New ship balancing - asking for testing and feedback

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Tue, 5. Oct 04, 11:09

Hi everybody !

First off I shall apologize for not posting this earlier in the english area.

After several topics about issues with the existing ship balancing, I have been investigating what can/must be done and developed a new balance for ships. This mod will make all of the ships useful again, and it also ends the nobody-can-beat-my-one-ship-army as you now will require escort ships to fend off the smaller ships from your comfy M2. Finally you can expect the game to be challenging again !

If you are interested in a better game experience, feel free to have a look at my thread in the ideas forum (requires Level 3 access):

http://www.egosoft.com/x2/forum/viewtop ... highlight=

This is a pure mod which modifies the ships speeds and manouverability and adapts missiles accordingly, so it has no scripts which could bug out. Existing ships (yours, race and enemy ships) will not be updated automatically, so this mod requires that all ships must be respawned. Thus, starting out a new game is recommended.

P.S.: I shall try my best to get this signed if possible.

Thank you for reading,
- Mauzi2.

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Tue, 5. Oct 04, 22:38

Attention: From now on this mod can be used with any standard savegame without having to startover !

Until now, you had to start a new game of X2 to make sure that all ships in the universe use the modified ship data, instead of only the newly respawned or purchased ones. So, you can just apply this mod to any of your savegames and continue it with the new ship balancing.

Many thanks goes to Lucike, who made the required script that in a one-time process alters the ships of all the universe. Just make sure that you save your savegame once the mod is active.

In addition to that, there's been minor changes to the missiles.
I also added a complete sheet of all the new ship and missile data for your reference.

Here's the already known link to download the file from Ticaki's website:

http://www.x-scripts.de/dload.php?actio ... file_id=27

Kailric · Post by **Kailric** » Wed, 6. Oct 04, 03:36

Mauzi2 wrote:Attention: From now on this mod can be used with any standard savegame without having to startover !

Until now, you had to start a new game of X2 to make sure that all ships in the universe use the modified ship data, instead of only the newly respawned or purchased ones. So, you can just apply this mod to any of your savegames and continue it with the new ship balancing.

Many thanks goes to Lucike, who made the required script that in a one-time process alters the ships of all the universe. Just make sure that you save your savegame once the mod is active.

In addition to that, there's been minor changes to the missiles.
I also added a complete sheet of all the new ship and missile data for your reference.

Here's the already known link to download the file from Ticaki's website:

http://www.x-scripts.de/dload.php?actio ... file_id=27

Got it...will check it out!

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Wed, 6. Oct 04, 19:42

New Update available

Some issue with the automatic update of existing ships of a loaded savegame has been found and hopefully fixed. To install the mod now, you will have to perform an extra step during "Installation". This is described in the updated readme file.

For this mod update I ask everybody to do several tests loading different non-modified savegames and especially verify if...
- ...ships in the current sector have been updated
- ...the current player ship has been updated
- ...ships in other sectors have been updated
You can verify this easily using the attached excel sheet. All the listed numbers have been modified and can be taken as reference for comparision

Here goes the known link to the file: http://www.x-scripts.de/dload.php?actio ... file_id=27

Enjoy !

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Thu, 7. Oct 04, 00:45

New Update available

Since the issues for integration into existing games are resolved, the actual balancing testing is in progress. As appropriate, the results will immediately make it into a new build of this mod. Since it's the first iteration of this progress, this modification here is quite large and recommended to add. The mod/script combo is to be installed as usual and will take effect on loading or starting a game.

Here goes the known link to the file: http://www.x-scripts.de/dload.php?actio ... file_id=27

During the ongoing process of testing and refining the balancing in this mod, there'll probably be new updates daily. I shall not post about them each time unless they're important, so just check the site using the above link whenever you think you might like an update. To easy this, you best verify the version numbers or just download the latest update right away.

Enjoy !

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sun, 10. Oct 04, 22:35

New Update to Version 0.70 available - NOW WITH LASERMOD

Since the ships overall have become faster, the weapons had to get adapted aswell to make sure you'll still be able to hit something. Thus I added another mod for lasers to the ships and missile mod. During this process some of the known balance problems of weapons were removed. In addition this version contains some further balancing enhancements for the ships.

Please find further details in the enclosed readme of the download.

Here goes the known link to the file: http://www.x-scripts.de/dload.php?actio ... file_id=27

Enjoy !

Kailric · Post by **Kailric** » Mon, 11. Oct 04, 02:39

Is there a spec sheet where we can compare the changes you made to the old. That way we will know how things use to be. For me it would give a better understanding of whats has changed and let me test things more effecient?

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Mon, 11. Oct 04, 08:39

Sure is, it's right inside the downloadable ZIP file: The excel sheet within contains info about all speeds, etc of ships, missiles and weapons.

Have fun with it, and thanks for testing !

Kailric · Post by **Kailric** » Thu, 14. Oct 04, 18:39

Mauzi! wrote:Sure is, it's right inside the downloadable ZIP file: The excel sheet within contains info about all speeds, etc of ships, missiles and weapons.

