that's true but that does actually qualify for a whole boatload of other stuff which a player that knows about game mechanisms can utilize so much better than the AI...

for example, all Atlas-modules can be used to exploit the combat-system to have the enemy target an all-defense ship which shields paper-tigers from fire which then can swiftly obliterate the enemy, and you win lossless. and no AI actually uses these atlas-mods, nor do they alter their target-routine...

Well about governments two things could be done if you want to change this. First of all by removing most economics, and all governments this left the Yor crippled in this area that is why they brought back the governments. One solution Gunauthor came up with was make it where everyone had governments, but different kind of races had different kind of governments. Now my idea assumes along Brad's first train of thought with this is that the Yor wouldn't have economics or any government but a dictatorship. Welcome to the money less society. I understand the Yor needs their own mechanics, but they don't get it, so to remedy this the Yor could use production techs instead of economic techs.

Actually, I made the fleet first, using the Bubbleship, the Flagship, and a space miner. The TS got added later, once it was ready to be deployed.

Yeah, we need to keep an eye on that. It's the reason why I reduced the bonus at the start of the CU, after all. Still, I haven't seen the Altarians behave that way in AT, so it might be working okay now.

That seems a bit much. Speed is quite powerful. Especially in the hands of the player. A +1 bonus would be more reasonable.

Reducing the cost seems fine. However, I can't quite agree with the comparisons. The Forge is meant to give a boost at the start of the game. Having it have a huge buildcost at a time when you don't have much production would be counter-productive. It would clog up your build-queue for way too long, if you'd try to build it that early. Sure, you could wait until you got a high enough production to build it quickly, but that would defeat the purpose of having access to it from the start. The DG, on the other hand, has a hefty maintenance cost (15bc now, originally 25bc). So there is something to offset its relatively low buildcost.

Well, I needed a tech that's available to everyone and related to nature. Soil Enhacement seemed like a good fit. I could have gone with Habitat Improvement too. However, the disconnect would have still been there. You also got to wonder why Zero-G Sports Arenas unlocked a nature resort to begin with. That tech really didn't seem fitting for it. But then, so did Habitat Improvement for Aphrodisiac, Expert Logistics for the Hyperion Re-Supply Center, Interstellar Construction for the Orbital Command Center, or Aereon Missile Defense for Hyper Computers.

I could increase the bonus to 35%. That would make the Incinerator provide 17.5% per tile. It would also still cost less than the ASP (200 vs 225), have no maintenance, no penalty to pop-growth, and grant a bonus to morale. So that's a plus in its favour.
I could also go for an increase to 40%. However, that would make using the Incinerator plainly superior to any combination of Forge, Furnace, STC, and Harvester. Only a combination with the ASP would have a bigger output, but that would also cost more maintenance and pop-growth (not to mention RP).

I'm not bothered by that at all, actually. There are several upgrades to buildings that look quite different. The Power Plants, some of the labs, or the Industrial Replicators, for example. Still, I could switch the icons of the Harvester and the Dark Influence. LiqPrison.png looks more along the line of AulIncinerator.png and FleshIncinerator.png. However, making that change would bother me, because then I would constantly confuse the two improvements. I'm just too used to their look.

What do you mean? The Gravity Accelerator is restricted to Zero-G Sports Arenas. I made sure of that. The Terrans and Arceans are the only Major Races with access to this tech. The DL and Minors also it in their trees, but they can't build TGs. So I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Same here. Plus, the Drath got their unique tech tree first. If their similarities was that much of an issue, then the Altarian tree should have been changed.

Thanks. I'll take a look.

Please stop bringing up my stupid decisions. I'm still regretting every single one of them.

I see. So there's yet another instance in which the patch doesn't apply... guess they never tested that patch out before it was applied.

sure, having high buildcosts of a starting improvement doesn't make much sense, hope I didn't sound that I was hinting at this.

May main reasoning behind the cost-reduction (+ and the speed-increase) was that I've read multiple times here in forums that players won't even build that shipyard because +1 speed is insignificant (and even more to the AI which will loose the bonus if it does fleet these ships toegether with other ships - which it does). But if the HP bonus stays at least there will be a bonus that is useful no matter how the AI deals with it.

And the cost-reduction makes also sense for the AI because they're not really prioritizing Hull-technologies and some AIP go away from SP to increase MP late in the game when they heftily seek out a military solution. In that instance lots of planetary improvements simply stay unfinished.

I never had a problem with them, maybe because I'm used to them...

The Galactic Resort is a moral-boosting improvement, so having it in the morale-branch was fitting, just like all the other morale-TG were there (although that design could be called boring...)

Aphrodisiac is a spice whose plant perhaps has to be grown outside, the tech desc of Habitat Improvement states it would make infertile land useable for farming.

As for the Supply-Center being on Logistics - it does make sense since both branches generally fare under the Logistics-terms, both have to do with ships in space. And to chaotically disperse certain stat-increases semi-randomly throughout the techtree makes ALOT of sense for the AI: Because IF the situation should arise that a particular AIP ignores a specific category (which may leave their ability crippled in that field in relative comparison to the other AIP) then they may still have the chance to get a minor boost to that field when researching just a different branch. That's exactly why I find the vanilla outlay to dispers many starbase-mods chaotically throughout the tree a good design. I could even make the opposite argument here vs the current built - if you've already advanced to Advanced Range and have a supertiny mod what do you need the ResupplyCenter for? I never build that. In an immense galaxy even the starting ships can travel more than 70 parsecs right from the getgo, just adding a few basic rangemods will actually bring them to the rangecap. At that place this improvement is borderline irrelevant.

Interstellar Construction is about lifting bigger hulled ships in space, naturally you'll have to think about coordinating them, fleeting them etc pp which is what the Command Center does. This improvement is of huge military importancy and better to have it soon, plus Small Hulls are actually the first step in constructing better military ships - everything you've had before - Tiny & Cargo - are fundamentally needed for the AI to construct non-military vessels. But the current place is fine as well, the only thing that's important is that the AI builds it before a player utilizing a rush-storm tactic can reach them....

And Hyper Comp on Aereon did make so much perfect sense in vanilla that I wonder why it got removed in the first place? You can actually deduce from the tech-desc of the PD branch, from PD Combo onwards, that these anti-missile systems are electronically-guided, and that an increase in programming or calculating power does increase the defensive power. It's all about having a system that can target and shoot at an incoming missile before it hits its target, so decreased calculation-time will increase accuracy etc. It all culminates in the Aereon Def which is a networked combination of many previous researched countermeasures (Smart Droids, ECM, Chaff). For all this you need raw calculating power.

I also thought that Hyper Comp were a sort of compensation for the (militarily weak) AIP that dive into defense-research. Right now they are a very easy to get player-only buff which can be reached for a tiny fraction of what it used to be.

Perhaps it's even a good choice to have the WretchedHarvestor not in the final build because it does look completely different than the other Drengin/Korath buildings, which are more redish/hellish. It does actually look like a Yor improvement...

