New SE4 Total ConVersion Mod "SMod" open on PBW

[Snorky]

The official SMod Game v2004-10-14 is now open and everyone can join it on PBW!

Snorky's mod or shortly SMod is a full conVersion modification for Space Empires 4 Gold.

The mod changes nearly everything that can be changed:

- components: many new added, changed olds, costs and usability tweaked, many-sided weapons resolve in more tactics

- weapon and mounts: many new added, each mount has advantages and disadvantages

- costs: blue minerals are important for construction, but green and red are important for components and are harder to harness

- cultures and racial traits: completely new and cheap spending, everybody has a basic race and can, depending on the racial points level the race up

- events: new added, now there are bad and good events

- buildings: completely redesigned and expanded

- spying: totally changed, intelligence projects can't be blocked, but with other intelligence projects. projects are expensive, but tactical powerful

- quadrants: completely changed the look, more different quadrants

- ships: added many new ships and unit types

- techtree: completely changed, research is longer available and there are more directions, all techs are researchable

- all values changed: systems in galaxy set max to 250, more empty systems, special wormholes, min resources to 500, population weight to 10, set max ships and units to a higher value, maintenance set to 25%, mothball 80%, retrofit difference 25%, max trade benefit 10%, etc.

- mines: can only launched from space, not from planets, are not too deadly, but still protects

- fighters and drones can only be targeted with point-defense cannons and fighters can fly through minefields, but satellites have an anti fighter weapon

- cloaking: more and different cloaking levels, tech is early researchable and countermeasures are always availably

- races: many many new races collected from the Internet, now 130 different races including star trek, star wars, babylon5, nostalgics and normal, most of them lightly reworked

- tweaked many things: i.e. colony modules can't be traded when chosen as racial trait, technological colony modules can still be traded

- every changeable picture and sound was changed, fonts replaced for better reading, and many more ...

- no AI implemented and the mod takes about 500MB disc space. the downloadable forms are 120MB rar or 150MB zip.


The first official game is now open on PBW and uses these settings:

Game starts: soon as possible
Starting resources: 20000
Starting planets: 1
Home planet value: Good
Score display: all
Technology level: Low
Racial points: 3000
Quadrant type: Mid-Life
Quadrant size: depends on number of players, hopefully large
Warp Points located everywhere in the system: Yes
Event frequency: Medium
Event severity: Catastrophic
Technology cost: Medium
Maximum units: 5000
Maximum ships: 500
Computer players: None
Neutral empires: No
Victory conditions: total domination, player has 3x the score of 2nd player, all techs have been researched, Quadrant is in peace for 2.0 years, conditions take affect 5.0 years after game start, winner is the player with the highest score
Other game settings: Allow Surrender is off, Players can see complete tech tree, all techs allowed

The deadline for every turn will be 48h. My mod supports the No-AI setting, this means the only thing the computer will do for a player if he/she misses a turn, is to research new techs. Nothing more should be touched, so missing one turn is not the end of the world.

Experts and Novices are welcome, but please no arrangements before the game starts and please do not play in a team with your best buddy just because you know he would not betray you. These alliances will make a game not so interesting.

You can download the mod and read more infos here:
http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~snorky/se4index.htm

For joining the PBW game go to http://seiv.pbw.cc and look in the open games list for "Official SMod Game Round 1".

I hope to see you there.

[Suicide Junkie]

Have you scanned your new quadrants with my map analyser to make sure they're fair (or at least balanced with the colony tech cost)?

http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...E4mapstats.rar
or
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...E4mapstats.zip

[Suicide Junkie]

Also, you should remove the imagemod from your download.

About 50% of the entire point of the imagemod is to avoid downloading huge graphics over and over for each mod...

Almost everybody who plays mods will already have the imagemod installed, so you do NOT need to include it.
That will save you an instant 30 megs on your download file, and about 150 megs of disk space after unzipping.

You could post it here at shrapnel, using their upload forum:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...&Number=213510

[Gandalf Parker]

If you want to email me the file I will be glad to provide a one-click link in the US to download it. Since no one has put an SEIV domain on my server yet it might have to be a dominions domain link

[Suicide Junkie]

Firing it up, my reactions:
Map Statistics: Pie Charts
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...odmapstats.png
You've got the classic stock problem:
- Rock natives are better in every way, while gas colonization stinks.
- Small/Rock/methane has an extra planet, while Small/Rock/Ice is short one.
Also:
- All of your quadrant probabilities add up to only 900 instead of 1000.
- Vaccuum Breathers have a big advantage when taking Rock or Ice colony types, and still have a small advantage when all colony types are available. (23.6% resource rate and 24.3% population instead of an even 20% if all atmospheres were equal)
You should tweak the planet chances to either even this out, of give each option some disadvantages to go with their advantages

General comments
1) Nifty animated cursors!
-= Start a new game =-
2) Nicer background.
3) Race design.
The inability to decrease stats is an interesting change.
I generally prefer the method of leaving the option in, while adjusting the payouts so that it is not worth decreasing the ones you usually want to decrease, and it is tempting to decrease the ones you normally increase.
A supply and demand kind of modding

-= Combat modifiers =-
The combat culture modifiers are quite extreme. Checking against the datafiles, you're using stock base and per-distance accuracy modifiers.
With the combat characteristics dirt cheap as well, players are almost certainly going to have to take +35/+35 to space combat at a minimum to be competitive. Although, with no limit, $25/$50 combat modifiers, the berzerker culture won't be required, the characteristic maxxing will be.
Consider that a 10-15% advantage is devastating in stock, and then consider that berzerkers here can get +42/+42 with maxxed maintenance reduction for only 2000 racial points.

