For those that prefers a more civilized way of late-game colony management.
Better Colonies is a mod for those who enjoy a better lightweight colony experience. Simple as. There are also new setting.json that the more experienced player can start editing in the folder. Is this save-game compatible? Yes! Just remove and rebuild tech-mining as needed.
- Age of Innovation event will appear occasionally where AI Colonies will randomly improve their industries with story points over time with their odds varying on size, number of story-improved industries, and whether they are a decentralized faction (like Luddic Pather, Pirates, and Independents).
- Modders: This is not a blanket feature. You may view dataconfigBetterColonyConfig to see how to get your faction whitelisted (involves adding your faction id and custom industry id if applicable).
- innovateBC [optionalChance], if
Console Commands will simualte an event. Put in 1 to guarantee a chance.
- Tech-Mining now hosts a tooltip indicating the EXACT amount of ruins there are left and for next month. This effect can be superseded by other mods.
- Visiting the bars of your habitable planets will invite a Luddic missionary asking you to pledge a shrine dedicated to Ludd on your world.
- Jangala, Mazalot, Tartessus, Hesperus, Gilead, Chalcedon, Epiphany all contain this holy shrine.
- To improve relations, a Luddic contact may be available to develop and do missions.
- Nexerelin-optional feature: A Luddic Church revolt will take place when the shrine is threatened.
- Visiting the bars of planets containing cryorevivals will allow you to recruit a sleeper officer (guaranteed 3-4 elite skills) every 180(or 730 if hired as a merc) days with their levels scaling on your colony size.
- You may expend a story point to upgrade a freelancing admin to have Industry Planning provided you have it yourself as well.
- altMouseMoveToMassTransfer is enabled by default. Allowing you to hold alt and hover your mouse to quickly move items across storages.
- BCChangeIndustrySize is enabled by default, allowing the industry cap of population 9 and 10 to be increased by +1 leading to a total of 5 (You would still need to modify maxColonySize.)
- BCCryosanctum is disabled by default, but enabling it to be true in the setting.json will let you construct Cryosanctums.
- AddAdminBC [optionalTier] [optionalFaction] [optionalName], if
Console Commands is enabled, lets you add admins.
SpaceMonster – Created a code in the public domain to manipulate max industries.
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Wyvern – Created a code to replace industries during mid-saves.
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isaacssv552 – Helped with Tech-Mining stuff.
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Overlord – Helped with AddAdmin Console Command.
LazyLib.
- Tech-Mining now hosts a tooltip indicating the EXACT amount of ruins there are left and for next month.
- Cryorevival Facility will now produce organs when the market is a Free Port and has a certain population size above 4.
- Max Industry Cap at Population 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10 increased from 1/1/1/2/3/4/4/4/4/4 to 1/1/1/2/3/4/4/4/5/5.
- +1 Max Industry at Population 9+
Tier Zero (5000) [25%->20%]: Administrator has no skills.Tier One (10000) [75%->65%]: Administrator has one skill.Tier Two (25000) [5%->10%]: Administrator has two skills.Tier Three (50000) [0%->5%]: Administrator has three skills. Equivalent to an Alpha Core type of skills...Added a console command: AddAdminBC that lets you add administrators of the tier system that Better Colonies use.
No longer work as of 0.95a, complain to Alex for this feature return by asking him to incorporate event.json's OfficerManager script again.
Do not bother using this in a current save.
FOR ADVANCED USERS: There are some custom stations made by faction mods that do not incorporate Better Colonies station code. This is easily fixed by redirecting the plugin in those industries.csv “com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStation” to “com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.OrbitalStationGD”.
- Max Industry Cap at Population 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10 increased from 1/1/1/2/3/3/4/4/4/4 to 1/1/1/2/3/3/4/4/5/5.
- +1 Max Industry at Population 9+
- Commerce may even produce income… if the planetary conditions are mild.
- Orbital Stations are now commandeered by an officer up to a max level of 8 (from 0).
- An officer at this level may have up to 3 maxed skills.
- Battle Stations are now commandeered by an officer ranging from 8 up to a max level of 17 (from 6).
- An officer at this level may have up to 6 maxed skills.
- Star Fortresses are now commandeered by an officer ranging from 17 up to a max level of 26 (from 12).
- An officer at this level will have up to 9 maxed skills.
- Levels of Mercenary Officers are now determined by the market’s size. The higher the market size, the higher the possible max officer level and so on for lower.
- A Station commandeered by an Alpha Core will be level 29 given Gunnery Implants as a guaranteed skill. (Alpha Core would be level 20 in vanilla, this value is now able to be changed in the mod folder’s setting.json whereas vanilla is hardcoded.)
- Cryorevival Facility will now produce organs when the market is a Free Port and has a certain population size above 4.
