The MOO2 Book / 1.50 / Modding

The command line switches from the 1.40 patch are still supported even though they have a config counterpart. Note that switches specified on the command line take precedence over those specified in Config.

The switch /picks has been removed because of its range limitation of 10-14 picks. The number of picks can now be set via the parameter cname:number_of_race_picks.

Note: The switches /minstart, /hugestart, /richstart and /goodstart all affect the same ONE planet and their effects are cumulative.

The following parameters are modeled after the original implementation of the program 'mapgen.exe' by TF8. In this patch there is no need for launching external mapgen.exe against a saved game and then reloading it. All mapgen settings are specified in Config and apply each time you generate a map. There are no command line counterparts for these parameters.

For all parameters the first letter represents its type:

-t Terraform -s Specials Change -m Monsters Change -b Balance Galaxy

With the stars_in_galaxy table the amount of stars can be set per galaxy size. The wide range of settings allows special galaxies to be generated, for example a small galaxy with only 3 stars. Keep in mind that certain settings can cause the game to stall during the galaxy generation phase. For example, generation won’t succeed if you start a new game with 8 players in a medium galaxy that is set to contain only 6 stars.

With planet_special_chance, the chances for Wormholes, Natives, Deposits, etc. become configurable. All values combined should add up to 100 here.

Two parameters modify population capacities for each planet type:

The screenshot below from the Excel manual highlights these values in blue:

With pop_bonus_subterranean and pop_bonus_tolerant the bonuses for respective racial traits can be set.

The Biospheres and Advanced City Planning bonuses can be set via separate parameters pop_bonus_biospheres and pop_bonus_advanced_city_planning.

With classic settings, only Android workers are affected by morale. Each android type can now have morale on or off. With the parameter android_morale all 8 variants can be set. In addition the cost of each toaster type can be set with:

The build and maintenance cost of buildings can be configured. Take the cost of Armor Barracks for example. The default cost is 150 PP and 2­ BC/T maintenance, which is quite expensive for a few cool tanks or Battleoids. It can be lowered by writing:

Or alternatively:

The number and types of buildings that each colony has built at game start depends on: * Starting tech level (Pre-warp, Avg, Post-warp, Advanced), * Population size of a colony. * Known techs and * Priority listing in the table initial_buildings.

The number of starting buildings on each colony is capped to 3 for Pre-warp, 5 for Average/Postwarp and 9 for Advanced game starts. Apart from cap, colonies with more population start with more buildings, the maximum number of buildings (not counting the Capitol) is 2/3 pop rounded up. For example a HW with 8 pop can have 6 buildings on Advanced Tech start, but only 5 on Average start due to the cap.

Pre-warp and Average Tech games only start with Marine Barracks and a Star Base because no other techs are Known that are also in the default initial buildings list. If, for example, Colony Base building is added to the initial_buildings, it will be given to each players' homeworld at game start.

The initial_buildings is a strict list, in that the game starts at entry 1, checks if it’s allowed to place it and works its way down. The default list order potentially causes 1-3 pop colonies on Advanced to start without Marine Barracks because the first two list items are a satellite (#1-3) and Hydroponic Farms (#4). Marine Barracks is entry #5. See the Excel manual for further details.

Bombardment can now optionally destroy the Capitol. It is treated as a regular building if you enable capitol_can_be_bombed. This was a patch initially. Optional since 1.50.19.

The parameter weather_control_climate sets the minimum climate where a weather controller can be built. As an exception, setting Radiated, will disallow the building only on radiated worlds (and not on both toxic and radiated worlds).

Biomorphic Fungi normally add +1 to farming on non-farming worlds. Parameter fungi_climate allows to choose its behavior from 3 options:

The +1 bonus can be changed using food_bonus biomorphic_fungi. Note that this bonus is in half-food units, so setting it to 1 corresponds to +1/2 food per farmer.

