'The Awesome Collection'

[gunnergoz]

Alien mod sounds great! As others state, would like aliens to get progressively tougher to liquidate as time goes on. They should eventually be almost as much of a threat as advanced enemy units (except possibly the highest tier ones.)

Would also like a reason for keeping Hydracoral around, making it worth preserving from extermination...perhaps production bonus, health or culture per hex? Seems to me that it could have had a much larger part in the game...of course there would be the typical BE tradeoff for it so the choice to eliminate or protect has some bearing on your overall strategy.

 

[Voltage]

I've recently started working on "Awesome Aliens", which will (at least that's the plan) mostly add customizability (if that's even a proper word) to the Aliens and hopefully also satisfy the needs of the people that have been asking me when I update the Aggressive Wildlife mod.

I'm at the very beginning of creating that mod, so if you have some ideas that you want incorporated (and that are not too out of there ) this is the perfect moment to post them.

I came across your mods last week, they're really fun and I've subscribed to them all on steam. The mod you say your working is sounds interesting. I noticed theres another mod out there called 'Rising Tide of Aliens' which address the issue of aliens being useless after 30-ish turns by them getting stronger over time and fixing their spawn rates lowering to zero as a game progresses.

If the humans are taking Alien DNA and splicing it on the Harmony affinity, whats stopping that DNA somehow spreading to the aliens across the planet and the aliens becoming stronger. I think it could spice up gameplay if fighting aliens occurred throughout a game. Im not sure if you are able to script diplomacy changes, but maybe this could be a negative for civilziations with the harmony affinity as they have let they technology get out of control. Maybe different shades of aliens could be introduced to distinguish between evolved or mutant type aliens. Maybe some civ 5 mods already have unit graphics that could be used.

Perhaps at a certain trigger, the aliens could spawn in large amounts in several places attacking cities and the event saying they are coming from underground to attack the human civilisations, kinda like the film starship troopers. A colossal fight could take place around your cities and around other civilisation cities

 

[Ryika]

Some nice ideas. Features that I' planning to include 100% so far:

- Alien Scaling during the game
- Different types of "Alternative" Alien Modes. So far I have "Not the Bees", a mode that replaces all normal Aliens with Drones and all Colossal Aliens with... well, even bigger drones. I'm thinking about more Alternatives, like an intelligent alien race based on (recolored?) Supremacy-Units.
- Aggressive Aliens
- More benefits/distinct bonuses for keeping aliens around or killing the, though I'm not yet sure what that would be.

But I decided to temporarily halt work on that alien mod in favor of playing around with the possibilities of changing and restructuring the tech web for some other project :

I guess that's going to become "Awesome Techs and Buildings" one day.

 

[Galgus]

Are you planning on making Aliens attack unguarded workers and explorers more often?

Their lack of initiative in that regard feels like a big part of them being ignorable.

 

[Ryika]

Not sure if that's possible, haven't yet looked into the AI-Defines yet. But in general yeah, I think having more options that force you to be more cautious is a good thing, so I'll see what I can do on that end.

 

[Galgus]

Between that and the stated Alien change goals, I look forward to the mod.

Collecting artifacts would, for me, be much more interesting if Aliens were more of a barrier to it.

 

[Voltage]

Are you planning on making Aliens attack unguarded workers and explorers more often?

That would be better, however AI improvements would need to be made in the DLL and I don't think the source code has been released?

• This might be slightly too ambitious without source code, but is it possible with LUA to have civilisations enter the game say +100 turns into the game? You could event a 'contact' with an alien race and the aliens could start a city somewhere on the map, perhaps in an area with a stronghold of nests. Somewhat similar to barbarian civ's mod and RevolutionDCM mod from Civ 4 which allowed barbarian cities to start a civilisation after their city got to a certain standard.
  
• Maybe this could also work with stations, allowing stations to become fully fledged civilisations, if the max civ's counter was below its max due to some AI civilisations dying off ie. being conquered. This could work like if the station survived for X amount of turns and there was a slot for a new civ, there would be a probability chance every turn of becoming a new sponsor.
  
