Ground Force Experience and Strategy

[Einauh]

I wasn't sure if this was covered before, but I thought I would share with the folks in this forum.

In one of my ground combats featuring my Harvester mobiles vs. Marines & Milita, I hit a stalemate after the first 2 rounds. In the first rounds, I gained 2 regions each time, with very little losses on both side. For the next 2 rounds, there is virtually no combat losses on either side, and my forces aren't gaining any more regions. As reinforcement is en route, this isn't worrying me.

On the next 3 rounds, I used Attacker-attrition, sometimes the feedback would indicate the great strategy used, sometimes the feedback would indicate otherwise, yet the result is more or less the same: gaining grounds slowly, while sustaining minimal losses on both side (actually no loss on my side).

Eventually, my mobiles pushed the enemy off the planet (gaining all regions) without killing them. Now comes the cool part: my mobiles are now all "CRACK" level! :D I guess the longer the ground troop survived the battle, the better they are...

Maybe I would use Attacker - Attrition next time for mobiles, to try to prolong the ground combat...of course given that my troops are superior than the enemy.

Also, this is set of Strategies I use for different types of ground troops:

Marines: Not sure, none that is really effective
Mobiles: Attacker - Ruse
Armor: Attacker - Single Line
Battleoids: No clue, they always die so fast :confused:

Comments are welcome! Thank you!
Einuah

[SnowFox5]

Battleoids: No clue, they always die so fast

This is also true for me, I have sent in 4 armys of battleoids and lost all of them to infantry and militia, and I have a higher tech level (at least by 5 levels) and I out numbered them 2 to 1. So what did I do wrong?

[AdamGoetz]

Guesses at what you did wrong :
Strategy failed - drops your troop effectiveness to 30% while giving the enemy a 70% bonus
Bad Gravity without suits that countered
Bad Environment without suits that countered
Bad Terrain (luck of the draw)

[Kralizec!]

Einauh wrote:
Also, this is set of Strategies I use for different types of ground troops:

The (otherwise useless) strategy guide recommends using Ruse and Surprise in ground combat because these two maneuvers never result in less than 100% on the battle matrix dice roll (as opposed to the other maneuvers which can go way, way less than 100% and put a penalty on your attack numbers).

Armor: Attacker - Single Line

The matrix in the guide shows how the different maneuvers stack up against one another. Were your armour to use Single Line against an opponent using Divide, Retreat, or Fighting Withdrawal, you would receive a 15% bonus. However if your opponent were to use Flank you would suffer a 20% penalty, or a 10% penalty if they used Massed Assault, Probe, Harass, Echelon, or Attrition.

[zesuila]

With my Battleoids, i often use TRAP. It seems even better than Ruse and Surprise most of the time unless you get the bad terrain and gravity.

But you don't need any other strategy but Ruse, Surprise and Trap. All the other don't do much.

Also, why bothering to spend 5 turns in ground combat to achieve Crack level when you can beat pretty much anyone in 1 turn with those 3 strategies? You keep your troops at experienced level, but who care? You have so many planets to conquer that spending an extra 4 turns for each is way too much time for me. At this rate, it's gonna take 100 Real years to finish the game! ;-)

See ya.

[triller]

I've had good luck with both armor and battloids.
Troop ships have 6 pods so thats 24 troops.
Army with 5 commandos & 19 armor or battleoids.
Send two armies and I never fail to gain ground (usually 2),
if not take the whole planet. If 2 two armies don' do it,
I've got two more arriving next turn. Turn one of these back,
land the remaining. This usually does the trick. Two more the
next turn and on to the next planet. After I've had the planet
a couple of turns, I'll create a detachment there and dismiss
the surviving armies. With 30 troop ships and a trickle of new
production on soldiers, I can work 2 systems at once, and
rarely have probems with the 5-8 turn delay. I've got a 5-6 level
tech advantage, never bombard, and always let the AI control
combat. Use the more developed planets just conquered to kick
out a few system ships, and piracy & unrest are gone within a
few turns. Leave a couple of covering TFs (in case I pass my
adversary in transit) and off to the next system.

