaxy medium, large oder huge", the galaxy created will have the exact amount of stars i choosed, but the galaxy will be (much) smaller and sometimes only partial (i.e. only upper half) filled with stars. The average distance between the stars will always stay the same (3-4 parsec).
Is there any possibility, to increase the average distance between the stars?


Return to “Game Modifications”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 35 guests