With parameter terraform_toxic_building, the building can be specified that will cause a Toxic climate to convert to a Barren one. The mod 150 improved, specifies Recyclotron. Note: Specifying Terraforming or Gaia Transformation will not work for this parameter, since both cannot be built on Toxic planets.

With the Hull Properties table, the cost and available space can be set for all ship classes and available space (not cost) for all three satellites. In addition, hit points for armor, structure, computer, drive and shields can be set, as well as the number of marines onboard. For strategic games, the number of beams, missiles, special weapons and bombs can be set as well as the defensive bonus and hit points.

The classic refit cost is calculated as the larger of either twice the difference of the old and new cost (the delta) or the minimum refit cost, where the minimum refit cost is a quarter of the hull cost (rounded down):

alternative_refit = 1 sets a new refit formula, which calculates the cost as one time the delta cost (with a minimum of 0) plus the minimum refit cost:

Ship designs are automatically updated when the physics tech field (laser) becomes known. Setting no_designs_update_for_laser = 1 prevents such an update.

Setting parameter broken_engine_explodes = 0 will prevent ships from exploding due to a destroyed engine. Ships with engines destroyed normally will just stay in battle. Self-destructing a ship will not cause an explosion. Intended for testing purposes.

Lander ships are Colony Ship, Outpost Ship and Transport. The table lander_ship_uses_stealth controls whether to install the best stealth device available on landers. You can control this separately for each lander type.

Allows to set build costs for Colony Ship, Outpost Ship and Transport in config.

Allows to set size class for lander ships in config.

Setting satellite_uses_torpedoes = 1, will arm satellites and missile bases with torpedoes if available. Available mods can be configured with defenses_allowed_mods. For balancing the ratios of missile/torpedoes on satellites versus on a missile base the parameters satellite_ammo_basis and missile_base_ammo_basis have been introduced.

With parameter starbase_special, 18 specials can be listed to be fitted on a satellite, of which up to 8 specials are actually fitted if available. Specials are not mutually exclusive here, except for slots 5a, 5b, 5c, and 6a, 6b, 6c of which only the highest ranked available special will be fitted.

If satellite_racial_defense_bonus is set at 1, the racial Ship Defense bonus will also apply to satellites and planetary bases.

If satellite_warlord_bonus is set at 1, the Warlord bonus will also apply to satellites and planetary bases and their crews will be of veteran skill level.

Added defensive_range_bonus that sets a range bonus in 3-square range units to improve the range beam weapons on satellites and planetary defenses.

With the option satellite_capture = 1, a satellite that has been captured in battle, remains as a colony building if the colony is captured right after the battle. This option is off by default, which makes satellites impossible to capture, an intended classic behavior.

Command usage per ship’s size class can be configured with ship_command_points_usage. Note, that Lander ships size class is 0 (frigate) by default. Command bonuses for satellites and communication technologies can be set with command_points. Communications ranges can be customized with ship_communication_range.

All detection-related values are now configurable. Overmap scan and stealth bonuses can be configured using:

This allows setting distinct stealth bonuses for racial trait Stealthy Ship, and each of the specials Stealth Field, Cloaking Device and Phasing Cloak. Use tab 'Detection' in the addendum to calculate the effects of custom settings.

Enables modding of cost, space usage, minimum and maximum damages. You can also change weapons' mods, both inherent (like Neutron Blaster’s marine killing ability) and regular ones, obtained with miniaturization (like autofire).

For example lowering Plasma Cannon min/max damage from 6/30 to 4/20:

To remove the continuous mod from Plasma Cannon its mods mask:

needs to become:

So write:

or alternatively (starting 0 indicates a binary number):

And combined you can write:

Where '6 24' are unchanged damage values for strategic games.

Note that changing ammo values for weapons in this table can have unexpected effects (bugs). Tab 'Weapons' in the Excel manual has an overview of all weapons mod flags.

In addition to the defensive bonus that a missile receives from its speed (speed * 5), it gets a bonus depending on its type. The classic bonus values for Nukes, Mercs, Pulsons and Zeons are respectively: -10, +15, +40, +70. These bonuses are modified with flyer_combat_modifier. For example, a bonus of +15 for Merculite Missile is set by: flyer_combat_modifier merculite_missile_defense_bonus = 15.

