Testing: Feedback

[onefish11]

A few disclaimers: This is the first forum I have ever been a part of, so if I say/do/post something wrong, I apologize! I also did not really know where to put my feedback, so I just made a new topic.

 

I have now been playing with this mod for about a month now, and I have to say. I am quite obsessed. Normally I play with mods for a day or two and then get hopelessly bored with them, but with SOGE that hasn't been the case. So good job peoples! I still want to go through and play this even more, so I can give you guys much more detailed feedback. But these are my initial reactions.

1. The planets are great. I see that you guys used the Novus Universum planets, which is my personal favorite set of planets. The textures are breathtaking, the variety is staggering, and I would say that nothing needs to be done in this department. I looked through the .entity's of each planet, and I think that the ratio of resource asteroids and the levels of planet upgrades are spot-on. I don't think much needs to be done in this department.

 

2. The models for the ships are also great. Most my time spent on this mod has been trying out the ships of all the various races, and building fleets and seeing how they act together. As a whole, the visual aspect of the ships in this mod are very nicely done. I could stare at that Viscount for hours... I have no complaints about the visual aspect of the ships at all. Sort of related, the particles are also perfect in my opinion. I really like the size of the lasers, some mods make them much too big and fat in comparison to the ships that are firing them. There seems to be the perfect balance of size, shape, luminosity, and amount of projectiles.

 

Those first two things are definitely my favorite about this mod; the planets and the ships.

(sidenote: I got very excited when I saw that Warb_Null is helping out with this mod. I played EAW for years before I played Sins, and I always loved the work Warb_Null did. I modded pretty much everything he released into that game while I was still playing it. /hugefan)

 

3. Bugs. I personally did not see one bug. I had a grand total of zero MiniDumps, and I did not find any "String not found" things. This mod is very smooth and well-built.

 

4. The completeness of the icons add a streamlined feel to this mod. It's a bit of a pet-peeve of mine when mods have custom ships and structures, but vanilla thumbnails and icons. It makes me want to blow up a few death stars. If I am building a Star Destroyer, why why why does the thumbnail show a Kol Battleship? Long story short, I'm glad I don't see any of that here.

5. The stats on the ships and structures seem slightly unbalanced to me. I need to go in and take a closer look at each of the ships stats, but the feeling I got from playing was that some ships had disproportionately high shields, or others had too low weapon power. I have no clue what your guys' plan is when it comes to the balance between races and their stats, so it could be that in the end it all balances out. But I think that it could be made a bit smoother. I am going to study this a bit more and get back to you with a much more detailed explanation.

 

6. Random thing, not a huge deal, but something tells me the Golan platform should be a bit... more. It starts with barely more firepower than a cruiser, and it is very tiny. I could be sounding very ignorant right now, as I don't really know how big and powerful the Golans are supposed to be. But something tells me that they could be more balanced.

 

Those were most of my criticisms/praises, at least off the top of my head.

 

___________________________________________________________________________

 

As a huge Sins and Star Wars nerd, I have a few suggestions for this mod. (Don't worry, I'm not going to ask for Death Stars and Eclipses )

 

1. First off, I want to talk about the research. I know that you guys haven't really done anything with that yet, which is why this isn't a critique. Research is a tool in Sins that allows a great depth of customization to gameplay, if used effectively. I have seen research used in all kinds of ways in the multitude of mods I have played in the past few years. Vanilla Sins barely touched on the customization abilities that research has to offer. When every race has the same exact classes of ships, with almost identical stats, research is really the biggest way to gain an edge over the opponent. It also helps accentuate the strengths and weaknesses of a particular race. Some mods just have every race's research almost identical, with barely any specialization. Other mods just double every stat by the time everything is researched. You rarely have to do much more than spam-click the research tree at some point in the game until you have everything queued. Very few mods have an intuitive system of research that makes the game interesting. My suggestion, and I offer my services in this department, is that a kick-ass research system is introduced in this mod. I know, easier said than done. I think that the research trees are a very simple way to make this mod from a simple unit replacement mod, into a complete overhaul. Even just adding more types of research, and more stages, and increasing the price and time would be a big step. But having a completely unique tech-tree for each Race that is tailored to its individual strengths, weaknesses, and strategies would go very far in making this amazing modification even more amazing. As far as the work goes, most of it would be actually planning it out. Choosing which stats to raise or lower, thinking of a name and description for each technology, and so on. The coding itself is simple, albeit time-consuming. I'm starting to rant here, so I'll stop If you want more of my opinion on this, I would be glad to elaborate.

