I never play a Romulans so bare with me, since the AI never uses cloak anyway, why don't you guys(psychoak) make the antimatter cost so high that cloaking as a cheat would be very limited?

specifically at a star there are a few ways to "beat" the AI, just build four Starbases and build lots of bombers. As Federration the Starbases can even heal each other making them nearly indestructible and the Fed super heavy super fast bomber will take out complete borg fleets. I try to keep stars logistically not relevant when I make own maps for AI play.

The main problem with cloak and AI seams to me that the AI will not use their "force uncloak" abilities.

edit: if you generate your own random maps, place three to four asteroids (I mix with priate bases) close around the star, so some shortcuts are created that make the AI avoid the star.

But for the Romulans, cloaking isn't cheating... it's their only real strong point. Without it they're toast.

I wish the AI would use it correctly... but most often I'm playing the Rommies against the AI, so for me it isn't really an issue.  But I don't like that I can't mass cloak a fleet or squadron...  it just doesn't want to work right.

One thing the Mod team might want to consider... I switched my Rommie cap ships abilities a little and gave the Malak, D'Deridex and D'Verix a tractor beam.  Reason being the TNG episode where Jordie got snatched up and brainwashed... his shuttle was snatched my a big warbirds tractor beam...  So what I did was to take away one ability and replace it with the tractor, which actually limits what a warbird can do even more.  Now these 3 have a cloak & tractorbeam, along with only one regular and one 6th level ability.  That's it... 

Just a thought.

Cool!  See if you notice what I did... that the Borg end up assimilating so many other ships they can't make cubes.  If this is the case, it might be a problem, but also a way to beat them.

Autocast.  Frigate cloaks trigger just by being on autocast, so when you want to cloak a fleet, select all and switch it to auto.  When they finish, switch it back off and use your fleet decloak to take them out.  You'll have to manually cloak the elites.

Cloaking is primarily a multiplayer function.  There simply isn't any functionality in the AI for combating it.  Our choice is no cloaks, or people only cloaks.  The limited ways in which the AI can functionally use a cloak are greatly inferior to it's actual potential, and prevent ease of use by players.

In the past, it was set up to use the cloak to avoid dying, a functional usage for the AI, except the autocast condition worked for removal as well.  It further had the problem of cloaking and decloaking a fleet requiring that you manually triggered each and every ship.  I'm still improving the AI's ability usage, but a cloaking AI is out of the question for Diplomacy.  A multi-function strategic ability with distinct separate uses just isn't possible to design for within the confines of the ability code.  Perhaps Rebellion will bring us something here, but I doubt it.  The kinds of abilities in play have no functional relation to the problem at hand.

The next release will have much better countering though, the current versions are ill conceived, player minded entities.  They work perfectly, they just aren't AI friendly designs.

Well, it depends on what they assimilate.  It seems all well and good when a bunch of puny Marquis raiders show up in your system.  When four or five Ferangi cruisers (which are effectively capital ships) show up at once, not so much fun.

The game I was playing they had already assimilated something like 12 of the Ferengi ships....  I don't know exactly how many points they cost, but that's a lot. 

And while those Ferengi ships are no laughing matter, I would much perfer taking on a fleet of them vs. just one cube!!! 

Well, I think I manged to luck out finally and nail the Borg on vicious with a non-Rom race.

The Federation are impossible to use due to their reliance on a few select cruisers for buffs that are quickly destroyed.  The Dominion are too dependent on slow cap ships that can be assimilated.  The best chance, oddly enough, is Klingons in a tiny map (like the smallest one with 7 planets).

I set the Borg to researcher, then quickly sprinted to the K'Vort class.  Then I spammed the heck out of them and sent them in.  You have to get lucky, with their cap ship and coffins out of the system.  Kill the frigate factory, then fall back and make reinforcements.  You'll have a tough battle when they show back up, but keep them from building another factory and keep up the reinforcements.  Eventually you can kill their cap ship and then you just sneak a few planet bombers in the back side and nail their planet (they will likely have some defenses on one side of their planet that aren't worth killing as long as they don't have a factory).

I have to point out this strategy is heavily reliant on luck of the draw with what the AI does with their ships and when you can attack.  I figure it probably works about once in 5-10 attempts.  However, the borg's advantage just keeps growing later in the game, so hitting them early is your best bet aside from the cloaking device tactics.  They can't even afford a single research station, and you can keep spamming the K'Vort.

