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Research Unleashed - Version 2.2 - 2/22/2015 4:36:55 PM

Osito

Posts: 875
Joined: 5/9/2013
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VERSION 2.2 (Details of the version history is now set out further down this post)
(Last Updated 6 April 2016)

I�ve had ideas for significant changes to make to this mod, so I have been working on it once again. I am pleased to present version 2.2 of Research Unleashed, which now incorporates Haree78�s Extended Races mod and also Das Chrome UI (as well as Icemania�s AI Improvement Mod).

I recognise that some people may be disappointed with the integration of Haree78�s mod and Das Chrome UI, but these mods are so ubiquitous that they�re almost �vanilla� nowadays. And � most importantly: I wanted to play using them. I considered trying to support two separate mods, but owing to the way the pirates are now handled, and the integration of the techs, it�s not really feasible to maintain the two separately.

The mod is tailored to a �Pre-warp� start, although it is playable with a �Normal� tech start. Not recommended to start at higher tech levels.

The links to the latest editions of the mod are here (the first link refers to files using Haree78's raceBiases, while the second link refers to files using Icemania's raceBiases - further details in the version history):

http://www.mediafire.com/download/21wrr25zzd8j12c/Research_Unleashed_-_Version_2.2.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/download/o73c3dwnia9m338/Research_Unleashed_-_Version_2.2_%28Icemania%27s_raceBiases%29.zip

To install, just unzip the compressed folder into your DW:U �Customization� folder.

MAIN FEATURES OF VERSION 2:

New techs and components
Further extension and refinement of the DW tech tree. Now includes over 200 new techs and over 50 new components.

Pirates are back
After a few barrels of Romulan ale, pirates have regained their earlier speed advantage! One of the biggest problems with the original version of Research Unleashed was that Pirate hyperdrive speeds were too low. This is now fixed. Pirates have a separate hyperdrive tech line that gives them access to higher speeds than Empires. Note that this required the creation of a new race for each pirate race, which is called �[original race name] Pirates�. For example, the Human Pirate race is called �Human Pirates�.

DW:U Extended Races
Full integration with Distant Worlds Extended Universe. All Haree78�s races, and new techs are included. In addition, my mod includes Haree78�s raceBiases, raceFamilies and raceFamilyBiases.

AI Improvement v 1.05
Updated to incorporate features of version 1.05 of the AI Improvement mod. Includes all Icemania�s design templates and policies. All races now have some very limited research project orders to ensure the AI at least gets off to the right start, and that it begins using any special techs early, where possible. I hope to extend this in the future.

Tech Locking
Some races are locked out of certain tech lines. This depends on the characteristics of the race. For example, �efficient� races can only research down the efficient Calista-Dal tech line. �Balanced� races can still research everything, so there are still plenty of races with no restrictions.

Races with a special component can no longer research any of the components that are intended to be replaced by the special component. For example, the Quameno can only research their special reactor tech, not the other reactor techs.

[The 'balanced' races are Banoserit, Caleph, Dhayut, Haakonish, Human, Ketarov, Lipid, Naxxilian, Securan, Shandar, Tarapins, Teekan, Ugnari, Xhuman, Yor.]

UI
Incorporation of Das Chrome UI.

Minor Changes:
- The range of rail guns has been reduced substantially. I had to accept the long range simply didn�t work.
- Hab modules and life support get more efficient quite quickly, although their size and energy requirements also increase, so you don�t really save much space. This is a quality of life change.
- Races who enjoy bombing planets have been given early access to the appropriate technology!
- Cost of �Research Phase IV� reduced substantially, as it was a bit of a grind.
- Planetary shields moved to a position earlier in the tree, in line with Icemania�s mod.

IMPORTANT NOTE CONCERNING GAME SETUP

You may notice that you can select the �Empire� race or the �Pirate� race, regardless of whether you are playing an Empire or Pirate game. That seems to be the way the game is designed, so to get the correct experience, you need to do this: if you�re playing an Empire game, pick one of the Empire races; if you�re playing a Pirate game, pick one of the Pirate races.

The AI will pick the appropriate race for Empires and Pirates, but you will sometimes come across Pirate races that are Empires (I�m guessing these are ex-pirate races who have formed an empire).

Each 'Pirate' race is exactly the same as the corresponding 'Empire' race. The only difference is in the name, so that the AI can distinguish between Pirates and Empires as a class when it comes to tech restrictions.

