Modding

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Bestechung
Look at the communcations network which you should always build with varying success...especially for Terrans (note the modifiers are 4000 resistance points versus the puny 500 for the Khaoran empire). Bribery resistance is great for the Terrans..

Bribery is not effective in the ordinary fashion as it will not persuade the unmalleable. If a minor race is intractable and just bent upon an attitude that your empire is to be hated, then I doubt you can change this in game.

You would have to mod the major race attributes instead.

Their first contact...
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... er_Kontakt

versus their diplomatic attitude and acceptance...
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Diplomatie

versus their minor race data....
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Races.data

versus the major race data...
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Races.data

is going to severely limit the first contact and subsequent diplomatic dialogue.

Note that if you use a ship, you can try to "avoid" an engagement.
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... tle=Meiden

[UesugiKenshin]

In terms of game mechanics, typically there is always some conflict that is unavoidable and hence why the better minor races with strong military techtrees are not pushovers, but have huge starting fleets. Some won't like you so you have to face some. Not all as twice I have managed to absorb minor races with these starting fleets.

Such switchovers then totally change the outcome as then you can effectively double your military forces and so prevent invasions. I wouldn't waste them too early. You certainly can exploit this to conquer other minor races.

[UesugiKenshin]

Desilu studios operated Star Trek as I recall. So they ran a pilot within Star Trek TOS.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WfAP6fJZ1is
The premise is a human being is trained by extraterrestrials to monitor and protect humans and avoid detection. Then Kirk and Spock think he's interfering in human history when Gary Seven is not really.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gary_Seven

I thought about slot eight for another major empire which would be grand meddler aliens who have godlike power and interfere with all the other empires or could be played as benevolent altruists by some players.

They would have very limited ships that travel faster than all the other empires and be immensely strong, but have difficulty making new ones due to the expense. They would have vast spy abilities. They would likely cloak and scout the entire map and develop diplomatic relationships in the first 50 turns. Conquering is not appealing to them, so they would be like Organians. The AI could never use them as they would conquer with them when they are an alternative for players.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XRom2GCTZZI

The original Organians from TOS.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_UJyf8jCqJU
They manipulate but find conflict and interference distasteful.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1z53QhFO9E

Captain Picard in an alternative timeline reveals that the war with the Klingon empire is going badly and the outcome is inevitable in six months.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kIMGFq8_OJM

So likely the Khaoran empire can defeat all other empires based on how angry they are and how ruthless they want to be as compared to the Catare or the Omega Alliance.

In a modded version, the Vi alone minus their humanoid hosts can defeat every other empire.

[UesugiKenshin]

I think an end game where the Khaoran empire wins as detailed above has to end with civil war because of these episodes in STTNG.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dl4XXgvrZhg
And this commentary too.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ikBDiWAaMSs

Regardless of peace, there is no finale to Khaoran war as peace leads to yet more wars as they are a warrior race.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-j_aGdMinIM
Whatever caused the Organians to undergo an entire racial metamorphosis (from humanoid to noncorporeal beings of pure thought and energy who can shapeshift to blend in) is likely to be similar to what happens to John in the STTNG episode Transfigurations.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tr ... _(episode)

So this other major race available to be galactic meddlers is like whatever that tends to be modded. Honestly they are like the USA as no one respects our meddling even if it seems altruistic.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://mephitjamesblog.wordpress.com/2 ... ek-cypher/
Star Trek has been around since 1966 (when in development and actually the first plot failed ie The Cage). And since that time has inspired a colossal amount of literature... not to mention a huge amount of fanfiction.

So much so that writing plots for the minor races as vingettes within the diplomacy screen is quite easy. It's just accumuating 150 as that is how many minor races a player might encounter.

And these would get unlocked by various stellar cartography computers and diplomatic databases as I see it. They would also be random events or even actual events based on turns and the level of difficulty.

It's so easy to do that, that it is reminiscent of "mad libs" that were around since the seventies where you have people type in random things in fill-in-the blanks to generate a story.

Like this.
http://www.st-minutiae.com/humor/plot.html

You can even do various homages to famous science fiction stories or famous myths from the Greeks/Romans and the Norse.

You can have parodies of current events.

This would add so much especially to pass the time while endlessly micromanaging turns and hoping eventually for battle.

