A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

[Premier Valle]

Hello Necro_2112, welcome to the forums I'm glad you like the mod, and also glad you got out of down below... brown sector has... brown smells there

I just have a few questions regarding the decisions you have made in terms of unit allocation.
[...]
I will concede that I have not played multiple games or looked at balancing issues, so it may well be that you guys have made these decisions based on what makes a good game.

Precisely, much of the decisions leading to the actual unit allocation are gameplay/balance-based rather than being "canon"-based.

Take into account that since every species/race starts at the same point in time we are discarding the fact that the Minbari are more advanced than the Gaim (to mention an example), although this is reflected on the traits of the Minbari. At least for the base mod, future scenarios or so might/will contemplate technology diferences (i.e. a Minbari War scenario). Scenarios are not yet being worked on, the base game comes first.

The following table represents the ship allocation by class and species, tell us what you think of it:

Spoiler :

The in-game designations (i.e. Omega Class Destroyer) does not necessarily represent the position they cover within a fleet.

I saw that the Omega was allocated as a destroyer. Granted within the show it is referred to as a Destroyer but it is the main capital ship of the EA fleet.

I was wondering why you chose to allocate these values to the Omega. is it the case that it is for balance issues?

Unit strengths and capabilities are not yet fine tuned, you can expect this value to change in the future, effort is being directed to getting the game working, later adjustments like these will be made, of course, if you can help us a little bit on that you'll free Psicorps to focus on gameplay while in parallel you could help us here

The EA Omega as you mention is referred as a destroyer in the show, but we agree that it fits the role of a cruiser better (I kind of remind reading that JMS had no idea of ship class designation and just picked cool names). See the ship table above.

Also I noted that there is not a great deal of difference between a Sharlin and a Nova. From my experience the Sharlin, generally speaking, is a more able vessel.

Indeed, while the Sharlin is more capable than the nova, adjustments have been done for gameplay. As you can see in the ship table, the actual counter to the Sharlin is the Warlock.

if it is not presumptuous of me I would be more than happy to have a stab at re-organizing the rosters.

Feel free to give it a try; I organized the ship table, but I have little to no knowledge of B5Wars, so, much of the organizing effort was on a "looks/feels good" rather than on actual ship knowledge. Bring your suggestions to the table and we can discuss them

If it is the case that the unit structure is the way it is for gaming reasons would someone be able to guide me through the process of making some basic alterations myself. I have ad a quick look at the CIV4unitinfos doc and it is a little alien to me, and as such, I would be obliged if someone could walk me through one example so that I my potter away on the others.

If you want to help us here, you should first read about XML, its not hard at all you just need to understand the document's structure.

Please don't take this as a criticism

Of course it is criticism, and constructive one keep it coming

 

[Necro_2112]

Hi Premier

Thanks for responding.

I will have a look into XML then. Hopefully I can learn the basics quickly. I have had a little look at the table above and it looks decent.

I was thinking specifically about stats. Going from my experience of playing Civ mods I would say that Road to War reflects very well the minor differences in different factions have between each other. For example German tanks are slightly better than British ones but cost more hammers and can, for example, sometimes have less movement.

As an example of how you could represent better tech etc. would it be possible to allow the Minbari and Centauri the ability to jump further and/or the Drazi to jump less but costs considerably less to produce? Or would that involve creating multiple special jump rules for each tier?

However I am aware that the AI may not see these subtle differences so I fully appreciate it is a balancing act.

Would it be possible for you to provide a copy of the table you have exhibited above and I will have a little crack at re-arranging slightly. Then I will submit to you guys a list of what I think the values for each ship should be. Then once you have had a look and made a few adjustments for balance I will have a crack at implementing within XML.

Right I am off to go and give the League a good kicking with some nice EA fleets.

Thanks 2112

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello Necro_2112,

I was thinking specifically about stats. Going from my experience of playing Civ mods I would say that Road to War reflects very well the minor differences in different factions have between each other. For example German tanks are slightly better than British ones but cost more hammers and can, for example, sometimes have less movement.

I agree on this, although it represents a lot of tweaking it would be great if properly done.

