Torture Mod, Ongoing Discussions

[Velociryx]

Following Tokamak’s and Smack’s leads, I decided to mosey on over to the Creation thread to start a running discussion for hammering out the details of the Splinter Mod, recently referred to as the Torture Mod….

Torture Mod Summary

Purpose – The very reason for the Mod’s existence is to address a number of severe game balance issues, and to provide a new platform for gamers to test themselves against. This new platform will be designed with all of the accepted “best strategies” and current game standards that I am aware of in mind, and to whatever degree I am able, those strategies currently viewed as most powerful and/or most favorable, will be hobbled, forcing players to seek out entirely new strategies.

In the same breath, a second goal of the Mod is to bring a greater sense of realism to the game. While it is true that no one really knows how difficult or easy it would be to start a colony from scratch on an alien world, I get the distinct impression that it would be substantially harder than has been presented in the game. Added to that is the fact that we have history as a guide. The history of the ill-fated Roanoke Colony is very much on my mind as I contemplate changes to the alpha.txt file which drives the game.

To that end, what follows is a summary of proposed changes, and numerous spots which are currently “blank” or “gray.” My hope is, that by posting the synopsis of proposed changes here, it will open up discussion on various specific parts of the game, leading to a much higher quality end-product than I could ever hope to get developing the Mod in a vacuum.

Having said all that, read on, and feel free to make your thoughts and opinions known! The changes below were taken from the thread begun in the Strategy section, and already include modifications made thanks to comments there!


Changes made to the following SE Table Entries:

Frontier: -1 Growth, -1 Research
Limited resources in frontier societies make growing a thriving community a daunting proposition. Additionally, with what resources that are available spent on meeting the bare necessities of the population, there is little left over for research.

Simple: -1 Support, -1 Industry
No formalized economic structure in place – Likely, the society relies heavily on a barter-based economy. The inefficiencies to be found in primitive economic systems are borne out by a decreased ability to support large numbers of field personnel, and by a fledgling or nonexistent industrial base.

Survival: -1 Research, -1 Support
With survival of the colony of paramount importance, resources must be carefully rationed. Thus, research—which may lead to fascinating but largely useless discoveries in a practical sense—and support for exploration—those colonists fit enough to explore are badly needed at home to keep things running—are curtailed.

Baseline tech costs are tripled.

Baseline SP costs are doubled, and costs for projects that provide free facilities are quadrupled.

Supply Crawlers have been removed from the game. Reasoning – The Supply Crawler is essentially a “broken” unit….cheap to build, carrying no support cost, and very easy to abuse (upgrading to expensive configurations that no one would actually build to use in order to speed-build projects). Even raising the price of the unit AND requiring support for each one built would only delay the game breaking situations it is possible to create with the unit. Add to that the fact that the Crawler is essential to most accepted Builder strategies, and one of the goals of the Mod is to do away with or substantially weaken currently relied on strategies, and the decision to remove was easy.

Clean Reactors have been removed from the game. Reasoning – Also a game breaker. +4 Support is unrealistic enough, but the ability to create an endless stream of units requiring no additional cost is obscene from a game balance standpoint. This one was an easy decision for me, because I rely on Clean Reactor Troops in my own SMAC/X games.

Nerve Gas has been removed from the game. Reasoning – the AI never uses it, giving a decisive advantage to players who do. Also, it is highly “in favor” with classic Momentum/Rush Style games. Removing it as an option forces rushers to come up with something new and different.

Choppers get a four (4) movement….price remains unchanged. Reasoning – Shining1 is a genius. The only thing I disagree with is his increase in baseline cost for the unit. By drastically reducing the number of moves, it’s utility is severely curtailed until the late game, especially in light of the slower tech discovery rate this Mod proposes.

Growth: Has been modified in two ways. First, a –3 Growth rating no longer prevents growth, but instead, gives the expected –30% slower rate. Also, +6 growth gives 60% growth in bases. The ability to “Boom” has been removed from the game.

Probes: The Probe has been moved to Information Networks. I can see the logic behind having Probes associated with Planetary Networks, but the logic runs counter to the actual game experience. The logic says that probes only begin infiltrating the datalinks of neighboring nations when they begin to interconnect across the planet. This would imply that a probe, sitting at his desk (or inside one of your own bases) could remotely connect to the rival faction’s datalinks and attempt to break in. This, of course, is not what the game experiences. Your probe has to get out and go to the target base with the express intention of infiltration. Given that, it makes sense in my mind that as soon as a faction has something to infiltrate (information networks), there’d very likely be someone who’s willing to try to do it, and this can be seen by looking at the history and development of the hacker culture here on earth. I’m also seriously considering removing the tech steal option from probes. This would profoundly impact the Momentum game, however, and I’m not sure if it can stand to be weakened further than it already has been. Also, moving Probes to InfoNets weakens PlanNets, which is a good thing, as the tech in its original form grants an SE choice, a secret project, and a new unit type….YOW!

