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

[Martok]

I've been meaning to post this for a while now: I've noticed that Utopia Planitia still gives a shipbuilding boost to Sol. Not sure if that's deliberate (and for all I know it's a bug native to vanilla BOTF), but I'd thought I'd mention it.

[Gowron]

I've been meaning to post this for a while now: I've noticed that Utopia Planitia still gives a shipbuilding boost to Sol.

The Utopia Planitia does not give a ship production boost in BoP. Instead, the Warp Coil Replicator does that (+80 industry units per turn).

Don't let yourself be misleaded by the "turns remaining" display. Instead, you can click on the build queue (as if you were to abort the current production), and you'll see how many industry units were used for the current ship in production so far.

[Martok]

Don't let yourself be misleaded by the "turns remaining" display. Instead, you can click on the build queue (as if you were to abort the current production), and you'll see how many industry units were used for the current ship in production so far.

Gah! You're quite correct, of course. I confess I hadn't thought to check the actual industry output. Thanks, man.

[Martok]

Hey, I've got a quick question that I've been meaning to ask for a while:

Does the Cardassians' Keldon, Federation's Sovereign, and the Klingons' Negh'var give an actual bonus to other vessels in combat (just like the command ships in vanilla BOTF)? My hunch is that they don't (since otherwise that could give the Cards, Feds & Klingons a distinct advantage over the other 2 empires), but I don't wish to assume either.

[stardust]

I thought that applied to all the flagships of the empires.
All empires had at least one type of command cruiser and they enabled in amongst other things the ability for you to target individual ships rather than groups.

and if i remember right Gowron removed most everything except the command cruisers to force the AI into making a half decent fleet to battle.

[Martok]

Well in BOP, the Marauder and Warbird don't have their usual command abilities like they do in the vanilla game. Now they're simply the Ferengis' and Romulans' respective cruiser-type "workhorse" vessels -- just like the Cardassian Galor-class, Federation Ambassador/Galaxy/Galaxy-X, and Klingon K'tinga. (Which I actually like, by the way; I'm not complaining at all. )

So what I'm wondering is: Do the Keldon, Sovereign, and Negh'var serve as actual command ships (along with the attendant special abilities)? Or are they simply heavier warships?

It's not really a big deal to me either way. It's just that I've been curious about this for some time now.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

You can watch the command ability in shiplist.sst. I don't know whether it's possible wiht UE, but it should be able shipview.
[EDIT-This paragraph was unnecessary because you can allready see it in shipbuilding list]

The follow link will give you a manual for understanding shiplist.sst.

http://www.members.aon.at/zelli/shiplist.htm

Note1: It's finaly questionable whether the command ability has an effect. (I know most folks belives)

Note2: Targeting individual ships is a general ship ability, not only for command cruisers.

[Gowron]

Does the Cardassians' Keldon, Federation's Sovereign, and the Klingons' Negh'var give an actual bonus to other vessels in combat (just like the command ships in vanilla BOTF)?

None that I know of. In the BotF manual it's stated that they provide some kind of special bonus, but AFAIK that has not been proven yet. And the manual says quite a few questionable things

The ship type composition must match a specific pattern so that the AI can handle it. For example, if the ship type of the Marauder was changed from "cruiser" to "battleship", then the AI would not build it anymore.
For more details, see
http://armadafleetcommand.com/onscreen/ ... topic&t=78

[Martok]

None that I know of. In the BotF manual it's stated that they provide some kind of special bonus, but AFAIK that has not been proven yet.

Ah, okay. So the only thing we know for certain is that battleships are just more powerful than cruisers, and don't necessarily possess any additional attributes (with respect to their "command" abilities, or lack thereof). Got it.

And the manual says quite a few questionable things

Heh. That's certainly true. Even given that it was fairly substantial in size, BOTF's manual was one of the worst I've ever seen -- too much of the information included in it was either incomplete (at best) or downright inaccurate.

The ship type composition must match a specific pattern so that the AI can handle it. For example, if the ship type of the Marauder was changed from "cruiser" to "battleship", then the AI would not build it anymore.
For more details, see
http://armadafleetcommand.com/onscreen/ ... topic&t=78

Yeah, I checked out your other post. I have a question about that, by the way: How come the Federation doesn't need the Oberth in the ship lineup in order to build Mirandas? What makes the Fed AI different from the AI for the other four empires? It's not a huge deal to me, but I do find it quite puzzling.