As an example of how you could represent better tech etc. would it be possible to allow the Minbari and Centauri the ability to jump further and/or the Drazi to jump less but costs considerably less to produce? Or would that involve creating multiple special jump rules for each tier?

The jump mechanism is a single one, how much a ship can jump is defined in XML.

Would it be possible for you to provide a copy of the table you have exhibited above and I will have a little crack at re-arranging slightly. Then I will submit to you guys a list of what I think the values for each ship should be. Then once you have had a look and made a few adjustments for balance I will have a crack at implementing within XML.

Sure, here it is, I use Open Office so the spreadsheet is in ODS format, don't know if MS Office can open it.

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi Necro 2112
Welcome to the forums.

I was thinking specifically about stats. Going from my experience of playing Civ mods I would say that Road to War reflects very well the minor differences in different factions have between each other. For example German tanks are slightly better than British ones but cost more hammers and can, for example, sometimes have less movement.

Take into account that since every species/race starts at the same point in time we are discarding the fact that the Minbari are more advanced than the Gaim (to mention an example), although this is reflected on the traits of the Minbari. At least for the base mod, future scenarios or so might/will contemplate technology diferences (i.e. a Minbari War scenario). Scenarios are not yet being worked on, the base game comes first.

I did have this in an earleir version. The Minbari had the strongest but most expensive ships and all other races were on a descending scale from there with Centauri, Narn and Dilgar all around the same strength/build cost then the EA followed by the Brakiri, then the Drazi and finally the League.

Whilst it worked well enough I found that when I needed to make changes to one of the races the corresponding change to the other civs was taking a lot longer to do. Switching to standard unit strengths and costs across all the races made it far easier to do other changes.

As Premier stated, once we have the basic game complete we would be looking at some scenarios. Particularly the Dilgar Invasion, Earth/Minbari War, Narn/Centauri War and the Great War.

Any assistance you wish to provide will be gratefully received. Any ideas you have will not be shot down like a Pirate Raider in B5 space.

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi all
I thought I'd better post here about a possible delay in any new versions coming out. I've posted elsewhere (CtD Issue when ending first turn.)about the game crashing when I end the first turn. In trying to figure out what is wrong I've found that trying to set up a research trail is also causing the game to CtD. I am able to shift-click three techs at the start of the tree but when trying to shift-click a tech that's further along the tech tree it crashes. I never had this problem before my new motherboard was installed and I've done a full uninstall-reinstall of Civ to fix it and it's not worked.

If anyone has any idea's as to what I might try I'd be glad to hear them.

 

[Necro_2112]

Hi Psi

I see what you mean re: the domino effect of altering stats, and had not really considered that myself (which just shows how little I know about the implementation of the idea).

I was however thinking that it seems the team has really got the basics of the ships down and that not a great deal of alteration will take place now. I imagine when you refer to alterations the main time that this occurs is when a new race is introduced, so for example, when you added the Drazi it set all the other races off kilter somewhat.

From playing the mod it would appear to me that you have all the ships you need, and all the races barring the old ones, who would have a massive impact in any event, so would it be presumptuous to say that having a look at the structure once more, and possibly going back to a more fluid system may be beneficial?

I for one would really like the older races such as the bone and fanheads to be a bit better. Not necessarily by giving each of their ships 5-10 extra attack but maybe a 2-4 more attack and an additional ability, for example, like with the Drakh, making them immune to first strikes. I also think that movement could be come a big factor, with the Minbari and the EA mybe being a bit more sluggish to represent the lumbering nature of their ships, whereas the Drazi and the Centauri could be given an extra movement point.

I think that the point made about balance across the board is important, especially for earlier on in the scenario and I think the idea of 'early' prefixed ships being similar is great.But for the later ships like the Hyp, Sharlin G'quan etc... it would really give each race a distinct identity when playing the game. The reason I play mods is to get that extra layer, as it really distinguishes a mod from the original. I personally found FF not that great. The concept was excellent and the design was cool but each race was effectively the same. Same goes for vanilla civ each race, barring traits and unique buildings are the same, for example; each builds modern armour.

