Merc Role Mod

https://www.nexusmods.com/galacticcivilizations3/mods/119/?
from Stardock.net Forums

Many mercenaries have bad combat roles. Ships with support effects set to escorts, combat ships set to support etc. This changes many of them to either capital or support. I'd have made more capital but I can't get around the rules that small and tiny ships can't be capitals. Also, Crusade changes weapons a lot and left the old prototype weapons actually useless. Many merc ships that advertised "powerful prototype weapons" actually had the worst weapons. So I changed the power and/or the resource cost of prototypes to try and restore their old role of powerful but inefficient early-mid game weapons.

  • The Path of Rhuin gets 80 range, shared by the fleet.
  • The Facade gets Interstellar Sensors.
  • The Raptor is an interceptor.
  • Friendly Mike's Traveling Emporium now has a base cost of 500.
  • The Nail is an assault. Also gets the correct bonus hitpoints that makes it equal to a medium ship.
  • The Sabre is an assault. Also has +50% beam range as stated instead of of +100%
  • The Bludgeon is an assault.
  • The Fist of the Setting Suns is a capital.
  • The Elembrial is a capital.
  • The Sussinkt now has a base cost of 1100.
  • The Retribution is a capital.
  • Gives a 50% bonus to fleet beam range and beam accuracy instead of a flat 0.5 bonus. Jamming bonus reduced to 25%.
  • Hivebase One is support.
  • The Viper is a capital.
  • The Bitte is support.
  • Safety In Numbers is support.
  • The Heptium is support.
  • The Gestalt is support.
  • The Scow gives 25% evasion instead of 50%
  • The Erragis is a capital. Also it gives its kinetic damage resistance to the whole fleet as stated in its description.
  • The Sidrat is support.
  • The Compact is support and now has a base cost of 2300
  • The Straisor is support.
  • The Lutitia is support.
  • The Linked Aerie is support.
  • The Excruciator is a capital. Also it gets an attack and defense bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.
  • The Fissure is a capital. Also gets the logistics reduction it was missing, and an attack bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.
  • The Sickle gets an attack, range, and move bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.
  • The Collective is a capital. Also gets an attack bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.
  • The Helmder is a capital. Also its jamming bonus goes to the whole fleet as stated in its description.
  • The Shaout gets an attack bonus of 50% instead of a flat 0.5 bonus.
  • The Hermitage get and attack bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.
  • The Cixma is a capital.
  • The Wraith an attack bonus of 25% instead of a flat 0.25 bonus.
  • The Pewpewpewpew gets the 100 bonus hitpoints stated in its description.
  • The Praxis gives only 1 ideology point per battle.
  • The Pollen and The Perseverance each have only one colony module now. With two colony modules they cost two administration and held extra population that wouldn't even fit on a new colony. C
  • hanged just about all the threat/fortitude/value settings to improve AI ship roles in general.
  • I removed the prototype weapons from the tech tree. It was too hard to balance them for multiple purposes. If I made them too good they'd be overpowered for standard designs. Not good enough and mercenaries wouldn't be worth buying. Now there's government ships too that use them and they can't serve three masters. So they're gone from standard ships, they're used on government and mercenary ships, however any mercenary ship that advertises "powerful" or "prototype" weapons gets double fire rate on those weapons. This should keep mercenaries useful without overpowering government ships and not overcrowd the tech tree with weapons.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/galacticcivilizations3/mods/119/?

67,717 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top
Updated for patch 2.60

Other new changes:
The Pollen and The Perseverance each have only one colony module now. With two colony modules they cost two administration and held extra population that wouldn't even fit on a new colony.

The Quantum Driver now has 6 attack. This change has nothing to do with mercenaries but if it didn't have higher attack then it would have no reason to exist.

 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I want to mainstream your mod.

 

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I approve of your goals.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I must be very confused.

 

I'm using your mod.   The Pollen and Perseverance use 1 admin, as advertised.   But not much else is adding up.

