v11 feedback

how about making Recycling Tanks give you some minerals back when a unit dies, or is deleted, within or near the city.

Having a recurrent CTD here. Playing as Morgan under the latest patch. The game crashes sometime after pressing enter, processing between turns. I've tried reloading a turn earlier but it happens again. I have the last 20 autosaves or so backed up if you need them.

Also, it would be ideal to find what's causing that and tell me how to fix it, if possible. because I'd really like to continue this save.

I'm not getting a crash. Plus I noticed you're about to finish the Planetary Council, which caused crashes under patch g. So the only explanation I can think of is that you are not playing under the latest patch.

I have to report a crash as well (end turn to make it happen; in case needed, I can provide autosaves for the entire game):

I discovered the problem. Patch should be for tomorrow. It won't break your save.

Sea bases are too weak.

They are entirely, just not worth it. There are several reasons why.

1. Compared to alpha centaurii, sea bases are capable of far less yields. The most important one, is the coastal food. In SMAC, it was 2 food per tile, in planetfall it's only 1. This makes it extremely difficult to get good growth from such a base

2. Sea improvements are nowhere near as good as they used to be. They were originally balanced in the manner of building something on the same tile as a kelp farm. Without the ability for those to share tiles, most tiles with anything productive on them will only produce 1 food. And tiles with a kelp farm can almost never make more than 3 food.

3. No enhancement buildings. SMAC had the Aquafarm, Subsea Trunkline, and Thermocline Transducer. These increased the yields of sea improvements in the base. Without the ability to make these, sea improvements are just horribly gimped.

4. Major military disadvantage. Mind worms at sea are stupidly powerful. Because:
A: No defense penalty. Combat at sea uses equal odds for defend and attack, or maybe it's only mind worms that get the higher defense.
B: With their high speed, mindworms and sealurks strike at units garrisoned in sea cities from all sides.
C: With naturally poor production of sea bases, you have a very hard time building a defense force. AND the mind worms have an easier time of attacking you. You can't build bunkers in the sea, or hide near ridges to limit their angles of attack
D: The recent change to make aquaformers invisible in your territory, doesn't work too well in practice. It protects from IOD, sure, but sealurks can still see and attack your formers. And will do so merrily.

Changes I'd suggest

1. Increase coast yields to 2 food and 2 energy per tile.
2. Find some way to make kelp farms and platforms/seamills on the same tile functional.
3. Give sea bases some inbuilt defense bonus, to make them easier to hold against mindworm onslaughts
4. Re-add the sea improvement enhancement buildings, perhaps on later techs.

WarKirby said:

Sea bases are too weak.

They are entirely, just not worth it.

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I'm not under that impression - yes, plain sea bases (only standard water tiles) are weaker then land bases. Often not interesting, unless land has tried up. I think that is fine - highly profitable large style sea colonisation should be up to Sveensgaard and- if at all- be only possible for other factions with late techs.
And that doesn't mean that sea bases are generally not worth for other factions - they can, if you are selective about the location. Two or three ressources or just yield boni, some land tiles in radius (supportive yields or additional bunker locations), ice if you run EB (don't needs to be constructed, can't be pillaged) - those bases tend to become valuable additions to my empire over time. Perhaps some sea landmarks could further spice up things.

1. Compared to alpha centaurii, sea bases are capable of far less yields. The most important one, is the coastal food. In SMAC, it was 2 food per tile, in planetfall it's only 1. This makes it extremely difficult to get good growth from such a base

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As said, I almost think that is intended. Improving the output would take away a lot of the choice of location.

2. Sea improvements are nowhere near as good as they used to be. They were originally balanced in the manner of building something on the same tile as a kelp farm. Without the ability for those to share tiles, most tiles with anything productive on them will only produce 1 food. And tiles with a kelp farm can almost never make more than 3 food.

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I'm against this for the reason stated above, however I have to withdraw my earlier statement that this kills choice - it rather moves choice. Now you have choice between kelp or anything else; if kelp and an overlay can be combined, the choice is between the different overlays. I'm not sure which is better and would still tend to stick with what we have, but given the choice between your first suggestion and this, my vote goes here.

3. No enhancement buildings. SMAC had the Aquafarm, Subsea Trunkline, and Thermocline Transducer. These increased the yields of sea improvements in the base. Without the ability to make these, sea improvements are just horribly gimped.

