New Custom Mod for MOO2

[scratchthepitch]

Decided to give the Klackons another try and thought I'd post the starting save, as it looks like it could be tough one and might prove interesting:

View attachment 263153

There is only one system within range....

This is on impossible, average tech and age, huge galaxy and 8 players.

It turned out that I got lucky in that game. When I started that game, I had resigned myself to being trapped in that small corner of the galaxy until at least in the area of turn 200. Other than the 4 local systems, the nearest systems were beyond range and when I checked the tech tree, I saw the first fuel cells I would get were the urridium ones, the next to the last. It's likely I might have been able to tech trade with another alien race for enough range before I reached the level I could research the urridium fuel cells, but still, that would have been towards mid game and by then I would have been left in the dust by the others. But around turn 70 the leader Jarred and his irridium fuel cells showed up and I was able to get out of that hole and then play a normal game. I didn't play it to the end, but close enough. This was the first time I was able to win a game using a player with the uncreative race pick. If Jarred had not shown up with those irridium fuel cells, I probably would not have been able to win, since the others would have got the lucrative monster systems and Orion before I could have caught up.

This game confirmed my idea that giving leaders techs would allow a disadvantaged race a chance to make up for what they cant research or trade. But it also showed up a few other things that needed changing.

The worst fault was that the cost of researching the later techs was too high. When I increased those costs I was going on how quick it took to research those late techs for my late game players who had huge empires and could put 10000+ points into research and I didn't take into account that the AI players would not be able to do that. I found in that game that the AI Psilons, with their democracy, +2 research and creative could not keep up with my uncreative Klackons towards the late game because they did not have enough planets under their control (and these were #3 of the players in size, so they were no lightweights). The tech cost was too high to allow normal sized AI empires to keep up with even a disadvantaged human player.

Other faults found were that phasors cost too much for the damage they did.

Neutronium bombs were too powerful. With Locknar's ship, I was able to knockout a neut. armoured battlestation and a planetary missile base/fighter garrison combo on the first turn before they could fire a shot, mostly because the neutronium bomb outfit on that ship could take out the planet defenses by itself, doing around 1600+ damage there.

The monster weaponry was still too weak.

Orbitals were not carrying enough heavy and regular sized beam weapons.

So I adjusted those things. Also, I changed some of the racepick point costs (as I mentioned earlier I would do) and changed some of the race's racepick suites. I'm running a test game of these changes now and will post the new version of the mod in the beginning post once I'm sure the changes work OK.

 

[Murex003]

Thanks for this scratch!

 

[scratchthepitch]

Thanks for this scratch!

Thanks for that. Sorry I didn't acknowledge your comment earlier. I should have.

I've finally got around to posting the changes I worked out on the mod. These should fix the problems that cropped up during testing, namely the AI falling behind in tech too early due to too high of research costs. I posted an attachment in the first post of the new version 14 and summaries of the changes I made in the following posts in red.

In the second to the last test game I played, I found that one AI was building huge fleets like I had never seen before in an Orion 2 game. They took Orion with a fleet of 60+ titans and battleships. That was around 2/3s of their total ship strength. Then later in the game they amassed a fleet of 110+ titans and battleships. This was around turn 250 in a pre-warp start game on impossible. Again, this fleet was only 1/2 to 2/3s their total ship strength. I ran a test battle to see what these ships were made of. It was a mix of older tech, but since half were built since they conquered Orion, the other half used the Orion techs. Their fleet was 120+ including smaller types, but only 99 showed up on the battle screen, so that must be a game limit. I don't know what happened to the rest of the ships, whether they hang around till the 2nd turn or retreat to somewhere else, since I only had around 20 battleships opposing, and once I had looked at the ship stats, ran the battle on auto and lost. Prior to that game, I have never seen an AI fleet that was larger than maybe 50 heavy ships plus a few smaller ones, so I had never run into the 99 ship battle screen limit per side.

 

[iwant12kids]

2 Major Questions.

I am a newbie to these forums. I keep seeing scratchthepitch saying he modified...
Q1: Are you saying you have a way to modify Masters of Orion 2????
It was my favorite game.

Q2: The ONLY thing that I REALLY want modified is the ability to change the save file so I can change the difficulty level in the middle of the game. I tried using universal game editor but it doesn't have a spot for that. That would make the game a LOT more fun. For example: I usually play the game on Average but later I would like to change it to hard or impossible. Is there ANY way to do that?

Thanks!

 

[neilkaz]

I don't believe that you can change difficulty level mid game, but of course, just start the game with the difficultly level you want. As you work up to impossible, there are plenty of people here to advise you in crushing the AI's.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[iwant12kids]

If you can other things like the amount of money you have by modifying the saved file. Why can't you modify the difficulty level. It has to be in the saved data file somewhere.

