Please post any problems or issues you've had with Final Frontier in this thread. Putting everything in one place will make it easier for me to fix things. Please be specific in your feedback (e.g. "the AI sucks" doesn't help me much).

Thanks. :)

Jon

Edit: Note that this update was made prior to the 3.17 patch coming out. All fixes available are now in the official game as a part of 3.17.

Downloadable Post-3.13 Update (Old)

If you guys want an updated version of the mod prior to the next patch with a few fixes, then you can download this version of CvFinalFrontierEvents, and extract this ZIP into your "Civ 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Final Frontier\Assets\Python" directory. Let me know if you have any problems. :)

Doesn't include a whole lot, but here's a the things it does:

- Fix for much stronger Pirate ships spawning early in the game than there should be
- Older Starbases now have cultural border preference over newer ones as intended (thanks Nemesis Rex)
- Double-Clicking now brings up uncolonized Star System info instead of single-clicking (thanks Nemesis Rex)
- Fixed exploit where player would no longer get Star System info on a system that was colonized, but that player wasn't yet aware of it
- Fix for bug where clicking the subtract population button too quickly in city screen could send a Planet's population into negative numbers
- Red Syndicate only gets 1 free trade route instead of 2

Things not in this update but will be in the patch:

- Gold is now deducted when beginning Starbase construction instead of upon completion, to deal with some exploits
- Halved amount of points gained from territory
- Fixing bug in map script with star system density
- Missiles generated by Starbases no longer automatically jump to nearest city

File removed

Good idea, let's even sticky this if possible and meaningful I would say.


Here's something I posted on another thread here:


[...] there are still a few kinks in there, e.g. the AI doesn't use any stealth ships, and is totally hapless when my Stealth ships wreck havoc on their supply lines, attack construction ships etc.
It seems the AI doesn't use Stealth ships at all.
In a way the stealth ships are too powerful, because IF the AI would really use them I would have to equip each and every system with at least one as a defense mechanism, before they could destroy my meticulously built empire... ;)

The AI is also quite passive when getting attacked; I recently knocked on a neighboring AI's door with my fleet and almost withdrew when I saw their amount of Anti-Ship missiles in the system. But then I thought, ah what the heck, let's try. Well, I took the system without them firing a single one of those missiles... And I don't think there's many strategies that could explain that as a good thing.


The other quite annoying thing are the constant sneak attacks of Barbarian ships somewhere on your supply routes. As tame as the opponents are on this (see above), the constant flood of Pirates forces you to secure and patrol each sector of your empire.
I would suggest adding a better visibility range to Scouts or Patrol ships, it would help to make it less tedious.

But again, the Mod is a GREAT start, and I can only begin to imagine what some Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, etc. fans could mod into it... :cheers:


Furthermore I haven't seen the AI using a well-balanced fleet comprising of Battleships, Cruiser, Destroyers and Carriers (...AND Stealth Ships!). It's mostly Battleships all by themselves or a few Destroyers. The game mechanics are there in terms of rock-paper-scissor, but unlike in the un-modded version, the AI doesn't seem to understand the concept. The damage one can do with bomber/fighter squadrons is quite high, and if that goes unused the AI stands no chance.


Jump lanes become available quite quickly after the Warp Lanes, and I found myself very often in a position where it was MUCH more important to just get a connection between a Starbase and a system than to build it much slower with Jump Lanes. To only build it first with Warp Lanes I had to manually tell the construction ships to build each section explicitly with Warp Lanes only. If done with the 'goto/build-to' command, they automatically build Jump Lanes. I know this is similar to the un-modded version and how road are treated when railroads become available. But, again, HAVING a connection, no matter how fast you can travel on it is often much more important in FF.

My 2c, and thanks for the attention to these issues.

I've had an AI stealth ship attack me, but it uselessly attacked my system and got defeated instead of deviously disconnecting my jump lanes, like I did to AI later. The AI was quite helpless against that tactic.

The constant stream of pirates is somewhat annoying. I guess they are so numerous because a lot of space will remain outside cultural borders and under fog of war. Much more spawning ground for them than in regular game for barbarians. I could reduce this by building many fighter squadrons to fogbust the trouble spots, but doing this manually every round is tedious. Another point for having auto-recon.

I wouldn't mind 1 more movement point for ships all around to make moving them a bit less tedious, but that could make scouting too fast. How about making movement somehow faster when inside own or ally borders? That would help the pirate hunting a bit.

I'd love to be able to queue across planets within a system.

I played one game through and I like the space setting :)

But I encountered a bug in the UI:

when I have a stack of ships, some of them carriers carrying some missiles, I cannot easily select the whole stack.

The usual methods like

- double-click on the stack
- ALT-Click on the stack

do not select the ships but the missiles!

The only way seems to be to SHIFT-Click all ships one by one. Something seems to be reversed here.

Anybody else seeing this?

(edit: I just realized this is a bug thread only so i'll post this as a new thread)
This is a great idea!
Firstly tho, I wanna start by saying that I love this mod, it was actually the main excuse for getting BTS :goodjob:
Now for the suggestions...

Build queue: I like the idea of being able to build imps in each planet, but it just gets too tedious having to select planet, click the build checkbox, then building, wait till it's complete, zoom in colony and do it all over again.
Instead, I thought of 2 things:
1) there are buildings like the Factory that apply global bonuses, so instead of having to select on which planet they have to be built and build them one by one you could just stack as many factories in the build queue as planets are available to you in the system.
2) Then there are buildings like the mining platform that apply bonuses only to the planet it's built on. For this you could be able to stack in the build queue as many of them as planets are available, and when they are finished have them placed automatically on the most populated planet that doesn't already have one (where the building will be more beneficial). In the case of the Habitation Dome, have them placed on the planet with highest :food: :hammers: :commerce:

Starbases and Culture: I think the way starbase culture and normal culture borders interact needs work. For example, one of my starbases in my latest game ended up inside enemy territory because of his borders' expansion.
I think a solution would be to have Starbases expand culture only 1 plot (instead of 2 plots) but that the borders around the starbase are unmodifiable by other player's cultural expansion, forcing them to eliminate the starbase (and declare war) if they want to gain control of that territory.

Conquering systems: it would be cool IMHO that the only way to actually conquer an enemy system would be to drop troops in it, having spaceships be unable to attack troops or conquer systems (like the gunship in regular civ). Any spaceships that are in the system when troops conquer it are expelled from the tile.

Conquering starbases: I thought it would be also nice to be able to drop troops into a starbase and conquer it, as an alternative to blowing it up. Starbases could house up to 2 troopers in case an enemy tries this. Any spaceships that are in the same tile as the starbase when troops take control of it are expelled from the tile.

Each trooper could have a % chance of being shot down by starbase/system defenses before landing for combat.

Starbase missiles: missiles should be able to rebase between starbases or not rebase at all. Also, starbases should have a maximum of missiles that they can carry.

Other functionalities for Starbases: yeah, maybe they could start of as simple space platforms that spread culture in that one tile. Then with certain technologies they could be upgraded into millitary platforms (like the actual starbase) where you can build a squadron base (to house squadrons), a missile battery (that produces missiles), etc., or upgrade them into a research platform (creates a resource that gives +:science:) or vacation center (creates a resource that gives +:) ). So as to not unbalance things, bonus platforms could be very expensive to build (like starbases are now) and each type of bonus platform could serve as a resource, meaning that more than one does not give extra bonuses, but can be traded with other players.
Also, you could have certain platforms only buildable on asteroid fields...

Training yards: I just think training yards should give global bonuses to the system, only 1 per system, instead of 1 per planet like it is now.

Exploring systems: it would be nice to be able to view a system's planets before colonizing.

Civics: Monarchy should have it's bonuses, I think, reduced since this is usually a game with very very few systems in it.

Resources: just add more! :p

I didn't find any civic that allow to hurry a production with gold?
Was it planned like this?

There is also no spies so after having finishing the research, i was "forced" to raise "culture" because science wasn't anymore needed, credits wasn't required in huge amount to allow to hurry production in some system and EP wasn't spend in espionnage mission...

here are my bug list for Final Frontier, bts v3.02:

- there is option to hurry production via gold but there are no civic that allow hurry via gold :| shoudn't it be removed?

- quantum control tech civilopedia's info is not correct i think, it leads to two identical techs (astral ascesion)

- i was able to win multiple time in one game. quite strange:
1) first i won domination victory (i got win screen, graph, hall of fame, message: MusX Wins a domination victory, etc...)
2) second i won diplomacy (i didn't get any message about winning except results of voting)
3) third i won by human ascendancy (i got win screen, graph, hall of fame, message MusX Wins a human ascendancy victory, etc...)
if i'm not wrong, in normal c4/c4war i was able to win game only once

- i got very high espionage, i'm able to view AI's city, i'm able to change planets which his city use, i even remove using of all planets so his city starving. next turn AI return this to normal, but overall i shoudn't been able to change this

- there is a switch "permanent alliances" in pre-launch settings but there are no tech that allow player to have permanent alliances :| at least Galactic Diplomacy should give access to perm alliances, or just remove the switch

suggestions:
- ai should be improved imo
- tech cost should be very strongly increase, there are no chance to build so many building in many planets and also building good combinated army, generally I can handle to improve 1-2 planets per solar system, there is no time for more. at start of game is quite ok but later techs are to easy and you have no time to build building which they give
- ai should not try to get all religions first, on higher difficuilt level (prince and up) you have no chance to get a religion, even with building research from start! ai should low his priority for religions as soon as he got one already
- perm alliances, why not? you can play cooperative with your human friend against AIs
- automation buttons in city (growth, hammers, research),I think it can be very hard to do
- AI should learn some basic things, I'm killing his construction ship using Stealth Ship and he bring next construction ship without any security and I'm killing his construction ship again
- great general new graphic :P

best mod from BTS, great job Jon Shafer :goodjob: :goodjob: :goodjob:

I repost here the "Game hangs during initialization" bug already mentionned there (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=233231). Steps to reproduce (works each time on my computer) :
Load the Final Frontier mod
Select Solo, Custom game (Partie personnalisée in French)
Modify at least one team assignment so that there is at least one two-player team.Result : the game does not go past initialization. However, setting up a custom game without a two-player (AI or human players) team seems not to trigger this bug. I tried
checking the "No barbarians" options
closing a player slot (10 civilizations instead of 11 on the map)
switching team assignments (player in slot 10 being team 11 and player in slot 11 being team 10)In all of these cases, the game successfully initialized.

When this bug is triggered, the game "hangs" on the initialization screen, the progress bar remaining at the first stage (labeled "Initialisation" in French). The system monitor shows a >90% processor usage for BtS process (even after several minutes), but the memory usage remains stable.

When this bug is triggered while in full screen mode, I am not able to minimize BtS window, and the system monitor window appears under BtS window, if it appears at all (I have to reset my computer).

While in windowed mode, the system monitor window appears above the BtS window. Also, if I move the mouse cursor above BtS window's minimize-maximize-close buttons, they do not respond to click and do not even get highlighted.

In every case, the music still plays fine.

The tile grid does not appear most of the game even with the button selected. I really need this to see what square my ships are sitting in because the space background blends together more than regular Earth terrain.

Thanks! best mod in the history of mods...

I posted some bugs at Apolyton.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168692

Thanks in advance for everyone's feedback and reports. I won't be able to respond to everyone but I'll try to make as many improvements to the next version as possible. :) I've already addressed a number of things that have been discovered and should hopefully take care of just about all the bugs for the next patch.

Jon

why remove the great generals? I kinda like the idea of a star fleet captain on one of my capital ships. I have an Idea though. Each player starts the game with one fleet captain and he works like a regular warlord. However if he is killed in battle he can be ransomed by the enemy for money based on his level of experience. If you don't pay the ransom he will die and you will get a new one in 50 turns starting over at lvl 1

One thing I would like to see is more civs available, Playing with only the max number doesn't feel epic enough and Its too weird having copies of the same civ.

Building for each individual planet gets a bit tedious, perhaps instead increase the time per building based on the number of planets and apply the effect to all of them. Id like to see great people put into effect in the mod as well.

This is the best mod that came with BTS and Great job on all the work you did.

this maybe a complete n00b question, but how do u access the tutiroial (sp)

Thanks for this mod. I really enjoy it. Could you please include an expansion to this mod in the next Civ 4 expansion?

Hmmm, maybe that's a bit too forward looking at this time. :P

this maybe a complete n00b question, but how do u access the tutiroial (sp)look for it in Options, I beleive there should be a checkbox somewhere in there that reads "Show Tutorial" or something like that ;)

I am certainly surprised nobody posted this calamity, i begin to feel i might be skipping something. When you play with more civs than the 8 default they of course repeat, well it's ok for a tremendous scenario like this, but when these repeated civs are refered to in the diplomacy screen you just can't tell which is which, as you only have the name to go. Same thing hapens in the core game with colonies, being there two american civilizations or two french, etc.
I liked the scenarios very much (the ones i managed to see), creative and extensive work has been done.

One thing i have noticed is that enemies tend to build alot of Anti-ship Missiles but don't really use them. I just lost 2 worlds to an advancing fleet of 20 Omega Capital ships about 10 random smaller ships with 20 of his missiles following his fleet. On the third world one more before my main I was able to fight him off and destroy 90% of his fleet with my own missiles Bombers and medium ships plus 4 or so capital ships only 2 which were omega. If he had used his missiles agaisnt my fleet I would have been destroyed. On Monarch difficulty BTW.

Also Scouts on automated somtimes fly themselves into black holes and super novas lol! "Pilot!: OMG whats that big swirly thing thats sucking in all the light? Lets fly into it and find out!"

I have CTD problems with a couple of the leaders (sorry I can't recall which ones) -whenever I meet them in-game or select them on the menu screen the game crashes to the desktop. Will this patch fix this problem?

the mod is much better than i had thought. the 'what happened to earth' had me thinking its a scenario with earth that must be found etc.. nice use of X and Y wrapping. any chance of a map script that can turn it off though?

the [regular] Scout i think should have 2 movement, i have little incentive to build it due to its low movement.

I think the build cost of Human Ascendency should be increased, as well as the United Planets wonder. Just ever so slightly for the latter.

--

your going to remove the Great General? noooo :(

about the Experience and Great Generals a star system with 6 planets (never started on a system with 7 or mythical 8) can build 28xp ships. with the Brotherhood (charistmatic) leader, combine the 28xp with a great general (48xp) you need fight one more battle for 49xp and its 7 promotions available :D

the ultimate unit :)

The um.. making a second building in the same system costs more than the orrigonal, and continues to increase in costs as how many you have built in the system so far... its really damned my quest for the ultimate military is destroyed by a 30 turn wait for the last +2 building haha

Ai is crazy in building starbases to gobble up resources

only bugs ive found are ones you listed in post 1.

Is there any way you could have resources in systems or on planets? For example Exotic Animals, gives a +3 Happiness boost. So anyone who colonizes the planet would have access to that.

I suppose you could create a "world" wonder like Galactic Zoo that provided 3 of those as a resource. But to me it makes more sense to be able to get unique or rare planetary resources in addition to ones in space.

Also can you remove the "City of" references in the diplo screen?

One minor suggestion, which I really hope you at least consider because it kind of detracts from the attention to detail evident throughout the mod: custom graphics for the resources? It's great to see that everything is there, from new civics, to planets that light up as their population grows, to the 'robotic' diplomacy music, but the floating chunks of iron or marble are kind of jarring.

Other than that, it's a wonderful mod. Looking forwards to the next patch already.

I'd like some planetary resources too. Maybe they should have a tendency to be on the middle and outer planets of the system so that you don't immediately have them when you colonise a system.

One minor suggestion, which I really hope you at least consider because it kind of detracts from the attention to detail evident throughout the mod: custom graphics for the resources? It's great to see that everything is there, from new civics, to planets that light up as their population grows, to the 'robotic' diplomacy music, but the floating chunks of iron or marble are kind of jarring.

Other than that, it's a wonderful mod. Looking forwards to the next patch already.
I'm afraid there won't be any official art changes/updates in the future. Resources were one of the things which I added later in development and I wasn't able to get special art. So I didn't just forget. ;) Because of the no-art restriction, I'm limited in what changes I can make. That means no new civs, units (which is why I'm removing the Great General), Buildings, etc. It's a shame, but that's how it is. :) Sometimes it's better to be a modder than a real developer. ;) I'll do my best to fix bugs and make balance improvements though. There's already a thread in the Creation & Customization forum about altering Final Frontier and adding to it, so you may want to keep an eye on what they're able to do if you want more dramatic changes to FF.

Jon

Building Queues: It would take a bit of finagling with the UI but allowing the player to queue building to multiple planets i.e. first build a mine on planet A, then a factory there, then a mine on planet B, would make the game so much more fun, and take a lot of the tedium of constant queue adjustment out of it.

Timing: alright, its childish, but I enjoy banging a planet out to full development, and in the current way things stand, even on lighter difficulty levels, I barely get through a planet and a half in my home system before i finish up the tech tree. I don't expect to be able to build everything, and obviously building for its own sake is a bit juvenile, but reducing build times a bit, or slowing down the other aspects of the game would, i believe, make things significantly more enjoyable.

otherwise its damn fun, i love the black holes :} who disbands units anyways....

