\\\-- Balance of Power (v1.2c released)--///

[Gowron]

How about making the trade centre available for ALL races. I modded my own vers of vanilla and found this really helps while playing the Cards and Roms early in the game. You could even offer not as much of a % bonus to the rest of the Empires to keep it balanced as you like, which I have done in my mod.

I'll consider it, although it somehow does not suit the other empires.

-> revise "free ship support formula"

How so? So as to generally increase the amount of free support, or decrease it? Or will it depend on the empire?

Currently I'm thinking about making it affine-linear instaead of linear. This will help small empires compete with larger ones.

found that the type 1 university cost = class 2 hall of learning cost, making it impossible for klingons to upgrade type 1 universities I think...

It's still possible to upgrade them. The upgrade costs nothing and will be completed within 1 turn.

Yeah, i brought that up on the last page i think...it's something to do with the game not letting you 'upgrade' to something that's inferior to what you already have.

It's not that simple, since it occured with the Cardassians, who have the most effective factories.

I wonder if the 25% tech bonus still apllies to future techs in BOP, in vanilla when you reach tech 10 in all fields research becomes worthless, but in BOP may not be so.

Yes, it does. It also did in vanilla, but it was just a mere 2% per tech level.

I'm 200+ turns into a large game played from T1 on Hard. The romulans have roughly the same number of systems as the other AI empires, but the population of all the systems except Romulus are tiny. Like 56 pop out of 275. And this is for every system except the home one. I don't know if the cardassians are keeping their food production in check, or what, but I thought it was very odd.

I've tested this, and for some unknown reason the systems of the Romula AI stop growing at pop 48. That's very odd.


About the Romulans not cloaking, apparently the AI has the habit of keeping newly built ships uncloaked until they're moved for the first time, then they're cloaked.

[Martok]

A possible (minor) bug: I started a Cardassian campaign last night, and am 23 turns in. I just received a message saying the Vulcans had offered a friendship proposal to the Ferengi. The strange thing is, I've not met either race.

[The_Nighthawk]

It seems Romulan systems really are not growing. They get stuck at ~48 with food bonuses giving a small increase to the pop. This leads me to believe that they aren't producing farms on new colonies. Did farms perhaps accidentally get left out of the Romulan build order in 1.1a?

[Gh0st]

Hallo Gowron,

eine kleine Weile verfolge ich bereits das Geschehen in diesem Forum, weil ich seit dem Erscheinen von BOTF ein begeisterter Fan des Spiels bin. In den vergangenen 2 Wochen habe ich neben der Arbeit etwas Zeit gefunden, um diverse Modifikationen zu testen & möchte deinem 'Balance of Power' ein großes Lob aussprechen. Derzeitig bin ich zwar mehr dem 'Ultimate Dominion Mod' angebandelt, aber das liegt an dem einfachen Fakt, dass es mir insbesondere die damalige DS9-Serie sehr angetan hat & dieser Mod sich etwas mehr auf genau diese/-n Zeitraum bzw. Völker bezieht. Dennoch ist es für mich ein angenehmes Phänomen, nach all den verstrichenen Jahren, zu sehen, wie sich Herrschaaren unterschiedlichster Nationalitäten zusammentun & dieses Spiel auf eine höhere Ebene wuchten - erfolgreich! Mit großen Interesse verfolge ich die Neusten Erkenntnisse über diverse Hex-Codes, bspw. der stellaren Dichte von Sternensystemen. Ebenso interessant ist es, wie einige sich bemühen ehemalige Programmier von 'damals' aufzuspüren & mit Ihrer Bitte vorzusprechen. Wir alle wünschen uns doch eine größere Galaxie-Karte, damit mehr Abenteuer darin Platz finden, genauso wie zusätzliche Völker, damit auch etwas Leben in die Galaxie einkehrt.

In diesem Sinne, Grüße.