- Tech-Mining now hosts a tooltip indicating the EXACT amount of ruins there are left.
- Tech-Mining's Decay is now a random variable, with no longer a constant of losing 5% each month.
- Alpha Core now modifies Tech-Mining's Yield and Decay Rate by +15%.
Tier 0,1,2 Administrators System are reworked into 6 different types of Administrators you can possibly hire. Their hire cost are much lower than vanilla, but their maintenance will be 2.5x their hiring cost. The spawning rate of the Tier 0,1,2 was also 50%,45%,5% which made it incredibly difficult to find more talented administrators which the new tier system addresses. You can now change their spawn rate in settings.json.
- Tier Zero (1000) [25%]: Administrator has no skills.
- Tier One (2000) [20%]: Administrator has one level in a colony skill.
- Tier Two (4000) [20%]: Administrator has one level in 3 colony skills.
- Tier Three (6000) [20%]: Administrator has three levels in 1 colony skill.
- Tier Four (8000) [10%]: Administrator has three levels in 2 colony skills.
- Tier Five (10000) [5%]: Administrator has three levels in 2 colony skills and 1 level in 1 colony skill.
- Added a console command: AddAdminBC that lets you add administrators of the tier system that Better Colonies use.
Shame this mod isn't out yet! I love the idea of all these changes
Agreed!
In the Persean Sector, there is only a grim dark fate that awaits for the Starfarer.
Clickbait, kinda had my hopes up looking at the Title, not to dissuade you but most of the changes make the game easier and 'Grimdark' is not a word one usually associates with 'easy'.
As for the Industry value changes and Tech mining requiring no industry slot, ergo removing tags 'Industry', 'Industrial' and replacing them with 'Structure' in Industries.csv ... would love to see that override done in a mod, haven't seen it so far.
As for Inspiration for adding 'hardship', a word often associated with 'Grimdark' one can look up Ruthless Sector by Sundog.
In the Persean Sector, there is only a grim dark fate that awaits for the Starfarer.Clickbait, kinda had my hopes up looking at the Title, not to dissuade you but most of the changes make the game easier and 'Grimdark' is not a word one usually associates with 'easy'.
As for the Industry value changes and Tech mining requiring no industry slot, ergo removing tags 'Industry', 'Industrial' and replacing them with 'Structure' in Industries.csv ... would love to see that override done in a mod, haven't seen it so far.
As for Inspiration for adding 'hardship', a word often associated with 'Grimdark' one can look up Ruthless Sector by Sundog.
It used to be much harsher but the changes are still in testing.
It used to be much harsher but the changes are still in testing.
Cool beans, in regards to the changes to industries.csv, i doubt that most people would have a problem with just manually overwriting it with the modified one.
- Users can now put in 999 max industries or w/e at their vanilla setting.json. The script for this mod no longer hardcaps the industry for pop 9 and 10 to 5.
- Adjusted a few coding to make sure there are less problematic bugs when you merge it in a save-game.
- Admin Maintenance Bonus reduced from 3.0x their hiring cost to 2.5x their hiring cost.
Question: When you say a station may be have an officer in command, does that mean the station itself spawn an officer for itself or does the player have to manually transfer one of their fleet officers to the station?
Ah the wording seems weird. All stations have an officer approximate to that level now (whereas level one never had an officer)
- Orbital Stations are now commandeered by an officer up to a max level of 8 (from 0).
- An officer at this level may have 3 maxed skills.
- Battle Stations are now commandeered by an officer up to a max level of 17 (from 6).
- An officer at this level may have 6 maxed skills.
- Star Fortresses are now commandeered by an officer up to a max level of 26 (from 12).
- An officer at this level will have 9 maxed skills.
- A Station commandeered by an Alpha Core will be level 29 given Gunnery Implants as a guaranteed skill. (Alpha Core would be level 20 in vanilla, this value is now able to be changed in the mod folder's setting.json whereas vanilla is hardcoded.)
Question: When are station officers below their max level? I'm not sure I've encountered a level 1 station whose officer's level was below 8.
If star forts' officers are consistently at 26 it feels like putting an alpha core on them is pretty useless (only gains 3 levels).
Can this mod work in conjuction with Nexerelin? It would be amazing!
I've been running both in my current game, works fine so far (I didn't go looking for bugs or anything though).
Question: When are station officers below their max level? I'm not sure I've encountered a level 1 station whose officer's level was below 8.
If star forts' officers are consistently at 26 it feels like putting an alpha core on them is pretty useless (only gains 3 levels).
I've been running both in my current game, works fine so far (I didn't go looking for bugs or anything though).
You bring up a good point, I will write new code for OrbitalStation.java to generate a level of 1-8 for orbital station, 9-17 for battle station and 18-26 for star fortress. This will make the Alpha Core worth to be put on them since it guarantees a higher level.