Hey everyone! Version 2.1 is out.
Well, a lot has changed since the last version, and I do mean A LOT. The changelog increased from 80 pages to 120! It's too much to give a detailed report on, so I try to keep it down to a general overview.
1. Planetary Improvements
The values of all the planetary improvements are now almost identical to the vanilla ones. There are only some minor changes remaining now. Over all, maintenance is much higher again (though not quite as high as in the original game), which makes keeping your budget balanced more of a challenge.
2. Weapons and Defences
As I mentioned last time, I made a complete overhaul of the weapons and defences, using DA as a base. Of course, some races still deviate from the standard tree. Either because they use different weapons, or because they lack access to certain defenses (for better or worse). So, don't be surprised, if you can't protect yourself properly from the enemy's mass drivers, if you are playing as the Drengin.
While working on the weapons, I also changed some of their visuals and/or sounds. TotA got a ton of new visual and sound effects for the weapons, but most of them weren't used for some reason. However, I have neither the expertise, nor the tools, to get all of the settings right. So some of the visual effects may look a bit off in the Battle Viewer (especially the mass driver ones). Still, combat looks and sounds better now, in my opinion.
3. Starbases
The defense and military-assist modules got a complete overhaul. I used the vanilla versions of the Starbase Militarization and Starbase Fortification techs as a base, and adjusted the number of modules accordingly. Excluding Battle Stations, there are now 18 standard defense modules (3 for each attack and defense type) and 15 standard military-assist modules (4 for each attack type and 1 for each defense type). The strength of each module is higher than in the vanilla game, because the total amount of modules is lower. However, the total amount of the bonuses is still the same as the original one.
4. Tech Tree
The overall layout of the tech tree looks more like the original one now (only better). I also made some tweaks to the tech requirements and the ability bonuses of some techs, and changed all the techs that got turned into modifications of other techs into real ones again. Additionally, almost all of the removed techs are back in again.
5. United Planets
I changed some of the UP proposals (as far as it was possible), in order to make them more worthwhile. The result is, that some of the proposals are now much more costly. For example, if you are playing the Korx (or any other race that highly relies on trade) then you should think twice whether to let the Trade Federation proposal pass, because it will cost you 20% of your trade income.
Well, that's it for the overview. If you prefer more details, you can either take a look at the
spreadsheet (though it doesn't contain the tech trees), or the changelog itself.
In any case, have fun playing!
