v11 feedback
- Thread starter Maniac
- Start date
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Hurray! I changed a line of code, and behold, the AI just built a sea base!
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
Cool! Looking forward to the next patch!
In other news: Congratulations, you did it: The AI beat me at Noble.
I'm getting flashbacks to the first time I've played with BetterAI on BtS... I guess I have to be a bit more careful with my strategy now - so it seems to work rather well, so far! 
Now, there's something else I noticed for a while ago (and remembered to mention it, because a friend told me about it, I persuaded to try out Planetfall - he felt that early barbarians in BtS are much more commonplace, plus he never played SMAC...):
1) Is it possible that - on land - mindworms are not that common, because there are a lot of sporelaunchers?
2) The early native life activity seems to be a bit lacking. Once you start polluting/caring for planet, the fungal blooms do their jobs rather nicely. But during the early exploration phase, it's possible to uncover large amounts of the maps without any hostile encounters with native life.
I mean it's not unbalanced or anything, I think it's fine... but somehow it fails to show you the menace native life is. I mean the idea is that colonists land on Chiron... and after a couple of days, they find out that they share the planet with brain-eating worms! I don't think you get much of the feeling early on - but then it may be due to the lack of interludes/wonder movies and so on. Plus, this is rather a minor thing... more of a "feel" thing, especially for first-timers who haven't played SMAC.
But it may be nice to sort of ensure that you get an early meeting with native life (specifically mind worms), could even be some sort of weakened mind worm that you can always beat or so, just to have something of an "story event"?
And about events: Do you like random events? The SMAC ones were - some at least - totally out of whack (solar flares!? asteroid impact!?)... but some minor ones might be nice, especially to convey a bit of the flavour that made SMAC so great. Plus one could integrate this for pretty SMAC-style events!
Cheers, LT.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Equal numbers of mind worms and spore launchers should spawn. I suspect the problem is simply that, because all factions start close nearby, there just isn't all that much fog of war terrain for native life to spawn nearby.
I have in fact recently been thinking to place some mindworms on the map right from the start, but give everyone on all difficulty levels one or two free kills against barbarians - it's a simple XML change. That way there's no negative effect on gameplay (nobody will get killed in the first couple turns of the game), but you do get the story element.
Sure, but I don't have any inspiration for what they could be. Thus others would need to invent them.
GeoModder
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2005
- Messages
- 7,512
Mmm, in my last game (until turn 63 IIRC) I did meet only a few sporelaunchers and a single mindworm, and spotted several IoD's on the seas around the continent. And I was scouting on a narrow-winded part with no human territory whatsoever.
And about events: Do you like random events? The SMAC ones were - some at least - totally out of whack (solar flares!? asteroid impact!?)... but some minor ones might be nice, especially to convey a bit of the flavour that made SMAC so great. Plus one could integrate this for pretty SMAC-style events!
The asteroid one isn't really out of whack, you know. Alpha Centauri is a binary system and I can imagine that the second star disrupts the orbits of a few extra rocks towards Alpha Centauri A on its closest approach. And eventually some of those have to hit a planet.
But talking about events, I'd say that earthquakes should be more common and disruptive on Planet because of its (in SMAC) larger size compared to Earth.
And instead of solar flares could perihelion between Alpha Centauri A and B cause more native life to appear. Barb uprising so to speak.
And it would be nice that the training of a faction's first native life pops up the leader vs apprentice text.
What else is possible? Refugees from oppressive factions? The breakaway from the Data Angels or Drones from the Morgans and Hive respectively as an event?
Worked Monoliths in a base fat cross doing weird things like giving a pop boom, surplus nutrients/minerals/enery or giving an extra special ability to all units within range? Alien artifacts with a field camp on them suddenly coming online, giving a boost to research and then disappear? Signals from the Nexus changing the weather pattern over most of the continent and so changing the terrain type (arid/moisture/rainy) or barring that, destroying improvements?
Here's a good one! The loss of the first rover on Planet gives the Rick (Rover) Baxter popup (Baxter piloted his rover in a native vortex warding off wave after wave of mindworms and so saving a base...), giving an extra
to existing hologram theatres.Cheers, LT.
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
No, no, flavour-wise, it does make sense and fits the sci-fi mood. I just don't like the impact it has on gameplay - it's totally out of your control and totally random - and can screw you over for good. I hate that, because it devalues strategy and your decisions, ditto for the flares and meteor showers destroying your satellites (IIRC).
Well, I think it would need to be abbreviated to fit the event box - but nice idea to put in some of the interlude snippets!And it would be nice that the training of a faction's first native life pops up the leader vs apprentice text.
Cool ideas, though I imagine Maniac might have different plans for the extra factions (and triggering them off the random events would change the game quite a bit, if you turn off random events).
Perhaps start an event thread? Then we could elaborate a bit on them and try to come up with BtS-style event effects and choices (I think that events with multiple choice options are more fun and engaging, because you're not just a spectator, but you can do something - and it offers sort of a "roleplay opportunity").
Cheers, LT.
slugwalk
Chieftain
I like the idea of some starting mindworms, it fits with the idea of them being a native part of the ecosystem, prior to Planet's response to the humans.
