Changes for a Challenge

[Fred]

Here is what I did to make the game more challenging/interesting:

1. Changed default maintenance cost to 20% (from 25%)
2. Changed the Damage to kill one POP from 10 to 20
3. Changed the chance for ruins from 0,5% to 0,3% per incident
4. Changed the Fighter "To-Hit" Bonus to 50% for Small, 45% for Medium and 40% for Large fighters (from 50% for all Fighter types)
5. Decreased the Phased-Polaron Beam Damage value by 5 and let it only target ships\planets. In my campaign this was an "uber-weapon" (usually one of my Dreadnoughts with P-P Beams could easily kill 10-12 enemy dreadnoughts or whole fighter squadrons, without even receiving one damage point). With these modifications the P-P Beam is still a very good weapon, but it does not rule as much as before.
6. Changed the Shield Depleter base damage from 30 to 25
7. Because of a bug in the "VehicleSize.txt" file, bases do not get the disadvantage of being easier hit in combat (as in the description of a base is stated!), but instead getting a "To-Hit" bonus! So I changed the value "Combat To Hit Add" for bases to zero. At least, the base should not get this to-hit bonus.
8. In the AI file "Default_AI_Planet_Types.txt" I changed the values of the "Research Compound" to "Max per system 3" (from 2) and to "Percent of Colonies 28%" (from 25%). I usually won the tech race by a large margin, so these mods should guarantee a little bit more research by the AI.
9. Changed the "Mega Evil Empire %" from 170% to 150%

At least for me, all the changes make the game more challenging. I always play the AI with the difficulty set to "High" and a low bonus setting for the AI.

Fred

[Beck]

1. I'm not sure whether this really helps the AI make for a tougher game. The benefits to the AI of having lower overhead are offset by the flexibility that human players exhibit. It seems that editing the the computer empires would be more to the point and making sure that they have some of their racial points spent to lower maintenance.

7. This is not so much a bug but an inadvertent error. The "Combat To Hit Add" should have read "Combat To Hit Dec" with the values being negative to reflect being easier to hit and not harder as positive values would do. You'll find the same error occurs with baseships.

8. This will help, but I think the end result will still be a wide margin between human players and the AI. I also fear what affect it will have on the AI in the other areas you have addressed as it works down the list. Will this mean there will be one less planet creating resources? This may hurt more than the benefit you provide with the lower maintenance. The problem is more in the Default_AI_Settings file where the maximum research and intelligence point generation is set at 100000. I'm currently in a game in which I have 422K in research points while the nearest AI player has 75K. So if it caps out at 100K, it will be far behind. I'm looking at changing this by adding a zero. Further down the list from the setting you changed is a research planet which allowed for 50% of such colonies to be such worlds, so the change from 25% to 28% is going to have minimal or no overall effect.

[Fred]

The negative value for the to hit-decrease ability does not work. I tested it. Negative numbers are not accepted, so just set it to zero.
I mailed Malfador to add the ability for an increased hit probability, as it is stated in the description.

Fred