A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

[Parahacker]

Having played, I see what you mean about the mining colonies. You wish to have them upgrade after a certain number of turns, so that they produce increasing amounts of hammers?

I noticed that you can't just build mining outposts anywhere; they have to sit on a resource, which means they can't 'find' a resource. Is that what you need help with?

- Quantium 40 is a problem. Anything after early-game units uses it, and in my playthrough several AI civs simply did not have any way to get it. In worldbuilder, on 'Universe' size maps, I notice that only about 10 Q40 resources spawn or so, and often in ways that make it inaccessible to one or more civs. This is a problem - Q40 becomes a game determinor. You have it nearby, you win; you don't, too bad.

-Universe-size maps with the 'Very dense' star system setting seem... empty. There was no way that every civ on my map would be able to get 8+ star-system empires going (especially with me expanding like I do). Maybe that's a personal preference issue, but for me bigger is better, and empty space, while 'big', gets boring after a while. On the plus side, that made connecting my planets with construction ships an interesting challenge, since they were so distant (closest system to my home system was about ~20 grid squares away -though some planets were closer to each other I seem to have started fairly isolated. Either way, there was a LOT of empty space). Also on the plus side, lots of empty space is realistic; real space is, for the most part, very empty. On the minus side, it still felt confining. Is there any way to up the # of planets past 'very dense'?

Speaking of connecting roads, I noticed that barbarians don't attack roads. This is a very good thing, but you might have been amused at the efforts (Unnecessary efforts) I took to protect my roads initially - squadrons of ships every 3 squares, scouts, etc.... When I realized that I was paying 30+ credits per turn in military expenses on my road guards for absolutely no reason, I had a real facepalm moment.... ^_^

For that matter, I foresee a game where almost every grid square has a road on it, just because the roads never die, never get destroyed. I didn't test this, but in a war with other civs, do they attack infrastructure? There ought to be some kind of entropic force (past the ever-present, every-other-turn 'fee' for ion storms on roads... Here's a thought: dramatically raise the price (200 credits) but reduce the incidence about 10fold, so that having your worker bees swing back to rebuild the road is a real consideration, but you only have to deal with it every 20 turns or so)

Plague. PLAGUE! Augh! so much plague. I had my systems hit by plague every 3-4 turns; it was very annoying after a while. What's up with that? Is there some way to combat it? Otherwise, it's a turn-off, for sure. Massively damaging - 3 pop? every few turns? And that's if I pay a 50 credit fee, otherwise it's worse....

Needs more variety in events. Plague, barb fleets, ion storms (the most frequent) and an occasional harvest/food boost were about all I saw, and I saw them a LOT. Every now and then a research bonus or malus. That's it. I like events, but there need to be more kinds.

Question: I was playing on a moderately easy setting, so I got the religion techs way before the other civs. Early enough that I don't really know if they got those techs too or not. Either way, I founded the one fish religion (ancestors or such) and no others were founded. Are religions set to only be founded one per civ? If so, does that mean I blocked those religions from ever being founded if I discover those other techs first?

 

[JohnDay]

I tryed this, but the resolut are the same as before.

Every game and with every civilisation start with 5018 points and I´m not able to build something, nore to generate food.
And every turn beginns with:"Error in FinalFrontierGameUtils callback handler cannot construct"

So I tryed a second download of the mod and a new install with no luck. FinalFrontierPlus and other mod like StarTrek work´s fine for me. I really don´t know why this is not working ...?
Maybee I have to wait for Babylon 3.4?

Greetings John

 

[drumheller101]

I tried to download and extract the file from TC01's post on the previous page and it seems to work for me.

I noticed however that I can only play the game with Babylon5 Wormhole map.
If I try to start with just the regular Bab5 map setting the game freezes after it starts to load.

I don't mind though, I'm just glad I can play this great mod again.

 

[Parahacker]

That's very strange, JohnDay. I had no problems running the mod once I had it unzipped and in my mods folder.

Check:
did it unzip properly?
are you clearing your settings (running a 'play now' game first, then creating a custom game - or in extreme cases, loading your most recent mod other than Bab5, start a custom game in it - while unchecking all the options, then exiting and reloading bab5)? Or try loading a completely different mod first, like Fall from Heaven, running a game turn, then loading Bab5 again...

