Modding

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UesugiKenshin
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Re: Modding

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If you lack a windows based computer, but want to mod the Android version, and since some tablets won't directly sideload apps from third party sources...then here is one plausible workaround.

Most tablets have a protocol that will allow usb transfers in a hidden part of the settings. You could connect your Android usb to a female to female adapter (They cost about $7) Then connect a usb flash drive. Android can't generally run large usb devices on battery power as the power adapter often has the hidden usb connector. This means a large usb drive is out, but a small thumb drive will most likely work.

Now mod the apk on the flash drive. Then send the modded apk via the usb to usb cable. That should allow Android modders a way make small changes to BotE. This method should bypass the standard security protocol that prevents 3rd party apps from running that came outside the Google Play store.
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Re: Modding

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I took a couple weeks to get some perspective on BotE.

I'm in turn 635 and have maxed out in research as I'm still passively researching in all six areas of focus beginning with Level 15 tech. At this point, there are no more buildings or ships or troops to acquire.

I'm playing on a maxed out 40x40 galaxy matrix with no major enemies with 1% anomalous phenomena, but the maximum level of minor alien races. What that does is allow beta testing, no intel missions like espionage or sabotage, but there are many minor races with large standing fleets. It's configred for the maximum number of planets but I'll wager that ends up being 90% or less.

Only two minor race fleets have joined as members, but obviously with a sandbox game, the minor races will not leave their sectors, and so starbases and planet based defenses are largely for show as the minor races shouldn't leave but purely protect their own sectors.

Even though level 13 and level 14 in Biotech claim to allow more terraforming, they do not seem to do so for the Omega Alliance. This means all gas giants cannot be colonized.

Like all 4X strategy games, the best war gaming experience always happens on planned maps rather than random ones. In my opinion, the game would be far better with nine planets per sector and each sector should have all resources with the ability to colonize up to nine of them.

Why? It would be far more representative of the galactic density of colonizable planets in the Milky Way galaxy. Think sectors not solar systems. Most sectors would have multiple stacked solar systems, and there would likely be nine colonizable planets. Likewise I find it far fetched that a sector...which is an IMMENSE region of space/time ...wouldn't have titanium, deuterium, duranium, crystals, iridium, and deritium.

If an entire sector did not, then the many extraterrestrials in that sector simply would not have warp capability and would be stymied by the lack of resources. They would lack the capacity to leave their sector to acquire the needed resources like deritium.

It's far more interesting to play this way. Conquest is plausible, but unnecessary as there is already sufficient room to expand. This means the player largely uses up the first 600+ turns just building infrastructure.

That is why ready made maps by configuring the galaxy with hex editors and or using multiplayer mode and saved games offers a far better experience. In my opinion, many players would likely prefer to either build first and then begin a military campaign, or starting a ready made galaxy map starting in turn 600+.

Regardless if gas giants are colonizable, more planets would generally benefit all the major and minor races as above.
Zuletzt geändert von UesugiKenshin am Sonntag 7. Juni 2020, 21:28, insgesamt 1-mal geändert.
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Re: Modding

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When the game is configured as above, this forces the player to take lesser quality planets to terraform as the vast majority of the time, say 90%+ of the planets are not M class. The player will frequently have L, F, G, C, N, R, etc class planets. That means you have to terraform extensively and are at a disadvantage as it may take multiple colonizations within a sector to acquire a space port. That also allows you better resource acquisition though. So you may end up doing 3+ colonizations per sector rather than just slowly populating a sector by migration.

Thus you end up with highly diverse planet types and that means you get the special energy bonuses ie solar, wind, geothermal, ocean types plus often titanium, deuterium, duranium, and sometimes crystals, iridium, and deritium.

Note: there is a bug in the energy calculations such that it seems there is an inadequate amount of energy, but if you enter the manager, and add in the buildings requiring energy, and then toggle them off and on manually, then often a much lower amount of total high level reactors is needed. And of course with many terraformed unusual planets, you also get the special energy projects so reactors are not as necessary regardless.
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Re: Modding

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What happens is by configuring the game this way, the minor races get far better planet composition, thus they have much more robust sectors, and can better defend them.I think that makes for a far better game.

It's true that some will eventually become members, but those with fleets likely will not, thus the sandbox player and even the regular player will have a far more challenging end game.
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Re: Modding

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Even with maximum level 14 tech, the galaxy being so large as configured as above, that the very best Omega battleship is terribly slow at a speed rate of 2. It has level 12 beam weapons, a rather powerful torpedo array, a double iridum hull, a level 10 shield, but is not very manueverable.

