Planetfall
- Thread starter Maniac
- Start date
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Please be more clear. Does that post mean you have investigate the matter and the folder structure of CivComplete is the same as the one Planetfall tries to install to??
arkham4269
Court Writer - Orbis Mod
Some thoughts on Plantfall, from my long years of playing SMAC.
Anyway to make jets and copters not so vicious? One of the things I never liked about SMAC/SMAC:AC was that it seemed to me that whoever got jets tended to roll over their opponents. Same with copters.
Since the game is simulating that it isn't that the settlers don't know hot to build planes, it's just it takes awhile to get the infrastructure and pilots trained up. That's fine, but I always find it odd that they go from nothing, not even a ultra-light to hard-core attack jets.
How about some recon planes/copters first and then early jets and then nastier jets later on. Plus, since Planetfall does units differently, I really think their needs to be a AA artillery unit, I mean the old ZSU-23-1 was a whiz against planes and infantry. Sometimes it's too late to promote units to the appropriate promotion to defend yourself.
Anyway to make jets and copters not so vicious? One of the things I never liked about SMAC/SMAC:AC was that it seemed to me that whoever got jets tended to roll over their opponents. Same with copters.
Since the game is simulating that it isn't that the settlers don't know hot to build planes, it's just it takes awhile to get the infrastructure and pilots trained up. That's fine, but I always find it odd that they go from nothing, not even a ultra-light to hard-core attack jets.
How about some recon planes/copters first and then early jets and then nastier jets later on. Plus, since Planetfall does units differently, I really think their needs to be a AA artillery unit, I mean the old ZSU-23-1 was a whiz against planes and infantry. Sometimes it's too late to promote units to the appropriate promotion to defend yourself.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Just to be clear, are you saying that with SMAC or their current Planetfall implementation in mind??
arkham4269
Court Writer - Orbis Mod
I'm saying in original SMAC, jets and copters seemed to be:
A) Too powerful right from the start
B) Didn't have a phase going from early to mid to really nasty, other than what weapons you put on them.
I'm just hoping that in Planetfall, this will be different. I can't say that it is or not because I've never been able to get to aircraft prior to my game crashing.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
I have investigated the save at length, and have discovered two possible bugs which may be causing the crashes. I'm not sure they are the ones causing the problems though. It seems there are multiple bugs present in that save in fact. Hard to isolate then which causes what.
One of the bugs is a problem with the kind of information that is written to and read from the save file. Fixing that in the SDK will break all savegames of the current mod version. So alas, I fear your current game is . .. .. .. .ed up beyond redemption. On the bright side, you helped make Planetfall a better mod.
I have saved the Planetfall MOD to MOD in two different places in Civ4 and in neither of them does it work. Going into the BTS menu Planetfall is just not listed.
I accumulated the three different Planetfall Mods together by extraction before sending them to the two MOD sites but that didn't help either.
So far as I can tell I have now patched my Civ IV to 3.17.
In short, please tell me where where should I place the Planetfall MODs?
I accumulated the three different Planetfall Mods together by extraction before sending them to the two MOD sites but that didn't help either.
So far as I can tell I have now patched my Civ IV to 3.17.
In short, please tell me where where should I place the Planetfall MODs?
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
I can't help you until you provide me the information I asked for.
How does your Civ4 folder structure look like? Perhaps post a screenie of Windows Explorer.
You need to look under Advanced->Load Mod, not Beyond the Sword Content, in case you were looking there.
How does your Civ4 folder structure look like? Perhaps post a screenie of Windows Explorer.
You need to look under Advanced->Load Mod, not Beyond the Sword Content, in case you were looking there.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Patch v6a is available. This patch needs to be installed on top of the version 6 main file.
It will break savegames from earlier patches.
Please post save games of any persistent crashes you may encounter.
Changelog:
1. Specialist interface change by AZSportsFan.
2. Hydro Plant provides freshwater health to its base. It no longer gives +1 health. (AZSportsFan)
6. All faction leaders have a hated civic which they cannot run. This time for real.
4. Chopper can upgrade to Hovertank.
5. Artillery will target other Artillery first in a stack.
6. Bioreactor gives +1 energy to Kelp.
7. Sea Windmill gives +2 energy, an additional +1 energy with Kinematics, and +2 energy on an Energy Bonus resource.
8. Kelp can't coexist with terrain improvements.
9. Hybrid Forest now gives -.50 instead of +.50 Health.
10. Sea Centauri Preserve fixed. Gives same effects as land-based Centauri Preserve.
11. Unity Foil & Transport Foil graphics by Woodelf added.
It will break savegames from earlier patches.
