List and Observations in BETA testing

[MrPhildevil]

i noticed the AI doesn't tend to link it's trade network, so once i get mine up and running it's pretty much game over.

Unfortunately, the AI is absolutely shoddy at empire management; it never moves it's homeworld to an urban planet as it should.

 

Uh? What would this accomplish, if you don't mind sharing?

[Lavo]

i noticed the AI doesn't tend to link it's trade network, so once i get mine up and running it's pretty much game over.

Unfortunately, the AI is absolutely shoddy at empire management; it never moves it's homeworld to an urban planet as it should.

 

Uh? What would this accomplish, if you don't mind sharing?

Better allegiance and thus far better income rates.

[01lude]

just my personal opinion, i like the AI cap ships coming out at level 2 instead of level 3 because they will still build other ship types. if they are allowed to have free level 3 cap ships then they tend to spam only that 1 single unit with no fleet diversity. also when they get supercaps it feels kind of hax. just my personal opinion of course.

[wbino]

N/R's Defender ship lost it's colonizing ability but in ship building colonize is still there.

[Lavo]

N/R's Defender ship lost it's colonizing ability but in ship building colonize is still there.

Yeah, I removed the colonize ability, it being given to the MC Heavy Carrier, though I do not understand what the second part of your sentence means.

[wbino]

When you look at the ships(Defender) description at the frigate factory it states that the Defender can send down a colonizer still, even though you took the ability away.

[Lavo]

When you look at the ships(Defender) description at the frigate factory it states that the Defender can send down a colonizer still, even though you took the ability away.

Really? I thought I rem- Oh wait, you must mean the general description, not the counterdesc, which actually says what a ship can do. I'll fix that in the next revision. Thanks for the heads up!

[wbino]

Why don't I see trade or refinery ships?

[Lavo]

You have to start a new game, most likely, as I believe it won't work on old saves. I booted up a fresh extract of 2.0E and I see the new ships just fine.

[Ludo Kressh]

The new updates work very well - I've had no problems thus far.

 

However, I do have a question (address it at your leisure): I've noticed the AI, in general, does not focus much on building fortifications to a degree beyond turbolasers and missile turrets, even on Unfair. Rather than encountering starbases, hangar defenses, "those hyperspace-inhibitor-things", ion cannons, or even mines, I find mass-groupings of broadcast centers (sometimes 10 or more), with sparse protection, no more than, say, 3 or 4 TBLs and a duo of missile turrets. Not including any mynocks in the area. It seems that the AI, after building extractors, a frigate factory, and a tradeport, seems to focus entirely on the broadcast centers, and little else (besides its fleet, which it does so marvelously).

 

I realize that the Researcher/Aggressor/Economist AI types are different from the Fortifier in development focus (at least I think so...), but I'm curious as to whether this was a deliberate choice in the AI's behavior, or just a deficiency in the hard-coded scripting, as I recall the AI used to be able to do this, at least with mines.

 

I honestly don't expect every enemy-held planet to be Bastion-like in fortifications, but every so often running into a hard-core fortress world would be awesome.

 

Other than that, I'm thoroughly addicted to this mod.

[Lavo]

The AI in Sins is stupid. There's really no other way to put it. The AI "settings" truly are unknown and unmoddable, except for how much each AI supposedly spends on various things. I've run into worlds which have at least half a dozen hangar defenses, another half a dozen turrets, plus maybe others, and I've also run into worlds which have 15+ broadcast centers with a pitiful handful of turrets as a meaningless defense.

 

The AI also has some very weird habits with research which I honestly do not understand. It still does build mines, but NU has limited the amount of mines each planet can support, so there's only so much that the AI can do with them. Also, was that fleet comment sarcastic?

[MrPhildevil]

Uh, is 2.0 available somewhere yet?

[Lavo]

Uh, is 2.0 available somewhere yet?

No; experiencing some technical issues. It's also just revision 687 without some extra files and every mesh/entity/particle/brushes converted to bin from txt.

[Ludo Kressh]

Also, was that fleet comment sarcastic?

 

Actually, it meant to be a complement. Mah bad. xD

 

During one of my Republic games against an Unfair CIS team of two, one of them produced 3 Subjugator-class cruisers and 1 Geonosian SDN, used them successfully against my core fleet headed by a Mandator when I used it to raid their border planets. An epic battle ensued for 7 minutes, after which only the Mandator stood standing (a loss of 10 heavy cruisers and dozens of frigates...), which the remaining 5% of the CIS fleet turned-tail. Nevertheless, the victory was very much pyrrhic, so I too was forced to withdraw before reinforcements arrived from either side.

 

Too bad I wasn't able to finish the game (the 2.0e update made it minidump), but it was an excellent example of the AI using some brains and making some wicked fleets to contend with. So yeah, great job, brah. :V

[Lavo]

Sorry for breaking the game again. :v Though you should still be able to play it now, your issue might have been a bug I squished right after the 2.0E update.

[Ludo Kressh]

No problem - I typically restart the games in-play when big updates come around.