2. The pacts and artifacts are along the same lines as the research. They are really cool parts of Sins that could be made even cooler. Artifacts are rare pieces of advanced technology that are supposed to make you excited to find them. In Vanilla Sins, artifacts are hardly a game-maker or breaker. Wow, I travel a tiny bit faster in between planets. Not much of a help in the long run. Artifacts should encourage exploration and expansion to find them, and you should want to heavily defend planets that have them. With the gargantuan amount of Star Wars lore, we could have some really creative artifacts to find in SOGE. They should also have a significant effect beyond a 12% damage increase. That's helpful, but it doesn't quite make me jump for joy when I get that. The pacts could also be made into a really creative system in this mod. Again, because of the depth of the Star Wars storyline, each race could have some very cool pacts to work with. The Vanilla pacts that the races have right now are so bland and general. They have nothing to do with the actual cultures and governments they represent. Pacts should make you WANT to be allies with the Galactic Empire. They should also be a bit harder to obtain, either through extensive and expensive research to unlock, or altering the way you gain favor. The system that is in place now allows me to get every pact almost painlessly and effortlessly, and all I need is four or five envoys that I forget about as soon as I send them off. These are another thing that would take very little effort to change, but would dramatically shift the way your mod is played. EDIT: I just realized that I ranted about pacts when you guys are still on Entrenchment. I only brought these up because I assume that at some point you guys will switch over to Diplomacy

 

3. Research, pacts, and artifacts would also be improved by a tenfold with the addition of custom images for them, but they aren't really necessary.

 

4. The system for upgrading Star Bases was a nice addition added by Entrenchment that allows you to completely customize a huge installation. One star base could be a center of trade and culture for your area of the galaxy, another could be a rock-solid weapon, and still another could have baffling abilities that give it the edge in combat. Even if you guys stick to just having the Golan III as your only star base, I would personally like to see this system exploited more than it has been before. I have some ideas on this if you would like to hear them.

 

5. Some of the abilities that capital ships and other ships have in this mod are very smooth and well-integrated, while others feel as if they were placed there haphazardly. The tractor beams, for example, don't seem to have much effect. The best examples of well-placed abilities are the gravity-well generators, and the various Battle Meditation/Fleet Coordinating abilities spread across command ships. Those change the tide in battle, and a well placed interdictor can mean the death of a fleet. More ships could have abilities like this, that give you a reason to build them other than their shield-strength and laser damage.

 

I think I will stop ranting now. You can see that I have a lot to say about this mod, and I am very excited about where it is heading. I would love to help in any capacity I can, although as of now coding is really all I can do. So far I have successfully merged planets and units into Sins, altered the strings, and changed around the coding of research, artifacts, star-bases, and pacts. When it comes to things like textures, meshes, icons, thumbnails, and visual stuff like that, I am pretty much useless. But like I said, I would love to help with any of the other stuff

Thank you for taking the time to read my feedback!

 

-Raynn_Falu

[Lavo]

On Golan Platforms: While they do start off weak, with maxed out upgrades, they have power on the scale of high level capital ships. The sizing is, believe it or not, fairly good; it's length is larger than an ISD's. I'll double check this however, as I might not have made it large enough. Plus, upgrades are cheap, most of the cost for them is in the constructor's cost.

 

On Research: This is something that needs change, without question. I've made minor changes so far, in the second half (levels 5- of the military tree to create minor differences, though this truly isn't much to speak of. I would appreciate any and all input on this, and on artifacts as well. I would also be willing to help teach you the basics of the research's coding, and other coding if you wish, so that you can even start to look at and make changes yourself. Eventually if/when your skills grow, you could even join the staff as a coder.

 

On Star Base upgrades and abilities: Lay it all on me. I very much enjoyed reading your large and in depth OP, and would be very pleased to get more feedback and suggestions from you.

