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

[Lodinn]

Hello here.
First of all, I was very happy with this mode, which obviously grants unique game experience, even despite I'm more like a solo-player. Thanks a lot
However, initially I was looking for the opportunity just to increase Antaran fleet offensive build rate (yep, so far I've found Lord Brazen's post with the respective offsets, but though I'm not that bad in low-level programming, it seems I totally lack experience with decompiling and all that). And that's the thing you've totally succeeded in in your patch.
Could you please PM me to tell a bit more about that particular thing - I've been googling and digging the forum for all week long and still no luck :-[

P.S. I'm so happy the community of that great game is alive ^_^
P.P.S. Actually, I can remember mahself like 10 years ago dreaming of destroying Antarans with their own ships... Just like now And being mad at them over and over again after they just beginning to shelter and never attacking. Impossible level, +20 gc and Warlord, hiring comm grum, using 3 classes of ships, tractor beams, shuttles, consta saving... Nothing. Arrrgh! )

[Overlord2]

Hi,

Thanks for positive feedback. The antaran attack rate and fleet size could be modified via ocl_improved tool. The data is kept in monster section - 'antaran fleet rate'.

By the way, there is a bug in the game - it crashes when you use captured antaran ships in battle...haven't tested on antarans, but on other AI players it does crash.

[Lodinn]

Hi!

Thanks for the reply.
As far as I can remember, I've started with doing that. It seems there aren't appropriate hex'es for the win95 1.31 version (my own ol' CD went corrupt and, uh, anyway I'm using Linux with GOG version of the game, but I don't think it's the matter) and I can't remember what it went for in the case of a DOS one. I'll check it once again, just need a bit more time.
Will post here if it eventually helped in a day or two; thanks for your help.

Yet one more question, if you please... Which tools do you use while creating such user-friendly editors etc? I'm asking just because it may be easier for me to deal with them directly, after all, I'd be glad if my experiments could contribute something further on to this work -)

Thanks again.

P.S. never encountered this bug - even managed to attack in a desired way once, but 3 harbringers even with legendary officers can't do **** against 5 or 6 of them + SF, black holes are overpowered, and harbringers are unkillable -)

[Overlord2]

Afaik gog version utilizes 1.40 patch of LB...since VDC is based on 1.40 too, the offsets are available for this version of the .exe

As for the editor I didn't program the editor, it was Nirran who did. Ask him a question about the tools he used in the ocl_improved thread or just pm him.

About the bug it crashes when using antaran ships against AI (this is what I noticed in my test). Can't tell how it behaves when you send captured ships vs antaran world.

[Lodinn]

Oh God, man, you was totally right about 1.40, I'm even ashamed of how silly I was. Thousand thanks, seems I'm gonna spend the rest of my summer vacation with modding
There's only one problem I've encountered so far, have changed megafluxers bonus space and screwed the whole thing :s Think it's OCL_Improved bug, tho.
And which version are you using? I've tried to send captured Antaran ships to Antares under my win 98 and XP with my original disk (It was doomed since somewhy mere usage of BH hanged up the whole game), but with GOG version I was so totally happy - have encountered a crash only once yet ^^

[Overlord2]

There's only one problem I've encountered so far, have changed megafluxers bonus space and screwed the whole thing :s Think it's OCL_Improved bug, tho.

I use the ocl_improved tool and from my experience it processes the megafluxers bonus correctly - didn't have any issues with it. Perhaps you input wrong data.

Also I'd like to ask that questions or problems with ocl_improved are discussed in its native thread. This topic is for dicussion of VDC mod and I don't like offtopic.

And which version are you using?

If you are asking about VDC, it is based on 1.40 patch of LB, but now it has become an independent patch - its no longer fully compatible with 1.40.

Edit: I guess I misunderstood the last question, if it was reffering the bug, I tested both 1.40 and 1.31 and both crashed.

Edit#2: I guess it was a VDC bug. Just started a new game in 1.40 and captured antaran ship, attacked AI and no crash.
Although it could be a different thing. The save I analyzed was from late AI game, and it could happen that by capturing antaran ship the number of ships exceeded the maximum allowed. Hence the crash. Needs more testing.

Edit#3: tested VDC again with 1 AI player - no bug. Looks like it really was some late game limitation. Sorry, so much mess out of nothing.

[Kaitane]

Hey Overlord

I got the urge to play Moo2 again after all these years, and discovered that I couldn't get it to work in Win 7 64 bit, even after a few searches on the net to see if there were any solutions for me, but it seemed a bit to technical for me, or simply too much work lol. I recently discovered the Gog version and downloaded it and it was an quick & easy install. I then discovered the forums site and saw your mod which I was excited to try. Unfortunately, after following your instructions to the letter several times, I discovered that the race picks seemed to be....not working properly. For example: Industry & money picks were -11 to +12, Democratic Government & Unification Governments +13 & +17 respectively, Low G was -11, Lithovore +23, Uncreative -11, Creative +14, tolerant +21, and so on. The Gog version is 1.40b23. Reinstalled both Moo2 & VDC twice, but same problem. As a result, the race picker would not let me pick any negatives below -10 or over +20. I could also not launch any of the exe files, "not compatible....." I tried to look on the forums for a solution, but to no avail, any suggestions?

