Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Ultimate Mod; showcase and support/discussion/questions/suggestions/reviews

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Ovarwa
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Ovarwa »

So,

DxWnd solves this, but must be run as admin. The graphics in combat are a bit jumpy, but no crash.

*lol* I thing this game demonstrates the value of IP. It's old, cranky and was never that good a game... but the Star Trek IP intangibles make a difference.

Anyway,

Ken
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Ovarwa »

Hi,

Thoughts so far:

* Subatomic Simulators are almost always worthless, due to the very low base science production. Spending 80 Energy for 20% local science is usually a net loss, even discounting the expense of building the thing. This gets worse as tech increases.

* I'm not sure if growth rates have to do with the faction chosen or with the luck of the map. Growth seems fine as Klingons, Cardassians and Federation, but Romulan growth seemed very low.

* Someone really loves Klingons! Their ships are reasonably priced, have low maintenance and pack a devastating punch. A big fleet with first turn cloak advantage can wipe out an equivalently sized enemy in two turns with minimal losses; their ships are a bit less attractive before cloaks come online (All 6). The Targ Hunting Preserve at level 2 is both the cheapest and earliest available morale structure, and its food to energy ratio makes it worth turning on. The gulag comes a bit late at level 6, and only provides a modest Industry bonus which is not useful everywhere, but more Industry is always welcome; its -1 Morale is irrelevant because the Klingons uniquely get a +2 Morale structure! Klingon Intel production is a bit low, but Science is fine (with Weapons and Energy boosters too!) and Industry is great. Colony ships are expensive, however. After getting used to Klingons being the worst in BoP, maybe this is their rightful time to rule the roost.

* Cardassians seem well-suited for spreading trash across the galaxy. Their ships are cheap but meh. State rations are useful for getting a colony off the ground quickly at low tech levels, but isn't so great a building once Colony II ships are available. One meh morale structure at Tech 6 gives the Cardassians the worst morale setup in the game. The Obsidian Order provides a morale penalty, and the Cardassians get nothing special to offset that.

* The AI seems to have a big problem playing as Dominion. Their Dominion always seems much smaller, weaker and less advanced than other AI factions. Maybe this is because their Industry, Science and Intel all suck, and because their ships compensate for being crazy expensive with fragile defense and inaccurate offense. Their unique buildings are mostly "who cares." I'll try the Dominion at some point to see if I'm missing something, though the stats seem to tell the story (and I miss the Ferengi voice acting.)

* The Federation seems solid. Private Farms come early but less than Targs and more expensive. The unique Federation Science building is perhaps the best single (main faction) building in the game. Best science but worst intel. Most worlds don't need much industry, so a local building that provides +80% at key production systems is reasonable. Morale not as good as Klingons, but second best is fine. Tough ships.

* Need to try Romulans again. I started a game late at night, and their growth rate seemed horrible. Bad luck with nearby systems? Me too tired to pay attention? Weird that Klingon and Cardassian science is no worse that Romulan science for the first few tech levels (with Klingon science being better due to better morale; Targs are good brain food!) Cloaking from the start is nice, and having many long-range, accurate torpedoes also nice. Organic Regenerators are a waste of space.

* Morale situation: Structures that provide morale without power are better; Klingons get the best of these and Dominion the worst (not even worth powering!) Everyone except the Dominion gets a structure that provides Morale when powered; Romulans gets the best of these because it comes earliest. As always, Feds get the most morale for being friends and get penalties for being naughty, but they can now bomb with impunity. Even with minors in play, I suspect Klingons>Fed.

