Feedback thread

[Maniac]

I just have to say that the final techs give the impression of a very sudden end to the tech tree - it's sort of a downer not to get a lot of cool things with discovering something so awe-inspiring sounding like "Transcendence"!

That's the dilemma of the end of the tech tree. If you place cool ideas at the end of the tech tree, it means you only get to experience those cool ideas for a very short time - wouldn't it be more fun to place them earlier in the tech tree?? But then you get the problem there's nothing interesting left for the end of the tech tree! Anyway, I'm certainly aware of the issue, and as I think of cool ideas, I'll definitely continue changing the end of the tech tree.

I don't think theme merging at the end of the tech tree is a good idea though. Rather I prefer the opposite, as it can be a solution to the "if you place cool game concepts at the end of the tech tree, you'll hardly ever experience them" problem. If you keep the end of the tech tree wide, and in addition allow players to easily b-line to the end of a theme, it becomes possible to experience those cool concepts at the end of the tree at least in some games.

Take Personality Transcription. That's sort of endgame-ish (well, a little less now I've made the tech a level lower). In my current Peacekeeper game I've b-lined straight for that tech. The third most advanced tech I have is two tech levels lower, and it'll be a very long time before I research another tech of that same tech level. So in some games I might research Personality Transcription so late to be useless, but at least in this particular game I can experience an endgame benefit for a large portion of the game.

Finally, a small criticism with an early building: The network node is too useless after the early game - the +2 beakers are great at the start, later they have much less impact

Two beakers for 40 hammers?? It's hard to find a better deal.

I don't like having sort of "dead" choices lying around.

The code for free buildings with tech is a solution for building choices that have become boring. The problem for the Network Node is that it gives a Librarian slot. It may be undesirable to have the free specialist of all new bases be a Librarian. Plus +2 science in all new bases encourage ICS. That's ok for Hybrids, but not really intended for the other strategies.

Is that an impossible conversion or could someone else code that up to put them in? If they were converted would it be tricky to wire them in?

It's certainly possible.
The XML part is trivial. The python part should be easy to. However the SMAC movies need to be converted from their original format to avi using the Wing Commander Movie Player, and then from avi to bik using RAD Video Tools. Other people have succesfully converted the SMAC movies to avi using the WC movie player, however for me the program produces corrupted files. So I can't convert these movies myself. If you want to convert those movies and upload them somewhere for me, I'd be more than happy to attach the WC movie player, and do the XML, Python etc part.
As with the SMAC sounds, I don't ever intend to include those movies in the main Planetfall file though. They would make the download size (or rather for me upload size) too big.

Re the Spartans, I should probably play a game with them myself before I comment further on that subject.

 

[MadmanAtW]

Finally, a small criticism with an early building: The network node is too useless after the early game - the +2 beakers are great at the start, later they have much less impact (happiness is always hard to get, so is health, so these things don't devalue, but beakers... are a lot easier to get later on, as commerce boosts translate into that as well).

I dunno, that's still more impact than a monastery has after SciMeth in BtS! (Insert other obsoleting building here if you want to argue that monasteries are still useful for the missionary builds. )

 

[Keeper_GFA]

A few things that seem to be amiss.

1. Sealurks don't get a seafungus attack bonus.
2. Native promotions for Metabolic Boost and the City Raider line are still blue, rather than red.
3. The native promo "Can move inside human territory", what's it good for?
4. Brood Pit only gives 10% bonus, description says 20%.
5. Trancendence can't be lightbulbed by Transcends.
6. Deleting a bunker in your own base doesn't get rid of the perimeter defense which means it's gone for good.

7. I'd like to re-request that magtubes be allowed on rocky terrain. I understand your point about ridges (although I disagree with it), but the rocky just sucks. Magtubes aren't terribly useful anyways, and limiting them to about 1/3 tiles just makes them rarely worth the effort IMO. Right now they're more for special places, and then it's usually worth it to do the build-pillage-delete a bunker workaround.

8. On Monarch the AI is still having problems keeping it's capitol. Even when they aren't completely wiped out, they just can't recover. And now with the mindworms eating people the AI almost never recaptures a lost base, especially if it's the capitol.

