Nebula Galaxy
Nebula Version (Last Update – Dec 19, 2023)
This mod is incompatible with the UCP mod (and most other mods).
Welcome to the Nebula Galaxy Mod. This mod is fairly huge and main goal was to be able to run huge tactical battles. This also means it is not suitable for multi-player. It was the result of several attempts. I discovered that the tactical game engine would freeze up and start acting crazy once you hit the neighborhood of a hundred ships. I finally realized the problem was the point defense options. This involves a huge number of calculations once there are a lot of missiles on the screen. Each ship has to check all the missiles to find which ones it can shoot.
With that in mind, I removed all point defense options. The result is smooth running battles now. While before you couldn’t even run at 0.25 speed, now you can easily run at triple speed.
Here is a partial list of changes in this mod:
* No more point defense options
* Maps are all the same size now. Weapons and missile ranges adjusted to compensate.
* Significantly tougher bases and outposts.
* Additional defense options to add to planetary defenses.
* Completes Tech overhaul, there are four basic areas now: Government, Physics, Life, Engineering
* Engine Enhancements include Augmented Engines, Inertial Stabilizer, and Inertial Nullifier
* Augmented Engines have missile avoidance and avoidance (energy weapons) of 10 now. The boost lasts longer and the cool down is shorter.
* There are some new defenses to missiles now with ECM boosts.
* Inertial stabilizer has missile avoidance of 20 and avoidance of 30.
* Inertial nullifier has missile avoidance of 30 and avoidance of 60.
* ECM devices provides 20/40/60 points of ECM, so total ECM can add up to 90 points. ECM also provides a small amount of energy weapon avoidance (5/10/15)
* Accuracy of the Missiles goes up slightly with the tech, 5% each missile improvement, so Zeon Missiles have a 115% chance to hit.
* Armor has been enhanced slightly and renamed, neutronium is back near the top again like the original MOO, added Quantum Armor
* Shields rebalanced. Quantum shields are still only -25 on damage, but can absorb much more damage
* Adjustment of weapons. I was trying to make a set of weapons mainly for close dogfighting and far away beam weapons. There was some crossover in my results and am not sure how well I succeeded at this.
* Combined a couple of structures to reduce micromanagement. I was always more interested in the battles in MOO.
* Civic Center provides both money and morale. Government center and revenue service removed. Reduces micro-management.
* Marine Barracks do not provide morale anymore. I agree with Spud_Dastardly (author of 5X mod) reasoning on this. Makes base morale more important.
* Soil Enrichment has been enhanced, subterranean farms have been removed.
* Automated Factory added +1 per tile, Neutron Collider removed.
* Volcanic Forge enabled, volcano/inferno biome only, +2 per tile
* Additional Quantum technologies – think of them as "future technologies" for the end game.
* Quantum Energy Harvester, adds +100 production, volcano/inferno biome only. This makes volcano planets very valuable in the endgame.
* Quantum Technologies at the end of the tech tree unlock quantum applications that you can research.
* Slight increase of Geosynchronous wharf to -25% cost (from -20% cost) for buyouts. Mainly because I found it worthless before.
* All torpedoes had a major speed increase, slight decrease in damage. They still miss smaller ships, especially with engine enhancements
* Antarans attack a lot less and give much more warning. Much bigger attack. Their home base is a lot tougher now.
* Most of the monsters and Orion pirates are a lot tougher now.
* Miniaturizations are 25% per level now, max 3 levels for any particular tech though. So you get -75% size and cost.
* Galactic Command Center is an unique upgrade for your Star Fortress. Much tougher, +100 command, 25 sensor range.
* I removed Battle Pods. I thought they were stupid. There is no reason not to use them. They just create meaningless micro-management. Instead I increase the space by about 25% on Battleships, Titans, and the Doom Star.
* Instead of Battle Pods for smaller ships, you now get a unique ship called the **Flagship**, it is a a cruiser with about 50% more space and triple hull strength. Requires only 1 command point. It provides balance to the tougher defenses.
*** I added four new types of maps: One adjustable in size, the others are fixed size.
* Maze map has most stars connected by only two warp points, making it very maze like.
* Fracture has a lot of very long warp points resulting in some bizarre looking maps.
* Maelstrom is basically 3 clusters. The middle cluster is connected by a single star to the other clusters. The outside clusters are only connected via a wormhole. Orion is always in the middle cluster. This map will occasionally hang.
*Pandemonian is centered around Orion. Orion is connected to four, otherwise isolated areas. Designed for 8 players. You will fight only one other opponent for control of your area, then need to take and hold Orion to fight other opponents.
* I stole a lot of stuff from Spud_Dastardly. I also learned a lot from studying his mod. Without the examples in his mod, my mod wouldn’t exist. Especially the **Flagship**, I learned by seeing how he did his bomber frigate. It still took me almost a week to figure out the last bug.
* The anomaly code is a direct copy from Spud_Dastardly.
Known Issues:
* Some techs are repeated in the tree. There is a bug where if you remove all alternative choices, the original code doesn’t get overwritten. You have to leave 3 things behind on these research nodes as in [Techapp_1(Techapp_2|Techapp_3)]. Also I felt a few things were essential in the Life area, so repeating them allowed the uncreative races to eventually get them later.
* The computer is terrible about evaluating battle chances now. Not surprising.
* ECM & ECCM are not calculated properly. In fact, from a few tests that I have made, I don’t even think they are used. Rather than wasting my time fixing this, just don’t use them. I am going to work on a new UCP compatible mod instead. So don’t waste resources adding them to ships.
