Sins Enhancement Mod v1.7 3/23/08 UPDATED

from Sins Forums
Sins Enhancement mod V1.7 3/23/08


Download Link:
http://files.filefront.com/Sins+Enhancement+Mod+v17rar/;9876004;/fileinfo.html
Works with 1.03 Sins Plus not yet incorporated

Since you guys can't wait. Here's my mod for 1.03. You'll have to wait a little longer to get it with sins plus cuz I've been having some CTD issues after combining them.
INSTALLATION:
Extract the .rar into your mods folder

For Vista users it should be located at:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods

Changelog:

Diplomacy:
-You now get an hour to complete AI missions. Now it's easier to make AI allies.

-Mission rewards increased to make them more worthwhile.

AI Players:

-Increased priority on building defenses. AI should build a lot more defenses now!

-Adjusted Aggressiveness

Constants:

-Hitpoints of pirate ships increased.

-Jump Angle reduced from 45 to 20. Much easier to blockade gravity wells. You better send a scout before sending your fleet into enemy territory now...

-Pirate bases can support double the population of normal asteroids and can have up to 12

logistics slots as well as 3 extremely rich metal asteroids and 3 extremely rich crystal

asteroids. Now pirate bases are VERY worthwhile to conquer.(beware the gauss cannons)

-Research speed back to default

-Tax income slightly increased

-Half hour between pirate raids

-Increased number of trade ships produced by trade ports.

-Lowest allegiance can get through distance is 35%

-Phase jumps no longer cost anti-matter. It didn't make sense to me that ships with less than 100 anti-matter could still jump.

Fleet Logistics:

-Maximum capital command points: 24

-Maximum Fleet Supply: 5800

-Reduced maneuverability and speed of many ships.

All Ships:

-Auto-join fleet default to off

-Auto focus fire default to off(except for squadrons). Now each ship in a fleet will target the type they are best against. Ships will also no longer focus fire thousands of points of damage on a single frigate. Fleet to fleet combat just became a lot more epic!

-Costs and build times back to default.

-Siege Ships - Siege attack looks more devastating. Now they look like planetary invasions. more work to be done on them soon.(Check out TEC's siege frigate attack!)

Tactical Structures:

-Cost of orbital defenses adjusted for better balance.

-Gauss/missile/beam structures will have damage tripled. Take up no tactical slots.

-Hangar defenses will support 4 squadrons, use less tactical slots.

-Phased Jump Inhibitors will have increase jump time by 2500% and have 1/2 the range. Now you have to place them at the edge of the build range limit as close to the phase lane you want to block in order for them to do their job. Now enemy ships trying to jump to your other worlds will have a MUCH longer jump charge time. I recommend not using it around the phase lanes the AI will use to retreat or you'll find the game to be too easy. Against human players though...

-Repair platform: repair rate doubled



Capital Ships:Now they're the big bad behemoths of the fleet that they're supposed to be.
-Damage,hitpoints,shields tripled

-More squadrons for carriers, start with 6

-resource cost doubled

-Take 7 minutes to build.

-Require more experience to level up.

Cruisers:

-Carriers will carry 2 squadrons

-Repair bots repair rate doubled

Frigates:

-Scout frigates automatically explore after being built.

- Anti-fighter frigates given shorter reload time to deal with the increased number of

fighters.(without focus fire, those turrets can now track multiple targets)


Fighters:

-No longer fly together in squadrons. Should make big fleet battles more epic.

Planets:

-Tax income for planet population raised. Now you'll need those terran worlds if you want to make real money.

-More extractors possible on worlds.

-Extractors can only support one refinery. Each refinery though has a bigger impact on resource rates than vanilla.

For Version 2

-new icons for individual fighters and bombers.

-Adjusted speeds of ships and weapons (I hate seeing a light frigate being chased by a
thousand missiles across a gravity well)

-Balance changes, especially for capital ship abilities to better go along with their new stats.

-Bug Fixes

-Pirates Playable

-New/more reasonable AI quests.

-Ability to toggle focus fire.

I only had time to test it for a couple hours on a 10 player map so let me know of any problems, things I forgot to change that are on this list, suggestions, etc.



modding
123,975 views 258 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Just be careful not to bog down the system with massive amounts of ships. 1 supply per ship means thousands of ships per faction and the AI *will* build them so... you get the picture. ;)

Also, I am not sure of this but heard it somewhere, that different races have different fleet caps for balance purposes - if so keep that in mind if you want to maintain the balance.

And lastly, since we cannot unfortunately edit AI behaviour, keep in mind that the PJI's will not stop the AI from *trying* to phase out and thus hang in space uselessly as their fleet is obliterated. Which is slightly more fun than them just running away, but still.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll just halve the supply cost for all the ships. Yea maybe my changes to PJI's is a bit extreme. I'll have to test it on different settings. Maybe I'll shrink the range so you actually have to place it near the phase lane you don't want them jumping through.
CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
be careful with the ammount of squadrons, depending on your screen resolution you may not be able to see the top part of the ID card
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
what are you using to edit these files?
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Notepad, but you have to download the source files in ASCII form, you can get them from here:WWW Link
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Sounds horrifically imbalanced.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Of course they are imbalanced. It'll take hours of testing and changes to really balance it out.I already decided after testing to keep defense platform ranges at default but triple the damage so that you would need long range frigates or bombers to take them out before your fleet could get close to the planet. PJI's will greatly increase the amount of time to make a jump but they will have a reduced range so you'll have to place it close to the phase lane you want to block. I'll also be increasing the shields and health of capital ships because I just feel like they aren't worth their cost when a group of frigates could easily cripple one. I wanted the capital ships to feel like the heavy hitters on the battlefield, not just large hulks to soak up damage.

