Balance of Power Review

Balance of Power Mod; showcase and support/discussion/questions/suggestions/reviews

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stardust
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Post by stardust »

Nope, no scouts in my party, Nighthawk.
I never build them as they're useless and i know they're only there so the AI's shipbuilding doesn't get arsed up...the one that came at the start of the game was miles away escorting a couple of colony ships...though franky i reckon the colony ships were really escorting the scout, they are klingon after all :D

ah well when all's said and done the Marauders are now scrap orbiting their lost worlds :twisted:
Computers! [Expletive deleted]

My 4shared folder
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BenSisko
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Post by BenSisko »

I like the prolongt ship battles.

Does this make ramming better? I remembered trying a mod, i think BoP where cardassian fleets just ram opponents fleets to destruction.

While trying it again it seems is very powerfull.

What´s the multiplayer experience with it?
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Post by jmacatty »

I just started playing the mod last night, and I must say I like it very much. I've only gotten about 30 turns in, but it seems fast and playable. Only bad news is that the two alien races I've hit so far are the Ullians and the Selay, the two I always seem to have the least luck with recruiting.
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Prometheus
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An overview of 1.1a

Post by Prometheus »

Let me just say that my m8s and I have been playing this mod since it come out, both in mp and sp, with all options turned on, and in our opinion, it is widely the best mod there is, if u desire playing botf the way it is supposed 2 b.

The way it balances entire game is 2nd 2 none. I can't remember one single issue with any of its changes, after the initial bugs r overcome, and it seems Gowron brings only the best of them.

1. Far less colony infrastructure upgrades, which makes them more relevant and cleans queue by large, spearing time for other things; Percent bonus buildings instead of fixed ones [omg, tnx for this!], w/ Cardassians having private farms on every system; New shield building [not for Klingons], reprocessing plant, training facility, subspace resonator, reworked inteligence buildings [making them more race dependable]; class 2 factories at start!;
2. More money from colonies, reworked trading [Ferengies still rule w/ trade centers, holo cinemas, working commerce authority & tower of commerce] and no exploits w/ scapping;
3. Research gives far more bonuses for production; one can research computers into depths, having more powerful research buildings [omg, micromanagement in research strategy possible now!];
4. Morale worked out to show natural difference amoung races [with Romulans being the best at morale building w/ imperial senate, Federation having penalties for reckless wars & Klingons living for fighting]; Fixed bug w/ Cardassians breaking treaty exploit;
5. Smoother and upgradeable ships w/ lvls & starbase lvls completely replacing outposts; more ships versions, rebalanced, retextured, less diverse [to reduce exploits and make ai more ship clever]; race dependable ship map & scanner ranges [one can't have entire map revealed with only one or two ships; ofc, Cardassians r able to see more]; new troop transport III & a relevant ground combat! :D [all these changes make game so much more enjoyable and realistic!!!];
6. More ship support making economy even more usable, also race dependable; completely reworked ship experience; now a more relevant factor in the game;
7. More habitable planets, and a bit larger systems, with terraforming taking more turns [as it should]; more random dilithium; fixed many bugs and illogicals with race/minor planets, like Vulcans developing on a true vulcan planet [now desert], and Cardassians in love with arctic planets instead of deserts;
8. Diplomacy with minors is far more challenging, since gifts have less influence; this develops in races expanding more slowly, and be-membered minors not likely willing 2 leave their major empire [w/ working puppet government instead of broken communications grid], which proves quite balancing, also game seems more enjoyable this way, since u have more time to do all the micromanagement u want and not all minors r taken until the late game, making them a relevant strategy factor;
9. Minors advance more smoothly, have reworked technology lvls for greater balance; they explore space & their ships r more useful;
10. Fixed bugs with ai building what shouldn't b able 2 build; ai makes only the best of ships and starbases [omg, finally a clever ai!]; better diplomacy between majors seeking allies [still they dislike powerful races];
11. A bit easier randoms [also Edo God and Minosian combat drone], so ai doesn't lose everything they have on them.

There r a few bugs that Gowron promised to clear up in a next version, but nothing too serious.

This mod is a strong recommendation!
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Post by KrazeeXXL »

Prometheus you've convinced me! The next mod I wanted to try after the tourney was UDM3.0i but what you've written here just sounds great and therefor I will try BOP first. I allready downloaded ver 1.1a from Gowrons 4shared files a few days ago.

micromanagment in research? omg! and all the other changes... Awesome! Words fail me at this moment, and this doesn't happen that often! ;)
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Post by stardust »

Righty...so 1.1B's just hit the forum and i've spent the day on and off playing with it as illness has prevented me doing anything much else with my day.

Once again we find this mod being a testbed for recent breakthroughs, this time the breakthrough that let to more stars being present in the galactic map being one of them, as well as larger systems occuring in the game.

Until recently i've been led to understand it wasn't possible for 8 and 9 planet systems to occur in game (home systems aside) But now you can :)

And between the fact that all systems have more planets to terraform and it takes a fair bit to terraform each one it really slams the breaks on my rapid colonisation tactic i've grown to love over the years.
Doesn't seem to faze the AI, I've seen some HUGE empires being built by them.

You'll also find you'll have starting systems at all tech levels now, not just at the higher end, and your starting systems will always have 3 M type planets with pop 420 and a gas giant in these systems.

Only thing with this though, because you have a ready made system on T1 I was able to do 2 levels of biotech research in 20 turns so the research costs might need looking at again.
Mind that's not such an issue as it was in the past because of how the structures upgrade now :)

Righty...off to find some more surprises in this Mod :)
Computers! [Expletive deleted]

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brisub
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Post by brisub »

I'm very interested to know if it's possible to make a conditional so that Strike Cruisers can take out orbital batteries. They are almost useles ships (except R'Tan), as they get decimated in any conflict.

