Thanks for the info...when I have the time I'll look into it...my guess is though that if it goes away when the game is reloaded, then it may be something out of our control...

Perhaps when the mod is loaded it reloads the order of units or something, adding the modded units included in GameInfo to the end of the list...so, including all units in the mod (even if not all units are changed) may solve this problem...

Mod has been updated to v0.4...the change log is cumulative, so I'll highlight some of the changes made...

Jump Degradation has been improved...the hyperspace speed penalty has been reduced from 50% to 20% however the ability now stacks with a limit of 100...keep in mind that the hyperspace speed is multiplied by a factor of 1/(1 + .2n) where n is the number of overseers, so this ability is heavily affected by diminishing returns...even with 100 overseers the approaching fleet will travel at 5% of its normal speed, which is still feasible (especially if your enemy wasted 700 supply points on overseers!)...

Repulsion has been changed so that it is automatically on autocast...the AI will use repulsion now...suggestions for making the AI use repulsion more intelligently are welcome...

Phase out hull on the Antorak Marauder has been improved...shields regenerated on friendly targets has been increased from 200 to 200/300/400...likewise, damage done to enemy targets (shields only still) has been increased similarly...

Check out Project Equilibrium with Extras...the new planets should add some nice variety...

hehe, ROFL at the thought of 700 fleet supply of overseers. (what? you want 25000 hitpoints? now? sure!)

dling.

I haven't had a chance to open you mod file yet but try using OnlyWhenManyTargetsInRange for aiUseTime.

Looks like I'll be looking through these goodies.

You know, we often dont give the AI credit it deservers.

Its preety intresting to see how different the AI's fleet composition was when i played a me vs unfair.

Lots of lights, lots of bombers. some heavies.

my kol was fun.  It could instapop LRMs. Tehehe.

I havent played vs a hummie yet, but From what i could tell, I think i have to agree with darvin on the first post. lrms seem a teeenytiney bit on the weak side, and lights a liiiitle bit on the more powerful side.  fighters cant seem to kill bombers. 

Although, i should really do some actual testing... like: how well do lrms fair vs flack now.  before, it was very, very even, one flack would survive... maybe 2 with very low hp (for like 30 supply vs 30 supply)... i guess i need to check, cause you lowered anti-very-light vs light didnt you?

might want to raise LRM vs module rates a bit, that might help some.

but ya, i need to play a game against my self with calculated fleet supplies and such... things that i dont totally have time for.

I'm thinking this would be a good idea too...except for Advent, LRFs are still the best way to take done caps, though LFs are much better than they used to be...so, LRFs aren't worthless but late game they certainly are a little lacking...

I've played a few games against human players, and massive amounts of disciples will lose to LRMs and flak even if you also bring in fighters...however, it's not as bad as it used to be...

In my experience against human players, it is almost always prudent to have a fair amount of LFs, LRFs, and flak...until HCs, fleets that feed off of only 1 or 2 of those units are severely crippled unless your opponent does the same thing...

Mod has been updated with a few small changes...

First, the Novalith cannon shell debuff was fixed...the new debuff that reduces trade by 33% now lasts 720s (instead of 120s IIRC)....

Second, the starbase construction ability on Vasari colony ships has been fixed...Vasari migrators under control of the AI will build starbases now...should make SP a bit more fun...

Been playing some MP LAN games recently...a few things I've noticed...

Repulsion seems to be overpowered (more so than before the mod)...with LRMs weaker against heavy armor, and capital ships harder to kill (with bombers and LRFs, anyway), repulsion makes it pretty much impossible to eliminate Advent capital ships and carriers if you are TEC...even as Vasari, it is rather difficult if they have a lot of TK...

Vasari capital ships are also extremely difficult to kill due to overseers...now, overseers have always had this capability, but with capital ships in general being harder to kill and with the other overseer ability being buffed, I feel that reactive nanites might be too powerful....

Right now I'm leaning towards reducing the range of repulsion and/or increasing the antimatter cost (say 5/s instead of 4/s)...as for overseers, a simple solution would be reducing the added hit points from 250 to 200...a better solution might be to add a buff stacking limit of 1000000 (essentially infinite) so the boolean allowing first spawner to stack can be set to false...that way, a single overseer can't add hull to the same ship every 4s....

Suggestions would be appreciated...

As an aside, the turn rate of the domina subjugator has been doubled...this change will be incorporated in the next update...this ship appears to be useful and will use its abilities fairly effectively, so keep this in mind when judging the iconus guardian as Advent used to have basically only one support ship...

Mod has been updated to v0.42....here is a list of the most recent changes....

First, the turning rate of domina subjugators has been doubled...these ships should now be able to use their abilities fairly effectively...

The next 2 changes may be controversial...