On a large map, the Klingons may have a chance if there were a singular choke point.  The Klingon disruptor turrets can do over 260 damage, and you can build up to 25 of them in a grav well.  25 x 260 = 6500 DPS.  Even a borg cube will die in less than 30 seconds under that kind of firepower, and if you have a shipyard in the middle it won't even destroy one turret.  The problem is that there aren't any maps like that, and there are only so many places you can build.

The Fek'Lhr can be researched quicker than the K'vort and has an anti-borg ability.

Actually I have found Dominion to be my best Anti Borg Fleet. The high end Cap ships have such high shield reserves that they can actually last long enough to do some real damage without being assimilated since assimilation requires all shields to be depleted.  Your cardassian ships make great fodder to use up the assimilation abilities. Also IIRC, having a leviathan with disloyalty active also causes captured cardassian ships to suicide. Also, the breen ships are great for disrupting the borg long enough for you to attack.

Cloaking in this mod IS the reason i have grey hair now (along with a thousand other reason all related to this mod as well lol). First we had one hell of a time making a functional cloak (not phase cloak). Then we had to find a way to make it work on all military units in a faction. Then we had to find a way for the AI to use it.. needless to say we failed there. So we stuck with the multiplayer functionality. We need the AI to function for this mod to work. However we don't need AI cloaking that bad to where it totaly breaks the AI. Some things we just have to live with.

Definitely not the function of that ability system.  If they blow up it's in the typical fashion.

aren't the dominion also canonically overpowered, though obviously not to the extent of the borg?

Yes, and No. They were very OP in the first dominion war, and the Jem Hadar ships are still pretty powerful, but focus mostly on dealing damage. The jemmy elites can tank, but their weakness is lack of support abilities. On the other hand the Cardassian, and Breen ships are pretty weak. They are cannon fodder after all. With the exception of the Keldon, and Stations. The Cardies and Breen specialize in support abilities which the Jem Hadar need to stay in the fight. So it is kind of a symbiotic relationship. Though the cardies without a keldon, or "overseer ship" present will rebel at first opportunity.

That depends on the size of the fleet.  For example, a respectable mid-level cube can do over 1500 DPS, and a Borg Assimilator can do over 1000.  Even if you have a Devastator with 18,000 SP, you can lose your shielding in less than 30 seconds if they decide to target a cap ship.  Sure, there's plenty of fodder for assimilation, but the Borg cap ships seem to understand that the ability that allows you to assimilate cap ships should be used on cap ships (even though it can also be used on cruisers).  I watched helplessly as my fleet with a Leviathan, Devastator, two Enslavers, plus about 30 cannon-fodder cruisers managed to lose half the cruisers (destroyed or assimilated) and one of the Devastators to Borg assimilation.  That took well under a minuted.  After I watched the shields on my Leviathan go down 20 seconds later, I called game over.

I have a tough time with believing the Fek'Lhr is much better, especially in bulk.  I suppose it's a little more HP+SP or DPS per supply, but it takes longer to build and doesn't get the upgrades available for Bird-of-Prey ships, which are nice.  Although it has anti-Borg abilities, they are modest; I fully endorse having a couple Fek'Lhrs, but a fleet of them doesn't seem to be well-suited.  Since the point is to rush, I prefer the K'Vort over the Fek'Lhr, though I suspect the choice won't make or break most games.

One thing for people to keep in mind - if you set the AI to one of the purple settings (i.e., one of the hardest two settings when the difficulty icon has a purple background), the AI cheats.  I suspect some people don't realize this, but the AI gets a discount on ships/structures/upgrades, and possibly faster build times.  I've confirmed this by saving games then re-loading as the other team; there is no way to actually build that fast.

We already know that Cruel, and Vicious AI cheats. However if you use Easy, or Normal AI its the opposite. The AI will bankrupt itself researching elites, and doesnt expand more than a few worlds. Then it will just sit stagnant for the rest of the game. Hard AI is a dice roll. Sometimes it works like it should other times it doesnt. This is why we wish we could mod the AI. So we can overcome this problem.

