Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

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Leto
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Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by Leto »

Hi,

After a few years away from it, I've recently reinstalled BOTF (vanilla). When I was playing some of the old questions that I had about the game came back to me. It'd be great if someone here could shed some light on them.

Is it possible to capture intelligence structures like databanks following a successful conquest of a planet? If not can that be changed using the UE?

How does intel work? What's a good number of intel points? Do intel points accumulate?

Is there anyway to speed up building upgrades? I know you can buy the upgrade, but that costs a fortune!

PS Not sure if this makes a difference, but I only play v the AI and usually start at tech 1 with the AI on 4 or 5 in hard or impossible mode.
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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by thunderchero »

Leto wrote:Is it possible to capture intelligence structures
yes, but you must attack with the min to take system. and even then you have a good chance some if not all will be destroyed.
Leto wrote:How does intel work? What's a good number of intel points? Do intel points accumulate?
you might be interested in reading this post

viewtopic.php?f=225&t=2311
Leto wrote:Is there anyway to speed up building upgrades?
in vanilla you would need to edit the price of the structures, the lower the cost the quicker they build. or increase your industry production.

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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by adi »

thunderchero wrote:
Leto wrote:Is it possible to capture intelligence structures
yes, but you must attack with the min to take system. and even then you have a good chance some if not all will be destroyed.
Leto wrote:How does intel work? What's a good number of intel points? Do intel points accumulate?
you might be interested in reading this post

viewtopic.php?f=225&t=2311
Leto wrote:Is there anyway to speed up building upgrades?
in vanilla you would need to edit the price of the structures, the lower the cost the quicker they build. or increase your industry production.

thunderchero
- on first question:
Thunderchero is wrong! been waiting to say this since i joined the forum
You can never capture main intel buildings; they always get destroyed when conquering;

- on the last one:
if you make the main buildings cost the same for all levels then the upgrade cost is 0 and it takes 1 turn; really easy to do from UE:

just go in UE -> Group Edit of Building Stats and set the industry cost for main buildings to a value of your liking; here is the example for farms:
"Edit buildings with bonus type:" set to "0: Food"
"Edit buildings built by:" set to "Any Empire"
"Set" set to " Industry Cost"
"All" set to the value you like e.g. 60
- basically you only need to edit 5 values in UE; this way there is no cost difference between a lvl1 and lvl2 factory so the update cost is 0; i feared it might crash but it didn't and the end result is that any main building upgrade it's done in one turn;

more on the topic here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2568

!!!!!!! Always make a stbof.res and trek.exe backup before editing stuff with UE; UE works just fine, but there's always the chance you might change the wrong thing.
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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by Leto »

thunderchero and adi, thank you for your replies.

Capturing intel buildings: is there a reason why they cannot be captured? I looked through the stats on UE and there did not seem to be any difference between a databank and a farm.

On intel in general: I think what I was doing wrong was putting very little into intel until the middle game. I assumed that it was calculated turn by turn rather than having a cumulative effect. In my current file I did notice that after I increased intel there was a lag between the increase and it having an effect. In this case I went from having "catalysts found" to stealing ships every few turns.

Upgrades: This is my cautionary tale for messing around with UE. I once doubled every industrial buildings' point, thinking that would halve upgrade times. It did but it also made ships half as expensive to build, so every ship would take 1 turn to build. So, I doubled the cost of every ship. But now I had the problem that I was making loads of money every turn. Back to the editor, and I doubled the maintenance cost of each ship. It helped, but I was still making far more money every turn than I would have been normally. I gave up after that and just went back to the original version.

As an aside, my final scores were massive so industrial output must have a big influence on that, too.
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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by thunderchero »

adi wrote:Thunderchero is wrong! been waiting to say this since i joined the forum
You can never capture main intel buildings; they always get destroyed when conquering;
I never said I was perfect, :grin:

But you are also partial incorrect also (from invasion popup stats). they are removed not destroyed. (If code can be found this might be able to be prevented)

I was thinking about research structures when I posted, those can be captured. :grin:

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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by thunderchero »

thunderchero wrote:(If code can be found this might be able to be prevented)
I took a quick look and found this

at 0x40820 change E8 1B 44 00 00 -> 90 90 90 90 90

I tested this on normal system conquest vs major race, subjugated minor race conquest and when empire is eliminated. was unable to test vs minor race conquest not sure if they even build intel structures?