On a semi-related subject: How come Mirandas get scanning ability, but the other four empires' destroyers/raiders do not? Doesn't that give the Feds an unfair advantage?

[Gowron]

Yeah, I checked out your other post. I have a question about that, by the way: How come the Federation doesn't need the Oberth in the ship lineup in order to build Mirandas? What makes the Fed AI different from the AI for the other four empires? It's not a huge deal to me, but I do find it quite puzzling.

It's simpler than you think
Each ship class (more precisely, each ship list entry) has its own "role" label. This decides how the AI uses the ships, what options there are during combat etc.

For the AI, the Miranda is labeled as a "scout", hence it closes the gap left by the Oberth class, and the Federation will still build mixed fleets

As a side effect, the Miranda can scan enemy crew ratings during combat.

On a semi-related subject: How come Mirandas get scanning ability, but the other four empires' destroyers/raiders do not? Doesn't that give the Feds an unfair advantage?

It's not just the Miranda. All Federation ships have +1 scan range compared to the other races. It's an advantage, but by no means unfair.

[stardust]

It's not just the Miranda. All Federation ships have +1 scan range compared to the other races. It's an advantage, but by no means unfair.

I suppose you can justify it by the fact that the feds are usually geared more towards exploration than war, so what'd be the point of exploration if your scanners are cr*p?

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

@Gowron the glorious warrior on the battlefield of cognisance

You've resized some ship models. Can You explain what does this mean for the initial distance between ships/fleets in tactical combat ?
Starbase Combat Distance topic dosen't explain initial distance for fleets of various ships without involved spacestation. Determinates the largest ship model the initial distance ?

Joker's page refers of Beam/Torpedoes multiplier to creat a different effect against shields and hull. Could be an interesting feature. (If it works?)

PS: I'm very curious about how you're doing wiht the tech level multiplier.

PPS: Is it possibly that Damage Control regardless of expirience modifier isn't working ?

@Martok No wonder that you were confused. Gowron is wrongly referring about shiptype in AI fleet buildup (just a variable term) but ship function is the related value. (Don't tell him I said so)

[Gowron]

@Gowron the glorious warrior on the battlefield of cognisance

You've resized some ship models. Can You explain what does this mean for the initial distance between ships/fleets in tactical combat ?

I've only tested it for outposts and starbases, because that's where it matters.

For fleet-to-fleet combat, the initial distance will normally be less than the weapon range of the involved ships.
(note that BoP features considerably increased weapon ranges for ships)
So the resized models shoudn't make any difference

Joker's page refers of Beam/Torpedoes multiplier to creat a different effect against shields and hull. Could be an interesting feature. (If it works?)

"Interesting" is a great understatement

It would be incredibly useful. There could be counter ships against certain ship types.

Of course I did a lot of tests to see if it worked. Unfortunately, no matter how much I changed the "damage multipliers" and "shield levels", it didn't have any effect at all. Not a single hitpoint of a difference

Maybe it was not implemented because the makers of BotF ran out of time.

PPS: Is it possibly that Damage Control regardless of expirience modifier isn't working ?

BoP does not change the way Damage Control works, neither does it change the recovery percentages.

PS: I'm very curious about how you're doing wiht the tech level multiplier.

The new multipliers worked great during all tests so far


EDIT:

Re-uploaded everything after my 4shared account had timed out
Now it's all available again

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Some suggestions for BoP:

Drastically reduced weapon output qualifies the significance of the cloaking ability and almost all Klingon ships can now cloak. Furthermore Roms aren't the intel force they were against Cards.
So I suggest cloaked colony ships and troop transports for romulans. This'll gives lost secrecy back and some surprising effects without unbalance the game. It's no big advantage. I use it for a long time. And I can say it performs great. Cloaked outposts could be interesting too. But I'm not sure if to engage the cloak for stations and the AI seeming doesn't uses it.

Why not take ship function 03/strike (instead of 04/command) for cumbersome ships like Negh'Var (If no AI fleet buildup trouble caused byswap with Vorcha).
In this wise the circle button is removed for suchlike ships. Alas AI can still do. And if is circle the default setting in a tactical combat then the player can use it untill change.

All minor race ships have relatively low costs and maintenance values, so scrapping them won't yield much cash.

Very good - but why not finish the job and set costs to zero (or between 1-3) and maintenance equal to the related empire ships.

I recommend removal of all building morale penalties (Kling/Cards). Otherwise these buildings are almost useless. Considering kling/cards have allready the weakliest economy seems this in mind of BoP.