-= Maintenance modifiers =-
Everybody is going to have +20% (the max effective) to maintenance as a given.
Maintenance characteristics are dirt cheap to buy. Again here, the culture modifiers will be swamped by the inexpensiveness of the characteristic modifiers.
You may want to set the base maintenance rate to 100% instead of 25%, and adjust the hull maintenance modifiers to match. That will let you use these big modifiers to maintenance, although I think you'll still need to double the cost or more.

-= Advanced traits =-
Woah! Up to +7 speed (Cost 3500) is extreme yet again...
Speed is highly prized in combat, and is a big advantage for strategic manoueverability as well.
Storage techniques is very underpowered, on the other hand.
+20% for the same price as getting twice as many colonies (and thus twice as many facility slots/cargo space)
The only time you would even consider this is if you already had all 3 colony types chosen in a 5000 point game, and you'd have to sacrifice your combat modifiers for it.
I predict it will never be given a second thought by competitive (as opposed to roleplaying) players.

---

-= Ship Design =-
Propulsion:
Going with stock-like progression of bonus move.
OK, but I think you went overboard on speed.
EG: Dread- EPM = 2, max 5 engines. Put on 3 standard engine V and a Quantum V's for 14 standard move plus 4 bonus, and the beast flies 8+4 = 12 speed plus the racial modifiers (up to +7) and the tachyon bonus (+5).

Even your worldships would be sailing along at speed 12 before racial traits.
Add the emergency propulsion and it just gets even more out of hand.

Sniper Mount:
Missiles under this mount will launch from farther away, but retain their original travel range. As such, the missiles won't hit their targets unless the target is flying towards you at a decent speed. I'm not sure if you realized this, since the mount description didn't seem to hint at it.

Design Types:
I think you may have gone overboard here.
Design types should help organize the ships into similar Groups, not put each one in its own Category

Troops:
About infantry... Their hitpoints are based on what gun they hold, and they've got quite a large damage:hitpoint ratio. Basically every ground combat is going to be over in one turn... although that's how stock does it, you might consider making the ground combat Last a little longer to add some suspense and leave room for rescue & reinforcements.

---

Planets:
The homeworld should start out with *some* basic amount of organics & rads production, even on low tech. Even 10 points as part of the minimum empire generation in settings.txt sould be nice. Perhaps a low tech by-hand type facility for the homeworld (15 points per facility?), and an upgrade given organics manipulation 1 (30-45 per facility).
Having your first orgs and rads facilities 25 turns up the tech tree is just too much.

Tech areas:
Lots of changes, but still standard and logical enough to predict where things will lead.

Looks like you've got quite a bit of good stuff here, but I'm out of time for SE4 today.

[Suicide Junkie]

I've uploaded a lighter copy of the mod to shrapnel:

Part 1 (24 Megs, RAR)
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=309066
Part 2 (20 Megs, RAR)
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=309074

You may need the all 5 imagemod packs installed.
Component and facility packs for sure.
You will also need to copy your existing races (minus graphics) to the mod's race folder, and use the AI files (appropriately renamed) which are provided.

[Snorky]

First I want to thank you for your analysis and your opinion.

Your tool looks helpful even if I don't understand it completely (what does these funny numbers mean? and why does your tool count any vacuum/gas giant or other planets even if there are none of them in the secttype.txt???), but you are right I should fix the Vacuum Breather advantage. The problem with the quadrant add-up will also be fixed with the next patch and before the game starts. The other things will be fixed for game round 2, at least I will consider doing that.

My english isn't good enough to understand everything what you said, so can you please explain the problems with the combat and maintenance modifiers again? Do you say that I should increase the costs for ship attack+defense and maintenance, because they are more valuable than the other traits?

A +7 speed bonus is extreme, but who pays 3500 Racial Points for that? 500 Points for 1 movement is too cheap? What are more balanced costs for the Storage, Power and Propulsion Techniques? Maybe I should also limit the speed bonus via racial traits to +5? I will see what happens in the SMod game round 1 and tweak these settings for the next match. Patching these things now will only make the seven waiting players angry, because they have to wait again for the game start. This will give me time to think about it and your suggestions are always welcome.

