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[DWU] Balance Mod v0.9 (extended TechTree) [Cancelled in protest]

 
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[DWU] Balance Mod v0.9 (extended TechTree) [Cancelled i... - 6/1/2014 11:49:45 PM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		DW:U BalanceMod + Extended



click on image for larger version

Full overview of all branches, thank you dwaine (post 85):
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=3632950

Distant Worlds: Universe (Original)


Thanks to dwaine for the comparison screenshot idea!


This mod stretches the tech tree of Distant Worlds: Universe.

It also includes a version compatible with Distant Worlds: Extended (by Haree78).
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3141149

One of the major problems of Distant Worlds is, that with a low research cost setting, the tech tree is too short, and with high research costs, the pre warp start grants the pirates a major advantage over normal empires.
Another problem is, that there are wrap up end game techs (eg titan beam), which kill tech diversity and make other techs nearly useless.
Also, superweapons and wonders are overpowered in the base game.


Features:
- nearly 200 additional research projects
- rebalanced early expansion/hyperdrives, and thus the pirates
- rebalanced weapons, armor, shields, repairbots and other combat gear
- superweapons included but nerfed
- rebalanced colonization
- nerfed wonders
- and lots of other stuff


Compatible versions (and backups) for

DW:Universe 1.9.5.2 and
DW:U Extended 1.0.1

The DW:Universe version is compatible with all mods based on that, which do not modify the

research.txt
components.txt
facilities.txt

This includes the following mods:

Star Trek Universe (checked for 1.3.3)
Distant Worlds XPanded (X-Series mod, checked for 1.0b)

edit: the mod has been cancelled due to the modding changes in 1.9.5.5

the current version has been removed in protest to the unilateral and unoptional font increase in 1.9.5.5, which irreversibly punishes those users who choose their hardware/software carefully, after they purchased the game



changelog
v0.87
- fixed reactor sizes and costs
- fixed level 0&1 countermeasures/targetting/medicine values (minor fixes)
v0.86
- revert because of unadressed DW:U energy balancing bug
v0.9
- 100 additional research projects (new and gap fillers)
- rebalanced most weapons (especially beam weapons and the added Superweapons)
- rebalanced reactors to 1/3 the size and stats for better custom fitting (AI and player)
- added and rebalanced shields
- rebalanced repair bots
- whole HighTech research tree rebalanced and projects added
- wonders nerfed
v0.83
- fixed the improved and superior Quantum MicroUtilization parents
v0.82
- workaround for research cost settings, now works up until 999K research costs (lowered level 9-11 research costs to level 8 standard)
- Enhanced Hyperdrives positioned in level 1 column, so pirates have them. The costs stay the same.
- targeting and countermeasure tech paths changed
- targeting and countermeasure racial techs now grant the fleet components as well
v0.81
-fixing level 1 armor value (corrects this for savegames as well)
-fixing "reinforced construction" parent (does not seem to be corrected in savegames)
v0.8
-WIP release


Installation

First make backups of the relevant research.txt, facilities.txt and components.txt files,
the included backups may not be up to date when you use them.

To install the mod, just overwrite the corresponding files in the
root directory of DW:Universe, or in the \Customization\DW Extended Universe
folder in case you want to play with the DW:U Extended Mod.


It is work in progress.

No republication in any form is permitted (for now) that includes compilations.
DW:U modding is complicated/restricted enough, different versions floating around, with minor incompatible bugfixes and changes, would certainly not help in this respect. And those tend to come up if non centralized distribution is allowed, so not for now.

It is set up for easy extensions/racial tech mods for the future (racial techs are all seperated from the main research projects in terms of project ID). If you want to use it for a mod, write me on steam ("relnu") and we can talk about what to do until this mod is in a more polished state.

Now works with all research cost settings.


Named in honor of
Captain Kwok's SE:5 Balance Mod,
which drastically increased the fun/playability of SE:5.




< Message edited by Locarnus -- 3/21/2015 11:56:07 PM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/2/2014 12:37:45 AM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		As stated above, it is work in progress.


