How can I mod the game

[Nibelung44]

Hi,

I really like the game, but there are some aspects I would like to change. Namely this huge rock-paper-scissor (lizard-Spok   ) thing displease me intensively, and particularly things like Bombers trump Fighters (pure nonsense for me, at least one can say it is absolutely not natural and is very misleading).

So, I would like to reduce the intensity of this rock-paper-scissor system and get a more natural one, where ships work against others because their stats, and not because of some magical decision, even from the game designer  that's what is modding for anyway, to change to game a bit to your liking, and I know of no game company which think modding is bad. (they all disappeared, the ones thinking that  )

There is no file in the data directory, how can I change stats of ships?


To give some examples:
Fighters are good against small crafts. I mean all small crafts. There is no magical decision to say that bombers waste fighter like there is no tomorrow (where is the rational?)

Bombers are good against slow or armored ships and structures.

Cruisers... they fire missiles. Missiles are faster than 'bombs' but they do hit hard so are even better than bombers against capital ships or armored ships, but are weaker than bombers against structures. Rename them Missile Cruisers.
Armors: lay waste to capital ships, but nothing against structures. Renamed 'Maulers', because 'Armors'. Well that's a bit imaginative. Maulers convey the idea they strike hard anyway.

And so on. In the end, you get a natural system where everything is needed, but no need to learn by heart a magical matrix of relationship (I almost know it by now, but still I don't like it, this is so an artificial construct!). Want to destroy structures? Bring bombers. But protect them against fighters with your own fighters. You think the opposition has capital ships, take the middle ground and bring cruisers, that are half good as bombers against structures but can deal correctly with capital ships.

[RCIX]

Sadly there's no way to mod the game right now. This isn't because Chris (or X/X4000 as he's known on the forums, the developer) is against modding, it's just because the game is still very much under active development and the effort spent into making the game moddable would be better put towards getting the game in a better state (less bugs, more features, etc.).

Now, i think i can explain the rock-paper-scissors thing at least as to why it is the way it is...

Most games you've played portray bombers asfragile planes/ships that have weapons that are effective against non-mobile emplacements right? well in this game the bombers are more of a tougher ship with heavy anti-shell armor that have energy bombs which are generally good against Fighters. These fighters are super-armored and very tough against most weapons, save energy ones. Thus the reason for fighters beat bombers and not the other way around. They are also equipped with shell weapons which are good against Cruisers. Cruisers are long range missile attackers, and missiles are great at penetrating bomber armor. Now, these ships are slow and have armor vulnerable to shell but not energy weapons. I hope that clears up the RPS setup for you...

[Revenantus]

Welcome, Nibelung44.

I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the game in general. What you fairly accurately summarize as a rock-paper-scissors relationship between the three basic military ships is only a small section of a very intricate set of interactions between a very large number of units. The large number of quite pronounced interactions between unit types is something we consider to be one of the highlights of the game, so I'm sorry to hear that this sort of system isn't to your liking.

At this time, like many games, AI War does not support mods. I do appreciate that many games do, and in no way do I suggest that they are wrong to do so, but this is simply not something we want to make available right now. Personally, I'm concerned that modding causes fragmentation in the player base, though I'm sure others will put forward their thoughts on this area. You are able to change the unit names by editing the files in the language directory, if you feel that you would like to develop a more appropriate naming system.

In AI War, improving the gameplay experience always takes priority over inventing a thematic justification for a game mechanic. While you seem to have some qualms on the thematic side, do you feel that this is directly detrimental to the gameplay itself? Some players have raised similar concerns with the roles of ships, but perhaps this is a case of attempting to project traditional roles on units and ammo based on their names in a context where it's not necessary? Many of the ideas you're challenging are core design elements.

While memorizing the relationship between different ship types may prove useful, there is no reason why this is necessary. All the relevant information is easily available on the unit tooltips, and by expanding the planetary summary by pressing F1.

Thank you for your support of the game. I'm happy to continue this discussion with you. You can also post any other suggestions you have for the game in the suggestions forum.  

Regards,
Revenantus

[Nibelung44]

Thanks for your answers, the both of you.

Naming Convention
What is misleading is that a ship named bomber trumps fighter. This is not just ' in most games' that it is like that, it is in the real world too. I'm a wargamer (TBS) before being anything else (dating back from boardgames, discovered some 25 years ago!), and really, having the opposite is something so unnatural too me that yes, this is part of the problem.
I understand  that I can rename ships though, so perhaps I'll rename Bombers to Frigates but still, a ship which can dispose of both nimble ships (fighters) while being an anti-structure one is anyway against my whole wargaming experience, and is so not natural to me. Sorry, this is in my opinion, sure.

