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Re: Modding

Verfasst: Donnerstag 15. Oktober 2020, 20:11
von UesugiKenshin

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Donnerstag 15. Oktober 2020, 20:26
von UesugiKenshin
Imagine dying in outer space. There's a massive explosion which penetrates the hull and your body is thrown into the vacuum of space which is at absolute zero. There's no Miracle here. There's no second chance. In fractions of a second, you have to make an attempt to save others and not yourself. Because you are a goner. The only thing you can do is try to make a difference in microseconds. So you have to be incredibly prepared at all times, and brilliant, and in top physical shape, with a high amount of self-confidence, and a Steely Calm exterior. Every Soldier in space is a scientist or an engineer as well as being as skilled as any astronaut. They would be the ultimate soldiers who have ever lived and would be immortal heroes as the Spartans at Thermopylae.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle ... ory-480-BC

So much for the myth of red shirts on outer space.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Samstag 14. November 2020, 14:17
von UesugiKenshin
There was a weird event a couple days ago where there was a worldwide crash on youtube that then cascaded across the USA and much of the world.

I was using youtube when that happened and immediately there were error messages that the Google play library was causing errors. I did warm and then cold booted to no avail, and got a fatal fault which meant doing a factory reset, and lost everything.

Luckily I do system backups on Google Drive (every four hours) and so after the factory reset, I then did a restore, that worked. However I also have a microsd card and that is where I had my information stored for BotE like programs and editing. The microsd card was set to enlarge my hard drive space and that failed. So I lost the important work for modding. Microsd cards can be set to store data and be removed or they can enlarge the hard drive space. Maybe if set to be removable media, the data should have been protected. Oh well.

To prevent this happening to you, I suggest backing up your modding data to Google Drive. I routinely was doing that for saved games and I stopped doing it as I thought it was overkill. Well, it would save me weeks of work had I done so.

Some advanced save games can be very good scenarios and helpful to players. I'm thinking about a six empire scenario for the beta release for BotE multiplayer. That allows you to control all six empires and may be saved. The question remains if I can save it as single player save games for all six empires? If so, then I will probably create a six empire game where every empire is carefully controlled by me and so will end up significantly better than the AI playing it. Thus if save to say turn #100, it should be similar to a Star Trek Kirk era scenario. That would be an excellent turn key preset multiplayer game so six players could have fun over a weekend or longer. So then I could zip up six starting empire positions and anyone could play either as single or multiplayer a in theory. I don't know yet.

See you can do things like that to sort of create scenarios, but it will take at least six weeks to carefully create the best situation and the galaxy map is random so the starting card as the German players call the random galaxy map may not be ideal.

My plan is to actually make poor relations with all the space faring minor races as then no player would have a serious advantage with far more starships through membership. They would not get those minor race fleets. Then after turn #100, whoever plays can try to get them slowly, otherwise the Terran and Heyoun players will have significant advantages.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Samstag 14. November 2020, 14:36
von UesugiKenshin
Three different times I have uploaded advanced save games and each time I have a better understanding of how to accelerate the treasury and so rush infrastructure and troops and starships.

So that has resulted in an advance turn #700 sandbox game as the Omega where they own 75 percent of the map, but have not attacked those minor race fleets. 56 players downloaded that.

8 players downloaded a very fine turn #300 advanced save game as the Omega. I also did a turn#400 version in which they are extremely powerful as now I know how to totally manipulate the commodity system. The latter has the Omega totally completing all research and making 40 to 50 ultimate starships (totally maxed out on weaponry in the ship designer) in a single turn. Anyone playing that could seize the whole galaxy. That would be an ideal beginner game to an advanced wargamer, most likely a real military officer who just wants to fight battles and get an impression of what BotE can do. It is probably too overwhelming for a first time war gamer as that turn #400 game would be like totally battling all of WW2. That is not something most casual wargamers would know how to do even with 700+ ships.

Someone could do similar games as the Terrans, Khaoran, Cartare, Heyoun, and Rotharians. It seems like the two most popular in this community are as the Cartare and Terrans.

It would be extremely tough for the Khaoran to survive long as they lack adequate sabotage protection. However even unmodded, I might be able to create an aggressive game where they have a huge treasury and launch dual offensives against BOTH the Cartare and Rotharians. And maybe they then are powerful enough to then attack the Omega. If they do all of that before turn #400, and it would very difficult, they might be able to win.