Balancing a tech tree, even if it is only a stretch from the vanilla game, is a lot of work.

Any crtitisism, gameplay experiences and opinions are very welcome and in fact are needed for making progress.


Thanks and have fun,
Locarnus



< Message edited by Locarnus -- 6/2/2014 1:38:33 AM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/2/2014 12:40:06 AM   
Wanabe


Posts: 30
Joined: 6/1/2014
From: New Zealand
Status: offline 		Havn't had the time to check it out in game but it looks really nice.

Thank you! :)

(in reply to Locarnus)
Post #: 3
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/2/2014 1:19:17 AM   
FireLion1983

 

Posts: 149
Joined: 4/18/2014
Status: offline 		Looks like a lot of the little fixup mods in one, very nice. Can't wait to try it!

(in reply to Wanabe)
Post #: 4
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/2/2014 7:29:56 AM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		Looks like a nice idea. It would be a good idea to run some automation with it to see that the AI behaves reasonably well while researching in it.

Not that it is too good with the standard one ;-)

(in reply to FireLion1983)
Post #: 5
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/2/2014 7:36:48 AM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		Thanks for the support.

It has some issues, but I hope I got the major ones under control for now.
There are some minor ones I m aware of, like the Quameno or so having a racial victory condition needing them to research whole tech lines, which is kind of hard with this mod.

Also, I will probably cap the research costs of levels 10 and 11 to be on the same level as research level 9. That might solve the "very expensive" research setting ctd. Although it is a lot of leg work since all level 10 projects must then be edited (again) and it is not a priority for now.

@Bingeling:
It should not have problems in general, since it is only the vanilla/extended research trees stretched.
But naturally there are a lot of factors involved and only testing/using it will show.

I m very interested in the pirate/ai empire balance for different settings. The research cost change and early hyperspeed slowdown should level the playingfield a bit.

< Message edited by Locarnus -- 6/2/2014 8:43:43 AM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/2/2014 4:48:37 PM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		I discovered a wrong tech link and a messed up value in the armor tech line.

No idea how I oversaw that.

The level 1 research gave impenetrable late game armor.

And the "reinforced construction" and thus further armor research required rail gun technology.


Both issues have been fixed in the updated version.

The problem is, loading a savegame with the new research.txt does correct the level 1 armor values, but it does not correct the wrong link leading to reinforced construction. At least for me.

If your experience differs, please report this.

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 3:16:11 AM   
AnddyiRaynor


Posts: 51
Joined: 5/30/2014
Status: offline 		The real problem is the ai is to dumb to fully max out their research and you end up 6 techs ahead of them in no time and that grows even at 240k research times, but I guess that may even be hurting the ai more so than before. I'm going to try boosting the ai research by 100% and mine by 50%(I want them to get tech quicker but not 100% quicker than me :D) because even on extreme/Very hard difficulty the ai don't eclipse you in research. Maybe later but idk.

I have to assume from looking at the teekan in the editor they always start with a colony governor and maybe a good tax% leader so they can get so damn rich, I just hope I am not forced to boost their income to. Since I saw quite a few of the ai having a hard time economically. Anyways I'll give your mod a shot I'm playing on a edited version of Theme Extended Universe, I'll make it compatible myself if there's any difference it doesn't seem to have any from what I have seen at least in those files. It'd be nice if you could fix those memory problems as it did make me think twice/maybe just, maybe 10 times before I downloaded it.

Bando unlock 800000 ranged sensors in 2 "rows" so double the price of the first research. At least it is just one race and I'm glad I didn't just flip the table when I saw that, I felt like it but I kept my composure. Still I don't have the experience to hazard a guess how op that is, but I think it should have increased tech to 1-2 rows right.

< Message edited by AnddyiRaynor -- 6/3/2014 5:07:25 AM >

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Post #: 8
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 10:51:12 AM   
Wanabe


Posts: 30
Joined: 6/1/2014
From: New Zealand
Status: offline 		Gave this a short go. Really impressive work so far, I like the slower and steadier increase across the board for the tech.

