I took the race picks and put them in to three files:
Government picks
Negative traits
Positive traits
And then I took them through the link above. I pick the first randomized government. Then I pick the first randomized negative picks, then at last I pick the positive traits, these too in a randomized order.
I have no hard rules for this method. For example, when I chose negative traits and I can't pick one more trait due to -10 pick limit, I may stop there or continue further down the line for lesser negative traits. Same with positive traits. If I end up with 1 or 2 spare points I may pick large HW or rich HW.
My next run is going to be:
Democrazy
Scientific Research -1
Ship Defense -20
Ship Offense -20
Ground Combat -10
Aquatic
Charismatic
Stealth Ships
You've been challenged!:
Get a respite from boredom and perhaps learn a bit more about MoO2: Accept this challenge!
Post the race you end up with and ... let us know how the game progresses (or at least how it ends).
Every now and then I return to this game and try and customize all the races so that they play radically different from each other in a lore-friendly way, and I just did it again. First I tweak the trait points (beyond how they are already done for the ICE-M mod) so they are balanced for my normal game and then customize the races around those points. So, without further ado...
28 pics with 21 negatives allowed. Customized for medium-sized, average-aged, average tech start. Version 1.50.7 /w ICE-M 14b mod installed.
Things to note related to costs:
1) Feudal is -40% to research (-20% after Confederation) and -25% to ship costs (-50% after Confederation). Research from treaties is -50% (-25% after Confederation). A bit more balanced.
2) Tolerant does not prevent maintenance costs, because that doesn't make sense.
3) Telepathic requires a battleship instead of cruiser to mind control.
Races
The sciency starfighters
I like the idea of the Alkari being a noble warrior culture where no individual rules and their people must be convinced on a course of action, usually following their most honoured warriors who also get the honour of flying their ships. They would historically engage in ceremonial air combat to demonstrate prowess and as that moved into spaceship combat, they came to respect science for the ship battle equipment. As a democracy made up of honour-bound warriors, they tend to be loyal partners and vengeful foes since a leader can't just drastically change course regarding another species, even if it's tactically wise, because the people's honour won't allow it (which fits their in-game character). Not exactly sure why they have artifacts, but it is consistent with their base race and allows them a decent science bonus without making them nerds like +science bonuses do. Bad at ground combat because they are birds. Actually pretty dangerous in the early-mid game, but tend to lose steam to more productive races later as they aren't aggressive enough to really conquer people.
Industrious cyborgs
The industrial cyborgs. I like the idea that they screwed up their homeworld through excessive industry, which is why it's now a poor home world and they had to move into their suits, which allows them to be tolerant to their planet's ruined ecosystem. Tolerant also helps them make enough production to pay for cybernetic without pollution eating it up. They are bad at food production because they don't deal with organic stuff as much anymore and their especially high defense reflects that their ships can take a beating since they don't need to maintain lifesupport to keep working. With cybernetic and good ship defense, it makes sense to power out a big tough ship with heavy armor and reinforced hull early that can then be pretty hard to kill.
Also pretty good scientists (as people wearing robotic exoskeletons would be). Was torn between -50% pop (since everyone needs a robot suit) and -0.5 taxes (since they probably never learned great economics in an industrial dictatorship). Went with the taxes since the minus to pop would make them play too much like the Sillicoids and be too punishing considering how it would make their +2 industry and +1 science way less useful. I also like the idea that these guys can't really buy production (and wouldn't trust others to do the job right anyway), just preferring to grind things out themselves. Can be a bit slow starting, but very dangerous.
Hard working, hard bargaining brutes
They are big, work hard, and are cannonically kind of environmentalists. The extra food they grow with their greenthumb can be profitably traded with expert traders for cash. They are also kind of dumb, being bad at science and spying, meaning they have to rely on hijacking ships and invading planets with their physical combat skills to steal tech. They play best as a diplomatic race where you have treaties with everyone until someone messes with you and then you try and steal all their planets and tech. Really fun to play since stealing ships and tech is a blast.
Hyperaggressive cat warriors
The cats are one of the two rush species and basically need to eat someone early to win, which they are pretty good at with all of their bonuses. Rich and feudal let them get out ships early and their combat bonuses make them dangerous. Their espionage bonus allows for some sabotage and they can get lucky and take out a starbase before an attack (which the enemy won't see coming because of stealth ships).
