Racial Trait Creation Problems

[God Emperor]

Have just been working on a "Borg Technology" racial trait and ran into a significant inconvience - none of my previously saved Empire files work with the new Racial Traits file. I can create new Empire files and reload them, but, get an error message when I try to load any files created prior to the new racial trait.
Anyone got any ideas?

If my conclusions are correct, we may want to get Aaron to do a fix to get around this inconvenience. Otherwise, each time a new racial trait is created, new Empire files will have to be created for all races that you would want to preselect.
(Random player selection doesnt seem to be affected as the AI just consults the General.txt's file I guess).

PS: Files are attached if anyone is interested.

PPS: On a slightly different track, I tried to create a Borg Master Computer component (regenerative of course), but, the AI wouldnt make use of it, even though when I went into their turn, they had it as an option. Got a feeling that the AI will only replace life support etc with the "Master Computer" component only.
Wonder if the same holds true for engines?



[This message has been edited by God Emperor (edited 12 May 2001).]

[This message has been edited by God Emperor (edited 12 May 2001).]

[dumbluck]

I think suicide_junkie had this same problem w/ his pirates mod. I think he got around it somehow, tho.

[Marty Ward]

You are correct. Any time you add a new trait none of the races current .emp files will work. You have to create all new ones if you want to manually load races.

[Suicide Junkie]

That's correct. All I had to do was start a game with random empires, then save all of them.

For my mod, everybody had to have the "normal" racial trait, so you have to add existing empires with that trait, or you get lame empires that can't build anything.

If you're just adding the borg trait, random empires will work fine, but to add empires, they must have been saved during a game that includes the borg trait.

[God Emperor]

Thanks guys.

I have come up with an interim solution of just having a new tech called Borg Technology which only the Borg, of course, will research.

[Atraikius]

God Emporer,

on the Master computer problem, I found that if you replace the Master computer ability with the Ship bridge, ship life support, and ship crew quarters abilities, the computer will actually replace them with the master computer, but it replaces each one. I tried replaceing the ship requirements from a fixed number to requiring a percentage, and changing all of those components to go along with that, but found there was some hard coded requirement that didn't like the change. I figure there should be some kind of way to get around it along those lines, but havn't had time to do much more playing around with the idea.

[Nitram Draw]

I seems the AI looks for the ability and doesn't check if any other component satisfies it. I tried making solar sails have the solar supply generation ability and the AI insisted on building 2 solar sails. If two components have the same ability but different values the AI seems to choose the higher value, in my example it chose 2 solar sails if the solar sail generated more supply than the solar panel.
You could try giving the master computer the extra ability and add it to the Borg Tech tree. The AI may not choose it because there is no value to increase.

[God Emperor]

Nitram,
I had given Master Computer regenerative ability but it still ignored it. I've given up on it and have elevated Computers on the Borg research instead. I figured that the micro repair bays and regenerative structure (armour) that I have given the Borg, pretty much replicate what I want the Borg to be like.

[God Emperor]

Nitram,
I have posted a Borg variant in the Ships/Races mods archive.....
Check it out! Look forward to any comments that you may have.
Regards,
GE

[Nitram Draw]

Sounds like you are creating a whole new tech area for them?
Cool, can't wait for it!

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 15 May 2001).]