 

Query: I was perusing the 7 Deadly Sins Moddb page, and was wondering whether there are plans to include suns as as individual, non-colonizable masses beyond the central one in the maps (similar to dead moons, dead asteroids, etc.), or at least nixing the central star, and replacing it with, say, a black hole, or something transparent. I figure that, given the trans-galactic nature of Star Wars astronavigational maps, it may add a bit more in-universe accuracy to the experience...but that's just what I think.

 

I'm also looking into getting some icons ready for GalaxyForge use, so I/we can produce some maps, as well as edit those already there. I'll let you know as things develop.

[Lavo]

Query: I was perusing the 7 Deadly Sins Moddb page, and was wondering whether there are plans to include suns as as individual, non-colonizable masses beyond the central one in the maps (similar to dead moons, dead asteroids, etc.), or at least nixing the central star, and replacing it with, say, a black hole, or something transparent. I figure that, given the trans-galactic nature of Star Wars astronavigational maps, it may add a bit more in-universe accuracy to the experience...but that's just what I think.

There are no plans to do that as of now; individual ones work as is and there isn't truly a way to make SW-realistic maps, due to the nature of Sins. Well, that and we don't have a black hole mesh and I really do not want to have to work in abilities for that thing, abilities which would also be a huge detriment to the AI who would not be able to deal with them.

 

I'm also looking into getting some icons ready for GalaxyForge use, so I/we can produce some maps, as well as edit those already there. I'll let you know as things develop.

That would be intriguing. Do keep me updated with that; don't forget that for icons you can also just make a copy of and rename files to get it to work (namely for things like the dwarf/large/etc variants of individual planets).

[Ludo Kressh]

Okay, that makes sense about the stars. Perhaps an invisible mesh or something to replace the central star or something may work (not changing the mechanics, simply modifying the appearance), and working with the stars as non-colonizable, "dead" space objects. That may be possible...Then again, I'm not the modder here, you are.

 

When Rebellion is released, perhaps, this could be readdressed. Still, I'll poke bout with my own copy and see what I can come up with.

 

 

And thanks for the tip - it's been a while since I touched that thing. Perhaps as I create the icons, I'll add some small text to the graphics themselves differentiate the various types (via acronyms) once placed on the map. I remember creating a rather large Kashyyyk Region and Neighbors map, and found orienting planets to be very frustrating when they all look the same on-screen, on top of being devoid of visual, proper names.

 

 

One last question: Is there any possibility to include the VSD-II as an Imperial ship? Perhaps by transferring the Broadside to the frigates menu (or removing it entirely, besides being a pirate ship - I never use them, personally), and inserting the VSD-II into the slot of the Strike Cruiser, (moving the other ships down a slot), it could find a place? I figure it would have the same stats and costs as the Republic VSD-II, and would be a more fitting (and efficient) complement to the larger Imperial-class cruisers, besides the reasons Chim posted a while ago.

 

...Or not. xD

[wbino]

The SGI mod has undiscovered planet icons that you should look at they are a planet grid that would seem to match the Star Wars universe more than the generic Sins model. I don't know if mod makers share stuff though.......

 

 

looks a little like this.........

 

http://www.shatters.net/~claurel/celestia/images/planetgrid2.jpg

 

 

without the grey planet background............

[01lude]

been crashing pretty often recently. no system changes, all my temps are ok.

 

edit: also not sure if this was done on purpose or not, but ships with shield boost abilities are now able to use them on other allied ships. i noticed it while playing as CIS, my bulwarks were all spamming their shield boost but they were using it on my capital ship. i think that ships used to only be able to use the ability on themselves, not on other ships? it was kind of annoying because instead of targeting the enemy they would try to get adjacent to the cap ship to use their ability. so basically i had a single capital ship actually fighting with a bunch of bulwarks following it around like 10feet behind all spamming their shield boost at the same time.

Edited January 4, 2012 by 01lude

[sloosecannon]

Is it just me or is the SVN server offline?

[Lavo]

edit: also not sure if this was done on purpose or not, but ships with shield boost abilities are now able to use them on other allied ships.

Due to the range of 0, the shield boost only works on the casting ship.

 

i think that ships used to only be able to use the ability on themselves, not on other ships?

I changed the autocast conditions as the ability was not working properly before; ships were only waiting until their shield went to 0 to fire off the ability, which is wrong. I'm still working on this.

[Evaders99]

Sorry about that, I think we've been playing with the server again. SVN restarted

[wbino]

Playing as NR

 

In the Civ tech tree

Develop Mandate

It says unlocks Imperial SD?

 

Also where is the description that the broadcast center upgrades to the holonet?

[Lavo]

In the Civ tech tree

Develop Mandate

It says unlocks Imperial SD?

This is for the AI; I've scripted a few upgrades so they unlock dupe ships, and for the Empire one of these dupe ships is an ISD. Unfortunately, due to Sins' engine, the first file/faction it loads is what it displays for what the tech unlocks. It doesn't affect the player whatsoever.

 

Also where is the description that the broadcast center upgrades to the holonet?

It should be mentioned in the tech itself, I guess the AI bit I put in might have taken it away. The broadcast center should start off with the tech, but mentioning that it requires research to work, like Buzz Droids. I'll edit the second culture tech's description so it mentions this, thanks.