Turning the Guide into a TG would make the cost-reduction for survey modules stop working, because the AltCostPrereq tag only works for GAs (even though the modding guide says otherwise).

So, how about this: we move the cost-reduction to Eyes, and make it work for all sensor modules, remove the bonus to the Sensors ability, and increase the sensor-range bonus to +50%.

Eyes would then provide: cost for all sensor modules is zero, location for all ships is shown on the mini-map, sensor-range is increased by 50%.

And the Guide would simply give a +25% bonus to Influence.

How does that sound?

Also, I've been writing the changelog for the GC2_Conversations.xml yesterday, and remembered something:

All of the SURRENDER topics have an underscore between the words "TO" and "PLAYER/OTHERPLAYER". Except for this one: SURRENDER_TOPLAYER_PEACE

I'm wondering, if this is a typo, causing the topic not to work. I usually play with surrenders turned off, but turned them on again just to test this. However, I never got a situation where a race I wasn't at war with surrendered to me. So, if anyone had such a situation, do you remember, if you got a message from that race first?

Thanks. That settles this issue.

What I need the most right now is feedback.

As for the current status, it's looking pretty good. I've fixed a couple bugs (of my own) and made some more tweaks today:

-the Power Plants have been reduced to one tech and building (Anti-Matter Power Plant)

-the Oracle of Krynn now grants a +50% bonus to the Morale-ability instead of a +100% bonus to planetary morale

-the Neutrality Learning Center is now a 1pp

-the Eyes of the Universe now reduces the cost of sensor modules, shows all ships on the mini map, and increases sensor-range by 50%

-the Galactic Guide Book is now a TG and provides a +15% bonus to Influence

-adjusted the cost and size of the sensor modules (a bit smaller at the beginning, and a bit more expensive towards the end) and added a fourth module (there used to be one in DL and DA, but it got "lost" in the move to TotA)

-tweaked the size of the engines a little (it was driving me nuts, that the Designer showed them out of order)

-adjusted the research-costs of some manufacturing techs

-changed the Categories and AIValues of some techs, adjusted the AI value of some improvements

The AI is now playing a bit better. Not much, but it is a definite improvement.

I'm going to upload a new version today, but want to make some more changes first.

Cool.  I'll check it out and get back to you.

Nice. 

I did a couple more changes today.

Psionic Beams and Arnorian Battle Armor now require Particle Beams III and Duranthium Armor respectively, as I originally intended. I consider the Evil weapons and Good defences tier 3 items, even though they are much more powerful. However, I also toned down Psionic Missiles and Psionic Shredder a little, because they were better than the tier 5 weapons.

I've moved the Maser (previously called "Particle Beam") to Beam Weapon Theory, and the Armor Plating to Armor Theory. I've also added a Basic Deflector (Shield Defense Theory) and a Basic Chaff (Missile Defense Theory) component. In other words, the Weapons/Defence Theory techs are going to stay after all.

The Drengin and Korath now have access to the Counter Espionage Center. I was tired of them not having any defences against spies. Though I still need to get the AI to actually research the tech / build the improvement. It just doesn't want to cooperate at the moment. Same goes for their Culture techs.

I'm using a 25%/25% standard for the starting GAs now. This meant the following changes:
-Stellar Forge and Aquatic Transport Station now grant 25% to the planetary economy, instead of 10%
-Innovation Complex now grants 25% to planetary influence and 25% to Creativity, instead of 50% to influence and 10% to Creativity
-Maintenance Grid now grants 25% to Morale, instead of 20%

Speaking of the Yor, I'm currently testing a 10% economy bonus to the Collectives (along with a +1 increase in maintenance). The AI seems to handle it okay so far. It doesn't build any more Collectives than usual. The change also doesn't feel too powerful from what I can tell. If further testing works out, and there are no objections to it, I'm going to keep this change.

The Arceans and Altarians are now researching Weather Control/Divergent Evolution, and make good use of the improvements. Sadly, they are the only ones. The Drath still refuse to research Divergent Evolution, even though they have access to it. This is also true for most races and the regular Terraforming techs. They just don't much care for them. Still, it's at least some progress.

Two more questions:

1. Should we give the Altarians, Drath, and Thalan access to the normal Ethics techs (Concepts of Righteousness/Malice/Neutrality)? Sure, the Thalan and the Good Altarians get some pretty powerful stuff of their own, to make up for the loss. It still hurts a lot to not have access to some of those GAs, however. The Drath, on the other hand, are not as lucky, because they don't get any replacement techs. Oh sure, they get Creative Good, if they choose Good, but that's it.

2. Should we improve the Terror Star? Sure, we can't change its speed (which is its main problem), but we could add some basic defences and/or military-assistance capabilities.

