[MoO] Master of Orion 2 unofficial patch

[Colon]

Thanks for the overview. I don't think you should make further planet maxpop changes in 1.50. The thing is: I suspect that boosting the maxpops and giving races extra picks speeds up the game. More positive boosts and larger populations result in faster research. Perhaps a general research speed modifier would be a good thing to have to slow down the game again (at least I didn't think there is one right now). Otherwise you have to go through the hassle of modding tech costs individually to the same effect.

I think such a research speed modifier would be nice thing regardless, if you want slower (or faster) games.

 

[Rocco.40]

[...] Perhaps a general research speed modifier would be a good thing to have to slow down the game again (at least I didn't think there is one right now). Otherwise you have to go through the hassle of modding tech costs individually to the same effect.

I think such a research speed modifier would be nice thing regardless, if you want slower (or faster) games.

I have seen such request made before, however the game's speed is not restricted by research, it is restricted by production.
So if you want a slower game, production needs to be more expensive, as was done in 150 improved by increasing the value of the production, unification and rich home world picks.
And indeed slower ship travel or increased star distances would also slow down the game's pace (as it's done for example in ice mod small galaxy map)..
Since to win a game, generally not much research is needed (nuclear missiles or fighter bays do the trick here), making research more costly actually makes the game easier because the AI will have less defensive improvements while you are roaming the galaxy, mind controlling worlds with your cruisers (or battleships in case of 150i).
Sure if you wish to make research costlier still it can be done with cfg, but you'd need to adjust each tech field individually.

 

[Rocco.40]

We've just released fan patch version 1.50.9, that also contains an updated launcher v1.2 and ICE 16.
Check the website / readme / manual for details.

 

[JosEPh_II]

We've just released fan patch version 1.50.9, that also contains an updated launcher v1.2 and ICE 16.
Check the website / readme / manual for details.

Where can link be found?
Thank you.

EDIT: Found it!

 

[Rocco.40]

[...] EDIT: Found it!

Good Stuff !

 

[Depth386]

The newest patch 1.50.9 is pretty amazing.

A few minor issues:
-I still got a tiny bit of trouble in the galaxy creation screen with huge galaxies (i think you call this "clipping") but it's much better than before. A second attempt usually goes through.
-I think the computer players are still using biological weaponry on bombers and heavy fighters if the damage is higher resulting in some pretty wild damage numbers. For the time being I am making bio weapons super tiny with low % chances to kill population.

I would like to offer a few "pipe dream ideas" for potential future upgrades:

-The ability to alter the base hit points of planetary defenses before armor multiplier.
"planetary_defense_hit_points = 100; #classic is 100"

-The ability to alter how heavy beams scale damage. For example, I would like only the maximum damage to be +50%. Currently a normal fusion beam is 2-6 and heavy is 3-9. In my example it would be 2-9.
"heavy_beam_damage_bonus = both | max | min | none"; Perhaps the same could be done for point defense.

-The ability to use the "overloaded" modification on beams. Currently it can be enabled but doesn't actually work. It would also need scaling options similar to high energy focus.
"overloaded_beams = none | before | after"; (is the +50% before Hvy/Pd or after?)

-The option to make missile hit points scale up with armor technology similar to how fighters do.
"missiles_use_armor_multipliers = 1; #classic is 0"

-The option to make missiles and/or torpedoes move speeds scale up with drive technology (perhaps they would use frigate or destroyers combat speeds?)
"missiles_torps_use_drive_class = none | frigate | destroyer | cruiser | battleship | titan | doomstar;" (default none if line isn't included)

-The ability to alter leader abilities multipliers (For example suppose I want "Labor Leader" to give +5% per level instead of +10%, and the elite version with the character * to be 10% instead of 15%)
"leader_ability labor_leader = 5 10;"

-Change to how missile evasion is displayed in combat (one of the following two options)
1) Subtract the enemy scanner technology when scanning a ship in combat, "combat_scan_subtract_scanner = 1;"
or
2) Show the tech_name of both sides' best scanner in the corners of the screen with the configured -% number to missile evasion. "combat_display_scanners = 1;"

