This may not be possible, but would make it much easier for smaller ships to take on DN fleets, at least whittle them down over time.

• Increase AI priority (these are highly effective weapons, and should be used more)
• Reduce number of missiles to reduce lag
• increase damage per missile to compensate
• OR reduce cooldown, but leave damage unchanged.

Requires #56 to be completed first

There is a very nice shadowing effect for all technologies that exist. These are overwritten when the technology unlocks. Makes it easier to see what exists and what paths you might need to go down.

This might not be possible.

Ideas:

• Could remove research stations, and introduce a negative modifier on some other station type, so as you become more powerful with stations your technology research suffers.
• Add in some sort of script to reduce research effectiveness over time (per player)
• Add in some sort of "corruption" mechanic that saps your income. Important that every colony always adds more income, but progressively less. Asymptotic scaling.

These ship sections help too much on the star map and negate the need for sensor stations. Especially OP for Hiver (but also bad for everyone else)

Ideas:

• Reduced (or no) sensor bonus on starmap
• Require cruisers only (remove the destroyer version)
• Make it a mission section except for DN?

Try to break up the duopoly of engine tech upgrade immediately followed by drive tech upgrade.

Drive level 2 (Improved StutterWarp, Shaped Hyper Fields, Void Carver Drive) should be alternatives to Fusion (similar cost, and similar benefit)

Drive level 3 (FlickerDrive, Warp Drive, Void Mastery drive) should be alternatives to Anitmatter (similar cost, and similar benefit)

Complication:
There may not be existing combinations of Drive level 2 + Fission, and Drive level 3 + Fusion. If not, how easy is it to create new models (change particle effect colors?)

Alternative, is to add additional prerequsite requirements to the drive tech upgrades so that fusion + level 2 & antimatter + level 3 are broken up a bit.

Weapons scale up in damage faster than ship HitPoints do.

This is compounded by more weapon upgrades are possible than armor upgrades. So each player can get easily screwed on armor technology and thus become a "glass cannon"
Weapons scale up to 250% percent (example 150dmg -> 400dmg)
While armor scales up only by 100%. This means in decked out end game technology ships die over twice as quickly.

Solution

1. Boost armor scaling to more closely match weapon scaling factor.
2. Make armor upgrades more likely overall. This can be achieved by:

• More interconnections, thus more chances to unlock the technology
• Make some armor techs core, and additional smaller upgrades optional. (requires new tech tree options)

Also consider switching the name of Quark Resonators with Adamantite Alloys. Quark sounds more advanced than a simple Alloy.

Having to choose where to put slaves is an annoying mechanic.

• Increase maximum slaves per colony (may not be trivial)
  (maybe) lower slave death rate slightly

Adjust slave capture efficiency at CR & DN tech.

• Change slaver disks to 25mil down from 50mil
• Boost carrying capacity to 100mil (up from 50mil)

Does not apply for Zuul

Does model for this exist?

Nerf population bonus.
Unlocked by Arcology construction.

Point defense is too effective at neutralizing missiles and especially fighter craft.

Options

• Reduce range of point defense
• Reduce damage of point defense (and missile hitpoints)
• Changes its firing rate
• Especially important to tweak phaser PD, it is seriously OP

• Adjust or remove "The Herald". Not a fun mechanic since there is no warning, and no way to catch him. Often causes capital to riot which permanently damages infrastructure.

• Grand Campaign

• Push back galactic threats minimum turn

• Incoming asteroids (more)

• Swarm arrive distance

• added variance to when new swarm queens are made

• Asteroid monitor distance tweak and rotation speed.

• Increased bonus for killing locust menace

• added variance for number of CROWRUINS spawned

• Grand Campaign VN tweaks

• ships per child

• sats per child

• Final solution min turn

• More distant home world

Ongoing: Research other mods that might have useful tweaks.

• Reduce spin rate so that additional weapon types might make sense (sniper cannons)
• Remove ability to put tractor beams on platforms. (that was always silly)
• Add projectors as an option to DN size

It doesn't make any sense to take over a colony in this way. It also gives free-terraforming

• 1 freighter per trade route
• Increased payment for trade routes (roughly 5x)
• Increased cost to build CR freighters (roughly 5x)
  (won't effect AI cause they don't build CR freighters)

Fix inconsistencies in drive tech scaling (see wiki)

• Rename drive section fnode => F-Node
• Rename drive section Node Pathing => P-Node
• Fission Speed 0.3 / 4 & range => 8
• pulsed fission range => 10 speed 5
• F-Node fission speed 0.3 / 5
• F-Node pulsed Fission speed 0.4 / 6
• DE Fission tac = 55
• DE Fission F-Node tac = 55 && turn = 50
• CR Fission F-Node tac = 50 && turn = 45
• CR pulsed Fission F-Node turn = 50
• DE Fusion P-Node tac = 70
• DE Antimatter P-node Tac = 90
• CR Antimatter P-Node tac = 90
• fix any inconsistent mass values
• 100% chance for P-Node (up from 90%)

We should encourage players to have to return to shipyard stations for major fleet repairs.

