Master of Orion II Online

Master of Onion

2012-01-18T00:45:00.001+01:00

IE PC game designer Interview: Steve Barcia (Simtex, Circa 1994)

2011-03-06T01:11:00.009+01:00

The youtube video description states:

Freshly after releasing Master of Magic, the now Defunct Interactive Entertainment CD Mag (magazine entirely on a CD) obtained an exclusive interview with the now legendary game designer and SimTex founder, Steve Barcia. They talk about what inspired him, how he works and a few questions specifically about SimTex and Master of Orion. Overall, a good interview process. Steve has since moved on to Retro Studios, heading Metroid Prime... then on to Electronic Arts. His profile picture on IGN shows that it looks like he's lost weight since 1994. [...]

He probably refers to this profile: http://games.ign.com/top-100-game-creators/88.html

Streaming Games On Ustream!

2010-09-21T23:29:00.007+02:00

Hey, everyone, Gor here! You may know me from the IRC chat; and if not, I am often hanging around in there, so you'll probably see me some time. I am posting here to say that I am going to start streaming my games between myself and my friends, and possibly some members of the IRC if they are into it. I'll be posting an embedded player here, so that anyone stopping by can watch the games, and I'll try to keep everyone up to date on any scheduled streams. Hopefully this will give us all some fun content to enrich the community with. :) (Edit: Switching to Ustream)

Replay archive can be found here: http://www.ustream.tv/user/UniquelyDefined/videos

The Fastest Speedruns

2009-08-16T17:00:00.003+02:00

Last week the German game magazine PC Games reported about the Speedruns Archive and listed the ten fastest speedruns. 3rd fastest speedrun of all games is the following MOO2 advanced game versus 1 AI. Just 39 seconds:

MOO2 Live Broadcasts

2009-07-27T22:19:00.002+02:00

You may have observed that we had again several MOO2 live broadcasts on this website in the recent days. Earlier this year, justin.tv disabled the autoplay feature of their embedded videos – this made their embedded videos pretty much useless as there was no indicator of an ongoing broadcast at all – and therefore we stopped broadcasting. The autoplay feature is still disabled but they have implemented an indicator for live broadcasts again. You will now see - similar to the window on the right side - a red live button and a snapshot of the active broadcast:

Furthermore, the archive works now correctly and we have the option to extract highlights or even complete games. Let me give you a few examples:

Watch live video from MOO2 LIVE on Justin.tv

Cab here at bottom in this 5way taking out an early hydra at turn 48. Evil Sky was in the center with his telepathic race but had not enough fleet to cause trouble later on.

Some fragments of an 1v1 Cab vs Deathlord. BTW, long segments will be splitted into several 15min fragments:

Cabman vs Deathlord Pre (Build Up) 1/2 and 2/2

Cabman vs Deathlord Contact and the final (test) battle (Deathlord already conceded beforehand):

Watch live video from MOO2 LIVE on Justin.tv

Additionally, justin.tv seems to offer enough space for free to present full games. Here are two duels between Cab and Bork:

Duel 1, 20^th July:

Cab vs Bork - Before Contact 1/8, 2/8, 3/8, 4/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8 and 8/8

Cab vs Bork First Contact

Cabman vs Bork t101-t114 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5 and 5/5

Bork's side (Post game hotseat analysis of bork's side. Bork was frustrated by Cab's spies.)

Duel 2, 26^th July:

Cab vs Bork (t0-t109) 1/11, 2/11, 3/11, 4/11, 5/11, 6/11, 7/11, 8/11, 9/11, 10/11 and 11/11

Cab vs Bork (Contact-t123) 1/10, 2/10, 3/10, 4/10, 5/10, 6/10, 7/10, 8/10, 9/10 and 10/10

Cab vs Bork (Final Turns) 1/4, 2/4

The begin of the final battle:

Watch live video from MOO2 LIVE on Justin.tv

and outcome:

Watch live video from MOO2 LIVE on Justin.tv

Just PM me in our Quakenet channel if you are also interested to broadcast your Multiplayer or Singleplayer Games on this blog. Depending on the feedback I will possibly write a detailed instruction for optimal broadcast settings and/or adding new channels for simultaneously broadcasting xways.

Map generator

2009-03-25T19:54:00.013+01:00

I am proud to announce a new tool for Master Of Orion 2!

This tool is intended to balance the starting conditions of players.
It can replace toxic, ultrapoor, low gravity, heavy gravity, tiny and small planets with a better ones.
You can decide what to replace by yourself.
To do that, hosting player have to start new game as always and right after the game begun, he have to quit the game and run mapgen.exe with desired switches, and after that host the game again.
This is my example dosbox.conf:

cd c:\imoo2\
ipxnet startserver 6666
VDCGM2.exe /hugestart /planets=5 /noorion /nowh /nobh /nosplint /noreport /nonebula
mapgen.exe -ttoxic -tupoor -ttiny -tflathw
VDCGM2.exe /hugestart /planets=5 /noorion /nowh /nobh /nosplint /noreport /nonebula

So, after I started game, chosen race and got on the game screen, I presed "Quit game", mapgen.exe started automaticaly, replaced toxic planets with radiated, tiny with small and ultrapoor with poor. And made homeworlds almost equal.

After that, VDCGM2.EXE started again and I had to load game and wait for second player.

Here is the help about usage, that you can get by running mapgen -h:
Usage: ./mapgen [-h] [-t terraformation] [-s special] [-m change] [-b type] [-v] [-V] [-f file]

Example: ./mapgen -t toxic -t upoor -t lowg -t heavyg -t tiny -t small -f SAVE10.GAM

Options:
-h [-H] This help.

-t Terraform
toxic - Toxic planets become radiated
upoor - Ultra Poor planets become poor
lowg - Low Gravity planets become Normal Gravity
heavyg - Heavy Gravity planets become Normal Gravity
tiny - Tiny planets become small
small - Small planets become medium
flathw - Flattens unoccupied planets in HomeWorlds:
They become Abundant, Toxics and Rads become Barren,
gravity become Normal except for one planet,
it become the same gravity as occupied planet, size is set in order
Large, Large again, Medium, Small untill
there are no more planets to modify. Gaias become Terrain.
fixedhw - Implies `flathw`. Planets become:
Large Swamp, Large Tundra, Medium Arid, Small Gaia. All abundant.

-s Specials Change
splint - Splinter replaced by gem deposits.
arti - Arti planets still exist, but don't give techs anymore.

-m Monsters Change
grav - Guarded planets become normal gravity if they are not ultrarich.
terraform - Guarded rich & urich planets are terraformed.
Toxics, Rads, Barrens, Deserts become Tundra.
monst - Does the same thing as -mgrav and -mterraform.

-v Verbose debugging output(CHEAT!)

-V Print Version and exit

-f file Edit 'file' instead of SAVE10.GAM

You can download This tool from here http://moomapgen.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/mapgen.exe

Feel free to send your suggestions and bug reports to tf8@list.ru.

WARNING! This tool works only on first turn, if you will use it on any other turn it would mess up everything!

WARNING! People report, that when you use mapgen.exe, sometimes planets get extreme gravity bonus. It could be indicated by orphan coma after planet mineral status on star system screen, like "Abundant,". So please, if you use mapgen.exe, store your SAVE10.GAM file before running mapgen.exe and after and keep it untouched somewhere, and if you hit that bug, please report it to me, attaching that original save, so i could solve the problem.

UPDATE! Version 0.23
Bugfix -ssplint now works.

-tfixedhw now works slightly different. The fifth planet was Desert, but it's Gaia now - that would be more fair for non-aquatic races. But you can still play with /PLANETS=4 to avoid this behaviour.

-mterraform now works slightly different. Monster guarded rich&urich planets are terraformed from Toxics, Rads, Barrens and Deserts to Tundra. Previous behaviour was: Toxic&Rad -> Barren, Desert -> Tundra.

UPDATE! Version 0.22
Bugfix -tmonst didn't work, now it works and known as -mmonst.

UPDATE! Version 0.21
Added -tmonst, -mgrav, -mterraform, -ssplinter and -sarti flags.

UPDATE! Version 0.11
Fixed bug! Although Gaia's became Terrain when using flathw, they still produced the same ammount of food as Gaia's. Also when using fixedhw, modified planets kept the same ammount of food production as they had before using "mapgen.exe" too. Now both of the problems fixed.

UPDATE! Version 0.1
New switch!
-fixedhw - It makes homeworlds look like Large Swamp, Large Tundra, Medium Arid, Small Desert.

Additionaly -flathw now makes Gaia's at home to be Terrain.

Master of Orion 2 Replays

2008-07-04T13:09:00.017+02:00

Hello, Masters of Orion!

I wrote this post recently and tried to get some videos of professional players game, but they are too lazy to record video:)
So I decided to do it by myself. I am a newbie really, I played just about 10 multiplayer games.
I will regularly add interesting video to this post. So, here we go.

You need to read this post and install appropriate ZMBV codec to view this videos, or install Mplayer.
on_FiRe reported that Media Player Classic can play this videos without installing codec.
Displacer reported that SMPlayer can do this too.

This four replays are our game with Cybersaber. I lost this game because I expected him to be Creative again and were not ready for early attack.

tf8_cyber_t0_70.avi
tf8_cyber_t71_100.avi
tf8_cyber_t100_121.avi
tf8_cyber_hotseat.avi - this is hotseat game review after I surrendered.

Cabman_housing.avi Cabman shows us masterclass in housing :) 80 pop buy t 65 AWESOME!
(even more, than 80 - remaining pop are in freighters )

Cabman_sublith_pop.rar Another awesome Cabman video. This time VeryDifficultChoice Mod.
VDCGM2.exe /skipintro /nowh /nobh /nosplint /minstart /planets=4 /noorion /noreport /nonebula /monsters=0
Dictatatorship Subterranean Lithovore Population Growth +100.
150 pop by T100.

Cab_dict_tol_cyber.rar
VDCGM2.exe /skipintro /nowh /nobh /nosplint /minstart /planets=4 /noorion /noreport /nonebula /monsters=0
Dictatatorship Dictatorship Tolerant Cybernetic.

Cab_demo_sub_lith.rar
VDCGM2.exe /skipintro /nowh /nobh /nosplint /minstart /planets=4 /noorion /noreport /nonebula /monsters=0
Democracy Subterranean Lithovore.

tf8_Madd_taalo.avi
Game settings: goodmap3 /skipintro /minstart /planets=4 /nosplint /nowh /nobh /noorion /noreport /nonebula
Map settings: size: Large, age: Organic Rich, tech level: Average.
This is 3way newbies game. This video will be interesting for newbies to see, how does it possible to get about 150 pop on 100 turn.
Video stops at turn 107, because it isn't interesting after that, I met my opponents and saw that I have at least twice more population and outtech them much.
When I revised this video, I have found those mistakes:
First of all, i should build outpost ships and explore more to find better planets and meet my opponents earlier to see their racepics and to choose better strategies.
Also I shouldn't research tritanium armor, deuterium fuel cells would be more helpful. I should get Zortium instead of tritanium. And I should build my first bb earlier, because it is dangerous to stay without defence.
Cabman (absolute record of 252 pop at 100 turn holder) says, that I should have been housing till 3-4 pop on first settled system, and only after that send pop from hw there. I should have refit my scouts and remove beams to make it more fast, so that it have chance to retreat from monster. I should have rebuild my scout, if it got killed. And at last, I should have sent cship AFTER scouting all systems around.

I would be glad, if professional players view this video and point on other mistakes ( Including English Grammar:) ).

Dosbox video capturing how to

2008-06-29T17:34:00.018+02:00

Hello, Masters of Orion.
I read this post recently and found out that it is out of date. So I decided to contribute a little to our community and write this post.

What I would like to share with you is that it is possible to capture video from the game without any auxiliary program, but using dosbox directly (starting from 0.65 version). To do that you need to open dosbox.conf file, find the string captures=capture and
replace it with path to any ‘EXISTING’ folder you like, where you want to place captured video, for example

captures=d:\captures

If you don't change this, by default recorded video will be placed to

c:\program files\dosbox-0.72\capture folder.

After you have done this, you can simply launch dosbox and start capturing video by pressing ctrl+alt+f5 buttons simultaneously. When you press it, file named orion2_000.avi will be created in your folder. IF you press ctrl+alt+f5 buttons again, video capturing will stop. By pressing it again it will renew recording to orion2_001.avi file.
I was amazed how easy it was to capture video, but the problem was later with program to watch recorded video.
The problem is that dosbox writes video with special ZMBV codec. This codec is not widespread, but it is perfect for capturing game video.

The Win 32 Release of DOSBox already includes the necessary CODEC and install scripts needed to allow Windows Media Player (or almost any other movie player in Windows). If you installed the Start Menu shortcuts simply select Install movie codec and it will perform installation of the needed codec automatically.

However you won’t be given any message of completion of the installation, so you’ll have to check whether it was installed manually - by trying to play your movie.
If you didn't installed Start menu shortcuts, or under Linux and MacOS X you can use MPlayer (a popular command line video player) and it should be able to play the captured video without any special configuration. Also it is able to increase( ] button ) and decrease ( [ button ) speed of replay.
That's the basics, everyone can read about it here and here.

The size of the captured video is about 1gb per 3 hours of game, but you can compress it with winrar and it would take about 300mb space.
Also, you can reduce video size by using mencoder(part of mplayer)
I have tried different codecs to reduce video size and found out, that zmbv codec, used by dosbox is probably the best in size/quality ratio with one exception that you have to entirely discard sound from video.
Here is an example of the script:

mencoder -nosound -ovc copy orion2_*.avi -o moo2.avi

If you have several files like orion2_000.avi, orion2_001.avi orion2_002.avi etc.
They will be united into one file - moo2.avi
1Gb video will become 210mb with no video quality loss, but without sound. The reason for this is that dosbox stores sound entirely uncompressed in pcm format. You could try to compress sound too, using the for example the mp3lame codec.
Here is an example of the script:

mencoder -oac mp3lame -ovc copy orion2_*.avi -o moo2.avi

However I had a problem viewing such videos.
(but ffmpeg results were much worse, with the same settings )
You can get common divx video with satisfactory quality and same size 300mb using following commands:
The first pass:

mencoder -nosound -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=1:par=vga11:threads=128 goodmap3_*.avi -o xvid1.avi

In result you receive about 500Mb file
The second pass:

mencoder -nosound -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=2:par=vga11:threads=128:bitrate=-300000 goodmap3_*.avi -o xvid2.avi

In result you receive the desired 300mb file.
But this operation takes about 2 hours on my core 2 duo 2ghz processor.
Additionally, you can add compressed sound to video file by using the mentioned mp3lame decoder
Here is an example of the script:
The first pass:

mencoder -oac mp3lame -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=1:par=vga11:threads=128 goodmap3_*.avi -o xvid1.avi

The second pass:

mencoder -oac mp3lame -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=2:par=vga11:threads=128:bitrate=-300000 goodmap3_*.avi -o xvid2.avi

MOO2 Graphics

2008-04-05T22:27:00.006+02:00

I had in mind to post earlier about it. A while back, I got an e-mail from Patrick Owens:

Hello siron,

I stumbled across your site and just wanted to drop a note and say hello. It’s great to see that there are some people out there still playing MOO2. I see that Russ and Rob have both checked in with you, and it was interesting to hear news of Ken Burd, (D&D Online, huh? Well what do you know…)

I was one of the artists on the project, responsible for most of the ship designs and art, and most of the alien designs as well. Fortunately for my fragile ego, there doesn’t seem to be much criticism of the graphics, as dated as they are by today’s standards. While I’m sure most if not all of your questions are about the design and programming aspects of the game, let me know if any questions have cropped up about the graphics.

Best of luck with the site,

Patrick Owens

Of course I had some questions. Here are some further e-mail excerpts:

If I understand correctly you mean the appearance of the different races? Do you remember them?

Yes, I designed the "look" of the aliens. Of course, I had the first MOO aliens as a foundation, but after many discussions, Steve let us take them all in a slightly new direction for MOO2. I believe I designed all of them but the Mrrshan. I then passed off the designs to the very talented Judith Peterson, who created the color versions you see in the game.

Two little anecdotes: The bird guys became pterodactyl guys in the game, but there was also a bat guy version of the avian race. We went back and forth on it for awhile, and the pterodactyl guys finally won out. I still have the bat guy sketch around here somewhere. I'll see if I can find it for you.

The Antarans got redesigned about two dozen times. I think the design was never really finished or approved, we just basically ran out of time to fiddle with it anymore.

Also, I've seen the Bulrathi described as being pug-dog like; in truth, they were meant to be minotaur-like. So it goes.

I also designed the emblems for the various races, but I look at most of those today and think "what the hell was I thinking there?" Very few of them appeal to me nowadays.

Do you have a favorite color? Or what color do you expect as the most popular one?

At the time, my favorite was always the one I was currently working on. Looking at them today, the blue, red, silver, and purple ships are probably my favorites. Also, the orange ships were mostly designed by someone else, with slight revisions from me at Steve's request. I would be interested to know which color is the favorite among the fans. [The poll results are here.]

Another anecdote: At the eleventh hour, Steve came in and announced that we were going to be redoing all the ships in 3D Studio Max. Understand that almost all the ships were done at this point, and that we were shipping the product in about 6 weeks. To their credit, the 3D guys humored him for about two weeks, gamely trying to come up with a system that could produce that many ships in that short a time-span. It did not take long for them to realize that there was no way in hell it was going to happen though.

And of course I agree that the graphics are awesome... (have you ever seen MOO3 combat?) :(

I've never seen MOO3, but I only like about half of the stuff I did for MOO2. Some of it makes me cringe just thinking about it. The ships are the thing I like the most, so I'm glad we didn't have the time to redo them.

Nevertheless there is a guy who works on a tool to implement new graphics...and there are several fans who work on graphic mods...I hope thats OK for your ego!

To me, the best thing about the gaming community is the mod community. I love that people create their own stuff for their favorite games. I didn't notice new graphics on your site, but I'll go back and take a look now. I'm sure people are creating great stuff, and I'd love to take a look at it.

A small misunderstanding, there are no new graphics on this blog, but other MOO2 fans worked on projects. I meant AR81's pictures and Wolverine's attempt to create a tool. See Wolverine's description of the MOO2 graphic format at bottom.

Do you have kept some of your MOO2 work (f.e. even rejected artwork would be very interesting)?

I have a whole file of artwork for MOO2. I think most of it made it into the game, though. I'll take a look through it and see if there's anything that might be of interest. Most of the electronic art was created in the very outdated Animator Pro and DPaint. I'm not even sure I still have any apps that can open some of the files, but I'll look into that too.

Are you still in contact with other MOO2 developers?

None of them, unfortunately. I've only kept track of one of the artists I used to work with as well, (the insanely talented Michael Washburn.)

I do wish Ken would get in touch with you. He's a great guy and I'm sure he'd have some good insights into the game.

If you have any other questions, or if you'd like to forward some questions from the community, feel free to contact me.

Regards,
Patrick Owens

The above-mentioned tool to implement graphics was a project by Wolverine. Unfortunately, this tool is unfinished. But he wrote an interesting description about the MOO2 graphic formats. Since his blog was temporarily down, I was afraid we could lose his knowledge. I mailed him and he kindly allowed me to repost his descriptions:

Description of MOO2 graphic formats part 1
Some time has passed since I’ve written something here. Some people have downloaded my viewer, however I know Python is not obvious to everybody so I’ve decided to publish information regarding graphic formats of Master Of Orion 2. I don’t have time to work on this viewer and it was always just a proof of concept that graphic modding of MOO2 can be done. I’m not saying no to further development of the viewer for MOO2, however my priorities have shifted once again and development of the viewer/converter halted for now.
First we’ll start with palette files. There are three types of palettes in MOO2. External, internal and mixed. Palette format in MOO2 is in DAC RGB which means that color is represented as four bytes, where each byte consists of a value from range of 0 to 63 in decimal. Each of these values must be then multiplied by four. The first byte represents alpha channel (which is really a pseudo alpha, it seems that it only has a value of either 00 or 01), the second is RED, third is GREEN and fourth is BLUE. Let’s take a look at one of the so called External palette files in this case FONTS.LBX_001 which is the second file where external palettes reside. Take a look at this hexadecimal representation of the beginning of the file:
0000:0000 01 00 00 00 01 00 03 00 01 04 04 06 01 06 06 08 0000:0010 01 09 09 0a 01 0b 0b 0d 01 0d 0d 0f 01 0f 0f 11 0000:0020 01 12 12 14 01 14 14 16 01 16 16 18 01 18 18 1a 0000:0030 01 1b 1b 1d 01 1d 1d 1f 01 1f 1f 21 01 21 21 23 0000:0040 01 22 22 24 01 24 24 26 01 26 26 28 01 27 27 2 0000:0050 01 29 29 2b 01 2b 2b 2d 01 2d 2d 2f 01 2f 2f 31 0000:0060 01 31 31 33 01 33 33 35 01 35 35 37 01 37 37 39 0000:0070 01 38 38 3a 01 39 39 3b 01 3b 3b 3d 01 3c 3c 3e 0000:0080 01 00 03 04 01 00 05 07 01 03 0a 0d 01 0a 0f 13 0000:0090 01 0e 12 16 01 13 16 1a 01 16 19 1e 01 1a 1d 21 0000:00a0 01 1e 21 25 01 22 25 29 01 27 29 2d 01 2c 2e 31
The first column is a hex offset and the second is the hex representation of byte values. I have set to bold every odd numbered color bytes and to normal an even numbered color bytes. Each four bytes represents one color in the format mentioned above. Within the external palette files (FONTS.LBX_001 to FONTS.LBX_013 and IFONTS.LBX_001 to IFONTS.LBX_004) palettes start from zero byte to 1023. Each external palette has 256 colors counted from 0 to 255. If you’d like to read one color you have to read four bytes. For example we have color represented by 01 0a 0f 13. Let’s assume we have read those four bytes and we want to convert them to RGB. The first byte with value 01 is alpha channel. However it only has 00 or 01 values. It probably acts as a boolean: either we have this color (value 01) or not (value 00). But I’m not sure. Perhaps it acts as a special modifier in MOO2 (transparency or rewritable color perhaps?). We can safely ignore it. The next three bytes represents DAC RGB values. It means that each intensity value must be multiplied by four. Take a look:
A R G B = 01 0a 0f 13 = 01 10 15 19
The range of values for R G B in DAC RGB is from 0 to 63 (hex 0×3f). If you want to get 24bit color representation you have to multiply each DAC RGB value by four:
red = dacred * 4; green = dacgreen * 4; blue = dacblue * 4;
If you want to convert 24bit RGB back to DAC RGB you have to do the reverse operation including rounding to integer. Let’s assume we have 24bit RGB color with values (35,127,193) which in hex is (0×23,0×7f,0xc1). You do it like this:
r = 35; dac_r = int(r / 4); g=127; dac_g = int(g / 4); b=193; dac_b = int(b / 4);
Remember! You have to round it to integer, otherwise sometimes you’ll get a floating point value. The external palette files reside within LBX archives FONTS.LBX and IFONTS.LBX. Those archives must be unpacked before they can be used as palette files. After unpacking FONTS.LBX you have to remember that FONTS.LBX_000 IS NOT PALETTE FILE! It’s only a font file. Palette files start from FONTS.LBX_001 (the second file in archive). Palettes reside within first 1024 bytes (256 * 4 bytes). However as you’ll see those files are not 1024 bytes long, but few times longer. That’s because there are also mouse cursors stored behind the palette. They’re visible in some files in a good hexeditor if you properly adjust the viewing columns. However I wasn’t able to figure out how they can be retrieved. I think that’s all regarding external palettes.
The internal palettes are stored within the graphic files. They have the same DAC RGB format as external palettes, however they are stored differently. But before I’ll give you description on how to read internal palettes I have to give you information regarding the graphic format itself.
REMEMBER! All multibyte values in MOO2 formats are stored as LITTLE ENDIAN! That means we have integer (2 bytes) and long (4 bytes) bytes representing the value stored in reverse fashion. Each atomic element size is 8bit which means it’s one byte long. For clarification let’s assume we have an integer with value of 52304 (remember that unsigned integers allow values in range of 0-65535 in that case). In hexadecimal this value is represented as 0xCC50. That means when we want to store this value we have to divide it to two bytes, in this case 0xCC and 0×05. So the LEAST SIGNIFICANT BYTE (in this case 0×05) is saved FIRST! It means that we save this value as “05 CC” not CC 05! The same applies to long. Let’s say we have long integer with value of 492062186 (hex 0×1D5445EA). In this case we have four 8 bit (one byte) atomic elements: “1D 54 45 EA”. The least significant byte is 0xEA. If we want to save it in little endian we have to do this in reverse order. The result would be: “EA 45 54 1D” and that’s what we save. The same applies except in reverse order when we want to read little-endian multibyte value. In this case if we have “7F 03 B9 0C” we reassemble this value reading the last byte first. The result must be 0×0CB9037F which is 213451647 in decimal. Hope that’s clear enough.
So now I can give you the information on how graphics are saved in MOO2. As our example we take the first unpacked file from BLDG0.LBX archive the BLDG0.LBX_000. This LBX archive stores graphics for the buildings visible on colony screen. If you want to properly view the buildings you have to use FONTS.LBX_002 external palette file. This graphic file we have taken shows the Alien Management Center building at center bottom of the colony screen. I will show you how the beginning of the file is seen in hexeditor.
0000:0000 80 02 e0 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 08 14 00 00 00 0000:0010 1c 21 00 00 01 00 55 01 01 00 0e 01 55 00 00 00 0000:0020 01 00 01 00 0e 01 55 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 0000:0030 55 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 55 00 00 00 01 00 0000:0040 01 00 0e 01 55 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 55 00 0000:0050 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 55 00 01 00 0c 00 55 00 0000:0060 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 56 00 01 00 0c 00 55 00 0000:0070 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 56 00 01 00 0c 00 55 00 0000:0080 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 56 00 01 00 0c 00 55 00 0000:0090 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 57 00 01 00 0c 00 55 00 0000:00a0 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 57 00 01 00 0c 00 55 00 0000:00b0 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 58 00 01 00 0c 00 55 00 0000:00c0 00 00 01 00 01 00 0e 01 58 00 01 00 02 00 55 00 0000:00d0 01 00 09 00 56 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 0d 01 55 d5 0000:00e0 02 00 02 00 55 55 01 00 08 00 56 00 00 00 01 00 0000:00f0 02 00 0d 01 d3 b8 01 00 02 00 55 00 01 00 09 00
This dump from hexeditor similar to the previous one. Left italic - offsets, right - byte values. I have colored some bytes and backgrounded sections of the file for clarity. The brownish background under the bytes shows the header of the graphic file. I’ll explain the header of the file now.
First two bytes marked as red are “80 02″. This is the width of the image. As you remember what I have told you about the multibyte values in MOO2 (little-endian) this value is in fact 0×0280. I wouldn’t remind you about this again so keep in mind that all multibyte values are LITTLE ENDIAN. In this case we have 640. The value represents width in pixels.
The next two bytes (green) is the height of the image. In this case it’s 480 so we have size of the image 640×480 pixels. The next two bytes are always zero. Two bytes marked in blue is number of frames (in this case one). Next two bytes marked in yellow is the frame delay i.e. delay between each frame is shown. It’s used in animations. In this case we have only one frame so the delay is 0, but if we had multi-frame graphic (animation) the delay would be set. The last two bytes in the header marked as cyan represents image flags. We have to stop here for a moment and explain those flags.
The flags is a two byte value also stored as little endian. Contrary to previous multibyte values this doesn’t represent decimal value, but a binary value. Each flag is represented as one bit within the value. Take a look:
0000 0000 0000 0000
..JI FB.N .... ....
This is the binary representation of the two byte flags. The first line shows bits and the line below corresponding flags. The dot in the second line means that setting this bit either doesn’t do anything (is not used) or the behaviour of the flag is unknown. I have given those flags unique letters and they are as follows:
J - Junction - I don’t know really what it’s for. Grig de Griz has pointed out this flag in his format description so I’m including it here. (TAlchemist pointed out that: “Junction flag means that you add each frame to the frame before it making a composted image. and start from the begining on the first frame. That is how only the first frame of the big animations is large and all other frames just include the pixels that changed.”)