For example, the Wraith says in the README it is Capital.   EXP1_StaticShipBluePrintDefs.xml says it is Escort.  The game says it is Support.

The Pewpewpewpew has the +100HP, but the game says Capital while the StaticShipBluePrintDefs says Assault.  The README doesn't say anything.

In all cases, roles in the downloaded mod StaticShipBluePrintDefs seems to match the DLC's StaticShipBluePrintDefs coming from Stardock.   Are these roles defined elsewhere?   I put all 3 of your files in the same Mods directory.   I have a 4th file, ImprovementDefs.xml, and that is clearly picking up, e.g. I set Computer Core to +20 research and the game clearly gives 20 research.  Same directory.

I went a step further, and changed the Display Names of every single Mercenary ship--in every single EXP1_StaticShipBluePrintDefs.xml I could find (including the game install directory itself).   Restarted a new game.   The new names did not pick up.   

You DID manage to get Mercenaries to change in the game??

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The roles set in StaticShipBluePrintDefs mean nothing. Those were the first thing I tried modding. They have no effect other than changing the description in the bazaar. The tooltip shows the actual stats.  I modded the threat and value settings of the mercenary components so the calculation the game uses for all ship roles gives the desired results. I suppose I should change the non-functional fields to match the in-game effects to avoid confusion, but I forgot other people would be using the thing without having gone through the experiments that determined which description mattered and which didn't. Also at the time I didn't need to edit StaticShipBluePrintDefs for any in-game effect so it wasn't included in the mod. Now that it is in there for the colony mercenary changes I might as well fix the non-fnctional text-only role settings.

If you buy the ships you will see they have the role the tooltip says and not the bazaar description.

Also, Pewpewpewpew is in the readme. The first post is copied from the readme and Pewpewpewpew is there.

 

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Okay, thanks for the info.   Gosh, what a hack.  That's terrible.  But the MercenaryComponentdefs matter, right?

Yeah, you mentioned Pewpewpewpew, but not the ship role for it.  

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Feel free to drag in the stuff I pointed out here:

https://forums.galciv3.com/485237/page/1

https://forums.galciv3.com/485260/page/1

Mostly, that's minor tweaks to the special survey modules (Tier1MercenaryComponent01 through 03) they use, and adding a section for Sensor Power similar to the generic Sensor Module:

 

    <Stats>
      <EffectType>SensorPower</EffectType>
      <Target>
        <TargetType>Ship</TargetType>
      </Target>
      <BonusType>Flat</BonusType>
      <Value>8</Value>
    </Stats>

And, of course, some resource, range, and other values tweaks. :-)

 

If we get this right, Brad, just import it directly into the main game, because, frankly, the Mercenaries really need these fixes, as they're pretty much completely useless right now (or in a few cases, massively overpowered).

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

StaticShipBluePrintDefs.xml needs to work, and that's up to Stardock.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting tetleytea, reply 6

Okay, thanks for the info.   Gosh, what a hack.  That's terrible.  But the MercenaryComponentdefs matter, right?

Yeah, you mentioned Pewpewpewpew, but not the ship role for it.  

MercenaryComponentdefs does work. That's where I increased the threat or value settings of mercenary components. It's just the <Role> part of StaticShipBluePrintDefs that doesn't function. That's also why auto-generated ship designs sometimes have bad roles. The ShipBlueprintDefs file would set the roles of combat ship to something appropriate, but instead many smaller ships end up as support because one engine's value can surpass the threat of one weapon.

I didn't actually change the role of Pewpewpewpew. The StaticShipBluePrintDefs said it was an assault but it was functioning as a capital and I was fine with that.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Update:

  • Version 2.71a

    • Updated for 2.71
    • The Facade gets Intersteller Sensors.
    • Lowered the 'value' of life support modules and engines to reduce the chance that the game will produce ship designs that are meant for combat but are given the support role.
Reply #11 from Stardock.net Forums Top

Forgot to post updates here.

