What is the biggest problem in Final Frontier

What is the Biggest problem with Final Frontier

  • Not Enough Resources

    Votes: 77 22.0%
  • Not Enough Wonders

    Votes: 94 26.9%
  • Tech Tree is too Short

    Votes: 112 32.0%
  • No UU's and UB's

    Votes: 76 21.7%
  • Not Enough Buildings

    Votes: 36 10.3%
  • Slow Movement System

    Votes: 92 26.3%
  • Pirates

    Votes: 45 12.9%
  • Not Enough Units

    Votes: 56 16.0%
  • Problems With Diplomacy

    Votes: 35 10.0%
  • Not Enough Improvments

    Votes: 61 17.4%
  • Bad AI/Bad Auto-Explore

    Votes: 90 25.7%
  • All Of The Above

    Votes: 63 18.0%
  • Other (Name it and Describe it)

    Votes: 42 12.0%
  • None Of The Above

    Votes: 12 3.4%

  • Total voters
    350
I don't like how you can get multiple Civ's of the same civ which can be really confusing. The game needs more leaders with different traits.

Plus, I'm still waiting for the Civ IV Alpha Centauri mod to come out. Why couldn't the loot some of the Civs from that?
 
One thing I always like about Babylon 5 is they had hypersapce that ships can use if they have the jump engines for it, but it would be cheaper for most commerce to have sub-light ships using Jump Gates. So if you captured a system that has a jump gate, you'd definitely get a economic boost. Expensive to build, but cheaper than every Tom Dick and Larry having to have their freighters equipped with jump engines.
 
I said all of the above... The main problem I thing is the vastness of space itself... It is soooooo incredibly barren. I think the scale should be on the planetary level instead of solar level for one.
 
Space is supposed to be big. After all, it is just a huge battlefield. The upgraded transportation system I talked about along with better movement values for units would help bridge the space. If your talking about a lack of features, well it kind of is supposed to be like that, but if you need features, add abandoned space stations and star bases that produce culture.

P.S. Has anyone given the mod ideas i presented earlier any thought?
 
I put down wonders and tech tree as problems, but both I think are more a matter of scope (and development time) rather than true game play problems. I mean, it would be more fun to have more scifi options to play with and wonder races to compete in.

The AI, though, is a problem. First issue is exploration -- units will happily move into hostile/lethal terrain if exploring. I'd guess this is due to looking many moves ahead and not testing for moves which leave units in lethal terrain. OTOH, fast units can safely traverse black holes, so part of the problem isn't lethality, but movement speed. A unit with two moves, which finds itself in a bad square, could move one more space to safety. This presumes that the movement routines can cope with newly spotted hazard terrain.

The second is the AI inability to use squadrons and missiles on carriers, starbases, and cruisers. This cripples its combat capability compared to a human. The game's AI can't cope with land units (which is what FF spacecraft are) operating as carriers, at least for now.

A last issue is stealth ships. The AI can use them, but does so rarely, and has no defensive strategy against them. A simple solution would be to deny them pillaging -- they'd still be a hazard, but wouldn't be able to go about destroying infrastructure so easily. If they AI did use them, as a human can in a multiplayer game, intelligent scouting defenders would limit them, but they'd still be a pain to cope with.


Another issue is balance. First, between the factions. Different but equal is a tricky goal to achieve. Having more factions wouldn't totally eliminate this, but would offer more combinations of allies to perhaps weaken strong factions.



Second, the combat balance and price to performance values of the units isn't ideal. The delta upgrade is generally worth the double price of the unit, but the omega upgrades tend to be expensive. They are too expensive for the top three units -- omega cruisers, battleships, and carriers are simply not worth the price. And given that you must spend a lot of research to get them, that is a serious game balance issue. A smart player can simply build two delta units and get more bang for the buck. The omega squadrons and light ships are fairly decent in balance -- 6 for delta vs 9 for omega (and generally a point of speed/range).