Plasma Torpedo is moddable in the following ways:

Although weapon and speed_base tables are not exclusive to plasma torpedo they are mentioned here because along with plasma_torpedo_dissipation they could trigger two hidden bugs described below. Both bugs don’t occur in unmodded classic since classic values for plasma torpedo don’t trigger them. Both bugs are fixed in 1.50:

It’s default range is 24 squares which can be set with proton_torpedo_range = 8, where each range unit equals 3 squares (24 = 8 * 3). Travel speed is limited to the value set in speed_base proton_torpedo if proton_torpedo_apply_speed_base is set to 1.

Several aspects of fighters' behavior were made configurable.

As an option, Heavy fighters can be used as regular ones for fighter/missile interception if heavy_fighter_can_scramble = 1. They attack flyers using their beams only.

BHG is a continuous weapon by nature, because if the generator is destroyed its target is freed. But unlike other such weapons (Tractor Beam and Stasis Field) it’s possible for a single BHG to affect two or more ships at the same time. This makes calculations of the number of freed targets somewhat inconsistent. Example:

In this example one ship (say B) will be freed from BHG but C will be not, as you still have one generator functioning (so not enough to hold two ships). Now you can trap ship B again with the remaining generator that was used in the previous turn to trap ship C. Ships B and C are now in black holes using just one generator. To solve this inconsistency, option continuous_bhg was introduced. If enabled, BHG becomes similar to stasis in that you cannot use BHG on other ships as long as its current target is alive and affected by it.

By default, ships caught in a Black Hole can be boarded by enemy troops. We could not help but wonder: Why are troops able to go into a black hole, board & fight on the enemy ship, then escape that black hole and return safely to the mothership? If you wonder as well, set board_in_black_hole = 0. If boarding to BHG immobilized ships is disabled, boarding from such ships is prohibited too. Note that the AI will not self-destruct such ships to avoid capture.

With classic Plasma Web, the damage dissipation of -5 is applied to ALL webs present on the target ship instead of PER web present. This means that dissipation is much smaller than (probably) intended. Especially when firing multiple Webs per turn, the damage potential can grow really large, and this total damage keeps increasing each turn until the target ship is destroyed or the end of combat is reached. With a new setting for the Plasma Web, plasma_web_dissipation_step = halve, the total damage done by all webs present halves each turn, instead of decreasing by -5 (= minus5). When you choose halve, the maximum damage per turn can not grow larger than 2x the initial damage. Below table compares both settings when shooting a single Web and shooting 8 Webs per turn at the same target.

Added compressor_per_size_class_damage parameter which enables optional per size class damage increase for Spatial Compressor (larger ships receive more damage and smaller ones less). This is similar to how pulsar normally works.

Ranges can be defined with spherical_range_to_ship and spherical_range_to_missile.

The cost and space of arcs and of each mod can be set with arc_cost_and_space and the table mods. With mods_available individual mods can be enabled or disabled for the groups Beams, Missiles and Torpedoes.

This somewhat obscure inherent mod raised the question: What essentially does it do? Nothing? Penalizes accuracy? Penalizes damage? Technically this inherent mod penalizes accuracy, and was for example supposed to balance Plasma Cannon, a very powerful weapon but only at a short range. That didn’t work as intended though. Perhaps the 2x penalty has more sense affecting the dissipation instead. Therefore, 1.50 allows the choice between both ways, or a combination:

Setting planet_non_enveloping = 1 disables the enveloping weapon mod against a planet (except Stellar Converter).

Several inherent mods now also work for missiles/torpedoes:

The bonus of the Extra Structural Damage flag (Graviton Beam) can be set in config. Extra Structural Damage subtracts the ESD value from a ship’s structure (not a damage dealt technically, similar to Spatial), while the regular damage part is just a usual damage, like from most other weapons.