Note all buildings with output type +X trade routes (Acamarian Clan Hall & Franchise Office) do work completely without any energy maintenance.

The "Antedean Bug" has been fixed. They will no longer hate everyone. After all, that's what the Sheliak are there for

That's not their authentic behave in TNG. Sheliak (like Edo) are inhuman bureaucrats. But not aggresive or enraged by default. Maybe Antedeans aren't all terrorists wiht bombs in their fish soup, but some other minors (Malcorians, Nausicaans, Talarians...) are much more suspected to this job.......I personal would suggest Talarians.


Now (too)many questions:

The Klingon Mining Prison is still restricted to systems with Dilithium.

IIRC the AI(vanilla) ignores the Dilithium restriction (at least for refineries) - is this solved ?
And mostly the AI didn't build the minor special buildings. Is this corrected ?

The energy values in the AI Building Requirements file (aibldreq.bin) have been corrected

What happen when not ?

The technology levels of the minor races, a major imbalance factor in original BotF, have been completely redone. As a rule of thumb, on "hard" difficulty the average minor race will start on technology level 2 and then develop up to technology level 7.

The vanilla starting level of Minors depends on the difficulty level. Is there a way changed this relation ? For example the depending on the starting techlevel of the player/hostplayer would be very useful.

The "habitability" values that influence the planetary growth rates have been overhauled. For example, Cardassians will now "like" desert planets and "dislike" arctic planets.

Wich topic explain how to change this race spezific component ?

[Gowron]

Some suggestions for BoP:

Drastically reduced weapon output qualifies the significance of the cloaking ability and almost all Klingon ships can now cloak. Furthermore Roms aren't the intel force they were against Cards.
So I suggest cloaked colony ships and troop transports for romulans. This'll gives lost secrecy back and some surprising effects without unbalance the game. It's no big advantage. I use it for a long time. And I can say it performs great. Cloaked outposts could be interesting too. But I'm not sure if to engage the cloak for stations and the AI seeming doesn't uses it.

Interesting idea, it would require a lot of testing, but might be worth it, thanks

Why not take ship function 03/strike (instead of 04/command) for cumbersome ships like Negh'Var (If no AI fleet buildup trouble caused byswap with Vorcha).
In this wise the circle button is removed for suchlike ships. Alas AI can still do. And if is circle the default setting in a tactical combat then the player can use it untill change.

That's a good point, but there are some drawbacks to swapping, for example, the Vor'cha and Negh'Var role values (AI shipbuilding and in-game texts). Would probably cause more trouble than improvement.

All minor race ships have relatively low costs and maintenance values, so scrapping them won't yield much cash.

Very good - but why not finish the job and set costs to zero (or between 1-3) and maintenance equal to the related empire ships.

Setting the costs to zero would be too much. Scrapping them should still be an option under certain circumstances. No need to cut down on diversity

I recommend removal of all building morale penalties (Kling/Cards). Otherwise these buildings are almost useless.

The penalties are necessary to balance the outputs of these buildings. +40% industry for free does not sound very balanced to me ^^

Note all buildings with output type +X trade routes (Acamarian Clan Hall & Franchise Office) do work completely without any energy maintenance.

Wow, nice finding, thanks

IIRC the AI(vanilla) ignores the Dilithium restriction (at least for refineries) - is this solved ?
And mostly the AI didn't build the minor special buildings. Is this corrected ?

No, these issues haven't even been researched properly, AFAIK.

The energy values in the AI Building Requirements file (aibldreq.bin) have been corrected

What happen when not ?

The AI could build structures in a system that cannot generate enough energy to run it in the first place.

The technology levels of the minor races, a major imbalance factor in original BotF, have been completely redone. As a rule of thumb, on "hard" difficulty the average minor race will start on technology level 2 and then develop up to technology level 7.

The vanilla starting level of Minors depends on the difficulty level. Is there a way changed this relation ? For example the depending on the starting techlevel of the player/hostplayer would be very useful.

I'm afraid that's not possible (yet). Without the source code, changes to BotF's mechanics are very limited.

The "habitability" values that influence the planetary growth rates have been overhauled. For example, Cardassians will now "like" desert planets and "dislike" arctic planets.

Wich topic explain how to change this race spezific component ?

Actually there had been two threads in this subject, but I've merged them into one when re-posting stuff after the site was re-launched.
http://armadafleetcommand.com/onscreen/ ... topic&t=61