A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

[PsiCorps]

If I have some time to spare, I'll start working on a spanish translation

That would be great, it would go a long way towards helping complete the xml side of the mod.

unfortunately my german is not good enough ... yet

I haven't used my geman skills in over 35 years and they weren't up to the standard of translating this mod even then.
I've had an idea for a new unit, Blockade Mines and also, after watching Crusade, i realised we have a tech missing. Graviton Beam Weapons would need to be researched before you can build the Victory/Excalibur class destroyers.
I was wondering if the Jump Engine Unit you came up with can be changed into a Promotion, which once you have access to Quantium 40 newly built ships would automatically get? I'm having a little break from modding, just a week or so then i'll start investigating putting the new ideas into play.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

Playing as the Mimbari, there is a bug with the commerce building not giving any commerce.
The Commercial satalites also increases the max population size. It seems to be working normally for the Earth federation. Havent checked the other races yet if those are bugged too.

 

[Qiron]

hello

is anyone working with quotes for the techs? i dont have much time to spare and no almost nothing about modding, but this is one thing i could help with if you are interested. i was thinking of taking quotes from the series and movies fot it? what do you think?

Qiron

 

[PsiCorps]

is anyone working with quotes for the techs? i dont have much time to spare and no almost nothing about modding, but this is one thing i could help with if you are interested. i was thinking of taking quotes from the series and movies fot it? what do you think?

I Was going to try and do something like this myself, when i find the time that is. But, if you are interested and want to add something please feel free and you will earn yourself a credit on the final result.

 

[Premier Valle]

is anyone working with quotes for the techs? i dont have much time to spare and no almost nothing about modding, but this is one thing i could help with if you are interested. i was thinking of taking quotes from the series and movies fot it? what do you think?

It would be much appretiated. Thanks!.

 

[Qiron]

i will start working on it... when i have a good number done, i will post the file to see if they look good. i´ll start on the week end already saved some time for that

 

[PsiCorps]

Playing as the Mimbari, there is a bug with the commerce building not giving any commerce.
The Commercial satalites also increases the max population size. It seems to be working normally for the Earth federation. Havent checked the other races yet if those are bugged too.

I missed this post, sorry. I don't normally play as the Minbari so i shall investigate this.

 

[Premier Valle]

and
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I'm back in my country, but something is wrong with my comp, fortunately my lap top can run Civ, but time isn't on my side. I haven't had time to work on this, hopefully things will change soon.

 

[PsiCorps]

Happy new year to you too Premier, hope you have the comp fixed soon.

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi all, been a long time since we did anything meaningful on the mod so thought it was time to bring it back to the fore.

I haven't done very much with anything on the mod to be honest too much going on in RL for me to concentrate and apply myself to the mod.

What i need from anyone that has downloaded and played the mod is if there is anything that feels overpowered or underpowered with what we have done so far or anything that can be improved upon (besides the lack of 3d models).

I have found a Narn G'Quan Cruiser that could be incorporated into the mod but it needs to be scaled down a bit by someone that knows a lot about modelling, there is also a Shadow battle crab/cruiser that could be used but same problem applies. Should anyone wish to take a look at them i will upload them here for them to be looked at.

 

[Kalimakhus]

First of all good work so far. I hope you will be able to continue working on this mod as it has great potentials.

My first test game witnessed many disappointments. I eventually abandoned it after failing to build and keep my second city twice. Barbs are so overpowered in the early stage of the game. I however can't have a final say if this is a balance issue as I need to look carefully into the options I have to deal with the situation. In case there is a path for countering barbs advantages then it wouldn't be a problem but rather a welcome challenge.

Now for the more important issues. I played as Earth and notice (as reported by someone else above) that Commercial Satellites don't give commerce while the population limit for planets keep growing apparently because of building them. Looking into Python file "CvSolarSystem.py" I found out how extra yield provided by buildings is calculated. It is actually a very nasty hack. If you look at the end of the file you will find this:

g_aiBuildingYieldIncrease[1][0] = 1		# Nutrition Facility
g_aiBuildingYieldIncrease[2][1] = 1		# Mining Facility
g_aiBuildingYieldIncrease[3][2] = 1		# Road Network
g_aiBuildingYieldIncrease[4][2] = 2		# Mag Lev Network

g_aiBuildingPopCapIncrease[5] = 1		# Habitation Center

These lines associate hard coded buildings IDs (based on their order in the Civ4BuildingInfos.xml) with yield types (0=food, 1=hammers, 2=gold) and set the yield increase. The current comments to the right of statements is misleading. The Building with ID=3 is the mag lev not the "Road Network" the building with ID=4 used to be the Commercial Satellites before you added the research facility pushing it one ID further. So rather than giving 2 gold it assumed the role of Habitation Center and added 1 to the population limit.
I suggest that you stick to the order of buildings in the xml file or otherwise keep note of the modified order and update the python file accordingly. (Note counting ID starts with 0 for the first building in the file).

