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

[Padmewan]

Thanks for the debugging tip. I'll have to look into that. I suspect it's related to the fact that building a hothouse inserts a feature via Python?

Also, I had two modding questions for you, Pad. It looked like one of the units got a bonus against barbarians (maybe one of the borg units? Can't remember). I just ask because in the tooltip it had +100% vs. ???, and a barbarian slaying combat mod would be super-useful for one of my units in a mod I'm doing.

IIRC we had no such unit! There is no quick way that I can think of to give a unit extra power vs. Barbs unless the Barb has access to a UNIT_CLASS that regular civ's don't. Actually, as I'm saying this, the "???" unit is an animal unit, so that could be what you are seeing.

Um, another way to do it (again, not simple but all in XML) is to give the Barbarians UU's that are in a special "Barbarian" COMBAT_TYPE, against which the Barb-killer has a bonus. But that means that the unit can't be both "Barbarian" and "Mounted" at the same time.

The second question is - how'd you excise the unused religion slots? Did you just delete their information from the appropriate xml files?

The religions are still there -- I just took away their prereq techs, I think.

 

[woodelf]

This mod is really picking up some steam.

You've done some great things Pad while waiting for new team members and regenerating momentum.

 

[Padmewan]

Um... and where have YOU gone Mr. Woodelf?

 

[woodelf]

Um... and where have YOU gone Mr. Woodelf?

I'm blaming the World Cup and some good weather finally.

 

[Padmewan]

Don't blame the good weather! It might go away!

Actually, IMHO 90 degrees is NOT good weather. But, anyway...

 

[The Great Apple]

Don't get me started on the weather. It was fantastic until I finished my exams for the year, and that afternoon it just turned nasty. More rain than we've had the whole of winter...

 

[jenks]

I'm blaming the World Cup and some good weather finally.

Gives me something to do in between matches though

Shame that Ivory Coast lost today , only decent African nation id seen

 

[jenks]

Duke van Frosts buttons

Pad : not sure if you saw these when woodelf rquested them first (think they were designed for SOTM more than us), but are any of those buttons useful for SMAC?

 

[Padmewan]

Latest version uploaded (see first page for VERY long list of changes). Major thanks go out to Jenks and ErikG who supplied huge changes to this sub-release (a lot of cleaning up of sloppy work done by yours truly earlier on). The whole team is discussing where to go next; Bagheera is doing tremendous work laying out ideas, flavor text, theories, etc.

Hope folks will try it, give it a spin, and let us know if it crashes!

 

[jenks]

Two minors re the early post:

- The linktext still reads 0.148b?

- Could update the spoiler to the other new changes we made - 0.148e?

[EDIT 1: Can the file be changed to include the texture/sound packs if were making the version available to Joe Public (who probably hasnt got them already ... yet!)? ]
[EDIT 2: also theres an updated unitinfos.xml file now on the forum to add to that - fixes the pink blob hover buttons]

Always great to see the latest issue up for grabs on this forum !

 

[woodelf]

Fantastic progress guys. No CTDs through turn 80, but I have a couple of suggestions

1 - After a certain tech when you can build additional units you can no longer build pulse dampeners. This isn't good since the pulses keep on coming and without cheap defense you're hosed.
2 - The techs are rapid fire early on, even at normal speed. I was playing as the University, but either the techs need raising or the Uni needs neutering.
3 - Colonization still seems a long way off. I won't get it until turn 91 and that's with the early techs coming too quickly IMO.

The Pulses are very cool in action. They pillage and swarm you under. Nice work.

 

[woodelf]

Whoa! I wasn't expecting that! I had a size 3 city attacked by 2 Pulses. They killed my dampener and took the city. Game Over! Dan Quayle again.

 

[jenks]

This version includes both the sound and texture packs, makes the modpack executable, and should also install the latest Roanoke.py custom map into the PublicMaps folder! woot! Its not linked to yet from the front page but available on the forum (or by clicking the link below!)