Does Civ4 have admin rights? Is it in a restricted folder? Etcetera.

I have win7, unzipped it and installed in Civ4's mods folder using widow's native unzip utility. Other zip utils (peazip, 7zip) threw a fit when I tried to use them on this file-so it may have something to do with the download. But check the basics first.

 

[Parahacker]

@Drumheller - ironic, Bab5 Wormholes was the only map I tried ^_^

I'm curious now to see if the other mapscripts will work or not on my machine.

 

[Parahacker]

I'm really curious how you'll ultimately have the mining colonies work. Will you be able to assign population to them from star systems (thus FINALLY having something to do with people in overpopulated systems? Though, in Bab5, that's less of a problem - 3(!) population-expansion buildings, 4 if you have moonbases, 5 if you also have a food resource... You can have systems in the 40's of actively working people if you're lucky! Gleeeee! Happy dance!) (It makes things like happiness and food/health management so much more relevant!)

But back to the mining colonies... I have a thought, that may not require massive dll coding but can be managed mostly if not entirely in the xml/python. How about this: mining colonies produce a resource, call it 'work chits' or 'mining contracts'. Each one produces one per 'size' of the colony. I've seen this done before, I think Caveman2Cosmos has something similar with resource camps. Each chit allows you to build 1 'labor transportation' building, which adds 1 non-food population to a planet - and costs you that resource, so it's only available one-for-one - but available as long as you have the resource to any system on your trading network.

Thus, poorer systems can still build more production and gold if they have the food/population to support sending out miners. Thoughts?

Low hanging fruit qualities of this scheme - Final Frontier and Bab5 already have a moonbase, which adds a pop with no food, and depends on a 'moon', AND 'food buildings', which depend on a resource present. So you can copy/paste about half your work there. The other half is creating a tradeable resource, and assigning the buildings/planets to require its presence and COST it to build. Hmm... if you want to make it so those buildings go inactive when the mining contract is no longer available (barbarians break your outpost, for example) that would add another layer of coding work... but I think it's reasonably doable, for someone who knows final frontier better than me...

A different idea is to have your mining outposts 'pop' a 'contract ship' every 15 turns or so; when it gets to a system, you can use it to build a 'miner transport' building. Similar coding efforts for sustaining the building, etcetera; might have some of the same problems as the other idea, like how to get systems to accept more than one building per system, etcetera. Worth considering, though. Each miner transport building could get a production bonus for the number of active mine outposts, or could add a non-food pop to a planet, or something similar - balancing would be tricky...

Then again, I could be completely off base and wildly out of line with the concepts you already have planned. If so, ignore everything. Okay?

But anyway then, if you went with this you'd have to get the AI on board with this, which would be a real challenge... wonder if you can draft help from someone who knows the AI?

The C2C crew is very active - maybe one of those guys would be willing to help if you asked about specific coding questions?

 

[Parahacker]

Really hoping someone can tell me how to manually alter the # of systems in the mapscript - I know how to adjust standard maps, but Final Frontier-ish maps leave me stumped. I may go on a code dive binge if nobody can answer, and those aren't pretty. For my neighbors and my city's sake, spare them a code dive binge!

 

[PsiCorps]

First of all, apologies for the delay in responding to any of the posts recently made.

Having played, I see what you mean about the mining colonies. You wish to have them upgrade after a certain number of turns, so that they produce increasing amounts of hammers?

Correct

I noticed that you can't just build mining outposts anywhere; they have to sit on a resource, which means they can't 'find' a resource. Is that what you need help with?

Partly correct.

- Quantium 40 is a problem. Anything after early-game units uses it, and in my playthrough several AI civs simply did not have any way to get it. In worldbuilder, on 'Universe' size maps, I notice that only about 10 Q40 resources spawn or so, and often in ways that make it inaccessible to one or more civs. This is a problem - Q40 becomes a game determinor. You have it nearby, you win; you don't, too bad.

This is intentional.

