I think I've found the error, there's a buggy line in the RaceConfig.xml under CustomRace:

<TechTree>TerranRace_TechTree</TechTree>

there is no TerranRace_TechTree

please change to

<TechTree>Terran_TechTree</TechTree>

edit:

you might want to add also a

<ESPIONAGE>-25</ESPIONAGE>

I launched a Terran testgame and I tried building up my starbases. It worked.

If you don't have this technology than you need to remove the .RACECONFIGXML files in the following folder:

My Documents\My Games\GC2TwilightOfTheArnor

@Maiden

I'll fix the custom race techtree bug.

I'll often send funda nexus 6 ships back to a friendly planet for repair so they don't get busted up funda galaxy s5 in the field.

Your welcome.

If you don't spend the 100 points the game will do it for you so... it's probably best to do it yourself.

Have fun and a happy new year to you as well.

Then there is absolutely no reason to make a Costum Race anymore. Custom Races only get the smallest amount of logistics and no other stats, so having more distribution points is justified - and it makes sense because it gives a player more freedom to create something unique. That's why CustomRaces are chosen in the first place.

You are forgetting the extra +4 Logistics that Torians have, which lets them have an additional Tiny Fighter, which, if we only take the starting logistics ability into consideration, equates to 25% more firepower. So you can come to equal terms with them, but not better.

They are now, unless a player manually choose to change that. But then that's none of our responsibility. Besides, Thalans have with Technologists one of the strongest Political Party anyway....

You are right, but my comparison wasn't a test to see who can come highest on some stats, although here still the Custom Race will be far better in Diplomacy or Popgrowth - which IMO are stats that the Thalans need more than production.

IMO the Thalans don't even need this high production because their factories and the ability to build them with a single turn can give them a better initial production than any other race in the game. What they need is the ability to pay for their immense maintenance and production costs. How to do that? 1. Techtrade --> low diplo. 2. Econ Planets --> no farms, low popgrowth. 3. Extorting money from other civs --> low diplo. 4. Waiting for econ to be established homogenuously on all planets --> low popgrowth 5. Trade-->ok.

The problem with this approach is that these techs then should be made untradeable, otherwise you can trade these techs onto your enemies and thereby weaken them. But attributing some of these penalites to Hyperion Matrix tech or Temporal Mechanix would do the trick.

Me too, and I found them to do very good in some fields and also to be quite erratic in others:

- Thalans don't quickbuy stuff that often but rather produce stuff. This way they can keep their global spending slider higher and I've seen games with them where the slider never jumped to 20% due to being broke like Altarians, Korx etc. They even save money which gives them time to adjust the sliders down if they should encounter financial pressure (in the case they research+build facs+labs).

- Thalans leave their initial planets blank which is a good option to not go broke. Their closest spamable improvements are +15% influence, which @1bc maint isn't a drag, or +15% moral which actually promotes their economy.

Problems:

- If they research factories too early they basically fill up all their planets with them without having the necessary money to run them. I've seen them reduce sliders to 4% global spending for a complete year (!). During this time maintenance costs were 80% of their total expenses (!!). In this situation no research or production did happen. So the only thing that could have taken out of this swamp is population growth, but here they are major penalized. They need not to research their factories too early.

- I've seen them researching tier2 factories at the end of the first year - this research took them 24 weeks (!). At the end of the second year they began research on tier3 facs - which took 51 weeks (!!). So from 3 years research 50% of their total research was for what? To reduce the maintenance of their factories from 11 to 7 LMAO. And they still had to upgrade these factories and invest a boatload of industry production. This is nonsense -.-

If their factory/lab progression stays how it currently is the tier2+3 should be given the lowest AI value to make sure the AI ignores it. The bonus from these techs is minor. Instead, these RP could have been spend on economical stuff which then could cover for their maintenance easily; and the cost for upgrading their facs/labs could go straight into other stuff.

- Their factory/lab "progression" is bogus/pointless. In vanilla it was maintenance 15-->10-->5, so you could save 10bcs per improvement when upgrading them. Now it's only 4. However, the old factory progression did kill Thalans in some games. The AI simply isn't programmed for this alternate play. 15bcs maint per structure is huge and gamebreaking esp. early, and if we take the production costs also into equation, every early factory costs Thalans ~33bcs/turn.