Build queue: I like the idea of being able to build imps in each planet, but it just gets too tedious having to select planet, click the build checkbox, then building, wait till it's complete, zoom in colony and do it all over again.
Instead, I thought of 2 things:
1) there are buildings like the Factory that apply global bonuses, so instead of having to select on which planet they have to be built and build them one by one you could just stack as many factories in the build queue as planets are available to you in the system.
2) Then there are buildings like the mining platform that apply bonuses only to the planet it's built on. For this you could be able to stack in the build queue as many of them as planets are available, and when they are finished have them placed automatically on the most populated planet that doesn't already have one (where the building will be more beneficial). In the case of the Habitation Dome, have them placed on the planet with highest :food: :hammers: :commerce:I looked into adding a cross-planet construction queue yesterday and I knew it would be difficult to do, but unfortunately the queue system is so built-in to the game that I can't change it to be more useful for FF. I tried creating a completely new queue system to circumvent the default one, but there's no way for me to determine when someone clicks on something with the Shift or Ctrl keys down in the city screen... and without this functionality it kind of makes a new queue system useless (since you wouldn't be able to add or remove things like you can now).

Placing buildings on specific Planets is one of the cooler and more important features in Final Frontier so I'm hesitant to remove it or change it dramatically in order to fix the queuing issue. Choosing specifically which Planet to build a Nutrition Facility or Habitation System was always one of the more fun things for me, even if I had to babysit the queue. ;) Even switching to a new mechanic where you don't actually select what planet to construct Buildings on wouldn't help fix it as much as one might think because the default queue system still doesn't allow for multiple Buildings of the same type in a queue (which any FF version would need). I'll continue to look into the issue but I'm not sure I'll be able to figure out a way around it. Perhaps one of the community's illustrious modders will be able to figure out a way to fix what I couldn't. ;) :)

Jon

Here's a sneak preview at the screen I added which shows what Planets are in a System when you click in the star:

At first when i read about Final Frontier i thought "just somesort wannabe galactic empire building, blah.."

When i got the game i didnt give much thought to Final Frontier mod, but few days later i thought i would give it a try. I was shocked when i realized how well it has been made, totaly different game based on Civ4 engine.

Final Frontier is the very best mod for Civ4 i've ever played or seen.

But there are some minor fixes:

1. scouts are too slow, scouts should be fast but weak. speed at least +1.

2. In conoly screen there are no colony managment buttons, there should be at least for food, production and commerce. And also button to prevent growt.

3. AI civilisations are so stupid they hardly give any real challence, they build colonies too far away from each other and are usually overrun by pirates. And they build trade lanes just too slowly. And are generally, confused. normally only 2-3 AI civilisation are building colonies near each other and are able to defend them. And the AI really dont know how to use missiles.

4. Game's AI sometimes wont let my ships who has 2 speed and 1 movement pont left to go futher into radiation clould or black hole gravitation field tile, it just bouches away to safe tile. Should it be so?

5. for some reason, my great general exp does not increase, should it? And if, how?

6. There are some texts that should be rewrite, for example: if you have state value in a colony and you check hapiness of the people, they say "in our religion we trust". It should be something different, dont you think? And also those city of - and some others texts. Certainly these are not a gameplay issues and are not so top priority, than some other fixes.


I generally like to play with these options:

size: huge
speed: marathon
star systems: very dense
features: very dense
hostile features: normal

and these enabled:

city flipping after conquest
raging barbarians(pirates)
agressive AI
no tech brokering
new random seed on reload
lock modifier assets
requide complete kills

all victory options

I just love the Red Syndicate, with those extra trade routes and + food and production per trade route, and increased production with some commerce buildings...

How you guys like to play?

Other thoughts:

how about cheap probe units? something like: you can only give them a direction then they just rush in that direction whit speed of 3 and stop only when are destroyed.

Debula should not be impassable, but any unit inside nebula at the end of turn have something like 75% chance to disappear, and they could only see adjacent tiles and move only 1 tile. The reason to go inside nebula? Forgotten and lost treasures of cource, and add promotion to decrease chance to disappear, And ability to build beacons that have certain radius which also decrease ships chance to disappear.

Starbases should have ability to use huge cannon which will clear asteroids on targeted tile, probly more than one shot would be required. And why i cant rebase missiles to starbases?

And about those asteroids, they are only usable for hiding and for random resources. How about ability to build platforms that would give + 1 production or commerce.
And yes, ability to build many different platforms in space or on asteroids:

mining +production
farming +food
recreation +happy
junkyards +healt
trading centers/space markets +commerce

and what else?

those platforms should be on certain radius of that colony to add the resources and maybe a limited amount. With my luck i never get any good healt/hapiness resources nearby, most of them other side of the galaxy. Those platforms could help a little bit.

At this point, i have nothing else to add.

Some ideas might be impossible or too difficulty, or just too stupid...

comments, please...

Btw, thanks for the very best mod for Civ4... :)

Just a minor annoying bug:
When a star system finishes building a unit/building and I get the pop-up "what should we build next" ... I click on a building and sometimes the list pops-up a second time and then I click again and it goes away.

Suggestion:
Maybe make the upgrade costs cheaper. It seems kinda crazy that upgrading some units costs more than a starbase! It's ludicrous to do an upgrade if you can just build the new unit in 2 turns also.

Thanks.

Can't Python run C++ compiled code. So couldn't you speed up the AI that way? It seems like much of the AI code for military stuff in BTS would work fine with Final Frontier. Sure, some changes need to be made, but overall it much of it should be good (stealth stuff, combined arms, large forces working attacking at once).

Is it me or is there no tech or building that increases the number of trade routes? Also the lack of specialists of some sort seems a bit strange, but maybe the lack of health is supposed to compensate for it somewhat. It seems odd that extra population beyond what the planets use is absolutely useless (or even bad). I see how the lack of new art could be a problem....what about letting you "overpopulate" a planet, the first point of overpopulation adds a unhealthiness and unhappiness to the system, the next one adds an addition two of each -- for a total of three, the third one adds an additional three, etc.

Leaders
It seems to me some of the leaders are badly unbalanced. Some of the abilities are great (+food/+hammer from trade routes), and others are really awful (-2 happines/-2 health). Seems like some leaders have the short end of the stick.

In any case, perhaps give the leaders multiple names so in a large multiplayer game you won't get a whole bunch of people with the same name. That makes espionage really hard (can't tell who you are targeting). Perhaps slightly different civs two (Paradise, Utopia, Eden, etc; Red Syndicate, Crimson Syndicate, Red Cartel, Crimson Megacorp, and so forth -- just use a thesaurus).

Great General
Hmm, it would be nice to have a great general. Perhaps a simple recoloring of a scout unit would be sufficient (maybe make it gold)? That is basically no work. Just make it so that it is only used on units.

Minor Resource Thoughts:
Water gives you access to oxygen (and hydrogen, though hydrogen is already very common). What about changing Oxygen to Platinum, since Platinum is used in filters and to help catalyze a number of chemical reactions -- having it increase health makes sense. Then change Hydrogen into Methane (and perhaps give it a water-like liquid appearance). Methane is a handy way to store hydrogen fuel, and you don't quite trip over it going through space.

Here's a sneak preview at the screen I added which shows what Planets are in a System when you click in the star:

Great job, Jon! That helps a great deal, with deciding which systems to colonize first. I am sure that it pleases everyone that you are spending time with the community to work on bug fixes and game-play updates!

I noticed one thing during my walkthrough game, that I have 7 colonies established now, while my competition only has one each. I have the game set on "Warlord Difficulty" and that might have something to do with it, but I wonder if even on the lower difficulty it should be like this. Maybe, I should have cranked the difficulty up a couple of notches, but I wanted to be able to talk about all aspects of the game-play and that might not be possible on harder difficulties, due to scaling.

Keep up the great work! The "Final Frontier" module is the most fun to play, even before your planned updates!

Cheers!

Hamarabi

While it's already been discussed elsewhere that you can get around it...

It'd be much easier on map-makers if the FF mod used the ScriptData in a WBS, rather than randomly regenerating systems every game.

Major Bug for Me And Ill get a screen shot next time I have my comp. But the LoS Or revealed map space is off. Meaning The area revealed on the map is to the NW NW NW of where it should be. I.E. right when i start a game the 9 tiles for the city radius is all black (as if I havn't been there) but to the NW*3 there are 9 revealed tiles.

Ideas on new units and such should go to this thread:
Final Frontier Modding (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=233978)

I agree that the units needs to be balanced. Especially the scouts. Strange that the last scout only moves 2 wheile many other get 3. Maybe also change scouts to be able to attack and have a withdraw.

I just noticed that you did put the ScriptData loading/saving into it for the systems / planets. I don't know how I missed it before. I guess what I wanted is pretty much already there, so disregard what I said before. Unless, of course, you want to add a WB interface to the editing so I don't have to do it through the python console. :p

Hey all, just poping in with my two cents- first of all top notch mod, definatly pushing the envolope with this one!

My first point is, well -as everyone else- planetary buildings.

In normal civ I have to make choices between money, production and food when I'm improving the tiles but in FF I can have my cake and eat it by building mining and farms etc. on each planet...

What if each planet was only able to build one type each?

So I could either build a farm or a mine or a commercial site on each planet- and building a different type would demolish the first.

Yea I know what your thinking, a planet is a big thing and should have plenty of room for both, but specialisation is the key to maximum production- even if your talking about whole planets!

I really like Final Frontier except for the long wait time at the end of the turns. Gotta be some way to speed that up!

Yea I know what your thinking, a planet is a big thing and should have plenty of room for both, but specialisation is the key to maximum production- even if your talking about whole planets!

The problem is the transportation of the "production"... If you specialize your planet, any transportation problem may lead to huge shortage in food, manufatured goods or anything your planet don't produce...
the planet are allready specialized : some produce 3 :food: or more and other produce 3 :hammers: or more

In normal civ I have to make choices between money, production and food when I'm improving the tiles but in FF I can have my cake and eat it by building mining and farms etc. on each planet...

On the other hand, specialization is already highly encouraged by the fact that extra copies of a building within a system cost progressively more. You can build all improvements on each planet, and in an ideal world would, but they get more expensive with each one, and eventually you'll probably have better stuff to build than that ultra-expensive 5th Nutrition facility. Personally, I like soft caps like that, that nudge you in a direction without outright forcing you. Civ4's health system being another great example. :)

And as eoghammer says, planets are already inherently specialized; buildings only do so much.

Here's a sneak preview at the screen I added which shows what Planets are in a System when you click in the star:

That's awesome. Can't wait for the next patch.

This scenario is definitely one of the best that came with BTS! And the new system / planet preview screen is great. The scenario would be even better if some of the micromanagement hassle were ironed out:
1) production overflow roll over to the next item: a major improvement of civ4 was that you no longer have to micromanage to minimize lost production overflow. Could this please be fixed in FF ?
2) lost production when switching planets: if within a system you change an uncompleted item A on planet A to item B on planet B, if you change back right away it's OK. But if you want to complete item B first, when switching back to item A it starts from scratch. Could this be fixed ?
3) multiple production queue management: IMHO the main issue is the mechanics of having to select a planet on bottom right, check the build box on top right, then select item on bottom left. If there were a single click solution to determine which planet to build on and which does not require to move the mouse several times across the screen it would be great. Perhaps simply removing the build checkbox would be enough. But please don't inhibit or automate duplicate building placement, it's much more fun the way it is now, it's just the interface that needs streamlining.
4) when a system's population increases, it would be nice to have an option to make the system screen automatically pop up to let you place the new pop where you like.

I had a double leader, on a large map. Maybe you should add some more civilizations to take care of this problem. Also, some civs had too similar colours.

This is the first BtS mod that I tried. It's not bad for a mod and thanks for making it. I don't think it's quite as good as MOO2 but it's just mod not a full game.

Some of the issues that I had with it.

Since your constructor ships take a while to make a starbase the AI can come in and build a Starbase next to your constructor. If they do, their influence overrides yours, wasting your constructor. Also, starbases are a bit too strong right off the bat. They are strength 30. A battleship is only 24.

You can't seem to really do much about health and happiness in your cities. It seems to be beyond the control of the player. If you want to go the military route, your options are limited. Ships move to slow given all the distances they need to cross. There needs to be more options to make them go faster. It'd also be nice to have more information on the planets and stars.

Another thought. Is it possible to have the Construction Ships "mine" the asteroids for hammers ala chopping in regular civ?

Here's some bugs/problems I noticed.
Even though it sometimes took me several turns to approach a planet and several to beat the defenders, the planet never used it's large supply of missiles against me.
On the turn when an enemy capitulated to me all my starbases stopped generating their area of control. They went back to normal next turn and I didn't think to keep a save. Maybe I have one but it's among 30 others.
Trade routes seem to be irrelevant unless you're the syndicate, making the building that increases trade route yield a bad investment. Some technology or civic should give you more.
Lastly health seems to be irrelevant. Even with very bad health my colonies were still growing at a good rate. I only once or twice had build a health improving building. That also makes the survival value not very useful.
Otherwise this is a very impressive mod.

Well, I don't think it's a bug in just FF, but ScriptData doesn't appear to be read in properly in the FF mod. I had to modify CvWBDesc.py in order to get it to read more than one line of the ScriptData. The problem seems to be (at least in regards to FF) that a Plot's ScriptData is a pickled list. The pickled list uses newline characters to separate elements. The CvWBDesc.py has no multi-line loading capabilities. I ended up modifying the pickled list to replace newline characters with tabs before writing, and the reverse before when reading.

Can you add some kind of Future Tech? It seems once you reach the end a future tech like thing would keep research from becoming useless near the end.

I dunno if it is meant to be, but when I load up Final Frontier it gives me the Warlords expansion background.

I dunno if it is meant to be, but when I load up Final Frontier it gives me the Warlords expansion background.

I think it's some weird thing that sometimes happens when you select a different title screen for the main game. For some reason if I select the original Civ IV title screen it also shows up for Age of Ice instead of the default AoI title. It fixes itself when I change the title back to the BtS default.

I only seem to be able to do passive espionage. Is their a SPY unit so you can do active espionage?

I think it's some weird thing that sometimes happens when you select a different title screen for the main game. For some reason if I select the original Civ IV title screen it also shows up for Age of Ice instead of the default AoI title. It fixes itself when I change the title back to the BtS default.

I never switched the title screen though.

Is it just me, or does FF seem to run a lot slower than the original game?

I have CTD problems with a couple of the leaders (sorry I can't recall which ones) -whenever I meet them in-game or select them on the menu screen the game crashes to the desktop. Will this patch fix this problem?

The same thing happens to me. I go to start the game, select the Avowers of Knowledge, and it immediately crashes.

First, this mod is an absolute blast to play and isn't at all what I expected when I first fired it up. Of course I now have no idea what the rest of BTS contains since I found this shortly after installing :)

I've played several 'coop' style 2-player games and overall it's been very stable and hasn't suffered from more than a few minor issues, most of which have been described by other posters. The only real problem we encountered is more of a matter of preference I suppose. The home systems are a bit too random for MP games, the typical end result was that one of us would have a really good home system and the other would have a really bad one. With all of the other random factors affecting the early game (proximity/quality of other systems and wrecks mainly) it lead to some very harsh differences bewtween players. Now in a single player game this was fine, the challenge of starting out a bit handicapped is a fun challenge to overcome against the AI but in a MP game the result is either swift defeat or a lot of waiting while the player(s) with better starts do things that you can't due to lack of production & growth. The AI was also a bit on the passive side in nearly every game we've played to date.

Since I'm not big on complaining without providing some solutions here are the two changes I implimented to resolve these issues:

First, in CvSolarSystem.py I added a check to ensure any planet created in a homeworld was a minimum of size 2, the remaining checks already in place were more than adequate. It's a simple three line change in the definition for createRandomSystem() (sorry, no line numbers in wordpad)

Replace:
for iPlanetLoop in range(iNumPlanets):

iPlanetType = aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop][0]
iPlanetSize = aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop][1]
iOrbitRing = aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop][2]
With:
for iPlanetLoop in range(iNumPlanets):

iPlanetType = aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop][0]
iPlanetSize = aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop][1]
iOrbitRing = aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop][2]
bMoon = aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop][3]
bRings = aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop][4]

# Seven05: Minimum planet size of 2 for homeworld systems
if (bHomeworld):
if (iPlanetSize < 1):
iPlanetSize = 1
aaiPlanetInfos[iPlanetLoop] = [iPlanetType, iPlanetSize, iOrbitRing, bMoon, bRings]

Next, I wanted to make the AI a bit less passive. Based on the old AI changes I did for TAM I took the easy way out and simply made the AI less friendly with each other so they would have an equal chance of declaring war on each other as they would to declare war on a human player. In CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml I set the three following tags to the same values for all leaders except the barbarians:

<iBasePeaceWeight>0</iBasePeaceWeight>
<iPeaceWeightRand>4</iPeaceWeightRand>
<iWarmongerRespect>-2</iWarmongerRespect>

I wrote up a tutorial that's posted on the forums here explaining this change in detail but the basic effect is that the AI all has a +4 bonus to relations with each other by default and these values change that so they can have anywhere from +2 to -2 with each other, adding a touch of randomness to the state of AI<->AI relationships.

Sorry about the wordy post, and again it's an awesome mod to play single or multi player.

Sorry that I haven't read all of this... I'm kind of in a hurry.

I have encontered two problems:

1) I have build a starbase and I had open boardes with an AI-Civ. He has started to build one round after me one space away. I thought that would not be a problem and let him. It was a problem. My starbase was build - everything was ok.The round after when HIS starbase was ready, he got a small band of influence on the far side - everything was ok ( ok, except that he was on one of the ressources). The round after, the situation was reveresed and I got the small band. I declared war to get my influence back (and the ressources - anyway, the resources where near me - it was half the card from his territory away, so I dont know in the first place why he did it), but than my starbase vanished. (The comp tried to get all my ships out of his sphere of influence - but a starbase can not move, so it vanished...)