[SnowFox5]

Originally posted by triller
I've had good luck with both armor and battloids.
Troop ships have 6 pods so thats 24 troops.
Army with 5 commandos & 19 armor or battleoids.
Send two armies and I never fail to gain ground (usually 2),
if not take the whole planet. If 2 two armies don' do it,
I've got two more arriving next turn. Turn one of these back,
land the remaining. This usually does the trick. Two more the
next turn and on to the next planet. After I've had the planet
a couple of turns, I'll create a detachment there and dismiss
the surviving armies. With 30 troop ships and a trickle of new
production on soldiers, I can work 2 systems at once, and
rarely have probems with the 5-8 turn delay. I've got a 5-6 level
tech advantage, never bombard, and always let the AI control
combat. Use the more developed planets just conquered to kick
out a few system ships, and piracy & unrest are gone within a
few turns. Leave a couple of covering TFs (in case I pass my
adversary in transit) and off to the next system.

So you let the AI do all the groud fighting for you?

This is for anyone. After a unit is out of the delay box where do they go?

[triller]

Originally posted by SnowFox5
So you let the AI do all the groud fighting for you?

I do let the AI handle it. I'm playing Psilon, but most of my ground forces are magnate races (superior combat abilities).

This is for anyone. After a unit is out of the delay box where do they go?

I expect it's a sort of reserves store such as your starships have. Sadly, the only way to see it is the "Ground Force Creation" screen.

[kevincalhn4]

I have an annoying problem with transports. Playing 1.2.5 I am at a enemy planet. I have destroyed the defenses. I have transports ready to land. The game does not give me the option to land those troops fopr attack. When a battle ensues I do not see the transports on the field but they are in the ship summary clicked on around the system. What the HeL is going on? I reloaded the game too. Any ideas, please....

[Bolo Mark 33]

How many ships do you have in-system. Without one of Bhruic's special mods you are limited to just 10 taskforces (TFs) per side in combat. So, 180 ships max can fight any given turn. If you have 180 combat ships (or 10 TFs) and 10 transports (in 1 TF) and the transports are not selected for combat that turn then you won't be able to invade.

If you get Bhruic's patch you can expand the number of TFs out to about 50 per side, I think. You won't have transports getting left behind often with that. Just make sure your PC can handle it though.

[kevincalhn4]

I have 18 task forces. They are not 180 ships though. Do you mean if it was 18 armada's? I have 1 transport side with them not more. It automatically selects transports for battle too but never shows on the screen.
Per side? Do you mean as for the enemy too?

I can't find Bhruic's special mods. Can you for me?

[Aeaea]

Basically, you may not be able to invade if you have more task forces present in a system than the max number allowed for combat -- which is 10 in 1.2.5. So you must (at a minimum) have 1 Transport TF plus no more than 9 battle TFs in a system to be guaranteed to invade with that Transport. If you have more than 10 TFs in the system, however, the game will make some sort of selection as to which 10 to include -- but not necessarily include your transport TFs. You can raise the max number of TFs available for combat with Bhruic's patch, but I don't know if you can apply the patch and have it work after you've started a game. Obviously raising the number of allowed TFs won't solve the problem if you load up with more battle TFs.

I posted a similar question on the noob forum a couple weeks ago and got some good answers, one interesting comment was from JosEPh about initiative:

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9761105&postcount=1073

[ac_snowman]

Are there other forces located in the system that you aren't treatied with? This can sometimes create kind of a stalemate and keep you from moving past the space combat stage.

I had this scenario in a current game where the Cynoid had a fleet parked in a Grendarl system I was invading and their presence prevented me from landing troops. I wasn't at war with the Cynoid, but we were untreatied. After a couple of turns their fleet had a little "accident" and I was able to proceed.

[Quinn]

If there are forces that you are allied with in the system they can stop you invading too. It all depends upon the relations between all the empires involved.

The easiest way of dealing with them is to control combat, select the allies TF and retreat them ;) Of course if your Ally is allied to the Defending Empire then they won't attack and will stop you invading... Basically it gets Complicated.

However, if you have a NAP then you won't be able to do anything until you Ally or Declare War.