Please post save games of any persistent crashes you may encounter.
Changelog:
1. Specialist interface change by AZSportsFan.
2. Hydro Plant provides freshwater health to its base. It no longer gives +1 health. (AZSportsFan)
6. All faction leaders have a hated civic which they cannot run. This time for real.
4. Chopper can upgrade to Hovertank.
5. Artillery will target other Artillery first in a stack.
6. Bioreactor gives +1 energy to Kelp.
7. Sea Windmill gives +2 energy, an additional +1 energy with Kinematics, and +2 energy on an Energy Bonus resource.
8. Kelp can't coexist with terrain improvements.
9. Hybrid Forest now gives -.50 instead of +.50 Health.
10. Sea Centauri Preserve fixed. Gives same effects as land-based Centauri Preserve.
11. Unity Foil & Transport Foil graphics by Woodelf added.
arkham4269
Court Writer - Orbis Mod
Here is a early bug. On turn one from the start, there is an area of open ground that looks to either have rain forest or jungle or something and my infantry can't travel into it. I don't recall any terrain that infantry couldn't go into.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Are you trying to move directly from lowlands to ridges, or vice versa? That's impossible in Planetfall.
If not, a screenshot or save would be welcome!
If not, a screenshot or save would be welcome!
arkham4269
Court Writer - Orbis Mod
That's probably what happened. Why was this done? It wasn't like that in SMAC? Not complaining, just wondering because a ridge pretty much cut my Civ onto a small plot of land, cut off from the rest of the continent and so I'm going to be seriously at a disadvantage until I get ships.
I must say I like the graphic that makes it look like the pods are embedded into the ground, but sometimes the graphics make it hard to tell what is what tiles are what. I haven't checked lately, but is the Planetfall Civlopedia up to scratch? I admit I didn't check because with most mods, even the heavy hitters like Fall From Heaven tend to let the Civlopedia get behind in the press of time to get the game out and working.
Plus aesthetic gripe, I'd rather semi-normal buttons on the bottom instead of the ones from Final Frontier; they are confusing.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
The idea is to create more easily defendable highland plateaus. That idea may not yet be fully working though in practice.
Fortunately ships are available very early. You can get a Unity Foil by upgrading your Unity Supplies. You can build water improvements with a level one tech, transports foils with a level two tech and sea colony pods with a level three tech. So while a starting position cut off from the continent, necessitates a different research strategy and will lead to a different game, I don't think it puts you at a disadvantage.
Partially. New features of improvements, buildings etc are usually mentioned in Civilopedia. On the other hand, some tech and buildings are mentioned which are momentarily disabled, no part of the tech tree. This may be confusing. If something requires "Planetary Archives", it's not in the game.
Difference of opinion I guess. I kinda prefer the FF buttons over the vanilla ones, which kinda clash with a scifi environment. Don't know how 'semi-normal buttons' should/would look like.
We definitely need button makers though.
See the FAQ in the first post of this thread.
arkham4269
Court Writer - Orbis Mod
Played some more the other night and some questions.
1. I can't be sure, but it seems some buildings have the tech that enables them be what's spoken and not what should be played. However, I've played (and still play) SMAC/SMAC:AC so often I tend to click through the voice-overs.
2. The voice-overs will overlap. I got the "Diedre's Network Node" song going on along with the new tech I just developed.
I have other comments, but I realized they are going to be long so I'm going to post them separately.
1. I can't be sure, but it seems some buildings have the tech that enables them be what's spoken and not what should be played. However, I've played (and still play) SMAC/SMAC:AC so often I tend to click through the voice-overs.
2. The voice-overs will overlap. I got the "Diedre's Network Node" song going on along with the new tech I just developed.
I have other comments, but I realized they are going to be long so I'm going to post them separately.
arkham4269
Court Writer - Orbis Mod
From my military background, I've had some issues with how SMAC did their units. While I realize that the factions on Planet didn't start with much, by their own tech tree, they rapidly get advanced very quickly. Plus, much of the stuff dumped from the UNS Unity was designed to help the colonists build up Planet. So I think there needs to be a bit more of a gradual ramp up in lethality of units.