The way the devs did originally pick icons doesn't follow an absolute red line. Especially on the non-TA stuff. Most of the icons (+ their names) do actually carry over from GC1. Many didn't even find an application. But I still believe that they tried to have improvements which are ingame-related to look similarily, but it simply wasn't always possible because of some chains are 5-6 items long. You're right some stuff doesn't look similar but that's more an exception than a rule.

But what I kind of find awkward is that there are currently too many icons which look very similar, albeit do completely different things. And when that change was solely based on the file-name of said icon, which is a change that a player ingame cannot get any grasp or understanding of. And the devs themselves never really followed that logic but rather choose how an icon did look like, otherwise there's be many icon now that are falsely applied.

Here's a few topics to think about:

- The Galactic Resort & Hyper Computer use an icon that's almost identical, as if one as ment to upgrade the other. The HyperComp looks nothing like a computer, I see no cables, no core, no racks, nothing at all and that the whole instrument is open exposed to rain etc doesn't make that better. It looks more like a Transporter-Station. The Galactic Resort actually show an extended version of Harmony Crystals, it's original icon is far too simple, although that made it unique as is. But a Resort is a place for humans to dwell and not a farm where crystals are artificially vegged. Well, one could fabricate it that way that it's a station designed to project the whatever power is emerging from Harmony Crystal to the people living on that planet, but then it wouldn't be a Resort anymore to begin with but rather a power station...

- The Galactic Showcase is back at its old icon. BTW the PoliCap shows an upgraded version of this.

- Neutrality Centers & the Logistics System look almost identical yet do completely different stuff. There are so many yet unused icons for labs and also logistics improvements it should be easy to find a solution here. The 2 StarbaseResupply-icons or the LogisticsManagmentCenter look very unique or School in the case of the other.

- NanoRecorders use an icon that is actually an upgraded Anti-Matter Power Plant. I boggles my mind why the Power Plant series has been diversified to that extremes when at least, 2 of 3 icons could look like a natural evolution. And the current icon for Recorders look nothing like either a Recorder or a production-facility of those...

- Re-Supply Center shows an upgraded version of the Neutral Temple (of a series that culminated into the RCC), it should be easy to remedy that, perhaps on the part of the ReSupply which looks downright ugly, it's just a blob of different colors with no differentiation for eg. windows (like the NeutrlaTemple at least has a few).

BTW if it's requested I could try to turn most - if not all - those 64px DL icons into 128px and enhance them further. I just did so on a few selected with good results (although I suspects it won't make a difference on all of them...) but here are a few examples 

http://www.xup.in/dl,12158510/example.7z/

The basic problem with these old icons is the TA ones are much more colorful or flashy. This is especially true for the querries which in DL are mostly foggy and not-contrasted.

One thing to realize is that the game apparently shrinks even the 128px planetary icons to 100px ingame thus rendering a few pixilating effects away, so you'll have to take them ingame to see how they truely look like.

Don't worry, as long as there's time & dedication it can be sorted out (and it already has been in that specific case)

Look it's been an interesting idea, but for the original game would just add too much bad fiction into the game, or perhaps ideas that go completely against the established and official lore. For example, the added Government-techs in the Iconian tree made the Iconian society a Communistic/Socialist and even went so far to say that their emperor is effectively powerless (when, in stark constrast, this is the very person you deal with when doing any kind of trade...) and I think the Iconians are rather monarchic in essence.

We're also not able to create any new game mechanism. No matter how much you increase the "blend" of a specific race - being it production, research etc... these stats will always work likewise and in the case of exchanging economy in favour of production, that doesn't work because you have to pay for production, and additionally most stuff produced carries maintenance as well.

Ok no more quoting from you like that! sorry

Remember to turn mods on.

Okay, the new version and changelog is here.

What is new?

I removed the new Drath techs and improvements, and re-added all of their old techs to their tree. This also fixed one minor issue I've overlooked so far: the Drath didn't have any Atlas-modules at all. I'm really surprised that nobody bothered to add Tulon Weapon Focus and maybe Xalax Defense Coordination, after Defensive and Offensive Meditation got removed.

I made another pass on the Drengin/Korath manufacturing-boosters. The Death Furnace got a slight increase in maintenance (1bc to 2bc) and a small boost to its bonus (20% to 25%). I've also changed its icon and query_graphic to LiqPrison.png, which got originally used by Dark Influence (that one uses WretchedHarvester.png now). The Artificial Slave Pods also got a small boost to its bonus (30% to 35%). All in all, the Drengin are now back to their old total bonus of 80%.
The Wretched Harvester now uses FleshIncinerator.png for its icon and query_graphic. That should make it obvious that the Harvester and the Aul Incinerator are related. Speaking of the Incinerator, I've added its maintenance of 5bc back in and increased the bonus from 30% to 40%. That should make it a bit more attractive to research, but without going overboard as far as power is concerned. While there are combinations of boosters that would result in a bigger bonus, most of them require much more research than the Aul Incinerator requires. The Forge/Harvester combination is the only exception, but even that results in a higher maintenance and buildcost, and reduced population growth. So the Incinerator definitely has its niche now. The total bonus of the Korath is now at 120%. Not quite the original 130%, but good enough.

I had another look at the labs of the Drengin/Korath and Torians. The output of the Slaveling Labs are now at vanilla values again, while the maintenance of the of the first three Labs got slightly reduced. The Torian labs got a increase in maintenance from University onward.

The Hyperion Re-Supply Center, Hyperion Shrinker, and Hyperion Logistics System are now SPs again.

The Eyes of the Universe got a slight reduction to its Sensor bonus (6 to 5), but has its AbilityFactor back in exchange (+20%). The cost-reduction for sensor modules has also been removed, because it felt superfluous. You already get a big boost to your Sensor-ability. Why would you still need sensor modules? That was even more the case in the vanilla game, where Eyes gave you max sensor range all on its own. At its current strength, you still need some sensor modules to reach max range. But not enough for the cost-reduction to be worthwhile.

The Galactic Guide Book is a GA again, and reduces the cost of sensor modules instead of giving a Influence bonus. I've also made a pass on the sensor modules to make this more worthwhile. The starting modules got slightly smaller, while all modules got more expensive (with the exception of Sensor Array). I'm still considering whether to move the GGB up the tech tree a little bit (maybe to Sensors Mark II?) or not. Though the Sensor techs are quite cheap over all. Might need to take a look at that too. Anyhow, the idea is to have two approaches: ultra-cheap sensor-boats via the GGB or a significantly reduced need for sensors via Eyes.

The Innovation Complex is back at its vanilla values again (plus a maintenace cost of 1bc). The Creativity bonus didn't quite work for me due to its unreliability. Sometimes it procs quite frequently, and sometimes not at all for dozens of techs. The original bonuses are much more reliable, and put a bigger emphasis on the Terrans' relation with propulsion.