Rock-Paper-Scissor (RPS) game design
This is your game design, so you prevail. But yes, I don't like RPS system. I feel they are a bit (sorry about the words) like a work around for a solution which was not found. Because, again they are not natural, or at least it seems they are not. RPS system can emerge naturally, as in the real world, because of units' stats, but "aggravating" the effects with artificial modifiers... I simply don't like. Perhaps you don't have differentiated enough the weapons classes. People can understand that bombs damage structures. Or even that say laser melt armors, but are reflected by shields. Anything like that, and then you get from the stats of your ship what he is good for.

If I remember well (and I'm not that sure, because there the interaction matrix is huge), Raptors are one shotted by cruisers. I can accept that, if I'm facing a consistent system. Say you decide that raptors have only armor, not shield, and that missiles real eat through armor. And then, I would just have to know this fact, and see that my Raptors having only armor, I need to be wary of ships with anti-armor weapon, like missiles and lasers, but things like bullets, I don't care about, because (in the system created), armor protect against bullets. The system is consistent.

Here I simply feel it is not. The matrix appears very artificial too me. Compare to Sins of Solar Empire or even to a lesser extent to Supreme Commander, the system is much more natural because it is "weapon/protection" based, and not artificially created by saying: "Let's say that Cruisers does 10 damages against Raptors, 5x against that and only 0.1 against that ...".

About the matrix. Yes I have to know it, in the end. Because I just can't spend my time, if I want to play efficiently to roll over tooltips, at least for the main ships. I need to know before seeing the "Nemesis ship" that it can dispose of my fighters, raptors, whatever, and plan accordingly, when I create a strike force.

I regret that there is RPS because in the end, the game having so many strategies and subtleties, it was not needed. With modding, I could have altered this artificial construct and recreate one which was working (again, for me) more naturally, by identifying weapon and protection types, and recreating a consistent system. It seems I'll have to cope with what the game propose. 

About modding:
I believe this is a false excuse. When you develop a product ( a game or something else, I'm in database system myself) you have a kind of development philosophy, and many things are done like that, from the start, because you think it is the right way to do so. So if modding is not available now, this is not because it seems a low priority to the main dev, but because either he don't like modding enough, or he has hard coded so much things in the code t hat it is now too late to open the game for modding. Either way, I can bet some significant dollars (or euros, they are worth more ) that we won't see significant modding support for this game before a very long time, a very very long time. Perhaps never. This is my opinion again, and I would like to be wrong on that, but as a dev myself, I have the feelings that if modding is not there from the start, then it was not planned for, and will never appears.

[Revenantus]

I understand that the relationship between bombers and fighters may feel slightly unusual at first, and I will refer you to a post made by x4000;

The fighter/bomber cruiser balance is the way it is for a number of important reasons.  Basically, the cruisers are big and slow artillery, which as you know tend to generally be weak to small, faster "common" units (footsoldiers, fighters, whatever).  Fighters, by the same token, are built to be up close and personal to those sorts of giant ships, and thus don't take a lot of damage from them.

The bombers are heavily shielded, which is the main disconnect from many other RTS games -- that is vital for the functions of the bomber, such as for extended sieges of force fields and other similar heavy structures.  The way that shields in this game works, range of the attacking ship plays a big part.  So cruisers, because of their high range, become the natural enemy of shielded bombers.

Bombers, by the same token, have an attack that does a huge amount of damage, and fighters have relatively lower hull strength.  So it's entirely logical also that they would be weak to bombers, and they are all but useless against bombers in return because the low range of fighters makes them unable to effectively penetrate the shields of said bombers.

All of this came about from a logical analysis of the gameplay mechanics in this specific game, and the niches that all of the ships needed to fill.  It would be extremely game-breaking to change it, though I understand that it is inconsistent with other RTS titles.  That inconsistency was not casually done, and given the shield mechanics I can't think of a more sensible way to handle it.

I find the reasoning sound, and hope that the names will gradually feel more natural to you. Alternatively you can rename them as you suggest.

EDIT: I'm going to have to admit to turning a U-turn here, as actually thinking about this in more detail has changed my mind.
I'm glad to say there's a major area that we agree on. I am also very interested in seeing the game develop into an ammo/armour combat system, rather than applying the arbitrary bonuses to weapons as is currently done. This makes unit balancing far more difficult in the long term, but the benefits are numerous as you suggest. I do however wish to see the RPS system exist within the context of any ammo/armour framework, as the RPS style is quite core to the gameplay, and I'm very much of a fan of very pronounced interactions between unit types.

I'm happy to hear that you could accept RPS style gameplay in the context of a more general framework, as many players feel similarly, so thank you for voicing your support for this.

Your additional arguments regarding modding are blunt but fair, and I will leave the game's developer (Chris/x4000) as by far the most appropriate person to respond to those.