IMO these improvements should be redesigned to something like this:

Tier1: 10 prod @ 12 maint

Tier 2: 11 prod @ 7 maint

Tier 3: 12 prod @ 2 maint

Results would be:

- Initial production is less which stifles their early game a bit. Thalan AI doens't encounter such a rush in cost/prod once factories are researched. This is a small nerf.

- Maintenance costs are greater reduced than now which gives a true reason to make this transition.

- Small increased production from tier to tier give an additional reason to do this.

- Final lower maintenance costs compensate the nerf of initially lower production.

Basically Thalan strength is shifted from early to endgame, although only to a small fraction.

How do you know this? Once one Planetary Invasion starts testplays either crashes the game or freezes it. And that's just the beginning of mid-game. 

Well it's 3 bcs less than currently, although at the sacrifice of 2 industry of their starting facs. It's not a buff but a trade-off.

In our current CU their tier1 was reduced by even more (-4) without any loss (so a real buff) but I still see Thalans wreck their economy with their improvements. Basically a step into the right direction but still not efficient enough (unless you want them to go broke as a balancing factor^^) 

Since the Thalan's use a different approach to fac/lab progression - this is impossible to be achieved. Their tier1 will always have a different tp-for-maint value as their tier2 and also their tier3.

Thalan Labs:

Initial Colony 12 RP @ 10 maint

4 * Lab = 48 RP @ 20 maint

Total base 60 RP = 60 bcs

Let's assume a bonus of +30 racial research, makes 78 RP, adding 9 bcs bonus prod

Total: 99 bcs for 78 RP

The generic tree using a RCC will come to this:

Initial Colony 12 RP @ 10 maint

3 * Lab = 36 RP @ 18 maint

1 * RCC = +25% @ 3 maint

Total maint: 31 bcs

Base RP cost = 48 RP = 48 bcs

Bonus prod: 15 bcs

Total: 94 bcs for 78 RP

As you can see the generic tree actually offers a cheaper research even if I use the best/cheapest Thalan lab already. This is because the RCC provides bonus research whose cost is only 50% and the RCC will become more and more efficient the more labs are added to its boosting power. And if I make these calculations with low-tier Thalan improvements you'll see how inferior in terms of "power for cost" ratio they really are.

They are only good because they give you a boatload of starting power - if you can handle it. The AI cannot! That's why Gaunathor actually reduced the initial maint from 15 to 11. His motive was spot on , but I still see Thalans ruining their game even at 11 bcs maint. Making it now again higher will only exacerbate the matter. 

The problem here is to make their endtiers reasonable. That is, the difference between the tiers have to be *increased* without presenting them too much cost in tier1.

TBH IDK why Thalans are so much dominating in your games. In my current games they range from broken to good. However, I only observe the first 3 years. In that way keep in mind that Thalans are intended to be initially strong - probably the most strong AI.

They also have alot of strong racial stuff coming from their techtree - military production, weapons, speed and alot of stuff from ethics. Maybe your fast techspeed does promote these bonuses too fast? I usually make techspeed dependant on the planet count (seen in debugg.err) because lots of planets promote research as does galaxy size increase the number of research resources. For above 700 planets = very slow; 300-700 = slow; etc picking Very Fast only on Tiny/Small maps in a rare setup. For testing I always use normal techspeed on medium abundant or large common galaxies.

Another usually mitigating factor is that in these testgames the player will be missing. Because of their diplo-penalty Thalans are #1 target to exploit, trading useless techs to them for good money, getting their techs easily, and Thalan are the very best race to get planets from through trade. The presence of a player or Human/Drath (who exploit Thalans often diplomatically) can act as a real throttle.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r1rmkack6w9abib/Thalan%20Medium.zip?dl=0

I went with your suggestion and tested same civs on Medium map, normal speed, abundant habitable, common planets. One thing for sure, Thalan were not as strong as on Large maps with all abundant, but still were strongest overall. They lead in research/economy in 4 out of 5 games, and their economy was really bad in game #2. So you were right, this has to do with maps as well ^^ My guess is, the more planets there is out there, the more imbalances show.

You have strong arguments, and prove your point. I have another idea to boost their economy but lower production a little. Tell me what you think.

