Good idea. Best do it with AM regen. I'm working on adapting the DB to the new format right now, might take a week or so. After I'm done we need to set a date for submitting the changes you've made, then I will review and accept them and send out a new version of the DB to you with all the added functionality (hopefully).

Some suggestions for Centauri frigates

* Remove the heavy roletype from Centurion as it can only target structures, mines & planets.

  Could it prioritize structures before planets? That way it would only bombard the surface after taking down defence turrets etc.

* Change statCountType of the Maximus from light to frigateAntiFighter to match its roletype and avoid duplication with the Kutai

* Centauri :- faster structure build time (ship deploys work gangs on newly colonized planets)

* Narn :- lower development costs (ship carries ex-Centauri construction machinery)

It would fill up one of their unused ability slots

Was already thinking along those lines... but for the Narn I was thinking as in the BSG mod that they produce planetary defenses from the capital ship colonization ability. Tickets 29 and 53 apply though I haven't written either ability yet. If you want to take a crack at it, it's all yours...

Sounds good, but my moving preparations are progressing swiftly...I might either be very productive or off the grid for weeks could go either way. I'll input what I can till then.

TobiWahn,

I've hit a snag. In attempting to rework the Vorlon as no shield high armor...is totally at odds with their research tree and several instances in the show where Vorlon ships presented shields (with visual effects). The Shadow on the other hand will work with a high armor, no shield approach. Baring further direction I'll swap the current effort and develop the Shadow as high armor, no shield (0.001) and morph the Shadow shield values to the Vorlon.

Both research trees will require adjustment for make a high armor, no shield foe but the Shadow less so. Standing by as I work on other things in the interim.

Perfect, thanks. Yes, the current trees have many inconsistencies, good you spotted them. Do not forget that the Shadow ships need at least 0.000001 shield so that mitigation can take effect.

I've also discovered that I missed a few functions/conditions that rebellion provides, those will be in the next update of the modDB.

For a no shield ship I'm using 0.001000. What I'll forward in the near term is my multiplayer balancing effort for ship resource costs, shield and mitigation and armor adjustments and several other odds an ends.

I'm recommending a -1k nerf of the Minbari longest main beam weapon, for most ships that is 6k to 5k which still outranges most other ships 2:1. The 6k beam was on par with the Vorlon and in several instances was longer range as well as outranging the Shadow main beams which was a bit OP.

I need to play more with the sync tool before I fully grasp abilities/buffs the tool organizes them differently...

TobiWahn,

As I continue to look at rebalance it is evident the following ships are needed:

Vorlon Heavy Drone - in the light frigate role which will reduce the existing drone to a corvette status which will retain all existing functions.

Shadow Assassin - a new ship in the corvette role, simply take a Shadow fighter and increase its size till it is about 1/3 the size of a Shadow Scout.

I'll submit all changes and new entity files to accomplish the above. Having a dedicated light frigate should reduce the Vorlon drone spam and weird camping behavior. The Shadow also need something to counter the drone numbers which in practice overwhelm the Shadow. The younger races throw up more volume of fire which reduces the Vorlon drone threat to them.

TobiWahn,

Multiplayer balance and other adjustments submitted via e-mail. The new ships require some tweaking.

Done almost all the necessary work on the ModDB to make it compatible with the new DLC. Now I need to adjust the gameplay.constant and other files that are not included in the db. I've also updated all the stuff so now the db should include all rebellion extensions (research modifiers and such).

Once I have updated the rest of the files I will send the new db to Darvroth and new Horizons and check in the changes to BitBucket.

Hope you all had a nice weekend

Committed the first 1.5+DLC build. For reasons of compatitility I would suggest e require the DLC for the mod, otherwise it becomes tedious to adjust for all eventualities. And the DLC price is not high.

The work on the Database is almost completed (just a few minor kinks with the import of the committed data to be sorted out), I#ve encountered a roblem with the export of the Strings and Manifest files and fixed it. So from the next build on that should work without a problem.

@Darvroth and NewHorizons:
Please commit all your adaptions to me till Saturday evening, as I plan on distributing the next build to you sometime sunday

I've got a few ideas in mind for B5-related DLC planet bonuses

* Oceanic: "Abbai sub-aquatic cities". Similar to 'pacifist society'. Population & culture bonus, increase in logistic slots. Decrease in tactical slots.

* Greenhouse: "Gaim colony hives", increase in population & planet health. Cost reduction for structures & planet upgrades (plenty of Gaim worker drones to do stuff on the cheap).

* Barren: "Balosian survivors". What's left of, the once fertile, Balosian homeworld after Jha'dur's assault. Increase of population & planet health (to reflect relocation underground) but an  decrease in growth rate (less fertile). Reduction in logistic & tactical slots and an increase of planet upgrade costs (trashed infrastructure)

Nice!

