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Maniac said:

AFAIK the AI never took into account in the first place spies can get lost in enemy territory. I have added some code which should hopefully prevent them moving into areas where they can be seen now. If they're seen, they should indeed be killable by any military unit.

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Mmm. One or two probes on the home continent could do a sweep every turn to check for hostile probes. Perhaps only allow probes to attack probes?
In any case, if an incursion probe is that easily spotted, it is unlikely it can stay undetected for the 5 turns necessary to minimize its ESP-spendure when performing a mission.

GeoModder said:

Mmm. One or two probes on the home continent could do a sweep every turn to check for hostile probes.

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That means one or two probes you can't use for reconnaissance and offensive espionage. That could be significant considering the new probe team limit.

Perhaps only allow probes to attack probes?

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Don't know how to code that.

In any case, if an incursion probe is that easily spotted, it is unlikely it can stay undetected for the 5 turns necessary to minimize its ESP-spendure when performing a mission.

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I plan to revisit espionage mission costs at some point. One of things will be to remove that waiting period.

Patch 13c for Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS, has been released. This patch needs to be applied on top of the main v13 file of Planetfall. This is a fix patch for code mistakes for features introduced in the previous patch. The patch doesn't break savegames, but unfortunately it won't fix the mentioned bugs in games already in progress.



Changelog:

1. Buildings graphics update by GeoModder.
2. Datalinks text by Pickly.
3. The Hive can hurry Genejack Factories with population.
4. Fixed a bug introduced in the previous patch: the Planetary Council once again works properly.
5. Fixed a bug introduced in the previous patch: Spies are no longer visible to everyone.
6. Fixed a bug introduced in the previous patch: the AI will once again build terrain improvements that provide negative Planet.

I'm guessing that's supposed to be patch c? There's already been a patch b.

Maniac said:

That means one or two probes you can't use for reconnaissance and offensive espionage. That could be significant considering the new probe team limit.

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I think GeoModder has a point with that - though I see the problem not so much with using Probe Teams everywhere (because of the 1000 ESP rule), but with the hassle to have to do manual recon sweeps with the few you assign to that duty every turn to maximize the use of defensive Probes.

A countermeasure could be a thing similar to the blockade mode - you have to activate that mode as long as the Probe Team has (full?) movement left and
a spy can only make visible another spy in that mode - in the next interturn. That way it would be unattractive to constantly move defensive Probe Teams around.

GeoModder said:

Perhaps only allow probes to attack probes?

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Maniac said:

Don't know how to code that.

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Too bad. That would be IMHO probably the key to finding a better, more complete solution. For example introducing a 3rd kind of combat in PF. Probe Teams would have a their own strength value in that discipline, their own promotion lines and would gain experience for completing espionage missions or neutralizing foreign Probes.
That solution would make visibility issues much less of problem - combat units cannot attack them anyway (justification for realism: a military unit is just not capable to find a few high-tech equipped spies hiding in the area a tile in Civ represents) and detecting and attacking would not automatically mean elimination.

I'd like to give units a higher visibility range when fortified. That should make constant moving around unattractive.

Patch 13d for Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS, has been released. This patch needs to be applied on top of the main v13 file of Planetfall. This is a fix patch for code mistakes in features introduced in the previous two patches. Patch d doesn't break games started under patch c. Patch c and d do cause crashes in games started under patch b.



Changelog:

1. Free Drone cityset by Lord Tirian.
2. Espionage screen and spies fixed.
3. The Planetary Datalinks now require Cybernetics.

Nice cities there. Interesting change on Datalinks.

Patch 13e for Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS, has been released. This patch needs to be applied on top of the main v13 file of Planetfall. Patch e is incompatible with games started under previous patches.



Changelog:

1. Fixed Mount Planet and Condenser graphics by Lord Tirian.
2. Updated building and cityset graphics by GeoModder.
3. Datalinks text by Pickly.
4. The Armor unit has been renamed to Siege Tank.
5. Bugfix: fungus will no longer bloom under Bunkers.
6. Bugfix: Yang can only rush Genejack Factories with population now.
7. Bugfix: factions can be invited to the Planetary Council.

Patch e already?
Do I have to update them in sequence or do I just stick E on top of the clear base 13?

You can stick E on 13.

PPQ_Purple said:

Patch e already?
Do I have to update them in sequence or do I just stick E on top of the clear base 13?

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The latest patch always includes all the previous patches from the current version.

Maniac, you're really a maniac. Every few months I come back and see new great updates. It feels awesome. I play it again, remembering what I forgot and trying new features. It's like a neverending game .

I had such joy with FFH2 eariler, but it stopped being developed now, so you're my only hope .

Maniac said:

Q: Will Planetfall include Blind Research?

A: Personally I feel picking your tech strategy is one of the biggest decisions you make in a civ game. I therefore do not see the attraction in Blind Research at all, and do not wish to spend any time on coding that myself. If someone else would code a Blind Research system, I would of course add it to Planetfall.

Barring that, you could just follow the recommendations you are given when you need to pick a new tech: there are always two techs recommended.

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Stumbled over this, just in case someone interested would like to take up the ball:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=292746

That mod has totally random research, but maybe it could serve as base. Someone in the thread already requested a choice ala SMAC. The creator of the mod didn't include this because of the more difficult coding, but at least for the AI the choice is influenced by flavors.

Pretty good, but there are a lot of native units that terrorize me lol

Yeah, how does it feel to be chased down instead of your units chasing around barbs?

not good, there seem to be A LOT of them, and there aren't any units powerful enough to consistently beat them. I was losing when I had a solid 80% chance of winning

Brownsfan02 said:

not good, there seem to be A LOT of them, and there aren't any units powerful enough to consistently beat them. I was losing when I had a solid 80% chance of winning

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80% still leaves 1 out of 5 cases to lose. How did you encounter the massses of NL? Where they just wandering around or are plagued by fungal blooms? The best strategy vs. the latter is to avoid them happening. Clean out fungus before becoming a heavy terraformer. If you are already able to build bunkers, do it frequently and bombard them before striking with your mobile units. And be sure to try the green approach in one game - then you can tame those nasty natives

The fungal blooms would pop up in my the person next me's lands but then they would attack me and not them.