[MoO] Master of Orion 2 unofficial patch

[Colon]

You can use the cheat MENLO to grab an extra tech or two if you are behind.

I'm suggesting this because I think it would improve general game balance. Smaller empires wouldn't fall behind so easily technologically as they do economically.

 

[Colon]

How about some way to see at a glance whether a planet has reached full capacity without having to hover your cursor over every one of them?

A small visual improvement would be if you could replace the m for million by b for billion with a planet's total population figure. Likewise, replace the k for m for a population's growth. These always struck me as unrealistically low.

 

[Rocco.40]

Today it's 20 years ago that MOO2 was released and we're celebrating with a fresh version of the patch!

This is a special edition as it restores language support for German, French, Spanish and Italian versions of the game.
Note that these languages use the original 1.31 text files, and some info in those files is incorrect.
Should anyone be interested in bringing these texts up to standard, do let me know!

@ Colon-

I'm suggesting this because I think it would improve general game balance. Smaller empires wouldn't fall behind so easily technologically as they do economically.

Population is king in MOO2, and it requires heavy modding to change that.
edit: the problem with small empires even if they get an additional research benefit, is that they will still be outproduced by larger empires. moo2 is more a pop/production/war game than a research/civilization game

How about some way to see at a glance whether a planet has reached full capacity without having to hover your cursor over every one of them?

That would be an improvement, indeed.

A small visual improvement would be if you could replace the m for million by b for billion with a planet's total population figure. Likewise, replace the k for m for a population's growth. These always struck me as unrealistically low.

True, starting with 8 million peopz on a planet that enters the Warp age, sound too low.
Not sure we'll ever get to changing it tho..

 

[Colon]

Population is king in MOO2, and it requires heavy modding to change that.
edit: the problem with small empires even if they get an additional research benefit, is that they will still be outproduced by larger empires. moo2 is more a pop/production/war game than a research/civilization game

I wasn't talking about production. You're not supposed to make every empire exactly as strong ofcourse. And I don't understand the distinction you're making: research and technology are just much part of the game as population, production or war.
The thing is that setbacks are strongly self-reinforcing in this game, since when an empire lose colonies it not only lose capacity to build new ships, it also falls behind technologically. A research modifier for size would make small empires sturdier opponents, with more of an ability to overcome losses.

 

[Rocco.40]

And I don't understand the distinction you're making: research and technology are just much part of the game as population, production or war.

Well, what i mean to say it that at the core moo2 is a pop/production/war/game. or even logistics game if you wish.
Ofc research and tech are part of the game too, but especially in the unmodded classic game of much less relevance.
Can you specify how such research modfier should work in-game?

 

[Colon]

It increase research cost by a certain % of the original cost for every additional colony.

 

[Rocco.40]

It increase research cost by a certain % of the original cost for every additional colony.

ok, i see what your after. i guess i would do that mechanic for production as well for such a mod.

 

[neilkaz]

Again superb job on the patch. I'd love to see this linked to by places that still sell MOO2 with the 1.40 patch. IMO 1.50 should be the standard patch, but I'd think site would want to link to it and also to ICE-MOD.

I'd still love to have a way to save several+ ship designs from game to game so I don't have to redesign the same ship(s) each early game. thx .. neilkaz ..

 

[Rocco.40]

Patch version 1.50.6 has just been made available, containing another 3 dozen bug fixes or so.
Note that for this edition, a lot of parameter names have been changed.
Your personal mods will need an update to run on 1.50.6.

Neilkaz, no ship design save functionality as of yet...

 

[neilkaz]

Patch version 1.50.6 has just been made available, containing another 3 dozen bug fixes or so.
Note that for this edition, a lot of parameter names have been changed.
Your personal mods will need an update to run on 1.50.6.

Neilkaz, no ship design save functionality as of yet...

Good to hear that you're thinking of ship design save. My only change to the release version of 1.50.5 is to set AI surrender to 999 rather than default 150 which effectively removes it from the game. I presume I need to do the same for the new version.

As I have two ongoing games now with ICE X 13 it will be a couple days before I will try the new patch. Thx .. neilkaz ..