The Festival of Capitalism is now using MaintenanceGrid.png for its icon (and MoraleImp2.png for query_graphic). Its previous icon was nice and all, but, in the end, didn't quite do it for me. The "new" icon simply looks more like a festival (or at least some kind of event).

The Entertainment Network, Multimedia Center, and Virtual Reality Center are back at their old icons and query_graphics. The changes simply didn't work for me, despite trying them for months in AT. MoraleImp1.png and MoraleImp2.png are obviously related, and so are the Entertainment Network and the Multimedia Center. I can't get to grips with them looking so different. The VRC also doesn't fit in there. Plus, the Extreme Stadium is still using a low-res icon. So this attempt to have all morale improvements using high-res icons has failed anyhow.

I've noticed several mentions that researching better life support is pointless, because Basic Support is too good. So I've decided to take a look at it. The result is that all support modules got much more expensive (original cost multiplied by five) and slightly bigger (base size from 2 to 3). I originally wanted to use an increasing size, but that caused the game to consider General Support to be the best, despite Ultimate Support providing five times the range and only being two points bigger. So I needed to stay with a static size. To give a comparison, Basic Support now costs 10 (originally 2) and increases range by 1 (previously 3), while Ultimate Support cost 30 (originally 6) and increases range by 15 (unchanged).

The UP proposals saw some massive changes. I had a look at Maiden666s mod, as suggested, and took what seemed fitting: disabling most of the time-limited proposals, and making some changes to the values of the rest. I've also added AddTradeRoute01 back in. No idea how or why, but it's actually working again. On a whim, I've been trying it out earlier with the Korath, and the number of routes increased from 3 to 5 after the proposal went through. Once I researched Advanced Trade, I had 7 trade routes. There must have been an error in the proposal, when we were testing it back then. I can't explain this any other way.

Well, I think that's all of the major changes. In any case, I need a rest.

Thank you very much for the new version

There's a weakness inside the programing which seem to prohibit that the "Trade Routes" window under Finance-->Trade is updated more than once in a given turn. Basically, researching Trade (1st update), which actually adds the base +1, plus tries to add the +2 from tech itself (which will be delayed by 1 turn) and then trying to get that proposal working will be delayed also by a turn...

The "<UPIssue InternalName="UnitedCelebration01">" needs to have another look at, esp. the 2000bc option. I previously thought that the approval-bonus was hardcoded (and just wanted to nerf the last option with a higher price, but as the mechanism works it has even been a buff. The game simply derives the bonus by dividing the money-value by 20, so 2000bc = 100% approval. Was pretty hefty in vanilla with +50 approval as well   

Those tags seem to be redundant:

<AppliesTo>0</AppliesTo>
<Prereq>0</Prereq>
<Probability>0</Probability>

<Option06></Option06> [each of them if empty]

<Value01>0</Value01> [all of them]

<OptionVal06>0</OptionVal06> [each of them, except for Yes/No-questions, or questions requiring a 0 for a "No Change"-option - without a single 0 the game is going to crash here. But for votes to decide, eg. who will get new planet etc all these entries + the former tagline, can be cleared out.

<QuestionStr01>2</QuestionStr01> [they don't seem to be doing anything... even if a value is there... although I'm not so sure. Cari's Guide states that this value is use ot apply whatever "affect" but that is not correct because this is what <OptionVal01> actually does, and even in her own illustrated example that would still be wrong. I've deleted all these tags for now and checked every single of the affected votes if they still work - and they do. However, if this line has an affect on, say, how the AI would vote etc this is something that will be very hard to be able to figure it out...   ]

I'd still go for Eyes regardless of how cheap/effective sensor-modules are simply because an increase to base-sensors also applies to starbases and esp. planets. With the current outlet if you just have 10 starbases you'll need to invest 40 constructors and 4000 bcs bucks to get them to sensor-cap, I think you're much better off just placing a maxed out sensorboat on top and/or building Eyes + a tiny sensorboat.

Getting good planetary view via ships is even more annyoing since orbiting vessels are ignored, so you've got to have all these parked vessels besides many systems.

Plus the magnification of Eyes will even make sensors more effective if you still plan to build some capped sensorboats.

Maybe reduce the base sensor-bonus to Eyes to very little or nil, but instead increase its magnification-strength to ~50%.

Well, creativity is random that's exactly how it is supposed to work. I find the additional speed-bonus too much - esp. since they now do have +20 speed, so they will win any colony rush anyway... It's also hard to see why a research-giving improvement can boost speed on a planetary-basis?

BTW I liked the old position of the 'Planetary Defense' branch more - it's not related to invasion or the ability to construct a troopmods at all, and there should be an alternative for peaceful players that try to win by diplomacy/cutlure/technology/ascension to be able to defend their planets without having to research PI.

Since the Drengian/Korathian-tree underwent some homogenization the splitting apart of starting improvements to distinguished technologies is no longer necessary, at least not for 'Traditional Slavery" & "Black Market Dealings" [<-- that one has also a silly desc...]. 'Specialized Research' is actually also not really necessary but it was there in vanilla as well. Maybe attribute the lab also to 'RuthlessHistory' and expand its otherwise very tiny description ("100.000 years summarized^^) by adding the one from 'Specialized Research' ?

I'm aware of that. Back when I was first testing the proposal, I skipped several turns to make sure that the screen was up-to-date. However, the additional trade routes never got added. The list of active UP proposal didn't even show it, even though it passed. It now does show up in the list.

Huh, I thought the +100% approval was intentional on your part. Sure, it's a bit extreme, but it felt in line with the idea of having more powerful proposals. Well +50% is still very powerful, so I have no objection to changing it back to 1000bc.

I don't see the need to remove the inactive/superfluous tags. It just adds more work, and increases the risk of accidentally breaking something.

Actually, Cari's Guide states that those tags are unused.

Actually, it's 4500bc, but that's besides the point. The SB sensor modules do need a look at. I wasn't happy with there being only one module, unlocked almost at the end of the sensor techs, and less powerful than the combined bonus of the original modules. The vanilla setup may not be perfect, but it provides a nice progression. Still, what to do with them?

Speaking of progression, I increased the cost of the sensor techs from 100, 200, 300, 500 to 100, 500, 2000, 4000. Basically the same as the life support techs. The Galactic Guide Book is now unlocked by Sensors Mark II. That should be a bit more interesting. Previosuly, you could simply rush through the sensor techs without much effort.

That's how I originally implemented it when the CU project got started. It wasn't well liked, from what I recall. After I left the project, it got replaced with a +6 Sensor-bonus. I'll add it back in, but I expect to hear complaints again.

I know. Which makes it less than ideal. All the other starting SPs provide reliable bonuses. They always do something. That "something" is in all cases more than what a Cultural Exchange Center provides. Which the Innovation Complex was as long as Creativity didn't trigger. I had games were it only triggered once or twice over the course of fives years. With the vanilla bonuses I had been far better off.