• Nerf repair ship and support repair points dramatically
• Nerf planetary repair points
• Boost repair point bonus for shipyards

It MUST do something because its auto-grant #15 if player is Morrigi... so it must be useful

• Do an experiment where I freeze my empire at a fixed income level and the only thing that will change is research of Addict + temperance... what do they do?
• Adjust tech description accordingly

Add multiple tiers of farcasting (if possible) (maybe some optional tiers)

Ramscoops directly from fusion without needing long-range fusion drive.

Increase gate cost?
Increase gate maintenance cost?
Increase gate capacity per gate, but fewer gates? How would the AI handle this?

Rather than have them stuck at some default engine tech level for the entire game different versions of the ship can be unlocked and produced at different engine tiers.
This will not be effected by drive upgrades.

applies to: Construction, propaganda, police cutters, freighter

Does not apply to node bore or gravboats.

Its unknown how the AI will react to this, but if they cost the same it doesn't really matter.

• Move police cutters to Data Correlation. That'll make it more interesting than FTL econ
• Remove "fusion" requirement for police/propaganda after I add fission + fusion + AM versions

What is STUTTER_SYSTEM_INFLUENCE_RADIUS ?

The AI seems incapable of building grav-boats.

Idea:
Add grav-boat effect to tankers/refineries/support

Repurpose the grav-boat model for something else?

Extended range ships do not scale properly. The section gives a flat bonus to range, which means it becomes dwarfed by engine upgrades very quickly.

Solution:
Change extended range ships to have a small refueling multiplier (like tankers). Maybe 2x or 3x. That way as their engines upgrade their bonus upgrades as well.

• Add fighters
• Add heavy combat laser mounts
• Add torpedo mounts

Consult other mods for how to do this.

What is SPECIESCOLOR ?
Do the sensor mods actually work?

• Change player color white to something else. Reserve white/off-white for NPCs only
• Add more player selectable colors. (Where?)

Indpendent Colony Color is here: StrategyVars.txt

Hopefully this could help address the massive income scaling that ends up trivializing technology research later in the game.

The AI is exempt from all maintenance costs, so this would be a straight up boost to the human player's difficulty without effecting the AI.
Hopefully we could adjust the cost per mission type instead of only per class of ship.

Some common settings in game should have a "debug mode" where it'll make my testing much faster.

• All techs cost 1 pt
• All techs are guaranteed for every race.
• All ships cost 1 cp

Script should automatically modify files as necessary BUT not save changes to the repository.

The AI won't build them, so they are a boost to the players only.

Perhaps we can switch out all aspects of DE freighters in favor of the CR variant? (model, price, income etc)

This should help the AI remain competitive.

However keep modular construction + benefit.
Move it down to "mega freighters position". But boost its cost.

All defense platforms are fairly terrible because they are spread out around the planet

• If possible increase the number that can be built of a given type (so they give better coverage)
• Boost DE level to near cruiser stats & Cost
• Boost CR level to 50% DN stats & Cost
• Boost DN level to 100% DN stats & Cost

Applies to:
Gravity Mine
Gravity control
Tractor Beam?

This will slow down the CP scaling a bit.

Asked

• Limit 1 per 1.5 billion pop (effectively 1 per system, except for capitals)
• Move station inside asteroid belt so its easier to find and defend
• Tweak HP as per Phase 1 Armor Upgrades

Try to break up the duopoly of engine tech upgrade immediately followed by drive tech upgrade.
Node Focusing should be an alternative to getting fusion. Similar cost.
Node Pathing should be an alternative to Antimatter.

Complication:
Is there an existing drive section for Node Pathing Fusion? If not, how easy is it to create one?

Alternative, is to add additional prerequsite requirements to the drive tech upgrades so that antimatter + node pathing are broken up a bit.

• Antimatter missiles should require fusion tech.
• Add a link to antimatter missiles from antimatter + tech tree connection (maybe not 100% though)
• Add link to antimatter mine from antimatter missile (if we keep mines) + tech tree connection

TODO: determine connection percentages
(Human:100 Zuul:70 Hiver:100 Tarkas:90 Liir:40 Morrigi:95)

Specialized weapon systems should be more effective at planetary conquest than standard ship-to-ship weapons.
Encourages speciality weapons such as plagues, assault shuttles, siege driver etc.

Cruisers supplant Destroyers too early in the game. We need to slow down the adoption of Cruiser tech.
The real problem is destroyers die so damn easily to cruisers. So the game changes dramatically when cruisers come out.

Options:

• Boost research cost of researching cruiser construction dramatically to make destroyer phase of game last longer.
  -- "cruiser construction" 40k up from 16k (roughly half that of fusion, which is similar to dreadnought is half that of antimatter)
• Slow down data synergy (cruiser CnC) technology
  -- Increase cost 20k -> 40k
  -- could make it require "fusion" tech and "integrated sensors" that should slow it down a ton (doesn't require new tech connections)

See follow up issue in phase 3

Data Correlation is very useful, no reason to gate it off an optional side track.
Advanced CnC is basic combat controls. It should be gotten very quickly by everyone.

