Hi Quiet_Man,

Excellent feedback as always.

I will consider what you said in more detail when I return from Holidays (2 weeks)! - i.e I'm not sure how often I will be checking the forums.

BTW: R4 of Maelstrom will focus on Planets (old and some new), Particle Effects and Balance.

if someone likes to try: the full Norlamin Technology tree is ~6:00 in game time. Really great work with this mod.

I added capital spawn to the dread controllers and removed fleet requirements. A large system against 7 AI is now approaching 8:00 game hours, I have 60 capitals (scraped some to make space for dreads as I captured two dread controllers from other races). The game is still running without major issues. I have a dump when I end sins but I assume it is because of the many capitals.

I had the impression that my capitals became slower when I researched mass reduction? Could just be because of the many upgrade dreads.

just re-reading "Really great work with this mod." is not meant sarcastic I wanted to say that this in deep research tree is a great thing.

Another thing on dreads: The path finding has it's problems with the wide ships like norlamins or the new advent (I love it) dread. Does sins have separate collision boxes? A simple solution could be to make the collision box thinner and allow some clipping so ships don't get hang between other ships or orbital buildings.

It sounds like the research is adding mass rather then removing it when the upgrade is completed.

hmmm, if this is the case, can it be that the game logic has a "break even point" for slow turning? With dreads become upgraded to super dreads (original sins) I already had the problem of ships taking forever to avoid e.g. buildings. In the Norlamins game it became regular that only part of a fleet arrived where I send them. The other ships hanging on the way.

Hey i hope you can redo the Alliance ships if possible i mean no offense at all but it feels weird seeing BSG Ships in a Alliance format lol but how the structures are made its perfect in my personal opinion.

Oh here are some recommendation of a first start of new fighters

http://pcmedia.ign.com/media/reviews/image/starfighter_0201_001_640w.jpg

http://www.delta-max.com/Last%20Starfighter%20Gunstar%201.jpg

http://images.wikia.com/masseffect/images/0/0d/Alliance_Fighter.jpg

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/5658/rommel4sf9.gif

http://media.photobucket.com/image/Star+fighter+/Kmadden2004/starfighter-1.jpg

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs44/f/2009/110/6/f/StarFighter_by_Skylow.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_kiHKgFBo76I/SWFdqdj9r9I/AAAAAAAAAOQ/KBdj6Ki_sXc/s400/SpaceFighterLines+copy.jpg

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/3858/fighteratmosphere.jpg

I like the Bsg ships if you read the web site it says the Alliance purchased the Design.

I did some testing on this mass reduction and it is implemented correctly but a rather unlucky item: When the mass of the ships is reduced they get stopped by things in their way, like trade ships or fighters. Most unlucky the Norlamins dread has it's fighters in front and with high mass reduction they slow him down. In addition it does not improve turn rate.

So mass reduction does the opposite in this case and worsens the ship performance

I suggest to replace it (also for replicators) with a combination of higher acceleration & tun rate

Hello soase-maelstrom, I hope you have a good vacation as you have some to-does when you return

1. Norlamins research speed

2. Mass-reduction issue

3. Mining bonuses

I did some testing on last one and indeed mining bonuses can be neglected until you have nothing better to do, but then you don't really need them anymore.

e.g. you have captured 3 systems, so you have total 4 systems with about 15 extractors = about 4 iron & 4 crystal per sec

if you research four mining level you will gain 28% from 4 = ~1 per sec, in the same time you can have long researched and build trade ports, purchased new ships and already conquer an additional system which would give you also ~1 minerals while you trade ports are already producing close to 10 credits per second.

Just from the look of it I wonder if trade/mining is "broken" (=unbalanced) in the game itself? The 7% improvements simply make no difference until you have many planets, which already gives you a huge trade income. An early upgrade of mining would only make sense if the improvement is about 30% per research step or if you would conquer new worlds very very slowly or not at all (which isn't a good idea).

I suggest to increase the replicator mining to 30% to 50% per level (50% for the first levels) and for the other races to 20% to 30% (30% for first levels), this would start to get me thinking if I buy a new trade post or do the research

Mass can be influenced by thrust. Mess with it.

hmm, didn't Einstein say speed? 

I do not really get what you want to say. The issue is about the game in build Mass reduction effect. When applied it increases acceleration (but curiously not turn rate, might be error in game code) but with the problem that the ships gets slowed down/stopped by anything in it's way, including it's own fighters, until it barely moves anymore. Which pretty much negates the better acceleration effect you get.

Mess with thrust.

Mibad.

Don't change the mass, it's usually fine.

Turn Acceleration and whatnot, I'm sure you have tried messing with that, how did that go?

Hi all,

I recently tried to download the expansion files for entrenchment

When I tried to download the 7z file, it said completed after about 124 mb

When I tried the zip it said complete after around 240 mb.

Is this correct? I did not try to extract either file since the files are supposed to be at least twice as big.

@soase-maelstrom - For the purpose of helping others setup, you might want to post up the checksum numbers next to or underneath each mod file. This would help with that issue.

Hi Ryat,

Yes I remember you gave this suggestion in Sept of last year. The problem is that the checksum is dependent on the directory name of the mod. So if people change the name then ...

Hi Xanithor,

It sounds like the maelstrom website server had a glitch ... too many active downloads or the provider was in the process of maintenance

1. Try downloading from modDB or

2. Try a file download manager (eg firefox) or

3. Try downloading a bit later

Hi Quiet_Man,

I'm back from Holidays ... and with a new PC!

Thanks for the feedback on Mass Reduction and the Norlamins. Will look into the issues ASAP.

Never been able to change the directory. The game always goes when I try it. From what I understand the directory must stay the same thanks to Microsoft. As for the file name change I have never seen it happen and I do it a lot. Oh well.

Sorry that I didn't make it clear ... what I meant was the name of the maelstrom mod dir, i.e "Maelstrom R3" for instance. If I change it to say just "Maelstrom" the checksum changes ... or maybe I'm nuts?

I'll check it but I've never run into that issue.

Just tested it again. No change in checksum when mod file name is change.

Thanks, guess I much be nuts!

Unfortunately I'm upgrading my new PC and can't immediately pursue what I was doing wrong.

did you weaken the Cators defence beams in latest version? I always liked the fact that their defences could last a while under fire and do some serious damage. In my last game it was gone in no time. Could be just a strong fleet attacking.

Without repair there is not much the cators have to build up a defense.

How about Thumpers and Traktors?

yes, I think it was because of an alliance fleet attacking, their bombers are very strong.