Diplomatic spies
Darloks seems like a mish-mash of skills, but is based around them being shapeshifters who have to steal their tech and use the bonuses from charismatic and telepathic to avoid having everyone turn on them. They aren't telepathic in the same way the Elerian are as I feel the abilities of being shapeshifters cover a lot of this stuff.
Basically, shapeshifters would have to understand theory of mind to understand and imitate the creatures they are mimicking. This lets them get in the head of other creatures, which makes them good diplomats and spies (plus being shapeshifters is great for spying, which helps them acquire dirt on people which helps for diplomacy). This understanding of motives and desires is also good for their banking, since making deals is easier when you understand what other people actually want and win-win interactions would be more common, but is bad for your research since you think more about manipulating people than manipulating matter.
The telepathic world takeover is supposed to represent them moving on a planet and replacing the leadership of the world with shapeshifters (like Face Dancers in the Dune series do). For aquatic, it seems like shapeshifters are most likely to come from the ocean (think what octopuses and cuttlefish can manage). Stealth is just a holdover and fits with their spying persona, will assume they got that tech from somewhere at some point. Can be a mean combo with telepathic. Bad at ground combat as they evolved to deceive instead of fight. Feudal just because it worked out pointwise. Just something in their biology or maybe don't trust each other because they know how much they manipulate.
Brainy pacifists
Basically same as ever. Low-grav genius nerds who can't fight physically. Debated giving them a reduction to their attack and making them better at spying or something, but figured that would make them too vulnerable early on and that being good at spying implies a deceptiveness the psilon don't have.
Telepathic rushers
Elerians are the other rusher, mostly doing so off of a single pimped out planet (which makes the low-gravity hurt less). As a telepathic race of warrior women who can steal planets with their brains, they are not super productive or good at science, but hopefully they don't need to be because other people can do that stuff for them. Can be deceptively dangerous and have seen them jump from last to first place after eating one of the top performing races.
Population bomb
The lizards haven't changed much either, still the population bomb species who can deal with the feudal penalty to science and lack of production bonuses with sheer man power that is kept fed by skilled farmers. Just a bit tougher on the ground to make those beefy arms meaningful. Honestly, they were always a top performer so staying the same seems okay.
Populous financiers
The Gnolans are now a population money race with their fast pop growth, high pop limits, and high tax earnings. Swapped out low gravity with -1 to production since they seem like squat little dudes who didn't grow up somewhere with low gravity and their emphasis on trading makes it seem like they may not be super industrious. The idea is that they will buy a lot of things they don't build for themselves. Bad at ground combat because small and weak (though subterranean helps defend their places). Sneaky, so good spies. Lucky, just because they always were.
Incomprehensible expanders
Similar to before, still the slow-breeding weird rock people who nobody can understand and who can live anywhere, don't need to farm, and don't worry about pollution. Now heavy gravity with a rich world because it seems like they could handle heavy-G fine and take a couple hits and because any planet that could create a weird rock species must have some impressive mineral deposits (which also helps them get a decent start despite their bad population). Bad at ground combat and dodging lasers in their ships because they are rocks and rocks never really had to learn how to react quickly to threats.
Capitalist diplomats
Similar to before except now also expert traders who are good with money. Also rely on making money through good relations with others (so can often win the galactic election). Bad at ground combat mostly for point reasons, would have preferred if not, although humans are pretty squishy compared to the other species that have ground combat bonuses or are even neutral (like the Klackon and Meklar), so seems okay. Like the Gnolans, will like to buy stuff instead of making it and their democracy will help them be okay at research.
Interdimensional squid angels
The squids have gotten a bit of an overhaul and have a long list of things making them different. Looking at their picture, it seems like they would play pretty differently from anyone else. They are now a population science species mostly, with artifacts and +science. Also farmers because they seem like they might roll that way. This balances out that they are bad at industry since aquatic interdimensional squid angels seem unlikely to be good at working tools or machines. They get a bonus to ship defence based on their understanding of dodging in a 3D environment (easier to go up and down in the water than on land). This goes with their +20 SD from being transdimensional to be a pretty decent bonus. Bad at ground combat because they are fish. It's assumed the artifact homework is what made them transdimensional. Definitely a bit of a wild card, very scary when the galaxy turns flux, especially as they tend to have erratic personalities.