I - Internal palette - Tells if the image has internal palette

F - Functional color - Tells if the image has functional color. This color is used for effects like transparency or shading.

B - Fill background - Tells the game if it should clear the area on which the image is going to be drawn.

N - No compression - Tells if the image uses compression. For me it’s behaviour is unknown. It’s probably a left-over from MOO1 graphic formats which are almost identical to MOO2.
Back to our header. We have the value “00 08″ in our header for flags. This means the value is 0×0800 in hex. Let’s see what flags reside here. After converting this value to binary we get 0000 1000 0000 0000. Let’s compare this new value to our line describing the flags:
0000 1000 0000 0000
..JI FB.N .... ....
Voila! We now know that the image has functional color flag. If we had for example:
0011 1001 0000 0000
..JI FB.N .... ....
We would have junction, internal palette, functional color and no compress flags set. There are really only two flags that are significant for us. The more significant is INTERNAL PALETTE and the less significant is FUNCTIONAL COLOR. The first one would be covered later in greater detail. The second is really needed for properly plotting graphics and I wouldn’t give it too much attention, because I haven’t completely figured out how it works. All I can say for now regarding FUNCTIONAL COLOR is that it’s used in our BLDG0.LBX_000 for drawing shadows. If you manage to draw this image you’ll see that the shadow is represented by dark violet color, but within the game it’s giving a proper shadow on the colony background screen.
Let’s get back to our header. I’ll refresh your memory here:
0000:0000 80 02 e0 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 08 14 00 00 00
0000:0010 1c 21 00 00 01 00 55 01 01 00 0e 01 55 00 00 00
We have already covered all the bytes marked in colors up to cyan marked flags. What are those last eight bytes that are in the header? Those are four byte frame offsets. This needs greater explanation. Frame is the proper graphic that is displayed on the screen. It’s an animation frame. Since we have only one frame image (still image, not animation) here there are only two frame offsets, namely: “14 00 00 00″ and “1c 21 00 00″. Those offsets say where within the file each frame starts. However I have said we have only one frame image here so why the hell we have two frame offsets you might ask. Well. It’s because we always have frame_number + 1 frames. The last frame isn’t de facto a frame. It’s a special frame-like identifier that tells that the end of file (EOF) has been reached. It’s probably connected to format reading specific used in MOO2. How to get frame offsets then? Here’s a little pseudo-code to show you how:
offset_array = array(); // Create result array of offsets for (i=0; i<frame_number+1; i++) // Go through each frame offset { bytes = fp.read(4); // Read four bytes representing the offset bytes = reverse_bytes(bytes); // Convert little endian to proper byte representation offset = str_to_long(bytes); // Convert string to long number offset_array.add(offset); // Add offset to offsets array }
If you now want to read frames you just set internal file pointer (fp in the pseudo-code) to the offset of each frame. In C++ you can do this with: fp.seek(offset); and that should do.
That is all for now. I’ll explain frame reading and internal and mixed palettes in the next post. For now you can still download my viewer and browse the code or you can read somewhat outdated previous posts regarding the formats. For now the most complete source for getting information regarding the formats if still source code of my viewer. You can download it from the previous post and I encourage you to do so. Python is easy language, I have learned it in a day or so if you’re a programmer you’ll be able to decipher my code quite quickly. Greets to all and I’ll try to write the second part of the tutorial ASAP.
Description of MOO2 graphic formats part 2
It’s been a really long time. Many things changed, some usual and some not so usual twists and turns in my life caused abstinence from writing here. I had time to think about everything and I’ve finally decided to passionately dive into information technology as I used to and screw everything else. These are two things I’m really good at. But enough of this.
I’m not really good at keeping promises, but this time I’ve decided that I have to do this. It’s been a long time since I’ve written part one describing MOO2 graphic formats. If you want this initial description of the formats check “Description of MOO2 graphic formats”. In that post I have described how to retrieve graphic header information and external palettes. This time I’m going to show you how to read internal and mixed palettes, and how to retrieve each animation frame. Some of you skilled hackers out there probably figured it out, but still there could be some of you who want to know. Here we go.
Just as a quick reminder. The header of the graphic file consists of: two bytes width, two bytes height, two always null bytes, two bytes with frame count, two bytes of delay between frames, and two bytes of bit-flags. Then we have (frame_count + 1) * 4 bytes for each frame offset. For example if we had byte indication of three frames we would need to read sixteen bytes. Each four bytes within those sixteen would be a frame offset. Mind you that the last offset is pointing to a special frame-like identifier designating end of file (EOF). Let’s stop here for a moment. After you have read the header you must identify if Internal Palette flag has been set. If so the next offset immediately after frame position offsets is the beginning of internal palette. Internal palette has it’s own pseudo header. It consists of four bytes. Two bytes representing color shift of the internal palette in relation to standard palette. And two bytes representing number of colors. REMEMBER that all bytes should be read as LOW-ENDIAN! For more info check part 1 of this tutorial. After reading four bytes of internal palette header, there are actual color definitions.
Those internal palette color definitions are sequences of DAC RGB. Just to remind you what it means: each color is represented as four bytes, where each byte consists of a value from range of 0 to 63 in decimal. Each of these values must be then multiplied by four. The first byte represents alpha channel (which is really a pseudo alpha, it seems that it only has a value of either 00 or 01), the second is RED, third is GREEN and fourth is BLUE. For more information refer to Part 1 describing MOO2 graphic formats.
To read the whole internal palette you must read four bytes multiplied by number of colors from internal palette header. Then if you’d probably want to convert those colors to RGB, so remember to multiply color values by four. This will give you internal palette in RGB. Let’s stop for a moment.
It’s really rare in MOO2 to find images with internal palette that spans entire 256 color space. Mostly internal palletes will have color count of 64 or less. What it really means? If internal palette is less than entire color space it means that the internal palette is really a mixed one. That’s where the color shift from internal palette header comes in. Mixed palette is really internal pallete “mixed” with external palette. It means that internal palette substitutes number of colors within external palette. The color shift is basically the starting color of this substitution.
Let’s suppose we have graphic file with internal palette. We read from internal palette header that color shift is 24 and color number is 64. Then we read color values from internal palette, convert them to RGB and voila. We have read our internal palette. What’s next? To create mixed type palette we have to choose one of the external palettes. Which one? That’s a tough question really. There’s no indication whatsoever which one should we choose. They are probably hardcoded within MOO2 executable.You’ll have to experiment by yourself. Suppose we chose the first external palette available. What’s next? Well… It’s really simple. The external palette always has 256 colors beginning with 0 and ending at 255. If we have color shift at 24 we start substituting color values of external palette at 24 (not 23 as some of you may think, because palette starts at 0!) and all the way to 88, because we have 64 colors within internal palette. It’s really that simple.
There’s also another type of palettes. I have found them to be within 1×1 pixel size images. These are not really images, but a placeholders for internal palettes. Some of the SHIPS.LBX_XXX files have them. These special files are used exactly as mixed palette, but they apply not only to one image, but to many graphic files following this special “image”. If you used my viewer you could see that after encountering such special image, the following files are images of the ships for each “nation”. It’s not really nation, but if you look closely in MOO2, ships are chosen not by race, but by the color banner. And that’s it. Palette of this special image applies to each graphic representing ship until the next special image with internal palette is encountered.
Ok. This should be enough for you in getting familiar with palettes. So now we’ll get into reading actual graphics (frames).
If you want to read each frame you have to position your reading cursor (fp.seek() in C) to offset stored in memory. (Frame offsets reading was described in Part 1 of this tutorial). At this seek position we read two bytes for frame beginning indicator. It’s always 1. If it’s not, you should not continue to read the frame and skip to next offset. If you had frame beginning indicator the next thing is frame y indent (relative vertical position). This is the number of vertical pixels you should render frame relative to screen (or rendering context) top position. After reading those bytes we must stop here again for a while.
Each frame has multiple data sequences. I call them lines or sequences for short. In MOO2 graphics not needed bytes are not stored. This way of saving graphics also allowed transparency effects. If there’s no pixel it means it’s transparent. Transparency is achieved simply by storing relative indents (x and y positions). Each sequence (or color line) has it’s own pseudo header.
Sequence begins with two bytes representing number of pixels in sequence. It’s also a special indicator, but I’ll explain that later. For now you have to remember that the following applies only if this pixel number is greater than 0! Next we read two bytes for x indent (x relative position). This is the amount of pixels that should be skipped relative to previous sequence x position when rendering. If we had x indent of value 12 and our last sequence ended at 24th pixel on screen we should start painting this new sequence from 36th pixel. I hope this is clear enough.
Then we have to read pixel data. Pixel data is simply one byte multiplied by the number of pixels. So you have to read number of pixels. Pixel data is 8bit value (1 byte) which represents pixel color number within the palette. If you had value of 46 you use 46th color from current palette in memory when rendering. Simple isn’t it? BUT! You have to remember one thing. If number of pixels was odd value, YOU HAVE TO READ ADDITIONAL BYTE! This byte is then discarded, but you should always remember doing it. It’s probably linked to internal image loading mechanism used in MOO2.
So, let’s get back to our pixel number in sequence. I told you that the above applies only if pixel number in sequence is greater than zero. But what if pixel number IS ZERO? Well. It’s a special indication of something fancy going on (not really ). If you encountered 0 in pixel number of sequence, you have to read additional two bytes. Those two bytes are y indent of the sequence. It means that you have to start painting next sequence in new relative y position, but resetting x indent to ZERO! It’s like a number of newlines + carriage return, except for graphics. Sequence that has y indent DOESN’T HAVE ANY PIXEL DATA. But that should be obvious.
However. There’s also one small glitch. If y indent equals 1000 it means we have encountered END OF FRAME. When encountering this we should save the frame data in memory and proceed to the next frame offset (if any).
That’s all. I hope you found this post useful. If you have any comments or questions please post them. Also please forgive me for not showing any pseudo code or hex data, but I think this should be pretty obvious. If it’s not download: moo2gfxview-008tar.gz unpack it and refer to file graphics.py, function __getframes. I know it’s in Python, but you should be able to understand it, because file reading in Python is almost the same as in C or C++.
Hope you liked it. If you have any comments or questions feel free to post them.

Arthur C. Clarke's Last Message to Earth

2008-03-19T16:34:00.001+01:00

The golden age of space is only just beginning... Space travel and space tourism will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet.

I hope that we have learned something from the most barbaric century in history -- the twentieth. I would like to see us overcome our tribal factions, and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalization.

Mega Oldie Game

2008-03-05T21:32:00.002+01:00

Jörg Langer, the founder of the German magazine GameStar, started a voting about the mega oldie game on his blog. MOO2 actually reached the 2nd round of this voting, whereas Civilization failed. Langer will write a special (this includes an interview with the devs) about the winner.

The final results are:
959 StarCraft
420 Fallout
384 Gothic
228 Monkey Island
153 Master of Orion
81 Planescape Torment
79 Baldur’s Gate
59 Diablo
43 Jagged Alliance
41 Age of Empires

Crazy Board

2008-01-09T23:19:00.000+01:00

After almost 2 years the most important German MOO2 forum is back:

Crazy Board

Of course, it will be added on the side bar.

YouTube Videos

2008-01-04T06:28:00.000+01:00

You may have observed some changes in the design of this blog since I finally completed the newBlogger upgrade a few months ago. This includes the new video bar at the top of the page. Currently, this video bar shows the MOO2 videos of ALEX|D's YouTube channel called Starzkream781. When you are interested to show your MOO2 related videos on this blog, just set up a pure MOO2 channel on YouTube (I can't filter the videos of a channel.) and mail me at:

...and a happy new year!

DOSBox 0.72

2007-08-27T00:08:00.000+02:00

The next month already the next release. Even before I updated the MOO2 related guide. Anyway, the default dosbox.conf settings should work on most new hardware now. Therefore just the autoexec part should be added. See the DOSBox Guide for details.

DOSBox 0.71 released

2007-07-30T11:39:00.000+02:00

Try the latest version in their download section. The DOSBox Guide will be updated soon.

Monday, July 30th, 2007 - Qbix A bugfix release this time, but we couldn't resist adding a few new exciting features:
Added a new recompiling cpu core which is easier to port!

Added a x86_64 and a mipsel_32 recompiling core.

Fixed hangups on certain platforms after long gameplay of several games.

Fix several joystick bugs.

Improved cdrom support. (fixes for audio, iso and detection.)

Improved SVGA and VESA. (detection and display)

Fixed a few textmodes and improved ansi emulation a bit.

Fixed pcspeaker and certain types of soundeffects.

Added undocumented mousebackdoor.

Made mount and imgmount a bit easier to use. (ioctl by default, support
for ~ and ~username, auto size guessing for images)

Fix a few compilation problems on various hosts and a general code
cleanup.

Several small fixes that improve compatibility.
The compatibility should be the same as 0.70 aside from the games we fixed. (see the Changelog for details)

Master of Orion II Digital Download on Atari.com

2007-07-23T10:25:00.000+02:00

Finally, Atari announces the Digital Download version of Master of Orion II. And I have to remove my earlier rant about their price. They had a technical problem this morning - the price of the download version of MOO3 was displayed.

Atari offers MOO2 for very fair $9.95.

Where is the modern Master of Orion?

2007-06-30T16:15:00.000+02:00

This question was asked in the last issue of the German magazine GameStar. German readers might remember that GameStar itself made MOO2 very popular in Germany. In 1999, they offered MOO2 on their Bonus CD and one should keep in mind that the print-run was over 300.000 back in the days.

Here is the translation of his comment:

Where is the center?

Trusting the PC Games Charts the PC owners play Action titles, Real Time Strategy, Role Playing Games and additionally maybe Football. This is the misapprehension of the mainstream. Indeed, some of these genres are popular and are cultivated by the large producers exclusively. However, alongside niches are prospering.
There are sufficient people, who love genres, that barely exist any longer: Turn Based Strategy, Flight Simulators, Jump & Runs. The large companies don't want to serve these niches. Therefore small developers step into the breach and produce curd like UFO Extraterrestrials or Space Empires V - more or less failed clones of erstwhile genre masterpieces. They sell well nevertheless.

It is one of the huge mistakes of our industry that a strong middle segment is missing. There are the top games, that cost millions, and there is a miraculousness depth of cheap easy-to-play games. But good titles for niche genres do barely exist. Where is the next Battle Isle? Where is the modern Master of Orion? These two examples should attract attention. The written off genre of Graphical Adventures is currently the only one where this middle segment exists, where good games are produced on a monthly base. On the other hand, the Handheld Game Consoles: (ambitious!) round-based tactic like Advance Wars has sensational success on the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS.
There is no reason, why this shouldn't work on the PC.

Christian Schmidt
GameStar
(translated by siron)

Editor for AI-Races

2007-05-18T15:18:00.000+02:00

At first, I have to thank Siron for allowing me to post on his blog. Here we go: thanks, Siron!

I just finished the work on a RaceEditor for the computer races which are defined in the racestuf.lbx.

For it is completely done in Java, you'll need the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.5 to use it. Not sure if it runs with JRE 1.4.

Just download the jarfile and put it into your orion2 directory. It works quite self-explaining. However, there is a help-button which explains a little more on how to use the editor.

A usable feature could be to define the mostly played races like UniTol, UniAqua etc. and play them not by creating a custom race but just by selecting one of the predefined races.

My intention to create this editor was to push the AI a little, but it doesn't work. My Psilon has now +2 Research, LowG, Large HW, Artifacts HW, Lithovore and Democracy. But even this race doesnt research very fast … but it is amazing how fast you can go by playing such a race. And I have not talked about the modded Klackon ;-)

Just have a try. Comments and Suggestions are welcome, send them to

Classic Game Of The Week

2007-04-28T19:02:00.000+02:00

The game blog Gamers with Jobs chooses MOO2 as Classic Game Of The Week:

[...]MOO2, as the game is affectionately known, rivaled, I dare say, Civilization itself as one of the defining turn-based strategy games of all time, and it is this week's Classic Game of the Week.

StarCraft 2 Rumor

2007-04-28T15:39:00.000+02:00

A new South Korean source claims that, according to a leak, Blizzard will be announcing StarCraft 2 at the World Wide Invitational, on the 19th of May 2007.

Update May 19th: Confirmed!
And here we go:

After years of waiting, Blizzard Entertainment seconds ago announced that StarCraft 2 would be the new game! "Looks strikingly similar to SC1" according to IGN.

Soren Johnsen joins EA Maxis to work on Spore

2007-04-21T21:52:00.000+02:00

...Electronic Arts has confirmed the former lead designer of Civilization IV has quit his gig at Firaxis. Johnson has now returned to his old digs at Electronic Arts' Maxis studio and is working on the much-anticipated evolution-to-civilization sim Spore.

Spore's Civilization Phase is therefore directly tuned up by the lead dev of Civ4. Could they now hire Steve Barcia or Ken Burd for the Space Phase? Pleeeeeaaaase!

Re: Master of Orion 2 Intro Cinematic

2007-04-14T00:34:00.000+02:00

A video response to the Master of Orion 2 Intro Cinematic:

...and here the next MOO2 influenced generation, making fun of....hmmm what exactly?! ;)

Finally scored:

RAMDiskXP and 4X Comparison

2007-04-08T14:14:00.000+02:00

There has been increased activity on Matthew's game blog in the recent weeks. You should check out his RamDiskXP guide. Furthermore he found a detailed 4X Comparison of Galactic Civilizations 2, Sword of the Stars and Space Empires V.

The Galactic Council

2007-03-26T00:29:00.000+02:00

Blackscorn is a fresh member of our evergreen MOO2 online community (he joined this weekend). He made an interesting discovery on ebay last year and picked up this picture of the council room (click it to enlarge):

Blackscorn told me that some mom was selling it for her son who said he won it in 1996 as a prize at a game convention. It is signed by the creators/devs of MOO2 and dates back to 1996 (but it is still in a mint condition):

For now I can decipher the signatures of Jim Cowlishaw, Steve Barcia, Ronnie Gauny, Jim McIntyre, Kenneth Burd, Pat Owens, Kevin Albers, Shelly Hollen, Rob Corell and Russ Williams. I need a closer look for the other signatures. Is there anyone else out there with the same picture?

DOSBox 0.70

2007-03-25T17:01:00.000+02:00

A new release of DOSBox was published a few weeks ago. Apparently, the new default settings of the dosbox.conf work quite nicely on new computers now. Lord Brazen proposes in this post the following fine tuning:

a) Change output from surface to overlay.
b) Change gus from true to false.
c) Change joysticktype from auto to none.
d) Change ipx from false to true. (for multiplayer games)

The other highlighted items were already my default settings. I don't have sufficient feedback yet, but I assume that you should adjust frameskip to 1 or 2 for old computers. Additionally, I am not sure how the auto core feature works for old computers. Feedback is appreciated.

I will update the DOSBox guide with the new dosbox.conf files in the next days.

Russian MOO2

2007-02-13T02:51:00.000+01:00

Impressive! Grig de Griz found a way to implement cyrillic letters inside MOO2. He completed his russian translation of MOO2 (based on 1.31) a few weeks ago. Take a look:

For example, the Racestuf screen...

...and even the system names were translated!

Currently, the localization is still based on 1.31 but LordBrazen has already provided a modified 1.4patcher for the Russian 1.31. Probably, there might be a Russian 1.4 version pretty soon!

The current version can be downloaded here: http://www.mo3.fatal.ru/moo2tfiles.htm

There is also a MOO2 discussion forum on his site to discuss his mod and (forthcoming) MOO2 tools: http://www.mo3.fatal.ru/forum/forums.php?forum=19
(I have also added it to the sidebar.)

