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Dominator131 17 Feb, 2019 @ 1:10am
Crash course on how to modify the invasions
Hello, here is a short crash course on how to modify the invasions so that the game does not feel like whack-a-mole, but the battles become more unique.

I was able to modify the game to have no invasions or maximum of 1 per system with the help of this post from the official Focus forums: https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/36123/modding-resources

So what do you need for modifying the game:
- 10 minutes of time
- Notepad++


1. Set your game launch options to contain the string: -NoEAC
- This disables Easy anti-cheat for the game (the program loads but does not work in the game AND it disables the multiplayer).

2. Go to: \BattlefleetGothic2\version.bfgver
- Modify the file contain whatever (for example MOD9020, where you have put the word MOD yourself)

3. Go to: \Battlefleet Gothic Armada II\BattlefleetGothic2\Content\Data\SectorLevelDesign
- Backup the file "SectorLevelDesign.csv"

4. With your web browser go to: http://aes.online-domain-tools.com/
- Select the file "SectorLevelDesign.csv"
Function: AES
Mode: ECB
Key: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456
Plaintext
Decrypt
-> Download the binary file
-> Save the file as SectorLevelDesign.dat (NOT CSV)

5. Edit the file SectorLevelDesign.dat with Notepad++
- REMOVE the NUL NUL NUL at the end of the file
- Now you can modify the maximum number of invasions per system (the FIRST number after the sector name). I myself modified all to 0, but the Caliban, Scelus, SentinelWorlds and Eidolon, as I have not yet visited them in the IN campaign.
- Save the file SectorLevelDesign.dat

6. With your web browser go to: http://aes.online-domain-tools.com/
- Select the file SectorLevelDesign.dat
Function: AES
Mode: ECB
Key: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456
Plaintext
Encrypt
-> Download the binary file
-> Save the file as SectorLevelDesign.csv (or modify the file extension with your system browser)

7. Replace the CSV-file in: \Battlefleet Gothic Armada II\BattlefleetGothic2\Content\Data\SectorLevelDesign
- Go play the game and enjoy no whack-a-mole


IF you modify the invasions to 0 you will not be invaded outside of scripted invasions. That means that when there is a side quest where you have to destroy the Tyranid Hive ship, you will not get a spawn that has a Hive ship to destroy. So use caution when modifying the game, as you might break something.

I will NOT be having the time to help you out with this as I am busy with my life, but made this short "guide" to help you guys out to make most out of the game, which is nice, but I do not like the invasions one bit.
(If someone finds a way to make the invasions contain 1 fleet MAXIMUM I am interested to hear it, but did not find anything useful anywhere in the files when I had a look around, that way I could modify the game back to having some invasions, but smaller ones.)


AND as a sidenote: I think you could modify the ship costs too. So that's where you can bypass the fleet limits. For example if Retribution would cost 50 points, and you can have 1000 points in a fleet, that would mean a lot of Retribution class battleships, wouldn't it?
So no blaming devs pls, they made this game.
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Showing 1-15 of 30 comments
Hyndis 17 Feb, 2019 @ 6:16am 
Excellent guide, thank you.

The invasions are what defeated me. Not because they're difficult but because they're a grinding slog. Its not that invasion are inherently a bad thing, but rather, having to continually deal with invasions over so many sectors with a difficult to use UI turns the campaign into whack-a-mole. It becomes a chore.
#1
STC 17 Feb, 2019 @ 10:15am 
finally the game might become playable. thank you so much!
#2
GrenadeMagnet6 17 Feb, 2019 @ 12:36pm 
Thanks for this info. Not to derail but since you referenced the SectorLevelDesign.csv file I wanted to discuss more about interpretation of it's values

Does anyone know what MaxNbOfAssaults means, as well as what the Thread_<RACE> means?

I extracted and copied out two sample sectors for examples:
... Cadian BelialIV MaxNbOfInvasions 4 1 MaxNbOfAssaults 5 2 Threat_Imperium 5 3 Threat_Ork 2 2 Threat_Eldar 2 4 Threat_Chaos 4 2 Threat_Necron 2 0 Threat_Tyranids 3 3
Perhaps the number of invading fleets is stored in a separate race's file, or perhaps it's a hard-coded function in the game engine code.
Last edited by GrenadeMagnet6; 17 Feb, 2019 @ 12:40pm
#3
BLWK 17 Feb, 2019 @ 12:43pm 
think an invasion is an attack from nowhere, whereas an assault is when the enemy attacks from one sector to the other.
#4
GrenadeMagnet6 17 Feb, 2019 @ 12:52pm 
I was skimming thru the other CSV files and found a variable that may be associated with the number of invading fleets:

Path: \Battlefleet Gothic Armada II\BattlefleetGothic2\Content\Data\CSVData
File: GeneralCampaign_BlackBoard.csv

Parameter:
... Value TT_Value AI_Invasion_FleetsNbr 2 2
Perhaps somebody can modify this and see what happens? Perhaps this is the minimum number of fleets? What's the maximum number of fleets that can invade at one time? Or perhaps the maximum in the larger systems, if the maximum is sector-dependent.
Last edited by GrenadeMagnet6; 17 Feb, 2019 @ 12:53pm
#5
Dominator131 17 Feb, 2019 @ 12:59pm 
Originally posted by GrenadeMagnet6:
Perhaps somebody can modify this and see what happens? Perhaps this is the minimum number of fleets? What's the maximum number of fleets that can invade at one time? Or perhaps the maximum in the larger systems, if the maximum is sector-dependent.

Yes I modified this too and I think that altering both values is the answer to modifying the number of invasion fleets. It seems that the AI invasions take your current max fleet strength and there is a random number of AI fleets in an invasion; If your max fleet size is 850 its 850 x 1 = 850 or 850 x 2 = 1700 etc.

Haven't seen any invasions as I am currently only in the sectors that have no invasions so I cannot confirm.

And yes the max number of assaults is assaults within a sector, for example maximum of 5. So if an AI has 10 fleets in a sector only 5 of them can move at one time.
Last edited by Dominator131; 17 Feb, 2019 @ 1:00pm
#6
GrenadeMagnet6 17 Feb, 2019 @ 1:09pm 
Originally posted by Dominator131:
Yes I modified this too and I think that altering both values is the answer to modifying the number of invasion fleets. It seems that the AI invasions take your current max fleet strength and there is a random number of AI fleets in an invasion; If your max fleet size is 850 its 850 x 1 = 850 or 850 x 2 = 1700 etc.

Haven't seen any invasions as I am currently only in the sectors that have no invasions so I cannot confirm.

And yes the max number of assaults is assaults within a sector, for example maximum of 5. So if an AI has 10 fleets in a sector only 5 of them can move at one time.
Interesting. Are you suggesting the parameter AI_Invasion_FleetNbr determines the minimum or maximum number of fleets * your fleet size for each invasion?

Just trying to clearly document the behavior of the two parameters:

File: SectorLevelDesign.csv
Param: MaxNbOfInvasions
Description: Maximum number of invasions possible for a sector in one turn

File: GeneralCampaign_BlackBoard.csv
Param: AI_Invasion_FleetsNbr
Description: Maximum possible number of fleets per invasion, based on player's current fleet size.

Last edited by GrenadeMagnet6; 17 Feb, 2019 @ 1:09pm
#7
Dominator131 17 Feb, 2019 @ 1:27pm 
Originally posted by GrenadeMagnet6:
File: SectorLevelDesign.csv
Param: MaxNbOfInvasions
Description: Maximum number of invasions possible for a sector in one turn

File: GeneralCampaign_BlackBoard.csv
Param: AI_Invasion_FleetsNbr
Description: Maximum possible number of fleets per invasion, based on player's current fleet size.

Yes I do believe these both are correct.

MaxNbOfInvasions = Maximum number of invasions in a sector at the same time. If there is a new invasion the old one is overwritten.

AI_Invasion_FleetsNbr = Maximum number of AI fleets within one invasion, as translated what is written in the "name" of the parameter.
Before the beta patch I think it was 1-3, now its 1-2. BUT I have seen 2400 and 2700 strength invasions too, so I am really not sure about this without testing. If the bigger fleets were before patch I think they might have toned down the invasions so that it wouldn't be such a grindfest anymore.
#8
GrenadeMagnet6 17 Feb, 2019 @ 1:43pm 
Originally posted by Dominator131:
Yes I do believe these both are correct.

MaxNbOfInvasions = Maximum number of invasions in a sector at the same time. If there is a new invasion the old one is overwritten.

AI_Invasion_FleetsNbr = Maximum number of AI fleets within one invasion, as translated what is written in the "name" of the parameter.
Before the beta patch I think it was 1-3, now its 1-2. BUT I have seen 2400 and 2700 strength invasions too, so I am really not sure about this without testing. If the bigger fleets were before patch I think they might have toned down the invasions so that it wouldn't be such a grindfest anymore.
When you saw the 2400-2700 strength invasions, do you recall what the level of the Urgency bar was at? Perhaps that was also modifying the strength of the base invading fleets.

