An Early Set of Game TXT Alterations, nonfaction.

StrikerX22 · Jul 1, 2010

Okay this is gonna be rather big. If you think I should separate the social model area as a separate thread, I'll do that. Note that there are two attachments. 1, an excel graph showing the social engineering stats in a way that might be more meaningful to some for analyses. A visual mock-up version should be displayed below. 2, the whole pack with all my files for working with and everything. The change list txt includes instructions on file usage at the top.

The social model changes are the most recent, so they have affected things quite a bit probably. I do plan to eventually have at least 7 factions balanced with each other, as opposed to the originals. My focus has often been on positives over negatives, perhaps naively, to make the game feel more fun and play faster. I have since learned things at SMAC academy that may require a revamp of some things.

I do lack experience with veteran play, so I'm going to need some advice for sure, and suggestions/ideas in general are welcome. I also prefer conquest and have little experience with other goals. This is a copy of my change list, with its explanations and such.

Maybe take it a section at a time... = =;

CURRENT CHANGES:
(* = In process still, ~ = Trying out now, ? = suggestion, x = decided against/doesn't work.)

---===MAIN==IDEA==CHANGES===---
(feel free to skip past details marked by multiple -'s.)

-OBJECTIVE: Make the game play out faster, make it more fun and challenging, more interesting possibilities, a bit more balanced (hopefully) in some respects. This includes buffs to many rates such as research and production, and a new socio-economic model group.

-The terribly weak AI gets priorities Build+Conquer to make them actually build formers/buildings and units. Others have witnessed this as helping substantially.

-Social Model Changes: Completely revamped and more complex, with nonfuture models having the same required tech, except for what was Wealth (now needs Adaptive Economics, was Indust Auto):

Spoiler :

--When you start, before you choose new social models, you get an overall modifier of 1 Industry, Growth, Research; and -1 Efficiency, Economy. This gives you a bit of a boost when things are slow, and the minuses do very little early on.

--Remember, _Cloning Vats_ secret project takes negatives away from (values) Power's old slot [now (val) Happiness, Power shifted over] and what was (future) Thought Control [(fut) Harmonic], not to mention it makes Growth stat useless. Likewise, _Network Backbone_ takes away negs from what was (fut) Cybernetic [now (fut) War Society]. Finally, remember that Telepathic Matrix prevents drone riots, and thus police rating is near useless (save getting golden ages) as long as it stays in your faction.

---Theoretical Spiel for Social Model ideas:
----Politics: Committee represents a lack of total executive power initially. DICTATORSHIP is an oppressive, strong leadership, similar to what was called Police State. I was originally looking into a possibility of a non-oppressive form, but it wasn't as interesting and different enough from "democratic" Republic. REPUBLIC reflects practical democracy (rather than direct democracy), as people do not have all the power but rather elect officials to make middle as well as higher decisions. PAVLOV DRUG is a form of mind control, replacing the future society Thought Control's idea and Fundamentalism's slot, using its tech (Secrets of Human Brain). It has the same premise as Thought Control, pumping drugs into the dome's air, but the way it works is such that one can be hypnotized to believe things with a complex "Pavlov bell" conditioning utility. On hearing or seeing a "bell," they go into "instruction mode" and believe what they hear/read and are strongly convicted to follow it. However, this can be utilized by spies, and the drug has ill effect on mental prowess.

----Economics: Pretty much the same idea. CONTROLLED is just what I chose to call Planned, to be a bit more obvious.

----Values: Mostly the same, but Wealth is changed to Happiness. HAPPINESS encompasses pleasing the citizens, making society comfortable. Happy people tend to work better and think more clearly, while spending more and doing other things more. They are against military playing a large role. Unlock with discovery of Adaptive Economics.

----Future Society: This section has been completely revamped, and access is a bit earlier on than normal.
-----WAR SOCIETY is the result of a constant necessity of war. Citizens are trained from the start, and the whole culture revolves around it, even if very reluctantly. Industrial Nanorobotics makes this much more possible, freeing up many citizens to give up normal jobs, and allowing for a more complex infrastructure to accommodate this odd way of life.
-----COCOON DOCTRINE is a bit hard to explain. Essentially they are taking on a more machine-like mentality, with a task of bettering their social unit as a whole. They are highly focused inwards, high security, suspicious of outside elements. They focus on city infrastructure rather than military, research instead of economy, with little care of "selfish" individualistic desires. This society becomes possible with the tech Homo Superior, having much influence from the prerequisite techs of Biomachinery and Doctrine: Initiative.
-----HARMONIC is in some sense a combination of the concepts Eudaimonia and Cybernetic societies. Cybernetic sought to give the tasks of running society over to machines (as opposed to making everyone cyborgs). Harmonic does indeed have an intelligent computer management system for high efficiency, with as little impact as possible on the planet's ecology, while balancing the needs of the people. It is designed as a type of utopia and everything is in its place, doing what it should be doing. The idea of Eudaimonic was that everyone attempted to completely fulfill their potential as citizens, thus making their life fulfilling and happy. The managing computer does not have full control without permissions, people still have governing officials, and so on. However, industry suffers a bit from regulations, and the idea of waging war is far from the heart of collective society. This model is derived from Nanometallurgy, combining a superior infrastructure with super efficiency from prerequisite Probability Mechanics, and Doctrine: Initiative for the radical change.

-Tech Rate +50%. (Research stat is easier to get, otherwise it might be +75%.)-(Hard to know if this rate is treated properly... so many others aren't.)

-Unit Moves +50% [SEE BELOW]. (infantry is still 1 move so that it isn't "fast," or it would be affected by ecm,/pulse; will require more defenders, and that means one more supply used at least. Actually, if alternate road suggestion is taken [below], this won't be much of an issue.)

x?make roads only give 2x moves, assuming unit moves are doubled (if infantry ends up not being, nm. [it's considered fast, so prolly not]).
~?alternate: roads 4~5x moves, rover back to 2 moves, hover back to 3, maybe 4. Roads are more valuable, and since I want more movement (air/sea still get it), see if cost 0 roads work (think not, even on difficult terrain). Keep in mind Hover chassis is now same price price 2 (Rover same, 3/4 wasn't enough to lower, same with scout's 1.)

-build costs 3/4. (Means minerals are worth +33% (4/3) [if applied to all]. This means support is +33% as powerful, and unit moves note [above] making shortages happen more. Also, this affects retool freebie mineral value [uneffected by retool 1/2 penalty].)
-~-Buildings?-----------Yes, but 2/3. (rows+1)/4 = change, rounded down.
-~-Secret Projects?-----Yes. /4 so-> 1 |-----4rows-----| 2 3 4
-~-Units?---------------trying; see below. v v v v
----Example: at 3/4 (round-off), old:new is 1:1, 2:2, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, 6:5, 7:5, 11:8, 15:11
-~---Chassis--Yes.
-----Weapon---No. (Believe chassis is enough to make the difference.)
-----Armor----No.
-----Ability--No. Are 25% changes and I don't see need for change, nor can I well.
-~---Lifeform-Yes, but 2/3. (change under #UNITS, being premade ones.)
--[Please note that the Support stat is notably difficult to maintain at times, and so seems to be a bit more important now from that as well.]
--[Considering putting units to normal costs with Industry stat being higher in general, and feeling too easy to make.]

-Base 2f 1m 1e to 3 2 2 for improved growth rate, improved getting-off-the-ground minerals, and energy for against inefficiency and various energy usage buff for early bases. Also see recycling tanks. This should help early bases the most.

-recycling tanks from 1 1 1 to 1 1 2. (2 Food might be too much, combined with above. Minerals will feel increase already, and more energy would be nice, and fits "recycle." Energy too will be a bit more useful for hurrying cheaply more often, however.)

--===Important===--

~?Superstring (Chaos Gun, leads to monopole mag) now requires Advanced Subatomic Theory (ECM) instead of Nonlinear Math, Nonl Math is now PreReq to Adv Sub Th instead of High Energy Chem (plasma steel, still goes to synth fossil fuels). SEE BELOW:

Spoiler :

Adv Sub Th also leads to silksteel->monopole. This brings Superstring tech cost from (11, 4basic) to (14, 5b), without affecting monopole. (Monopole gets 17+1 for cost and 23-1 for Unified Field Th.)

~?Specific changes to ability costs to allow for more? (some abilities don't get used as much due to high cost and fact you can't use another ability while it takes up the slot.) Changes currently: Dissociative wave is cost 1 from 2 (+25% from +50%), same for Clean Reactor and Empath Song (strength is 40% from 50% btw).

~?Lower prototype cost? more annoying than anything, only one morale boost, makes you wanna build early so you can do it quickly when it's actualy needed. Perhaps +25% instead of +50%.
--Ground? +25% from +50%
--Sea? +25% from +50%
--Air? +25% from +50% (Missile loads are a pain, otherwise I might keep higher here.)

~?Make Skunkworks cost 5 rows from 6 (3 from 4 after 2/3 cost reduct) since you get less benefit, prototype being less expensive.

?free retooling if "in category"?

-terraform time down by 25% (rounded UP).

~?Maintenance costs down by 2/3. In one game, commerce alone was my income and energy banks almost required to be positive otherwise, without good effic or econ, after building many buildings.

-council turns from 20 to 10. (Was long anyways, but now things go faster.)

~?corner global market from 20 to ? (faster paced units/building) Try 3/4 to 15?
~?Alien Vict. Subpace Generators are still at 60 cost, and should be reduced at new cost rate if above is. (could be 40 from 2/3 buildings cost, but is prolly be better at 45 for matching 3/4.)
~?Ascent to Transcendence from 200 cost to 150, as per 3/4 Secret Project cost.

-change sea min. +1 from such high tech (build 7, requires fusion/tree farm and 7 basic techs), to something allowing land ppl to actually make sea bases. Now Tree Farm (9, 4b).
--(fusion is 18 techs, and adv eco eng is 25, 7 basic.)
--To what? Other possible techs are:
---Eco Eng (6, 3 basic), since it's former-related and lifts mineral restriction. Might be a bit too easy to get. and it's on the way to tree farm.
-~-Env Econ (9, 4b), tree farm, former related but is "economics"? i suppose it works as well as tree farm. Also energy restriction lifted, formers can lower/raise land.
---Silk Steel (10, 3b) Might make sense to use a "silk" stringy strong substance to mine the depths with, plus it's not very attractive otherwise and only gives silksteel, an armor that can be cracked by particle weps (1~4 and 8 are. "2" laser's not energy, go figure - -). Though keep in mind I might change those properties anyways to make more strategy.
---Monopole Magnets (17, 5b) Comes after silk and chaosgun 8, only gives mag tubes.
--The latter two aren't as related to research on sea things or environment/former, though they get little attention from me otherwise, and monopole requires a wep i like.

--===Notable===--

?Raise cost supply unit? it would degrade use of supply for harvesting, and would still just apply that much more to secret projects when cashed, but it would take a little more planning perhaps?