You should have no worries to install the files, they can coexist with the English 1.31/1.40 versions.

DOSbox Fine Tuning

2007-02-13T01:12:00.000+01:00

LordBrazen posted some info regarding the new build DOSBox 0.66rc1 CVS on his blog. Additionally, he now recommends to use the setsound.exe (the MOO2 folder or CD should contain this executable) to configure the sound (instead of editing the DIG.INI). Though on my PC the sound is slightly choppy (especially during screen changes) with the proposed settings in the DOSbox guide. Shadowlord assumed in this forum post that this might be caused by the experimental auto cycle feature and frameskip. With his settings the sound seems better. Or is it just my imagination?

A Few Thoughts About 2006

2007-01-01T20:57:00.000+01:00

First of all: Happy MOO Year!

Though in this post I want to look at 2006 once again:

Traffic
Our two MOO2 blogs, this one and lordbrazen.blogspot.com, finally achieved google page rank 3 in the last months of 2006:

I am hopeful that this achievement will even further increase our traffic in this year. Generally, I was already surprised about the traffic in 2006. I started to track this website in November 2005 with statcounter.com (see the counter in the sidebar) and visualized them with the so called ClustrMaps. In the last the few days I tried to animate these maps with the EasyGif Animator (shareware). Here is the result:

This is my first gif file. I would be very thankful, if anyone can propose a better tool which is able to compress the file without loss of too much quality.
Thanks to all visitors. There is far more traffic than I ever expected.

4X Turn Based Strategy
2006 was also the reincarnation of the Space Based 4X Turn Based Strategy genre. Who expected this after MOO3 was such a disappointment? Galactic Civilizations 2, Sword of the Stars and Space Empires V were released in 2006.

Galactic Civilizations 2 is surely a good game. But most of us MOO2 fans were disappointed that tactical combat was excluded. Additionally, a game without multiplayer is IMO boring after a few months. Besides the last point GalCiv2 is an ideal MOO2 successor for those MOO2 fans who preferred strategical combat (i.e., without ship design and battles). But who actually preferred that option? I guess less than one percent of us. There is some hope that tactical combat and multiplayer will be included in GalCiv3. There is even the possibility of an MP extension for GalCiv2 but I doubt that this will be happen.

More of us MP players were interested in Sword of the Stars (SOTS) since it includes tactical combat and MP. Several players considered themselves already as SOTS fanboys. But the demo was a disappointment. To put it mildly: The UI is at least controversial. These both posts on the quarter of three board lists a lot of good points: #262 and #267.

But the answer of the SOTS Dev Martin Cirulis was rather harsh: #290, actually the worst PR I can imagine. Most forum members were upset by his comment so it was no surprise at all that the host of the Quarter To Three forum, the freelancer Tom Chick, wrote a negative SOTS review.
Was that review biased because of this issue? I remember some guys in our community claimed that Tom Chick was spot on, but Martin Cirulis had his own version.

To sum it up: In the current state the game looks more like a riddle than a strategy game and because of the above mentioned quarrel I am afraid we won't see UI improvements in a forthcoming SOTS2.

Regarding Space Empires V: I have to admit that I have tested the demo just for a short while. Gusset wrote in our community forum that the tactical combat is restricted for singleplayer. AFAIK the Play by Web option is currently the most popular multiplayer mode and tactical combat won't make much sense there. There is also a TCP/IP mode but unfortunately it is still too bugged. But keep in mind that the publishers are well known for their support. I hope that Gusset, who has already tried some MP games, keeps us informed.

The year 2006 gave us three potential substitutes for our beloved MOO2. But my favorite is still MOO2 which has IMO the smartest UI and best balance between strategical and tactical elements. Actually, some reviewers called GalCiv2 the new MOO2 (and it had lots of good reviews). But when you look at the evaluations of the customers, you will see that MOO2 has still an edge. You may have noticed that I added some Amazon links recently (in this post and see also the bottom of the sidebar). Just scroll over them and the average customer review score will appear:

After 10 years MOO2 has still an amazing average of 5/5. GalCiv2 and Space Empires V have good but not overwhelming scores with 3.5/5, just slightly ahead of SOTS (3/5) and please let us forget MOO3.

Blog Upgrade
Additionally, I have upgraded my blog yesterday to the new Blogger (it merged with my google account now). Whatever that means exactly, you will have noticed that the old posts are now labeled. This tagging feature seems quite useful, for example try the labels:

DOSbox
Video
Battle Contest
10 years MOO2
Strategy
MOO2 formulae

Quite easy now to find posts that are related to a specific topic. I will probably add the labels to the sidebar soon.

Nevertheless, I am also a bit sceptical about this upgrade since there are some autoformats involved. Please inform me when you see any bugs after this upgrade.

Updated DOSbox Guide

2006-12-31T17:00:00.000+01:00

I have updated the DOSbox Guide recently. I also added several screenshots to clarify a few issues.

Additionally, you can download my own dosbox.conf now. It works in combination with the default MOO2 directory: C:\MPS\ORION2

When you use this configuration you need just to read steps 1-4 and 8. The steps 5-7 explain the changes of my dosbox.conf file.

Master of Orion mobile

2006-11-30T23:17:00.000+01:00

I have recently found two interesting posts:

Master of Orion on Pocket PC!!!

As long as I've owned a Pocket PC and known that there were emulators for it, I've longed for the day when I would be able to play Master of Orion on my Pocket PC (I discussed this a little bit here if you're interested).

Well, I just learned that you CAN play Master of Orion on your Pocket PC! Let me say that again: you can play Master of Orion on your Pocket PC!!! The miraculous piece of software that makes this possible is called PocketDOS.

What Is PocketDOS?
PocketDOS is a revolutionary program that allows you to run old DOS programs on your Pocket PC. According to the website, PocketDOS emulates a PC with an 80186 processor, 1 mb of RAM, VGA video, and "the standard support chips." There are a number of add-ons for this program, including some that make it possible to run Windows 3.1, emulate a 486, etc. [...]

and Master of Orion on Windows Mobile!!

So a while back (== a good few years!) I loved playing a certain PC game called Master of Orion (Remember it??). Now I came across the CD's for it the other day, and i was wondering if there was any way that I could get it to play on my phone (Orange SPV M5000 - basically the imate JasJar) - the phone runs Winsows Mobile 5 and I was thinking there has to be some way to get those old DOS games to run on it. [...]

Tenth Anniversary

2006-10-31T23:50:00.000+01:00

Today is MOO2's birthday. Master of Orion II was released exactly 10 years ago: October 31, 1996. I have to admit that I actually can't remember that day: (a) Halloween was no issue here at all and (b) here in Germany, MOO2 was released roundabout 6 weeks later.

In the recent weeks I have mailed further MOO2 devs, unfortunately most seem too busy to respond. It also seems that the devs besides Steve Barcia (Metroid Prime, SSX on Tour) and Ken Burd (Dungeons & Dragons Online) left the gaming industry and were simply uninterested. Rob Corell is one exception. Here are some parts of our mails:

Rob: Sorry for the delay, but I've been trying to hit a milestone on my current project, Adobe Bridge.

I'm pleased to hear that people are still playing (and patching) MOO2, though I didn't have much involvement in it other than the awful network support (sorry!), sound, and a a few special effects. I was the head of a project called "Guardians: Agents of Justice" that was busily failing at the end of MOO2 development.

I wish Steve would make games like that again. Even though he fired me, I'd be happy to play his next turn-based game.

Ken Burd still lives pretty close to me and, last I heard, he was working on Dungeons & Dragons Online.

Hello Rob,

thanks for your reply. About the network performance: There is huge difference between DOS and WIN version here. So we have accepted to use the DOS version and the WIN version doesn't bother us much. But we have one hypothesis to explain the difference and I want to know if it is true:

MOO2 was first developed for DOS and in an later stage it was made (under time-trouble) compatible with WIN95?

Rob: It was definitely developed under DOS. I did the DOS network support, and don't even remember any Win95 testing for MOO2.

Further Mails from:
Russ Williams (AI)
Nieya Anjomi (QA)

Tenth Anniversary BattleTournament

Here are the final resuls (click it to enlarge). Congrats ALEXD! His EMG design dominated.

Rules
FAQ
Evaluation round:
First duels
Further duels
Results (screenshots of successful designs)
Qualifyings:
Groups (videos of ALEXD's battles, save files)
Further Results (video: ALEXD vs. Cabman)
2nd week (YouTube video)
Results
Final:
First Results (save file)

Battle Contest - Final

2006-10-28T00:54:00.000+02:00

The final has started:

Download: Save

Battle Contest - Qualifying: Results

2006-10-23T13:36:00.000+02:00

Results - (click it to enlarge):

The following designs are qualified:

Larsman4
Dmitry2
ALEXD1
ALEXD2
dottore2
Cabman1
ALEXD3
seb1

The finals will start next weekend. The finalists are allowed to update their designs until this friday 1200 CET. (But no relocation of invested RPs.)

Map Mod: Decent Rocks

2006-10-15T02:29:00.000+02:00

I.) Introduction
This map mod creates the maps used in the DC mod for regular MOO2. This mod is called DecentRocks since the tiny and small rocks (i.e. Barren, Radiated, Toxic etc.) have now a decent size. See III. for details. Since StepNRazor had asked for it (see comments), I added an ORIONDR3 mod in IV.

II.) Installation
1. Find the Install.exe on your Moo2 CD and double click it to start the DOS installer. (i.e. INSTALL.EXE. If u dont have install.exe on your Moo2 CD use the win-installation and copy this rkernel.com file in your moo2 directory and proceed.)
b) Apply the v1.31 patch
c) Apply the v1.40 patch
Unzip the DecentRocks.zip into your moo folder. NO BACKUP IS NECESSARY! The new file (different file name) can coexist with the 1.40 patch.

Test the Oriondr.exe ---> Singleplayer should work already.

2. Multiplayer via DosBox:
Instead of orion2~1 (last line of step 8 in this guide, btw that is the exe name of the1.4 version) you can simply paste the exe name of the mod:
oriondr

III. Map Balance
The Orange Mod is quite popular among Aqua-Players. But obviously, those players who prefer Sub, Tol, Lith or Cyber dislike the increase of foodplanets. Therefore just the moderate change under a):
a) Brown Stars are defacto Red Stars now. This mod doesn't change any climate probability of any further star color!
b) I have removed all unguarded UltraRich planets. (They are rich or abundant now.)
c) UltraRich planets have now a basic prod of 7 per worker instead of the previous 8.
d) Tiny and small planets are now slightly larger. Basic Gaia size for tiny and small are 5 and 10 in regular moo. In this mod they are 8 and 12.
e) I have slightly increased the climate modifiers besides Terran and Gaia.
The effects of the modifications d) and e) are summarized in the following table.

MaxPop Values (click it to enlarge):

See this post for details how the max pop values are calculated.

IV.) Decent Rocks Planet Mods
Each system has exactly 1 or 2 or 3 planets in the following 3 mods. Asteroids and Gas Giants are removed.
OrionDR3.zip (contains OrionDR1, OrionDR2 and OrionDR3 mod)

Battle Contest - Qualifying: 2nd Week

2006-10-13T14:36:00.000+02:00

This Battle Contest is heavily influenced by so called Rock-Paper-Scissors effects. Many good and playable designs are knocked out by specialized taskforces. One good example is ALEXD's NeutronBlaster/Transporters tactic against Seb79's unshielded titans. ALEXD has initiative and a sufficient ground combat value to raid and destroy these titans in the first combat round. See the YouTube video of this massacre:

You can also download the DOSbox video of this battle. (DOSbox videos have far better quality than YouTube.) But you need to install DOSbox (and its codecs) to watch it (see Battle Contest post below).

ALEXD has also recorded his other duels:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Starzkream781
If you want to watch them in better quality you can ask him on our IRC Channel. See the sidebar to join there.

Further results - Update 17.10. (click it to enlarge):

Chat

2006-10-13T14:33:00.000+02:00

Lord Brazen embedded PJIRC (an open source Java applet IRC client) on his blog. By using it you will directly connect to our MOO2 channel: irc.quakenet.org#moo2. You can also enter from this blog here (and ALEXD's site): Just enter your nickname in the sidebar and hit the chat button. See also Stem's post for details and alternative IRC clients.

Battle Contest - Qualifying: Current Standings

2006-10-07T01:28:00.000+02:00

Another close battle in Group B:
cab_vs_alex.zip (20 min)
AFAIK you need DOSbox and you have to install the codecs provided by DOSbox to watch these videos.

Further results - Update 9.10. (click it to enlarge):

Battle Contest - Qualifying Groups

2006-10-01T22:08:00.000+02:00

Saves Group A-C: Download

ALEXD also provides two videos of the first duel between his both designs in group C:
battlemovie_ALEXD1-ALEXD3.zip
battlemovie_ALEXD1-ALEXD3_2.zip
AFAIK you need DOSbox and you have to install the codecs provided by DOSbox to watch these videos.

Further results (click it to enlarge):

MOO2 10 years later: QA

2006-10-01T11:38:00.000+02:00

A few days ago, I received the following e-mail from Nieya Anjomi who is mentioned in the credits (Quality Assurance):

Hi Siron,

Just wow. It's great to know that people are still following this great title after so many years. I am indeed one of the original testers from the project, and unfortunately, I don't keep in contact with any of the original programmers. In fact, the QA was done in Alameda California, a seperate location than the development, so I've never actually met any of the developers.

Personally, MOO2 was the only game that I tested for pretty much an entire QA cycle for a game. I was a tester on several other games, but this was my first and last complete game tested as it was basically an extended summer job while I was going to school full time. I quit microprose during my 4th year of college, where I went on to get my B.S. and M.S. in computer science. I originally wanted to be a game programmer, however after I graduated I was facinated by network security and ended up working at SONICWALL for the next 4+ years. Like Russ Williams, this game took a lot out of me, regularly working 50-60 hours a week while attending full time classes, teaching me the way the game industry is based on demand and the development cycle.

I remember that all the testers on this game were heavily addicted to QUAKE which was our game of choice to be played during lunch and after hours.

I hope this helps, feel free to blog it, and I wish I had more to contribute. It's been a lifetime for me since I tested this game or was involved in the game industry itself.

Nieya

Battle Contest - Qualifyings

2006-09-24T13:24:00.000+02:00

The evaluation round is complete. Some of the missing duels were decided by autocombat.

Results: here and here

The five most successful designs of the evaluation rounds are:

Dottore2 (assault shuttles)
ALEXD2 (gyro stab titans)
Brutalisk2 (EMG)
Feuerzahn1 (Gauss Shield5)
Cabman1 (EMG)
Here are some screenshots of the ships:

Dottore2 (click it to enlarge):

ALEXD2 (click it to enlarge):

Brutalisk2 (click it to enlarge):

Feuerzahn1 (click it to enlarge):

Cabman1 (click it to enlarge):

The Qualifyings will start at the 1st October.

There will be 3 groups of 6-8 designs. 24 participants will be the maximum. The drawing of these groups is based on the results of the evaluation rounds and the order of submissions. The 12 most successful designs (i.e. 2 won duels in the evaluation round) are directly qualified for these groups. Further participants are:

a) Designs which were submitted after the start of the evaluation rounds.
b) Updated designs of the evaluation rounds (this includes all 48 designs). It is still allowed to update your design. But no relocation of your invested RPs.
c) Also new designs can be submitted. Copies of the most successful designs will be rejected. Counter designs are ok.

There are still a few slots until the maximum of 24 designs is reached. First come, first served. Conact: moo2niac at googlemail dot com

Finals
The first 2 of each group and the 2 best 3rds will advance to the finals.
Further details can be found in the updated FAQ.

ICQ List

2006-09-24T01:56:00.000+02:00

Since most players use DOSbox now, ICQ isn't that important any longer. You can chat now during our games (kali chatserver 138 or irc.quakenet.org#moo2). Therefore, I have removed the ICQ list from the side bar.

115394370 1st&17th
230293330 ALEXD
8236577 BARrE
212585425 Brent
4506289 Brutalisk
318949662 Budee
198518442 cabman
100884773 Charon
93409660 Choly
2349011 Cybersaber
132268639 Da Brick
343085472 DeathSmell
252951766 Dimka
8480948 dirt-bag
6206177 Dmitry
18800300 Dopefish
100091196 druzhio
160276985 Duke Winterhawk
338420742 Futurist
218012441 Glimmer
20697973 Graylord
14990607 Gusset
21534733 INver
16470213 JB-Bigkat
168210250 KevituZ
54369414 Kfizzle
159185772 Klon
260400286 Larsman
212778170 Maxalban
19031837 Nalla
164417961 PK
196170960 RedDog
289586139 rhcorni
277134183 seb79
214233447 seppel
29650966 Serbitas
268583383 shwabrer
208755302 siron
8017109 SkyBandit
225161399 SpaceWolf
95761274 StepNRazor
230190568 Strothmann
143837984 Superchad
101605502 The Zealot
287125780 Titanius
332086660 uincom
30506490 Vovin
60554935 wern
227039734 Yukan
11972979 Zirkahn

MOO2 Devs 10 years later: Russ Williams

2006-09-09T23:07:00.000+02:00

Hello Russ Williams,

am I correct that you were involved in the development of Master of Orion II? (I hope that my research wasn't futile.)

Yes! (There is another game developer Russ Williams as you probably figured out, so it can be confusing. :)

I simply think that the 10th birthday of MOO2 is a good opportunity to ask the developers for a retrospect. Are you interested to post a guest entry on this blog or do you prefer a small interview? Or any other kind of contribution? Some anecdote?

Well, I am no longer in the game development business, and it's been along time since I played MOO2 (or indeed any similar computer games) so I don't know if I'd have much of interest to say about strategy or anything. I began to get burned out on software development in general (due to frustrating mismanagment and insane overtime work - there were several months of 90-hour weeks during MOO2), and with computer games in particular (due to more and more emphasis on flashy graphics and real-time action - I'm more interested in classic turn-based strategy.)

Anecdotes about MOO2... hmmm.

Here's a few things that come to mind:

I was the one who put in the April 1 joke, which was an homage to SimCity and also to my usual lunch at work... I was amused to see people asking about the undocumented strange news message on the newsgroups during the first April 1 after MOO2 shipped.

Various of us developers contributed names to the list of random starsystem names; I took a lot of place names from the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft.

We spent a lot of time and effort on the AI. I wanted it not to cheat as much as the AI cheats in many such games, e.g. in some games the AI players get 4 times as much production and other insane advantages.The AI in MOO2 still cheats at the higher levels, but not nearly as much as upper management was willing to let it. It was a long difficult but interesting process. I had previously programmed AI for the game 1830, where cheating was not possible (since it's a game of no chance and no hidden information) and I liked the idea of trying to cheat as little as possible.

Near the end of the development period, we were working on internationalization - translations were made to Italian and German and maybe Spanish, if I recall. That was my first exposure to issues of software localization and all the fascinating things we take for granted about our native language, which are often totally not true in other languages. I later got a lot more experience with internationalization at another company. This began to spark an interest in foreign languages, so I learned Esperanto and started studying other languages, and the geek programmer part of my mind continues to affect how I learn and think about languages. (I now use Esperanto every day with my Polish girlfriend, while I am slowly learning Polish, and am living in Poland... 10 years ago I wouldn't have expected this. :)

Hopefully that is interesting for you... if you want to ask a few more questions, feel free.

I am happy to know that MOO2 still has a following. We all worked hard on it and it's cool to see people still enjoying the results of our work. Thanks for contacting me and letting me know about your interest in the game.

cheers, russ

The Last Orion

2006-09-07T19:47:00.000+02:00

This blog is dedicated to the Master of Orion series of games.

I hope to feature some fan fiction, a strategy guide and walkthroughs.

thelastorion.blogspot.com

MoO1 Multiplayer project

2006-09-05T15:15:00.000+02:00

*Year 2006 exploring *classic-trush on another pc, I found it ! I need time for check is it works ?! The most important file which exchange player information present, but one file perhabs corrupted ... Today I am plan to check it !

Unfortunately ( .crk files does not fit to .exe
You may download project now http://rapidshare.de/files/32238878/Moo1prj.ZIP
(more details at http://old-games-modding.blogspot.com/)

New MoO2 IRC channel!

2006-08-17T01:24:00.000+02:00

Since some days there is an IRC channel to meet MoO2 players. (watch the topic in the forum)

All you need is an IRC client (watch the list of IRC clients at wikipedia). First you have to connect to irc.quakenet.org or another Quakenet Server with your client. Then join the channel #moo2 in general with the command: /join #moo2 .

Compared with Kali there are some advantages. You don't need to register an account, because it's really free and you can use a client of your choice, which best fits your needs. Personal information like an email is not needed to join IRC, thus the barrier to join for new players declines. And IRC is more common than Kali, so it is easier for new players to find the way to MoO2.

Hope i see you soon there.

Save archive

2006-08-07T01:58:00.000+02:00

I think it useful to analyze the process of duels. There is simply no better way for new players to learn the timing of our online games. I start with PKs saves of (unmodded) ladders - see also the ladder game report for details. Each file contains the "turn0"-save. This means you can even completely replay the duels and you are able to compare your performance. (Load network game and start with 1 player or play them in hotseat mode.) I will add more saves later on.

2005-06-23T19:04:28 - Dmitry defeats PK Saves
2005-06-22T19:24:50 - PK defeats seppel Saves
2005-06-01T18:43:00 - PK defeats seb79 Saves
2005-05-14T22:14:30 - PK defeats seppel Saves
2005-02-27T18:36:09 - PK defeats BaLaur Saves
2005-02-23T07:38:57 - PK defeats Cabman Saves
2005-02-22T06:32:25 - PK defeats Cabman Saves
2005-02-13T18:53:27 - alex_d defeats PK Saves

DifficultChoiceMod b6

2006-07-22T23:03:00.000+02:00

I.) Mod Idea
a) I'm a little bit bored that more than 95% choose Unification. Uni is simply too strong in 1.31. Therefore this mod wants to help the dict and demo races (see also the DemoDictMod-DD; sidebar) by better MapBalance (III.), availabe Morale Techs (IV. b) and new Racepick costs (40 positive picks possible!) (VI.).
b) The DD-Mod solved the above mentioned problem and morale races are a viable option there. But one problem persists. 95% of the decisions in the techtree are no-brainers. This mod tries to change this.......ANY techfield should be a DIFFICULT CHOICE. The absolutely must-haves (automated factories, research labs and robominers) are therefore singletons. See also the TechTable (IV.) and the TechChanges (V.) for further details.

What's new in this betaversion?

There were still a few hangovers from old approaches to solve the morale and bombs problems of Moo2. Special thanks to Cabman who played this mod a lot and pointed out a few problems. I cleaned up a bit:

a) Missiles have their old 1.31 values now. Since I upgraded the planetary shields in DCb5 there is no longer a reason to reduce the missile damage generally.
b) Anti-matter Torpedoes have also an increased damage of 13 now.
c) I liked Cybersaber's mod idea but Structural Analyzers were too attractive in the early tech field compared to EMG. A further reason why missiles where unpopular in DCb5. Nevertheless, I think it is possible now to tech SA in its old 1.31 techfield since there is an additional substitute for the cybercomp (mole and improved mole).
d) No longer early Powered Armor. Psionics moved up in b5 and so did Powered Armor now.
e) PPs of Robotic Factory are reduced to 100.
f) There is a new approach with respect to race pick costs. There are still up to 10 negative picks possible. But if you use them all there are up to 40 positive race picks you can spend now (instead of 20 picks in 1.31).

II.) Installation
1. Find the Install.exe on your Moo2 CD and double click it to start the DOS installer. (INSTALL.EXE....NOT setup.exe or the autoinstall. If u dont have install.exe on your Moo2 CD use the win-installation and copy this rkernel.com file in your moo2 directory and proceed.)
b) Apply the v1.31 patch
c) Apply the v1.40 patch
Unzip the DCModb6.zip into your moo folder. NO BACKUP IS NECESSARY! The new files (different file names) can coexist with the 1.40 patch.