In the short time I played/tested the only mechanical flaws I noticed (pretty quickly) was the value for the armour and the missing link on the armour line, but you've already fixed those so very nice :P. I think I noticed at least 1 tech name I didn't fully agree with but I can't actually remember and that's mostly personal preference rather than how it plays anyway.

Starting with certain techs off the bat such as medical and entertainment is definitely interesting. It probably also helps the AI out having those techs earlier on.

Thanks what for what you have done so far, mods that follow this line of thought/content typically end up being must haves for me :)

(in reply to Locarnus)
Post #: 9
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 11:50:39 AM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		@AnddyiRaynor:
Yeah, the whole research system in DW is very problematic. You can custom design a spaceport and throw only energy research in it, thus while the AI is splitting their research between 3 branches (and not even maxing out the potential) you can just beeline to construction size and warp drives for a massive head start in exploration/expansion. This is one of the reasons I put so many level 1 techs on level 0, to give the AI empires some basics to work with.

The memory problems are something like a very narrow hardcoded limit for the research tree.
Which is very problematic for an expansion specifically advertised as moddable.
It took me quite a while to figure it out and I was close to scrapping the mod.

I just might have to set all the tier 10 and 11 research costs to the level 9 values. This may/should fix (workaround) it for 480K, but certainly not for higher custom values.

All the racial techs have fewer research projects per line than the regular ones, which was true in the vanilla game and in Extended as well.
Generally I dont like race specific technology, since the whole concept/definition of technology is, that it is not restricted to anyone...
For the moment I just stayed with the existing balance/unbalance in this regard.
I was curious about the Bando as well, their long range tech seemed so far ahead compared to the standard one. I will probably add some project(s) for them in the short term.


@Wanabe:

Yep, no idea how I missed the armor line issues it was so obvious when I finally saw them ;-).

The new tech names are all pretty similar, to give me some orientation while modding. The research.txt was a mess due to the sequential ID requirement. Now it is an even bigger mess in terms of structure and size, but it works.
So every tech name suggestion is welcome.

Yeah, the starting techs are mainly for the AI, they have a neat side effect of decreasing the workload for custom ship designing as well.


Pirate Balance

I had a test game in which I was unmolested by pirates for the entire starting phase.
Limiting the Gerax Hyperdrive to 5000 seems to have crippled them too much.

I m thinking about 2 possible alternatives:

1. Reverting the level 1 Gerax Hyperspeed to a higher value (8000 or so). That would have the side effect, that the slower expansion feeling when playing a pre warp empire would be lessened considerably again.

2. Putting the tech level 2 Gerax Hyperdrive Improvement beside the level 1 tech, but keeping the order of research.
That would result in the pirates having the improvement already (since they start on tech level 1), while the normal empires would have to research them in order.
The side effect here is, that it would look ugly (the arrows are only set for increasing research levels, not between same levels or even backward requirements.

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 1:28:47 PM   
Wanabe


Posts: 30
Joined: 6/1/2014
From: New Zealand
Status: offline 		Yeah hey fair enough on the tech names, just had a brief look at the default research.txt file and I can say looking at the one file with all the numbers etc could become a bit of a blur after a bit.

Seeing as you're referring to tech levels I assume the system isn't flexible enough to just give the pirates a single tech (IE the higher level hyperdrive)? If not that's a little bit of a shame and to get the effects you're after could prove slightly problematic.

(in reply to Locarnus)
Post #: 11
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 3:45:54 PM   
Unforeseen


Posts: 608
Joined: 3/26/2013
From: United States of Disease
Status: offline 		Does/will the shatterforce laser actually serve a purpose that isn't dwarfed by another weapon?

(in reply to Wanabe)
Post #: 12
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 6:03:14 PM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		Update v0.82

- workaround for research cost settings, now works up until 999K research costs (lowered level 9-11 research costs to level 8 standard)
- Enhanced Hyperdrives positioned in level 1 column, so pirates have them. The costs stay the same.
- targeting and countermeasure tech paths changed
- targeting and countermeasure racial techs now grant the fleet components as well

The pirates seem to be better again, with the increased hyperspeed and thus increased range. I m not sure if it is enough for lower star density settings.