CREDITS

Major credits: Many thanks to Haree78, Icemania and Das for the use of their own mods.
Minor credits: Francoy for the original idea for the restructuring of the colonization techs; Fierceking for getting me thinking about how to fix the low hyperdrive speed problem for pirates; Mordechai for the idea of having the basic fighter bay free of fighters, so you can choose what to populate them with; and Blackwolf for the new resource icons.

KEY FEATURES

- A major modification to the DW research tree with over 200 new techs, over 50 new components, along with new facilities, resources and fighters.
- The main idea of the mod is to provide lots of overpowered end game techs to help you wipe up the remnant of the AI's empires (or alternatively to expedite the AI's destruction of your own empire).
- Large parts of the original tree restructured (hopefully) in a more logical fashion.
- Wonders given their own tech, usually on its own sub-branch, so that you can avoid researching techs for wonders that have already been built.

Weapons Tree
- Most of the weapon values taken from the AI Improvement Mod.
- Most parts of the tree extended, with powerful (broken) end game weapons.
- All superweapons are now researchable in the tech tree.
- Ion weapons enhanced significantly.
- Tachyon weapons added to phasers (damage increases with distance).
- Fighters expanded significantly with new fighter bays and new fighters.
- Ship boarding enhanced, with troop related enhancements moved to this part of the tree.
- Nuclear missiles introduced with very high damage, but low fire rate.
- Late game planetary bombardment techs probably contravene multiple Conventions on �Species� Rights�.
- Troop techs completely restructured with more relevant (if less evocative) names for the techs.
- New armor techs.
- New 'Dwarf Fortress� wonder provides significantly enhanced defense for a planet.

Energy & Construction Tree
- Reactors enhanced; Helium introduced as an additional reactor fuel. �Efficient� races locked out of Quantum exploitation branch.
- Shields enhanced, and some races locked out of certain branches, depending on their research preference.
- Hyperdrives expanded, with ship speed and range substantially limited in the early to mid-game. Very fast late game hyperdrives.
- Ancient hyperdrives used by pirate races in a separate branch, ensuring that pirates can still be a pain in the early to mid-game, owing to their speed advantage.
- Hyperjump disruption techs expanded, with a new �system-wide� drive-inhibiting tech for starbases (actually, it isn�t really �system-wide�, because that doesn�t seem to work, but it just goes to show that product misrepresentation remains rife in the 22nd century!).
- Engines expanded, with faster end-game techs.
- Gas extractors and mining engines now researchable independently.
- New Machine Intelligence wonder converts part of your planet population into �synthetics�.

High Tech & Industrial Tree
- Targeting and countermeasures restructured and extended.
- Sensors restructured and extended.
- Colonization techs restructured so all colonization techs are available for research once the initial �Colonization� tech has been researched. Colonization modules mostly researchable independently of planet colonization techs. Wording for the double growth rate techs amended to reflect more clearly what actually happens.
- Life support and habitation techs expanded, and much larger modules available, to reduce the number you have to place on ships and bases.
- Medical/Entertainment techs expanded. �Bioengineering� leads to the Xaraktor virus which can be used in biological warfare.
- Techs relating to improved research speed expanded significantly, with wonders placed on side branches.
- New wonders:
-- Galactic Colonization Centre provides significant bonuses to empire growth rate.
-- Distant Worlds 2 provides significant bonuses to empire happiness.
-- Strategic Command Centre provides supply of free private and state ships.
-- Galactic capital provides significant bonuses to empire income.

FINAL COMMENTS

If you have any suggestions for improving this mod, please let me know, and I will consider them. Also, if anyone thinks I ought to package this mod with any other mods, let me know.

Finally, if there are any bugs (which is likely, since I have done all the testing myself), please let me know and I will fix them.

Osito

**********************************************************************************
Version History

raceBiases update. - Released 6 April 2016

In response to a request, I have attached a file which replaces haree78's raceBiases with those devised by Icemania for his AI improvement mod. This is intended for people who would prefer to use Icemania's raceBiases, rather than haree78's. I will maintain both options in any future versions of this mod.

Download the attachment and save it to your customisation folder for Research Unleashed 2.2 under the filename 'raceBiases.txt', overwriting the existing file (back up the original file first, if you might want to go back to it). This file should work with any version of Research Unleashed version 2.