Here comes my little AI "mod". It is not really a mod as it is basically only two simple research items:

Research A is a Tier 0, no cost, early research giving the AI an income bonus while making research more expensive. This way most of the money is going into ships and the AI can build a decent empire while not overtaking the player on research. There is a certain random factor about when the AI decides to do this research, which actually adds to game play as AIs develop differently.

Research B is an Tier 7 high cost research with multiple levels. Under the assumption that the AI can effort it only having a decent empire, it takes away income bonus step by step while increasing his ship limits (Cap & fleet support) to counter the terrible AI ship management on larger empires. So it has at least a chance to defend itself and maybe challenge human players.

The system works well as on small maps the AI will never reach B, but will put up a decent fight with the bust from A. While on larger maps it expands faster early on and later has the ships to defend and continue expanding while the player still has a chance to win.

As a little addition I'm testing to give the AI cap ships with no fleet support requirement (while reducing the fleet support capacity). This counters to some degree the tendency of the AI to spend all money on small ships.

It works quite well up to hard AI. I currently try to balance it with the higher AI levels, which is difficult as they work completely different.

I use the SOA mod for testing, as it is more fun to me than pure Sins. Maybe someone from the SOA team would like to take a look and tell me if it is worth to continue the effort? If yes, send me a PM with a mail address.

I just recognized (playing the Romies  ) that the Ion Torpedo does not stack. I looked at the files and it seams there is accidentally a stacking limit 1 on the charging Buffs.

The charging buff is on the caster, not the target. 

I don't think so, the ability entity already has "enemy" as target.

Or did you do any trick to move it back to the caster?

Edit: Just looked at is again and I can't see any trick. Also the activated and charging Buff have endingconditions "TargetIsFriendly", which to my understanding wouldn't make the Buff work on own ships.

This is actually a badly done ability that I need to rewrite one of these days, but it's function is quite proper.

AbilityIonTorpedo

buffInstantActionType "ApplyTargettedBuffToSelf"
instantActionTriggerType "AlwaysPerform"
buffType "BuffIonTorpedoCharging"

This instant action type provides a target filter in the ability file, for purposes of having a targeted(I'm amazed I can still spell this right) ability.  No filter in the ability, no target selection.  The buff, as implied by the wording, applies to self, not the target.

BuffIonTorpedoCharging is simply a delay mechanism for effects and function.

    buffInstantActionType "ApplyTargettedBuffToSelfNoFilterNoRange"
    instantActionTriggerType "OnDelay"
    delayTime 5.000000
    buffType "BuffIonTorpedoActivated"

5 seconds of channeled, interruptable inactivity before BuffIonTorpedoActivated is triggered, once again, on self.  This works off the original filter applied by AbilityIonTorpedo.

BuffIonTorpedoActivated is where the action begins.

    buffInstantActionType "ApplyBuffToTargetWithTravelNoFilterNoRange"
    instantActionTriggerType "AlwaysPerform"
    buffType "BuffIonTorpedoDamage"

BuffIonTorpedoDamage is the only file that is ever applied to the target.  It has no stacking limit.

finishCondition
    finishConditionType "TargetOwnerIsFriendly"

This is completely useless since it's on what amounts to an instant action.  It's residence in the charging buff however is proper design.  What it does is end the buff if your target changes to your side.  For instance, you're the Borg and you convert the target while a charging ability is still charging.

It's terribly inefficient, but it does function properly.  There were a few oddities in behavior that someone hadn't worked out, so there are several of these strangely done abilities in here.  Eventually I'll get around to optimizing them, but it's almost entirely irrelevant beyond minimizing the confusion of those that go poking through the files.  All of them put together don't add as much cpu load to the game as a single trade ship.

ah ok, I missed the apply to self. I assume the the damage is reduced by armor, cause I had several ships attacking on enemy capital and incidental it lost 3000, which lead to my assumption that something is not right.  Sorry for the confusion.

Yeah, armor is 5% per point, so for every 20, it doubles over the base.

Yea, due to lack of free time, and manpower we pretty much had a "MAKE IT WORK. We will deal with its problems later" attitude. Much of the abilities was just for cosmetic purposes, but some like the ion torpedo (which is supposed to look, and work like the torpedo fired by Chang's Emperor class in the Klingon Academy opening cutscene).

As I play mostly "role playing" I love the cosmetic stuff