I don't want to change anything else, just want to change difficulty level. Seems to me like it SHOULD be an easy thing to do.

 

[scratchthepitch]

iwant12kids

I have not tried changing a save game file, but this site has links to several different programs that will allow you to modify a save game:

http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005/01/download.html

One of those might have what you are looking for.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Seeing this thread again reminds me that I need to get the latest changes finished testing. As soon as I'm sure they'll work, I'll post the latest version up.

 

[neilkaz]

Well, yeah, trading an AI zortium armor in exchange for spaceport did prevent my player going broke and that could be considered an advantage. But I think the AI got the better part of that deal.

BTW, giving your player 1 positive race pick is also player advantage.

Like vmxa, I almost always play my custom races (vanilla) as repulsive. However, sometimes I play the stock races so I do have some trading experience.

When trading something, I try to trade it to as many AI's as I can, since they'll often trade it around anyhow. That way I can get a few techs for the one I trade.

If all the non-repulsive AI's have Trit Armor, I may trade Zort armor (not a huge upgrade) to all of them for useful techs, for example. Some trial and error may be needed to get them to ask for Zort rather than something else, but you can see what techs they'll give you for it.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[neilkaz]

It would seem at first blush that techs with all the leaders will pretty much kill Repulsive for non Creative.

I agree that missles were poorly implemented after the first one or two. They did need to be faster and more powerful to be useful.

Yes, this mod certainly makes Repulsive worth at least -6 whereas in vanilla I think -6 is too much and -4 more appropriate as I prefer Repulsive to any other way of getting even -5 (low-G or -spying -attack).

As I've often stated, I play almost exclusively using 2 shot missiles until I have very powerful beams. My opinion is that missile speed is well balanced and that if the high end missiles had more speed, they might be OP. Again, this is for vanilla. I suspect in the mod game, the AI, being Warlord has more ships to shoot down missiles and they also are often using ECM jammers.

To get increased missile speed, research a faster drive. Then the missiles move further and if your ship is able to handle being attacked, it can also move reasonably closer to the enemy and then shoot the missiles. One trick is to fire your first salvo and then move forward and next turn move to a couple spaces behind those missiles and fire your 2nd salvo and click retreat (if you have another ship that can stay in battle). The idea here and useful vs starbases and even a starbase planetary defense combo (assuming you aren't killed by their salvo of missiles) is to overwhelm their missile defenses with both salvos arriving at once, thereby losing less to their counterfire than if both arrived on separate turns.

 

[scratchthepitch]

If all the non-repulsive AI's have Trit Armor, I may trade Zort armor (not a huge upgrade) to all of them for useful techs, for example. Some trial and error may be needed to get them to ask for Zort rather than something else, but you can see what techs they'll give you for it.

I've noticed they tend to ask for your highest level techs which they don't have. If you can research something high level, but essentially weak, that makes a good tech for trades.

Yes, this mod certainly makes Repulsive worth at least -6 whereas in vanilla I think -6 is too much and -4 more appropriate as I prefer Repulsive to any other way of getting even -5 (low-G or -spying -attack).

With repulsive, it's an all war game, using repulsive saves having to take other more important war making items as negatives. The trade off is less income and no tech trades. The techs you will get by spying and conquest, but the income loss can hurt.

As I've often stated, I play almost exclusively using 2 shot missiles until I have very powerful beams. My opinion is that missile speed is well balanced and that if the high end missiles had more speed, they might be OP. Again, this is for vanilla. I suspect in the mod game, the AI, being Warlord has more ships to shoot down missiles and they also are often using ECM jammers. To get increased missile speed, research a faster drive. Then the missiles move further and if your ship is able to handle being attacked, it can also move reasonably closer to the enemy and then shoot the missiles.

I didn't know missile speed increased with engine tech. Never paid attention. Thanks. I wonder if fighters and assault shuttles also get a speed boost, then? In the mod AI ships sometimes are heavily armed with pd and regular beams and those anti-missile rockets. Sometimes their missile defense weaponry is weak. Almost all AI ships seem to have the ecm jammers, also. Ships have more space, while beam weapons probably use a little less space than in the stock game. Mirv'd missiles take up more space than in the stock game. I think the mod gives the AI a little better chances against missiles than in the stock game because of these changes, but I have not not used missiles much, except against the guardian.

In my latest test game, I found regular fusion beams were failing to hit at medium range a slow ship with the beginning engine tech. My fusion ships had a 75% computer. The rest of my ships were later builds and they had battle scanners as well as the 75% computer (total +125%) and they never missed those slow AI ships, even at long range. In my experience, you need at least a total hitting bonus of 100% before beams hit enough to make them worthwhile. That lack of a good hitting bonus can also make it hard to destroy fighters and missiles, since the beams will miss a lot.