If not, would be nice if Strike cruisers started farther back from the main force to benefit from higher torp loadout or something. I guess it just kills me to have the Negh'var be such a wussy design.
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brisub
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Post by brisub »

Balanced?

I'd say not. Doing everything I could, I finally had (Roms) one Warbird II, three destroyers, a pair of the scout (light cruiser) ships and a few starbases.

Cardassians appear to be building 2 battleships a turn, as an endless wave comes against my starbase

Klingon fleet of (no kidding) 12 battle cruisers shows up

Can't see an end to the Federation ships.

Fortunately, Starbases are near impervious, but this got downright silly. I'm used to the early build bonus that other races have, but this took it to a new extreme and not in a good way.

Hopefully, the next iteration works better (at least in my opinion).

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Post by Pawleus »

You are exaggerating, brisub - AIs should have this bonus. Otherwise they are laughably weak. Additionally, it is supposed to be balanced in MP - you shouldn't expect it to be balanced in SP, either, as it would demand new, much better AIs.

I am currently playing a BoP 1.1b game (impossible, irregular large) starting as Federation at T1 against AIs at T3 and although I admit it's been very hard (to the point I've thought about my surrender with Cards conquering and sabotaging me early on) I am at the 200th turn and I am winning. The game has been very interestning and very stable - no crashes. I have tree questions, though:

1. Is it intended that I cannot upgrade Class 4 Foundries and Mark IV Fabricators to Type 5 Mass Replicators?

2. Is it only me or it's for everybody that BotF states it's BoP 1.1a? - it's definitely 1.1b as I see new changes playing the game.

3. Is it intended that the Zakdorn Military Academy cannot train ships without the Training Facility activated?

BTW, great work, Gowron!
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Post by Gowron »

@brisub:
If the AI is overwhelming you, then you should simply play at a lower difficulty level or change the starting levels in your favor. The way the AI cheats has not been changed w.r.t. the original game.
Other players would regard that same AI too weak ;)

This does not have anything to to with game balance, btw. It's a difficulty issue.
brisub wrote:I'm very interested to know if it's possible to make a conditional so that Strike Cruisers can take out orbital batteries.
Not possible, as AFAIK the game does not check for ship roles when performing a siege calculation.
Pawleus wrote:1. Is it intended that I cannot upgrade Class 4 Foundries and Mark IV Fabricators to Type 5 Mass Replicators?

2. Is it only me or it's for everybody that BotF states it's BoP 1.1a? - it's definitely 1.1b as I see new changes playing the game.

3. Is it intended that the Zakdorn Military Academy cannot train ships without the Training Facility activated?
1. This is a bug that had appeared in the past. After some changes of the base structure ID ranges, it seemed to be gone (upgrading worked during all tests, and I did a lot of testing). Guess I still haven't got rid of that bug :?

2. Where does BotF state that it's version 1.1a?

3. This is a known bug in BotF. It wouldn't appear in the original game, as it was impossible to have more than one training structure in any system. This behaviour is mentioned in the BoP documentation, section 5.
Pawleus wrote:BTW, great work, Gowron!
Thank you very much :)
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Post by Pawleus »

Ad 2. BotF states it in the main welcoming screen, just under "created by Gowron". However, perhaps I should mention that I updated my multiinstaller version the way thunderchero had suggested.

Ad 3. Hm, it's turned out I've not read the BoP documentation. :)
Last edited by Pawleus on Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by thunderchero »

Pawleus wrote:Ad 2. BotF states it in the main welcoming screen, just under "created by Gowron". However, perhaps I should mention that I updated my multiinstaller version the way thunderchero had suggested.
Adding a patch will not change version number that game displays.

Multi mod installer has not been released for 1.1b when full version is released this will change. (later this week)

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Post by goodone »

since prometheus was discussing some great points of version 1.1a, i will just add cool things in 1.1c, since we r botf playmates, and agree on these things.

1. reworked scrapping and trade goods revenue, again: even better.
2. smaller-empires-preferred free ship support formula, offering more challenge! yeah!
3. more stars, more planets, more ppl!
4. all minors moving their ships, man! :D
5. tweaked klingon hall of warriors, which makes it much more usable; also given shield generator.
6. new bunker network type building!
7. even more exquisite puppet government!
8. more ship upgrades! klingons now make it really good.
9. romulan colony ship with a cloak!!!!! yes!

bop really makes it botf-feeling, no-crap game! it's more like an unofficial 1.3 patch, instead of mod. and it is that, at least for me. 8)
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Post by drokmed »

Dusting off BOTF... it's amazing how I keep coming back to this game over the years.

Just read this thread, I think I'll give this mod a try. I'm a little concerned that weaker ships/longer battles means all enemies retreat before you can kill them. I don't want the game dragged out too much, I'd like to finish it before quitting. Somebody played for 798 turns? That's downright ugly. If it takes me longer than 200 turns, I start to lose interest. I'd say 255 turns is the longest I've ever gone.

Sounds great, will give it a try tonight when I get home!
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Post by Dewbacca »

A couple of questions about this mod that I couldn't find addressed in documentation:

1- Why were B'rel class scouts reduced to a scanner range of one?

2-If the exploit using the colony/ transport team to terraform planets was removed intentionally.

I'd like to salute Gowron for the improvements to the mod ove rthe years, and a couple of points particularly:

a-Food and Energy buildings auto updating is genius!

b-Loving the Larger maps... was looking forward to some of the Planet mod style homeworlds... but the map size and credit fixes seem to compensate well.

Anyway, glad to see the improvements and the interface with the multi-installer.

Kudos to you for your years of code breaking on this game and sharing it with the community.
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