Q

[kevincalhn4]

For Quinn: You can do that? you can have your troops leave except the transport and control the allies attack and then land you troops?? Jesus and I been playing for 3 years now

[pedxing]

yeah, you can control the allied attack even if all you have in the battle is a single Recon TF.

that's what i sometimes use my out-of-date early-exploration Recon ships for, later in the game: i send them to the empires of my allies, to follow their big fleets around, as best they can with ancient warp engines.

i like to think of them as my "military advisers". :D

i hadn't thought about doing it with troop transports, though... that's insidiously clever. :haha:

but what i think Quinn was suggesting is to select your allies' combat TFs right before the end of combat and retreat just them, leaving only your combat and transport ships in the battle for the invasion stage, that way you're guaranteed to be in control of the invasion?

[Quinn]

select your allies' combat TFs right before the end of combat and retreat just them, leaving only your combat and transport ships in the battle for the invasion stage, that way you're guaranteed to be in control of the invasion?


:up: Spot on!


I hadn't thought of using Transport TFs to invade with Allies, that's smart but really classes as a player exploit :D

[geekgymnast]

In my current game, it seems like my allies are also landing their troops and "donating" them. (I can tell. they're psilons, but their troops are better than mine. I annihilated my races ground combat, and no magnates. just my luck the friendly Raas don't do that.)

gg

[Quinn]

That sounds strange, but how about this. I was invading the Rocks, and the Psilons were also at war with them, I had no treaty with the Psilons. When it got to ground combat stage, I discovered I was invading a Psilon-owned world, and conquered it.

Ground combat is just another of those weird things that wasn't properly thought out when the big-purge of features happened.

[Kill4Free]

I cant say I am too experienced with selecting multiple options and I dont really know about the matrix. What I usually do when I land is a low intensity Ambush, and unless all the terrain, gravity and conditions are all horrible for my troops I get a favorable casualty ratio. After that their numbers are very depleted I just do a high intensity massed assault. It usually works for me. Though I generally try to just raze the planet because large population losses is more likely to make the opponent surrender, also because half the enemy populations have issues with being happy.

If Im in a war that is fairly tough what I usually do is send a max sized fleet to about 5-6 of their systems at once, even flying over their systems to get deeper in, and nuke all their planets at once, losing like 10% of their total population in a couple turns makes em really agreeable :)

[Quinn]

I've always used "Surprise" most of the time, and "Ruse" every so often, as they don't give penalties whatever the enemy choses, and it works for me the majority of the time.

[pedxing]

i like a nice Vertical Envelopment, if i've got Marines and a huge advantage, which i usually do. ;)

[kevincalhn4]

is there anyway to delete or scrap armies so no maintenance is paid for old ones? I mena we shouldn't have to hope they die to pay less for them. Most of the time they don't die on me anyways. cuase tech has become pretty high. and using surprises always works best.

[pedxing]

nope, no scrap for armies.

they don't cost that much, thankfully.

[JosEPh]

Garrison the old units on various planets and watch their experience grow. Plus they help slow down the threat of AI Invasions.

JosEPh

[Quinn]

Garrison the old units on various planets and watch their experience grow. Plus they help slow down the threat of AI Invasions.

JosEPh

JosEPh,

Does that actually work (experience growing)? My troops usually get to "Experienced" quite rapidly and then don't move to Veteran until used in a battle, as one would expect from the name definitions.

I've not seen it myself but I usually only use troops for invasions and defending perimeter systems, and mostly disband the armies once unrest is under control.

[kevincalhn4]

So isn't their cost higher when on a planet then in reserves, well yes, so that doesn't cut their costs. I have not seen exp. for planet troops and they do go up very fast in reserves becuase there are men there of higher exp. and it's considered the men are being trained by the higher troops there.

[Quinn]

So isn't their cost higher when on a planet then in reserves, well yes, so that doesn't cut their costs. I have not seen exp. for planet troops and they do go up very fast in reserves becuase there are men there of higher exp. and it's considered the men are being trained by the higher troops there.

Kevin,

:rolleyes: that would be logical and you should have learnt by now that MoO isn't.

In answer to your questions:-
Yes, their cost is higher on planet than in reserves.
They advance to "Experienced" level whilst in reserves, but I've not personally witnessed them go higher without fighting, but I must admit that it's now me employing logic to say "You can't be a Veteran without experiencing battle"

[kevincalhn4]

I have never gotten better troops the experienced until they went on planets fighting. I finally have crack level troops and i have never had that but I never tried winning a game through attrition usually antaran search or election. This game has been very interesting but dear god it's longer this way but totally different. I've learned lots of new things playing different.

