[MoO] ICEMOD: mod design, race design, strategies

[Markus Ramikin]

* have found bug causing Markus Bulrathi-Repulsive issue *

Enlighten us peons!

 

[Rocco.40]

It was a 1 byte coding error I made with that particular race variant.
Just uploaded ice 10p that should fix the issue.
Could you check for me?
As the problem did not appear on my machine somehow, I can't really confirm my own fix

------------------
ICE 10p readme

 

[Markus Ramikin]

A new Icemod version?!

Spoiler :

No Creative = 13?

Spoiler :

- Auto Fire mod is again a L2 mod instead of L3, as it was in classic, but space
of the mod increased from +50% to +100% over base. Cost unchanged.

I am never posting a war report again.

Just to be sure, you did realize that autofire doesn't have a additive cost, like with missiles and MIRV, but a multiplying one? So if you for instance use it with Heavy Mount, which is also +100%, it doesn't add up to 3x cost, but multiplies into a total 4x cost, etc?

 

[Rocco.40]

Just to be sure, you did realize that autofire doesn't have a additive cost, like with the missile mods, but a multiplying one? So if you for instance use it with Heavy Mount, it doesn't add up to 3x cost, but multiplies into a total 4x cost, etc?

AF does have additive cost, like other mods like AP, NR etc.
It is Heavy Mount that is the special mod that increases cost and space of the total beam including mods.

I am never posting a war report again.

I am playing games myself too and after winning another game with only fully modded laser beams, I thought it was time to take on that AF mod that was really strong at 3 shots for +50% space/cost.
It is also the reason AF is not on the Mass Driver , as it is just too strong against a.i.
Part of the problem is offcourse that a.i. sucks at getting some decent shields.
Or as you also pointed out; get more often the Intertial Stabilizer.

No Creative = 13?

Pls. come with some suggestions to make the game harder instead of easier.
Yes, a Crea race is not as great as production / super races in its own development.
But imho Crea races against a.i. are just too easy.
If ICE was multiplayer focussed I would have downed Crea to 13 no probs.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Huh, you're right. I remember checking all the mods before and I am not sure how I came out with the impression that AF isn't additive. My mistake.

I am playing games myself too

A likely story. You just hated my Carta Extremis.

Any plans for improving Antaran home fleet missile evasion in future versions?

 

[Rocco.40]

i really liked your missile tests .. any new insight on the pulson/zeon missile results?

Any plans for improving Antaran home fleet missile evasion in future versions?

Sure, why not. Can you suggest some elegant solution?

 

[Markus Ramikin]

No new insights, haven't been doing anything with Moo since then, and just knowing that there is a BD progression with the missiles is enough to satisfy my curiosity for now; explains my experiences.

Re. Antarans and Missile Evasion: I only now checked and the fleet-wide jammer is already there, on the small ships of all things. So I'm a little at a loss.

One option would be to put the jammer on the Fortress, as it's really the main enemy. Instead of just getting the +30 from the secondary effect, it would get the full thing, requiring scanners/sensors and ECCM. If you need to make room, you can remove the Energy Absorber and, if you prefer to keep things effectively unchanged, increase its hitpoints by 25% or something.

On the other hand, I kinda dislike the fact that the Fortress is so much more important than the fleet there, so that if you crack that, you're basically done, and round 3, when everything finally uncloaks, is really just mopping up, so I don't like upping it directly even more, especiailly in ways that don't up the rest of the fleet.

So another idea would be to put some kinds of Jammers on the larger ships, Harbingers and/or Interdictors.

In the end it's not really that important an idea, but something maybe worth keeping in mind if you ever up the torpedoes.

 

[neilkaz]

I'm OK to leave things at Antares they way they currently are in Ice. It is brutally more difficult to win there than it is in Vanilla. The ships needed to win there can also kill everyone else or conquer enough space for a GC win.

 

[Dukinson]

Warlord: 6 picks (5). 2 Command Points per colony.

You are most wise Rocco, may the glory of this decision be sung by poets and written in the stars for all time.

 

[Dukinson]

I booted up the new version of icecold and it still read 10n. Everything else seems ok though.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Reads 10p for me. You're probably running the old file; Rocco changed the filenames.

BTW, Rocco. I recommend keeping filenames limited to 8 letters. (The new Cold and GM3 are longer). DOS, you know.

Yep, could no longer reproduce the Bulrathi bug.

Time to try Heavy Fighters again!

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Pls. come with some suggestions to make the game harder instead of easier

I'd take this seriously, if I didn't find the game easier to win when I add extra economic picks (and optionally Charismatic) instead of Creative.

EDIT: Tried Heavy Fighters again. Fun, but experimenting with Lith/Tol at the same time left me with my pants down when Darloks decided they weren't scared of my 3 BBs. Will try again with some other race.

 

[Rocco.40]

I booted up the new version of icecold and it still read 10n. Everything else seems ok though.

BTW, Rocco. I recommend keeping filenames limited to 8 letters. (The new Cold and GM3 are longer). DOS, you know.

Oh shoot! that was a rooky mistake to make. Re-uploaded the map files.

Yep, could no longer reproduce the Bulrathi bug.

Tx for confirming.

 

[Dukinson]

I recently played a game with lucky now that it's only a mere 2 picks. There were 5 players and I was the only one with lucky. The silicoids discovered ultrarich deposits and I was attacked by the antarans. I'll keep my large HW thankyou very much. Maybe I was just unlucky with lucky.

 

[Dukinson]

Are you guys still playing with unification? I tried to play with it again and found it slightly too expensive for what it was offering in comparison to moral bonuses. Unification with repulsive seems very punishing, you're not making that extra cash for your population. Maybe you did too good of a job bashing it Rocco! I think I'll go back to feudal or dictatorship.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

What about Unification with something other than Repulsive?

 

[Rocco.40]

Maybe I was just unlucky with lucky.

Lucky works better if you play average difficulty ...
Hoping I can improve it for next version.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

- Spying -12 back to -10 for the same -6 picks.

Trivial, but rightclick description still says -12.

 

[Rocco.40]

tx. for next update.

BTW, I loved your Carta Extremis.
Maybe a Carta Moderatus is still possible?


/ shall we move the masteroforion forum? /

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Bleh. Tried to copy my walkthrough, it doesn't keep the formatting correctly. Eats the spaces between paragraphs.

Why do we wanna move anyway?