One idea that has been bandied around in the "Fury Road" mod is to take a page from "Fall From Heaven" and that units would automatically start to upgrade as certain techs become available. So instead of bronze, iron, mithril upgrades, the upgrades represent body armor, better ammo and maybe better training. Now this would work well with units that basically stay the same, just get newer weapons & armor but basically stay the same like infantry for example.
Another way to use the Fall From Heaven unit upgrade code is to make units progressively cheaper as you get more techs. Initial versions of a weapon will be really expensive, but can get cheaper over time. (Assuming you keep it basically the same) So if you don't want to have lots of different units to represent (like in SMAC) new weapons and armor, you could have these automatic promotions. This part applies more to vehicles, especially later, more futuristic weapon systems.
Tier 1: Expensive w/high maintenance
Tier 2: Gets cheaper, maint cost goes down, off/def strength goes up
Tier 3: As above
...and then about that time in the game, I'd think you'd have something new to build and you'd start back over at Tier 1 for that new unit.
First off, when it comes to unit classes, I believe that you should take a idea from Fall from Heaven (sorry, I know you probably get sick of hearing that) and have a Recon class so those units can be more specialized to their mission. Recon units would increase the chance of getting something good from UNS Unity pods. Plus, have you considered making the Ancient Monoliths like the explorable lairs from Fall from Heaven/Fall Further? They could spawn nasty things, give experience (like the SMAC monoliths did) or give techs. Again, recon units would do better than regular units.
Recon Units - Now I sort of question why you'd have 'straight leg' recon units at all. I mean while I realize they didn't land with much, but realistically humans on foot do NOT walk half the distance a vehicle can travel in a span of time. However, for game play, we make do. However, I think there should be more restrictions on vehicular movement. I would think that unless there is a road (like the old Civ III catapults) different vehicles shouldn't be able to go through different types of terrain. Wheeled vehicles would have trouble in forest & jungles while tracked vehicles would have trouble in the alien 'swamp' and neither could go into mountains. As a 17 year vet, let me remind people that there is a big difference between having a vehicle be able to physically travel in a certain terrain and being able to be militarily effective in that terrain. So if only infantry can go into certain areas w/o roads, 'straight leg' recon units make more sense.
* Scout: Initial 'straight leg' recon unit. Upgrades to LRRP unit. For an animation, I would think some sort of 'special forces' animation
* LRRP: Long Rang Recon Patrol. This unit could have the sentry promotion as well as being able to recover faster in neutral or enemy terrain
* Mechanized Scout: Basic scout vehicle. Personally, I'd like to see the animation changed to that of a Humvee. Aesthetically I like SMAC, but in for a lot of the initial units, they'd be things they brought from Earth and the basic Humvee design will probably be around for a while.
* Scout chopper: It's from the original game so I guess it can stay.
* UAV: Your basic predator (which there are graphics for) The military is already going to these for a lot of different recon uses. It is because of this I don't see a need for an upgrade for the mech scout, unless they later could become a police unit.
* Naval Scout: I don't think there needs to be one, since historically any small, fast navy vessel gets used for that function. I would just thing that the 'sentry' promotion should be available for naval units rather early.
* Probe Team: It might be that your scout units could later be upgraded to Probe teams since later in the game you've scouted the terrain pretty well and UAV's would be better at checking out potential enemy terrain.
* Snipers: Another idea from the Fall From Heaven mod is instead of having assassins, you could have sniper units. These would be units that can bypass the normal defenses and attack the weakest unit in a stack. Again scout/LRRP units might have the choice of upgrading to these or Probe teams.
Infantry Units - Infantry is pretty basic.
* Infantry: Just like you have them. See my comments about automatic upgrades above. This would be a sort of easy way to have one unit get better over time so you don't have to have lots of different units to represent guys with different weapons and armor.
* Flame Units/AT Units: I like the flame units since it makes sense against the Planet forms. However, you might want to add a anti-tank unit to help fight off armored units. Either that or make a anti-tank promotion available in place of the "+ vs. cav" that is available in vanilla BTS.
* Police/MP: Obviously it's nice to have a 'garrison' unit. Plus they are nice to help control newly conquered cities. I'd think that the Hive might have a specialty variant of this unit.
