good question. wasn't it in botf the same? only roms could have their artificial 800 energy quantum singularity things which gave em two more.

guess the dilithium refining is generally a time-consuming thing so that there can't be more than one dilithium "thing" comin out of the refinery per turn. of course later modifications to the build file could include an upgrade to that refinery (let's say type 2 dilithium refinery) which gets double the amount out of it due to better processings..

One stop gap measure to help level the field with the Romulans could be to allow for a Dilithium Extractor to be constructed in systems that have more than one dilithium source. One thing that bugged me on an earlier build was the extremely high dilithium requirements to build later ships. Even when it was just a minor increase in ship size and overall capability there was still something like a 20 dilithium requirement increase. It just seems like this would give the Romulans an unfair advantage because every system could become a source of singularities.

the high dilithium costs are implemented to prevent big ship fast-building later in-game so the galaxy would be swept over by tons of heavy prometheuses..

the rom quantum singular gains 1 dilithium for 50 energy in the buildings.data right now. think that is a good solution, otherwise the rom is too weak in overall gameplay..

The problem is that people usually like huge battles... It was wonderful pitting mega fleets against each other but now that is just impossible...

Besides... Wasn't the Romulan cloak supposed to be the equalizing factor and not super high costs for everyone else?

okay, huge battles (if one wants 'em) will be modded afterwards, I'm pretty sure on that. it's just sir p. doesn't want it so it ain't in the official release right now .

The Romulan Cloak makes up for quite a bit but generally roms are such low-performing in every area besides tech research that even the cloak doesn't save them especially later on when the Warbird is kinda getting old..

Sounds like decreasing the cost of their later game ships is the answer then and not increasing the cost of everything else.

Juggling Dilithium shipments for late game ship production is just a pain in the butt.

I know, reason for the juggling is also to keep huge fleet building down (sir p. again ). there are ways to mod this but they are quite crude. exchange deuterium with dilithium in all files and you get dilithium to be a tradeable resource via system trade or stock exchange..(just a mod idea for someone who wants to pick this up..). even diplomatic requests could be made involving dilithium..

I think the best route would be for someone to release a mod with toned down dilitium requirements for later game ships across the board.

or that..

Know anyone that could pull it off that might be able to pull it off Malovision?

All I know is that I couldn't do it and that... that... whimper... I miss my uber fleets

fox i think you're able I'm sure just have a look at the bote ships editor, copy it into your ..\bote\data\ships\ folder , open it, then go one by one, step by step through every ship and decrease the value in the dilithium field to any value that seems reasonable to you. to make it easier, just divide by two. that way the balance is kept .

You don't know me very well... My strengths lie in other areas and I while I am fairly computer literate and can handle stuff alright, that is unless that stuff even resembles programming... I really don't get why that is because I have had experience doing basic Java programming in a class in the past. I just know that I can't. The reason I am so sure is because I am talking about a mod that can be downloaded and shared so not everyone has to go through the hassle of doing it themselves.

Also, if a single mod were made, it would decrease the chances of problems occurring during online matches... Just think of what could happen if only one player has made the changes...

you always play the build file from the host player so if you changed your ships to be super-uber-type it won't affect that game .

anyway, you could start doing that (it's really quite simple, just take my recipe from above and do it with "switched-off" mind ) and afterwards open up a new thread in the bote modding forum and serve your new mod as attachment so everyone can download it! should be a nice thing and you'll see, if you made it one time, you'll just read back here and say, hell was I underestimatin myself .

.... Fine... I'll take a crack at it I guess.... Is the download section up yet so I can get the ship modder?

Fox, the downloads section won't be up for a while yet - probably weeks.

In the meantime, we're putting downloads up in threads - just like the Supremacy Pre-release thread. I don't know if any of the BotE stuff has been put up yet though...

