MOO2Civ

Been too busy lately to do much work on this, but I'll make a little Status Report late Sunday/early Monday.
 
Sorry for delays. Running behind on schedule, partly because my girlfriend hasn't been well all week, leaving little time to mod. Hope to get something done tomorrow, though.
 
I just installed and played MOO2CIV for the first time. I have very little experience with Final Frontier, but I found that after an uneventful 100 turns or so, I was able to win an easy victory on Noble by building 5 of the Human Ascension buildings as soon as I could. 3 turns after I researched the tech, I won. Was I just not supposed to be able to maintain that strong an empire + that much research for so long, or is this victory condition coming way too early? I got an Augustus Caesar rank and I never even fought a war.
 
Can't say I'm surprised. I've said it before: to emulate more of a MOO2 feel, play a Custom Game: Human Ascendancy should definitely be turned off, as well as Vassal States, Aggressive AI on. (If you fancy a challenge turn on Raging Barbarians: a sure way to prevent an uneventful game! See also post #113.);)
 
Had a really weird experience in a testgame: I built a Starbase within range of a resource and just out of range of a Star. I then sent another Construction Ship to the resource, started building an Extraction Facility and colonized the Star System after. Next thing the Starbase had no borders, leaving the Construction Ship out of my space, with no alternative but to build another Starbase plus another Construction Ship to rebuild the Extraction Facility after that. (Don't know if it's endemic to Final Frontier or MOO2Civ...):confused:

PS: I'll post a Status Report tomorrow. (No, really, I will! Honest!)
 
PS: I'll post a Status Report tomorrow. (No, really, I will! Honest!)

Hmmm............ tomorrow never comes...............and today is but a fleeting moment.

JosEPh ;)
 
Day isn't over yet... Anyway, I always keep promises I make* - although lately I've had very little time to do any work on this mod.:(

* But not always on time...
 
Here's an updated Status Report (well overdue):

Current Issues

- no UUs or UBs as of yet (as a representation of racial ability or the appearance of Ship's Captains/Adminstrators only; for instance, Stealth Ship/Cloaking Device might function as part of the Darlok ability and certain UUs/UBs might be used to reflect Leaders found in space. Please note that I'm fully aware, as has been mentioned, there are no UUs/UBs in MOO2.)

- Traits missing or not yet implemented for some of the Leaders (some additional LHs are available thanks to Deon)*; haven't looked into this in detail, but the Traits should at any rate at least partially reflect racial abilities

- MOO2-style units (mod currently uses standard Final Frontier models all around); since I cannot do any modelling these depend on what artists deliver (so far 3 models by woodelf are awaiting implementation;* more models are very welcome!)

- text editing; there is quite a lot of text (XML) editing to do (for instance all advances need text implementation, as they are currently Final Frontier copies); haven't had time yet to figure out how to do this.

Also, I haven't yet figured out how to include first contact Diplo texts for all available leaders.*

- finally, there aren't any Events implemented yet.

Once again, I repeat, any suggestions and/or help are most welcome!

* These will, at least partially, be available in Patch4 when I've found the time to complete work on it.

EDIT: I also have plans for a Beta scenario (Beta because of abovementioned issues), with Orion and Antares included.

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On the Starbase without borders issue: turned out borders reappeared on the next turn!:crazyeye:
 
hey jellen,

ive dl the mod,

really like youve merged all of moo2 leaders...man..talk bout nostalgya....


well,
id suggest , about the cloak, you can use deanej cloaking code, seems really easy to merge.

as for unit moddeling,
if i were you, id add as much space units as i can,
as you read, i planned a mod of my own, so ive dl every space unit i could find,
well now i got aroind 40 models - most from star wars, along with the ff models and size changing, i can have over 60 models, and thats more then enough to have fun :)

so,
i suggest you start with the basics, build a tech tree, add units and uus, then move on to buildings and on,

you can have a really cool mod,
if you need some help with some stuff ill do my best to help.
 
Glad to see you've found your way here!;)

About deanej's Cloaking code: it's not in Star Trek yet, so how do you know? (But I'll ask him about it.)

Also, about the mod: it's actually NCCSavage's (but he seems to have gone missing). So far there have been contributions by OrionVeteran (text), Deon (LHs & texts) and woodelf (models).

Problem is the implementation (I'm more of a scenario guy than a modder and I've been quite occupied these last few weeks; but I expect to have more time this week).

The tech tree and buildings are pretty much done, actually (but not the Civpedia entries).

