Error Correction Mod 5

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Error Correction Mod Version 5 is now part of the: BOTF_Top_10_mods

'ECM Larger Maps with Extra AI Tweaks' by TC/SCT is still WIP: viewtopic.php?p=57392#p57392


The Error Correction Mod is an experiment to showcase how BotF would behave if it was not rushed out with most of its known bugs, errors and omissions:

- Harder game play since codes of Ship Scrapping Revenue, Command Ships any many other exploits have been fixed (insta-terraform, phantom-dilithium)
- No rebalancing (e.g. wrt the K'vort issue) just clear error/omission corrections and some minor cosmetics (ship, weapon & blast animations)

Ship scrapping revenue set to square root: (= buildings & trade goods) -> Take care of your credits and think twice about what you buy!

- System resources (food/industry/energy) cannot any longer be transformed into global resources (credits/intel/research) -> more 4x-like game behavior
- Players are forced to collect resources step by step, a mindless pumping out of an oversized fleet might lead the own empire into an economic disaster
- Advantage of rich (Ferengi) & minor diplomacy (Feds) empires at lower techs with trade routes being an additional critical factor (try lower starting level)

- Minor Race Evolution error wrt difficulty level fixed + natural pop growth implemented + broken evolution limit activated (based on empire research)
- Strike Cruisers fixed for planetary assaults (according to game manual) -> the first OB-shot does only half of its regular damage
- Ship Auto-Upgrade refitting simulation causes a loss of hull points (depending on the difficulty level) + Repair bonus only from ally yards/stations

Tactical Combat:

- HOLD can keep ships cloaked to counter the one-uncloaked-ship tactic/exploit + some high tech ships can re-cloak in combat (rather pointless)
- Solo Mode Targeting now requires a Command Ship (slow & short range) or Station -> fast aggressive expansion (blitzkrieg) gets more risky
- Most Cruisers got extra Aft Torpedo Launchers (Strike Cruisers & Stations all directions) + some phaser arcs fixed + AI behavior tweaks
- Shield Level Fix Option -> Reduced Torpedo Efficiency against Shields for realism and longer battles (ECM default saved games are compatible)
- Crashes with fast/erratic ship movements (mainly evade) have been drastically decreased using exclusively the A HOB & A GIF texture of ships (LOD)

- New BORG ON/OFF button added + first appearing of the Borg adapted to empires tech/military + many Random Events tweaked (Counter Measures)
- Planet Killer added as 10th monster (reworking cone.hob) + monster system attacks corrected to a more canon state + non-borg copies fixed
- Broken code for monster cloak fixed and applied to Edo God & Combat Drone (can re-cloak) + all AI ships with cloak are cloaked by default
- Combat Drone (Alien Artifacts) need new-game Random Events ON, Domination Mode Borg Invasion (if Borg button) & Rebellions no Random Events

- System features for Asteroid, Asteroid Belt Dilithium, Nearby Anomalies and Alien Artifacts enabled (unused in ECM)
- More miscellaneous code fixes and modifications than the space shuttle
- The most annoying things in BotF (turn lag & retarded AI) could NOT be fixed yet (AI a bit)

A long time ago in a game galaxy far, far away....

Fatal programming errors had a strong influence on the weak minded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy4mztkndHk&t=146s

With our combined strength, we ended this destructive code mess, and...destroyed the most bugs & errors. It was our destiny!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lOT2p_FCvA&t=31s

If we strike down a few more glitches, we shall become more de-biased and debugged than you can possibly imagine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to2SMng4u1k&t=83s

Strike 'em down with all of our hatred and our journey towards the hard side of the error-correction will be complete!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaZ0L7aDx50&t=7s

Only then will we be strong enough v. the black screens of death to boldly fix what no one has fixed before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcO5OzKwPo

Safety protocol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH7dDzDWyHk&t=55s


Special thanks to thunderchero, DCER, Gowron, Joker, Flocke, QuasarDonkey, Tethys and all other AFC BotF Members


Merry Xmas!
Happy New Year!

[thunderchero]

Hi Everyone,

doing some needed integrity checks on all mods I found;
ECM (german installed version) was missing the planet killer on german shiplist
ECMS (german installed version) german descriptions offsets wrong due to english shiplist

the fix for both issues will be all 4 English shiplist files added to german installed version. but as expected shiplist will read as English

this patch will be applied in next update when it is ready.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

ECM (german installed version) was missing the planet killer on german shiplist
ECMS (german installed version) german descriptions offsets wrong due to english shiplist

the fix for both issues will be all 4 English shiplist files added to german installed version. but as expected shiplist will read as English

Thank you, I think we talked about this before, providing german ship files for ECM is too messy.

On a site note, usually I disable minor races since they make the game too easy,
but the different weapon animations in mixed fleets are really nice and a reason to turn minors on.

[Flocke]

Thank you, I think we talked about this before, providing german ship files for ECM is too messy.

I wonder why, given that UE provides options to automate the offset calculation. And not many texts differ from vanilla descriptions either.
A pity to loose all the german descriptions...

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

I wonder why, given that UE provides options to automate the offset calculation.

As thunderchero pointed out, I/we never incorporated intricate shiplist edits like custom weapon animations, firing arcs, adding the planet killer (requires monster label workarounds) and shield level weapon multipliers into the german shiplist.