2) We have played Multiplayer and everytime a starebase fired, the syncronisation was lost. We had to relod it, but thats no game, so we abondoned it after this second flaw.

I hope you can fix it, it could be a cool mod.

The hard-coded building attributes need to be changed to XML in your next update, Jon. Mostly it's an easy thing to accomplish, but you may have to add something to the building schema for PopCap. Here is what I did to address most of the hard-coding. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5789249&postcount=7)

At one point in the game, a weaker civilization offered to become a vassal state of my civilization. After I accepted, the cultural area around all my starbases disappeared and as a result, I lost access to resources where I had already built an extraction facility. Consequently, total health and total happiness went down in all my solar systems. I can provide a saved game of before and after the fact, if necessary. Great mod though, aside from this 'undocumented feature'. ;)

I just won an Ascendancy victory and the game locks up saying "Daniel has won a Human Ascendancy Victory" while the bottom screen says "waiting for other players". Nothing happens after this this screen is just locked, can't access menus or anything, just the ingame screen with the planes spinning in the background.

Edit: Wrong, I just realized I can access the menus but do nothing in my current game except from that.

I did an experiment with delaying the building of the final piece of the gate one turn and it worked out normally.

Other than this little thing I'd just like to see the AI alot better. The AI is the only reason I will not be playing this mod more for now. For instance, last game I played Alvarez declared war on me and when it was showdown time I had like 10 Battleships while he only had one single one. Also they don't use missiles at all. Slightly slower teching would be awesome too, as mentioned by others. Very good mod, but AI needs alot of work.

Paradise's 'flag' shows up as a hammer and sickle instead of the two snake medical thing that it should be

Well, i got BTS yesterday, and immediatly started a game of Final Frontier. I liked it, but there were some things that struck me as odd.

Scouts: as said before, scouts are useless. they need to have 2 movement, if not more.
Religion: Why give them names like Knowledge or Wealth, if they don't have benefits that improve that specific. one would think if one adopted Wealth, there would be an increase in gold production.
Tech Tree: to fast in proportion to the game (as has already been said)
Nebula/Asteroid belts: I'm not sure if this has already been said, but why are nebula dangerous to ships, while asteroide belts aren't? at the very least, asteroid belts should have a small chance of Damage being done.

thanks,
thomas

I agree on the scouts movement.

As for the asteroid belt thing, I suppose the slowing of movement is the deterent here, possibly it could slow movement even more until one discovers some sort of shieling tech, but then I would think that if you were advanced enough to be out in DEEP space you would have already figured that part out.

The special buildings per each value seem to handle that idea. WEALTH has the space market thing, POWER the school of zealots, etc etc.

Theoretically at least nebula space would be impassable as it is the birth ground of new stars, wouldn't you hate to become part of a new star????

I'd like to see some way to clear a radiation cloud, but also have them appear randomly, and possibly move. I hate having my home system with an awesome system to inhabit at about 10 tiles with a 2 tile thick radiation cloud between and nebula space such that it takes 20 and more turns to go around.

Major Bug for Me And Ill get a screen shot next time I have my comp. But the LoS Or revealed map space is off. Meaning The area revealed on the map is to the NW NW NW of where it should be. I.E. right when i start a game the 9 tiles for the city radius is all black (as if I havn't been there) but to the NW*3 there are 9 revealed tiles.

I have exactly the same problem.

I agree on the scouts movement..
Thanks;)
As for the asteroid belt thing, I suppose the slowing of movement is the deterent here, possibly it could slow movement even more until one discovers some sort of shieling tech, but then I would think that if you were advanced enough to be out in DEEP space you would have already figured that part out..
especially as our solar system already has an asteroid belt, which would probably have been used to mine resources. you'd think that those living/ working there would have eventually developed a method of protection.
The special buildings per each value seem to handle that idea. WEALTH has the space market thing, POWER the school of zealots, etc etc..
i still don't like the idea of having to put production into what the value should automatically give... and i think that the building should require a state religion. (if it already does, then i've run into a bug: i had Survivalism state religion, but was able to build the school of zealots)
Theoretically at least nebula space would be impassable as it is the birth ground of new stars, wouldn't you hate to become part of a new star????.
yes, but the formation of new stars takes a very long time, ample time for a ship to pass through
I'd like to see some way to clear a radiation cloud, but also have them appear randomly, and possibly move. I hate having my home system with an awesome system to inhabit at about 10 tiles with a 2 tile thick radiation cloud between and nebula space such that it takes 20 and more turns to go around.

that would be good...

"i still don't like the idea of having to put production into what the value should automatically give... and i think that the building should require a state religion. (if it already does, then i've run into a bug: i had Survivalism state religion, but was able to build the school of zealots)"

See this is what I like about this system. So long as I have that value in the system I am able to build the special building and get some bonus. When you convert to a value you get the same type of bonus you had with regular civ and a religion in that you get 1 gold per system with the value. This way IF I don't found a value and am lucky enough to have those that do send an advocate (which just so happened in the last game I played) then I can build all the buildings in all my systems and get a nice bonus without ever converting to a value.

"yes, but the formation of new stars takes a very long time, ample time for a ship to pass through"

The formation does indeed take a very long time but I haven't a clue the things that are happening in nebula space, possibly huge spikes in gravity among other things that we wouldn't comprehend how to survive. Space travel as yet is all theoretical, deep space anyway and somehow I doubt travel thru nebula space will be possible for far longer than the time frame this mod is modeling.

Plus I like the idea of having areas that can not be traversed. However in most of the maps I have generated this is a bit overblown. For instance on one map my home system had a roughly 200 tile nebula to the east stretching north with a small gap to another roughly 100 tile nebula stetching south and a roughly 300 tile nebula to the west. I had roughly 5 systems nearby that I was able to colonize before the AI moved in and unlike the AI I don't run halfway across the map to colonize a system I'll never be able to defend or connect to. On another my home system was surrounded all but about a 10 tile passage with even the second system being partially shielded

I also don't like setting the star systems to dense or very dense as then you have systems literally on top of each other. Which is exactly why I tried setting everything to sparce but then it took forever between turns after about 100. I timed it at over 30 seconds between at turn 150.

The starbases probably get more expensive due to Inflation.

I played my first game on Normal speed so I could breeze through and get a hang of the sweep of gameplay, and I thought the techs not revealing their quotes (and thus story) until you research them a nice touch. I did notice tech advancement is ridiculously fast on Normal... maybe it's just because I've played on epic so long, I couldn't ever get a :hammers:-focused military city built up full factory +mine production before the game ends. I'm happy to hear the tech pace is being slowed.

The only thing I was disappointed in is there's no finale or closure to the game when you win, it just says "you've won!" Even without a movie or slideshow, another creative paragraph of epilogue text giving a sense of conclusion would be welcome.

Oh and (if it isn't going to be revealed in an addendum or sequel to the mod), was Earth destroyed in the first "Project X" attempt to open the gateways? Or is it meant to be left unsaid like in Alpha Centauri?

I liked all the little easter eggs. Donald Rumsfeld discharging static electricity between his fingers for "Shock and Awe" tech. I noticed Paris Hilton's infamous dog-in-a-purse somewhere in the tech icons too, and I think I remember seeing a third icon that was an egg.

It was especially interesting the first time I loaded up the game and noticed the 3 layers of art in depth producing the 3-d starfield effect when you move the camera, it was a very nice touch and made me feel a little like I was in Homeworld.

I get a lot of CTD errors, even when I'm just creating a game.

the WB needs to be upgraded, but the mod on itself is the best one and (of course) is great!

The Mod was great, However I noticed some problems with the AI.
1. the AI doesn't use stealth ships.
2. In one game i was Hector Alvarez and Leonard Prithchard declared war on me for no reason, even though we had the same value (wealth). however he never went in my border. is this a bug ?

An increasement om max barbarian xp should be made. 10 xp is way to small, especially if a system gives you 20 in start. Should be at least 50.

Unit pathing can be erroneous, sometimes it really pays to go straight through a radiation cloud and take a turn of damage and yet even without using r-click dragging, but just pushing the left arrow, the game will automatically path a route around the cloud. This can be frustrating

At one point in the game, a weaker civilization offered to become a vassal state of my civilization. After I accepted, the cultural area around all my starbases disappeared and as a result, I lost access to resources where I had already built an extraction facility. Consequently, total health and total happiness went down in all my solar systems. I can provide a saved game of before and after the fact, if necessary. Great mod though, aside from this 'undocumented feature'. ;)
I had this happen once too, and judging from me and my vassal's power graphs, the same thing happened to him. (The power graph took a dip for one turn when he vassaled to me.)

Unit pathing can be erroneous, sometimes it really pays to go straight through a radiation cloud and take a turn of damage and yet even without using r-click dragging, but just pushing the left arrow, the game will automatically path a route around the cloud. This can be frustrating
Agreed, but which is worse: Having the Go to tool make a route through a radiation cloud when you don't want it to or having it route around the cloud when you don't want it to? ;)

I'm also getting CTDs when I try to start a game.

I have CTD problems with a couple of the leaders (sorry I can't recall which ones) -whenever I meet them in-game or select them on the menu screen the game crashes to the desktop. Will this patch fix this problem?
The same thing happens to me. I go to start the game, select the Avowers of Knowledge, and it immediately crashes.

I'm having the same problem. When I look in the Civilopedia, The leaders of The Forge, the Red Syndicate and the Astronomics [or whatever] Corp (the ones based on Hannibal, FDR, and Churchill) all show up fine. But the leader of Paradise has the Cheshire Leader effect going on. All I can see are his teeth, eyes, and edges of his eyelids. And all the rest don't show up at all. They don't even have entries in the Civilopedia. All that shows is a blank page. And if I try to do anything with them regarding the actual game it crashes. For example, when I'm selecting my civ at the start of a game, if I so much as click on any of the glitched guys, the game crashes. What's going on with my game?

I've just tried it out on Noble level and AI is really stupid as mentioned above.

AI DoWed me with 6 delta planetary defense ships while it had access to delta invasion ships. I only had 2 delta plan. def. ships and 2 delta fight squads in that system. They were afraid to attack because of the +200% defense bonus and I air striked them to retreating where they got destroyed.

Otherwise it is a nice mod.

Huh, the AI doesn't understand the strengths and weaknesses of its ships. And have you ever noticed how it seems like all the AI's missiles are in the city you attack? I've deduced from observing how the AI trucks around its missiles that it's treating them like defensive units, like planetary defense ships. This, of course, is not how you're supposed to use them at all and is only going to get you in a heap of trouble.

Maybe the AI is correctly putting them in the right city to weaken your units but has a bug that causes it to not fire them.

Sometimes a star system has a 1 population home planet and no other planets with food (at least in the 1st or 2nd culture expansion area). The city is stuck at a 1 pop until a nutrition center and habitation center are build on the home planet. In MP, people say forget it and ask me to burn the system for them, or gift the system to the AI. Perhaps a modified system generation could prevent the "tundra city" of systems. Of course, if some systems are supposed to be totally crappy, then carry on.

I also get the "double-click required" when prompted for a build order. This is especially annoying when what I want to build requires a scroll-down of the menu.

Planet improvements are too expensive. For the cost (hammers) of a 3rd mining or habitat facility, you could build a battleship or carrier.

Getting to Utilitarianism (for omega fighters) or Commerce Theory (for omega planetary defense ships), to defend against battleship/destroyer/airplane, takes too long. I know people have been saying that the tech tree is chewed up too quickly, but I can barely (if I'm lucky) get to Omega fighters, upgrade them, and use Utopia to get Commerce theory to upgrade planetary, quickly enough to defend. Unless you spam fighters, defending against an early b-ship rush is almost impossible. Watching the turns to complete a tech go from 11 to 8 in one turn because a commercial satalite is completed in a 3 pop planet and watching my population go from a 7-8 to 14 in 10-15 turns (because of Utopia) is encouraging; however, my 14 pop always gets burned by someone who has not spent 100's of hammers improving their system. Instead, they go unhappy (and say "whatever") while battleships get completed in capital ship focus and then carriers in squadron focus. Commerce theory and Utilitarianism should not be made more expensive, but capital ship focus and squadron focus should be.
More detailed blabbering about tech tree defense vs. offense (or bottom vs. top):

If someone is unaware of the impossibility of defense, it is because they have not tried MP. I guess in SP, the AI rarely attacks. When is has against me (in MP games that people quit or SP games where I practiced strat), it generally brings a bunch of light ships that die to my airplanes; then the AI tries to run home. Unlike SP, in MP, you can expect the armada described below to arrive ~ turn 80. I mostly play MP and regularly burn through 4 civs via building (sometimes with a stagnant 4 population! and sometimes with an unhappy(x3) 9 population): 1-4 destroyers, 2 stealth ships, 3 b-ships, 0-2 carriers, and fighters (built as the armada sails to enemy). I click on light manufacturing (take monarchy), then click on squadron focus, grabbing fighters (survival) somewhere along the way. The best defense against this is spamming fighters (does this mod have unit costs? because it sure doesn't seem to) or trying to get omega planetary defenders/fighters in time.


Health buildings are worthless. If you build one, you have made a mistake. The +1 health = +1 food and just doesnt matter. At -9 health, you still grow to a 9 pop almost instantly (if you are a happy 8 pop). Happiness is cheap (early techs for culture and then sports arena). Happiness can be ignored as well (if you simply want the earliest armada possible) but health is completely irrelevant with Utopia (+1 food for all planets = +1 food per current working pop). With Utopia, I get to 18 pop (happy) without one health building. I build sports arenas and run 20% culture.

Note: noble player (because of MP)

Rings and moons should affect planet stats. Star color should indicate planets present in system (does it?).

Pillaging should require something (a promotion?). Promotions should be more available (I play luke because I like to personalize my armada) OR all ships +1 movement and change movement promotion so that it does not require combat2.

Slavery requires a turn of anarchy and generally = -3 turns of production for 4-6 population! Worthless. The time it takes to regrow that pop, and the production lost during the regrowth are WAY MORE than the 3 turns of production up front, even in the 1st 3 turns following the whip!!

Details that prove slavery is worthless:

Figure 4 population working a 2 hammer planet, thats 8 hammer per turn lost until you regrow (and 8 food and 8 commerce!). Let's say 2 turns to regrow = 16,16,16 lost. Then 1 turn losing 6,6,6 (minus 3 pop). That's a total loss of 22,22,22 on turn 3 after whipping (the turn you would have finished the build had you not whipped 4 pop to eliminate 3 turns). You still have 10 turns to get back to starting population.

Edit: I've started playing deity, since there is no happy penalty. There seems to be no research penalty either.

I noticed that all the leaderheads in FF have these brown rectangles at the bottom of the background. See this pic for an example:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=158269&d=1187131071

They weren't like this before. The only thing I can think of that could be causing this is the fact I installed the latest Catalyst drivers (7.8) today. Is anybody else having this problem?

I noticed that all the leaderheads in FF have these brown rectangles at the bottom of the background. See this pic for an example:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=158269&d=1187131071

They weren't like this before. The only thing I can think of that could be causing this is the fact I installed the latest Catalyst drivers (7.8) today. Is anybody else having this problem?
Hey, I didn't notice that either, but the same thing is happening to me. I'm using a Nvidia Geforce 5500, there's probably something wrong with the model files.

-----

After observing how the AI scout ships handle objects like blackholes and damage fields, I've come to a conclusion: The AI doesn't understand how blackholes and damage fields work at all. I have a screenshot of a pirate that "ran away" from my scout ship and blundered into a super nova, where it was destroyed:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=158335&stc=1&d=1187206500

I forgot to take a screenshot of the scout ship that has been stuck in a black hole, which is now in my territory, for about a century and a half now. I can get a screen shot if you guys want it, the ship is still there.

I've also noticed that the AI construction ships like to build extravagant networks warp lanes. I think they're trying to spell something out:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=158336&stc=1&d=1187206500
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=158337&stc=1&d=1187206500

Im getting CTD whenever I try to play, some leaders are bugged like the avowers and the brotherhood, when I so much as select them the game crashes, otherwise it crashes when it starts to initialize...

I dont have any problems with leaders causing crashes; however, not being able to have teams kinda sucks.

Im getting CTD whenever I try to play, some leaders are bugged like the avowers and the brotherhood, when I so much as select them the game crashes, otherwise it crashes when it starts to initialize...
Try using the patch from this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5729184&postcount=2).

Try using the patch from this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5729184&postcount=2).
That patch did solve my crashing problem with the Brotherhood leader head. It doesn't make the leader heads look any more like actual heads, but that's a problem I'm having with Beyond the Sword as a whole and my allegedly supported Geforce 4 MX graphics card.

Besides having graphics issues, I started a custom game as the Brotherhood, and the AI put a second Brotherhood civilization into the same game, with the same leader and all. I don't think that's supposed to happen?

That patch did solve my crashing problem with the Brotherhood leader head. It doesn't make the leader heads look any more like actual heads, but that's a problem I'm having with Beyond the Sword as a whole and my allegedly supported Geforce 4 MX graphics card.
No, the patch wasn't meant to fix the leaderhead problem, it was supposed to at least make the game playable for now. ;)

Besides having graphics issues, I started a custom game as the Brotherhood, and the AI put a second Brotherhood civilization into the same game, with the same leader and all. I don't think that's supposed to happen?
I'm assuming you're playing a large map, which is supposed to have 9 civilizations on it. There are only 8 civilizations in FF, so Civ IV duplicates one of the civilizations. It is a known bug for the moment, and the solution for now is to start a custom game and make sure there aren't more than 8 civilizations (including yourself) in the game by closing slots.