Note that because of the way Research Unleashed 2 works, the pirates have their own raceBiases, which match Haree78's raceBiases. The attachment only updates the empire to empire raceBiases to match Icemania's, it does not update: the empire to pirate raceBiases; the pirate to empire raceBiases; or the pirate to pirate raceBiases (hope that makes sense!).

If people want the pirates updated too, I could do that (although it's a bit more fiddly), but I thought:
1. It might be nice to have pirates with raceBiases different from the empires.
2. I personally think the pirates are already aggressive enough.
3. if you're playing as a pirate it's already hard enough (yeah, I know the hard core among you may not agree!).

In case anyone prefers to download the whole package you can find it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/o73c3dwnia9m338/Research_Unleashed_-_Version_2.2_%28Icemania%27s_raceBiases%29.zip

This zip file contains Research Unleashed 2.2 with the original raceBiases file replaced by the one attached to this post.

Let me know if there are any problems with it.

VERSION 2.2 - Released 28 March 2016

Some more substantial changes this time, primarily in response to feedback just received from Francoy, as set out in his post of 28 March 2016. Changes are:

1. Possible bug in the research project orders has been fixed, along with some mistakes in some of the orders. Also, incorporated some of Francoy's proposed changes.
2. Fuel of exploration ships changed from 6 to 10, as proposed by Francoy - I believe the ships can still be built at the new size, even with the initial construction tech.

As always, if anyone notes any problems or has any suggestions, please let me know.

The link to the update is here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/21wrr25zzd8j12c/Research_Unleashed_-_Version_2.2.zip

VERSION 2.11 - Released 23 March 2016

This is a really small change correcting the tech parent of 'High Powered Receptors'. [It is such a small change that I am releasing it as a text file attached to this post, as well as updating the download. To use the text file, just save the attached file as 'research.txt' over the file called 'research.txt' in your folder for this mod. EDIT: In view of the subsequent release of v 2.2, this text file has now been removed.]

Alternatively download everything from the link. Thanks to Retreat1970 for pointing out this mistake.

The link to the 2.11 download is here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/99bg311g2c3m91e/Research_Unleashed_-_Version_2.11.zip

VERSION 2.1

A few small changes in version 2.1, released 5 February 2016:

1. Corrected the error in the storage system tech line noted by NZFade.

2. Included new resource icons supplied by Blackwolf.

3. Tried to address the problem with life support and hab modules noted by CyclopsSlayer. In particular:
(i) The upgrades now have clearer benefits.
(ii) The size of hab modules does not go so high, so that the boarding defence bonus remains reasonable.
(iii) This does mean fewer life modules are needed than hab modules.

The link to the download is here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/em7fj5lxhnq29dg/Research_Unleashed_-_Version_2.1.zip

**********************************************************************************
The previous versions of the mod remain available here:
Download the basic mod (v1.1) from here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/ebsxc0sh75m4ja9/Research_Unleashed_1.1.zip

You can download the hab/life mod (v1.1) from here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/6laup0l880b3k2f/Research_Unleashed_1.1a_(Hab-Life_Mod).zip

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by Osito -- 4/22/2016 2:57:55 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/22/2015 8:42:45 PM

ehsumrell1

Posts: 2529
Joined: 8/17/2010
From: The Briar Patch Nebula
Status: offline

Wow...just perused and reviewed what you've done Osito...Fantastic!

(I've sent you a PM as well)

A 'Distant Worlds' facility! LOL...You remind me of Dr. Noonien Soong!

BTW, thanks for the comment about the Picard Era mod! We appreciate it!

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by ehsumrell1 -- 2/22/2015 9:44:41 PM >

_____________________________

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(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 2

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/23/2015 3:05:44 AM

Jammersam

Posts: 1
Joined: 2/23/2015
Status: offline

This is amazing... having clocked in about 200 hours in DW:U so far, I too have been frustrated by the apparent lack of physics (some beams going slower than others... or being slower than missiles... urgghh). I was about *this* close to trying to mod research.txt myself before I saw this today. Wow!

