Gaunathor, do you know what the overall intention was when some races had individual techcosts altered? I just went through a sample of them (Thalan + Yor) and compared that to the vanilla "systematic", and then went back to compare some more and I've got to say what I see is out-of-whack.

Vanilla:

- Some races had severe penalties to individual techs installed where, perhaps the devs found the specific races to be unfitting to pursue these courses; examples would be Yor/Thalan had +10k RP more tomuster for TechVic, and Arceans had a boatload (~~10k RP) more a variosu amalgam of techs (Influence, Trade, Diplomacy) to muster.

- Some adjustments were a 100% trade-off: Increase in one region balanced by an equal decrease in another one; if we forget about TechVic the Thalan/Yor are actually candidates for this approach - harder trade/diplomacy for better labs or ethics, it exactly nulls out. Some of these do actually make alot of sense, eg. given how unique + strong Thalan ethical-techs are it's only logical to half the cost of XenoEthics and have it none requirement.

Now, the CU changed alot of this, and if I read the comments it seems on role-playing grounds solely... Some of the changes are so absurdedly grotesque it's hard to not see any personal bias into it...

When I first saw these tags appearing I thought someone would expand on the idea of strength/weakness just as given under the AbilitiesDescription-tag in RaceConfig or the general overview,but that didn't really happen.

- Some races simply saw a flat reduction in techcosts without any increase in other fields, examples would be TERRANS (-2400 RP), ALTARIANS (-2200 RP), KORX (-~1000 RP), DRATH (-1320 RP). 

Terrans had engines, diplomacy & trade made better - there would've been great opportunity to penalize them on the industry part (as they're starting with negative MP) but nothing was done.

Altarians had their labcosts greatly reduced but no handicap to weapons were introduced.

Drath had their diplomacy greatly reduced, but no penalty to biology to counter that is there. [as a side note, alot of evil-factions have Trade + Diplomacy penalized while the opposite was done on some favs of someone, talking stereotypes....]

Korx tree saw some minor reduction of economic improvements.

The TORIANS saw an increase to their hull-techs by 3100 RP (!). Balanced against a reduction of Adv.Aquatic Col by -400 RP. Actually in vanilla they also had a hulltech-penalty in place, but it was only -400 RP (for Interstellar Construction) and 0 for Medium Scale (that might have been an oversight - the costs are similar but the desc states it shall be more expensive). Nevertheless, that has gone completely overboard and I'm not seeing how the X-Col could possibly help, esp. if someone starts a rare-Xtreme planets map.

The way that vanilla had some techs penalized is more like, single, individual techs had their costs increased, sort of making "a wall" for the AI to overcome. That can actually serve a real purpose - for example, if the time to research a tech is more than a game-year, the AI will automatically pick another tech next week. So what this does is actually thwart an individual AI away from a certain branch and hitherto, into other branches. He then may - or may not - overcome such a wall by a creativity proc.

Now, in the CU complete branches, eg. like Diplomatic Relations --> Total Majesty saw all techs increased by 50% - a creativity proc won't solve that, nor will there be a wall, it'll just that an AI needs endlessly and be just godawful in that field even if they emphasize it by random selection.

The YOR are hard to explain. They've got a very minor decrease in initial weapons-techs but got trade-techs upped, so they were about 700 RP penalized. In VANILLA the Yor tree had quite some costs rebalanced, eg. generally labs in order to reflect their computing advantage and also to make Research Centers more readily available as they didn't start out with a spamable lab. Sarcastically, these original adjustments (which actually fulfill a purpose) have been now commented in, that is, they're presented as if someone would suggest that these are counters to their penalties. Some are so inferior (Invention Matrix from 6000-->5800) it's only ironical to then see that Altarian labs have been lowered by 2200 bucks! But that's not the end of the story, in vanilla Yor had 2 greatly reduced Range-techs although 2 Engine-techs were increased (still, they had 1600 less to research) and that's been undone so finally they're ~2500 RP worse than before. (the engine costs increase may have been due to Stellar Streams - or their SA - notice how only techs that bring a +1 to speed ability were affected...)

The THALAN are the worst, +5700 RP added to their tree!!! On trade & diplo. I've seen them diplomatically exploited by the Drath to the point of breaking the game, and now I know how that came true. They already start with a great handicap and other with enormous bonuses in that specific region creating a disparity which only opens loopholes to exploit, and this "balancing" is only making matters worse. Especially considering that these 2 - namely Drath & Terran - saw a reduction in exactly these fields, too by +1000 points - which only adds to the discrepancy!

But the worst, completely mind-boggling case are the ARCEANS. They saw huge cost-reductions to hulls, logistics, PI/invasion, hitpoints (even +10% of this racial ability because of their mastership....) and on top of that ALL their vanilla tech-cost-handicaps have been completely REMOVED. Except one - for Particle Beams - which in vanilla had a penalty of +1000 RP - this is now down to 600 [!]; but it additionally has now been commented "Minor counter balance to the Arcean's cheaper hull tech" [SIC] so a PENALTY has been REDUCED to COUNTER another bonus... [sic!]  All in all, Arceans enjoy now a total reduction of around ~18.000 RP [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] if we count the vanilla penalites out it'll still be around ~~5000 RP (and if we do, how about we also get rid of the 10.000 RP penalty to Thalan/Yor tech-vic? just to make it even/fair for anyone...)

Any ideas how to solve this? I'm not against individualized techtrees - actually pro - but it should be fair & balanced, and not so one-sided....

Think I've found 2 bugs in 'Screens.str':

[Federation] Federation
[FederationDescription] Planets are given free rule. Productivity soars, but your Approval Rating will prove key in keeping the planets from breaking away from your empire.
[FederationDesriptionGood] Planets are given free rule. Productivity soars, but your Approval Rating will prove key in keeping the planets from breaking away from your empire.
[FederationDesriptionEvil] Planets are given free rule. Productivity soars, but your Approval Rating will be the key to keeping planets from breaking away from your glorious empire.

there's a "c" missing, both descs won't show up ingame.

