BUG/BAT has been mentioned.;)

Great People list:

Here's the full list of Great People so far, for a grand total of 63 people I also changed Kimbuzzi's and Xantus' titles better fit with their original titles.

Great Artists
Dave Lawell
Deon of Petersburg
John Deane
Jon Shafer
Ken Burd
NCC Savage
Sid Meier
Soren Johnson
Steve Barcia

Great Engineers
Admiral Tellik
Caern the Tulosian Mercenary
Claw the Klackon Taskmaster
Felina the Naturalist
Houri the Environmentalist
Kimbuzzi the Agrarian
Khunagg the Ruthless
Sparky the Meklar Cybernaut
Torg the Overlord

Great Merchants
Galis the Financier
Galin the Rogue Trader
Grogg the Gnolam Capitalist
Kher the Smuggler
Lydon the Noble
Slag the Armsdealer
V'Larr the Independent Trader

Great Prophets
Cassandra the Elerian Mystic
Dark Lord Necron
Electra the High Priestess
Orphus the Peacemaker
Matrix the Cyber Mage
Tanus the Revolutionary
Xantus the Supreme

Great Scientists
Chug the Planetologist
Director Androgena
Director Brainac
Emo the Scientist
Gizmo the Gadgeteer
Kirsus, the Psilon Scientist
Urro the Ikarian Doctor

Great Spies
Arakhor the Courtier
Crassis the Overseer
Diablo the Cyber Marauder
Draxx the Spy Master
Ezixl of Klackon
Jeelen One-Eye
Tulock the Bounty Hunter

Great Generals
Altos the Alkari Pilot
Aquasarrious the Trilarian Navigator
Cyr the Fighter Ace
Grumm the Armsman
Hawk the Astrogator
Karg the Pirate
Kronos the Spacefarer
Loknar the Last Orion
Malovane the Battle Lord
Mukirr the Mrrshan Warrior
Nhagg the Armsmaster
Nile the Forsaken Warrior
Nimrazz the Master Tactician
Ruola the Weapons Officer
Skaine the Legend
Slith the Rebel Pilot
Tyranous the Sakkra Armsman

Full list in post #26.

... as has Blue Marble terrain. :)

Blue Marble mod seems compatible with MOO2Civ (apenpaap used it for his Star Trek Leaders modmod), but for some reason the following terrain types are being renamed when starting up a MOO2Civ game:
- Radiation cloud => Fallout
- Nebula => Ice
- Black hole (center) => Oasis.
I'm trying to fix this.

Oh, those are just renamed? Ignore my reply in the other thread then. I don't see why Blue Marble would create a text file, but it probably did if you're seeing that. Simply finding the incorrect text strings and deleting them should be sufficient.

Jeelen, tell me when you have blue marble merged in, I might want to add that. Also, I saw in the patch thread that you had an issue with the barbs spawing PDS's. Couldn't you just set that unitclass to NONE in the XML?

General question, please forgive my ignorance, but what is BAT? I personaly would stay away from BUG until they can make it much more user friendly. I don't know what well over half of the options are and theres to help text. I don't really see it adding anything, but then again, I really don't play to win, but more just to try stuff out.

I want to see if I can get it in in the next patch (ran into some trouble getting it into Patch4i, which was announced to be released Saturday at the latest). I've seen BUG mod merged in a couple of mods and liked it, especially the 5% tech slider; as far as I know it's mostly in-game screen modification, which overall adds some flavour to the game, so that's quite alright IMO.

Thx for the tip as regards PDFs (had several now, so that should work out fine as well).;)

I'm happy enough to turn off the Cultural and Domination victories, but I really miss my regular cultural expansions. Could the culture-pops be put back to normal - my Psilon "empire" resembles nothing much more than a string of systems and intermittent starbases linked by fragile space-lanes!

As a corollary to this, perhaps we could have a themed Great Wall wonder which keeps pirates away from your fragile trade-lanes - or at the least, makes them ablative, dropping from fortified lanes to normal lanes to all-gone (rather like towns/villages).

Why not change the Human Ascendancy victory to the Antaran Assault? Once you've collected all the various parts to construct the Dimensional Gate and pierce the Antaran barrier, then you slip through and bomb their home world, winning the game by default :)

It would be nice to some help files installed and maybe the tech quotes replaced with something for Orion-ish. I'd be happy to help with the text if you want.

I noticed that you switched off Open Borders and removed penalties for refusing to swap techs or go to war. I approve entirely! I love the promotions and so on as well - great job!

It's also worth noting that on a play-through with the Star Trek mod on similar settings (FF flat, Large/Epic) I didn't get any lag, even when I was 200 or so turns into the game. The lag may come later, but so far the Trek mod is winning on the no-lag front :)

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, can we get some of those cloaked ships from the Trek mod to use as Darlok stealth ships or will that cause all the same problems with undefended Darlok worlds?

Great, creepy picture for Greymoran, incidentally :)

I'm happy enough to turn off the Cultural and Domination victories, but I really miss my regular cultural expansions. Could the culture-pops be put back to normal - my Psilon "empire" resembles nothing much more than a string of systems and intermittent starbases linked by fragile space-lanes!

You can still build Culture buildings without Cultural Victory in order to expand your borders.

As a corollary to this, perhaps we could have a themed Great Wall wonder which keeps pirates away from your fragile trade-lanes - or at the least, makes them ablative, dropping from fortified lanes to normal lanes to all-gone (rather like towns/villages).

There's no such thing in Master of Orion; also, the 'barbs' in MOO are always Antaran - which you're supposed to defeat.

Why not change the Human Ascendancy victory to the Antaran Assault? Once you've collected all the various parts to construct the Dimensional Gate and pierce the Antaran barrier, then you slip through and bomb their home world, winning the game by default :)

That's a great idea if it could be implemented - I agree totally. Unfortunately it's a bit beyond my current modding skills...

It would be nice to some help files installed and maybe the tech quotes replaced with something for Orion-ish. I'd be happy to help with the text if you want.

I welcome any help, so I'd really appreciate it.

I noticed that you switched off Open Borders and removed penalties for refusing to swap techs or go to war. I approve entirely! I love the promotions and so on as well - great job!

