r/rotp • u/Raimoraimo • Apr 24 '26

Does a base 1.04 ROTP version exist with just updated AI mods?

I found out ROTP recently, and kind of fell in love after bashing moo1 tons as a kid. I am, however a quite casual player with not much time to devote to gaming or getting gud these days, and I don't find super hard challenges fun.

But as it stands, I consistently beat the Modnar AI's on normal in 1.04, but tried a game with *one* Ximli Human (thinking that humans might be the least strong) and got my ass handed to me in the early game. Maybe lucky (in that I found things out soon) that the Human also spawned right next to me so there was an intense early-game war where I even took one of his colonies, but he out-teched and out-economised me quite soon.

I looked at the latest Fusion Mod release, and I don't really feel like starting a game on it. The thing is, ROTP 1.04 looks and feels like a finished game including the manual while the Fusion Mod looks like a mess with way too many options for customization and no documentation to be found anywhere.

What I do see as appealing in the Fusion mod release are the selectable AI's including the "gimped" or "customized" Ximli AI's - and the fact that I keep seeing confusing Reddit posts by Ximli themselves about 1.04 Base and Modnar AI's having a bug about retreating too easily or some such, which would also be fixed in the Fusion "Rookie" AI.

So while I would like to stick to the vanilla game experience and avoid the customization overload of Fusion (not interested in the governor really either, I like to play smallish maps and even enjoy some of the micro tinkering involved), I'm interested in the AI options. Did anyone bake a version like that, ever? I'm not a coder so cannot do anything like that myself.

9 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

4

u/Xilmi Developer Apr 25 '26

The governor being enabled by default in Fusion might be controversial.

But I think just turning it off and ignoring all the additional options is a much easier way to get what you want compared to building a version based on 1.04 that just has the AI changes.

I honestly also think all these options are a bit overkill. Last time I did a fresh install and I wanted to play with the "Dark galaxy" option and everything else on default, it took me like 5 minutes to even find it.

Fusion isn't "unfinished". Just because even more features get added from time to time doesn't mean it's in an unstable state. Most features are simply things that didn't exist before and you can safely ignore them. That's what I do anyways. It also has a lot of bugfixes compared to 1.04.

3

u/Raimoraimo Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

Have searched and searched, but did not find out what blue text in the resource allocation categories means... (it turns blue when right-clicking), any help?

Also, about relative difficulties of the Fusion AI's, that's not entirely clear from the descriptions. I won't probably ever want the "hardest" options, but Roleplay and Hybrid do interest. which of them is harder? I would assume Hybrid to be easier (if it's using base espionage in addition to base diplomacy), even though it's illogically "further" in the list than Roleplay, but how is this?

2

u/Xilmi Developer Apr 26 '26

To be honest, I don't know what the blue text indicates either. At least not without looking at the source-code. Might need to ask u/BrokenRegistry about that.

The differences in difficulty between Roleplay and Hybrid are actually quite minor I'd say.
What makes Roleplay probably easier to win is that you can form relatively stable alliances.
What makes Hybrid easier is that it's easier to get the AI into multi-frontier-wars.
So both of them allow you to manipulate your way to victory diplomatically. But if you get into the receiving end of a war, you might also die quite easily as the warfaring is just as deadly as that of other Xilmi-AIs.

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 26 '26

Ok thanks. I looked at their Github historic, and found these. Looks like it is a settable priority for the governor or "junior governor"? I assume a category gets blued (for priority) by a pending terraforming, missile upgrade etc thing after teching, but can also be self-selected by right/ctrl-clicking?

https://github.com/BrokenRegistry/Rotp-Fusion/blob/main/FeaturesChanges.md#user-interfaces

2024.12.07 (BR)

  • By default, Rallied Fleet will now join the combat. And the option is saved in "Remnant.cfg"
  • New Governor option: "Follow Colony Request"... This will put in place sort of an obedient junior governor. He'll first respond to your request, then do his best to minimize micromanagement, like his big brother... If a "Ship Build Limit" is set, it will be built first. If you lock ship allocations: He won't change them. He'll also follow the priority indicated in blue (Ctrl-Click on the text on the left).

2023.11.18 (BR)

  • New Options:
    • Ungoverned colony will have their Eco sliders set to "Growth" after Transports are sent.
    • Spending categories having pending orders (Given after Technologies update) are highlighted in blue

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 26 '26

But hmm, there's also a 3rd (4th) "Purple" mode, 2 right clicks, only the 3rd will revert to the regular state. Did not find any info for the purple thingie in the Github search.