Played through for about 5 or 6 hours so far. Couple of thoughts:

1) Love the decreased speed for hyperdrive/increased for engines. One thing I noticed is the jump gates at the end of the tree. Is there any way to tie it to actual "gates", or will ships just be able to go where they want? In Hyperion, Simmons wrote about gates that needed to be constructed in advance to allow fleets to move instantaneously between systems - only if they were connected though. Not sure if DW gives any mechanic that could apply this concept.

2) Could the high damage/low fire speed nuclear missiles be available earlier, as a separate branch? Reasoning being... would a spacefaring civilization not have nukes for any reason? Maybe the smaller warheads could be thought of as tactical nukes, 10 kilotons or so. The branch for larger warheads would thus be in the 50 megatons range. I kind of think of early space missiles being nuclear, later ones being antimatter, or something like that.

3) The subspace missiles are awesome. Can I suggest taking it a step further? Relativistic Kinetic Kill Vehicles. Now, this would be a bit of a game changer, and I'm sure this has been discussed elsewhere on the forums... but maybe low speed, extremely high damage planet killers (with extremely long reload speeds). If you can send a ship FTL, you can destroy a planet, done deal. Might make the game hard to balance.. or just plain hard.. but could be fun for a very 'hardcore' game!

4) Love love love the Machine Intelligence as a researchable option. I think DW is missing that feeling of Sci-Fi epicness, sometimes. Also love that only this allows jump gates. Would it be possible to include a second researchable tech for Machine Intelligence in High-Tech, maybe "Administrative AI Applications"? Could give a massive trade bonus and allow two more regional capitals (a static empire bonus would be better, but DW doesn't really allow for that...). Also, is it at all possible to script an event to unlock a tech, triggered by the researching of a first tech? I looked into that and I couldn't find any documentation to tell me how. Could be good if it worked, though - research one to unlock the other in the separate research branch.

5) Just because this new tree is so exciting... maybe some antimatter? There could be a branch from energy collectors to make antimatter farms for those inclined - direct energy to fuel ("antihydrogen") production.

Anyway, I realize this is, like, my first post ever here, but I am an avid reader. Thanks so much again for this mod!!

(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 3

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/23/2015 9:46:18 AM

Icemania

Posts: 1847
Joined: 6/5/2013
From: Australia
Status: offline

So I was on my way back from Distant Worlds Anonymous convinced that I had finally broken my addiction.

Then I read this thread.

Damn you Osito!

(in reply to Jammersam)

Post #: 4

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/23/2015 10:28:47 AM

Osito

Posts: 875
Joined: 5/9/2013
Status: offline

Thanks for the comments Ehsumrell1. Do you think I priced the DW wonder correctly? I thought perhaps 100,000 credits was too cheap ;-)

Jammersam,

Taking your points in order:
(1) No, there's no way to tie this to actual gates (I wish there were), so you have to imagine they're gates. I would have made the top speed faster, but I was observing strange results at speeds of around 500,000. I'm still a bit nervous about the effect these speeds might have on stability.
(2) Yes, that's an interesting idea. Will definitely consider it.
(3) You mean a missile that might do 25 billion damage or something? Wow, I'll definitely try that - might break the game though.
(4) I think I could provide another machine intelligence wonder. As far as I can see it would work. I can't script an event, though, as they're tied to scenarios. It would be really awesome if you could script general events that could be applied to any game.
(5) You're right anti-matter ought to be there. I completely overlooked it.

Icemania, if you like the mod, I'll take any suggestions you can offer to improve the AI.

Incidentally, I'd be interested in feedback on whether the tachyon weapons work as intended (i.e., increased damage with increased range). I think they do, but I'm not certain.

Osito

< Message edited by Osito -- 2/23/2015 11:39:23 AM >

(in reply to Icemania)

Post #: 5

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/23/2015 3:07:10 PM

dvr

Posts: 22
Joined: 6/4/2014
Status: offline

Interesting! Glad there is a new research mod, will try it out soon.

(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 6

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/23/2015 8:07:44 PM

Weaselstein

Posts: 11
Joined: 1/31/2015
Status: offline

Osito -- These are some of the very same issues that have been bugging me and have led me to start working on a research mod of my own. But if yours is already playable, I am not going to wait. I am downloading as I type. Really looking forward to trying it out.

(in reply to dvr)

Post #: 7

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/24/2015 8:35:15 AM

CyclopsSlayer

Posts: 583
Joined: 2/11/2012
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Checking this out, looks very good so far.