The credit for that should go to Minor Annoyance.

It's also worth noting that on a play-through with the Star Trek mod on similar settings (FF flat, Large/Epic) I didn't get any lag, even when I was 200 or so turns into the game. The lag may come later, but so far the Trek mod is winning on the no-lag front :)

OK, I can only repeat MOO2Civ has never been tested on anything but Normal speed. As is, Star Trek gives me more lag time than MOO2Civ, although lag times seem to have increased a bit with Patch4i.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, can we get some of those cloaked ships from the Trek mod to use as Darlok stealth ships or will that cause all the same problems with undefended Darlok worlds?

I fear it might. Another idea might just be to move back access to Stealth Ships for the other races, while making it an (early) UU for the Darloks. This seems to me to be in line with MOO characteristics.

Great, creepy picture for Greymoran, incidentally

I think that's one of Deon's leaderheads.;)

Well, maybe Stealth ships should be the Darlok UU only for obvious reasons, but you also ensure that it can't defend - low attack maybe, no defensive bonuses and very fast and nimble.

Well, maybe instead of actually having to bomb the Antarans etc., you simply rename the victory condition and then install a game clip of the "bombed Antarans" ending as the victory video. Oh. and as you said on the Trek thread, definitely rename the pirates to Antarans :P

If you turn off culture-flipping and cultural victories, then culture means precisely one thing - exploitation of resources. (The AI will still attack if it wants to and not if it doesn't, so borders in that respect are irrelevant.) As much as I value the concept of starbases, I would like to be able to organically spread my borders (colonists and philosophers espousing my values, for instance) in addition to buildings and starbases.

You could also add Culture as an additional value and maybe even Growth/Exploration too. Extra values mean more differentiation of the aliens and provide for more tense diplomacy :)

...
The credit for that should go to Minor Annoyance.
...
Just the ones with capturing. Not that I haven't thought about other stuff for promotions, but one thing at a time.

Another idea might just be to move back access to Stealth Ships for the other races, while making it an (early) UU for the Darloks. This seems to me to be in line with MOO characteristics.

I thought of having the Stealth ship be a national unit limited to one for each empire, but have the Darlok version have no limit or a large limit. That might make for an odd situation where your limited to one of each version of stealth ships so you'd keep you're Stealth Ship I, with your Stealth Ship II and Stealth Ship III etc. because you'd actually be allowed one of each, although you couldn't rebuild an obsolete Stealth Ship.

Why does the MoO mod include space-lanes anyway? I understand that they were in the FF mod originally, but the Trek mod does away with them and simply allows you to trade over space after tech learning.

I agree that, for one, looks much better. I'd like to limit starlanes and hyperdrives/wormholes in a scenario eventually. (But for this Doomstars, Orion and the Antarans need steel to be implemented.)

I thought of having the Stealth ship be a national unit limited to one for each empire, but have the Darlok version have no limit or a large limit.

If I remember correctly, in MOO the Darloks have the ability to give any ship Stealth (so you can't even see them scouting). As is, that's probably too much, as Stealth ships currently can't be used as defenders.

In Star Trek however, they can defend, but not be attacked. (A seemingly empty system may be stacked with Cloaked ships - quite effective -, although they still can't conquer systems; the latter would probably too big an advantage.) Also, Star Trek uses Cloak/Stealth as a promotion; this might work - provided the Darloks start out with that promotion.

Well, just as the Darloks are master spies, you also give them the racial trait "Stealthy Ships" (which I think is identical to the Orion name), which automatically adds Stealth to almost all of their ships. (They still want some attacking ships obviously and some purely defensive things like armour probably shouldn't be able to move.)

On that note, why can Armour move when you research the tech that give all ships +1 Move? Can't you just move Armour into its own ship class and exclude that class from the bonus? Can we also have Armour with a U in the mod? :)

Also, do Elerians have their fabled omniscience in the game (reveal all tiles) or can that only be done via a scenario?

Why does the MoO mod include space-lanes anyway? I understand that they were in the FF mod originally, but the Trek mod does away with them and simply allows you to trade over space after tech learning.

Jump Gates which increase your ships speed between your colonies are available at the Sub-Space Physics technology so if it were to mimic the original, space-lanes which serve the same basic function, would be available there. It might be interesting to see roads be a somewhat advanced technology

...
Also, do Elerians have their fabled omniscience in the game (reveal all tiles) or can that only be done via a scenario?
The Elohim in FfH have an ability where they can see certain features from the start of the game. That could be adapted for this purpose. There is an easier way though. In the standard game when you research Satellites it reveals the whole map (although that's so late in the game it's not likely to matter). If you created a technology that couldn't be researched or traded, had the map reveal ability, and gave it to the Elerians as a starting tech then they would have omniscience, although not the part where they can see all the ships and colonies too.

Well, perhaps instead of being a technology, you could incorporate the effect into a racial trait. Just like you could give a Cloak upgrade automatically to all Darklok scouts and light fighters, you could give the Elerians this Satellite-variant racial trait. Shouldn't that be possible?

Regarding the trade-lanes, you could just remove them altogether until the Jump Gate technology is researched and then increase the effect of the lanes to, say, 1/5 movement speed. With three Construction Ships laying one tile a turn, you could have your Jump Gates "allowing" ships to move fairly fast!

The Star Gate technology (Physics X) could then allow trade-lane travel to consume 0 movement, like the railways in Civ II, to simulate the instant teleportation that the Star Gates provide.

...
The Star Gate technology (Physics X) could then allow trade-lane travel to consume 0 movement, like the railways in Civ II, to simulate the instant teleportation that the Star Gates provide.

Or a building with the airlift ability.

True, but the Star Gates in MoO allow unlimited travel. One ship a turn is fairly weak for would be a top-level tech!

Regarding the Darlok cloak, there may be a way to make that happen without making them defenceless.
In FfH2 the Elohim get the Homeland promotion which has effects that are dependant on whether the unit is in it's own territory or not. It may be possible to use that to have Darlok ships only be invisible outside their own boarders. That way they can still defend themselves but be able to make sneak attacks.
Some other ideas are to have all their ships have the 'can explore rival territory without triggering war' ability, or from FfH2 one of the effects of the Council of Esus, which is that units inside a rivals territory aren't kicked out when you declare war so you can be right next to your target, declare war, and not be moved.