One trick is to fire your first salvo and then move forward and next turn move to a couple spaces behind those missiles and fire your 2nd salvo and click retreat (if you have another ship that can stay in battle). The idea here and useful vs starbases and even a starbase planetary defense combo (assuming you aren't killed by their salvo of missiles) is to overwhelm their missile defenses with both salvos arriving at once, thereby losing less to their counterfire than if both arrived on separate turns.

I have not tried that trick before. Thanks.

 

[neilkaz]

Yes, assault shuttles and fighters also get a speed boost from better drives as explained in the Strategy Wiki. http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II

If using assault shuttles I often put aug engines on the assault ships so I can get quite close before launching them.

It would seem that your mod makes beams superior to missiles. In vanilla, while AP,AF Mass Drivers are very strong and have a nice research path leading up to Class V shields to fully reduce their size and cost, I find that I usually can do more damage and win games quicker with missiles early on. The research path up to Zort armor has needed techs at all levels and BB's with reinforced hull and Zort armor can often advance forward towards the enemy to shorted the distance missiles have to travel since they're tough enough to be hit a few times.

 

[Cyb]

If using assault shuttles I often put aug engines on the assault ships so I can get quite close before launching them.

Subspace Teleporters are great for this too.

 

[neilkaz]

Subspace Teleporters are great for this too.

Subspace teleporters are fun, but by the time you've done all that research you can usually have won the game and often easily. But some games may linger on, and if you get Teleporters, you can then go for Class X shields and reduce the size of the Teleporter and really have an ship that is extremely mobile and hard to kill if you find yourself up against a big fleet like this mod seems to result in since everyone is Warlord.

Subspace teleporter is one reason why Locknar's ship, The Avenger, is so good, especially rather early. You can, almost always get right up to the Star Base after blasting enemy ships with weapons other than your Death Rays and then shoot the Star Base (or B.Stn..or Star Fort) with Death Rays and kill defending marines and the board it and conquer it before it gets a shot off.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Yes, assault shuttles and fighters also get a speed boost from better drives as explained in the Strategy Wiki. http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II

Thanks.

If using assault shuttles I often put aug engines on the assault ships so I can get quite close before launching them.

I use aug eng for all ships that must close with the AI, either to do max damage with their beams or because they use other weapons that should be used close to the AI line. Sometimes, I'll add iner stab, also. That combo makes a ship very hard to hit with beam weapons in the first half of the game and the iner stab gives them needed turning maneuverability which can also save on beam space since they can use 90 degree instead of 270 degree beams better.

It would seem that your mod makes beams superior to missiles. In vanilla, while AP,AF Mass Drivers are very strong and have a nice research path leading up to Class V shields to fully reduce their size and cost, I find that I usually can do more damage and win games quicker with missiles early on. The research path up to Zort armor has needed techs at all levels and BB's with reinforced hull and Zort armor can often advance forward towards the enemy to shorted the distance missiles have to travel since they're tough enough to be hit a few times.

This is what I changed for the mods of beams, missiles and torpedoes (original, changes-as of the latest version):

hvy mt - 100, 75
ap - 50, 50
cont - 50, 50
no ran dis - 25, 50
sh p - 50, 50
auto f - 50, 100
env - 100, 100
mirv - 100, 200
eccm - 25, 25
hvy ar - 25, 25
fast - 25, 25
emg - 300, 300
over - 50, 50

Both beams and missiles are changed to get these mods when the weapon tech is researched, you don't have to research 1 or 2 levels higher to get them.

Damage by missiles was changed from 8-14-20-30 to 8-16-27-40

It's roughly about the same ratio between beams and missiles as the original game. The beams are weaker than missiles in the early game, but become stronger around mid game with the better computers and battle scanner, so the basics are not really different.

Subspace Teleporters are great for this too.

Definitely. Once I have this tech, I'll usually replace aug eng with s-s tel.

 

[Marlow42]

Hey scratchthepitch

I just start a game with your Mod so i can not say much about it.
1) Where are the freighters?? You forgot them?
2) The planetary gravity generator comes MUCH to early in the Tech-Tree!!!
So all planets with low and high gravity losing there sense


With regards, Marlow

 

[scratchthepitch]

Hey Marlow42

Thanks for giving the mod a try. The freighters should be there. In that version, they are listed under the first construction field, which a player never sees, since they get that field at the beginning of the game. They should be listed on the right hand side of the build screen. It's been over a year since I played that version, but I don't remember a problem with freighters in the test games I played. Could be I uploaded a defective exe file?

