Blocking reverse engineering

[vyeh]

Look at Attacker in base morale bugs and the links in the post, particularly Maniac's article. Feel free to ask me questions in that thread.

Look at the bottom of Defender in a base morale bugs. If a native life unit is owned by a faction, lifecycle determined by biology labs, combat promotions, etc. governs. If it is controlled by planet, it gains lifecycle only through time. It does not gain lifecycle because it successfully attacks your units.

(Sorry about referring you to those posts, but I don't feel like trying to compose an answer at this time. I'm distracted at this time, but I did want to give you at least the beginning of an answer.)

 

[vyeh]

chuft,

Half the battle is knowing that it can be done.

I don't want to detract from the fun that you, DrazharLn and others are having at another forum.

I have prepared a save, Balloon Transport, 2101.

I used a CMN trick of creating the save with an altered alphax.txt.

I have confirmed that the save does what I'd like it to do with a standard alphax.txt.

I believe, but I will let you test it, that this save accomplishes the following:

(1) The Balloon Transport is on a grav chassis.

(2) The Balloon Transport can transport units (it says the cargo capacity is 3).

(3) The Balloon Transport can not be reversed engineered.

(4) The Balloon Transport can be built. Check the base (I gave it Doctrine: Mobility prereq.)

Please confirm (note that I have a Mac so you won't be able to resave unless you use a special software; bdanv can show you).

If this accomplishes what you want, please post.

Then I'll let you guys see if you can figure out what I did.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

I have never understood the children's creche thing.

It is very complex with several contingencies and interactions with other bonuses/penalties. I have never succeeded with getting a handle on it despite having read Maniac's and other articles thereon.

 

[vyeh]

I have never understood the children's creche thing. Do they give units a penalty when they are away from home? I seem to recall creches did strange things. No idea how brood pits work with regard to a bonus.

It is very complex with several contingencies and interactions with other bonuses/penalties. I have never succeeded with getting a handle on it despite having read Maniac's and other articles thereon.

Children's Creche and Brood Pit are buggy.

From Maniac's article:

A Children’s Creche (CC) has a double effect on morale. On the one side it gives a morale bonus to units, built in a base with a CC, of a faction running a negative SE Morale. This bonus counts on every location. On the other side a Children’s Creche gives a battle bonus to units on the base square of a base with a CC.

For any unit built in a base with Children’s Creche, no matter their location:
0 SE Morale or higher: no difference.
-3 to -1 SE Morale: +1 morale level
-4 SE Morale: +2 morale levels

I found out that the important part is where the unit is "homed." If you have -3 to -1 SE and you re-home an elite unit from a base that has a children's creche to one that does not, you end up with a commando unit.

That was quite a shock when I saw that.

It is easiest to think of the children's creche having the following effect. If you have a unit that is homed to a base that does not have a children's creche and the base builds a children's creche, then the unit will gain morale according to the following table:

0 SE Morale or higher: no difference.
-3 to -1 SE Morale: +1 morale level
-4 SE Morale: +2 morale levels

As far as I know, units are never penalized for being homed to a children's creche when they are away from the base square.

For units on a base square, the base having a Children’s Creche:

When the unit is defending: 0 SE Morale or higher: +12.5% (+) battle bonus
-1 & -2 SE Morale or higher: +25% (++) battle bonus
-3 SE Morale: +37.5% (+++) battle bonus
-4 SE Morale: +50% (++++) battle bonus
The total defence bonus (the sum of the morale level bonus and the (+) boni) is capped off at +50%.

The best way to think of it is that the unit acts like your SE Morale is 0 and it gets a one morale unit boost as a result.

When the unit is attacking:

+4 SE Morale: -37% battle penalty
+3 SE Morale: -25% battle penalty
+2 SE Morale: -12.5% battle penalty
+1 SE Morale: no difference
0 SE Morale: +12.5% battle bonus
-1 SE Morale: +25% battle bonus
-2 SE Morale: +25% battle bonus
-3 SE Morale: +37.5% battle bonus
-4 SE Morale: +50% battle bonus

For attacks there is no limit at all for the battle bonus.

Basically, there is a major bug, which is probably best done at CGN where I already have a thread Attacker in base morale bugs and I would invite chuft and Lefty Scaevola to post in that thread and we can go through the effects.

There are several bugs associated with units attacking out of bases with children's creche:

(1) You can have super elite units!

(2) If you have positive morale SE, your units are penalized!

Brood pits are supposed to act like children's creche for native life units in bases that do not have children's creche. In reality, there is a benefit to having both children's creche and brood pits. At the risk of sounding like a pitchman for another forum, I would suggest that Lefty Scaevola and chuft examine the thread Defender in a base morale bugs.