I spent 400 turns as the Khaoron and colonizing and coaxing systems to become members and it was quite enjoyable as a sandbox game...with no major race opponents. I was just exploring the map and had made 50% minor races populate a huge dense 40x40 at 100% star system map. Half of the galaxy was under my control.

Anyone wanting to pay homage to Star Trek within the BofE galaxy, then can consult Memory Alpha to get the overall themes of shows and history of all the characters. Then look at Memory Beta as that is where all the nonauthorized Star Trek stories' details are stored.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Portal:Main
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page

Memory Beta is noncanonical and truly all the crazy JJ Abrams stuff (nuTrek) and the outrageously insipid Mary Jane garbage of STD (Star Trek Discovery) must be where those writers have mined zany ideas...often politically correct ones.

It used to be that the worst insult you could give Star Trek fan fiction was label a short story or novel a "Mary Jane" as that meant a character was a one man army who could wear every hat...and typically saved the day. Which is a bizarre methodology on an ensemble show largely about the diversity of the Federation!

STD is a hopeless mishmash of Mary Jane stories. Picard (the new show) is a wretched mess.

[UesugiKenshin]

Not only that, there are lots of role playing games that were created since the seventies. And the person in charge of creating scenarios and adventures would consult a book and there would be charts of story ideas or you could just roll dice and generate one on the fly.

And we could do that too as modders to create colorful stories for every minor race as text filler.

As a writer you sure don't have to reinvent the wheel. Writers recycle story ideas no matter the serialized milieu.

There are official Star Trek ones, Joune, Traveler is the oldest, etc. Look them up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor ... ying_games
https://www.slant.co/topics/3870/~best- ... letop-rpgs

[UesugiKenshin]

You could parody any science fiction shows since even the absurd Lost in Space tv show. It would be funny if recognizable references alluded to these characters existing in BotE as the reverse ie the actual basis for the show. Make a minor race have ancestors who influenced Mulder and Scully from the X Files (but call them Sculder and Mully) and say these extraterrestrials were errant teenagers pulling pranks on an unsuspecting Terran FBI team...long ago. They stole their dad's vehicle and went joyriding and just happened to discover gullible Terrans...and could not resist screwin' with their heads.

[UesugiKenshin]

John Carpenter did an homage of both Campbell and Lovecraft in his film, The Thing.

Well what if your major race encounters a minor race...and since they trust you, then while inebriated reveal that their uncle was really John Carpenter being goofy and living a second life on Earth as a Hollywood director playing to Terrans' worst fears. But call him James Woodworker.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VgS6jBjjKo0
And that is why he made They Live (but call it We Exist)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qM6r8KapWIk

Or a Kahoran revealing that Worf (Call him Lt. Woof) was actually parodying the Khaoran empire as he was a subversive who hated the empire.

[UesugiKenshin]

A major race story might parody the Hollywood scifi film, The Faculty. That has the premise that the teachers of an American town are really alien invaders. Well say it was a propaganda film made by the Terran Coalition to get back at the Omega Alliance.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LekZbZ0ksyA

Or Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N4KdJQpqU4w

All these references are a minigame where players try to identify them all.

[UesugiKenshin]

The biggest obstacle to modding on tablets is some disallow apk installation other than through the Google Play store app. So those folks (me included) are stuck.. I can mod the datafiles, but when recompiling it, then the new apk won't load.

Some folks can download the recompiled modded apk to a windows based computer. Then use the mini USB to ADB cable through "developer options" and this then allows the compiled modded apk to run. I don't have a window computer.

Ideally we would mod the datafiles and submit altered modded version to the developer and then he would included these in the next release. Then somehow alternative modded datafiles would run instead of the default datafiles. That would consistently work for everyone and then there wouldn't be alternative apk files which is a security issue.

Supposedly you can download the Android Terminal Emulator, then issue a Linux command "pm install (then the location on your directory containing the apk). I cannot get that to work.

The only other alternative is weird. Any modder would get a Google Play store developer account. Go through the security verification process. Then submit valid government ids and a credit card, pay $25, and become a developer as BotE is open source but substitute their modded datafiles. That is a crazy way to mod.

[UesugiKenshin]

A big aspect of GalCiv2 was not only designing the outward appearance of vessels in a shipyard, but designing the complement of shields and weaponry based on size class. It wasn't necessarily producing better more efficient designs,but the players then would endlessly alter to fine tune what they thought were more ideal ships in terms of offensive and defensive values plus aesthetics. It greatly facilitated modding as even a non-artistic player could approximate ships from various mythos.