This is understandable as each Civ is human and as such the only distinguishing features in the game tend to boil down to how far along the tech tree you are and how well you have positioned yourself politically and geographically. With B5 there is a real opportunity to add that new layer by giving each individual race a real identity.

I play a lot of Total War especially Med II with its mods. the the thing that makes it so good is the diversity of the factions within the mods. I am not sure if you guys are familiar with Third Age total war, but each faction is really well done aesthetically (much like this mod) and has massive advantages and disadvantages. For example orcs don't have cavalry and as such can struggle against Rohan, but they do have numbers and multiple armies to gradually wear Rohan down and this is their advantage.

I personally would not be to bothered if Minbari was always top dog in the game (or knocking round the top table) and if you wanted to go a league world then you really had to make the most of what you had to compete against the big races. It would also make each faction much more fun to play. For example: I always picture the Centauri as being about rage and speed, they certainly where in B5 Wars. So it would be good if that was reflected within their ships; lots of natural first strikes, access to increased bombardment rage for capital ships and an extra movement point over most races, whilst costing more to produce and not being allowed to take defence promotions.

As I have previously said I m no expert in programming and think what you guys have done is outstanding, but I really think that the races would benefit from more individuality.

I know I have cited multiple examples already but I will use another to show how what you guys have, rearranged ever so slightly would, in my opinion, improve the mod immeasurably:
Most ships in the game can be used to carry fighters. We all know that fighters are absolutely devastating when used correctly and can dominate any game of civ, especially when the AI doesn't know how to use them. In this mod Hyps have the capacity for two squads (with the possibility to upgrade to a lot more) of fighters. I don't think they should be allowed two; they should only ever be allowed one. This would reduce the humans ability to spam fighters with cruisers. I don't think they should be allowed the increased capacity either this should be reserved generally for the races carriers and maybe specifically for a certain races unique trait. Dilgar would be a good one for this as they were constantly upgrading their ships and really did rely on fighters, so that could be their thing, the ability to upgrade any of their ships to carry more fighters.

Continuing with above example of how fighter capacity really counts, this will have a knock on effect to other units, making them more valuable: If a Hyp can only carry one sqd of fighters then suddenly avengers become more important to the player, I have built a few for fluff reasons but they really are a little redundant when you consider how many sqds a Hyp can carry if maxed out. From my experience the AI would not usually build an avenger, as it is purely a carrier unit. However the would no doubt build novas, so give the nova a 3 capacity so that would balance out the Ai's lack of desire to build carriers.

I would be more than prepared to do a write up on each unit and each race as to what I think could be changed to give more flavor. However I am conscious that i could be whistling in the wind so to speak, as all these changes may make the mod unplayable, as the AI just doesn't know what to do with them all. From my limited experience I do not believe this would be the case but obviously you chaps would know better.

Do excuse me for my shameless rambling but I simply cannot help it, its like having Beyonce flavoured ice cream, two amazingly good things being thrown together to create an ultimately good thing....B5 Civ


thanks 2112

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi Psi

I see what you mean re: the domino effect of altering stats, and had not really considered that myself (which just shows how little I know about the implementation of the idea).

I was however thinking that it seems the team has really got the basics of the ships down and that not a great deal of alteration will take place now. I imagine when you refer to alterations the main time that this occurs is when a new race is introduced, so for example, when you added the Drazi it set all the other races off kilter somewhat.

From playing the mod it would appear to me that you have all the ships you need, and all the races barring the old ones, who would have a massive impact in any event, so would it be presumptuous to say that having a look at the structure once more, and possibly going back to a more fluid system may be beneficial?

I for one would really like the older races such as the bone and fanheads to be a bit better. Not necessarily by giving each of their ships 5-10 extra attack but maybe a 2-4 more attack and an additional ability, for example, like with the Drakh, making them immune to first strikes. I also think that movement could be come a big factor, with the Minbari and the EA mybe being a bit more sluggish to represent the lumbering nature of their ships, whereas the Drazi and the Centauri could be given an extra movement point.

