[MoO] Master of Orion 2 unofficial patch

[eruanion]

Great patch. I missed Moo2 when it first came out (grabbed it from steam recently) and it's great people are working to improve classic games like this

I'd like to suggest two interface improvements. Of course, it's possible I'm not the first to suggest them or they may not be feasible:

1) Colonies sub-screen: when you mouse over a planet in the list, it would be great to have more visible highlighting of the star system in the little minimap on the bottom of the screen. It would make it easier to see where on the map the planet is located to plan population moves or plan where to build your next ship. As it is, the star system one is currently moused over is a barely brighter color than your other star systems. Personally I have to really look closely at the minimap for it to be useful. Maybe there could be a bigger and brighter star icon that highlights a star system.

2) The transport colonists popup from an individual planet's screen. It would be great if it was in alphabetical order so you could easily move population between planets in one system (i.e. moving population from Dame I to Dame II).

Transporting population seems to be one of those things that seems tedious given Moo2's design. After trying the original Moo and the sequel, I find Moo1's interface for this task to be more elegant. It would be great if freighters carrying population between planets could be visible to the player (like they were in Moo1), but I doubt that type of change is possible.

 

[Mr.Giggles]

Probably too far away from a "patch" but wouldn't it make sense for silicoid to consider "Toxic" as gaia and terraform plants from terran to toxic instead of the other way around? What use to them is trees and plants?

 

[Rocco.40]

Great patch. I missed Moo2 when it first came out (grabbed it from steam recently) and it's great people are working to improve classic games like this

I'd like to suggest two interface improvements. Of course, it's possible I'm not the first to suggest them or they may not be feasible:

1) Colonies sub-screen: when you mouse over a planet in the list, it would be great to have more visible highlighting of the star system in the little minimap on the bottom of the screen. It would make it easier to see where on the map the planet is located to plan population moves or plan where to build your next ship. As it is, the star system one is currently moused over is a barely brighter color than your other star systems. Personally I have to really look closely at the minimap for it to be useful. Maybe there could be a bigger and brighter star icon that highlights a star system.

2) The transport colonists popup from an individual planet's screen. It would be great if it was in alphabetical order so you could easily move population between planets in one system (i.e. moving population from Dame I to Dame II).

Transporting population seems to be one of those things that seems tedious given Moo2's design. After trying the original Moo and the sequel, I find Moo1's interface for this task to be more elegant. It would be great if freighters carrying population between planets could be visible to the player (like they were in Moo1), but I doubt that type of change is possible.

Thanks for feedback!
about 1) indeed the highlighting is ultra-subtle and it takes a very bright screen to see it properly. Doubtful we'll ever touch it tho.
and 2) that sort of pop transfer i always do via the management screen, as you can sort in many ways there. No idea how those colonies are sorted in the colony screen atm.

 

[Rocco.40]

Probably too far away from a "patch" but wouldn't it make sense for silicoid to consider "Toxic" as gaia and terraform plants from terran to toxic instead of the other way around? What use to them is trees and plants?

The original description in the help file for Tolerant suggests that an original intent of the devs was to have all climate types count as terran. Ofc, it would make Tolerant very op, so likely they nerfed it for balance reasons.
From story perspective, imo silicoids as a race should not be bothered with terraforming at all, as they don't care for biomes, only for minerals.

 

[gazaren]

Amazing work Rocco.40! The PDF manual is very descriptive, and the website is great as well.

It seems you have reversed engineering large chunks of the game, or all of it. Good work on that.

 

[Rocco.40]

Amazing work Rocco.40! The PDF manual is very descriptive, and the website is great as well.
It seems you have reversed engineering large chunks of the game, or all of it. Good work on that.

Thanks!
Will pass on the message to my teammates Alex & Darza also.

The latest 1.50.7.1 version fixes:
- Autodesign won't install heavy mod on beams without heavy mod.
- Fixed long messages after raiding in super-fast combat mode.
- Fixed fleets using jump gate being lost in black hole.
- Antaran defensive Raider's weapon_2_amount now won't cause first letter of a ship name to change or other irregularities.
- Removed unused fast mod from anti-matter torpedo, fixing irregular appearance of mod buttons in design screen.
- Tech won't appear more than once in acquired tech list when scrapping a captured ship.
- Pressing PageUp / PageDown anywhere in the game now speeds up / slows down animation.

 

[Rocco.40]

The new 1.50.7.2 fixes:

Game changes:
- Fixed incorrect Plasma Torpedo dissipation on impact (1.50.2 bug).
- Fixed a bug when GNN reports 0 RP to end the plague and prolongs it.
- Satellite missile amount distribution: 1-3 in 1 slot; 4 in 2 slots; higher amounts in 3 slots.
- Improved AI assessment of modded Fighter Garrison strength.
- Improved AI assessment of modded Hard Shields strength.

Interface changes:
- Fixed Jump Gate warnings appearing for fleets that are still at a star (1.50.7 issue).
- Help texts: corrected experience points description in Fleets screen.

Changed config parameters:
- Removed unused parameter Second_Weapon_item6 for event_dragon.