(in reply to Weaselstein)

Post #: 8

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/24/2015 11:07:50 AM

solops

Posts: 814
Joined: 1/31/2002
From: Central Texas
Status: offline

Wonderful! I suppose it is incompatible with the AI mod? If I copied it over the top of the AI mod it would all go "broken"?

_____________________________

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Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; if it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.-Judge Learned Hand

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Post #: 9

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/24/2015 11:24:35 AM

Osito

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Joined: 5/9/2013
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quote:

ORIGINAL: solops

Wonderful! I suppose it is incompatible with the AI mod? If I copied it over the top of the AI mod it would all go "broken"?

There's no need to copy it over the AI mod, as it incorporates the AI mod. Just put it all in its own folder, and you'll get most of the AI mod. I built this mod on the files supplied by Icemania. In particular my starting points were Icemania's research.txt and components.txt.

The main differences are:
1. I adjusted a couple of the ship types (explorer and colonizer) to add a little more fuel, to counterbalance the reduction in range caused by my mod.
2. I had to take out the AI research project orders, because my mod is not compatible with the orders in Icemania's mod. It is, however, my intention to put these orders back in, when (if) I've had some more feedback on the mod.

Of course, the change in the techs does affect the way the AI plays, although I have had some games where it was stronger than expected. Last night I was rather surprised to find myself being overwhelmed by a pirate faction, about 20 years into the game.

Osito

(in reply to solops)

Post #: 10

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/24/2015 11:33:00 AM

ehsumrell1

Posts: 2529
Joined: 8/17/2010
From: The Briar Patch Nebula
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Osito

Of course, the change in the techs does affect the way the AI plays, although I have had some games where it was stronger than expected. Last night I was rather surprised to find myself being overwhelmed by a pirate faction, about 20 years into the game.

Osito

Looks like you've done something similar that I've done with the Species 8472 in the Picard Era
mod. Makes them very nasty little buggers! I applaud what I've seen so far Osito. Haven't had the
full length of time I'd like with it yet due to my busy schedule, but will soon.

_____________________________

Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...

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Post #: 11

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/24/2015 8:57:54 PM

btd64

Posts: 9973
Joined: 1/23/2010
From: Mass. USA. now in Lancaster, OHIO
Status: offline

Osito,
Downloading and testing will take place. Once I unass myself from another project.

Looks very interesting....GP

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(in reply to ehsumrell1)

Post #: 12

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/24/2015 10:21:07 PM

Osito

Posts: 875
Joined: 5/9/2013
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All feedback most welcome, General.

I've been thinking further about one of the issues that bothers me, which is the apparent inability of the AI to optimize the fuel cells and reactors the same way that the player can. I was wondering whether one option would be to change the mass (and fuel capacity and power output) of reactors so that you only really need one of them, and it would be sub-optimal (or even impossible for the early parts of the game) to have more than one. I was wondering what people thought of this as a general idea. Although I like the customization in ship design, I don't find it that rewarding to be continually adding fuel cells, reactors (or even hab/life support for that matter), and I'd have no problem living without this particular functionality.

Edit: I should add that there would still be options for development, such as:
1. Fuel cells would get increased capacity with research, thereby increasing range.
2. Fuel cells could initially be expensive in materials, but become cheaper later.
3. Choice of hyperdrive would be more critical, i.e., do you go for speed or range?

How do others feel about this?

Osito

< Message edited by Osito -- 2/24/2015 11:34:17 PM >

(in reply to btd64)

Post #: 13

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/25/2015 4:59:48 AM

Aeson

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Joined: 8/30/2013
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quote:

I was wondering whether one option would be to change the mass (and fuel capacity and power output) of reactors so that you only really need one of them, and it would be sub-optimal (or even impossible for the early parts of the game) to have more than one.

As a warning, doing something like this has the potential to greatly affect the balance between various types of weapons. If the reactor offers too much power, you could favor power-intensive designs (blasters and torpedoes and high-thrust engines) too heavily over power-efficient designs (missiles and railguns and high-efficiency engines). Just as an example, in the unmodded game Titan Beams require 16.5 times more power per unit size than Massive Railguns. Which weapon is your reactor that is impractical to add more of going to favor?

quote:

3. Choice of hyperdrive would be more critical, i.e., do you go for speed or range?

Just remember that speed more strongly affects range than hyperdrive power requirements because of the static energy requirement. Also remember that if you offer a slower, more efficient hyperdrive, the range bonus needs to be worth cost in travel time, and that the effective range of military ships tends to be roughly a third the design range unless you don't need to make a return trip.

