sorry. double post

Downloaded and played your mod (APT2), works fine.

I have just one question: Am I supposed to get no basic improvements playing as Terran? I can only build any structures after research of the "advanced" techs...could not find this in your mod's description, maybe I have just missed it.

Open the folder My Documents\My Games\GC2TwilightArnor, and delete all files with the extension .raceconfigxml. That should fix it. However, you'll need to start a new game afterwards.

Altarn - Many thanks for all your work on these mods! (And other like-minded modders on theirs... I just haven't explored them yet.) I first played GCII shortly after the Ultimate edition was released and was incredibly disappointed by the AI. Almost five years later now, I come back to it to find that you and others have been hard at work fixing those issues as best you can. I finally had a blast all weekend conquering the galaxy with a basically passable AI using APT1 (with Drengins @Painful). I may explore APT2 or other mods later once I better understand the base game, but I'm fine with APT1 for the moment.

Altarn, etc - I had some questions concerning balanced race configuration that I'd appreciate experienced input on. First off, I wanted to clarify... if you're using the point-based initial abilities, then you need to set those and save them for every AI, correct? The game won't go and pick them for you if you leave them blank? Personally, I don't feel the additional abilities are necessary and would prefer to play without them. There are already huge differences between the races, and those optional abilities seem very unevenly costed and exploitable, or sometimes just too game-changing. However, I also see that some races have fewer available points than others - evidence that the game expects you to be using those abilities. Any suggestions for a set of race configs that results in the most balanced game, given the limitations of APT1 to fix the AIs' limitations? Do any particular AI's still fare poorly in APT1 in a way that might be slightly remedied by giving them some boosts? Of course, I could play a bunch of games myself and eventually come to my own conclusions, but these are awfully long games and I'd prefer to work from others' experience if I can.

A separate but related race question... should the races' political parties be set in the same way as the optional race abilities, and does this actually work as intended? I notice some strange behavior here. Before my last game, I went through each race, set a sensible political party, and saved each config. Now, if I start a new game, get to the player race selection screen, and click a race, I see the party I set. Great! But then if I click a different race and click back to the first one, the political party sometimes gets "stuck" on the one from the other race. I'd chalk this up to a cosmetic interface error, but then I met races in my last game with a different party from what I set. Also, from that selection screen, if I click Next to configure the race I'll always see the "correct" party, no matter what was shown on the screen before. And from then on, the correct party "sticks" no matter what I click. It all seems very suspicious and buggy to me, but I don't know exactly how the underlying configuration is supposed to work. Any insight is appreciated.

Again, it's really great to see this game finally working at least somewhat as intended.

edit: Wrong name... Marvin did one of the other mods. Sorry...

Well, basically, as far as race abilities are concerned, if you want an interesting game then you should pick for the AI.  So for example, you could give the Yor points in Morale, Economy, Weapons, and Hitpoints to give them a better chance of fielding a large fleet.

However, depending on the galaxy setup, there may well be another race (e.g. Drengin) that completely overshadow the other races.  Each game plays out differently, and the larger the galaxy the greater the chance that a race can grab resources which significantly boost its abilities.

I think I've run into the political party issue a few times but like you said, it's probably just a cosmetic glitch.

I did some more poking using cheat codes. It looks like there are four different sets of ability modifiers generated for each civ. First are the fixed race-based bonuses, which work as expected. Second are the political party bonuses (see below). Third are the point-based abilities. These will be read from the race config if you set them, but do not appear to be picked automatically for the AI if you leave them unset. Fourth are another set of ability bonuses that, according to the wiki page, are handed out based on the difficulty level, though exact details are unknown. These are assigned regardless of what's in the race config and are cumulative with those abilities. They're also quite significant bonuses, equal to approximately 10-12 points of optional abilities (edit: at Tough - I didn't check every level). I had been under the impression that Tough was basically an even playing field, but this is far from the case. Or maybe it's supposed to be the case if you spend your 7-10 optional points on your own civ but leave the other ones unset, in which case those bonuses are roughly equal to what you get yourself. Of course, that would assume that you remember to unset those bonuses in the configuration when you switch races.