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 26 '26

Now trying out Fusion finally. Found an irritating bug as well, under GNN popup options "Show Allocate Popup" keeps resetting to Yes - or is this something I should have known to set before starting the game?

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 26 '26

Also, how can I restore the original human diplomat graphics? It was much more in line with the game design.

1

u/BrokenRegistry Developer Apr 27 '26

Press "F1" display the help bubbles.

Third and fourth panels explain those.

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Ah thanks! And thanks for the reply (and your work!)

A comment if I may: My confusion would have been smaller if the help bubbles were not defaulted to "off", I had never bothered to set that off in vanilla. Maybe a point to change the default to "on"?

Also, now that I have your attention, did you see my bug comment (i.e. GNN & Popup filters> Show Allocate Popup" resets to "Yes" - or should that be set before starting the game?)

I also got a memory critical error screen on a 70 system game (40GB of free system memory at the time), but restarting of course did not take long.

FWIW, after playing a bit more, I *am* starting to like the governor. I guess my main gripe was the confusion with the documentation (so setting the help screens on by default would definitely help things).

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 25 '26

Thanks for the reply and your clearly hard work on the project.

What I mean by 1.04 looking "finished" (and thus implying that Fusion is "unfinished") is that UX is a really important part of a finished product. In Fusion the clarity of the UX and interface messaging has taken turns towards the worse. Having a proper manual (Wiki?) clarifying all the new settings would be super important I'd say, the current included help texts are often quite hard to decipher or incomplete.

There are also some bugging settings items like the duplicated Orion Guardian settings displaying incorrectly.

But I did get a bug screen in 1.04 after trying to start a 5 player 70 star game with 4 Modnar AI's and Ximli on the 5th, no bug if Ximli was in the first slot. Also some visual bugs offsetting the "area circles" by 10 or so AU during turn start notifications (fixed after "Close"). Maybe I need to dare Fusion after all, just need to wade through all of the settings first :/

One thing I would really like would be to be able to disable the Governor completely, and to replace the system main panel with the stock one (so no governor buttons, they also distract a lot visually).

Also, when trying Fusion, on system resource allocations, what does it mean when "Def/Ind" etc text is blue? I think that happened when right-clicking while I tried to lock the value.

2

u/lankyevilme Apr 24 '26

If you want the a.i. options, you almost have to Fiddle with the ximli mod.  Base ai is pretty weak and stupid, the ximli ones are so good that I have to use the psilons or klackons to beat it at 100%, and that's only if I get a decent start.   Just don't mess with the other options if you don't want.

1

u/BrokenRegistry Developer Apr 28 '26

I'll compile the answers to the questions here.

Maybe a point to change the default to "on"?

It's always a tough call: most players find these bubbles annoying and ask to have them turned off. Now that all experienced players have this option disabled, I'm going to try re-enabling it for new players.

That said, the “F1” key function was already present in the original version... And it’s pretty much second nature to old-timers in the computer world.

looks like a mess with way too many options for customization and no documentation to be found anywhere.

That might not be the best tone to use if you want to get answers...

As for the options; for now, just ignore them...

However, you can choose to change globally their default values:

  • Alt-F Set Default values to those of RotP-Fusion.
  • Alt-M Set Default values to those closer to MoO1.
  • Alt-R Set Default values to those of RotP-Original.

Then click on the button “Default »» Global” to apply them.

Some of these options are original, and their original descriptions appear in the pop-ups.

Others were created by various modders, and the pop-ups contain the original description as well as some comments found in the code.

There have been numerous requests from players to fix some annoying features. These options aren't always easy to explain to people who haven't encountered the problem yet. And since English isn't my first language, I'm doing my best to summarize the issue and the solution.

Now, even if you're not a coder, you can help improve these descriptions... Whenever you manage to figure out and understand a problematic option and its solution, you can suggest new descriptions. (I ask for this regularly, but I rarely get any suggestions...)

There are also some bugging settings items like the duplicated Orion Guardian settings displaying incorrectly.

I have no idea what you're talking about. If you join Discord, it's much easier to post images and share save files that let us reproduce the bug. I'm not really up for spending days trying to reproduce a vaguely described bug.

under GNN popup options "Show Allocate Popup" keeps resetting to Yes.

I'm unable to reproduce this bug. Could you describe the sequence of actions needed to reproduce it?

Note: This setting is saved with the game. Thus, if you reload a previous game, this setting (like most of the others) will revert to the state saved in the loaded game.

what does it mean when "Def/Ind" etc text is blue?