-Universe-size maps with the 'Very dense' star system setting seem... empty. There was no way that every civ on my map would be able to get 8+ star-system empires going (especially with me expanding like I do). Maybe that's a personal preference issue, but for me bigger is better, and empty space, while 'big', gets boring after a while. On the plus side, that made connecting my planets with construction ships an interesting challenge, since they were so distant (closest system to my home system was about ~20 grid squares away -though some planets were closer to each other I seem to have started fairly isolated. Either way, there was a LOT of empty space). Also on the plus side, lots of empty space is realistic; real space is, for the most part, very empty. On the minus side, it still felt confining. Is there any way to up the # of planets past 'very dense'?

This isn't as difficult to do as you may think but it is a juggling act.

Speaking of connecting roads, I noticed that barbarians don't attack roads. This is a very good thing, but you might have been amused at the efforts (Unnecessary efforts) I took to protect my roads initially - squadrons of ships every 3 squares, scouts, etc.... When I realized that I was paying 30+ credits per turn in military expenses on my road guards for absolutely no reason, I had a real facepalm moment.... ^_^

You may also have noticed that Raiders don't currently capture star systems. However, Drakh ships, which appear later in the game, WILL lay waste to your star system connections be they trade routes or jump lanes.

For that matter, I foresee a game where almost every grid square has a road on it, just because the roads never die, never get destroyed. I didn't test this, but in a war with other civs, do they attack infrastructure? There ought to be some kind of entropic force (past the ever-present, every-other-turn 'fee' for ion storms on roads... Here's a thought: dramatically raise the price (200 credits) but reduce the incidence about 10fold, so that having your worker bees swing back to rebuild the road is a real consideration, but you only have to deal with it every 20 turns or so)

Not sure I can do anything about the regularity of the events occuring but increasing the cost may work if I set the trigger as civ must have a minimum of x credits to trigger the event. I have noticed the AI doesn't pay to repair it's routes when hit by an ion storm so for them any changes to the trigger would probably just mean more trade route spam for the AI.

Plague. PLAGUE! Augh! so much plague. I had my systems hit by plague every 3-4 turns; it was very annoying after a while. What's up with that? Is there some way to combat it? Otherwise, it's a turn-off, for sure. Massively damaging - 3 pop? every few turns? And that's if I pay a 50 credit fee, otherwise it's worse....

Needs more variety in events. Plague, barb fleets, ion storms (the most frequent) and an occasional harvest/food boost were about all I saw, and I saw them a LOT. Every now and then a research bonus or malus. That's it. I like events, but there need to be more kinds.

Finding events to put into the game that already exist somewhere else and can be modified to fit isn't as easy as you think. Instead of the event being something that affects a city or plot I have to imagine it's affects on a planet sized scale. Once I've got an event that may do what I want it to I then have to amend all the text to give it a B5 flavour and then try and ensure I meet the conditions that trigger the event just to see if it works the way I want it to. If it doesn't then I try and fix it so it does and if I can't fix it, I shelve it and move on to the next event.

Question: I was playing on a moderately easy setting, so I got the religion techs way before the other civs. Early enough that I don't really know if they got those techs too or not. Either way, I founded the one fish religion (ancestors or such) and no others were founded. Are religions set to only be founded one per civ? If so, does that mean I blocked those religions from ever being founded if I discover those other techs first?

I've added the limited religions modcomp which will only allow you the first value you research. There are inquisitors for later in the game so you can switch values should you want to. This was supposed to tie into the Shadows and Vorlons so that if you had the Order value the Shadows would target you and if you had the Chaos Value the Vorlons would target you. This would also affect the 'younger' races so you would get more hostile reactions from a follower of Chaos if you were following Order. Something else that needs to be developed more.

I tryed this, but the resolut are the same as before.

Every game and with every civilisation start with 5018 points and I´m not able to build something, nore to generate food.
And every turn beginns with:"Error in FinalFrontierGameUtils callback handler cannot construct"

So I tryed a second download of the mod and a new install with no luck. FinalFrontierPlus and other mod like StarTrek work´s fine for me. I really don´t know why this is not working ...?
Maybee I have to wait for Babylon 3.4?

Greetings John

I'm sorry you haven't had much luck with this, I really don't know what else to suggest you try.