If V_hyp1 is the hyper speed of the first hyperdrive, V_hyp2 is the hyper speed of the second hyperdrive, Rng1 is the design range using the first hyperdrive, Rng2 is the design range using the second hyperdrive, P_hyp1 is the power requirement of the first hyperdrive, P_hyp2 is the power requirement of the second hyperdrive, P_stat is the design static energy requirement, and P_stat,er is the design static energy requirement such that the design has the same range regardless of which hyperdrive is used, then:

   P_stat,er = (x*P_hyp2 - P_hyp1) / (1 - x)
   Rng1 / Rng2 = x * (P_stat + P_hyp2) / (P_stat + P_hyp1)
   x = V_hyp1 / V_hyp2

Also consider this: if you plug in the numbers for the unmodded Calista-Dal I and the unmodded Equinox I (which is 25% faster but requires ~50% more power), the Calista-Dal offers greater range than the Equinox for anything requiring less than ~54 static energy at the cost of taking ~25% longer to complete any jump that the Equinox design could also complete without running dry. For something with a static energy requirement of 12, it's effectively an 11% range bonus, assuming that your choice of hyperdrive is the only difference between the designs. Now ask yourself how often you use the Calista-Dal over the Equinox, and ask yourself why. High top speed tends to be very, very attractive, especially if the difference in design range isn't all that great.

< Message edited by Aeson -- 2/25/2015 6:00:57 AM >

(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 14

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/25/2015 10:38:26 AM

Osito

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Joined: 5/9/2013
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Indeed there are difficulties (and perhaps they are insurmountable), but my question is actually even more basic: assuming that the difficulties can be overcome, is it a good idea to change the components so that in ship design you only need 1 fuel cell, 1 or 2 reactors, 1 hab and 1 life support in the designs? Personally, I'm intrigued by this, because I get little satisfaction from adding extra hab and life support, and I don't like the way I can get more range than the AI by slapping on extra fuel. On the other hand, I guess others probably enjoy that kind of detail.

Of course, in vanilla, range is pretty much a non-issue as soon as you get the Gerax, but it's a big issue in my mod.

Edit: I forgot about the fact base size is hardcoded to 3x ship size for bases not above a colony. That is likely to make the idea impractical. However, I think there may be a potential compromise here, that I am going to try out.

There is also the issue that components can be completely taken out more easily if there are fewer of them. So, I'm now thinking this whole idea is dead in the water.

Osito

< Message edited by Osito -- 2/25/2015 12:22:07 PM >

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Post #: 15

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/25/2015 10:02:16 PM

Weaselstein

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Joined: 1/31/2015
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Some thoughts about the Hab and Life Support. I realize it is not very rewarding to be required to add more Hab/Life modules to a ship as you add more components but it does make sense when you consider the crew requirements of larger ships. This might make you consider changing the Hab/life modules and their relate research bonuses so that you only need one of each in any given ship design. But there is something else to be considered. It is the Hab/life modules that give you your base defense against boarding actions. If you made it so that a capitol ship only needed one Hab/life module you would also be giving smaller ships escorts, frigates and all civilian ships the same base boarding defense as the capitol ships. This would be even more dramatic if you were to adjust the Hab/Life modules so that only one was required for Large bases. I guess the question comes down to should a ship with a crew complement of 25 be as hard to capture as one with a crew complement of 2500. Perhaps there are some workarounds that I am not aware of though.

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Post #: 16

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/26/2015 1:57:14 PM

solops

Posts: 814
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From: Central Texas
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You might want to check the research costs for Improved and Advanced Infantry defense and Improved and Advanced Armored Defense.
Also, High Powered Tractor beams do not seem to be deployable, at the first level, but are at the second.
Is this as designed?

< Message edited by solops -- 2/26/2015 3:06:31 PM >

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Post #: 17

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/26/2015 2:43:21 PM

Osito

Posts: 875
Joined: 5/9/2013
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Hi Solops,

Thanks for the feedback: the infantry and armored defense figures are incorrect, and I will change shortly, although I want to see whether I can figure out the tractor beam problem first. I was a little surprised about this, as I haven't knowingly changed anything much on that part of the weapons tree. When you say they're not deployable, do you mean that you can't design a ship with them, or that they don't work? I have tested it and find that I can design ships with them If you can tell me which race you were playing, I can see whether that might affect anything.