[kevincalhn4]

Don't even bother making troops right away. When you customize your race in the beginning make your troops the worst at everything to gain the points for elsewhere. THEN go out and find a great magnate race for ground combat. I always manage to finf the Rhea Then make all your troops there. A recruit Rhea is always gonna be stronger then a "W/E" race you have that made it to experienced over the long wait. So go ahead don't worry about a race that fights on the ground great. You're wasting points. The idea is counter your weaknesses when you can. ie: take avg bio, manufacture, mining then just pick a hive or unification government and you balance or get better for ALL plus extra's! never take something in a pick that you can fix later in the game with tech or finding a race or w/e

[licker]

Don't even bother making troops right away. When you customize your race in the beginning make your troops the worst at everything to gain the points for elsewhere. THEN go out and find a great magnate race for ground combat. I always manage to finf the Rhea Then make all your troops there. A recruit Rhea is always gonna be stronger then a "W/E" race you have that made it to experienced over the long wait. So go ahead don't worry about a race that fights on the ground great. You're wasting points. The idea is counter your weaknesses when you can. ie: take avg bio, manufacture, mining then just pick a hive or unification government and you balance or get better for ALL plus extra's! never take something in a pick that you can fix later in the game with tech or finding a race or w/e

Luck of the galaxy.

I tend to not completely overlook my ground fighting abilities, but its rare that I'd not knock them down to average at worst. The last two games I've played I've not found a single Magnate, and once the borders are firmed you're stuck with what you got.

Besides powergaming your race is kinda boring honestly...

:p

[pedxing]

i usually play stock races, maybe knocking one ground combat stat down a notch, to pay for Senate membership.

but for MUU:BaA, ground combat is a big part of the early game, so in my current game (which i am playing veeerrrryyy slllooooowwwwwllly) i'm playing with ground combat maxed out, payed for with lousy citizenship.

[Quinn]

IIRC, the better your ground combat abilities, the more troops you can form into Armies (and Corps and Divisions) including magnate race troops, so the picks aren't completely useless.

[kevincalhn4]

But why does that matter? just send another pod. Come on guys your missing the big picture, BIG! You guys know this. Only take in the beginning what you can't fix later. You don't ground battle immediately anyways, do you?? Make it all super poor then find the Rhea, Mrrshans, Ajadar or even the darloks any good race at combat. It's acedemics guys. I always win ground battles and I choose the suckiest levels. Super suck then just go find someone else and colonize. I mean think about it. You can never fix certain things in the future like change to hive when your despotism. Gov, research, citizenship, cunning, creativity. YOU CAN NEVER FIX THESE IN THE GAME! Pick a race that can handle huge planets so you can build the crap out of them and have BIG populations to earn GREAT income. Here's my formula one of two races, Nommo/Imsaeis becuase of the planet size choice. Nommo allows you to go one step up or down not too bad. Imsaeis limits to only on step down but the start in the beginning can give a great beginning advantage and so many races HATE extreme gravity planets they leave them alone!!!

Nommo: Avg: bio, min, man,
Poor: acc, reflex, tough
Sup: research, citizenship, cunning, creativity
Gov: Collective
senate: random ALWAYS RESTART UNTIL YOU ARE A SENATE MEMBER, SRY SMALL CHEAT, I'M WEAK :downcast:
Start planet abundant, similair

If I play Imsaeis the only diff is I am absolutist, good mining, and start planet rich. Play the game looking for great magnate ground. Be friends and grow like Japan in the beginning. center on research, growing, and money. Max your oppression at turn 6 or beginning. doesnt make much difference. Play this way and I promise a FUN WINNING game. NEVER pick a skill in the beginning that can be corrected in the game. otherwise that's just stupid use of points. COme on take the challange Quinn, Pedxing, and others. Trust me it's a new way to play and a rush! :D

[pedxing]

i used to play with poor ground combat, in 1.2.5 and Strawberry, and would never get into fights until i had class III shields.

check out the :alien: link in my sig, if you haven't... in that game, pretty much the only thing i built was colony ships for probably the first 100 turns, and i relied on diplomacy and luck until i had a unstoppable advantage.

that was fun, but now i play MUU:BaA, so i start building Infantry around turn 25, troops ships around turn 50, and land my first invasions around turn 75.

it's a big change for me, but i'm really getting into it. :up:

[Quinn]

Kevin,

I meant that when you form an army, you get more troops in it, and as you are limited to having 12 (chocolate) TF in a combat - I usually take 10 armadas of fighting ships and 2 transports - those 2 ground troop armies are not only stronger, but have more troops in them.