Ok here is the screenie:

Can anyone explain me how do i control population growth and health in my system? I can't control my citys lvl and they keep complaining its too over crowded. Thanks

Well I know in the changelist it says Stealth Ships cost has been increased, but I think they either shouldn't be invisible or have their strength reduced or keep them invisble but not hidden nationality so that they start wars when attacking. Don't get me wrong I love them, but they're seriously overpowered against the AI that I've never seen post scouts to counter stealth ships. You may not be able to capture cities with them, but honestly giving the pirates free cities is just too easy...wait outside a star system until their pds's attack oncoming pirates, then pick off their usually wounded city defenders with ease, eventually the pirates end up walking into an empty star system, as the only pds's that won't attack are the last remaining ones, eventually you can easily pick them off after a pirate damages them during an attack. At least if they weren't invisible they wouldn't be able to do this with impunity and you'd have to be careful about their health. Or maybe the solution is to add a building that uncovers stealth ships and have the AI heavily weighted to build one asap at least then the AI may be able to counter it..

2) We have played Multiplayer and everytime a starebase fired, the syncronisation was lost. We had to relod it, but thats no game, so we abondoned it after this second flaw.


This was a LAN-game then. This WE we have played via "Direct IP" and we have seen that this Sync-failure also occured, but only temporary. After a few seconds, all was ok. I don't know how it was in the LAN then, but in Direct IP this is more a nuisance than a danger.

The AI hasn't used scoutships (like you have already heard...), so the stealthships were way to effektive versus the AI. But use them versus a Human, and you are in trouble. Everywhere are scoutships, and the next destroyer patroling is not far. At least this is almost fair, even if I have to have a lot of the scouts.

I'd love to be able to queue across planets within a system.

I agree, the whole 'planet' idea is difficult to grasp. The graphix of the planets orbiting the star is wicked though.

I think that they should also add in the Civilopedia that the Starbases create a 5x5 influencial square. The first time I played I couldnt figure out how to get resources without waiting for my boarders to expand over them.

I have had a strange thing yesterday: I have moved a construction ship. Later that same turn, I realised that this was the construction who build the starbase. Since that it was already moved, I used another construction (10+ where on the site, building warplanes). I figured out that the starbase only had 5 turns left, so none of the progress was lost. The turn the starbase was build - I found two starbases on the same tile. As good as I can say, I have paid only one of them and both seem to be operational.

I couldn't repeat the thing with the starbase. But I have seen some other things:

- The AI build tons of useless stuff. Half a dozen health buildings, where 2 nutrition facilitys would do (I never build health, extra food does fine)

to explain this better: the nutrition facilitys are build on the small planets. If the AI would have build them on the big planets, there would have been the same costs, but more food. Also, the habitation was build on the small planets. If you build up the big planets with all adds (food, production and commerce), you have more goodies with less cost. As a Human, I also try to specialise a bit (only a bit - you can't neglect food or production). There are systems with more commerce, so they get more money-, sience- and espionage buildings than the other systems. And there are the systems with more production that can build the extras - advocats and ships. If you try to egalize them, you don't get anything. Be it influence, a university or a manufacturing plant - it has to pay off in a reasonable amount of time.

- Sometimes you choose what to build and it forces you to select it a second time by opening again.

- Planetary defense doesn't need good officers (+50% xp). If you make your attack right, there is need for more upgrades. And if you don't want to get the planet, you shouldn't attack. Its even more simple than in vanilla, since your really important units are highly mobile (missiles and squadrons) and they don't give you xp even if you survive them. If the attacker is bad or the war is already lost, it might be that you survive them - but you have to survive until the next upgrade, and thats not that likely. Better, use that level you CAN get from the start for something useful.

- I haven't seen the AI use their missiles. Bad habit.

- I haven't seen the AI use squadrons, I haven't even seen any squadrons at all- and they are the best weapon you can use! (re-useable missiles!)

- The Ai is to scattered. I would like to see the costs for that, but I think it would be disastrous. Also, building a starbase wherever you find a nice ressource might be good to get wars started with humans, but you don't get to use them if you can't build a warplane. And I have never seen a good traderoute to a human (don't know if the comps can trade), so trade to comps is useless. If you play versus humans, the lanes can be interupted very easiliy. So traderoutes (and the advantage for the red syndicate) are a useless feature. Get rid of trades or make them usefull.

- Not knowing what the system has as planets is frustrating. You colonize the system only to find out that the system is almost useless.

- Scouts have to have more movement.

- Its almost useless for the pirate to attack with planetary defense. And its annoying to play with raging babarians if they only destroy you your lanes (and I suspect its the same without raging). Better let the planetary defense patrol for construction ships or colonists or something else, or let the pirates use tactics - like gather a few ships before attacking a defendet system. Make them more interesting instead of a subtle annoyance.

- Don't let the AI attack with planetare defense. Planetary defense is only useful for defending systems. And there are only a few ways to skill a planetary defense. My way is to skill them for city defense and then strength to the end. Maybe light ships versus the invasion ships, but thats only important in the beginning since squadrons do all the important fighting in the end.

- There is no ship for patroling. Invasion ships, planetary defense ships and scouts are useless (and to specialised), and destroyers are to expensive. OK, if I HAVE to use one of them I could use a planetary defense or an invasion - but they are higly specialised and it hurts to misuse them. Potentially you could redesign the scout with a bit more strength, maybe 2/3 to 3/4 of planetary defenses with 50 or 60% versus light ships (of course they would have to be cheaper than planetary defense and capable of attacking), with some new upgrade choices:
* Seeing stealth ships isn't build in for both stealth ships and scouts. You have to buy it, but you can buy it from the start without any prereqisits.
* +1 visibility isn't build in, but you can upgrade that without prerequisites. The same with the first +1 movement.
* Maybe you could combine stealthships and scouts, so hidden nationality as well as stealth capabilitys are (two different) upgrades without prerequisites.

The other possibility is to make destroyers cheaper - building a ship capable of fighting is a real expenditure, and therefore there is not much flying around and that reduces the fun.

- If a ship (here: destroyer) intercepts a squadron, he should also take damage. And he should be capable of intercepting several times a turn, not only once a turn. And other ships should be able to intercept squadrons as well - lets say 10% for alle ships. Together with ships intercepting taking damage this should be fun...
Maybe you have to adjust the strentgh of carriers a bit, and, I don't know if already implementet, fighters have to intercept before anything else. Of course, fighters have only 90 or 95% interception...

Now, it is more of a static fight, and with missiles so common and sqadrons so mighty (and none of them used from th AI) you can determine the outcome really good.

Great mod, one that'll rival(and surpass) some commercial space 4x games if the AI issues are worked out. Feels like a truer combination of MoO to Civ than others. I just wanted to say that, and one other thing.

For those of you always crashing as soon as a game is finished being created, check your graphical settings. I had Lower Resolution Textures on, and it crashed me every time with that enabled. After I unchecked it and the mod was able to create games fine.

Just thinking - maybe FF deserves its own section in the Projects & Mods Development section...

Ships that carry missles or planes need to have a "reload" button. Needing to reload these ships (especially in MP) is far to burdensome. This is true even if you know the city with the missile, click it on the sall map, click the missile, click back to location of ship on small map, and right click on the ship. Too much time to reload. The carriers could reload with nearest (or nearest to cap) planes, fighters first...

Ships moving 1 is too slow. On a standard size map, lacking warp lanes, it would take 40k years to cross the map (literally)?

I got all the prereqs for "Advanced Bridge" and it was not available. To get to it, I needed 6 schools of zealots and 2 training camps, and still needed xp from combat. Leadership should be +100% xp, not merely +50%. Perhaps promotions should cost less.

Great generals creating academies is overpowered (1/2 cost for military units), HOWEVER, using them for 20xp is completely useless, if you bothered to build training camps at all. Instead of removing them, just remove academies and make them 40xp.

Good luck getting the AI to use missiles and squadrons, sigh.

No wonders?

I won on monarch, playnow, small mapsize, all normal, quickspeed, as Luka, conquest, 40k normalized <flex>. Emporer is a totally different level, the AI produces DOUBLE the troops compared to monarch.

I have a couple of comments/suggestions.

- There is an exploit with starbases where you can start building one next to another faction's starbase, and when your base completes its cultural boundary pushes the other faction's starbase culture away. You can use this to 'steal' resources or deny them from the other player.

- As people have stated, scouts should have at least 2 movement starting out. They are far too slow at this point in the game.

- Some flavor text at the end of the game would be nice. Right now, getting to the end of the tech tree leaves the player hanging in terms of backstory.

- In terms of Great Spies, Great Generals, etc...instead of just canning them, how about using the Advocate ship graphic? Certain GPs would do a lot towards making the game even more interesting (maybe use GS to do active espionage, etc).

- Minor nitpick: 'Jian Shen' is spelled 'Jing Shen' in a couple of the texts. Are they different people? If not, that should be corrected.

Again, this mod is simply superb. I really like the way you piece together the backstory using the quotes and descriptions for the technologies. Great stuff.

When you accept someone as your vassel the game immediately reassigns plot ownership. When it does the plot ownership generated by Starbases disappears. It reappears at the beginning of the next turn, but you loose access to the resources around your starbases for one turn.

My first time running Final Frontier. I've checked every prerequisite, tech... everything I can think of... it lust won't let me build a freakin' Starport! I though maybe it limited each system to one factory type and I needed a Starport factory... I just know there's no rule helping me and I can't find any reference from others with a similar problem... and FF seems to take about 30secs to think after every turn... very annoying... it's a Core 2 Duo system running at over 2gig with 2gb RAM... can't imagine why it's so slow... anyway, I'm going back to yelling at my screen now...

Zonker: Do you mean starbase or starport? There is a difference, one is available to build after you build a bank and the other is motionless and is built by construction ships.

Any ETA on a patch or is it already up and I just have missed it?

[a separate forum just for FF would be nice]

First of all: A great mod Jon! I love what you did with the solar systems.

I have a small issue though (or 2 really):

1) Is it just me or are trade routes not generating any commerce?
Here's a screen of a small city of mine and as you can clearly see, all the base commerce comes from the two citizens:

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8231/notraderouteyielday0.th.jpg (http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=notraderouteyielday0.jpg)

2) A more or less related question: The hammer and food bonuses for the Syndicate work fine, but I can't tell for the life of me how you implemented them. Can you give a (in this game) modding noob a hint?

As Alex has said elsewhere, patch will probably come in a few weeks, but that's not definite.

First of all: A great mod Jon! I love what you did with the solar systems.

I have a small issue though (or 2 really):

1) Is it just me or are trade routes not generating any commerce?
Here's a screen of a small city of mine and as you can clearly see, all the base commerce comes from the two citizens:

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8231/notraderouteyielday0.th.jpg (http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=notraderouteyielday0.jpg)

2) A more or less related question: The hammer and food bonuses for the Syndicate work fine, but I can't tell for the life of me how you implemented them. Can you give a (in this game) modding noob a hint?
I'll look into the Trade Route issue. As you say, it looks to be a problem.

The Food and Production bonus is applied in the "updatePlotYield()" function in CvFinalFrontierEvents.py file. The changes made for the Syndicate are labelled with a comment.

Jon

As Alex has said elsewhere, patch will probably come in a few weeks, but that's not definite.


I'll look into the Trade Route issue. As you say, it looks to be a problem.

The Food and Production bonus is applied in the "updatePlotYield()" function in CvFinalFrontierEvents.py file. The changes made for the Syndicate are labelled with a comment.

Jon

Ah I see, thanks. I guess that function is then called to change the city production, etc.?
By the way, is it intentional that you can build Starbases inside your opponents' territories? It's a bit easily exploited imho (no need for carriers if you use a few well-placed starbases, and they are a lot cheaper from a hammers point of view - not to forget their ranged attack).

Edit: Another thing I just noticed. As you can see I was playing Paradise, but I didn't always get mag-levs when conquering settlements. I didn't saw anything on the lines of creating them in CvFinalFrontierEvents.py either.
Sorry for being annoying today... but I only discovered this scenario yesterday and wanted to let you know what strikes me as odd ;)

Edit2: Forget that about the starbases, they are destroyed when you declare war.

Umm, I am guesing you built them when you had open borders than??? This woild make sense as when you declare war any troop inside enemy territory will automatically get moved to outside his territory and Starbase(s) don't move.

Doesn't always work out this way but I try to have a couple of cruisers and a couple of carriers with a couple of battleships and a destroyer or three when attacking. This means though that I am generally waiting until lete game to really mount a serious attack. The AI doesn't make use of the missiles though which tends to spoil the game.
I have had them make use of fighter squadrons but I can't recall any bomber squadrons. I'll have to try a couple more games to check that.

Great mod, thanks!

Still, there are a set of problem I've noticed when playing:
1) In spite of Starbases can produce missiles you cannot move missile to a base from another locations. Missiles can only be moved between star systems and from base to star system (not mention cruisers of course). So, in fact, base can only count on self-made missiles and squadrons.
2) Carriers in fact cannot get XPs during active using since their main strike force is squadrons. Own strength/cost of carrier not allows using it as a strike unit so carrier never gets any XPs in battle. It would be great to give XPs for damage caused by squadrons based on the carrier. Btw, the same is true for cruisers which most useful in missile strikes.

i didnt notice that anyone posted this before, so i figured i ought to throw it out there.

on many occasions pirates and enemy civs have been in an adjacent tile to one of my cities or star bases, and havent attacked.

ive noticed this often enough i decided to experiment, and created a stack of units of enemies next to my city, and even with overwhelming odds the computer didnt attack me.

ive been playing on prince difficulty, so i know that its not due to my settings.

has anyone else experienced this, or know how to fix it?

i enjoy playing freely, but its just not as fun without the danger of attack...

Could there be a technology mid-late game for Civilizations that bans Space Pirates from spawning near their cultural boundaries or just territory in general.

Once all Civilizations research it Space Pirates can only spawn say from Pirate colonized systems and Space Stations which are the only things that can officially reappear and spawn them.

Its just equivalent to the Vanilla's Great Wall except they still can enter your cultures and prowl around them, just not spawn 2-3 tiles near them.

Star Fortress could work to prevent Barbarians entering that System. Assuming that the ability itself can be worked for City Culture, not all and included culture.

But whatever, I dont mind. Pirates are food for my units.

Hi everyone,
first of all i got to say: fantastic mod :goodjob:

but i have a problem (i think it has already been metioned on the thread, but i found no solution)

Whenever I accept the offer from another faction that they become my vassal all of my starbases lose their culture radius. Can anyone help me with this?

thx, steel

Hi everyone,
first of all i got to say: fantastic mod :goodjob:

but i have a problem (i think it has already been metioned on the thread, but i found no solution)

Whenever I accept the offer from another faction that they become my vassal all of my starbases lose their culture radius. Can anyone help me with this?

thx, steel

Yeah I noticed that, too. It's only until the end of the turn though so it's not as bad as you might think.
I believe it has to do with the fact that the game re-calculates cultural influence when you get a vassal (because vassals don't impede on your area unless it's closer to their city than yours and in their city radius) and Jon forgot to add a special case for the starbases which don't really have culture. Therefore, the starbase-effect is reapplied at the start of the next turn.

Does the trade route bonus for the Red Syndicate work correctly? I thought at first that it was because systems were not connected, but as soon as I connected them to my trade network I still don't see the +2 routes as they are supposed to have... I also have never seen any foreign trade routes in my games, even if they are connected to my empire...

One thing I would like to see is more civs available, Playing with only the max number doesn't feel epic enough and Its too weird having copies of the same civ.

This is the best mod that came with BTS and Great job on all the work you did.

I played both of my games using small setups of fiv civs.

But it is essential more civs be created, or the current civs be given more than one leader each in order for play on larger maps to be more interesting.

joel west

I will only list problems here. They are urgent.

All issues are from a Multiplayer perspective and are listed in order of their importance.


Grossly Unbalanced Leaderheads. Why is it that New Earth gets pooched with -2 health and -2 happiness right from the get go with only a free +1 pop to compensate, while the Red Syndicate gets +2 trade routes in every city, bonus hammers for every city, 50% faster production on a SLEW of things.. etc? This isnt balanced. Some civs have negatives that far outweigh any positives they have. It's like the developer quietly worships Mikail Gorbachev.

Synch issues when using Ranged Attack command from Starbase

Players fall out of synch when 30 str Starbase Ranged Attack ability is used on pirate vessel. Has been tested to be repeatable.

Slow movement of units and slow road construction,
This one speaks for itself.

Lack of Production and general standard resource balance vs unit and structure costs
Speaks for itself..15 hammers in a solar system is a nightmare when every solar system improvement ( as a replacement for workers upgrading tiles) is a city project rather than something an external worker unit does. until this severe drought of hammer and coin, Buildings ought to be FAR cheaper... because so many duplicates of them have to be created just to bring a new city to the point where it turns a profit compared to it's maintenance costs!

Happiness and Health problems in abundance
When every civ that isnt headed by a Gorbachev lookalike has some direct -health or -happy penalty that they can't shake, even pathetically small cities become a bear to manage. Playing the Paradise civ, cities start displaying red frowns at only 4 pop, in a game with such a limited Hammer model that addressing these Quality of Life issues is nightmarish.

Mod needs a balancing pass..

1 more pop at the start isn't worth much? If both citizens work the same planet, that city is producing twice as much food, hammers, and commerce. This means that it will grow to the next size sooner, produce units/buildings sooner, and be able to produce more gold/beakers/EPs/culture (if you use the culture slider).

As for the slow construction, I think that is because Jon Shafer forgot to remover the -25% penalty for building improvements on Tundra (which is what Space is without the art and name change).

As for the slow construction, I think that is because Jon Shafer forgot to remover the -25% penalty for building improvements on Tundra (which is what Space is without the art and name change).
Oh snap! That explains a lot.

