Rollo and geoschmo, re: Devnullmod.

[Talenn]

Hey guys,

First, thanx for carrying his mod into Gold. It really is a good mod and adds a lot of flavor and balance to the game. I've been enjoying it quite a bit since becoming disenchanted with the 'standard' tech set's weapon and research imbalances.

A few things need to be looked at AI-wise if they are to be challenging, however. The mod makes far more use of Organics and Radioactives than the standard tech set, but it appears that the AIs are not set to obtain more of them. A quick look through the AIs empires after say, 60 turns or so shows the majority of them to be starved for those two resources and losing ships to maintenance shortfalls as well being generally paralyzed.

My original mod back in the day also required far more of these resources and all of the AIs had to be changed to compensate. Some adjustments to the AI's colonizing scheme as well as the build orders on the various planets is necessary to correct the issue. I dont recall everything that I did to compensate but I think I added a few Refineries and Farms even to 'Mining' and 'Research' planets to give them some more of each type even if it didnt establish any dedicated colonies for those resources.

At any rate, the AIs as written at the moment are fairly ineffective. The TDM race AIs actually fare quite well in Devnull, but they arent optimized to use the new tech set. I noticed one TDM race with no PD cannons at all (only PD missiles) and that was fatal. The missiles are a good supplement to the cannons, but not a blanket replacement.

I would wager that you could probably use the TDM colonizing and expansion schemes as a base and then tweak them a tad to favor the two extra resources a bit. After that, use the current ships design and production routines from Devnullmod and it should be pretty decent.

Hope it helps. I'd go through and fiddle with it myself, but I just dont have the time at the moment to actually playtest and tweak the AIs.

Thanx,
Talenn

[Rollo]

Hey Talenn,
thanks a lot for your feedback. I will look into that, when I've got the time. I must admit that I did not notice a problem with the resources, but then again I wasn't able to test the AI as thoroughly as I would have liked. Did you notice this will all the AIs or just a few of them? Also how many starting planets and what kind of AI bonus did you use?

I must say that I am a little worried about that. In the tests that I ran, I was quite pleased with the AI. Thanks for the catch. Hopefully that doesn't spoil the mod for solo play. I am not sure that I can provide a quick patch, as I have very limited time at the moment. Until then I recommend starting with three good planets and a medium AI bonus.

If anybody wants to give feedback or report bugs to the Devnull Mod, you are more than welcome.

Rollo

[ 18 March 2002: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[geoschmo]

Tallen, thanks for the feedback. It's probably something I did. I had very little AI modding experience before working on this mod, as I had primarliy worked on components in other mods. Except for the No AI mod, where my goal was to get the AI to do nothing. (Not as easy as it sounds)

Rollo, I wonder if he's not seeing the problems with the AI that I worked on. To be quite honest the resource problem didn't occur to me, and I only tested a few turns in low, medium and high tech starts to make sure they were building ships with the new components, and setting up the research queues properly. I did nothing with the facility files. <smacks head>

Do you recall which of the races I worked on and which you did?

Geoschmo

[Rollo]

Hi,
I did a quick patch to (maybe) fix the resource shortage.

edit: the file has been removed. It is obsolete after v1.60 of Devnull Mod.

Please extract into your Devnull Mod folder and NOT the SE4 folder.

I adjusted the planet types and facility construction. Didn't have time to test it. Let me know, if it works better now.

Geo, you did the Amonkrie and Fazrah. I did the CueCappa, Abbidon, Drushocka, EEE, Praetorian, Norak, Toltayan and Vikings.

Rollo

edit: file removed

[ 28 April 2002: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[Talenn]

Hey guys,

Thanx for the quick replies!

I'll download that adjustment and see what it feels like. I know I wont have time for a 'real' game in the next few days but I might have time to just run the AI a bit and see what it can do.

I played two games with just the 'default' settings of 1 planet start and no bonus. I'd like to see the AIs be functional without artificial bonuses cranked in there as it make them function much more smoothly even when the bonuses are present. In other words, a strong foundation for the AI will make it work better when the extras are added in.

If I ever get into modding again, one of the things I am NOT going to do is to require more of the 'useless' resources! Its just too much of a complicated can of worms to get the AI to function properly within that new structure. IMO, the payoff is simply not worth the hassle.

Be that as it may, I'll see what kind of feedback I can provide on the changes. One thing that I think would also help is to emulate the TDM races' tendancy to grow like a weed. That alone makes the AI much harder to defeat as well as helps to alleviate the resource shortage issues.

Talenn

[Stockman]

Thanks guys for the patch, for I too think the dev mod is the best way to play the game for more fun. Thanks for your info and concern about making this mod work better.
I wish the TDM guys would make a marriage for the Dev mod so we could use their excellant AI's.

[Devin D.Bass]

I would like to add that this is an excellent Mod! It adds lots of flavor to the standard game. Rollo and Geoschmo should be commended for reviving it. I encourage anyone who has not played it yet to do so immeadiately.
However, I too have seen some "inconsistancies" in the modded AI. I am not a modder but respect those who are, and I emplore those with modding skills to take up the challenge and mod AI's for this great mod, you won't be sorry and your efforts will be much apprecitated.

[Arboris]

Any player feedback regarding Rollo's Resource Patch fix?

How is the AI performing?