And for the record, I usually drop my ground combat stats down to poor too!

[kevincalhn4]

I am only playing MOO3 with the 1.2.5 update and bhruics patchs of:

fighterinterceptor, allstars, contactpropagation, diplomacy, race selection, sitrep, stucktech, TFdisplay, tech turns remaining, transport disband, and visibiltiy.

Do you guys really find a big differecne in the strawberries and chocolates? I found some of the changes annoying but why do you guys use them. Convince me to change and why. I'm sure your right but I haven't been convinced so sell me please. I just hadn't found a solid reason to play them yet. Let me know how they better the experience for you. I actually really want to have my mind changed but I didn't really get a good sell on them.

[pedxing]

well, i liked Strawberry mostly for the patches it included.

compared to Vanilla, which just fixed bugs, Strawberry also added everybody's favorite patches (like fighterinterceptpr and autobuild), and the best of the best smaller, not-too-drastic mods that were available.

i migrated to Strawberry mostly because it was so close to what my personal patch and mod selections were were like already, other than the UI skin.

i don't really have a preference for the new skin or the old one, but since so many people were using my 1024 on top of Strawberry, i decided to focus 1024's development on the new skin.

also, since so many people were using Strawberry, it made it a lot easier to compare experiences... it's not that different from 1.2.5, but there are some little things, and it was nice to be on the same page with new folks who were asking for advice.

then Strawberry's development ended, and i picked up the job of doing the next generation... combining Strawberry with 1024, and adding Bhruic's patches that came out after Strawberry 1.2 was done, and integrating a few other minor but cool mods that might have been missed.

at that point, the MUU:BaA project looked like it was coming towards a close, but i got stalled on trying to put together some spying mods that i didn't really understand... that's when Quinn suggested trying to do something about the mid-game resource surplus issue.

before that point, i hadn't really done any tech modding at all, but in the process of figuring out how to make the surplus reduction techs work, i learned enough to become dangerous. :cool:

figuring out what tech levels the surplus reduction techs should come in at made me look at the levels all the mining and farming and industry techs were at, and so i started moving them around a little.

that's when my frustration i've had ever since the game came out, with the big wad of level 0 Physical techs, finally broke. :mad:

i resolved to spread them out. of course, this meant spreading out the starting hulls, and that meant colony ships were not going to be available at turn 1.

i fooled with some different non-working ideas for early-game expansion, then settled on taking advantage of automigration, turning it from a feature that is usually not noticed until somebody gets annoyed by it, to a crucial game mechanic.

i also decided i wanted to spread out weapons improvements, so that in the time between getting lasers and quark cannons, say, you would gradually get all the laser improvements, rather than getting them all in a bunch.

i also decided i wanted to give players something to fight over in the early game, with their tiny ships and crappy weapons. so i pushed defensive bases up the tree so that there would be plenty of undefended planets out there, just begging to be fought over and invaded in the early game.

of course, by this point, i realized that i was already moving nearly everything around, so i might as well take care of the twin annoyances of having empty levels separating big wads of techs in some schools, and the big differences between the numbers of techs in different schools.

through the whole technology modding process i've kept my eye on Tropical as a guide for how far i didn't want to go... so, for example, instead of adding freaky and hopefully cool newness, i've mostly tried to create coolness by moving existing things around but leaving their names and effects unchanged.

so, that's the condensed history.

compressed further, into a nutshell: MUU:BaA is Strawberry + 1024, plus newer Bhruic patches, some of his older ones that were never really used, with surplus reduction techs in the mid-late game, and an early game full of low-tech violence instead of colony ship spamming.

if you haven't seen this thread already:

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=640254

it's a returning player's first impression of MUU:BaA Chocolate, after a 3-year break from the game. :up:

[kevincalhn4]

to bew honest I don't know what almost ALL of those short names mean. I don't know how to mod. I don't read the posts unless to answer a burning question. I know nothing of any fruit bearing mods or 1042 or w/e it was. I keep it all pretty simple. I like to get the best advantages and like reading the manuals or stratagy guides but I guess I would have to read thgrough what the mods do. I tried but half way through I saw more negatives then pluses which is why I wanted a nutshell convincing but assume I know nothing of any of the mods and very little of the MOO3 lingo. I never even multiplay. It puts me at a disadvantage sometimes. I guess thats why I just assumed I'd come on some cool secret of exploiting a game by only skill point s that can't be fixed in game but must remember there are people who literally take the game apart and turn the mystery to math. Helps me on those moments somethign doesnt' make sense. so I guess I was being dumb thinking I got knowledge the geniuses weren't using. I had a retard moment lol.

[pedxing]

"1024" is the 1024x768 mod. the game normally runs at 800x600 resolution, right? the 1204 mod expands the screens to be 1024x768. so, for example, instead of seeing 4 planets when you open up the planets list, you can see 7 at a time. the bigger view also makes looking at your technology trees much nicer.

the new "UI skin" that's in Strawberry changes the colors and look of buttons and such. it doesn't change where anything is on the screen or what it does, it just changes the colors.

and finally, "MUU:BaA" is a future full of win, and the current version of it is called Chocolate. :p

anyway, check out Cyntax69's report in that link i had above. it's written from a player's perspective, rather than in modder's mumbo-jumbo.

and really, the easiest way to see what any of these mods packages are all about is to make a copy of your Moo3 directory, and install the package into it.

then if you don't like it, you can just junk the whole directory.

finally, even if you don't end up installing Strawberry or Chocolate, you should definitely try 1024. the increased resolution makes a huge difference! :up:

[ArchmageJ]

i learned enough to become dangerous. :cool:


As if you weren't already :D:haha:

I can't really sell you on strawberry or tropical, i havent tried them.
Ped has probably given you the best answers/ reasons for trying the mods, its something new and hopefully fun.
I did play chocalate a bit, I prefer to have colony ability to start with, but other wise was enjoying it. I stopped because the version I had has a bug, ive dled the fixed one but havent installed it yet.
I thought id try an impossible level game so i went back to vanilla since i know those rules, might try chocalate again once in done there, i have 2 x's so far and all but the NO and Nommo are hostile , -200 cb's, altho the nommo just broke all treaties. (I do have 330 planets so i shouldn't be surprised) :alien:
Unless you have low drive space having 2 or 3 version should be easy to do.
I guess try it you might like it would be my thought on the mods.
I think i just like watching the enemy ships blowing up :)

[Quinn]

I guess the best reason is a common frame of reference - everyone playing the same mod will have an experience that translates to everyone else using that mod, hence can share specific strategies and gametips.

Default 1.25 - baseline but still buggy, hence Vanilla.
Vanilla - just bug fixes, no gameplay changes.
Strawberry - added in those patches which improved gameplay - like autobuild - without changing the feel of the game.
Tropical - Colt had fun playing with all the different patches and modifiable areas and made a completely different game in essence.
1024 - increases the screen resolution - a must for the majority, once you try it you won't go back
MuU:BaA a.k.a. Chocolate - takes Strawberry that step further without straying too far.

[kevincalhn4]

It's short anmd logical. I understand it. I like to be close to the original without losing the real intent. I put one patch on once that actually denied me tech areas or moved when I should get them just becuase of my RACE! killed that one. It sounds like I want vanilla. I just discovered, and thought it had long been fixed, that my PT defense ships aren't firing their lighting feild generators, Why? why in god's name? I have 1.2.5 I used a few of Bhruics patches. none that specifically say fixed PT defense ship but I thoguht it was the visibilitly patch, i have that. Looks like I need your help. What do I need for THAT one? plus I still need that damb tech level one. Maybe it will fix the weirdness happening on my game.

[Quinn]

Wow, I thought the datapatch (before 1.2.5 and included in 1.2.5) and visibility fixed PD weapons too, they seem to for me.