After checking around for Orion images, I came across the Orion Empire site by Ezixl. He had quite large pictures of all the races, their spies/soldiers/scientists and even their banners, so I thought I'd include all the images I saved onto my machine in a zip file in case any of them are better quality than the ones you're using.

I've also included a text file which lists all the ruler names from Orion I & II and includes bios for each race (also from Ezixl's site). You could always use the ruler names as a system/city name bank for each race if you wanted to.

Finally, I've included some extracts from the game manual, dealing with races, race picks, mercenary leaders and, of course, all the tech descriptions!

Cool! Many thanks.:goodjob:

BTW: Sorry for not taking part in the recent discussion, but I've been occupied by Real Life events these past couple of days...

Regarding the Darlok cloak, there may be a way to make that happen without making them defenceless.
In FfH2 the Elohim get the Homeland promotion which has effects that are dependant on whether the unit is in it's own territory or not. It may be possible to use that to have Darlok ships only be invisible outside their own boarders. That way they can still defend themselves but be able to make sneak attacks.
Some other ideas are to have all their ships have the 'can explore rival territory without triggering war' ability, or from FfH2 one of the effects of the Council of Esus, which is that units inside a rivals territory aren't kicked out when you declare war so you can be right next to your target, declare war, and not be moved.

IMO this would definitely be an improvement on the current situation.

True, but the Star Gates in MoO allow unlimited travel. One ship a turn is fairly weak for would be a top-level tech!

That's true, but given the Civ game engine I don't know of a way around this.

Jump Gates which increase your ships speed between your colonies are available at the Sub-Space Physics technology so if it were to mimic the original, space-lanes which serve the same basic function, would be available there. It might be interesting to see roads be a somewhat advanced technology

I agree. The Warplanes/Hyperdrives/Wormholes in MOO can't be built, they're just standard features on the map. These might be put more up the tech tree - or even done away with completely as far as the Warplanes are concerned. (Star Trek mod has done away with Warplanes completely; resources are linked automatically once mined).

The Elohim in FfH have an ability where they can see certain features from the start of the game. That could be adapted for this purpose. There is an easier way though. In the standard game when you research Satellites it reveals the whole map (although that's so late in the game it's not likely to matter). If you created a technology that couldn't be researched or traded, had the map reveal ability, and gave it to the Elerians as a starting tech then they would have omniscience, although not the part where they can see all the ships and colonies too.

I like this idea; I incorporated something similar to this in the Civ2 MOO4jr scenario.

(Now-redundant post.)

Very nice.:D Once again: thanks!:goodjob:

I've compiled a list of these suitable Great Artists - feel free to add any more shout-outs to this list if you wish :)

Dave Lawell (lead artist on MoOII)
Deon of Petersburg
John Deane
Jon Shafer (designer of the Final Frontier mod)Ken Burd (MoOII game designer)
Ken Burd (lead programmer on MoOII)
NCC Savage
Sid Meier (well, of course!)
Soren Johnson (lead designer on Civ IV)
Steve Barcia (MoOII game designer)

I've also included three more Great Spies, to bulk out the current meagre list.

Arakhor the Courtier
Ezixl of Klackon (the owner of the site from where I got those pics)
Jeelen One-Eye

(The reasoning for us on that list is that Arakhor is a Daedroth spy from Morrowind and "Jeelen One-Eye" does not sound like a Great Artist!) :D

Here's the full list of Great People so far, for a grand total of 63 people :) I also changed Kimbuzzi's and Xantus' titles better fit with their original titles.

Great Artists
Dave Lawell
Deon of Petersburg
John Deane
Jon Shafer
Ken Burd
NCC Savage
Sid Meier
Soren Johnson
Steve Barcia

Great Engineers
Admiral Tellik
Caern the Tulosian Mercenary
Claw the Klackon Taskmaster
Felina the Naturalist
Houri the Environmentalist
Kimbuzzi the Agrarian
Khunagg the Ruthless
Sparky the Meklar Cybernaut
Torg the Overlord

Great Merchants
Galis the Financier
Galin the Rogue Trader
Grogg the Gnolam Capitalist
Kher the Smuggler
Lydon the Noble
Slag the Armsdealer
V'Larr the Independent Trader

Great Prophets
Cassandra the Elerian Mystic
Dark Lord Necron
Electra the High Priestess
Orphus the Peacemaker
Matrix the Cyber Mage
Tanus the Revolutionary
Xantus the Supreme

Great Scientists
Chug the Planetologist
Director Androgena
Director Brainac
Emo the Scientist
Gizmo the Gadgeteer
Kirsus, the Psilon Scientist
Urro the Ikarian Doctor

Great Spies
Arakhor the Courtier
Crassis the Overseer
Diablo the Cyber Marauder
Draxx the Spy Master
Ezixl of Klackon
Jeelen One-Eye
Tulock the Bounty Hunter

Great Generals
Altos the Alkari Pilot
Aquasarrious the Trilarian Navigator
Cyr the Fighter Ace
Grumm the Armsman
Hawk the Astrogator
Karg the Pirate
Kronos the Spacefarer
Loknar the Last Orion
Malovane the Battle Lord
Mukirr the Mrrshan Warrior
Nhagg the Armsmaster
Nile the Forsaken Warrior
Nimrazz the Master Tactician
Ruola the Weapons Officer
Skaine the Legend
Slith the Rebel Pilot
Tyranous the Sakkra Armsman

Creative list(s) there, Arakhor! I wouldn't have thought of including myself as a Great Person.:blush: I think woodelf would qualify as well though, as he made a number of units/models for use with the mod. (As a Great Engineer then, perhaps.):thumbsup:

A code for a black hole with a small % chance to drop the ship somewhere far in the galaxy instead of destroying it.

It would be fun and will lead to a "lucky" strategy of probing black holes on large maps to possibly explore distant frontiers.

A lucky strategy? :) That comes down to either certain death or instant teleportation to somewhere you might not want to be. Only the very brave or very stupid would apply and they have to both be very lucky!