[Evaders99]

Pretty awesome feedback. This is more than most testers have given us, so thanks!

 

We're welcome to any changes you want to work on, esp as you've noticed areas like research that need a lot of work. Balance and abilities too, since it requires a lot of game playing time. I don't think Lavo, sloosecannon, or any of the others have ample time to do coding and gameplay testing.

 

So basically we give you the charter... you see something you want to fix, you can fix it and we'd be happy to look it over. Eventually, you may be able to commit changes directly for our beta testers to try.

[Chimaera717]

I would LOVE to design some Star Wars-y artifacts and their uses. We need 12, correct?

[Chimaera717]

Qel-Droma's Holocron - The secrets of ancient Jedi Master Ulic Qel-Droma reveals secrets of the galaxy to your scientists, increasing research speeds by 20%.

Ancient Sith Ghost - Your Ruler is corrupted, dropping loyalty across the galaxy by 5%

Exiled Jedi Master - You recover a powerful Force user for use in your fleet's command center, increasing rate of fire by 5%

Alderaanian Painting - You recover an ancient, beloved Alderaanian Painting, increasing your renown in the galaxy by 15%.

The Ebon Hawk's Prototype Engines - You recover the Ebon Hawk's ancient prototype engines which were never replicated, increasing your ships' movement speed by 5%.

Force Nexus - This planet contains a massive nexus of Force power, which your Force users channel into your ships' antimatter reactors, adding 15% to your base antimatter.

Metal-Crystal Phase Shifter Technology - A lost technology from the Imperial research in The Maw, MCPS weaponry ignores traditional ray shielding and does tremendous damage. - increases energy shield penetration by 10%

Kaiburr Crystal - shards from an immensely rare crystal that augments the Living Force has been implemented in your ships' reactors, increasing hull regeneration by 10%.

Vein of Beskar - Impossible to acquire Mandalorian iron used in ship creation increases your warships' armor rating by 4.

Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy - This planet boasts an unsavory city where the galaxy's greatest pilots, scoundrels, and smugglers take refuge and work for your people, increasing trade income by 15%.

 

I'm going to come up with two more later, but these are ones I just did. Thoughts?

[Evaders99]

Personally I think "Metal-Crystal Phase Shifter Technology" sounds a little too generic/Star Trek-y. But looks like a good list

[onefish11]

Personally I think "Metal-Crystal Phase Shifter Technology" sounds a little too generic/Star Trek-y. But looks like a good list

 

Actually I think that Admiral Daala had these weapons affixed to her Maw Irregular Fleet.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Maw_Irregular_Fleet

 

This was in the Legacy of the Force book series (the one where Jacen Solo goes all dark lord of the sith).

[Chimaera717]

Personally I think "Metal-Crystal Phase Shifter Technology" sounds a little too generic/Star Trek-y. But looks like a good list

It's an actual technology that was recently revealed. It is a little tech-y for my tastes, but I wanted to do something better than 'Improved Laser Actuators' or something even more generic.

 

It's hard to come up with unique and rare weaponry in a galaxy that uses the EXACT SAME GUNS no matter what side you're on.

[onefish11]

On Golan Platforms: While they do start off weak, with maxed out upgrades, they have power on the scale of high level capital ships. The sizing is, believe it or not, fairly good; it's length is larger than an ISD's. I'll double check this however, as I might not have made it large enough. Plus, upgrades are cheap, most of the cost for them is in the constructor's cost.

 

I just looked and you are right, the Golan Platforms aren't much bigger than an ISD. I suppose it just seemed small next to the vanilla Sins starbases that would fill up a gravity well.

 

 

On Research: This is something that needs change, without question. I've made minor changes so far, in the second half (levels 5- of the military tree to create minor differences, though this truly isn't much to speak of. I would appreciate any and all input on this, and on artifacts as well. I would also be willing to help teach you the basics of the research's coding, and other coding if you wish, so that you can even start to look at and make changes yourself. Eventually if/when your skills grow, you could even join the staff as a coder.

 

What I don't know how to do right now is arrange the individual research techs on the different tech trees, with the arrows and whatnot. I think I remember seeing a modding wiki on the SOASE Modding Forum, so I will play around with that this weekend.

