Looks and runs nicely, even with huge maps.
Thanks.
But we can't take much credit for the look as it looks suspiciously like regular FF (with the addition of the Blue Marble space backgrounds, and a few other tweaks that have been merged in). The speed, though, is TC01's doing (with thanks to those who's mods he has merged in, like stmartin and HoTK team for the CAR mod amongst others).
I'm a bit stumped, though, that Ff+ still feels as unfinished to me like the original FF.
Probably because it is unfinished. It is still under development. We could also use a little attention from an artist who is good at icons and buttons since some wonders and a couple techs are using duplicates - at some point I may provide more, but it probably takes me twice as long as someone who is good at it, and with "not quite as good" results. The duplicate buttons do give a very unfinished feel.
Maybe it's because unit movements and cultural expansion very much resembles the "vanilla" BtS, while the mean distance between star systems is much bigger then between cities ... to me, the game feels most balanced in marathon mode, so here's my suggestion:
I have to admit that I have, as far as I can recall, never tried marathon speed. Most of my games are for testing purposes and those are all at Standard. The games of FFP I occasionally sneak in for fun are about 2/3 Standard 1/3 Epic.
You can reduce the average distance by increasing the number of star systems the map scripts generate. When not playing test games, I often use the "dense" setting, and sometimes the "very dense", for the star systems.
- speed up all ships (apart from coloniser and system defense craft, maybe)
There was some debate as to whether scout ships should be speed 1 or speed 2. For now they are at speed 1, except the Avower's Recon Ship UU version which is speed 2 (which gives them a big advantage in exploring in the 1st era - this somewhat makes up for their trait being weak in the 1st era).
It is possible that the scout will be boosted to speed 2, but it is very unlikely that the other ships will ever be made faster. (Don't forget that you can build squadrons pretty early and they have a fairly long recon range.)
As the game progresses things speed up since most of the delta ship types are speed 2, and for those that aren't the omega version are (and the omega destroyer is speed 3, which can make them pretty irritating). Late in the game, everything speeds up even more - Quantum Power not only gives everything a +1 speed for free (and applies a free promotion to all squadrons that give them +1 range), it also makes available the Quantum Engines upgrade that you should almost always take as the first promotion since not only is it +1 speed it is also +10% strength so it gives the benefits of two regular part upgrades (upgraded engines and upgraded weapons).
- make higher levels of cultural radius (much) cheaper, so there's a chance to get ressources which are next to the star (city) 7x7 square into the radius before the endgame
- make star bases cheaper (unless cultural radius is easier to get)
The idea is to build starbases to get the resources. They are somewhat expensive, but the AI has little trouble spamming them out all over the place without any discount, so it should be possible for a human player to do so too.
The initial cultural expansion costs are somewhat high on purpose, to limit access to the two outer planetary zones. One additional culture level was added to make the formerly last radius come earlier and make Legendary even bigger than it was. It is possible that one more could be added.
Even if you feel totally different 'bout this, there are some things you might want to look into:
- find a better way to choose placement of initial planetary settlements when a system is colonised; Instead of simply summing up the ressources, maybe multiply by the pop size, and add some extra weight for food pics, because that's what matters most initially, with hammers coming next; e.g. Value=((2*Food)+(1.5*Hammers)+(Coins))*2
- make sure starting planet is size 2 at least
The "best planet" selection is not just adding up the 3 values.
The original method from FF used 2*Food + Production to give the weight, highest weight = best planet = planet selected for free Nutrition Facility and free Mining Facility.
The current rating system in FFP actually works out to be:
(30*Food + 7*Production + 2*Commerce) * (Size + 8)
where Size is 0, 1, or 2.
In most cases this will pick the highest food planet, but as I recall if you make a chart showing the rating for every planet type of all 3 sizes there are some instances where a large planet with less food can be picked instead of a small planet with more food. Back when this was being discussed I remember seeing just such a chart.
Food is of utmost importance for the initial population point. Commerce is almost entirely irrelevant. The reason for this is that you need a planet that is, including the free Nutrition Facility, producing at least 2 food to grow at all (and it has to be 3 if you are the Forge due to their -1 food in each star system) and at that level growth will be excruciatingly slow so you really want at least 3 (4 for the Forge, if you can manage it). Compared to the importance of population growth, production is of limited value and commerce is of nearly no value. If the system has a planet with high food output, it can grow to use all the planets relatively quickly (might require another nutrition facility or 2 to get full utilization, but it can make it) which will give it production and commerce even if it didn't start with much. The value of commerce is also reduced due to the fact that every planet type produces at least 1 commerce (not like in the regular BtS game where a lot of plots produce no commerce).
- reduce STR of Stealth Ship to 5, and later ships accordingly, or add a hefty planet attack malus
I see no reason to do this. A stealth ship can not capture a star system even if there are no defenders. It is the same strength as a destroyer by costs 80% more. For combat purposes you'd be better off with 9 destroyers than the 5 stealth ships the same money can buy.
They only reason they are very useful is that the AI doesn't react well to them, allowing you to destroy their resource gathering capabilities and wipe out their construction ships. Because of this, I rarely build them until I notice an AI using one and then I usually only build 1 or 2. It is just too much of an advantage for the human. If the AI dealt with them better I might build a few more. Reducing their strength would not help with this, since I usually only attack construction ships or the occasional lone PDS or invasion ship that is out wandering around. They cost too much to waste them attacking other things that they don't have a very good chance against.
