Patton's Tech Balance Mod v1.1 -Or "Klaatu Berata Nic*COUGH COUGH*!" mod

Well kids.  Here it is.  The first official version of my mod.  Thanks to Ed the 2nd for his tables on AI behavior, thanks
to Velli for all his help with various graphics things that I'm still working on.  Special thanks to Wag2003 for actually 
trying the blasted thing and giving me all the wonderful feedback.

(note: this mod's history is as choatic as the game's development cycle.  I've been working on this on 
and off for months.  At least once I deleted MoO3 from my HD but kept the mod.  I've tried to re-create what I've 
lost through mistakes and I'm pretty sure this set was the right one.  If somebody finds a problem, just let me 
know and I'll take care of it.

INSTALLATION: To install just cut and paste the GameDataSets folder to your Master Of Orion 3 folder, where ever
that might be.  All appropriate files will be written over, leaving the others untouched.  Make sure you select "YES"
when prompted to copy over files. ;)

v 0.1 History/comments.  I've begun by adding some fighter techs, and autoblasters.  Basic tech additions and balancing.
I have also done minor racal work, by making the senate member pick default to random, but free for players to choose on
or the other.

v 0.2 History/comments.  Nerfed missiles by something like 75%, increased cost and size.  Fighters changed and balanced. 
I've continued to balance techs and weapons.  Continued working with extra fighter techs and chassis.

v 0.3 History/comments.  My experiments with adding fighter tech have been unsucessful.  I've not been able to do much more
than add some techs that may or may not work.  I can't tell.  Therefore, I'm giving up in favor of trying to balance what we
have now.  I'll add heavy fighters, and possibly a fourth chassis, bombers later.  Right now, I'm trying to relearn all that
I've come to know about MoO3.  This is a completely different animal.  Early game warfare especially is difficult, to say
the least.  The early game knockout is all but impossible (at least, for me.  perhaps somebody else can figure out how.  I 
can't.)

v 1.0 History/comments.  The x10 hull size was too much.  It was too difficult to kill ships, so I knocked it back to x5.  
I've played with AI behavior in order to increase the number of Direct Fire ships built and deployed.  I've also begun 
playing the AI Mobilization center construction criterea.  I've no idea what I'm doing with this, and it very well may be
a disaster, but I have to try.  I've also played with what I hope to be the AI invasion tables (as in system invasion, not
planetary).  I've no idea what I'm doing here, either but well see what happens.

v 1.1 History/comments.  Thanks to Lord Aramus, Wag2003 and Artagel for the feedback and ideas.  I tried to lower fighter 
damage, but then I added Bombers a new chassis, got confused and just tried to get the damage proportionally correct.  In
doing this I completely forgot what fighter damage used to be.  I will continue to tweek this in the next version.  As a 
result, I've increased the percentage of CV ships the AI will try to field as well as build.  Changed maintenance costs in 
a continueing effort to encourage the AI to invade.  Also, I fixed some errors I made.  Full details listed below.

v1.2 History/comments: Due to the fact that I'm a retard, I've had to put the things I was going to sneek into the release
version of 1.1 into a new version.  Sorry kids.  Anyway, I continued to adjust TF ratio's and such, trying to find a good
mix of LR, IF and carriers which are still too powerful, but I'm working on it.  I don't really care about SR, but I felt
obligated to put at least some in.  I have attempted to further balance IF, by making the descrepancy between warheads
damage smaller.  Ive also decreased fighter damage slightly over previous versions.