 

  • Version 3.05

    • Made economy boosting ships much cheeper
    • Changed most threat/fortitude/value settings
    • Halved all mercenary fleet wide evasion bonuses

  • Version 3.00

    • Updated for 3.00 and Intrigue expansion
    • The Path of Rhuin gets 80 range, shared by the fleet.
    • The Sabre has +50% beam range as stated instead of of +100%
    • The Retribution gives a 50% bonus to fleet beam range and beam accuracy instead of a flat 0.5 bonus.
    • Removed the prototype weapons from the tech tree so they're only available on mercenaries and government ships. Mercenaries advertising "powerful or "prototype" weapons get faster fire rate.

  • Version 2.80b

    • Fixed some merc roles that where changed when I changed the values of some basic equipment. They should all be back to normal.

  • Version 2.80a

    • Updated for 2.80
    • Increased durantium driver attack.
Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The mod does not seem to be working for me.  My apologies, as I am quite computer illiterate.  I downloaded "7-Zip" from the following website to extract the files after I downloaded the mod from Nexus: https://www.7-zip.org/download.html.  I then used "7-Zip" to extract the mod to: C:\Users\nklei\Documents\My Games\GC3Crusade\Mods (I purchased GalCiv 3 through Steam).  I just checked in the "my games" folder and in the "GC3Crusade\Mods" sub-folder there are the following files:

"EXP1_MercenaryComponentDefs

EXP1_MercenaryDefs

EXP1_StaticShipBlueprintDefs

ShipComponentDefs

ShipHullStatDefs"

I have also clicked the "enable mods" button in the options menu in-game.

However, the mod still does not appear to be functioning.  I.E. all the old values for the merc ships are still in effect.

I own the base game of GalCiv3, the Crusades expansion, the Intrigue expansion, the Mercenaries expansion, and the Precursor Worlds expansion.

Can someone tell me if I am doing something wrong?  Again, my apologies for my ignorance.  I appreciate any guidance anyone can provide.

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

If you unzipped the mod into your My Game\GC3Crusade\Mods folder, you installed it in the correct place.  However, mods only become active when you start a new game.  That sounds like it might be what you missed.

See the wiki for reference, and let me know if there's anything there that is unclear, since I wrote that section and would like it to be helpful.

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thank you for your response, Publius. However, I did start a new game after I extracted the above named files. The stated effects of the mod are unfortunately still not taking hold .

Reply #15 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Re-readong the Wiki, I see that I may have skipped the step where I create a new folder. I currently just placed all of the files above directly into the C:\Users\nklei\Documents\My Games\GC3Crusade\Mods folder. Do I need to create a new folder to move the files into? Something like "iRedEarth Merc Mod?" And then within that new folder do I need to add a sub folder named "core" or "gameplay" or what not? I'm not sure what category of mod from the list in the "example mod" this mod would be. As it stands now, the files named in my original post are simplt "naked" in the above named file path. Thanks for your on going advice!

Reply #16 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I still have version 3.00 of the mod, since I'm not quite ready to start a new game yet.  So I have a MercRoleMod300 folder in my mods folder.  Within that folder I have Core, ParticleScriptDefs, and Text folders that are empty, and a Game folder that has EXP1_MercenaryComponentDefs.xml, EXP1_StaticShipBlueprintDefs.xml, and ShipComponentDefs.xml.  The MercRoleMod300 folder also happens to have a Read Me.txt file, but that's not an active part of the mod.

Reply #17 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Just so I am clear, as a general rule we are supposed to create a new sub folder in the larger GC3Crusades/mod folder for each new mod? And under that new sub folder we create, we should create additional sub folders according to the categories in the example mod (core, game, etc.)? If so, how do we know which file from the mod goes in which sub folder? Thanks so much!

Reply #18 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yes.  All of the mods I have installed, both the ones I've created myself and the ones I've downloaded, have that folder structure.  A file that replaces, or adds to, a file in the base game should be placed in the folder named the same as the folder that contains the file that it replaces or adds to.  All of the files I've downloaded from Nexus already have this file structure zipped up, so if unzipped while maintaining the folder structure you should be all set.