 

[Mr.Giggles]

Is there way to improve the AI so it's not always the same four civs who have large empires? Maybe improved build orders?

 

[Rocco.40]

Is there way to improve the AI so it's not always the same four civs who have large empires? Maybe improved build orders?

The strength of the different AI races has been balanced in the ICE mod.

 

[Mr.Giggles]

The strength of the different AI races has been balanced in the ICE mod.

How do you balance AI civs that aren't balanced? Darlok and Bulrathi are the two worst premade civs, and they usually do well on Impossible if the AI gets, as part of its free additional picks, something like aquatic or subterranean. But you can't give that to all of them.

 

[Rocco.40]

How do you balance AI civs that aren't balanced? Darlok and Bulrathi are the two worst premade civs, and they usually do well on Impossible if the AI gets, as part of its free additional picks, something like aquatic or subterranean. But you can't give that to all of them.

Why not? That's exactly what you need to do to balance the races, give them at least one of Aqua/Sub/Tol (or Lith), some growth, and some research and/or production strength.

 

[Qboy]

Rocco.40,

Thanks for all your hard work on the MOO2 1.5 patch! I am working on a mod to make the Antarans a lot more difficult (I envision them like the Borg with more frequent and nearly unstoppable attacks). I am trying to understand the changes I need to make to the CFG file. I pasted the section from the Example.CFG file on the Antarans below:

##
# Antaran fleet configuration table
# rows:
# prewarp_delay average_delay advanced_delay
# resource_increment_calculation_frequency attack_frequency_determinant
# antaran_cease_of_attacks_coefficient normal_offensive_resource_multiplier
# hard_offensive_resource_multiplier impossible_offensive_resource_multiplier
# normal_defensive_resource_multiplier hard_defensive_resource_multiplier
# impossible_defensive_resource_multiplier offensive_raiders
# offensive_marauders offensive_intruders offensive_interdictors
# offensive_harbingers defensive_raiders defensive_marauders
# defensive_intruders defensive_interdictors defensive_harbingers
# antaran_ship_costs_raider antaran_ship_costs_marauder
# antaran_ship_costs_intruder antaran_ship_costs_interdictor
# antaran_ship_costs_harbinger end_sending_frigates_after_turns_norm
# end_sending_destroyers_after_turns_norm frigates_cease_normal_divisor
# frigates_cease_hard_divisor frigates_cease_impossible_divisor
# destroyers_cease_normal_divisor destroyers_cease_hard_divisor
# destroyers_cease_impossible_divisor
#
antaran_fleet prewarp_delay = 200;


I would like the battleships and titans to also participate in the attacks, so should I lower the cost number in the offensive resource multiplier? Should I also increase the number for attack frequency determinant?

---Mike

 

[neilkaz]

As for Antarans. Try Ice-X and you'll see that they come earlier and lots stronger. I have lost games due to continued colony losses caused by them weakening me too much at a critical early/mid game point.

 

[Qboy]

Thanks, I played an older version of the ICE mod in the past and will check out the latest. I was also reading some prior responses on this thread and someone had tried:

quantum_detonator_explode_chance = 4; # default: 6
ANTARAN_FLEET_RATES Resource_Increment_Calculation_Frequency = 10; # default: 20
ANTARAN_FLEET_RATES Attack_Frequency_Determinant = 3; # default: 200
ANTARAN_FLEET_RATES Antaran_Cease_of_Attacks_Coefficient = 3; # default: 2
ANTARAN_FLEET_RATES Impossible_Offensive_Resource_Multiplier = 400; # default: 200
ANTARAN_FLEET_RATES Impossible_Defensive_Resource_Multiplier = 400; # default: 200

So I am going to start with this and go from there.

 

[clearbeard]

Stumbled across this wonderful labor of love through Steam somewhat randomly, now I'm inspired to boot it back up. One quick question: after installing the patch (and mod) will the old copy protection still require me to figure out which box my install CD is in, as well as where my old PC's CD drive is to actually play the thing?