In SMAC there was always a chance when entering fungus (outside of your territory) that a mindworm would appear. I liked this in that it made exploring Planet more dangerous than exploring Earth, and it makes the fungus more dangerous.
slugwalk
Chieftain
I just noticed that you added the ability to build greenhouses on rainy terrain, with sensible bonuses. Unfortunately, I think the changes were only to the civilopedia entry 
. I hope this was just an oversight, and not a change of heart.
I really like the idea of being able to build greenhouses everywhere, especially for the EB civic.
. I hope this was just an oversight, and not a change of heart. I really like the idea of being able to build greenhouses everywhere, especially for the EB civic.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
The AI disagrees!
I didn't.
If you want plots with a 3+ nutrient yield, you'll need farms and condensers.
slugwalk
Chieftain
The AI disagrees!
I didn't.
If you want plots with a 3+ nutrient yield, you'll need farms and condensers.
You're saying the AI can't deal with mindworms spawning sometimes when you walk on fungus?
Then did someone else change the datalinks entry
?slugwalk
Chieftain
Minor error: The Network Node tooltip needs to be updated to match the +3 labs.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
The datalinks doesn't state that greenhouses can be built on rainy terrain. Greenhouses get a nutrient penalty on greenhouses - that's to cover the case where someone would build a condenser on an adjacent plot, turning a flat moist greenhouse plot into flat rainy for instance.
Pfeffersack
Deity
I'm looking forward to see this in action. It will make the AI even harder to beat - the inclusion of Better AI is already clearly visible. They are more agressive regarding oversea expansion now and I have to deal in 2308 with a huge invasion force after foolishly refusing a tribute demand for Santiago (not even my DP with Zhakarov helped me and I'm playing without aggressive AI - I guess I will have to step down from Emperor as well). I wonder if the AI knows about the special advantages Invitros have regarding WW or if they just use them because they are the best what they have? The former would be really cool.
Again a small notice regarding promotions...the Shelf promotion is restricted to Foil units only, which makes sense from the view of flavour and realism - however, it severly limits its usefulness and in the case of the Coastal Guard, this promotion is a kind of trap - it only helps you on a kind of tile you can't enter.
I can confirm the great discrepancy between native life on land and sea. The latter gets soon infected by marauding IoDs and sealurks (see my save; it shows BTW also my attempt to run a green strategy with Lal), but the land stays empty - except of course someone starts to pollute the planet. The problem is reduced when playing with a low sealevel and scattered landing positions, but still existent.
slugwalk said:
The extra +1 comes from having the Alien Artifact ressource - this isn't displayed in the civilopedia, but the tooltip in the city screen is correct on this, if you have the ressource.
Attachments
slugwalk
Chieftain
Any chance of you adding the ability to build them on rainy terrain? I completely understand if you don't want to allow 3 food on a flat rainy, but what about those rocky&rainy squares. Sometimes you can have a lot of those, and if you're trying not to pollute, you may not have enough extra food to use those squares. Being able to build a greenhouse on those would be both logical and helpful for gameplay.
slugwalk
Chieftain
OK here's another information bug (I think I'm not failing to notice something this time): When I hover over the maintenance for a base with Ultraponics maintenance, the extra energy shows up in the total, but not as one of the entries for sources of maintenance. Also, the finance adviser screen shows this maintenance as a number of bases maintenance, not Ultraponics. I can tell because I have a hybrid economy, so its the only thing adding to number of bases maintenance.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Worked fine for me (last time I had to pay Ultraponics maintenance), so can't really think of what could be your problem. One thing though: the numbers will sometimes be incorrect for a turn when just capturing a base for instance. This will correct itself the next turn.
I plan to remove it. It's a relic of the early days when foils got that promotion for free.
slugwalk
Chieftain
I see now that it isn't actually Ultraponics maintenance, its just 4 mystery maintenance that pops up sometimes for my relatively new cities. At least I've noticed it happening in two newish bases (ones I built). It has no description in the city screen, but it shows up as distance maintenance on the finance screen.
slugwalk
Chieftain
Random thoughts:
I've noticed that Highlander and Guerilla boni are available for Isles of the Deep. Is it possible to remove these options for non-land native life only? Or are promotions always unit type specific?
Aquaformers aren't set up to use food in their production. Is this intentional, and if so why?
I'm not sure the 20% strength bonus for ranged units at higher elevations works quite right. For one thing, when I attack a sea unit with another sea unit sitting in a base on highlands, it gets a 20% bonus (at least based on the combat odds popup). Also, units sitting on highlands seem to get a 20% bonus when defending against lowland units.
I've noticed that Highlander and Guerilla boni are available for Isles of the Deep. Is it possible to remove these options for non-land native life only? Or are promotions always unit type specific?
Aquaformers aren't set up to use food in their production. Is this intentional, and if so why?
I'm not sure the 20% strength bonus for ranged units at higher elevations works quite right. For one thing, when I attack a sea unit with another sea unit sitting in a base on highlands, it gets a 20% bonus (at least based on the combat odds popup). Also, units sitting on highlands seem to get a 20% bonus when defending against lowland units.
