5.11.05

Master of Orion II Mods - An Overview

Update: New DifficultChoiceModb6, Decent Rocks

This is a list of all Moo2 mods I am aware of. Please add a comment when you know further mods. I will try to update this list.

Firstly, before I start with the pure mods I recommend to update the last official 1.31 patch with the:
Master of Orion II v1.40 patch
by LordBrazen
To clarify: His masterpiece deserves to be called patch because not only does it fix the most important bugs of 1.31 it also allows for the multiplayer DOS game to be playable with XP. Additionally, all mods offered by LordBrazen are optional. So you can use 1.40 as a pure patch when you dislike mods.
Download the latest version: http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005/01/download.html
Details http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005/01/moo2v140-patch-faq.html
Comment This patch can coexist with the 1.31 patch (a new exe is generated). Besides his bug fixes it includes very popular mods of the map generator (optional) for better MP-maps (less restarts). Additionally, there are four further mods implemented (of course also optional): pick switch (10-14 positive picks), droid switch (free droids for all), the very popular noreport switch (you can't see the spies and techs of your opponents) and the new galaxy age post warp (you start with all techs up to 250RPs). Post Warp Games are quite fast. I recommend to try them in huge galaxies. (see the above mentioned faq for switch details). Since 1.40b22, the patch contains the interesing noscan, nohousing and nonebula switches. Besides the new cluster galaxy (large gal with 72 stars) there are further bug fixes.
Update: 1.40b23 fixed several redraw bugs (less crashes, for example the tractor beams bug is fixed now) and the blackhole generator works now with enabled shipinitiative.
Further optional mods are planned for the next releases. Visit also his Community Forum for further information. Register there, present and discuss your suggestions.

The next three mods are also listed on the right side bar and they can coexist with the 1.4 patch (no backup necessary):
Demo Dict Mod
Download DDModb8.zip
Details
Comment We have just updated this mod where we try to help the demo and dict races with earlier morale techs (Unification is far too strong in our MP-games). ALEXD and I came to the conclusion that a small mod with just few changes would be fine. This mod contains better map balance, earlier morale techs (holo sim 400, vnet in supercomps field, psionics 650 sociology), telepathic training and neural scanners were swapped and the racepicks are identical to the next mod:

Difficult Choice Mod
Download DCmodb6.zip
Details
Comment Additionally to the DD Mod many changes in the techtree - In any techfield you should have a difficult choice - therefore, the absolutely must haves like auto factories or research labs are singletons and a lot of underpowered techs are improved. See also the DC thread in LBs forum.

Decent Rocks
Download
Details
Comment This mod is called DecentRocks since the tiny and small rocks (i.e. Barren, Radiated, Toxic etc.) have now a decent size.

Orange Mod and GoodMap Mods
Download Orange_b23.zip and GoodMaps.zip
Details
Comment This is 1.40b23 with modded maps.

INver Mod
by INver
Download RACESTUF.LBX
Comment Subt and Warlord for free. Small fine mod of the racestuf.lbx for MP games.

1.32 Mod
by 4381 et al.
Download 132MOD.zip
Details http://www.masteroforion2.com/patch132.htm
Comment Autofacts and Research Labs for free. Techtree, Racepick costs and Leader changes. Tiny frigates.

Mictian Mod v0.53
by Mictian
Download http://laaja.org/moo2/MictianMod.zip
Details http://laaja.org/moo2/
Comment win version mod - Just backup the orion95.exe and techname.lbx
Some techs are in new techfields - large RP increases for endgame techfields

Defensive "AntiBlitz" Mod
by Jukka Mikkonen
Download AntiBlitzMod.zip
Details http://users.tkk.fi/~jmikkone/
win version mod - Just backup the orion95.exe, help.lbx and techname.lbx

Major changes: Missile Base has 800 (instead of 300) space units - An upgrade to ship hit points, and even larger for star bases - Strong ground installation with 10x the hit points - Severely upgraded space monsters & Guardian of Orion, damagewise - Antarans should prove to be a threat once again - A few automatic techs, such as Auto-Factory, Fighter Bays, Fighter Garrison, Reinforced Hull and Heavy Armor.

Extreme Shield Mod
by Die Noob Die
Download http://de.geocities.com/londoxy
Comment Extremely strong shields and torpedoes

You need the OCL v0.21 to implement the files of the following mods into your exe:
Moomod
by mooncalf
Download http://ourworld.cs.com/moonkine/moo2/moomod_06.zip
Comment by mooncalf: It's mostly an attempt to more balance the weapons, buildings, ship systems and armor (to my understanding, anyway.) For example, significantly improved weapons include: torpedoes of all types, pulson and zeon missiles, maulers, and particle beams. Gauss cannon, phasors and disruptors have been toned down a bit. There are lots of other little tweaks that are documented in the included readme file.

Smiloid Mod
by Arc.Smiloid
Download ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/zoetrope/MOO2/Utilities/Techs/OCL/Mods/smiloid.zip
Details
Comment Many changes in the combat system

How to build your own mod?
When you are familiar with hex editors I recommend once again to visit LordBrazen's Community Forum. Especially the section: Game Modifications: Information, How-to's, and discussion about mod'ing Master of Orion II. You will find lots of info there.
An almost complete archive of Moo2 editors can be found at: ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/zoetrope/MOO2.
Another selection of well documented tools: http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005/01/download.html. There are several Leader editors. (BTW, LordBrazen has a nice list of the Ship Officers and Colony Leaders.) Pickhack is nice when you want to edit the racepick costs. And last but not least there is LordBrazen's second masterpiece an update of the OCL editor:
http://www.spheriumnorth.com/blog-images/OCLplusv0.3.zip
He works on further extensions. Stay tuned!

Keep me informed when you have a new mod.

2.11.05

Traffic

When I started this blog in 2004 I didn't care much about traffic. Helping the new players (the kali guide) was my motivation. (LordBrazen started his blog a year later and 4381 left kali and didn't update his kali help.)
I was surprised when LordBrazen told me that he has now more than 70 unique visitors per day. So I was also interested to analyze my traffic a bit. I registered for ClustrMaps last wednesday and included the thumbnail this weekend. When you enlarge it and chose the Map with smaller clusters it looks quite interesting. Then you will also see that the big red spot over germany is not just ALEX|D and me. In fact, almost completely western germany is covered with red spots. Well, ALEX|D has a superb google ranking and this helps me a lot. Thanks. I have also a nice success with search.msn.com and all together I have roundabout 50 unique visitors per day. (Didn't know how this ranking could happen and I swear that I will never criticize MS again.) But my google rankings are pretty bad. Nevertheless most search engine hits are still from google: When moo-users search for technical help (comm failure etc.) they hit often my kali guide. It seems there is still a lot of LAN besides kali.

Update: The last 2 months of 2005 produced following clustrmap:


ClustrMaps Oct-Dec 2005