 

I'm going to come up with two more later, but these are ones I just did. Thoughts?

 

Those are pretty good ideas. Personally I think that the artifacts could either have more effects, or the effects they do have should have slightly more umph

[Chimaera717]

Lavo was already mad I made them as powerful as I did - I wanted to make them complete game changers. I already threw a negative artifact in there (completely unheard of previously).

[onefish11]

I personally really like those ideas. They are certainly better than the vanilla Sins artifacts, and they make a lot of sense. The negative artifact is a nice twist.

I think it would be interesting if the Artifacts boosted one thing at the cost of another. For example, the Ancient Sith Ghost. Having that as your ruler would drop your loyalty throughout the galaxy, but wouldn't there be some sort of benefit to that as well? And in the same respect, the Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy. It would boost your trade income, but wouldn't having a huge den of criminals have some adverse effects too? Just a thought

[Chimaera717]

I personally really like those ideas. They are certainly better than the vanilla Sins artifacts, and they make a lot of sense. The negative artifact is a nice twist.

I think it would be interesting if the Artifacts boosted one thing at the cost of another. For example, the Ancient Sith Ghost. Having that as your ruler would drop your loyalty throughout the galaxy, but wouldn't there be some sort of benefit to that as well? And in the same respect, the Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy. It would boost your trade income, but wouldn't having a huge den of criminals have some adverse effects too? Just a thought

Ooh. I love it. I'll talk to Lavo; I'm really not sure he wants to add massive, game-changing effects to a game we're already struggling to balance. But if he's cool with it, I'd love it.

 

Maybe the WHoSaV could drop your diplomacy rating with other factions by 10%, or something. Or drop loyalty by a percent or two.

 

The Ancient Sith Ghost...see, the problem with Force-based artifacts is there's no way to code ANYTHING related to the Force into this game. There's no human or personal side to SoaSE; it's pure logistics and power struggles. It makes it difficult to come up with appropriate effects for items. I'd LOVE to make the Ancient Sith Ghost allow your ruler to gain immense power in the galaxy through a gain in Force strength and wisdom, but that's not really possible.

 

At the same time, I was struggling not making an artifact like 'Kuat Drive Yards Automatons' or something that increases shipbuilding speeds. The vanilla artifacts are cool, but they're predictable. I'm probably going to make another negative one (having a 6-1 ratio of positive to negative seems better than 12-1, anyway); I know there are some things you can discover that permanently harm a planet, and if we can make that happen, I'd love to see, for example, an ancient Sith War Machine be discovered that eradicates a planet's population and slows growth for a time period. How game-changing would that be?

[wbino]

Love the idea of Star Wars artifacts.

What if a artifact was instead a news event?

Example: Artifact Discovered

1. War breaks out between ( insert war)

2. Rebels take over planet

3.( Announcement) Scientist's discover (insert tech)

[Lavo]

Lavo was already mad I made them as powerful as I did - I wanted to make them complete game changers. I already threw a negative artifact in there (completely unheard of previously).

I was only opposed to the Sith Holocron's large negative bonus; that thing has a profound effect. For players, they can choose to keep or scuttle the planet sure, but the AI not so much. Of course, if it brought both positive and negative effects, I would be less opposed to it. I don't mind artifacts being game changers, in fact that's what they're supposed to be, but I don't want them to utterly cripple players either.

 

At the same time, I was struggling not making an artifact like 'Kuat Drive Yards Automatons' or something that increases shipbuilding speeds. The vanilla artifacts are cool, but they're predictable.

You can always repurpose some vanilla artifacts, just because we're making them Star Wars-y doesn't mean we can't build upon what's already present. Of course, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't put in new artifacts either.

 

I know there are some things you can discover that permanently harm a planet, and if we can make that happen, I'd love to see, for example, an ancient Sith War Machine be discovered that eradicates a planet's population and slows growth for a time period. How game-changing would that be?

Totally different mechanisms; you can't have an artifact harm a planet, you are thinking of a planet characteristic. In addition, slowing growth can only be permanent when done via artifact (until the artifact is disposed of at least), time interval ones only work via ability.