~?Missile Cost down, because more expensive than great aircraft because of its higher moves, but dies on impact and acts stupid when it hits a base (stops early to refuel, can't cancel). 5 cost instead of 9 (after 3/4 cost), under air unit 6 cost, as it always dies after one use.
Change Planet Buster cost accordingly? No, seems to ignore chassis cost. Check others.

-Changed planet buster to one tech ahead, instead of initial missile tech. N-space gives fungal and tectonic, and sounds good for planet buster, and gives flechette defense against missiles, so it can go there.

-Fungal and Tectonic payloads are down from 24 to 16 cost [note: 3/4 cost doesn't apply to wep]. (conventional is 12).

~?Global Warming rate to 1/2 normal rate.

~?Lower advantage from ECM/Trance to 35%. (Maybe even 25~30%)

~?Empath (was cost 2, +50%, now cost 1) from 50% to 40%? (Dream Twister and Neural Amplifier can't be altered apparently.)

-Taking out top 2 "Secrets" Tech extra tech bonuses, as they are unnecessary at that point, and at least do something: S. of Alpha Cent and S. of Manifolds.
--Remaining Secrets Techs: of the Human Brain, of Creation, and now Optical Computers.
-optical computers now gives a tech. It requires siginifcantly different techs than Secrets of Human Brain, and is a tad later. No other techs seem to sound like they'd give a burst in research to me, however. I would like to make another in the middle tech ranks somewhere.

?change types of armor and weps to have more strategy? (Armor has weakness to either energy or particle types, or neither. They are arranged in a way that you have little such advantages tho if you're near in tech.) [Need to test advantage. Then perhaps for now change Pulse/res to normal armor cost for that level, being energy only, and neutronium 8 to "both" instead of energy.]

-energy start from 10 to 25. (bit of lenience)

-humans now do not automatically get each others' com frequencies (settings to both network and e-mail/hotseat)

?lower from "5, ; Minimum base size to support specialists" [other than doctor, empathi, and transcendi.]?

--===Minor===--

-Changed Deep Radar unit naming to Radar from nothing. Perhaps put to "%" for blips (Not done). Remember it's always easier to name unit designs more concisely, and it's always better to make your own designs.

?enable heavy transport (+50% capacity) on some tech? works? (Reactor and better chassis already add to amount held [Foil: 2*reactor, Cruiser: 4*reactor]. Keep in mind Unity Foil has "Slow" special ability, which takes yet another move away (transport takes 1), and it has 1 less cargo.)

~?Artillery damage up a tad? from 3,2 to 7,4?

?sea psi feels boring since it's all morale and coin flipping, so it's hard to level morale to begin with. Perhaps raise attack side a tad. Sea Psi's advantage is Isles of Deep can transport and move through fungus freely (tho never really wise, meeting other isles, but currently you have the same advantage 1:1). Planet rating does contribute to attacker's advantage (only), which is somewhat like weapons to artillery's similar situation of little committed combat.

--===Unimportant===--

?edit worldbuilder to be a bit more interesting? look into to see if it affects random maps.

-Set Custom time controls to: (These don't have to be used, and are somewhat untested.)
45, 15, 10, 20, 45, 10, 3,
based off of Loose:
45, 5, 5, 16, 45, 10, 3,
(Minimum [seconds], Base, Unit, Event, Extra, Refresh bonuses[turns], Accumulated bonuses [Ctrl+Space to use])

--===Aesthetic=or=Rejected===--

-renaming morale "Elite" to "Win and Good", "demon boil" to "Pwn Boil"

-Added some descriptions to their descriptions in alphax.txt:
--Abilities section
--(various)

x?simply lower mineral multiplier? might not work with industry stat. (it rounds new multiplier up, so it sucks.)

x(unable)?Allow more leeway (or endless) in minerals over top, going to next production? (This would likely cause a continual buildup of red minerals at high-min bases. 20 or 30 might be acceptable. Currently default 10 can have this problem with scout patrols if your industry is above 0.)

x?raise reactors each by 1 to make the transition less shocking. (Doesn't seem to work. It may change the "reactor cost reduction" of things.)

Kilkakon · Jul 1, 2010

A lot of changes here as well!

To be honest it's a bit confusing the way you have set it out, but I will try to figure it out.

Um there's definitely a lot of stuff here that supports ICS/unit spamming, which is fine if that's what you want to achieve.

For Psi, I made all domains have 3/2 odds in my mod.

Is the download playable? If so I'll just give it a go over the weekend just like what I will do with Beacon Spire.

vyeh · Jul 1, 2010

StrikerX22 said:
If you think I should separate the social model area as a separate thread, I'll do that.

Best to keep it together in one thread. I suspect that the issue of balance will impact the social model.

StrikerX22 said:
I do plan to eventually have at least 7 factions balanced with each other, as opposed to the originals. My focus has often been on positives over negatives, perhaps naively, to make the game feel more fun and play faster.

Is there a theme to these 7 factions?

StrikerX22 said:
I also prefer conquest and have little experience with other goals.

What are your concerns with conquest? (What current aspects are not fun? What aspects are slow?)

StrikerX22 said:
-OBJECTIVE: Make the game play out faster,

The things that tend to be slow are the early turns and the micromanagement of a lot of bases. The early turns tend to be slow for the following reasons:

(1) It takes time to explore.
(2) It takes time to move colony pods to new base sites.
(3) It takes time to terraform.
(4) It takes time to build units.

The time to micromanage bases depends on the number of bases. To the extent ICS is encouraged, it will take more time to manage the bases.

StrikerX22 said:
make it more fun and challenging,

Could you elaborate on what you mean by fun and challenging?

StrikerX22 said:
more interesting possibilities,

Do you mean combat or development strategies?

StrikerX22 said:
a bit more balanced (hopefully) in some respects.

Balanced in what way (e.g. among factions, between momentum (conquest) and building (development))?

StrikerX22 said:
--When you start, before you choose new social models, you get an overall modifier of 1 Industry, Growth, Research; and -1 Efficiency, Economy. This gives you a bit of a boost when things are slow, and the minuses do very little early on.

What are the purposes of these minuses later on?

StrikerX22 said:
-Tech Rate +50%. (Research stat is easier to get, otherwise it might be +75%.)-(Hard to know if this rate is treated properly... so many others aren't.)

I don't understand what you mean by "research stat is easier to get."

StrikerX22 · Jul 1, 2010

Well I got 2 responses quicker than I figured =P. Yeah I know now there's going to be a lot of problems because I haven't had experience with advanced play. Keep in mind I can't figure out all acronyms. SMAC Academy is already taking all I can think of in acronyms =P. ICS?

I know the setup is confusing, but it was originally just a list of changes as I think of them, put into categories of vague importance levels as I saw them at the time, with the very top being a bit more about the theme than simply being important. If you think a few things are much more important (or less), let me know and I'll move them around.

This is playable. Basically I made two folders for txts to work on, "Important" (alphax and factions, now with my work files) and "Unimportant" (other txts). I'm only including "Important" as I haven't done anything in Un- yet.

vyeh said:
Best to keep it together in one thread. I suspect that the issue of balance will impact the social model.

Yes, but I could always link the two threads to each other if it would ease focus on things. I know the social model is probably going to be hell on its own. But whatever you prefer.

vyeh said:
Is there a theme to these 7 factions?

Nope, not really anything too ambitious or focused. I would base some off of old factions, and others off of random new ideas. I do have a list of 14 factions I made back in the day along the same lines, which wouldn't be appropriate now stat-wise, but I can glean some from. I only had their stats listed tho in my notes - -' I lost my hard drive contents with the txt's, tho only 7 were done at the time anyways and I trust my old self even less with balance.

vyeh said:
What are your concerns with conquest? (What current aspects are not fun? What aspects are slow?)

Um, I mainly was saying I simply prefer fighting and winning that way. I don't want to exclude the other options, but as such I have little experience with them and how this mod might affect them. If you're just asking "then, what's wrong with your conquest games?", I probably am indeed less than pleased with the early game.

The "goals" are more vague guidelines than reasons to fix, though at the time I probably had something in mind. Thinking about it would take some time and a post of its own probably. I should note one of my higher hopes was to increase the speed of units, and while it weakens defensive possibilities, would get people around much faster. However, even if the slowest unit is 2 moves (infantry), ECM/Pulse kick in for all ground, which imo hurts the game. Since this, I've tried to compromise by making it +50% moves but not for ground, while upping road movement to 5ths. This has its own consequences and doesn't help exploration very much. Mag tubes are still useful to not use moves up, but it's not much faster. In recent games I haven't used them though.

I've only started playing again since about last month, and am trying to relearn everything fairly rapidly, and I doubt I was that great in the past several years ago. I likely didn't have any "pushing the limit" strategies like massive supply fleets, 1-turn projects, or emphasis on pop booming, etc. Thus, my focus has been on speeding up building and research, for one. I'm now considering putting back units/projects back to full cost, taking out the movement change altogether (was nice for sea exploring and transports, but air is definitely too good, and ground was the main point, which failed).

vyeh said:
The things that tend to be slow are the early turns and the micromanagement of a lot of bases. The early turns tend to be slow for the following reasons:

(1) It takes time to explore.
(2) It takes time to move colony pods to new base sites.
(3) It takes time to terraform.
(4) It takes time to build units.

The time to micromanage bases depends on the number of bases. To the extent ICS is encouraged, it will take more time to manage the bases.

See above. Need to know what ICS is.

vyeh said:
Could you elaborate on what you mean by fun and challenging?

It's a vague concept, fun. Feeling like everything is a bother would be against fun, for instance. As for challenging, I don't remember exactly what I meant at the time, though it may have lied solely with the AI.

vyeh said:
Do you mean combat or development strategies?

Keep in mind my AC world was more narrow before coming here. I found little use in 1-move combat infantry over use of rovers, which would be one thing at least. But that basically failed. Lowering cost of buildings was a bit important to me, and cutting maintenance a bit (which btw doesn't cut very easily... they have to be integers and many are unaffected at 1 unless I want them free). All this thinking may pale once exposed to new knowledge and strategy, however, so all I can ask is let me know how things will be abused, or should be.

vyeh said:
Balanced in what way (e.g. among factions, between momentum (conquest) and building (development))?

Yes, among factions for one, and a bit building in my old opinion.

vyeh said:
What are the purposes of these minuses later on?

Not sure I follow. Later on, I figure you'll stop using Committee and Necessity unless absolutely necessary, and thus the minuses wouldn't be used later. Should they then have a "purpose"? I was going for a more accurate look at what each model would give in stats while trying to not make too imbalanced, but my ideas on stats are changing as I go; I'm still learning.

vyeh said:
I don't understand what you mean by "research stat is easier to get."

Take a look at the SE chart. It shows many models that give some research, and Knowledge gives more than normal.

Phew. well keep in mind I now know I essentially do not know what I'm doing here, so feel free to tell me the consequences and what you might think is best in its place, or if it shouldn't be changed at all. And it might be less space-consuming if we kept our quote sections in larger clumps, rather than a bunch of small bits. I'm sure we can still sort through if it's vaguely related.