 
WHAT I'VE CHANGED:
 1.)  Hull sizes multiplied by 5.
 2.)  All Weapons and TECHs muliplied by 5.
 3.)  Armor Values were roughly doubled.
 4.)  Starting missile damage reduced by roughly 60%, each warhead now increases damage yield by about 20%.
 5.)  Direct Fire weapon cost reduced by roughly 25% (LFG and Steller Converter were left alone for cost and size).
 6.)  Orbital and System Defense ships are now x2 the size of starhips.
 7.)  Planetary defense bases were doubled in size.
 8,)  Ion Fighters Shield and Armor Piercing were changed to .7 as were most AP and SP weapons.  I've still got to finsih
	with this and update the wStrings files.
 9.)  Task Forces Sizes were roughly doubled.  I renamed them and adjusted the number of escort ships.
10.)  Senate Race pick is free.  All races default to random.
11.)  PD Mount was made smaller with an increased rate of fire.
12.)  Ion Pulse cannon nerfed the same way the fighter was.
13.)  Space Control Fighters are double the size of an intercepter and do roughly three times the damage at three times the 
	cost of said intercepters.  Also renemaed to Space Superiority Fighter
14.)  Added Heavy Fighters and Bombers.  Increased damage to size ratio of each, Space Superiority Fighters do rougly 50%
	more damage per unispace than Intercepters, and Bombers do double.
15.)  Lightning Field Generator: Rate of Fire dropped from x5 to x3.  I'm thinking of making it x2, but not sure yet.
16.)  Shield Penetrating Neutron Blaster replaced with an Autofire Neutron Blaster.  I've always missed the MoO Auto Blaster.
17.)  I've added a few surprises.  Nothing much, just a few little hat tippings to those I've always admired and/or found
	amusing over the past year and change I've been hanging out with the MoO Geeks.
18.)  Missile armor and shield costs were roughly halved, to relect the lower damage potential of IF weaponry.
19.)  I've also decresed the cost of fighter armor and shields.  Just becuase.
20.)  I've given the NO's a couple of colony ships.  I'm not sure if it even worked, much less if they do anything with them.
	So far, I've not seen a difference with this.  I'll continue to work with it.  Ideally, I want the NO to colonize a 
	handful of systems, say 3-4.  One jump in each direction or some such. 
21.)  I've changed the max number of ships the NO could have in reserve.  Roughly doubled for easy and medium.  Hard and 
	Impossible remain at "unlimited."
22.)  Lowered costs overall for deployed Ships and Ground troops.  This should incourage the AI to deploy groundtroops.  I'm
	hoping that this does not cripple its ability to invade enemy systems...  snicker...  Sorry.  I just couldn't keep
	a straight face while saying that...  invade...
23.)  Increased the ratio of LR ships, decreased IF slightly, and decreased the recon ratio (am I the 
	only one that thinks the AI builds WAY TOO MANY freaking useless recon ships???).  I left SR, PD and CV alone).
24.)  I've increased the number of LR TF the AI will try to field, while decreasing IF and CV.  This should help the AI stay
	in combat longer.  I hope.
25.)  On Ed the 2nd's advise, the AI will always try to bring along a transport TF in every 10 TF group.  I'm sure if this 
	will help much, given the AI's determination to blast the living shit out of every planet it can BEFORE it wil even 
	consider landing troops, but time will tell.  Besides, I could be wrong with my observed AI behavior.
26.)  According to the MilitaryAI spreadsheet, several tables are supported in code written 3-11-03.  One table deals with 
	mobilization centers.  I'm going to start playing with this table and see what happens.  Idealy, I would like the AI
	to build fewer mob centers, and locate them close to the boarder, but not in a boarder system.  One jump away would 
	be fun.
27.)  I've modded the change of a mob center being built in any given system.  the chances should be slightly lower.
28.)  I've lowered the "advantage needed" table in MilitaryAI spreadsheet.  Not sure what it does, but it sounds fun.
29.)  I've changed TF rules.txt to require all TF's to have PD escorts.
30.)  Increased Direct Fire "Near Damage" by about 10% and increased "Far Damage" by a fairly random, but small number.
	Exceptions:  I left steller converter, lightning field generator and plasma cannon damage alone.
31.)  Adjusted Base relations so that Geodic get along with cypernetic, to match the existing fondness cybernetics have 
	towards geodics.
32.)  Decreased building matenance costs, roughly halving them.  This should help the AI and player's ability to spend more
	AUs on production, and less on upkeep.
33.)  Added titan class hulls to UnitValues.txt  I'm not sure what this does yet, but it says lottery balls and all the
	other classes are there, so I'm assuming it was a simple oversight by QSI.
34.)  Made Very Light armor a garunteed tech for every game.
35.)  Made it possible for LR ships to be put in the recon ring.  
36.)  Decreased the number value for "Damage // Per 0.5 population point" listed in the civilian and economic 
	collateral damage spreadsheets by roughly half.  This should make it much harder to raze a planet through planetary
	bombardments that the AI loves.
37.)  Roughly doubled the AIs chances of building a warship over a grunt.
39.)  I'm pretty sure I doubled the size of Ion Fighters, which were still too powerfull, despite nerfing their damage.  


THINGS I'M WORKING ON:
1.)  I'm still mucking around with fighters.  I couldn't get extra shields or armor techs to work properly, so I abandoned
	that element, and have decided to focus on balancing chasses.  I'll perhaps add a fourth chassis, not sure about 
	that just yet.  More accurately, if my additions were working, I couldn't find any way to actively test them, and
	quantify their effect.
2.)  I'm still balancing things that have been "broken" by adding such survivability to ships.
3.)  I'm playing with tech slowdown / speedup.
4.)  I've continuing my efforts to keep the AI in combat longer, and avoiding the shoot and scoot tactic.
5.)  I'm going to leave racal balancing to Tehom, if he wants to jump in on this.  He seems to know alot more abou that area
	than I do.
6.)  I'm considering increasing shield strengths, but am warry since I've played around so much with fighter and missile 
	shields.  I don't want to start mucking up things that are, nominally, working.


As you can see from the random nature of the list of changes above, this mod involved many different ideas and lots of 
different phases with many failures and changes along the way.  I'm still working with the fighters, and fine tuning the 
weapons capabilities.  Right now though, it works and as far as I know, nothing is retarded powerful.  I haven't played with 
high level fighters, but I am pretty sure that plasma bombers will be too powerful and I'm probably going to nerf 
fighter plasma cannons. More on that later.  Right now, I need to play test this as it is now, and try it out for some 
serious playing.



Oh yeah, 
Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.  You can reach me on the Atari MoO Boards via PM or in the Patton 
Mod thread there.  Or just email me.

//greg
Patton1942@hotmail.com