Because the Andromeda and Zhordarins joined as members, I acquired two fleets, but they just sat there and gained experience through a special project. However, in the Andromeda instance, their hull configuration is faster and stronger, and the Zhordarins torpedo array is better than the Omega's best version.

Some minor races have a few better ship attributes that you can mix and match so while the battleship is slow, some frigates, cruisers, and heavy destroyers are faster. Obviously some lighter ships have long range capability too. The latter aspect becomes irrelevant later as you end up taking over 90% of the galaxy so long range eventually doesn't matter.

Every starbase not only extends range but adds a significant one time sum of credits, thus it's crucial to do this.

In my opinion, it would far more sense to have special economic buildings that increase income faster plus act as a lure for attacks on those juicy systems. Few players save the most hardcore science fiction fans want to take 600+ hours just building infrastructure so you have adequate income to actually wage war. That is why the best game would be either preconfigured maps and infrastructure as saved game start positions.
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Re: Modding

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In my opinion, many more tech levels, many more ships, troops, projects, etc would make the game far better. At 630+ turns, it honestly just now seems like enough infrastructure has been laid out to just now begin to wage war. Honestly.

At best, the Omega Alliance have ships that have a "speed" of 4, then even now it makes 0% chance that sabotage would work purely by the limitation of logistics. One could NOT send agents everywhere to sabotage structures, ships, troops, research, whatever. I seriously doubt there would be even a 10% chance of success by level 25 technology unless vastly faster ships existed. Realize that when it is triggered, then the sabotage could be anywhere across the galaxy. It's completely illogical.
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Re: Modding

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Think about this logically, to insert a spy into a sector requires subterfuge and almost certainly very fast ships and cloaking ability and enormous amounts of cash, and likely failing over 90%+ of the time. That is the nature of the intelligence agencies and or funding the political opposition/guerilla units or partisans. They ruin small targets, not battleships, and once in a lifetime have a spectacular success. Almost always the agents die.

Infiltration at the sector level would be abysmal. This is not one target in a locality but multiple solar systems in a sector. Frankly, it realistically wouldn't be worth it. There is not any way to compare with any examples from history. It should be proportionately expensive and most players would balk if it was so.
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Re: Modding

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Realistically given the 40x40 galaxy, then at 635+ turns and a maxed out tech level 14, the ships as currently configured should be faster or else they do not emulate any warp drive capable ships from any science fiction milieu that I am aware of. The solardate is largely meaningless and if we presume an emulation of even Star Trek TOS, then the ships are far too slow.

That is another justification for preset preconfigured save game start positions on a meaningful huge galaxy map as otherwise many random pointless battles would occur far before likely infrastructure existed so major races could afford to wage war in any realistic fashion.

600+ hours is 25 days and that is just for one major race, but that is for a sandbox game. But it honestly would take about a month to create just one scenario for a 40x40 map. That is why the modders of BotE so desperately need a map editor, a scenario editor, a troops and ship editor, a tech/building editor.

That is especially true as we do not understand the encryption in the hex editing of the savegame files.

And that is doubly vital for the Android version given the Google Play security limitation.
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Re: Modding

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One caveat is with much more planet density, then it might slow down the turn resolution.

At turn 300+, it honestly makes zero sense to actually trade vital resources that your empire REQUIRES to build infrastructure, troops, and ships. At turn 630+, it's foolish when resources might be worth 1800+ credits per 100 units and every major and minor race has abundant local resources in their sector. Realize the AI gets advantages. They do not approach you with resources for sale, do they? Of course not.

You aim for peace, and that leads to friendship treaties. Early on, AI major races will sometimes offer credits of resources to sweeten a deal. The player should instead offer "gifts" and seldom bribes. Gifts often work to improve diplomatic obstacles.

Realize that even on the easy level, and even with a cooperation or even an alliance, by turn 630+, then a minor race at 95% acceptance like the Algoliths will still sometimes balk at membership. They may never actually become members but seek their own autonomy. In the sandbox game, they don't fear other major races because they don't exist. They fear you and retribution.

Had I attacked, I doubt so many would have joined.
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Re: Modding

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A ship can "pass through" a sector. Look up a post I made discussing the huge numbers of surveillance ships that would be required (it would take thousands and thousands across light years in a sector).

But such a cloaked fast ship is not entering a sector and dropping off a spy on a planet. BIG DIFFERENCE. Such a ploy would be discovered by long rang scan constructs plus ships plus starbases plus planet defenses.

There is nothing in BotE that emulates transporter technology and that only works from orbit. The only way that would work would be minor races of very low tech totally lacking ships and prewarp technology. As configured above, that does not exist past say turn 50. And an unmodded BotE begins intel missions about turn 300-400.
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Re: Modding

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After turn 630+, then I would bet that most warships built by any major race would be using iridium double hulls as that is the maximum for the Omega Alliance.

