Comments - CptData

I have no idea if that's even possible, but I can't see why you shouldn't give it a try.

Sure, if you steamroll the neutral planets you'll end with "nothing to do" in no time.
I kept it slowly so once I got the inner systems complete, Rebs and Underground got also some planets as well.

Isn't there an option to start the game with tech 3?

Another issue is: too much money. While you lack the funds at the beginning, once you get +15 systems, you rarely run into money issues anymore unless you produce tons of starbases at the same time.

Yeah, you need to keep things going slowly at the beginning. It gets better once the AI hits higher tech levels, since they will throw full stack fleets at you (even at tech II). At least that's my experience on "Medium", once you use border choke point systems and put full stack fleets there.

If you're playing the Underworld, you kinda run into an odd issue: the Imperium can't defend itself properly against the Rebellion, which "steamrolls" 'em hard. Main issue here is the lack of decent starting ships for the Imperium at Tech I. They don't have the good fighters and can't field enough to overwhelm the Rebels.
If you find it easy to defeat the Rebs in your playthrough, try the Rebs. All you need is to build X-Wings and Y-Wings and conquer the heck out of the galaxy. You even can take the highly defended shipyard worlds with fighter only fleets, right from the beginning. Give it a try.

The Imperium lacks that option. Especially if you miss to find out how to build new ships ;)
But even if you know how to do it, you only have access to a rather poor selection of ships, which can't be used to conquer Kuat right from start. You can give other shipyard worlds a try, but they're really tough to conquer with Tech I fleets. It gets better with Tech II, but actually, the Imperium starts to feel like the Imperium if you hit Tech III. Since the Imperium has a good financial base, you can mass-produce bigger ships and drown your enemies with fighters and massively armored ships.

So if you give the GC a chance to develop, you can get massive battles and some "grand strategy" working. And then you can produce true "Imperial Fleets" with half a dozen Star Destroyers I and II, Victory SDs and the "Pocket SD" I just lost the name and some token frigates - and pound the heck out of the Rebellion. Because even 'though they get massive warships, they're usually not as tough and not as armed as their imperial counterparts. The Rebellion needs their fighters to win fights.

Interesting "bugfix".

Today I tried something different. I have the Steam "Gold Pack" of the game (it's in fact a rebuy, since I can't find the old disks anymore) and used the mod downloaded from moddb.com here.

Game crashes frequently in GC, especially once the big players hit each other.

Then I gave the workshop a chance and downloaded the mod there. Installed it to the mods directly and launched the game. And ... the crashes are gone. Seriously? I can even load saves with old matches I quit playing due the crashes. And now they work. Odd. I don't complain, but odd.

Devs please check consistency of your uploads on this page and/or do some research if the Steam game does react differently than the old game without Steam (and therefore, without DRM). It might fix some of the bugs named before.

Noticed that too. The Imperium seems to have a difficult time when under control of the AI. If you play for the Rebs and even go easy on them, the Criminals will deal with them on their own. If you play for the Criminal Alliance, the Rebs will curbstomp the Imperials.

My best guess? Tier I Imperial fleet is abysmal. They lack proper fighters: the TIE fighters get killed by the dozens and the Bombers have usually only enough HP to survive on run on anything. On the other side the Imperials ALSO lack decent combat ship in their Tier I fleet.

Rebs? Well, a good and valid strategy is to set up a fleet composed of 10 - 14 X-Wings and the same numbers of Y-Wings. Throw in the Falcon or any Corellian Corvette as a scout and call it a day. You can take down ANY pirate planet including the yard planets right from the start at low costs and few losses.

Criminals? They come with a decently sized fleet and a Venator Hero right from the beginning. They also can field quite impressive fighters right from the beginning.

So the main weakness of the Imperium is the lack of decent fighters and a decent selection of dedicated warships. That's also true if you take command of the Imperial fleets, but once you get to Tech Tier III, your life suddenly gets really easy since you get good capitals and also can set up varied fleets. Also it doesn't hurt if you got Kuat by that point and upgrade your heroes.

Alright, here we go.

I like this mod. I really do. But I wish the Devs would have done more stability fixes, because the mod is anything but. For me, it's mostly Galactic Conquest related.