The zeroth weapon flag has been made usable. It was intended as an anti-shield weapon flag but ended up unfinished and unused by the developers. No weapon in classic has this flag enabled, so this is strictly a modding matter. In 1.50, a weapon with this flag set will not damage planets and ships armor or structure, but will damage missiles, fighters and ship shields. This flag can be used not only for beam, but also for missile weapons. E.g. it is possible to create powerful anti-shield-only torpedoes that are otherwise non-harming. As an exception, a weapon with this mod and the shield piercing mod will ignore hard shields. This combination will not damage ships at all, thus serving as a strictly anti-missile weapon. A beam weapon with this flag enabled is never installed on fighters.

Repair rates for Armor and Structure can be adjusted using the repair_rate table. The repair rate for Internal Systems is a percentage of that rate set by systems_repair_percent (50% by default).

When Battle Pods are fitted on an otherwise empty ship, that ship gets a bonus to its combat speed. That bonus is gradually lost with fitting more stuff on the ship and the minimum combat speeds of ships with and without Battle Pods are equal. If the parameter battle_pods_speed_bonus is set at 0, ships will not get this speed bonus. In addition, minimum_combat_speed sets the minimum combat speed of a ship, excluding Augmented Engines, controlling the maximum overload speed decrease possible when battle_pods_speed_bonus = 0. 'Overload' being a speed decrease from the extra stuff that can be fitted in the Battle Pods space. By default it’s set at 255, not allowing combat speed to decrease due to overloading the ship. If another value is chosen, it determines the minimum combat speed that a ship cannot go below due to overload. For example: if set as 5, it will prevent an overloaded Nuclear Drive frigate with a base minimum speed of 10 to become slower than 5, while a Nuclear Drive doomstar with a base minimum speed of 3 cannot become slower than 3.

By setting a value >0 for stealth_field_beam_defense, Stealth Field will act as a Cloaking Device in combat, with the set value adding to a ships beam defense while cloaked and missile miss chance equal to that of the Cloaking Device (default = 50).

Optionally with cloaking_device_missile_defense = 1, a Cloaking Device adds to the missile evasion bonus instead of using 'miss chance' mechanics. If enabled, the missile evasion of an ECM Jammer
Cloaking Device equipped ship becomes 120, which means that non ECCM missiles will always miss instead of having a 15% chance to hit (0.5*(1-0.7)), while ECCM missiles get a slightly better chance to hit of 40% versus 32.5% (0.5*(1-0.7/2)).

Setting the timeout counter to 0 now has a different effect — equipped ships will start a battle in regular cloaking state instead of one turn in phasing cloak state.

Set recloak_next_turn to 1 to make all ships recloak at the start of the next turn, removing the need for ships to wait a full turn without firing to recloak. For phasing cloak there is a separate parameter rephase_cloak_next_turn with the same functionality. Different Cloaks Compatible on One Ship Under classic rules a ship can have only one device enabling combat cloaking (Cloaking Device or Phasing Cloak). Now it’s possible to have both of them on one ship. Normally Phasing Cloak will apply its bonus, but if it’s destroyed Cloaking Device will apply its bonus instead. Note that this does not override specials' exclusions and by default you still cannot install both devices on one ship. To do that you’d need to mod exclusions via exclude1, …​ , exclude6 columns of the special table.

The remaining damage percent after applying damper field damage reduction is set with damper_field_ratio, that is 25% by default. Damper Field also distorts a transporter beam attempting to move troops onto the equipped ship, killing a portion of troops instantly. The ratio 'total troops / survivors' can be set with damper_kill_ratio. Default value is 3 (meaning 1/3 of troops survive transportation) and valid values are 0-127. Setting this parameter to 0 will result in Damper Field preventing use of transporters for boarding.

The High Energy Focus (HEF) description states that it increases beam weapon damage by 50%. But when the game calculates those 50% it uses damage of the normal mount and then adds it to the damage of the actual mount. Thus a PD weapon becomes twice as powerful and heavy weapons become only 1.33 times more powerful. This can be 85considered a bug. HEF and regular mount bonuses can be adjusted in config using the mount_dmg table. Note that HEF has no effect on a Stellar Converter.