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We actually have the subsea trunkline, it just works slightly different (IMO, more interesting implementation in PF). I have no obejctions against adding the other two as well - if they come late enough and if their implementation does not disturb balance with the Pirates. I could imagine that the Pirates start with the Aquafarm inbuild in their bases (or at least the ability to build them quickly) - of course everything non-tradeable-, while the other factions would have to wait for a later tech to be able to construct them (what happens to the Aquafarm, when someone captures a Pirate sea base, would be up to be debatted)

A: No defense penalty. Combat at sea uses equal odds for defend and attack, or maybe it's only mind worms that get the higher defense.

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I don't understand this one PSI defense is better on the sea, both for native life or normal units forced into PSI-combat - the 50:50 odds don't differ from the combat results I get and as soon as you throw in Hypnotic Trance, you have the advantage on your side.

B: With their high speed, mindworms and sealurks strike at units garrisoned in sea cities from all sides.
C: With naturally poor production of sea bases, you have a very hard time building a defense force. AND the mind worms have an easier time of attacking you.
You can't build bunkers in the sea, or hide near ridges to limit their angles of attack
D: The recent change to make aquaformers invisible in your territory, doesn't work too well in practice. It protects from IOD, sure, but sealurks can still see and attack your formers. And will do so merrily.

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Indeed, there is some truth in that points, though that isn't enough to detract me from going for sea bases within the considerations I have posted at the very beginning - also it is often the only room left for expansion in my games... BTW, my problems with defending sea bases have decreased over the last versions (IIRC, from the moment on Maniac put that code in, which makes native life car less for human sea territory - also the AI might have gotten better at sea expansion, drawing the planets attention more), but of course this can be a pure effect of randomness or variation in setup or playstyle in my games.

Pfeffersack said:

I don't understand this one PSI defense is better on the sea, both for native life or normal units forced into PSI-combat - the 50:50 odds don't differ from the combat results I get and as soon as you throw in Hypnotic Trance, you have the advantage on your side.

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I don;t think it's that psi defense is better on the sea, but that sea units have better psi defense. There is a difference there.

Your troops standing guard in sea bases, are vulnerable to attack. But you can't take advantage of a rapid counterattack with choppers/ships, because they're not weak to that like land based worms are.


What would be wrong with sea bases being highly productive?
In SMAC, the general balance was that sea bases have a relative abundance of food and energy, but have a VERY hard time building anything due to the late entry and lowyield of mining platforms, combined with the fact that no sea tiles had a mineral bonus inbuilt. This also meant that the pirates got +1 minerals on coastal tiles, which allowed them to partially offset the main weakness of sea bases and make them viable for a whole faction.

Here, sea bases are more or less the same as land bases, except not really as good. The yields from aquafarms are lower than land farms, which significantly limits growth of sea bases. They feel just like watered down (excuse the pun) land bases, rather than the significantly different experience they were in SMAC.

Pfeffersack said:

I'm against this for the reason stated above, however I have to withdraw my earlier statement that this kills choice - it rather moves choice. Now you have choice between kelp or anything else; if kelp and an overlay can be combined, the choice is between the different overlays. I'm not sure which is better and would still tend to stick with what we have, but given the choice between your first suggestion and this, my vote goes here.

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It'd probably be logical for sea boreholes to remove kelp, actually. but other improvements ought to be possible to build in it I think.

I've done a little modding of my own, anyways. Changes I made:

Coast gives 2 food, 2 energy
Shelf gives 2 food, 2 energy
Ocean gives 1 food, 2 energy
Trench mineral bonus reduced to 1.

I'm aware that shelf and coast have the same yield. Personally, I don't see a lot of benefit in having those as seperate terrain. I'd rather just see coast renamed shelf, and merge them.

In general, the wetter you get, the more food you get. Moist makes more food than arid, which makes more food than rainy. The sea is just a natural extension of that, where you're surrounded by teeming, edible life, but nary a solid thing to make a house out of. I like the double edges sword aspect. It means you have to seek out mineral bonuses, or settle on the coast near minable areas, to get decent production in a sea base. Thusly not removing choice about location. But also giving the option of putting a base completely out in the sea. Since such a base would have almost nil production, you have to personally support it by paying for it's improvements. but on the flipside, it generates vast amounts of commerce and research once you get it up and running. It's a good tradeoff.

I'm not trying to emulate SMAC just because. I think they actually made some pretty good design choices with regards to the sea, and I enjoyed the experience it gave.

WarKirby said:

I don;t think it's that psi defense is better on the sea, but that sea units have better psi defense. There is a difference there.

Your troops standing guard in sea bases, are vulnerable to attack. But you can't take advantage of a rapid counterattack with choppers/ships, because they're not weak to that like land based worms are.