Now for [some] suggestions...

Resources: just add more! :p

I have played two games of FF. The first I attacked everyone, so trading was not possible. The second I attacked nobody and trading was not offered by a single other civ (by the point I had the lead in points). :eek:

Hence building more of the same resource only helps if the first is attacked and destroyed. If seems unlikely to be tradeable. :crazyeye:

If the designers aim to give the option of even bigger star systems, either there needs to be another resource that gives health and another one that gives happiness, or habituation needs to be allowed more than once on a planet (so more sports arenas and recycling centers can be built).;):cringe::health::yuck:

why remove the great generals?

They are not gone.

In my FF game both I and the AI had it least one great general created.

The GG gives either XP to a stack, or allows a city to build military units 50% faster.

Hey all, just poping in with my two cents- first of all top notch mod, definatly pushing the envolope with this one!

My first point is, well -as everyone else- planetary buildings.

In normal civ I have to make choices between money, production and food when I'm improving the tiles but in FF I can have my cake and eat it by building mining and farms etc. on each planet...

What if each planet was only able to build one type each?

So I could either build a farm or a mine or a commercial site on each planet- and building a different type would demolish the first.

Yea I know what your thinking, a planet is a big thing and should have plenty of room for both, but specialisation is the key to maximum production- even if your talking about whole planets!

This change would involve some rethinking about the civs. Namely The Forge civ has to have at least one three food planet in a star system in order to grow past pop one in that system since one of the traits of the Forge is to lose the first food a star system produces (ie two food max star system will only produce one food max on the first populated planet). Hence all production for The Forge in a two food max star system has to be directed towards building a nutrional facility on one of the two food planets in order to grow. However that planet may no mines or coins.

Hence the current thinking about civs encourages every planet to have extra food, mines, and habitation (all +1 to the base). Until civ traits that encourage such thinking are modified all planets need access to building all the above extras.

joel west

Since your constructor ships take a while to make a starbase the AI can come in and build a starbase next to your constructor. If they do, their influence overrides yours, wasting your constructor.


Not necessarily. The AI got the jump on building a starbase by one turn, but both starbases completed. Mine was next door to my civ so the starbases bombarded each other until I showed up to add additional firepower. Then the other starbase, even though it was completed one turn before mine, was toast.

I found out later starbases do NOT expand cultural influence other than "color" the 25 tile grid around them. The two next door starbases split the cultural influence in the tiles around them.


You can't seem to really do much about health and happiness in your cities. It seems to be beyond the control of the player. If you want to go the military route, your options are limited. Not true.

1)
Build connections to the health and happiness resources, or

2)
build sports arenas and recycling centers.


. . . on EVERY PLANET in the star system!:lol:

I have encontered two problems:

1) I have build a starbase and I had open boardes with an AI-Civ. He has started to build one round after me one space away. I thought that would not be a problem and let him. It was a problem. My starbase was build - everything was ok.

The round after when HIS starbase was ready, he got a small band of influence on the far side - everything was OK except that he was on one of the resources). The round after, the situation was reversed and I got the small band.

I declared war to get my influence back (and the resources - anyway, the resources were near me - it was half the card from his territory away, so I don't know in the first place why he did it), but then my starbase vanished. (The comp tried to get all my ships out of his sphere of influence - but a starbase can not move, so it vanished...)


The starbase is incorrectly listed as having a movement of one. Once built they cannot move.

However they do NOT disappear if built next to another starbase. That will only happen if the nearby starbase bombards AND nearby units also bombard so as to reduce strength to zero (like for any other unit).

That being the case it is indeed foolish for the AI top build a starbase away from his own ships and cultural influence unless there is a fleet of his ships parked on top of it to prevent it from being demolished.

Religion: Why give them names like Knowledge or Wealth, if they don't have benefits that improve that specific. one would think if one adopted Wealth, there would be an increase in gold production.

Later post -

I don't like the idea of having to put production into what the Value should automatically give...

thanks,
thomas

The benefits of Values = "Civ 4 standard religions" are powerful, but more subtle than an instant addition of some facet of gameplay.

Each of the Values in a star system, whether acquired by founding a Value, spread by an apostle, or left over from the previous owner, has a special building that can be built that adds the resource the Value is named after

on EVERY PLANET in that star system

as well as 3 cultural influence points.

The cheap culture feature is so powerful that for new star systems I routinely build interplanetary beacons (also cheap culture) and Value buildings until the system is producing 20 culture per turn. The rapidly spreading cultural influence of the star system then dispels the nearby Fog of War to some extent and allows plenty of roads to built to knock of barbarian space ships.

In fact one the cultural boundaries are intact the star system only needs one or two bombers

which can be rebased from ANYWHERE in your whole civ
and a stealth ship or destroyer to fend off the barbarians.

It only if another civ attacks you that more defense becomes necessary.

There is no grand temple collecting income from the Values buildings like in Civ 4. Hence you would LIKE it if every single value was in every single one of your star systems due to the cultural expansion and base adders it brings.

on EVERY PLANET in that star system

So as currently coded there is absolutely no incentive to spread a Value you found to anywhere but star systems you conquer.

If would help the mod if a grand temple collecting income was added similar to vanilla Civ 4. Then the civs would have alot more incentive to allow open borders, and hence open up the possibility of trading resources with each other.

So long as I have [a] Value in [a] system I am able to build the special [Value] building and get some bonus.

When you convert to a Value you get the same type of bonus you had with regular civ and a religion in that you get 1 gold per system with the value. This way IF I don't found a value and am lucky enough to have those that do send an advocate (which just so happened in the last game I played) then I can build all the buildings in all my systems and get a nice bonus without ever converting to a value.

What possible reason would a neighboring civ send an apostle of their Value (religion) to your star system if there is no grand temple of that Value collecting income (as in vanilla Civ 4)?

In fact sending that apostle and converting one of your planet does you a BIG FAVOR since now you can spread this Value throughout your whole empire and collect its immense benefits of Value specific buildings with CHEAP CULTURE.

on EVERY ONE of the planets of your star systems.


One the other hand there is ZERO benefit to the civ that sent out this apostle other than the remote possibility you will convert to this Value as your new state religion and hence presumably become friendlier towards them.

Am I missing something????

Can anyone explain me how do i control population growth and health in my system? I can't control my city's lvl and they keep complaining its too over crowded. Thanks
Post #120 explains how to add health and happiness.

To "control" pop growth the answer is to carefully assign pop on your planets so as to have a balance of both production and food.

This may involve adding food, mining, or habituation (extra population capacity) to various planets.

When playing with the "always war" option on (single player or multiplayer) the AI can still send advocates to each other, but human players cannot.

When the leader who recieves -1food (Jack?) founds a system (with a white [3food] planet in the starting culture), it is STAGNANT at 1 pop. wtf. A 3 food planet, -1food, = a different leader with a 2food planet. 2 food planet = stagnant at 1 pop?

Maybe it has something to do with the trade routes/leader with trade bonus not working.

Each pop point consumes 2 food.

Your point? Or rather, if I misunderstood your post, why is that a problem?

HI some minor things and suggestions...

-Ace- promotion only available for squadrons, but squadrons do not get EXP.
(Unless maybe by great general, but you are going to fire his ass.)
(It IS possible to get the carrier-upgrades, but only by mopping up severely damaged pirates)

-Ferry-It might be a nice feature if population could be ferried from a overpopulated system to a developing one by colony ship.
or maybe migration via traderoutes to the more desirable system.

-UU-Civs using different graphics (aliens?), but I gather you will leave such graphical things to modders. :)

-Morecivs-Copy-paste civs with different leadernames/empirename. (to prevent clone-empires)
Done this myself, about half an hour work (most of it translating civ names) and now I have a cloned set of civs to populate my huge galaxy.
Haven't changed the playercolours or traits yet, but may get to that later. Leaders and civs are just copies with changed names.
Should a minor hack like this merit posting as a modcomp?

-upgrade idea- Upgrade that prevents damage from radiation belts, maybe shields3?

-random events- Stars going supernova unless a starfortress is built in x turns for example. Or slowly moving, expanding/receding radiation fields. A space monster. solarflare reducing LOS in system-range to adjacent squares only for x turns. aliens abducting your population: go get them back (or brigands: pay the ransom or else)

-Story ending- I agree with the others, that the backstory leaves the fate of Earth unexplained. However this also leaves room for expansion-mods to come up with exciting scenarios. :D

-city?- there are several texts that refer to 'star system' as 'city'.

-typo?- In one of the hints it states Stealth ships are only visible to other Stealth, this should be AND SCOUTS right?


Love the system graphics with the rotating planets and cities lighting them up when populated. Grand!
The spartan use of unittypes is refreshing.
Great job. :thumbsup:
Glad to hear the pirates will use better ships and the AI will deploy missiles in the next patch.
Your continued support on your mod is greatly appreciated.

edit: solved:
- I was unable to get the engines upgrade, IIRC the pedia stated that either guns1 or armour1 was a prereq. However I read earlier that combat 2 was needed so I may need to check that out with guns2.
Swaping the prereqs for guns/armour and engines upgrades may solve alot of 'movement to slow' gripes.
solved, I indeed mistook the prereqs. Lowering prereq parts, makes engines available as second upgrade. Which is probably too fast.

Your point? Or rather, if I misunderstood your post, why is that a problem?

It is a problem because when you found a system, you get certain improvements on one planet (nutrition and mining facility); yet, when "The Forge" founds a system, even with a white planet workable (3food), it is sometimes stagnant. There is no apparent reason, and it does not happen all the time. When it does happen, there is no descernable reason why. Perhaps I will start a game as the forge and worldbuilder a bunch of colony ships at star systems and see if one is stagnant after founding.

Another leader had a problem with "traits". The trade guy was not getting proper trade revenue because of a code route. Perhaps a code route is the problem with the Forge going stagnant at 1 pop for no apparent reason.

had this happen too once... took over the last of the Forge's systems, that happened to be a stagnant.
It stayed stagnant for quite a number of turns, but later the system started to grow anyhow.
(Maybe I switched the one pop to a better outer-ring planet and built a farm there, didn't pay too much attention to it then)

Just take it as a feature of the stunted-growth factions that some systems are dead ends.
Although I wonder if the AI can work around it. eg build influence buildings to get to the (hopefully better) outside planets.

After several games I've come to conclusion that doomsday missile is not usefull weapon. It only good when you are going to demolish somebody's system but this is rare case; more ofter you wish capture it and destroying best planet in system is not an option.

One more note concerning population. Why can't I move people between systems? It looks logical to move some transports (or whatever) to a newly founded system to quickly develop it.

Construction ships. Their AI is so bad that I was forced to refuse using it :( In spite of I have tens of them in all corners of the Empire they still ALL run for building just one thing in just one place. No doubt, ten ships complete job faster then just one or two but... when time to reach the destination is about 6-10 turns all benefits from quantity are lost - job get done before all the builders arrive :) I'd be satisfied if ship just get a modified command "build route" where I can specify key points for route. In current algorythm ships try using nearest routes to shorter path but in most cases I do not need existing lanes - I'm going to build new ones and this is the goal.

They might be ok if you could use them to blackmail in diplomacy.

"Fear my Weapons of Doom!", "Now bark like a dog!"

Simply depopulating a planet or destroying all buildings may be good too...
Like with nukes in vanilla, the animations are the only justification for using them anyhow. ;)

--------------

The biggest bug, IMO is the inability for squadrons to gain XP. They are allowed to have many upgrades, but are simply not able to use it.
-Allowing (by Python?) a fighter defence grid to function like a training ground for squadrons. like...if fortified/sentry/intercepting in system with FDG, 25% chance of +1Prestige to a Sq.
-Or a single barraks-like bonus plus 1prestige when succesfully bombing a unit/intercepting/etc.

Sq need alot of prestige to get to Ace! a minimum of 4 levels.

They might be ok if you could use them to blackmail in diplomacy.

"Fear my Weapons of Doom!", "Now bark like a dog!"

Simply depopulating a planet or destroying all buildings may be good too...
Like with nukes in vanilla, the animations are the only justification for using them anyhow. ;)

--------------

The biggest bug, IMO is the inability for squadrons to gain XP. They are allowed to have many upgrades, but are simply not able to use it.
-Allowing (by Python?) a fighter defence grid to function like a training ground for squadrons. like...if fortified/sentry/intercepting in system with FDG, 25% chance of +1Prestige to a Sq.
-Or a single barraks-like bonus plus 1prestige when succesfully bombing a unit/intercepting/etc.

Sq need alot of prestige to get to Ace! a minimum of 4 levels.

Hah the nukes in vanilla kick ass. I didn't try the doomsday missiles yet but I frequently use three or so nukes to bash the main fighting force of my enemy.

I once noted how much damage it did and if you really pull it off properly with a city that has both the Heroic Epic and Ironworks and dishes out a nuke every one or two turns you can remove a third of your opponent's fighting strength in the very first turn of the war which leaves the rest easy prey for your soldiers.

...remove a third of your opponent's fighting strength in the very first turn of the war which leaves the rest easy prey for your soldiers.This is true only when you opponent is not developed well enough. Missiles are totally ineffective against well fortified systems: a missle does just 1-2% of damage (compare that to 50-60% in open space). That is why I was trying to use doomsdays against systems but their side effect is inacceptable in conquer wars. The only good application is "guard": in case of enemy's battleship breaks your defense and enters habitate space you may demolish it just by one shot (btw cost of doomsday and battleship is almost equal).

This is true only when you opponent is not developed well enough. Missiles are totally ineffective against well fortified systems: a missle does just 1-2% of damage (compare that to 50-60% in open space). That is why I was trying to use doomsdays against systems but their side effect is inacceptable in conquer wars. The only good application is "guard": in case of enemy's battleship breaks your defense and enters habitate space you may demolish it just by one shot (btw cost of doomsday and battleship is almost equal).

Yes, we also had the theory that the doomsday missiles could be good against stacks which consist mainly of battleships (I believe humans will often tend towards using them because they save a lot in maintenance).
However against the AI you can't properly put it to the test as it's pretty passive.

Anyone else not able to bombard improvements with squadron/missiles?
or is it just that 'lanes are not bombardable?

I've seen the changes for the next patch, but i notice a bug in FF and so... there it goes! : planes can recon over nebulas, but space ships can't enter them; but space is 3-D, so planes shouldn't be able to fly over them... or... the should be passable for everyone, but with about 3 movement cost and 50% damage per turn

What do you think?

The AI would blunder blindly into them, like they do for black holes.

Strange that.
There is quite a bit of AI-code dealing with routeplanning and avoidance of hazardous terrain. (Maybe just confusing the 'best route' planner code for AI code here.)

I have two screen shots from the game that I find... Weird in a humorous sense.

The first screen shot is of three health resources that can never be accessed for all eternity. Why, you may ask? There is a nebula serving as sort of an "inlet" to the resources. This is one of the reasons why I like nebulas: They can act as bottle necks in times of war. However, in this case, the nebula is not to be liked as the entrance is blocked by a super nova that construction ships can't go through. Even if I could somehow get my culture over those plots, I couldn't build extraction facilities over them. The inlet would make a good place to stage a "last stand" if you lost all your star systems and "total kills" was on, though.

The second screen shot is a large outcome in the United Planets I wasn't expecting. I guess great minds really do think alike...

Hi everybody.

I can select the options for the game, get the tip(s) displayed while the game is 'built' but when the interface would show up the game crashes to the desktop and prompts to send an error report to microsoft.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

I posted on the bug forum before finding this thread...apologies for the cross-post....

In essence, I posted a saved game where the game will crash after you select an action for the scout that has focus. I think the mod shows promise (this was my first game of "Final Frontier" and I hadn't gotten too far into it when I came to this show-stopper). I look forward to being able to check it out further.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=243714

Thanks,
fred

don't know if its been mentioned, too lazy to read the thread.

I really like it that fighters and bombers can actually destroy other ships. so far my experience on the epic game indicated they couldn't.

so, please go the next logical step and give them experience and promotions. that does of course make fighters and bombers and carriers more dangerous but you could compensate this with either making destroyers stronger, making part upgrades vs squads better or giving more ships a small chance for interception. there are other ways, but I really think this should be in and it isn't.

oh and can we have an indication like in the city founding process when you build a starbase? I really misplaces one just now because I couldn't calculate the distance correctly.

I've got no idea what you are discussing in your last question.
Are you referring to the range of influence of starbases? If so, just turn the grid on, the range is a square area two tiles in every direction.

As for the squadrons, according to the BtS pedia, fighters should get EXP when they survive a mission. This is as far as I can work out not implemented in FF. As evidenced by upgrades for squadrons this was however intended by Jon, so I feel faily certain he will fix it in one patch or another.
In the meantime, you could download my unofficial fix mod that gives fighters a small initial prestige bonus.

And there is a way to give ALL ships a chance at interception and that is via the parts-upgrades. (there is a promotion that gives +20%_intercept_chance or so)

As for the squadrons, according to the BtS pedia, fighters should get EXP when they survive a mission. This is as far as I can work out not implemented in FF. As evidenced by upgrades for squadrons this was however intended by Jon, so I feel faily certain he will fix it in one patch or another.
In the meantime, you could download my unofficial fix mod that gives fighters a small initial prestige bonus.

And there is a way to give ALL ships a chance at interception and that is via the parts-upgrades. (there is a promotion that gives +20%_intercept_chance or so)

The reason that squadrons are not gaining experience is that the XP values are set to 0 in the Units XML. Change those values to the 4/4 that is in the standard BTS XML file and you will start gaining experience for squadrons.