• Move connection for Data correlation
• Move connection for Advanced CnC
• Rename Advanced CnC to something that makes sense

Hiver have very little use for tankers or refineries. Their ships have too much range.

Ensure that hiver specific range upgrade technologies (and ram scoops) are useful and desirable.

• Reduce research costs for these technologies?

Scale travel distance to a number of turns travel at all levels.

Reduce hiver default ship ranges (number subject to change)

• fission 5 -> 2
• Fusion 12 -> 6
• Antimatter 25 -> 12
• Tanker bonus 15x -> 12x
• Refinery bonus 60x -> 30x
• Support bonus 140x -> 70x

BEWARE the hiver AI seems to be having problems as is... do not make them even worse.

Wraith abductors are terrible.

• boost slave capacity
• Increase hitpoints and ship speed.

It makes more sense to be closer to the shield and energy tree than a real projector

It should require both groups "projector" and "shields"

Doesn't need a connection to shield mk 4

Options

• move Combat Algo (+4cp) to branch off battle computers (reduce cost to 30k)
  --- Requires TECH graphics update
• reduce destroyers cp cost to 1 (from 2). So that 18 destroyers vs 3 cruiser vs 1 dreadnaught? (possible, but has to be done carefully)
• Somehow boost reflective coating (energy weapons are the biggest problem for destroyers)
• Add a late game boost to destroyer HP, or somehow make the armor upgrades scale faster?
  --- Could make copies of existing DE sections with more HP and unlock them at some point.
• Smaller shield size for DE.
• Boost effectiveness of overthrusting & spinal mounts (and other destroyer specific sections)
• Maybe add additional DE only weapons or sections?
• Reduce medium & large weapon mount turning speeds (across the board), so its hard to hit fast moving targets? (so that destroyers can "evade" easier)
• or maybe beam weapons need to be a bit less "forgiving" on targeting stickyness (I think there is an option for that)
• Only allow destroyers to have stealth armor upgrade option?
• One possibility is to add in advanced single section destroyer frames unlocked at near max tech level, and can tweak HP accordingly. (max engine tech etc)
• Maybe copy SotS 2 battle rider's concept (if possible). Use the Tarka DN frame as a basis for destroyer mounts.
• Could add a special (destroyer only) armor upgrade to all DE sections that is a major boost to HP.

Split how Zuul drive tech operates. They are supposed to have reverse engineered human drive tech. So they should have 2 components, the node boring, and the node focusing.

If possible add additional technologies for them to research with appropriate text.
Their drive speed should ALWAYS be slower than the equivalent human technology though.

OR

They could have their speed permanently fixed at Node Focusing level. Depends how human drive speed is reworked.

Complication:
This would likely require additional engine sections to be created, with possibly unique visual effects (color changes?)

Human and Zuul currently only have 50% & 60% chances, and arguably need it the most due to node restrictions.

Create a new connection from Pulsed Fission (requires tech line connection)
Goal is 90% chance all paths combined to unlock it.

AI should prioritize the same early economy boosting technologies that players do.
Data\Strategy\AI\aitechpri.csv
A good starting point is to base the priorities on those technologies that are automatically granted by the difficulty slider.
https://github.com/matthewhively/sots_mod/wiki/enhance-the-AI

Micro fusion drives link off root missile tree.
Now branches to Heavy Planet, multi-warhead, interceptor missiles.

Also move heavy planet missiles to branch from there as well. This should delay the inclusion of Heavy Planet missiles until mid-game.

Search other mods for interesting missile upgrades as well.

• Bring all the xeno tech costs inline. No reason to make some more expensive than others... that doesn't really make sense if they don't give bonuses.

Phase 2

Give a unique benefit to all level 1 xeno techs

Morrigi already gives bonus to learning other xeno techs
Zuul already gives access to war section (I might want to change this to something else)

Need some ideas

• Hiver
• Human
• Tarka
• Liir

• Change recharge time to 20sec for all standard shields.
• Weaken HP on shields mk4
• boost hp on shields mk3
• Make shield breakers easier to get, by making shields MK1 100% chance, that way everyone gets 2 unlock chances. BUT does require you to research at least 1 shield tech (any)
• Adjusted research cost for shields mk2 slightly

I want to take some large files and break them down into logical groups.

• The tech tree definitions should be 1 file per family and then squash them all together at the end.
• Blender tech tree needs to be converted to the format the game understands.
• (maybe) some tech tree spell checking (if possible?)

Factions should be able to learn the vaccine to a particular plague without needing to have learned the plague technology first.
The plague technologies should obviously lead to the vaccine with a high probability.
This would enable the vaccine to be salvagable from any race that uses it against you.

NOTE: tech connection not required to be modified.

Is it possible to give LESS than a 1% chance for something to be available? It would be strange to have those as options from the start of the game.