PS - Still loving the mod.

 

[Maniac]

1. Sealurks don't get a seafungus attack bonus.

Weird. I'm pretty sure I already fixed that once.

3. The native promo "Can move inside human territory", what's it good for?

Randomly spawned native life only has a certain chance to be able to move inside territory, dependent on the Flowering Counter. Fungal bloom spawns are given this promotion, so they can always move inside human territory.

4. Brood Pit only gives 10% bonus, description says 20%.

Are you playing Morgan?

5. Trancendence can't be lightbulbed by Transcends.

You'll only be able to bulb Transcendence if there are no other Centauri techs left to research which are lower in the alphabet than T.

6. Deleting a bunker in your own base doesn't get rid of the perimeter defense which means it's gone for good.

Why do you want to disband a Bunker?

7. I'd like to re-request that magtubes be allowed on rocky terrain.

They are allowed on rocky terrain - by building a bunker.

Magtubes aren't terribly useful anyways, and limiting them to about 1/3 tiles just makes them rarely worth the effort IMO.

Then don't build them.

Right now they're more for special places, and then it's usually worth it to do the build-pillage-delete a bunker workaround.

So magtubes are worth a heavy cost after all?

 

[Pfeffersack]

Weird. I'm pretty sure I already fixed that once.

I can confirm that the problem is still existent under 12h) - Lurks don't get the attack bonus on fungus, not against other native life nor against conventional units. Since the defending units get a 50% bonus it makes Sealurks pretty weak in that situation.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

RE the brood pit, I was playing as Gaian.

RE the magtubes and bunkers. I disband almost every bunker unit to save on unit costs. The magtube and the bunker improvement are situationally worth the cost of a former. I might a couple of bunkers in some games but that's it. Now if they could be built in the water, I'd use lots of them in every game.

A couple more things ...

1. Stationary native life doesn't seem to be able to heal.
2. The Bloom promotion doesn't seem to work in highlands.
3. What does it take to upgrade a Spore Launcher to a Fungal Tower? I tried but it never finished.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I disband almost every bunker unit to save on unit costs.

I never do that - bunkers are to important for me as a last defensive line, if something forced me to move away all units...plus there are various ways to fight/counter excess unit maintenance in PF.

2. The Bloom promotion doesn't seem to work in highlands.

Perhaps because the fungus counter in your game was below 60 - fungus on highlands is only possible, if it has has reached that that treshold.

3. What does it take to upgrade a Spore Launcher to a Fungal Tower? I tried but it never finished.

The issue is known and pending AFAIK, because Maniac hasn't decided yet if that converion should be kept at all.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I know that I already reported this a while ago and a possible solution was discussed and planned for the future...so just a reminder to the issue: It is still generally possible to capture native life from Green AIs - it does not matter who has the better attitude nor if you are in the greens with it at all. In the attached save I'm able to steal Deidre (with +12.12 attitude compared to my -0.03 - in that game I'm on the way from a moderate polluter to a very slight green leaning) a Lurk with 16/17 Exp near Tiefe Gemeinschaft (with the Hunter with Skirmisher/Withdrawal ability/promotions). That just doesn't feel fair...

 

[Pfeffersack]

I know that I already reported this a while ago and a possible solution was discussed and planned for the future...so just a reminder to the issue: It is still generally possible to capture native life from Green AIs - it does not matter who has the better attitude nor if you are in the greens with it at all. In the attached save I'm able to steal Deidre (with +12.12 attitude compared to my -0.03 - in that game I'm on the way from a moderate polluter to a very slight green leaning) a Lurk with 16/17 Exp near Tiefe Gemeinschaft (with the Skirmisher/Withdrawal ability/promotion hunter). That just doesn't feel fair...

Edit: Another idea related to that...perhaps a special ability called "Conditioned" or "Willpower" for native units could make a native unit generally immune to conversion. SMAC had a similar thing - the creatures spawned in fungal blooms couldn't be captured. For PF this might be counter-productive, as it would hurt Green players even more (e.g. native life from blooms in the territory of a neighbour faction wandering pover the border would be no longer a source to capture such units), so we could turn things around and restrict that "loyality" promotion to trained native life (or at least to ones under human control).