The Promotions with interception chances only become available to units that already have an interception chance. So the destroyers can get the Interception I and II promotions but the PDSs can't even though they are both the same UnitCombat. If you give a PDS a base 1% chance of interception then the interception promotions will be available. You would also need to add the other UnitCombats to the Interception promotions in the Promotion XML if you want Battleships and such to be able to get the promotion.

I've got no idea what you are discussing in your last question.
Are you referring to the range of influence of starbases? If so, just turn the grid on, the range is a square area two tiles in every direction.

As for the squadrons, according to the BtS pedia, fighters should get EXP when they survive a mission. This is as far as I can work out not implemented in FF. As evidenced by upgrades for squadrons this was however intended by Jon, so I feel faily certain he will fix it in one patch or another.
In the meantime, you could download my unofficial fix mod that gives fighters a small initial prestige bonus.

And there is a way to give ALL ships a chance at interception and that is via the parts-upgrades. (there is a promotion that gives +20%_intercept_chance or so)

ad 1) the same button that turns it on in the epic game? thought of that and tried it, but it shows only some very strange graphics, like very dense vertical lines, I can try to get you a screenshot if you're interested.

ad 2) ah, good. I thought I remembered that the fighter experience ability was active. after all I killed a whole bunch of ships with bombers and fighters and never got a single experience point out of it. those are btw very nice for defending against pirates (except obviously against destroyers) and unescorted battle groups.

Memphus and I seem to both have a problem with our games. They both view the starfield not where our ships or planets are, but to the right and up a bit (he has posted a screen shot in post #86, page 5). Has anyone else seen this? More importantly is there any fix to this problem? I'd love to try this mod out, but have not been able to.

Any help would be appreciated.

In the changelog for the 3.13 patch I didn't see a fix for the culture from starbases. At present it is backward and new starbases overwrite culture from older Starbases. If it is not too late this is an easy fix.

Remove or comment out aaiStarbaseList.reverse()on line 900 of CvFinalFrontierEvents.py

Does anyone else have this problem? Each time I produce a colony ship and try and move it on top of a solar system via the go to command it doesn't move an inch and displays info about the planets in the solar system instead. Anyone have an idea what to do with this? I don't want to have to stop playing FF, its my favorite BtS mod :(

This file will fix 2 problems with Final Frontiers.

1. Reverses the sort order for Starbases so that culture (actually just plot ownership) from older Starbases takes precedence over newer starbases, newer Stabases could otherwise be used to crowd out older ones.

2. changes the uncolonized system info popup from a left click to a double left click so that it no longer interferes with unit selection and goto commands.

Unzip and replace the existing file:

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Final Frontier\Assets\Python\CvFinalFrontierEvents.py

161816

Always remember to backup the original file.

Huh, never would have guessed that the code for Starbase culture and star system info would be in events.py...

Huh? Rex in the directory you gave me (Firaxis Games off Program Files) I only found one notepad file called ThemeParseLog and no others... definitely no Civ 4 BtS folders. Now what do I do? :( (I installed the original Civ4 off the Civ Chronicles collection, if that's somehow relevant to this). I'm very sad, I want to go back to my FF playing days like before the latest patch :( :( :(

Huh? Rex in the directory you gave me (Firaxis Games off Program Files) I only found one notepad file called ThemeParseLog and no others... definitely no Civ 4 BtS folders. Now what do I do? :( (I installed the original Civ4 off the Civ Chronicles collection, if that's somehow relevant to this). I'm very sad, I want to go back to my FF playing days like before the latest patch :( :( :(

Not sure where you would find the files then. Try searching your Program Files for "Final Frontier" or if you right click on the link to launch the program and select properties it will show the path, that should help you find it.

Are you sure you didn't use a different application path than default when you installed Civ IV?

Unzip and replace the existing file:

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\Python\CvFinalFrontierEvents.py

161816
. shouldn't this read "C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Final Frontier\Assets\Python\ CvFinalFrontierEvents.py

shouldn't this read "C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Final Frontier\Assets\Python\ CvFinalFrontierEvents.py

Your right. I corrected the path.

Nobody brought it up but after I installed the patch the missiles produced by my starbases appear on the closest planet and I can't rebase them to a starbase. Anyone else have this problem?

This has been around for a awhile, but it seems that the situation has changed with the new patch. Since 3.02, missiles produced by Starbases stayed on the tile that they appeared on until they were ordered to move somewhere else. The problem is that Starbases don't have cargo space for missiles, so once you move a missile you can't get it back to the starbase. In patch 3.13, missiles seem to automagically move to the nearest base that can carry missiles.

Yeah but that doesn't make much sense. It's way more useful to missile the crap out of the enemy when they're out of the base range in order to protect the resources than it is for the missiles to automatically get shipped to the nearest planet. After all it's the base that produces the missile so why shouldn't it be able to stock up on them?

Maybe there's some python-fluent people who can find out what lines to change to get rid of this.

At one point in the game, a weaker civilization offered to become a vassal state of my civilization. After I accepted, the cultural area around all my starbases disappeared and as a result, I lost access to resources where I had already built an extraction facility. Consequently, total health and total happiness went down in all my solar systems. I can provide a saved game of before and after the fact, if necessary. Great mod though, aside from this 'undocumented feature'. ;)

Mamamia,

Noted that one also. Here is what I posted on another thread. Wanted to get it over here after I found this thread.

Final Frontier, FF, Vassal, StarBase bug

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll post this one here rather than create a new thread.

In Final Frontier, if the AI offers to become a vassal and you accept you lose your StarBases zones-of-control. So all those nice resource are lost.

I'll include an upload of a auto-save. When you load this savegame file, an AI should immediately ask you to accept him as a vassal. Select: NO -- you will conclude the start of game sequence and see that StarBases are intact. Reload and select: YES -- you will see that you lose the zoc's and your happiness and health are trashed. Bummer man.

Now... let's see if I can figure out how to attach that savegame file...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/51540/AutoSave_AD-2326-April.CivBeyondSwordSave
__________________
jrregan AT onebox DOT com

The AI has problems with unit choices. I saw no squadrons, not on systems or starbases. Haven't spotted a carrier yet either. (3.13 and fixes posted in this thread). As they are extremely powerful, not using them cripples the AI military.

AI doesn't seem to use invasion ships. In general, the AI doesn't use combined arms fleet stacks either. Battleships go off to fight alone, and get picked off by squadrons because they don't have destroyers or carriers w/interceptors with them.

Vanilla civ uses fleet structures -- destroyer, battleship, and carrier (plus transports which should equate kind of to invasion ships), all in one stack.



The AI does use stealth ships. Red Syndicate did anyway. Popped two starbase-constructing ships, including the guarding destroyers. Picked off destroyers traversing their territory. But I didn't notice them using pillaging of warp lanes.

OTOH, stealth ship warp lane removal might be overpowered. The AI doesn't seem to be able to do much about it. They don't seem to kill stealth ships except by lucky encounters (either one of their own or a scout).



AI teching seems quite good. Part of it may be my inexperience with the game. I've only done one so far, as Forge, and am fighting using inferior tech but higher production. I think that if they AI used squadrons, I'd be pretty dead by now.

I'm not sure, but I think it's a bug in FF (with patch 3.13 installed):

I started a custom Epic game with FF, set Raging Barbarians, and to my surprise, around turn 40-45 I started getting attacked by Pirate Cruisers and Battleships (including one big nasty Omega Battleship). I got destroyed very easily, cause I only had technology as far as to build destroyers (but I hadn't manage to build any, and they are far too weak anyway).

I expected Raging Barbarians to increase the number of Pirate Ships, not to get attacked in early stages by the most powerful ships in the late game. :eek:

OK, I've spotted a couple fighter squadrons and invasion ships. We're in relatively late game era -- the AI is fighting wars with omega and delta warships -- but I've yet to spot a carrier, let alone a carrier group.

All AIs are running Pacifism. I frankly think that it is the most powerful choice. The warship specialties only pay if you are in all-out war mode, and even then only if it is going to last many (10+) turns.

Stealth ships limited use may well be the same issue as the standard BTS, where privateers are little used by the AI. Privateers would be easy for the AI to spam and waste resources on, because they have a limited opportunity window. Stealth ships seem especially good in the early game, before better warships come around to block them. But unlike Privateers, they never truly go obsolete, so the AI could and probably should make more use of them.

Does the AI treat Starbases as carriers? I've yet to spot any squadrons on them. Because of that, a sure way to destroy one is a couple of loaded carriers. They can just pound it to death. Since it has no interception ability, there is little risk.

I load mine up with squadrons, and like having destroyers around to cover them. A destroyer is tough enough to wipe out whatever the starbase hammers.

New game, AI used squadrons to defend a system effectively. Between a fighter squadron and destroyer, they took out a lot of my bombers. Shame it didn't help against a stack of invasion and battleships.

Images speak for themselves...

(I have 3.13)


In the night sky; if i want to, i can see all the planets, a cheap telescope will do... but in FF, a unit in the Star can't see all the planets and even worse, we can't see other stars. Nowadays, we know where the stars are, but we can't get to them, as they are too far away (people would die in the meantime and supplies and gas would never be enough...) in FF, that isn't a problem... but we can't see the faraway stars!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/Vista_Limitada.JPG

Things are simply way out of scale!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/Escala.JPG

Messy view... right?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/Sat_lites.JPG

GG were removed... right? Why is this tip on and why can we add them in WB (as well as other GP)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/GG.JPG

(Alpha and) Omega Pirates come way to early! And I almost always tech-lead, only sometimes in FF i get 100% gold to the StarBases... but i still tech lead, so make the Scout vs Omega Destroyer impossible in next version!
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/O_Pirate_Destroyer.JPG
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/O_Pirate_Destroyer_Scout.JPG
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/O_Pirate_IS.JPG

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/O_Pirate_Destroyer_Border.JPG


I've heard that the suicide auto-explore had ended... seems like a lie! I had more suicide units... but didn't take a picture. (that's why i only put auto-explore on puny scouts, destroyers are too precious!) AI also does that.

Edit: Today a Omega Scout entered the center tile of a SuperNova! I have a picture if you guys need it, but for now i won't post it

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/Black_Hole_Sucked.JPG

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/Dimension_X.JPG

3.13 Version.. noticed a bug in the code for System Density in def addFeatures(self) inFinalFrontier.py (theMapScript):

# Custom Map Option Stuff
iStarSystemDensity = self.map.getCustomMapOption(0)
iStarSystemMod = 0
if (iStarSystemDensity == 0): # Very High Density
iStarSystemMod = -25
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 1): # High Density
iStarSystemMod = 10
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 2): # Normal Density
iStarSystemMod = -5
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 3): # Low Density
iStarSystemMod = 50

I've corrected it in my copy, but might be something to fix if another BtS patch is released.

Note: Jon knows this, but others might not.. By being positive, when you choose High Density, there are actually less systems present than in Normal Density.

<snip>
1. FF is a game. The stars are around to make the game look prettier.

2. FF is a game. If everything was to scale, even Omega class battleships couldn't be seen against stars and planets.

3. Try turning up the contrast and brightness on your monitor, that seems to help the messiness caused by zooming out the whole way a bunch.

Everything else you've talked about are legitimate concerns.

3.13 Version.. noticed a bug in the code for System Density in def addFeatures(self) inFinalFrontier.py (theMapScript):

# Custom Map Option Stuff
iStarSystemDensity = self.map.getCustomMapOption(0)
iStarSystemMod = 0
if (iStarSystemDensity == 0): # Very High Density
iStarSystemMod = -25
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 1): # High Density
iStarSystemMod = 10
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 2): # Normal Density
iStarSystemMod = -5
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 3): # Low Density
iStarSystemMod = 50

I've corrected it in my copy, but might be something to fix if another BtS patch is released.

Note: Jon knows this, but others might not.. By being positive, when you choose High Density, there are actually less systems present than in Normal Density.

I ALWAYS use everything sparced

1. FF is a game. The stars are around to make the game look prettier.

2. FF is a game. If everything was to scale, even Omega class battleships couldn't be seen against stars and planets.

3. Try turning up the contrast and brightness on your monitor, that seems to help the messiness caused by zooming out the whole way a bunch.

Everything else you've talked about are legitimate concerns.


1. I but i think, even today, a spaceship can go to he Sun and see Plutos if they have a decent telescope; and to spaceships, it's a must to have a decent telescope

How can a Planetary Defense Ship defend planets in a solar system if they don't know what they're suppose to defend is?


2. But having flying factories the size of stars...


3. My monitor contrast and brightness are at maximum, i play at 1200x1024 and game quality is high, with high detail terrain... isn't that enough?

...

I think you missed the urinal on numbers 1 and 2.

As for number 3, I've noticed you're using the Blue Marble terrain graphics which changes the appearance of FF. That might have something to do with it, but I'm not sure.

When being attacked or attacking with a steath ship, it reveals the identity of the stealth ship

i.e. - "Your construction ship has been destroyed by a New Earth Stealth Ship"

or - "A New Earth Stealth Ship has killed your PDS" etc etc etc

Does the same thing when a Stealth Ship destroys improvements (tells you the nationality of the stealth ship).

Additionally, when a Stealth Ship approaches a new civ for the first time, then your "unseen" stealth ship causes the previously unmet planet to contact you with the standard greeting.

Now that kind of removes the "stealth" of the ship just a bit.

When being attacked or attacking with a steath ship, it reveals the identity of the stealth ship

i.e. - "Your construction ship has been destroyed by a New Earth Stealth Ship"

or - "A New Earth Stealth Ship has killed your PDS" etc etc etc

Does the same thing when a Stealth Ship destroys improvements (tells you the nationality of the stealth ship).

Additionally, when a Stealth Ship approaches a new civ for the first time, then your "unseen" stealth ship causes the previously unmet planet to contact you with the standard greeting.

Now that kind of removes the "stealth" of the ship just a bit.

Does anyone know how to fix this? Is there a simple way to do it? I am modding my copy of Final Frontier, so if there is a (somewhat, I hope!) simple way to fix the "Stealth Ship not really being very stealth" problem here, I'd appreciate any ideas!

My other question is this: buildings increase in cost each time you build another one in the same system (i.e. your second factory costs many more hammers and turns to build). I was wondering where the multiplier for this is, because I'd like to lower it because IMHO it's too high. Any ideas? :)

Thanks in advance!

Using 3.13 I haven't observed the stealth ship identification bug. I gave the AIs a lot of them in WB, and all reported only that a stealth ship attacked, not nationality. Also using Bhruic's unofficial patch and Jon's fixes for FF.

The AI doesn't seem to use carriers. Nor does it assign squadrons to starbases. The first significantly limits its ability to wage offensive wars. But carriers in FF are unsafe to use unless placed in a good stack with defending ships, so unless the AI does that, it really shouldn't use them anyway.

Starbases are dead meat against squadrons (and so are battleships and cruisers), without some sort of interceptor to defend them. Still, they are supposed to be defensive units. Couldn't they get some interception ability of their own?

If they had, say, 30% interception -- too much and they'd just slaughter all squadrons, too little and it wouldn't help much. A minus vs. squadrons on interception would help too, so they aren't a lot better than destroyers at this. But maybe they should be lethal to squadron attacks?

As it is, a couple of carriers can take down a starbase with no risk. While I don't mind that per se, against the AI it isn't fair because they don't seem capable of doing the same thing. I've never seen the AI destroy a starbase.

It should be able to rename planets as we rename cities: the city name is automatically the first planet name, but i don't like having names like (for example) RC-1, so i rename it, but the first planet will certainly be called RC-1; and therefore have lots of RC-1 planets!

The WB needs improvement...

Multiple buildings in the same Solar System like the factory with increased original :hammers: but with less :hammers: required for the second one, (for example, instead of 3 times more, only 2; simple buildings like Mining Facilities or Nutrition Plants should be about 1,5 times more instead of the 2 times more (correct me if i'm wrong))

Space Random Events! (examples:Solid water found on one planet(+1:health:), planet with could find a deposit of Gold, Crystals... (+2:commerce:) ... please add things like this (some negative events too!) and maybe also quests!)

Nebulas aren't so big and spread through the space...


I'll stop (for now :rolleyes:) the criticism... GREAT MOD!!! I've played this mod much more than NW and that much more than the Vanilla BtS! :D (My sig, avatar and location prove it, right? :))

Using 3.13 I haven't observed the stealth ship identification bug. I gave the AIs a lot of them in WB, and all reported only that a stealth ship attacked, not nationality. Also using Bhruic's unofficial patch and Jon's fixes for FF.


"Your construction ship has been destroyed by a New Earth Stealth Ship"

That's a direct quote from the top of the screen when an enemy stealth ship kills one of your construction ships.

Using the current FF Mod with the current patch, it says the same thing in MP or SP

"Your construction ship has been destroyed by a New Earth Stealth Ship"

That's a direct quote from the top of the screen when an enemy stealth ship kills one of your construction ships.

Using the current FF Mod with the current patch, it says the same thing in MP or SP

I don't doubt that it does for you, but it doesn't for me. My game was started under 3.13 w the FF mod fix from Jon and Bhruic's unofficial patch (1.09, but updated to current 1.105). I don't know what is different, but something must be.

Red Syndicate must die!

So far -- three games only -- the evil red empire has dominated the ascendancy race. One loss, two wins -- but I played as them once, so that win might not count. On the other hand, the game was immensely easier playing as them rather than Forge or Astrotech, and I suspect that they are by far the most advantaged civilization.

I figure that when we do a multiplayer game, we're going to have to set them off-limits, or give it to a really poor player.

Do they seem especially effective to anyone else?

You haven't tried playing as Lukas von Reuther yet?

Red Syndicate must die!

