Friday is upon us - let the games begin

[MengJiao]

And I cured myself of needing a flight/heli sim ....

I'm going to cure that by playing some that I already have (possibly RoF, DCS, BoS or even CLoD) and some Invisible and some board games and maybe some VASSAL PBEM even.  Three-day week-end!!!!

  I played Invisible, Bloody April (board game) and CLoD.  Installing the mods for CLoD (it won't even start without them under windows 8.1) was disturbing.  Chrome (very correctly as it turned out) just dropped the mod downloads when the XML wonderstuff switched to a mirror in Germany.  And then I had to unpack a .rar file in the Cloud for some reason and then somewhere along the line I picked up a "trojan dropper" called rotbrow.E which is probably an ancient bit of malware because it had odd but not particularly functional effects on windows 8.1.  Windows defender removed it and here I am.  I would advise against doing anything with the Team Fusion web site or mods for a while or unless you have an antivirus shield better than Windows Defender.

[panzerde]

I'm in a similar situation with the same game.  If you want to do a PBEM to tackle this beast against an equally amateur opponent let me know.  I've never played the Japanese side but might be willing to try.

Give me a little bit to play a couple of small scenario to figure out which bits to click when and then you're on.

[KyzBP]

I'm in a similar situation with the same game.  If you want to do a PBEM to tackle this beast against an equally amateur opponent let me know.  I've never played the Japanese side but might be willing to try.

Give me a little bit to play a couple of small scenario to figure out which bits to click when and then you're on.

That's a deal.  It'll take me awhile to figure out how to set up and play Japan so take your time and let me know when you're ready.

[Martok]

A new version of Ultimate Mod 5 for Birth of the Federation was just released two days ago, so I've been playing the hell out of that. 

Great to hear...so what's new in the mod?

Cheers

You mean for UM5 in general, or the new update specifically?  (It's a bit of a list either way. ;) )

[Anguille]

A new version of Ultimate Mod 5 for Birth of the Federation was just released two days ago, so I've been playing the hell out of that. 

Great to hear...so what's new in the mod?

Cheers

You mean for UM5 in general, or the new update specifically?  (It's a bit of a list either way. ;) )

I meant the new update because i already have one of the older versions installed. Thanks.  ;)

[Martok]

Gotcha.  Well since I'm lazy (sorry!), I'm just gonna quote directly from Dafedz's post: 

Notes for v2.4

-Ship repair output has been slightly boosted, in that if you limp a damaged ship to a system with a Starbase the hull will repair more quickly now. The old values of leaving it in a system without a Starbase has remained the same.

-Klingon ships have had to be nerfed, pretty much across the board -- their bangs for bucks firepower beforehand was proving somewhat humongous, particularly with regards to Defence, which was erroneously set much too high (eg, in a battle I experienced, Klingons put 170 Heavy Destroyer IIIs against my 152 Commands, 125 Frigates, and 18 Tactical - and utterly wrecked the lot of them, losing only 31 ships of their own. Oops

-A few building outputs have been changed. Eg, Particle Fountain output increased from 3 Dilithium to 5, Romulan Reman Mine output increased from 3 Dilithium to 5, Vulcan Advanced Fusion reactor increased to +125% Energy.

-Thanks to suggestions by Martok in this thread, changes have also been made to research, namely in the functionality of Subatomic Simulators, and the Daystrom Institute. Subatomic Simulators now provide +20% Research (Local), and the Daystrom Institute 25% Empire-wide.

-Trade-route restrictions have been relaxed. It will now require slightly smaller populations to initialize a trade-route. eg Sol can now manage 2 trade-routes at maximum population whereas before it could only support 1.

-Some of the minor race attitudes have been altered, particularly the Halkans - so much hate! Additionally, a few minors have had their sympathies slightly increased to the more belligerent majors such as the Cardassians, who always found it very hard to get anyone to like them. can't imagine why...

-I had a number of issues with strain on the late game economy when supporting large fleets. So with this in mind I wanted (ideally) to implement a structure upgrade for the Trade Centre - nothing too big, just a little extra cash for end game. As structures can't be upgraded in this way, I came up with a workaround. Single Trade Centres used to boost local credit generation by 20%. Now, those Trade Centres provide a 10% boost - a slight reduction, but later on (at tech 6) a second structure called the Trade Hub can be added to it, which provides an additional 20%. So the pair of them put out a combined 30% bonus to local credit generation, which was the initially desired figure.

-The Shiplist has had a major overhaul. Firstly, number of ships per type has been better standardized, so that each empire has virtually the same ships available per tech level, eg Commands I - IV available at tech 4,6,8,10, are the same for each empire. Stipulations do occur however, one sentimentally making room for a tech 1 Cruiser for the Feds (Constitution), and another later on for the Defiant - still the best Fast Attack ship in the game.

-Also with regards the shiplist, balancing and re-calculation has taken place in almost every statistic. A link to download the shiplist spreadsheet for UM5 can be found at end of post.

-Combat Drone got a nerf. I seriously hate that thing.

-Many thanks to QuasarDonkey for his excellent Taskforce Patch. 18 Ships per task force now supported.

-Several minor typo corrections have been made.

In general, I'd say the most noticeable/notable changes & additions are the Klingon ships getting nerfed back to being more balanced (I had noticed they seemed to be tougher than they ought to be), the increased dilithium production for the Particle Fountain/Reman Mine, increased research output for Subatomic Simulators, and the standardization of all five empires' ship-lists (they do seem more even now).  I will also add that while Dafedz didn't specifically say so in the patch notes, the Combat Drone's cloaking device was removed (in addition to its firepower being somewhat lowered). 