I've just run a few test games to see how the Terrans perform in the colony rush at both +10 and +20 speed. Well, here is a screenshot of one of the +10 speed tests.

The results with +20 speed have been similar. Occasionally, the Terrans managed to get more planets than on +10 speed. Sometimes they got less. The map itself seems to have the biggest influence on the performance, along with how the AI behaves.

Plus, any player could choose to increase the Terran speed-bonus to +20 or even +30. Unlike the AI, a human player is also able to fully exploit that bonus. So the possibility of the Terrans winning all colony rushes does already exist, due to the ability to customise your race. The same is also true for the Drengin and Altarians, because they too have an innate speed-bonus.

In any case, I switched the Terran speed-bonus to a +30% Diplomacy-bonus for now. The Drath got changed to +10% Diplomacy and +30% Soldiering, because I don't wont both races to end up with too similar bonuses.

How is it not related to invasion? If you don't know by what means planetary conquest can be achieved, then how are you going to defend yourself against them?

There already is: build a fleet. Having a strong fleet makes all of the above easier, because it deters would-be invaders and makes other races like you more. It does slow down your research and production, but that's a small price to pay for not losing planets, in my opinion. It also fits in with the playstyle. You don't need to use the fleet for conquest. You are peaceful, after all. However, you're also not naive. Not every race is playing by the same rules. Some will want to take what is yours, and in that case, you'll need to defend yourself. Or others, too, if you want to be a protector.

I was just about to ask whether we could remove those techs. The same is also true for Capitalism and Entertainment Networks. In the vanilla game, only the Terrans and Torians started out with Market Centers. We could reimplement that. Or we could move the Markets to Industrial Revolution. The Torians don't need Markets at the start. They get enough money from their population. The Entertainment Network could also be moved back to Industrial Revolution. Though that would mean that the Korx and Krynn would have access to it again. In any case, I'm not particularily fond of the big amount of techs required to unlock basic buildings for some of the races.

I'm not going to remove any further vanilla techs.

That value isn't even accurate. According to the timeline in the GalCiv 3 databanks, the Drengin and Arceans achieved space-flight about 450,000 years ago. So they had to be around for much longer than that.

I'm trying to come up with something to expand on the details of that tech, but all I can think of is for the Korath. We simply know more about their recent history than about all of the Drengin-history.

I'd like to get some feedback on Point Defense. Currently, both Chaff and ECM are Tier 1. PD are the cheapest defenses. However, missiles do have the highest damage rating. So while PD are cheaper, you end up needing more to protect your ships. Now I'm wondering whether I should change ECM to Tier 2. That would raise the defense rating of ECM, PD, and PD Combo by 1 (except for PD Combo III, which is already at 4). That would also mean that Telepathic Defense and Advanced Point Defense would be moved up one Tier.

Is this a real issue? Am I just overthinking this? Could it be that this is an interesting differentiation between the defenses, and I'm just overlooking it? That's basically what I want to know.

IRRC the complaints came from a person who just wanted to rush to Eyes, build that, and from that point on never bother with any sensors again. The very same person also played Immense-All-Abundant maps on Very Fast techspeed so he could have all technologies at the end of the colony rush...

Just because someone wants to have it easy a whole line of play (=how many sensors to place on ships, build constructors to place sensormods on SBs, or create specialized sensorships, picking racial sensory perks... etc pp) gets moot from a single improvement (which is savely reserved for the player since the AI don't research that until very late...). It's faceroll...

Hated these discussions in GC3 as well when certain players defended sensor +50 ships, but sometimes you need to make the hardcall for the better good of the overall balance - because there're also players which actually do enjoy a challenge

And I think the very same person would also now heavily object to your increase of techcost of the sensor-branch^^ (which is ok to my eyes...)

On the sensor-modules: the thing that turns me mostly of is that the first is relatively weak - an increase in +1 in times when the SB sensorial radius is still small = very little raw vision added. Paradoxically the last one adds +4 when that radius is already at 10 - but even a +1 increase to sensors would uncover 2-3 times for area than the first one, the current state uncovers perhaps more than 10 times parsecs.

Maybe +2 +2 +3 +3 would do likewise? Or +2+3+4? Personally I'd favour +4+3+2 - mostly realistic taking into account the inverse-square strength of the photonic force.... But it's depending on if you actually want that SBs are able to scratch at the 15 limit on their own - or only in conjunction with Eyes?

Creativity +25 is enormously compared to +5 RP, I usually play all my games with it. It procs on average every 10 turns or so. It may not proc every game that often, but then there are games where it procs twice in a row, so it averages out. I actually found it far too strong but the current design isn't much better - the +5 RP planetary bonus can even *nerf* the Terran research - if there's a research-bonus tile at Earth (and no Influence-tile present) because in that situation they'll favour the Innovation Complex over a lab. And the speedbonus doesn't make much sense but I've already mentioned that... Maybe replace the +5 RP with a +10% research-bonus?

True - which is why you've got to give races more room to expand. Otherwise you'll just get blurred results - you can see it yourself in your picture that the favourable starting positions of Altaria & Earth led to what you see while the races which were locked into a corner - or had too much competition in their neighborhoods suffered. Although the pic itself shows already how strong the Terran AIP fares, I mean they've successfully thwarted off the Torians (which are always very strong early on) and even colonized right under the nose of the Altarians at the other side of the map, successfully got 5 planets there, with another colony ship in that vicinity when still extreme planets are free.... one may wonder what the Altarians did so long? 

Planetary Invasion tech is about finding ways to transport your soldiers to other planets. It's about the ability to construct and use a Troop Module. Originally even the basic Invasion-technique wasn't even attributed to it.

Planetary Defense is about fortifying your own planets, and teaching your soldiers to fight better. The Planetary Defense improvements show armed drones - they will shoot at invaders regardless of how they came to that planet.

And I don't understand why someone shouldn't be able to train soldiers - I mean this is something that can happen even in pre-industrial times, old civs like Arceans etc do that for half a million of years already. The tech PI itself doesn't even hold a soldiering-bonus when all 3 PD-techs do indeed, so I'd be inclined to say that the possibility of training soldiers to counter PI can be done without any knowledge about how aliens come to a planet.

First off, building & maintaining a fleet of warships that trigger the +your military might-diplo bonus is not just "a small price" but the single most power-consumptive undertaking that there is in the game - and for it to be effective you've also spend a huge amount of time into weaponsresearch - which, considering their costs, may amount to ~75% of all research spend. If you already achieved that then there's absolutely no point in not useing them to invade other planets - you would just artificially limit yourself otherwise.

