Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[reverend]

Cool! Looking forward to it. Balance mod is the main reason I'm still playing SpaceEmpires.

(Ok, combined with Fyrons, TampaBay sounds and the media package. )

[mrscrogg]

Capt. Kwok , great news ! Are you still including updated versions of Fryon's mod in Balance v1.15 ? Thanks

[Captain Kwok]

The Balance Mod retains its own version of FQM.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

Balance Mod v1.15 is finally available! It's a significant update with lots of tweaks, changes, and AI upgrades.

Some of the bigger changes include the availability of racial trait technologies from the game's start, revised combat physics, and Robotoid Factories now modify building rates. There's also been a lot of tweaks and fixes based on feedback to improve general game play and usefulness of items.

The AI has been greatly improved over previous versions. They maintain much better economies, build and colonize faster, make better ship designs, and conduct more sensible diplomacy. The AI can also make use of stellar manipulation technologies, atmosphere and resource converters, and will try to adapt to its enemies. A lot of fixes and tweaks were also made to improve all facets of the AI's empire management.

Important:
Balance Mod v1.15 is not compatible with older versions of the mod, nor is it compatible with older Balance Mod maps, game setups, or empire files!

You can find v1.15 for download here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Here's the most recent changelog:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemodhistory.php

[mrscrogg]

As Phil Rizzuto would have said , " Holy Cow ! " , now that's a big one !

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings.

I posted the v1.16 patch at my site:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Note you need to have v1.15 already installed as the download for v1.16 is a patch only!

It's savegame compatible with current v1.15 games!

1.  Changed - Remove Intelligence Centers as a starting facility
2.  Fixed   - Error in tech area requirement for Fusion Ground Thrusters, Small Incinerator Beam and Small Phased-Polaron Beam
3.  Changed - Light Cruisers set to 60 movement points per sector from 61
4.  Fixed   - Error in requirement evaluation for System Robotoid Factory
5.  Fixed   - The AI would sometimes counter a treaty with the same elements as the original
6.  Fixed   - The minister for Warp Point Openers was not considering the maximum distance a ship could open a warp point to
7.  Fixed   - The minister for Planet Destroyers was not considering the target planet's size
8.  Fixed   - Some neutral players were inactive
9.  Fixed   - The AI was sometimes surrendering when it shouldn't have
10. Fixed   - Some strategies placed Fighters too high in the target priority list
11. Updated - AI Scripts

[Arralen]

.. checks changelog for 1.16 .. hmmm ..

Is it only me or does someone else not get combat replays anymore with 1.15 in a hotseat, simultatious turn game (running with only 1 human player though)? In fact, SEV even doesn't seem to bother to write the combat replay files at all!?
Didn't have the time to do "proper" testing with(out) other/any mods, so it might be my installation that went bad. Though it worked fine with 1.14 ..

Ok, checked with vanilla 1.74 and combat replays are working ...

[Ed Kolis]

1.15? Hmm, when I was beta testing that version, I noted the same problem, and Kwok said that combat replays were disabled temporarily in Settings.txt, but that he'd turn them back on before releasing the mod. Perhaps he forgot to... :P

edit: oi, it's still set to false in 1.16! KWOK!!!!! :P

[Arralen]

Fixed that, and combat replays are o.k. .

Some more minor quibbles I found playing a max sized game up to turn 64 (atm):

- organic races shouldn't use Elec. Discharge on (early) scouts, as it cannot target missiles, so the scouts are sittings ducks vs. them. Furthermore the +50% damage against shields is wasted because no-one has shields at that point.

- higher levels of hull construction of the same type seem a tad expensive. (Try high research costs and you'll see that it is cheaper to research towards Light Cruiser than to improve the FF, what seems odd). This is especially true as the early hulls are severely limited in terms of size, therefore you have to improve them at least one notch.

- solar generator (Cryst.) are nerfed too much; in 1-sun systems, at least the early versions barely pay for themselves. Return-of-investment is 100 turns or something. Even in 3-sun systems (which are not that widespread and usually have few, if any, usuable planets), they just can "keep up" with standard facilities.

- AIs are far to eager to offer intersettling treaties. And minor AIs which cannot leave their home sysem shoudn't offer such treaties at all, or at least not on mutual terms. (Maybe if you pay them with your recent tech or something .. because of low planet count they're usually far behind in the tech race)

- AIs seems too eager to do tech transfers; e.g. the Terrans have access to Psychic, Religious, Temporal, Crystalline and Organic Tech in this game. As Terra is only ranked 6th, I doubt this is from spoils of war, intimidation or 3 dozend ruin worlds (can you get racial tech from ruins?). Maybe this is only the EmpireList Screen with its 50% uncertainty, but I have never seen any tech listed there that wasn't really accessible ..

[Captain Kwok]

The estimated technology screen is in error when it reports the racial trait technologies. SE5 is not correctly checking the requirements before displaying the estimates. The Terrans do not have access to the traits.

Solar Generators shouldn't be effective in single star systems. They'd be far too unbalancing. They're a supplemental facility that in certain situations (binary/trinary systems, low resource value planets) can provide a needed boost - particularly with the later upgrades.

The per-kT effectiveness you gain with a ship is what you're really paying for with the tech costs. Level 1 in Light Cruisers is cheaper than Level 3 in Frigates, but the level 3 Frigate is more effective than a level 1 Light Cruiser.