Well, I mean, a lot of ppl simply want to do just that. Skirmish battles are fun, but they aren't "real" in some way. In GC, you have to prepare yourself, you need to work out a strategy, capture key systems and secure it with a small fleet.
This is all fun and good as long as you don't run into a bugged planet. And it seems a big set of them are bugged, like Ord Mantell or Myrkr. I'm not sure if the crash is based on factions involved in battle, but when playing Imps or Rebs vs the other side, there are some planets on the list with 100% CTD chance. Regardless if I'm attacking or defending. Auto Resolving is fine, but it's not an option if a big fleet is sitting there.

I'm not sure why always the same planets cause trouble, but they do, and it's pesky like hell. It makes such planets unfit for choke points since I tend to funnel my fleets into strong points, preventing the enemy to infiltrate my systems. And that involves manually fought battles.

4GB Patch is installed, OS is Windows 7.

Definiely needs to be addressed in one of the next patches.

Corrupted Savegames seem to be less of an issue to me, but maybe I'm just happy. Other ppl seem to have real problems here.

Also regarding the "fleet limit excess" for AI: the DIFFICULTYADJUSTMENTS.XML contains the key. The AI is supposed to cheat by the factors put in here.

<Galactic_AI_Contrast_Multiplier>1.0</Galactic_AI_Contrast_Multiplier>
This is the amount of command point the AI gets in Galactic Conquest. If it's below 1.0 it'll get less points per Station and Planet, if it's above, it'll get more. If you set it to 1.25, the AI will get 25% more CP than it should have normally. You can't really notice this since the AI rarely uses up all the points it could for a long time, even if it had the money.

<Space_AI_Contrast_Multiplier>1.0</Space_AI_Contrast_Multiplier>
This does exactly the same for space battles. The one IS noticeable since the AI can deploy more ships in the field than you can. Or LESS, if the setting is below 1.0. So if the devs set it up to 1.5 for "hard mode", the AI can throw 300 CP into battle compared to your 200 CPs.

At least I fixed it for me by adjusting that one and won't get swamped by massive forces. ;)

- Data

Hmm, if you want to go through the species in Mass Effect:

Turians: Militarists, Collectivists, Materialists
Well, that's my interpretation of the Hierarchy. They're no drones, they are individualists, but compared to humans, they're collectivists.

Humans: Militarists, Individualists, Materialists
Actually, humans & turians are pretty much twins.

Sub-Race Cerberus: Militarists, Xenophobe, Materialists
Besides that, they're normal humans.

Asari: Spiritualists, Fanatic Xenophiles
Yeah. Their lore is more or less about snu snu with everyone. They have to be xenophiles.

Salarians: Pacifists, Collectivists, Materialists
They have some sort of "hive" after all. And they prefer to win a war before it starts, either by diplomacy or by STG operations.

Volus: Fanatic Materialists, Pacifists
War is only good for business, if it's not your own war.

Quarians: Pacifists, Xenophobe, Materialists
They won't start a war unless provoced, and they seem to have trust issues with outsiders (and vice versa). Overall they're still nice people to have around.

Geth: Spiritualists, Fanatic Collectivists
Consensus, anyone?

Batarians: Fanatic Collectivists, Xenophobe
Their entire society is based on slavery and you don't want 'em as neighbors.

Drell: Fanatic Spiritualists, Individualists
Well, at least if Thane is an ideal Drell. If not, then not.

Hanar: Fanatic Spiritualists, Pacifists
Enkindle this!

Elcor: Pacifists, Individualists, Spiritualists
Nice and friendly with a close connection to their homeworld.

Krogan: Fanatic Militarists, Individualists
'nuff said. They love war and everyone fights for himself.

Vorcha: Fanatic Militarists, Collectivists
The other kind of full-time-warriors.

Prothean: n/a
Only one left. :(

Did I miss someone?

Any chance for 0.6? ;)

Any news - are we going to see another version? :D

I wonder when M&B II is going to be released. It looks quite finished already, but since I'm an experienced early-access user, I know looks don't tell anything. A lot of stuff is barely working or need heavy workarounds to do whatever is needed for that particular demo, but it does not work in the big picture yet.

Also I can't wait for a new Middleearth Mod. That's especially true since the "Last Days of Middleearth" is a really great example what a talented team can do, I'd love to see a similar one for M&B II. Just with working formations and everything.