If delta to omega is a 50% increase, then the omega battleship should be 36 x 1.5, or 54, at least. But given that it is the ultimate brute force weapon, and is extremely expensive, an even greater advantage is justifiable. As it is, you are usually better off using two delta battleships. It needs something more to be worth the cost (plus research) of two of those.

Carriers are the worst off. The delta carrier is just slightly better as a squadron platform than the basic model, with a gain of speed which is nice but not essential. The omega doesn't offer a speed edge over the delta, nor does it give twice the squadron firepower. Overall, you are better off with four basic alpha carriers than either two delta or one omega. Twice the squadrons of an omega, and able to be in four times the places. The cargo promotion only amplifies this edge, as your early build carriers can fill all your needs.

As galactic domination is the ultimate and very expensive military tech, it is a shame that the unit you get isn't worth getting.

Cruisers are relatively weak units, compared to destroyers which tend to do the same basic job. You need few of them to deliver missiles, because you'll only have so many missiles to play with. Their basic combat power isn't hot enough to justify their cost. Their position in the tech tree is fairly close to the destroyer advances. A delta destroyer is generally more useful than an alpha cruiser, and likewise for omega vs delta cruiser. The Omega cruiser is nice in combat power compared to the delta cruiser (unlike the omega battleship), but its missile carrying power isn't that special.

All in all, it makes the top three military techs of dubious utility. You should be able to win a military campaign without them, and beat up someone who does go after them.


I've been testing mods to change the combat values. I'm not quite done yet. My current thought is like this:

#1: omega to delta combat ratios are generally 1.5:1, with other bonuses factored in.
#2: omega should be one movement more than delta. This is the case with some units now, but not all.
#3: cruisers should be half battleship strength. That's enough to blast destroyers and lesser ships of one generation higher, and helps justify their cost without missiles. Missile capacity should be 50% higher per generation, roughly, though higher combat power could reduce that for balance.
#4: carriers aren't cool enough (or useful enough) if all they effectively gain is squadron capacity. Rather, let them evolve into hybrid direct combat ships. delta is like a destroyer/cruiser combo, omega like a delta battleship/destroyer combo (or battlestar). Coupled with speed gains (move 3 for omega), this gives them a strong place on the end game battlefield, and a strong reason to get and use them. A 4x squadron capacity (12!) doesn't mean much if you can't field that many squadrons, and can't let your carrier actually engage in close combat.
#5: I'd like to give at least the omega battleship a starbase-type ranged attack. If I don't do that, i think that a move-2, strength 60 unit, while fair for balance, will still be overwhelmed by squadron defenses. Giving it more raw combat power or speed would also work, but not be quite as good at representing the "death star" idea of slow but lethal.
#5a: If I can give the omega battleship a ranged attack, I'd boost the cruiser speeds to 2 (delta) and 3 (omega). Omega cruiser should require alloy, just like omega destroyers, which would slow the tech tree on the military side.

A side note on speed: The mobility promotion reduces the need for speed upgrades, as your move-1 units will move 2. I try to give that to my battleships, so that I'll have a fleet which can move at 2. Even if I get speed 3 capability later, it is difficult and expensive to make the entire fleet move that fast. Because of that, move 3 isn't as impressive as it could be. You need to use only fast units in a fleet to take full advantage, and that means the latest and most expensive. Otherwise, they are limited in effect to a move of 2. The AI doesn't seem to use the movement promotion much, but it really helps battleships.
 
I have an idea regarding promotions and alpha-delta-omega upgrades. It is an upgrade system. You would be able to purchase weapons, engines, shields and other improvements without expirience (Expirience promotions would still be present but would be harder to get and have more of an impact). With this system, you would be able to upgrade an alpha-class ship to the equivilent of a delta-class by picking "delta" weapons, shields, and other ship components. Or you could choose a variety of different components and "make" your own custom class that is tailor-made to suit your needs. The different choices of components would also include upgrades that would allow ships new abilities, like a ranged attack.
 
@Arkham4269
Have you tried the B5 mod we are working on, it still needs a lot more work but we are slowly getting there. We need ship models more than anything else just so it looks the part but if you can ignore the current model problem it is a playable mod for the most part. We need lots more feedback to make sure we have everything working the way it should.
 