But this - to spend 75% of my game militarizing + weaponizing myself - is exactly what I don't wanna do if I play a pacifistic game. I rather go the influence, social productive, food + popgrowth way to have strong planets that can successfully thwart off foreign invasion, esp in games where no Space Superiority can be achieved due to suicidal AI or Dread Lords. Thus, Planetary Defense should be easily accessable should an emergency break out, and it currently is crammed behind an offensive Military-tech which gets heavily hit by tech-inflation while defensive-techs remain relatively the lowest. Just another reason why that branch is illplaced.

Well, I agree. It looks awkward that some races do simply get a "starter-package" holding all improvements, or adding just one or two unique improvements when other races setup is sliced to pieces.

Moving the Markets to Industrial Rev would be a good start.

I kind of don't like it if races have access to improvements they won't be able to upgrade, esp. in a non-techtradeing game. That would be a nerf for just those races. The Krynn certainly don't need more moral and the Korx's game isn't the strongest to begin with. And because the <AI> tags of the Entertainment-line is almost double that of factories, banks or labs they will build lots of them at their planets.

I'm baacckk..

yah, sure.  Just point me at what needs fixing.  I have to say that I would not have guessed that either of you were non-native speakers.  Still, there are subtleties..

I've got a LOT of reading to do since y'all have been working so hard over the past month, but I want to post something that I don't think is dependent on your recent work. I agree with the observation above that the Evil civs have been seriously nerfed with the latest changes.  But rather than back out those changes, perhaps there's another way to look at things. 

The Evil civs generally have a low Planet Quality ability.  In my experience with Drengin/Korath, the way to manage a planet is to build to the crappy PQ.  But consider the nature of "usable planet squares".  The squares are usable because the population is able  and willing to deal with the conditions there.  In evil, esp. slave, civs, the population does not have the option of "dealing" with the conditions.  The autarchs can build a factory there whether the slaves like it or not.  Granted there could be an increased death rate from non-optimal conditions, but the factory gets built and produces. Even more so Yor that just builds more robots.

Rather than give them special abilities, why not a PQ bonus?  Not sure whether this should be attached to the Alignment rather than the civ.

Discussion?

Well, one thing I'd like to know is if the term "humans" should be written "Humans" in dialogue or not? In the vanilla GC2_Conversations all entries were "Humans". Right now their all "humans".

All other racenames start in upper case - "Altarians", "Drengin" etc pp and "Earther" is also still written like this. So it's really inconsistent esp. if a few racenames are written in one sentence (I've seen this last week somewhere, can't find it, but that raised an eyebrow then....)

I've also just been greeted by the Thalans with "thank you for your gift of Hyperdrive"... Can't remember if they said something awkward in vanilla... It's awkward because the Thalan are described as the technological most-developed race and if they really came from another universe they must've used technology twhich is extreme apt to the folding of space, otherwise that task wouldn't be possible to be begin with....

The good-alignment PQ has been thrown overboard with only the vanilla races do get access to it, Arcean, Thalan, Altarian [Drath?] do get better PQ from techs or special improvements, there may -or may not- be another tech [Enhanced Adaptation] giving additional PQ bonus for some races but not that sure since the game is in such rapid flux.

Basically all evil civs have a normal PQ tendency except Korath with their AUL Incinerator. Not sure if increased PQ would be fitting for them because the desc states "Keep your planets green with an increased Planet Quality ability. Colonized planets will be nurtured and cared for, improving the number of available tiles." so it's more about careing for the environment while evil-races are perhaps more about exploiting the environment.

It depends on the context.  Use "Human" when referring to the race, or as part of a name.  Use "human" in casual references.  If the text is that of non-human aliens, then "Human" may be appropriate since they would generally be using a race distinction.

Not sure if increased PQ would be fitting for them because the desc states "Keep your planets green with an increased Planet Quality ability. Colonized planets will be nurtured and cared for, improving the number of available tiles." so it's more about careing for the environment while evil-races are perhaps more about exploiting the environment.

Bull.  That's just touchy-feely rationalization.  If you really want the coal, then start the strip-mining!  What's a few extinct animals compared to a tank army?   

BTW, is there a provision for alignment-specific ability texts?

Regarding the Power Plants and other production augmentation, one mod that I pointed to earlier addresses the problem of builds on low-PQ worlds by having the improvements produce PPs themselves.  For instance, an FPP would have a 10% bonus, but also produce 4 pp.  Thus a lone FPP would produce roughly the same as a lone 6pp factory (4 pp + 1.6 pp [10% of 4 + 12 from the initial colony]).

The max sensor range a starbase could get in the vanilla game is 14. Your favoured progression would bring that down to 13, which is still pretty good. Strong enough on its own, but leaving enough room to make putting some points into Sensors, or building Eyes, worthwhile.

Yes, if it triggers, Creativity is a lot better than 5RP. But that's the thing. It needs to trigger. That certainly didn't happen a lot for me this year. Well, or last year for that matter. This potential also makes the CU-version of the Innovation Complex both the most and the least powerful of the starting SPs. It's simply too much of a gamble. You either do get a tech early, or you don't. Most of the time you don't. Well, or at least I don't.

I really don't think that the Terrans need Creativity. They are powerful enough without it. In my opinion, Creativity should be something for the races that really need it, like the Arceans and Yor, or that are meant to be extremely powerful, like the Altarians and Thalan, and for anyone who is willing to pay for it during customisation.

Sounds reasonable. We could apply this to the Shrine of the Mithrilar, too. It has the same potential issue.

The way I understood it, and Frogboy often described it, is that PI is about developing the necessary logistics and techniques to invade a planet. If it were just about the transportation, then it wouldn't be as expensive (or not there at all). The Colony Module does basically the same thing: transporting your people and their equipment from one planet to another. Adjusting it for combat-purposes wouldn't take much effort.

Okay.

I'll take a look.

I'm with Maiden666 on this one. The Evil races are far too exploitative for a PQ bonus.

It's never been explained how the Thalan got here. However, we do know that it is impossible to live on the surface of planets in their dimension, due to the still on-going destruction of the universe. So it's likely that space-travel is also impossible there. Even if it is (or was at some point), there is still another issue to content with. We know that the Thalan haven't brought any experts in specific scientific fields with them (like Advanced Gravitronics, for example). So it wouldn't surprise me, if they forgot to bring anyone with knowledge about the means to travel through space with them. Plus, even if they did, who knows if it would actually work here. Power is one of the Thalan' main-concern. They're used to having free, unlimited power, but they don't have that in this dimension.

Lastly, it's a game. There are always going to be things that don't make much sense. For example, the Thalan-specific dialogue-entries have an emphasis on the s-sound "ssss". Most often though, the Thalan use the Generic entries. Those don't have the "ssss". It's a bit jarring, but it's something you have to live with. Otherwise, we'd need to go through all of the conversations and make Thalan-specific entries for all the races. That's far too much work, for too little benefit. I doubt most people would even notice.