The antimatter cost of reactive nanites (on the overseer) has been increased from 75 to 100...Vasari capital ships are extremely difficult to kill late game if your enemy has a fair amount of overseers (remember that bombers and LRF are weaker against caps and bombers are easier to suppress)

The range of repulsion has been decreased from 7500 to 6000...Unless you were Vasari, Advent capital ships and carriers were extremely difficult to kill (and with TK, it is very difficult even for Vasari)...while repulsion has always made it harder to kill carriers and caps, remember that the best ccounters to repulsion (LRFs and bombers) have been weakened...also, LRFs are weaker against heavy armor, making it harder to kill iconus guardians or carriers protected by repulsion...

I would note that this range decrease means that iconus guardians using repulsion will in fact be in range of ion bolt (range of 7000)...also, the range of magnetize was increased from 5000/6000/7000 to 6000/6500/7000, putting all 3 levels of magnetize within range of iconus guardians using repulsion...

Mod has been updated to v.43...

One change is the addition of 7 new maps...these maps are identical to the seven random maps (ex: random small, random large - single system, etc.) except that there are no pirate bases....

The other major change is the AI use time conditions for ultimate abilities...virtually all of these have been changed to activate only in combat (as oppossed to more restrictive conditions)...some (like armistice) were left alone, while others (like Cleansing Brilliance) were given different AI use times (like only against caps/starbases)...in general, you should see the AI actually use all the ultimate abilities...hopefully....

Is there any other advantage to these new no pirate maps apart from not having to disable pirates in the game's options?

Thanks a lot for balancing the game! Keep it up!

Sort of....there is no pirate base, so there will never be a weird choke point in the map that humans know how to bypass but the AI doesn't...since most people don't play with pirates on in MP (or even SP) games, i figured there's no reason to have a pirate base then...

Mod has been updated to version 1.0...the only change since the last version (v.43) is that the PM damage techs add a 5%/10% bonus instead of a 10%/20% bonus...please note that the first 3 levels that increase shield bypass have been left alone...only the actual damage bonus by the 4th level has been reduced...this is a simple tweak that will leave Vasari unaffected in early and mid game but decrease their cap killing abilities late game...

There is a possibility that Vasari bombers will be changed...bombers in general are easier to shoot down, making multiple instances of repair cloud much more powerful than before...late game, Vasari fleets with multiple skirantras are very very difficult to counter due to the difficulty in killing Vasari bombers...two possibilities are increasing the construction time or antimatter cost of Vasari bombers or decreasing the HP of each Vasari SC (with the additional possibility of increasing # of SC per squadron)...

I'm not real confident with either of those possibilities and won't be implementing them without significant testing, so there will not likely be any future updates for a while (other than BIN versions)...

Let's set up a time to play it this weekend.

Sorry I can't this weekend...I got a 20 page thesis paper to work on

Working on a couple of changes since the release of v1.0...

First, the Kostura Prototype tech now requires both levels of enhanced tunneling...this is a level 7 tech that requires phase stabilizer (level 5)...while that is a rather high tech (and it is in the oppossite tech tree), the Vasari player still only has to research 3 prereqs. whereas the TEC and Advent are looking at 7 each IIRC...in addition, the Vasari have the most incentive of all 3 factions to get a lot of both civ and military labs (at least 5 of each for HCs and Phase stabilizers)...seeing as both the Advent and TEC need lvl 6 and 7 techs to get their prototype, I'd say the Vasari still have an easier time getting their superweapon...

Second, SC have been changed...first, Vasari bomber/fighter squadrons now have 4/5 SC instead of 3/4 SC per squadron...hit points and DPS per SC have been changed so that the total DPS and HP of a squadron is the same (damage per attack was reduced, cooldown left unchanged)...in addition, the construction times have been tweaked...Advent fighters will build faster now and will take only a little longer than TEC and Vasari fighters...the construction time is set per SC, not squadron, so by increasing the number of SC per Vasari squadron, the construction time of Vasari squadrons has gone up as well and actually is now much more fair...currently, all bomber squadrons should take about the same amount of time to build and the same goes for fighters...

Some other changes may be made in the near future, but if I don't think of something within the next few days I'll just release these as v1.1...

A major problem since the beginning of sins has always been that TEC have a poor late game...

A big contributor to this was weak capital ships...now this mod has addressed the capital ships themselves, but TEC are still at a a disadvantage when it comes to protecting their caps...

Advent have repulsion, shield projection, good HP/s regen (via domina subjugator), and TK...

Vasari have overseers which make popping the first cap very difficult...they also have jam weapons and repair cloud...