I tried to download and extract the file from TC01's post on the previous page and it seems to work for me.

I noticed however that I can only play the game with Babylon5 Wormhole map.
If I try to start with just the regular Bab5 map setting the game freezes after it starts to load.

I don't mind though, I'm just glad I can play this great mod again.

Glad you could get the mod working but sorry you couldn't play with any other maps.

I'm really curious how you'll ultimately have the mining colonies work. Will you be able to assign population to them from star systems (thus FINALLY having something to do with people in overpopulated systems? Though, in Bab5, that's less of a problem - 3(!) population-expansion buildings, 4 if you have moonbases, 5 if you also have a food resource... You can have systems in the 40's of actively working people if you're lucky! Gleeeee! Happy dance!) (It makes things like happiness and food/health management so much more relevant!)

But back to the mining colonies... I have a thought, that may not require massive dll coding but can be managed mostly if not entirely in the xml/python. How about this: mining colonies produce a resource, call it 'work chits' or 'mining contracts'. Each one produces one per 'size' of the colony. I've seen this done before, I think Caveman2Cosmos has something similar with resource camps. Each chit allows you to build 1 'labor transportation' building, which adds 1 non-food population to a planet - and costs you that resource, so it's only available one-for-one - but available as long as you have the resource to any system on your trading network.

Thus, poorer systems can still build more production and gold if they have the food/population to support sending out miners. Thoughts?

Low hanging fruit qualities of this scheme - Final Frontier and Bab5 already have a moonbase, which adds a pop with no food, and depends on a 'moon', AND 'food buildings', which depend on a resource present. So you can copy/paste about half your work there. The other half is creating a tradeable resource, and assigning the buildings/planets to require its presence and COST it to build. Hmm... if you want to make it so those buildings go inactive when the mining contract is no longer available (barbarians break your outpost, for example) that would add another layer of coding work... but I think it's reasonably doable, for someone who knows final frontier better than me...

A different idea is to have your mining outposts 'pop' a 'contract ship' every 15 turns or so; when it gets to a system, you can use it to build a 'miner transport' building. Similar coding efforts for sustaining the building, etcetera; might have some of the same problems as the other idea, like how to get systems to accept more than one building per system, etcetera. Worth considering, though. Each miner transport building could get a production bonus for the number of active mine outposts, or could add a non-food pop to a planet, or something similar - balancing would be tricky...

Then again, I could be completely off base and wildly out of line with the concepts you already have planned. If so, ignore everything. Okay?

But anyway then, if you went with this you'd have to get the AI on board with this, which would be a real challenge... wonder if you can draft help from someone who knows the AI?

The C2C crew is very active - maybe one of those guys would be willing to help if you asked about specific coding questions?

My initial thoughts on this were these. Once a trade route exists between the star system and the mining outpost the star system would give up 2 of it's food production to support it. After x number of turns the outpost grows to the next size up and requires 1 less food to support it (reflecting small hydroponic farms set up in the empty spaces of mined out asteroids). Then after another threshold is reached the mine grows again. Once again it requires 1 less food (Should now be self sufficient). Growth continues after another (final) threshold is reached, the mining colony reaches its maximum potential and also now generates 1 surplus food which is directed to either a star system of choice or to a central cache that distributes food to star systems with poor food production.

Really hoping someone can tell me how to manually alter the # of systems in the mapscript - I know how to adjust standard maps, but Final Frontier-ish maps leave me stumped. I may go on a code dive binge if nobody can answer, and those aren't pretty. For my neighbors and my city's sake, spare them a code dive binge!

This is the relevant code for number of Star Systems in the Babylon5Flat.Py file.

Line 249	# Custom Map Option Stuff
		iStarSystemDensity = self.map.getCustomMapOption(0)
		iStarSystemMod = 0
		if (iStarSystemDensity == 0):	# Very High Density
			iStarSystemMod = [COLOR="Yellow"]-25[/COLOR]
		elif (iStarSystemDensity == 1):	# High Density
			iStarSystemMod = [COLOR="yellow"]-10[/COLOR]
		elif (iStarSystemDensity == 2):	# Normal Density
			iStarSystemMod = [COLOR="yellow"]-5[/COLOR]
		elif (iStarSystemDensity == 3):	# Low Density
			iStarSystemMod = [COLOR="Yellow"]50[/COLOR]

Tinkering with the yellow numbers will affect how many star systems you will get. Hope it helps.

