Modding

[UesugiKenshin]

The Android version lacks editors meaning all editing is through notepad. Several essential ships should be configured for all major races.

All pertinent ship data can be found at the German wiki at these links.
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... plist.data
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... ata-Values
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... aumschiffe

1. Since there is no mechanism of hailing an unknown minor or major race, but it seems as though they won't attack colony ships unless a state of hostilities exists (or a surprise attack), then there should be an interim step between a standard barebones colony ships, with better sensor range and a better engine to get long range...even if slow.

Then you save these to do terraforming and initial first contact. Subsequent colony ships are armed and might get attacked upon entering a system without realizing it's inhabited.

You have an idea when there is a yellow circle with a black question mark as that indicates a fleet or ships.

[Note: don't be fooled. The AI stacks ships and what looks on top like a lone ship may have a fleet right under it.]

[UesugiKenshin]

2. Maintenance ships might be useful that could go out and make repairs as some ships like scouts go way out there long range and may get damaged (usually just destroyed).

3. Ships that add construction points to outposts and starbases as upgrades.

4. Better scouts with high manuverability that are cloaked with fast speed. Scouts are useless in battle but that is not their job. They are supposed to do recon so need far better long range scanning to pinpoint useful systems and hostile ones.

5. Once special abilities is better known, all kinds of ships might exist like retrofit ships ie weapons upgrades.

[UesugiKenshin]

Two very important plot devices were "scanning systems and vessels" and "hailing planets and vessels". Both allow diplomacy and information exchange and thus has an effect causing missions and adding storytelling.

You would never want to just wander into some unknown race's system as the gut reaction is it's an invasion. Thus ship to planet and ship to ship communication are essential.

Exploration was more important than combat so essentially space television and film shows are really about anthropology. And so scanning these and getting a text message and or a graphic means some data can be communicated like the motivations of an unknown minor race. That might be a way to significantly boost their initial attitude.

It didn't work out so well here.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HQSGHbbDR_Q
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) directed by Robert Wise is still a great film that hold up to the test of time. It has dark meaning and is clearly subversive if you study it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K6iF5sINVns

A vastly superior group of galactic law enforcement officers brings a gift and a warning what Terrans may not do without being reduced to cinders.

[UesugiKenshin]

You generally want a system that limits construction of the better ships. In BotE, that limiting factor is deritium. The problem is it's too stingy. The base engine requires the players to jump through too many hoops to acquire the "shape-folding" material called deritium.

In one of my planet systems, I'm stuck as I generated some deritium as I planned that to be a new ship generating area, but somehow used up the deritium as I was experimenting with building infrastructure. Likely there is a building slot limit per system too. Now I can't make a deritium distribution network in that planetary system.
...
Instead you want players to be able to make basic ships like plain colony ships contingent upon likely population in a system. Typically subtraction occurs with each colony ship, but I don't see that happening. Instead it's limited to industrial points and natural resources.

You have an issue where once better colony ships were available, then the basic colony ship is obsolete. That is incorrect as you need basic colony ships to populate the empire...and as diplomacy vessels.

The player should be able to make basic transports and scouts (and also not become obsolete). Otherwise you create a logjam and force all construction through the home system until such time as you can raise up another ship generating planetary system.

So you want a game that allows the rudimentary ships always, but the capital ships need deritium. Otherwise the player has to wait enormous lengths of time. That's no fun.

You are going to have issues with the manager turning off energy to infrastructure you are requiring. You can set exceptions ,but I think you will want to handle energy going offline and online yourself.

Android folks don't have a editors so you'll have to be meticulous about this. Hopefully at some point, I'll take several days and make a techtree showing that plus buildings plus ships and troops. It probaby will take 4-5 days.

Generally I've played the basic games only long enough to learn enough to mod them. Then I'll incorporate all the ideas (though uptimately the java code needs some calculation changes too. But in the interim, I can just add economic bonuses to work around that).

I'd like to learn enough code to reduce the intensity of random events, and add 100-200 new event types for largely storytelling devices.

In a perfect world, I would like the anomalous entities to turn on after so many turns like maybe turn 500+ with a low chance of occurance and maybe add many more kinds.