Now you can build a defensive ring with the defense platforms around the planet. Strike craft squadrons I'm lowering to 4 per hangar base. originally, 6 seemed like a good choice since the TEC hangar has 6 bays and is bigger than the sova carrier.

It's unbalanced now but after I finish testing and make some tweaks I'll update the change list.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I haven't found a cap as to the number of squadrons you could code the hangar defences to sustain, but the defauld building stats really hurt it when you have more than the default 2. It really hurts with 5 or more. You can get around that by changing the build costs for the two types of squadrons or give the hangars more antimatter and a better charge time.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Updated

Please post any bugs you find or changes in the log I forgot to make in-game.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
OP updated to v 1.5

Bug fixes: -TEC sova carrier still had vanilla hitpoints and shields
-Irregularity in logistics upgrades

New features: - Increased supply point max and points per level
- Increased maximum capital command points and points per level
- AI players give missions with greater resource rewards and longer durations to complete them.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
hey man nice job. this will be the first mod ill be trying for sins.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
For the next installment I'm thinking about adding to the number of trade ships produced by trade ports and make the bonuses for destroying enemy trade ships and the loss of one of your own higher to make attacking trade lanes a valid tactic.

I'll try to make changes to the way fighters and bombers work. It feels too much like homeworld 2 to me.

I also want to slow down the turn rate and firing arcs of all the ships to make flanking maneuvers an effective tactic. It also means you get more shots at retreating fleets and vice versa.

With all the changes this mod has made, you'll have to change your strategies quite a bit.

Attacking a planet with gauss cannons means you'll have to use long range frigates and bombers to take out the gauss cannons before the rest of your fleet can get in close. This increases the need to build more long range frigates and carrier cruisers.

If the system has a good number of hangar bays loaded with fighters and bombers, you'll have to lure their strike craft to your fleet to fight on your terms. The improved targeting on the anti-fighter frigates should make this part much easier.

Now that focus-fire is no longer automatic, player fleets are on a more level playing field with ai fleets. Both sides will lose ships at a faster rate and strategic choices must be made during the battle.

Do I tell my capital ships to focus fire on enemy capital ships or have them start quickly chewing up enemy frigates and cruisers to lessen the enemy fleet's firepower? Which capital ships you place in fleets suddenly plays a bigger role now.

The bigger fleet caps now means you can create enough defense fleets to cover your fronts and still have enough supply left to create specialized fleets like carriers loaded with bombers for hit and run or a diversion ;)






Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

hey man nice job. this will be the first mod ill be trying for sins.
End of quote


Make sure you play a few unmodded games first to be sure you like the changes.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
wow, this will be the first mod I will try , on my next day off, I'll let you know what I think!
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
I'm liking what I read here. This will be the next mod I try.

Auto Jion fleet off ! All bow heads and Amen to that. :-)

Cap ships more fire power ! Yes indeed. It warps me outa the world of imersion and into clicky game mode to watch a battle ship pound on a gnat sized frigate for 3 minutes before it wilts away.

Nice.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
I'm going to give this mod a try too...
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
Cap Ships seem powerful now, at least in terms of survivability, I hate seeing them go pop as everyone focus fires on them for 30 seconds.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Cap Ships seem powerful now, at least in terms of survivability, I hate seeing them go pop as everyone focus fires on them for 30 seconds.
End of quote


Yea, I'm thinking about increasing their firepower even more after some playtesting. The tripling of their stats is just a starting point to see the effect on gameplay. A frigate shouldn't be able to stand more than 2 or 3 shots from a kol's beam cannon. I'll then have to change other things like the number of ships defending neutral worlds otherwise taking them will be too easy. Might have to give the pirates some capitals of their own...

I also just discovered that changing the phase jump angle affects something else other than what I want it to. I actually need to change the hyperspace exit radius of each planet for the PJI's to have the intended effect.

EDIT: Nvm, PJI's are working properly. Seeing the hyperspace exit radius value got me confused and worried. That value actually controls how far entering ships are from the planetoid.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
One thing that HAS bothered me about the game is that gravity wells just don't feel very big. Granted you'd have to change the build distances of everything, but especially around stars - the antimatter regen and central nature of stars makes me think they'd be the site of huge, epic, powerful battles. But the star gravity well is tiny indeed. I mean... ITS A STAR.

On another note, if you figure out how to stop the AI from being cowards all the time, go for it.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
I'm getting a random crash to the desktop, no errors or anything, just a full dump to the desktop, never happened before installing the mod.

I'm thinking it's an exception in the changed scripting.

I'm going to take a look at the logs (if their are any.)

I'll get back to you with anything I notice.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Nice mod, but I experience crashes whenever in game I change the value of resources in the black market. After I either increase or decreases values the game stalls then crashes.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Hey, yeah, i tried your mod, but i get a consistent crash and dump every time the pirate raid bidding starts in my game. Was wondering if there is a fix coming? I really like the mod you're doing.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
hey man nice job. this will be the first mod ill be trying for sins.
End of quote

Nice. Constructive comment!
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
If you could let me know what you did to change the AI so they dont focus fire that would be great.

the mod i'm working on is much more "tiny ship" based...

-Fighters per squad increased
-Fighter Squads per carrier (cap. ship and light carrier as well as planetary defense hangars) increased
-Number of Trade Ships per station increased (from 5 to 15, makes for much more realistic looking traffic when you have large chains going)