 

[Lord Tirian]

Can we go similar to the old projects?

Some more or less random ideas on implementing old projects - some suggestions:

• Citizen's Defence Force (at Social Psych): +25% defence in all bases (from Chichen Itza), +25% Great General-XP rate for fights within borders (from Great Wall). I think the straight CI effect is a little too weak, as Psi-combat encourages attacking already, making base defence rarer than usual - the extra GG-rate makes up for that. Social Psych is a good spot for *something* and it fits theme-wise (as split-off from the terraform tree, those who will get a lot of trouble with natives can also grab it early, which might be helpful). It might be a bit too powerful early in the game though, tweaking values might help (e.g. defence bonus down to +15%).
• Dream Twister (at Affinity Gene): All other factions are in anarchy for 2 turns and +100% war weariness for other factions in war against you. Instant anarchy is a cool, splashy and powerful effect - and the war weariness can help you if you need to stall - in short, this project is supposed to delay your enemies' war efforts a bit, allowing you to get ahead of them without direct attacking - I think that fits hybrids and large-scale psychic warfare.
• Manifold Harmonics (at Psionics): All Psi-Gates produce +1 positive Planet, the secret project itself produces +2 positive Planet. See it as pro-Planet equivalent to the Weather Paradigm below - this gives Hybrids a way to really focus on their strategy (also, since Psionics is on the same tier as Affinity Gene, taking this will delay getting the Sea Communes, which might be an interesting choice - and as it's crossing over from Neural Grafting, it can help to stabilise a pro-Planet strategy, if one had to research the other tree to keep up with Probe Teams etc.).
• Neural Amplifier (at Neural Grafting): Starts Golden Age and non-native units you build start with the "Neural Amplification"-promo (+15% Psi-Defence). I think the combo of a instant effect and a long-term effect makes it interesting to build - and viable for different strategies.
• Planetary Datalinks (at Planetary Networks): Gives a free librarian in the base and all network nodes produce +1 Espionage (I admit, this is mainly an idea to make network nodes more appealing later in the game ) - it's sort of gaining other techs, but you still need to send your own probe teams!
• Theory of Everything (at Superstring Theory): Gives you a random Great Person. In the late game, a good GP can be very useful, it might just give you the required GP for a Golden Age or a good GP to settle in a base or for bulbing a tech. And I think the effect is just sort of cool.
• Weather Paradigm (at... Atmospherics, what else): Faster improvement build time (like Hagia Sophia) and obsoletes at Green Nanonics. Gives you a boost for terraforming, which is almost always appreciated, it just shouldn't stack with Green Nanonics!

And the name "Hunter-Seeker Algorithm" might be nice name for a "re-skin" of the Scotland Yard built by Great Spies in vanilla. Of course, even better would be seeing Super Spies + the promos in Planetfall, then the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm and Nethack Terminus could give out certain promos for free.

Not all ideas are 100% thought through, but perhaps it will at least inspire some other ideas.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

RE the brood pit, I was playing as Gaian.

I see the production help txt is missing, but the math seems to work fine for me.

1. Stationary native life doesn't seem to be able to heal.

I'm aware of this "shortcoming" in Firaxis code, but my current opinion kinda is to consider this a feature of Planetfall: that way it wasn't all for nothing if an attack on a spawning spot failed.

It is still generally possible to capture native life from Green AIs - it does not matter who has the better attitude nor if you are in the greens with it at all

Woops, I'll address this.

Citizen's Defence Force (at Social Psych): +25% defence in all bases (from Chichen Itza), +25% Great General-XP rate for fights within borders (from Great Wall).

Great idea re GG points. I was thinking to place this project at Cloning though. Because of the Unity Bays there already are plenty early game secret projects. It's the rest of the tech tree which desperately needs some.

Dream Twister

IMO this effect is not cool enough for the builder, and possibly annoying for the human player when on the receiving end (haven't some players said this about the Illian worldspell?). Considering this effect would also require SDK coding, I'm not inclined to spend time on coding this, especially not as a priority.