 

In addition, I'm not willing to put in new planet characteristics at this time, mainly as it would take a helluva long time to edit every single planet entity to have them.

 

What if a artifact was instead a news event?

Not possible, due to Sins hardcoding. The best thing you get is the announcement that an artifact has been found at planet X.

 

What I don't know how to do right now is arrange the individual research techs on the different tech trees, with the arrows and whatnot. I think I remember seeing a modding wiki on the SOASE Modding Forum, so I will play around with that this weekend.

Arrows are placed automatically, based on their pre-requisite techs. You cannot place arrows automatically, though you can somewhat mess with how they "appear" by your placement of the tech items themselves. Instead of you having to play with things, here's how the placement of techs work in Sins:

 

researchWindowLocation

block 0 1

pos [ 4 , 4 ] 2

ResearchField "Combat" 3

 

1) This indicates whether a tech is placed in the first, second, or third "block" of a tech tree. For reference, the military tree has three of these blocks, for reference.

2) pos, aka. position, are the X and Y coordinates of the research item. This, along with the block, determines the placement of the tech.

3) This determines what field the tech is placed in. There are four fields; Combat (military tree), NonCombat (civilian tree), Defense, and Fleet (capital ship crews/supply).

[onefish11]

Arrows are placed automatically, based on their pre-requisite techs. You cannot place arrows automatically, though you can somewhat mess with how they "appear" by your placement of the tech items themselves. Instead of you having to play with things, here's how the placement of techs work in Sins:

 

Thanks for the information, I was actually able to figure it out pretty easily by fiddling around with it. After spending a few hours playing with the research, I'm finding out that the biggest issue is going to be balance. Keeping it so that one race doesn't become super weak or super strong, and also keeping it so that players who don't research everything aren't at a complete disadvantage. I can see why you guys have been focusing on the other stuff, this is going to be headache! Especially with six unique races.

[Lavo]

also keeping it so that players who don't research everything aren't at a complete disadvantage

I wouldn't worry too much about this, as the AI will always research no matter what. I've set it up that way on purpose. If anything, you could make it so that one can have an advantage by merely spending resources on research, versus early expansion, which to an extent is what I've tried to do with the current cost set up. With the notable exception of the first two research tiers, which can be thought of as the "bare essentials" for players.

[onefish11]

I hope you don't mind, I've been playing around with your mod's files for the past couple of weeks. Specifically the research stuff. The thing about the Vanilla research tree is that although it's sparse and unimaginative, it's also pretty well balanced. I made a few different tester research trees for the Empire and promptly scrapped them because they were horrendously unbalanced. I have some good ideas though, so I'm going to keep playing around with it

 

One of my ideas is for each Faction to have certain areas of specialization. The research trees of each faction will be very similar (for balance), but there will be a few advantages that certain factions have over others. When it comes to combat, for example, the Empire and NR would have superior armor (due to being the most technologically advanced), the Alliance and the Republic would have superior shields, and the CIS and Vong would have superior hull/regeneration (CIS due to droids that repair damage, and Vong because their ships are alive). This way no one race is ultra-powered, but also there is some differentiation between the strategies of each faction. (I hope all that made sense)

 

I actually made a chart listing almost every value that research can affect, for each faction. The research will reflect the technology of choice for each faction. The Empire specializes in areas like laser damage, armor, and bombing damage. The New Republic specializes in armor, laser rate of fire, and antimatter. The Alliance specializes in laser damage, mass reduction, and shield strength/restore rate.

 

I also had an idea about Capital Ship slots and Supply.

Republic and CIS: 2500 max supply; 20 max capital ships. (Their ships are generally weaker, and they have cloning and droid factories to bolster their numbers)

Empire and Alliance: 2000 max supply; 15 max capital ships. (Their ships are more powerful than predecessors, but they must recruit their forces)

NR and Vong: 1500 max supply; 10 max capital ships. (Their ships are top-of-the-line. The NR is smaller than previous Galactic governments, and the Vong are just a scouting force)

 

Obviously if the CIS were pitted against the Vong, the CIS would have nearly double the potential fleet-size. The balance would be in the fact that the Vong have vastly superior ships. The CIS could win by swarming the Vong with 20 capital ships, but the Vong could also win by tanking with a few more-powerful capital ships.