I do have to say, I'm coming to enjoy Ultimate Mod 5 as much as -- and maybe even a little bit more than -- Balance of Power for my favorite mod for BOTF.  I really like the the changes Dafedz has made:  Replacing the the Ferengi with the Dominion as one of the five major powers (and make the former a minor race), swapping out some of the "lamer" minor races and adding ones more familiar to fans (such as the Breen, Gorn, Orions, and Tholians), dividing the tech ladder into "eras", and increasing the importance of M-class planets to the point that they're almost a "resource" to fight over like dilithium is...they all add up to make for some pretty unique and compelling gameplay.  I really give him credit for livening up this grand old game.   

Now if only Flocke was able to find time to work on MPR++ again (since he's planning to include UM5 in his next update -- whenever that ends up being)...  :D 

[Anguille]

Gotcha.  Well since I'm lazy (sorry!), I'm just gonna quote directly from Dafedz's post: 

Notes for v2.4

-Ship repair output has been slightly boosted, in that if you limp a damaged ship to a system with a Starbase the hull will repair more quickly now. The old values of leaving it in a system without a Starbase has remained the same.

-Klingon ships have had to be nerfed, pretty much across the board -- their bangs for bucks firepower beforehand was proving somewhat humongous, particularly with regards to Defence, which was erroneously set much too high (eg, in a battle I experienced, Klingons put 170 Heavy Destroyer IIIs against my 152 Commands, 125 Frigates, and 18 Tactical - and utterly wrecked the lot of them, losing only 31 ships of their own. Oops

-A few building outputs have been changed. Eg, Particle Fountain output increased from 3 Dilithium to 5, Romulan Reman Mine output increased from 3 Dilithium to 5, Vulcan Advanced Fusion reactor increased to +125% Energy.

-Thanks to suggestions by Martok in this thread, changes have also been made to research, namely in the functionality of Subatomic Simulators, and the Daystrom Institute. Subatomic Simulators now provide +20% Research (Local), and the Daystrom Institute 25% Empire-wide.

-Trade-route restrictions have been relaxed. It will now require slightly smaller populations to initialize a trade-route. eg Sol can now manage 2 trade-routes at maximum population whereas before it could only support 1.

-Some of the minor race attitudes have been altered, particularly the Halkans - so much hate! Additionally, a few minors have had their sympathies slightly increased to the more belligerent majors such as the Cardassians, who always found it very hard to get anyone to like them. can't imagine why...

-I had a number of issues with strain on the late game economy when supporting large fleets. So with this in mind I wanted (ideally) to implement a structure upgrade for the Trade Centre - nothing too big, just a little extra cash for end game. As structures can't be upgraded in this way, I came up with a workaround. Single Trade Centres used to boost local credit generation by 20%. Now, those Trade Centres provide a 10% boost - a slight reduction, but later on (at tech 6) a second structure called the Trade Hub can be added to it, which provides an additional 20%. So the pair of them put out a combined 30% bonus to local credit generation, which was the initially desired figure.

-The Shiplist has had a major overhaul. Firstly, number of ships per type has been better standardized, so that each empire has virtually the same ships available per tech level, eg Commands I - IV available at tech 4,6,8,10, are the same for each empire. Stipulations do occur however, one sentimentally making room for a tech 1 Cruiser for the Feds (Constitution), and another later on for the Defiant - still the best Fast Attack ship in the game.

-Also with regards the shiplist, balancing and re-calculation has taken place in almost every statistic. A link to download the shiplist spreadsheet for UM5 can be found at end of post.

-Combat Drone got a nerf. I seriously hate that thing.

-Many thanks to QuasarDonkey for his excellent Taskforce Patch. 18 Ships per task force now supported.

-Several minor typo corrections have been made.

In general, I'd say the most noticeable/notable changes & additions are the Klingon ships getting nerfed back to being more balanced (I had noticed they seemed to be tougher than they ought to be), the increased dilithium production for the Particle Fountain/Reman Mine, increased research output for Subatomic Simulators, and the standardization of all five empires' ship-lists (they do seem more even now).  I will also add that while Dafedz didn't specifically say so in the patch notes, the Combat Drone's cloaking device was removed (in addition to its firepower being somewhat lowered). 



I do have to say, I'm coming to enjoy Ultimate Mod 5 as much as -- and maybe even a little bit more than -- Balance of Power for my favorite mod for BOTF.  I really like the the changes Dafedz has made:  Replacing the the Ferengi with the Dominion as one of the five major powers (and make the former a minor race), swapping out some of the "lamer" minor races and adding ones more familiar to fans (such as the Breen, Gorn, Orions, and Tholians), dividing the tech ladder into "eras", and increasing the importance of M-class planets to the point that they're almost a "resource" to fight over like dilithium is...they all add up to make for some pretty unique and compelling gameplay.  I really give him credit for livening up this grand old game.   

Now if only Flocke was able to find time to work on MPR++ again (since he's planning to include UM5 in his next update -- whenever that ends up being)...  :D

Thanks...this sounds awesome....will have to download the thing!

I assume that i have to uninstall the previous version, right?

[Martok]

I assume that i have to uninstall the previous version, right?

That's what he recommends doing, yes.  It's what I did as well. 

Hope you enjoy it like I am!  :) 

[Dammit Carl!]

Eh.  I'll bite.

The lack of a "high speed," sort of laptop (at the moment) keeps me grounded in older or slower stuff, but I'm thinking that that isn't so bad.

While I've been enjoying my TalonSoft CDs (East Front II, etc.) now that I've found them again, its time to upgrade to the newest version via Matrix and ditch those pesky CDs for something newer.  Hope the loading music and such is still there.

Once back home for a day or so, its patching World of Tanks and any of the other games that need such attention (and maybe even playing some  :)).  Then, its back on the road again and some more time with "Lappy," as Strongbad calls it.