Classic Lightning Field roll is buggy, which leads to 1/3 instead of 1/2 missiles / fighters being destroyed on average. The distribution is also asymmetric and yields different results depending on the size of the missile stack. E.g. 8 missiles fired one by one and 8 missiles fired in one group have significantly different survival rates (50% in a stack will surely survive). This can be exploited in Guardian rush games which is why we deem it to be a classic feature. Setting lightning_field_mode = uniform results in a binomial distribution for the amount of missiles destroyed. This means that on average 1/2 of all incoming missiles / fighters will be destroyed. The default setting of 50% destroy chance can be configured via the lightning_field_ratio parameter.

The space bonus for Megafluxers can now be tuned with megafluxers_tactical_bonus, which gives +25% space to a ship by default. This technology works differently in strategic mode, where it adds +50% to the number of beams on a ship. The result is rounded down, causing the 1 beam Frigate to get no extra beam. This bonus can be altered with megafluxers_strategic_bonus.

By setting lab_and_lore_against_antarans = 1, Scout Lab (and the Galactic Lore skill) will also provide its combat bonus when fighting against Antarans. The research bonus for the lab depends on the size class of the ship and can be configured via scout_lab_research_bonus table. Lastly, scout_lab was added to the table scan_bonus, allowing an overmap scan bonus to be set.

misc_costs spy+ Sets spy cost.

spy_govt_bonus+ spy_tech_bonus+ Spy bonuses for Governments and Technologies.

spy_roll_success_threshold+ Table containing thresholds for values for successful spy rolls of stealing and sabotage and if another race was framed.

steal_mode+ In addition you can specify what spies can steal. Normally, an exception is set for spies so they will not be able to steal any tech of the technology field that is currently being researched. 1.50 provides alternatives via steal_mode:

spies_can_frame_anyone+

By default, another race can only be framed for espionage if it is not in possession of the stolen tech. Unknown why this rule was introduced, but it does allow you to check via race reports (with exceptions) if the named race was indeed the one that has stolen your technology. Enabling this parameter overrides this requirement.

The Tech Tree can be modded both by moving technologies to different fields in the tech tree, as well as by changing the techfields themselves. A little care is appropriate when modding this area of the game to prevent crashes and other weird behavior. Notes on assigning technologies to different techfields:

Notes on techfield modding:

Move Field 46 from the 'Power' branch to 'Fields' and rename it to 'testername'.

becomes: Requires the following lines: tech_field anti_matter_fission next_field_id tech_field high_energy_distribution prev_field_id tech_field magneto_gravitics next_field_id tech_field matter_energy_conversion prev_field_id tech_field electromagnetic_refraction prev_field_id tech_field_name matter_energy_conversion = = = = = = 37; 13; 46; 45 27 1150 8; 46; "testername";

The maximum and minimum picks that can be used to create a custom race can be set, as well as the number of picks available for Evolutionary Mutation:

The valuation for all traits and special abilities can be adjusted. For the first 9 traits growth - spying, the actual bonus value can be changed as well. Note that the Food and BC bonus values are doubled: -1, 2, 4 translate in game to -1/2, +1 and +2 bonus per farmer. Thus Food +1 for 4 picks is written as:

Or can be compressed to:

All other values are more straightforward to set, for instance to change negative growth -50% for -4 picks to a positive +25% for 2 picks:

A few more tweaks are exposed in Config:

Under classic rules, a Ship Offense bonus applies to both ships and orbital platforms and planetary installations. The more expensive Ship Defense bonus on the other hand, does not apply to satellites. Too bad for the Alkari. The SD bonus can be made to apply to satellites and planets too by setting:

Similarly the Warlord bonus can be made to apply to satellites and ground installation too with the parameter satellite_warlord_bonus.