Also in the file GeneralCampaign_Blackboard.csv there are Threat Augmentation factors. Perhaps these are used to augment the result of the calculations we described earlier:
... Value TT_Value UrgencyGauge_Step1_Threshold 10 10 UrgencyGauge_Step1_ThreatAugmentation 1 1 UrgencyGauge_Step2_Threshold 20 20 UrgencyGauge_Step2_ThreatAugmentation 2 2 UrgencyGauge_Step3_Threshold 30 30 UrgencyGauge_Step3_ThreatAugmentation 3 3 UrgencyGauge_Step4_Threshold 40 40 Urgency_Gauge_Battleplan_Nbr 1 1 Urgency_Gauge_Battleplan_GaugeReduction 1 1
If so then to keep the invading fleet size at a reasonable number one may modify the ThreatAugmentation values above to either 0 or 1.

I'm assuming a ThreatAugmentation value of zero (0) would mean no modification to the base invasion fleet size, assuming it's based on the player's current fleet size and the base number of invading fleets (parameter AI_Invasion_FleetsNbr). However if the Threat Augmentation is a multiplier to the total result then it would probably cause a crash if set to zero.

I'm hoping a value zero just means don't modify the base invading fleet size, but would require a test.
Last edited by GrenadeMagnet6; 17 Feb, 2019 @ 1:48pm
#9
BLWK 17 Feb, 2019 @ 6:45pm 
Cheers for the crash course, is it possible to share modded files?
Such as a file with costs -50% for example?

I tried to make one manually but in the game it causes ships to be called "missing key" and most values are 0. Is this a case of a missing comma?

Cheers
#10
.. 17 Feb, 2019 @ 9:10pm 
I don't think urgency nor threat increase an invasion's fleet strength. if you reload an end of turn auto save, it'll randomize between 1-3 fleets. The strength of the whole fleet does indeed seem to be based on your current max fleet size(which is increased via renown). On hard, enemy fleet size is +20% and the max invasion strength i've gotten(and quite a number of times too) is 3600, which would make sense since max fleet size for the player is 1000(so 1200 max fleet size for enemy fleet on hard, 3 fleets making it 3600 total). I believe threat only determines when it'll end up coming; either that or so long as it's >1 it'll spawn an invasion in x turns if its faction doesn't own a system.
#11
Hyndis 18 Feb, 2019 @ 6:59am 
I'm thinking the file /content/data/CSVData/SectorBonuses.csv might be the better option for fixing the invasion grind. In particular, these lines:

SectorBonus_AnyFaction_AnySectors_AllAI_ThreatLvl_Reduction_lvl1,-1,1
SectorBonus_AnyFaction_AnySectors_AllAI_ThreatLvl_Reduction_lvl2,-2,2
SectorBonus_AnyFaction_AnySectors_AllAI_ThreatLvl_Reduction_lvl3,-2,2

Crank up those numbers so that once you secure a sector the sector is now locked down. A large enough negative value there should reduce invasions to zero, but only if you secure the entire sector. Contested sectors would still be prone to invasions.
#12
GrenadeMagnet6 18 Feb, 2019 @ 7:39pm 
Originally posted by Hyndis:
I'm thinking the file /content/data/CSVData/SectorBonuses.csv might be the better option for fixing the invasion grind. In particular, these lines:

SectorBonus_AnyFaction_AnySectors_AllAI_ThreatLvl_Reduction_lvl1,-1,1
SectorBonus_AnyFaction_AnySectors_AllAI_ThreatLvl_Reduction_lvl2,-2,2
SectorBonus_AnyFaction_AnySectors_AllAI_ThreatLvl_Reduction_lvl3,-2,2

Crank up those numbers so that once you secure a sector the sector is now locked down. A large enough negative value there should reduce invasions to zero, but only if you secure the entire sector. Contested sectors would still be prone to invasions.

Great find! I wonder how this would affect the number of invasions and fleet sizing if modified.
#13
Hyndis 18 Feb, 2019 @ 8:33pm 
Originally posted by GrenadeMagnet6:

Great find! I wonder how this would affect the number of invasions and fleet sizing if modified.

No, those entries only affect enemy activity. You get bonuses based on how much of a sector you control. This bonus is a negative to all enemy activity. Make the bonus/penalty large enough an you can set all enemy activity to zero. This means there should be no invasions at all outside of scripted invasions or those planets that have a 20% chance to spawn an invasion if you don't have a fleet in orbit.
#14
Dathek 20 Feb, 2019 @ 5:12am 
Originally posted by Hyndis:
Excellent guide, thank you.

The invasions are what defeated me. Not because they're difficult but because they're a grinding slog. Its not that invasion are inherently a bad thing, but rather, having to continually deal with invasions over so many sectors with a difficult to use UI turns the campaign into whack-a-mole. It becomes a chore.

Im excited to try it out. I was autocalcing battles purely out of boredom. Theres just too much happening from all directions its boring
#15
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Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: 17 Feb, 2019 @ 1:10am
Posts: 30

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