Test the Oriondc.exe ---> Singleplayer should work already.

2. Multiplayer via DosBox:
Instead of orion2~1 (last line of step 8 in this guide, btw that is the exe name of the1.4 version) you can simply paste the exe name of the mod:
oriondc

III. Map Balance
The Orange Mod is quite popular recently and it is even used in the ladder. I have implemented some of its ideas in DC, mainly to help techbased races which cannot afford to build outposts at start:
a) Brown Stars are defacto Red Stars now.
b) I have removed all unguarded UltraRich planets. (They are rich or abundant now.)
c) UltraRich planets have now a basic prod of 7 per worker instead of the previous 8.
d) Tiny and small planets are now slightly larger. Basic Gaia size for tiny and small are 5 and 10 in regular moo. In this mod they are 8 and 12.
e) I have slightly increased the climate modifiers besides Terran and Gaia.
The effects of the modifications d) and e) are summarized in the following table.

DC (& DD) MaxPop Values (click it to enlarge):

See this post for details how the max pop values are calculated.

IV. The TechTable
There are many changes in the TechTable. I recommend a close look at the following jpg (click it to enlarge) for an overview. [Techs in italics are changed in a further way (fe size, damage, maintenance etc.). See point V. The TechChanges for details.]

A small summary of the ideas:

a) The basic econ techs of 1.31 are almost unchanged.
- rlabs, autofacts and supercomps are still in the 1.31 techfields.
- cloners/soil are now 250 RP, but there is a new biology field for 150 RP. (150+250 are the old 400 RPs.)

The important exception are robo miners. They are far better than robotic factories. (Especially for a tolerant race with monster planets.) Robo Miners were too cheap in 1.31 and this was the main reason that the CONSTRUCTION path was uninteresting after the 650 RP-Field.

b) Morale Techs are pretty cheap compared to 1.31. In fact most MP games (1.4 patch) are without any morale techs. This mod makes them available and they are the key to beat some Uni races. I want to see some long run competition between 20-30% morale and the 50% uni food and prod bonus.

c) The absolutely must haves rlabs, autofacts and robominers are singletons. Therefore new war techs are available for non-crea races. --> 2 new early techfields in biology 150 and physics 80 were generated.

d) The main idea of the new TechTable is to ADD further options. Each of the unused techs in 1.31 should have "some" chance to be useful in this mod. (That's obviously difficult to balance and for some crappy techs almost impossible.) Even when adding new options is the priority in this mod.......a few of the old powerful combinations have to be destroyed. So the following popular 1.31 techs are now in the same techfield:

- Subspace comm and Tractor beams: Tractors (and raiding) are the strongest weapon in the long run since there is no countermeasure. But keep in mind that the empty ship exploit (see bottom) is also reduced.

V.) The TechChanges
Furthermore I have modified several technologies to make them useful. Look at the following table:

1.31 Values in brackets, click it to enlarge:

The most important changes are in bold. Some of them were just added in b5:
a) Fighters, Assault Shuttles, Bombers and Heavy Fighters have 100% more structure.
b) Missile bases, Fighter garrison and ground batteries have 100% more structure.
c) Planetary Shields block 50% more damage.

The both last mentioned changes improve planet defense quite a lot. Be aware that fighter garrisons and missile bases are now available for non-creatives and that the very popular substitute (i.e. the warp-interdictor) is no longer an easy choice. The interdictor gives you the option to defend your colonies easily by a mobile fleet. Therefore it should be harmful to use this mighty tech. It is the intention of this mod that some immobile planet defense might be useful. Be also aware that the Planetary Shields are drastically improved. The boring hit and run strategy using missiles or torpedos is no longer sufficient. This was necessary to make bombs, bombers and heavy fighters useful. You shouldn't underestimate these unpopular techs in this mod.

VI. Racestuf
a) Racepicks
There is a fundamental change with respect to race pick costs. There are still up to 10 negative picks possible. But if you use them all there are up to 40 positive race picks you can spend (instead of 20 picks in 1.31). Therefore race picks were doubled when they are de facto unchanged. This change was made because of better balance between positive and negative picks and better classification of positive picks:

DC Racepick screen (click it to enlarge):

DC Racepick overview/comparison - positive picks are divided by 2 (click it to enlarge):
Several unpopular racepicks (denoted by an *) are cheaper now:

b) AI-Races:
Because of the new Racepicks costs I had to change many AI-Races. I improved them slightly:

VII. Miscellaneous
a) Leaders
Cyr (fighterpilot) is almost completely useless in regular moo so I improved him slightly. He adds 5 to beamdefense now.

b) Empty Ship Exploit removed
Empty Ships have a bonus of +10 combat speed in regular Moo2 (details). Empty frigates or destroyers (with augmented engines and battlepods) are therefore extremely fast. These so called runners have also a high beam defense and this means that you are generally unable to shoot them down from distance. This results often in unnessesarily long battles and furthermore it can be exploited to stop an AI with bad tactical combat skills.
Therefore I have reduced this bonus to +4 combat speed. Additionally, the battle pods just add 25 percent more space, i.e. that the effects of the so called battle pods bug (ships are faster by adding bpods) are also reduced.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome. See also the DC thread in the community forum.

Master of Orion II Poll

2006-07-18T19:28:00.000+02:00

By using blogsearch I found this Master of Orion II poll here. It was started by green_meklar who has also written this uncyclopedia entry (some wikipedia parody). OK. I think my votes are clear:

Silicoids, Green, Gaia, Capitol (Unification sucks!), Mass drivers, Heavy armor, green DD, 10 and several "yes"-votes (except the last one).

DifficultChoiceMod b5

2006-06-05T15:56:00.000+02:00

latest version can be found here:

http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2006/07/difficultchoicemod-b6.html

DemoDictMod b8

2006-05-26T00:08:00.000+02:00

I.) Mod Idea
I'm a little bit bored that more than 95% take Uni. Uni is simply too strong in 1.31. Therefore this mod wants to help the dict and demo races by better MapBalance (III.), availabe Morale Techs (IV.) and new Racepick costs (V.).

II.) Installation
1. Find the Install.exe on your Moo2 CD and double click it to start the DOS installer. (INSTALL.EXE....NOT setup.exe or the autoinstall. If u dont have install.exe on your Moo2 CD use the win-installation and copy this rkernel.com file in your moo2 directory and proceed.)
b) Apply the v1.31 patch
c) Apply the v1.40 patch
Unzip the DDmodb8.zip into your moo folder. NO BACKUP IS NECESSARY! The new files (different file names) can coexist with the 1.40 patch.

Test the Oriondd.exe ---> Singleplayer should work already.

2. Multiplayer via DosBox:
Instead of orion2~1 (last line of step 8 in this guide, btw that is the exe name of the1.4 version) you can simply paste the exe name of the mod:
oriondd

III. Map Balance
The Orange Mod is quite popular recently and it is even used in the ladder. I have implemented some of its ideas in DDb8, mainly to help techbased races which cannot afford to build outposts at start:
a) Brown Stars are defacto Red Stars now.
b) I have removed all unguarded UltraRich planets. (They are rich or abundant now.)
c) UltraRich planets have now a basic prod of 7 per worker instead of the previous 8.
d) Tiny and small planets are now slightly larger. Basic Gaia size for tiny and small are 5 and 10 in regular moo. In this mod they are 8 and 12.
e) I have slightly increased the climate modifiers besides Terran and Gaia.
The effects of the mods d) and e) are summarized in the following table.

DDb8 MaxPop Values (click it to enlarge):

See this post for details how the max pop values are calculated.

IV. Techs
Just 3 small changes with respect to Morale Techs, 1.31 values in brackets:
Holo Sim 400 (900)
Virtual Reality Network 900 (4500)
Psionics 650 Sociology (2750 Biology)

Additionally, Neural Scanners and Telepathic Training were swapped. (Otherwise it is too painful to tech holo sims.)

V. Racepicks
The AI Races and Racepick costs are identical to the DC Mod.

DDb8 AI Races (click it to enlarge):

DDb8 Racepicks (click it to enlarge):

Updated Map Mods

2006-05-25T02:23:00.000+02:00

The Map Mods are now compatible with 1.40b23:

Orange_b23.zip
GoodMaps.zip

Moo2v140b23 released

2006-05-23T11:10:00.000+02:00

LordBrazen released a new version of his 1.40 patch. You can find it in his download section.

New fixes:

Corrected several problems with the /nohousing switch.
Fixed the Black Hole Generator bug.
Fixed several problems with the display redraw. (For example: Tractor Beams bug fixed now.)

Details

BTW, I will update several mods in the next days.

Master of Orion II Demo

2006-05-21T13:07:00.000+02:00

A new kali player told me that a MOO2 demo is again available:

Download Master of Orion II Demo

DosBox Guide

2006-05-14T19:46:00.006+02:00

DOSBox supports IPX since version 0.65 and it improved significantly the efficiency of MOO2 MP Online Games. Keep in mind that by using DOSBox also Linux, 2k, Vista and even Mac users are now able to join our Multiplayer Games. Therefore, DOSBox is now considered as the de facto solution for multiplayer. In the meanwhile, the IRC channel irc.quakenet.org#moo2 (This link works for FF+chatzilla/Opera users. IE users should use the client at the top of the sidebar) is the new meeting point for MOO2 Online Games. It was introduced in August 2006 after most MOO2 players started to use the new DOSBox version.

Before the guide starts, I'd like to add a small FAQ section.

A) Why should I use the DOS version?

First of all, regarding multiplayer the DOS version orion2.exe is far superior to the WIN version orion95.exe. When you have ever tried to setup a MOO2 network game you may have observed this already: The orion95.exe lags extremely. Up to several minutes between the turns. You may ask for the reason, let me therefore quote the developer Rob Corell:

"It [MOO2] was definitely developed under DOS. I did the DOS network support, and don't even remember any Win95 testing for MOO2."

To sum it up: Network games under orion95.exe are considered unplayable but the orion2.exe provides appealing results.

B) I have installed the Windows version orion95.exe. Why should I read this guide?

First, most MOO2 CDs contain both versions, i.e. orion95.exe and orion2.exe. Second, even if you own just a "Windows only" release (e.g. the Atari Download version), you should take into account that there are just minor differences between Windows and DOS version. It is patchable with the last official 1.31. Proceed with step 1B in this case.

C) DOSBox is just too slow. Do I have to use DOSBox?

There are alternatives to DOSBox, but I don't recommend them any longer (there are far too many problems involved on modern hardware). Actually, the newest DOSBox version (with default settings) works pretty fast on modern computers. So you have probably just an old DOSBox version (just update DOSBox in this case) or an older computer. In the latter case you should read step 7 to speed up DOSBox.

DOSBox Guide for MOO2 Multiplayer:

1. There are two ways to "install" the DOS version orion2.exe. In any case I emphasize to use the default folder. Users with a different folder name should take notice of this important NOTE. This 8 character limit under DOS is the main error of most DOSBox users.

1.A Conventional Way (win95/98/ME/XP can use this way.)
Find the Install.exe on your Moo2 CD and double click it to start the DOS installer. For further details see step 1 and 2 in LordBrazen's guide. Note, that step 2 in LordBrazen's guide isn't optional! (I.e. without this step you will need to mount your CD drive, too.) And I recommend to use the default folder: C:\MPS\ORION2
Any trouble? Try it with 1.B then:

1.B Unconventional Way (Linux, MAC, Win2k users or users without install.exe/orion2.exe have to use this way.)
Just copy the entire CD onto the hard drive! Once again, I recommend to use the default folder: MPS\ORION2
If orion2.exe and/or rkernel.com file(s) are missing:
Unzip this rkernel.zip file in your MOO2 directory and proceed. No worries about orion2.exe: The 1.31 zip patch in step 2 contains the exe file of the dos version.)
Once all the files are copied you will possibly need to edit the 'ORIONCD.INI' file within the C:\MPS\ORION2 folder. Change the top line in the file to C:\MPS\ORION2

2. Apply the moo2v131.zip patch. Important! 1.4 will only work with the ENGLISH 1.31 patch. (German or multilingual 1.31patch won't work. But German or other versions are no problem after applying the above mentioned patch.)

3. Apply the v1.40 patch (Latest version - 1.40b23 (MOO2v140 patch FAQ) You should follow these instructions and an 1.4 desktop shortcut is quite helpful (see step 6).

4. Download DosBox 0.72 and install it.

The steps 5-8 are related to the dosbox.conf file. The default location of this text file is:
C:\Programs\DOSBox-0.72\dosbox.conf

5. Open your dosbox.conf file with an usual text editor and and enable IPX, i.e. edit the following entry

[ipx]
# ipx -- Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.
ipx=true

6. We need now the exact MS-DOS name of your MOO2 working directory. The above-mentioned 1.4 shortcut is now helpful, especially if you have a different folder than default. Therefore, right click the 1.4 desktop shortcut - Properties - Program tab and copy the entry of the Working field to the clipboard:

After following the steps under 1A or 1B, the default entry should be
C:\MPS\ORION2
Paste now (from the clipboard) this entry to the [autoexec] part of the dosbox.conf file. With the default entry the necessary lines are:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

mount c c:\MPS\ORION2
c:
orion2~1

The first two bold lines represent the so called mounting, i.e. DOSbox will launch an exe file from this working directory now. The third line is the command to launch the orion2v140.exe in this folder.

NOTE: For those without this shortcut and/or different working directory: Keep in mind that the 8 character limit under MS-DOS truncates names. For example C:\Microprose\Masteroforion2 will be translated to C:\Microp~1\Master~1

This note is now slightly emphasized since ~95% of the problems are caused by incorrect mounting. Click now the DOSbox shortcut to test your setup:

MOO2 will be automatically launched inside DOSbox:

Use ALT+ENTER to play fullscreen. BTW there is also a DOSbox Status Window, which will list the incoming connections (see step 8 for details).

7. You will observe that DOSBox is a bit slower than usual Dos under Windows but you can speed it up by editing the dosbox.conf file. Following edits work nicely on my old computer:

frameskip=1
core=dynamic
cycles=auto

But you should test these settings in singleplayer. Some players need a frameskip of 2 or 3. See also the comments: Some players report improved speed by output=ddraw.

8. MULTIPLAYER COMMANDS

The [autoexec] lines for a singleplayer game were explained in step 6. For an MP game you need a further command. And it is important that you add it above the orion2~1 line. I recommend to add the lines as they are mentioned under 8.C but let us first look at the default example separately:

8.A JOINING MULTIPLAYER GAME

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

mount c c:\MPS\ORION2
c:
ipxnet connect xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
orion2~1

You have to add the IP of the host behind the ipxnet connect command (for example: ipxnet connect 83.239.211.21) Use http://whatismyip.com/ to obtain your IP.)

8.B HOSTING MULTIPLAYER GAME

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

mount c c:\MPS\ORION2
c:
ipxnet startserver
orion2~1

In this case you don't have to add an IP.

By playing against different players (different IPs!) you will have to change the DOSbox.conf quite a lot. I therefore strongly recommend to add a shortcut of your dosbox.conf file to your desktop:

8.C DOSbox.conf Fine Tuning

You may have noticed that the "#" is used for comments inside the dosbox.conf. It is a convenient way to disable unused lines inside your dosbox.conf. For example, my current dosbox.conf for singleplayer games looks like this:

When I am interested in an MP game I just enable one of the bold lines mentioned under 8.A or 8.B. BTW, I have also added further MOO2 Mods at the bottom which can coexist in the same folder with 1.31/1.40. Note, that there are also the so called switches (/nowh etc.) added. They are explained in the 1.40 FAQ.

The IP in this screenshot is just an example. When you try to connect to this IP you will get this error message inside the DOSbox Status Window:

9. The host needs to forward PORT 213 UDP (default), if he uses a router/firewall.

10. Inside Moo2 you have to click the following buttons:
Multiplayer
Network
Join Game (only the host has to click Start New Game)

11. Run the setsound.exe and choose the soundblaster compatible option there. See this post for details and further fine tuning.

12. Ahhhh.......you need opponents? Join irc.quakenet.org#moo2 (This link works for FF/Opera users. IE users should use the client at the top of the sidebar) and you will find some DOSBox players there. See also this post for further IRC clients.

13. Popular Settings/Abbreviations (click it to enlarge)

Don't forget to enable ship initiative (default in Online Games). It is the last entry in this menu:

Map Mods

2006-04-23T05:37:00.000+02:00

LordBrazen posted recently interesting data about the map generator in his modification forum.
You can use this data easily to create your own map mods. In fact, a lot of things are possible, especially more MapBalance and even totally different GamePlay. In this zip file is my first approach (see also the GoodMap mods further down this page and the Decent Rocks Mods.):

Download Orange Mod (b23)

Orange Mod
Some characteristics about orange systems:
a) At least 2 orbits of an orange star system are filled.
The exact probabilities are:
30% 2 or 5 orbits filled
20% 3 or 4 orbits filled
Be aware that these statistics include asteroids and gas giants.
b) An orange system does never contain an ultra rich planet.
c) Orange systems contain more often ocean, swamp, arid, terran and gaia planets than other stars.

The orange mod is quite simple. Any unguarded system is now de facto orange. That means that the previous star color is still displayed but the probabilities are identical to orange stars. Since many players complain about empties, singletons or rocky planets in their neighborhood this mod should help a lot. Additionally, an early Ultra rich was often decisive in regular moo. (Especially tolerant races are unstoppable in this case.) Be aware that only monster systems contain UltraRich planets now.

I don't know if these steps are enough. ALEXD pointed out that it is still possible that one side finds a lot of systems with asteroids near his homeworld while the other player has a dream start with a 5 planet system. I just thought this is quite a simple solution for more map balance. We will see....I appreciate feedback.

When you use this mod in a huge galaxy, you should verify that less than 250 planetary objects were generated. Otherwise it might be bugged.

BTW. Budee already created a nice icon for his orange mod launch button: orange.ico
Nice idea. Thanks.

Download GoodMaps (b23)

GoodMap Mods
Personally, I prefer orange systems in regular moo but of course even better system stats are possible. The systems in these GoodMap Mods have even better climate. I decreased the probabilities of toxic, radiated, barren, desert and tundra even further. Additionally, I excluded asteroids and gas giants.

GoodMap5
This mod generates systems with 5 planets. Be aware that there is a maximum of 249 planets in Moo2. Therefore this mod works only for small and medium maps. Don't use it for large or huge galaxies.
GoodMap4
All systems have 4 planets in this mod. This mod works in small, medium and large galaxies.
GoodMap3
3 planets for all systems. This works even in a huge galaxy.
GoodMap2
No, not what you might expect. In this mod there is just a 50% chance for a 2 planet system. The other 50% are 3 planet systems.

Installation
a) Find the Install.exe on your Moo2 CD and double click it to start the DOS installer.
b) Apply the v1.31 patch
c) Apply the v1.40 patch
Unzip the Orange_b23.zip & GoodMaps.zip into your moo folder. NO BACKUP IS NECESSARY! The new files (different file names) can coexist with the 1.40 patch.

Example: orange mod
Test the Orange.exe ---> Singleplayer should work already.

d) Multiplayer via DosBox:
Instead of orion2~1 (last line of step 8 in this guide, btw that is the exe name of the1.4 version) you can simply paste the exe names of the mods, fore example:
orange
or
goodmap2
etc.

Further duels - evaluation round

2006-04-08T02:26:00.000+02:00

Dmitry defeats dottore1 2-0 15:0
dottore2 defeats Bake88 2-0 36:0
DJ defeats ALEXD1 2-0 16:0
ALEXD2 defeats Larsman2 2-0 20:0
Cabman1 defeats Cabman2 2-0 16:0
Cabman3 defeats Futurist2 2-0 4:0
Feuerzahn1 defeats Nalla1 2-0 20:0
Nalla2 defeats SkyBandit 2-0 20:0
Brutalisk2 defeats Gusset1 2-0 18:0
Jaded defeats Gusset2 2-0 20:0
ALEXD3 defeats Larsman3 2-0 11:0
Larsman4 defeats SpaceWolf1 2-0 8:0

And the last duels of the 6 saves:

dottore2 defeats Dmitry 2-0 29:0
ALEXD2 defeats DJ 2-0 20:0
Cabman1 defeats Cabman3 1-1 6:4
Feuerzahn1 defeats Nalla2 1.5-0.5 14:4
Brutalisk2 defeats Jaded 2-0 18:0
ALEXD3 defeats Larsman4 1-1 8:4

The first duels

2006-03-06T22:27:00.000+01:00

UPDATE: I have received 50 designs yet and the first 48 designs participate in the evaluation round. The first duel is already finished BUT YOU CAN STILL SUBMIT FURTHER DESIGNS. When I have 56 designs I will build the next 8 player save and so on. Be aware that this is just a first round to gain some experience about the pool of designs.

It is a so called knock-out but nothing serious happens this round. Even when you lose the first round your design will participate in the qualifyings next month. The results of this evaluation are just used to determine the qualifying groups.

When you lose the first round it doesn't mean you have a poor design. It is simply a lot of Rock-Paper-Scissors in these duels. Check out the other designs in the save, ask some participant for training duels (you should have his e-mail address). I hope that you'll have new ideas after the first battles and you'll submit new designs for the qualifyings next month. You can also redesign your current fleet but you can't choose new techfields in this case. The most successful designs of the first evaluation will be presented here. It is a first "small deadline": After presentation there is a maximum of 2 further designs. There are further restrictions: For example I won't accept copies of the successful designs. (But counterdesigns are ok.)

The first duels:

Dmitry defeats YQ1 2-0 10:0
dottore1 defeats Maclin4711 2-0 20:0
dottore2 defeats YQ2 2-0 30:0
Bake88 defeats jbbigkat 2-0 9:0
ALEXD1 defeats Larsman1 1-1 8:4
DJ defeats Seb791 2-0 20:0
Larsman2 defeats Brent 2-0 18:0
ALEXD2 defeats Seb792 2-0 20:0
Cabman1 defeats Jano1 2-0 20:0
Cabman2 defeats Futurist1 2-0 16:0
Cabman3 defeats Nuke 1.5-0.5 12:4
Futurist2 defeats Jano2 1-1 10:6
Feuerzahn1 defeats Brutalisk1 2-0 16:0
Nalla1 defeats Feuerzahn2 2-0 12:0
Nalla2 defeats Feuerzahn3 1.5-0.5 14:4
SkyBandit defeats Feuerzahn4 1.5-0.5 14:5
Brutalisk2 defeats dottore3 2-0 20:0
Gusset1 defeats bachman 2-0 16:0
Jaded defeats Brutalisk3 2-0 20:0
Gusset2 defeats dottore4 2-0 18:0
ALEXD3 defeats Quietscheente1 2-0 20:0
Larsman3 defeats Seb793 1.5-0.5 20:5
SpaceWolf1 defeats Quietscheente2 2-0 20:0
Larsman4 defeats ALEXD4 2-0 20:0

Battle Tournament FAQs

2006-02-22T03:02:00.000+01:00

How do I register?

Send a save and you are registered.

When does the tournament start?

The first evaluation rounds will start soon. These rounds will be knockouts.
Later on the qualifying rounds will be played in groups with around 8 designs. (early October)
Finals should start in the late October of 2006.

How many designs?

We decided to accept 4 different fleet designs, but on each of the four fleet designs the tech fields must be different.

Can I redesign?

Yes. Between the evaluation, qualifying rounds and the final you will be able to redesign your ships but you have to use the same techfields. You can also replace one of your designs before the evaluation round starts. (That means you can chose new techfields in this case.)

Is there any deadline?

In the next weeks we will start with our first evaluation rounds. I will present information about the most successful designs afterward. Obviously, I won't accept any copies of these designs after I have published them. Counter designs are ok. The beginning of the qualifying rounds (1st October) will be the deadline.

Who will control designed ships during fight?

The designers will have the option to control their own ships. I recommend using kali or DOSbox and the new 1.40b23 patch (dos version). Find details here:
http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_masteroforion2_archive.html
But Win 2k, Linux and Mac OS users can also join. See the DOSbox guide for details.