Government bonuses can be precisely manipulated now:

Where value * 5 is the percent bonus for the item, for example democracy has a 10 * 5 = 50% bonus to research. Feudal and confederation reductions are set as ratios.

Additionally, the base morale penalty can be set per government, as well as the morale penalties for not having a Capitol and the morale bonuses for the presence of Barracks.

federation_no_mixed_races_penalty

If enabled, the Federation government will not be penalized for having mixed races in a colony and Alien Control Center will not appear in building list if all races are assimilated.

spy_govt_bonus

Table that allows to set a bonus or penalty for all government types.

repair_rate cyber = 10;

For a 10% repair rate. Repair rate of internal systems is normally half of this value, but can be adjusted via systems_repair_percent.

spy_telepathic_bonus = 5;

Allows to change the spy bonus for Telepaths. mind_control_ship_class = cruiser;

Sets the minimum ship class of a Telepathic race that can Mind Control a colony. The default is Cruiser class. Size classes are frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battleship, titan, doomstar.

event_roll lucky_player = 1000;

As described in Random Events, a lower value increases the chance for Lucky events.

td_ftl_bonus = 2;

Ship drive speed bonus on the main galaxy map for Trans-Dimensional races.

td_combat_speed_bonus = 4;

Combat speed bonus for ships and fighters of Trans-Dimensional races (also affects combat AI calculations). Does not apply to missiles and torpedoes.

warlord_command_bonus = 2;

By default, each colony owned by a Warlord race adds +2 to the Command Rating.

Below table summarizes standard AI bonuses per difficulty level:

Growth Percent Food Prod Res BC Command Deficit BC Spy Bonus Troops & Marines Antaran Marines Tutor 0 -1/4 -1/2 -1/2 0 12 -2 -2 -4 Easy +1 0 0 0 0 11 -1 -1 -2 Avg +2 1/4 1/2 1/2 1/4 10 0 0 0 Hard +3 1/2 1 1 2/4 9 1 1 2 Imp +4 1 2 2 3/4 8 2 2 4

Note that difficulty level also influences other aspects of the game, like the way AI conducts diplomacy and spying, AI’s eagerness to attack, random events, Antaran likelihood of picking a human player as victim (/10, /5, 0, *1.5, *3), etc. The bonuses for food/production/research or "productivity" and the cash bonus the AI receives per difficulty level can now be set with two tables in config. The first table tweaks AI productivity bonuses. The set value divided by 20 is the bonus per population unit.

A second table governs income from taxation. Set value divided by 4 is the cash bonus per population unit, so it follows that AI receives +3/4 BC/pop on impossible difficulty level:

Stock Races can be adjusted in config. An example:

The values that follow spy0, are ordered in the same way as the Special Abilities in the Race Customization Screen, e.g. low-G, high-G, aquatic, subterranean, etc.

These Alkari are a Dictatorship, have Ship Defense +50 (sd3), a Poor Homeworld (position 6 = -1) and are Cybernetic (position 8 = 1). Changing sd3 to sd1 gives the Alkari the SD-20 penalty and to sd2 the SD+25 bonus.

When playing on Hard and Impossible difficulty levels, each opponent has three variants that the game will choose from. The tables in the code however contain 5 variants (check the addendum for details) and variants 4 and 5 are now available to play against, either as separate set including them only, or together with regular 3 variants by setting ai_races_variants:

1-3 - variants available in classic game (default), 4-5 - only previously unused variants, 1-5 - all variants.