Apologies if I've missed anything or not responded in as much detail as you would like. If you do want more detail, post again or message me.

Thank you all for the feedback.

 

[Derek Sargan]

Hello CivFanatics,
I am very new in this forum. Firstly sorry for my bad english, but its not my motherlanguage.
I am sure, i will make a lot of mistakes. Hope you understand me.
I found your forum, because i am a Civ Fan and i like babylon 5. So i was looking for a babylon 5 mod and i am happy to found one.
But I have a problem. The secound link dos not work for me and the first link (megauploud) works, but my 7zip is not abel to unpack the file.
The other links in your download database do not work.
Please can you help me. That would be very fine.
Greetings Derek Sargan

 

[drumheller101]

TC01 posted a link on the previous page, that one worked for me.

 

[Parahacker]

@DerekSagan -

Don't use 7zip. Use the native Windows winzip utility. I know it's weird, going native again; it feels like specialized programs should work better than the basic Windows zip utility (and once I got my peazip configuration the way I wanted it to, I never looked back... its integration with context menus is just too seamless for words) but it works.

 

[Parahacker]

@PsiCorps -

How do you intend for mining colonies to 'choose' which star system they're connected to, once it's on the trade network? Is it just a nearest star system calculation, or do you have something else in mind?

I understand the problem you're having is mostly related to 'growing' the mining colony, which is why I suggested alternatives. Having the 'growth' represented by city buildings, resource bonuses, or mining-colony-popped specialist vehicles might - or might not - be easier to manage code-wise, and there's the advantage(maybe? depends on playing style) that it allows you to make logistics choices as to what city bears the burden of that mining capacity... but the bad side is that it doesn't make for 'unique' or 'developed' mining colonies specifically, you kind of have to use your imagination. Just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

 

[Parahacker]

So... the more advanced bad guys will start knocking out trade networks. Good to know.

The Q-40 is intentional? Okay... but can I suggest that a few faster units that don't rely on it are made available, so its' absence isn't quite so crippling? Maybe just a scout and a colony ship that is 2-3 tech bulbs later than their peers, and relies on 'black market' Q-40 in the lore to build - so it's more expensive, takes more tech, but still makes it possible for AIs (I don't count myself; I haff my veys of making it verk, mwahaha) to scout and colonize systems and resources, so they aren't so easily outmaneuvered.

Or, as a related thought, add a black-market building that gives Q-40 - again, further down the tech tree, so there's still a strong strategic advantage in having ore nearby. I mean, maybe I'm not seeing the possibilities available to civs who don't have it - fleets of slow-moving fighter transports could still probably take out an unprepared enemy with more advanced ships - but, really. Q-40 ships aren't just faster and thus more tactically maneuverable, they're stronger too. It's just an absolutely, mind-blowingly overwhelming advantage.

Also, is the AI aware how darned important Q-40 is right now? I mean, in my playthrough games I usually had to stretch a route past(!) an AI civ in order to set up a starbase and a mine... and yet, even when I am certain those civs had the tech to percieve Q-40 ore, they weren't chasing after it as fanatically as I was. If there's a signal to the AI civ telling it to drop every other project immediately and nail down some Q-40, well, I didn't see its effects.

As a last thought, maybe just a gameoption to increase the available Q-40? Truth be told, I like the idea of a challenging resource bottleneck (assuming the AI can and will fight hard for said resource) - but as a matter of taste, it might be good to add the option.

 

[PsiCorps]

Plague. PLAGUE! Augh! so much plague. I had my systems hit by plague every 3-4 turns; it was very annoying after a while. What's up with that? Is there some way to combat it? Otherwise, it's a turn-off, for sure. Massively damaging - 3 pop? every few turns? And that's if I pay a 50 credit fee, otherwise it's worse....

I've made a couple of changes to this event that should stop it triggering so often.