 

[falthgorn]

Hello.
I am trying to run version 1.50.72 on my Spanish MoO2, but it misses an error that says "HSSTRNGS.LBX [entry 0] has an incorrect record size". My cd has an international version 1.31, but the only language that works for me is English. Only 0 works in the language.ini file. Neither French, nor German, nor Italian ..., each gives error in the file of their language. Is there something I'm not setting up well? This is the content of the orion2.log file.
"[17:04:22.005] starting C:\ORION2\ORION2.EXE, version 1.50.7.2
load_config opened ORION2.CFG
load_config opened 150\language\es\es.CFG
load_config opened 150\SET150.CFG
load_config opened 150\AISHIPS.CFG
config loaded in 50ms
config extracted to EXTRACT.CFG

An unexpected error occured, MoO2 version 1.50.7.2 will now terminate.
MoO2 internal error:
HSSTRNGS.LBX [entry 0] has an incorrect record size

If you think this is a bug consider reporting it to the patch authors,
see README_150.TXT for the appropriate links.

[17:04:24.090] terminated."

I'm sorry for my English.

Thanks.

 

[Alex/150]

Hi, the patch works for me on GOG Spanish version. Can you upload your HSSTRNGS.LBX? Also try to drop my (gog) hsstrngs.lbx to game folder and see if error changes.

 

[Rocco.40]

Welcome on civ, Alex!

 

[falthgorn]

Hi, the patch works for me on GOG Spanish version. Can you upload your HSSTRNGS.LBX? Also try to drop my (gog) hsstrngs.lbx to game folder and see if error changes.

Yout file is slightly smaller. Tomorrow i try.

Thank you.

Edit: Perfect. Indeed, it was a file problem.

Many thanks.

 

[PvtHudson]

Great patch/mod for the classic game, thanks! Right now testing exponential techcosts...
Small suggestion for (hopefully) easy improvement: keyboard scrolling of the colonies list using Up, Down, PageUp, PageDown, Home, End.

 

[Dra'vek]

Hello. Total noob, here (when it comes to unofficial mods). Been playing Master of Orion 2 on & off since its release. Is there any way to keep all of v1.4x settings, but add only the build queue feature in patch v1.5x? Being able to make my own list, and simply press 'Q' rocks! Thanks!

 

[Alex/150]

You can't have build queues separate from the rest of the patch, but default settings are very close to 1.40. Some aspects can be set to be yet more 1.40ish, even to enable certain bugs. Is there something in particular you don't like about defaults?

 

[Dra'vek]

You can't have build queues separate from the rest of the patch, but default settings are very close to 1.40. Some aspects can be set to be yet more 1.40ish, even to enable certain bugs. Is there something in particular you don't like about defaults?

The issues I have encountered so far pertain to tactical combat. They are as follows:

1. If I select to attack an enemy fleet when one enters my system, normally I would be allowed to attack first in the tactical combat screen in patch 1.4x. Now, I have random enemy ships able to attack me first, even though I chose to attack them. It's given them the one up a couple of times.

2. In 1.4x, if I clicked "Done" (or pressed 'D') for a ship, but then want to go back to that ship for further actions, I would be able to do so. In this 1.5x patch, if I click "Done", that's it. I am unable to take further action until my next turn.

3. In 1.4x, I could have the screen positioned over an enemy planet or their fleet, and simply cycle through my ships to attack without having to move the screen. In other words, I have the screen positioned over and enemy planet, and I am attacking with 3 ships. Ship 1 is selected, I perform my attack, press "Done", then it goes to my next ship without having moved my view position on the screen - I am still hovered over the enemy planet. In 1.5x, if I click "Done", the screen moves from the planet to my next ship, and I have to scroll back over the the planet to attack. Quite annoying.

I don't always like to use the "Auto" feature in tactical combat because the AI sometimes makes mistakes I would have otherwise avoided.

 

[Alex/150]

1, 2.

This is actually a feature called "ship initiative", ship order is not random but depends on speed and attack. It is also present in 1.40 but disabled by default, and default 1.50 forces it. To have it 1.40 way open ORION2.CFG with notepad and add the following line AFTER mods and mapmods:

strict_combat_sequencing = 0;

Then restart the game and click game -> settings -> uncheck ship initiative (if it's checked). After this your game will always run with ini off.

EDIT: just unchecking ini won't work, since strict_combat_sequencing overrides it when enabled.

3. This might be a side effect of ship initiative or a 1.50 change, not sure. Try disabling ini and tell us if it changed. I never play with ini off, since "always moving first" is kind of unfair towards poor AI.

EDIT: Indeed screen centering behavior depends on ini setting (in 1.40 too, not just in 1.50). An interface option to control it regardless of ini might be added in one of the future releases of 1.50.

 

[Dra'vek]

I thought it might have been Ship Initiative, as I noticed it was enabled in the 1.5x patch. So, I disabled it, but its effects persisted. I will try modifying the ORION2.CFG file, as you suggested. Thanks for the tip!

 

[fraggle59]

Hello, I am french. I Wish to play again this fabulous game in FR but once patch apply (steam MAC version) the patch is effective (1.50 displayed at bottom right) but still English version.
I tried to change $lang$ string onto orion2.cfg by FR but not successful.

Do you have an idea to change manually the language?

Read you soon.
Bye

 

[Rocco.40]

Is your original (unpatched) game in french?
If so, find in orion2 folder the file 'LANGUAGE.INI'
It contains only 1 number, should be at '0' in your case because you are seeing the English language.
For French overwrite it to '2' for French language.
(Also make sure you have restored your own changes like "$lang$ string onto orion2.cfg by FR")

If your original game is the English version, then your are missing all french files at the moment and these are not supplied by the 1.50 patch.

 

[fraggle59]

hi, thank you for reply.
The steam version is sold as multilanguage but for me, only english on.
I search the language.ini file but it seem missing because no such file found.
Perharps I should create one with text editor?
Inside this file, I wrote 2 and save it ?

Will try.