I'd reduce FPP to 65 buildcost but decreased AI to 15 or 20.. 10% isn't really much for a tile and on a frshly colonized Initial Colony it'll net 1-2 PP, so it should rather be built late.

AMPP cost to 125 or 150 and AI to 20 or 25.

From my point of view that would be then in line with your proposed change to the QPP - which is fine.

Yes, if something is off we may correct it. However, what is your design-stance on these improvements in general? In my opinion, they're an alternative to merely mounting raw-production which is expensive - so they're the cheaper alternative on mediumPQ worlds - and a must-have on highPQ worlds although useless on lowPQW worlds. Because the AI doesn't consider this (or: know to not place them on lowPQ worlds) a potential fix to ease this problem is to make them more cheap to build but adjust their bonuses accordingly. Another would be to leave the bonus intact but reduce the AI-tag so they're not built everywhere.

But I didn't look specifically into all the existing prod-enhancing objects. I usually try to figure out what the devs intended by looking at the "whole picture" of the vanilla sheets, not only in conjunction with facs, but also racial attributes and general racial strengths. There are - or were - clearly some different intentions at large, for example a lot of TA buildings are actually less strong than their generic counterpart to (I suppose) act as a throttle for that particular race. I'm fine with that if, at least, a building reserves itself a tiny niche where it's still reasonable for a player to build it.

Let me take a quicklook at the current layout:

- Molecular Fabricator doesn't need any boosts, and for its power it's deadcheap - Refinery as well. But I guess that is fine considering it's Precursor-technology and the Iconians factories are rather weak.

- The Yors ManuVortex currently is a copyclone of the QPP albeit at decrease costs but with more maint. In vanilla it was only 15% which was much too weak for its costs. The way I perceive Yor industry is that it is more powerful in output, but coming at increased buildcosts, and having less maint (in order to not conflict with the Yors difficult economy). So if I'd rebalance this one I'd set its cost to 125% of the QPP, reduce maintenance to 1 bc and adjust the bonus to 25%. I'd also set its upgrade-target to the QPP so you can't build both in a techtradeing game.

All Drengin/Korath prod-boosts are too expensive - some by much. And their maintenance is too high. The way I understand their design is that the usage of slaves makes their industry less efficient in raw output but also more cheap (because you don't pay slaves a salary...) Having cheaper industry is also inline with having worse "banks".

The 'Death Furnace' likewise also offers 30%. That improvement actually looks like it was supposed to be the smaller brother of the AUL Inc - but now it is superior than that (and the 5bc maint is nothing compared to a PQ reduction).

I just find the whole concept not well thought out... shrug

First off, building all these improvements onto a planet is out of question because that won't get you anywhere. Most planets don't have even that enough space - especially considering the Korath do have a set of unique and uberstrong 1PPs which they need to build as well. So we're talking only +PQ20 here.

Then, you're still *faster* using only ordinary Slave Canyons because these come at 50%-25% costs. And because Korath do already have 25% MP + 50% MP from techs these will already get enhanced by alot. In most lowPQ and mediumPQ designs you're better off with Slave Canyons (if you don't forget to build other stuff...)

I just made a table with a simple test where I build all these boosters against a world where I just build Canyons, and no surprise, the Canyons beat the boosters by much in productivity, even the cost/spending-ratio was better. Had to add several Canyons to the boosters to come even, but still that approach is much more costly to pull off. 

And actually a prod-booster impr is only reasonable when it accompanies a few Slave Canyons, but here you've got the problem of missing space - so if there's space still left you've got to pick between 6 different boosters. Of which the Death Furnace is the #1 option, and if you've got additional space you'll pick rather 40% than the 30% from AUL. So that makes the AUL the worst option IMO. The only thing that's good with it is no maint, but it costs 100-200 SP more to build and will result in an overall loss of productivity. Thing is the desc of the techs rather hints at "immense" output, not less.

The whole desing is completely unreasonable. The only intention I could come up is that someone at SD thought it would be cool if Korath randomly filled all their planets with evil-looking stuff designed to torture slaves (or clones) to quench more production out of them. Because that's what their doing - just picking this or that. Start a Korath game, cheat all techs to you let the AI colonize & outbuild 100 planets - then go and see how it did that. In 99% of all cases you'll be able to make production more efficient by alternating stuff. With most other races that would be down to ~~50% because the rationale is down to "how many facs you need to build first until a power plant becomes reasonable".

The Korath are not well designed and the spored-worlds dilemma only adds to that. Not that they are related or that we can do much about it, but it simply tells me the designer didn't really had much time to deal with them.

IMO some of the boosters should be turned into strong 1PP raw-production factories. This "specialization" into boosters-only is nonsense from a mechanical point of view. Boosters always need raw production alongside with them and the Iconian-approach shows how to do it. If the AUL Inc then is stronger/weaker than whatever counterpart also coexists in their tree that's not relevant to me - the whole picture has to be right, that is: 

1. The AI doesn't do silly things. 

2. The player doesn't shake his head why he just spend a ton of researchpoint to get a new improvement that is actually inferior to what he already could do.

We'll find the right values once testgames start.

I agree. I think the Torian labs were deliberately designed to be a throttle for the Torians, however, their unique labs become completely obsoleted if they get their hands on the generic counterparts. They are more expensive to build, have more maint and net lesser research....^^ And in a way understandably because, if I judge the icons right, they're having water in their classrooms^^. I'd say reduce buildcosts by some amounts, esp. on the Commune, it's already 5% less strong than the RCC and has obscene maint. Guess the maint won't be a probl for the Breeders. And perhaps adjust Schools back to their old design (less maint, less costs) since it's the only spamable impr they have on startup.

We also need to keep an eye on this during testplays. If the other AIs are able to use their headstart to snatch away all the X-planets from them it may be a heavy nerf under a frequent-map-setting. Nevertheless, your intention is okay, it just looks a bit "off".

yeah fine with me

yeah I must've mixed something up here, that would indeed not make much sense. Still, it's a lot of same bonuses used... Anyway, given the weak nature of many of these parties I drop the subject.