I think that the point made about balance across the board is important, especially for earlier on in the scenario and I think the idea of 'early' prefixed ships being similar is great.But for the later ships like the Hyp, Sharlin G'quan etc... it would really give each race a distinct identity when playing the game. The reason I play mods is to get that extra layer, as it really distinguishes a mod from the original. I personally found FF not that great. The concept was excellent and the design was cool but each race was effectively the same. Same goes for vanilla civ each race, barring traits and unique buildings are the same, for example; each builds modern armour.

This is understandable as each Civ is human and as such the only distinguishing features in the game tend to boil down to how far along the tech tree you are and how well you have positioned yourself politically and geographically. With B5 there is a real opportunity to add that new layer by giving each individual race a real identity.

I play a lot of Total War especially Med II with its mods. the the thing that makes it so good is the diversity of the factions within the mods. I am not sure if you guys are familiar with Third Age total war, but each faction is really well done aesthetically (much like this mod) and has massive advantages and disadvantages. For example orcs don't have cavalry and as such can struggle against Rohan, but they do have numbers and multiple armies to gradually wear Rohan down and this is their advantage.

I personally would not be to bothered if Minbari was always top dog in the game (or knocking round the top table) and if you wanted to go a league world then you really had to make the most of what you had to compete against the big races. It would also make each faction much more fun to play. For example: I always picture the Centauri as being about rage and speed, they certainly where in B5 Wars. So it would be good if that was reflected within their ships; lots of natural first strikes, access to increased bombardment rage for capital ships and an extra movement point over most races, whilst costing more to produce and not being allowed to take defence promotions.

As I have previously said I m no expert in programming and think what you guys have done is outstanding, but I really think that the races would benefit from more individuality.

I know I have cited multiple examples already but I will use another to show how what you guys have, rearranged ever so slightly would, in my opinion, improve the mod immeasurably:
Most ships in the game can be used to carry fighters. We all know that fighters are absolutely devastating when used correctly and can dominate any game of civ, especially when the AI doesn't know how to use them. In this mod Hyps have the capacity for two squads (with the possibility to upgrade to a lot more) of fighters. I don't think they should be allowed two; they should only ever be allowed one. This would reduce the humans ability to spam fighters with cruisers. I don't think they should be allowed the increased capacity either this should be reserved generally for the races carriers and maybe specifically for a certain races unique trait. Dilgar would be a good one for this as they were constantly upgrading their ships and really did rely on fighters, so that could be their thing, the ability to upgrade any of their ships to carry more fighters.

Continuing with above example of how fighter capacity really counts, this will have a knock on effect to other units, making them more valuable: If a Hyp can only carry one sqd of fighters then suddenly avengers become more important to the player, I have built a few for fluff reasons but they really are a little redundant when you consider how many sqds a Hyp can carry if maxed out. From my experience the AI would not usually build an avenger, as it is purely a carrier unit. However the would no doubt build novas, so give the nova a 3 capacity so that would balance out the Ai's lack of desire to build carriers.

I would be more than prepared to do a write up on each unit and each race as to what I think could be changed to give more flavor. However I am conscious that i could be whistling in the wind so to speak, as all these changes may make the mod unplayable, as the AI just doesn't know what to do with them all. From my limited experience I do not believe this would be the case but obviously you chaps would know better.

Do excuse me for my shameless rambling but I simply cannot help it, its like having Beyonce flavoured ice cream, two amazingly good things being thrown together to create an ultimately good thing....B5 Civ


thanks 2112

Hi Necro 2112
I know how you feel, what you are suggesting would be what I would do with the scenarios. However, it could equally be done with the base game but at the moment to do what you are suggesting means upsetting the balance before we have a finely balanced game.
Once we have everything in that we need in to make it a truly Babylon 5 themed Mod and i'm talking more about some of the Modcomps I want to get in here, then I'll certainly start to modify the ships of the races to give them a more B5 feel. At present I have a list of requests in with the FF+ modders to be added into the base game. If I knew how to merge/modify C++ and do DLL's i'd be doing it all myself and the basic structure of the Mod would be a whole lot different.
I live in hope of a C++ &/or Python modder joining us to perfect the work we have done.

Keep the ideas coming in, especially the stuff about differences between the various races ships, strengths, weaknesses, capabilities etc. It will get used eventually.

 

[killer-101]

Hi love the mod.