[UesugiKenshin]

BotE has many issues that would frustrate the bulk of players. The learning curve is steep, but just requires a better manual with adequate documentation.

A proper saved game would solve this as then enough would be built up, and the player would be guided through every aspect like energy management.

It needs better storytelling.

It needs better text descriptors of the combat and damage reports.

It needs a better economy that does not penalize mining sales.

It needs a vastly reduced sabotage system, that cannot happen until very late in the game, with very limited success...especially in military situations deep in the empire.

It needs a genuine manual with screencaps.

It needs a large techtree graphic.

It needs a library of saved games of various formats as not everyone has time to play 600+ turns.

It needs Android editors for ships, buildings, races, troops,but that can be done using notepad. But ideally a campaign editor and prebuilt maps and the option to load maps.

[UesugiKenshin]

All of those elements I mentioned are possible. Very minor adjustments and the game would be twice as great, and with storytelling by very simple science fiction writing elements, then five to six times better. It would be an excellent sand box game of exploration besides the micromanaging and simplistic combat. The writers and artists of the extraterrestrials did a superb job. It would be easy to write hundreds of text variations as they are all so different.

Some may not like the minor races as then they could just be empty systems of territory to generate troops and vessels. But their tech and ships are remarkably well constructed. You would be missing out by not having them. It's not just a combat game, and most of the time in a 4X strategy game especially with RTS elements, I don't usually play diplomatic games.

I actually largely played a sandbox Klingon game, and a Romulan one too, and both were very different with very little combat. I'm playing a Dominion game on fast expansion on a 40x40 @100% star systems and 30% minor races with the Federation and Klingons game, and by turn #179, I encountered the Federation. Boy were they angry...yet sued for friendship. I accepted it too. Typically on normal expansion, this first contact happens at turn#300+.

[UesugiKenshin]

On the easy level, it's typically very straight forward to coax a minor race over many turns into membership. But if there were more choices in the diplomacy screen, then more negotiations and opportunities to tell a story, with red herrings, and urban legends (showing the rumors of the minor races' knowledge is flawed...though sometimes cluing in the player to seek out minor races due to technology, buildings, troops, and vessels. It could create a treasure hunt like the STTNG episode where the major empires were looking for clues left by the Founders of the Dominion who seeded the galaxy as they were like the Sumerians and largely alone as other people were a thousand years less advanced.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FEoz5PS6ohg

Many space 4x games have tried loans as a tactic to improve diplomatic relations, or the exchange of technology, or some found item like an artifact, or diplomatic information so then the other major race can start negotiating, etc. It could just be 5-10 paragraphs and with 3 choices for each minor race as storytelling device and modifiers added or subtracted.

"We lack space faring ability and badly wish to scan our system and terraform it. Would you do it for us and then in return we would be willing to grant you X, Y, or Z in repayment? "

Such a thing could help the player; interfere with the player's plans. The player could refuse and so the minor race not only never become a member of that empire, but spreads bad communication to other minor and major races. It could be a sacrificial act and so ultimately be a double edged sword. It could financially benefit the player. It could act like a gift of technology that modifies some far reaching aspect. It could be it does nothing but pass along a story.

[UesugiKenshin]

With some races, say the Cardassians would never helpanother race as that might come back to haunt them. The Federation might have to refuse due to the Prime Directive...so their hands are tied. And the morale system would ensure a check regardless, just as when the Dominion engages in trade, and friendship, they pay a penalty.

[UesugiKenshin]

And every text display choice does not have to be unique as all minor races are hampered.

I would rather fight a strong minor race, than a weak one, when playing as the Klingons.

It doesn't sound that difficult to come up with paragraphs of information for a data file. It's the coding being able to read and display it at the right time, that's the issue.

[UesugiKenshin]

The economy needs serious work. Just to keep up as a new player, if you play as the Dominion, you get an outpost in the home system. Then scrap it and use the profits for subsequent turns. Then create a new couple of low level transports and that works for awhile. Ultimately you have to fool around, spend enormous amounts of time mining metais, and then get diminishing returns.