 

[Rocco.40]

I would like the battleships and titans to also participate in the attacks, so should I lower the cost number in the offensive resource multiplier? Should I also increase the number for attack frequency determinant?
---Mike

Hi, you can lower their cost, it should make them appear earlier. Note that for the ICE mod i have actually increased their cost! Because, with increased resources available there, causing Antaran power to grow more quickly, i still wanted to ensure a nice curve of power build-up. Meaning first fleets i wanted to be some frigates/destroyers before the big guys show up. All-in-all figuring out the right settings for the Antarans is about trial-and-error, and playing games with new settings to see the effect.
In general:

antaran_fleet prewarp_delay = 150;
antaran_fleet average_delay = 100;
antaran_fleet advanced_delay = 0;
> delay time after which Antaran Civ starts building resources (not first turn that they can show up, that will be later when sufficient resources have been built to send a fleet)

antaran_fleet resource_increment_calculation_frequency = 25;
> turn interval after which antarans resources can grow, lower = faster growth. ice setting is 10 here.

antaran_fleet attack_frequency_determinant = 200;
> random roll value that determines how often attacks happen, if roll is lower than number of turns since last attack, attack happens, thus lower = more attacks and if lowered without increasing resources you just get more frequent attacks of same fleet layouts. ICE is unchanged here, because it was not my intention for the mod to have very frequent Antaran parties, and i wanted a handful invasions per 100 turns. But you can lower this number to get an invasion every 5 turns or so if you'd like. For single player very frequent attacks of strong Antarans is problematic as it will weaken the AI opponents very much (and can make the game easier in fact!)

antaran_fleet antaran_cease_of_attacks_coefficient = 2;
> honestly, I always find this one somewhat obscure, but in essence with modded higher resource levels, this number needs to be higher to ensure Antarans continue their invasions. ICE is 4 here. More specific: for an order attack to happen, the antaran attack force has to meet the following condition: 2 ^ this coefficient * A >= A + D + Ra + Rd, where A is cost of all Attack ships, D is cost of all Defense ships, Ra - attack production resources, Rd - defense production resources.

antaran_fleet normal_offensive_resource_multiplier = 100;
antaran_fleet hard_offensive_resource_multiplier = 150;
antaran_fleet impossible_offensive_resource_multiplier = 200;
antaran_fleet normal_defensive_resource_multiplier = 100;
antaran_fleet hard_defensive_resource_multiplier = 150;
antaran_fleet impossible_defensive_resource_multiplier = 200;
> resource growth values per difficulty level separate for defensive and offensive fleets.

antaran_fleet offensive_raiders = 4;
antaran_fleet offensive_marauders = 4;
antaran_fleet offensive_intruders = 3;
antaran_fleet offensive_interdictors = 2;
antaran_fleet offensive_harbingers = 2;
> maximum number of ships per type that a fleet can be composed of.

antaran_fleet defensive_raiders = 0;
antaran_fleet defensive_marauders = 0;
antaran_fleet defensive_intruders = 3;
antaran_fleet defensive_interdictors = 2;
antaran_fleet defensive_harbingers = 7;
> Note that the Antaran HW will never have frigates and destroyers in classic game because of these 0 values here

antaran_fleet antaran_ship_costs_raider = 2;
antaran_fleet antaran_ship_costs_marauder = 5;
antaran_fleet antaran_ship_costs_intruder = 12;
antaran_fleet antaran_ship_costs_interdictor = 30;
antaran_fleet antaran_ship_costs_harbinger = 75;
> ICE values here are 2,5,25,60,150 but with increased resource growth as said above.

hope this helps!

 

[Rocco.40]

Stumbled across this wonderful labor of love through Steam somewhat randomly, now I'm inspired to boot it back up. One quick question: after installing the patch (and mod) will the old copy protection still require me to figure out which box my install CD is in, as well as where my old PC's CD drive is to actually play the thing?

moo2 did not have a copy protection, if installed from cd-rom there is an ini file (ORIONCD.INI) that points the path where the cd-rom files are. if you copy all cd-rom files to hdd then the ini needs to be updated to match, thats all.