In addition to the bugs for conventional units, there is an additional bug.

(3) Negative SE morale does not affect lifecycle, so children's creche and brood pit gives an undeserved bonus to native life units. So you have this mature boil. If you run a -4 Morale SE, that mature boil becomes a demon boil.

This is an exploit I hope chuft does not get enamored of. Play the Gaians, garrison your bases with native life units, build children's creche or brood pit in every base, run the worse Morale SE you can and watch the AI die around your bases. This turns the weak Gaians into an extremely powerful, albeit defensive, force.

I hope that helps.

 

[chuft]

chuft,

Half the battle is knowing that it can be done.

I don't want to detract from the fun that you, DrazharLn and others are having at another forum.

I have prepared a save, Balloon Transport, 2101.

I used a CMN trick of creating the save with an altered alphax.txt.

I have confirmed that the save does what I'd like it to do with a standard alphax.txt.

I believe, but I will let you test it, that this save accomplishes the following:

(1) The Balloon Transport is on a grav chassis.

(2) The Balloon Transport can transport units (it says the cargo capacity is 3).

(3) The Balloon Transport can not be reversed engineered.

(4) The Balloon Transport can be built. Check the base (I gave it Doctrine: Mobility prereq.)

Please confirm (note that I have a Mac so you won't be able to resave unless you use a special software; bdanv can show you).

If this accomplishes what you want, please post.

Then I'll let you guys see if you can figure out what I did.

(Lefty Scaevola, Petek, Matrix: you have my permission to edit this post if you think there is any hint of a flame; please note that chuft and DrazharLn are friendly with me at CGN, so this is in the nature of a friendly challenge rather than a statement of SMAC superiority.)

Ha, that is interesting. I am guessing you either made the "cargo" number non-zero, or else added the "heavy transport" ability, neither of which I thought would work unless the "weapon" slot had a Transport module in it. I guess I should have known from Isles of the Deep that this was possible since they have Psi attack yet can carry units. Very interesting.

Unfortunately it does not accomplish exactly what I want for an early game balloon since the unit is not a fat helpless balloon but has a psi attack, making it in effect a Locust of Chiron, which is a pretty deadly piece of work. It is nonetheless cool and I will have to keep this trick (whatever it was exactly) in mind for other units. Other than isles I can't recall seeing transports which had something other than Transport in place of the weapon module. I suppose you could make Planet Buster transports which could drop off Slim Pickens as a probe on the way to their nuclear blast destination.

 

[vyeh]

Congratulations, you figured it out! Maybe there is some way to weaken the unit?

 

[chuft]

So far, the Psi Attack thing seems the only way to prevent reserve engineering, other than possibly putting the unit in a Unity slot and replacing a pre-existing unit that can pop out of pods.

Not that getting rid of the Mining Laser would be such a huge blow...although I did use it in one game for an early elimination of the Believers, so I guess I shouldn't underestimate the importance of an early 2-1-1 when you and your opponent both have 1-1-1s and are fighting to the death.

 

[vyeh]

I suspect the reason the unity units are not reverse engineered is because their prerequisite is disabled. I thought you want the ability to build the units. It is worth seeing what happens when you put a unit in the Mining Laser slot.

 

[chuft]

You're right, I do want to be able to build the units, just not reverse engineer them.

 

[vyeh]

From parallel thread started after this thread was started:

Just made another little discovery. I built a shoggoth unit, which is a custom unit with a psi attack that is not in a special slot in #Units, and as I said before it is treated as a native unit for lifecycle purposes and ignores Morale, although fungus slows it normally during Movement.

The sealurk also shares these characteristics: it has lifecycle, ignores Morale and it takes 3 mp to enter fungus.

Note the IoD has lifecycle, ignores Morale and takes 1 mp to enter fungus. I wonder what is hardcoded in the IoD slot. The IoD's transport capability increases as it gains lifecycle.

What would happen if the balloon transport was placed in the IoD slot without psi attack? Could it be reverse engineered? Would its transport capability increase with morale?

I think DrazharLn has already established that a unit in this slot could come out of a sea pod.

Well, it got into a tussle with an Isle of the Deep and got damaged. I sailed it into Sea Fungus and it was able to heal completely (over several turns), so in that respect too it is being treated as a native.

I assume a psi unit that is built in the design workshop will not heal completely in fungus.

In the attack, did the IoD get a bonus?

I'm not sure if fungus bonus applies for sea fungus like it does for land fungus. Do you know?

Regarding DrazharLn's experiment with "Not really worms," do your psi attack units in non special slots move through fungus at 1/3 mp, 1 mp or do they have difficulty entering fungus?