* SAM infantry: I don't think you should bother. By the time you have to worry about jets, you have the tech to make SAM vehicles. I mean lugging around a SA-7 is no fun; better to have them on a vehicle.
* Mobile Infantry: See 'futuristic units' below
Mechanized Units - Wheeled units should get some sort of road movement bonus. However, they should be restricted from certain terrain w/o roads. Tracked units should be able to go pretty much anywhere except mountains and squares with alien 'swamp'.
* APC: Okay, here is a problem that I think hasn't been solved yet. Some of the first vehicles would be armored personnel carriers since they are basically an armored box to protect your infantry while you carry them to their target. Unfortunately, in discussion on the Fury Road mod, it has come out that the AI does use the code for carrying infantry (like found in the Rise of Mankind mod) very well and it give the human player a big advantage. Having 4 BTR's carry 8 infantry right to a target and have them be able to attack on the same turn, I sort of agree. However, regardless of whether they carry infantry or not, I would think that a wheeled vehicle like the Russian BTR, the American Stryker or the German Fuchs would be the initial 'armored' unit for teh factions.
* IFV/Mobile Gun System (MGS): Depending on whether or not having infantry being carried by land units works or not, the next vehicle would be the Infantry Fighting Vehicle. If not, then I think you might see what a lot of countries are going for now which is basically a APC or IFV armed with a tank gun such as the South African Patria. Another advantage to these types of vehicles is the basic chassis is easily used for SAM units or other specialty vehicles.
* MBT: Tanks, Panzers, main battle tanks, we all love them. However, realistically they are having a bit of a hard time since they are expensive and there are so many different ways to kill them now that is cheaper. However, tanks are a shock weapon and so perhaps something like a current main battle tank might be appropriate. However, I think it is a toss up whether building these tough, but expensive units is worth it over building more of the less powerful vehicles.
* Artillery/MRLS: I would think that you wouldn't see any towed artillery since if you are going to have to build a unit to tow it, why not build it into this vehicle?. Since I think much of the early vehicles would be light, a MRLS would become a serious threat in mid-game (better protect them with SAM units!)
Futuristic Vehicles: While I don't think the people on Planet would waste the resources on tanks, SMAC is about the future so I'm thinking that for most of the game, you'd have 'cheap' APC's and IFV's moving infantry around (people are 'cheap') using the lighter vehicles the nations of the world are trending to right now with the occasional Mobile Gun System. However, sci-fi stories have all sorts of things like duralloy, collapsium, durachrome or flintsteel which are all incredibly tough and very heavy. So the minute some sort of contra-grav system is developed, I think you'd rapidly transition from lots of light units to fewer big, armored behemoths.
* Hover-tanks: Initial unit using the new armor and contra-grav tech. As listed above, they would be initial expensive as well as cost a lot to maintain, but that could come down in time.
* Ogres/Bolos: Even today, we're moving away from manned vehicles so what better system than AI's programmed to fight for us. They're big, bad and hard to stop! That and they should have the ability to attack multiple times a turn to show that their computer brain is able to do many things at once. All Hail the glory to the Dinochrome Brigade!
* Mobile Infantry: Making powered armor isn't actually that science fictiony as they are working on it now. The problem is making a power source small enough. So I'm thinking you wouldn't see any 'starship troopers' till some sort of energy tech later in the game is developed. Consequently, most infantry built prior to that are going to be an easy kill, but that's how it would be.
* Mecha: Personally I think mechs are cool...but a stupid military unit. For the most part, I think you're better off with a hover-tank since they are harder to see. I mean a walking 100 ton mech is sort of hard to miss. However, the neural-interlink that enables the operator to 'wear' the mech like a giant suit of power-armor might make them a better weapon than a bunch of guys in a vehicle.
Air Units - Biggest complaint I have about air units, especially back in old SMAC, is that they are to powerful. I think either specialty AAA units need to be made available or a easy to get (first tier) promotion for anti air needs to be available. Plus, I think the initial units always started off too strong. If my comments about units upgraded automatically is workable, I'd start gunships and needlejets out weak and let them upgrade as newer techs become available.
Gunship: With units tending to be light, a Apache type gunship would be really lethal and it isnt' a huge leap from a civilian helicopter, I think you'd have gunships before you'd have combat jets.