Actually, it's the same as an event in MOO2 where a ship gets randomly teleported across the galaxy. (Personally, I wouldn't know how to make that happen though.)

Actually, it's the same as an event in MOO2 where a ship gets randomly teleported across the galaxy. (Personally, I wouldn't know how to make that happen though.)

The Maelstrom in FfH2 does random teleporting.

Cool! (Didn't know that, thanks.);)

Compatibility with patch 3.19 would probably be a given, now :D

:hmm: Great as it is to have another official patch, I haven't installed it yet. (3.17 made MOO2Civ unplayable until NCCSavage provided a compatibility patch.)

Oh, nor have I. I don't want to lose the ability to play all those wonderful mods :D

Remember when there was talk of having Darlok ships be invisible, but not so within their own territory so as not to make them unable to defend their colonies? Well the making them visible part was not very hard. Like three line of code. I tested it with regular stealth ships and before I even exited worldbuilder I saw the stealth ship in it's owners boarders had a flag on if and the one outside didn't. I have heard that this can be resource intensive, from the constant checking of the plot every unit is standing on to see if its invisibility is active or not, if there are a lot of units. I would just have to find out how to make promotions give invisibility to have all Darlok ships have this ability.

Sounds interesting. (Would indeed be great if this could be realized.)

Any thoughts on merging the CAR mod? (Might be interesting for combating late game lag.)

What's the CAR mod? I might be able to help you better if I knew :)

Here's a link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8376188&postcount=1.

I read the first two lines and my first idea is, "hell yes!" My second idea is, "but only if it works and doesn't delay the rest of the game." :D

Agreed. Only one way to find out...

I would like to see the number of fighters and bombers garrisoned in a city limited, something like two per star, then increase that to something like eight when you build a fighter garrison. Isn't that how vanilla bts is?

I would also like to be able to pay to upgrade fighters and bombers once a new one is available.

I would like to be able to buy things with credits, like you could in MOO2.

I personally like the space lanes even if they are a pain in the neck to keep up and running. It's nice to be able to travel faster between your own stars.

Edit
Oh, and would welcome anything that increases the game speed.

Good ideas - although I can't say if and when I'll be able to implement them (I'm backlogged on things TO DO as it is and haven't been able to mod at all this week). I've been wondering about fighters and bombers myself (they don;t seem to get any promotions, although you can upgrade them). As for speeding things up, I haven't heard back from Arakhor lately...

Some good news though: just received a PM from CyberChrist, who's working on a revised and extended ship promotion system and a specialized ship building screen. (Maybe some time before it'll be in Beta state, but it's definitely made me curious.)

That said, I'm going to do some testing now. More news later!

I've been wondering about the mod's current system of troops and stars and transports. The way Civ4 chooses the strongest unit to defend in a stack always leaves your ships fighting the batteloids first, then they take out the defending fleet on a star.

I thought it might make it more like MoO2's system with two changes.
I saw that it's possible to have units defend first in a stack even if they are weaker. (Thomas's war mod has citizens with strength of 1 defend first to waste the turn of the attacker). I don't know how they did it though.

First, set all spaceships to defend first in a stack so they protect transports.
Second, change the transport's bonus to 200% against troops (battloids & such) instead of against cities. This way a person can't take a planet using only transports. Also they can't take a planet using only spaceships. They will need a fleet of ships to kill the defending fleet first then they can use transports to capture the planet.

I guess you could use the units strenghts and weaknesses to make sure that the right units defend against an attacking fleet. Eg. fighters get a good bonus against transports and capships and so on...

I've been wondering about the mod's current system of troops and stars and transports. The way Civ4 chooses the strongest unit to defend in a stack always leaves your ships fighting the batteloids first, then they take out the defending fleet on a star.

I thought it might make it more like MoO2's system with two changes.
I saw that it's possible to have units defend first in a stack even if they are weaker. (Thomas's war mod has citizens with strength of 1 defend first to waste the turn of the attacker). I don't know how they did it though.

First, set all spaceships to defend first in a stack so they protect transports.
Second, change the transport's bonus to 200% against troops (battloids & such) instead of against cities. This way a person can't take a planet using only transports. Also they can't take a planet using only spaceships. They will need a fleet of ships to kill the defending fleet first then they can use transports to capture the planet.

I like the idea, but it's a bit problematic to implement; early spaceships aren't that strong, leaving the planetary defense units as the main protection against invasion (unless you intercept invaders off-planet). Later spaceships (like Battleships) are already strong enough to serve as primary defender (even with the later generation Battleoids as planetary defense force). Invasion Ships have a planet attack bonus, so they'll target the planetary units (which is their purpose) - but it's always wise to intercept them with space ships before they reach a system. (I realize the AI generally doesn't do this, but tends simply to stack units in a system - although they may counterattack if the enemy stack is damaged enough.) So a thorough reworking of the unit promotions would be necessary (and ideally an actual Transport unit, which is currently missing). I'll keep it in mind, but I'm afraid it's currently not a high priority on my TO DO list.

Oh, I’m still here, Jeelen. I just thought you were on a modding break! CAR seems to work wonders with Afforess’s A New Dawn, so there’s no reason to assume that it wouldn’t work for Civ-MoO2. I’ll have to see about starting up a game of 3.19 MoO2 to try it out.

Didn't think you had gone missing. Yes, I know. (ROM AND is a huge mod by comparison, BTW.) I also heard deanej's going to go CAR with Star Trek 3.0, in case you're interested.

For what its worth, I can confirm the civlopedia ctd. After a few trials, it seems to crash if you click on an in page link for any unit. I was able to link to stuff and look at multiple pages as long as it didn't involve units.

Edit: unit to unit link that crashed was probe > scout

Any unit? Wow, that's not good... last report involved 1 or 2 units. Thanks for mentioning this.

The race adjustments seem out of whack. The Alkari get higher science than the Psilons, the Trilarians don't get any racial adjustments at all and the Humans get some really tanky abilities.

I really dislike world-wrap for the MoO2 map, but the only current map comes with it automatically. I also really dislike the tradelanes, as they don't feel MoO-ish at all.

Yes, it's a typical Civ-thing, I guess. (deanej removed them from his Star Trek mod, but I ahven't inquired yet how he did it.)