Kilkakon · Jul 1, 2010

Okay I can shed some light on a few things for you Striker:

ICS = Infinite City Spam/Sprawl. I prefer Spam as it's funnier. But yeah, it refers to have a network of cities a bit like this:

Code:

CxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCxCx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Where C = a base.
And x = a developed square.

ICS rewards people who build Recycling Tanks. Eco damage I assume is lower as most bases don't have much size or production individually, but all of them together produce a huge amount of resources. Projects are built using supply crawlers. I haven't really done it myself but it's good stuff apparently.

If you want to speed up exploration, how about having every faction start with a "Unity Hovertank", 1-1-3, Empath? That would be able to explore the available landmass pretty quickly.

Remember that if you end up deciding to make infantry have a speed of 2, you can always remove the ECM ability and Pulse armour.

For the record, I have never won by conquest before. :lol:

What could be considered close is when I was beating down an opponent or two as a faction with a vote bonus so I had the population to win by Diplomatic.

What vyeh was referring to by "What do these do later on" is trying to point out that sometimes it is advantageous to go for Frontier equivalents for diplomatic reasons or because the negatives of what's available. E.g. -3 GROWTH is pretty fatal.

StrikerX22 · Jul 2, 2010

Thanks for the info. So spreading yourself like a plague isn't always the norm, huh? I mean I didn't to that extent but... So other than the the new base resources (2 1 1->3 2 2) and recycling tanks +1 energy, what else did you happen to notice increases the usage of ICS?

As for ecm/pulse, I could take them out, but I didn't really want to take out interesting thigns from the game. If you have a decent reason for removing them otherwise, then yeah I could consider that. Games feel so much freer when infantry gets an extra move by default. = = That being said, I'm still aware there are probably strategic problems that would arise, needing more detection and defenders. What might help me is being taught how offensive infantry should be used to an advantage.

My usual early ground strategy involves making weapon rovers and some armor rovers fairly cheaply, and then actually making it from one enemy base to the next in a decent amount of time, without being hurt by road move reduction much. Especially after higher weapons come out, I can't figure out how infantry could defend against attacks while lumbering to an enemy base.

The "Unity Hovertank" is an interesting idea, though I'm not sure if I can pull it off. However, it wouldn't help formers/pods get around, and I'm guessing a small part of the allure of ICS is not having to move much before you get the benefit. Despite the cost, early rover formers are hard to overlook, even if just for their greater road building ability (move and terraform in same turn). Rover pods are even more expensive, but if you're not making bases extremely close, they are often worth it time-wise.

Finally, for starting social models, I didn't want to have them blank. I wanted you to have to choose what you could live without. However, I wished for them to be more even with each other so they would all still be viable options occasionally, but logic seemed to dictate otherwise. They rarely are viable when you can use every model in that section. Also, the further complication of the models in general has made me consider that it might be pretty difficult if aversions happen for most/all factions, especially with 2 of the starter models being rather negative. If your growth -3 is actually referring to my models, being Dictatorship, Green, Power, That just means those aren't easily used together, and frankly when you think about it, Green doesn't really go with a combination of the other two. But there's always Creches.

On another note, Free Market is probably too good right now. I didn't want to make it as hugely harming as before, but maybe -3 police would give it more sting. Part of my issue with it was that it didn't make sense tho - -. Ask me if the stats confuse you on some of these... all of them went through some rigorous thought, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be better or bent a bit. In Free Market, for instance, the -labs is to reflect the money aspect of the economy stat.

Kilkakon · Jul 2, 2010

I really can't comment too much more on ICS as I have not tried it myself (so I am talking just from my knowledge of how the game works). It's mainly just the attraction of having bases being built straight away (only two squares away means that it doesn't take long to set up shop), population sizes low (so police can do it alone), and capitalising on faction-wide effects like satellites (gold mine for ICS), infrastructure (e.g. University with free Network Nodes, getting the Virtual World, would mean no drone troubles until Satellites) and the free resources that a base square can provide (especially with tanks).

Ultimately, whether you want to promote or diminish ICS is your decision, after all it is your mod.

You could experiment with giving Infantry grav struts... oh wait all of your units aren't predesigned like mine.

You could just put the struts lower down the tree. I am unsure if they would then be affected by ECM/Pulse but hey it's worth a shot. I have given Formers and Colony Pods grav struts in my mod.

The main point of infantry in later game is marines or drop pods. With the +25% bonus when attacking a base, orbital inserting singularity marines outside a faction's capital and leveling it is powerful stuff indeed, when the typical "chop and drop" (chopper a base's defenders to death and then orbitally insert in a garrison unit) tactic is not practical due to distance. Marines are of course handy for taking sea bases that are near the coast.

If you need help adding a predesigned unit to the game, I'm more than happy to show you how it's done.

My comment about -3 Growth was a general statement rather than refering to your SE design in particular. I tend to try and have a balanced faction whenever I play, choosing things that cancel out the disadvantages I already have. But I'll be able to comment a bit more when I give it a go on the weekend.

vyeh · Jul 2, 2010

StrikerX22 said:
Well I got 2 responses quicker than I figured =P. Yeah I know now there's going to be a lot of problems because I haven't had experience with advanced play. Keep in mind I can't figure out all acronyms. SMAC Academy is already taking all I can think of in acronyms =P. ICS?

Ask if there is a problem with acronyms. ICS = Infinite City Sprawl and was coined for Civilization. See What is ICS? for more explanation.

StrikerX22 said:
I know the setup is confusing, but it was originally just a list of changes as I think of them, put into categories of vague importance levels as I saw them at the time, with the very top being a bit more about the theme than simply being important. If you think a few things are much more important (or less), let me know and I'll move them around.

I think it is useful to see the list.

StrikerX22 said:
Yes, but I could always link the two threads to each other if it would ease focus on things. I know the social model is probably going to be hell on its own. But whatever you prefer.

Let's see how it goes.

StrikerX22 said:
Nope, not really anything too ambitious or focused. I would base some off of old factions, and others off of random new ideas. I do have a list of 14 factions I made back in the day along the same lines, which wouldn't be appropriate now stat-wise, but I can glean some from. I only had their stats listed tho in my notes - -' I lost my hard drive contents with the txt's, tho only 7 were done at the time anyways and I trust my old self even less with balance.

Any reason for not keeping the current 14 SMAC/X factions and just changing their stats?

StrikerX22 said:
Um, I mainly was saying I simply prefer fighting and winning that way. I don't want to exclude the other options, but as such I have little experience with them and how this mod might affect them. If you're just asking "then, what's wrong with your conquest games?", I probably am indeed less than pleased with the early game.

Is the problem the slowness of the early game?

StrikerX22 said:
The "goals" are more vague guidelines than reasons to fix, though at the time I probably had something in mind. Thinking about it would take some time and a post of its own probably. I should note one of my higher hopes was to increase the speed of units, and while it weakens defensive possibilities, would get people around much faster. However, even if the slowest unit is 2 moves (infantry), ECM/Pulse kick in for all ground, which imo hurts the game. Since this, I've tried to compromise by making it +50% moves but not for ground, while upping road movement to 5ths. This has its own consequences and doesn't help exploration very much. Mag tubes are still useful to not use moves up, but it's not much faster. In recent games I haven't used them though.

Maybe infantry can be left at 1, but increase the speed of rovers and hovertanks. Maybe an adjustment of the infantry attack bonus (and the base defense bonus) could create a situation where exploration is done by speeders but there is a benefit to moving infantry for base assaults.

StrikerX22 said:
I've only started playing again since about last month, and am trying to relearn everything fairly rapidly, and I doubt I was that great in the past several years ago. I likely didn't have any "pushing the limit" strategies like massive supply fleets, 1-turn projects, or emphasis on pop booming, etc. Thus, my focus has been on speeding up building and research, for one. I'm now considering putting back units/projects back to full cost, taking out the movement change altogether (was nice for sea exploring and transports, but air is definitely too good, and ground was the main point, which failed).

Maybe the early facilities are the ones that need to have a reduced cost. And maybe you only need to change the speed of the rover (from 2 to 3 or 4).

StrikerX22 said:
It's a vague concept, fun. Feeling like everything is a bother would be against fun, for instance. As for challenging, I don't remember exactly what I meant at the time, though it may have lied solely with the AI.

This sounds like you have problems with base management. Fewer bases would help. As for the AI, take a look at Design Workshop: the threads under "Improving the AI."

StrikerX22 said:
Not sure I follow. Later on, I figure you'll stop using Committee and Necessity unless absolutely necessary, and thus the minuses wouldn't be used later. Should they then have a "purpose"? I was going for a more accurate look at what each model would give in stats while trying to not make too imbalanced, but my ideas on stats are changing as I go; I'm still learning.

I meant if the minuses are pretty small in the early game, why have them? It seems that you want to discourage the use of the default choices. Is that correct?

StrikerX22 said:
Take a look at the SE chart. It shows many models that give some research, and Knowledge gives more than normal.

Now I understand. You mean RESEARCH bonuses are easier to get through SE choices.

StrikerX22 said:
Thanks for the info. So spreading yourself like a plague isn't always the norm, huh? I mean I didn't to that extent but... So other than the the new base resources (2 1 1->3 2 2) and recycling tanks +1 energy, what else did you happen to notice increases the usage of ICS?

If colony pods are cheap, that tends to encourage ICS.

StrikerX22 said:
Games feel so much freer when infantry gets an extra move by default.

Have you considered new basic units that have land transport capability? Think armored infantry carriers.

StrikerX22 said:
My usual early ground strategy involves making weapon rovers and some armor rovers fairly cheaply, and then actually making it from one enemy base to the next in a decent amount of time, without being hurt by road move reduction much. Especially after higher weapons come out, I can't figure out how infantry could defend against attacks while lumbering to an enemy base.

Combined arms helps. (Use rovers and needlejets to destroy all units outside bases and you can use a needlejet to provide air cover against an air attack.)

StrikerX22 said:
Finally, for starting social models, I didn't want to have them blank. I wanted you to have to choose what you could live without. However, I wished for them to be more even with each other so they would all still be viable options occasionally, but logic seemed to dictate otherwise. They rarely are viable when you can use every model in that section. Also, the further complication of the models in general has made me consider that it might be pretty difficult if aversions happen for most/all factions, especially with 2 of the starter models being rather negative.

Usually, it is better to choose a non-default choice (the idea of the default choice is that you don't have the tech for something else) There is a mod SMAniaC, which had modifiers for the default choices and it felt hard to remember. At the beginning of the game, I kind of expect to only have to deal with the faction's bonuses and penalties and not with built-in ones.

StrikerX22 said:
On another note, Free Market is probably too good right now. I didn't want to make it as hugely harming as before, but maybe -3 police would give it more sting. Part of my issue with it was that it didn't make sense tho - -. Ask me if the stats confuse you on some of these... all of them went through some rigorous thought, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be better or bent a bit. In Free Market, for instance, the -labs is to reflect the money aspect of the economy stat.