Needlejets: Big question I have about these units is whether to use promotions or different units to represent the 2 basic missions of planes: ground attack and air to air combat. I mean there is a big difference between a A-10 Thunderbolt and a F-15 Eagle.
Bombers: This unit was sort of lacking in SMAC (except via upgrades) - I think the big question is whether it's worth it to build these or build one-shot missles.
Missiles: Big question of the game, is it cheaper to build these one-shot weapon systems or build bombers?. If possible, I'd like to see units carry these, especially Ogres/Bolo or certain Mechs. Another possibility is have certain units able to use a "fireball" from Fall from Heaven but change the animation to a missile strike. This would work especially well for Mechs and Ogres/Bolos to show they can do multiple attacks a turn.
Airships: These late game units in SMAC never made sense to me. If you have the contra-gravity strong enough to lift the heavy alloys needed in futuristic combat that far away from the ground, why build tanks at all? In most sci-fi, contra-gravity for smaller vehicles has a range limitation in that the field needs to be near the ground to work. Consequently, I wouldn't bother with these units. I would think that air units would have to rely on stealth technology to protect themselves since they couldn't carry the newer (and super heavy) armor like the ground units/mecha can.
Some other ideas to think about is when a certain level of space travel is regained, you could build Project THOR and thus be able to have these orbital weapons (basically one-shot missiles) that could basically be used to attack anywhere on the map. Biological or gas weapons might be used early on, but later when everyone is in big tanks and powered armor, they'd be useless.
Anyway, as I said, probably to much info for one post, but as a long time intel analyst, it's hard not to want to do all this in PowerPoint where I could have pictures to show what I'm talking about.
One idea that has been bandied around in the "Fury Road" mod is to take a page from "Fall From Heaven" and that units would automatically start to upgrade as certain techs become available. So instead of bronze, iron, mithril upgrades, the upgrades represent body armor, better ammo and maybe better training. Now this would work well with units that basically stay the same, just get newer weapons & armor but basically stay the same like infantry for example.
Another way to use the Fall From Heaven unit upgrade code is to make units progressively cheaper as you get more techs. Initial versions of a weapon will be really expensive, but can get cheaper over time. (Assuming you keep it basically the same) So if you don't want to have lots of different units to represent (like in SMAC) new weapons and armor, you could have these automatic promotions. This part applies more to vehicles, especially later, more futuristic weapon systems.
Tier 1: Expensive w/high maintenance
Tier 2: Gets cheaper, maint cost goes down, off/def strength goes up
Tier 3: As above
...and then about that time in the game, I'd think you'd have something new to build and you'd start back over at Tier 1 for that new unit.
First off, when it comes to unit classes, I believe that you should take a idea from Fall from Heaven (sorry, I know you probably get sick of hearing that) and have a Recon class so those units can be more specialized to their mission. Recon units would increase the chance of getting something good from UNS Unity pods. Plus, have you considered making the Ancient Monoliths like the explorable lairs from Fall from Heaven/Fall Further? They could spawn nasty things, give experience (like the SMAC monoliths did) or give techs. Again, recon units would do better than regular units.
Recon Units - Now I sort of question why you'd have 'straight leg' recon units at all. I mean while I realize they didn't land with much, but realistically humans on foot do NOT walk half the distance a vehicle can travel in a span of time. However, for game play, we make do. However, I think there should be more restrictions on vehicular movement. I would think that unless there is a road (like the old Civ III catapults) different vehicles shouldn't be able to go through different types of terrain. Wheeled vehicles would have trouble in forest & jungles while tracked vehicles would have trouble in the alien 'swamp' and neither could go into mountains. As a 17 year vet, let me remind people that there is a big difference between having a vehicle be able to physically travel in a certain terrain and being able to be militarily effective in that terrain. So if only infantry can go into certain areas w/o roads, 'straight leg' recon units make more sense.
* Scout: Initial 'straight leg' recon unit. Upgrades to LRRP unit. For an animation, I would think some sort of 'special forces' animation
* LRRP: Long Rang Recon Patrol. This unit could have the sentry promotion as well as being able to recover faster in neutral or enemy terrain
* Mechanized Scout: Basic scout vehicle. Personally, I'd like to see the animation changed to that of a Humvee. Aesthetically I like SMAC, but in for a lot of the initial units, they'd be things they brought from Earth and the basic Humvee design will probably be around for a while.