Racial/leader traits aren't done yet:

- Psilons should probably have like 25% science bonus
- the Trilarian science bonus is a replacement thing for their Aquatic ability (I don't think it fits very well, they already start each colony with pop 2)
- Elerians aren't thought out yet.

I'm not sure what you mean by "tanky" Human abilities, but I'm thinking of just swapping their science bonus with the Psilon one (the basic Human trait being Charisma, not Science.) There also has been mentioned the idea of a greatly expanded (and race specific) tech tree. I don't know if that's feasible (not currently for me at least), but CyberChrist is still working on something along those lines, if I remember correctly. (Had a PM exchange with him earlier this or last week.)

As for the maps, FF Flatmap isn't wrapped, nor is Spiral Galaxy (nor are TC01's Wormhole and Enclosed Mapscripts, but they're currently not in the Beta).

On that note, I should probably update post #1 here with suggestions mentioned and if they're being worked on and/or being considered or not.

In regards to that idea I had to split each technology up to it's own thing to make the tech tree more like MOO2's tech tree.

If I made the new tech tree would you use it? I've only learned minor modding techniques for Civ 4 but I'm learning more and am willing to learn how to do this if you guys are up for the idea.

See? Look what you've done now, got me volunteering to help for another project, I knew this would happen if I came here too often. :)

I've seen a couple people curse the space lanes because they are so hard to keep up and running.

I have found how to let the player trade across space like civ4 lets players trade across ocean and coast if you're interested.

This will make the mod more like moo2 where trade was automatic. Players will still need extraction facilities to get their rare resources but it would be harder to hinder civilizations by taking out their resources as extraction facilities are easier to defend.

I think it would be a good change but I'd rather see the space lanes left in for speedy travel between stars. Who knows, they might become useless if we enable trading over space. I could change it and test it first if you like.

Wow, you post faster than I can read... :crazyeye:

As said, I have no objection to splitting the tech tree (or any improvement for the mod) - as long as it works. So I say go right ahead!

Since trade lanes aren't in MOO period, I also see no objection to implementing that (as with removing the space lanes from the regular mapscripts).

On another note I got a PM from CyberChrist some time ago concerning a.o. the possible replacement of the Stealth Ship by a Stealth promotion; this would open op a ship slot for, say, a Doomstar model (which is still missing!). Perhaps you might want to contact him on editing the tech tree. ;)

I've been messing with trading over space and I haven't gotten it to work yet. I simply added this to the cold fusion tech:

<TerrainTrades>
<TerrainTrade>
<TerrainType>TERRAIN_TUNDRA</TerrainType>
<bTerrainTrade>1</bTerrainTrade>
</TerrainTrade>
<TerrainTrades>

It now says on the tech that cold fusion enables trading over space but it does not work in the game still. What terrains are actually used in a Moo2Civ map? It appears that tundra is space and the nebula is ice, and star systems are just features. Anything else a person would need to trade on to make this work?

I don't see why he didn't just create new terrain types to simplify it all. After spending time looking through how this mod was made I've come to a conclusion that it's a mess! No wonder so many people have problems with crashes.

I mentioned a few post back that deanej already did away with Star Lanes (not Hyperdrives) in his Star Trek mod; might be quicker to ask him how he did it. (He also noticed some basic messyness about Final Frontier, but I'm not sure if that is crash-related...)

BTW, feel free to start your own thread here about what you're working on.

I am planning to start my own thread, but I have one more question before I start the project. Do you know if there is a limit on technologies? Making this sort of a tech tree will put around 200 technologies in the game, possibly more.

To be true, I don't know; all I know is that modders add techs to the tree, not if there's a cap (seems likely, but I wouldn't know what the cap is). Haven't tried anything like this yet... :dunno:

On that subject, I remember suggesting to deanej the Star Trek tech tree was too short/small; at the time he didn't want to do anything about it, but with Star Trek 2.0 the tech tree has been expanded anyway. Seeing as the same applies to MOO2Civ (there's a point when research - and production! - easily outstrips techs, leaving nothing left to discover, well before the game will end), I see no problem with expanding the techs as far as they will go.

I would like to see every civ from MoO II duplicated if possible. That will give us loads of techs and a far more authentic feel.

I am planning to start my own thread, but I have one more question before I start the project. Do you know if there is a limit on technologies? Making this sort of a tech tree will put around 200 technologies in the game, possibly more.

There's no limit like this. Rise of Mankind has more than 200 technologies, iirc.
But gameplaywise, i think, that's too much.

I don't know where to ask this, so I'll put it here.

I noticed that there are techs that increase sight over water in the current Moo2Civ tech tree, like the original plan was to use water as space or something, but it appears that tundra got used as space instead.

Does anybody know why he used tundra instead of creating a new terrain type? Or if we used water instead of space would the +1 sight range work? That would be extremely helpful in fixing the swarming barbarians problem because there would be fewer tiles for them to spawn on.

Also, does all the original civ data that isn't used in this mod (like plains and grass) need to be in the xml files? Will that help the game run faster by removing it or is it needed somehow?

If I had to guess, I would say that tundra was used precisely to facilitate barbarian spawning.

I don't know where to ask this, so I'll put it here.

I noticed that there are techs that increase sight over water in the current Moo2Civ tech tree, like the original plan was to use water as space or something, but it appears that tundra got used as space instead.

Does anybody know why he used tundra instead of creating a new terrain type? Or if we used water instead of space would the +1 sight range work? That would be extremely helpful in fixing the swarming barbarians problem because there would be fewer tiles for them to spawn on.

The +1 sight across water is unedited text (there's no water used). Other than that, I don't know...

If I had to guess, I would say that tundra was used precisely to facilitate barbarian spawning.
The tundra would make sense on the barbarians, they don't seem to spawn much in the ocean in vanilla civ, if they did their ships would swarm!

The +1 sight across water is unedited text (there's no water used). Other than that, I don't know...
The technology xmls include the ability to give a player +1 sight across water. Each new sensor tech gives the bonus. Unfortunately in the XML it is coded as water, so I was just wondering if there was some sort of python code or schema thing that could be changed to make it tundra instead of water that gets the sight bonus.