This approach creates the problem that, then, the AIs perceive these improvements as real factories and will place them on correspondending bonus-tiles. And because their AI-tag is higher the AI even prioritize them. If the added raw production is lower than from conventional improvements then this will actually hurt his production. That could be solved by upping the base bonus to the same level then factories do - but then all of them would be so strong they would always be stronger than any factory and you just start whatever planet-design comes up with them in before adding facs....

Sometimes that happened, but it didn't seem to be a significant problem, and I played Tolmekian's mod a lot. 

Re: Government Type vs. Alignment.  I tagged all 12 text blocks.  The program simply ignores the "Good" and "Evil" text blocks. If something is broken, it's not the labels.

I'm with Maiden666 on this one. The Evil races are far too exploitative for a PQ bonus.

Please explain what you mean by "far too exploitative".  The meaning is lost on me.

I wasn't pushing a PQ bonus for evil races per se, rather an offset to various (including PQ) bonuses for good races.  If the latter no longer exists then the former is no longer necessary.  Nevertheless, I was rather dismayed at how weak the 2.20 Drengin played in my last game.

Also, y'all should make clear which flavor of Evil races you're talking about.  I find the Korath and Yor Super-Abilities so annoying that I no longer play with them.  If those are the K & Y that you're trying to balance, you're going to be here a long time, and end up by nerfing them into minors.

The way I understood it, and Frogboy often described it, is that PI is about developing the necessary logistics and techniques to invade a planet. If it were just about the transportation, then it wouldn't be as expensive (or not there at all). The Colony Module does basically the same thing: transporting your people and their equipment from one planet to another. Adjusting it for combat-purposes wouldn't take much effort.

Hmm.  Suggests making it dependent on Basic Logistics. I'd go for that.

BTW, I have no problem with the inserting of BL in the Hull branch. 

Agreed. Having a shrine actually put out raw production feels a bit strange - I'm always inclined to think manufacturing products or goods is more happening in factories themselves whereas power plants etc help to boost it by providing an energy-advantages for the machinery. In the case of the Shrine - it could be due to an increase in morale that workers raise their efforts....

PI is like is is, because there's a true compelling ingame necessity for it to be like it is - just change any of its increments (like: place in tree or costs) and the game wouldn't be playable anymore! For illustration:

- Make it cost-free and place at the beginning of the tree: abusaeble; then you could invade AIs right during the colony rush, in fact build colony ships having a troop mod as well being able to do both. You'll auto-win any map where factions start close.

- Place it at the end of the techtree: Then military threats or war-declaration could be savely ignored for the first 10 ingame years.

- Raise its costs by factor 10: AI will not research it unless he has many strong lab planets.

However, I know that Frogboy, and basically all at SD, are not going to describe their design-intentions mechanically to potential buyers on the forums: they rather make up some stuff to help people find a sense of realism into their product. Take it with a grain of salt - I could cite you so many examples were this was done in complete contradiction to what's been said by ingame tooltips, someone else working at SD.

And both the desc & details tags actually describe the Troop-mod but say nothing about either logistics or techniques. 

And you're right - you CAN indeed use the Troop mod like a Colony Mod and vice versa - a ship containing both a Troop+Colony-pod can invade a planet (with the colonists partaking in the battle...) or colonize a planet with having both pods adding to the population.

But I'll drop that - this is not really about PI itself but about the Planetary Defense which is not related to space battle, the fight is already on the ground then...

AFAIK the Thalans cannot survive on the grounds of their planets *shielded* - so it may be that they have cities up which are covered with a forcefields or under glass etc. It could be because of cosmic or solar radiation, maybe sun goes nova or the planet lost its magnetosphere. However, my knowledge about this may be incomplete, but one thing is for certain, if a universe dies resorting to the inner of a planet will do nothing to save you (the planet simply dies as well )

Going from one universe to another is a huge speculative topic. Most scientists will simply point you to Einsteins GRT and state that the term 'universe' includes already everything that there is and is infinite anyway, so the whole idea is moot (and that there's no such thing as a negative mass...).

Others may point you to topics of 'Einstein-Rosen-Bridges' which may be used to leave our spacetime in conjunction with negative-massed 'exotic matter' (which bends the fabric of space upwards, so as to create a savezone for the travellers to not be shrunken down to a singularity) - and both topics intrinsically have only to do with effect that gravity has on the bending of space - which is exactly what HyperDrive, WarDrive in fiction does. In other words, the Thalans could only be able to come to another universe if they were on a ship which had a HyperDrive*1000 in magnitude already on board.

But didn't that file did get worked on already greatly? It seems to have been expanded to a multiple of its original size... Wasn't it that these Generic-entries do now no longer exist for the Stock Races? Because then, replacing a "s" with a "sss" should be easy using the notepad replace-function. (this way the false "human" can also be corrected very swiftly...)

Me too, but that should've been corrected by now. Fire up the new version! You will like. Yor have their money improvement back, the Drengin/Korath boosters got revamped and evil-bonuses are strong again + available to anyone that goes evil.

How exactly do you mean that? I find the Yor SA only annyoing when playing against them and accidentally get caught up in their ZOC when rushing for planets. But that's exactly like it supposed to be. Granted, it's not the strongest SA but they do have alot of racial stats for them and can also colonize barren worlds.

Another weekend, another version. Here is the new file and the changelog.

Here's what's new:

• Alliances is back to its old position in the tech tree (between Interstellar Governments and Republic). The only exception is for races that had it in a different location (i.e. the Arceans and Thalan) or that don't have the Government techs (i.e. the Iconians and Yor).
• The bonuses of the Miniaturization techs are back to their old values. I'm not quite sure yet whether we should increase the HP of starbases, too, in order to compensate for the increased strength of ships.
• As mentioned before, the cost of the Sensor techs got increased, making it a bit harder to rush for Eyes.
• The Perimeter Scanner SB module is gone again, and the range bonus of the remaining modules got adjusted according to Maiden666's proposed progression. I've also reduced the cost of each module to 50bc.
• The Galactic Guide Book is now unlocked by Sensors Mark II, and uses its old icon again.
• The progression of the size modifier of the life support modules is now 5%, 6%, 7%, 8%, 10%, instead of 5% for all modules. I'd still like to get some feedback on the LS changes. Did they make you want to research more advanced modules, or are you still staying with the basic one? If you are researching more advanced ones, is there any point where you stop, or are you going all the way to the Ultimate Support module?
• The techs Capitalism, Black Market Dealing, and Traditional Slavery are gone now. The improvements they unlocked have been moved to other techs (Market Center to Industrial Revolution, Basic Slave Pits and Black Market back to A Ruthless History).
• The cost of the defense modules Advanced Force Fields and Superior Force Fields got increased from 30 to 35.
• The Galactic Resort got moved to Habitat Improvements.
• The 5rp of the Innovation Complex got replaced with a 10% research bonus.
• The 5rp and 5ip of the Shrine of the Mithrilar got replaced with a 10% research bonus and a 10% manufacturing bonus respectively.
• I've made some adjustments to the AI values of the morale and farming improvements (from 50 to 30 and 20 respectively). The value of the Charging Stalks has been reduced to 10. It's still a work in progress. However, the Yor already seem to do a bit better. The overabundance of morale improvements on the other races' planets has gone down significantly. Though a bit too much in some cases. The amount of farms has also gone down to almost nothing. The Torians still build them. Occasionally. So do the Yor, if they get their hands on the Xeno Farm techs. Everybody else rarely does so. I've yet to see the Iconians build any farm since I made the adjustments.
• The FlavorText.xml still contains a lot of fan-fiction. I've removed the newly added homeworld-descriptions, and made some adjustments to the Arcean introduction speech.
• Based on DMF's post, I've changed all instances of "human(s)" in the GC2_Conversations.xml, and most of them in the FlavorText.xml, to "Human(s)". However, there are still a lot of cases where I'm not quite sure which version is correct. So, I could use some help there. Not to mention finding the remaining instances in other files.
• I've removed the speech-impediment of the Thalan. There were only two places where it was used: their introduction speech and when they wanted to trade techs. So it was less time-consuming to remove it, instead of making Thalan-specific versions of all dialogue-entries.
• Somehow I overlooked Maiden666's post about the icons and query graphics of the improvements. While I disagree with a lot in it, it got me thinking. When I first started to change the icons it was an attempt to prevent confusion, because a lot of improvements used the same ones. Later, I started to change some improvements, because I didn't think that their look fit them. I still stand with some of those changes. However, I do believe it went a bit too far in some cases. Possibly causing confusion, because old players are just to improvements looking a certain way. We've already talked about that. So I changed some improvements back to their old look (or something else appropriate where that couldn't be done). The affected improvements are: all factories, the Dread Factory, the generic labs (Research Lab up to Research Academy), Hyper Computers, and Hyperion Re-Supply Center.

I think that's all of the major changes. However, there are a couple things I'd like to get some feedback on (besides the ones mentioned above):

The "new" weapon animations and sound effects. Do they fit their assigned weapon? How do the animations look? Too fast? Too slow? Just right? I'm not sure how well I can still adjust any of them, but I do want them to look as good as possible.

Several improvements got additional bonuses assigned to them in the CU. I'm wondering whether we can remove any of them. Specifically:

• the econ-bonus of the Festival of Capitalism
• the planetary defense-bonus of the Omega Defense System
• the econ-bonus of the Restaurant of Eternity
• the influence-bonus of the Temples of Alignment
• the Pop-Growth-bonus of the Hall of Empathy
• the PQ-bonus of the Orbital Terraformer

Stardock originally intended for the Dread Lord tech tree to be full of unique and powerful technologies. However, that never happened. I'm wondering whether we could do this ourselves. We already added the Dread Factory. That one could be easily turned into a "proper" upgrade to the Industrial Sector, that other races could potentionally steal. We could add some of the Precursor techs from the Altarian and Iconian tech trees. However, those techs we need to be made unique, because the game treats the DL as a Minor Race.

The pre-spent customisation points. I'm not entirely happy with the Drath bonuses. Maxing out their Soldiering-bonus seems a bit excessive. Plus, I'm wondering whether we should put some of the Thalan points into Diplomacy instead.

What I meant is that Evil races are too eager to exploit natural resources, other races, or even their own people. It really doesn't matter to them whether they cause the extinction of lifeforms or the destruction of an entire ecosystem, as long as their race as a whole benefits the most.

Yes, the file saw a ton of work. No, the Generic-entries still exist for the Stock Races. Several Stock Races had unique entries for some of the dialogue options. However, the way they were set up made them only appear, if the player was using a Custom Race. To fix that I had to make entries for all possible race- and alignment-combinations (i.e. Good/Neutral/Evil Drengin are talking to the Altarians, Good/Neutral/Evil Drengin are talking to the Arceans, Good/Neutral/Evil Drengin are talking to the Torians, etc.). For all the other cases, the Generic-entries are used (or you get a blank text box, if that one isn't set up correctly either).

As I mentioned above, the Thalan "sss" only appears in one dialogue and their introduction speech. To make it consistent across the board, I'd need to go through all dialogues, check whether the "sss" is needed (it usually is), and then make twelve new entries for the race-combinations per necessary dialogue. That's just for the GC2_Conversations.xml. Then I'd need to do the same with the FlavorText.xml, and adjust all techs, improvements, and other places where they are talking. Not to mention testing all the new entries, and making sure that I got all instances. Seriously, that's way too much work for too little benefit.

The human/Human part can be done quite quickly. As long as I'm sure whether the instance needs changing, and I got all of them. For example, the description of the Terran homeworld has a lot of instances I'm not sure about. Plus, there are more in the tech trees and, I think, the campaigns. There might still be others I'm forgetting.

I did a quick peak at the newest version. Excellent timing on release as I had recently finished my previous game. By the way, are the zip files supposed to be named the same as previous zip files?

My first game is as the Terrans. A quick glance at the tech tree, and it feels a lot like the old tree. How they are arranged and stuff. However, some techs aren't fused together as a group. Some of the order is different than what I remember. You might want to take a look at that.

The entertainment tech wasn't researched at the start. I like having all my starting techs being researched. It doesn't take much research, buts its annoying to go collect them all before shifting my focus on Universal Translator.

What happened to having a bunch of starting techs being in a row? In v 2-20, they were often in a row so they didn't clutter up the tech tree.

Yes, they are. Though it's not exactly ideal. I originally wanted to keep the link the same, so I don't have to repost it whenever I upload a new version. However, considering that I do repost the link everytime, I may want to change that. Using different names would certainly make it easier to go back to a previous version.

That was done to make it easier to tell what those techs unlock. You can still click on the tech to get more details, but it's no longer necessary to get some basic information. For example, whether the tech unlocks a building, SB modules, ability bonuses, etc..

What do you mean exactly? Different tech requirements? That's done on purpose. The way the tech tree is drawn? That takes quite the effort to get done right, because you need to move the techs within the TechTree.xml and check in the game what effect it had. I'm already happy with how close I got it to the original.

That's most likely because the tech didn't exist in v2.20. It got added in the update. The Terran .raceconfigxml file from your previous playthrough won't have it as a starting tech. In order to fix that, you'd need to either remove the file from your My Docs folder, or click the Clear button when you set up the Terrans for the next game. The same goes for any other .raceconfigxml files you have from previous playthroughs.

It got removed to make it easier for people making Custom Races to see which techs are necessary to unlock basic improvements. However, I only removed it for some techs. Mainly those that don't work thematically as a requirement for each other (like Industrial Revolution unlocking Traditional Research). So, it's a bit inconsistent at the moment. Just like with the un-grouping of techs.

Yeah, increasing the HP via modules is sadly not possible. So increasing the base value is the only option. Finding the right value, however, is going to be tough. We want to make the starbases stronger, not invincible.