@Wanabe:
I m certainly not aware of a nice way. But putting the enhanced Hyperdrives tech on level 1 seems to work well so far.

@Unforeseen:
One of the intentions for the mod was to not only have tech diversity in the mid game, but also in the late game.
So there are no wrap up/diversity killing techs, like titan beam, HyperFusion Reactor, Torrent Drive and so on.
I think I even buffed the Phasers (range) to be competitive vs Shatterforce. Though the balance needs further testing.

< Message edited by Locarnus -- 6/3/2014 7:12:41 PM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 6:22:02 PM   
dwaine


Posts: 30
Joined: 7/8/2010
From: France
Status: offline 		Imressive work !
Did a little compare with winmerge, I can't imagine how long it took you to do that.
However, what trouble me is the balance among categories, will the high tech finish much sooner because of the much larger energy & construction ? Did you add up all project cost of the 3 different categories to see the overall balance ?

Here is my contribution :


Energy & Construction
Original
Your extended version

Weapons
Original
Your extended version


< Message edited by dwaine -- 6/3/2014 7:22:39 PM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 6:42:55 PM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		@dwaine:
Wow, those are pretty impressive pictures of the tech tree! Thanks!
How do you make those?

It took quite a while to set it up and then it took the same time again to find out and work around the modding limitations.
Like max project research costs (important for research cost settings to not crash the game)...

I thought about the High Tech research tree problem. I only stretched those techs, while not filling up like in the weapons and energy section. And even the stretching was not done quite as much. 2 reasons why it was not a priority to balance them so far:
1. In the weapons and energy tree I not only added stuff, I also removed the diversity killing wrap up techs, like titan beam.
Those techs often made it necessary to research all prior diverse techs. With the new tech tree you do not need that.
2. I mainly stretched/filled diversity techs, so techs which you only need 1 of. Eg ground forces and construction was just stretched like the HT tree.
3. This is only an early version, other issues had priority for now, like making the game playable with higher research cost settings without having to fight super pirate factions.

edit: But it is planned for the future.

< Message edited by Locarnus -- 6/3/2014 8:05:41 PM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 6:51:47 PM   
Ardryn

 

Posts: 37
Joined: 6/24/2010
From: United States
Status: offline 		The extended version has errors at the Improved and Superior Q. MicroUtilization lines, the first has itself as its parent and the second has Quantum MicroUtilization as its parent.

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 7:02:03 PM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Ardryn

The extended version has errors at the Improved and Superior Q. MicroUtilization lines, the first has itself as its parent and the second has Quantum MicroUtilization as its parent.



Thank you!

I corrected it and uploaded the new version 0.83.

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 9:15:02 PM   
dwaine


Posts: 30
Joined: 7/8/2010
From: France
Status: offline 		The pictures I made are really simple.
I take all parts of the tech tree (6 to 8 pictures) then use some soft to cut the useless part and after that it is just a puzzle to assemble.
The images, for now, are way too big to posted on the forum, however, consider resized versions on your front post, images just make it way more clear and attractive. Just sayin'

Good luck to continue modding the techtree, I tried doing it myself, but it is soooo repulsive right now, if only we had tools.

(in reply to Locarnus)
Post #: 18
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 10:55:39 PM   
Tanaka


Posts: 4378
Joined: 4/8/2003
From: USA
Status: offline 		This is all looking very interesting as I prefer slower longer games as well. I like how you are helping the AI out too! Will definitely be trying this! How are you slowing down ship range compared to the energy rebalance mod?

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/3/2014 11:05:27 PM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		@dwaine:
Thanks, will try that!

@Tanaka:
Wow, totally missed that mod, will need to check it out.

So far I only "rebalanced" the early tech projects, specifically the ones concerning the GeraxHyperdrive and Warp Bubble generator.

All of them need less energy now, because of the autodesign failure concerning eg freighters, which do not get enough reactors to fulfill the hyperdrive requirements, resulting in lots of problems. Not what I wanted, but that part is hard coded and Erik does not see it as a bug, so no priority change if at all.