* Unlike BoP (but very much like vanilla), building ships to target tech jumps is very much a thing. For most factions, the only offensive ship worth building before All-8 is the 4-level command ship, keeping an eye toward accumulating a fleet just before the jump to Command Ship II at Almost-All 6. This is especially true of the Klingons, for whom this is the first ship to cloak. Romulans and maybe Dominion have an interest in Strike Cruisers, due to their advantages with Torps, but SC Is are too slow to be useful. Each faction relying mostly on one class of ship is pretty typical across all BotF; it might be interesting to reconsider the main ship types to make Fast and Strike ships more useful (say, by making them all cost the same but playing with accuracy, defenses and so on, rather than by treating small ships as cheaper but less effective; this might be realistic, but that realism doesn't work in a game that doesn't support the (also realistic) idea that 100 small craft can patrol and control an area but 1 battleship cannot.) It might also be interesting to see a mod in which ship costs go *down* as Tech increases, while Industrial output remains flatter; fleets do seem to get much bigger over time during TNG and DS9, though that's more about our technology than theirs.

* BoP nerfed weapons, causing cloak to be less effective and (I think) planetary bombardment to be less effective too. I suspect cloak is once again especially awesome. More play is needed. :)

Anyway,

Ken

* As usual, the AI does not know what to do about rapid human expansion on a 40*30 map. I suspect that the AI imposes less pressure here than in BoP, which is strange because AI fleets are bigger when I first encounter them in UM. In both cases, I do feel cautious about having enough ships and especially Intel to defend as my rapid growth brings me into contact, but whereas I fear an early encounter with Cardassians or Romulans in BoP before I have Intel build up, or with anyone before I have a decent navy (especially playing Cardassians who get the worst ships in BoP), I don't quite feel that here if I can reach All-4 before my first AI encounter. Doing so seems quite straightforward, so building a warship beforehand seems silly.

* The BotF system Production Screen UI starts having problems at Population 400, because the little slivers representing 10pop get sliverier and sliverier. They are harder to count and harder to manipulate. UM features huge systems, exacerbating this problem. (I wonder whether halving pop and pop growth but doubling per-pop output would work. Or quartering. A small 50-pop system being the equivalent of a 200 pop system is less fine-grained, but also involves less mm.)

* Unlike in BoP, troop transports actually have enough troops to do something other than die horribly (after all that expensive maintenance as they slowly move toward their target.) :)/2

* I continue to like the simplified, no upgrade structures. This does change a few things: Morale and other local % bonuses become less important, because the base is lower. Industry becomes less important, because most systems need only enough to churn out 110/turn, and even those can be vacated sooner than in other mods. A new science or intel structure on a new world is about as effective as one on a big, developed system, making it much easier to quickly ramp science or intel.

* As usual, I found myself turning off minor races. I love meeting them, and love the idea of them. But it remains so easy to acquire a minor race early in the game, even as a non-diplomatic faction, and minors are even huger and better than ever before, some with incredibly fast growth rates. If you have a 1000pop and 2 700pop minor on Turn 60 or so, you're pretty much set. (And conquest is much easier here than in BoP.)

Anyway,

Ken
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Athelstane »

Long-time lurker, having fun with the new update to UM 5 1024. But I do have a problem.

When I sign a treaty with another major race, the message window at the beginning of the next turn's symbol graphic covers most of the OK button. Usually there is just barely enough visible that I can still click it to close the message. Well, I just agreed to a peace treaty with the Dominion, and it is completely covered by the Dominion symbol. There is nothing I can click. Effectively the game is frozen, because I cannot close the window. Until I figure out a fix, it would seem that I cannot ever make a treaty with the Dominion.

If someone has asked and answered this, I apologize. I have scrolled through most of this thread, without luck.
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Ovarwa »

Enter or esc on keyboard?
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by thunderchero »

I think if you replace the ev_ficn.tga using UE it should fix the problem.

this one should be correct size
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Athelstane »

Independently, I figured out that the ENTER key solves the Treaty window problem. Not ideal, but it works, and that's enough.

But I am now experiencing the combat crash problem, especially with larger battles - I just had a Klingon-Cardassian 400+ ship battle crash ona MEDIUM map, on multiple attempts, every single time I clicked the FIGHT button. (I am using Windows 7, fully updated.) At this point, I am forced to play the game without ever being able to go into a combat mode screen, which obviously takes much of the fun of this otherwise admirable mod.