Manifold Harmonics (at Psionics): All Psi-Gates produce +1 positive Planet

That would again require SDK coding. I'm sorry, but I don't feel eager to do extensive SDK coding for a single secret project, unless it's one that can significantly affect game strategy, like for instance a Voice of Planet/Chiron/Alpha Centauri/Rigil/Toliman/whatever secret project.

Neural Amplifier

Myself I was thinking this secret project could be a Great Wall of sorts, but only with a limited effect lasting 30 turns or so. As a permanent effect perhaps Fungal bloom chances could be reduced. Social Psych seems like a nice place for this project. That runs counter to my earlier statement that the early game has enough projects already, but these effects don't seem all that useful anymore in the later game.

Planetary Datalinks

I'll just stick to the SMAC effect: doesn't require SDK coding.

Theory of Everything

A Great Person could be cool earlier in the game, but at Superstring Theory I don't think it's all that valuable anymore.

Weather Paradigm

The Unity Hydroponics Bay already has this effect.

An earlier suggestion of yours was the Telepathix Matrix removing anarchy. That idea seemed really cool to me. I think Psionics might be a good tech for that project.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Great idea re GG points. I was thinking to place this project at Cloning though. Because of the Unity Bays there already are plenty early game secret projects. It's the rest of the tech tree which desperately needs some.

Hmmm... it's a nicer place for it, but where would Longevity Vaccine go? Cloning is a pretty good tech currently, not sure whether having two secret projects is good.

That would again require SDK coding. I'm sorry, but I don't feel eager to do extensive SDK coding for a single secret project, unless it's one that can significantly affect game strategy, like for instance a Voice of Planet/Chiron/Alpha Centauri/Rigil/Toliman/whatever secret project.

I made this suggestion under the assumption that you *don't* need to do SDK coding for these types of effects - you could make them give you an unique resource and then have the buildings have extra effects with them (similar to the way the landmarks are implemented) - though I now see that you can't give +Planet for resources with buildings... so yeah. But think the landmark-style mechanic might be something to keep in mind for further secret projects.

EDIT: I just had a random idea, so I'm writing it down before I forget it (though not sure how good it is): SMAC had the possibility of equipping human units with Psi-weapons/armour. Perhaps the Centauri tech path could, at some point, get a human unit that uses Psi combat? The difference to a straight mindworm would be that it can pick, like infantry, spec abs, but not the native promos. Might be interesting to have that different set of options.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

Hmmm... it's a nicer place for it, but where would Longevity Vaccine go?

Oh right. Retroviral Engineering? The sooner that project comes, the less improbable it seems Yang, Zak and Lal aren't dead soon after Planetfall.

EDIT: I just had a random idea, so I'm writing it down before I forget it (though not sure how good it is): SMAC had the possibility of equipping human units with Psi-weapons/armour. Perhaps the Centauri tech path could, at some point, get a human unit that uses Psi combat? The difference to a straight mindworm would be that it can pick, like infantry, spec abs, but not the native promos. Might be interesting to have that different set of options.

A line of psi human psi units is something I've always had in mind as a possibility. I never added it because the Centauri line already seemed to have enough military benefits. They could always be added of course. What graphics would you give it?

Perhaps the Hyperian could upgrade to this. Seems useful since pro-Planeteers are less likely to research Helions.

 

[Pfeffersack]

The Range II special ability seems to do nothing for e.g. Mass Drivers - I expected it to double the radius of ranged strike function, but that does not seem to happen. Here is a save showing the problem - if loaded, my big army in Gaian Lands should be already selected. Now browse for the Mass Driver named "Promote to Range II" (should be the second last of its kind) and promote it that way - the range strike still covers only 1 tile.

However, I'm not so sure if a ranged strike over 2 tiles is balanced for a mobile land unit at all (Bunkers are a different subject), so it might be an alternative to completly remove that ability for artillery units.

 

[Maniac]

Haven't looked at the save yet, but... have you moved the unit around? You need to do that for the range limit overlay to update.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Haven't looked at the save yet, but... have you moved the unit around? You need to do that for the range limit overlay to update.