Weaselstein, the boarding defense is an issue, although there's nothing to stop someone adding extra habs if they wanted to - for the boarding defense - or adding assault pods. It may be a problem that the AI won't do that. I have tested this with a hab and life support capacity of 300 slowly rising to 2000, and it is really nice not to have to worry about increasing them. A nice 'quality of life' change. I don't propose to include this feature, unless people want it (although I may well play it myself from now on).

More generally, I'm finding I want to do things that will affect the ship designs. Is there any way to change the designs without going through more than 1000 separate designs and changing them individually?

Osito

< Message edited by Osito -- 2/26/2015 4:00:00 PM >

(in reply to solops)

Post #: 18

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/26/2015 2:54:15 PM

solops

Posts: 814
Joined: 1/31/2002
From: Central Texas
Status: offline

Tractor beams - playing as humans. The problem is that, in the ship design screen, I cannot find the High Powered tractor beam in the equipment list so that I can add it to a ship design. This is only true at the first level. After researching the second level of the HP Tractor beam, it shows up and deploys fine. I dunno...user error, maybe...

Love the mod, best R&D tree yet. Have not gotten to the unbalanced stuff, so they are still questions.

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(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 19

RE: Research Unleashed - 2/26/2015 3:03:53 PM

Fishers of Men

Posts: 329
Joined: 3/27/2010
From: Fishers, IN USA
Status: offline

Solops, I unchecked the "latest only" box in the design screen and the High Powered Tractor Beam appeared next to the regular tractor beam. I believe the game evaluates the regular one to be the best available until the high powered one is ungraded to the next level.

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Post #: 20

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/9/2015 7:38:34 AM

Shogouki

Posts: 177
Joined: 8/11/2013
Status: offline

This is wonderful! I'm going to try this out next game.

(in reply to Fishers of Men)

Post #: 21

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/10/2015 2:33:46 PM

apd1004

Posts: 158
Joined: 8/1/2006
Status: offline

Hundreds of hours playing DW from the very beginning but this is the first major mod I've tried. I'm really enjoying it so far.

I especially like how ship speeds are lowered at least in the early game. Makes the universe feel a lot bigger. I think in the later game I will appreciate the faster speeds more.

One question - is there a way to mod when private ships trigger refuel, or is it hard-coded? With the slower speeds I've noticed that when a freighter runs out of fuel, now it takes forever to get to where it needs to go, to the point that I've contemplated just scrapping the ship in-flight and figuring the AI will just build a replacement. With state ships I can intervene but obviously you can't with private ships. In the vanilla game this isn't a big deal because even when out of fuel ships still move along at a decent speed.

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Akron OH, USA

(in reply to Shogouki)

Post #: 22

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/11/2015 4:42:01 AM

Shogouki

Posts: 177
Joined: 8/11/2013
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Hmm, that I don't know.

(in reply to apd1004)

Post #: 23

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/11/2015 12:58:30 PM

Osito

Posts: 875
Joined: 5/9/2013
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quote:

ORIGINAL: apd1004

Hundreds of hours playing DW from the very beginning but this is the first major mod I've tried. I'm really enjoying it so far.

I especially like how ship speeds are lowered at least in the early game. Makes the universe feel a lot bigger. I think in the later game I will appreciate the faster speeds more.

One question - is there a way to mod when private ships trigger refuel, or is it hard-coded? With the slower speeds I've noticed that when a freighter runs out of fuel, now it takes forever to get to where it needs to go, to the point that I've contemplated just scrapping the ship in-flight and figuring the AI will just build a replacement. With state ships I can intervene but obviously you can't with private ships. In the vanilla game this isn't a big deal because even when out of fuel ships still move along at a decent speed.

Glad you're enjoying it!

As far as I'm aware there is no way to mod when private ships trigger refuel, nor is there any way to set it specifically with an in-game option. If anyone knows differently, feel free to correct me.