Or, an easier fix might be to enhance a cities culture each time a sensor tech is researched and we could just use culture as sensor range in this mod. What do you think of that method?

I meant that "+1 sight across water" simply translates to +1 visibility (I've left out a couple of text file edits in 5.0 Beta), so it doesn't really needs fixing.

As for using Culture as a sensor replacement: Culture already works that way, but it would deprive ships of increased sensor range (apart from the +1 sight tech there are sensor promotions which increase visibility).

Thought of something else to include (actually thought of it quite a while back, but there you go): implementing the Heroes from MOO II as Great People. (You know, Ship's Captains, Administrators and the like.) The main problem - apart from reintroducing the remaining Great People - is icons and buttons with appropriate pics (which is why I didn't mention it earlier, as I have no experience with that).

EDIT: Arakhor already provided a leader list in post # 26, so that's a good starting point.

Thought of something else to include (actually thought of it quite a while back, but there you go): implementing the Heroes from MOO II as Great People. (You know, Ship's Captains, Administrators and the like.) The main problem - apart from reintroducing the remaining Great People - is icons and buttons with appropriate pics (which is why I didn't mention it earlier, as I have no experience with that).

That's a good implementation of the Moo2 leaders in my opinion.

Not only is it a good idea, I also provided you with a long list for all the six types of Great Leader.

Yes you did - thanks! (Check post #26 for details.) ;)

Firstly, let me congratulate on a good idea for a mod and the original makers of the graphical design, solar system implementation. Love the chance of really getting to play MOO2Civ in the future.

I just had a thought about stealth. In Civ4 you have submarines and units that can see submarines. These are not the same as units that can see other stealth units, or are they?

If there are special cases where some unit can see certain units from stealth only, there's a chance to get more variation in stealth types.

On to the suggestions I had in mind... I do think you have also thought of most, just didn't find myself searching enough. I also don't have much modding experience, I've just toddled around the SDKs a bit, and have some experience in game programming so far :)

Exploration

Exploring is too easy, there needs to be a range limiter that doesn't allow venturing off too far, or the unit might never get back home. A problem with Civ4-mechanics ofc, but thinking of how aircrafts re-base, or do recons, there could be similar commands that included travel time or something. For starters, it could be just that the unit is unavailable for the duration of the journey taken.

Culture could be used as fuel range in a way, but wouldn't make use of extended fuel cells at all. Would also mean redesigning culture usage in the mod.

Ship desiging and refitting

I find the lack of ship designing disturbing. This is supposed to be a spiritual descendant to MOO2, and ship design was important in it. This is ofc countered somewhat with promotions, but the fact that units gain experience in combat and get new promotions from it feels wrong: you don't get mass drivers in a ship that just blew up some random ship in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe the ships would need to be launched from space dock in order to be usable, and they would lose experience points, and a promotion that would allow space dock upgrade promotions. Let me better explain what I had in mind:

A ship is built in a space dock. It is immobile and can not defend or attack, but it has a set number of experience points to be spent, and a promotion called "in space dock". This would give access to ship equipment promotions.

A player chooses what the unit has, and then activates a command that launches the ship from space dock, removes the experience points, resets the level, but keeps the given promotions as free promotions, removes "in space dock" promotion and adds a promotion named "launched" which would be required for any ship crew experience promotions etc.

Complex, but not too bad from a programmers perspective. Refitting should also be possible IMO, but I don't have many good ideas for that. Maybe something to exchange existing promotions to others with increasing cost to build or buy, while retaining the prerequisite hierarchy.

Hope my ranting helps :)

Thank you, Paranox, for some excellent thoughts. It so happens CyberChrist is working on a redo of exploration and ship design along the lines you suggest. (Can't say when it'll be done though; last news was it's about 60% done - that was a few weeks back. I hope he starts a thread on it when his work nears completion.)

As for ship refitting, that's indeed a bit harder to do: I for one wouldn't know how to go about it... (To be true, when I first saw the way promotions are supposed to represent MOO ship design, I was a bit disappointed, being used to the MOO ship building concept.)

If you have some thoughts on how improvements (like the ones you're suggesting) could be implented practically, please do not hesitate to post about it - help is always welcome!

Planetfall has a set of promotions sort of like you describe (Where a unit gets one set of promotions when built, no matter how much experience it has, than once these are chosen, it goes back to the regular set of promotions)

It still would need some adjustments to work for refits, though, and I'm not sure how it works or which strategy would take less time ot add successfully.

Exploration
I saw a mod somewhere that limited units to a certain distance outside of your culture (modified by technology I think, or maybe it was era) that could work just like the MoO system but I don't recall what it was called.

Ship desiging and refitting
The barbarians scenario has a screen for buying promotions for units that could also work for a MoO type game.

Maybe something like the following could work:

Technology: Laser Cannon, Mass Driver, Nuclear Drive, Fusion Drive, Class I Shield, Nuclear Missiles, Electronic Computer

1. You build an empty ship hull of size Destroyer. It has no equipment at all at first, and so it's immobile and has zero strength. It appears in the solar system still.
2. The unit gets 6 promotions due to certain level of ship construction tech and infrastructure.
3. You choose Mass Driver I, Mass Driver II, Nuclear Drive, Fusion Drive, Electronic Computer, Class I shield.
4. Now you have a fast and somewhat hard hitting destroyer class ship.

The point here would be to determine by some way the number of promotions available. Technology can unlock certain promotions, or allow further levels of some promotion. There could also be free promotions from technology (like armor) and racial traits. Also, there would need to be some research and testing to get a good assortment of promotions to represent equipment well enough.

If possible, there should be an additional cost to use these promotions. I don't think it's normally possible to use production points for the promotions this way, unless the unit can be sent back to queue somehow. I think it's unlikely to work.

Another way to do this, but I don't like it as much due to civ mechanics, is to create components separately, as small build projects, and add them to ship unit one by one like great generals. This would emulate MOO2-style ship building closely enough, but the problem is that you can't build more than one at a time, so creating small ships with diverse equipment is too slow. Unless there were some scripts to alleviate this problem.