So I tried the fixes suggested earlier on the thread. I uninstalled and deleted out the old multi-installer and Ultimate Mod 5, then downloaded and installed again. Crash. Ran as Administrator. Crash. Tried this latest DxWnd Fullscreen, downloaded and unzipped it. Well, I can't even install it; it says I am missing the _SETUP.DLL and _ISRES.DLL (located in SETUP.LIB), needed to operate properly. Obviously, I'm missing something here, something obvious, I'm sure.
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by thunderchero »

Athelstane wrote:I just had a Klingon-Cardassian 400+ ship battle crash
that is a large battle, but not unplayable.

you can upload saved game for others to test.
just attach save game file on your next post.
Athelstane wrote:I uninstalled and deleted out the old multi-installer and Ultimate Mod 5, then downloaded and installed again. Crash.
combat crashed?
Athelstane wrote:Tried this latest DxWnd Fullscreen, downloaded and unzipped it. Well, I can't even install it; it says I am missing the _SETUP.DLL and _ISRES.DLL (located in SETUP.LIB)
how are you trying to install DxWnd?
DxWnd does not "install" you only need to run the dxwnd.exe

if you downloaded and installed latest multi installer DxWnd is already setup to use. From start window, programs/microprose/dx/DxWnd or you may even have a desktop icon. :wink:
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Athelstane »

thunderchero wrote:
Athelstane wrote:I just had a Klingon-Cardassian 400+ ship battle crash
that is a large battle, but not unplayable.

you can upload saved game for others to test.
just attach save game file on your next post.
Athelstane wrote:I uninstalled and deleted out the old multi-installer and Ultimate Mod 5, then downloaded and installed again. Crash.
combat crashed?
Athelstane wrote:Tried this latest DxWnd Fullscreen, downloaded and unzipped it. Well, I can't even install it; it says I am missing the _SETUP.DLL and _ISRES.DLL (located in SETUP.LIB)
how are you trying to install DxWnd?
DxWnd does not "install" you only need to run the dxwnd.exe

if you downloaded and installed latest multi installer DxWnd is already setup to use. From start window, programs/microprose/dx/DxWnd or you may even have a desktop icon. :wink:
1. Alas, the game ended with a victory the next round anyway - on auto, I massacred the Cardassian fleet anyway (so it would have been a less than gripping space battle, I suppose. Even so, it would have been nice to have control over tactics.). Cloaking really does help in this mod. Well, I'll attach the next combat mode crash I get in a post here.

2. "Combat crashed." Right. The crash happens typically only when I go into combat mode. Even with all the wiping and reinstalling of everything.

3. I tried pretty much everything with the DxWnd, including just running dxwnd.exe. But yes, I had thought that it came already set up in the new multi-installer.
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Ovarwa »

Hi,

I have to take a gaming hiatus for a few weeks, but some thoughts until I can resume:

* I haven't tried playing Dominion yet, so don't yet know if they have some secret advantage that the AI cannot use to compensate for their big and obvious disadvantages.

* Because the ships and buildings are much the same for each with some minor differences (except for cloak!), all factions tend toward the same, single strategy, with some being better at it than others. Playing as Romulans or Federation feels like slow motion compared to Klingons and Cardassians. (As I get a better feel for the mod, Klingon superiority seems even more rather than less pronounced, their main drawback being expensive Colony Ships saddled with useless armaments.)

* Because of the emphasis on M-class superiority and the existence of M+ planets, a faction's starting region can make an even bigger difference than usual. I declared early victory in one game when I found 4 systems with M+ planets within 2 squares of my homeworld (among other very good systems) because after 50 turns it was clear that the next 100 turns would be especially gratuitous mouse clicking. OTOH, it is quite possible to be surrounded by small systems with low growth rates. This is the case in all BotF, exacerbated here by especially wide planet variance.