What bug?  I don't see the AI having any problem building (and upgrading) the various powerplants at all. The only issue I might see is that sometimes, the AI will prefer to build a powerplant on a planet without building factories first.  That's a minor issue overall, though.  The primary problem if powerplants (if you call it a problem) is that there's no ability to 1pp ALL the power plant improvements. So it's possible to have a Quantum Power Plant, the Iconian Molecular Fabricator, and the Drengin/Korath Devil's Forge all on the same planet. But I don't think that's important enough to care about, because it's HIGHLY unlikely.

I'd just fix the OoK as you describe.   And the Krynn DO have a spammable morale improvement - the basic Entertainment Center is available at the beginning of the game off of Industrial Revolution:  +10% morale for 1bc.   They don't need anything else.

Leave the Tech Victory things alone. The whole point of them is to get the Tech Victory, so they "give" victory conditions.The whole point of owning them is to get you closer to victory, so no "bonus" is needed.

I'd go a different path with the military stuff - move the Particle Beam from Space Weapons to Beam Weapon Research.  Also, it seems that the "Theory" techs are used by the AI to determine which major line of weaponry and defense will be researched.  I've often run into cases where a race won't research any defenses or weapons until they trade for one of the Theory techs, unless they're in a war.  Having the Theory techs seems to be some way to hint to the AI that the race should develop that line. I've noticed that this doesn't happen with upper level techs much, so if I trade a Laser 2 to a race, they won't tend to research Laser 3, but if I trade Beam Weapon Theory to them, well, that just sets them off into researching all the beam weapons.

My feelings on this is just add another 1pp economic improvement for them instead.

Move the Efficiency Center from Efficiency Studies 3 to 2 (and lower the maint to 1bc), then add another Super-Efficiency Center (+25% econ, +2bc) as a 1pp at Efficiency Studies 4.

Just remove the +20% boost to sensor range, leave everything else.

I don't see anything in the tech that has such verbiage. I'm looking at TotA, and the tech says "Increases research on worlds through pain." That doesn't indicate a 1pp in any way.  Don't create one in there.

I also seriously suggest removing the +5% research bonus from HyperMainframes from both races. It should look just like the standard "gives Tech Capital" tech. They're already getting research bonuses from other techs that everyone else doesn't get, and, their path to Tech Victory is shorter than most, so remove that cheap bonus is The Right Thing.

You know what I want.

There's a bug with 1pp buildings that upgrade.  If the upgrade is destroyed, it is impossible to rebuild anything in that upgrade chain.

Coulda asked me to make a less dry description, you shouldn't have things like (1pp) in a parentheses much less AT ALL in the detailed description for it breaks immersion. Better ask me next time!

I thought of something like that while working on Autumn Twilight, and, sadly, it doesn't work. The F_LogisticLimit tag is hardcoded to work only for specific improvements, i.e., the HyperionFleetManager (InternalName of the Orbital Command Center) and the OrbitalFleetManager.

Space Weapons still gives you more than just access to more techs. Namely a 5% bonus to Military Production. Granted, this isn't much, and I'm already considering to either increase it to 10%, or to replace it with a bonus to Weapons. Now that should get the AIs attention.

As for moving the OCC to Space Weapons, I'm not so sure. It doesn't really fit thematically. However, like you said, fleeting your ships is pointless without weapons.
What about Space Militarization? It is warfare-related, it's on the way to the weapons, everybody has access to it (unlike Planetary Defense, which would fit thematically the best), and pretty much everyone researches it without problem. Sure, it also unlocks the Recruiting Center. Making it unlock an additional improvement, may be a bit much then.

As for the AI not building the OCC, I'm considering the possibility that the AI value is too high for the AI to handle. I'm going to reduce it and see if that will help. I'll also add the morale bonus back in. That should get at least AIP 7s attention. I removed the bonus originally, because the AI loves to build the OCC on approval bonus tiles, even if it has access to morale improvements with a bigger bonus. However, if I have to choose between the AI gimping approval on one planet, and the AI gimping its defence on all of its planets, then I'll gladly take the former.

I finally had some time to watch your LP. I flinched pretty hard when you announced your intentions to build the Gravity Accelerators, because I knew exactly what would happen. I really have to do something about that, because in 95%+ of all games, the Thalan are going to build it first. They start out with Artificial Gravity, and don't have much else to build at the start. So they can focus all their energy on getting that TG.
Oh, and yes, I did give the Korx access to the Xeno Entertainment techs. They did start out with the Entertainment Network, but had no way to improve it. That just didn't make any sense to me. Especially because it's so easy to make a lot of money from entertainment. You'd think the Korx were already all over it.