Carrier Deck now becomes available with the discovery of _____(tech yet to be determined, but somewhere close to Doctrine: Air Power). Reasoning – Navy has typically been a “weak leg” of the SMAC game. This is a move to strengthen Naval options and operations, and also to bring a truly outstanding unit ability into the game much sooner.

Deep pressure hull now becomes available with the discovery of ____(tech yet to be determined, but somewhere close to Fossil Fuels). Reasoning – See Carrier Deck, above. It won’t make a bit of difference in SP games, but early subs in MP will add a whole new realm of uncertainty to the game, and require vigilant patrols.

Terraforming: I have always been fairly happy with when and where terraforming options become available on the tech tree. Unless someone presents a strong argument for shifting certain options forward or back, I’m inclined to leave the terraforming options as they are.

Secret Projects: A number of these will be disabled. The ones on the list are broken or distorted in my view, and a number of strategies are based solely around some of them. The current list of projects to be disabled or changed is as follows:

Weather Paradigm: Not disabled, but pushed back to Ecological Engineering. Note that this DOES remove some of the free terraforming effects from the equation, but it still retains value thanks to the shorter terraforming times.

Cloudbase Academy: Disabled. I don’t think there will be many disagreements that the CBA is one of the most overpowered project in the game, if not the king of the heap.

Empath Guild: Disabled. It has a distorting factor where votes are concerned, and free infiltration is, IMO, too powerful, especially when coupled with the huge commerce windfall that the winner of this particular prize will most likely get.

Planetary Transit System: Disabled to pull the teeth from the classic ‘borg strategy, and as a move to help keep Ashaandi’s group in check (see factions, below).

Cloning Vats: Disabled. Pop booming is another broken aspect of the game, and one I’m trying hard to limit with this mod.

Clinical Immortality: Moved forward to extend its game life. Current tech to move it to has yet to be decided.

The Space Elevator: See Clinical Immortality, above.

Singularity Inductor: See Clinical Immortality, above.

Bulk Matter Transmitter: See Clinical Immortality, above.

Telepathic Matrix: See Clinical Immortality, above.

Net-Hack Terminus: See Clinical Immortality, above.

OoO

The (Revised) Splinter Factions:
It is my hope to create seven unique and believable factions, each with a very different feel, and each providing a very different playing experience. While this is more-or-less true of the factions we’ve got now, I DO feel that more could have been done along those lines, and will attempt to pull it off here. The factions (or at least the latest iteration of them) appear below:


The Heretics of Chiron: +2 Planet -1 Research, -1 Industry. Starts with one scout patrol. Tech at start: Centauri Ecology. No SE aversions. Robust: Planet. Begins the game with one Alien Artifact (stolen from the Believers on their way out the door!) All troops come with built in Trance ability.

Design Notes: (More details on this group will be provided later…I’m at work and away from the files)

Splinter Group from the Believers and driven out by Miriam Goodwinson, who tolerates no dissention in the ranks, and branded them heretics and traitors. Like the mother faction, they suffer a research penalty (growing up in a right wing, fundamentalist state which frowned upon research…some habits are hard to break), and they DO get a morale bonus…not as good as Miriam’s group at combat, but certainly not slouches, either, but that’s where the similarities end. The Heretics have much in common with the Gaian faction, regarding Planet as sacred and not to be despoiled. In truth, they see the new world as their Eden. A paradise to be melded with rather than fought. Because of this almost mystical worldview of Chiron, the Heretics spend much of their time communing with Planet, which leaves less time mundane pursuits (research), and they would certainly do nothing that would blemish the pristine nature of Chiron (Industry).

The robust Planet rating limits the ecological damage that a switch to Market causes (not sure how the game rounds, so I don’t know if they’ll wind up with a 0 or 1 here), making defense against native life a much easier proposition. Add to that the free ability of their troops, and you get a fairly “worm-proof” faction, going a long way toward eliminating that as a viable avenue of attack against them, and it plays into their faction story as a whole. This latest “tweak” to the faction also addresses some previously expressed concerns that the faction was overpowered in the early game (they used to start with a pair of mindworms!). They’re still strong, but their built in troop ability is defensive in its nature, and they now have to take the time to find and capture worms, rather than starting with them, which should provide at least a bit of slowdown.

OoO


DataPirates – Led by Doctor Lawrence (Psycho) Freeling: +2 Probe, +1 Efficiency, -2 Police. Tech at start: Information Networks, Doctrine: Mobility (all those computer racing games!) Begin with 1 Former, Impunity: Knowledge. All troops come with built in polymorphic encryption built in.