• What about Collossal Alien nests? Perhaps with a condition they spawn quite far from the AI and Human civs.
  
• Awesome resources and improvements mod? Theres plenty of graphics on civ 5 that could be used in civBE.
  
• Awesome Units? What about special forces units, Rail-guns, Transport Helicopters or Planes
  
• I noticed there was a paratrooping XML tag in BE while having a look in the files, I didn't think this was used by any units yet?
  
• Submerged alien units that perhaps are only visible to units with the reveal capability, Im thinking giant squids! Surely theres a graphic somewhere on the civ 5.
  

 

[hevans900]

I have a simple idea. Add a difficulty level setting to the aliens (as a dropdown in game setup) where you have say - 3 levels:

Easy
Medium
Hard

The aliens' base strength and scaling strength increase with difficulty level, and on Hard you have a chance of aliens dropping Alien artifacts.

 

[hevans900]

Idea number 2:

Custom quest (a la your really cool progenitor ruins quest)

At some point in the game (turn 70~ on standard) have a quest pop-up for the player that provides some real immersion/interaction with the aliens on the map.

Maybe per affinity,

Harmony: Leash 5 non-colossal aliens/1 colossal alien
Supremacy: Gather two alien artifacts/perform expeditions at alien cave sites
Purity: Wipe out 3 alien nests/Kill 20 aliens

The rewards should be some perk associated with aliens (something original)

 

[DefiantMars]

But I decided to temporarily halt work on that alien mod in favor of playing around with the possibilities of changing and restructuring the tech web for some other project :

Spoiler :

I guess that's going to become "Awesome Techs and Buildings" one day.

That is a very interesting reorganization of the tech web. Machiavelli was kind enough to let me take a peek at what he's doing with his "Echoes of Earth" mod. He has modified the tech web as well.

The way that's he's set the tech web up mirrors the affinity wheel in a sense, which is fascinating. And while I don't agree with the placement of every technology its still a work in progress. And as I'm sure you're aware in trying to do this yourself, rearranging the techs to flow better while still responding to other fields is difficult.

So I applaud your efforts.

 

[Galgus]

I'd personally make Alien Genetics a Harmony tech instead of purity, Climate Control a Purity tech rather than Supremacy, and Swarm Robotics a Supremacy tech instead of harmony.

I think all of these would make more sense.

Alien Genetics fits Harmony because they are all about studying the planet.

Climate Control fits Purity better because it is, by far, the most enthusiastic about terraforming.

Swarm Robotics fits Supremacy both in the study of advancing AI and in how the Drone Sphere wonder it unlocks seems far more Supremacy or Supremacy / Purity than Harmony.

 

[Ryika]

Oh, 90% of what you see in the screenshot is temporary and a lot has already been changed (will probably completely remove Affinity from the tech web) - I just wanted to show off the cool tech-grid that I had created.

The general idea - and I know that's probably not an idea that everyone will like - is to have way more technologies, but also way more specialized technologies that interact with the terrain a lot. The general idea is that if you find yourself in an area where there are many rivers the "ideal" tech path will be very different from what would be ideal if you find yourself in an area that has few rivers, but many... fruits for example.

Not quite sure how to make sure it's not as confusing as it currently is though.

 

[Galgus]

I like those ideas, but how are you planning to focus Affinity progression with the change?

I've enjoyed using your Workable Mountains mod in an area with many of them, so I look forward to terrain focused techs.

Are you planning on making the specialization techs roughly as far apart/ close together as the ones that upgraded Mountains, or are you changing the formula there?

If memory serves it took quite a tech investment to maximize the Mountain yields.

 

[Ryika]

Affinity Gain will mainly happen through Affinity-specific Buildings (at least that's the plan for now).

Haven't quite figured out how "good" the stats of different Terrain-driven bonuses will need to be in order to be enough of a bonus to not use the path that you'd usually "want to take". But I want my tech grid to be more of a horizontal one (which is also why I reduced leaf techs to 1).