This is time consuming and error prone work (just the english shield level fix had 4+ error revisions).

[thunderchero]

currently only vanilla, BOP and Planet mod are in full German

if any one wants to do translation I would add files on other mods.

[Flocke]

This is time consuming and error prone work (just the english shield level fix had 4+ error revisions).

So it's again about some import / export feature you are missing. Either import/export the german descriptions or all the other data I guess. I will add it to my todo list.

But note that you already can copy over the german shipdesc.sst file and then fix the text offsets with the bottom right description fixture tools in ship stats view of UE. Also works for building stats, races and the technology fields view, they all have the description fixture tools where you can simply remap texts by index.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

So it's again about some import / export feature you are missing. Either import/export the german descriptions or all the other data I guess.

Note that it's not only about two description strings and the pointer for shipdesc.sst but also various edits in lexicon.dic and trek.exe for monsters.

you already can copy over the german shipdesc.sst file and then fix the text offsets with the bottom right description fixture tools in ship stats view of UE.

The english/german sorting in the ECM shiplist(s).sst might differ? I haven't tested any german BotF version in years, so I couldn't even determine the right vanilla descriptions to match them with the right ships without studying german vanilla before.
Plus I remember more than 20 years ago I edited some german vanilla ship descriptions since they were confusing/incorrect...

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

I observed an odd AI glitch in ECM. The AI keeps trying to colonize systems un-colonizable due to the Planet killer or Borg assimilation
i.e. the AI colony ships just vanish since all planets use gas giant code with max pop 0:

Planet_Killer_AI.png (65.95 KiB) Viewed 1714 times

But it's a rather rare issue and the player interface does not allow colonization of said systems.


And there is still the unsolved vanilla bug with AI task forces maintaining the old map speed and scan range after redeploy (mostly speed 1).

[thunderchero]

I observed an odd AI glitch in ECM. The AI keeps trying to colonize systems un-colonizable due to the Planet killer or Borg assimilation
i.e. the AI colony ships just vanish since all planets use gas giant code with max pop 0:


Planet_Killer_AI.png

But it's a rather rare issue and the player interface does not allow colonization of said systems.

did quick test and when it happens it will let human waste time terraforming but don't think it will allow colonization. (husnock attacks before I can attempt or ship stops terraforming)

I can select either asteroid circled to terraform, but not last asteroid ?

terr1.jpg (446.79 KiB) Viewed 1707 times

EDIT; once terraform is completed on both asteroids colonize and terraform buttons are not available to select.

EDIT2; after terraform completes on both growth rate increase 0.6 -> 1.1, pop and max pop stays at 0

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Yeah, proper way would be cleaning up all hidden planet data (terraform done/required and pop growth) during the monster assault. But I don't intend to do that right now, this minor flaw is just not worth the effort.

And after some time the AI seems to ignore said systems.

[justanick]

The first entry in the list for possible star names is 38 Lycis. I suspect this is meant to be 38 Lyncis, about 125 light-years from Sol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_Lyncis

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

I'm starting to hate my own anti-exploit fixes (which is good since they foiled and punished my planed abuse).

ECM, Cardassian underdogs, all T1, no minors, hard

The Federation is coming for me. My only hope is destroying their outpost at the right time to strand their OP invasion fleet.
This done, I move to bomb the only Federation system in range who could build a shipyard to re-mobilize the stranded Federation fleet.

'Unwanted AI Ship Scrapping Fix' prevents the AI from scrapping the entire stranded fleet: viewtopic.php?p=54681#p54681

Guess what followed now: Unknown to me, the Federation and the Ferengi signed a new treaty. This gets announced and takes effect the same turn my fleet arrives in said Federation system. And 'Move Fleets due to Treaty Fix for Contested Sectors & Stranded Fleets' insta-relocated the stranded Federation fleet to the same, since closest, Federation system: viewtopic.php?p=57729#p57729

insta_fleet_teleportation.png (123.62 KiB) Viewed 1113 times

Odd three way battle bug: When choosing the mandatory retreat I get a wrong pop-up saying 'combat resolved automatically - your fleet has been destroyed', in fact my ships escaped, but the Federation fleet destroyed the Ferengi scout next combat turn (their new peace treaty partner).

---

The first entry in the list for possible star names is 38 Lycis. I suspect this is meant to be 38 Lyncis

Extended starname.bin was a courtesy of Tethys to allow extended maps with more star systems and a greater variety of random system names in games.

Corrected '38 Lyncis' and 7 system names removed (new total 616 random names): Will be part of the next installer update.

[thunderchero]

I'm starting to hate my own anti-exploit fixes (which is good since they foiled and punished my planed abuse).

ha ha

Odd three way battle bug: When choosing the mandatory retreat I get a wrong pop-up saying 'combat resolved automatically - your fleet has been destroyed', in fact my ships escaped, but the Federation fleet destroyed the Ferengi scout next combat turn (their new peace treaty partner).

at 004724EE you can force message without lexicon 1142 "Your forces have been eliminated."
but no option for retreat.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

lexicon 1142 "Your forces have been eliminated."
but no option for retreat.

Something like 1142 = "Your forces have lost this battle." might be a fitting workaround for all cases?

And IIRC the automatic battle has even more of these message bugs.