* At low tech starts, I think that all nearby worlds ought to put down 4-5 science, to help reach All-4 ASAP, with the rest being industry; the next 'ring' of systems start off being Intel, adding science when it's time to push hard toward All-6. Level 4 (All-5) starts can be different because of better ship range, with no need to build any Science until it is time to get All-6; it can then be worthwhile to classify initial systems as either Industrial or Intel, deferring all science for a while. As usual, Level 5 starts are mostly about building ships and intel.

* I suspect that in this mod, structures that provide a secondary Morale bonus need to be powered to provide that bonus, unlike the usual. As Klingons, I powered a Targ Hunting ground in one system but not another, and noticed that only one system saw a morale benefit. (This isn't so bad for the Klingons, since 30 food for 10 energy is a fine deal, but is especially bad for the Dominion, whose Ketracyl White facility is expensive to maintain with little benefit other than Morale.)

* Special benefits I have noticed, not tied to structures: Cloak for Klingons and Romulans (duh :) ). Extra long range for Federation. Extra Intel for Cardassians.

* Tactical note: A scout ship cannot shoot down a lone colony or transport ship before it escapes, probably not even breach its shields, but can ram it and take little damage.

Still enjoying the mod.

Anyway,

Ken
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Athelstane »

All right. I have another game, where the problem has emerged again.

Early battles, with relatively few ships involved, have not triggered a crash in combat mode. But it does seem that there is a point at which it happens consistently.

Attached is a saved file of a game set on Medium Map, wherein a large Romulan fleet, about 130-150 ships, is attacking Malcor, a Federation minor race world, guarded by a starbase and 5 fast attack and one cruiser. The conclusion of the battle is foregone, of course, but that's not the point; the point is, is crashes every time. I can't even go in to extricate my small Federation force. The battle crashes UM5 completely on the second turn of combat. (I'm shocked it got even that far.)

All the caveats provided previously apply: this is running on a Dell Dimension Desktop running Windows 7. DXWnd appears to be running. I've exhausted all easy fixes I know of.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by thunderchero »

Athelstane wrote:but that's not the point; the point is, is crashes every time.
thank you for saved game, but I was able to complete your battle from your saved game. I held out 6 turns I think using evade. :shock:

so it looks to be system related.
Athelstane wrote:DXWnd appears to be running.
since you sound unsure I will ask
are you using fullscreen or windowed version of DxWnd?

try windowed to confirm dxwnd is working.

next I have also applied the retreat/evade patch
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Athelstane »

I'm using fullscreen.

Both Windowed and FullScreened are installed on the desktop. Both apps say they're running when I click on them. Do I need to stop one - or uninstall one - to properly run the other?

I'm obviously not savvy enough to figure out why, but I cannot find a way to run UM5 in a windowed mode. It's full screen or nothing.

I put in the evade/retreat patch. That got me as far as the second turn of combat - then, crash.

Either way, there's a sizable stutter on audio and animation all the way through.
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Ovarwa »

Hi,

Without dxwnd, I did notice that using different commands would cause the battle to crash in different places, and sometimes not at all.

Possibly not relevant, but.

Anyway,

Ken
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by thunderchero »

Athelstane wrote:Both Windowed and FullScreened are installed on the desktop
it sounds like you are not using DxWnd

to use Dxwnd

1. double click on DxWnd Windowed desktop icon
2. in the DxWnd window you just brought up, look at the line with "Ultimate Mod 5" it should have a green dot to the left
3. if it has a green dot next to "Ultimate Mod 5" double click that line to start game.

if it does not have a green dot next to "Ultimate Mod 5" you may need to adjust the install path used by DxWnd
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Re: Ultimate Mod 5 v2.5 1024 (Updated 15/2/16)

Post by Charles321123 »

Hi,

I am really happy to see the new update(s), but it has been so long ago (ages I guess) since I installed a mod and I do not remember how to install this one anymore as my last one was UM4. I have a clean install of BOTF which I always copy and paste and install mods on. The clean version works on my win7 64bit and so does UM4 but UM5 does not do a lot atm. Can anyone help me, can't wait to play this newest version.
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