Is there a region of the current implementation you'd like to have some feedback? I must've looked over most the changes, and so far so good.

We should be able to sort this out easily. The homogenization of the techtree made it also much more boring, so if you've got nothing against we simply diversify it to add a touch of vanilla back into it. If it's just for technology that could be easily done by either 

- scrapping individual techs

- reducing or increasing tech-costs

or a combination of both.

We can actually base the changes linearily to the relative adjustment that was there in vanilla:

Phasors I to VII = 14500 RP - Yor had that reduced by 3 techs (-5900 RP) making only 8600 RP which is a reduction of 41%.

CU Phasors cost 6600, so a similar reduction of -2700 RP would be in order. I'd delete the middle tech (-2200), take -200 from the first and -300 from the last tech away. (f you think that method is okay...)

Yeah, locking players out of defensive techs will be unfun. In this case increasing their costs could be of similar effects. YIP doesn't really dive into defenses before, at least, its weapon-branch-ultimate has been completed, so that shouldn't be a prob for Drengin/Korath AI.

Adding new weapon-techs may be not doable without fiddling with the current design around. The only quick-solution I see here are new techs bare of any modules - perhaps with just a tiny miniaturization or weapons-bonus.

I agree that the ethical-weapons are lackluster. I'd rather change their designs to be more OP but with a heavy price. In DA there were also other weapons IRRC 'Nano Ripper' and I found that quite interesting.

However, reverting back to vanilla may piss some folks off. There's been just too much work been done on the weapons-overhaul. AFAIK Silas even programmed a simulator to test the potential strength of his designs. Even on all hulls, although no detailed information on how the exact nature of the program, the various increments (minia, log, luck, def, repair, left-over space etc) was given. Just the results, and I had my share of backchecking and I found no errors.

To elaborate further, the simulation tested a shipdesign including its buildcosts - and produced about 100k bcs worth of it and let them fight against each other. The overall distinction of the 3 weapon-types was that Driver were deadcheap but had less raw power, and slowly became tiny, also less research-costs. Missile was sort of the opposite in terms of raw power and researchcost, while Beam became slowly greater in size.

Because it was boring to have all tiers of all weapons amount to always equal strengths a cyclical nerf and buff of always one weapon-type on each tier was introduced, and repeated 1 time. Which means that you may pick an inferior branch, but if you manage to stay alive for just another tier you'll be able to research a weapon that is better than the competetors. Although that isn't really visible right from the start because tier1 still holds many individual techs.

You can read more about this, and the sim-results on p.44 and onwards.

Nevertheless, I do not have a hard opinion on any of the weapon-balancing approaches I've seen so far - simply because most AI just randomly pick a branch. Next game they'll pick another. So even if a whole branch would be OP, they only unbalancedness it would create is if a player would notice that and always go down that route (I did so with ScatterBlaster for Yor in vanilla). And Duranthium.... Was funny though

The only thing currently is that perhaps the tree looks quite boring compared to vanilla. There needs to be more differentiation, things for players to explore and try-out.

Plus, the fact that, end-tier weapons are completely unbalanced against hitpoints of hulls. But that is a prob on any approach I've seen so far. In the beginning combats do have 20+ rounds and later, only 1. +1000 attack versus 200 HP. Screws defenses or HP mods.

Hmm... I suppose I could start off making some comments regarding the changes I noticed for v2-20.

From what I've seen, someone has tried to fix the tech tree in ways that it wasn't done in v2-04. There were flaws that a veteran would notice after playing long enough. For instance, some starbase modules required techs that weren't on a civs tech tree. Everyone used to get them back in DL/DA, but in TA everyone started getting unique tech trees and some important weapon techs became unavailable to certain civs. I recall that the Terrans couldn't get a military starbase module because they didn't have disrupter techs, and the Yor had it worse because they didn't have the laser 5 which gave the prerequisite for some later military starbase modules.

Starbase defense modules no longer have their own unique tech line. That said, starbases defenses got a little bit worse as the series progressed, so I can't say that this will missed much. They were often something that consumed a lot of constructors to make (18 modules total per starbase if fully researched). Still, there isn't really much I can do to give them basic defenses. For weapons its either starbase fortification using the hull techs, or research a weapon line and get the odd unlock there. For defense, its only the defense techs. It would have been nice to get some defense modules along side the starbase fortification techs. Overall, starbases defenses seem weaker than v2-04. I can't say they will survive well without ships nearby or sitting on the same tile as the starbase.

It looks like the weapon and defense techs got standardized. There were some flaws with the old design. Still, it looks like they lost some character in the process. I have to look into it more to figure out if this really matters.

In v2-04, the Drengin didn't have access to counter espionage and final tier defense techs. Now they do. I thought them not having those techs was supposed to be a thing.

The changes to the power planet seems good. The fusion power planet (+10% manufacturing) wasn't worth my time, as you needed many factories to make it worth while. Now you only have the quantum power plant (+30% manufacturing) so you don't need many factories to be worth building a power plant.

There is almost a total loss of any ability to trade civilization unique techs. In v2-04, I loved grabbing Arcean Navigation techs, Torian Healing Pools, Iconian Merchant Centers, a number of Thanlan special techs, so on and so on. It gave me reason to keep them around as it give them more chances to research those techs so I could trade for them. Now there isn't much to get.

Arceans now research Weather Control Centers. I'm not so sure about whether or not they use them, but having them researched is a step in the right direction.

Some of the tech tree seems disorganized and messy. I don't like having to research soil enhancement before researching extreme worlds. Soil enhancement, in my mind is what I do after the colony rush, and extreme worlds are needed for the colony rush. As for ship sizes, logistics, and ship range, I think its in all the wrong order. In v2-20, you research basic logistics first, then another step in hull sizes, then ship range. And they are all placed in the same line. I think it world have worked better if those 3 lines shared a prerequisite so they all have their own lines and not require research in a strange order.