-The option to make ships' drives not auto upgrade, instead they would be like computer and shield where you have to refit the ship if you want to upgrade. Fleets on the main screen would use the slowest speed out of the ships included.
"drive_upgrade = refit | classic" and then you could have the design screen update options just like for computer and shield. "design_button_drive = update;"

 

[plasmacannon]

I installed 1.50.9 as well. I had it install an icon to the desktop and runs well.
At the end of the night I run a CCleaner to remove temp files, cache etc. and the desktop icon loses it's path.
I've had to redownload the patch and reinstall the icon. I play it for a few hours. Clean up at the end of the night and the same problem occurs.

A side note, I have always felt Subterranean should be split up into two traits, 3 points +50% more pop, and 6 points +100% more pop.
As there is a difference between a civilization living a little under ground and living almost entirely underground down to the Mantle.
Also, including racial size traits such as Tiny and Giant (mutually exclusive).
(-2) Tiny: This Race is very small and cannot conceive of constructing ships as huge as a Doom Star an are unable to.
(-1) Giant: This Race is huge and unable to fit into fighters. As such they can not construct fighters or bombers of any kind.
Tiny Ant races and Giant Dinosaur races can be easily envisioned.

 

[Alex/150]

I had it install an icon to the desktop and runs well.
At the end of the night I run a CCleaner to remove temp files, cache etc. and the desktop icon loses it's path.

Try to recreate shortcut manually, or create a batch file, or add shortcut to the panel. Frankly such software is scary, see this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCleaner#Security_flaws for example. Do you use it for some specific reason or just to save space?

 

[Rocco.40]

The newest patch 1.50.9 is pretty amazing. [...]

Thanks for your comments, will go through them point-by-point:

-I still got a tiny bit of trouble in the galaxy creation screen with huge galaxies (i think you call this "clipping") but it's much better than before. A second attempt usually goes through.
To your first item: I am actually not sure what this means. Galaxy Generation fails sometimes? Or something else? And what is a second attempt? Do you need to restart the game?

-I think the computer players are still using biological weaponry on bombers and heavy fighters if the damage is higher resulting in some pretty wild damage numbers. [...]
What do you consider 'pretty wild damage numbers'? I am asking since bombers with simple nuclear bombs can already do decent damage (4x 2-24dmg) and if AI has a better bomb then dmg can look pretty steep.

-The ability to alter the base hit points of planetary defenses before armor multiplier.
There is a possible way you can improve planet defenses atm, which is the way it is done in the DEFENSIVE ANTI-BLITZ MOD, that sets a higher than 0 base value for titanium armor and lowers the armor values for ships and star bases.
I'd suggest you study that mods config to see how its done in detail. (check my website for the mod). In addition there is a parameter "bombardment_use_armor_for_buildings" that can improve the hit points of non-military planet structures.

-The ability to alter how heavy beams scale damage. For example, I would like only the maximum damage to be +50%. Currently a normal fusion beam is 2-6 and heavy is 3-9. In my example it would be 2-9.
Not sure i am seeing a value here to have a lower min damage?

-The ability to use the "overloaded" modification on beams. Currently it can be enabled but doesn't actually work. It would also need scaling options similar to high energy focus.
hv, hef and the ordnance skill are overloading beams enough imo.

-The option to make missile hit points scale up with armor technology similar to how fighters do.
This is actually how missiles are described in the original manual: "Ships protect their missiles with the best armour their empire has available. Enemy weapons must destroy the armour before they can damage or destroy the missile itself".
Now, missiles actually get more defense from speed, and each higher missile gets an additional beam defense bonus compared with nuclear: merc +25, pulson +50, zeon +80 (values can be changed in cfg).
It's a nice idea tho, however we didnt have it in our giant list of things to-do. Will add it

-The option to make missiles and/or torpedoes move speeds scale up with drive technology (perhaps they would use frigate or destroyers combat speeds?)
Missiles do in fact get faster with drive tech. Base speeds can be altered in cfg.