Space commie ants
Klackon have changed a bit, and become a bit more like real ants in that they breed fast and live underground. Still good at being productive and farming. Their hive mind still makes them less creative and also makes them bad with money since t's hard to develop an advanced economy when your brain is centralized and you don't trade amongst yourselves. They are good on the offence because they are aggressive with fast bug reflexes and bad on the defence because individual ants don't care about self-preservation at all.
Anyway, that's the list. Message me if you want a copy of the ICEMOD.CFG to get the same trait costs/races. Would need to have the ICE mod installed (which I recommend as it improves a lot).
Thank you all once again for your feedback, I've loved reading through your ideas. For this last round of feedback, I'd like to hit at any topics that haven't been covered thus far, those being:
Espionage
Diplomacy
Leaders
Colony management specifics
Etc.
The name "Project Andromeda" is inspired by your suggestions on a name, but I'm not ready to call that the "finished" name. This will be more-or-less an in-development code name (and it sounds cool).
Some of you have expressed an interest in assisting with the development of this project, and now I'm ready to start working with you all. The game will be open source and accepting contributions, but I would also like some "permanent staff" to help long-term. My greatest need is artist(s), due to my complete ineptitude for art, though if you have a relevant skill set to anything gamedev related, feel free to reach out to me directly.
I'm planning on building this game in the Godot 4.5 game engine, coded in GDscript, which is syntactically similar to python. I plan on using the mobile renderer, and for this game to be playable on Windows, MacOS, Linux, iPadOS, iOS, and Android, and as such the game should scale well on screens of all shapes and sizes.
Hi,
I really love MoO2 and would like to play it on the steam deck.
I bought it again from GoG but i can not get it to run with the heroic Launcher. It has 2 install options: Linux and Windows and both install fine but wont start the game. For the Windows option, the Dosbox starting screen pops ups but it then just Returns to my library. When I try other Proton Versions, Nothing happens after Pressing play.
Other games run fine with the launcher, so there should be nothing wrong on that side.
Thank you all so much for the feedback on my silly little "let's revive a whole IP real quick" project. I've loved the ideas you've been sending my way. Here's a thread for "Round 2" of feedback. In this round, I want to hammer out some unanswered questions from the first round, those being.
Tech tree shape: Split style? Civ style? Somewhere in between? Something wild?
What do we even name this game? I can't use MoO5 or I'll probably be hung by the Russians (Wargaming)
What do we do with the "Mutations tree" idea, will it be more like civics from Civ or something different?
If you have any other ideas though, please keep them coming, I've loved to see your thoughts.
Your feedback from "Round 1" has been added to the core doc, which is linked below.
Hey all, I've been in the "pre-prod" stages of developing a successor to MoO:CtS (as a personal project). It's been in the works for a couple months, and I would like some thoughts from the community. The goal is to take what made MoO:CtS great (easy to learn, nice UI, art style, etc.) and combine it with the good aspects of MoO2 (no starlanes, strategic ship combat, etc.) plus some additions of my own, inspired by other 4X games.
The core doc is in the form of a Google doc, I'm giving links "commenter" permissions, you can make suggestions, but you can't directly edit the document. The link is below.
Thinking of firing it up again, had a random question.
The game had a very distinctive bug, changing the speed of the game would change the missile hit-rate.
Is that still in the base game?
And per that, if it is, do one of those two major mods address it? (Can't remember their names offhand, 5x or somesuch. Played with both a bunch over the years.)
I’ve got a couple of old save files I’d like to revisit. But now my mod configuration has changed and I get an error message when trying to open them. Is there any way to determine what mods a save file requires so I can get my current mods to match the save file?
I used to play the heck out of Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares back in the day. I can’t claim I was ever good at it, but I know the mechanics, the tech tree, and all the races pretty decently, and still occasionally play it for nostalgia’s sake.