Well hello 

DivineWrath, some of the topics you mention are already been adressed in either TA 2.20 or the currently ongoing patch CU 6.1.2 - why don't you DL that [Reply #1823], fire it up and see the current state of affair.

Let me just bring you swiftly up to date on some the things you mentioned:

Most - if not all - the issues are fixed in TA 2.20 - which was one reason why the tree underwent homogenization.

The current rev actually reverts back to the vanilla numbers, ie. equal defense & attack, and re-added the Starbase-Fortification-techbranch.

There may - or may not - arise a number of problems from this change which need to be closely observed in testplays (and AI autoplays) to wit:

- certain AIs completely ignore defensive-techs (eg. AIP8 AIP7) and that may lock them out of getting any military strength on any SB in a game where techtradeing is down. We may need to shift certain modules right into the generic part of the techtree, esp. on techs not labelled as defense (such as weapons or hulls or whatever)

- the Military Starbase assist modules techline is currently labelled Weapons again. At a glance some AIs dive too swiftly into this and that is actually throttling down their weapons-progression. I'm still not sure if all AIP fall into that trap, because some AIP have a feature to lock themselves into a specific weaponsbranch and ignore the rest (or: the other 2)

- if SBs are getting invincible again and the AI is sending endlessly ships in suicide mission against them. That perhaps more of an issue if a player intentionally makes a strategy for this.

We're currently debating this and thinking about methods to make it more interesting again.

Removing CounterEsp from them may proove to be a frustrating thing for the player. However, I don't have any hard opinion on that matter. The AIs certainly don't need that improvement that much.

As for defense, I suggested to -at least- increase their techcosts by a good amount.

All 3 PPs are back in^^ I agree that the Fusion is sort of irrelevant. We try to sort that problem out by reducing the AI-tag so the AI is more inclined to just build the stronger ones. This needs to be closely observed in testplays once they start.

That's true. One of the basic problems if you make all unique techs freely available is that it's impossible to tell the AI which improvement is better than the other. You can only have one Upgrade-target. So if the Terrans get their hands on a Traders-Den it will still appear under "Newest" [improvements] even if they already have Stock Markets - and they will build both of them equally. A player will never do that so that actually makes the AI game less strong. But that problem specifically arises only if improvements are considered.

Back then we started to make some of the unique improvements *stealably* - but that somehow was cut short because the CU became feature frozen and was never completed. We may expand on this once we find time. It would also raise the incentive to place spies on AI worlds and keep them there. However, there are so many techs currently stealable - basically all common ones - that the chance that such a "lucky proc" happens is really low.... 

We may need to make some of conventional tradeable techs unstealably. Although that could actually also open up a can of worms in the case where you're at war with a hostile civ that is not going to trade weapons with you, and on invasion you get their best weapon, such a proc can mean a gamechanger.

Perhaps make the unique techs tradeably again but increase their value(s) so high that you need to come up with a boatload of items to actually get them - although that would greatly favour good diplomatic races while mean on others that these trade-deals practically never happen.

They do.

I agree. And currently it's even become more disorganized. Upon finalization we need to think hard on this again, including getting critical feedback.

Some of the changes which you negatively mention were actually bandfixes to manipulate the AIs to get a tech which they usually are reluctant to get.

Basic Logistics was put before Hulls because at that stage of the game the AIs usually have a large stack of Fighters/Heavy Fighters and logistics will add much more to their combat capacity than a new hull. However, the still-persistant problem is that ALL AIs aren't really focused on getting hulls or logistics or miniaturization at all. They mostly research weapons. Even during the colonial rush. And because weapons are very expensive they spend enermous time on that, some AIP more than 75%. I've no clue if that was specifically done or a result of some of the corrections that were done to the prereqs (there were some blatant mislabelling of techs which actually locked an AI completely out) but I find this to be a problem. If a player can go straight to Medium Scale Building + a bit into logistcs & minia he will wipe the floor with any AI Fighter fleets even if he uses only T1 weapons and they are at T2 etc. Not to say you could just trade for these wepaons (if all AIs are just researching those you will find someone that is compliant with your offer) and thereby negate all potential downsides of this strategy.

The basic problem is to get the AI to research hulls ("logistics"). They're simply not greatly interested in that...

The SoilEnhancement / X-Col connection is already cleared in the latest rev.

As for Range - it's irrelevant. Even the most basic and free rangemod is so effective and tiny you can already reach half the galaxy on startup. So for the AI it's the best to keep that branch away from him. It may not be that logical but if Range needs Logistics as prereq it will increase the chance of the AI to pick up Logistics - at least - the first tech^^

Well there are still some void one like HyperFusionReactors but all in all, you're right.

We're back to vanilla and currently adjusting the values.

I will - at some point - use this technique in my mod. I guess it's a too great a change to integrate into the official version. However, there is still the bug around which cancels out unique-civ techs from the minor-tree and I'd like to fix that once we've finalized the stockrace's trees.

I'll go poke around the latest files and see what I can learn. Do you want me to be well read up on the changes before commenting further?

Maybe I'll make starbases my first pet project. They haven't got very much love as this game was developed. Though, I don't know how much they can be fixed. They didn't exactly get much in terms of improvements so I don't have much to work with.

Well, the description for Evil Federation still isn't showing up, after adding the missing c. Maybe the reference in the UI has been set incorrectly (or is missing altogether), but I have no way of verifying this. Other than that, I have no idea what's wrong with this description. It has been bugging me for years now.

Okay.

I see them as efficiency-booster. They're meant to make your existing production more efficient. They're not here to replace factories on low-PQ planets.

I'm not sure I agree with the maintenance, but the rest seems reasonable enough. The Yor economy is definitely strong enough to cope with a maint of 4bc.

I don't see the reasoning behind this. Locking out the Yor from using the QPP, while the Drengin/Korath, Iconians, and Thalan still can. Especially the Thalan can be quite terrifying with it, due to the huge amount of ability bonuses they can get.