One thing I keep forgetting when I think of new ideas is how will the AI use this? So things need to still be similar to it's standard operation. If there were promotions that were only available while in a city (heavy equipment) that would mimic designing or refitting a ship and the AI would understand it. Although the AI wouldn't save promotions until it got home because it always uses them right away. Another thing that might be good is allow the heavy equipment promotions if the ship is on the same tile as unit with a repair bay promotion provided that promotion was restricted to starbases or the biggest ships, which I think it should.

Exploration
I saw a mod somewhere that limited units to a certain distance outside of your culture (modified by technology I think, or maybe it was era) that could work just like the MoO system but I don't recall what it was called.


You mean this here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12985). I don't recommend to use it, because it massivly decreases the performance, and the AI will not be able to handle it really right.
But to see a SDK implementation would be :cool:.

I personally would be interested in seeing a limit on air units per city like vanilla BTS does. Then the fighter garrison could increase that capacity. Otherwise cities become rather unstoppable when a user can produce a bomber per turn and stack 50 of them on one star.

To change the default capcity for stars, this needs to be added to the globaldefines file (I believe it's called GlobalDefinesAlt.xml).

<Define>
<DefineName>CITY_AIR_UNIT_CAPACITY</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>10</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

I think the base capacity should be 10 with an additional 10 from the fighter garrison because titans each carry 3 fighters and it would only take 4 titans to take out 10 defensive fighters. Or we could set the base value to 0 and set the garrison value to 20 so it will be more like MoO2?

I can make the change if you'd like. I'll just include GlobalDefinesAlt.xml in the list of updated files I'll send when I finish modding the tech tree.

Wow! Sure, go right ahead. :D

The Fighter Garrison should actually be 1 of 2 prereqs for building fighters (the other being the necessary tech), so base value should indeed be zero.*

But I don't agree on the fighter limit for 2 reasons:

- star systems do not equal cities (and say 10 max fighters per star system seems not very realistic)
- fighters can damage ships, but rarely take them out (for instance 1-2 Titans with accompanying Destroyers - even without additional promotions - have a pretty good interception chance against fighters).

* The same (as has been mentioned) goes for missiles: base system value should be (and is, AFAIK) zero until either a starbase or a Missile Base is built (because either can build missiles).

I decided not to include the fighter limit for now because I am not sure how to balance it. You can change it later if you want.

I think I did leave the fighter garrison at +10 aircraft but that won't make any difference unless a default limit is put in. :mischief:


What about a new logo for the main screen since this is no longer Final Frontier?
My wife is working on a college degree in Illustration right now and she said she would be willing to design a new logo. It might take a few months to finish though. I also have no idea how to add animations and such. It would just be a basic image.

If you guys have any ideas of what the logo should look like my wife would appreciate the ideas. I was just thinking of having her base the appearance off of the MoO2 logo, like the image in the background here: http://www.angelfire.com/empire/ezixl/moo2.html

That's the original game logo. Ezixl's site is very impressive :P

It is.

I decided not to include the fighter limit for now because I am not sure how to balance it. You can change it later if you want.

I think I did leave the fighter garrison at +10 aircraft but that won't make any difference unless a default limit is put in. :mischief:


What about a new logo for the main screen since this is no longer Final Frontier?
My wife is working on a college degree in Illustration right now and she said she would be willing to design a new logo. It might take a few months to finish though. I also have no idea how to add animations and such. It would just be a basic image.

If you guys have any ideas of what the logo should look like my wife would appreciate the ideas. I was just thinking of having her base the appearance off of the MoO2 logo, like the image in the background here: http://www.angelfire.com/empire/ezixl/moo2.html

Well, there are a host of images here: http://images.google.com/images?hl=nl&q=Master+of+Orion+II&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=JW17S-OFL9Td-Qaiq4zdBQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CC4QsAQwAw&ei=L217S_LnHsmA-gbGztTHBQ&gbv=2, but I just need to convert the one below (without the ugly Antaran leader) to match the MOO2Civ starting screen. (All images are JPGs, which is the wrong format, 's all.)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/title_M5G.gif

As for fighter/bomber range, I was thinking of 4/6 squares limit (about the size of the largest star systems).

I've got the MoO2 wallpaper, if that helps. It's basically that screen, with the MoO2 logo on it.

Thanks, but it needs to be in the right format.

BTW, this

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mi4v_NfA9LE&hl=nl_NL&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mi4v_NfA9LE&hl=nl_NL&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

would be great as an intro movie (with proper mention of credits, ofcourse), but for now even a static screen would be nice. (If I have time, I'll look into including it with v. 5.0.)

As for fighter/bomber range, I was thinking of 4/6 squares limit (about the size of the largest star systems).
I can make that change. I was trying to remember where you talked about this so I could include it in the last update...
I think limiting their range will be much better than limiting their numbers to improve the balance.

Currently the fighter_I range = 5 squares, Fighter_II = 6 and Fighter_III = 7. Bombers go from 6 to 8 in range.

How about this change:
Fighters = 3 to 5 range
bombers = 4 to 6 range

Or maybe this idea works better:
fighter I & II = 3, heavy fighter = 4
bomber I & II = 4, heavy bomber = 5

EDIT: When I play with very dense star systems the AI loves to use bombers to attack my stars, it does get annoying. :)

Indeed. They're supposed to put them on Carrier ships first for that, so I'd go with this:

fighter I & II = 3, heavy fighter = 4
bomber I & II = 4, heavy bomber = 5.

On that note, missiles are currently similarly 'overranged'; they should IMHO have similar ranges. (Or perhaps the bomber equivalent +1?)

One potential problem with limiting fighter range is that from what I've heard the AI in Final Frontier (and this) don't load fighters into carriers.

Possibly because the Carrier class (Titans) are already quite powerful as is? (So they don't really need additional fighters/bombers - plus they can get an interception promotion, if I remember correctly.)

One potential problem with limiting fighter range is that from what I've heard the AI in Final Frontier (and this) don't load fighters into carriers.I actually never remember seeing the AI use carriers in any version of Civ4. Maybe it's just an AI weakness?

I just checked and bombers, fighters, and missiles don't have UNITAI_CITY_ATTACK. That is the AI the computer uses for units that are designed to attack cities.