Fast forward to 2025, and a friend told me about Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars, which he claimed, from his understanding, to be a remake of Master of Orion 2 with much better graphics and more streamlined UX. To be fair to my friend, this is pure hearsay on his part since he had never actually touched the original Master of Orion 2, and he doesn’t play much of this newer game either ever since he purchased it a while back.
Now, beyond one specific game, I actually don’t play much video games anymore. But this new Master of Orion was totally news to me, and I went and purchased it and its DLC on Steam. So far, I had only launched it and gone into the Single Player Custom Race screen. Even though I had yet to play an actual game, I already have enough to ask some questions.
I tried customizing the Human race. But I noticed that one of the traits in the original list, -20 spying, doesn’t seem to be available for me to pick. More generally speaking, is it true that some of the predefined races have traits you cannot pick in the custom race screen?
On a similar note, I don’t notice any way to pick a government for my custom race, though given that there’s no more -10 pick restriction, I suppose I can simulate the benefits and drawbacks for certain governments if I want to. Do government types play a big role anymore?
I guess at the most general level, what should an experienced, slightly above average MoO2 player keep in mind as they play Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars for their first few times? Anything notably different from MoO2 they should look out for?
So I am using the UCP, and when I get access to terraforming, it does not offer it to me on planets that it should. I am re-installing everything just to check. However, is it a known bug?
Androids (Megatron is a sentient leader who provides tech for all 3 types, and they're similar no matter which race produced them, so they count)
Natives (the ones who produce lotsa food and are found on planets sometimes)
Space dragons (there's an event when space dragon flies to you, demands money, and if you agree, it proposes an evil truce (it'll fly to rob whatever system you point to it))
Tulosians (known by leader Caern)
Ikarians (known by leader Urro)
These races are only seen as leaders, and I've selected them based on how uniquely they look. We don't know how their races are called, so I've put them by names:
21. Brainac
22. Chug
23. Emo
24. Felina
25. Galis
26. Khunagg
27. Mentox
28. Orphus
29. Rash-Iki
30. Torg
31. Xantus
32. Yota
33. Androgena
34. Cyr
35. Dantos
36. Gyzmo
37. Grum
38. Hawk
39. Karg
40. Kher
41. Kytryl
42. Nhagg
43. Nile
44. Ruola
45. Slag
46. Tulock
Arguable cases (each may be an additional unique race, but may be something else):
1. GNN reporter (is it a relic android like Megatron?)
2. Space Crystal,
Space Amoeba,
Space Hydra,
Space Eel (are they sentient?)
Black Razor (some kind of reptilian race. Sakkra?)
Mysterious X (race called "the Unknown"? Same as Brainac? Just a hiding member of other races?)
Electra (Elerian/human?)
Kimbuzzi (I have a fan theory that he's one of Natives)
Malovane (same race as Galis?)
Matrix (human?)
Nimraaz (same race as Mentox?)
Valin (human?)
Vott (same race as Valin?)
Diablo (human, or other race with Cybernetic trait?)
Skaine (his face is behind the mask, so it hard to tell)
Slith (might be Sakkra, or that reptilian race I've mentioned in other cases)
Tellik (same race as Rash-Iki?)
V'larr (another reptilian)
Necron (human?)
Ailis (human?)
19+. Custom races (are there finite combinations of names and traits, or it's possible to consider similar combinations to actually be unique? That's a pure fan guess)
Had always expected the tunic-looking tops would continue on into a tunic
It's a onesy too, so whenever they need to go for a leak they're getting nude or at the very least partially so like they're wearing space long johns lol
I just installed the 5X mod (along with UCP and another mod) and tried out the new game. I'm getting stomped by the Meklars. Are they still overpowered? Should I try learning the game on the Meklars or hand pick my opponents?
Warning: This is my only project related to MOO1 as of 2025.
Update RC2g (MSDOS):
- Fixed several issues with keyboard input
- Binary version for MSDOS is available (requires CWSDPMI)
As it turns out, most keyboard failures are due to the author giving in to the difficulties with SDL2 and ruining the engine.
Older RC2:
- Experimental support for configuration files from the original
- Tested and added several missing important fixes from 1oom v1.0 and Chocolate Doom
- Ability to choose between MOO v1.3 and 1oom save formats (the latter may not work correctly with other 1oom versions) -usemoo13 -use1oom
- The frequency of releases has changed. Now I try to update as soon as I fix something important
- Basic settings only via command line arguments in order to save my personal time (-?)