I thought I changed that back to the original 20%.

The way I understand the design is that the Drengin/Korath are supposed to use lots of manu-boosters to enhance their low-production factories. It's an interesting concept, and makes the Drengin/Korath play different than the other races. However, you're right in that this doesn't work right. It requires too much PQ to be effective.

Tolmekian and I talked at length about how to fix this, back when he was still working on his mod. We came up with several approaches, like turning some of the booster into SPs or GAs, making them upgrade into the next one (that was before I discovered the 1pp-bug), or replacing some of them with ability-bonuses. However, they all didn't work out right. Either because they were too far removed from the original design, or because they made the Drengin/Korath weaker by removing effectiveness.

Adding raw-production might fix that. However, none of the boosters are fitting for that from a pure background look at things. The Devil's Forge makes all the slavelings work harder, the Death Furnace, Wretched Harvester, and Aul Incinerator burn slaves/clones to provide energy, and the Slaveling Training Center and Artificial Slave Pods make better slavelings. I could maybe see it work for the STC and ASP, but that's stretching the definition of "making better slavelings" very hard.

Another idea would be to reduce the cost and maintenance of the boosters, and add a pop-growth penalty to offset this. At least for the Drengin-ones. That would make the boosters more useful (you'd only need four Slave Canyons before it's effective to build one), and be in line with the intended design of the Drengin/Korath. I'd use pop-growth, because the Drengin/Korath get a ton of bonuses to it, and it fits right in with the use of the boosters. All the slavelings you burn each day in the Death Furnace need to come from somewhere, right?

All right.

Primarily the changes to the Korx and Krynn. Most of the rest got already covered.

Agreed on the boring part. I'm all for adding more vanilla.

That's what I was afraid of. I never had a problem with starting from scratch when noticing that something went wrong, despite all the work I put into my mod. Of course, not everybody behaves that way. Especially when it involves somebody else changing your work.

Regardless, I didn't want to go back to the vanilla design. At least, not quite. My intention was to use a mix of the DA and TotA weapon designs, plus some adjustments. It's the same design I'm using in AT 2.0, and it works quite well at making each race unique in that area.

Also, I probably already pissed OShee off, because I removed several techs along with his new descriptions. Nothing against him. His descriptions are well written on a technical front. Well, at least much better than I can do it. However, they often read like bad fan-fiction. For example, the Drengin ones make them sound like stereotypical villainous slaveholders, who are evil for evils sake. I hated it when the same thing happened in GalCiv 3, so you can probably guess how I feel about it here.

That's quite the dedication! Back then I probably would have loved that. Now, not so much. The weapons and defences feel over-designed. Too artificial. The original design, while flawed, felt more organic. DA also did a much better job at making each weapon tier different, in my opinion.

To properly fix this is impossible without access to the source-code. Also, it's technically not a bug. It's an intentional limitation of the minors, added during the TotA-Beta, that was forgotten to be removed when the reason behind its existence was no longer valid.

And here I thought the solution was so obvious that I didn't need to backcheck    

I've tried to alternate a few random solutions but none of them worked. It's not possible to look into the executable-code itself to derive the name of the link from it?

I would've eliminated the possibility of Drengin/Korath/Iconian building one of those as well. They certainly don't need them, esp. not if they just trade for FusionPP or AMPP. That might ensure that, for example, the Iconian will always use the MolFabr and not a FPP (which will happen if you just play it out on enough planets).

But I guess it simply boils down to personal preference. Guess it's fine either way

We need to keep an eye on the Oracle of Krynn once testgames start. AFAIR sometimes a too-high planetary morale can fool the AI into raising its taxes too high, even to the point where common planets do not grow anymore (although they could.) However, I think AIP does well with that, it's been the Iconian AIP10 which fell into that trap all too often. (that's why OSHee reduced the starting DreamConclave's bonus to 15% and created another one with the full bonus)

I like the changes to the Espionage-temples. In CU these had nothing to do with real Espionage anymore. Now it's true that Espionage is such a crap-ability for the AI, but if just one AI - whose general thematic it actually is - is affected I'm willing to comply for the sole reason of diversity. If the Krynn are too much handicapped by that or turn out in testgames to be relatively too weak we may boost them by other means if necessary.

We could even set the AI of those improvements relatively low so the AI doesn't consider to build them. For a player they're quite interesting IMO.

I'm a little bit sceptic about the removal of their research-bonuses on the TechVic-branch. It may be a bit too excessive. The starting handicap already slows them down throughout the game, I think such things are fair if these weaknesses can be overcome as a game unfolds. [just like with Altarians & Weapons, or Thalan & (traded) Farms, or Torian who happen to have lots of researchbonuses from techs but worse labs.]

I've yet to understand why the Krynn actually should be worse at research...? The only thing that hints at that is in the   AbilitiesDescription but that might be an error or oversight. Looking at the TA 2.042 there was nothing whatsoever to confirm that - actually quite the opposite (generic + more bonuses from techs and 2 unique impr to costruct a super-researchworld....). Having the worst SA in conjunction with espionage-bonuses I thought is enough of a handicap^^

I'd simply use a combination of all your mentioned solutions and you're done. I agree that none of the boosters would make a good factory, but slipping a minor industry into one of them wouldn't raise any eyebrows at all. Especially not if some of the mentioned subjects like "harvesting the soul to increase production" sounds like a bad combination of magic/fantasy-realm with Sci-Fi...

I'd reduce DeathFurnace to 15%, set the tech to require SlavePits (or somewhere else very early), reduce its techcosts by much, and let the AULInc upgrade it. The current layout has the problem (if you reduce it to 20%) that DeathFurnace will harbour the same planetary bonus than the Slaveling Training Center, whose tech is more cheap and even brings +10% MP. So it's a no-brainer which route to take, not a meaningful choice.