This is unfortunately one of those trade offs that perhaps can't be avoided in order to have the lower speed and range. Possibly the specific setting for the speed and range might be tweaked to improve the situation. Personally, I tend to design all the ships myself: I limit the private fleets' access to their ship designs (by not designing them until I'm ready for them to use them) and I always give them plenty of fuel, and tend to favour giving them the more efficient drives and reactors.

Osito

(in reply to apd1004)

Post #: 24

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/11/2015 7:52:33 PM

apd1004

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Joined: 8/1/2006
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Interestingly, I've found myself upgrading my ships more often with the new tech trees, and that's ok because I like doing that. Since my last post, I have discovered it was just one version of freighter that was doing that behavior and after upping the number of fuel cells I haven't seen that behavior since. What I also noticed after my post is that none of the ships would reverse course to go back to a fuel point within the range circle but they would divert to one that was more or less in their current path.

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Akron OH, USA

(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 25

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/11/2015 8:01:49 PM

apd1004

Posts: 158
Joined: 8/1/2006
Status: offline

Today I also noticed something about research labs. I'm not in front of the game right now so I'll try to remember the situation the best I can.

I noticed in the research facility tab that all of my research facilities were short in the High Tech area. For instance, let's say a large spaceport has 10 of each of the 3 labs, it is putting out 400k research in Weapons and Energy but only 300k in High Tech. All of my technological research is at the same level. I double checked everything and noticed that in the design menu, each of the labs claims to be putting out 40k research but for some reason the High Tech labs were in reality only putting out 30k even though they were at the same level as the other labs. Not knowing much about how modding works, I assume this is just a number glitch in one of the mod files?

EDIT: Just checked in the game. All 3 of my research levels are Level II, so each lab component should put out 40K. In the design screen however, High Tech labs only put out 30K. I looked in components.txt and research.txt and can't find any reason why this would be happening as all the numbers appear to be correct.

< Message edited by apd1004 -- 3/12/2015 1:50:07 PM >

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Akron OH, USA

(in reply to apd1004)

Post #: 26

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/13/2015 11:01:55 AM

apd1004

Posts: 158
Joined: 8/1/2006
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Ok, considering I have no idea what I'm doing, I was able to identify the problem once I figured out what all the values meant in the research.txt file. For all levels of the HiTech Lab component improvements, the "component improved" reference was actually improving the Weapons Lab (component #91) rather than the HiTech Lab (component #93). Because of this, the HiTech Lab never advanced beyond the initial level of 30K.

I figured this out when I completed research of HiTech to Level III and the Weapons Lab increased value from 40K to 45K, when it should have advanced the HiTech Lab. The question now is, will changing it on the fly correct everything in a saved game? I'm sure others know the answer to this but I'll have to go in and find out for myself.

< Message edited by apd1004 -- 3/13/2015 12:05:52 PM >

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(in reply to apd1004)

Post #: 27

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/13/2015 1:20:56 PM

Retreat1970

Posts: 948
Joined: 11/6/2013
From: Wisconsin
Status: offline

This mod has brought me back to DW, ty. Lots of fun. One typo, rail gun, I think 4th one in, has a range of 2000. Others have 1500. Good job on this btw.

(in reply to apd1004)

Post #: 28

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/13/2015 2:35:55 PM

Osito

Posts: 875
Joined: 5/9/2013
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Hi thanks to you both apd1004 and Retreat1970 for spotting and reporting those errors. Can't believe I missed the error with the Hitech labs!

I just want to reiterate that while I'm happy to make corrections to errors, I'm also open to suggestion for changes and improvements. I've been running a version which uses larger but more effective life support and habs, so you don't need as many on the ships and bases. I could incorporate that into the mod if people want it. Downside is that ships and bases don't get much boarding defense from habs, but as someone who designs all ships from scratch I prefer the convenience of not adding so many habs.

Osito

(in reply to Retreat1970)

Post #: 29

RE: Research Unleashed - 3/14/2015 2:54:19 AM

Retreat1970

Posts: 948
Joined: 11/6/2013
From: Wisconsin
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I'm in year 32. Huge ring galaxy. Met pirates fairly early, but they tend to be a non-issue. Directly related to warp speed changes I think. Also I finally met my 1st empire. Also related to warp speed. A bump in speed may be warranted maybe 25% maybe more. Rail guns are a blast now. Who cares if most shots miss. When you have a fleet sending a wall of lead at a target at 1500 range, it's unbeatable.

(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 30