Ah, didn't know that, just tested if the problem persisted after ending the turn...works after moving the Mass Driver

 

[Pfeffersack]

A request...I was just about to report an issue with a strange calcultauion of positive PV inside an AI city from specialists (see screens below), when I suddenly realized that I was just fooled by the limited and complicated display of settled down specialists (it seems that new ones "expel" olders). I remembered a component dealing with that problem by expanding the display room and came up with those two sources:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=273795 (probably BTS 3.17)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=156185 (probably Vanilla and Warlords only)

Maybe something to include for Planetfall?

 

[Monormirkwood]

Where you provide feedback.

Hello Maniac,

My game crash between the turns 2340 and 2341.
I try to play again a couple of turns before but it did not change anything.
Thanks again for looking at it.

Greetings

Monor

 

[Panopticon]

Played through as Miriam. 1. End game tech tree definitely needs filling out - +50% to former is not a game-breaking end of tech tree effect when you've been running Terraformed for the last 150 years. 2. Does the AI use Hybrid yet? I've seen 2 of 12 opponents running Hybrid in my last two games. It was the Gaians each time.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Played through as Miriam. 1. End game tech tree definitely needs filling out - +50% to former is not a game-breaking end of tech tree effect when you've been running Terraformed for the last 150 years. 2. Does the AI use Hybrid yet? I've seen 2 of 12 opponents running Hybrid in my last two games. It was the Gaians each time.

My quote was slightly better - in one of two games, Morgan runned a green economy as well (beside Deidre and me in both games). But overall, there is (now? - I wasn't under that impression right after the introduction of those different AI strategies) a leaning to Terraformer AIs.

My impression so far is also that the well-flowing part of the game is better. A couple of months ago, I was complaining that the mid/endgame was lacking polish and fun. Now I made it to tier 8/9-ish in techs without the feeling that the techtree is too sparse. It's well-populated with cool stuff and units and I have the feeling that Planetfall has hit a nice spot in terms of build options you have.

I just have to say that the final techs give the impression of a very sudden end to the tech tree - it's sort of a downer not to get a lot of cool things with discovering something so awe-inspiring sounding like "Transcendence"! In vanilla Civ (and FfH and Dune Wars), the end of the tech tree sees a lot of branches "merging" - that definitely gives more of an "endgame" feel as you see the end of the tech tree.

I share the positive feeling, the mid-/endgame offers really a lot of interesting stuff.
If I have a complaint, then it is about the endgame pace as well, though I wouldn't say that it is a sudden end of the tech tree structure wise - for me it feels rather like the later mid/end game techs get researched too fast. It might be caused by more and more energy coming into the game (solar collectors, boreholes, different civics, increasing trade revenue, more opportunities to run the maintenance process,...) , while the progression of the tech costs isn't steep enough. Of course, that's a personal observation (also one one Immortal difficulty), mainly based on the two games I played under the patched d-h) Both will or have end(ed) before 2450, that means less then 350 turns.

---

IIRC, this has been brought up before and was declined...but I still think that we should limit the number of bunkers by making a free tile between them necessary. Fighting against lines and fields of bunkers isn't very fun and I also don't think that it is very balanced for the attacking side. Sure, you can specialize your units as attacker vs. cities, which helps also vs. Bunkers, but barrage fire from multiple sources takes the health of your units seriously down, so that the enemy can easily mop them up with mobile units hiding in those bunkers. You can't fight bunkers with native life and your own artillery is frequently lost, when just bombarding a bunker. The attached costs with a bunker - a former - might be distracting enough in the early game, but in the mid and end-game, where you can pump out several formers in one base within just one turn, it isn't. Of course this change would affect the AI - they spam bunkers more then humans probably do -, but I don't think it would be for the bad. Even if losing some defensive strength, they will probably improve more tile in an economically resonable way, also inter-AI-wars would probably lead to clearer results (I'm under the impression that they currently often end in stalemates)

---

The AIs don't seem to priorize Genfactories very much, even when suffering constantly unhappiness. I have attached a save, in which Zhakarov has great problems to keep his population happy, but only his capital has a GF. All bases have plenty other buildings, that why I don't understand he misses out the extra minerals. I had an eye on this over the next turns and the situation didn't change a lot until now -still unhappiness and no Genefactories. He builds some happiness boosters, but also rather questionable items. After a anarchy phase the bases experienced food shortages as well, probably increasing the revolt risk further.