For Android modders, it's not necessary to adjust the aesthetics but a shipyard section where you can engineer better ships just for fun and to actually produce better diplomatic class vessels or survey vessels, would be a huge attraction.

Otherwise the process through a ship editor is fine as long as it works within the apk likely through a settings file. But we don't have that, but can alter the datafiles by hand which is cumbersome and prone to creating errors. And won't really work within the Android tablets but would likely be submitted for future revisions...probably as a beta test.

"Here are 30 new ships I devised that would benefit the major races. I hope you include them in the next beta test so players can try them out."

That can improve the game. They don't have to have new hull designs but can be a revised standard ship upgrade as an interim step. But if artistic, and you create a new ship hull.graphic, they might be level 15-20 ships.

I bet such modding of outposts and starbases, and having these preset as advanced level 400+ save game files makes the game dynamics not only better, but more enjoyable and more challenging as that defensively protects the AI's major systems and minor races' home systems.

A minor race might have a radically different variety of ships as their defensive tactics may be purely defensive as they lack the capacity to colonize. Then they maintain their autonomy until they capitulate and desire membership protections.

Ideally you see no major vs major battles until after turn #400. Major races should focus on acquiring systems by colonization and diplomatic pressure of the minor races, and finally by invasions.

Few minor races would declare war against major races. Think about it. They would prefer to be ignored and not raise the ire of a major race and so incite their lust for more sectors.

[UesugiKenshin]

Say the players and the AI begin with a larger moddable amount of credits. Well, the first thing to do would be make some colony ships, but prior to the 2nd wave of them, tweak the range. It's better to create borderlands than move from inside out. But if the starting treasury is small, that is impossible.

Clever modding by advanced save games means a modder can build a giant amount of transports,create outposts, then scrap them all, and then save the game. Now the player has say 10-20 times the standard treasury. That is when they plan and so play better. If industry and farms prevent stalling and famine, then the modder facilitated the players being able to focus on research and or mining.

Starting from zero is not compelling for many players as they are not "turtlers or builders" but military strategists or just want some light entertainment in the milieu of science fiction. They don't so much want to build infrastructure to build a variety of vessels, but to have a standing fleet to deploy.

What is jarring for some players is they presume a strategy war game is about fighting battles when it's largely about managing an economy. Then it's an economic simuations against a backdrop of science fiction occasional battles for supremacy. That is akin to a player hoping to play as Klingons who then spends the bulk of her time as a Ferengi. See what I mean? She is not interested in making a profit, but in waging intrastellar war. 95% of BotE is micromanaging an economy.

That is why the Android tablet version needs a ship editor, and a map editor, and a minor and major race editor, and buildings editor, a techtree editor, and a way to insert storytelling as events and random events. Because few players enjoy micromanaging an economy.

The above facilitates modding and creative expression and so hundreds of mods would be created. It facilitates BotE as an ideal sandbox game with infinite variety.

Saved game presets is a way to allow faster combat.

[UesugiKenshin]

I felt certain that having absorbed the Adamar and the Xibren plus my few heavy cruisers and numerous outposts that I had the strongest military. Yet the ranking showed I had the weakest.

Why?

The military ranking factors in military experience and while the Terrans have been battling the Khaoran, the Omega built infrastructure and trained soldiers. So I rotated soldiers from some systems to the homesystems to level up.

And now the Dominion have the mightest fleet and have risked nothing in pointless battles.

And despite the Terrans' godlike diplomatic power versus the Dominion, and bribe resistance too, they have been unable to bribe away systems as building infrastructure and preventing famines and protecting those colonists and minor races pays off with loyalty. Communication grids help.

A preset saved game for turn #400 would be so much more enjoyable as you can't easily defeat empires through such planning. But at first, it's an unexciting public works program.

It may just be me, but the beta version seems to have a better fine tuning of the trade of mined materials (ore and crystals), as I have been cycling sales as they precipitous drop when you sell, and seems to adjust and come back up faster. In process control systems, that is a function of proportional band and gain as an engineering topic.
https://www.industrialcontrolsonline.co ... derivative

Such information is relevant to all control systems like temperature variation to economic systems.