If you would prefer not to play the fleet on your own, you can also submit short instructions on how best to use your fleet. Otherwise, you could simply propose to use autocombat.

I like to join but I have timetrouble. What should I do?

Use this tool:
http://moo3planet.de/clandb/WSW/WSW_tabelle.php
It will be taken into account.

Is there any resource, where I can look at submitted designs and their scores?

Currently, there is not a site providing information on designs. I want to avoid later participants having too much knowledge about their competition. This would biased and an advantage to late arrivals or re-designs. Therefore, I am the only one who knows all of the designs and I will not participate. When the first evaluation round starts I will publish the scores on this blog.

How will the issue of "waiting" be resolved?

Each duel contains 2 battles. Each side has to engage one of these battles(thus becoming the attacker). The defender (positioned on the right side of the battlefield) has the "last wait", i.e. the old SL rule:

1. WAITING. [...] Either player may use the WAIT command on his ships during combat, but if a waiting contest develops, with each player trying to outwait the other, it is ALWAYS required that the Attacker move, fire and hit done with his ships BEFORE the defender is required to. [...]

What about draws?

Evaluation rounds (knockout): When there is a 1-1 draw in these 2 battles, the "surviving" command points decide the winner. When there is still a draw, the participant that submitted a design earlier wins.
Qualifying rounds (groups): Draws are just draws.

Can we add leaders to our ships?

No.

I can't pick anything but Creative? So the extra race points cannot be used?

No further race points. Only several war racepicks would be interesting and the problem is that they would dominate the design decisions. We are more interested in designs. Therefore, no further race picks will be allowed (Creative only).

For questions about weapons:
This is the best weapons FAQs I am aware of:
http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/master_of_orion_ii_weapon_calc.txt
GameFAQs disabled the direct link but you can still right-click the link and save target as....

Master of Orion 2: Tenth Anniversary BattleTournament

2006-02-03T03:17:00.000+01:00

First, invest 10 thousand research points, then build a fleet of your design using 10 Command points, and finally join in our celebration of 10 years of this classic masterpiece.

An invitation to all fans of Master of Orion II

Siron, myself and the Kali community encourage you join our upcoming tournament.

Here is a rough guideline to our current vision.

Compilation of Tournament Rules and Prospective Ideas
(Subject to change and revision until further notice.)
Current Leadership and Direction provided by Siron

To begin, this tournament is open to all players, new and old.
Registration Deadline: To be disclosed
Tournament Initiation: ~Febuary 3, 2006
Tournament Finals: ~August 1, 2006-October 1, 2006

Tournament is based on Tactical battles ONLY, with the "Ship Initiative" option turned on. Ship initiative can be calculated by dividing your beam attack value by ten and adding your combat speed to the resulting number. Expressed in this equation:(Initiative value = beam attack/10 + combat speed)

E-mail your ship designs to MOO2niac@googlemail.com. Anyone who needs assistance with their Master of Orion II installation or those without access to Master of Orion II, install Kali and visit us on chat server 138. (See the link "Kali-Guide" to the right for details on that install)

Players will be allowed to use the "Alt + Menlo" cheat for the purpose of aquiring no more than 10,000 research points of technology for combat purposes. This code should be entered on the galaxy map screen. These 10,000 points will be applied from the "average" technology level. Currently, there are no technology bans. Combatants will be required to record the Tech levels researched for the judge to review. Additionally, the "Alt + Crunch" cheat shall be used to complete production of ships in a single turn. This code should be entered on the colony screen.

Ten command points will be available for each fleet. Players will be allowed to use these command points as they see fit.

Fleets will be battle tested for a sort of 'pre-season' experimentation period prior to the finals. During this time, fleets have the opportunity to acquire experience points. Players whose designs prove formidable early on , may even reach elite status. Don't discount that Space Academies can still be researched and built within the rule parameters. This time period also offers players a chance to adapt or change designs before making a final decision on his fleet(s). Of all the designs submitted, the top 25% shall receive experience points based on their battle performance(more details to follow). We will also be providing some tactical analysis of designs.

The creative race-pick is allowed, all others are banned. On the race selection screen choose custom, then press Clear and choose creative then hit Accept.

Relevant BattleTech (click it to enlarge):

Battle Contest

Example (text in bold is required):
Subject: fleet contest
Nickname: siron
Fleet No.1 you can submit more than 1 fleet)
Fleetname: (optional)

Write down a column of your tech choices:
Tech Choices
7080
1150
250
150
550
400
250
sum: 9830

(which means: 7080 (invested in) Construction, 1150 Power, 250 Chemistry, 150 Sociology, 550 Computers, 400 Physics, 250 ForceFields)

and attach your save file:
Example

moo2niac at googlemail dot com

Moo2v140b22 released

2006-01-24T10:26:00.000+01:00

LordBrazen released a new version of his 1.40 patch. You can find it in his download section.

New features:

VESA.COM error fixed
Cloak or Phasing Cloak have the stealth feature now.
Phasing Cloak decloak bug fixed.
/noscan switch: scans in combat disabled
/nohousing switch: housing disabled, +150% bonus to basic population growth.
Added a cluster galaxy for single player games. More stars in a large galaxy.
/nonebula switch
/minstart switch: excludes rich/ultra rich large/huge race G planets now.

More details here.

How to play -=UniTol=- !?

2006-01-20T22:56:00.000+01:00

How to play UniTol !?
-Tutorial Movie-

I made an UniTol Tutorial Movie, with the following commando line :
/nobh /nosplint /planets=4 /minstart /nowh /noreport
in a "large avrg orgarich norandom noants" galaxy.

U can download the movie in 2 parts + turn0 and turn39 save (1-3), or just all in one (4).

(1)Movie Part -1-
(2)Movie Part -2-
(3)Saves turn0 and turn39
(4)ALLinONE Movie Part 1&2 incl saves

TURN 0 :

In turn 0 I checked my planets in HW, then I scrapped the starbase to receive 200BC and to save 2BC maintenance each turn. Scrapping Starbase isn't always a good idea, but I won´t tell about in this guide.
Then I put all my 5 workers on prod to get ((5 x 4)+50% government bonus) = 30pp each turn.
Now I checked how much stars I could fly to, I decided to fly with 1scout & 1cship to the orange star in 2 turns and with the other to the red star.
Production order:
Cbase -> Freighter fleet -> Cbase -> Cbase -> Freighter -> Cship.

TURN 1 :
Now I had choosen research labs on my tech field. I scrapped my marine barracks to save 1 maintenance each turn and to get 30BC.

TURN 2 - 4 :
My Scout was shot down by a monster, so my cship retreated back to HW system. My other scout was on his way to a white star. Further I bought colonybase on t4, 80pp for 160BC.

TURN 5 :
I put my colobase on the best planet selectable in my HW. On that new colobase I put the worker to prod and choose housing to increase my popgrowth.

TURN 6 - 7 :
I found a good system with 1 rich and 1 huge urich/HG. I settled the huge urich/HG, cos he makes same prod as the rich one, but the planet had a greater size, which increases a bit the basicpopgrowth. On that new planet I choose housing again, to let the pop grow.

TURN 8 - 13 :
I build another cbase, and made housing with 1 pop on it. On t13 I got 1 new pop on my huge urich/HG, which I put to prod too, to increase groth more. Further I got, in my HW, on a cbase 1 new pop too, which I put to my homeplanet to increase production there.

TURN 14 - 20 :
I build another cbase, and made housing with 1 pop on it. After all cbases were build I build another freighter and put my pop to research on homeplanet. Further I send 1 pop to that urich/HG planet to get there fast a cbase too.

TURN 21 - 26 :
I build a cbase on my urich/HG to settle the rich ng. I researched further to rlabs.

TURN 27 :
After I got rlabs, I took reinforced hull as next tech. I build rlabs on my homeplanet and on that rich ng.

TURN 28 - 31 :
I build some further rlabs on my cbases, as u can see in the movie.

Note:
Rlabs have 60pp, try to save 30pp to a planet, the last 30pp can be bought for 60BC. While u buy PP on a planet let ur pop there to save the next 30pp for auto factories.

TURN 32 :
I got rhull and next tech was automated factory.

TURN 33 - 34 :
I saved some prod for auto factories.

TURN 35 :
I got breakthrough in autofacs tech. I was able to build/buy autofacs on most of my planets in 1 turn, cos I saved prod on planets.

TURN 36 - 39 :
I build the last autofacs, and techd further to bios. On that urich/HG I build a cship further. After bios the next tech is soil enrichment.

I really dont know if this is the best way to play, there r many ways to build an empire. Instead of researching rhull u could choose fighters to conquer the system, which was protected by a hydra. But I think, this tutorial will help new players, who played a lot LAN or singleplayer, to be able to compete faster with the vets on KALI.

I used a lot shortcuts, but I think its understandable for someone who know MoO2.

If u found another or better way to play or if u have ideas or if u have suggestions, I would be glad about any feedback.
Please post ur feedback on LBs Forum, I made already a thread UniTol_tutorial_movie.

Thanks for reading !

ALEX|D
www.moo2.de.vu

Hypercam, DosBox and the new way of "How to..."

2006-01-19T09:51:00.000+01:00

How to make movies of Moo2:
At first I want to say something about the story and how it is finally possible to take screenshots from the Dos-Version of Master of Orion II. Well when I found out that it is still possible to play moo2 online via Kali, I was surprised. I was surprised how different playing against humans is. There were much things I had to learn, and also several things I had to forget. The first months in Multiplayer Moo were hard, and today it is still hard for me. There is so much I still have to learn. But this is whats the fun of moo2 in my opinion, the first time you win, the progress with every game and of course the wonderful moo2 kali-community. One day I had an idea, I remembered hypercam which was normally used to convert "3D Movie Maker films" by me. I thought it would be an amazing help for new players to learn the new things via "Moo2 Movies". So I talked with Siron about it, he was very pleased of my idea. The problem was, that in the beginning it was only possible to capture moo95.exe ( The windows version of moo) and furthermore the colors were wrong. Siron had the idea to use DosBox, a Dos Emulator. After I read several DosBox guides I finally managed it, so that it is now possible to capture the Dos-Version of moo2. Unfortunately it is not possible to run the patched 1.40 or 1.31 versions. Dunno why...
The longer the speech, the less thought. Here is the how to:

Download Hypercam
Download DosBox (choose the location closest to you)
Install both
Run DosBox
Type "mount c c:/your moo2 directory" without "" ;) with "c" and "c:" replace the drive letter where moo2 is installed at your system, this will emulate a hard drive with the moo2 folder in it. Nothing will be damaged
Type "c:"
Type "orion2"
Moo should start, don't wonder if it's slow, remember it's an emulation.
Run Hypercam
Click at "Select Window"
Click at the DosBox Window
Click at "Start Rec."
The rest is up to you

I hope this helped you! Any Questions? Post here or contact me: kevituz@web.de / ICQ#: 168210250

AlexD made a movie using this technique I wanted to comment on, for those who can't follow all the steps so far.
At first, we'll take a look at his race:
As you can see (i hope so ;) ) AlexD picked a UniTol race (Unification, Tolerant, Repulsive,Large HW,Industrial Production +1, Ship Defense -20, Ground Combat -10), a Production Race which means that it's recommenced to get much Population as fast as possible. So let us go on to see what is done to do so...

The first step is to transfer all of your scientists to work to have the colony bases built fast enough. Be sure to leave the farmers where they are!

Prepare the Production Queue as followed:
Colony Base
Freighter Fleet
Colony Base
Colony Base
Freighter Fleet
(Colony Base, if possible)
Colony Ship
It's also possible to build the freighter at first!
Meanwhile it is important to discover the environment to be able to colonize the best system. Start scouting at the first turn. If you discovered all systems in reach use the 'Planet' button to colonize the best planet.

Researching Research Labs is absolutely necessary! Else you will be outteched immediately. When you finished ReLabs, pick Reinforced Hull and then Automated Factories! This will give you an important industrial advantage. Without AutoFacs it would be senseless to play.

To get a small financial support it is useful to destroy the marine barracks. As long as you are not playing in a small galaxy their not needed so early anyway.

'Oh no, the hydra destroyed my scout! It'd be stupid to go on playing' - STOP. This is not right, don't worry losing a scout, be happy having a high quality-system in reach. Remember monsterkilling is quite easy. But it's better to comment on monsterkilling another time.

As its said before: If you are able to buy 1 production point with 2BC, do it! Especially the first turns are the best to take some small production-advantages.

When you colonized a new planet transfer the farmer to work and build housing! (If you got no AutoFacs)

Having native-planets in reach is very good luck (though they were defended by monsters). This food bonus makes them very attractive to colonize, so if you got the possibility to colonize them do it!

Shuffle every produced pop in your homeworld to the mainplanet to have the most possible production.

Finally if you got all colony bases, shuffle all workers on science leaving one at work to do housing.

I think if you go on watching, you will wonder why Alex shuffled some pop to the new planet. Well he did that to be able to build all colonybases at the new planet faster. And thus is needing production. So he transferred some pop there and shuffled the restworkers to science.

What was new to me:
As a relativ new player there were some steps new to me, for example that it is usual to crush the marine barracks or even the star base. I also did not know that it is possible to see the saved production by clicking on "buy", I buy a lot but I did not noticed it ;). Then I did not know the best production queue. And it seems better to build a freighter fleet after the first colobase.
Hmm I think thats it.

Have Fun,
KevituZ

The MOO2 map generator

2006-01-02T03:43:00.000+01:00

Some time ago I collected a lot of statistics about the map generator used in Master of Orion 2. Using some custom tools to dump game map data, and a lot of savegames of just started games, I gathered some data that could be used to understand how it works.

This is mostly statistical analysis, made with several assumptions to simplify the math; my assumptions seem to match the collected data, but Im not completely sure they are valid. First, some basic premises:

I assume that the number of players in the game does not affect the map generation
I assume that information about players (race, color, whatever) does not affect the map generation, except for obvious things like homeworld climate, size and gravity.
I assume that game difficulty does not affect the map generation

OK. First step in the map generation seems to be star layout. Black holes are considered like another star kind for this purpose. The number of stars depends on the map size in this way:

small: 20 stars or bh
medium: 36 stars or bh
large: 54 stars or bh
huge: 71 stars or bh

The above are averages. I expected 72 for huge galazies, but the result was 71. The numbers above are averages. There is a small variation of 1 or 2 stars, but I didn't measure that. The galaxy map has a physical proportion of 1.4 to 1 (i.e., 10 parsecs tool for each 14 parsecs wide). I didn't have a tool to measure sizes, but from some gameplay I have the following approximations:

small: 20 parsecs wide
medium: 27 parsecs wide
large: 33 parsecs wide
huge: 38 parsecs wide

After that, I assumed that galactic size does not affect the map generation in any other way. I might be wrong on this. The following data were all collected in huge galaxies, with 8 player games.

MOO2 stars have a size which doesn't seem to affect gameplay or anything else about the star or its planets. It just gives some stars that look bigger or smaller in the game display. Anyway, the data is in the savegame, and I've got 26.5% small stars, 44.5% medium stars, and 29% large stars. That was a small sample, I'm guessing that the right numbers, assuming the developers used simple rules for random generation (they seem to have done that in several similar places) are 30%, 40% and 30%.

Stars are assigned specials (like pirate caches, wormholes, lost hero). Note that
each star can have at least one special, so you will never find a lost hero at the endpoint of a wormhole. One possible star special is the "Planet special", which means that one planet in the system will get something like artifacts, splinter colony, natives, etc. Note that only one planet will have this, and in this case the star will not get any other special. This can be deduced from the savegame format, it is not just statistical analysis

The probabilities for different kind of specials seems to be independent of any other consideration (this is half a guess, so might be wrong again). Assuming that, the vaules are:

78% No special
10% Any Planet special
5% Wormhole
~2% Ship Debris
~2% Pirate cache
~2% Lost hero

There is also the "Orion special" which will be set in exactly one star system called Orion, of course. I don't know if all planet specials have the same chance of appearing or not.

Another part of star generation is setting their colors (and setting some of them as blackholes). This depends on the galactic age. According to that, the chances are:

For average aged galaxies

Black hole: 4%
Blue-white: 10.5%
White: 14.5%
Yellow: 13.6%
Orange: 14.4%
Red: 40.4%
Brown: 2.6%

For organic rich galaxies

Black hole: 7%
Blue-white: 4%
White: 4%
Yellow: 30.5%
Orange: 19.5%
Red: 32.7%
Brown: 2.3%

For mineral rich galaxies

Black hole: 3%
Blue-white: 18.5%
White: 22%
Yellow: 9.7%
Orange: 8.9%
Red: 37.2%
Brown: 0.7%

After creating stars and setting their color and specials, planets are put around them. The chances of having something in a given orbit seems to depend only on the star kind. For each orbit, the chances of having something are independent. The "somethings" I am talking about are not just planets, but also asteroid fields and gas giants. For each orbit, you have the following chance of having something:

blue-white: 20%
white: 15%
yellow: 23%
orange: 25%
red: 15%
brown: 15%

Once you have something in orbit, there is 20% of getting an asteroid field, a 20% chance of getting a gas giant, and 60% of getting a planet.

If it is a planet, the size seems independant of other considerations (orbit, star kind, galactic age). Chances are:

tiny: 10%
small: 20%
medium: 40%
large: 20%
huge: 10%

I also assume that planet gravity and mineral richness depend only on the star color, which seems quite reasonable when checking the data. Notably, I verified that gravity appears to be quite independent of planet size. With that assumption we get the following table about chances of getting different levels of gravity:


   low   medium    high
    4.2    66.9    28.9 # Blue-white
   10.6    70.1    19.3 # White
   13.8    70.3    15.9 # Yellow
   22.1    71.2     6.7 # Orange
   29.6    66.2     4.2 # Red
   13.6    77.3     9.1 # Brown

So, for example, planets at orange stars are 71.2% of the time of normal gravity, 22.1% low gravity, and 6.7% high gravity.

Update, Jan 12: hoserboy posted a comment noting that gravity is actually a function of planet size and richness. The gravity table is


                   Richness
           UP  P   AVG R   UR  
  Tiny     l   l   l   m   m
S Small    l   l   m   m   m
i Medium   l   m   m   m   h
z Large    m   m   m   h   h
e Huge     m   m   h   h   h

The above table does not applies to homeworlds, orion, or other planets with monsters or specials.

There is a similar table for mineral richness:


   upoor    poor  normal    rich   urich
       0     0      39.7    41.6    18.5 # Blue-white
       0    19.5    41.2    29.4     9.8 # White
       0    30.3    40.4    20.7     8.5 # Yellow
    10.4    40.2    39.0    10.3     0   # Orange
    18.6    38.3    42.3     0       0   # Red
     5.0    11.0    61.0    18.0     5.0 # Brown

The only missing aspect about planets is climate. Climate assignment depends on the galactic age, and on the kind of star. You can get probabilities for the different planet climates based on this table:

For average aged galaxies


#  toxic  radiated    barren    desert    tundra     ocean     swamp      arid    terran      gaia
    16.3      48.6      27.2       6.9       0         0         0         0         0         0   # Blue-white
    16.6      36.8      27.1       6.0       4.3       1.7       1.0       2.6       3.2       0.7 # White
    12.7      26.8      30.2       5.9       7.7       4.4       3.8       3.1       4.2       1.2 # Yellow
    16.7      17.4      22.8       8.2       7.1       5.7       6.9       6.3       7.5       1.4 # Orange
    16.2      12.9      49.7       3.0       6.6       2.2       2.3       2.5       4.0       0.6 # Red
    20.8      29.2      10.0      20.0      10.0       2.0       2.0       2.0       3.0       1.0 # Brown

For organic rich galaxies


#  toxic  radiated    barren    desert    tundra     ocean     swamp      arid    terran      gaia
    13.0      37.0      22.2      26.7        .6       0         0         0         0         0   # Blue-white
     7.1      25.5      20.6      21.3       6.3       2.2       3.5       6.4       6.4        .7 # White
     8.8      17.5      17.6      15.9      13.8       6.4       5.8       6.2       6.0       2.0 # Yellow
     7.0      10.7      15.0      11.9      17.3       9.2       7.9      10.0       8.1       2.9 # Orange
    12.8       6.6      37.0       6.4      23.6       3.6       3.2       3.2       3.5       0   # Red
    20.0      30.0      10.0      20.0      10.0       2.0       2.0       2.0       3.0       1.0 # Brown

For mineral rich galaxies


# toxic   radiated    barren    desert    tundra     ocean     swamp      arid    terran      gaia
    12.9      54.2      26.0       5.7        .7       0         0         0         0           0 # Blue-white
    13.2      33.9      34.5       5.0       4.5       2.0       2.2       1.4       3.0         0 # White
    13.5      23.0      30.9       6.7       7.0       4.9       3.0       4.0       6.3        .7 # Yellow
    11.7      17.5      29.0       5.6      10.0       4.3       6.1       6.1       7.7       2.0 # Orange
    17.4      14.0      45.2       4.1       8.7       2.8       2.0       1.8       3.7         0 # Red
    20.8      29.2      10.0      20.0      10.0       2.0       2.0       2.0       3.0       1.0 # Brown

The last tables might be slightly biased because homeworlds were taken into account for the stats, and homeworld attributes are set after map generation. So probabilities for medium gravity, medium terran planets may be slightly higher than the real game values.

Master of Orion II Mods - An Overview

2005-11-05T13:34:00.001+01:00

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.

Traffic

2005-11-02T01:01:00.000+01:00

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

DifficultChoiceMod b4

2005-10-19T01:14:00.000+02:00

latest version can be found here:

http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2006/07/difficultchoicemod-b6.html

Maximum Population

2005-10-18T14:12:00.000+02:00

Pop is the key factor in Master of Orion II. In this contribution I would like to illustrate the following computations:

How is the pop max value determined?

And how is this value affected by the Racepicks Aqua, Sub and Tol?

First, let us consider the different size classes:

1 = tiny, 2 = small, 3 = medium, 4 = large, 5 = huge

Starting point is the following consideration:
On a Gaia planet the entire surface is habitable and the max population value is then determined by:

(I) max popgaia= 5 * size class

(This relation applies in the current version but actually the formula is not used, you can modify these 5 gaia values separately.)

Thus 5 pop on a tiny gaia, 10 pop on small gaia up to 25 pop for a huge gaia. These 5 max pop gaia values are the so called size multipliers.

However, on planets with other climatic conditions only a smaller part of the entire surface is habitable. For a race without racepicks aqua and tol:

25%: Toxic, Radiated, Barren, Desert, Tundra, Ocean
40%: Swamp
60%: Arid
80%: Terran
100%: Gaia

These are the so called environment multipliers. Max pop is calculated by:

(II) max pop = size multiplier * environment multiplier

This value is then rounded.

How do the individual Racepicks affect this value now?

Aquatic
Aquatic simply means that Tundra and Swamp are rated as Terran and for Ocean as well as Terran the whole surface (like Gaia) is habitable.

25%: Toxic, Radiated, Barren, Desert
60%: Arid
80%: Tundra, Swamp
100%: Gaia, Terran, Ocean

Tolerant
This Pick means that you can use 25% of the surface additionally. The only exceptions of this 25% bonus are Terrans, since here only 20% of the surface was unused, as well as Gaias, since the entire surface was already usable on this planets.

50%: Toxic, Radiated, Barren, Desert, Tundra, Ocean
65%: Swamp
85%: Arid
100%: Terran, Gaia

Subterranean
This pick refers - as the name already points out - no longer to the surface. Additional area under the surface is available for the settlement. For each planet a bonus of 2 Pop per size class is added.

An overview:

To: Toxic
R: Radiated
B: Barren
D: Desert
Tu: Tundra
O: Ocean

The last column contains the environment multipliers (adjusted for tol and aqua). The product of 5 * environment multiplier is stated in the next to the last column (Sub-Races get a bonus of 2 to this product).

