With the right tool 2) is the simplest and easiest of the 3 items. Have a look at "Useful File Utilities", it is a batch file text search, find and replace tool. See http://www.replsoft.com/
Hi PeterSewell, Be careful about adding extras to Maelstrom, as the mod is pushing the hardcode limits of Sins. For example the soundfiles: Maelstrom uses 1998 (or there abouts) the limit is 2000. If you go over this limit ... crash, no warning. The meshes and textures used by Maelstrom is about twice that of the Sins base. i.e twice the number of ships, and s
Photoshop and the Nvidia DDS plugin can also be used to convert from TGA to dds. For the Maelstrom mod I have saved 400-500 MBytes by doing the above conversion for particle files and the UI, as advised by TSOP. TSOP focused on three ways to optimse the original Sins particles. Quoting TSOP ... "Constant with ALL of the particle files: 1) ALL TGA format textures have been replaced with DDS format textures. The Optimization Project does NOT use TGA textures.<
Hi Quiet_Man, One of the reasons I set the fleet support cost of the Dreadnoughts to 25 was to encourage the AI to build them ... I don't think it noticed. It tends to build an assortment of the five basic types and the Dreadnought is a battleship type (i.e there are two battleship capitals per race). You could try setting the logistics to 0 and see what happens &
Hi Volgun, Good feedback as always, thanks. Good news is that I'm poised to begin work on the final stage of optimization. This involves ship/structure number reduction - i.e part of re-balancing. I'm thinking of dropping ship numbers (for new races) by 50% by increasing their fleet logistic slots, cost, firepower, hu
Hi Syneptus, I don't want to take over the post https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/398724 with a discussion of the Maelstrom mod. As you know I've been busy with optimization of the mod. I've read that Bailknights Graphical mod can slow the game down, i.e TSOP and I think the Distant Stars mod. Can you comment? Would lo
[quote]It is the first time that I had a problem beside the slow downs.[/quote] Hard to tell if it was Sins or Sins+mod. [quote]Another thing I just recognized was the 3 Armor and 10% shield mitigation bonus on my fellow replicator high level capitals where showing on and off in the ship info screen, switching about 4 times per second.[/quote] I'll look into it, thanks.
[quote]Playing the replicators I had researched all items (including all the phase jump bonuses). The game was close to end when I discovered an artifact "phase accelerator" on a just conquered world and with this message the game stopped.[/quote] When you say the game stopped do you mean it mini-dumped? The artifact "phase accelerator" is from the original Sins ... it is untouched. Is the 'stop' repeatable, that is if you use the last autosave and play to the same point (if y
[quote]Hello there! I have been absent for a while, but now that I am back I shall dive into your new version and do some more analysis on game balance over these next few weeks.[/quote] Glad to have you back!
Hi Syneptus, [quote]I could investigate and fix it...[/quote] thanks for the offer. However, I have fixed the particle effects as per TSOP. As part of of the optimization process for Maelstrom, about 800 effects have been fixed for each of the four mods and for the six races. Also, most textures are now dds format not tga - for particles and the UI. Th
Hi Quiet_Man, [quote]If this is the problem a major increase of cool down periods of all abilities and weapons could solve the issue!? (a heap of work)[/quote] Without being specific, for the new races I intend to do the following - 1. Reduce the abilities area (range) 2. Increase cooldowns 3. Reduce the maximum number of Targets
[quote]unfortunately sins calculates ALL the planets/structures/ships/strikecraft view & movement all the time(my theory), I have had slowdowns an all of my computers from a single core celeron through dualcore amd & intels, quad core amd & intels & even on an i7930 4ghz system with 2ghz ram, but the ram speed seems to be the single factor to mitigate the late game snail.[/quote] Thanks for the feedback, can't recall anyone making the connection with RAM speed and als
[quote]Docked or not their graphics are still loaded into the game and their numbers are still being accounted for and tracked, they're just not actively flying around and shooting. Scuttling them all removing their numbers from the game would be a better test, one that more times then not has proven to increase performance even if it's just slightly.[/quote] Agreed. Though I not sure if its graphics/memory related as slowdown happens for "galaxy view" and also for "close-in
[quote]I don't think it is the strike craft. I had over 100 squads and docking them made no difference. I just had a game where my strike craft got disabled by an Norlamin fleet and it still slowed down during the battle. It looks like with many frigates and cruisers the path finding gets messed up?[/quote] Agreed and verified a couple of weeks ago. However, there has been some people in the TSOP forum who are been very insistent that strikecraft and trade/refinery ships are the main
Yes I have noted that the Norlamins are particularly good at slowing the game. Hence part of the optimisation will be for abilities. Another part will be ship numbers. It is interesting that other mods have opted for large ships and only a relatively few (B5, SOA, etc). I have already reduced strike craft numbers and trade/refinery ship numbers. As I've said before ... [quote]I think that it is the raw number of ships and in battle - maneuvering, targeting, firing - and their
Hi Volgun, Some excellent points, will not reply at the moment, however feedback has been noted. I am in the midst of optimization ... following which I will be re-balancing. Till then your feedback is always welcome.
Quiet_Man, "Is it possible to stop ship stealing when exceeding fleet support?" unfortunately not. Been busy with optimization for the next release. Have had some success. Converted all texture files to dds (from tga) for all six races and for UI and fixed particle file (all this from TSOP). Result, Random Huge Map, AI's all unfair (i.e 10 players in t
[quote]sorry, I meant the resource research specifically.[/quote] No need to apologize. Your feedback is very valuable. Now regarding your Reply #291 , yes I have noticed that the game slowed down when a number of players are fully developed, i.e most of the research has been done and fleet logistics are maxed out. Original Sins has been known to slow down also, particularly on huge maps at
[quote]The real point I wanted to make is that they have strong resource boost plus cost reduction, which seams a bit overkill? Because if you just research the first levels of both, there seams to be no need for further research.[/quote] I assume you mean you don't need to do further research in the Technology tree ... how about the Art of War research tree? The Norlamins need to build and research rapidly to survive.
Hi Quiet_Man. Yes, the Norlamins do not have upgrades to their weapons but are very strong in shields and armor. Have you used their Malladax (or Skylark 2) cruiser with the capture ability? In terms of resources, are you sure you didn't get a rich planet or two? Or where you using a number of their Mining Explorer sc
I can't do justice to your reply ... but rest assured it is very helpful, thank you. However, I will say this ... now you know why I am busy with issue 2 of the mods, which will address these problems.
Hi Syneptus, Look forward to seeing your work. Yes I've tried the flair, also I am reworking and adding a number of planets, so the binary, and other planets, are a work in progress.
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