EDIT: I believe I may have misinterpreted your initial post as an attack on the resulting style of gameplay itself, rather than the desire for a more consistent framework for said gameplay to exist within that the second post seems to advocate. I apologize if this is the case.

[Haagenti]

Sadly there's no way to mod the game right now.

Completely untrue. I have modded this game very succesfully.

The way to mod this game is make a coherent and convincing argument on the forum why certain changes should be made. Then wait for a day or so. 

[Revenantus]

Sadly there's no way to mod the game right now.

Completely untrue. I have modded this game very succesfully.

The way to mod this game is make a coherent and convincing argument on the forum why certain changes should be made. Then wait for a day or so. 

Haha, very true.

[eRe4s3r]

I too hope that after the expansion maybe x4000 will come back to my proposed data externalization - So that all data and stats/gameplay systems are no longer hard-coded - and could be changed via files. But as long as he is adding new gameplay mechanics and races/units/systems this is impossible.. though the more he adds the more a pain it will be later on to externalize all these systems and values

[Nibelung44]

(..) I am also very interested in seeing the game develop into an ammo/armour combat system (..)

Exactly, count me in as a proponent of the system.

Thanks for the details and the quote from X4000 about his intent with Bombers. 

[eRe4s3r]

Personally i would want much more serious armor/ammo redesign than that, here is my dream list ;p

Armor should be a separate Health bar / And it should only reduce damage to hull, never eliminate it
Hit chances should be weapon dependent, not range
Damage should be weapon dependent, not range
There should be no hit chances below 25% and none higher than 90%
Anti Missile Weaponry against missiles
Never should there be a 0-dmg situation - even the lamest bean shooter should still deal SOME damage.

Only capital ships have shields (3rd health bar) - And energy weapons can only damage shields, shield piercing weapons can hit armor and then in turn, can deal slight hull damage, this means that ships with piercing weapons can destroy capital ships without destroying their shields or armor completely, which is much more realistic.

Only within supply do ships have infinite ammo - outside ammo is limited (but sensible high) and supply ships provide ammo supplies to all ships in an enemy sector (not build supplies)

Mines should become partially mobile, ie - guided proximity mines when enemies come close they close in and go off - which is more akin to what space minefields would be like

Complete rebalancing of all ships to fit within accepted naval classification of roles in battles - Fighters - Corvettes - Frigates - Destroyers etc. - All ships beyond Destroyer (light Cruiser, Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, Battleship, Heavy Battleship, Dreadnought have shields)

Yeah, thats my modding dreamlist Basically, i would probably take 90% of my ideas from the Homeworld 2 PDS mods

Edit: Also
- Less armor = less damage reduction at 50% armor damage to hull is higher than to armor (to simulate that directional damage has eaten through the ships armor ,p)
- All ships starting with corvettes get multiple weapons, especially corvettes in todays times are both AMS/Long-Range Missile/Direct Gun fire type of ships
- Fighters should become independent to your orders and become dependent on carriers orders (that would solve the issue of the bomber/fighter balance entirely ^^)

Somehow i think this sounds more like a entirely new game than a mod.. heh

[Haagenti]

What you seem to be looking for is a computerised version of Star Fleet Battles or Harpoon?

Or a MMO version of Battlecruiser 3000 AD if you really want to go far out.

[Echo35]

What you seem to be looking for is a computerised version of Star Fleet Battles or Harpoon?

http://www.computerharpoon.com/products/advanced-naval-warfare.html
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Starfleet-Command-Gold-Pc/dp/B00004SWKT

btw, as I've mentioned before in the forums, HUGE fan of Harpoon, both the digital version and the tabletop version, though I hardly have many people to play with, so I usually end up on the digital version. So pissed the 4th Edition Digital one got canceled.

Or a MMO version of Battlecruiser 3000 AD if you really want to go far out.

What, you mean "Everything you've ever wanted"? How many years was that game in development?

[Haagenti]

http://www.computerharpoon.com/products/advanced-naval-warfare.html
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Starfleet-Command-Gold-Pc/dp/B00004SWKT

I have played Harpoon 2 (not 3) and SFC Gold but both are just kiddie-versions of the tabletop game. I do not really consider them as proper "computerised versions"

How many years was BC3000AD in development?

Before or after it was released?

[Echo35]

I have played Harpoon 2 (not 3) and SFC Gold but both are just kiddie-versions of the tabletop game. I do not really consider them as proper "computerised versions"

I wouldn't say that. The military uses the Digital version (Granted they have their own fancy version civilians can't contract ) for training, and I actually learned how to play the table top version of SFB from playing SFC, so the rules are nearly identical there.

Before or after it was released?

 

EDIT: So I've noticed the past few days, I've done nothing but COMPLETELY jack threads. I should update my title...