I want all paths to be steps towards victory, but you will have to strengthen your empire enough to step up horizontally, as the tech costs will increase by a lot - so you will NEED to pick up extra stuff and that extra stuff will vary from game to game - and because different "stepping stones" can be found in different parts of the grid the ideal path itself will change everytime you start a new map.

At least that's the theory.

 

[DefiantMars]

I think that flattening the tech web is a good idea. I think it would help mitigate the awkwardness quite a bit. The fact that not one but two successful modders have come to similar conclusions indicates that the concept is enticing and may well have good footing.

I like the idea of affinity comic from quests and buildings. Understanding tactical robotics doesn't neseesarily mean that you want to have supremacy bots. I believe affinity should stem not what you know, but what you choose to do with that information.

You're moving away from affinity XP in the tech web, but the buildings and units themselves are going to stay, correct? I feel that is better than the random and sometimes nonsensical gains of affinity.

------------------------------

What is your stance on the Hybrids?

If you're changing the tech web, that means that hybrid units which are already a bit scattered may be flung far from their prerequisite technologies. And as a proponent for making more individualized Hybrids I would like to know if you had any plans for them, if had simply not gotten to that point of consideration yet, or if you're not going to adjust them at all?

 

[Ryika]

Yes, Buildings and Units stay, although I will re-purpose some Affinity-Buildings and remove the Affinitylevel-Requirements to make them into "Affinity-Granting Buildings", while other Buildings will have Affinity-Requirements and stronger Bonuses overall.

Not entirely sure how I want Hybrids to work, I may just make Affinity Buildings of one type unique per city to restrain the hybridization a bit and add hybrid-buildings later in the game that require 2 Affinities and grant Affinity Points towards both of these Affinities, which would make going hybrid an investment that would leave you behind in Affinity for a while (and thus in theory making you vulnerable to being attacked at that time), while in the long run strengthening your empire by granting extra affinity bonuses and having access to hybrid buildings.

 

[DefiantMars]

I appreciate your efforts to address the topics.

I think it is kind of weird how little it feels like the terrain doesn't grow over the course of the game. One of the themes if not the main theme of Beyond Earth is settling a new world and how humanity adapts to it. It feels like Civ V has more ways to make the terrain work for you, which is strange considering all the Science Fiction Technologies and straight-up terraforming capabilities. The world doesn't feel like it really grows as humanity learns more and decides on how to interact with the planet.

As for balancing, I can't contribute in any meaningful way. That is far outside of my experience level. I tend to go by intuition on what feels right and what feels thematic.

That said, I do have a bit of concern about making the Hybrids too much of a late game force without consideration of how to get to the late game. If they can't hold their own, then I see little point in using the Hybrids because you'll get rolled over. However, making them slower to get to does make sense; it just the pacing that makes me nervous.

For Hybrid building ideas, both Galgus and GenEngineer have some nice ideas in their own threads. I quite like GenEngineer's Harmony/Purity Orichalcum Smelter.

 

[Tchern]

I'm having a peculiar problem with Awesome Loadouts in Rising Tide.

I attempt to load the mod (I've tried this with and without the "activate mod, exit, activate again" method that is apparently currently necessary), but the extra loadouts don't appear.

If I check database.log, apparently BE is claiming multiple tables referenced by the mod don't exist - specifically Colonist_FreePromotions and Colonist_UnitClassProductionModifier. It also says the column ResourcePodsNearStart doesn't exist (from CivBESpacecraft.xml), along with GrantFreePolicyChoice (from CivBECargo.xml).

I tried reinstalling from scratch, get the same results. I've found no indication that this is any kind of common error, so ... help?

 

[Ryika]

Sounds like you're using an outdated version of the game, all the entries you mention have been patched in.

 

[Tchern]

BE claims it's up to date, 1.1.2.4035. Going to try a few more things. Thanks, anyways.