Rate Dvoongar's Doctrines & snag DD 0.93

Dvoongar

*** Edit: as of Feb 1, 2008 DD 0.93 isn't available. That's because it's been replaced by DD 0.94! ***

You don't have to vote, especially if you haven't tried the doctrines yet.

For those who never heard of 'em, I you can read the history of the project here:
http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopict-2565.html

The short story is that this is a replacement for the stock "strategies" file.

The latest doctrines have been updated to 1.58 spec, and a few bonus items are included.

1.) A couple of ship names files for more variety.
2.) An upgraded TF Formations file.

For now, I should explain the formations. There are 3 versions of each formation: tight, normal, and loose. "Loose" = stock, so all the stock formations are still available. "Normal" has half the spacing of "Loose, and "Tight" is at 1/4.

The shorter the range of your weapons and PD's, the tighter you'll want your formations. Several new formations have been added also.

Installation instructions for all files are in the read-me.

Dvoongar · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:51 am Post subject: 0.94 ready

This poll hasn't turned out so well. I was hoping to get some evidence that the doctrines are popular & worth consideration for inclusion in mods. Didn't happen.

But that's not the whole story. Devnullicus up and decided to include them in his mod. So the story has a happy ending after all.

Now here's the DD 0.94 changelog:
1. Fixed: A couple of strats had "Defense Base (Medium Range)" listed twice and didn't have a "Defense Base (Short Range)".
2. Max Range strat changed vs. sats from Long Range/100% to Ram/90%. This is because most seekers won't target sats, and PD weapons don't get the job done.
3. New strat added. After reading a discussion, I decided to attempt a strat for slow well-armoured transport types. "Non-victim Non-shooter" will attempt to ram targets which are generally vulnerable to ramming by a slow ship. If none of these types are present, it will attempt to flee. It's still experimental, and may get quirky due to the unarmed nature of the ship. Use at your own risk. Unarmed boarding ships might possibly work with this also, but I can't say for sure how much merit the idea has.
4. Tweaked retreat settings. Actually "overhauled" would be a better term. I'm confident in the improvements, but I think further work may be required. There can be no perfect settings. The main idea was for LR and PB strat ships to serve as rearguards & have other ships get on out if an overwhelming force is engaged.
5. Optimum Range no longer invades planets. If you are playing stock, you'll need to change this setting to "TRUE" if you want the AI to invade planets. Same applies to any mod which uses Optimum Range as a universal strat for ALL designs.
6. Altered some engagement ranges vs. mines.
7. New strat added: Interceptor strat for fighters. Intends to fucus on drones and fighters first.

#5 is very important. It's repeated in the read-me, and I hope I have explained it in terms that will be easily understood. Stock uses "Optimum Range" as a universal strat for AI designs. Some mods don't alter this. For games in which the other strats aren't used, I highly recommend changing the setting. It will help the AI a good deal if their troop ships are set to invade planets. (Note that they may still invade on rare occasions even if it's false.) Everyone else should leave this setting as "FALSE" as it seems to cause unacceptably stupid behavior when attack ships attack planets.

As always, discussion is welcome. And I thank those who voted in the poll.