Just an FYI, custom mod-only planet bonuses can work without actually owning the DLC.

I've tested the 1.52 AI yesterday, and strange things are going on:

The Centauri do not want to fight, do not want to build or expand
The Minbari are very agressive
The Narn tried to battle the Minbari, doing mostly well
The Vorlons expanded a little
The Shadows scouted, nothing more

I played EA, so I will switch roles next time. Probably do an all out AI match. Also, the AI's were on Hard, but the AI type left to random.

I also noticed that the lightning on the DakKar is off and does not relate to the position of the light source. I might have to do the tangents again to get it working. Hopefully not the whole mesh...

A Centauri opponent is doing less well, but appears to have been out-colonized by his EA ally even though it didn't choose an Explorer class for its free capital ship.

While playing as Minbari my initial fleet supply got used up early on by freebie TEC units - 3x Kodiak, 3x Javelis, 3x Garda, a Cobalt and a Krosov. Only native units were the freebie Sharlin. a Tinashi and a colony ship. As Minbari can colonize Oceanic planets without research, they have the potential to colonize better. Not sure if that's intentional or not.

Minor UI glitches

* buttons and credit/metal/crystal stats at the top of the screen are misaligned.

* Empire tree icons are missing for the new DLC planet types.

* Info card icons for the new planet bonuses (eg 'Pacifist society') are missing.

We probably need to import the new brush and texture sheets for these.

Must check, but I think I just need to update the brushes manifest. We've exported our brushes to their own file with 0.43.

Concur. The percentage has been adjusted several times, add to that research for planet types and it comes down to luck. If the Shadow player establishes a colony or two they seem to do ok, if they fail at colonization 2-3 times the AI seems to quit trying. As part of the balance the Shadow access to planet types and the percentage for colonization needs to be adjusted. Is it possible to set up different percentages for different planet types within the 5 buff limit?

Likely the difference is AI behavior, if in doubt set up one of each type and see how they perform against each other for comparison before comparisons of the different races against each other can be made in earnest. Some factions will play better as turtle and others as aggressive.

Had anybody give it a thought to turn the vorlons and the shadows home planet to be able to make it a super planet with research(ex. increase logistics slots and income) and make the colonization difficult for both, since neither the shadows and the vorlons were big in colonization.

Just finished a game as EA, against all races.

Shadow and Volons didn't really expand,

Minbar we're knocked out quite early, 

Centauri we're second last to get killed off.

But it was the Narn that came out on top

I'll see if I can play a game as Narn tomorrow test the EA AI.

Colonization is required by the AI and is already hard for both the Vorlon and Shadow. The trick we are trying to balance is to make both races playable but not so OP they always win. Right now colonization for the Shadow is so difficult the AI doesn't seem to be able to compensate and quits. Internally, we are looking at changes to address. Reworking the tech tree for Rebellion will be a partial solution.

There are four AI types: aggressive, turtle, tech and economic focusing. The real balance problems come with AI ship building priorities based on ship role types. Those were just reworked for all races as part of a multiplayer balance effort just completed and are reflected in the 1.5 DLC build uploaded to Bitbucket a couple days ago. Testing will reveal if the effort worked as intended but test results must include AI type. Some races by design will not turtle well. EA, Centauri and Minbari are the most complete races so may perform better, but AI ship building and fleet balance would be the real test of AI behavior.

All troubles cause of new planets and update of social and industrrial parts.

playerAISharedDef
            BuildShip
            BuildModuleTactical
            BuildModuleCivilian
            BuildModuleResearch
            UpgradeResearch
            UpgradePlanetArtifactLevel
            UpgradePlanetPopulation
            UpgradePlanetInfastructure
            UpgradePlanetSocial
            UpgradePlanetIndustry
            MaxBountyBidCount
            UpgradeStarBase
            BuildMines

There are new two parts which AI didn't have before.

UpgradePlanetSocial
UpgradePlanetIndustry

This makes AI problems and you have to change all values and find the best combination, that AI can play good again.

Hey all,

I can do some coding, such as editing stats of ships i.e. hull, regen, weapons, etc.

If you needs any stats changing for balancing I've got some free time over the weekend.

Just had a thought for an EA ability for the Omega Cap, assault teams to damage planet modules. Got the idea from when Clark attacked Babylon 5 when Sheridan broke away from the Earth Alliance. 

Something to be considered is that in Vanilla Rebellion (with or without DLC) the AI seems to quit often (in various ways) on Easy and Normal. It is less likely on the higher difficulties though it can easily stall out, even on vanilla.

You may not be doing anything wrong.