BTW is the ARCOLOGIES supposed to do the same function the habitation center used to do? I haven't seen it in the game itself yet but I noticed that the habitation center is removed from the XML file.

I will now have another test game and will return later with feedback. Keep up the good work.

 

[PsiCorps]

Playing as the Mimbari, there is a bug with the commerce building not giving any commerce.
The Commercial satalites also increases the max population size. It seems to be working normally for the Earth federation. Havent checked the other races yet if those are bugged too.

i wasn't able to figure out this problem but kalimakhus was, for which i am very grateful. I shall be looking in to this tonight when i get in from work and will try to rectify the mistakes i've made in the buildings area.

My first test game witnessed many disappointments. I eventually abandoned it after failing to build and keep my second city twice. Barbs are so overpowered in the early stage of the game. I however can't have a final say if this is a balance issue as I need to look carefully into the options I have to deal with the situation. In case there is a path for countering barbs advantages then it wouldn't be a problem but rather a welcome challenge.

In theory by the time you are able to send out your first colony ship you should also be able to build the P.D.S. and the Military Transport required to move them to your newly colonized planet. Whenever i have played i have found it best to wait until i have established a few starbases to expand my borders before sending out the colonists.
Thanks again to Kalimakhus for the feedback. Just wish we could get some modellers on board the mod.

 

[Kalimakhus]

In my second game I trained 4 EA Olympus and escorted my colony ship with them. They managed to get to the new star system and settled there. They were however all killed by barbs ships before I manage to train my first P.D.S.

To move on I started my third game with Raging Barbarians turned off. It proved to be too easy. I agree that Raging Barbarians is needed for this mod. I will also try your approach. I still however think that early barbs ships should be nerfed just a little. 5 str 3 moves 200% city attack and 2 first strikes, are just too much. You may at least drop the 2 first strikes so my olympus or equivalent ships can have a 50% chance against them in the outer space. For now even P.D.S. have no chance against the Alien Invasion ships in a star system without culture. The home star system can hold only because it grows culture quickly and it has free defense building (can't remember its name now).

Another note: So many techs are only there to lead to other techs. If you don't intend to flesh them out with some contents (units, building, civics, or promotions), you may think of merging them. The advantage of less techs is to remove the clutter and help the player choose his next research without digging in the Civilopedea to find out the right sequence.

 

[PsiCorps]

@kalimakhus

Another note: So many techs are only there to lead to other techs. If you don't intend to flesh them out with some contents (units, building, civics, or promotions), you may think of merging them. The advantage of less techs is to remove the clutter and help the player choose his next research without digging in the Civilopedea to find out the right sequence.

I admit that some of the techs are there purely to get the flavour of B5 but i do intend to flesh out as many of them as i can.

So far i have corrected the building problems and reduced the barb ship speeds by 1 and removed their first strikes ability.
You may have noticed that there are no values in the game at present, well, i'm trying to bring them back in to the game but in a modified format. Instead of having the 5 Values that FF has i am trying to have separate values for each Civ, The problem i am going to have is when i want to start changing the main xml files after i have used the basic 5 values. I am fairly sure this involves "schema's" more of which later. At the moment i have changed the Religion Value to Minbari Values and attached it to the 1 individual starting tech of the Minbari. There will also be an individual building, as with all religions/values. I intend to do the same for all of the other Civs as i test out each one. The new Values wouldn't be able to spread to other Civ's until after Galactic Diplomacy has been researched (or the Babylon Project completed, which isn't yet in the Mod) This will have the knock on effect of having to change the Civ's starting traits.
Which brings me neatly to another problem, i would like to restore the standard civ leader traits to the B5 mod but when i tried it i got some rubbish about schema's, can't remember exactly what it was now. So if anyone has any instructions on how to put the standard leader traits back into Final Frontier i would be eternally grateful, and you would get a credit when it's done.
I'll post more later as i try to figure things out.

 

[Kalimakhus]

@PsiCorps

About values, it seems to me that the way you want to implement them doesn't fit well with religions. You may think of using Corporations instead. They can't be expanded into other cities without an executive and you can make these trainable with a later tech. They can be founded by constructing a building and you can make those building unique national wonders for the civs and if you like you can give them all free to the capital system (just like the palace).

I can't understand why you think the changes you want need a schema change. Anyway using corporations won't need schema change. BTW schema changes mean DLL change. I am not sure you want to go there.

About traits, I can see that you added traits to Civ4TraitInfos.xml. Is the problem in assigning them to Leaders? If so what you need to do is to replace the element (in Civ4LeaderHeadInfos.xml):

<Traits/>

with something like:

                       <Traits>
				<Trait>
                                       <TraitType>TRAIT_PHILOSOPHICAL</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_AGGRESSIVE</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
			</Traits>

You would use your own traits of course. If the problem is different please explain.