A new event has been added, tested it and it works as I wanted. A second event I wanted to add won't work as I want it to so am rethinking it.

Working on some ideas for other events but need to review all the existing events in other modcomps to see if they have something similar I can use.

Also, is the AI aware how darned important Q-40 is right now? I mean, in my playthrough games I usually had to stretch a route past(!) an AI civ in order to set up a starbase and a mine... and yet, even when I am certain those civs had the tech to percieve Q-40 ore, they weren't chasing after it as fanatically as I was. If there's a signal to the AI civ telling it to drop every other project immediately and nail down some Q-40, well, I didn't see its effects.

Not sure how to improve it's importance to the AI. There is a line of code in xml

iAIObjective

but the Wiki says

Unknown, the value is 0 for all resources

. So, I'm going to add a number to this line and see what happens.

As a last thought, maybe just a gameoption to increase the available Q-40? Truth be told, I like the idea of a challenging resource bottleneck (assuming the AI can and will fight hard for said resource) - but as a matter of taste, it might be good to add the option.

I did consider making the Vortex Generators tech a bottleneck tech so all Civ's would have to have it in order to get to the better ships. This, unfortunately, goes hand in hand with the Q-40 issue for the AI. So if Vortex Generators becomes a bottleneck once the AI researches it they won't hunt down and develop the Q-40 if they don't know it is important.

Currently testing some things to see if the AI will prioritize Q-40.

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi all. A quick update for you. I've had to redo all of the events I had in the game after an error crept in that stopped all the correct event texts from showing. Turns out I'd saved a file in the wrong place.

So, after a face palm moment I decided it was time to go through all the events in the game and check them. This led to me finding text for a number of events I hadn't yet added in. Many of those events have now been added and some of the ones in previously have been tweaked but not yet tested.

Some events that had been firing every 3 or 4 turns should now be a little less frequent but I'll know more once I've tested them.

I've not yet seen the AI going for Q-40 despite the changes I've made so I'm going to have another look at this.

One thing I have noticed in a recent playtest is that you really need to have access to 3 different food planets (Spoo, Flarn and Wheat) and either water or oxygen or both (for the health bonus) in order to be able to build cities and metropoles, especially if you are going for the industrial civics.

Be seeing you!

 

[Brench]

Thanks for the new update, it's a fun edition, especially with the random events not being quite so expensive now.

My only sad-face comment is that the Whitestars and Victory starships are still only available to the League civs, as they're the only ones with a Fleet Shipyard. Everyone gets a specialized version of that building, and are therefore unable to produce those ISA ships.

Oh, and the AI is still not building cities a lot of the time, but part of that is probably me being a wimp and using easy difficulty settings

 

[PsiCorps]

My only sad-face comment is that the Whitestars and Victory starships are still only available to the League civs, as they're the only ones with a Fleet Shipyard. Everyone gets a specialized version of that building, and are therefore unable to produce those ISA ships.

As I've never advanced that far into the game it never occurred to me that I'd crippled the building of these ships to those with the right techs and beliefs to build them. It's easy enough to fix just not quite as realistic.

Thanks for playing and for the feedback.

 

[Brench]

Well FWIW I think the limitation of regular White Stars to the Order value and the others requiring Unity is a clever idea - it simulates the progression of the Babylon 5 story and rewards those who are on the "good guys' side." Not to mention that those ships are based on Vorlon tech...

Along those lines, it was merciful of you to enable the "choose your own value" feature, so we don't have to play awkward avoid-that-tech games in order to let other civs found other values so we can get the one we want!

Also, thanks again for the increased variation in random events. The diplomatic relations ones, especially, add a flair to the game I wouldn't have anticipated, and it was a fun surprise.

 

[PsiCorps]

Also, thanks again for the increased variation in random events. The diplomatic relations ones, especially, add a flair to the game I wouldn't have anticipated, and it was a fun surprise.

There are more of these events that I'm trying to add in to the mod unfortunately it all takes time which is in short supply these days.
That said I have added some more events for the next version and will be getting more of them in. I plan to have the next version out just before christmas, all being well.

 

[Monaldinio]

I plan to have the next version out just before christmas

Nice to know this!