The progression is something like 2k, 5k, 8k and then something. The pirates start with 8k because anything lower would cripple them too much.
It is not fixed by any means, it is mostly just working around hardcoded problems.



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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/4/2014 12:42:39 AM   
Unforeseen


Posts: 608
Joined: 3/26/2013
From: United States of Disease
Status: offline 		I'm disappointed that your not allowing your mod to be included in compilations, but i understand none the less. I'm building a mod compilation/game speed overhaul that's goal is to make a slower more realistic and diverse galaxy, "orange mod". This would be perfect :P.

I immediately noticed you removed the Titan Beam. Perhaps you could make it to branch off another weapon much in the way that phasers branch to lances, becoming an alternative with it's own advantages and drawbacks. For instance, if the Titan Beam were to be an alternate for the Shatter, it could have higher damage but increased size and power usage.

Also, it looks like you also removed the death ray and the super laser..?

< Message edited by Unforeseen -- 6/4/2014 1:46:59 AM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/4/2014 7:10:02 PM   
Tehlongone


Posts: 208
Joined: 12/21/2010
Status: offline 		This looks really interesting I think I'll try it out with my next game.

I was thinking, instead of outright deleting the wrap up techs why not introduce them halfway through the other lines leading to it and have it be a "mixed" component balanced to not really be better necessarily but not specialized either. Like Meridian shields that have less effect than the Dense shields but still a bit more regenerate.

Like the last level would be roughly the average of the others, so Meridian would be 225 strength and 1.8 regeneration. It doesn't ruin diversity as it's not strictly better.

Also, maybe some of the racial techs should be re-balanced towards not being so strictly overpowered? Stuff like countermeasure/targeting where the last (very expensive) conventional tech isn't even better than the first (very cheap) racial version.. This tech is then easily stolen making the conventional tech tree irrelevant.

Similar with other techs, Zenox shields aren't just strictly the best overall, they are by far the best in all categories. I think by removing the powerful wrap up techs you are further boosting the superiority of racial techs.

Either they should be toned down a bit or all the conventional techs need a boost at least at the last levels to compensate for the removed wrap up tech.

< Message edited by Tehlongone -- 6/4/2014 8:19:46 PM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/4/2014 7:18:02 PM   
AnddyiRaynor


Posts: 51
Joined: 5/30/2014
Status: offline 		I found the colonization techs were to cheap so I boosted the initial cost for them, I liked the reduced costs for getting ship sizes higher but the ai still only get the 230 one early on and don't bother with the 300 ones for the longest time. I only boosted the colonization because it was like 480-720k tech and having boosted all the ai's research by 50% so that they could keep up with me that wasn't going to be balanced. I may reduce it on my next game seeing as the ai seem to always go for colonization first.

I did find it annoying at first that so much early game tech I go for was already researched but it's for the best since the ai would take ages to get it anyways. It was strange that this one ai race got 4 colonies out of no where then got 8 next time I looked while no one else really had more than 2 and I was busy building my first colony ship. That race though had marsh and continental colonization researched though but they didn't even have the bakarus high speed thing (at least they like me). It'd be really nice if you could set more research priorities in the race.txts the way the ai is set up now is not really that great for a singleplayer game, though the research is not balanced enough for a multiplayer game so where's the game even fit. I like it though.

(in reply to Unforeseen)
Post #: 23
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/4/2014 7:48:42 PM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		@Unforeseen: It will be in the future, but until now it has been about 1 update per day (except for today ;-)) and some larger changes might be coming as well, with more tech projects and I have barely scratched the high tech screen so far.
Already sent a pm to Erik asking for an additional dummy variable in the facilities file, to introduce/differentiate something like "national wonders" (in civ terms, essentially 1 building per empire, not 1 per galaxy).

For the future another Beam weapon may take the place (graphics effect slot) of the titan beam. But with 2 pulse and 2 energy stream weapons already (non racial), I dont feel it is a priority for now.