The effect will be that you'll see the AUL Inc more on Korath planets. Thing is that in a lot of cases not many of these boosters are placed because planets are already filled up. The Wretched Harvester is perhaps the most common one. I think to have an early one in the Slave-facs line wouldn't hurt. Also if Korath take planets from Drengin they may autoupgrade more. And for Korath that'll mean -1 one booster to the final queue.

Yeah, add a little bit of popgrowth to some of them to diversify their relative strength. This is going to make the choice much more interesting from a player-standpoint. Perhaps loyalty could also be a stat? I mean these ambivalent usage is already hinted at with the design of the WretchedHarvester, so we wouldn't do anything awfully alien.

I would have loved if that sim would've been made available to the whole team  

Anyway, I've just dl AT 2.11 and had a look at it and quite like the design of the weapons- & defensebranches. Most - if not all - vanilla differentiations are included, even tiny ones (I like the intricate details) that fell under the nerfhammer (just like, ArmorPlating cost only 3 - you actually expanded that to all 3 branches) or the OP ScatterBlaster or turning that OP Duranthium into a good-choice.

I also like that Iconians have their "Advanced" +5% weapons back. You even expanded that to defenses - which is good. Back then I complained why that's been taken out but was informed that [!] "if they would research all these 3 advanced techs they'd have +15% and that would be OP".... I then layed out that for someone to do that would require to completely research all 3*tier1 weaponbranches + these 3*advanced techs to finally be able to use tier1 weapons + 15% bonus - which consumes so much research production that you could easily reach tier3 with that! And build much stronger ships.... but it was ignored, really... downright ignored.

Ironically, this is exactly how AIP10+11 exerts its weapons-research if many opponents are on the map! I just fired a single testgame using CU 2.20 and Iconians researched in a straight row "MD Theory", "Beam Theory", "ScatterBlaster1", "KinStreams1", "KinStreams2" & "ScatterBlaster2" [!!].

Unlike AIP8 & 7 which pick one branch and ignore the others - which is by far the better method to acquire combat strength - they're usually always 1-2 tiers ahead and only techtradeing may even that out.

[to be fair, AIP7 & 8 ignore defenses for a very long time, but given the fact that once fleets rise in logistics all-weapons is the very best approach to shipdesign anyway... so that's even a bonus...)

So from my point of view these "Advanced" weapontechs actually help mitigateing a flaw & immense weakness of the Iconian AI. And just a tiny bit if you ask me, actually that should be expanded to the other AIP10 & 11 as well....

I also start to wonder what went wrong in the CU defense-design... Back then we did double defense-strength because of its insignificancy in greater fleetbattle. Then Silas adjusted all values in accordance to his sims and even included techcosts. I then asked if perhaps defense-costs could be reduced by roundabout 30% - so that, at least, the one AIs that utilize defenses (and that are already those that usually loose militarily) could cover up their losses more swiftly. But that went completely overboard - the 3 defense ultimates cost 15 @ 12 raw strength; so 1 def for 1 PP^^ That's a reduction of 500% in relation to the vanilla values!!! I can build a Frigate for under 600PP having more than 400 defenses. Now in vanilla defenses were sort of too weak - ie. defenseships were even more expensive although they had more raw stats (which still didn't make them batter... but, at least, you could get them swiftly, so unless the AI had toptier weapons you countered tier2 weapon with tier3/4 defenses and it did work....) but the current outlay is now completely unbalanced IMO.

And I think someone tried to "counterbalance" this by adjusting techcosts of defenses. Albeit only very selectively. ZPA has been trippled as to suggest having this is too strong. And indeed, because of the low firepower of BHG - I can build a +204 Armor-Frigate @ 335PP cost or a +120 Driver Frigate @ 1040 costs. Which doesn't do away with the fact one can still reach ZPA much more quickly than any top-weapons and so completely stun MD ships.

BTW is this https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/107322588/GalCiv/Mods/Autumn%20Twilight%20Mod%20Changes.ods

your current sheet of TA?

I think I begin to understand. So if Yor have a 1on1 versus Thalan its function is to remove access to those factions from, say, the generic factories etc pp via the Minors. Fromthat perspective it even makes sense. Although it totally screws the Minors and I rather find stronger Minors much more interesting than crippled ones...

But yeah, there is no elegant solution short of giving them an own tree, at least, in the regions were uniquely techs are considered, and those are many....

Would it be possible to add "Fleet Warp Bubbles" back into the Minor's tree - and change their label/cat to something else (so they may research it)?

Currently this tech is only used by Terrans, and treated as part of the TechVic - as such they never really research it. Unless one plays Terrans these Bubbles have been practically removed from the game. I found them quite useful in vanilla. And they were real easy to get from Minors - because they've been mislabelled Defense/Military. Perhaps Propulsion would do likewise?

I also wonder if this tech has been correctly placed (even in vanilla)? The desc states "Warp Bubbles are nothing new. The concept of Warp Drive is one familiar to any respectable scientist in the field." although you can research them much sooner than Warp Drive. Maybe they were supposed to have Warp Drive as prereq? Or maybe that desc could be changed... the same text is repeated for all 3 versions....

I don't know(The warp drive is limited in that it can be used only on one ships where the warp field can be expanded to include several ships to increase the speed of the whole fleet making this more efficient, and saving space to more importamnt stuff than just engines) just an idea on a possible description what do you think.

You could ascribe the Korx's penalty as well with "loyalty" as their planets revolt rather swiftly. I'm not so sure if the Korx really have a moral problem indeed - their "Festival of Capitalism" carries +25% so for the starting game, they are at the top (with a few others) - at least, what's morale coming from improvements is concerned. Then, the field of morale also includes how well the AI is able to adjust taxes - Korx do quite well (they are - together with Torians...) the ones most apt to go through the colony rush without getting broke (although one increment of this is their SA which makes them often build Freighters instead of Colony Ships which actually handicaps them in the long run....). So if the Korx can sustain a high morale due to low taxes that field shouldn't be problematic and that's why I find the removal of the EntNetwork to be rather a buff than a nerf, because the MarketCenter is twice already as strong in cash return than it (except on morale - tiles, but they shall put the Festival on it).