I made a small spreadsheet of vanilla vs CU values for all races, trying to find where Thalans got buffed most.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/trip254qzugnwt9/tech%20comparison%205.3.4.ods?dl=0

From what I can tell, Thalan got a lot more +SP/MP and +Research in their tech tree. Previously, they had no bonuses on their version of Planetary Improvements other then 10 economy, and no Military Production on their Space weapons/Militarization. No +Research from Hyper Mainframes and only 5 from Remedial Engineering. Overall they gained most - 10 SP, 40 MP, 20 Research. Others like Drengin or Korath also got more bonuses in their tree, but those are more expensive techs further down the tree (past Slave Canyons), so do not make any difference in their start. Thalan also got less pop growth now then in vanilla.

Altogether, a lot of original design is gone. Thalan are not supposed to get so high in production, especially MP. Their pop growth should be higher, as like you said, it is better just to make a custom race. Both their Planetary Improvements and Space Militarization is already untradeable, so that's -10 SP -20 MP and -10 Research that can be taken away. Their initial pop growth penalty can go from -60 to -40, so they will end up with -15, same as vanilla.

This will slow down their early game production (and production spending), but boost economy with higher pop growth. 

I guess their morale can be fixed by making Recuperation Center a 1pp, with higher bonus but more cost, so it takes a bit more time to build. If their morale is more even across all planets, it will help them a little bit. Morale up to 40 from 25, cost up to 80 from 50.

Or, they might be overbuilding it as it has 200 AI value, so it could just be reduced and maybe they won't overtax themselves.

I'm worked the histroy techs into each techtree. All will be available weather they're picked or not. Without this change custom races can be left completely crippled failing to research, manufacture, etc. I've also been looking at the posts so far.

Here's what I'll do.

Thalans:

I'm combining OShea's and Maiden's suggestions for the Thalan. That is, their factories labs will get new output/maintenance and I'm reducing the bonuses values on space weapons and planetary invasion. Pop growth stays at -50 since they do get the Recruitment Center and they didn't in Vanilla.

Yor:

Research Matrix: Yes.

Maintenance Grid: Yes.

Efficiency Studies V: Yes.

Collectives Costs: Yes.

Iconian:

I'm not touching their diplo. In the CU the Yor/Drengin/Korath are the worst at diplo and I'm okey with the Iconians getting a bit more. Xeno Pursiasion had 20 in vanila, I see no reason to change this.

Basic Replicator: Done. These are actually the same values as a Basic Slave pit.

Korath/Drengin;

Reduced mp/bc for production/research as suggested. This seems more appropriate for them.

Adjusted research tech cost as suggested. 

In addition, maintenance from School/University was raised from 1/2 to 2/3. This makes the torian research structures more expensive for the roughly the same build cost/tp.

As to racial bonuses... I'm not sure I want to touch these atm.

Regards,

M.

Before we get ahead of ourselves here's V5.4.0.

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7r1rtzpcq77njk/Community%20Update%20V5.4.0.zip?dl=0

This update deals with History tech vanishing from sight when not selected while making a custom race. Simply put, all tech is visible and can be researched.

=TechTree

History techs set to None and are linked in a liniar tree. This means you can always research these techs. This fixes a severe problem with custom races where one can be locked out crucial tech. This can be crippling to a player or worse, used as an exploit.

Temporal Mechanics:
-Cost from 10 to 30

HyperionPackages:
-Cost from 10 to 30

NeutralHistory: removed

=PlanetaryImprovements

EntertainmentCenter
-Requirement from NeutralHistory to InnovativeHistory

All SlavePits
-Adjusted costs as suggested by OShea.

All SlaveLabs
-Adjust costs as suggested by OShea.

All Collectives
-Adjusted costs as suggested by OShea.

Maintenance Grid
-Adjusted Costs as suggested by OShea.

Research Matrix
-Research from 12 to 10 as suggested by OShea.

School
-Maintence from 1 to 2. Without this School and Basic slave lab are completely similar.

University
-Maintenance from 2 to 3. Without this University and Improvd Slave Lab are completely similar.

=All RaceTree
-Added entries to link up history techs

=Thalan TechTree
PlanetaryImprovement
-Military/Social/Research bonus to 0 as suggested by OShea.

Space Weapons
-Military bonus to 0 as suggested by OShea.

Recuperation Center
-AI 200 to 100.

=RaceConfig

CustomRace:
-Espionage set to -25.
-Fixed techtree entry.

Thalan:
-PopulationGrowth from -60 to -50

Full details are in the change log.

Let's see how the Thalan do now before going all overboard with changes left and right.

Yes. Also remove any customization you've made.