I'd like to tell more, but I just posted a Status Report and it's getting close to my bedtime...:sleep:
 
hey jellen,

i saw that in his new beta - he included the cloaking sdks, havent tested it , but the code is there.


say id decide to assist you,
what would you have me do?

as you know im interested in modding ff, and im in dilema which mod to wirk on, star trek, b5, or yours....
 
Well, I could use some assistance in including woodelf's current 3 models in the game. (I can upload/send them to you - although they're already in the Units DLs section.) I've be focusing so far on including Deon's LHs, which seems somewhat less complicated, considering I'm a modding noob.;)

PS: B5 has got at least 2 dedicated members and deanej seems to know very well what he's doing from what I've seen so far.
 
Did a little research (dusting off the old MOO2 disc, but mostly checking the Manual) and I'll be including the intro text (as found in the Manual, since there isn't really one in-game) in the next patch.
 
I've added 2 of Deon's LHs and will be adding first contact Diplomacy text for all civs; if Keldath is on schedule Patch4 may be up some time this weekend.

Once again previously released patches will be included and installation will be simpler (no more manual installing of single files!)

Short term issues:

- so far unable to add 3 more of Deon's LHs, which keep appearing as purple rectangles or seem to present a wrong pic (Sauron);

- still to do remain the Civpedia texts (Advances are simply listed as TECH_O, TECH_1, TECH_3, etc, making identification a tricky business), meaning these will have to wait till a later patch.
 
I had been thinking about how to make a MoO mod for Civ4 from before I had the game. I wasn't going to bother posting any of my ideas after I would out someone already made one but now that I know it wasn't finished and it's a second hand project now I don't have to worry about interfering with anyones artistic vision.
One serious complaint I had with Final Frontier and also Sid Meiers: Alpha Centari from years ago was the way armour affected combat. In SMAC when you attack it used you weapon value and defending it used your armour value. Now that doesn't make sense because you're both shooting and using your weapons and you both need protection but that's not how it works. Unlike in MoO the only difference between attacking and defending in a Civ game is which unit is moving toward the other and that shouldn't mean that your armour stops working. Which unit is moving only really matters when the terrain is a factor, and in empty space there is no terrain. So in the civ combat system defencive equipment really should effect offence the same. That would be boring though if every promotion just added a percentage bonus to all combat then there would be no difference between taking a weapon promotion or a shield or armour promotion. So I'd have to think in terms of what different effect a weapon or system would have when the unit is advancing vs. when it's stationary.
To get the customization of your ships feel of MOO. I'd have most equipment and weapons be promotions for units. The unit themselves I was thinking would be available with a new engine technology combined with either a new armour type. A new power source and stronger hull material seems like good prerequisites for a new ship model. It's probably best to still have carriers, missile ships, and transports rather than promotions that give them those abilities. I even thought about having different units for short range weapon ships and long range weapons but that was an unnecessary distinction.
In order to have the different weapons have different effects I was going to use the weapon types from MoO3. The four types of direct fire weapons were from longest range to most damage: beam, particle, mass and plasma.

Beams (Laser, Phaser, Stellar converter)
They have to best range so it makes sense for them to have first strike. They'd also get a bonus to defence. My reasoning is that with better range you could move away from an attacker to stay out of their range but within yours. The stellar converter would have to be special in some way though. I was playing MoO from the first game where it wasn't a planet buster, just a weapon with incredibly long range so I don't care if it's not the ultimate weapon. I'd give it that ranged attack ability that starbases have plus city bombardment and an attack bonus against cities. I looked in some of the xml files but I can't find where it says that starbases can do ranged attacks in the units file so I don't know how that gets turned on and off, and the promotions file doesn't have reference to it so that might not be possible as it is.

Particle (Neutron, Ion Pulse, Graviton)
There are two problem with this class of weapons. One is that all three are very close in the tech tree so there's no real progression from one to another like there are with beams for instance. That could be fixed changing the cost so they're farther apart. The other problem is that in MOO3 the particle weapons distinctive feature was some shield piercing ability. I don't think you can make a promotion that makes another promotion not work. In Fall from Heaven you can have a promotion like dragon slayer which only activates against something with the dragon race promotion which could be used in this context against shield promotions. That likely required a special change to the script and who knows how difficult that is. Another way to simulate a weapon that weakens an enemy would be to instead of having the weapon add a percentage increase to power, have it subtract from the enemy. Again, that would require script changes. In MOO1 particle (or streaming weapons as they were called) destroyed a ship and there was overkill damage the remaining damage of that shot was passed on to another target. Maybe the flanking attack mechanic of cavalry could be used so it's like the particle beam shoots through a destroyed battleship and hits a carrier, missile ship, or transport. The flank attack hits all units of that type though and that wouldn't make sense unless they were in a straight line behind each other, so unless that can be limited to one unit it wouldn't work. I'd they'd give first strike chances for the range element.