Then give them a Temple, like the Drath/etc at a tech that hangs directly off of The Path, where it makes more sense.  That should have no problem being built.

We'll agree to disagree.

I don't see the AI having any problem with building Recruiting Centers - I'd say 90%+ of all planets I've taken over (or even spied on) have a RC sitting on them. A few haven't, but they're in the very small minority.  The OCC I see getting built by any of the aggressive races really quickly.

Some of this may be due to the fact I play on Suicidal pretty much exclusively now.

Space for the improvement isn't such a big deal - it's a constriction on everyone, and if the Yor has too many PQ4 planets, well, they did a crappy conquest job, too.

Yes, I finally played through far enough to see that was the description when you get the tech. Frankly, I ignore that pretty much everywhere. I'd vote for removing that verbiage from there before I would add in another improvement. You don't see any indication anywhere else that the ACG will be giving you a building - just in the fluff AFTER you've chosen to research it.  Fix the fluff, instead.

I had noticed that on rare occasions - wasn't sure what the cause was. That's interesting...

I made a couple more changes today, and I think I may be finished with the layout of the tech trees:

1. The Iconians have now access to Enhanced Adaptation. Primarily because they need more space for all their 1pps, but also because it makes perfect sense for them. I mean, if anyone should have that tech, its the Super Adapters.

2. The Drath now have access to Paradise Worlds, Righteous Justice, and Righteous Might. It's not a perfect replacement for all the standard Ethics techs, but at least it's an improvement. Well, if the Drath go Good, that is. If they go Evil, then they're screwed.

3. The Yor tech Extended Lifetime is now just a skin for the tech Fertility Acceleration. I did this, because the Yor could get both techs, and thereby achieve a huge pop. growth, higher than anyone else. Even more, if they then also build the Aphrodisiac TG. While it doesn't make much sense for the Yor to have (or use) Aphrodisiac, this was already the case in the game. So I'm not too worried about it.

4. The techs Fleet Battle Tactics and Fleet Defense are gone now. They were just stepping stones to get to the actually important techs. So I decided to remove them, thereby reducing the amount of time the AI is wasting on those techs.

Besides the above, I also implemented my changes to the Terror Stars. They are now the mobile equivalent of a military starbase equipped with tier 3 modules. The previously planned tier 2 equivalent was a bit weak after all. One interesting side note is, that the AI no longer scraps the Terror Star, if you give one to them. I don't know, if the AI would actually use the Terror Star to destroy a star now, or build one from scratch, if it has the tech.

I've switched the Drengin and Yor to AIP 8. They're now quite the threat, but still need some work. Well, the later is true for everyone, so that isn't saying much.

Give me karma if its Gaün/a/thor. sadly I forgot the proper display of actcent marks...or even how to spell actscent...but I think I got it right.

A new version is up. Same link as before.

The biggest change is a fix for a pretty nasty bug. Every time a starbase with defences got attacked, the game crashed. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong, but it's fixed now. The cause for the crash was, that one of the weapon-components I disabled was used by the game for the starbase-attack. The game couldn't find the component, and therefore crashed.
I didn't notice this sooner, because I used the cheats to make the AI play against itself. Today was the first proper game I played of this version. Still, I am a bit surprised, and worried, that nobody reported this bug before.

Anyhow, I had a little setback with the AI. Some of the races (primarily AIP 11) no longer researched weapons within the first 3 years. None of my other changes should have affected this, so I had to reset all AIValues. I haven't quite got the AI back to the level it was before, but it should do okay for now.

The Yor are probably the strongest right now. My game today was against them, and I was losing. The settings were Small map, Common All, 8 minors, Tough difficulty (I usually play on Crippling). I played as the Terrans.
The game already began on a great note: I lost the colony-rush. I only got 7 planets, while the Yor got 11. I then made two huge mistakes. I let the Yor have the Influence resource near Earth (they already had a constructor on the way), and instead went after the Military and Economics resources. The Yor managed to get another Influence resource, and two Research resources. My second mistake was, that I postponed researching Advanced Colonization. There were several Aquatic and Toxic planets, but I wanted to first improve my economy, by establishing trade-route with all the minors, and build up my military. This almost cost me the game, because the Yor were soon pretty close to a Culture victory. I only barely managed to avoid that, but the Yor simply declared war on me shortly after (but not before extorting me for money). At first, I wasn't too worried. The Yor didn't have any defences against my Railguns, while my ships were outfitted with ECM III against the Yor's Seeker missiles. What I forgot to consider was the Yor's manufacturing capacity. They could, and did, simply outproduce me. And then the game began to crash... Constantly. Too bad, because I'm really curious, if I could have still turned it around somehow.