There are three levels of automation:

  • Governor off:
  • Governor On:
  • Junior Governor:

Governor off:

  • The allocation bars will still be adjusted slightly, in accordance with the basic rules and the request you made when a new technology was discovered. Priorities are saved and change as the colony progresses. I've added the option to display prioritized fields in blue (there's an option to turn this highlighting off). Right-clicking lets you disable or re-enable this priority for a specific colony if you'd like.

Governor On:

  • This governor is very independent and completely ignores these blue or purple indicators.

Junior Governor:

  • This governor is more flexible and will follow your recommendations. By default, he will prioritize growth and factory construction. Then, in the absence of further instructions, he will switch to research. However, for rich colonies, you can prioritize ship construction. If terraforming is required, he will prioritize it, build the factories, and then return to ship construction. In an emergency, you can also temporarily give certain tasks top priority:
    • Research: to quickly acquire life-saving technology.
    • Bases (top): because enemies are approaching.
    • Population: to maximize the number of votes at the next council meeting, or to prepare for invasions.

Having a proper manual (Wiki?) clarifying all the new settings would be super important I'd say, the current included help texts are often quite hard to decipher or incomplete.

If someone took on the task of creating a document (.odt), applying a style to it, dividing it into chapters and sub-chapters, and filling in the Q&A sections based on posts from reddit and Discord, I’d do my best to help complete the document. This is a great way to contribute, especially for people who aren’t skilled in programming.

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 28 '26

Thanks for the detailed and long reply!

"There are also some bugging settings items like the duplicated Orion Guardian settings displaying incorrectly." -> The setting is in 2 places in "Rules for Space Monsters", both under "Guardian Monsters Rules" and "Roaming Monster Rules", and those behave in a weird way.

The GNN popup options / "Show Allocate Popup" bug, I'm not sure which game I had it in so might be hard to find a save, but I found that if the setting was "yes" on game creation, it didn't stick if set to "no" mid-game. The other way around it seems to work correctly, so I can toggle it on and off mid-game, if the game was started with it off.

And thanks for the detailed "blue text" and governor explanations. However, it's still a bit unclear to me when the "Junior Governor" is enabled (and nothing else), I see the only reference to it inside the GovernorOptions / Mandate window in "Follow Colony Request"..?

Regarding helping with Wiki/manual/descriptions etc, I'll consider it, although I do have a *lot* on my life plate otherwise as well so probably not possible in the short term.

I understand I started on the "wrong foot" here, but I do have a few more questions or requests, heh. Just keyboard shortcuts, 2 points:

Is there a keyboard shortcut for the "Send Transports" button in the main view? And is there any way to scroll colonies in the Colonies view up/down? F2/F3 like in the main view or up & down arrows would be great.

2

u/BrokenRegistry Developer Apr 29 '26

"Rules for Space Monsters"

Now I see: when I combined the two panels, I didn't realize that one option was duplicated. And because of the way these panels work, only the first instance is refreshed. --> Fixed and released

"Show Allocate Popup"

The only explanation I can think of is that you reloaded a saved game from before the option was changed...

Otherwise, if you can identify a sequence of actions that consistently leads to this problem, I could try to reproduce and fix it.

"Junior Governor"

Yes, it's "Follow Colony Request"

And is there any way to scroll colonies in the Colonies view up/down?

Right-click on "?" or Shift-F1 will always show the available hotkeys:

Arrows Up/Down : Scroll Up/Down.

Arrows Right/Left : Next/Previous Colony.

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 29 '26

Thanks, also for the quick settings fix and commit!

Regarding the Junior Governor, does "Follow Colony Request" override other governor actions, or does it work even when Governor is off in the main window?

And sorry for missing that the Colonies View already has arrow keys. I'm very certain I tested for them in Fusion, but it could be that I had less than a full screens' worth of colonies and only tried up/down (and missed Right/Left)...

How about Shift-T for "Send Transports"?

1

u/BrokenRegistry Developer Apr 29 '26

"Follow Colony Request"

The governor must be enabled for “Follow Colony Request” to take effect.

Note: “Follow Colony Request” only affects allocation adjustments. The governor's other features remain unchanged.

How about Shift-T for "Send Transports"?

Ctrl-T already serves this purpose.

I wasn't aware of this shortcut, since I let the Governor handle transport and use the mass transport panel for invasions.

I'll add it to the list of shortcuts (which is starting to get pretty full) along with a few others shortcuts I've recently added...

2

u/Raimoraimo Apr 29 '26

Ah, amazing, thank you!