And thank you, too, for the smaller mod Version without the image packs, but whoever uses this "light" Version should remember, that I reworked some of the images in the packs and without the included races you don't have the reworked portraits. So I recommend to download the huge "full" Version, but for testing the mod. Maybe there can be a third part file with the ripped images for those who already have the light Version and want to upgrade to the full?

[Suicide Junkie]

The Vaccuum/Gas stats are for vaccuum races with gas colonization tech.
While stock SE4 only starts you with that combination on High Tech settings, your mod does allow it as a starting setup, and Vaccuum races can always research it sometime during the game.

Don't hold up the test game.
I'm just saying that the speed racial traits are quite probably too cheap, and that the storage traits are much too expensive for the effect they give. (Taking a second colony tech gives you 4x more effect per point spent)

For the images, try only including the changed portraits in your mod. SE4 will look to the default folders (IE the regular imagemod) for the missing images.
You may also want to send your new images in to be included in the imagemod directly.

-----

The "agressiveness" and "defensiveness" traits are underpriced in stock, and are almost always maxxed out for competitive games.
You've made them even cheaper, so that it is possible to get +40% to attack and defense.

That means, at a distance of 5, a player with the maximum attack/defense stats will hit over 90% of the time against a plain player.
The plain player will hit back with only 10% accuracy.

-----

As for maintenance:
in settings.txt - "Empire Starting Percent Maint Cost := 25"
So, when you take engineers for a 10% bonus, you only pay only (25-10 = 15% of the build cost per turn)

Even if you take the politicians culture and +30 to maintenence reduction in the characteristics window:
25+10-30 = 5% of build cost per turn for maintenance.
For only 875 racial points.
Maintenance at this point can't go below 5% (hardcoded)

--
What I suggest is you set:
"Empire Starting Percent Maint Cost := 100"
That way, it costs 1875 points to buy +50 maintenance reduction.
100 - 50 = half maintenance

In other words, this change makes +10% to maintenance reduction actually mean "10% cheaper ships", instead of 40% cheaper

Now, since as a side effect of the above, everything costs 4 times more in maintenance, you need to do the following:
In your ships, add:
Ability 3 Type := Modified Maintenance Cost
Ability 3 Descr :=
Ability 3 Val 1 := -75

This multiplies with the racial maintenance; 75% off here means 1/4 the price, negating the 4x side effect above.

--

Alternatively, you could divide your culture maintenance modifiers by 4, quadruple the price of maintenance reduction, and reduce the "Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Max Pct" to taste.

[spoon]

Suicide Junkie said:
- Vaccuum Breathers have a big advantage when taking Rock or Ice colony types, and still have a small advantage when all colony types are available. (23.6% resource rate and 24.3% population instead of an even 20% if all atmospheres were equal)

I didn't look at the files - but are you saying they have an advantage even after you factor in Gas colonies?

3) Race design.
The inability to decrease stats is an interesting change.

Yeah, after you buy your colonization type, you have only 1000 pts (in a standard 2k game). I think it is a neat twist. However, how you have it set up will probably result in fairly generic race choices (the only things worth spending points on is maintenance, aggressiveness, and defensiveness -- so you will mostly just see variations on those.

You may want to set the base maintenance rate to 100% instead of 25%, and adjust the hull maintenance modifiers to match.

But be careful of doing this if you have components that reduce maintenance. I found it easier to just stick with the stock method, but to adjust the price of Maintenance Reduction upward (to like 200 pts per Maint Reduction point).

-= Advanced traits =-
Woah! Up to +7 speed (Cost 3500) is extreme yet again...

True, but racial points are scarce. If you take +7 speed, you are going to be very deficient elsewhere. Nice tradeoff. I also like how you broke it up into 3 categories: +1 speed, +2 speed, and +4 speed. Clever.

Storage techniques is very underpowered, on the other hand. +20% for the same price as getting twice as many colonies (and thus twice as many facility slots/cargo space)

I disagree. Colony types are researchable, and fairly cheaply at that(100k). I would consider taking storage techniques before I took an extra colony type (depending on starting bonus, perhaps).

-= Ship Design =-
Propulsion:
I think you went overboard on speed.
...
Even your worldships would be sailing along at speed 12 before racial traits.

It is different from stock, to be sure, but I'm not sure super-high speeds are a bad thing. Makes the game play differently - might make for a nice change of pace. Or might not... Still, I would try it out before discounting it.

Add the emergency propulsion and it just gets even more out of hand.

Though I agree here - emergency propulsion was crazy-high.

Planets:
The homeworld should start out with *some* basic amount of organics & rads production, even on low tech.

Why? Puts the pressure on researching essential planetary development tech, making the early rush less feasible.

Having your first orgs and rads facilities 25 turns up the tech tree is just too much.

Though I agree to this point. These should probably be much cheaper.

[Suicide Junkie]

spoon said:

I didn't look at the files - but are you saying they have an advantage even after you factor in Gas colonies?

Spread over all surface types, yes. EG: Max tech when all planets are colonized, but not atmosphere converted.