I'm just going to leave all the point-buy abilities unset for everyone for now and maybe go back and add some more in if I think that could help remedy any observed AI weaknesses.

Sure. Every game setup and opponent mix will play out differently. I was only curious if other APT1 users had observed any general patterns.

I took a closer look at this too, and it turns out not to be cosmetic. If you start in the usual way by clicking the race you want and clicking Next to continue setup, the game ignores the political party set in the race config (even if you specifically saved one earlier) and apparently picks a random party. To get the game to read the party you've set in the race configs, you need to click Next and then Back for every opponent from the race config screen. You don't need to click Save again - just going forward and back is good enough. At that point, the party "sticks" even when you click between different AI's and will also show up properly in-game.

edit2: Sorry, that last part was unclear. If you just start a game normally, the game will read the party for your own race just fine, and of course you can change it in the setup screen. It's the AI's parties that get messed up unless you do the Next/Back trick.

Because opinions are like bumholes - everybody's got one, I'd like to unnecessarily share mine about features:

APT1: Asesome even if limited. I get that you did what the game lets you to do without too much change. I'll be using this from now on. Thank you for releasing this minimalistic version seperately. It's the only mod I was able to find that fixes the worst of these issues without messing with a whole array of other stuff.

APT2:

• Massively improved research through techtree structure standardization
  - I actually like this a lot. It makes more sense this way but I'd have to actually play it quite a bit to be a good judge. I would want to know for sure that all the unique techs of each race are still there (just in a different place, following your standardized format).
• Updated UI to reduce mouse movement and save time
  - Used to have RSI myself badly, still not a fan. Tabs at the bottom is ... counterintuitive to my human nature which is used to reading top to bottom and having the menus of software across the top. I'm fine with a thumb controlled trackball. The wide "Done" buttons are a definite improvement though.
• Balanced starting conditions, everyone gets the same base structures leaving no one behind.
  - I get it, it's for AI, but it hurts diversity. Because of that, feels more like an easy workaround than a true fix. Having very different factions in a strategy game is always a challenging thing. (If not for AI, then at least to try and balance). A true fix would be making the AI actually think properly about ANY tech tree so it doesn't get stuck anywhere like an idiot. Opposed to making a tech tree that's idiot proof. That's probably beyond what can be done with modding.
  
  Believe it or not, you still sort of have me at this point.
  
  
• Revamped Super Annihilator ability. Spore Ships no longer exist.
  -  aaaaand now you don't. I took a toxic arrow to the knee.
  I've had too much fun with those to see them go. Some things just add spice to the game and create memories. Yes it's tedious that you end up with an uninhabited planet full of improvements to decommission (or ferry inhabitants to the planet). But that's the price you pay for having a ship with such strong utility. I don't like your alternative either, which feels rather forced, with less than stellar writing to support its existance (genetically modified to have toxic immunity? Come on...). Plus to actually use the colonization of toxic worlds you'd have to get pretty lucky and it really depends on galaxy settings, most notably extreme planets which happen to be set to "rare" in my current game. A super ability should always be useful, not just some of the time.

APT1 Enhanced: APT1 + the tech tree from APT2. If you were to make this available I'd prefer it over of APT1.

My 2ct.

APT1 game, galactic date: 1 jun 2228.

Thalan have built a Defender M0 v1 that has no weaponry and no defense.

Why would they do such a thing?

(In orbit around the same planet is a Heavy Fighter M1 v1 (also 8hp) with beam weapon attack value 2.)

More or less.. It's been a while since I fiddled with APT2 since I'm done with it and moved on. All of the unique structures are still there but some techtrees (Thalans come to mind). 

I moved the tabs to the bottom to reduce mouse traveling between the main menu and any screen that pops up. It takes some getting used to.

If I could rewrite the AI I would have. Allas, I cannot. Having each race start with a basic set of tech was borrowed from Dark Avatar.

The only AI that can properly use the super annihilator ability is the Korath AI. Unfortunately this AI is broken. The generic AI, which controls all AI's in APT2, cannot use super annihilator as it was intended but it can use the new one.

If I could have saved spore ships, I would have but I had a very clear goal in mind for APT2: Everything must work.

Regards,

Altarn.