* Scout chopper: It's from the original game so I guess it can stay.
* UAV: Your basic predator (which there are graphics for) The military is already going to these for a lot of different recon uses. It is because of this I don't see a need for an upgrade for the mech scout, unless they later could become a police unit.
* Naval Scout: I don't think there needs to be one, since historically any small, fast navy vessel gets used for that function. I would just thing that the 'sentry' promotion should be available for naval units rather early.
* Probe Team: It might be that your scout units could later be upgraded to Probe teams since later in the game you've scouted the terrain pretty well and UAV's would be better at checking out potential enemy terrain.
* Snipers: Another idea from the Fall From Heaven mod is instead of having assassins, you could have sniper units. These would be units that can bypass the normal defenses and attack the weakest unit in a stack. Again scout/LRRP units might have the choice of upgrading to these or Probe teams.
Infantry Units - Infantry is pretty basic.
* Infantry: Just like you have them. See my comments about automatic upgrades above. This would be a sort of easy way to have one unit get better over time so you don't have to have lots of different units to represent guys with different weapons and armor.
* Flame Units/AT Units: I like the flame units since it makes sense against the Planet forms. However, you might want to add a anti-tank unit to help fight off armored units. Either that or make a anti-tank promotion available in place of the "+ vs. cav" that is available in vanilla BTS.
* Police/MP: Obviously it's nice to have a 'garrison' unit. Plus they are nice to help control newly conquered cities. I'd think that the Hive might have a specialty variant of this unit.
* SAM infantry: I don't think you should bother. By the time you have to worry about jets, you have the tech to make SAM vehicles. I mean lugging around a SA-7 is no fun; better to have them on a vehicle.
* Mobile Infantry: See 'futuristic units' below
Mechanized Units - Wheeled units should get some sort of road movement bonus. However, they should be restricted from certain terrain w/o roads. Tracked units should be able to go pretty much anywhere except mountains and squares with alien 'swamp'.
* APC: Okay, here is a problem that I think hasn't been solved yet. Some of the first vehicles would be armored personnel carriers since they are basically an armored box to protect your infantry while you carry them to their target. Unfortunately, in discussion on the Fury Road mod, it has come out that the AI does use the code for carrying infantry (like found in the Rise of Mankind mod) very well and it give the human player a big advantage. Having 4 BTR's carry 8 infantry right to a target and have them be able to attack on the same turn, I sort of agree. However, regardless of whether they carry infantry or not, I would think that a wheeled vehicle like the Russian BTR, the American Stryker or the German Fuchs would be the initial 'armored' unit for teh factions.
* IFV/Mobile Gun System (MGS): Depending on whether or not having infantry being carried by land units works or not, the next vehicle would be the Infantry Fighting Vehicle. If not, then I think you might see what a lot of countries are going for now which is basically a APC or IFV armed with a tank gun such as the South African Patria. Another advantage to these types of vehicles is the basic chassis is easily used for SAM units or other specialty vehicles.
* MBT: Tanks, Panzers, main battle tanks, we all love them. However, realistically they are having a bit of a hard time since they are expensive and there are so many different ways to kill them now that is cheaper. However, tanks are a shock weapon and so perhaps something like a current main battle tank might be appropriate. However, I think it is a toss up whether building these tough, but expensive units is worth it over building more of the less powerful vehicles.
* Artillery/MRLS: I would think that you wouldn't see any towed artillery since if you are going to have to build a unit to tow it, why not build it into this vehicle?. Since I think much of the early vehicles would be light, a MRLS would become a serious threat in mid-game (better protect them with SAM units!)
Futuristic Vehicles: While I don't think the people on Planet would waste the resources on tanks, SMAC is about the future so I'm thinking that for most of the game, you'd have 'cheap' APC's and IFV's moving infantry around (people are 'cheap') using the lighter vehicles the nations of the world are trending to right now with the occasional Mobile Gun System. However, sci-fi stories have all sorts of things like duralloy, collapsium, durachrome or flintsteel which are all incredibly tough and very heavy. So the minute some sort of contra-grav system is developed, I think you'd rapidly transition from lots of light units to fewer big, armored behemoths.