Yes, stealing would be the only option. In any case, it was just an idea I had, that I thought might be cool to implement. Especially considering that it was something Stardock wanted to do themselves. However, if people are against its implementation, then that's okay.

Actually, depending on how many modules you used before, you might be ending up needing less space to get the same (or better) range. However, you only really notice the increased size modifier with bigger hulls. Tiny and small hulls are almost unaffected, and medium hulls only slightly more.

The bonuses got removed at some point, because they made it too easy to get max range. The modules were almost made superfluous by them.

Sorry for late reply, was a bit preoccupied.

First off, thanks for the new update - didn't have time to look into it so many remarks will be attributed to the previous version - so if things are adressed that've been recently changed simply ignore it.

Spend basically most time examinating the weapons tree, finished MD & Missile so far, Beam I'll do this night.

Let me point out a few minor issues:

- The model-progression from Quantum Torpedo onwards looks out of line with how the other groups handle their icons: Quantum Torpedo I seems to show an advanced version of Anti-Matter Torp III, but the desc states "new missile technology". The same irritating logic is repeated with Quantum III & Positronic Torp I; and Nightmare Torp uses the same than Positronic Torp II. If you look at how the other groups handle that, they always show one model inside a group with it slightly upgradeing to be tougher (well, there are exceptions, but only a few). I think it should be possible to stick to the general design philosophy.

- Photonic Torp III states "Drath" - best replace it with [YourEmpireShortName] that'll work for Custom Race-designs as well.

- Railsguns also have a strange modell-progression (yes, it's been that in vanilla but it's still strange, and there's alot of evidence in the vanilla files to suggest something did go wrong here...). The gun evolves from 1 barrel to 2 barrels, then back to 1 barrel then back to multiple barrels. I'd rather go 1-->1-->1(?)-->2-->2-->2. BTW 1 Railgun-model is currently not in use.

- What you did to the Arceans Particle Beams is over the top IMO. In vanilla Particle Beams were increased in cost to them so it was a handicap. Right now that has been turned 100% around by saving them thousand after thousand of research points, just because the desc states "We had a harder time with Particle Beams....." - but that's not even true in the current form because other factions do actually have to spend more RP to get past Particle Beams - and on top of that the next tier has even been deleted for them, why? I would understand it if - at least - Particle Beams would cost the Arceans about 50% more RP than the ParticleBeams/Plasma-group that other factions have - and then the deletion of the next tier seems reasonable. Or the other way round, simply decrease/shrink Particle Beams for them but integrate the next normal tier again. But to award an already strong buff with yet another buff is OP.

- Modules form 'Starbase Mobilization' require the ones from 'Starbase Defenses'. The latter are all about giving defensive support. Not only is it unlogical that you'll need whatever defensive support mods to get your attack-mods running - it also creates non-optimal play for AIP7 & AIP8 in a non-techtradeing game - they don't research defenses on their own, thus none of their ships are going to carry defenses so the 3 defensive prereqs will do absolutely nothing for them while still have to be researched. I'd be blunt and simply delete most - if not all - prereqs completely - it's unlogical/unrealistic to begin with. And only creates unnecessary complexity when playing with techtrade on when you can't install something because you still lack the tech. Most optimal would be: You traded for something - you can also use it. This is only achieved by taking the reqs out.

- In vanilla SB att was a bit stronger (because, I assume, the Battle Stations mods are missing) so I'm all for increasing HP. However, I find the Starbase Fort techs offer too many bonuses - from a player standpoint it's very attractive to construct an invincible base to keep the military of close hostile species occupied in suicide missions. I'd always throw 2 out of 6 modules from each tech and distribute them amongst the weapons- & defenses tree - in accordance with their relative strength - this way using unfair tactics will be stiffled a bit. Plus, even AIP7 or 8 has the chance to get at least 1 module even if techtrade is off. (alll their bases are virtually unprotected... that can't be right....)

- The Arceans tech Planetary Fortification has not PI as prereq so you see by yourself that even the devs deemed it perfectly right that you can defend your planets without the knowledge of your attackers skill about "techniques" etc pp.

Then these bonuses have been removed under a false premise. What actually makes range superflous are the mods themselves, not racial range bonuses. I think you know this very well but let me just recap for whoever is reading and my need this info to get the broader picture.

A 10% increase in racial range adds 2 parsecs (=2 tiny squares) to all your ships' range. The vanilla the max was 160% so +32 parsecs - that wasn't even half of the range a hull had to acquire in an Immense-galaxy to be capped.

Range modules-bonuses are tremendously in comparison. In vanilla the starting Colony Ship (normal design includes 3*Basic Range) could already reach ANY destination in a Tiny Galaxy if the starting HW was at the cente rof the map. In an Immense-Galaxy it was short of the rangecap by only a few parsec, we're talking about ~~80 parsecs already (!).

The recent nerf of the mods from 0.6 --> 0.1 didn't do that much, but it's not possible to decrease that further. Thing is that the game seems to have a non-linear calculation of this, fact is even the 0.1 mod adds 1 SU in an immense galaxy - which is 15 parsecs. That means that even 2 of these mods will bring in the total bonus of all previous racial range bonuses, and that the starting colony ship still scratches at the rangecap - adding another 4th will actually do the trick.

That being said, mod-upgrades seem unnecessary to me, neither would I bother spending RP on them nor would I spend bucks to upgrade my ships - just keep it as cheap as possible. You can get to any place with the basic one anyway. However, DivineWrath has a point because at least the racial range does give some minor bonuses to many ships without the need to do upgrades or bother with alternating ship designs. If these bonuses don't come back perhaps the research-costs of the techs could be reduced as well to compensate their lack of strength, but I kind of don't see the issue with racial range... Any thoughts?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here? So the Yor do better when not building Stalks? Or the other races as well for that matter. I find most of what you report here rather problematic...

I'm afraid I can't help here much because I always play without fleet battles.

I'd say the bonuses from the last 3 are a bit excessive, or unintuitive. The other can stay - they are at least thematically fitting.

I'm all for making the game unique... BUT: I'm a little worried about balance here. First off, I wonder if the DLs are actually even able to defend themselves against foreign espionage...? Their source of income is not derived from taxes, and their low-pop planets actually net virtually nothing so their esp-slider should also be quite low, isn't it?

Then, how would you make it that all races can profit uniformingly from the stolen "goods"? If, say the Dread Fac upgrades the conventional Industrial Sector Yor, Iconian, Thalan won't use it.

By all means - yes.

I'd mitigate their popgrowth penalty by 10% and give them either a 10% or 25% espionage bonus and take the points of from soldiering.

I requested that some groups should be opened because one only got to see the ... that appear when too many things get crowded together. Don't know how this is with you but I'd like to see - at least - the icon of basically all things that a tech brings to the table because then you get a much preciser overall picture by just glancing at the tree itself. Otherwise one always has to right-click it (and oftentimes even downscroll the infobox). There are still some groups left with annyoing dots