Why didn't it make sense?

Kilkakon · Jul 7, 2010

Okay here we go, I have just played a game through so here's my results.

I played as Morgan as he's awesome. I was on a tiny island with the Hive as well so the number of cities that I had was quite small. Had a few sea bases of course, but yeah huge cities low number of them in this game.

The civic changes have been interesting. The "Happiness" civic especially required careful management -- I redesigned all my units to be clean so I could still produce things. I used a Controlled so Longevity Vaccine worked nicely. Living Refinery helps of course
but too late to avoid using Clean units. I got the Network Backbone but stayed with Harmonic for the economy bonus. Hehe I was getting a tech every turn endgame.

Win and Good is a bit silly.

Secrets of Alpha Centuari didn't seem to give a free tech. You might want to rename it to not have the words "Secret" in there then (that's the hint of a free tech).

United Planet in 2277 via Economic. 155%.

I did have some aggression from the Believers, they loved to come and blow up all the defenders in a base with Needlejets. I learnt and got some Interceptors out, but naturally that did slow my victory down a bit.

A lot of the civic choices are very powerful, but need to be managed well to use them fully. It's very easy to get very high growth!

What I will note those is other than the civics, I didn't really notice much that was different from normal SMAX. I admit I haven't played much of it of course, I just meant that nothing really jumped out at me.

Hope that helps!

vyeh · Jul 7, 2010

Kilkakon,

Can you comment on "fun" and "challenging?"

Kilkakon · Jul 7, 2010

Sure!

It wasn't much of a challenge, I was in my element of the businessman. :lol:

I had won before I even got Orbital tech. Really it felt like a normal Alpha Centuari game (I didn't really notice much had changed at all really, it was just vanilla tasting) -- the changed SE I managed, and that was nice. Having to constantly redesign everything to be clean got a bit annoying.

What I will say is that at times I did feel a bit unstoppable hey. I was like "+6 growth... and that's without Children's Creches!

" (that's an actual thing I said). The extra moves over roads helps the formers out but as any military action was in the air I didn't notice otherwise.

StrikerX22 · Jul 7, 2010

Sorry guys for getting back so late. I've been reading up a bit here and there and have been busy. I will comment on the july 2nd comments first, then double post if you don't mind for the next set. For now, all quotes are in spoiler tags... this is way too long.

Spoiler :

Definitely not what I'm aiming for. In a way, I wish I'd never known about it, because now I feel the need to attempt it every (test) game. I feel the strategy is abusive to the game personally. It also feels less fun, and more limiting, like figuring out tic tac toe. I've been considering what may promote it.

Spoiler :

The sad thing is I vaguely remember trying this faster moves thing in the past, and this sounds familiar too =P doesn't mean I tried it tho. I'll get around to it maybe in a saved game to test. As for basic units, I have no experience editing them and am not sure how to go about it yet. Must you replace a current unit, or alter the number above them ("23") to account for another unit? If you can add more, you could even make different versions of colony pods, one with and one without struts or whatever. Like maybe beginning ones with trance/3-res/strut if you play look first. Also, can make mind worms with abilities this way huh... I assume tech requirement is not taken into account? -(was just playing data angels and made a rover before I got mobility by changing a probe team = =

Spoiler :

Yeah I figured dropping or from-transport attacking were the only good things for them to take advantage of the 25% bonus. Depending on the unit, with a decent reactor, a marine rover may be the same price (or at least the same turns to build), so you have to decide whether you want mobile attackers or a "++" bonus (mix prolly best if on continent).

And vyeh's post:

Spoiler :

Yeah I found that topic =P. Googlie's insights at the end were helpful. There should be a quick description posted in SMAC Academy if there isn't already, using a list like his and some of the points in the early posts.

Spoiler :

Personal interest. I just want to make some new ones, and redefine some that I like or think fit well. There's several factions that are similar or perhaps unnecessary imo, or could simply be revamped in concept. But this isn't a big deal yet, so let's leave that aside for now and just remember that the factions I come up with will likely be more on the power of the newer 7 or more. Something to tackle later.

Spoiler :

Yes, that is probably the worst problem. I was actually saying "am indeed less than pleased" in reference to what you said,

Spoiler :

This is possible, but it'd be all the slower to attack bases in that case. When you move infantry to an enemy base 1 move at a time, it gives them ample opportunity to not only spot you and rally a defense, but also to build a quick army, and be the attacker as opposed to the defender when you're right next to their base, unless they have a road and you want a penalty. Also, unless some special basic units are made, this 1 movement affects formers and colony pods, which is a bit undesirable imo. But I'll probably try that.

Kind of important to this mini-discussion is the bonus defense armor gets to certain weaponry. I haven't tested missiles yet, but it should give the armor an advantage at all times, apparently being a +33.3% bonus to defender strength (I need to test more, but I tried with energy and projectile vs a 3-res or something, which bonuses against energy to 4 base strength). In any case, this is important because I figure that there is an advantage to offense during out of base conflicts (or from base) after Particle Impactor, unless you're rushing for high armor maybe...? and/or higher morale.

Spoiler :

Hard to say. What reasoning is there behind only reducing the early ones? Frankly buildings go up in cost quite a bit, and so does their maintenance. And I doubt anyone's usually spending crawlers on non-projects. So I see this as mainly benefiting ICS, since they usually don't build advanced things anyways, at least for a good while. and yeah I'm not as keen on just making rovers faster, but maybe if I mess with those bonuses. But yeah, long time before infantry makes it there.

Also I'm keeping in mind that 4-move hovertanks feel pretty powerful, especially moving over bad terrain effortlessly (and yet still getting road bonus =P). Tangent but, with my current chassis cost reduction, tanks end up the same cost as rovers, so if that did stay the same (not sure), I could just take the extra move(s) away (above rover move #).

Spoiler :

Yeah, base management is always a nuisance, but I hate the thought of AI auto-management, especially from this game = =... And no, it really isn't the biggest deal to me. I'd say I like customizing my bases, but ICS would make this a big bother, and the game itself doesn't follow its option settings correctly (or sometimes at all) in MP to not design crap units and "upgrade"/production-change things that you even just made, or "obsolete" them for no reason (like I may have a cheaper version of a defensive for emergencies at newly captured bases). So I end up undoing the stupid AI's work on my units, which I never asked for, and that's a bother. I actually would put this as one of the biggest bugs in SMAC. It gets infuriating at times.

Yeah that's a lot of AI info (and other things) and I've now gone through some of it. I'll think about implementing some of those ideas for sure, though it'd be a bit sad to devote 7 factions to AI =P. But hey, they don't have to be copies in ideology at all (though I'd be jealous that they can use unique factions lol).

Spoiler :

Not really,

Spoiler :

In other words, I would have liked them to be less negative overall compared to other models in their categories, but in trying to make them accurate, I found no negatives per se in Unity, and it was basically cancelling out some effects I figured would be in the other two starters, so I made judgement calls in making sure that when together, they didn't do anything too wild. All the remaining positives (IND, GRO, RES) are % based and do nothing weird but just boost you a bit at the start, while the negs, (EFF, ECON) don't do anything crazy either.

It is true to some extent that I believe starters should be less good overall than models you earn from techs, but I did like that Unity was still viable at least, if not a sedated version of Power in most respects. Actually, I felt I had to buff Values a bit each because I felt that Unity was too viable against Power, and the other two values were balanced to each other excluding Unity.

Spoiler :

Really, social models give you stats, or "bonus stats," and those stats are interpreted into specific bonuses. It wouldn't make sense in the case of "bonus of 1 or 2 Economy" as much since the bonus isn't the number, but the effect that is widely different from that number change, hence why I use the term "research stat." But yeah, at least the way I play (research/build interest), research feels a little too easy now. That being said, I can probably beat a game without reaching singularity or quantum still. But I'm frequently keeping it at 2-3 turns...

Spoiler :

I see, yeah. I've also considered that cheaper units in general benefit ICS more because of the stupid 10 mineral limit to "overbuilding" slowing the rate of units per turn. Basically, the benefit of large bases lies more in the ability to build expensive things fast, while many little bases can build tons of cheap things in no time. I think that advantage (ICS) is a bit overwhelming though. However, I have considered the possibility of having cheaper buildings be a lure to ICS'rs to build them earlier, but I doubt many buildings are to their liking when they have to spend so many more minerals to make a Node at each base to get a +50% research overall. Sad state of affairs. The building would have to give a non% rate for sure to be of interest. Satellites are of course ridiculously suited to them, it's scary.

I wish there was a way to increase the minimum distance in between bases to 2 instead of 1. That would discourage ICS to some extent, and wouldn't be too invasive. I've forgotten if I came up with anything else that might be affecting ICS, but I'll keep thinking.

Spoiler :

This is another interesting sounding option. I wonder if 2 moves is enough to warrant building a 1-capacity transport (maybe use fusion? lol)... probably if it's not too expensive.

Spoiler :

Yes I know, but this has little to do with Infantry. My point was that in early ground wars, before air, I'd use rovers every time. Later on, when rather higher weapons are out than armor, it seems unfeasible unless you're dropping (which does give 20% damage to the unit, but yeah). Even then, you get a 50% penalty unless you wait a turn, and then we have the same problem of being on the defense rather than offense, albeit with less notice. But by then, air/rover is more what I'm likely to use.

And I can't say I really want to buff dropping to fix infantry.

Spoiler :

Yup, and since they aren't very viable, you don't have much to worry about once you get better choices. Unity, which is the hardest to replace, has no negatives. I do understand that these models are hard to remember, but memory isn't really the point. I wanted them to be more complex and accurate feeling. To aid in memory, I made a graph based on the game's style (and thanks to my gf for doing at least half the image work), separating the positives from the negatives in different rows. I also made a printable version without all the dark scanlines (included in big rar), which I keep in front of me since it's impossible to see all the changes in-game. In the end, I usually just look at the effect as a whole that shows up after a change, with green and red text, and see if it looks acceptable or not, as it's easier than thinking about what you lose (+/-) from the last model as well.

Spoiler :

Let's remember what Police rating represents: tolerance of police units and tolerance of military units outside of territory, aka pacifistic tendencies.

From SMAC manual: "Free Market. Free Market economics turns market forces loose in your society. Unfettered market economics can produce great wealth quickly, but in the context of Planet's fragile emerging economics can also lead to extremes of pollution and ecological damage. Also, citizens rendered suddenly poor by actions of unscrupulous moguls may revolt against their energy-fattened masters."

This sounds more like you need to make police than having anything to do with pacifism, but it normally gives you -5 police (-3 or lower is pacifistic). At -2, you already can't use police at all. This is a bit counterintuitive, and besides, free market causing revolts, really? what? It also sounds like the factions have useless regulations. Isn't this supposed to be the future? It's a new planet but I think they know how a free market properly works.