So far -- three games only -- the evil red empire has dominated the ascendancy race. One loss, two wins -- but I played as them once, so that win might not count. On the other hand, the game was immensely easier playing as them rather than Forge or Astrotech, and I suspect that they are by far the most advantaged civilization.

I figure that when we do a multiplayer game, we're going to have to set them off-limits, or give it to a really poor player.

Do they seem especially effective to anyone else?

Yes, they have a RIDICULOUSLY huge advantage over all other civs. They build what, like, 5 buildings faster? And all of them a commerce buildings, which of course is where their advantage lies-- being able to generate tons of commerce, they can more easily wage war, expand their empire, and lead the tech race among other things. I love playing as them (it's sort of sad, crushing the AI so easily, though...:lol: ) but playing against them is a REAL challenge...go after them ASAP!

By the way, any modders come up with the location for that modifier for the "subsequent building increase costs" yet? I still have no clue where it is... :confused:

You haven't tried playing as Lukas von Reuther yet?

I've been trying each leader out. I did my first game with random leaders and got Forge. My current one is with Lukas. So far, my economy has crashed due to expansion (around empowerment). When I played as the Syndicate, I could expand and expand seemingly as much as I wanted. More systems just meant more income. I'd guess that the trade routes pay for maintenance. The economy crash happened with the Forge and Astrotech as well, and I suspect it will for anyone but the Syndicate, because they have money bonuses.

Lukas seems interesting but geared to conquer, not build empires. No bad disadvantages, though. Just that like most of the others, conquest doesn't expand the economy very quickly. It takes time to turn around conquered systems.

Another plea for Scout enhancement:

The scouts seem too slow and ineffective. We're expected to make upgrades of them, but there isn't that much need for it. You only have so much space to explore, so later on you just keep them as fog-busters, which don't need speed. I haven't noticed the AI use them, which is another issue -- the scout mission is both exploration and as a countermeasure to stealth.

First off, I think they need a speed boost -- plus one for all of them. No reason that they should be slower than a destroyer or colony ship, is there?

Second, while it could be cool to let them attack stealth ships, and others with a penalty (low combat rating makes this of limited use, but still better than nothing and a way to give them experience), I don't know that the AI could handle that either. So instead, how about a defense bonus?

Something like +200% in asteroids, +400% in radiation and danger zones (because sitting in them kills you, but a unit which can observe it better may die slower?). And maybe +200% against stealth ships, so they are hard to pick off?

And just maybe, something better for the upgrades so that it is worth using them. The speed and sensor upgrades are nice, but the upgrade cost isn't.

By the way, any modders come up with the location for that modifier for the "subsequent building increase costs" yet? I still have no clue where it is... :confused:
'
Look in CvFinalFrontierEvents.py for 'def getBuildingCostMod'

default is 2x with 3x for Training Compound, Factory, Manufacturing Plant & Star Fortress.

'
Look in CvFinalFrontierEvents.py for 'def getBuildingCostMod'

default is 2x with 3x for Training Compound, Factory, Manufacturing Plant & Star Fortress.

Wow, thank you so much! I never would have thought to look into the "Events" part, so I'm glad you found it! :bowdown:

"Another plea for Scout enhancement"

Use destroyers to scout - double movable with a nice defense

The scouts you see out there from the AI are mostly from civs that start with scouts with only the availability of building scouts until they get the correct tech.

Although scouts DO have a great function - put a promoted scout in in each city "on sentry" to watch for incoming stealths; in the sentry setting, they "pop-up" (become active) when a stealth nears your cultural borders

While destroyers can indeed explore, shouldn't scouts be better at exploring than a warship?

I do use destoyers myself, because the slow speed of scouts makes them of limited use for the early expansion wreckage-grabbing phase. Wouldn't it be better, though, to use scouts which are specially built for that mission?

I'm going to try modding the speed myself, see how that works out. I don't think it would hurt the game balance at all. The AI definitely can use scouts.

a scout is a unit that scouts - just like a sentry is a unit that sentries.

any unit.

early in the game, I use scouts if I have to (but would rather use a pds for it's defense); later I use destroyers as they become cheaper; then I switch to stealths as they become cheaper.

the best (and cheapest) use I found for the scout unit so far is one in each planetary system to "scout" for stealths.

Wow, thank you so much! I never would have thought to look into the "Events" part, so I'm glad you found it! :bowdown:

FF is essentially a Python Mod. No DLL changes. So just about everything is contained in one of the four main .py files under assets/python. Where they are is not always intuitive, but they are not all that long so it's worth "reading" through them if you are doing some moding. Doing this gave me some great ideas, like a terraforming building that changes the planet type, buildings that can only be built of certain planet types, lunar mines that can only be built on planets with moons, etc.

By the way the extra trade routes for Red Syndecate are also in CvFinalFrontierEvents.py I believe. I reduced it from 2 to 1.

a scout is a unit that scouts - just like a sentry is a unit that sentries.

any unit.

Not exactly any unit can do the exact job of the scout. It has a special advantage in searching wreckage, just like the regular game's scouts. It is a specialist in that role.

Just as the destroyer is a specialist in squadron defense, the cruiser in indirect bombardment (missiles), and the battleship in heavy offense. No other unit in FF does exactly the same role, nor would another unit come close to filling the shoes of another unit.

Except for scouts.


Recon -- observing space which you've already mapped out and looking for enemies -- is another issue. Any unit can do it, but wouldn't it be nice to have a unit specialized in it doing a better job?

Now, the scouts do get better sensors sooner, which is a plus. But without sufficient speed, they are effectively relegated to the duty of a stationary sentinel vs. stealth units.

early in the game, I use scouts if I have to (but would rather use a pds for it's defense); later I use destroyers as they become cheaper; then I switch to stealths as they become cheaper.

the best (and cheapest) use I found for the scout unit so far is one in each planetary system to "scout" for stealths.

The last is a key use of them, and something that only scouts do in the game. The AI doesn't use many stealth ships, but they do use some. If they used more of them, then more scouts would be needed. In a multiplayer game, I'm sure that scout ships would be commonly present and used.

I'd rather put my expensive stealth ships out harrassing my opponents than spotting enemy stealth ships.

Well, have fun doing it your way then!

Sorry for the long absence everyone, been running around a lot and busy with other things, but I'm trying to put some time into FF again. :)

The reason that squadrons are not gaining experience is that the XP values are set to 0 in the Units XML. Change those values to the 4/4 that is in the standard BTS XML file and you will start gaining experience for squadrons.
Prior to 3.13 Squadrons couldn't get any experience or promotions, period, which was clearly a bug. That was fixed and right now they can get experience, but only do so when a unit dies, which is something carried over from vanilla. Not the greatest way to have things work, but it'd be a lot of work to change it just for FF, so this is how things will end up staying. ;)

Jon

This file will fix 2 problems with Final Frontiers.

1. Reverses the sort order for Starbases so that culture (actually just plot ownership) from older Starbases takes precedence over newer starbases, newer Stabases could otherwise be used to crowd out older ones.

2. changes the uncolonized system info popup from a left click to a double left click so that it no longer interferes with unit selection and goto commands.

Unzip and replace the existing file:

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Final Frontier\Assets\Python\CvFinalFrontierEvents.py

161816

Always remember to backup the original file.
Thanks, I've incorporated these changes into the official version.

Jon

I'm not sure, but I think it's a bug in FF (with patch 3.13 installed):

I started a custom Epic game with FF, set Raging Barbarians, and to my surprise, around turn 40-45 I started getting attacked by Pirate Cruisers and Battleships (including one big nasty Omega Battleship). I got destroyed very easily, cause I only had technology as far as to build destroyers (but I hadn't manage to build any, and they are far too weak anyway).

I expected Raging Barbarians to increase the number of Pirate Ships, not to get attacked in early stages by the most powerful ships in the late game. :eek:
Any chance of getting a save with these units in it? Particularly one with an Omega Battleship running around? That DEFINITELY shouldn't be happening. ;)

Jon

Does the AI treat Starbases as carriers? I've yet to spot any squadrons on them. Because of that, a sure way to destroy one is a couple of loaded carriers. They can just pound it to death. Since it has no interception ability, there is little risk.

I load mine up with squadrons, and like having destroyers around to cover them. A destroyer is tough enough to wipe out whatever the starbase hammers.

New game, AI used squadrons to defend a system effectively. Between a fighter squadron and destroyer, they took out a lot of my bombers. Shame it didn't help against a stack of invasion and battleships.
Unfortunately it's been really, really hard to get the AI to use Carriers and Squadrons, and not looking like it's ever going to be proficient at it. ;) Part of this stems from the default AI's unwillingness to combine the two (particularly since everything is "naval" combat, more or less, in Final Frontier), and another part from all the changes to the mod which cause it to freak out. As much as I'd like to improve that, it'd simply take too much time to do so.

Jon

3.13 Version.. noticed a bug in the code for System Density in def addFeatures(self) inFinalFrontier.py (theMapScript):

# Custom Map Option Stuff
iStarSystemDensity = self.map.getCustomMapOption(0)
iStarSystemMod = 0
if (iStarSystemDensity == 0): # Very High Density
iStarSystemMod = -25
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 1): # High Density
iStarSystemMod = 10
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 2): # Normal Density
iStarSystemMod = -5
elif (iStarSystemDensity == 3): # Low Density
iStarSystemMod = 50

I've corrected it in my copy, but might be something to fix if another BtS patch is released.

Note: Jon knows this, but others might not.. By being positive, when you choose High Density, there are actually less systems present than in Normal Density.
Nice catch, will be fixed. :)

Jon

When being attacked or attacking with a steath ship, it reveals the identity of the stealth ship

i.e. - "Your construction ship has been destroyed by a New Earth Stealth Ship"

or - "A New Earth Stealth Ship has killed your PDS" etc etc etc

Does the same thing when a Stealth Ship destroys improvements (tells you the nationality of the stealth ship).

Additionally, when a Stealth Ship approaches a new civ for the first time, then your "unseen" stealth ship causes the previously unmet planet to contact you with the standard greeting.

Now that kind of removes the "stealth" of the ship just a bit.
Took a look at this and it does indeed appear to be a problem. ;) Can you say if you've ever seen the text reveal a Stealth Ship's identity when attacking out in the open? Based on my testing it seems like when a Stealth Ship attacks something FROM a city it will reveal it's identity, otherwise when it attacks it doesn't. I'm curious if anyone has seen otherwise.

Jon

@Jon: the major problems i found are the suicide-exploration, the omega pirates coming waaay to early, the impossibility to rename planets (the first planets; the one who get the NP and the MF shouldn't also be automatically renamed to the default city name) and the WB that can't add star systems; will you solve these?

i also think i found a bug (playing as New Earth, i don't know if it happens with other civs) that when default cities name end, and when names like Phyrus or Paradise start appearing in our cities; later on there are planets that start calling TXT_KEY_MARS; (i had a picture, but now i don't:() you can try it yourself; play as New Earth in a large map, but alone. first turn enter WB and add a colony ship in EVERY STAR you can see... eventually TXT_KEY_MARS will show up

Do you have any saves with the Omega Pirates showing up early? They should be appearing, but not until at least turn 180 or so.

Jon

^

I've posted this image sooner in this thread; notice it is turn 84, and i remember well that in that game i had suffered more omega barbarian strikes earlier...

Images speak for themselves...

(I have 3.13)

(Alpha and) Omega Pirates come way to early! And I almost always tech-lead, only sometimes in FF i get 100% gold to the StarBases... but i still tech lead, so make the Scout vs Omega Destroyer impossible in next version!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/O_Pirate_Destroyer_Border.JPG


I haven't any saves for now, but i'll create one in no time... that happens be all the time! (I always use custom game and never raging barbarians)

Are those Omega PDS's in your city?

It used to be that whatever you could build (omega pds) then the pirates coult build as well (omega destroyer)

Are those Omega PDS's in your city?

It used to be that whatever you could build (omega pds) then the pirates coult build as well (omega destroyer)

no, they're ordinary PDS; you can compare them with the HP they have (usually the green bar is tiny, while for PDS it's usually HUGE, but like they're Omega, they have the same size)




@Jon, i remembered one more stuff that bothers me: when i try to build a road (Alt+R) to a uncolonized star system, it gives me the planet list instead of starting building the road; and i have to Alt+R it to a next tile; this is annoying :sad:


i just created a game to prove you that Omega Barbarians came waaay to early 180 turns or I (tech-leading) have Omega Ships (i don't even have Alpha!!!) also it came that "late" (it usually later, but i usually play FF in really low difficulties and therefore i expanded less and therefore i only found one now...)

Here's a screenie and the attachment at the end of the post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/save_screenie.JPG

To know the exact game settings i played (an playing) with:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/setting_1.JPG
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112604/setting_2.JPG


EDIT: Just noticed that colony ships and advocates (and others non-combat ships) start with 4 prestige with the Brotherhood

EDIT2: Just noticed a OMEGA BATTLESHIP (:wow: :run: :hide: :help: :suicide: !!!) is near me (though in the Mini-Map, in the other side of the Universe...) and AFAIK only now New Earth started building Alpha PDS; this TOTALLY unbalances the game! (i haven't raging barbs). Use the WB to find it!

Now why has all this talk about Omega Battleships given me the idea to create a "Sink the Bismark!" scenario for FF?

If you have a save right before the ship is created that would be particularly useful. ;) In the meantime, I can take a look at that one.

Jon

i don't... :(

you can play a bit more and eventually you'll find any other Omega barb...

Just looked in for the 1st time, so I havn't read all the thread.

Question: is there an update for FF? And if so where? 1st page of this thread?

Would like to get the updates.

Thanks for the Mod Mr.Shafer. :thumbsup:

JosEPh :)

An update to FF is included in patch 3.13 for BtS.

i don't... :(

you can play a bit more and eventually you'll find any other Omega barb...
Right, I was able to find the problem and fix it (although I still don't know what caused it ;)), so thanks. :)

If you guys want an updated version of the mod prior to the patch with a few fixes, then you can download this version of CvFinalFrontierEvents, and extract this ZIP into your "Civ 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Final Frontier\Assets\Python" directory. Let me know if you have any problems. :)

Jon

Edit: Removed File, put it in the first post of this thread

Thanks Jon!! :goodjob:

Thanks Jon!! :goodjob:



seconded!!! :D :goodjob:

Thirded! :D

I've updated the first post in this thread and moved the download there, so anyone interested in the few fixes I've made should look there. :)

Jon

Thank you kind sir! :D

JosEPh

Just finished a game with a friend who had a love affair for PDS.
And it has made me realise, by spamming PDS you can survive practically anything.
These units are far too cheap for the amount of power they have they need to have either their cost increased or their power decreased in my opinion.
What does everybody else think? PDS need a nerf or they fine as they are?

Hey, I found a few problems while playing recently.

I've been playing online with friends against AI. The three of us in a team against the AI who aren't in teams. Not sure if this is relevant or not.

All settings standard, except influence and time victory are turned off.

First problem we found was that the world map would briefly centre, a few turns into the game, showing us our position in the galaxy. I thought this was because we were all far away from each other, but the map went back to its usual uncentered self a few turns later.

Second problem. The turn counter for research at the top was out of sync with the one in the bottom right next to our scores. For example, the counter at the top would say 3 turns and the one at the bottom would say 4.

Third and probably largest problem - Starbase culture. We were playing a game and our starbases cultural bounderies suddenly just vanished which denied us access to all our resources. We weren't in anarchy, or at war or anything like that. I'm thinking this could be some kind of espionage mission, but I couldn't find anything in the civlopedia about it. Also, we didn't receive any kind of on screen prompt. They all went back to normal next turn which is odd as well.

Sorry for the brief post, but we're going to play some more FF now. :p

If I run into any of this stuff again, I'll take screens and add them to this thread.

Just finished a game with a friend who had a love affair for PDS.
And it has made me realise, by spamming PDS you can survive practically anything.
These units are far too cheap for the amount of power they have they need to have either their cost increased or their power decreased in my opinion.
What does everybody else think? PDS need a nerf or they fine as they are?

PDS dependent players (just like aircraft dependent players) can be overcome with the correct combination of ship in your attack stack.

It's "direct" counter unit is the invasion ship - but soften the pds city defense bonus with a few "city bombardments" from battleships and after firing a round of missiles at them from a cruiser, use the cruisers to reduce their city defense level.

5 PDS's in a city? 8 invasion ships, a cruiser or two with missiles (with refills available), and 2 destroyers "nerfs" them pretty well.

Yes, the PDS is strong IN a city (it's their job) but definately killable.

Remember, you're not really attacking PDS's in a city, you're attacking a city with a defense bonus.

yes MMV you're mostly correct but at best without the city influence defense bonus you're still up against a unit that has maximum fortify bonus and probably has a city defense promotion too.
Bring into the equation the costs of PDS compared with invasion ships, plus the fact that once you launch your invasion stack you can't add any more ships to it. Whereas the defender has the chance to build at least 2 or 3 more ships in the defending city and MORE from other cities.....

In that particular game I had about 12 bombers bombing the crap out of the city because he had no air defense, because of the sheer number of PDS i wasn't able to off even one of them let alone bombing the city defenses. When my stack arrived, not ONE of my 9 invasion ships were able to kill a single PDS and most of them had taken damage.

I can only conclude that PDS are either too cheap or too powerful or even a combination of both.

then use TWO stacks!

HAMMER time, lol!

If you can't take out the PDS, you probably need to re-evaluate war fighting in FF. Squadrons can weaken the stack, and most military units have two moves. This combined with the fact that unlike in the epic game, the space between systems is so far apart that all cities should be close to the edge of the civ's cultural borders unless there is a nearby starbase. Just take your stack to the edge of that civ's cultural borders before declaring war. Having a unit on any warp/jump lanes will hinder the ability to reinforce a city. PDS are very easy targets outside of a city.