I have a porblem nothing to do with the mod but tryed looking all over the net nothing found i placed the civs in places i thought would be best and edited the WB save so Sol has 8 planets mars earth and so on i loaded the game and the stars and planet textures r missing any help plz.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello Killer-101,

Glad you like the mod.

I have a porblem nothing to do with the mod but tryed looking all over the net nothing found i placed the civs in places i thought would be best and edited the WB save so Sol has 8 planets mars earth and so on i loaded the game and the stars and planet textures r missing any help plz.

Yeah, that's a known problem, I remember reading about it somewhere in this forums about it and I think there is a work-around that, can't remember where, but it is possibly in the Final Frontier or the Final Frontier + forums... perhaps even in the tutorial section.

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi love the mod.

I have a porblem nothing to do with the mod but tryed looking all over the net nothing found i placed the civs in places i thought would be best and edited the WB save so Sol has 8 planets mars earth and so on i loaded the game and the stars and planet textures r missing any help plz.

Hi killer-101, try this link System/planet editor it may help you with the problem you are experiencing.

 

[killer-101]

Hi killer-101, try this link System/planet editor it may help you with the problem you are experiencing.

I had a look at that link lot of work lol.

I have had this happen some time ago when i was using ur mod v2.7 and i fixed it and if i remember it was easy. Just wish i new how on earth i did it i loaded the save game and all the planets r in place on the 2.7 game but not working on the 3.0 game odd.

EDIT: If i remember right starting to come back it was somthing to do with me adding 8 planets and i need to tell the game to allow upto 8 or somthing like that.

Edit: had a play around and took off 2 planets so theres just 6 it worked now if only i could remember how to tell the game to allow the other 2 maybe it was in the python file.

 

[PsiCorps]

I had a look at that link lot of work lol.

I have had this happen some time ago when i was using ur mod v2.7 and i fixed it and if i remember it was easy. Just wish i new how on earth i did it i loaded the save game and all the planets r in place on the 2.7 game but not working on the 3.0 game odd.

EDIT: If i remember right starting to come back it was somthing to do with me adding 8 planets and i need to tell the game to allow upto 8 or somthing like that.

Edit: had a play around and took off 2 planets so theres just 6 it worked now if only i could remember how to tell the game to allow the other 2 maybe it was in the python file.

I'm pretty sure that there's something in the Project & MOD Development threads for FF+ that mentions that someone added a 7th planet and seemed to have no problems with it. Have a look in there, you may find your answer.

 

[killer-101]

I'm pretty sure that there's something in the Project & MOD Development threads for FF+ that mentions that someone added a 7th planet and seemed to have no problems with it. Have a look in there, you may find your answer.

I remembered it was 7 planets not 8 that was my bad sorry.

But at the mo i can't seem to trade with anyone even tho i took it off is that the mod or bug?.

 

[PsiCorps]

I remembered it was 7 planets not 8 that was my bad sorry.

But at the mo i can't seem to trade with anyone even tho i took it off is that the mod or bug?.

If you haven't got a trade route link there will be no trading. To trade techs or credits you need to have the pre req techs that permit them. (Apologies if this is teaching you to suck eggs).

 

[Eusebius]

Just discovered this mod and I'm liking the look of it. Forgive a newbie question, but I've noticed that my early frigates and early destroyers can't leave my cultural boundaries. (Early recon, colony, construction all can.) Is this on purpose or is it a bug?

I might also ask where this is done; I can't find anything in the XML for it.


Thanks,
Eusebius

 

[PsiCorps]

Just discovered this mod and I'm liking the look of it. Forgive a newbie question, but I've noticed that my early frigates and early destroyers can't leave my cultural boundaries. (Early recon, colony, construction all can.) Is this on purpose or is it a bug?

I might also ask where this is done; I can't find anything in the XML for it.


Thanks,
Eusebius

It's deliberate, the movement restriction is within Python and it's cleared once a specific tech is discovered.

Glad you like the Mod, it's still a work in progress and any and all feedback is useful.

 

[Eusebius]

It's deliberate, the movement restriction is within Python and it's cleared once a specific tech is discovered.

Glad you like the Mod, it's still a work in progress and any and all feedback is useful.