-The ability to alter leader abilities multipliers (For example suppose I want "Labor Leader" to give +5% per level instead of +10%, and the elite version with the character * to be 10% instead of 15%)
This could be done if we'd had the base skill values exposed in cfg. While we have leaders skill_cost exposed in cfg, we haven't done their skill level atm. Listed it.

-Change to how missile evasion is displayed in combat (one of the following two options)
1) Subtract the enemy scanner technology when scanning a ship in combat, [...] or
2) Show the tech_name of both sides' best scanner in the corners of the screen with the configured -% number to missile evasion. [...]
Yeah, missing of scanner value bothers me somewhat too. Also absence of displacement value in fact.

-The option to make ships' drives not auto upgrade, instead they would be like computer and shield where you have to refit the ship if you want to upgrade. Fleets on the main screen would use the slowest speed out of the ships included.
Yes, this makes more sense to me too. FYI- ai doesn't need to refit their ships at base, they can do it anywhere in space, so such change affects human player only.

 

[plasmacannon]

Try to recreate shortcut manually, or create a batch file, or add shortcut to the panel. Frankly such software is scary, see this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCleaner#Security_flaws for example. Do you use it for some specific reason or just to save space?

I run CCleaner to clean up temp files left all over the place by different software. It was used at a company I worked for, a call center. We used it daily, at least, because of all the software we accessing on our computers. I checked my version. I don't have v5.33 that had the Trojan.

I'm redownloading 1.50.9-1.2 again to get it to run. Otherwise I'm back to MOO2 v1.40b23.

Here is the error message I get when running the icon or the file itself.

 

[Rocco.40]

[...] I'm redownloading 1.50.9-1.2 again to get it to run. Otherwise I'm back to MOO2 v1.40b23.

[edit: deleted text after i saw your screenshot]
Can't you exclude certain folders from ccleaner sweep, eg the folder where you placed the 1.50 pack and/or folder Games/...?

 

[Alex/150]

I don't have v5.33 that had the Trojan.
Here is the error message I get when running the icon or the file itself.

That's not shortcut loosing path, that's some installed files missing. Check if C:\program files (x86)\GalaxyClient\Games\MOO2-1.50.9-1.2\src\main.tcl exists. If it doesn't, then (supposedly) ccleaner has deleted it. Perhaps it's because it happens in program files. Try unzipping launcher package to another path, like C:\games\MOO2-1.50.9-1.2, then install from there, hopefully ccleaner won't do clean up in C:\games.

Or, like Rocco said, you could try restraining ccleaner.

Edit: And btw would be nice if you posted screenshot of contents of C:\program files (x86)\GalaxyClient\Games\MOO2-1.50.9-1.2\src\ folder, i am interested in what it has deleted apart from main.tcl.

 

[plasmacannon]

I reinstalled the 1.50.9 upgrade and it works again. Tried it for half an hour. It works fine. I like that Cyber was reduced by 1 and Tele increased by 1.
I'll try not running the CCleaner tonight and see if I can continue to run MOO2 1.50.9 fine in the morning.
Also, I have MOO2 1.50 zipped and unzipped folders on my desktop as well as 2 MOO2 launcher icons and a MOO21.50.9 icon. I might have removed all but the final one in the past, thus removing some files. I'll leave them all up for a few days just in case.

 

[Depth386]

Thanks for your comments, will go through them point-by-point: [...]

Thank you for all you do, I'll try to clarify my wording of a few things:

-I still got a tiny bit of trouble in the galaxy creation screen with huge galaxies (i think you call this "clipping") but it's much better than before. A second attempt usually goes through.
To your first item: I am actually not sure what this means. Galaxy Generation fails sometimes? Or something else? And what is a second attempt? Do you need to restart the game?

Yeah what happens it freezes during galaxy generation, before I even get to see the starfield. The music stops a few seconds later. I have to close dosbox and restart.

-I think the computer players are still using biological weaponry on bombers and heavy fighters if the damage is higher resulting in some pretty wild damage numbers. [...]
What do you consider 'pretty wild damage numbers'? I am asking since bombers with simple nuclear bombs can already do decent damage (4x 2-24dmg) and if AI has a better bomb then dmg can look pretty steep.