Mass (Mass Driver, Gauss Cannon, Disrupter)
The Disrupter makes more sense as a beam and in MoO3 it was, but it operates like a mass weapon and it fits the the pattern of three of each weapon type so I'll leave it here. They're special effect is that they always to maximum damage without range or a random factor lowering damage but that doesn't translate into Civ any way I can see. In MoO3 they have to lowest accuracy so it could give a bonus verses bigger ships. Other than giving them high strength and first strikes between what plasma and particle has I'm lost at the moment on what else to do with them.

Plasma (Fusion cannon, Plasma cannon, Mauler Device)
These were the shortest range weapons and the most damaging so I'd make them high strength like Mass weapons but more focused on attack. In MoO3 the had the highest accuracy and it said because they have a large area of effect. Translated into Civ area of effect would mean collateral damage.

Shields I thought would be difficult. I've already gone over why defencing systems having no effect when you attack didn't work for me, but I though about it and in this case it might! You might remember in MoO2 if you didn't move a ship it recharged it shields faster. So the ship that is charging in to attack would have weaker shields. So while it should increase strength overall, it should also have a defence bonus. I'd also give each shield a first strike chance, the reasoning being that superior shields gives you the chance to do damage without taking any and that's exactly what first strikes do. Remember how shields didn't work in nebula in MOO? Well having all enhancements from shields have a disadvantage in nebula that cancels them out. Except for first strikes because I don't think you can remove them do that. Hard shields would add some of the nebula strength back along with standard shield enhancements. Shield capacitors increased recharge rate so they should probably even out the offencive abilities of shields.

Armour, again, should still help on offence so it would be a general strength boost, but it would need another effect for it to seem defencive. Reducing collateral damage could work for that.

I was thinking about computers giving first strikes but there may be too many of those already with weapons and shields, but a strength boost would conflict with another idea I had of having generic strength boost from a promotion line called reactor upgrade or something like that. The main purpose would be to have requirements for advanced weapons like the black hole generator so they can't be the first upgrade you get, but maybe computers would serve the same purpose. Can't create an artificial singularity with a Comodore 64 now can you?

Pulsars would increase interception change, defence vs. missiles, and collateral damage. Also I think they should have a strength increase in asteroid fields. My logic being pulsars wouldn't require line of sight to hit so asteroids wouldn't hinger them.

If you steal anything from Fall from Heaven it should be the unit capturing mechanic. People loved that in MOO2. Also it would give something for the particle weapons to do if there is nothing else do make them different. Achilles targeting unit, tractor beam, transporters, troop pods, could all add chance to capture a defeated unit. Then you could let any ship "lightbulb" technology like great people can. They could only lightbulb the tech that is needed to build them so it wouldn't be useful for the player that builds the ship, but if you capture one you can't build you could scrap and reverse engineer it to get new technology. That could also be a way to get Antarian technology.

The Quantum detonators effect could be implemented by using the code for Pyre Zombies from Fall from Heaven, but it's probably not worth the effort.

Time warp facilitator would be the same as the blitz promotion.

Subspace teleporters would work great using the paradrop mechanic. They could also make the ship immune to first strikes, but considering how much I've possibly overstocked first strikes in my design here it might be overpowered with that.

Somewhere in pages back it was discussed whether leader traits or unique units would be better for racial traits. As long as the unrestricted leaders option isn't on it doesn't matter if a racial ability is attached to the leader rather than the civ. I can't remember if the unrestricted leaders option was in Final Frontier. Probably not since the leaders were the only difference between the civs.
The Alkari as supposed to be great pilots which translated into increased defence but I've already ranted about how in civ better defence also makes for good offence. Better pilots could translate into unique units for their fighters and bombers with higher evasion, and maybe also carriers with more cargo space. And/or all their ships could get a special promotion that increases movement and withdraw chance which would also show their piloting skills.
I also like the idea of having actual ground units defend and invade planets like was mentioned somewhere.

I think I've written enough for now
 
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