[thunderchero]

@Gh0st,

Please make all post in english. if you feel translation was not good enough you can post both ways.

thunderchero
site admin

[Gowron]

It seems Romulan systems really are not growing. They get stuck at ~48 with food bonuses giving a small increase to the pop. This leads me to believe that they aren't producing farms on new colonies. Did farms perhaps accidentally get left out of the Romulan build order in 1.1a?

Farms have not been changed in edifice.bin, with respect to version 1.1.

The only change in v1.1a that I could possibly lead to this behaviour, IMHO, is the decrease in starting buildings (2 farms -> 1 farm) of new colonies. Maybe the Romulan AI canot handle this. So I guess this change will be reverted.



@Gh0st:

Hi Gh0st, vielen Dank für die netten Worte. Und ich darf schonmal verraten, dass es dieses Wochenende wieder interessante Neuigkeiten gibt


Translation:

Hi Gh0st, thank you very much for your kind words. Btw, keep your eyes open for more interesting news to show up here



Edit:

What do you mean by a "counter system"? Are you talking about an alternative to the current "Task Force" display?

A counter system means that certain ships are designed to counter certain other ships. Think of it as an enhanced rock-paper-scissors game.

With such a system, players would be rewarded for adapting their fleet composition to that of their respective opponent.

[Ovarwa]

Hi,

I have just downloaded the new version and have played with it some, and all I can say is wow. Well, not exactly all, because I'm about to say more. But overall, wow.

The changes in ship costs and scrapping have forced me to completely rethink how I play. As the Ferengi, I am finding it difficult to colonize my way to victory. The benefits of having a large, latinum-producing population no longer seem worth the risk of encountering both the Cardassians and the Romulans (the other empires don't scare me). Those colonies are much more expensive to set up and and 10 turns slower to get going. As anyone *other* than the Ferengi, I have to be a lot more careful about building a fleet, because I no longer get to scrap my way to an awesome economy.

Getting rid of the Warp Coil Something or Others was a nice touch. In previous BoP, I noticed that the AI tended to build Training Centers in some systems and Warp Coil Whatevers in others, where a human would want all of his primary ship building systems to have a WCW.

Some of my past comments still hold.

At Tech 8, a good Cardassian or Romulan start will obliterate any other faction that is encountered quickly; the Ferengi, Federation and Klingons are helpless against early intel assaults. It's even uglier at Tech 9. There's another irony at these levels, in that the races who research best are the ones who need it least. The Feds, Romulans and Ferengi have a wonderful complement of ships at Tech 8: current Warbirds, Dreadnaughts, Marauders, Strategic Cruisers, all moving at Speed 2. The Klingons and Cardassians lack a current heavy cruiser and have slow battleships and strike cruisers. As the Klingons, the Ktinga's are tempting even though they don't upgrade, because I might not live to reach Tech 9 or 10.

At Tech 4, the factions are beginning to become who they are, but at Tech 2, the eventual bonuses to Intel and Science mean very little.

My favorite BoP factions continue to be the Romulans and Ferengi because of their smooth Marauder and Warbird progressions, and because they get some of their awesome buildings (Franchise Office, Commerce Authority and especially the Imperial Senate) early enough to define who they are. I also like the way both empires are always in motion, always have something good to do and cool to look forward to. My least favorite faction remains the Federation because of their weak intel and manufacturing.

Would it be harmful for the Cardassian sensor buildings to have a range advantage from the beginning of the game, and not just in the Covert Sensor Array?

What would happen if *no* ships upgraded, except for the transport; that is, new ships would become available without obsoleting earlier ships in the series?

What was the benefit of going from 3 levels of factories to 5, rather than boost the tech level bonus? (I can think of making morale mean more, but that's it.)

Well, I better get back to playing. Thank you for once again breathing life into a game that I would otherwise have set aside.


Anyway,

Ken

[marcus]

I tried to download the English version, but it says at the end of the installation process, that i need to install the CD... but i don't actually have the CD anymore, I am using Daemon tools as my source to play BotF. Can I play this mod without the actual CD?