Now look at Probe rating and how it could apply. It basically just alters rates of success and costs of probe actions for you and your enemies. So what are the probe actions?
-Infiltrate Datalinks: Easier to do deals with people who are down on their luck or concerned about becoming that way. More willing to betray.
-Steal Technology: Same as above.
-Sabotage Base: Same as above.
-Mind Control: More willing to change leaders, more weak-minded.
-Induce Drone Riots: They are angry, depressed, and restless as stated in the somewhat questionable free market description. Inducing a riot should be easier.
-Drain Energy Reserves: doesn't fit much, but reasons for probe rating rarely fit all aspects. I do consider it likely security personnel will be more apathetic and not pay as much attention, but to only a certain degree.
-Genetic Warfare: Same as above. Maybe they're less healthy / bad hygene? =P

This is why I reduced the police neg and gave some neg probe. I kind of feel that probe is a weaker stat, at least against computers (and humans that don't probe team much), so I didn't put as much focus on it. I'd need outside opinion to compare probe to other stats like police.

StrikerX22 · Jul 8, 2010

Now in response to latest July 7th posts:

Spoiler :

Yeah I'm not sure what I'm keeping Clean at. I had initially put it at cost 1 instead of 2 as I felt that +50% cost wasn't worth it for anything but long lasting defenders/formers (which I usually want pretty cheap/quick) and anything built by bases with a large mineral output where it makes little difference. It also prevents you from using that slot for another ability, or ups the cost of a 2nd ability if you only wanted one to begin with (not counting clean).

I figure it's prolly somewhere on SMAC Academy, but special abilities seem to work as follows:

Spoiler :

So I found it a bit annoying at cost 2, but I'd like to hear what you guys think. I know some people think it's the best thing ever (I think that's when I first found these forums, finding a post about that), but I wonder if they've considered the cost to how long the unit remains alive, or the benefit of having it earlier or more abilities.

And yeah I'm thinking the tech is too fast with this SE setup.

Spoiler :

Yeah I know it's silly. It's one of those things I hear from my friends more often, so it's just for fun, and it's easy enough to change back. If I were to make some sort of official release, I'm sure I would alter it somehow.

And yes, Secrets techs could have their names changed, but I don't have Secrets of Optical Computers either =P. But for the sake of keeping track I'll have to make some mark or something at the very least.

I do believe that it'll be a bit easier to get an economic victory with the higher energy incomes and the easier hurrying of stuff due to low mineral costs overall. Would you happen to know if it was a ton easier to do so, and whether it was acceptable or not for the effort involved compared to other victories? and what's the 155% mean? = = If it's anything to do with endgame statistics, I largely don't pay attention.

Spoiler :

Perhaps the build/conquer setting made them pull such stunts? All I know is I was testing inserting factions and messing with ICS, and I had 3 computers near me that all were unwilling to trade their applied physics tech for one of my good number of techs, but were willing to sell for 100 credits. Setting all computers to the same focus may be detrimental to them sharing techs, perhaps, and may alter their trading behavior?

Spoiler :

Yeah I've seen that some very high numbers can be achieved in certain stats, particularly growth, industry, and research, and efficiency. I don't mind efficiency being a bit higher on average, and with research I can adjust tech cost back more, but growth and industry are more complicated. Growth is an "unstable" stat in that if a base has no extra nutrients, growth stat has no effect at all (Research is similar, but bases work together so you still see results). However, when you have several extra nutrients, and several Growth stats, you get a cascading effect. The higher Growth or Industry %'s negations go, the more it reduces from one step to the next %-wise (like from and old 40% off to a new 50% off, there's a 1/6 drop, while 0 to 10% is 1/10). Once you reach a base growth goal, it may have a sharp drop or go faster, depending on what the new citizen does. Of course, it sounds like most vets simply use growth stat to popboom, an ability which I find a "bit" overpowered.

As for it not being that much different than normal AC, I never intended it to be "different," as in a TC or whatnot, but rather "enhanced" in a certain direction. That direction is mainly making things happen more swiftly, at least what happens per turn-wise.

Spoiler :

Well I certainly can't say whether the AI will benefit or fail harder due to my changes. I may make sure certain factions are set to nonaggro instead of erratic, and aggro to erratic, as suggested by one thread, as well as concentrate them more on build than conquer, along with their old interests, when they're nonaggro, to give them more variety and a more defensive outlook. So, even at 1 tech/turn, you didn't get Orbital? Did you get Fusion or Monopole?

Spoiler :

Well, I design all of my units. Was it the act of designing or the fact that it cost more and an ability slot? What saddens me is that the usual idea of support rating has to do with whether materials are available to support the units, and whether the population is willing to let them have it. In practice however, negative support doesn't hurt you until you already have some units, and then you can switch models theoretically. Likewise, having positive support helps little until you actually have the units already built. So in a way, you're encouraged to ignore support and happily build an army, and then you can get some support later. Furthermore, Clean Reactor theoretically helps in view of not having to use materials to support, but not with how population views having a large army. (Morale is more about training, while Pacifistic Police is about staying unaggressive, keeping within territory.)

Spoiler :

There usually isn't a time when I feel stoppable per se in normal SMAC, but then again I've usually played on Talent and lower in the past, which probably has at least somewhat an effect on AI. But yeah, the growth thing will get out of hand. If you have suggestions on how you think the social models should be altered, let me know. I knew they would probably end up with some ridiculous results. Just keep in mind I want to weigh in what sounds realistic, what's fairly balanced to other models (from tech) in the same row, and making it not very exploitable.

I have noticed the roads don't help much, which saddened me. It does get formers around, which is nice, and sometimes Cpods a decent amount, as well as monolith runs. I'd say that it's probably more useful on gathering defense, and also the opponent taking advantage while taking bases. It also makes magtubes a bit less important feeling, and helps in an early ground war.

In any case, I do think I want to tone the air unit moves back down, since they basically default having antigrav struts for I don't know what reason since SMAX I think, but if you put 2 abilities on, it goes away. Kind of interesting, but annoying since I don't recall ever being told about it and just noticing I have more moves than I should. I don't think I have any control over that either otherwise.

And yes, your input does help. I just need to get around to implementing some fixes instead of testing/reading and doing other nonSMAC things =P.

vyeh · Jul 9, 2010

StrikerX22 said:
Googlie's insights at the end were helpful. There should be a quick description posted in SMAC Academy if there isn't already, using a list like his and some of the points in the early posts.

I'll try to remember. It would help if you repeated the suggestion above in that thread.

StrikerX22 said:
Yes, that is probably the worst problem. I was actually saying "am indeed less than pleased" in reference to what you said

If the slowness of the early game is the problem, how about the following steps (tracking what I said previously)

(1) It takes time to explore.
(2) It takes time to move colony pods to new base sites.

Since you have been considering speeding up all chassis, consider making anti-grav struts require no tech prerequisite. (I wonder if there is the ECM/Pulse issue for infantry that has normal movement of 1 but has antigrav strut.)

(3) It takes time to terraform.

In the alphax.txt table, you can adjust the rate of terraforming. Since we are talking about the early game, maybe you only need to look at the terraforming that doesn't have a tech prerequisite (farm, mine, solar collector, forest, remove fungus).

(4) It takes time to build units.

I think you could adjust some of the cost of some of the basic units in the alphax.txt.

There is an impact with ICS, so you might want to think about this.

StrikerX22 said:
Kind of important to this mini-discussion is the bonus defense armor gets to certain weaponry. I haven't tested missiles yet, but it should give the armor an advantage at all times, apparently being a +33.3% bonus to defender strength (I need to test more, but I tried with energy and projectile vs a 3-res or something, which bonuses against energy to 4 base strength). In any case, this is important because I figure that there is an advantage to offense during out of base conflicts (or from base) after Particle Impactor, unless you're rushing for high armor maybe...? and/or higher morale.

I don't follow. 3-res is armor 3 with a bonus against psi attack.

StrikerX22 said:
Hard to say. What reasoning is there behind only reducing the early ones? Frankly buildings go up in cost quite a bit, and so does their maintenance. And I doubt anyone's usually spending crawlers on non-projects. So I see this as mainly benefiting ICS, since they usually don't build advanced things anyways, at least for a good while. and yeah I'm not as keen on just making rovers faster, but maybe if I mess with those bonuses. But yeah, long time before infantry makes it there.

The attraction of ICS is that expanding horizontally is better than developing vertically. Usually ICS players don't build facilities with maintenance cost unless absolutely necessary. So I think that making early facilities cheaper might encourage putting minerals into facilities rather than colony pods. I think that if solar collectors were faster to build, then a size 2 base could be producing more energy than 2 size 1 bases (it is the energy of the base square that makes ICS so attractive).

StrikerX22 said:
This is another interesting sounding option. I wonder if 2 moves is enough to warrant building a 1-capacity transport (maybe use fusion? lol)... probably if it's not too expensive.

Keep in mind that if it is a predesigned unit, you can increase its transport capacity.

StrikerX22 said:
Yes I know, but this has little to do with Infantry. My point was that in early ground wars, before air, I'd use rovers every time. Later on, when rather higher weapons are out than armor, it seems unfeasible unless you're dropping (which does give 20% damage to the unit, but yeah). Even then, you get a 50% penalty unless you wait a turn, and then we have the same problem of being on the defense rather than offense, albeit with less notice. But by then, air/rover is more what I'm likely to use.

And I can't say I really want to buff dropping to fix infantry.

I think the biggest advantage to infantry is that it is cheap. It is quicker to build infantry defenders than rover defenders.

StrikerX22 said:
I do understand that these models are hard to remember, but memory isn't really the point. I wanted them to be more complex and accurate feeling. To aid in memory, I made a graph based on the game's style (and thanks to my gf for doing at least half the image work), separating the positives from the negatives in different rows. I also made a printable version without all the dark scanlines (included in big rar), which I keep in front of me since it's impossible to see all the changes in-game. In the end, I usually just look at the effect as a whole that shows up after a change, with green and red text, and see if it looks acceptable or not, as it's easier than thinking about what you lose (+/-) from the last model as well.

Fair enough as long as you don't include TALENT or DRONE in your SE choices (they don't show up in the SE table -- that was the part that was difficult to remember in SMAniaC).

StrikerX22 said:
Free Market. ... This is why I reduced the police neg and gave some neg probe. I kind of feel that probe is a weaker stat, at least against computers (and humans that don't probe team much), so I didn't put as much focus on it. I'd need outside opinion to compare probe to other stats like police.

PROBE is a weaker stat in that you can easily compensate for it by using more probes. Having a huge POLICE negative is harder to compensate for if you are interested in waging an offensive war (or like to use bombers defensively).