* Hover-tanks: Initial unit using the new armor and contra-grav tech. As listed above, they would be initial expensive as well as cost a lot to maintain, but that could come down in time.
* Ogres/Bolos: Even today, we're moving away from manned vehicles so what better system than AI's programmed to fight for us. They're big, bad and hard to stop! That and they should have the ability to attack multiple times a turn to show that their computer brain is able to do many things at once. All Hail the glory to the Dinochrome Brigade!
* Mobile Infantry: Making powered armor isn't actually that science fictiony as they are working on it now. The problem is making a power source small enough. So I'm thinking you wouldn't see any 'starship troopers' till some sort of energy tech later in the game is developed. Consequently, most infantry built prior to that are going to be an easy kill, but that's how it would be.
* Mecha: Personally I think mechs are cool...but a stupid military unit. For the most part, I think you're better off with a hover-tank since they are harder to see. I mean a walking 100 ton mech is sort of hard to miss. However, the neural-interlink that enables the operator to 'wear' the mech like a giant suit of power-armor might make them a better weapon than a bunch of guys in a vehicle.
Air Units - Biggest complaint I have about air units, especially back in old SMAC, is that they are to powerful. I think either specialty AAA units need to be made available or a easy to get (first tier) promotion for anti air needs to be available. Plus, I think the initial units always started off too strong. If my comments about units upgraded automatically is workable, I'd start gunships and needlejets out weak and let them upgrade as newer techs become available.
Gunship: With units tending to be light, a Apache type gunship would be really lethal and it isnt' a huge leap from a civilian helicopter, I think you'd have gunships before you'd have combat jets.
Needlejets: Big question I have about these units is whether to use promotions or different units to represent the 2 basic missions of planes: ground attack and air to air combat. I mean there is a big difference between a A-10 Thunderbolt and a F-15 Eagle.
Bombers: This unit was sort of lacking in SMAC (except via upgrades) - I think the big question is whether it's worth it to build these or build one-shot missles.
Missiles: Big question of the game, is it cheaper to build these one-shot weapon systems or build bombers?. If possible, I'd like to see units carry these, especially Ogres/Bolo or certain Mechs. Another possibility is have certain units able to use a "fireball" from Fall from Heaven but change the animation to a missile strike. This would work especially well for Mechs and Ogres/Bolos to show they can do multiple attacks a turn.
Airships: These late game units in SMAC never made sense to me. If you have the contra-gravity strong enough to lift the heavy alloys needed in futuristic combat that far away from the ground, why build tanks at all? In most sci-fi, contra-gravity for smaller vehicles has a range limitation in that the field needs to be near the ground to work. Consequently, I wouldn't bother with these units. I would think that air units would have to rely on stealth technology to protect themselves since they couldn't carry the newer (and super heavy) armor like the ground units/mecha can.
Some other ideas to think about is when a certain level of space travel is regained, you could build Project THOR and thus be able to have these orbital weapons (basically one-shot missiles) that could basically be used to attack anywhere on the map. Biological or gas weapons might be used early on, but later when everyone is in big tanks and powered armor, they'd be useless.
Anyway, as I said, probably to much info for one post, but as a long time intel analyst, it's hard not to want to do all this in PowerPoint where I could have pictures to show what I'm talking about.
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
Do you mind if take a shot at create new action buttons? I think of a SMAC-style symbol set, here is a small sample attached, showing my first ideas for delete, sentry, go-to, go-to (all). The white background is obviously transparent, so in-game you would only have the symbol itself plus thin frame. I have these four as dds already, if you want to do something with it.Difference of opinion I guess. I kinda prefer the FF buttons over the vanilla ones, which kinda clash with a scifi environment. Don't know how 'semi-normal buttons' should/would look like.
We definitely need button makers though.
Cheers, LT.
Attachments
arkham4269
Court Writer - Orbis Mod
I like these!
Very self-explanatory and have that SMAC flavor.Speaking of SMAC flavor, will we ever see any of the SMAC: Alien Crossfire factions? The human ones, I mean, I'd think that the aliens might be a bit of work.
Speaking of SMAC:AC, does anyone if anyone has made a mod for Civ IV that simulates the 'blind research' that you could flag in a game of SMAC? I always thought that was a really good way to slow a human player down vis-a-vis the AI's instead of letting the AI 'cheat' a bit.
