Oh yeah, posting on Twitter again tonight as I war with the Yor.

So I discovered for myself in my latest test game how whacked Creative is.  The end tier of beam weapons?  Got through them in just under a year.  By my estimates I am three years further ahead than I would be if I didn't have Creative, just from working on the Disruptors line of weapons.

Also, interestingly, I've seen the Yor AI abandon mass drivers in favour of beam weapons - well at the very least, it's doing research into beam weapons.  I think that's because it's looking for something that will work better against my ships equipped with armour.  The problem with this line of research is that I also have ships with shields, in fact many of the other races have shields.

Of course as we've previously established, if a research project will take too long, the AI tends to abandon it in favour of something else, and as I've been wearing down the Yor, their research capacity has diminished.

In my mod, I set Terror Stars to ID Defense, Category Null and AIValue 0. While it doesn't prevent the AI from researching Terror Stars, it does slow it down. Especially as the AI isn't researching Advanced Starbase Construction in a timely fashion (except the Korx). Due to this I'm currently thinking of removing the Starbase Fortification techs, and moving the Battle Stations and Defense Stations modules back to the hull techs.

The only race, that will never research Terror Stars, are the Korath. Their AI's hatred of Invasion techs makes them one of the easier races to control. At least when it comes to preventing them from researching something. Just set the tech to Category Invasion and the Korath will never touch it.

I made a start on setting the techs to not work with the Creative ability but I think it only needs to affect the techs with research times that I extended by a large factor.  Otherwise I could be here all week.

I've just balanced the numbers for shields on the spreadsheet.

The starting shields got a little boost, with four points of protection instead of three, and they will be a few points of space less bulky.  Shields will now be 7 points of protection instead of 5.

Along the shield tech tree I have tried to ensure that each successive shield module is noticeably better than what came before.  Basically, you will get a bigger nudge in shield rating compared to the size the module takes up.  When you start a new series of shield, this jump is a bit more, when you're working on the second or third version it's a little bit less.

The downside is that the module sizes are going to increase a bit.  Not loving this part myself but it is needed so that when the AI designs a ship with one module (for example) they should get a decent boost out of it.  The miniaturised components will still be around if you need a smaller shield component, but they will be slightly inefficient in terms of space taken up, so the AI's ship designer should pick the bigger component if it has space to spare.

The costs will be going up in proportion, and there's a slight spike in the cost ratio when you get Barriers and Force Field, which decreases as you get further on in the Shield tech tree.

I'll also be backing up my GC2Types file in the mod folder anyway in case I want to reverse the changes.

Also in my next test is a cut-down speeded-up Minor tech tree.  Axed a lot of stuff and set the research time to be a bit quicker on some techs.  They also don't start on the basic weapons or defences after Beam Weapon Theory, Shield Defence Theory, etc.  They skip the first tier of weapons entirely and the first two tiers of defences.  It's in line with them being a one-planet race and having to fend for themselves.

By the way, after I've finished testing this version and have looked at balancing the other defence types, there likely won't be any more, unless there are any new annoyances that I can fix.

It's time to look at actually solving some of the problems in code rather than manipulating the data files to fool the AI into pursuing the 'right' tech.  I'm going to start with being able to load the tech tree XML data (including mod folder data) into memory and go from there.  Not that I expect things to go anywhere, but it will kill some time.

Since I only know about the Terran tree, for now, I was wondering if it was your intention to make it take a long time to get to planetary invasions and build factories as Terran. I feel like I have very little choice in buildings and tech early on in the game like I do with the Original game.

I am not doubting that you have made the game better/more fair. I bought the game a few weeks ago and to get used to it I have been playing Terran only. I saw some mentions of mods and I found my way to this section of the forums and have been testing a few out.

TA Expansion: My map setup is typically, for now, Small, 3 AI, 1 Minor, occasional on most anything else, Tech set to normal and Challenging AI (about to go for Tough and higher). Thanks for contributing to the community even though I am new.

I haven't actually played with this mod yet, but the description looks like all good stuff. I just checked the data files for some of my particular grievances, though, and you missed one: cost scaling of the Industrial Sector.

