[MOD] Planet Roanoke, a/k/a all SMAC'ed up

This could easily become a political discussion as to what the "state of nature is." The default economy is "Simple," I think, which pretty much means whatever you want it to mean. The next available economy is "Planned" (which needs to be nerfed) and then "Market." After that we start getting into serious made-up fiction :)

For government, the default is Autocracy, which is not as vague as Ec:Simple, but the next one after that is Democracy.

For society, the default is Frontier (borrowed from SMAC), which is also pretty much whatever you want it to mean. After that is Free, then Caste, which in 2200 might very well mean Brave New World-style genetics.

The Agenda civics include Survival (default), Power, Knowledge, Eudomonia...

There may also be a "Terraform" civic that gives us a diplomocacy hook for global climate change.

Please join us on our discussion space linked from woodelf's sig -- there's a thread on civics with lots of ideas we'd love for you to weigh in on!
 
The Great Apple said:
Isn't a click (or klick) slang for a kilometer? Surely comingout of hibernation 30 Kms early wouldn't do that much harm on an intersteller voyage?
Hi Cambridge England from Cambridge US :)

Any suggestions for an alternative? Maybe by 2200 our modern slang will evolve to encompass new slang... or I suppose they'd repurpose old terminology like a "league"?
 
For civics I like the idea we had in our forums that the default are expensive and chew up your energy reserves while the first ones learned are cheaper and actually beneficial. Stuff to think about...
 
In the words of Tupac:
You'd better back the **** up before you get SMAC'd the **** up!
:D
 
Padmewan said:
Hi Cambridge England from Cambridge US :)

Any suggestions for an alternative? Maybe by 2200 our modern slang will evolve to encompass new slang... or I suppose they'd repurpose old terminology like a "league"?
Hi Cambridge US from Cambridge England :)

Hmmm. You might be able to do something with terametres (1,000,000,000km - over 40,000 of them from here to Proxima Centauri) - "ticks"... although the link might be a bit far.

How about 'secs - relating to the parsec. Might be a bit to long of a distance (1.295 parsecs from the Sun to Proxima Centauri). Also if it gets mixed up with seconds it could be confusing.

Not many other really big distances sound quite rugged enough... maybe you could do time or something.

Alternatively you could just not change it ;)
 
I'm fully on board with the far future having repurposed terms we currently use to mean other things. Maybe click now means something like one million kilometers, or a light-second or something like that.

Padmewan, I'm really impressed with the story behind this mod. It really does a good job of telling a story as you play the game, just like SMAC did. Sign me up to help out! I only have limited python experience but I'm sure I can help out somehow.
 
abman said:
I'm fully on board with the far future having repurposed terms we currently use to mean other things. Maybe click now means something like one million kilometers, or a light-second or something like that.

Padmewan, I'm really impressed with the story behind this mod. It really does a good job of telling a story as you play the game, just like SMAC did. Sign me up to help out! I only have limited python experience but I'm sure I can help out somehow.

Cool. Follow my sig to the dedicated forums for more in depth discussions. ;)
 
Leif said:
I still stand by my belief in starting out with a chaotic economy, for after a spaceship crash things wouldn't be structured.

Did you read Heinlein’s «Orphans of the sky»? That’s a good novel and it describes a situation closely relate to our discussion. (Another similar novel is “Non-stop” by Aldiss)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671318454/103-1877998-7771061?v=glance&n=283155


Question is simple. Colonists just after crash need a coercive, omnipresent, all-powerful organization that subdue individual interests and levy all resources toward one overarching goal: the Survival. Right? Colonists are barely keeping their heads above water, even though they are borrowing everything that only possible from mothership. They only fight for physical survival against alien planet. And vital machinery which provides their survival slowly goes into waste. So, maybe we name first economic civic something like «Capital decumulation»? And first government “Undivided authority” (i.e. command & control based on ship’s administrative organization, ranks and so on)
 
Welcome new teammates! (with voice of Walmart new employee trainer...)

For anyone who's interested, we have our ongoing design discussions here. Current discussion topics are:
  • What are the Era II technologies, and what do they do?
  • What are the Era II units and buildings?
  • How do lifeforms (religions) work?
  • What are the civic options and when are they available?
  • General thoughts on Era III techs
Everyone is welcome to join in! I'm personally looking forward to upgrading Era II and playtesting it, thanks largely to woodelf's XML grunt work :D
 
Is it possible to program conception as following:

Player starts with already established colony (like in SMAC). This colony “disappears” after... hmm, 50 turns. Thus player must research several initial techs and construct another city before time running out.
 
Guest1, take a look at this thread if you haven't already posted there and help lay out how the first 50 turns will actually play. We need specifics!

Also, those are helpful sci-fi backstories for us. I think we can easily change the backstory so that rather than being in hibernation, the colonists actually lived out several generations on the ship, as in Heinlein, so that by the time they arrive they have already sorted themselves into different factions (as per the original SMAC). Possibly, generations of separation across the ship will lead to new cultures emerging based on jobs (caste) rather than race/ethnicity, and so Engineers will have a different language than Biologists (this is already true with regards to technical matters).