This idea may be ridiculous, and it's definitely more complicated than usual set-up, but I think it could allow for more varied gameplay. More weaker ships vs. fewer stronger ships.

 

I'm really just spouting out ideas and suggestions. Feel free to correct me if some of these would disrupt the balance of play

[Lavo]

I hope you don't mind, I've been playing around with your mod's files for the past couple of weeks.

I don't mind at all. Heck, that's how I got started on my path personally; making unofficial updates for the beta.

 

One of my ideas is for each Faction to have certain areas of specialization. The research trees of each faction will be very similar (for balance), but there will be a few advantages that certain factions have over others.

I like the sound of this.

 

When it comes to combat, for example, the Empire and NR would have superior armor (due to being the most technologically advanced)

Assuming you mean the armor value itself, this could work.

 

the Alliance and the Republic would have superior shields

While I agree with the Alliance, I have to strongly disagree with the Republic. The latter is geared towards mass-production and firepower, if anything they'd have stronger weapons to complement their massive fleets.

 

the CIS and Vong would have superior hull/regeneration (CIS due to droids that repair damage, and Vong because their ships are alive).

This definitely could work for the Vong, CIS could as well. Mind you, I must mention that as is the Vong's ships have a higher hull strength on average.

 

This way no one race is ultra-powered, but also there is some differentiation between the strategies of each faction. (I hope all that made sense)

Makes total sense; this is somewhat what I tried to do with the limited research "paths" that I put in (balanced, firepower, and shielding).

 

I actually made a chart listing almost every value that research can affect, for each faction. The research will reflect the technology of choice for each faction. The Empire specializes in areas like laser damage, armor, and bombing damage. The New Republic specializes in armor, laser rate of fire, and antimatter. The Alliance specializes in laser damage, mass reduction, and shield strength/restore rate.

I would be very interested in seeing this!

 

I also had an idea about Capital Ship slots and Supply.

While I see where you are going with this, it doesn't really work. The CIS for example, has very strong capital ships, and are even on par with the Empire/NR/Vong. Even their supercaps are pretty powerful, in my personal opinion the Malevolence is the best supercap after the Viscount/Executor, and with proper leveling and support can even take one of those on. The stock capital ships aren't all too different from each other, each is pretty powerful, though the Republic are at a clear disadvantage in this category. Perhaps supply should be inversely proportional to capital ships? That is, less supply means more possible capital ships. Though as is, there's already a lot of capital ship slots, these could probably use some reducing regardless.

 

There are some really solid ideas here, and definitely has potential. Keep up the good work!

[onefish11]

While I see where you are going with this, it doesn't really work.

 

I figured this would be the case My reasoning behind this was that the New Republic era is decades after the Clone Wars. One would assume that in that space of time, technology had improved somewhat, thus making the ships of the New Republic era much more powerful than those of the clone wars. For example, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer was built to decimate obsolete ships such as the Providence and the Lukrehulk (sp?). The Nebulas and other NR era Star Destroyer designs made the Imperial class even obsolete. BUT, I can see that with this mod, all the ships are relatively equal. So I can see how this idea isn't really feasible

 

Though as is, there's already a lot of capital ship slots, these could probably use some reducing regardless.

 

I think you are right. 16 Imperial-I Star Destroyer capital ships isn't too much of an issue, but 16 Praetors can be a little much.

 

I would be very interested in seeing this!

 

The chart I am referring to is a simple Excel (well the open office version) document where all of the modifiers are listed, grouped by category (weapons, hull/armor/shield, culture, planet development, trade, etc.), and I've picked out which factions would be more proficient in which areas than others. As with the Republic and shields thing (you're right about that one), I may have incorrectly assigned factions to bonuses they have no business being more advanced in, but if you really want to see it I could clean it up and email it or something

 

This definitely could work for the Vong, CIS could as well. Mind you, I must mention that as is the Vong's ships have a higher hull strength on average.

While I agree with the Alliance, I have to strongly disagree with the Republic. The latter is geared towards mass-production and firepower, if anything they'd have stronger weapons to complement their massive fleets.

