i wait till this game get patched up and get rid of the bugs and asset errors before I play this again, this remind me of this roanoake mod that died. This game is great and It's better then that game, however the major bugs and also the lack of a working settler recommended settle spot circles made me wnat to just play something else.
get rid of the bugs and asset and add some more things that make the game better, I will come back after a couple of patches. I also recommand a soundtrack and a new intro screen for your mod.
Do you mean assert errors instead of asset errors?
Anyway, if you were expecting a fully playable game you'd probably be disappointed. I don't know - Perhaps I should add a "disclaimer" in the OP that at this stage the mod will only interest people who want to help develop it or playtest it?
On a general note, I don't think the level of Planet hostility in SMAC should be taken as the benchmark for Planetfall. In SMAC you could rape Planet with ease. I'd prefer Planet to have teeth in Planetfall.
That being said, a quickfix for now so that fungal blooms don't occur too early could be to let each base start with say 2 or 3 Planet, so it takes a while before you start having negative Planet? (For each net negative Planet there is 1% chance each turn you'll get a fungal bloom.) Also if fungal blooms become whack-a-mole, the frequency of fungal blooms could be reduced, but the severity of each fungal bloom increased. Though we'll probably have to wait until we have some psi combat implementation to test that.
Btw, could you and other who experience too many fungal blooms perhaps please post a screenie showing the game year, flowering counter (that number added at the top) and some cities (and their sizes)? A screenshot of a base screen showing the causes of negative Planet would also be handy.
The promotions 'beam', 'missile' and 'Kinetic' dont mean anything to me, whats the difference between them?
Weapons are currently divided in three categories, each giving a different effect. I haven't bothered to actually implement that difference though, as the current unit system is more or less a placeholder.
This is something along the lines we were thinking about:
Kinetic:
no counterpromotion,
Air units: bonus to bomb mission -> I was thinking of not making this inherent to kinetic weapons, but rather make it a "Kinetic Harpoons" promotion/special ability which can be put on kinetic needlejets and gravships with Orbital Engineering
Beam:
interception chance against air units and ranged bombardment (eg artillery)
later weapons: collateral damage
Missiles
Terrain defense bonus negation
Sea & Air units: +1 or 2 air range (since ships start with 0 air range, this would de facto give ships a ranged bombardment ability
you obviously already know this, but, there are a lot of buttons and graphics missing. i could offer my help wiht making buttons, particularly for improvements, terrains, and resources (because those are the things i think need buttons the most)
W00t that would be awesome! Terrains may change in the near future, so perhaps better to wait a little with that, but terrain improvements and resources would be very useful. Btw, please check out the Graphics task list if you have skills in that area!
Texture wise, some graphics look rather plain. For instance the rover, rainy graphics on flatland and such.
...
Also, the (mosttimes) lack of visible seafungus on the map is quite annoying.
Let's hope going public will attract extra graphical guys to address these issues.
Is anything done on the speed settings yet? I started a game on Quick, but it nevertheless took ages (like anything between 20-40 turns) for the first research/construction and stuff to be finished.
Yeah I'm assuming the current costs will change a lot as the mod develops. Any suggestions with how much to decrease research & construction costs at the moment?
When I founded my second base, it started to have culture growth until 4/5th of the slider. Then it stopped. I did had a sort of assertion failure around that time, but don't remember if it was related.
As a way to reward positive Planet besides not having fungal blooms, you get +1 culture for each positive Planet. Though if each base starts with some positive Planet, the moment extra culture kicks in should probably be somewhat delayed.
You probably experienced the "culture bar assert". (see buglist)
There's no clear distinction on when seaformers can go through seafungus inside cultural borders and when outside. I feel it is better to have this unit or be able to go through seafungus inside AND outside cultural borders at the same time, or not. All or nothing so to speak.
Reason for that rather messy situation is that if I just give aquaformer impassability for ocean tiles, they can still move on sea fungus even if it's on ocean tiles and possibly cross to another continent. And while some limited exploration with them seems ok, I don't want aquaformers to be able to explore the whole world that early in the game.
I don't know - perhaps an alternative solution could be to make them unable to enter unexplored territory (like spies), but always able to enter fungus.
I imagine the advances in the tree could use some switching around as well. There should probably be more. (I'd like to see a return of teleportation, sociometrics, quantum machinery, etc.)
Before adding new techs and expanding the tree, we should first have enough ideas to fill the current tree!
The last half of the tree looks rather empty at the moment. Suggestions very welcome!
Btw, Eudaimonia, Terraforming and Stable Neutronium are all repeatedly researchable "Future Techs".
And I'd figure a number of those in place should be rearranged. For example, I wouldn't think to put Gene Splicing so late in the game. And if Terraforming is one of the last few advancements, then what are the Formers available from the start doing?
Those are minor naming issues IMO. Just think of Gene Splicing as Genetics V and Terraforming as "Advanced Terraforming" or "being able to completely eliminate Planet Terraforming".
TimeTraveler!!!
Very interesting analysis! Your findings suggest to me that the technology tree is actually 4 or 5 different technology trees in one (technology tree "paths"), and once you've researched the first few technologies you basically know which technology tree "path" you are on and you disregard all the remaining technology tree "paths".
If each technology tree "path" is equally attractive, but radically different in terms of strategic approach, wouldn't this indicate simply a different approach to the standard "Civilization Technology Tree" rather than a technology tree with 80% dead ends?
Yep I see no problem with many of the techs staying unresearched in one particular game, as long as they are all more or less equally attractive and a completely different research path may be followed in another game. Though I hope that once the first few techs are discovered, you don't always know what you're gonna do or have to do the rest of the game. There are plenty of opportunities to change course in the middle of the game.
Of course there's a potential issue that 20 research choices may overwhelm novice players. (Personally I do not find this problematic as I plan my research using the F6 screen, which gives a better overall picture) An issue of added gameplay value versus interface constraints
I also think the normal fungus is a bit overdone... It should less obtrusive.
I agree! Let's hope someone notices this.
Okay, further things:
- The unhealthy due to jungle bothers me a lot, frankly. I cannot understand it:
1) In SMAC, you were happy to find the monsoon jungle, as it was a great boon.
2) If people can live in a closed, air-tight habitat (because you cannot breath on Chiron), I fail to see how the proximity of a jungle causes a decrease of health.
The idea is that monsoon jungle is beneficial, but that you have to make some efforts to reap the fruits. I suggest researching Biogenetics as your first tech. The Biology Lab is intended to half unhealthiness from features, but that isn't working at the moment.
Will hopefully be fixed soon.
Regarding 2)
Code:
Although Planet's native life is based, like Earth's, on right-handed
DNA, and codes for all the same amino acids, the inevitable chemical
and structural differences from a billion years of evolution in an
alien environment render the native plant life highly poisonous
to humans. Juicy, ripe grenade fruits may look appealing, but a
mouthful of organonitrates will certainly change your mind in a hurry.
^
^ -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^ "A Comparative Biology of Planet"
So you could assume that the Monsoon Jungle has some potentially very useful flora and/or fauna, but that it requires some medical research to negate the unheathy side effects.