Today I uploaded a newer version of this mod that I think is an improvement over the last one. During the last year I've been experimenting with different changes and what I found I've incorporated into the newer version now. The new one is called ver 16 and I uploaded it to the first post on this thread. It's in blue font to make it easy to spot, at the bottom of that first post. I also updated the info about the mod in the several posts following the first one. The changes in the new version are either blue font in the lists, or look for the section in blue font titled ver 16.

I moved the gravity generator forward because many of the races are low gravity. The AI would be hamstrung by having to wait so long to get gravity generator, moving it forward helps them out a little. Most races are not creative, and several are uncreative, so there is no guarantee many will even get this tech.

 

[Marlow42]

Hey scratchthepitch,
it is so nice to hear from you!!

At the ver16 i have now the freighters
I am also a Modder, so my most time i try to make games more better.
But MoO2 is not good moddable, but i not give them up and try many days.
Now i´m able to extract the exe file.
Bevor i changed only the saves. Your Mod i played also with an edited save.
WHY? The problem is, i change the map so that i can play without Gas and barren planets and without asteroids.
And most of the planets i make very rich Yeah, a bit crazy, but i want build at all planets good.

When i extract (as example) the beams.lbx i get only empty files
Okay, in the exe are also the weapons and hope it will be enough when i change there.
But important for me is, to play without the planets i told above or make them "liveable"

I have a request
I want play in german, so at time i not use your help.lbx file.
This is not really funny, because it will not show me your changes, i think
So give it a way that i can transfer your changes to my german help.lbx??

Gravity generator
It can be that you are right, BUT i change the races (RACESTUF.LBX i have a toll to open it) and give them more boni and none get the low gravity
So what have i to do, to move it at 2 or 3 techs later?
This is the line what i have in the exe:
"Planetary Gravity Generator" , 131, 31, 0, 1, 1;
Can you tell me what the red numbers mean?

Okay, i must not need to change the red values, i can exchange the place with an other tech.
-----------------------------------------
Why i play this old game at time
I bought the very new game "Endless Space" But this game is soooo boring, that i took back the old MoO2 out from my cupboard. MoO2 is very old, but none other at time is better!!


With regards, Marlow

EDIT:
I think i give up the game or make a pause.
I just make a test and rewrite the text file back to the Orion95.exe
without any changes in the text file. But then the game no more starts!!!
I think the problem is, that the OCL_Improved is not fit to work with the win version

 

[scratchthepitch]

Hey Marlow42

I posted the programs I used to mod the game at the top of the first post in this thread.

Bevor i changed only the saves. Your Mod i played also with an edited save.
WHY? The problem is, i change the map so that i can play without Gas and barren planets and without asteroids.

I wish I could mod the game so every system has at least 1 planet in it. The systems with just asteroids or gas giants are a waste. The empty systems are also.

When i extract (as example) the beams.lbx i get only empty files
Okay, in the exe are also the weapons and hope it will be enough when i change there.

The program called OCL will allow you to mod the beams. See the first post in the thread.

I have a request
I want play in german, so at time i not use your help.lbx file.
This is not really funny, because it will not show me your changes, i think
So give it a way that i can transfer your changes to my german help.lbx??

About the only way I can think of doing that is putting my help file in a hex editor, and putting your German help file in another hex editor and position them side by side on your monitor screen. Then just just go through them at the same time, translating my changes into German on to your German file.

Gravity generator
It can be that you are right, BUT i change the races (RACESTUF.LBX i have a toll to open it) and give them more boni and none get the low gravity
So what have i to do, to move it at 2 or 3 techs later?
This is the line what i have in the exe:
"Planetary Gravity Generator" , 131, 31, 0, 1, 1;
Can you tell me what the red numbers mean?

You can do those tech changes with the OCL program I posted in the 1st post. The 31 is the number of the tech field that tech is in, I think. The other 3 numbers I never found what they did.

If you have any problems, I'll be happy to help.

 

[Marlow42]

Hey scratchthepitch!

I give it up with this game!!!
I tried and tried sooooo much time.
I used ALL tools what i found, most i like the tool "OCL_Improved" where you can get here: http://moo2.nirran.com/
But when i extract from the orion95.exe and rewrite it, i get a DOS exe!!!!
Look at the attachament. That is soooo crazy.
The other tool, MoO2 Workshop, is very good, but you can not change all (like weapons and others) with that tool.
Sorry, but i have no more power. I have enough other games which can modding easier.

This here is my greatest work in modding: http://www.gamefront.com/files/16886659/Kings_Bounty_Mod__final__rar
I think it is better i go back there to make a new version.


I wish you all the best for the future, with regards, Marlow