[Overlord2]

Most likely you're launching wrong .exe Probably it's a default gog dosbox setup, which luanches original game instead of VDC. I would suggest copying the entire folder with moo2 to new directory, then patch it with VDC, then deinstall gog setup and install dosbox independently. Then edit dosbox.conf file (i.e. configure dosbox) for right exe and enjoy

[Kaitane]

lol, well I'll give it a go, considering my inept skills in this area, but thanks for the suggestion

[Miasmir]

I play VDC on the GoG installation and it works fine. Here's what I did:

Copy the Moo2 directory and rename VDC.
Extract VDC files into that new directory.
In VDC/DOSBOX/, edit dosbox.conf. Scroll all the way down. You're looking for the section that starts with [autoexec], so you can change it to look like this:

Code: Select all

[autoexec] # Lines in this section will be run at startup. @echo off mount C .. c: vdcor exit

Now test that when you run the dosbox.exe in VDC/DOSBOX/ that VDC starts and you can assign race picks properly (pick costs are higher but you start with more picks).
If that's fine, you can just right click that exe and make a shortcut, which you can place anywhere to be able to just play VDC.

If you want the existing shortcuts (or multiplayer) to work, you'll want to edit the .conf files in the VDC directory (dosboxMOO2.conf, dosboxMOO2_client.conf, and dosboxMOO2_server.conf), find the [autoexec] section at the bottom, and change the line

Code: Select all

orion2

to

Code: Select all

vdcor

for each one of them. Then make copies of the shortcuts that come with the installation and in their right click -> properties menu, change their targets from the moo2 folder to the vdc folder and you're good to go.

By the way, thanks for the amazing mod!~

[JarekIII]

Hi, Overlord2!

First of all I'd like to thank you for the great mod you've made!

But I have trouble with your latest 45d version: antarans attack every single turn in my galaxy after their first appearance in 3510! And the next wave is bigger than previous one - from 1 frigate to 3 destroyers. Is it feature or bug? Is there any way to adjust that?

Maybe I installed your mode incorrectly 'cause I didn't find 1.40b23 version of brazen's mod - (current link leads only to v1.40b24 patch) and I used b24 instead.

[Overlord2]

Hi,

In average technology start attacks begin at about turn 85 or 90, in prewarp start at turn 100, in advanced start at turn 25. So basically yes, strong antarans is a feature meant for strong players. You can decrease level of difficulty to hard/normal to make anataran strength increase less steeper.
Or if you think the frequency is too high you may edit the exe with ocl_improved editor and set 'Attack Frequency Determinant' higher (in monster section - anataran fleet rates). This will decrease the frequency, but the strength of single attack will be higher.

[JarekIII]

Thank you for the such fast response!

Hi,

In average technology start they begin attacks at about turn 85 or 90, in prewarp start at turn 100, in advanced start at turn 25. So basically yes, strong antarans is a feature meant for strong players.

I've never played VDC mode before, so it's just a bit unusual for me to see the galaxy is being raided so heavily The first time I encountered that I thought it's a bug or something like.
I saw proposition to make separate .exe with adjustable antarans' power/frequency while I was reading this topic. What do you think about it? Couldn't you do that?

By the way, don't you plan to include change-list into the package? It's not very easy to understand what exactly your patch changes relying only on list of updates inside ReadMe.

Or if you think the frequency is too high you may edit the exe with ocl_improved editor and set 'Attack Frequency Determinant' higher (in monster section - anataran fleet rates). This will decrease the frequency, but the strength of single attack will be higher.

I'm sorry, I haven't got enough experience with that program (OCL). But thanks, I'll try to do as you wrote. I hope that editor isn't too complicated.

[Overlord2]

I saw proposition to make separate .exe with adjustable antarans' power/frequency while I was reading this topic. What do you think about it? Couldn't you do that?

The sentiment of players towards anataran attack frequency is diverse. Someone likes it, someone not. Consequently I won't be changing it for now. But I will make the general change if most of the players vote for easier anatarans. MP community isn't concerned with antarans at all. As for making an additional exe it will be tedious for me to support it later. Besides I cant' suit all players preferences. It will be easier to change for each player on their own to meet their custom needs.

I hope that editor isn't too complicated.

Its just "extract&load the data, change one figure and write back". Above I mentioned what to change.

By the way, don't you plan to include change-list into the package? It's not very easy to understand what exactly your patch changes relying only on list of updates inside ReadMe.

It's already there - an xls file with full description of the mod.

[JarekIII]

Its just "extract&load the data, change one figure and write back". Above I mentioned what to change.

OK, I had changed Attack Frequency Determinant from 2 to 95, for example, and antarans stopped to spam every turn. But they come every 12-15 turns anyway if I even change AFD to 200 (as is in vanilla 1.31), to 400 or above.

And about other changes in that section: if I decrease Antaran Fleet Size Limits on some positions why the game ignores it? I mean if I set q-ty of Offensive Marauders to 3 the antarans send 4 or 5 with 1 B-ship anyway, for example.

And one more question: does the time spent on 1 turn affect the results of that turn? Sometimes I observe the results are better when I simply click on 'TURN' button without any delay: high lvl leaders come, spies successfully steals techs, researchers make breakthrough and so on. Or that's just random?

It's already there - an xls file with full description of the mod.

OK, thanks.