Since M&B II also introduces a lot of features based on popular mods, I wonder if we're going to have a mercenary mod, if I can get hired by a lord as normal soldier, to earn my first money. I'd love to see way more options for intrigues, I want to create my own court, want to see more fleshed out stuff, when it comes to romance etc.
Also, we had pre-defined named / hero characters in M&B, which was good and everything. In M&B II I'd love to see a more immersive way to introduce heroes: in a battle one of my veteran soldiers fought valiantly and did far more than expected, his name finds his way to my ear. And since I'm a good leader, I'd like to promote him to a "named soldier" - which is essentially a new hero, with everything like "being able to become a lord in my own realm one day". Think of it as something similar like the "Nemesis script" in "Shadow of Mordor".

There's a ton of more stuff I want to see: competing mercenary leaders, I want personal vendettas, things should become deep and personal. In M&B all we had were lords and ladies and that's it. In M&B, other mercenary groups may follow another aspiring (future) lord. If I want to become a king (or queen) one day, I rather make friends with them or vanquish them before they become too powerful.

And what if I don't want to become a king? What if I only want to become a stinkin' rich merchant? Even that option should be viable. In such case I won't pledge allegiance to any lord, because it wouldn't be good for business. Maybe I'm the one keeping the war fueled, by selling armor, swords and food to everybody ...

In short words: M&B Warband + a thousand mods gave me great ideas what "M&B II Bannerlord" may become one day. And for that game, I really can't wait any longer :)

Totally know that issue. Time is always short.

By the way, was quite a while since I was checking out ol' ME forums. Think my nick was quite the same there, just with full "Captain" instead Cpt. Thanks to the DLC-MEHEM you just gave me a good reason for another 100+ hours of ME playthrough & visiting old friends, you know?

Let's say I'm just surprised in a really positive way to see another update here, especially since you confirmed we're going to see even more updates in future. Some polishing here, a new scene there - that's dedication. Double true since the mod is not adding new maps, weapons and whatnot - but gives a great & improved ending for a great game trilogy.

EDI lives.
Geth live.
Shepard lives.
Shepard gets his/her damn final kiss & happy life.

That's more than enough for me.

A 0.5-Release? Really? I didn't expect that - great surprise!

So, if the new 0.5-ending is a DLC, does that mean you have way more freedom to add new lines, fix stuff and simply make it even better than before?

You just gave me a reason to replay that trilogy. In my case for Ash. :D

I like the game, the only frustrating thing at the moment is the AI. It doesn't matter how good I am, I end on the lower end of the latter quite early, no way to catch up. In vanilla, it's not too hard to get an edge even against hard AI quite early - even if you fail in one discipline, say, crystal income (standard for me), you still end on top in several other disciplines. In a game with >four players, my military is usually on 2nd place (mid game) or 1st place (late game).

Somehow that's not possible in this game. To be precise, the normal AI curbstomps me quite hard. Worst offender so far is the Imperium which spams ISD IIs - one alone is a tough thing, but the random ordinary early-game fleet is composed of somewhat 5 - 10 units. That's what you get within 60 minutes of gameplay! You could do that if you wouldn't spend any money on research, but the very same AI also wins here too, with same amount of planets and roughly same income. How to do so?

What I'd like to request is an AI that's "easy" on "easy" and "normal" on "normal". Somehow the "normal AI" behaves pretty much like an "insane AI" when it comes to the curbstompy part.

The Desura M&B:WB seems to be outdated, that's all.

Nevertheless, TLD works perfectly with the newest WB, so all I did was an "inofficial" test with older WB versions. 1.151 or something - 1.158 is the current one.

Okay, I think I got it.

You should know I have two variants of M&B:WB installed on my PC, one Desura Variant and one Non-Desura (free) variant. The later one is up to date, while the Desura one is a bit older.

it seems as if TLD does not like the older variant, when it comes to music management. The current variant does, however.

Still didn't find a way to make music work in WB-variant of TLD. However, MB is much more stable than the vanilla M&B, which is the main reason why I want to play TLD on MB. Also battle!AI is more stable, animations are better and I can have up to 300 units on the field.

What I wonder: sometimes, after-battle victory music IS working. There's some bug in the patch I guess.