@Arkham4269
Have you tried the B5 mod we are working on, it still needs a lot more work but we are slowly getting there. We need ship models more than anything else just so it looks the part but if you can ignore the current model problem it is a playable mod for the most part. We need lots more feedback to make sure we have everything working the way it should.

I have, but haven't gotten too much into it as I figured the new BtS patch would break save games.

As for help, I wish I could but alas alack, the last programming language I used was BASIC (yes, I'm showing my age) - Feedback, however, I can do!
Some quick thoughts since I could easily write a novel (17 years as a military intel analyst will do that to a guy - these also aply to the basic game as well as the Star Trek version of this basic mod)

1. Not enough to do! To me it feels that once you get all the available systems colonize, the game 'degenerates' into combat. Not as much diplomacy, culture wars or trading.
2. Better 'monsters' - Pirates are easy, but they get boring. How about some Beserkers (Saberhagen or the planet killer from 'the Doomsday Machine' episode. Space dragons or what ever. I'm sure Sci-Fi has enough to work with. With B-5, renegade Shadows could be used.
3. More Random events. This also includes the 'goody huts' in that better B-5 flavor (something like: A wandering band of Techno Mages upgrade you sensors to X)
4. What's up with the planets? Some mods have you able to colonize all the planets/moons in a system, some don't. It's confusing.
5. My standard complaint: BETTER DIPLOMACY! Why is it that the AI can threaten (I get tired of Catherine slapping me) but for the most part the human can't. Plus, why oh why hasn't Civ picked up the best Diplomacy option from Alpha Centuari? I hate it if I'm at war with X with my ally Y and I'm beating on X and they cry "Uncle!" and want peace. However, in Civ you don't have the option of saying, "Okay, I'll sign that peace treaty on the condition you also have peace with Y or else it's game on!" Without this, X will now get a break from you and could run over your ally, which you don't want.

Anyway, I think the space mods suffer from lack of Corporations/guilds and the like. Of course I'm biased as I'm generally playing Fall from Heaven and get used to things like the Guild of Hammers or the Cult of the Dragon.
 
@DeaneJ,
I haven't had a chance to look at your Star Trek variation on FF as (last i read) you hadn't got it compatable with 3.17. What i can do though, with your permission, is have a look at what you've done with the events and see if i can port them over to the B5 mod and either B5 theme the events or add to them. Are your events purely xml or do they also involve python changes?
 
Final Frontier breaks some stuff for corporations and random events (more for corporations; events work fine as long as you don't add a unit via python).

When I first got BtS and looked at the FF code, I notice that corporation code was left out of the mod. Maybe they wrote FF before corps were added to the expansion.
 
@PsiCorps: I got it working with 3.17 - the problem was a change in CvAdvisorUtils. It's virtually impossible to do events without python. I would look at the stuff from beta 2 - of the ones I got in after that point, 1 was similar to the first event, and the rest of the working ones were adapted from the epic game. I since removed them in beta 3, so I don't have the code itself for the later ones (XML only - the later python ones broke).

It indeed looks like corporations were not implemented at the time. They are not in the theme at all (search for "Three Interface Questions" or something like that. It covers the theme part, though it will have to be added back to CvMainInterface). Also, stuff like +1 (yield) per consumed resource does not work at all.
 
It would be nice if planets and stars could be added through the world builder. My game had a gigantic nebula taking up the center of the map, so I thought I would break it up and add a couple of systems, only to find that it can't be done.
 
You need to make a worldbuilder save and reload. Your systems will then have planets. I can also be done via the python console, check this site for the tutorial.


I can't load a world builder save. It either crashes or hangs up.

The python looks complicated, and I haven't found a step-by-step tutorial for editing systems in this mod for someone who knows nothing about python. It would be so much easier to use the world builder.
 
it s just boring it s an amasing mod but the fact that you only see some stars and void gets boring.i like to see landscapes and terrain like civ.
thabks.
 
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