StrikerX22 said:
Yeah I'm not sure what I'm keeping Clean at. I had initially put it at cost 1 instead of 2 as I felt that +50% cost wasn't worth it for anything but long lasting defenders/formers (which I usually want pretty cheap/quick) and anything built by bases with a large mineral output where it makes little difference. It also prevents you from using that slot for another ability, or ups the cost of a 2nd ability if you only wanted one to begin with (not counting clean)....So I found it a bit annoying at cost 2, but I'd like to hear what you guys think. I know some people think it's the best thing ever (I think that's when I first found these forums, finding a post about that), but I wonder if they've considered the cost to how long the unit remains alive, or the benefit of having it earlier or more abilities.

The people who tend to swear by clean are builders who maintain huge fleets of formers, which tend to remain around for a long time. They can also be useful for shell units (combat units with minimal weapon and armor that you upgrade when there is a military need). When you do upgrade a shell, it probably does not make sense to have clean because the unit will have a limited lifespan (if not destroyed in combat, it will become obsolete) and there are better options for the second special ability slot (clean doesn't help in combat!).

And yeah I'm thinking the tech is too fast with this SE setup.

StrikerX22 said:
what's the 155% mean? = = If it's anything to do with endgame statistics, I largely don't pay attention.

It is part of the endgame statistics.

StrikerX22 said:
Yeah I've seen that some very high numbers can be achieved in certain stats, particularly growth, industry, and research, and efficiency. I don't mind efficiency being a bit higher on average, and with research I can adjust tech cost back more, but growth and industry are more complicated. Growth is an "unstable" stat in that if a base has no extra nutrients, growth stat has no effect at all (Research is similar, but bases work together so you still see results). However, when you have several extra nutrients, and several Growth stats, you get a cascading effect. The higher Growth or Industry %'s negations go, the more it reduces from one step to the next %-wise (like from and old 40% off to a new 50% off, there's a 1/6 drop, while 0 to 10% is 1/10). Once you reach a base growth goal, it may have a sharp drop or go faster, depending on what the new citizen does. Of course, it sounds like most vets simply use growth stat to popboom, an ability which I find a "bit" overpowered.

The major problem is that +6 GROWTH gives popbooming, which is pretty decisive.

StrikerX22 said:
I have noticed the roads don't help much, which saddened me. It does get formers around, which is nice, and sometimes Cpods a decent amount, as well as monolith runs. I'd say that it's probably more useful on gathering defense, and also the opponent taking advantage while taking bases. It also makes magtubes a bit less important feeling, and helps in an early ground war.

Roads are also very useful when you are building secret projects as it makes it easier for crawlers to get to the base building the secret project. I have used roads offensively, by having formers travel just behind the lead elements of an invasion, building roads from the beachhead. It speeds up getting reinforcements to the front.

They are also useful if you have a lot of ecodamage in getting formers and wormkillers to the fungal pop sooner.

StrikerX22 said:
In any case, I do think I want to tone the air unit moves back down, since they basically default having antigrav struts for I don't know what reason since SMAX I think, but if you put 2 abilities on, it goes away. Kind of interesting, but annoying since I don't recall ever being told about it and just noticing I have more moves than I should. I don't think I have any control over that either otherwise.

That is interesting. I don't remember a bug report on that.

StrikerX22 said:
And yes, your input does help. I just need to get around to implementing some fixes instead of testing/reading and doing other nonSMAC things =P.

Testing and reading are important. I felt kind of bad that I didn't respond yesterday, but I wanted to be more thoughtful.

I seemed to remember a question about the number of basic units.

You can have more than 23. You need to change the number, so if you add 3 more basic units, that number becomes 26. It is not advisable to use an existing slot unless you are upgrading that particular unit. There are attributes that are coded into the position of the slot.

Kilkakon · Jul 10, 2010

StrikerX22 said:
And yeah I'm thinking the tech is too fast with this SE setup.

Yeah definitely, you might want to reduce the tech paradigm in the rules section.

StrikerX22 said:
Yeah I know it's silly. It's one of those things I hear from my friends more often, so it's just for fun, and it's easy enough to change back. If I were to make some sort of official release, I'm sure I would alter it somehow.

Sure that's fair enough.

StrikerX22 said:
And yes, Secrets techs could have their names changed, but I don't have Secrets of Optical Computers either =P. But for the sake of keeping track I'll have to make some mark or something at the very least.

I do recommend renaming things to have secrets or something, or maybe even editting the icon for Optical Computers to add the secret "X", and removing the Xs from the non-longer-secret techs.

StrikerX22 said:
I do believe that it'll be a bit easier to get an economic victory with the higher energy incomes and the easier hurrying of stuff due to low mineral costs overall. Would you happen to know if it was a ton easier to do so, and whether it was acceptable or not for the effort involved compared to other victories? and what's the 155% mean? = = If it's anything to do with endgame statistics, I largely don't pay attention.

I haven't played vanilla for ages, so I am not really aware of how long it should take to win via Economic. This has been the fastest yet outside of my mod, however. I only mention stats in case they help you figure out if something is too easy or not.

StrikerX22 said:
Perhaps the build/conquer setting made them pull such stunts? All I know is I was testing inserting factions and messing with ICS, and I had 3 computers near me that all were unwilling to trade their applied physics tech for one of my good number of techs, but were willing to sell for 100 credits. Setting all computers to the same focus may be detrimental to them sharing techs, perhaps, and may alter their trading behavior?

AI priorities are the same as if you had blind research on and governors on, both with the same priorities. They tend to be uninterested in doing anything else outside of the priorities you set (say, trading a tech they like for a tech they don't care about). As for actual tactics, I don't know.

StrikerX22 said:
Yeah I've seen that some very high numbers can be achieved in certain stats, particularly growth, industry, and research, and efficiency. I don't mind efficiency being a bit higher on average, and with research I can adjust tech cost back more, but growth and industry are more complicated. Growth is an "unstable" stat in that if a base has no extra nutrients, growth stat has no effect at all (Research is similar, but bases work together so you still see results). However, when you have several extra nutrients, and several Growth stats, you get a cascading effect. The higher Growth or Industry %'s negations go, the more it reduces from one step to the next %-wise (like from and old 40% off to a new 50% off, there's a 1/6 drop, while 0 to 10% is 1/10). Once you reach a base growth goal, it may have a sharp drop or go faster, depending on what the new citizen does. Of course, it sounds like most vets simply use growth stat to popboom, an ability which I find a "bit" overpowered.

Yeah pretty much pop-booming is the way to go. Industry just adds or removes columns from production rows.

StrikerX22 said:
As for it not being that much different than normal AC, I never intended it to be "different," as in a TC or whatnot, but rather "enhanced" in a certain direction. That direction is mainly making things happen more swiftly, at least what happens per turn-wise.

Okay sure! I guess I needed to see more combat. I mainly was saying that I tend to get a little bored with normal SMAC (well to be fair I did play a lot of it, like four seperate mods, last week :lol:

). There's nothing wrong with trying to stick theme so if that's your goal then go for it.

StrikerX22 said:
Well I certainly can't say whether the AI will benefit or fail harder due to my changes. I may make sure certain factions are set to nonaggro instead of erratic, and aggro to erratic, as suggested by one thread, as well as concentrate them more on build than conquer, along with their old interests, when they're nonaggro, to give them more variety and a more defensive outlook. So, even at 1 tech/turn, you didn't get Orbital? Did you get Fusion or Monopole?

I did get all of the above, even Secrets of Alpha Centuari. But this was in the time after I had already started the Economic Victory sequence (I think that I did get Fusion before though from memory, it's an important grab).

StrikerX22 said:
Well, I design all of my units. Was it the act of designing or the fact that it cost more and an ability slot? What saddens me is that the usual idea of support rating has to do with whether materials are available to support the units, and whether the population is willing to let them have it. In practice however, negative support doesn't hurt you until you already have some units, and then you can switch models theoretically. Likewise, having positive support helps little until you actually have the units already built. So in a way, you're encouraged to ignore support and happily build an army, and then you can get some support later. Furthermore, Clean Reactor theoretically helps in view of not having to use materials to support, but not with how population views having a large army. (Morale is more about training, while Pacifistic Police is about staying unaggressive, keeping within territory.)

What was annoying was the fact that the game automatically designed everything and I had to go and redesign it all to be clean every time I made an armour or weapon advance.

The fact that things had to be clean to maintain production I think at the very least implies that extra effort is required by armies to be more self-reliant (in a story sense). Citizens at home don't really have the desire to fund military efforts themselves.

StrikerX22 said:
There usually isn't a time when I feel stoppable per se in normal SMAC, but then again I've usually played on Talent and lower in the past, which probably has at least somewhat an effect on AI. But yeah, the growth thing will get out of hand. If you have suggestions on how you think the social models should be altered, let me know. I knew they would probably end up with some ridiculous results. Just keep in mind I want to weigh in what sounds realistic, what's fairly balanced to other models (from tech) in the same row, and making it not very exploitable.

Sure it's fair enough that you want to remain realistic. A possible starting place would be to take all the positives and negatives of the tree and divide them in half. That's the thing about these social models -- lots of changes.

StrikerX22 said:
I have noticed the roads don't help much, which saddened me. It does get formers around, which is nice, and sometimes Cpods a decent amount, as well as monolith runs. I'd say that it's probably more useful on gathering defense, and also the opponent taking advantage while taking bases. It also makes magtubes a bit less important feeling, and helps in an early ground war.

Sure. I was on a watery world with hardly any land, hence roads did next to nothing.

StrikerX22 said:
And yes, your input does help. I just need to get around to implementing some fixes instead of testing/reading and doing other nonSMAC things =P.

Fair enough.

vyeh · Jul 11, 2010

Kilkakon said:
What was annoying was the fact that the game automatically designed everything and I had to go and redesign it all to be clean every time I made an armour or weapon advance.

You can turn off auto-design in one of the preferences section (although it doesn't stop the game from giving you fusion versions of all your existing units when you discover fusion).

StrikerX22 · Jul 15, 2010

Spoiler :

Done.

Spoiler :

I'll have to look into anti-grav. I'm only just now actually making a list of things mentioned here to look into, so it's in a more compact format. Also, adjusting basic units might affect ICS a bit more, but it does affect both and non, so it's hard to keep track of everything when considering an anti-ICS idea sometimes. I've actually considered raising the cost of colony pods.

However, if I raised the CP weapon cost, it'd be rather detrimental to non-infantry pods, while if I disable CP wep but make specific basic units at higher costs, I figure you can reverse engineer whatever and get auto-calculate to make it cheaper or more customized to your liking (another thing you can't do otherwise, add abilities/armor).

I do see that by doing things like simply making grav struts always available, you avoid weird exceptions like that, but at the cost of realism (not being always enabled brings it under further inspection) and takes away from a tech (tho in this case it's no biggie, being gravship + orbital from anywhere). Always a catch it seems.

Spoiler :

Well I still need to retest, especially after someone in SMAC Aca thought that it was in the instruction booklet but not enabled in-game. But my point is that supposedly, certain weapons are energy and others projectile-based, and then a neutral "missile" based (missile launcher and plasma shard are such, as well as psi attack, though I wonder if that'd affect anything). Then, in turn, there are 3 kinds of armor, Energy-Blocking (bonus against energy), Projectile-Blocking (proj bonus), and Both (bonus against both?). Missile I believe is supposed to be disadvantageous, giving defender a bonus regardless. (btw, conventional Payload missiles are actually projectile.)