While I dont like the concept of superweapons in general, I recognize that they can be found in ruins and tech should not be confined to luck. So I will introduce (vanilla)/reintroduce (Extended) them, when I add more research projects for other parts. With the sequential IDs and my priority of keeping the mod easily extendable for racial techs/different mods, this is actually quite an undertaking, so I try to do it in one go.

@Tehlongone:
I will do this in the future. For the shields I left the line behind the standard corvidian shields free, even when I adjusted the techs in the last update. I m not sure whether to introduce the Meridian, or simply extend the corvidian (or what they are called) to be the middle ground between the 2 extremes.
Also note that most shield recharge rates are about double the vanilla values, still an ongoing process of tweaking.

I try to leave most of the racial tech balancing to the race modders (eg Haree78) in relation to the base game. The stealing is a problem though.
Generally I dont like the idea of race techs, that defies the whole concept of technology. They should just get standard techs cheaper and with different effects (weapons). But that would require tinkering around in the components file.

@AnddyiRaynor:
Yes, the construction seems a bit off, I m not sure whether to make more steps in that line, or just lower the level of the 300 size tech or so.

The colonization costs are also a problem not solved yet. The main reason behind the reduced costs was, that the AI was shooting for it, but especially with higher base research costs (even 480k) it kept them off other techs for so long.

I would prefer it if I could divide the ability to colonize from the possible colony size on that type.
eg you can relatively early on colonize a desert planet, but it would be stuck at 100mio people or so until you research much more costly techs. That way you can have something like an outpost, but it would cost you financially (biospheres are costly).

Maybe I try to tinker with the tech based colony growth rates as a bad workaround (migration will put that off in the mid game anyway).

I will also probably increase the costs of the non base colonization techs again.

The 2 specifiable tech priorities are indeed not optimal, but I leave that issue to the race modders ;-) and try to work around it in the research file.

Like I did with the medicine line I will introduce steps in between if I moved a level 1 tech to level 0.

Generally,
I want to mod as little as possible in the components.txt for now, to make it easily adjustable to other mods. The research.txt is enough work for now.

< Message edited by Locarnus -- 6/4/2014 9:09:02 PM >

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RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/4/2014 8:29:15 PM   
Tehlongone


Posts: 208
Joined: 12/21/2010
Status: offline 		In an earlier version of Distant Worlds many (not all) of the racial techs were only best until the last levels of the wrap up techs.

Personally I think the best way to get around the whole "only-this-race can discover the optimal way of doing x" would be to allow them to be significantly superior at first but then level off until it's either equal to or slightly inferior to the best conventional tech. For balance it'd be best if the racial tech just stopped progress before the last step and then the last conventional step is slightly better or equal.

It allows the racial techs to be a boon to the race in that tech area without making them permanently better or forcing an empire that wants to achieve optimal technological supremacy to grab foreign tech as opposed to actually researching it.

Also a problem with leaving racial balancing to race modders is that their components are balanced against vanilla and as you have re-balanced things they no longer fit with the rest...

< Message edited by Tehlongone -- 6/4/2014 9:34:34 PM >

(in reply to Locarnus)
Post #: 25
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/4/2014 9:07:36 PM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		I thought about the balance of race techs when I removed the wrap up techs like titan beam.
My thought behind doing it the current way was, to keep the mid game tech diversity for the end as well.

This would include that certain races have advantages in their techs over the other empires in the spirit of a theoretically never ending tech tree.
Of course the other side of the problem is, that tech savvy races can not maintain the tech advantage in a finite tech tree.
So a tech savvy race can keep up with racial techs by just researching faster, but only until reaching the end of the tech tree...
I wanted to keep this problem far away by extending the tech tree far enough, but since I have to cap research costs at level 8 to not crash the game at higher base research settings, this is hardly possible now. A dilemma under current restrictions.

Tech stealing is a problem in any case though.

I tried to keep a lot of the base game balance for that reason.
So far I only really fiddled with phasers and shield recharge in terms of numbers. Torpedos are next I think.