Growth Formula

2005-09-22T19:17:00.000+02:00

Several factors (f.e. housing, racepicks, boom and techs) can influence the growth rate. To demonstrate the growth formula we will analyse these factors step by step:

Basic Growth (b)

Let us first define the following 3 variables:
POPRACE: Pop of the considered race
POPAGG: Aggregated Population of the planet (natives, droids, POPRACE and annexed pop)
POPMAX: Maximum Population of the planet

The Basic Growth (b) is then determined by:

(I) b=trunc{[2000*POPRACE*(POPMAX-POPAGG)/POPMAX]^0.5}

This value b is always rounded down (truncated) before it is multiplied with a 2nd factor (a) which contains five bonuses:

(II) a=1+g+t+r+l+h

Without any further bonus g, t, r, l and h are all zero and the factor a is obviously 1. The summands of this factor are explained in the following:

GrowthPick (g)
-50% growth: g=-0.5
no growthpick: g=0
+50% growth: g=0.5
+100% growth: g=1

TechBonus (t)
microbiotics: t=0.25
universal antidote: t=0.5

RandomBonus (r)
Boom of 100%: r=1

LeaderBonus (l)
For example +30% medicine: l=0.3

Housing (h)
(III) h=PROD/(2.5*POPAGG)
Of course, this just applies when you are housing.

So far, we have explained the product a*b. This value is again truncated. Additionally, we have the cloners which can generate growth:

Cloners (c)
(IV) c=100*(POPRACE/POPAGG)

The growth formula is:

(V) GROWTH=trunc(a*b)+trunc(c)
Last but not least: Starvation - 50k pop are killed per missing food.

Or in detail:

(VI) GROWTH=trunc{(1+g+t+r+l+PROD/(2.5*POPAGG)) * trunc{[2000*POPRACE*(POPMAX-POPAGG)/POPMAX]^0.5}} + trunc{100*(POPRACE/POPAGG)}

What are the implications of these formulas?
(I) Basic Growth:
a) POPmax increases Basic Growth: The pop-multiplier tol, sub and aqua increase Basic Growth slightly.
b) With POPrace=POPagg the derivative supplies the following result:
Half full planets have the maximum basic growth.
b = [2000*POPRACE*(POPMAX-POPRACE)/POPMAX]^0.5 with POPrace=POPagg
db/dPOPrace = (2000-4000POPrace/POPmax)*0.5[2000*POPRACE*(POPMAX-POPRACE)/POPMAX]^(-0.5) and the first factor is zero when 0.5=POPrace/POPmax (half full planet)
c) droids/natives slow down: they just increase POPagg and db/dPOPagg is always negative.
d) When there is more than one race which can grow (i.e. a captured race and not natives or droids) the basic growth numbers are calculated separetely and just the sum is displayed. For an Uni race (without morale penalty) it isoptimal to mix the races.

Equations (II) and (III):
a) Surprisingly, the several bonuses were added. For example: Microbiotics improves the Growth by 50% for a -Growth Race because 0.75/0.5=1.5
b) housing is most important part.

(IV)
a) Cloners are inefficient when there are many droids on the planet.
b) You should not build cloners early on (almost empty) natives planet.

An alternative housing formula

2005-09-22T13:23:00.000+02:00

I thought a lot about this topic recently. A few months ago I posted the growth formulas here and I will update this post soon. You see there a lot of variables. In the following just the both key factors (i.e. the Basic Growth b and the Housing Bonus h) are discussed. For simplification let us ignore truncation and let us assume that there are just Worker Units (lets denote them with w) on the planet, i.e. also no droids or natives etc. and therefore we have POPrace = POPagg = w and equation (I) in the above-mentioned blog post simplifies to:

(I) Basic Growth: b = SQRT [ 2000 * w * (POPmax - w) / POPmax ]

Let us clarify: 1 Worker Unit represents 1000k population and when the Basic Growth Rate bgr is mentioned I refer to this ratio:

(II) Basic Growth Rate: bgr = b / ( 1000 * w )

There are now 2 basic results with the current formula:

Half full planets generate the maximum Basic Growth, i.e. w = POPmax / 2 in equation (I).
But we receive the maximum Basic Growth Rate with w = 1 in equation (II).
(Be aware that we haven't considered housing yet.)

When we ignore now further bonuses (like growth picks, boom, microbiotics, leaders or cloners) we receive the total Growth tg by multiplying the Basic Growth b with the factor 1+h, where h represents the Housing Bonus:

(III) Total Growth: tg = (1 + h ) * b

and

(IV) Housing Bonus: h = Production / (2.5 * POPagg)

The Production contains the fixed Production pf (f.e. the 5 production of automated factories) and also the production caused by Worker Units. When we denote the productivity per worker with k and ignore pollution we receive:

(IVa) h = ( pf + k * w ) / (2.5 * POPagg)

Additionally, we assumed POPagg = w and (IVa) simplifies to:

(V) h (w) = (pf / 2.5) * w^(-1) + k / 2.5

Example:
An UniTolInd +1 (without any pollution)
Large abundant Terran: POPmax = 20
Autofacts and RoboMiners means pf = 15 and k = 10.5
so we have:
(I) BasicGrowth: b (w) = SQRT [ 2000 * w * ( 20 - w ) / 20 ]
(V) Housing Bonus: h (w) = 5 * w^(-1) + 4.2
and when we are housing the growth is calculated by:
Total Growth: tg (w) = [1 + 5 * w^(-1) + 4.2 ] * SQRT [ 2000 * w * ( 20 - w ) / 20 ]

Here are the results of our example (click it to enlarge):

b(w) and tg(w) under the status quo

Surprisingly, the difference of tg (10) - tg (1) is almost completely explained by the increase in basic growth b (10) - b (1). In fact, the Housing Bonus h decreases with increasing w, i.e. the derivative
h'(w) = -5 * w^(-2)
is always below zero which is the mathematical reason why the slight increase in the Total Growth is driven by the Basic Growth.

This characterizes one part of the problem. When the first pop unit starts with housing the marginal contribution is quite big because of the fixed Production pf which is also used for housing.
So it seems to me necessary to exclude pf from the housing bonus:

(IVb) h = k * w / (2.5 * POPagg)

and again with POPagg = w we have h = k/2.5. One could argue that excluding pf makes economically sense. Improving growth is driven by government policies which are mainly based on subsidies (tax-reductions), services (kindergarten) etc. but not by the industrial complex. Housing itself seems an inapproriate expression - Childbearing (which was proposed by Cybersaber here) seems to fit better.
We receive now following results (click it to enlarge):

Pf removed

The graphs look better, after excluding pf the bonus h is constant now (it doesnt depend on w any longer) and you receive tg(w) by multiplying the basic growth with the factor 5.2. But nevertheless 1pop-housing is still the preferred solution when you decide to use housing:
A good indicator for an efficient housing strategy should be based on the ratio of the pop-increase tg(w) - b(w) = h(w) * b(w) and the invested production units.
We need a further decision when we calculate such ratio. What should happen with the deleted pf? There are several options:
a) This Prod is simply lost.
b) It is transferred to tradegoods (which means that roundabout three quarter of the prod is lost)
c) It is simply stored.
In the following diagram you see how this deleting of pf works compared to the status quo (click it to enlarge):

Pop per Prod

Under the status quo 1pop housing is by far the most effective choice. 1prod generates then roundabout 17k pop. When the pf is transferred to tradegoods it decreases to 10k and when we delete this prod just 7.1k pop per prod unit are left (1pop housing). What happens when we store this production? In this case we have the same efficiency as under the status quo.
It is not quite clear which is the approriate ratio here because there is still the alternative of basic growth. We surely have to test this in several games.

Summary: Deleting pf is not enough. We need further steps. A constant bonus h might work when we have a constant basic growth rate for some interval but as pointed out above we receive the maximum basic growth rate with w = 1. (see introduction)

Further Ideas:
We could remove POPagg from the housing bonus since the negative effect of POPagg is already considered in the basic growth function. For example, when we increase the denominator in (IVb) we get:

(IVc) h = k * w / 10

The graph looks now different (click it to enlarge):

Pf and POPagg removed

With an huge amount of prod you are then able to generate more than 1 pop unit per turn. Also the Pop per Prod ratio looks now very different (click it to enlarge):

Pop per Prod 2

1pop housing is no longer the most effective choice. Instead of such dominant value we have now a wide range of acceptable housing decisions.
Is the maximum of 8.8k pop per prod a good value? With such a housing bonus we have a completely different game play. It is impossible to say. We need tests. I propose to test such functions with different parameters. (see below)
Does such change improve the AI? Once again. No idea at moment. I know for sure that the AI doesn't use 1pop housing systematically. When it uses housing with more than 1worker under the status quo the AI should be improved.

Further Parameters
Because of the above-mentioned difficulties it would be nice to test different housing and basic growth functions.

Instead of (IVc) I would propose a housing switch /h=a;b which determines the parameters in:
(IVd) h = ( k * w / b )^a
We receive (IVc) with the switch /h=1;10 then.
a should be a value between 0 and 1. (law of diminishing returns)
b should be positive

and instead of (I) a basic growth switch: /b=c;d;e could be useful:
(Ib) Basic Growth: b = 2000^c * {w^d * [(POPmax - w) / POPmax ]^(1-d)}^e
We receive (I) with /b=0.5;0.5;1

In this case the maximum Basic Growth is generated by w = d * POPmax
and the maximum Basic Growth rate: (e * d - 1 ) / ( e - 1 ) * POPmax
Furter, c is a good value to influence the basic growth for 1pop planets.
This should be sufficient to find a good alternative formula.

Corrupted Maps revisited

2005-08-31T00:02:00.000+02:00

Recently, I analyzed the subspace comm range issue a bit. Cabman and AlexD pointed out that subspace comm has less range than the manual and online help suggest. I figured out now that this problem is related to the so called "corrupted maps":

The main map is a grid. Let us assume there are two systems with these coordinates:

System A (Xa|Ya)
System B (Xb|Yb)

(Lord Brazen illustrates here the info of the star table. I used mapleveller to read and alter the save game info for the following examples.)

The distance formula d (A, B) of the F9-Parsec-Display is based on the Euclidean distance, this value is divided by 30 and then rounded up:

(I) d (A, B) = round up [ sqrt { (Xa-Xb)^2 + (Ya-Yb)^2 } / 30 ]

(Rounding up makes sense: When the exact value is 4.5 parsecs we just want the info that we need at least 5 parsecs/turn to cover this distance in one turn.)

The same formula d (A, B) is applied to measure the Subspace Comm Range. The manual states:

This upgrade to all your relay stations gives you the ability to issue orders to any friendly ship within 6 parsecs.

Let us assume system A contains a relay station and B reflects the coordinates of the fleet:
d (A, B) = 5 means then that the fleet is in subspace comm range and
d (A, B) = 6 means that the fleet is out of subspace comm range.

With respect to this function d (A, B) there are now two strange results:

1. Why does it happen that a fleet leaving system A with anti-matter drive (and no navi) is out of subspace comm range the next turn?
2. Why does it happen that a fleet with ion drive (and no navi) sometimes just needs one turn to cover a distance of 5parsecs (according to F9-Info on main map)?

Actually, the answer of these both questions is the same: Rounding. The fleets are also attached to (X/Y)-Positions in the save and each turn a rounding occurs to receive a position on the grid. When you move from System A to B the new coordinates of your fleet are calculated by:

(II) (X|Y) = (Xa|Ya) + round up { (Xb-Xa|Yb-Ya) * c }

The factor c is the rounded travel proportion to receive a intersection on the grid:

(III) c = min { 1; parsec per turn * 30 / round down [ sqrt { (Xa-Xb)^2 + (Ya-Yb)^2 } ] }

Combined we receive:

(IV) (X|Y) = (Xa|Ya) + round up { (Xb-Xa|Yb-Ya) * min { 1; parsec per turn * 30 / round down [ sqrt { (Xa-Xb)^2 + (Ya-Yb)^2 } ] } }

A few examples:
System A is (always) at position (505|370) now and a fleet with anti-matter drive (5 parsecs per turn) leaves that system to direction B:

a) System B is at (505|520) and we receive then:
(I) d (A, B) = round up [5] = 5 (is even unrounded exactly 5. System B is exactly below A - same X-Position - and no rounding occurs)
(III) c = 1
and therefore:
(IV) (X|Y) = (505|370) + (0|150) * 1 = (505|520)
The fleet needs 1 turn to move from A to B.

b) Let us change the Y-Position slightly (+1). System B is now at (505|521):
(I) d (A, B) = round up [ 5.03333333] = 6 (6 parsecs is displayed on the main map now - f9)
(III) c = 150/151 = 0.993377
and after 1 turn the fleet is still at:
(IV) (X|Y) = (505|370) + round up [ (0|151) * (150/151) ] = (505|520)
The fleet needs 2 turns to move from A to B.

c) Now same Y-Position like example a) but now a different X-Position (+29). System B is now at (529|520):
(I) d (A, B) = round up [5.06359556] = 6
(III) c = 150/151 = 0.993377
and after 1 turn:
(IV) (X|Y) = (505|370) + round up [ (24|150) * (150/151) ] = (529|520)
The fleet needs just 1 turn to move from A to B. (so called corrupted map because 6 parsecs distance is displayed on main map)

d) Let us change the X-Position a bit further (compared to example c). System B is now at (530|520):
(I) d (A, B) = round up [ 5.06896878] = 6
(III) c = 150/152 = 0.986842
and after 1 turn the fleet is still at:
(IV) (X|Y) = (505|370) + round up [ (25|150) * (150/152) ] = (530|519)
The fleet needs 2 turns to move from A to B.

The SubspaceComm-Issue
Look again at examples b) and d) where the fleet is in hyperspace after the first turn.
In example b) the fleet position (505|520) is exactly 5 parsecs away from system A. And therefore it is in subspace-comm range.
In example d) the euclidean distance is 5.036 parsecs. This value is rounded up to 6 parsecs (see (I)) and the fleet is out of subspace-comm range.
Case b) where no rounding occurs should happen very rarely.

Therefore: A fleet which leaves system A with anti-matter drive (and no navi) is almost always out of subspace comm range the next turn because it is generally a bit faster than 5 parsecs/turn.

Before I figured out the math I thought that the subspace comm issue is just a very late rule change (not mentioned in manual or online help). But it seems now clear that the missing parsec was not intended by the game designers - these rounding issues have been overlooked. Imho it is therefore a bug and should be fixed. There are several options. So far it is only brainstorming, but replacing (IV) with equation (V) looks interesting:

(V) (X|Y) = (Xa|Ya) + round down { (Xb-Xa|Yb-Ya) * min { 1; parsec per turn * 30 / round up [ sqrt { (Xa-Xb)^2 + (Ya-Yb)^2 } ] } }

With this change subspacecomm would work correctly. Also the corrupted maps issue would be affected by this change. It is no longer possible to be faster than expected but slower. (Probably an advantage for the defenders.)

Combat Speed

2005-08-12T01:12:00.000+02:00

There is some interesting discussion on LBs forum about the so called battlepods "bug":

To illustrate dirt-bag's proposal look at the combat speed table (click it to enlarge):

Combat Speed

These are the EXE-values dirt-bag refers to. You see that the difference between minimum and maximum speed - the maximal unused space speed bonus - is always 10. This table does not include the battlepods effect or augmented engines. Some examples how this bonus works:

I. Status quo

a) destroyer - nuclear drive
the destroyer has 60 space avaiable which we will define as hull size.

DD nuclear drive

So we have:

(I) combat speed = minimum combat speed + unused space bonus

and

(II) unused space bonus = round up [10 * ( unused space / hull size )]

combined

(III) combat speed = minimum combat speed + round up [10 * ( unused space / hull size )]

b) destroyer - nuclear drive - megafluxers
Before we look at the battlepods issue let us see how megafluxers work. Them maximum unused space is now 75. The space increase is abbreviated with dM and it is added to the hull size in (II) and (III). So we have now:

(IV) combat speed = minimum combat speed + round up [10 * ( ( unused space ) / ( hull size + dM) )]

DD megafluxers nuclear drive

Results:
Maximum combat speed is unchanged. (sounds logical)
Minimum combat speed is unchanged. (counterintuitive)
A DD (which has before and after researching megafluxers the same space consumption) has on average a speed increase of 1.05. (Values vary from 0-2)

c) destroyer - nuclear drive - battlepods
Let us now analyze the battlepods (without megafluxers).

DD battlepods nuclear drive

For the first 60 unused space units the equation (II) and the table under b) destroyer - nuclear drive - megafluxers were applied. When there is even more unused space the battlepods bonus comes into play again:

(V) battlepods bonus = round down [10 * dB / hull size ] * round down [ (unused space-60) / dB ]

Results:
Maximum combat speed increases beyond 18. (extremely counterintuitive. That is the main problem we want to solve here.)
Minimum combat speed is unchanged. (counterintuitive)
A DD (same space consumption) has on average a speed increase of 4.59 caused by battlepods. (Values vary between 4-5)

d) destroyer - nuclear drive - battlepods + megafluxers
The results are now a bit incosistent. You cant describe them by "more space=more speed" any longer.

DD battlepods & megafluxers nuclear drive

For the first 75 unused space units the equation (IV) and the table under b) destroyer - nuclear drive - megafluxers were applied. When there is even more unused space a further battlepods bonus comes into play:

(VI) battlepods bonus = round down [10 * dB / ( hull size + dM ) ] * round down [ (unused space-75) / dB ]

The megafluxers increase dM is added to the hull size. Therefore some empty battlepods ships even slow down when you research megafluxers.
The maximum combat speed (22) is lower here than under c). (inconsistent)

II. Megafluxers solution for Battlepods
One idea to solve the problem seems straightforward to me. Battlepods should influence the combat speed like megafluxers. Equation (V) is then replaced by

(VII) combat speed = minimum combat speed + round up [10 * ( ( unused space ) / ( hull size + dB ) )]

and instead of (VI) following equation is used:

(VIII) combat speed = minimum combat speed + round up [10 * ( ( unused space ) / ( hull size + dB + dM ) )]

Battlepods-"bug" removed

Results:
Maximum combat speed stays at 18. (sounds now logical)
Minimum combat speed is unchanged. (still counterintuitive)
A DD (same space consumption) has on average a speed increase of 1.69 caused by battlepods. (Values vary between 0-4)

III. Reducing unused space bonus
Another idea is quite easy to realize and it is one of dirt-bag's preferred solutions. Simply reducing the maximal unused space speed bonus. So far, it was always 10 in the above-mentioned examples. With a maximum of 2 we receive following results (click it to enlarge):

Reduced Unused Space Bonus

Results:
Maximum combat speed stays almost at 10. (battlepods-bug almost completely resolved)
Minimum combat speed is unchanged. (still counterintuitive)
A DD (same space consumption) has on average a speed increase of 0.52 caused by battlepods. (Values vary between 0-1)

Other values than 2 are also an option (especially when combined with Solution II.). A switch which determines the unused space bonus would be a nice option to test different values.

IV. Space Consumption Model

a) Introduction
So far we had formulas which were based on unused space. Such formulas work fine as long as hull size is constant. But with space increases (like megafluxers or battlepods) we had a lot of fuzzy results. As long as unused space is our key variable there is no workaround to solve all the different problems at the same time. But there is a simple space consumption model with imo convincing results. Replace equation (I), (II) and (III) with:

(IX) combat speed = maximum combat speed - space consumption malus

and

(X) space consumption malus = round down [(10/1.5) * ( consumed space / hull size )]

combined

(XI) combat speed = maximum combat speed - round down [(10/1.5) * ( consumed space / hull size )]

The denominator 1.5 achieves that a full battlepod ship will have the same speed as under the status quo. The value reflects the battlepod increase (HS+dB)/HS. This value 1.5 works for dd-doomstar, for a ff the exact value 37/25 should be used.

No further formula is needed. Battlepods or megafluxers don't change the formula - they just increase the potential to consume more space. Therefore we need just one table to display all results (incl. battlepods, megafluxers or battlepods+megafluxers):

Space Consumption Model

Results:
a) an empty destroyer has always combat speed 18. (convincing.)
b) a full destroyer (without bp or m) is now a bit faster than under the status quo (combat speed 12).
c) a full destroyer with battlepods has still the status quo-speed. (8)
d) a full bp-destroyer is therefore slower than a full non-bp-destroyer. (convincing)
e) A DD (same space consumption) has never a speed increase caused by battlepods or megafluxers. (convincing, or at least no completely unconvincing speed changes)

Compare the last point with the megafluxers effect under the status quo:

megafluxers speed change

Let us assume we have same design and just add megafluxers:
For a non-bp ship see the red graph. (Space consumption 0-60)
BP ship the blue graph. (Space consumption 0-90) There is even the above mentioned speed decrease.

The speed decrease will be eliminated in a pure megafluxers solution (solution II) but results similar to the red graph will persist. And IMO there is no convincing explanation for such behaviour. IMO solutions based on space consumption models (solution IV) should be the way to go.

b) Implementing a battlepods malus

I propose to implement the bp-extra malus (dirt bag's idea here) in the following way:

Just change the factor (10/1.5) to 9/1.5=6
(Once again, for a ff the exact value 37/25 should be used.)

So instead of (XI) we have:

(XII) combat speed = maximum combat speed - round down [6 * ( consumed space / hull size )] and -1 when bps are used.

SC Model with BP-Malus

61-75 depends on battlepods.
0-60 using battlepods is inefficient.
76-105 using them is necessary.

Adding BPs and consuming the extra space is always a loss of 4 combatspeed and -20 beamdefence then.

c) Implementing an unused space bonus reduction

Dirt-bag's observation is correct that this new model doesn't solve the runner-problem completely. But there is a simple way to implement such idea (solution III), which just reduces the maximum combat speed (and not the speed of a full battlepod ship):

(XIII) combat speed = maximum combat speed - C - round down [(9-C)/1.5 * ( consumed space / hull size )] and -1 when bps are used.

(Once again, for a ff the exact value 37/25 should be used.)

The best example to illustrate the runner problem is IMHO a ff on iondrive level. In the following table (click it to enlarge) you see the results for different C-Values (0-9):

SpeedDecreaseSCModel

In the red row at top you see the maximum speed decrease. The lower red row shows that the speed for a full bp-ff is unchanged. The beige row is important for aug eng ffs. (aug eng consumes 10 space). Just add 5 combat speed to this row and you receive the combat speed of these runners.

According to dirt-bag a runner with 22 combat speed is unable to outrun a fast nuke (on iondrive-lvl 18 speed). The C-Value of 7 should be his preferred solution then.

Master of Orion II - Bugs

2005-07-27T13:03:00.000+02:00

1.31 and 1.4

This overview contains following sources: Lord Brazen's faq, 4381's bugs list, Gontzol's faq, the old Mooniac's Guide, antaren newsgroup, several moo2 boards and some further bugs, which were observed recently. I have verified almost all of these bugs. Exceptions are the bugs with the "reported by" comment. When you are aware of further bugs you can add them here under comments or in this thread. I will try to update this post.