The Terrans would still be able to use sabotage to some degree and would fear the might of the Khaorans with the ability to make Omega, Rotharian, and Cartare ships plus any minor race ships. This would be a saved game for experts as it would be extremely hard even on the easiest level.

The Heyoun's intel ability is mostly for internal security use.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Samstag 14. November 2020, 14:40
von UesugiKenshin
An advanced turn #200 #300 #400 saved game as the Cartare or Terrans would be popular. I don't have time to do it as I have too many irons in the fire.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Samstag 14. November 2020, 14:57
von UesugiKenshin
In testing, to take an empire to turn #400 takes about a month when doing it in an excellent fashion. It is dreary work as it takes that long for BotE to get to a war footing where you can make really powerful starships and wage successful war in a tactical and strategic fashion. Otherwise winning is based on luck in a haphazard fashion and based on galactic starting positions.

So creating these save games while intense in terms of planning are frustrating as there is no campaign editor. It should take less than a week using software but it doesn't exist yet.

So making them saves the player a month of 8 hours a day of strategizing. Not every player has 240 hours to do such a task, so it really is a significant gift to the community. BotE gets very interesting from that point on, and in my opinion, millions would rather play that instead of slowly creating empires as most want to fight battles.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Samstag 14. November 2020, 15:08
von UesugiKenshin
It would probably take six months, but if I did so, then all six empires would be extremely strong and then that could be saved for each empire and full scale galactic war could be saved but that game would be extremely difficult even on the easiest level versus the AI as the AI has immense power unlike a random game.

But it would be a perfect multiplayer game, but who has six months of 8 hour days to construct such a scenario? That is 1440 man-hours.

Such scenarios can be built in a week in Civ3. I built a huge map in Civ2 for Star Trek, but the map was what took so long as that is placing one terrain point a a time over a galaxy. That was 21 planet sectors where they all are different classes.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Samstag 14. November 2020, 15:18
von UesugiKenshin
From turn #400 on when a saved game is carefully created, then BotE shines and is better than any space strategy 4x that I know of and is far more complex that GalCiv 2. Admittedly those space battles are far more enjoyable to watch in cinematic mode, but players only do that a couple of times as that is just an animation.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ4V59-bNoM
This what a GalCiv2 battle animation looks like but the player is not doing a RTS, just watching it, thus doesn't do it often.

The problem is I doubt most players get to well constructed empires even by turn #600, so they are not getting a true picture as they get frustrated by sabotage. That is why I'm working in the Balancer mod. I think BotE would be wildly popular if the game is more about fighting battles and not an economic sim for 400 to 600 turns and way later sabotage then gets introduced at level 15 technology.

I want to create a way to not just fight battles and conquer, but become godlike and for a species to evolve and become transcendent.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Samstag 14. November 2020, 15:32
von UesugiKenshin
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FFtlmw2aSjA
This is what a GalCiv3 space battle animation looks like, but it serves no useful purpose. There is no way a human can beat a computer RTS. Not without severely handicapping the AI.

So the system in BotE is actually better and has very low computer requirements as pointless graphics are not shown but imagined.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Donnerstag 17. Dezember 2020, 21:35
von UesugiKenshin
The problem with any mod is a user might have Google Play store set to autoupdate. And so if that is turned on, it will write over the modded program. This is why you have to have a cloned app application of some type so you can have multiple versions on a tablet. And if you want multiplayer too, then you need two cloned app applications so you can have 3 versions.

I think running a form of windows on Android like Exagear or Limbo pc is the way to go, but on advance turns like turn #750, with 2000 starships in every empire so 12000 starships, it probably will be laggy.

My current turn#423 advanced saved game has 1200 Omega starships including some Cartare, Khaoran, and Rotharian ships taken through sabotage (~100 or so).

Very few people have new tablets and can gain access to the root drive as that voids the warranty. I don't want to void my 1.5 month old tablet to mod. I'm doing text edits when I am chomping at the bit to change the javascript.

Re: Modding

Verfasst: Donnerstag 17. Dezember 2020, 21:40
von UesugiKenshin
If BotE was easier to mod, then a player could just run it as normal without jumping through all these hoops. That would be far less likely to be laggy.