You begin with titanium, switch to duranium, get double hulls, then iridium, then double iridium. This makes iridum essentially priceless. You end up shifting it around with resource routes, and a battleship would require quite a LOT.

Even after making the Omega class battleship for the Omega Alliance, even with it so powerful, many like the Brane minor race have powerful fleets and so it would be foolish not to "train the crew" by orbiting a planet with training capability to significantly gain experience. You don't send green raw recruits on your best battleship. What a blunder that would be.

I would seriously mod the post-630+ turn warships to fit niche situations so they are appropriate for various tactical situations as those sectors may also have starbases. By that turn amount, a rather large investment in offensive/defensive and economic value has been spent.
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Re: Modding

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Once when initially beta testing against the Xiborg, for some unknown reason they left their home sector, and I captured their home sector. That left a very strong Xiborg fleet still around but stuck I guess? They just sat there glitched out. Thus it may occur similarly to you without eliminating a minor race, rather like the initial premise of the newer version of Battlestar Galactica.
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Re: Modding

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It would be very useful to have an English version datafile of every ship with capabilities and attributes in the vanilla BotE.

Likewise, it's my plan to have a modded version for tech levels exceeding 14.

Because you learn from other races who become members like the Andromeda and Zhordarians, then you have a limited capability to swap things around. So far all I have seen is making:
1. The beam weapons stronger or weaker.
2. Changing the launcher for the torpedo and the type of torpedo.
3. Changing the hull type and or using single or double hulls.
4. Changing the shield level stronger or weaker.

The real changes happen in the ship editor, so there really should be more levels. There is no opportunity to retrofit that I can find. You could "scrap" older revision levels to avoid confusion. I would as the earlier ones have much weaker hulls. It stinks to do so as you lose the experience gained.

That is unlike real life where say the venerable A-10 Warthog tank killer is still an outstanding aircraft. It's gone through plenty of retrofits.
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Re: Modding

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The Kanorr have a special project called "Illegal Trade" and it adds six more trade routes and adds 50% to trade income.

That actually is an incredible project as much of the player's time is spent on creating new resource routes.

Resource routes are actually very illogical as even at turn #630+, my fastest ships can only go 4 per turn, even at maxed out level 14 technology. Whereas allegedly such trade is being routinely hauled by freighters literally across vast regions of a 40x40 galaxy ie freighters are traveling theoretically exponentially faster than the very best starships possible!

Regardless of that conundrum, the number of trade routes and or resource routes is contingent upon total population in a sector. Thus the maxed out Kanorr system has about 55 billion people but can only have 3 trade and or resource routes but now has 9.

At turns past 400+, it's logically pointless to trade with other major and minor races 95% of the time as there is no profit in it versus manipulating the resource markets. I have extensively discussed this already.

So 99% of the time, the hapless player finds themseves both terraforming new planets and trying to colonize, not just to grow their empire but chiefly for resource acquisition. They are trying to get as much titanium, deuterium, duranium, crystals, iridium (this especially so at high levels and double hulls post turn 630+), and trying in vain to grow colonies with deritium.

A good 4x game allows mappers to create ideal maps with plenty of resources such that the major and minor races can create infrastructure that eventually leads to the best units and starship.

This means 95% of the hapless players' time are creating resource routes. Over and over ad nauseum. There is so much micromanagement in BotE it's off putting. Sometime count how many clicks and page changes are needed just to do one resource route change. And realize many sectors end up needing 2+ resource routes initially!

This translates to the facts that the player will attempt to build economic powerhouse sectors that amalgamate the MOST resources in high amounts of storage to 125,000 units per resource.

That means to generally help the player, the number of trade/resource routes should be doubled in general to SIX. And that means a standard aspect of growth would be infrastructure that adds three new routes. Likely that would be level 1 new routes, level 2 new routes, level 3 new routes and most likely requiring energy.

On top of which, illegal trade should then add 3 more routes with income.

Doing so by modding would have literally saved HUNDREDS of Hours. I would bet 300 hours were spent by turn 630+ just on resource route changes.
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Re: Modding

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BotE most needs a scenario editor and a map editor as in 2 hours versus hundreds of hours, one could design a basic and excellent map. Then in two hours copy and paste prebuilt infrastructure.

That would seriously improve the colossal amount of time spent just building empires in a logical fashion rather than extensive planning. It honestly take a whole month just to get 75% of a 40x40 galaxy to where wars can just begun to have intragalactic conflict in a logical military fashion.

If we only had an understanding of hex editing the save games through a primer, then we could create fabulous scenarios.
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