To be honest it sounds like you want strawberry, and 1024 only changes screen resolution, so that's well worth it too. Which of course means you are heading in the direction of Chocolate but without the tech re-arrangements for pre-warp starts.

[pedxing]

along with the Visibility patch itself, there are also changes to the techtables.txt that need to be done, right?

and i agree with Quinn: it sounds like what you would be doing after installing Vanilla is to then add back in your favorite mods and patches on top, which would get you really close to what Strawberry already is.

so it might save you some time and effort to just go straight to Strawberry?

oh, and did you already get 1024?

[Quinn]

IIRC, it's the ECM, ECCM, sensors and cloaks that need changing.

There's a fix (rather than patch\mod) to sort out the first modifier in techtables.txt, otherwise it gets ignored, but it might be visibility that does that [I can't check because Bhruic's patcher site is down]

[kevincalhn4]

it's a shame becuase the game I had going was lots of fun. Strawberry has somethings in it I don't like. I hate the curser thing. I make attack mistakes becuase the fleet gets confused or I do with the pointer. i tell it to patrol and it starts spinning out of control, the fleet, lost some good men that way. Is there a way to KNOW for sure that the all tech edit using 100 worked when youload up a game? it doesn't work with games already in play huh? One thing I hate abotu strawberry is racial tech limits. I think limiting is wrong based on race, not being PC but I go out of my way in customize to make sure I know and get my research! I also think the AI players should be allowed all tech too, its fair so it's nto a cheat thing on my part.

[Quinn]

Try going to options and setting the cursor to "system" - I have to otherwise it crashes.

[pedxing]

what "racial tech limits" are in Strawberry? :weird:

[Fishers of Men]

The original Strawberry version does not use the racial tech option in its default setup. You are free to use the patch and the correct table adjustments to make it work, if that is your preference.

FoM

[pedxing]

that's what i thought, too.

or... hmmm, Kevin?

are you meaning you think that there are some techs that some races don't get?

or are you talking about how different races have different Creativity, and don't all get the same % of the techs?

meaning that you want (and want the AIs to also have) 100% Creativity, so nobody has any missing techs in their tech trees? :weird:

[kevincalhn4]

I downloaded individual patches for high res. but when I did strawberry ONLY the cursor was normal, BUT I can't handle that, when I pan back it shoots all the way back into the next galaxy! too far to control the ships! so they get a shot off first until I control it! (Is there a way to control it)? Thanks for the verifier. it found that the NEW copy I just reinstalled siad MOO3.exe failed. I think that one's important. lol What drives me nuts is the color is so light that when I pull up other tabs I can see overlap from other screens in the back and that has not been good for my eyes. ( is there something I can do there?) I will reinstall again but i hope I can use the old saved games with the new installed version without creating a failure again. All in all I think I'm beginning to enjoy strawberry but does anyone have the contactpropaganda zip as the copy I have will not work with this version of MOO3 I need a fresh one. unless it isn't just meant to be used w/ strawberry.

[Quinn]

moo3.exe will fail with the install verifier, because the file has been changed by Bhruic's and Gerra's patches - it's the only fail you can safely ignore.

Are you using the wheel on the mouse to zoom out of combat? Try using + and - instead and the Page Up/Down, Insert/Delete, Home/End keys to pan/tilt and other strange movements. They're more sensitive.

Contact Propagation uses a new version of moo3dll.dll so that might be why it's failing - try taking the one from chocolate, that's the latest. BUT you will need to unpatch (with moo3patcher.exe) all patches that require a the dll, remove it (in patcher), copy in the new dll file, patch it again (in patcher) and then add back in all the patches you removed above.

Phew!

[kevincalhn4]

I'll just forget the propaganda if it's taht much trouble. Becuase of the damb wheel backwards combat thing and becuase there were so many ships on the feild I lost a huge fleet where as before I could control the long range long enough to destroy the first 5 volleys of missles, carrier ships and stay out of range of the long ships to go back and kill them after or worse, circle around with their long range still there and kill their carriers and missleships with my long range because they think their doing great if their long rng factor is still high.

[pedxing]

i think there is also a setting in one of the preferences file for how sensitive the mouse wheel is?

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ah, here we go: edit Moo3Prefs.ini, and set MouseWheelSensitivity=2 or even 1