I was getting 3200 damage from 40 heavy fighters. I believe they were using Bio-Terminator which I set to 80% kill. I have edited bomb damages, even Neutronium would not be that much for the sake of balancing bombers and heavy fighters.

-The ability to alter the base hit points of planetary defenses before armor multiplier.
There is a possible way you can improve planet defenses atm, which is the way it is done in the DEFENSIVE ANTI-BLITZ MOD, that sets a higher than 0 base value for titanium armor and lowers the armor values for ships and star bases.
I'd suggest you study that mods config to see how its done in detail. (check my website for the mod). In addition there is a parameter "bombardment_use_armor_for_buildings" that can improve the hit points of non-military planet structures.

Way ahead of you here
I already do that to a mild extent (Titanium is +100 in the mod I'm working on) but the problem with more extreme versions of this is that it makes your ship sizes more "granular" where you cannot give precise increases to their durability.
As the 100 is just a number, I was hoping that could be exposed in the .cfg file. Since it's a single number I think this is one of the least exotic ideas.

-The ability to alter how heavy beams scale damage. For example, I would like only the maximum damage to be +50%. Currently a normal fusion beam is 2-6 and heavy is 3-9. In my example it would be 2-9.
Not sure i am seeing a value here to have a lower min damage?

Sorry I wasn't clear enough.
Currently in any version of Moo2 I have seen, Heavy Beams deal +50% damage and this cannot be edited.
Fusion Beam goes from 2-6 to 3-9 (the "2" is multiplied by 1.5 to arrive at 3, and the "6" is multiplied by 1.5 to arrive at 9)
Neutron Blaster IIRC goes from 3-12 to 4-18 (the "3" is multiplied by 1.5 and rounded down to arrive at 4, and the "12" is multiplied by 1.5 to arrive at 18)
Is there any way to change this mechanic?
In either example beam, suppose I want only the one calculation to take place, not the other.
Or suppose I want it to be some other percentage, not 50%.

-The ability to use the "overloaded" modification on beams. Currently it can be enabled but doesn't actually work. It would also need scaling options similar to high energy focus.
hv, hef and the ordnance skill are overloading beams enough imo.

No problem it was just a little attempt to make some beams have OVR instead of CO. For the sake of variety / flavour more than anything else.

-The option to make missile hit points scale up with armor technology similar to how fighters do.
This is actually how missiles are described in the original manual: "Ships protect their missiles with the best armour their empire has available. Enemy weapons must destroy the armour before they can damage or destroy the missile itself".
Now, missiles actually get more defense from speed, and each higher missile gets an additional beam defense bonus compared with nuclear: merc +25, pulson +50, zeon +80 (values can be changed in cfg).
It's a nice idea tho, however we didnt have it in our giant list of things to-do. Will add it

I am so glad you're on board with this.

-The option to make missiles and/or torpedoes move speeds scale up with drive technology (perhaps they would use frigate or destroyers combat speeds?)
Missiles do in fact get faster with drive tech. Base speeds can be altered in cfg.

Sorry, it's never been clear to me.. how is missile speed calculated? I thought it was just base speed (10 in classic iirc?) and the FST modification gives them +4 or edited .cfg value

-The ability to alter leader abilities multipliers (For example suppose I want "Labor Leader" to give +5% per level instead of +10%, and the elite version with the character * to be 10% instead of 15%)
This could be done if we'd had the base skill values exposed in cfg. While we have leaders skill_cost exposed in cfg, we haven't done their skill level atm. Listed it.

I'm glad you agree with this, it's just a bunch of numbers.

-Change to how missile evasion is displayed in combat (one of the following two options)
1) Subtract the enemy scanner technology when scanning a ship in combat, [...] or
2) Show the tech_name of both sides' best scanner in the corners of the screen with the configured -% number to missile evasion. [...]
Yeah, missing of scanner value bothers me somewhat too. Also absence of displacement value in fact.