Note: use values literally, e.g.: ai_races_variants = 4-5;

Coding Table 0 0 Feud 0 2 Dict 0 4 Demo 0 6 Uni 1 1 1 1 0 1 2 3 Pop +0 Pop -50 Pop +50 Pop +100 2 2 2 2 0 1 2 3 F+0 F-1/2 F+1 F+2 3 X Prod 4 X Res 5 X Tax 6 7 8 9 X X X X SD SA GC Spy 9310 1 lowg_world 11 1 highg_world 12 1 aquatic 13 1 subterranean 14 1 large_hw 15 -1 hw_richness 15 1 hw_richness 16 1 arti_world 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 cybernetic 25 lithovore 26 repulsive 27 charismatic 28 uncreative 29 creative 30 tolerant fantastic_traders 1 1 1 1 1 1 telepathic lucky omniscient stealthy_ships trans-dimensional warlord Let’s examine the first row of the Alkari Hard variant 1: ai_race_variant_table Alkari Hard v1 = 2 7 2 8 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 7 3 8 3; Two extra traits, SA +20 (7 2) and GC +10 (8 2) are added to the base race design. For Evolutionary Mutation it will get 2 extra traits, upgrading here to SA +50 (7 3) and GC +20 (8 3). If you write (intended or not): ai_race_variant_table Alkari Hard v1 = 3 7 2 8 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 7 3 8 3; Then 3 traits are taken into account and the race becomes Feudal (0 0).

An option for diplomacy alternate_diplomacy, when enabled attempts to use correct patience counters. Previously, attempts on alliance, trade/research treaty etc, all were controlled by a single counter. But there are several separate counters for this in the code, and other counters were never checked. Since there is no telling if it is a bug or a feature, it is made optional and not enabled by default.

All non-player ships can be modded in some way;

There are 8 different templates (ship design tables I-VIII) that Auto-Design can build ships from. Every table contains a row per ship class and 12 columns for categories of weapons:

Table I: ai_ship_design standard_beam_missile_x2 frigate = -1 -1 -1 15 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 destroyer = 10 0 -1 5 -1 -1 -1 -1 45 cruiser = 15 0 -1 0 -1 -1 -1 10 30 battleship = 15 0 -1 5 -1 -1 -1 15 25 titan = 15 0 -1 10 -1 -1 -1 15 25 doomstar = 15 0 -1 15 -1 -1 -1 15 20 85 30 30 25 20 20 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 0; 10; 15; 15; 15; 15; Columns are: 1. Theme Special 2. Beam Special 3. Missile Special 4. Defense Special 5. Special Weapon 6. Special Device 7. Fighters 8. Missile x2 (I), Missile x5 (III), Missile x10 (IV) or Torpedo 9. Heavy Beams 10. Beams 11. Point Defense Beams 12. Bombs

Auto Design will equip ships in order from left to right from this table, equipping the ship with specials that are available and it has space allocated for. Fields with -1 are ignored, even if overwritten. Values are a percentage of the ship’s space. In the classic tables values add up to 100 per row. Should you assign higher values to the columns, in such a way that the sum > 100, then auto-design ships will use more space than they legally should have (cheat ships).

Theme Specials: a. Bio Weapons — teleporter, augs, death spores, etc b. Capture — transporters, shuttles, tractors, troop pods, etc c. Cloaking — cloaking device, stealth field, phasing cloak d. Beam Defense — inertial stabilizer/nullifier, augs e. Missile Defense — jammers, pulsar, a-m rockets, etc f. Armor — heavy armor, reinforced hull, automated repair g. Shield — hard shields, multi-phased shields, capacitors

Specials are picked at the beginning of each game, based on one of seven racially assigned themes. The Bio Weapons tables for example has 5 entries:

These numbers are either weapons or specials (denoted by the second number, 0 is special, 1 is weapon). They are weighted from top to bottom and Auto-Design picks them based on the ship design tables, hull space allocation and available tech.

monsters_stay_chance determines the chance for wandering space monsters to stay after battle. The value sets the range of a random roll, which causes a space monster to leave if it rolls 1 twice. Thus, at the default value 2, a monster has 1/2^2=1/4 chance to stay. At 3, that chance is 2/3^2=4/9, etc. This setting has no effect on the Toxic Amoeba that always leaves the galaxy after winning a battle.

If monsters_stay is set at 1, wandering monsters will not leave the galaxy if they have won a fight, but stay until destroyed no matter what is set in monsters_stay_chance. The Toxic Amoeba is also ensured to stay with this setting. This is considered a test option and it will cause false GNN reports.