Salvaging as an exploit is an aspect of the Aliens film.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tMkV_NkiZjE
Perhaps we could have unique alien derelict ships that are gifted as part of a story, and so this does grant the player a small fortune.

I think I can add in enough bonuses through buildings that mostly you would use the metals domestically or for minor trade, and not sell it very often through the trade exchange. Thus the metal prices would be very stable and increase over time as demand increases by BIllions each turn throughout the galaxy. It would effectively neverrealistically fall.

[UesugiKenshin]

In Civ2 and Civ3, you could sell maps to other empires. Instead when meeting another major race, you know where they are in the galaxy. Why would you? It would be a major secret that only through huge espionage expense that you would know this.

And this an illusion as that shows what territory is claim regardless if owned by colonization. Thus creating outposts and starbases to challenge that authority.

[UesugiKenshin]

Since you can have more than six empires (major races), it would be fun to play as a vastly superior major race but with just a few systems or even just one. Then build it up to be all but impregnable. Then have all the six empires try to defeat you. It would be a save game file for say turn 800+ so all have a tremendous number of vessels and fleets to deploy.

[UesugiKenshin]

You can't really understand the genuine backstory of BotE unless you first read this.
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Vorschläge

It also then has links to every ship in the research database. Then we could create new ships beyond Level 14 (theoretically the upper level in 255). Thus if we had more ship graphics that were original and not borrowed, then we could make much better ships much higher turn numbers.

I am very interested in very stable empires being preset so that say at turn 800+, each empire could begin as a saved game and so much of the micromanaging element is over and the population is maxed out. So then the game becomes largely a tactics and strategy game of deploying very powerful fleets and trying to defeat everyone in a grand galactic war.

Lots of ships will be lost and further research beyond level 14 would happen with highly manueverable fast ships with very advanced ground invasion troops to cope.

The backstory is perhaps put to side within the game, but actually those details would be very interesting if they happen through dialogue with the minor races and major race negotiations. Then clues would reveal the Achilles heel of defeating major races. Then the players have a richer experience.

[UesugiKenshin]

There is an assumption that each major empire relates to say STTNG, but that is not accurate as each race has a unique backstory that begins with trying to fulfill some particular flavor from STTNG.

So in the most advanced ships and troops, that likely would emerge as every possible building exists and every known ship has been developed, so the various six empires now want to eliminate each other and develop true control of the galaxy.

War is all that's relevant as trade becomes superfluous. Every minor race might then have super technology beyond level 14 that is then revealed so conquering and membership pays off in a big way to allow these level15+ projects to happen adding huge bonus modifiers to offensive and defensive values.

And similarly unlock major race level15+ projects. Like the Khaorons desire immortality in some fashion. So either the genetic mystery of teleomore shortening is discovered and remedied, or they embrace a mechnism like sentience transferred to cloned bodies or artificial lifeforms through advanced robotics.

[UesugiKenshin]

Morale issues are then are eliminated by such modifiers as say the Level 15+ Terrans are no longer technically human but increasingly godlike.

As are every people in every race (minor and major).

The Omega Alliance are actually a plant based lifeform that symbiotically lives within a humanoid species indigenous to their home system. Think of the Trill in the STTNG mythos. But say what would happen if the symbiote no longer requires a humanoid.

The largest organism on the Earth is a cloned species of quaking aspen in Utah called the Pando that occupies 106 acres.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

So what would this clone symbiotic Omega Alliance most desire? Total occupation of the galaxy without any humanoids or other species types. It wants to solely occupy the entire galaxy and stop symbiosis. It hates that it had to live symbiotically. It wants eradication above all. Then war is no longer necessary in its opinion...as symbiosis was always about elimination of the humanoids.

Such a species is completely alien as it creates its own food through photosynthesis. It doesn't require anyone else. Then it can continue to evolve unimpeded by the limitations of humanoids.

All the other 5 empires are horrified. Its worse than demonic possession.

Essentially the Vi IS the galaxy. And likely considering dyson spheres to bypass the limitations of planets and stars.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fI9DZv3hWqg