Hey, I found a few problems while playing recently.

I've been playing online with friends against AI. The three of us in a team against the AI who aren't in teams. Not sure if this is relevant or not.

All settings standard, except influence and time victory are turned off.

First problem we found was that the world map would briefly centre, a few turns into the game, showing us our position in the galaxy. I thought this was because we were all far away from each other, but the map went back to its usual uncentered self a few turns later.

Haven't seen this, maybe an issue with multplayer?

Second problem. The turn counter for research at the top was out of sync with the one in the bottom right next to our scores. For example, the counter at the top would say 3 turns and the one at the bottom would say 4.

Maybe another issue with multiplayer and turn sequencing (as the team research is affected by the actions of all players on the team)? Which one was correct?



Third and probably largest problem - Starbase culture. We were playing a game and our starbases cultural bounderies suddenly just vanished which denied us access to all our resources. We weren't in anarchy, or at war or anything like that. I'm thinking this could be some kind of espionage mission, but I couldn't find anything in the civlopedia about it. Also, we didn't receive any kind of on screen prompt. They all went back to normal next turn which is odd as well.

This is a known and probably unfixable issue with vassalization. I'm not sure if anything else affects it, though perhaps establishing a permanent alliance also would do it.

As cultural borders are recalculated for vassals, the starbases get theirs "reset". If you know about this, at least you can do some planning to help with it.

One thing: check your systems after the restoration, because you may have had population quit working or starvation due to loss of happiness and health.

Killing PDS requires combined arms. Instead of just bombers and invasion ships, you want to have at least some battleships for support. Destroyers and cruisers can also help to defend your invasion fleet.

First thing, and this is obvious so I'm assuming you did it, you have to knock the city defense to 0%. Enough airpower and missiles can take care of that. Use fighters to eliminate any fighter defenders.

Second thing, hammer the defending stack as your invasion fleet moves into place. It shouldn't take more than a handful of turns from border to attack, otherwise, the enemy will build more defenders and perhaps move in squadrons, as well as send more units into the areas.

Third thing, make sure you have enough units. You want at least double the number of defenders. So if they have 6 PDS, you want at least 12 attack ships. You can use battleships and cruisers to attack, but invasion ships are cheaper.

Fourth, if you've wounded the PDS down to about 2/3 strength, you are in good shape for victory. Less than that, you might need to hit them a few more turns, if you can afford the time.

Fifth, accept 50% losses if you take a star system. First thing, you want to use the least valuable invasion ships for the first waves. They're going to die, so why waste experienced units? Expect the first wave to use up one attack ship per PDS.

Invasion ships can take collateral damage promotions, which is one way to improve the value of these suicide attacks.

Sixth, when you're going for the kill, and have one good attack unit per surviving, wounded PDS, use the best attackers. Battleships often have better odds of victory than comparable era invasion ships. The idea is to win the fight, and you can't do that without risking some loss of valuable units.



In a recent game, I had an invasion force with 8 delta invasion ships and 5 battleships, plus a couple destroyers, up against a city with 4 omega PDS and a couple destroyers. The enemy had some battleships in the area, but not in the system itself. I had one carrier and one starbase in good support range, and a star system close enough that my delta bombers could reach it.

Even with good bombardment by about 10 bombers, the PDS were still fairly tough -- about 6 defense for the best. I dropped my newly built, low experience invasion ships on them, damaged them some more, then used battleships to pop the top two survivors, losing one. The invasion ships killed the rest.

It was rough -- I lost over half my force. But the system was taken.


So, no, I don't think PDS are too good. They are very good at what they do, but that's the point. It isn't supposed to be easy to take out well defended star systems.


Strategically, the AI (and for that matter, humans) can't easily afford to put massive stacks of PDS in every star system. Scout out your opponents, figure out which systems are relatively weak, assemble an attack force sufficient to take one of those, and go in fast. Don't give them time to build lots more defenders before you can take it out.

If the enemy is much higher in tech, winning can be extremely difficult. If you are matched in generation, invasion ships do fairly well against PDS at about a 2 to 3 to one ratio in cost. The expected losses are less than that, so the net cost to take a system doesn't have to exceed twice that of its defenders, and may be quite a bit less.

Having an edge in tech helps. Delta battleships are decent even against omega PDS. Once you have them, with carrier support you can blow away just about anything with light losses.

Maybe another issue with multiplayer and turn sequencing (as the team research is affected by the actions of all players on the team)? Which one was correct?


I think I may have actually seen this in normal BTS also now I think about it. Sadly I didn't take screens or even take note of which one was right. :mad:

The starbase bug is quite sad. Luckily, it's only happened to us once, and we are always in permanent alliances vassaling people, so I guess it isn't that much of a big deal.

New Earth......

What's up with that?

Is it difficult for anyone else to play?

Sometimes (about half) it's a great civ with great growth to work with

The rest of the time, especially if you start on a "weak" planet, the stunted population issue (usually stuck at 3) is a killer.

Anyone having great success with New Earth and care to share your tech patch, tips, and ideas?

I'd certainly appreciate it!

Thanks yo!

Ok...I have the same problem of others. The explorated area is NW of the real position: so I don't even see the solar system in which I am...because it's not explorated. Help me, please! I want to play! ç__ç

Here is the screenshot.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90758/Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG

While playing a hotseat game found out that production on a building could be lost. this should be fixed. to get same effect do the following.

1. put a turn or two in a building on a planet (lets say a bank at 6/33 hammer)
2. zoom into city center to see all planets
3. switch to a different planet and change it to your base (click the building will be built on this planet button)
4. change the production to a different building (like a habitation system just not a bank)
5. make the planet you originally had the building on the base again (click the building will be built on this planet button)
6. change production back to your original building (a bank for us)
7. NOTICE YOU HAVE TO START ALL OVER BUILDING YOUR BUILDING, PREVIOUS HAMMERS ARE GONE

can u fix this please?

New Earth......

What's up with that?

Is it difficult for anyone else to play?

Sometimes (about half) it's a great civ with great growth to work with

The rest of the time, especially if you start on a "weak" planet, the stunted population issue (usually stuck at 3) is a killer.

Anyone having great success with New Earth and care to share your tech patch, tips, and ideas?

I'd certainly appreciate it!

I think New Earth is great, they have a very explosive start, so I think they are best on smaller maps where there is competition for early colonization and potential for early combat.

With most civs, I'd go for scouts and Monarchy first, but with New Earth, I'd go for colonizers and Democracy first. Early colonizers will let you take advantage of the starting two population on new colonies, and Democracy will fix your early happiness problems. That should get you off to a stronger start than any other faction, so capitalize on it early by attacking someone.

I think New Earth is great, they have a very explosive start, so I think they are best on smaller maps where there is competition for early colonization and potential for early combat.

With most civs, I'd go for scouts and Monarchy first, but with New Earth, I'd go for colonizers and Democracy first. Early colonizers will let you take advantage of the starting two population on new colonies, and Democracy will fix your early happiness problems. That should get you off to a stronger start than any other faction, so capitalize on it early by attacking someone.

well the "explosive start" seems to be the issue - great unhappiness, very early in the game while the buildings that cure it don't come until later.

yes, they are a strong civ, although I wouldn't classify them as scientific nor military but the 2 pop start brings on EARLY problems

I play an equal number of games on SP and MP (Noble setting) and in MP we seem to all have the same "sufferings" with New Earth

It's the only civ that no one really wants to play because half the time it is strong, the other half null (with pop problems)

I think the biggest issue with it is the +2pop start on a bad planet - which you have no control over or the opposite, +2pop start on a great planet and you're in near immediate unhappiness because of too much growth and al of it's associated problems/unhappiness.

The AI seems to have he same problem with it as New Earth is either low score or high score - nothing in between.

While playing a hotseat game found out that production on a building could be lost. this should be fixed. to get same effect do the following.

1. put a turn or two in a building on a planet (lets say a bank at 6/33 hammer)
2. zoom into city center to see all planets
3. switch to a different planet and change it to your base (click the building will be built on this planet button)
4. change the production to a different building (like a habitation system just not a bank)
5. make the planet you originally had the building on the base again (click the building will be built on this planet button)
6. change production back to your original building (a bank for us)
7. NOTICE YOU HAVE TO START ALL OVER BUILDING YOUR BUILDING, PREVIOUS HAMMERS ARE GONE

can u fix this please?

As best as I can tell, this isn't fixable. At least not with the way the game is now.

It is worth putting on a warning for this sort of thing, if that might be possible? Perhaps if there is any production stored up, either a popup or some other sort of sign could let you know that you'll lose production if you change planets.

At least for now, though, once you know about it, you can work around it simply by not changing planets.

One more issue, though, is overflow. AFAIK it doesn't carry over when you change planets.

All in all, though, being able to work with multiple planets in a "city" is cool enough to make these quirks minor issues.

In the games I have played New Earth I find myself stunting growth primarily in my cap to avoid unhappy and unhealthy by doing what nullspace proposes, expand. (No growth with building the colony and construction ships.)

I won't avoid monarchy because I still want better production to get those ships out but a switch to democracy quick to follow.

Regrettably I find after that I am a slave to lady luck as to whether or not I am blessed with health and happinesss based resources. If I can't hook them, especially health, (I'm already in democracy at this point to help the happiness,) after colonizing around five systems, then I find it a real struggle to make any sort of winning game.

Please post any problems or issues you've had with Final Frontier in this thread. Putting everything in one place will make it easier for me to fix things. Please be specific in your feedback (e.g. "the AI sucks" doesn't help me much).

Thanks. :)

Jon

Downloadable Post-3.13 Update

Erm... what happened with the update? this isn't a link, just some underlined text?

Erm... what happened with the update? this isn't a link, just some underlined text?

He moved it to the top of thread - first page

I ask again...

Ok...I have the same problem of others. The explorated area is NW of the real position: so I don't even see the solar system in which I am...because it's not explorated. Help me, please! I want to play! ç__ç

Here is the screenshot.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90758/Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG

No one knows how to resolve it?

^

that really looks WB...:)
check your graphics, maybe reducing their quality will remove that

He moved it to the top of thread - first page

I quoted the first post. There's simply no link in it, and the attachment is about events.

^

that really looks WB...:)
check your graphics, maybe reducing their quality will remove that

Sorry...what WB means? :confused:

EDIT: 'nuff said, World Builder, got it. But...WB is messed too. I can't see right and under for a dozen of tiles...

I quoted the first post. There's simply no link in it, and the attachment is about events.

at the bottom, the attached zipfile - in the first post:
(the word "Events" just happens to be part of the name of the zip file)

........ - Gold is now deducted when beginning Starbase construction instead of upon completion, to deal with some exploits
- Halved amount of points gained from territory
- Fixing bug in map script with star system density
- Missiles generated by Starbases no longer automatically jump to nearest city
Attached Files CvFinalFrontierEvents.zip (16.9 KB, 122 views)

__________________
'Til Lata... ~ Jon 'Trip' Shafer
Firaxis Games Designer/Programmer
Tell me about Final Frontier Problems & Issues Here! Post-3.13 Update Now Available
A Final Frontier Walkthrough

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by Jon Shafer : Nov 13, 2007 at 06:36 PM.

Everytime I try to create a new game it CTDs after the load bar reaches finish. I played the game fine before 3.13, but now I can't even start playing.

While playing a hotseat game found out that production on a building could be lost. this should be fixed. to get same effect do the following.

1. put a turn or two in a building on a planet (lets say a bank at 6/33 hammer)
2. zoom into city center to see all planets
3. switch to a different planet and change it to your base (click the building will be built on this planet button)
4. change the production to a different building (like a habitation system just not a bank)
5. make the planet you originally had the building on the base again (click the building will be built on this planet button)
6. change production back to your original building (a bank for us)
7. NOTICE YOU HAVE TO START ALL OVER BUILDING YOUR BUILDING, PREVIOUS HAMMERS ARE GONE

can u fix this please?
You had me convinced for a second, until I realized that you can build buildings of the same type on multiple planets in the same system. The production for your bank is still on the original base planet. Or, to put it simply:

Bank on Planet 1: 6/33
Bank on Planet 2: 0/33
Production window with planet 1 as base: 6/33
Production window with planet 2 as base: 0/33

The production window can only show the progress of one building on one planet at a time. When you made planet 2 the base planet, the production window showed the progress made for a bank on that planet, which was zero because you never started a bank on that planet.

There seems to be something wrong with the number of Syndicate trade routes in conquered systems.

In my current game (playing as Syndicate), with 3.13 patch but not the update posted here, all systems I colonize get 3 trade routes - 1 normal one and 2 bonus.
However, I conquered two more systems, and they only have one trade route each. They are both connected to the rest of my star systems, as well as to pretty much everybody else. The food and hammer bonus works as intended (giving one each for that one trade route), but apparently there are no bonus trade routes.

Maybe those bonus trade routes depend upon how much of your culture is in the star system?

I have a similar problem in my current game. Crossroads has only 2 trade routes, while all my other systems have 3. It's a little irritating because the routes from Crossroads are making 3 & 4 commerce while the other systems are making 2 per, but on the other hand that also makes it less of an issue because Crossroads is still making good money from its trade routes even with only 2 of them.

Incidentally, is Syndicate overpowered? It seems that way to me. I mean, it takes them a little while to get going, but once you have everything connected up with warp lanes you not only get the benefit of your trade routes, but you get 2 extra trade routes for more commerce, *and* you get +3 :food: and +3 :hammers: per system.

Ok...I have the same problem of others. The explorated area is NW of the real position: so I don't even see the solar system in which I am...because it's not explorated. Help me, please! I want to play! ç__ç

Here is the screenshot.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90758/Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG

Again, no solution with neither WB or reducing graphic quality. Help, please?

I have a similar problem in my current game. Crossroads has only 2 trade routes, while all my other systems have 3. It's a little irritating because the routes from Crossroads are making 3 & 4 commerce while the other systems are making 2 per, but on the other hand that also makes it less of an issue because Crossroads is still making good money from its trade routes even with only 2 of them.

Incidentally, is Syndicate overpowered? It seems that way to me. I mean, it takes them a little while to get going, but once you have everything connected up with warp lanes you not only get the benefit of your trade routes, but you get 2 extra trade routes for more commerce, *and* you get +3 :food: and +3 :hammers: per system.

Yes Syndicate is overpowered. According to the original post, the were toned down to be only +1 extra trade routes, which means +2 hammers and +2 food per system.

With that in mind, I wonder if The Forge now becomes the best?

Oh, another thing. All in all I would say it is a really good mod. Just a few more tweaks to make it MooII caliber :-p

Also, how exactly does this fix turn down the number of extra Red syndicate trade routes from 1 to 2?

According to the new python file, that only applies to the capital. In the definition for onCityBuilt, this line still exists:

# Red Syndicate gets 2 free trade routes when city built
iTrait = CvUtil.findInfoTypeNum(gc.getTraitInfo,gc.getNumTr aitInfos(),'TRAIT_SYNDICATE')
if (pPlayer.hasTrait(iTrait)):
pCity.changeExtraTradeRoutes(2)

Again, no solution with neither WB or reducing graphic quality. Help, please?

reset all of your graphics to "low" resolutions (there's really not much difference)

Also, how exactly does this fix turn down the number of extra Red syndicate trade routes from 1 to 2?

According to the new python file, that only applies to the capital. In the definition for onCityBuilt, this line still exists:

# Red Syndicate gets 2 free trade routes when city built
iTrait = CvUtil.findInfoTypeNum(gc.getTraitInfo,gc.getNumTr aitInfos(),'TRAIT_SYNDICATE')
if (pPlayer.hasTrait(iTrait)):
pCity.changeExtraTradeRoutes(2)

Aha! That explains my problem. I was wondering why all my cities except 1 had 3 trade routes... Didn't think he had turned them down yet.

Aha! That explains my problem. I was wondering why all my cities except 1 had 3 trade routes... Didn't think he had turned them down yet.

I was also thinking... since this fires when a solar-system is settled... doesn't that mean that systems captured by Red will still have only one trade route?

Captured systems won't get the bonus. I'm playing Paradise, and captured systems don't get the free Maglevs. Nor do systems recaptured. I'm playing with raging barbarians and lost several systems to pirates. When retaken, the Maglevs are gone, no more free ones.

I would guess that any system-changing freebies would only apply when the colony is settled. The only issue is whether this is fair or not. It definitely hurts Syndicate (which can be pretty powerful), because you can't rebuild trade routes.

On the trade route subject, does anyone else think that some tech should give an extra trade route, perhaps a second trade route at an even higher tech, in order to make trade routes significant? As it is, only the Syndicate really gets much from them.

Captured systems won't get the bonus. I'm playing Paradise, and captured systems don't get the free Maglevs. Nor do systems recaptured. I'm playing with raging barbarians and lost several systems to pirates. When retaken, the Maglevs are gone, no more free ones.

I would guess that any system-changing freebies would only apply when the colony is settled. The only issue is whether this is fair or not. It definitely hurts Syndicate (which can be pretty powerful), because you can't rebuild trade routes.

On the trade route subject, does anyone else think that some tech should give an extra trade route, perhaps a second trade route at an even higher tech, in order to make trade routes significant? As it is, only the Syndicate really gets much from them.

I've often thought that too. I think a number of techs should give blanket bonuses to the Civilization that researches them, like increase the speed of units on roads, or give +10% commerece. Also... why not have a 'chop' function for the worker units to 'chop' asteroids? There are many features from the regular Civ game that would be easy to implement but are absent for some reason.