Plasma Steel is set to Both, while 3-res (as well as 3-pulse, and 8r/p) is set to Energy-Blocking. Info on armors from expansions is taken from alphax, which makes you wonder why they bothered giving them a special value (1, for energy, instead of 0 proj or 2 both) after making the expansion if it wasn't enabled.

My complaint about the system, assuming it works as it says, is that there is not much variety in armor types as you go (only projectile types are no armor and synthmetal, only later projectile weps are Chaos Gun 8 and Graviton Gun 20 (unless you count Conv Missile 12 and planet buster). Before SMAX, there were 7 energy/missile types from Gatling 5 and on, and before that, it's proj vs proj-blocking for 1-4 wep and 1-3 armor (3 being "Both"). Now, while 3-res/pulse would benefit particle impactor if you really only have that, res-laser/bolt and String Disruptor are all energy based, and the last 2 armors are both anyways. Anyways, I need to set up a thorough test.

Spoiler :

I'm actually thinking I don't want to just focus speeding up the beginning. It is probably the most painful, but it's also because little is happening. To aid builders, somewhat cheaper buildings seems like a fairly decent thing. As for terraforming, I'm no expert but I still use mostly forests on new bases since it's so much faster than other more advanced things, so having some incentive to form more advanced things seems okay too. But if you have a reason why I shouldn't lower advanced terraforming, let me know.

Spoiler :

I forgot about that. Though I bet you can't reverse engineer that to customize it how you want and still keep the bigger capacity, huh. Not a huge deal though. I do wish that the game had more slots for units allowed though - -... I'd just add a few different versions otherwise.

Spoiler :

Of course, but I was hoping to at least have some decent reason to use them offensively more than just with drops/transports. I personally think having a bunch out going 1 move at a time is begging for rovers to come over and take them all at once. Adding armor to defend against that will only be so effective unless you're in forest/rocky/fungus while messing up the cheaper cost.

Spoiler :

Duly noted. I figured that'd be the case. Though I admit, it could be a useful representation of certain things, but I haven't even considered it really. If I did, I'd of course include a visual representation at least, but it would be a little harder to keep track of. I'd doubt I'd let it become much used though.

Spoiler :

I haven't ever really looked, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind knowing since he went to the trouble of posting it. I see how Alpha Centauri Score is calculated, but not Rating (% one apparently). Anyways, whatever.

Spoiler :

Yeah. Perhaps lowering the cost of Mag Tubes slightly would make it still attractive with 5-move roads? And if I do decide on a way to otherwise speed up ground units, I may not need any extra road speed at all depending on what I do.

Spoiler :

Yeah, it's hard to remember, but I think I've had this happen ever since I got Planetary Pack for the expansion. Can you verify that in normal PPSMAX a Needlejet without any abilities has 8(16) moves and not 10(20)? Please note it doesn't show that you have the ability, just the moves based with +reactor*2.

Spoiler :

By all means, don't feel like you have to keep up on replying fast here. I value breaks from enormous posts and have other things to concentrate on as I'm sure you do.

Spoiler :

Thanks, got it.

Spoiler :

Yeah I just might do that image thing. Depends on how much a pain and ghetto it is. I'll figure out something anyhow.

Spoiler :

Well honestly I have to wonder if the current 15 turns is enough to get a force to take out an opponent's headquarters (can it be moved and hurried around during the cornering sequence too? = =

. Default is 20. I lowered it since Transcendence and Alien Generators are now at 75% cost matching secret projects, but frankly I doubt it's necessary to have them lowered unless I do indeed increase the speed of probably all units, or at least all ground.

Spoiler :

Yeah I know, but each further + is a greater influence. Let's consider an extreme situation (not allowed since industry caps at +5, -50% cost) to clarify. If you have +7 industry, or 30% cost, and you're considering a model giving 1 more, to +8, that brings you to 20% cost, which comparatively gives you 50% more production, and ideally that many more units, for instance. Going from 8 to 9 is 20% to 10%, a 200% change, while 30% to 10% would be 300% production (apparently 50% + 250% for 2 steps here). As you can see, the 2nd step has by far the most power at this extreme.

Spoiler :

Note entirely sure of your implication on the last sentence. Yes when support is low, it's often that Citizens do not want to fund or allow funding of the military, but under certain societies it would be encouraged. Taxes are kinda the tool here probably. But I also imagine a more lack of general resources when support is devoted to troops, like food and what have you, hence a "mineral" cost over energy. In Unity, I see it as actual simple donations and such for the greater whole, something you'd especially expect from an early society. Other times it's simply taken, like in (oppressive) Dictatorship, etc etc.

Spoiler :

I'm trying something along these lines. I'm currently calling it a relative + conservative interpretation of the current models. This involves looking at the differences between each model within a category and going stat by stat, centering them around 0 (relative) and making their difference at max 1 (conservative). This will keep highs and lows from making huge stat impacts, but I'm also a tad worried it simply won't be very fun. But frankly, I'd love to squash popboom until future society and this would do it (not counting golden age), unless your faction has growth stat, creche, and is able to use Controlled econ and Happiness value. Course I'd have to keep in mind those who can't use those won't popboom without golden age if they don't have gro+1.

Anyhow, here's an example: Happiness has 1 labs, Power has 0 labs, and Knowledge has 3, so (1, 0, 3). I then change it to (0, -1, 1). I can adjust the center later if I feel it's for the better, or make it less "conservative" if I think a difference needs to be more than 1, but I've yet to look too much into that yet.

Here are some current repercussions:

-notable things before future soc's:
--Economy +2 is barely attainable from combining FM with Happy.
--Support doesn't go to lowest -4 without faction help. Also, it doesn't reach powerful +3.
--Morale has a small range of -1 to 2.
--Police doesn't reach extreme pacifism -4 or -5, nor +3.
--Growth can reach "near-zero" -3, and maxes at +3.
--Probe doesn't reach +3, the "immune" level.
--Starting models have more cancel-outs, now leading 1 support, and still -1 econ and -1 effic. Unity now has negatives, and all are fairly usable since the gap has been lessened to non-starting models.

You can have a look at the attached file, a spreadsheet showing the first model set as
"Preliminary Step."

Spoiler :

Yeah and I wish it wouldn't do that when you already have Singularity and you get Quantum - -'.

[edit: I've found and error in the relative conservative set, being that there should be a -effic in None future society, and that None should be considered as part of the stats taken into account for Sum, Max, Min, Attention. I've also added new updates and have an explanation i the first cell, A1, just look at the note attached with right-click.

I do however, have something I'd like to ask your immediate opinion on over everything else here. I've felt that research rating is less important per stat since it depends much on the economy and efficiency ratings, and thus I almost see it as a half stat each. I was wondering if you'd be willing to go through each stat and give me an opinion on which feel like they are "lesser stats" than others in general, and ones that are more situational. Ones that come to mind are Probe and Morale (especially considering Creche messing with it), and perhaps Planet.]

[GRAPH NOTE: attachment is removed here. Find latest (at time of this edit) graph in post #33.]

vyeh · Jul 17, 2010

StrikerX22 said:
However, if I raised the CP weapon cost, it'd be rather detrimental to non-infantry pods, while if I disable CP wep but make specific basic units at higher costs, I figure you can reverse engineer whatever and get auto-calculate to make it cheaper or more customized to your liking (another thing you can't do otherwise, add abilities/armor).

I believe autocalculate uses the CP weapon cost, so if there is a reverse engineering, it would be the same as if you put in the CP module in a unit designed from scratch.

StrikerX22 said:
I do see that by doing things like simply making grav struts always available, you avoid weird exceptions like that, but at the cost of realism (not being always enabled brings it under further inspection) and takes away from a tech (tho in this case it's no biggie, being gravship + orbital from anywhere). Always a catch it seems.

I think it depends on what you are trying to fix. If the concern is with the slowness of colony pods (and formers), then maybe the best solution is to create a cheap rover colony pod (and rover former) in the basic units.

If you are concerned with how slow infantry combat units are, then you need to change the speed of the chassis either in #CHASSIS (where you get the ECM/Pulse issue) or with anti-gravity struts. If the concern is that the infantry units aren't useful enough for offense, then maybe the bonus for infantry assault on a base needs to be increased.

StrikerX22 said:
Well I still need to retest, especially after someone in SMAC Aca thought that it was in the instruction booklet but not enabled in-game. But my point is that supposedly, certain weapons are energy and others projectile-based, and then a neutral "missile" based (missile launcher and plasma shard are such, as well as psi attack, though I wonder if that'd affect anything). Then, in turn, there are 3 kinds of armor, Energy-Blocking (bonus against energy), Projectile-Blocking (proj bonus), and Both (bonus against both?). Missile I believe is supposed to be disadvantageous, giving defender a bonus regardless. (btw, conventional Payload missiles are actually projectile.)

Plasma Steel is set to Both, while 3-res (as well as 3-pulse, and 8r/p) is set to Energy-Blocking. Info on armors from expansions is taken from alphax, which makes you wonder why they bothered giving them a special value (1, for energy, instead of 0 proj or 2 both) after making the expansion if it wasn't enabled.

There is no actual distinction between the effects of projectiles and energy. I read somewhere that there were plans to set it up so some armor was more effective against projectiles and some against energy, but in the end, that was not implemented.

There are many vestiges of early ideas in the alphax.txt file (another example is the fourth column for psi for terrain in addition to nutrients, minerals and energy).

StrikerX22 said:
I'm actually thinking I don't want to just focus speeding up the beginning. It is probably the most painful, but it's also because little is happening. To aid builders, somewhat cheaper buildings seems like a fairly decent thing. As for terraforming, I'm no expert but I still use mostly forests on new bases since it's so much faster than other more advanced things, so having some incentive to form more advanced things seems okay too. But if you have a reason why I shouldn't lower advanced terraforming, let me know.

I am not sure what you mean by advanced terraforming. Usually, it is taken to mean boreholes, condensers and echelon mirrors as well as raising/lowering terrain. If you are talking about farms, mines and solar collectors (which require the same tech as forests -- none), the advantage of farms over forest is that a moist square that is farmed will produce two nutrients while a forest will produce only one (before tree farms and hybrid forests are available). Since forests also produce one energy, they are as good as solar collectors under 1000 m.

StrikerX22 said:
I forgot about that. Though I bet you can't reverse engineer that to customize it how you want and still keep the bigger capacity, huh. Not a huge deal though. I do wish that the game had more slots for units allowed though - -... I'd just add a few different versions otherwise.

You can't reverse engineer the bigger capacity (although you could enable the heavy transport ability). I don't believe there is a practical limit on the number of basic units you can have. Kilkakon has 39.