If amoeba_regeneration is set at 1, Toxic Amoebae will regenerate 20% each combat round. Value can be tweaked with repair_rate regen.

If crystal_keep is set at 1, a Crystal that has captured enemy ships and is victorious in combat, will keep those ships as part of its own fleet.

The frequency of events can be altered by changing the value of event_roll all_events = 512 where a lower number will cause an increased frequency. Similarly, the occurrence of good things for Lucky players can be manipulated by adjusting event_roll lucky_player = 1000. In addition, with parameter between_events_delay the minimum turn delay between events can be set (default = 5).

By default events can not happen before turn 50, as set by event_delay all_events = 50. Each individual event delay can also be set:

The generic delay and specific delays are not cumulative.

The duration of the three events Hyperspace Flux, Warp Beast and Time-Space Anomaly can be tweaked with minimum duration and chance to stop values. Classic settings are:

event_duration event_duration event_duration event_duration event_duration event_duration anomaly_min beast_min flux_min anomaly_chance beast_chance flux_chance = 4; = 4; = 4; = 20; = 20; = 20;

Note that the delay value (4) is added to a base 2 delay, for 6 turns effectively.

The parameter ai_surrender_delay specifies after which turn AIs can surrender their empire. Default value is 150.

The parameter leaders_no_limit enables more than 4 leaders to be in service or in the pool, both for colony leaders and ship officers. Scroll the lists with the new arrow buttons or with "[" and "]" hotkeys.

Optionally, leaders in the service of a Warlord can now function at +1 skill level higher, in the same way as ship crews do, by setting leader_warlord_bonus. Otherwise Warlord will only enable the possibility for a leader to reach skill level 6.

A custom HERODATA.LBX can be created with the MoO2 Workshop (separate download) and loaded via Config, for example the following loads custom leaders from ICE mod:

If the order of leaders in the list was changed, take note to change accordingly in config the leader id’s of the three special leaders. They must match those set in herodata.lbx:

The first one sets the leader id that brings advanced government (default is 47, Tanus). The other two set the id’s for the leaders with the random skills set.

With the table skill_cost the cost of all leader skills can be set. The value set is 1/10 of the actual base skill cost. Example:

sets the cost of the assassin skill to 20 BC for a Level 1 leader. Skill cost increases for each level. The assassin skill is 40 BC for a L2 leader, 60 BC for a L3 leader, etc.

The commando skill cost is set separately because it differs for colony and ship leaders. The default base level cost is 10 BC for colony leaders and 30 BC for ship officers.

The presence of Megawealth in a leader’s skill set doubles the cost of all skills of that leader. This can be disabled with:

Note also that leaders who bring technology do not share it for free! Base technology cost depends on its research points value:

The experience points required for a leader to gain the next skill level can be set:

Level 6 can only be reached by leaders in the service of Warlords. Colony leaders gain 1 experience point per turn, while Ship Officers (and ships) gain additional experience in combat equal to the halved sum of size classes of destroyed enemy ships (where FF-DS = 1-6), rounded down and minimum 1 XP. Note that an instructor does not give XP to leaders, only to ships.

The formula for the chance to get a new offer of a (randomly chosen) leader is:

Roll(0-99) < (turns since last offer + hire_chance_charismatic_bonus - hire_chance_repulsive_penalty + sum of all famous leaders' skill levels) / (1 + number of leaders in pool both hired or for hire)

No leaders will offer to join in the first 5 turns of a game. This delay can be set with hire_chance_delay. Note the importance of dismissing a leader you do not wish to hire, as it improves your chance to get a new offer the next turn(s). Charismatic and Repulsive values can be set and by default they are:

The pool size of leader available for hire is governed by the following formula:

Thus, a new leader becomes available every 5 turns, unless you are Repulsive then only once every 10 turns. This explains why it takes such a long time for Repulsive races to get any good leaders, as the halving part has a significant impact on the available leaders at game start. Leader available at the start of a game with 8 players: