Sorry I kind of dropped out of this. Time issues, plus - as I said before - my personal modding efforts have always been more about fixing bugs than making actual changes. What's the current situation?

It's a good description, but not what I wanted. I'd like to stay with the original premise that Weather Control helps with making colonisation easier. In essence, improve what's already there, not rewrite it completely.

Like it. 

Those all sound way too advanced to be the very first defence component of their type. I need something much more simpler than Chaff and Deflectors. Though maybe I should scrap the idea, and simply remove the Theory techs. I mean, that's one way to solve the problem, right?

Deflectors and Shields deflect the beam, while the more advanced techs also absorb part of the attack. None of them reflect the beam.

Great maker! You've just made yourself a target in Batman's crusade against Rock! Run for your life! 

Yes, along with the campaigns. I just want to finish re-adjusting the tech trees first, because a lot of the problems in the scenarios and campaign-missions are tech-related.

Your Diplomacy skill must be through the roof, if he believed that.

I don't think missiles care about smoke. Nevermind then. We can probably live without more prototype defences. Somehow...

Anyhow, here is the newest version of the community update.

There are still a few things that need to be changed, but I believe it's good enough for actual testing. I've set the AIValues for all techs and improvements to 10, so don't expect the AI to do any good. This is primarily so we can see how the AI behaves on its own, which makes it easier to find areas that need to be addressed (like the Altarians and Drath not researching Xeno Mysticism).

DP oops! (So Ill rant instead)

Anyway I have found out its impossible for me to update my galciv2 copy to version 2.04 because impulse is dead, leaving no options...apart for this update witch I can do manually HA!

Oh my gosh there's a update thanks all of you! I think a good invasion option for the thalan would be something to do with time slowing or something. That sounds like fun to me.

everything else sounds good though.

I wouldn't max out the RP from improvements at 12 - that seem way too low. If you've got 5 Research improvements, then make it 3RP per tier, which maxes at 15. I'm OK with nuking Xeon Lab, in that case.  I'd also make the Neutrality Center 15 RP, +25% in that case. Maybe up the build cost for it to 500 or so, but make the tech research itself only 400 (a bit more than Advanced Computing, but half that of Research Maxtrix).

OK, I can live with this.

I'd have to go back and look at Galactic Privateer, because that doesn't sound familiar. Fighter Command is a severe imbalancer, because one of the major strategies is to attack a civ's freighters to disrupt their economy. FC renders the Korx completely immune to that strategy, which gives them a HUGE advantage in terms of economies. They already start off able to trade with everyone, and do so right away, so they get a big econ bump. Giving them complete immunity to freighter destruction makes them virtually impossible to hurt economically.  In this game, where $$ is everything, that's a game-breaking advantage.

In Twighlight of the Arnor, there IS no Gaia Matrix.  The Hyperion Matrix is both a tech and an improvement, +16mp +16rp +8 pop.  I agree that reducing the pop bonus on it to 4pop is a good idea. But I have no idea what the Gaia Matrix is for.

I wouldn't mess with the support modules much. They seem reasonable, if you remove the range adjustment of the individual techs. Having to put 2 modules to get good range seems like an average compromise - I don't think super-deep-space craft should have to be covered with 5 or 6 modules of the highest tech.

I use 12rp primarily for two reasons: 1. to make the Discovery Sphere comparable to the Industrial Sector, and 2. to prevent the races with less powerful labs from completely falling behind in research (Drengin, Korath, and Thalan top out at 12rp, and the Torians at 10rp).

The Galactic Privateer was in DL and DA, and prevented your freighters from being attacked. Literally. Attacking them simply didn't work anymore. The AI kept trying though, which often lead to huge amounts of fleets following your freighters in an attempt to destroy them. The devs finally removed the Privateer in TotA, because they couldn't fix this. The Freighter Command is basically a working replacement of the Privateer.

You can still destroy the freighters. It just won't disband the trade-route after the third time. Sure, just destroying the freighters won't be as economically damaging, but it still hurts. A freighter provides more money the further along the trade-route it is. By destroying it, you send it back to the start of the route, which causes it to only provide the minimum amount. If that isn't good enough, you can always attempt to bribe the Korx' trade-partners to declare war on them. I'm not going to remove the Freighter Command though.

The Gaia Vortex does exist in TotA. You need to research Gaia Theory to unlock it, which is a Good-only Thalan tech.

My main concern is actually the range-adjustment based on map-size. Due to it, range just doesn't feel like an issue on bigger maps. Even at the start of the game. Sure, the range-bonuses from techs also contribute to this, but they are easy to deal with.
The values I want to use for the life support modules are 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 (originals are 6, 8, 10, 12, 14). I use them in my mod, Autumn Twilight, and only need four support modules in order to reach max-range on an Immense map. However, if that is too low for you, I could also go for 3, 6, 9, 12, 15. As long as range has more of an impact throughout the game, I'm fine with it.

Forget about Impulse, and try Stardock directly. You can register products here. If that works, you can then download the game from the My Downloads section.

I like the idea of making life support modules a thing that need to be discovered for you to use them at all.

Currently, range becomes a non-issue with just Basic Life Support Modules (which have no tech requirement).  I need only a few constructors with perhaps an extra engine and a few life support modules to set up range-extending starbases in key locations.

Granted, perhaps this is something that should be left to mods and players who want an extra challenge.  It's not much of a stretch to get to General Life Support anyway, right?

General is too early. Leave it at Advanced - the HRSC isn't really for the colonization rush, it's for when combat starts up. The colony ships can easily add very cheap LS modules, so getting the HRSC makes no real difference for them.  It's a big deal for fighters, though, which can't afford to plop on many LS modules to go far, and still have decent combat ability.   General LS usually is gained only half way through the initial colony rush phase - Advanced is usually gotten right around when first real combat starts.  Leave the HRSC in the Advanced.

The main issue were the range-bonuses from the Life Support-techs. Due to them, the HRSC didn't seem to give much of a benefit. With their removal, however, this should no longer be the case. So, Advanced it is.

Still, I'm a bit worried that players might now actively farm the HRSC, like they did with the HLS and the Shrinker. On the other hand, LS modules aren't that big, so it shouldn't be too unbalancing, if they do that.

It's the "flag post as already read" setting of this forum which causes the links to "break". I forgot about this "feature". 

Anyhow, thanks for adding the links to the top. 

There are still a few things on the to-do-list that I'd like to get some feedback on. I've split them up into things that definitely need to be done, and things that may need to be done/would be nice to have.

Definite things:

1. Power Plants. The 1pp-bug is still an issue with them. My current idea to fix this is to reduce the number of techs and improvements to one. This has the benefit of not reducing the manufacturing output of factory-users, like turning the Power Plants into ability-bonuses would, or giving the other races an unfair advantage, like turning the Power Plants into starbase modules would. The only question is, when should the tech become available? A +30% manufacturing bonus right after Xeno Industrial Theory might be too powerful. However, the AI might not have any space left to build the improvement, if the tech is placed after Manufacturing Centers.

2. Krynn morale improvements. As I've said before, the Krynn currently don't have any spammable morale improvements. Only two 1pps (three, if you count the Counter Espionage Center). Sure, they start with a huge racial bonus to Morale, and I've also added a couple more bonuses to some of their techs, but that only goes so far. Once huge population numbers, and the AI having to build both 1pps on all planets, come into play, this is going to be problematic at best.
One way to solve this is to remove the build-limitations of the Temple and Order of Krynn, and make the former upgrade into the latter. However, this has the potential to make the Thalan "pink blob of doom" seem like child's play in comparison, because those improvements also provide a big boost to influence. Another way is to change how the Oracle of Krynn GA works. It currently provides a +200% bonus to morale, and a +100% bonus to influence. I would change this to a +50% bonus to civ-wide morale, and +200% to planetary influence. This would also have the benefit of alleviating another potential AI issue. The AI seems to use the civ-wide approval rating to gauge how high it should set the tax rate. Planets with unusually high morale bonuses inflate this rating, which can cause the AI to set the taxes higher than is good for the rest of the empire.

3. Descriptions of racial pros and cons. I've already gave the Iconians and Yor more fitting ones. However, there are still some races left which need to be adjusted.
The Krynn are probably the biggest offender. Their con is currently set to "Weak Research" which is blatantly untrue. They get Discovery Spheres, like most of the races, and don't have any penalty to research. Morale might be a possibility, due to the previous point. However, it would also seem a bit paradoxical: "The race with the huge bonus to morale has a weak morale. What!?"
The Thalan are another one. Their con is set to "Expensive Improvements". Sure, it's true when the Thalan first get the Manufacturing and Technology Matrices. However, the final versions are only barely more expensive than the Industrial Sector and Discovery Sphere respectively. The lack of farms is probably more of an issue to the Thalan than that.
The con of the Drath is set to "Weak start-up economy". In my opinion, this doesn't really address the actual weakness, the Drath' slow pop. growth.
The Terran con is set to "weak manufacturing", which is a bit misleading. They only have a penalty to military production, and even that is easy to deal with. So not that big of a con (the same is also true for the weapons-penalty of the Altarians).

4. Techs without benefits. There are still some techs in the game which don't give you anything, except for access to the next tech. Namely the Tech Victory line of techs, Beam Weapon Theory, and the Defence Theory techs. Though I might be forgetting some others. The most obvious bonus for the Tech Victory techs is a Research bonus. However, it would also be the most boring. As for the Theory techs, I'd like to scrap them completely, and move the Space Cannon and Sparrow components to Space Weapons.

Possible things:

1. Add a small economy bonus to the Collectives. This depends on feedback regarding the state of the Yor economy. Should my previous changes not be enough to improve it, then I'll add a (non-increasing) +10% economy bonus to the Collectives. However, I will also need to increase the maintenance to compensate for this increase in power.

2. Eyes of the Universe. This GA renders Sensor components obsolete. This is because it not only gives a +10% bonus to the Sensor ability, but also a +20% boost to the sensor-range. For example, your ship has a base sensor-range of 2. You'll add 11 from your Sensors ability (+1 from the Sensors tech, and +10 from Eyes), and then another +20% on top of that ((2+11)x0.2=2.6 rounded down to 2), which gives the ship a sensor-range of 15 (which is the max you can have).
The advantage this gives the players is obvious, so I'd like to reduce the power of the Eyes. One possibility is to reduce the bonus to the Sensor ability. Another is to remove that bonus completely, and instead increase the boost to sensor-range a little.

3. Agony Coordination Grid. The tech specifically refers to a 1pp building, so I added it. However, this makes the Drengin and Korath stronger researchers than most of the races, due to my changes to the standard labs. I would like to get some feedback if that needs to be addressed (possibly by removing the improvement again, and changing the tech description).

4. Neutrality Learning Center. I changed it into a SP with a +10% civ-wide Research bonus. However, there has been a suggestion to turn it into a 1pp. What does anyone else think?

The Eyes GA was added to the game before there was a max sensor-range of 15. So that's actually another reason to adjust its power. I seriously doubt, that the devs intended for it to make one aspect of the game completely pointless. 

No, you don't. The game is completely playable without ever building Eyes. It's also more challenging and rewarding this way. Still, I'm not going to remove Eyes. Only reduce its power. And all that does is to bring you to actually put some sensor modules on your ships and starbases.

Making survey modules free is pointless. They only cost 45, which is peanuts long before you build the GGB. The size requirement is the real limitation here.

I would argue that it does cause the AI problems. For example, it can no longer sneak up on you, because you can see its ships, before it can see you. This makes it much harder for the AI to invade your planets or attack your ships, because you can easily intercept or evade its fleets. Sure, that is also possible without building the Eyes. However, in that case you actually have to design and build ships for this purpose.

Yes, it is opinionated, and I'm standing by what I said.

I absolutely agree with this, and I have no intention to change that

There is a big difference between how the tech and the GGB work. The tech grants all your ships the survey ability. The GGB, on the other hand, only reduces the cost of the survey module to zero. You still have to add the module to your ships, which still requires space to use. So, which one do you think is better?
Also, the GGB was a TG in GalCiv 1, and provided a Influence bonus. Which is exactly what I want to make it again.

I'm sorry, but you are not the voice of the community. Neither am I.

This is a community project, so if the majority wants to change Eyes, then that's what we'll do. And if the majority decides against it, then we'll leave Eyes as is. That's the whole point for why I asked for feedback.

I'm out of sarcasm now.

And don't be silly, you Mavin and Lucky jack are the eldest voices of the community still around. If there was a community counsel you three would be on it. And two of you just agreed and there is no one else coming to side with me so go ahead and mod my precious Eyes, make it quick will you!

DARCA