Fixed in 1.4
Arti If you discover a system with artifacts you will loose the artifact bonus on the planet if you are not the 1st player to Turn. However you will still keep the technology discovered.
Blackhole Generator Doesn't work with ship initiative. It just immobilizes ships. Fixed in 1.4b23
Colony/Outpost Ship It is possible to land a Colony Ship or Outpost ship and still have it intacted the next turn.
Credit cheat If you have nothing in your build queue the excess production will be counted twice. You will get the extra BCs and the production is still stored
Last race LAN games crash when a player presses the Last Race button. Also, it is possible to pick the same race picture as an opponent in multiplayer games.
Leaders The game crashes when you go to view you ship leaders and you have no ships.
No Orion bug The noorion switch can cause crashes on FLEETS and LEADERS screen. Fixed in 1.4b20
Phasing Cloak (battle) Only one side decloacks after 10 turns in a MP-battle.
Repeat build It is possible to cancel the production of a repeat build item after it has been bought. This allows money to be converted to stored production. It can be exploited to purchase expensive items by cancelling multiple cheaper repeat built items over the course of several turns. Fixed since 1.4b19
Stealth field, Cloaking Device and Phasing Cloak (main map) Ships equiped with these technologies are still visable on the galaxy map by your opponents. They are visable at the same range as regular ships.
Tractor Beams There is often a crash to desktop for one of the both players, when:
a) A ship with activated tractors moves.
b) An "immobile" opponent ship moves.
Gusset's hypothesis seems to be true: "If I get to move a tractored ship, and the ship armed with the TB is OFF-SCREEN when I am moving, the result is a crash." So in both cases (a and b) OFF-SCREEN tractor beam is the cause of the crash. Fixed in 1.4b23

SERIOUS BUGS (exploitable or without workaround)
Annihilation Under certain circumstances, annihilation can result in a planet with zero population. It is impossible to invade or bomb. Also, if an invader remains in orbit of this system it can prevent the invader from entering combat at other systems as well. This can be exploited to create a permanent outpost. Probably fixed in 1.4b22
Don't annihilate the whole pop. Click at the red sentence at the top of the colony screen to stop the annihilation when there is just 1 pop on the planet.
Arti When two players get an arti on same turn one doesn't get the special. reported by dirt-bag
Double Monsters Sometimes after you kill a monster it will return the next turn and you will have to kill it again.
Engage Battle & Settle Cship/OP -Pop up Sometimes it causes crashes to desktop. (Especially in the end game.)
Feudal bug MP-Opponents can receive the feudal ship bonus.
Fuel Cells, Warp Int Sometimes Fuel Cells and Warp Ints won't work (immediately) after stealing them (spying, invasion). You have to build a new colony or outpost in an uncolonized system to get the fuel cells update. (Warp Int fix unknown.)
Leaders Gizmo, Cyr, Draxx (?) etc. don't work properly. Gizmo and Cyr reported by Sky Bandit, Draxx reported by Mooniac-Guide
Navigator not working Travel distance is not calculated correctly if there is a nearby wormhole and your ships are not located at one of your own systems. You will have to return to your own system and then travel from there. reported by Lord Brazen
Navigator (Retreat) Retreating from combat can result in loss of your entire fleet if there is a wormhole in the retreat path even if you have a navigator. reported by Lord Brazen
No Outpost While Colony Ship Present Bug See also the "Not asked to land colony ship after choosing not to land outpost" bug mentioned by LB. This bug here occurs on pure asteroids/gas giant systems. Sadly, in this case there is no comfortable workaround. The Cship has to leave the system.
Optronics Computer Does not appear in the demand/offer or tech exchange list. Network Multiplayer only. Since tech exchange is generally banned this is just an issue for 2vs2.
Outposts (strategical combat) It is impossible to defend outposts. Even when the opponent lost the battle the outpost is always destroyed.
Phasing Cloak (battle) Using a Time Warp Facilitator, you can re-cloak in the same turn you de-cloaked, so the main limitation of cloaking devices / phase cloaks gets disabled.
Ship Capture When you capture several ships the battle can freeze. Similar lock up also occurs because of excessive use of stasis fields. So far, I observed this only against AI opponent. (Probably, autocombat issue.) Nevertheless, there are battles against Ais in xWays.
Soils (also with Autofacts/Rlabs) In the round that you produce a building which creates a food production bonus, moving workers can result in the bonus being lost temporarily or a game crash. (This can also happen with autofacts and rlabs.) Doubleclick corn cobs (planet surface screen). Then move farmers again (in the table under COLONIES). Crashes reported by Lord Brazen
Travel distance Even without navigators the travel distance is sometimes inaccurate, f.e. you need just 2 turns with ion drive for a 9 parsecs distance. (Corrupted Maps.)

MINOR BUGS (comfortable workaround and/or exploits are easy detectable)
Androids Under certain circumstances it is possible that androids generate extra space on a planet. Note, that this extra space is not related to their tolerant feature!
Antares A Network-Game (not hotseat) doesn't finish after you won the battle at antares.
Autobuild Exploits similar to the credit cheat are possible. As long as this is unfixed autobuild should be banned.
Auto Factory This is whereby when scrapping a building from the Colony Screen, as soon as the mouse is moved over the building icon the game will crash. 90% of the time it is scrapping the Auto Factory that causes the crash. Do not scrap the Auto Factory. Avoid this screen.
Converted Lithovores When you are lithovoric and research Evolutionary Mutation, you can drop the "lithovoric". All you do is turn cybernetic on and off when you get to the race screen - then you have 14 new race picks to spend.
Display Bugs Several display bugs can appear. For example: System info when there is more than one colony ship present. The food per farmer entry in the planet info is generally incorrect for a race with food malus.
Intermittent Crashing Sometimes at the end of turn in Multi-Player the game will crash. Try running without sound. Run Setsound.exe and set Midi and Digital to "None". If the problem goes away then there is an issue with the sound driver / card. An AC97 sound based card is know to work well with Moo2. reported by 4381
Not asked to land colony ship after choosing not to land outpost When you choose not to land an outpost ship you will not be given the option to land your colony ship when present. You must select Colonize Planet manually after you cancel.
Orion Sometimes you gain some further non-xenon tech by defeating the guardian. It is not listed in the pop up.
Overpopulation Under certain circumstances, it is possible to overpopulate a planet with androids or captured races. This can be exploited to create a super planet.
Phantom missiles Sometimes there are missile stacks with a quantity of zero. This stack will proceed to target but cannot be shot down. It seems to do no damage.
Retreat from battle field Retreating from a battle can result in a game crash. It seems to only occur in LAN games when you retreat from the left edge of the combat area.
Shield Generator When your ship's shield generator is destroyed, and you're capable of repairing your ship, if your ship survives several next turns, the generator (as other items like comp or drive) will be repaired. But the repaired shield works incorrectly: it still blocks damage (e.g. class 5 blocks 5 damage from each attack), but it has no strength and it does not recharge.
SubspaceComm-range is due to rounding errors just 5 parsecs (the Online help states 6 parsecs). The fleet which leaves the starbase with 5 parsecs/turn is almost always out of subspacecomm-range. Details here.
Transport colonists+change profession bug When transporting colonists to a different job field on a different colony, the game checks the maximum of workers for the source planet, not for the target planet.

INACCURATE ONLINE HELP
Alien Management Center The Alien Management Center (AMC) removes the -20% morale penalty on multi-racial colonies. The Online Help does not mention that. Instead it states that the AMC assimilated aliens twice as fast and made them "work harder". This is not true. The manual is accurate: "This facility assimilates conquered populations at the rate of 1 per 2 turns, regardless of government. The adjustment for a Charismatic or Repulsive race is applied to this base rate."
Anti-Missile Rockets Contrary to the description, the chance to shoot down a missile is approximately 60% - 1% per square traveled.
Augmented Engines and BeamDefense Augmented Engines add +50 BD to the listed BD in the ship design screen, but only +25 BD is listed on the main map and in battle.
Beam Defense Racial Bonus For BD racial bonuses, the same value is also added to Missile Evasion. The listed value on the main map only uses half of this Missile Evasion bonus, but the full bonus (listed in battle) applies.
Fighters The Online Help does not provide or gives wrong information about the speed of fighters, which is 6 + 2x drive level for Interceptors, 2 + 2x drive level for Shuttles and 4 + 2x drive level for Bombers and Heavy Fighters. Basis hitpoints for interceptors (2) and bombers (4) are missing. Fighters' hitpoints are multiplied by your best armor, the same as for ships. The reduced armor bonus (mentioned under armor in the online help) for fighters does not exist.
Inertial Nullifier The Inertial Nullifier also adds +50 to missile evasion.
Inertial Stabilizer The Inertial Stabilizer also adds +25 to missile evasion.
Missiles The Online Help does not give any information about the speed of Missiles (which is 8 + 2x the empire's drive level). BTW also the manual is misleading: Missiles do not profit from better Armor technologies. Even with Xentronium, a Nuclear Missile can only take 4 points of damage, a Merculite 8, a Pulson 12, a Zeon 16.
No Instant Assimilation Bug You have to assimilate feudal colonists.
Psionics Psionics provides a +10% morale bonus on all planets under Feudal, Dictatorship, Confederation and Imperium governments. The Online Help states that the bonus only applied to Dictatorship and Imperium.
Scout Lab Bonus Bug Against monsters and when Defending against Antarans it provides always +20 beam attack, not +10 per ship size class as stated in the manual. And no Bonus during Battle at Antares.
Ship Crew Level The ship crew level (green, regular etc.) doesn't affect the ground combat value for raiding/boarding as it is mentioned in the manual.
Space Academies The Online Help states that Space Academies add +2 experience points per turn for every friendly ship in the system. In fact the number is +1 (and a further +1 is even added without academies). Also, the experience-points-per-turn-bonus (but not the starting level bonus) of Space Academies is cumulative: if you have a ship in a system with 4 Academies, this ship will get +4 experience points every turn. Since this is explained nowhere, I do not know whether this is a bug or just missing Information.
Spatial Compressor Damage ranges from 4 to 32 as listed, but is NOT increased by the target ship's size class.
Spies The 1 BC maintenance cost per spy is not mentioned. (Building Screen)
Spy Bonus/Penalty The Online Help states about the spy racepicks: "All offensive spies sent on mission will receive the full bonus/penalty, while defensive spies receive one-half the amount." This seems incorrect. The whole bonus/penalty is listed in the RACES screen.
Star Fortresses The Online Help states that Star Fortresses add +20% to offense and Defense of all friendly ships in combat. In fact this bonus applies to beam offense only. (or at least there is no *listed* beam defense bonus in battle)
Tolerant The Online help states that tolerant races treat all planet environments as Terran for purposes of maximum population. This is not correct. The correct max pop values are explained in the manual: "Races that are tolerant can use 25% more of a planet's surface for habitation, living in places no other race would dare and boosting the planet's maximum potential population. Thus, for example, while a typical race could live on 25% of a Barren planet, a Tolerant race could use 50% of the same planet."
(Just a 20% surplus for terrans -80% is already habitable - and no surplus for gaias.)
Torpedos The description for anti-matter torpedos lists an incorrect speed of
20; anti-matter torpedoes have a speed of 18.
And also Plasma Torpedos have a speed of 22 (instead of 24).

BUG OR FEATURE?
Android Morale Bug Android workers get morale bonus contrary to what is said in the manual or online help.
Battle Pods "Bug" Ships are faster when there is more unused space on them. This Unused space speed bonus is apparently calculated by the formula Bonus = (10 * ( unused space / hull size ) ) for every ship. The hull size in the formula is the base hull size of ships of that size class in the empire. By equipping your ship with battle pods, even a further speed increase is possible (details here under I.c) ). Be aware that megafluxers are treated differently than battlepods. This means that there is no DIRECT speed increase caused by "just adding" megafluxers on an empty ship. The intention of the game designers is unclear but I see no convincing reason for this difference (maybe there is a inactive battlepods malus) - (i.e. bug). See also here.
Beam Offense "Bug" When a Star Base is present, there is no bonus, but when there is a colony or outpost present that has no orbital base, the bonus is +10 BA.
Freighters Building a freighter generates an income of 5 BC.

Master of Orion II Strategy Guide

2005-03-05T01:15:00.002+01:00

by Cybersaber

Purpose
Most players who start to play MOO II online have a lot of experience playing against the computer, but very little experience playing against other human players. There is a steep learning curve when playing against human players, and many of the lessons that good players have learned offline have to be thrown away when playing against humans. This guide is designed to help players quickly get over this obstacle and start to enjoy their online games.

Applicability
The strategies, tactics and techniques explained in this guide apply to the types of games usually played online against human opponents. Most online games are set up for medium or large universes, at the Pre-Warp or Average Technology setting, utilizing Tactical Combat, no computer managed empires (AIs), and no Antarans. Some parts of this guide are irrelevant for strategic combat games, and only loosely relevant for small universes or Advanced Tech games. Some parts of this guide do not apply when playing the DemoDict Mod.

Race Picks
One of the real joys of this game is the wide latitude to experiment with a huge variety of race combinations. While this is a great deal of fun, the Darwinian struggle of years of combat has proven that there are certain requirements for a competitive race. These include:

Population Capacity Modifier. Population is the ultimate arbiter of victory in MOO. A race without the ability to generate a large population will almost always lose the population competition, and shortly thereafter the game. It is essential that your race picks include at least one of the following pop capacity modifiers: Aquatic, Subterranean, Tolerant. Each of these picks increases the number of colonists that a planet can hold. Lithovore is also a viable pick: it does not increase the number of colonists a planet can hold, but by eliminating farmers, it does give you more usable population.

Government. Unification is the preferred form of government, and essential for any production oriented race. Democracy is also a viable pick, though generally a much tougher race to play. With a very few exceptions, Dictatorship and Feudal governments are suicide unless a player intends to jump an opponent very early on and gets lucky enough to find a convenient Worm Hole right to them. In theory, there is a fair balance between Production Races (Unified) and Tech Races (Democratic). In practice, Production Races rule. This is because Production Races can routinely out-colonize and out-populate Tech Races, which means they can ultimately even out-tech a Tech Race. It is also worth noting that a Production Race will settle a lot more planets, which means it can usually produce most of its research through its buildings, not its population, while a Tech Race, with many fewer settled planets, has to rely on its smaller population for most of its research, which hinders expansion and fleet construction.

Creative. Many new players start online with a strong affinity for Creative races. They quickly learn that a Creative race sacrifices so many other picks to be Creative that it cannot compete with Production Races, and usually not even with Tech Races. Creative can be a viable pick in the hands of a veteran player, but it is universally regarded as suicide for a novice online player. Avoid this pick until you have mastered winning with a Production Race.

Negative Picks. It is routine to select between 9 and 10 points of negative race picks in order to be able to choose between 19 and 20 points of Positive Picks. Since most online games do not include AI empires, Repulsive is the standard negative pick. It counts for -6 picks, but results only in a poorer selection of leaders, which makes this easily the best pick for the money. The remaining 3-4 negative picks are either -10 Espionage (DON'T pick this if you are democratic) or the combination of -10 Ground and -20 Ship Defense. DO NOT pick -20 Ship Offense. This is both a severe handicap to your beam weapons and, under the algorithm for Ship Initiative, will usually lead to your ships moving and firing second, which is a horrible handicap.

As a guide to new players, let me suggest a few good races to start with:

Production Race #1: Unified, Aquatic, Large Home, Rich Home, Production +2, Repulsive, -10 Ground, -20 Ship Defense. Comments: This is a very powerful race, but it is a little dependent upon good luck in finding wet planets, without which its population capacity will suffer. Its biggest advantage over Production Race #2 is its ability to pick Clones and rapidly grow its population.

Production Race #2: Unified, Tolerant, Large Home, Production +1, Repulsive, -10 Ground, -20 Ship Defense. Comments: This is a very stable race, and quite resistant to bad starts and poor quality planets. It is key with this race to get Soil Enrichment right after Research labs and Auto Factories. If this race finds a rich or UR planet for its first colony ship, it will do extremely well.

Balanced Race #1: Unified, Aquatic, Large Home, Rich Home, Production +1, Science +1, Repulsive, -10 Ground, -20 Ship Defense. Comments: This race can build well and tech well. It is an excellent race for launching an early attack on an opponent.

Tech Race #1: Democratic, Lithovore, Artifacts Home, Repulsive, -10 Ground, -20 Ship Defense. Comments: This race generates more early research than any other. Its Achilles Heel is the lack of any population capacity modifier. Taking an early monster is essential in order to secure a deep planet to store a lot of population. This race also does quite well if it can get Terraforming or Androids in the mid-game.

Tech Race #2: Dictatorship, Lithovore, Subterranean, Artifacts Home, Large Home, Repulsive, -10 Ground, -20 Ship Defense. This race techs very well and can also build up a large population. It is, however, quite weak at early production and expansion. It should research Cloning Centers right after Auto Factories to maximize population growth.

Tech Race #3: Democratic, Aquatic, +1 BC, Repulsive, -10 Ground, -20 Ship Defense. This is a fascinating race. The combination of Democracy (50% BC bonus) and +1 BCs per colonist generates enough BCs to be able to buy most of this race's production items when they are only half built (the most efficient time for purchase). You really want to focus on population growth to maximize this benefit, since the +1 BCs are generated per colonist.

The Opening Sequence, Average Technology Universes
Here are some general rules for your opening moves in an Average Technology universe.

All Races. Set your research option to research labs. Redesign your two frigates to eliminate the laser weapon, keeping only the Extended Fuel Cells (this maximizes the chance that your scouts will survive an encounter with a monster), and refit your scouts as the first two items in your production queue. Then add to the production queue your first colony base, a freighter (to ship food to the newly created colony), and then as many remaining colony bases as you can build. Finally add in a colony ship to store any unused production at the end of the queue. You may also want to consider scrapping your marine bases (unless you are Dictatorship), to cut your BC maintenance by 1 BC a turn and to get an extra 30BCs from the scrap. These extra BCs can then be used to buy your first colony base before it is finished.

Production Races. Move all population not needed to keep your food production balance positive into production, leaving none on research. Keep all available population on your home planet on production until the last colony base is built, then move all but one worker on the home planet into science to start researching Research Labs. Use the Housing Technique (see below) to maximize population generation on your newly built colonies, moving the newly created colonist back to the home planet to help building the next colony base.

Tech Races. Keep only one or two colonists on production, and move all remaining colonists not needed for farming into research. Keep them on research until you have gotten Research Labs (build or buy as soon as you get it), and then move on to Reinforced Hull and Auto Factories. Once the Auto Factory is built, then move all population into production and keep them there until you have built your last colony base in the home system.

Once all colony bases in the home system have been built and Labs and Auto Factories researched and installed, it is time to start building outposts and colony ships to start expanding your empire.

Technology Paths
The specific technology path to follow varies by player preference, race picks and player strategy (early attack versus long development, for instance). Nevertheless, there is a basic technology path that applies to most situations and races.

For an Average Tech Game, the optimum path is usually as follows, in order:

1. Research Labs
2. Reinforced Hull
3. Auto Factories
4. Biospheres
5. Soil or Clones (take Soil if your race produces 3 or less food points per farmer, otherwise take Clones)
6. Neural Scanners
7. Super Computers
8. Battle Pods
9. Spaceports
10. Robo Miners

Past this point, it is usually best to get all remaining tech worth 250 Research Points (RPs) or less, before continuing on to Zortium Armor.

The Opening Sequence, Pre-Warp Technology Universes
The opening sequence for Pre-Warp Technology games is broadly similar to Average Technology games with a few extra technologies to research. Again, Production Races should research Freighters and then build all of their home system Colony Bases before beginning any further research (unless you are Lithovore, you will need freighters to feed those new colonies). Tech Races should research to Auto Factories and only then start to build their Colony Bases. Tech Races are at a severe disadvantage relative to Production Races in Pre-warp games, since the lack of a starting Colony Ship puts a real premium on production capabilities.

For a Pre-Warp game, the optimum Technology path is usually:

1. Freighters (skip this if you are not a Production Race)
2. Electronic Computer
3. Research Labs
4. Reinforced Hull
5. Auto Factories
6. Freighters (if you did not research them in Step 1)
7. Extended Fuel Tanks
8. Biospheres
9. Soil or Clones (take Soil if your race produces 3 or less food points per farmer, otherwise take Clones)
10. Neural Scanners
11. Super Computers
12. Battle Pods
13. Spaceports
14. Robo Miners

Past this point, it is usually best to get all remaining tech worth 250 Research Points (RPs) or less, before continuing on to Zortium Armor.

Technology Research Tradeoffs
There are several interest research tradeoffs that are worth commenting on. The first concerns the Chemistry path. New players are often tempted to select Tritanium Armor, Pollution Control, Irridium and then Zortium. This is a sharply suboptimal path for two reasons. The first is that it leaves you without a decent missile, a handicap at best, and potentially fatal if you run into a Creative player (Radiation Shields are immune to most beam weapons and completely immune to nuclear missiles). Moreover, Merculite missiles are extremely nasty weapons when you can Mirv them at the Zortium level. The second reason is that Atmospheric Renewers eliminate TWICE as much pollution as Pollution Controllers. Accordingly, the tech path that I recommend up the Chemistry Track is Dueterium Fuel Cells (for range), Merculite missiles, Atmospheric Renewers and then Zortium. The risk is that you have no decent armor for your ships for a LONG time. You are not safe until you have reached Zortium. But if you can get there, your empire and your ships will all be much deadlier than an opponent's who has chosen any other combination (the one MAJOR exception is a Tolerant race, whose optimum path is Tritanium Armor for early advantage, Merculite missiles, Irridium Cells and then Zortium).

Another interesting tradeoff is between Class III shields and Warp Dissipators. Generally, Warp Dissipators are the better choice, because they ensure the complete destruction of an enemy fleet if you can win the battle. Warps are particularly nasty when used in combination with EMG missiles, because even a single EMG missile hit can eliminate a battleship and warps prevent the target for retreating from the strike. Class III is an excellent choice if you are facing a Creative race (it negates his deadly Ion Cannons), but should otherwise be chosen only if you are the underdog and need the extra edge to defend.

Many new players choose Hydrofarms over Biospheres. This is a bad tradeoff. The extra two farmers afforded by biospheres should be good for at least 4 extra food points above what they themselves eat, which is the equivalent of two Hydrofarms. Moreover, these colonists earn a BC each turn, whereas each Hydrofarm eats 2BCs each turn.

Perhaps the toughest choice in the game is between Auto Labs and Cybertronic Computers. There is no right answer here. However, as a general rule, the player who picks Auto Labs will pull away from his opponent rapidly in technology, while the player who picks Cybertronics will enjoy a huge but rapidly declining combat advantage. Production Races can make enough ships to launch a nasty fleet during the window of advantage for Cybertronics. Tech Races generally cannot, but they may also be generating sufficient RPs to be able to compete in technology without Autolabs. So take Cybertronic if you can launch a large fleet shortly after getting it, or if you can compete in tech even if your opponent gets Auto Labs and you do not. Otherwise, take Auto Labs.

Housing Technique
If population is the key to victory in MOO, then the Housing Technique is the key to rapid population growth. The technique is to put just a single colonist on a planet to building Housing, with no other colonists present. This maximizes the production of population. When a second colonist is created, immediately ship it off planet to keep the housing planet at maximum production. The idea is to use your smaller planets as population factories, and ship the population they generate to your larger planets where it will do the actual work of your empire. If you can keep roughly 1/3 of your planets on housing like this, you can easily double the rate at which your population expands. The only exception to this technique is the case where you pick Population +50% or +100% as race picks. In this case, while the housing technique still works, the optimum population growth rate for planets not on housing occurs when they are 50% full, so your pop will grow almost as fast with no planets on housing if you can keep expanding your settlements fast enough to maintain the average planet at 50% population.

Empire Expansion
Obviously you want to expand your empire as much as possible. Less obviously, you need to stop at some point and concentrate on defending what you have, or better yet, taking what the other guy has from him. When do you reach that point? The answer depends on the races involved, the strategies employed, and the size of the universe you are playing in.

In a medium universe, it is generally a good idea to stop after constructing just one or two colony ships, and it is not hard to win without building any at all. In a large universe, building at least two or three is a good idea. Building more that five or six, however, begins to ask for trouble, and building ten or more is begging someone to come along and start taking them from you. In a medium universe, you should expect at least one enemy Battleship to attack you by turn 90 (turn 80 given a convenient wormhole). This means that you need to have your own Battleship, or suitable defenses, in place by that turn.

In a large universe, given the extra distance, you should expect at least one enemy Battleship to attack you by turn 110 (turn 80 given a convenient wormhole). You can often be hit by three or more battleships by turn 120. You can take risks, but if you do not have a fleet in being by these turns, you have probably over expanded.