Maybe if I added that it would make the AI use them more. I'm not sure though because that AI might only work for ground units. I will test it.

Good.

Another matter: I want to include s3 more actual MoO leaderheads in v. 5.0, but can't seem to find an idiot-proof DDS converter (I've got JPEGs, but that's not the right format for Civ4).

Any suggestion would be welcome. (I've tried DDS Converter and Image Converter, but can't seem to get them to convert to DDS...)

As concerns this:

What about a new logo for the main screen since this is no longer Final Frontier?
My wife is working on a college degree in Illustration right now and she said she would be willing to design a new logo. It might take a few months to finish though. I also have no idea how to add animations and such. It would just be a basic image.

If you guys have any ideas of what the logo should look like my wife would appreciate the ideas. I was just thinking of having her base the appearance off of the MoO2 logo, like the image in the background here: http://www.angelfire.com/empire/ezixl/moo2.html

The same site has a rather good MoO II wallpaper:

http://www.angelfire.com/empire/ezixl/images/Orionii.jpg (It's better than the Civ2 MOOjr one IMO.)

Wait, so are you interested in her creating a title page then? I thought you guys were saying you had already taken care of that. Did I misunderstand? I'll can give her the backgrounds you suggested and let her design the text and logo for MoO2Civ to put on it.

If you do actually want her to give the new main menu a shot I have two questions:
-What size does the image need to be? The origional FF menu is 1024x1024 but only the top 3/4ish is image.
-Does it need to be a specific type of DDS? When I click save as it says DXT1, Cluster Fit compressor, Perceptual Error Metric, and no Mip Maps (In Paint.NET). I'm not sure if these are default save as settings or current image settings.

Also you had a link to these files for a possible background (I vote for the first one):
http://www.angelfire.com/empire/ezixl/images/Orionii.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/title_M5G.gif

Another suggestion by tuxu:

nearly forgot!!!

is it possible to move the main menu's text lines(Singleplayer;Multiplayer...), say, to the center-right side of the screen? if its possible I might have a cool Idea :D

Imagine this animated :3
http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr241/tuxutuxu/th_moo2start1.png (http://s488.photobucket.com/albums/rr241/tuxutuxu/?action=view&current=moo2start1.png)

also;
here is a link about moo2 science:
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II/Engineering


Wait, so are you interested in her creating a title page then? I thought you guys were saying you had already taken care of that. Did I misunderstand? I'll can give her the backgrounds you suggested and let her design the text and logo for MoO2Civ to put on it.

If you do actually want her to give the new main menu a shot I have two questions:
-What size does the image need to be? The origional FF menu is 1024x1024 but only the top 3/4ish is image.
-Does it need to be a specific type of DDS? When I click save as it says DXT1, Cluster Fit compressor, Perceptual Error Metric, and no Mip Maps (In Paint.NET). I'm not sure if these are default save as settings or current image settings.

Also you had a link to these files for a possible background (I vote for the first one):
http://www.angelfire.com/empire/ezixl/images/Orionii.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/title_M5G.gif

Sorry for misunderstanding: I had an idea for a title screen (non-animated), but it's not done yet (got stuck on my TO DO list...). I suggested the wallpaper, 'cause I think it looks better. (tuxu's suggestion above is similar, but has the MOO II lettering/title and would need additional editing.) If your female volunteer would like to do it, that would be great. AFAIK Civ uses DDS for imaging (I don't think it's further specified). As for size fitting I can't really comment other than that she'd have to try how it looks in game before finalizing anything.

PS I notice the angelfire links posted now lead to no page; let me now if the image needs to be reposted or if you already have it.

Alright, we'll give it a shot on a new background and see what we can do. It might not be until this semester of school gets out in April that she can look at it.

And yes, the link was broken when I clicked it so I just copied the text and figured out where the image was.

Hi, Big MOO2 fan, Top 10 poster on the Lord Brazen blogspot.
http://www.spheriumnorth.com/orion-forum/nfphpbb/

One thought I had about the "Roads" in Civ 4.
Is there a way to make roads on every tile, make them invisible, and not destructable, then make them only usable by Trilarian races.
This would simulate the Transdimential race pick that Trilarians have inheriently.

Also, how are you dealing with max pop per city?
Sakkra, Trilarian, and Silicoid should have higher max pop per city, especially Sakkra.

Sakkra have +100% pop growth, and Silicoids have -50% pop growth, how is that being intigrated?

Elerians are Feudal, Klackons are Uncreative, Sakkra are Feudal. These races need to research slower than the others to keep game balance.

Also, I read the stealth discussion. In Civ 4, Spys are invisible. They just can't fight. There should be some way to make Darlock ships be treated as spys, until they wish to attack.

I haven't seen a Leader Trait list posted yet, nor, UU, or UBs.
I have a suggested list I could post.

One thought I had about the "Roads" in Civ 4.
Is there a way to make roads on every tile, make them invisible, and not destructable, then make them only usable by Trilarian races.
This would simulate the Transdimential race pick that Trilarians have inheriently.

I don't think you could do it that way- but you could definitely make one race get bonus movement points on all Space tiles, with a new XML tag and some work in the DLL.

Sorry for the late response... :(

Also, how are you dealing with max pop per city?
Sakkra, Trilarian, and Silicoid should have higher max pop per city, especially Sakkra.

Sakkra have +100% pop growth, and Silicoids have -50% pop growth, how is that being intigrated?

Elerians are Feudal, Klackons are Uncreative, Sakkra are Feudal. These races need to research slower than the others to keep game balance.

Also, I read the stealth discussion. In Civ 4, Spys are invisible. They just can't fight. There should be some way to make Darlock ships be treated as spys, until they wish to attack.

I haven't seen a Leader Trait list posted yet, nor, UU, or UBs.
I have a suggested list I could post.

Race/leader traits are currently being revised and an alternate Darlok stealth ship concept being worked out. The same applies to civics. (For the latest version, check out MOO2Civ 5.0: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=14464.)

A list suggestion for leader traits, UUs and UBs is very welcome - though people have suggested that there should be no UUs or UBs, since there aren't any in MOO.

And nice to see a top 10 Lord Brazen poster visit the MOO2Civ subforum. ;)