 

To be honest, I just saw that there are three main values (shields armor and hull) and six factions, so I just gave each value to two groups so that no one was left out when it came to combat durability. But that was probably lazy of me, and there's no reason why the Republic couldn't also have armor, or even just not have extra research in a defensive area. As for the Republic and mass-production, in my chart I assigned both the Republic and the CIS extra ship build speed research (due to cloning and droid factories).

 

Assuming you mean the armor value itself, this could work.

Yes I meant the armor value itself. Sorry, I had completely forgotten that there also different types of armor in Sins. I just learned about that this week

 

 

 

I think I've done a poor job at explaining my idea about the research tree. Each faction will have a base amount of research they can do in a specific area. For example, every faction (with the exception of maybe Vong, I have no idea what their weapons are classified as) will be able to research up to +40% laser damage. The factions that I have designated to specialize in laser technology, Alliance and Empire, will be able to research up to +60% laser damage. This is the same in almost every other case. For example, every faction will be able to upgrade shields to +50% shield points/regen. The Alliance and Republic (will be changed) however, can research to the maximum of +75% shield points/regen. This goes for hull, armor, laser range, culture, trade income, pretty much everything. I also added another area of specialization though. Each faction has one area they excel in over all the other factions. They go to a third tier in research in these areas. The Alliance can research up to +100% shield power for instance. The Empire can research up to +80% laser damage. The NR can research twice as much armor points as almost any other faction. Now, I know that the Alliance inherently has more shield points and the Vong more hull points, so this idea may result in unbalancing the game. If it were my personal mod, and this was an issue, I would lower the starting values of some of the ships to be more even, and let the research take care of providing the shield advantage to the Alliance rather than them starting out with that advantage. But that's also more work So anyways. That's kind of how I've been planning the research trees.

[sloosecannon]

Woa!

Someone's planning research!

 

SWEET!!!!

 

I'm with Lavo on this one... very interested in seeing where this will go. SOGE has needed a research refit for a LONG time now... great to see someone taking on the task (good luck btw)

 

EDIT: By the way, keep in mind the balancing regarding shields. For some reason, ships with higher shields tend to do better in combat than ones with weaker shields. Be careful when boosting one faction's shields too high

[onefish11]

I mentioned earlier that I was making a chart to organize the research before it's actually coded and placed into the tech-trees. I transferred it to a Google Doc, and I tweaked it around a bit. Most of the values I just decided off the top of my head, so they may not be perfectly balanced (though that isn't to say that no thought was put into them). As I mentioned, certain factions are more adept at some technologies than others. Where each faction has an advantage, I put a description of why I decided they had an advantage there. Just hover your mouse over the box to see the description. Also, as I mentioned, each faction has a couple technologies that they are even more adept in. You will see what I mean when you look at the charts.

 

And here it is.

 

Now this chart is just the basic research. Nothing too creative or unique there. My next idea for the research is loosely inspired by one of the mods I played a long time ago (I can't remember which one), and makes very good use of the ability to set prerequisite technologies. First of all, you know how the Combat tree is split into three sections? I plan on merging it into one single section. Same with the Civilian technology tree. And I will increase the size of the Defense tree to be as big as the other two. I'm going to do my best to explain the organization of trees.

 

1. The first tree, 'Combat', will consist of weaponry. All researches relating to laser, missile, bombing damage, antimatter, and ability unlocks will go in this tree.

2. The second tree, 'Defense', will consist of technology. All researches relating to hyperdrives, shields, hull, armor, ship and tactical module unlocks, and starbase upgrades will go in this tree.

3. The third tree, 'Logistics', will consist of... logistics. All researches relating to culture, trade, planet development, population, resources, etc. will go on this tree.

 

Here's where it gets interesting.

 

1. The 'Combat' tree will have a series of eight technologies going up the very middle row, each one dependent on the last, which reflect important 'Events' in the Faction's history. These researches will have small positive and negative modifiers that somewhat reflect the 'age' the faction is. For example, an Imperial 'Event' might be the destruction of the first Death Star. This would be around the middle tier of research, and could possibly have modifiers decreasing allegiance (people losing faith in the power of the Empire) and increasing laser rate of fire (the Navy's fury at its embarrassing loss). They would be small, relatively insignificant effects that would end up being balanced out by the time a lot of techs are researched, but they would still somewhat simulate Galactic events. This middle line of 'Events' on the 'Combat' tree would be prerequisites for the other technologies on its tier. In other words, the tier five 'Event' would have to be researched before you could research the tier five laser damage upgrade.