Found it. Thanks for the quick reply.

So that means that whoever gets Space Exploration first has a huge advantage, because suddenly all their existing ships can break out. If that is the case, you probably ought to increase the <iasset> value of that tech so the AI can get the idea that it is important. (Of course there is nothing in the pedia entry for Space Exploration that would tell a newbie human like me that it is important either ).

You might do the same <iasset> for the early colonization ships. I'm noticing that I am colonizing multiple systems before any of the AIs has built its first one.

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi Eusebius....I am eternally grateful to you for telling me about the <iasset> tag. All the time i've been doing this mod i've not paid the slightest attention to this tag. Been too busy doing other things, now I know that it's important, i'll go in and amend those entries.

Thanks again.

 

[God-Emperor]

The iAsset value is not used in calculating the value of a tech by the AI when determining what to research. It evaluates the actual properties of the tech from the XML including things not in the tech info file, like buildings and units that the tech enables. It also directly adds in the iAIWeight tag's value, and uses the Flavor values (multiplying each flavor value the tech has by the leader's matching flavor value and adding that to the value, these generally work out to be very minor adjustments since in leaders generally have either one at 2 and one at 5, or one at 10 - in BtS, in B5 they appear to all be single digit - and techs are generally in the same range).

So if you want to boost the value of a tech due to some Python property and do so equally for all the AIs, I'd suggest setting the iAIWeight tag to something. A value of 10 is a very small addition that will not usually be noticable. A value of 100 or 150 is a small addition. A value of 200 or 300 would be more significant but not large. Adding in 500 is a pretty big adjustment. I wouldn't go over 1000 unless the tech does pretty much nothing for the AI via XML (although if it does literally nothing of value via the XML even setting it to 1500 would not insure that the AI will always give it the highest priority as there is a random value added each time it checks that goes from 0 to 1999). For reference as to how big the values can be, a tech that just directly gives +1 health everywhere usually gets +200 for that property, enabling your first route type should probably add something like 700 but enabling a second route type is more like 200, being a prereq for a building generally adds at least 150 per building (some buildings are worth a lot more, UBs add an extra 600 just for being a UB), and one that gives a religion increases in value by a random amount but it is likely to add over 1000, and possibly over 2000, if the AI doesn't have one yet (this one may be directly relevant since I think the tech in question gives a religion). You might try something around 150 or 200 initially and see if that helps - that should increase the odds of an AI researching the tech but not force everyone to always head directly for it.

By the way, I think all of your leaders only have flavor values for the military and science flavor types. This means that none of the other flavor types ever does anything for anyone. All techs have a FLAVOR_CULTURE set, but they will always result in 0 extra value since all the leaders have a 0 for culture (since not specifying one sets it to 0). Some buildings have other flavor values too (FLAVOR_GROWTH, FLAVOR_GOLD, FLAVOR_PRODUCTION, FLAVOR_RELIGION, FLAVOR_ESPIONAGE) but these all do nothing to increase their priority for anyone either, for the same reason. Just to get started with these I suggest picking one or two leaders for each of the unused ( by leaders) flavor types who you think would focus on that sort of thing some and giving them a value of about 5 for it.

 

[Spideredd]

Hello. I just found this mod and really enjoy it. But I noticed that there are no B5 maps made, so I'm having a go at doing a map for B5.

I'm doing it based on the major powers of 2259 that I have access to, including cultural boundries. But I have had to take a few liberties, mostly with the Drazi, Brakiri, Balanced League and the Dilgar, but only because I want all of the races to have a minimum of 10 worlds.

I'm going to set the map out before playing around with diplomacy, starting time, racial boundries or tech.

I will say that the map is crammed with star-systems so far, but I should be able to squeeze in some phenomena and resources.

I'm also thinking of doing that same map blank except for the homeworlds.

I have come across a few problems. Most are minor and I'll look into those when they become important.

The main one is every time I reload the map, the star-systems go blank. No sun and no planets, but I'm going to look at this to see if this helps at all.

The other one is that I only seem able to edit one planet in worldbuilder, unless I reload multiple times (Which I will do if no alternative presents itself).

I only have the EA and the leagues to do.