Buildings
It is generally a good idea to build every building you can on every planet you have. There are exceptions. Biospheres cost a BC every turn, so don't build them until a planet is almost full. Spaceports cost 1 BC a turn, so they make no economic sense on planets of less than 4 pop. Don't build a Pollution Control center or Atmospheric Renewer on a planet that is 100% dedicated to farming. If you get clones, do build them on every planet: they will add a flat 1/10 of a colonist per turn, no matter what kind of planet you put them on.

Research
Naturally, you want as much research as you can get, consistent with being able to build what you have researched. Players naturally think of their scientists as the engine of research. This is not necessarily correct. Actually, it is quite possible for a Production Race to construct a winning empire with virtually no colonists on science after the discovery of Auto Factories. This is because buildings (Research Labs, Super Computers, Auto Labs and Galactic Cybernets) can also be the engines of science. A Production Race can generate all of its research by settling a large number of planets and making sure every one has all available science buildings in place. From this perspective, EVERY planet is a good planet, because even the humblest tiny ultra poor low gravity planet can host the same number of science buildings as a huge ultra rich gaia.

Production
There are a few subtleties to production, most of which revolve around pollution. The first is that within any one planet, it is better to have just a few workers on production over a long period of time that to whipsaw between everyone and no one on production. The first worker on production generates very little pollution, the last generates a ton, and so is not nearly as productive. Accordingly, keep 2-3 colonists on each planet on production at all times, and when there is nothing in particular that you are itching to build, use a colony ship, starbase, or battleship as the first build item solely as a store of production. When you are able to construct a new building, insert it in the build queue ahead of the item storing your production, and it will likely be built immediately. In this manner, your overall population will be most productive.

A second key point is that small planets generate more pollution per worker than large ones. So use your large planets for production, and your smaller ones for housing, farming or science.

A final point is how to use BCs to buy construction items. If you run the math on time versus money, your BCs buy the most production when you purchase an item that is 50% built. So try to time your key purchases for this point in the item's build cycle.

Androids
Androids deserve a special note because they are often not well understood. Androids are Tolerant and are unaffected by gravity penalties. Because they are tolerant, a player may find that after a full planet has built its first Android, suddenly its population capacity has increased dramatically. The increase is the extra planetary capacity available only to the tolerant Androids, and can be filled only with Androids. Any attempt to ship in normal colonists will see them die on arrival. On some types of planets, with Aquatic and Subterranean races, the largest pop capacity is achieved only when BOTH normal colonists AND Androids are present. Because Androids can farm, produce, or tech on a HG or LG world without any gravity penalties, it is a good idea to ship out all of your normal colonists and fill your HG and LG planets solely with Androids. Because Android workers are Tolerant, they suffer no production penalties for pollution. However, if normal colonists are present, then the pollution penalty kicks in proportionately to the mix of tolerant and non-tolerant population. Androids benefit from Government effects but do NOT benefit from specific race enhancements such as Production +1 or Research +1. Androids require no food but they do consume a point of production each turn. Androids do not produce BCs like normal colonists, so don't build a spaceport on a planet that is mainly populated by Androids.

Military Technology
One of the most commonly asked questions from new players concerns what weaponry to put in ships early on, versus the mid-game or the end game. We will answer this question specifically, but first there is a general observation to be made. Almost without exception, a fully modified "primitive" weapon is more destructive and more efficient than your most recently researched "advanced" weapon. For instance, if you have just gotten to Neutron Blasters, it is FAR better to arm your ships with fully modified (Enveloping, Continuous) Fusion Beams than with unmodified Neutron Blasters. This also holds true for all missiles.

Not recommended, but the earliest "emergency" weaponry that packs a punch is Fighter Bays (you need to get Battle Pods as well to put a single Interceptor Squadron in a Frigate, a Destroyer can carry two squadrons, three with Battle Pods). If you need to get some combat power up very early in the game, Fighters are your best bet. Note that a Fighter Squadron's firepower is increased by 50% if you get Fusion beams instead of the default Laser beams. Fighters are not recommended because to get them you have to pass up Reinforced Hull, which is usually suicide later in the game.

The best military tech to reach early in the game is Laser beams. To get ANY beam weapon to have a reasonable chance of hitting a target, you need to have Battle Scanners aboard. Conveniently, at the Battle Scanner level, your Laser beams get all available modifications (Armor Piercing, Auto Fire, Continuous, No Range Dissipation). So your earliest military ships should be equipped with Battle Scanners and as many fully modified lasers as you can cram in (tho you will need room for other items, which we will cover under ship design).

The next easiest set of military techs to reach is Nuclear missiles at the Pollution Control or Merculite level, which is the level that allows your nuclear missiles to be fully modified (MIRVed, Fast, Heavy Armor). Again, always use all of the mods.

The next achievable military configuration can come from either of two tracks. You can go for Fusion Beams and then Neutron Blasters (or Neutron Scanners), which allows you to employ fully modified Fusion beams. Or you can get Mass Drivers and then work up to the Warp Dissipator/Class III level, which allows you to employ fully modified Mass Drivers. The Fusion beam track produces more powerful weapons (Enveloping increases damage fourfold for Fusion beams versus Auto Fire which increase damage threefold for Mass Drivers) and also more accurate weapons (the Continuous Mod for Fusion Beams adds +25 to you chance to hit, while the Auto Fire Mod for Mass Drivers subtracts -20 from your chance to hit, which is a huge relative difference. On the other hand, the damage from Mass Drivers does not diminish with range, and the Warp Dissipator/Class III techs are much more useful than either Neutron Blasters or Neutron Scanners. Generally, a race with Creative, Warlord, or Plus Ship Offense should go for Mass Drivers because they will not be so affected by the Auto Fire accuracy penalty. All others should go for Fusion Beams.

The next major increment in firepower comes at the Zortium level, when you can fully modify your Merculite missiles (MIRVed, Fast, Heavy Armor). Mirved Merculite missiles become even more deadly when you reach EMG and can put this mod into the missiles. A single Mirved Merculite EMG missile can reliably detonate a Battleship equipped with Zortium armor and Reinforced Hull if it can get through all defenses and actually strike the target.

Note: I cannot emphasize too much how critical it is to always pick Merculite Missiles. Many players go for Pollution Control instead, but failing to get Merculites leaves you without any powerful missile. Pulsons are an inferior choice because to MIRV Pulsons, you have to go all the way up to the Neutronium Armor level, and a MIRVed Merculite missile does 56 points of damage versus just 20 points for an un-Mirved Pulson missile.

The final major military tech level that is sometimes reachable before an online game is concluded is Gauss Cannon, which are truly awesome weapons when they can be fully modified at the Class VII level. Alternates include Anti-Matter Torpedoes or Phasors. Anti-Matter Torpedoes are particularly useful if your opponent has chosen Cybertronic Computers or is Creative and is therefore capable of shooting down any missile salvos you are likely to launch.

Ship Design
There are a few basics for ship design. The first is that you should always equip every ship with Battle Pods (50% space increase) and every ship larger than a frigate with Augmented Engines (faster in combat but more importantly you get better Ship Initiative, better Attack rating and better Defense rating), and Reinforced Hull (or Heavy Armor if you are Creative). The second basic is that you should ALWAYS equip any ship that is going to carry beam weaponry with Battle Scanners (+50 Attack rating, adds directly to your chance to hit with beam weapons).

The third basic is that you should always avoid mixing beams and missiles on the same ship. There are exceptional times where enemy tactics and ship designs may override this rule, but generally it strongly applies. The logic for this rule stems from the fact that beam ships always need Battle Scanners aboard if they are going to hit anything (+50 Attack rating). Battle Scanners take up a lot of space aboard any ship, and it is most efficient to use that limited space remaining entirely for beam weapons. Putting your missiles aboard purely missile-armed ships allows you to dispense with Battle Scanners and pack in the maximum number of missiles.

I recommend that when you design a ship you use all of the available weapons slots rather than lumping all similar weapons on one line. This affords you more combat options to split your fire. For example, say you have a beam armed ship and you are close to immobilizing an enemy ship you hope to board and capture. If you have all of your beam weapons lumped together on one line, you lose the flexibility to stop shooting after immobilization has been achieved, and may end up firing so much that you blow up your intended target.

The order in which you place weapons on a ship matters. The order in which you place weapons is also the order in which 1) beam weapons fire and 2) missiles and torpedoes strike the target. This distinction can be crucial. Take missiles, for example. Point Defense beam weaponry must do the same amount of damage to shoot down a normal missile as a mirved one. But MIRVed missiles take up a lot more space aboard the firing ship. So it makes sense to place missiles modified with Heavily Armor and Fast, but NOT MIRVed, in the top few rows of your missile ship and place the fully modified (MIRVed) missiles in the lower rows. That way the enemy's shots at your missiles will chew through the less valuable missiles first, preserving the missiles with the most punch. This approach also suggests that you place any EMG equipped missiles in the very bottom rows, so that they will be the last to get shot down, and the most likely to strike the target.

The same logic can be applied to beams. Say your opponent has Class III shields that you will need to punch through to damage his ships. You might place Neutron Blasters, which cannot be made Armor Piercing, in the top rows of your beam ship to blow down his shields and then Armor Piercing Auto-Fire Mass Drivers in the lower rows to inflict the actual damage to his vessels.

Concerning beam weaponry, I recommend a mix of all three weights (Heavy, Normal and Point Defense) on your Battleships. I like to have at least one Heavy beam weapon on each Battleship to prevent the enemy from standing out of range and doing damage while forcing me to charge into his missiles to get into beam range. I will then use two thirds of the remaining space for normal beam weapons and one-third for Point Defense beam weapons. I do not usually create Battleships with different mixes of Heavy, Regular and PD weapons (with one exception), but rather make them all one general design. This way if a particular ship is destroyed, the remainder of my beam firepower is not significantly unbalanced. The exception to this rule is ships equipped with Structural Analyzer (generally only a tech that a Creative will get). For such ships, the overhead of the Structural Analyzer equipment is so high that I tend to put only Heavy beams aboard and use these ships only for offense, meaning that other beam ships will have to protect them from enemy missile fire.

Finally, concerning beam weaponry, I recommend that you always make your beams 360 degree enabled. This is wasteful of space, and may seem inefficient, but the benefit is that your beam ships can encounter an enemy fleet armed with missiles and will not have to stay locked facing forward to fire. Instead they will be able to turn and run from enemy missile salvoes while shooting at those same salvoes for three to four combat rounds. Once the salvoes have been destroyed, then the beam ships can turn around and go after the enemy's ships. A ship with beams facing only forwards will only get one or two shots at the incoming missiles before they strike, which makes it much more likely that it will suffer catastrophic damage.

For missiles, the speed of combat really demands that you pick the ammo load option for just two missile salvoes. Anything higher means that you are shooting so few missiles each turn that the enemy's PD beam weaponry is likely to kill all of your salvoes before they strike. You really need to overwhelm him with mass to win with missiles.

Ship Construction
The first rule of ship of ship construction is to always ensure that every military ship larger than a frigate or scout is built at a planet that has Space Academies. You can start a ship at a planet without Space Academies and then switch Space Academies to the head of the Production Queue before the ship is actually completed, but the ship must be completed AFTER a Space Academy is present. This will give the ship a Regular Morale Rating instead of a Green Morale Rating. Each improvement in Morale Rating adds +15 to a ships Attack and Defense Rating.

I also recommend trying to build a fleet composed mainly of Battleships, rather than smaller craft, simply because this is the most efficient use of the limited Command Points most races will generate. The exception is Warlord races, which have more leeway to build a fleet made of smaller craft.

Combat
Online combat is a very different environment than offline combat, principally because humans are much smarter opponents and move and fight their ships very differently than the computer. They will not simple charge or retreat the way AI empires will, rather they will employ a much broader range of tactics.

Always make sure that you have the following Combat Options turned on: Grid Squares and Missile Warning. This way you can always control your ship moves to avoid things like giving the enemy the ability to move a missile ship into point blank missile range of one of your key ships, or moving your own ship into an enemy EMG missile salvo before you get a chance to fire all of your beam weapons first.

The first thing a player needs to consider, when the combat screen opens, is what his strategy needs to be: retreat, accept defeat but stand and fight to inflict maximum damage on his opponent, or fight to win. So, of course, your first action should be to scan the enemy fleet for capabilities and Leaders. If you decide to stay and fight, then you need to identify which enemy ship(s) are the greatest threat to you. You should then bring the maximum firepower you can bear on the highest threat ship. A common mistake that new players make is to spread their fire among a number of ships. This leaves the entire enemy fleet firing back for a much longer time than necessary. Always try to eliminate the biggest threat and start reducing the enemy's ability to fire back as soon as possible.

The biggest threat may not always be as obvious as you might think. For instance, assume that your missile ships and your enemy's missile ships are the ships most capable of doing damage to each other. You still might want to target the enemy's Point Defense beam ships first to allow your remaining missile salvos to get through unharmed. All other things being equal, you also want to target enemy ships that carry Leaders, since this will hurt your opponent more and cause the loss of their combat bonuses in each combat round after their death.

One of the trickiest questions is whether to charge your ships forward or turn and run for the mapedge. If the enemy possesses significant missile weaponry, it often makes sense to retreat towards the mapedge to get a few extra shots at either the incoming missiles or the missile ships themselves. If the enemy possesses EMG missiles, then it is usually a very bad idea to charge. On the other hand, if you have a lot of beam firepower, you have combat initiative, the enemy has thrown his first missile salvoe at you, and you have the luxury of moving second in the combat round, sometimes it makes good sense to charge forward. The idea is that you charge forward until your ships are just about to get hit by the incoming missiles, and then halt and shoot at them at point blank range. At the start of the second combat round you take the initiative to move first, take a second shot at the missile salvoes, and then move through the remaining missiles to get behind the enemy missile ships. You can then run away from the second salvo, firing backwards at it to attrite it. This maneuver can be quite a surprise to your opponent and very effective.

If you possess a mainly missile armed fleet and the enemy does not have EMG missiles, one very nasty tactic is to fire all of your first missile salvo during your first combat round and then charge your missile ships forward. The second combat round you do the reverse, you charge forward first (at least right up to the point before his missiles are going to hit you) and then fire your second salvo. This technique will usually place BOTH of your missile salvoes hitting the enemy ships in the same combat round, making it very hard for his beam weaponry to stop the strike.

Monster Killing
Monsters are best killed by frigate fleets, since these are easiest to built and ship losses are easily replaceable (losing your first battleship to a monster will almost certainly cause you to lose the game). The best ship for killing monsters, by far, is a frigate equipped with Battle Pods and armed with two Fast, MIRVed nuclear missiles. It is also possible to get the same effect with frigates equipped with Battle Pods and a Fighter, but researching Fighters means skipping Reinforced Hulls, which is normally suicide later in the game. With some monsters it is best to charge forward and hit the beast with missiles at point blank range (this means you must be in grid square right next to the monster). With other monsters this is a bad idea. It is best to run towards the mapedge, firing your missiles backwards at the beast. This little matrix gives you a conservative idea of the fleet strengths needed for different monsters and whether to charge or run:

Monster Frigates Tactic
Eel 10 Charge
Dragon 10 Charge
Hydra 10 Run
Crystal 8 Run
Amoeba 5 Run

These monsters can sometimes be taken out with 1-2 fewer frigates, but you risk missing them entirely. The above numbers will safely guarantee the kill.

If you use Fighters, remember that they will not work well against Dragons (6 Point Defense Phasors will knock out a lot of your fighters before they even fire once). If you choose to attack a monster with your first battleship, you will generally not have the armor to survive more than one or two shots from the monster, so charge to point blank range against ALL monsters and take along two armed frigates as well. Usually the monster will target the frigates first allowing your Battleship to survive.

Kali Rules of Play
There are very few rules of play on Kali, but there are some that are tried and true. Here they are, along with an explanation of why we use them.

Ship Waiting
Definition: In a battle, the Attacker is strictly defined as the player who initiated the combat, regardless of whether he is defending the system or attacking it. The Defender is defined as the player who did not initiate the combat. Note that it is possible for the player owning the system to attack first, and in this first battle he will be defined as the Attacker. If he loses the battle and retreats, his opponent may then have the option of attacking him in the same turn. In this second battle the opponent then becomes the Attacking player.

Rule: Each Combat round during a battle the Attacking player may use the Ship Wait option ONCE. After a ship has been waited once, on its next chance to move it MUST do whatever movement and fire the Attacking player wishes and then the Attacker MUST hit the Done button for that ship. The Defender may wait his ships as many times during a single combat round as he wishes to. This means that the Defender always has the option to move and fire his ships last each combat round.

Reason: Before we invented this rule, each player would wait all of his ships each chance he got to move hoping to get the advantage of firing last (this is not always desirable, but usually is). This meant that the first combat round never even started, and the game would break up with the players fighting over who should have moved and fired first. To eliminate this argument, we invented this rule. If the Attacker does not think he can win a battle if he has to move and fire first, he simply should not initiate it. This also means that pointless battles are not fought and time is not wasted for other players.

Refighting Battles
Rule: If the game crashed in the middle of a combat, both players will refight the battle EXACTLY as they originally did before the crash. While this may be beyond players' memory capacity for a long and large battle, please try to keep faith with this rule.

Sometimes the game will change the order in which players get to initiate combat. If the original Defender now gets the option to attack first, and picks it, then there is no requirement to refight the battle exactly as before. However, if he elects not to attack, then when the original Attacker's chance to start the battle comes up, he MUST take it and both players must refight the battle exactly as before, up to the crash.

Reason: NOTHING will anger your opponent more than watching you lose ships and then refight the battle after the crash differently to take advantage of now knowing what didn't work the first time. This rule avoids a lot of nastiness between players and the destruction of otherwise good playing relationships in the community.

Technology Trading
Rule: Technology Trading between human players is specifically banned for Kali games. This rule may be ignored only if a majority of players vote to ignore it before the game is started. If AI empires are included in the game, players need to agree up front if Technology Trading is allowed with AIs only. Note that Treaties, including Research Treaties, are always allowed

Reason: Technology Trading is fun but the chat and barter consumes a LOT of time and slows down play considerably. We ban it to speed play. Technology Trading with AI empires does not involve a lot of chat, so that is sometimes permitted, though play with AI empires is rare. A further objection to Technology Trading is that it has also been known to allow friends to conspire to help each other while trading with no one else, which is not fair in games where the assumption is every man for himself.

No Orion
Rule: You may scout the Orion system but you may NOT deliberately attack and take the system.

Reason: Orion is often not placed centrally on the map, giving a big advantage to the player who happens to be closest. So for fairness, we ignore it. In online play, your targets are your human opponents, not the Antarans.

Hotseating
Rule: It is extremely easy to gain an advantage in the game by deliberately crashing it during play and hotseating the game offline to review the enemy's position before returning online. It is even easier to hotseat a save. This is strictly forbidden.

Reason: This is considered cheating. You can win this way, but there is no honor in it.

Game Bugs
Most game bugs have been fixed by the wonderful patches designed by Lord Brazen. The following bugs remain (note that some of these only happen in online play):

Retreat From The Mapedge: There is a game bug that will cause the game to immediately crash if you retreat a ship that is touching the edge of the combat map, meaning the results of the whole battle are lost. Always turn on the Combat Option for Grid Squares and NEVER retreat a ship from combat if it occupies a grid square at the edge of the map.

Annihilation: Another bug occurs when you choose to Annihilate a captured enemy population. Once the population goes to zero that planet can remain yours while also being invulnerable to enemy invasion (your opponent drops his marines but the game does not allow him to recapture the planet). This condition usually ends after a random number of turns, but in the meantime it gives the owning player an invulnerable outpost he cannot lose to enemy action. The community does not have a permanent rule to cover this, but I suggest that you agree with your opponents up front as to whether Annihilation is allowed or not.

Androids: Under certain conditions you can build or import more Androids on a planet than the game gives as the maximum pop capacity for that planet. The community has agreed not to abuse this bug, so if a planet reads 17/17 colonists do not add an 18th Android.

Monsters: If two players hit the exact same type of monster on the same turn, both while have combats but one of the two monsters will remain intact even if the player killed it. There is nothing to be done about this, but the player with the surviving monster will be given the option to fight again the next turn if he keeps his fleet at the monster's system.

Learning Techniques
There are a number of very useful learning techniques that you can employ on your own to rapidly pick up useful knowledge.

I strongly recommend that when you first start playing online you hotseat each game after it is finished and study your enemy's technology choices, the allocation of colonists on each planet, his probable expansion pattern, and especially study his ship designs. There is a great deal to be learned from a veteran player's ship designs.

A second excellent learning technique is to play with the Omniscient race pick for your first few games. This is generally not a great race pick for most games, and you probably don't want to do this once you start feeling confident about your skills. But the ability to watch veteran players turn by turn as they develop their empires can teach you a great deal and will give you much more perspective on good (and bad) play than this one writer can. You will then start to win earlier than you might have otherwise.

A third technique, often overlooked, is to ask your opponent after the game is over to critique your play and offer tips. Almost all players in the Kali community will gladly share with you what they think you were doing wrong and what you might try instead. Kali is a mature community and very few of us take any pleasure in beating new players. Our fun starts AFTER you have first beaten us, and we can then enjoy the challenge of playing you. So help us help you by asking as many questions as you want. In my experience, it is the players willing to ask for critiques who start winning earliest.

Having Fun
Even highly experienced offline players can get very frustrated when they first come online by the fact that they keep losing games they feel they should have won. This is only because online play against humans is very different from play against the computer. After observing literally over a thousand new players come online for the first time, I suggest that you should expect to lose your first 10-20 games online. This is perfectly normal and does not mean you are not a good MOO player. If you can stick with the frustration through those first 10-20 games, and if you are willing to adapt to the different conditions of online play, you should enjoy many hours of great fun.

About The Author
Cybersaber has been playing MOO II online since early 1997, first on TEN and then on Kali. He was also the elected President of the TEN MOO II League and then the Kali MOO II League. The experience contained in this document reflects not only his own knowledge, but also the collective experience of the TEN and Kali MOO II gaming communities. There are many player guides for MOO II available on the web. Most of them are useless for play against humans. The author hopes that this guide will help those players who wish to play human opponents online.

DemoDictMod b7

2005-01-28T13:32:00.000+01:00

latest version can be found here:

http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2006/05/demodictmod-b8.html

Die letzten Schritte....wie man ein Spiel in kali startet

2004-07-26T13:59:00.000+02:00

Ich werde in den nächsten Tagen/Wochen einen ausführlichen, deutschsprachigen DOSBox-Guide nachliefern.

Nachdem TEN 1999 in Pogo.com umgewandelt wurde und kein MOO2-Online mehr unterstützte, wichen die MOO2-Online-Spieler auf Kali aus - eine Software, die Netzwerk-Spiele emuliert. Kali existiert noch immer, wird allerdings nicht mehr von Jay Cotton unterstützt. Da neue Hardware und neue Betriebssysteme mehr und mehr Probleme verursachen, MOO2 über Kali zu spielen, benutzen inzwischen nahezu alle MOO2-Online-Spieler DOSBox (freeware). Es kann daher nicht mehr empfohlen werden, sich eine Kali-Seriennummer zuzulegen.

Ich empfehle, den folgenden Guide sorgfältig zu studieren:
DOSBox Guide

Der neue Treffpunkt für MOO2-Online ist der IRC-Channel irc.quakenet.org#moo2 (Firefox+chatzilla-Nutzer oder Opera-Nutzer sollten in der Lage sein, den IRC-Link zu nutzen. Wer den Internet Explorer verwendet, sollte zunächst den JavaClient in der Seitenleiste ausprobieren.)

Wenn beim Einrichten von DOSBox Probleme auftreten (und man im IRC-Channel keine Hilfe findet) kann man mir auch mailen:

Frühere Versionen dieser Seite enthielten einen Kali Guide. Da dieser Guide neue DOSBox-Spieler eher verwirrt als nützt, habe ich mich entschlossen ihn vom Netz zum nehmen. Wer immer noch Interesse hat, über Kali zu spielen, kann den Guide bei der obigen E-Mail-Adresse anfordern.