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Ah ok, my mistake - fueled by the fact that I never defend a seabase solely with land units. I rely mainly on ships for that duty, so that when I get attacked from native life there, I have the 1:1 odds.

For counterattacks, I weaken them with the bunker inside base, then sending out my ships. Usually works, except for very new bases cought unprepared. But on the whole, I rarely lose sea bases.

I agree with everything Pfeffersack says. Re colonization strategies I'll add you could found sea bases in bay areas (less directions for random natives to wander in) and in the middle of the polar caps (sea colony pods with stealth) if you have Photonics.

I've given (in next version) the Amphibious Pods special ability +50% strength versus naval units. So Marines for instance will have 3:3 odds against natives. They'll also get +50% vs. conventional ships, but one can argue that's fair compensation for being unable to attack on sea.

I'm still pretty new to the mod, so I don't have too much in the way of productive feedback yet, but I've been extremely impressed both with the mod itself and with the continuous stream of improvements that have been made just in the month or so I've been following it. Y'all are doing amazing work, thanks a lot!

I think morgan is too powerful now. Since the addition of those corporations, he takes the lead in every game I play. in a game I'm currently on, he has an impossibly vast tech lead over everyone else, including me. and I'm the university!

Related: the university seem weak.+20% research is nice, but that's all it is. the other awesome stuff other factions have kind of overshadows it. And morgan is generally better at research anyway, due to the capability to devote a higher % of energy to it from having more money, and having more energy to begin with thanks to the trade route bonuses. And also having one ridiculous super city with every corporation in it, having specialists that give 2 food, +200% research, and so much other stuff I can barely remember.

I do find the morgan corporations fun, and I'd rather not see them weakened too much, but morgan seems to dominate the game now, in human or AI hands.

WarKirby said:

I think morgan is too powerful now. Since the addition of those corporations, he takes the lead in every game I play. in a game I'm currently on, he has an impossibly vast tech lead over everyone else, including me. and I'm the university!

Related: the university seem weak.+20% research is nice, but that's all it is. the other awesome stuff other factions have kind of overshadows it. And morgan is generally better at research anyway, due to the capability to devote a higher % of energy to it from having more money, and having more energy to begin with thanks to the trade route bonuses. And also having one ridiculous super city with every corporation in it, having specialists that give 2 food, +200% research, and so much other stuff I can barely remember.

I do find the morgan corporations fun, and I'd rather not see them weakened too much, but morgan seems to dominate the game now, in human or AI hands.

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Interesting, because in my current game I'm playing Zhak as well, dominating the world by far and Morgan offered peaceful vassalage to me in turn 130 There is only one caveat in my setup - accustomized to the better AI skills in previous versions, I choosed Monarch difficulty again, but somehow the AI has got a serious hit (might be someone relaive to native life presence, I noticed more and the AI might have trouble fighting it or expands slower, fearing it). So maybe my dificulty is just below the level, were the AI can be a threat now (what level is your game on, BTW?) Still the performance of those overall AIs weak was very different - in 2330 100 turns after the vassalage):

Me - 1734 P - 15 cities
Miriam - 1052 P - 9 cities
Morgan - 896 P - 8 cities
Santoago - 807 P - 9 cities (+1 under seemingly permanent native life control)
Lal - 791 P - 7 cities
Yang - 730 P - 6 (+1 under seemingly permanent native life control)
Deidre - 520 P - 3 cities (she was recently steamrolled by Miri and Me)

At least in that hands of the human player, Zhak isn't too weak - his special regarding less tech trade restrictions is something the AI will only use within limitations (trading under worse relations, but no further "strategy" of tradind the right techs behind it). Withou a doubt, Morgan's boost is serious - 7 single city wonders mean that you can boost your entire core (around seven realy big and productive bases in the midgame are not uncommon). Is it too strong - I don't know? Maybe others are to weak? What if Santiago's GG's can research techs? Also, I'm under the impression that the Yang AI isn't yet accustomized to the Hives new specialities yet. I doubt they know specifically about the power of big, unhappy bases with Gen Factories. Also I think they need adjustion regarding unit production - I think their unit production probability should a serious boost. Yang runs Police State all the time, which gives him dozends of free units extra (plus what the AI has free on high levels anyway) and he has still not all lot more troops than others - which is crucial, if every unit is penalized by 20% and further every 2nd without any boosting special abilities (but halved maintenance) No wonder that mindworms settle in his lands Also, his combat odds perception might need a trim in direction of attacking at worse odds.