- happiness from ship doctrine?!
*capital shipyard. +1 happy with doctrine
* squadron shipard: +1 happy with doctrine
.. light ships build without shipyard ... and there's no happiness from doctrine
So, what's your point?
Aside from the problem that in the current version the unit discounts do not actually work... And the problem that the discount text for both Light Ship Doctrine and Squadron Doctrine are wrong - once the discount is fixed it will end up with Light Ship Doctrine giving its discount for all light ships, not the Destroyer and Cruiser (which isn't a light ship) and Squadron Doctrine giving the discount for all squadrons and carrier ships (which includes cruisers). The way it should work is this:
The Light Ship Doctrine's advantage is that is gives a production discount to the ships you inevitably have to build a lot of (Planetary Defense Ships and Invasion Ships are light ships, as are Destroyers and Scouts) and gives more free units (that you don't have to pay the 1/turn support cost for) than Capital Ship Doctrine.
The Capital Ship Doctrine's advantage is that it gives a larger production discount (20% vs. 10% for the others) to the most expensive ships in the game and gives +1 happy in system with the Capital Shipyard, which is likely to be most of your systems.
The Squadron Doctrine's advantage is that it gives the most free units and +1 happy to systems with the Squadron Factory, which is also likely to be most of your systems, as well as giving squadrons and carrier type ships (both carriers and cruisers) a production cost reduction.
This may not be perfectly balanced, but it does give you multiple useful choices.
- tweak diplomacy:
AI is amassing "-1 : you refused to help us during wartime" from "join us in our war against"-requests, which do not make sense as
a) they only start that war _after_ asking for support, what they maybe shouldn't do at all; At least, there shouldn't be diplomatic drawbacks from refusing
b) AND one does not have any treaty with the AI at that point - why should one be "obliged" to help?
Btw., I think this is fixed in manymany mods, and even in BtS 3.19 itself to some extent, IMHO.
If it is asking you to join its war then it is already at war. The scrolling announcements at the top of the screen are delayed, so you can get the invitation before you see the declaration, but the declaration does happen first.
You are not obliged to help - you can tell by the way that you can say "no". If you don't want the little -1 penalty, then say "yes".
This is all exactly the same as in regular BtS. For diplomatic success, you have to choose your friends and then do as they ask (and they may return the favor and do things you ask them to, if they are at friendly with you or sometimes even if at pleased).
- ship upgrade costs are too high - escpecially considering the AI gets units upgrades for free ...
They do not quite get upgrades for free. This is true in both FFP (and FF) as well as regular BtS. They do get a pretty hefty discount though, with the cost at 20% of the human's at Noble, 15% at Prince, 10% at Monarch, and 5% at all higher levels (which is a bigger discount than for regular BtS where the upgrade cost is 50% at all difficulty levels). This is a pretty big advantage for the AI.
One area where this does not apply is for upgrading starbases. I don't think they get a discount, but it doesn't matter if they do since I have never seen them upgrade one.
I think reducing the upgrade costs some may be a good idea, as well as reducing the AI's discount a bit. There are global defines that control the upgrade cost - the current values have a base of 30 to which is added 3 times the difference in production cost, the same as in BtS. The difficulty is that each generation of ship is 50% stronger but 100% more expensive (in BtS the strength and cost increases are much closer to each other) so the upgrade cost is 30+ 3 times the production cost of the type of ship you are trying to upgrade. Dropping that "3" to a "2" might be good, and bumping the AI discount levels back up to the standard BtS values, or at least closer, at the same time.
- interface improvement: the max. pop size of outer planets should be shown somehow, even if influence levels don't allow utilising them - allows better planning on colony buildings. (could be that BUG squashed this complaint ...)
This could be a good change. BUG has not changed it.
With only 3 sizes you can usually tell which size they are by the size of the planet in the display. The only difficulty is that the types with the atmosphere effect look a bit bigger than those without it.
The system preview screen you get from double-clicking on an unowned star system also lists the planet sizes.
- restrict more buildings to 1 per system:
* those with
l bonus
* ship training facitilites (Training Compound, School of Zealots, etc.)
(Academy of Knowledge)
That is not likely to happen. Currently it is a trade-off. They buildings have an escalating cost, the more you build in a star system the more it costs for the next one. So which is a better use of your production, building yet another training compound or actually building a ship? A training compound does nothing to defend your star system and for the cost of the 3rd one you can build 2 actual destroyers and have some production left over. Which is better to have? It depends on your situation, but it is often going to be better to have 2 actual destroyers (and a PDS) than it is to have that 3rd training compound (although the 3rd one is a good one - it gets you the second part upgrade). My higher production systems usually end up at 3, but I also usually pick a system and try to max them out (and build the War College there too, and if I have the Power value available I also try to max out the School of Zealots there too) although it is usually pretty late in the game by the time I get the last one built.
Also due to the escalating costs it is usually only advisable to build more than about 3 of the various financial and research buildings in a few of your higher commerce star systems.
If you have the time to build every building on every planet, you almost certainly could have already won the game already by using all that production to build multiple fleets of ships and conquering the other players.
On the other hand, building is fun for a lot of people (I know I overbuild both here and in BtS and in other mods too) so the current setup allows builders to build.
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