 

[PsiCorps]

About traits, I can see that you added traits to Civ4TraitInfos.xml. Is the problem in assigning them to Leaders? If so what you need to do is to replace the element (in Civ4LeaderHeadInfos.xml):

For some reason i couldn't see the wood for the trees and failed to see the obvious. I've now added the standard traits I just have to play test everything now. May add a few new traits as well.

About values, it seems to me that the way you want to implement them doesn't fit well with religions. You may think of using Corporations instead. They can't be expanded into other cities without an executive and you can make these trainable with a later tech. They can be founded by constructing a building and you can make those building unique national wonders for the civs and if you like you can give them all free to the capital system (just like the palace).

I'm not sure if i explained myself very well. I don't want the Values to be used as religions, i want them to be how each Civ is identified. The Minbari are the only ones that can found Minbari Values, the Humans are the only ones that can found Human Values. These values will be the driving force behind the expansion of the Civ's borders. The values should not be able to spread outside of the founding civ's colonized planets until after either Alien Diplomacy or Galactic Diplomacy is researched. Corporations aren't active within FF so i don't want to start messing with this. Using the values is working well for what i want i just need to add some more values in for each of the other civs and i need icons for that and a lot more work. I'll try and do some screen shots that might help for next time i post.

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi all
I've been busy working on the mod and have some spoilers for what i've done so far.

Spoiler :

Corrected building order in Civ4BuildingInfos.xml to match CvSolarSystem.py
Removed 1st Strikes from Alien ships.
Reduced Alien ships speed by 1.
Added new building Terraforming Station.
Changed Build Wealth to Universal Currency.
Changed Build Research to Artificial Intelligence.
Changed Build Culture to Alien Diplomacy.
Recycling Center now gives +1 Happiness +1 Production and +1 Food.
Banking System now gives +1 Happiness.
Added costs for building Trade Routes and Jump Routes.
Added costs for building Extraction Facility.
Starting units changed from Standard Final Frontier P.D.F. to Babylon 5 P.D.S.
Standard Civ Traits added.
Added 1 Unique building for each race (except LoNaW)

I'm still working on other stuff but have encountered one problem, in a recent playtest i fought a short war against the Pak'ma'ra, i managed to capture their homeworld but whilst the war was going i lost the ability to produce anything but military units. The war is now over and i am at war with no one but i still cannot resume production of infrastructure.
Another problem encountered is with promotions but what seems an obvious problem to fix is anything but simple. All Capital class ships should be able to have the Sensors promotion as long as they have the trained officers promotion first. I'm in the mid game period and have 7 ship types i can build, all, according to the CIV4PromotionInfos.xml file, are capable of getting the Sensors promotion but only 1 of them can actually get it. I've checked the CIV4UnitInfos.xml and confirmed that the units are all included in their eligibility to get the promotion but still nothing.
See attached pictures for a better idea of what i mean.
Pictures 1,1a and 1b show ships that should be able to have the promotion, picture 2 shows the only ship that has the option to take the promotion. The last picture shows the build buttons greyed out so they cannot be used.
I'm now retesting with a different race to see if i get the same results.

 

[Asthix]

I once had a similar problem in vanilla FF. Only one of my first tier battleships was ever eligible to upgrade no matter where I moved them. I'm still relatively new to the site however so that's all I got.

 

[deanej]

For the "no-production-on-captured-homeworlds" bug, two things:
1. If this is like the on I had on my Star Trek mod, it's actually not homeworlds. It's caused when the core game does not count one of the captured buildings in the city (due to it being destroyed on capture) but the python still does. This simply happens more often on homeworlds because they have the most buildings.

2. The fix is to make sure bNeverCapture is never set to 1 and iConquestProb is always 100. Then if the building shouldn't be captured (such as fortification and culture buildings) you need to go into CvFinalFrontierEvents.py and scroll close to the end of the file and there is a list of buildings that should not be captured. The building gets added there.

 

[PsiCorps]

For the "no-production-on-captured-homeworlds" bug, two things:
1. If this is like the on I had on my Star Trek mod, it's actually not homeworlds. It's caused when the core game does not count one of the captured buildings in the city (due to it being destroyed on capture) but the python still does. This simply happens more often on homeworlds because they have the most buildings.

2. The fix is to make sure bNeverCapture is never set to 1 and iConquestProb is always 100. Then if the building shouldn't be captured (such as fortification and culture buildings) you need to go into CvFinalFrontierEvents.py and scroll close to the end of the file and there is a list of buildings that should not be captured. The building gets added there.

Thanks for that deanej, i'll tackle that tonight when i get home from work.
any ideas on the other problem?