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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by adi »

thunderchero wrote:
thunderchero wrote:(If code can be found this might be able to be prevented)
I took a quick look and found this

at 0x40820 change E8 1B 44 00 00 -> 90 90 90 90 90

I tested this on normal system conquest vs major race, subjugated minor race conquest and when empire is eliminated. was unable to test vs minor race conquest not sure if they even build intel structures?

thunderchero
Correct, main intel buildings are removed; judging by the number of destroyed structures in the invasion popup, the intel buildings are not among those the game says have been destroyed.

You "fixed" it?! Already!? Your post says you tested it but not how it went.
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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by thunderchero »

adi wrote:You "fixed" it?! Already!? Your post says you tested it but not how it went.
if they were not destroyed they were still there. every minor that was not subjugated or membered never had any to test if they remained.

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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by adi »

Awesome! Thanks a lot!
Once i get home, i'll write a patch and use it from now on.
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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by thunderchero »

thunderchero wrote:every minor that was not subjugated or membered never had any to test if they remained.
I was able to test vs a minor that was not subjugated or membered and had intel structures and they remained as well.

why minors build intel structures I have no idea.

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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by adi »

thunderchero wrote:
why minors build intel structures I have no idea.

thunderchero
Maybe because the game uses the same code logic for developing their systems. Anyway i think it is a good thing; it gives the conqueror more options where to spend the man power.
I assume you conquered the minor; i wander if they have intel structures when you member them; i would guess, with your change they will.
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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by Leto »

Can you tell me how to do this change?

at 0x40820 change E8 1B 44 00 00 -> 90 90 90 90 90

Is there a how to guide for changing the code?
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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by adi »

Leto wrote:Can you tell me how to do this change?

at 0x40820 change E8 1B 44 00 00 -> 90 90 90 90 90

Is there a how to guide for changing the code?
Easiest and safest way is to use QD's Botf Patcher;
viewtopic.php?f=126&t=2515

Install the patcher and in its folders there is a "patches" folder containing the patches. In there create a new patch just like the ones already there with the code from below.

Code: Select all

NAME: Don't remove intel main buildings at conquest (feature)
URL: https://www.armadafleetcommand.com/onscreen/botf/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3091&p=41200#p41200
AUTHOR: research - TC; typewritting - Adi
TAG: feature

>> 0x40820 E8 1B 44 00 00
<< 0x40820 90 90 90 90 90
then open the patcher and your new patch will be in the list; if it looks like it is already installed then i got the >> << lines reversed ;) ; change it or just uninstall the patch.

P.S. If you never used the Patcher before, don't go crazy installing and uninstalling lots of patches in one sitting. Try them one at a time.
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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by thunderchero »

adi wrote:I assume you conquered the minor; i wander if they have intel structures when you member them; i would guess, with your change they will.
Yes I conquered them in my test. if they remove intel structures when membering that would be a different code subroutine. and would have to be found also.

That code change was only for conquest subsection from what I could see. but it might be called for membering as well would need to be tested.

updating system today so would be tomorrow for me to test.

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Re: Few questions about vanilla game (single player)

Post by adi »

Got some time and played a little with the patch installed; the minors i membered did not have intel buildings, but the systemes i conquered from another major retained them.
Thanks, TC! this was a nice find and it seems to work.

A side effect: conquering a system from a major, may also keep intel bonus buildings such as feds Section31.
As Romulans, i started conquering feds, and some of the conquered systems kept the Section31 buildings although it is useless for romulans since it has no bonus defined in UE for the other majors. I guess i can set it in UE to give reduced intel bonus also to other races, that would be nice.

More side effects; also the other special buildings are now kept after conquest. So if you conquer a fed world you might end up with a Daystorm institute for instance; i changed all these special bonus buildings in UE to give reduced bonuses also to the other major races i.e. if the Daystorm gives +3% to research to feds, it also gives +1% to the Romulans that have conquered the system. So now conquering is more rewarding, because of these small bonuses.
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