Is there any way that I can get the Ship Editor then?

look here: http://www.bote-forum.square7.ch/viewforum.php?f=14

I can't speak German... Could you tell me which of those topics has the ship editor and if the Editor itself is translated into English?

use your imagination

anyway: Schiffs = Ship, Gebäude = buildings , rest should be clear. download link is in the first post of each topic, e.g. the ship editor is here: http://www.bote-forum.square7.ch/download.php?id=9

That's cruel. You should be ashamed of yourself!




Well anyway I downloaded the editor and now I just need to know what to do with it. Does it need to be placed anywhere in particular?

yes. always in your installation folder, e.g. c:\bote\data\ships for the ship editor or c:\bote\data\buildings for the buildings editor. always say no to overwrite since the zip file comes with a (mostly outdated) shiplist.data file too. check twice if the file is in the right directory. if it's in a subfolder created by 7zip or winzip/winrar, it won't work resp. affect the game.

I can't believe I haven't ever had a chance to use this until just now...

Well anyways just be glad I didn't use that >

Seriously now... I am working on getting it set up right now.

Got it. Just need some help with some of the terms.

Ablative Armor, Hull Pollerization, Regenerative Shields. I would like to make sure I understand what those things mean in game terms to help make sure I don't make a mistake.

Also, if there are any terms that I need to be aware of that I haven't asked about could you please let me know?

look at the description here: http://www.botf2.com/bote/wiki (can take a while and be painful, but it's definitely needed if you want to do some serious modding ).

Fox, the new emoticons are there coz I sent them to Nem the day before yesterday for addition. They've been siting on my computer for months but a glitch in the old forums meant we couldn't add them.

The emoticon is one of Nem's favourites though so he added that as well. If you have any others (Of a similar style, and no giant ones) then send the files to Nemitor.

...

Treknologies can be found just by googling, Fox, but some useful websites include:

The Journal of Applied Treknology
Ex-Astris-Scientia (From The Stars, Knowledge)

...

If you ever need to translate something, try Altavista's Babelfish Translator.

I use that site whenever I play Xoyd or am translating the BotE guide. I'm still working on it Mal, don't worry.

I never do

This forum's sat empty for a bit. Anyway, I hope I am not giving any recommendations that are somewhere else in the forums...

When you can't build something, it just gives a blonk sound. It'd be nice if the resource that is lacking showed up in RED (on the 'what's required to build this). I lose track of what I do and don't have and where I do and don't have it (all the resource routes and things)

Same recommendation for Supremacy - some color coding on the turn summaries. Starvation in red, system queue empty in red. Helps keep this from being missed and queues sitting empty.

Are there hotkeys? I love S then S to get system summary (Empire menu on BOTE). Maybe there are hotkeys and I can't figure them out.

Combat is frustrating, as there's no way to run from a dominating foe. I'm learning to work around that, though - I'm basically finding out through trial and error how to play. That's good, though, as I'm finding it better than I thought it was, which is always a nice thing!

Anyway,

Thanks for all the good work on BOTE. It's awesome.

brisub

thx.

there are some hotkeys in there. For example the cursor keys to switch systems in system menu. Or the Strg-A in the Empire menu under systems after you clicked on a system to activate auto-build.

More will come, also the colors and the resource automization which is exactly what is being worked on. Combat display won't come with alpha5 unfortunately since we have some code problems there with server-client interaction during the turn end period. A major (and quite dirty ) workaround is needed there as long as the source code for our own network library is missing (we just have the headers and libs, the guy who coded it went away for quite a long time). But maybe Alpha6 .

LOL! Just figures out that Jigalypuf = Mal. Anyway, that's finey. I like that BOTE is playable - in that the opponents do things to do. I am just beginning to learn how it all comes together and am enjoying the voyage.

Finally sat through a long round of the game after a long time. Colors are definitely a little crazy. I guess in our jest of making it all fun and visibly rich, it ends up lacking in the Usability department. So strike a balance between newbies and veterans. The visual should serve as an introduction but in general good gameplay drives the latter part of a game's experience.

Layout also needs help, primarily in that not all buttons/controls are proportionally sized.