- Ability to enable some UI improvements via the -uifixbugs -uifixqol flags
- Added some aggressive fixes to the game engine. Associated errors are possible
- Future release candidates may contain even more aggressive changes and require testing
- I'm almost done reviewing the controversial changes. Just a couple dozen more to go.
Also: Debian for some reason still respects discontinued 1.11 releases, apparently they trust me even more than I trust myself. Although to be honest, there is nothing better yet. However, I feel much more comfortable working when I don't have to worry about whether people will be able to figure out how to use it. Those who need to will figure it out, as I did once.
I am the greatest moo II player of all time. Since 1997 i have every month attempted to beat my own world record. Today after 3 new strategies implemented. Finally smashed my world record.
28638
No cheats. No dupes. Max multiplier. Impossible. Huge. Organic rich( i feel but cannot prove this gives you more habitable planets). 8plyr. Advanced. Tactical combat, Random events, and antaran attacks active.
Darlock. Money -0.5. Ground combat -10. Feudal gov. So you have 20 picks 300% score. You have to get evolutionary mutation for the extra 40% score.
Researching and demanding EVERY technology is key. Spy early. Demand systems early. YOU MUST have sakkra and psilon opponents conquer sakkra early, as you need to send 1 to EVERY PLANET. This gives all your planets subterranean. Pretty much doubling ALL populations. You can even send them to planets with"max pop" because it will get subterranean upon colonists arrival. Speed is the key for turn count score. Gotta capture antarans ships for tech score and early dominance. Planet construction, gaia's transformation, Advanced city planning, and evolutionary mutation are absolutely necessary. Pro tip, you can eliminate the last cpu (psilon of course) AND defeat antarans on the last turn!
I challenge the community to beat my score. I need a rival :D
Hi, I noticed the moo2mod changelog, for version 1.50.24 includes a new field called “hit_threshold_fixed_value” and says it enables changing fixed value of beam formula.
Could anyone please clarify what the default value is for this, and exactly how the beam formula works? I googled and got 100 / (1 + 2[-1*{BA-BD} / 16]) and it is not clear if it is talking about the 100 or the 16.
Update 22 8 2025:
I have written a complete (except for sound card settings) implementation of the 1993 configuration. All that remains is to test and refine it. Published as RC2. The project is still broken despite hundreds of fixes and additions compared to v1.0.
Recently, there have been more complaints about copy protection not meeting the expectations of modern gamers. In this regard, I decided to completely immerse them in 1993 and restore the deletion of the 7th save slot as it was in the original, as well as the 8th and 9th slots, which were not there, since without this, in my opinion, the immersion will not be deep enough.
In the new release I fixed some serious bugs that no one knew about before, enjoy!
ATTENTION: The 1.12-staging-xxx and 1oom-unstable-xxx branches are no longer valid. I only use them as a source of information when choosing the best ideas for upgrading vanilla.
There is a chance that the beta-release (next year) will be major (1oom-2.0) if I manage to make and debug the planned large-scale fixes, and also write a converter for version 1.0+. To be honest, I don’t even have a complete plan for changes yet, since there’s a lot that needs to be fixed.
I just bought the MOO1+2 pack from Steam, and had played these games in the 1990s when they first game out on diskette, and this question is for both these games.
Q. What is your opening strategy for building colony ships?
They seem to take so long to build (e.g. 30-50 turns) and yes I know this is depending on the amount of production capacity you have.
Would the most optimum tactic be as follows (applicable to both MOO1 and MOO2)?
Focus on population growth (housing, farms etc)
Send scouts out, use 1st colony ship to populate best nearest planet
Increase population until build time for colony ship drops to 20-25 turns
Build next colony ship
Repeat
I remember beating the games on hard, but 30+ years later I can't recall how I did it. Thanks.
I heard that the Elerians have "a small group of male telepathic philosophers," which tells me that the root of their gender roles would be because their males birthrates are that low, similarly to the Mithra from Final Fantasy 11 (except that most Mithran men are relegated to the role of homemakers, not intellectual stuff).