When you look at the techs you will notice that former level 3 techs (it starts at tech level 0) are divided. The end of the components introduced in level 1 stays on level 3. The new components of level 3 got shifted to level 4.
Then the improvements of those level 3 components on level 4 where moved to level 6 and the gap was filled, while the orginal level 4 tech retained its name in nearly all cases and even the projectID to make it easy for modders to hang in their race techs. What works for the base game in term of parents should work for this mod as well in most cases.
The level 6 tech then got shifted to level 10 (keeping nearly all values) and the gaps were just filled up with in between values.
A similar process was done for the race techs to preserve as much of the DW:U Extended mod balance as possible for now.

_____________________________


(in reply to Tehlongone)
Post #: 26
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/5/2014 2:17:15 AM   
Unforeseen


Posts: 608
Joined: 3/26/2013
From: United States of Disease
Status: offline 		May i suggest requiring at least 3 if not all 4 energy weapon trees and perhaps the graviton beam tree to be completed in order to begin researching the superlaser. I can live without the death ray, that weapon made no logical sense at all. There is no need for a weapon that does 18OO damage that isn't a planet destroyer. The death ray implies that it is a crew killing weapon, not a ship destroyer. Thus it would be..most probably a radiation weapon such as a neutron cannon. But to my knowledge the mechanics for such a weapon do not exist in this particular game which is fine by me honestly.

This slot would better serve as the missing plasma cannon.

(in reply to Locarnus)
Post #: 27
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/5/2014 4:35:03 AM   
Tanaka


Posts: 4378
Joined: 4/8/2003
From: USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Locarnus

@dwaine:
Thanks, will try that!

@Tanaka:
Wow, totally missed that mod, will need to check it out.

So far I only "rebalanced" the early tech projects, specifically the ones concerning the GeraxHyperdrive and Warp Bubble generator.

All of them need less energy now, because of the autodesign failure concerning eg freighters, which do not get enough reactors to fulfill the hyperdrive requirements, resulting in lots of problems. Not what I wanted, but that part is hard coded and Erik does not see it as a bug, so no priority change if at all.

The progression is something like 2k, 5k, 8k and then something. The pirates start with 8k because anything lower would cripple them too much.
It is not fixed by any means, it is mostly just working around hardcoded problems.




Looks like they have fixed the reactor problem in the new patch!

_____________________________


(in reply to Locarnus)
Post #: 28
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/5/2014 11:04:59 AM   
Locarnus


Posts: 287
Joined: 5/30/2010
From: Earth, Sol
Status: offline 		@Unforeseen:
The superweapons will have multiple line requirements as you suggested. I m not sure which, since I dont want to give a race a disadvantage for eg researching torpedos and rail guns, because there is now superweapon for them.

Not sure what to make of the death ray either, the current problem is, that the facilities.txt seems to be very much set for the vanilla game/categories. I doubt the way it is set up now, the AI could handle something like a massive plasma cannon.

@Tanaka:
Yep, I will make some changes to the reactors in the next patch.
About the engines I have to talk to Foma. Totally missed his mod about the whole speed rebalances.


@DEVs:

Is it possible to change how the facilities.txt deals with wonders?
For example that the type determines for the ai what the facility does.
And the facility/wonder differentiation is done by a dummy variable.

So effects which are currently only achieved by wonders would then be possible by normal facilities as well.

It would also be very helpful to create a new third type of facility, a kind of national wonder (one per empire restriction), eg having the value 1 for the dummy variable, with 0 being facilities and 2 being the current wonder types (one in the galaxy).

Thanks!

< Message edited by Locarnus -- 6/5/2014 12:24:54 PM >

_____________________________


(in reply to Tanaka)
Post #: 29
RE: [DWU] Balance Mod (extended TechTree) [WIP] - 6/5/2014 10:01:27 PM   
AnddyiRaynor


Posts: 51
Joined: 5/30/2014
Status: offline 		It'd be so nice if they did make the better facilities.txt, that death ray is so overkill, I got it while exploring ruins and it'd be so cheap to build a bunch of high armored/sheilded ships with that weapon on it that just one kills everything in it's path. Of course everyone would hate you for your power, hardly a problem in my game where they hate me because of the difficulty.

(in reply to Locarnus)
Post #: 30
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