I can't find any real weaknesses on the Krynns tree, but I'm all for removing their starting research-penalty now that you removed -20% from the TechVic. Morale certainly isn't it if they start out with a +50% bonus to it, although other AI may beat them by building 3*VRC on all planets but that is something that only in endgame can be achieved and there's no guarantee that it will ever happen.

They do have less access to certain Trade Goods/Wonders steming from the generic morale/culture-branch.

Except Espionage, although they had -50% less than Iconians in vanilla they got +45% from buildings and their starting +50% moral made them actually able to jack up taxes higher which does also shiffle more funding into espionage. but it would be awkward/paradoxical to label an actual bonus as a downside....

The Incinerator upgradeing the Harvester would feel awkward - because they look completely different. Though you could change just swap icons here. Most of these booster do the same anyway, so i doesn't matter. But your counter-argument still stands, in the case of the player who may differ in research-pattern. So an improvement that upgrades another one has to be from the same branch but later - so that the problem of useless techs can't be created.

You could, in the case of the Korath - just intermingle the tech "Death Furnaces" in between "Wretched Cloneing" and "Aul Incineration". This will give the Korath also the possibility to have a headstart on erecting those boosters - as they have 2 more in their selection than the Drengin. Or even set it before "Wretched Cloneing" because the Harvester is actually the stronger one.

Or you put the AUL Inc up and at the end of the "factories" - branch, that may also solve the problem of using the Incinerator sooner before those other boosters (which happen to be stronger if the current layout stays as is).

I think we take the risks to integrate that. It just seems much more interestingly designed, and the current design of defense mods is unacceptable. I just would like to ask if defenses could get some love from tier3 onward, because there's a tendency of the vanilla design of them to be too weak. At least, once logistics rise. Although that could simply be sorted out by reducing prices. A defense-ship mustn't be more expensive than an all-attack one. I'd go with -10% for Tier3 and increase that by -5% as each tier advances.

See that's what I call good balancing - give & take. And you brought an original DA feeling with it. Well done!

Thanks for the info - so the Minors outuilt some of the Beta-Testers... LMAO 

It works. I've observed this pattern (amongst other patterns...) as well in my mod where I occassionaly did lock out certain AIs from having access to several branches. (eg. Korx don't have morale but econ instead, Torian the opposite no econ but most-strong morale). The tax slider mechanism is responsible for that. An AI in good economic status accepts lower taxes in favour of increased popgrowth and the opposite is the case if his balance goes negative.

Actually, building economic structure instead of morale improvements will always net you higher taxes - in direct comparsion - even the Stock Market @ 25% beats a Torian Hot Spring @ 50%. A 10% moral eimpr will net 50% to 60% less than a econ structure of same strength.

(However, these numbers fluctuate wildly because morale is increasingly depreciated by population - I've taken a 8b planet as base for my tests AFAIR - so it may be a bit better on sub-par planets that won't rise more due to lowPQ but much worse if the AI builds farms)

I'm just used to the vanilla outlay, and I guess most players share that with me. These bubbles are too much a fun aspect to lock the player out of them. Especially because they're practically the only way to utilize Terror Stars in a non-frustrating way - which is also a player-only feature and a trademark of TA.

What could be done is to prevent, at least, the Terran AI from researching them by not correcting the mis-labelling in the Terran-tree.

All right, I finished the new version. Here is the zip and the changelog.

So, what's new?

I made a first pass on the pre-assigned customization points for all races. For various reasons, not everybody got five points worth of bonuses assigned though. For example, the Terrans got a +1 to Speed, and the Altarians another 20% to Research. Both bonuses are only worth four points, but they are strong enough on their own to not require assigning another point.

I made a second (and third) pass on the Drenging and Korath manufacturing-boosters. The result is okay-ish, but could use another look. I originally wanted to keep the total bonuses the same, but that didn't work out. It made the Aul Incinerator simply too strong (as I mentioned before, I don't want it to encroach on the 50% bonus of the Molecular Fabricator). So I ended up reducing the bonus. The Drengin now end with +70% (instead of +80%), but only need three improvements (the Slaveling Training Center now upgrades to the Artificial Slave Pods). While the Korath end with +100% (instead of +130%), but only need four improvements (the Wretched Harvester now upgrades to the Aul Incinerator). The Devil's Forge tech also got moved to Xeno Slavery, giving the Drengin and Korath quicker access to it and the subsequent boosters.

Besides adjusting the Power Plants, Manufacturing Vortex, and the Torian labs, as previously discussed, I also made some changes to the Capitals and a couple other wonders.
The Political, Manu, and Econ Capital are now back on vanilla values. They were, overall, a bit too strong. The Tech Capital got brought down to +50% research in order to compensate for the stronger labs. The Omega Research Center is a GA again and only provides a +100% research bonus, for similar reasons.
The Distributed Energy Matrix, Shrine of the Mithrilar, Shrine of Tandis, and Doomsday Generator are now back to vanilla values (with the exception of the maintenance of the Generator). The DEM is the Yor version of the Manu Capital, so it should be on a similar power level. The Shrines didn't make sense in their CU-incarnation. For example,  the tech for the SotM says that it "brings all people of our civilization together in joy", while the description of the building say that it "will inspire those who are not part of our civilization to join us." So, one implies a Morale-bonus, while the other is clearily about Pop-Growth. That's quite the disconnect. The powerlevel is also much lower. This is especially noticable with the SoT. A 10% bonus to Morale you have to be Good for in order to get just isn't that great compared to a 25% bonus to several attributes. Sure, the latter is only planetary, but you can get more out of it, if you use it right. Plus, it's more unique. Morale-bonuses are very prevalent in the game. The Doomsday Generator had the opposite problem. It was too strong due to the ShipQualityBonus. That bonus gets multiplied by the Weapons/Defense-ability bonuses. Considering how many of those bonuses the Altarians get, the result can be quite nasty. Overall, I think ShipQualityBonus should be exclusive to the Arceans. It makes more sense in their hands. However, I'm not quite sure what should be done with the Hyperion Shipyard in that case.
Lastly, I moved the Restaurant of Eternity back to Trade, the Gravity Accelerator back to Zero-G Sports Arenas, and the Galactic Resort to Soil Enhancement. The RoE made sense on Xeno Business, but it's much more useful on Trade. This way, everybody, including the Influence-challenged races, has access to it. The same goes for the Galactic Resort (though I can't say that it made sense on Zero-G Sports Arenas). The Gravity Accelerator makes much more thematic sense being exclusive to the speed-related races (Terrans and Arceans). I was also getting annoyed that the Thalan regularly manage to grab it, because they start with the necessary tech.