Have fun with it, and thanks for testing !

Sorry I totally looked over that for some reason

Anyway, the lasers on the version I have say the same as the missiles?? Could I be doing something wrong or is there a bug in the spreedsheet?

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Thu, 14. Oct 04, 22:00

You are right, some mistake happened there, which I found myself too recently. I'll update the infos as soon as I have time, they're all prepared in my original calculations already anyways. Hope you are fine if I do it somewhen on next weekend - if not just say so.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but at least for now there's descriptive text about the details of the weapons changes.

Do you - or anybody else out there - have some feedback on how the mod feels during gameplay for your personal gaming style ?

Kailric · Post by **Kailric** » Fri, 15. Oct 04, 00:34

Mauzi! wrote:You are right, some mistake happened there, which I found myself too recently. I'll update the infos as soon as I have time, they're all prepared in my original calculations already anyways. Hope you are fine if I do it somewhen on next weekend - if not just say so.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but at least for now there's descriptive text about the details of the weapons changes.

Do you - or anybody else out there - have some feedback on how the mod feels during gameplay for your personal gaming style ?

Take your time, I am not in too much a hurry. I am currently finishing up the next update for the Xai AI and my plan was to test your mod with the knew update..so I will get back to you when that is done...Cheers!!

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sun, 24. Oct 04, 10:15

Sorry that it took so long, but I had alot of RL crap last week and no time for X² at all. Well, that's over now - and I just updated the data sheet of this mod with the missing numbers and released it as V0.72.

No further changes have been made, so if you ain't interested in exact numbers for the weapons you can just stick to the old version.

Kailric · Post by **Kailric** » Sun, 24. Oct 04, 11:05

Got it

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Wed, 27. Oct 04, 00:21

New Update to Version 0.80 available !

The work on this mod is continued, and there were further suggestions implemented:
The bullets of the standard lasers are now significiantly faster, so that the KI hits alot better, which reduces the player's benefit of using a targetting computer and the strafe drive.
In addition, the PPCs were overhauled again, making them more deadly for small ships than ever.

Please find further details in the enclosed readme of the download.

Here goes the known link to the file: http://www.x-scripts.de/dload.php?actio ... file_id=27

Enjoy !

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Thu, 28. Oct 04, 16:17

New Update to Version 0.81 available !

Sorry to say, but that last version had some old files in it, so it wasn't the promised change. But while at it to fix that, I decided to completely overhaul all weapons firstly, so that this latest version will provide a new gaming experience.

Please find further details in the enclosed readme of the download.

Here goes the known link to the file: http://www.x-scripts.de/dload.php?actio ... file_id=27

Enjoy !

Cursed Ghost · Post by **Cursed Ghost** » Thu, 28. Oct 04, 23:48

hi

this sounds intresting but i cant seem to work out how to install it ?

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Fri, 29. Oct 04, 09:01

Thank you for being interested.There's some files that must be copied into your game directory structure.

Installation is pretty simple:
- MauziMod.cat and MauziMod.cat belong into <your X² directory>\mods
- setup.plugin.remove.add.tuning.xml belongs into <your X² directory>\scripts

Beforehand I suggest that you copy your savegames (the "Xnn.sav" files in your X² directory) to a safe place. This should be done regularely and if you havn't done so recently, adding a game modification is a good time to do so. This is especially useful to save a game that has no "modified" tag for eventual later use.

After that you just fire up your X² game and select the custom mod "MauziMod" in the startup choice. Then you start the game as usual and either start a new game or load a loaded file.

A new game receives the new balancing settings right away. If you use a loaded game, the existing ships in all the universe will be updated by the attached autorunning script. If you then save the game, you are done.

I hope this helps getting you up and running. Feel free to ask any further questions you may have.

Cursed Ghost · Post by **Cursed Ghost** » Fri, 29. Oct 04, 18:25

MauziMod.cat and MauziMod.cat belong into <your X² directory>\mods
- setup.plugin.remove.add.tuning.xml belongs into <your X² directory>\scripts

????

when i hit the download button on the link you provided http://www.x-scripts.de/dload.php?actio ... file_id=27

all i get is a file called Mauzi's no wonedr i couldnt work out how to install it where can i find the mod ???

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Fri, 29. Oct 04, 20:59

Ah.. sorry, I forgot the first part: The file you downloaded ist a ZIP archive, so you will need WinZip or something similar to extract the files of the readme.

As result you receive several files: Some documentation and the mod files. Those extracted files you will need to put into your X² directories as described.

Cursed Ghost · Post by **Cursed Ghost** » Sat, 30. Oct 04, 00:06

hi

i decovered why im havin trouble geting the file that sight is an IE only page and im using firefox which is why im not seeing the file

works on when i down load with ie though

ok got the file but must be doin somthing wrong coz it wont load the game loads ok i go to start a new game and the screen just goes black and i have to reboot