Cultural Modifiers

Jubala · #1 June 25th, 2001, 02:25 PM

I decided to test and see what Cultural Modifiers actually worked and created a culture with a 50% bonus in everything. Here's the result:

Production Does not work
Research Works
Intelligence Works
Trade Works
Space Combat Does not work
Ground Combat Works
Happines Works
Maintenance Works
SY Rate Works (both types)
Repair Works

A couple of things I learned while doing this:

The minimum 5% maintenance is definetly hardcoded.

Repair seems to be rounded down. In my test with I had a ship with 9 damaged components visit a planet with a space yard that had a repair rate of 5. It repaired 7 components in one turn. 5*1.5 = 7.5 which by mathematical rules would have been rounded up but the game rounded it down. Haven't done any extensive testing to verify this but I believe it is correct.

Nitram Draw · #2 June 25th, 2001, 02:48 PM

Bummer.

JenMax · #3 June 25th, 2001, 02:57 PM

Yes, is sad. You tested the "cultural Modifiers." Basically, then, when designing an empire, one might as well set "ship def" as low as it will go, and use the points to improve other things, like happiness?

Is that correct?

Suicide Junkie · #4 June 25th, 2001, 03:28 PM

quote:
Yes, is sad. You tested the "cultural Modifiers." Basically, then, when designing an empire, one might as well set "ship def" as low as it will go, and use the points to improve other things, like happiness?

I love Ship defence. With a 25% bonus, on average, you can halve the beam weapon hits to your ships. Add in some shield regenerators and your ships become nearly undefeatable. I have a dreadnaught in one of my games that went to attack a solitary, mine-damaged phong DN. 9 others decloaked. My 18% bonus to defence reduced the enemy HEM beams to a 30% chance to hit, and with regenerators, I was able to survive all 25 rounds and kill 60% of the enemy force before running out of supplies and getting my shieldless, immobile *** kicked. The DN managed to survive till turn 30, when two of my BCs arrived to finish off the now-crippled enemy.

Ship defence rocks! And regenerators are awesome.

PS: It only took a year to get home and repair my DN, but it became quite legendary after that battle

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 25 June 2001).]

Nitram Draw · #5 June 25th, 2001, 03:41 PM

JenMax,
I think it only effects the cultural modifier. I've never seen any complaints that the characteristic modifiers don't work. I hope they do!

Suicide Junkie · #6 June 25th, 2001, 04:00 PM

quote:
The minimum 5% maintenance is definetly hardcoded.

Do you mean that even if you use +25% in maintenance reduction, you still have 5%? Or is the maintenance reduction just limited to +15% (in SETTINGS.TXT)?

And, also, if this screws up my Nomad's negative maintenance on resource ships, I will NOT be happy.

Nitram Draw · #7 June 25th, 2001, 04:27 PM

I wouldn't delete patch 1.35 just yet. The settings file hasn't changed so it may be a hardcode change.

Jubala · #8 June 25th, 2001, 04:31 PM

JenMax, this is the cultural modifiers you get when selecting a culture under the culture tab when designing a race. Each culture has a set number of advantages/disadvantages. Not the characteristics you can change at will under the characteristics tab. As far as I know the characteristics all work just fine. They always have for me anyway.

suicide_junkie, I'm not really sure. All I know is that my race with a 50% cultural modifier to maintenance still payed 5% maintenance.

The only lines settings.txt that deal with maintenance are these:

Maintenance Cost Amt Per Dead := 20000
Empire Starting Percent Maint Cost := 25
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Max Pct := 120
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Min Pct := 80
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Pct Cost := 50
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Threshold := 10
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Pos := 200
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Neg := 5

Looks to me like it has to be hardcoded since I can't find a line in settings.txt that defines minimum maintainance. And since the maintenance reduction can still go to 20% and is not limited to +15% in settings.txt I'd say it's hardcoded. Looks like you're Nomads are up **** creek without a paddle.

Please don't shoot the messenger.

Suicide Junkie · #9 June 25th, 2001, 04:43 PM

Dammit WHY?!?

We could have just changed one value in settings.txt to fix the problem, if we wanted it fixed! Some of us like playing with no maintenance, and this just sucks.

There's still hope for my Nomads, though... has anybody tried running P&N under the 1.41 patch?
Do I have to post a copy of the 1.35 patch with my mod?

#10 June 25th, 2001, 05:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Jubala:
I decided to test and see what Cultural Modifiers actually worked and created a culture with a 50% bonus in everything.

Good work! Thanks for doing it! My Workers culture not getting the bonus bothered me, but not enough to do a mod. Now the REALLY BIG QUESTION is why the beta testers can not do simple things like this to check out functionality. I suspect that this has been very well known for some time but it has not been considered important enough to fix. Send your mod to MM and everybody lobby for a fix in the NEXT patch.
Something this game needs is a known bugs post by MM listing the priority assigned to bug fixes. Post it on the forum and read the reactions to see whether the priorities are ok.