I will try to read that other story you cited this weekend, as it seems to be good inspiration for the ecology of Planet. SMAC itself was inspired by Herbert's The Jesus Incident. In SMAC, the planet is constantly trying to reach self-awareness, but destroying itself each time. With the intervention of humans, they finally have the opportunity to transcend that limitation -- as do the humans themselves. Classic sci-fi in its view of human nature and our future...
 
Guest1, take a look at this thread if you haven't already posted there and help lay out how the first 50 turns will actually play. We need specifics!

Ok

SMAC itself was inspired by Herbert's The Jesus Incident.

Thanks a lot for that info. I'll read the story.
 
Padmewan said:
Also, those are helpful sci-fi backstories for us. I think we can easily change the backstory so that rather than being in hibernation, the colonists actually lived out several generations on the ship, as in Heinlein, so that by the time they arrive they have already sorted themselves into different factions (as per the original SMAC). Possibly, generations of separation across the ship will lead to new cultures emerging based on jobs (caste) rather than race/ethnicity, and so Engineers will have a different language than Biologists (this is already true with regards to technical matters).

IIRC, quite a number of people were kept in hibernation in that story.

And for the "30 clicks" thing, use 30 lightseconds or lightminutes instead. It's respectively 9 million -and 540 million km, and depending on the speed of the ship at that distance both could be quite a long time shipboard.
 
I think we're still trying to balance out where the "beginning" of this mod is.

A couple of ideas thrown around:

1 - Initial base scavenged from crash and slowly deteriorates forcing survivors to build colony pods and move on.
2 - The mod starts 30 years after the crash and they have a colony pod (or maybe 2) and are ready to move on.
3 - As it is now. But right now it is, IMO, too long to wait for a second colony pod.
 
I like idea #1, seeing the story of the colonists from day one after the crash to me seems like the most interesting story.
 
Leif said:
I like idea #1, seeing the story of the colonists from day one after the crash to me seems like the most interesting story.

1 is the best, but forcing everyone to beeline to colony pods by turn x seems un-fun to me. It's definitely something we need to figure out.
 
So, give the zeppelin or military engineer colonization capability. Better yet, let the early colonists research the ability to build the entire modern array of standard civ 4 units if they choose to do the research, get the resources, pay the exhorbitant cost in production. Also make this stuff really weak against native conditions, can't move in lattice, psi units have a massive bonus against it. Then let them branch out to high tech future stuff later on. Also it would help if barb units were a real threat against towns.
 
woodelf said:
1 is the best, but forcing everyone to beeline to colony pods by turn x seems un-fun to me. It's definitely something we need to figure out.

How about we just create a 'starting pod' unit that works like a setteler, but with a visual range of ten spaces and a movement of just as much, so that could take into account some last ditch efforts to controll where the pod lands, and it would make sure that the player has direct controll of where he or she starts out.
 
See post #2. The biggest change in the new version is the addition of new "Genomy" (lifeforms née religions) civics and their linkage, via Python scripting, to "promoted lifeforms" (née state religions). In this newest version, if you switch to a Borg lifeform, you will get +2 food for mines and extractors but lose your +1 food bonus for hothouses. You also get +2 XP in all Borg bases -- Borgs are this mod's early warmongers. Likewise, Cyneid gain +2 food for solar collectors, wind turbines, and resonators. (Mutagen, however, are mutated humans and keep the same food bonuses as regular humans).

In regards to the first 50 turns, we've tuned down the tech costs, which I think makes a big difference, and gave the Zeppelin a fighting chance against natives. Also, the lifeform changes described above give players (and the AI) an alternate path to survival on Roanoke, though much balancing is still needed.

I have proposed a "Survivor"-style elimination round for Era I in which the planet is seeded with many factions, but only the top 50% make it to Era II. (If the barbarians can be made more aggressive, and attack the weak rather than the strong, this would simply happen by default). If this sounds appealing to you, please help us come up with what the criteria for survival might be. The problem with having a very narrow criteria (build a colony pod) is that there is only one path to success, which the eliminates all choices in the early game. And "interesting choices" is the key to Sid Meier's success :D

There is a bug in the current mod in which barbs start with 0 units. If barbs were the active force that they're supposed to be in this game, Eras I-II would be quite a lot more interesting. Let's get that cleaned up, if we can.

Finally, we can revisit the mechanics of the early game and when / how units show up. For example, colony pods require 8 techs: the 5 up to and including Colonization, and the up to and including String Theory. (String Theory is the tech that allows entering Lattice, and without it you also can't build defense units that can leave cultural borders). We might decide that Militia should be able to leave the borders but not enter Lattice, and not require String Theory for colony pods, so that if you want an early colony rush, you can do so but sacrificing the ability to enter Lattice. (Perhaps at String Theory the Colony Pod upgrades to something that can enter Lattics). Anyway, there are plenty of options here.

I do think the last few times I played the first 50 turns moved a bit faster than before, but that could just be my own bias ;)
 
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