StrikerX22 said:
Of course, but I was hoping to at least have some decent reason to use them offensively more than just with drops/transports. I personally think having a bunch out going 1 move at a time is begging for rovers to come over and take them all at once. Adding armor to defend against that will only be so effective unless you're in forest/rocky/fungus while messing up the cheaper cost.

I mentioned increasing the bonus for infantry assault against bases. Obviously rovers have an advantage in movement. Personally, I think the tradeoff between cost and combat effectiveness makes for more strategic depth in the game.

StrikerX22 said:
Perhaps lowering the cost of Mag Tubes slightly would make it still attractive with 5-move roads? And if I do decide on a way to otherwise speed up ground units, I may not need any extra road speed at all depending on what I do.

The higher the movement rate along roads, the less useful mag tubes will be, regardless of the time it takes to build them. However, even with a 5-movement road, there will still be advantages in being able to rush units from one side of a huge empire to the other side.

StrikerX22 said:
Yeah, it's hard to remember, but I think I've had this happen ever since I got Planetary Pack for the expansion. Can you verify that in normal PPSMAX a Needlejet without any abilities has 8(16) moves and not 10(20)? Please note it doesn't show that you have the ability, just the moves based with +reactor*2.

I verified your findings for SMAX (I use Mac) and SMAC. Could you start a new bug thread at CGN?

StrikerX22 said:
Well honestly I have to wonder if the current 15 turns is enough to get a force to take out an opponent's headquarters (can it be moved and hurried around during the cornering sequence too? = =. Default is 20. I lowered it since Transcendence and Alien Generators are now at 75% cost matching secret projects, but frankly I doubt it's necessary to have them lowered unless I do indeed increase the speed of probably all units, or at least all ground.

I assume that you can still relocate HQ during the 15/20 year waiting period.

StrikerX22 said:
I do however, have something I'd like to ask your immediate opinion on over everything else here. I've felt that research rating is less important per stat since it depends much on the economy and efficiency ratings, and thus I almost see it as a half stat each. I was wondering if you'd be willing to go through each stat and give me an opinion on which feel like they are "lesser stats" than others in general, and ones that are more situational. Ones that come to mind are Probe and Morale (especially considering Creche messing with it), and perhaps Planet.]

ECONOMY: Major, especially going from +1 to +2 (+1 energy each square)
EFFICIENCY: Major (but more important for larger empires), especially reaching +4 (no inefficiency for the SE slider)
SUPPORT: Major, especially +4 (4 or, for bases larger than 4, the size of the base)
MORALE: Major if you are at war (during peacetime, minor, but it is still useful against native life);
POLICE: Major
GROWTH: Major
PLANET: Minor, unless you are running a native strategy
PROBE: Minor, although it can be beneficial if you are behind in tech
INDUSTRY: Major
RESEARCH: Major, there are so many options available with advance tech.

StrikerX22 · Jul 21, 2010

vyeh said:
I believe autocalculate uses the CP weapon cost, so if there is a reverse engineering, it would be the same as if you put in the CP module in a unit designed from scratch.

Naturally. I was just saying that if were to make basic colony pod units more expensive, I have two choices: raise CP module cost, or make a special non-autocalc cost for the basic unit and any derivative I plan. The problem was that with higher CP cost, that affects already high cost CP-1-2's and CP-1-4's, while if I make basic unit cost higher, they can indeed make a cheaper version with reverse eng, probably. However, I do wonder if it's possible to make the EXACT same unit as a basic and make it less expensive via this method, as I'm fairly sure you can at least rename it. Something I'll have to test.

vyeh said:
I think it depends on what you are trying to fix. If the concern is with the slowness of colony pods (and formers), then maybe the best solution is to create a cheap rover colony pod (and rover former) in the basic units.

If you are concerned with how slow infantry combat units are, then you need to change the speed of the chassis either in #CHASSIS (where you get the ECM/Pulse issue) or with anti-gravity struts. If the concern is that the infantry units aren't useful enough for offense, then maybe the bonus for infantry assault on a base needs to be increased.

You do have a point, and even if the supposed need is wide, I can still approach it on an individual situational basis, being CP's considered on their own, and so forth, which would be smarter anyways. I'll have to take some time to consider the possibilities. One random thing, CP rover basic unit could be got at Doc Mobility, since it's not too high-tech and they wouldn't reverse eng that way, course there's probe teams...

vyeh said:
There is no actual distinction between the effects of projectiles and energy. I read somewhere that there were plans to set it up so some armor was more effective against projectiles and some against energy, but in the end, that was not implemented.

There are many vestiges of early ideas in the alphax.txt file (another example is the fourth column for psi for terrain in addition to nutrients, minerals and energy).

I've retested a bit in an MP game gone hotseat, and yeah I don't see any difference. It makes me wonder how I miscalculated last time, but oh well. But still, it's odd that in expansion weapons and armor that they'd still bother to add anything but 0's or "neutrals" (missile/both def) to unused stats.

vyeh said:
I am not sure what you mean by advanced terraforming. Usually, it is taken to mean boreholes, condensers and echelon mirrors as well as raising/lowering terrain. If you are talking about farms, mines and solar collectors (which require the same tech as forests -- none), the advantage of farms over forest is that a moist square that is farmed will produce two nutrients while a forest will produce only one (before tree farms and hybrid forests are available). Since forests also produce one energy, they are as good as solar collectors under 1000 m.

Yeah I know what terraforming does =P. And yes advanced does mean advanced and not basic. When I said "I'm no expert but I still use mostly forests on new bases since it's so much faster than other more advanced things," I was saying that getting new (or conquered AI) bases up and running with some food and minerals (along with some higher nut source) near immediately and simply is attractive compared to advanced terraforming to me. And no I'm not saying it's the best thing to do.

vyeh said:
I don't believe there is a practical limit on the number of basic units you can have. Kilkakon has 39.

Yeah I was misunderstanding that basic units took up customized unit slots. Rather, custom units have 64 slots all to themselves. This is good news.

vyeh said:
I mentioned increasing the bonus for infantry assault against bases. Obviously rovers have an advantage in movement. Personally, I think the tradeoff between cost and combat effectiveness makes for more strategic depth in the game.

Of course it adds some depth, but outside of mentioned uses, this would make infantry basically useless in offensive roles, which is not much depth. I have however thought of another way to use them, though mostly defensively: Mag Tubes won't hurt the 1 move like roads will, and thus you can make many attack infantry for defense, or for sea invasions on someone with mag tubs. I do think I'll be considering the bonus against base the most, though that will increase drop/amph effectiveness as well.

vyeh said:
The higher the movement rate along roads, the less useful mag tubes will be, regardless of the time it takes to build them. However, even with a 5-movement road, there will still be advantages in being able to rush units from one side of a huge empire to the other side.

Yeah, and the lack of Hasty Assault for defense as well. You could have ground air superiorities running around lol, at least as backup, with better "range" than air to an extent. But yeah, I'll prolly be downing road speed assuming I compensate elsewhere.

vyeh said:
I verified your findings for SMAX (I use Mac) and SMAC. Could you start a new bug thread at CGN?

Done. Please read here, as I've corrected my view on it slightly.

vyeh said:
I assume that you can still relocate HQ during the 15/20 year waiting period.

Verified. Man, 20 turns to destroy someone that has enough energy to fairly easily hurry a headquarters to any base... an otherwise stealthy way to win a game if you don't have infiltration. Pretty scary to then have to play whack-a-mole.

SE STATS:
Thanks for your input.
-MORALE: Major if you are at war (during peacetime, minor, but it is still useful against native life);
[I see morale as being less useful when the defender (you or them) uses offensive units defensively (unless psi is involved), or when Creches are giving buggy bonuses to base units. And this is partly why wealth is used a lot I assume.]
-PLANET: Minor, unless you are running a native strategy
[Not sure how much this affects eco damage later on, but something to consider.]
-PROBE: Minor, although it can be beneficial if you are behind in tech
[Wondering how hard it gets with low probe, though if you have to battle other probes or take over a unit it'll be harder of course.]
-RESEARCH: Major, there are so many options available with advance tech.
[That's a given, but that just makes Economy and Efficiency that much more important, since they also affect tech rate about as much, give or take. No?]

vyeh · Jul 26, 2010

StrikerX22 said:
Naturally. I was just saying that if were to make basic colony pod units more expensive, I have two choices: raise CP module cost, or make a special non-autocalc cost for the basic unit and any derivative I plan. The problem was that with higher CP cost, that affects already high cost CP-1-2's and CP-1-4's, while if I make basic unit cost higher, they can indeed make a cheaper version with reverse eng, probably. However, I do wonder if it's possible to make the EXACT same unit as a basic and make it less expensive via this method, as I'm fairly sure you can at least rename it. Something I'll have to test.

I know that when I am using the Design Workshop, if I put in the exact specifications of a basic unit, it will give the name of the basic unit. I'd be interested to see the results of your test.

StrikerX22 said:
But still, it's odd that in expansion weapons and armor that they'd still bother to add anything but 0's or "neutrals" (missile/both def) to unused stats.

That is odd.

StrikerX22 said:
Of course it adds some depth, but outside of mentioned uses, this would make infantry basically useless in offensive roles, which is not much depth.

I think the biggest advantage is that infantry is cheap. In addition to the cheaper chassis, the formula for unit cost cuts the cost of an infantry unit in half.

StrikerX22 said:
Verified. Man, 20 turns to destroy someone that has enough energy to fairly easily hurry a headquarters to any base... an otherwise stealthy way to win a game if you don't have infiltration. Pretty scary to then have to play whack-a-mole.

I think you can still get the HQ for non-infiltrated factions. (I believe HQ shows up in diplomatic contact and maybe it appears in the faction info when you right click on the faction's name in the Comm screen.)

StrikerX22 said:
-MORALE: Major if you are at war (during peacetime, minor, but it is still useful against native life);
[I see morale as being less useful when the defender (you or them) uses offensive units defensively (unless psi is involved), or when Creches are giving buggy bonuses to base units. And this is partly why wealth is used a lot I assume.]
-PLANET: Minor, unless you are running a native strategy
[Not sure how much this affects eco damage later on, but something to consider.]
-PROBE: Minor, although it can be beneficial if you are behind in tech
[Wondering how hard it gets with low probe, though if you have to battle other probes or take over a unit it'll be harder of course.]
-RESEARCH: Major, there are so many options available with advance tech.
[That's a given, but that just makes Economy and Efficiency that much more important, since they also affect tech rate about as much, give or take. No?]

You are right about the Creche bug turning MORALE upside down for the player with the base.

While PLANET does affect the amount of Eco-Damage if you exceed the clean mineral limit, the way around it is to raise the clean mineral limit by forcing a fungal pop and building tree farms, hybrid forests, centauri preserves and temples of planet.

The effect of Economy and Efficiency is distributed among all three energy related factors (income, psych and research). As long as there is inefficiency in moving the slider, I would rather have the Research boost in the early and mid games when tech is so important.

An Early Set of Game TXT Alterations, nonfaction.

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