Hmm, I can play the mod with Warband, but the ingame music doesn't play.

Any guesses why's that?

Geez how much longer? ;)

I hope the Normandy is in the game somehow. Maybe with Thanix Canons? ;)

Am I the only one who wants to have Asha Greyjoy available for marriage? ;)

Small bug:

Sausages don't give any moral bonuses.
Same for Ale.

Seems some of the food stuff is bugged.

You know, that mod made me to dive deeper in that universe.

Damn fine work.

Uhh, there's that one Lady (and army leader) - I'd love to see her available for marriage ^^

----------

@ missing mod menu:
make it a sub menu with extra warning page and everything should be fine. I'm going to miss those options :(

Well, I'd like to see that one released on Desura. Steam doesn't make much sense for me, since I've got all M&B main games on Desura only

Looks as good as the original footage from the series.
Good job.

When are we going to get our hands on that mod, damnit? :P

When?
WHEN? ^^

All I can say is this:

“Never before have so many come together from all quarters of the galaxy. But never before have we faced an enemy such as this. The Reapers will show us no mercy, we must give them no quarter. They will terrorize our populations. We must stand fast in the face of that terror. They will advance until our last city falls, but we will not fall. We will prevail. Each of us will be defined by our actions in the coming battle. Stand fast, stand strong. Stand together. Hackett out.”

Make it happen.

(And yeah, that's Hackett's final speech in ME3)

Reminds me of my first party in M&B ^^

Hmmm, I hope they still accept input for Bannerlord.
Definitely want to get that game for sure - it's awesome!

Hmm, still found several (obvious) bugs, like:

Crossbows are nearly useless now, since their range is limited to 10, 20m ... woah.
You can't skill more than one level of power draw. Intentional?
Power strike seems to be limited to four levels. Intentional?

Some smaller issues, but those are -really- obvious. I don't use the crossbow that often, but I rely on my archery skills ... meh.

It -really- does enhance the game, it's worth the try.

Just two or three issues (sorry) you really need to address for next patch / version:

- the in-battle feedback got disabled
Somehow the game does no longer give you any feedback about losses, hits and such.

- the campaign map feedback gets disabled after battle
Related to the first bug.

- memory leak
That's a tricky one: somehow you managed to apply a memory leak to the game which may be caused by one of the mods you used - or a certain combination.
The game may crash if you run out of memory.
I think it could be related to the Freelancer mod.

One last question: since I can see the equipment of my (non-hero) troops, does it mean I can change it? ;)

Pt 2 -->

- Savegames don't store state data of NPCs
Only player characters get stored correctly. Any other character can get killed / incapacitated and will get revived and placed back to their old spawning areas.
Maybe intented by the dev for now, not sure. I'm going through bugs

- Sleeping bug
Sometimes a character stops sleeping before his injuries get healed up to 95.

- Dismemberement bug / missing feature?
The tutorial tells the player an arm or leg gets severed in case it gets injured below -100. I saw at least one bandit (a recovered one) with a bad arm at -90 - after a short fight this arm got hurt to -130. It didn't get dismembered.
My money's on "not-yet-implemented feature".

- No shadows and no blood?
Well, that's a real miracle to me, especially since the screens & the trailer shows both. I don't have shadows or blood in my game and can't find an option how to turn it on or off. Got this feature removed in this release? Bugged out? Or does it not work on my rig - Windows XP SP3 / DX9.0c, ATI gfx ?

----

Some more stuff, but that's what I experienced in my game so far.

Related to current release:

Bugs:

- Sometimes a (player owned) building is not created with an interior.
I had this bug once with a shack - the black box inside didn't get replaced by the normal interior and the bug couldn't get fixed by reloading. The only way to "fix" it is to dismantle the building.
I didn't see this bug with NPC buildings, but it might happen too.
Since dismantling is an option: is there any way to get at least a part of the used resources back? Maybe half of the building's value?

- Patrols may end stuck
Quite frequently patrols get stuck and move erratically in one place. That issue can be solved if an enemy group enters the combat detection range.

- Trader is not in the shop sometimes
No idea what might cause this, but sometimes a shop (building with an appropriate sign) is "closed". Since NPCs don't wander around in this release, it might be simply a bug caused by refreshing a zone or building. The shop guards are also missing.

--> Pt 2