TEC have...a Dunov, and that's about it...the cielo does add some shield regen in addition to the hoshiko, but ultimately there is no true SC cover like TK or jam weapons (magnetize just doesn't cut it late game) and nothing like repulsion or overseers to truly protect caps...TEC strength lies not in ship quality, but in ability to replenish losses better...problem is, that philosophy doesn't work real well with caps...

One thing I am considering is adding a second level to basic training so that TEC can pay for a 5th capital ship level upgrade (other two factions would still only be able to pay for a 4th level)...I think this may help TEC somewhat late game in the capital ships department...

I agree, just give a second level to the max purchasable capitalship level tech and it should work. Pretty logical direction for them too.

One of the rather worthless technologies in the game is advanced maneuvering thrusters...15% is virtually negligible....even 50% and 100% increases in angular thrust seemed insignificant via testing...a 1000% bonus, while seemingly asinine, actually seems to work pretty well...with this bonus, TEC cap ships still turn smoothly but can line up for a jump or navigate around structures much faster...

If it was the other two factions, I'd never give them this bonus...but without TK, jam weapons, repulsion, or overseers, I think the TEC could use this boost....1000% in theory should be an 11x boost to angular thrust, but honestly I don't think it works out quite like that....probably more like a 3x or 4x boost...

Anyway, should make this lvl 5 tech actually worth researching in the late game as well as give TEC some capital ship protection...

Mod has been officially updated to v1.1...changes since 1.0 have all been mentioned in this thread and include:

Kostura now requires both levels of enhanced tunnelling

Vasari SC have more SC per squadron (damage and HP the same per squadron)...SC in general more balanced

TEC can purchase up to level 5 for caps

Advanced Maneuvering Thrusters provides a distinct advantage now

Another update in the near future is likely...

A guaranteed change will be debris vortex...the entity file for the ability only allowed one level, preventing the player from ever using the second level of this ability...I would note that the 2nd level of this ability seems significantly better (50% more regen from debris, range much greater, and IIRC the ability lasts longer at level 2)...so, keep this in mind when you choose between directional field and debris vortex....

Another likely change will only apply to the mod with extras...

After many MP games, gas giants have become somewhat problematic and paradise worlds somewhat overpowered...the issue is, paradise worlds are vastly superior to every other planet even without having any resource asteroids...meanwhile, a recurring problem I've found is one or more players having only gas giants to turn to after their first asteroid and planet are colonized...while making gas giants more rare could be seen as a solution to this, I think ultimately the source of the issue is that paradise worlds are too good and gas giants not good enough (especially for a lvl 5 tech)....

So, I am considering changing the number of logistic slots on paradise worlds from 9 to 3 (36 -> 12, technically), which would be the same as an asteroid...this puts them more in line with terran and desert planets (the more max pop, the less logistic slots)...

Also, gas giants would be changed from 0 logistic slots to 9 (technically 36) with the same setup as desert planets...this puts a greater incentive to rush gas giant colonization while also compensating for the fact that these planets have no population...

While paradise planets are rare, their mere existence obviously decreases the chance of getting a non-paradise planet relative to the original game...the same goes for gas giants as they didn't used to be colonizable...despite these additions, the odds of getting a colonizable planet vs. uncolonizable is more or less the same as the original game, so it is important that new planets maintain the same number of logistic slots (more or less)...this means that if paradise planets have few logistic slots, gas giants probably will need quite a few to keep the average the same...

Nine slots may be too high, so this change won't be released until a few games have been played...

Even after being buffed, I still believe the Marauder is a serious underperformer...one of my main problems is that I still don't think Subversion is that useful...while the ability is really easy to use and the effect lasts a long time, I don't think it has quite the punch that is needed to make this ability worthwhile...

Currently, subversion increases production time by 100%/200%/300% (applies to factories and building structures)...unfortunately, this only is going to be helpful in long battles of attrition and doesn't really do much until level 3 (where ships take 4x longer to build)...constructors are more tied up in moving from place to place, not building structures, and so even with subversion active you'll still need to shoot down the constructors anyway...

I am considering changing this ability significantly to make it more useful, as I think the marauder is the weakest of the 15 capital ships and really is only providing distort gravity and its awesome ultimate ability...here is my proposal, and I would really appreciate some thoughts on this...

Instead of simply increasing construction time, subversion shuts down ship and structure construction completely for a shorter period of time...this would be similar to embargo in that it doesn't last very long and constantly needs to be activated, but the effects are quite damaging, especially for early rushes...

Embargo 1/2/3 lasts 60/90/120 seconds and costs 85 AM with a 120s cooldown...what if subversion had similar stats, and completely shut down ship and structure construction?  I would note that embargo itself increases construction time by 30%/60%/100%...

Could run the risk of being OP in the early game. Getting an Antorak to the enemy before they have another factory could put them in a real tight spot. My thoughts are to weaken passive regen and reduce tax income.