Roanoke v0.148g (full self-executable mod - 9.8Mb)

Updates 0.148g:

- pink blob hover bug for units with customised icons FIXED (spot by ErikG !)
- took the +50% city defense off the pulse dampener, gave him +450% vs psionic
- armored unit characteristics now all 'no defensive bonuses' and '20% withdrawal chance'
- upped fusion rover cost to 90 (from 70) 
- reduced EMP infantry cost to 60 (from 80), changed bonus vs armored +50% (from +100%)
- Borg Tank now requires He-3 (as with other armored units: fusion rover & fusion tank) and lattice crystals (as with fusion tank)
- four ugly / faulty bits of coding found and fixed
- all difficulty levels are now the same (set to the noble setting) to ensure all playtesting is of the same level of game
- removed access to City Garrison promotion tree for psionic units
- allowed workers to enter lattice outside the control borders (spot by Diemos !)
- changed text of unit characteristics for probe / zeppelin to "investigating mysterious signals"
- increase borg grunts cost to 110 with +50% vs infantry
- decrease assault infantry cost to 110 with city raider I promotion 
- added first strike chances for Rover promotion tree at levels II and III

 

[jenks]

Fantastic progress guys. No CTDs through turn 80, but I have a couple of suggestions

1 - After a certain tech when you can build additional units you can no longer build pulse dampeners. This isn't good since the pulses keep on coming and without cheap defense you're hosed.
2 - The techs are rapid fire early on, even at normal speed. I was playing as the University, but either the techs need raising or the Uni needs neutering.
3 - Colonization still seems a long way off. I won't get it until turn 91 and that's with the early techs coming too quickly IMO.

The Pulses are very cool in action. They pillage and swarm you under. Nice work.

1- Yeah the security batallion. i think they will be being moved to the back end of the first era (im not working on the tech tree, but pulses stop at adaptation). By the time you get to these units id say the average player would probably have two dampeners in city with at least 1 or 2 promotions (or one dampener with loads), could also have built a mission trainer from salvage (+2 XP) and the first battallion built should hold you out for one more tech.
2- I find the same with quick-fire techs, yours is a combination of the university beginning with the Network Node already built (+50% research, big advantage and a balance issue imo) alongside our not having properly sorted the tech tree yet.
There are techs costing 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 30, 40, 50 (255 research points could have gotten you 8 techs, and probably take 30-40 turns). Think we need to prioritise or combine some of these techs cause imo its not a great feature.
3- building cities is one of the best bits of civ (i love the beginning of a new game usually a lot more than the middle, and especially more than the end) i think if we can keep the player busy while holding city building back we are on to a winner

 

[jenks]

Whoa! I wasn't expecting that! I had a size 3 city attacked by 2 Pulses. They killed my dampener and took the city. Game Over! Dan Quayle again.

Yeah you cant really leave one dampener alone to defend cause he is seriously overworked ! I like that though, you gotta have at least one cover unit in the city when the pulses start coming in multiples (or he will go down)

 

[Padmewan]

The Pulse Dampener upgrades to Security, so that stops you from being able to build Dampeners. You know, we could link the end of the Pulses to this tech, as well. Currently, pulses end when (a) they sack a city, any city, or (b) you get to Era II. No reason why the latter has to be true; it makes more sense to tie it to a specific tech, actually.

One thing I did, totally screwing around, was gave all terrain 1 energy to start with. This, of course, gives you much more energy to put towards research and thus the entire tree is faster-paced. A LOT more balancing needs to go into the opening techs, the problem is making sure there is enough to do to go with it (otherwise the AI ends up with 8 militia in its base).

 

[jenks]

we could link the end of the Pulses to this tech, as well. Currently, pulses end when (a) they sack a city, any city, or (b) you get to Era II. No reason why the latter has to be true; it makes more sense to tie it to a specific tech, actually

Just like that, a whopper of a puzzle piece falls smack in my lap,
I'm too dumb to put the whole picture together yet, but...
If this tech is going to come late in Era I anyway : Why ever not?!


@ Pad the latest file link is "http://www.anderkoo.com/uploads/275/639/Roanoke_full_0.148g.exe" i pretty much added all the unit change suggestions, and renamed it differently to make sure the upload worked

 

[woodelf]

The energy per tile is most likely what helped cause the tech explosion. With none going to cash it was pure research.

Sadly I didn't build more than 2 dampeners before getting to security battalion so I was dead meat.

 

[jenks]

Just taking away one energy per tile is gonna give less clutter and also take the research back a fair whack. I like decent thought

 

[Padmewan]

Yeah, let's nerf terrain back down to 0 energy, it was just an experiment. Not really, I was just screwing around.

The latest version is linked, btw.

I'm trying to prioritize what to do next...