I'm glad you agree. Do you mean Displacement Device? Wasn't sure about that last comment.

-The option to make ships' drives not auto upgrade, instead they would be like computer and shield where you have to refit the ship if you want to upgrade. Fleets on the main screen would use the slowest speed out of the ships included.
Yes, this makes more sense to me too. FYI- ai doesn't need to refit their ships at base, they can do it anywhere in space, so such change affects human player only.

[/QUOTE]
Thank you I didn't know AI does that. It doesn't seem to abuse it too badly though, occasionally I do see a computer ship with an older weapon or shield or computer.
I still think it's a good idea though, and here's why: It really breaks immersion when you capture a ship and the drive is automatically upgraded right after the battle, but you can't ever do a refit on captured ships to update anything else.
This is definetely not just a number though, and that's why I left it last in my fantasy wishlist. I get the feeling it would probably be a huge project.

I can't express enough gratitude for how you have already improved Moo2. Thank you so much.

 

[Rocco.40]

[...]
Yeah what happens it freezes during galaxy generation, before I even get to see the starfield. The music stops a few seconds later. I have to close dosbox and restart.[...]

Let's focus on this for a moment, coz it sounds somewhat worrying. There should not be any problems with galaxy gen whatsoever, unless there is some unknown bug or you have working with modded maps.
So first question- are you playing with own modded maps? or are you just using the standard maps from the 1.50 pack?

ps. yes, displacement = displacement device.

 

[Depth386]

Let's focus on this for a moment, coz it sounds somewhat worrying. There should not be any problems with galaxy gen whatsoever, unless there is some unknown bug or you have working with modded maps.
So first question- are you playing with own modded maps? or are you just using the standard maps from the 1.50 pack?

I am using my own map config.
I reduced huge galaxy to 64 stars in order to lower the probability of over 255 satellites.
I'm not so sure it's the map now... it freezes at "Placing home worlds..."

Here is a link to my map .cfg file on mediafire because a .cfg may not be uploaded to this forum, they only allow certain file types.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/ihfx5o7o7ibq7cr/MAP_D386.cfg

Edit: Just wanted to add it occurs more with higher numbers of players.

 

[Rocco.40]

I am using my own map config.
I reduced huge galaxy to 64 stars in order to lower the probability of over 255 satellites.
I'm not so sure it's the map now... it freezes at "Placing home worlds..."

This is caused because you have no food worlds in the first column of tables group_to_climate_young_avg_gal & #group_to_climate_old_gal.
You have set desert from 5% to 0%. To prevent mapgen stall, you need to have some food world in each column.

Here is a link to my map .cfg file on mediafire because a .cfg may not be uploaded to this forum, they only allow certain file types.

You can add here by changing extension from .cfg to .txt, it's better than that mediafire which has very spammy popups.

 

[Alex/150]

I reduced huge galaxy to 64 stars in order to lower the probability of over 255 satellites.

I want to stress, that 250 satellites trimming was fixed and is not related to you current problem. We might add some checks to mapgen in next release, so it won't hang on broken configs.

 

[Depth386]

This is caused because you have no food worlds in the first column of tables group_to_climate_young_avg_gal & #group_to_climate_old_gal.
You have set desert from 5% to 0%. To prevent mapgen stall, you need to have some food world in each column.

I want to stress, that 250 satellites trimming was fixed and is not related to you current problem. We might add some checks to mapgen in next release, so it won't hang on broken configs.

Whoops, thank you. I was trying to treat it like the first column is planets too hot for life. Mercury, Venus, that sort of thing.

So does it have to be at least 5%? Is 1% okay?

You can add here by changing extension from .cfg to .txt, it's better than that mediafire which has very spammy popups.

My apologies, will do from now on.

 

[Rocco.40]

I tried 1% desert and it worked for at least 10x mapgen on Huge, so you can try that setting, and then experiment as needed. So if you get another stall, then set it to 2%, etc.
On your config i set radiated from 90 to 89 to compensate for that 1%. Did the same for the old_gal table.
Hope this helps.