[thunderchero]

@marcus,

did you copy all the files to BOTF folder from mounted version of ISO as listed in instructions?

there are other options too (multi installer)

thunderchero

[Gowron]

Would it be harmful for the Cardassian sensor buildings to have a range advantage from the beginning of the game, and not just in the Covert Sensor Array?

It would definitely be an advantage (no matter if given to the Cardassians or any other empire). Harmful, probably not by much.

What would happen if *no* ships upgraded, except for the transport; that is, new ships would become available without obsoleting earlier ships in the series?

That would more or less screw the game. The AI could not handle that, and for humans the F2 screen could possibly crash to desktop.

What was the benefit of going from 3 levels of factories to 5, rather than boost the tech level bonus? (I can think of making morale mean more, but that's it.)

It is now more expensive to turn new colonies into industry powerhouses. This had been reported to be to cheap/easy in v1.1.

[stardust]

Completely irrelevant i know, but Congrats to Gowron and DCER for their new special ranks of Code Masters

Where would we be without you two eh?

[timmy_r_p]

Is it me or are growth rates for minor races incredibly low? This makes the option of conquering them, or proposing membership to them very unattractive until the system is nearly fully population, and then you have the problem of dealing with a very developed orbit defence system for conquering. I'm typically saying each planet add 0.1% to 0.3% grow rate even for large terran planets. In my current games the Vulcan system has a in impressive maximum population of 500, but a growth rate of 0.7%

[The_Nighthawk]

I believe it's an extension of how Gowron gets the minors to grow more slowly. You're correct that it really makes you reconsider accepting those early membership treaties from the mintakans. The system may be a 400 pop max, but it's going to take 200 turns to get there...

[timmy_r_p]

I believe it's an extension of how Gowron gets the minors to grow more slowly. You're correct that it really makes you reconsider accepting those early membership treaties from the mintakans. The system may be a 400 pop max, but it's going to take 200 turns to get there...

Ah ha... so growth rates of planets effects the Minor Races growth spurts... I for me one of the big issues is that it makes trying to get early conquering minor races unappealling which if your the Klingons with longer range transports than colony ships doesn't make sense.

[The_Nighthawk]

After some extensive playtesting of each of the races, I love the newest version of the mod, however, I think the AI got broken.

The Romulans, and it seems the Ferengi also, neither builds extra farms. The Ferengi aren't as noticible, because of the second farms they start with. The Klingons do not expand. At all. They colonize the systems around Qo'Nos, and that's it. Those systems do reach max pop.

The Feds and Cards seem to run fine. In most cases they have as large an empire as me when I meet them, and no issue with low population.

There is still an issue with Cardassian battleships under player control not firing their phasers most of the time. I haven't checked to see if this was an issue in Vanilla or not, but the weapons are there.

The Ferengi are a little too strong (who am I kidding, way too strong) with their money. I think the income from trade routes could be dropped a little, maybe by 25% for everyone. And the Tower of Commerce could drop to a 10-20% bonus on trade routes. I like that the Holo Cinema now has some of the Trade Center bonus, and that could likely get dropped to 5%, while the empire-wide bonus from the Commerce Authority could drop to 10%. And I really think they should only have medium range Colony Ships.

Lastly, the Klingons really seem to have the short end of the stick. They need higher industry or cheaper costing ships. Especially TT's. Until Battleships, the Klingons really do not have an orbital blocker. The HC is iffy, and the TT2 is just as good as the HC1, which is almost absurd, if it wasn't for the fact that they're Klingons. I suggest that the Klingons either get an earlier, weaker battleship, or beef up the shields/hull on the TT to allow them to better survive orbitals. It would make sense for the Klingons to just shield their TT's to the max, so they can move past the honorless unmanned orbitals and engage in groundfighting.

Otherwise, think the mod is extremely well done. I had a lot of fun playing each of the empires, and can't wait to get a little multi-player action in for further review.

Cheers Gowron, thanks for the hard work bringing this to life.