Thalan/Terran/Torian/Yor/Iconian group https://www.dropbox.com/s/to6yrea55tf2p6i/Thalan%20group.zip?dl=0

AIP7 group https://www.dropbox.com/s/w24xwtsf7xcyp57/AIP7%20group.zip?dl=0

Krynn/Korx/Arcean/Altarian/Drath group https://www.dropbox.com/s/ibjtombi2vtjllh/Drath%20Korx%20Krynn%20Arcean%20Altarian.zip?dl=0

All games vary from 100 to 180 turn

Set 1 Very Fast, Large, Abundant, Thalan, Torian, Terran, Yor, Iconian, Korx, CU 5.4.0

Game 1: Thalan dominated

Game 2: Thalan and Terran

Game 3: Thalan, but not much

Game 4: Terran

Game 5: All races even

Game 6: Thalan, Torian close second

Game 7: Thalan

Game 8: Iconian, Terran, Torian even at the top.

Set 2 Medium, normal, Abundant habitable, Common planets, Thalan, Torian, Terran, Yor, Iconian, Korx disabled. CU 5.4.0

Game 9: Torian, Iconian close second

Game 10: Thalan, Terran, Iconian pretty even.

Game 11: Iconian and Torian

Game 12: Thalan and Yor

Game 13: Terran, followed by Torian

Game 14: Torian, followed by Iconian

Game 15: Thalan, Iconian

On Large galaxies with higher number of planets Thalan still is at the top, but twice their crown was taken by other race. Once they were even with everyone else, and once they were pretty low at the bottom. On medium maps, they are less dominant, being at the top of the stats on 3 out of 7 games. Every other race was at least once in the second spot. Overall - changes were good.

Set 1 Medium, normal, Abundant habitable, Common planets, Drengin, Korath, Yor, CU 5.4.1

Game 1: All even

Game 2: Drengin - had best starting position

Game 3: Yor - again best position

Game 4: Korath, followed by Yor (who lost their elections lol)

Game 5: Yor

Game 6: Yor

Game 7: Korath, followed by Drengin

Game 8: Drengin and Yor

Set 2 Medium, fast, Abundant habitable, Abundant planets, Drengin, Korath, Yor. CU 5.4.1

Game 9: Yor, followed by Korath

Game 10: Yor

Game 11: All equal

Yor seem to be strongest of the bunch, but against other civs, they are just average. The area Drengin/Korath are behind most is research. I looked at their planets, and well, no wonder they don't have much research going. It also might be because research cost for their labs increased, while output decresed at the same time, but something else caught my eye.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ezn5m0dzxxfzsi6/ScreenShots.zip?dl=0

Both Korath and Drengin build to many Morale Improvements (Counter Espionage and Arena/Slaughtertoriums) at the expense of Slave Canyons/Labs. This slows them down considerably, as their production is slower, and they are not able to keep up with Yor research. 

Yor have a similar problem, in that they don't build many Collectives. They also could go without so many Counter Espionage Centers. Luckily for them, they have a 1pp research improvement, so they actually have pretty good research stats.

Korath in none of the games built Dark Influence  (I do not know if they researched tech itself, but my guess is no or it was so late, they didn't build it in time).

Set 1 Medium, normal, Abundant habitable, Common planets, Drath, Krynn, Altarian, Arcean, Korx. CU 5.4.1

Game 1: Arcean, Drath, but overall pretty even.

Game 2: Altarian, all other races equal.

Game 3: All pretty even, slight lead of Korx and Arcean.

Game 4: All even, with slight lead of Altarian and Krynn.

Game 5: Krynn and Korx.

Set 2 Large, normal, Abundant habitable, Abundant planets, Drath, Krynn, Altarian, Arcean, Korx. CU 5.4.1

Game 6: Krynn

Game 7: Almost even if not for Krynn

Game 8: Krynn

Game 9: Slight lead of Krynn and Drath

Game 10: Krynn

Krynn is very good on larger maps, behaving in this test group just like Thalan. On medium maps, all races are equal, and even previously weak Altarians, Korx and Arceans got at least one good shot at the top.

Tomorrow I will mix the groups a little and post the results. Time to get ready for New Years party :> 

Btw small typo in Stellar Forge:

"With 450,000 years of engineering experience", should be 50,000.

These may already be fixed, but please check:

1) Yor did not have access to the telepathy center / insta-flip building. Is this supposed to be this way? I really like having that.

2) There is a visual alignment issue with the "save" modal dialog box when creating new ships. The box appears to be too long vertically and the buttons don't quite fit. Cosmetic only.