The AT weapon/defense design is now fully implemented. This also includes the changes to the weapon animations. Some of them, especially the ones for the mass drivers, need a look at. The cost of the defenses got re-adjusted, but not necessarily by the requested value. Overall, PD is now the cheapest (max 45), followed by Shields (max 50), and finally Armor (max 55).

I've also included the AT propulsion design. This means that Warp Drive Mk. IV and V are back in, and that some values got changed. Nothing major, but it should make the engines (both tech and module) flow a bit better.

I had a first pass on the race differentiation, removing several cost adjustments in the individual tech trees, and re-adding vanilla ones.
The Arceans got hit especially hard. They got cost-increases to Interstellar Governments, Cultural Domination, Cultural Insurrection, Cultural Conquest, Diplomatic Relations, Majesty, Trade, Xeno Entertainment, Industrial Sectors, Xeno Bank Construction, Galactic Stock Exchanges, Habitat Improvement, Research Academies, Invation Matrix, Advanced Force Fields, Invulnerability Field, Invulnerability Field II, and Ultimate Invulnerability. That's a bit overkill. I guess we could keep the Culture and Diplomacy-related ones. Not sure about the rest. They seem like they would do more harm than good.
The Krynn had a cost-increase to Particle Beams and Harpoons in their vanilla tech tree. It's not in the Torian one, so it's definitely intended for the Krynn. I inlcuded it, along with a cost-increase for Singularity Drivers. However, it feels more fitting for the Torians. Especially considering the way AIP 10 researches weapons. The design is also quite reminiscent of the Advanced Weapons techs of the Iconians.
As requested, the Minors got access to Fleet Warp Bubbles again. I haven't tested it yet, but the AIValue may need some adjustments. The Minors are still using the Terran value, making it unlikely for them to research the techs anytime soon.

I think that's all of the major changes. Though I've probably forgotten some again. In any case, they should be in the changelog.

There are still some changes I'd like to do. Most importantly:

The Drath.
Their new techs aren't balanced. They've got a new Diplomacy-boosting one, even though Invisible Hands already provides a big boost. This makes the Drath the strongest diplomats in the game. Far surpassing even the Terrans. Then they've got a new Influence-boosting one, even though the Drath have no deficit in that area, and aren't supposed to be stronger than anyone else. Now, they are a cultural powerhouse, surpassing even the Iconians (though just barely). Their new entertainment tech also feels out of place. It comes across as bad fan-fiction (again!), and the description of the improvement is just grinche-worthy. "Our kind has few joys in life. Watching our hatchlings grow and play is one of them." Seriously? That's something I'd expect to hear from the Torians (bloody whiners), not the proud Drath.

Overall, I'd like to remove the new techs, and add the old entertainment techs back in. Preferably, the Xeno Mysticism-line of techs too. We could reduce the Weapons-bonus from Dark Energy Research, so the Drath don't end up being more powerful than the Altarians. Even if we leave that line of techs out, the Drath tech tree should still feel unique enough with Invisible Hands, the Temple-line of entertainment techs, and the weapons/defenses differentiation.

Re-Supply Center, Logistics System, Shrinker.
I'd like to turn them back into SPs. They got originally turned into GAs, because you could get multiples of them, and they would all stack. However, that's also what was so interesting: the hunt to get them. Sometimes, you needed to give the AI the necessary tech in order to coax it to finally construct the buildings, so you could harvest them. Right now, it's basically all or nothing. You're either the first to research the techs and get a headstart on building the improvements, or somebody else beats you to it. This is especially devastating with the Shrinker, due to the reduction to the bonuses of the Miniaturization techs. Though the Logistics System is only slightly behind, due to the importance of logistics in combat. With those buildings being SPs again, this wouldn't be much of an issue. Everybody would start on an equal footing, and the victorious race would get more powerful over time. As it should be.

UP issues.
Last time we had a discussion about increasing the effect of some of the proposal. I'd still like to do that, because it would make the UP meetings a bit more relevant, and give IPs at least some value. We could also add a couple more proposals to replace all the ones that needed to be removed, because they don't work.

I didn't say that the Korx have a "morale problem", just that morale is the biggest downside of their tech tree. Sure, they have the Festival of Capitalism 1pp. It's indeed pretty good at the start. Then what? They have access to the Counter Espionage Center, a couple Morale-bossting TGs, and the Secret Police Center (if they go Evil). Just like most of the other races. However, they don't have any spammable morale improvements, or any techs that boost Morale. Do they need that? No, the Korx work perfectly fine without any of that. However, when you compare the Korx tech tree to the others, that's the area that is noticeable weaker.

Hm, didn't Terror Stars get changed to not be affected by Warp Bubbles in one of the patches? I'm pretty sure of that.

Found it: "+ NEW:  If a terror star is added to a fleet, it NULLIFIES the effect of fleet speed enhancing modules such as warp bubbles."

I doesn't seem to be working though. Just tested it myself, and the fleet containing the Terror Star had a move of 4 after I added a ship with a +3 Warp Bubble. Even after skipping several turns, it the fleet still had 4 moves. Well, I guess I was living with a lie all those years.