2. In the same fashion, the 'Defense' tree would have a center line of researches that are key technological breakthroughs, weapons designs, discoveries, or just faction bonuses that are key to a faction's success. The CIS would have Geonosian droid foundries, the Empire would have The Death Star and the Kuat Drive Yards, the Republic would have the Jedi Temple, etc. These would also be prerequisite to other techs on the same tier, and they would have small modifiers relating to their impacts on the faction they are with.

3. Again, in the same fashion, the 'Logistics' tree would have a center row of researches that reflect important figures/leaders in the factions' history. Mon Mothma, the Emperor, Leia Organa, Yoda, Grand Admiral Thrawn, etc. These would have small modifiers to reflect the effects these important figures had on their factions. The other 'Logistics' technologies would also stem from this spine of key researches, if you will.

 

I hope I explained all that effectively. I am going to make a flow chart model soon to demonstrate the shape and organization of the research trees to better show what I mean. Also, I have no idea how the AI would handle a research system where each tier in each tree has to be unlocked by a single research. I'm not sure if it makes a difference.

[Lavo]

First of all, you know how the Combat tree is split into three sections? I plan on merging it into one single section. Same with the Civilian technology tree.

Do not forget that you can make pre-requisites across sections and trees; I highly suggest that you treat sections simply as more space for their respective trees, for now anyways. Or, we can edit the background to "enlarge" the single section. I'm fairly sure this would work, though I don't think I'd be able to edit it personally.

 

Also, I have no idea how the AI would handle a research system where each tier in each tree has to be unlocked by a single research. I'm not sure if it makes a difference.

It should be able to handle it fine; thanks to the AI tweaks I put in it will basically research everything. In fact, under such a system, the AI might research things much more cohesively. Once you finish this I'll be able to fix up the AI research forcers.

 

I'm very interested in seeing how this goes, and would like to put out a general warning to be careful about how difficult you make it to unlock ships and change around with allegiance. The former as, for example, you have ships such as the Lancer, which while they were only used later on in the Imperial's history, they are the only dedicated anti-fighter unit the Empire has, and thus making them harder to research would put in a notable disadvantage. As for the latter, even a single percentage makes a very large difference in this mod, more so than vanilla Sins.

[sloosecannon]

Yup. And we all know how dumb the Sins AI is. It may research something that has bad side effects that could kill it...

[onefish11]

Yup. And we all know how dumb the Sins AI is. It may research something that has bad side effects that could kill it...

 

Well... I don't think decreasing the Max Allegiance by 5% would kill off a faction.. would it?

[sloosecannon]

Max allegiance? Probably not... Assuming that value is not the one that changes by distance from capital (in other words, it could cause issues if decreasing by 5% decreases ALL planets by 5%... If MaxAlliegance for a planet say 10 jumps away is 5, then it would, in essence, make those uncolonizeable... However, if MaxAllliegance for ALL planets is 100, and that decreases it by 5, then that's OK.)

 

The big issue here is that with research (and abilities), the AI doesn't seem to be capable of seeing or understanding negative effects. They love to spam abilities that *may* give them debuffs as well as buffs. This is where we get the AI killing itself off from... Volley fire for instance is a perfect example. The AI sees "YAY DAMAGE & ROF increase!" and doesn't see "Uh Oh! Shield regen decrease!" This is why the debuff from those abilities is fairly small (as I recall, it's a -5% shield regen debuff for Volley Fire that decreases as the ability is leveled up)

 

EDIT: The other big thing is to have a way to undo those bad effects (for example, later on make a research entity that gives a 5% MaxAlliegance increase)

 

EDIT EDIT: Wow. Just looked at your spreadsheet, and I am impressed. That's REALLY thought out. I think EJ had something like that for the ships WAAAAYYY back... but that's right impressive. Nice.