Pfeffersack said:

At least in that hands of the human player, Zhak isn't too weak - his special regarding less tech trade restrictions

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I really don't like that special ability, at all. Bypassing a game option is not a good idea. If I turn off tech brokering, it's presumably because I don't want tech brokering, All it accomplishes is making zakharov circumvent the rules the player sets. What value does that add to the game? I find it silly.

When tech brokering isn't restricted, it's a worthless ability that does nothing. Something tha'ts so gameoption dependant can hardly be dconsidered a solid strength.

A thought.

Factions which are fun
Morgan
Gaians
Hive

Factions which are not fun
University

Undecided
Spartans
believers
peacekeepers


This is how I see it at the moment. 3 factions I haven't played with yet, but I find that zakharov just doesn't have anything special or fun.
One thing that might be nice, is some benefit to the university for staying atheist. It doesn't realy feel right to follow any religion with them.

Also, more specifically about the morgan problem. I think Morgan Data Systems, Pharmaceuticals, and Entertainment are too powerful. Right now my capital is size 27, it's producing 408 research per turn. With essentially infinite health, happiness, and 2 food from doctors, my population is only limited by how many doctor slots I can get. It also has 5 boreholes around it.

I guess being in the monsoon jungle and having a decent selection of resources around me does help, but it still feels like a bit much.

Perhaps I could limit Morgan "corporations" to two per city? Less synergy that way.

WarKirby said:

I really don't like that special ability, at all. Bypassing a game option is not a good idea. If I turn off tech brokering, it's presumably because I don't want tech brokering, All it accomplishes is making zakharov circumvent the rules the player sets. What value does that add to the game? I find it silly.

When tech brokering isn't restricted, it's a worthless ability that does nothing. Something tha'ts so gameoption dependant can hardly be dconsidered a solid strength.

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I consider "No Tech Brokering" as the official Planetfall setting. I'd remove the setting as a game option if I could, but if I understand correctly from FfH modmods, that would cause certain issues.

WarKirby said:

I really don't like that special ability, at all. Bypassing a game option is not a good idea. If I turn off tech brokering, it's presumably because I don't want tech brokering, All it accomplishes is making zakharov circumvent the rules the player sets. What value does that add to the game? I find it silly.

When tech brokering isn't restricted, it's a worthless ability that does nothing. Something tha'ts so gameoption dependant can hardly be dconsidered a solid strength.

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There is still the benefit from being able to trade with those who don't like you or with ones you don't like (for the AI). But you have a point, dependancy on game options, especially such a special one, isn't ideal.

Maybe Zhakarov should be able to trade techs from the very beginning on without needing to learn a tech? Or he could start with Network Nodes in each base...or Network Nodes could be more beneficial to him.

One thing that might be nice, is some benefit to the university for staying atheist. It doesn't realy feel right to follow any religion with them.

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Interesting idea. Maybe there should be a new civic, called Rationalism or Atheism (available for everyone but only highly desired by the University - or maybe tie it to Wisdom?). Something that makes it harder or impossible for religions to spread in your territory and which gives a bonus to cities without a single religion (maybe extra beakers and espionage...the bonus from the old Consciousness). Having religions in a city causes unhappiness and/or detracts from research. Instead of a missionary unit, Zhak would be able to build a kind of "Atheist Thinker", being able to expel unwanted religions. Could cause (temporarily?) unhappiness with the founder of that religion.

Also, more specifically about the morgan problem. I think Morgan Data Systems, Pharmaceuticals, and Entertainment are too powerful. Right now my capital is size 27, it's producing 408 research per turn. With essentially infinite health, happiness, and 2 food from doctors, my population is only limited by how many doctor slots I can get. It also has 5 boreholes around it.

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Maybe the corporations wonders should be limited to one per city (think of the names of the Morgan Bases - each seems to be the HQ of one big corporation. It is funny anyway that base name and corporation can differ - it would make more sense that the base takes the name of the corporation over after it has been founded) or apply at least the 2-national-wonders-per-city-limit to all Morgan SPs.

Hi,
my thoughts on faction balance.

I really do not have the impression that Morgan is too powerful.
I played some games with Spartans (on emperor level) so far. Lal was in most times the hardest oppenent. Though Morgan had a good start in most games, he was easy cannon fodder later on (though still before mid-game), especially for spartans.
Zak and Deirdre were always worst.
What astonishes me is that in each game I had the impression that Miriam and Yang are very passive.

All in all I find it quite balanced by now, though spartans seem to be very powerful when you like an aggressive style (eat-digest-eat-...). So I am eager for the SMACX factions...