You hit the prices of the high-end research buildings fairly well, and the bank, but the top construction building still has its way out of line unmodded cost.

While I'm on the subject of price progressions, though, I think even for research and banking it still needs some tweaking. In a game designed to handle it, the current model with tradeoffs for high space efficiency would be good. As is, however, the game interface and automatic upgrading mechanic are clearly based around the idea that any more advanced building is automatically better in every way. If you have Research Centers, Xeno Labs are now an outdated relic of the past, and likewise for any other new/old pairing. It is technically possible to build the obsolete version and prevent or delay upgrades, but it requires a lot of micromanagement.

Given that interface design choice, which I think is beyond the reach of modding, the tech progression should be designed so that that assumption is in fact correct, so that extreme micromanagement will be neither necessary nor beneficial. As it is, in both the unmodded game and this mod, it is not. Higher tech buildings produce more per tile, but typically less per build cost (the first few industry buildings keep the cost-to-production ratio constant for a while, but that's it). For about the first half of the progression industry and research improve production per maintenance cost, but then the trend reverses.

I suggest a progression as follows:

Industry costs 12.5 per point to build, 1 base plus .5 per point to maintain. This matches the Traditional Factory, Xeno Factory, and Advanced Factory, requires a minor tweak of Manufacturing Center, and a major change of Industrial Sector (which is extremely out of line any way you look at it).

Research costs either 7.5 or 10 per point to build, and 2 plus .5 per point to maintain. This matches either the Xeno Lab or the Research Center for build cost (there is no stretch of constant cost ratio here, unlike for industry), and Xeno Lab through Research Academy for maintenance.

Banking... on review, I think banking is actually ok. It holds steady within a narrow margin of 4.5 build cost per percentage point of bonus except for a slight extra for the Stock Market, but you get a free influence bonus extra on that to compensate. Maintenance is constant at 1.

With this model, the build cost ratio would remain constant throughout the tech tree, while per tile output and maintenance would always improve. With this, unlike with both the default game and your current mod, I would actually be content to always build the latest of these types of buildings.

I haven't looked at any race-specific buildings for this, but for thoroughness they should also be checked and potentially tweaked to follow similar progressions.

Good work on all the rest, I'll enjoy trying it out over the next few days.

If what I read elsewhere is accurate (and I remember it correctly), it's not that the number of upgrades costs extra, but that the discount is the cost of the existing building - and if the building was upgraded, its cost is considered to be the cost of the most recent upgrade. Upgrade from something costing 100 to something costing 125? That upgrade will cost 25. Upgrade again, to something costing 150, and it'll cost 150 - 25 = 125, though.

I have not tested this, but it would have an effect resembling what you describe and seems like something that could happen by accident and then slip by without much attention. That seems more likely to me than a deliberate "how many times has this been upgraded" counter, as I'm having trouble coming up with any logic to justify such a design.

Makes me wonder what happens if you upgrade a market directly to a bank (unmodded, so 200 cost), and then to a stock market.

Anyway, I'm not particularly concerned about the upgrade mechanism, but rather what makes sense for new construction. As is, I think the most powerful building technique is to fill a planet with low end cost-efficient buildings first, and then go back and upgrade them later, and that's a serious pain to do if any of your new construction is done after researching the upgrade tech.

Yup.

The initial colony's research output means that when the AI does a colony rush, it ends up shelling out quite a bit of cash on funding research that it can't afford to at that early stage of the game.  To compensate, it drags its production slider some or all the way over to the left, essentially slowing down or halting all industrial activity, or it raises taxes which hurts early population growth.

This is also why I have tried to tailor the early stage of the tech tree to a low research output.

When the AI is done colony rushing and it actually has an economy to support research, it has a lot more tiles to build labs on, so eventually as those get built its research output will climb.  It will just take time.

The tech tree isn't really balanced as far as tech trading is concerned, I always have it turned off.

Sorry to hear that mate, I really appreciate the time you've been putting in to try and fix the AI in this game. It makes it so much more playable.

By default, banks have a disproportionate price compared to Stock Markets and Trade Centres.  It's something I fixed in the mod, too.

I've released the v5E version that I've had sitting here for three months so you can take it for a spin, it's mostly just minor race tweaking.