Design Notes: Splinter group from the University. Hacker/punk sub-culture that thrived in the University’s easily-to-infiltrate society. Essentially, I see these guys as being brats…lol…smart as hell (probe rating and their ability to find shortcuts to arrive at end results leads to the effie bonus) but essentially lazy (thus, no research bonus for them at all). They’d rather steal tech than work for it, and because of that, they’re understandably police shy. For the most part, their modifiers (both positive and negative) center around relatively low-powered segments of the game though (exception made for the small efficiency kick), and my initial reaction was that the DataPirates were something close to the Mod’s “baseline” faction, but then I took a look at their stats, just considering Knowledge (not taking any other SE settings into account) +2 Research, +2 Probe, +2 Efficiency. Pretty heinous stuff, but (hopefully) not unbalancing. The polymorphic encryption for their troops is a minor ability, and only helpful in limited situations, but still intriguing.

OoO

The Circle of Ashaandi - Led by Harrand Ashaandi: -3 Support, -3 Morale (Support hit comes from the inner-circle’s lavish lifestyle….soaks up resources, leaving relatively fewer available to support the actual running of the empire – Morale hit comes from troops serving out of fear. Also the fact that Ashaandi’s troops are not considered shock troops, but assassins…good at sneaking around, but lacking in hand-to-hand prowess.), Sharetech 3, Punishment Sphere in Every Base. No SE Aversions (but their native support hit means you’d have to drag them kicking and screaming to Dem!) Tech at start: Biogenetics, Applied Physics. Begins with one Former. All units come with “Blink” built in (Troops are actually assassins, good at infiltration as mentioned above).

Design Notes: Breakaway group from the Hive. Should be a MOST interesting faction to play. No drone riots, EVER, regardless of…well, anything, and no need for control facilities. All this comes with a hefty price tag, however. While Democracy is not outright banned, running it would severely hinder the faction’s ability to do….much of anything requiring large numbers (or even medium sized numbers) of units. Also, expansion in the early game will have to be done with a great deal more care than the norm, considering that each unit requires two minerals for support. This should create a durable, but slower growing faction, in the same vein as the Pirates from Crossfire. The free spheres are nice, in the sense that Ashaandi’s group essentially plays a simplified game…one devoid of having to worry about balancing drone issues, but the 50% research penalty makes them the hands-down worst researchers in the game. As people begin to explore and make contact, the Sharetech ability will begin providing help, but with the slower moving tech tree, this might take a while, leaving the Assassins on their own for a number of years. I see them as having a relatively small army (no kidding, with their heinous support costs!), but one that is utterly devastating on the attack, with the ability to simply bypass base defenses. That, coupled with the fact that they can run Market and sneer at the drones should make the faction viable. When the faction reaches the point when they see their support drop to “only” –3, watch out! Suddenly their support costs are halved, and they can begin to field an increasing number of troops. In MP, either kill them early or make alliances against them!

I was a bit leery of giving the group Biogen at start, which also gives them access to the HGP, but considering the nature and starting condition of the group, I doubt it’s something they’d be interested in, even from a denial standpoint. Gunning for it would tie up one of their (relatively fewer anyway) bases, further hobbling their early game expansion. Only play testing will tell for sure, but my early impression is that the HGP will be pretty much ignored by the group.

OoO

Honshu’s Militia - Led by General Honshu himself: +2 Morale, Votes halved in Planetary Council, Robust: Morale, -1 Efficiency, -1 Economy (training troops and keeping that wicked army up to date drains a great many resources from the economy, holding it down). Honshu begins with a rover, despite not having the tech for it. Tech at start: Doctrine Loyalty. No SE aversions.

Design Notes: Breakaway group from Santiago. The only faction in the game that starts with a tech that has an attached SP—well, at least an SP that the faction in question would be interested in obtaining! Odds are good that they’ll get the Command Nexus, and if they do, they’ve got the hands-down best troops on Chiron. The hit to efficiency hurts their expansion slightly, and until they get Industrial Automation, they won’t make much money, but the fact that they can run Wealth with only a minor, “inconvenience” penalty makes the acquisition of IA extremely important to them. I see this group as the diametric of Ashaandi’s. Good, solid troops against slinky assassin type troops, and neither of them are particularly adept at research, though Ashaandi’s Sharetech surely gives him the edge there. As an aside, would their immunity to Morale hits make them immune to that funky smax gas that lowers morale??? Initially, I gave this group a Unity Chopper at game start, but considering the new limitations on that unit, I felt they would be better served by a Rover. Thoughts on this?

OoO

The Humanists - Led by “Mother” Hannah Washington: +2 Support (very team spirited society),
-2 Morale (not much attention paid to training troops for war), free Children’s Creche with tech, Not allowed to run Police State or Power . Begins with Social Psych, 1 Scout, and 1 Former.

Design Notes: The only faction in the game that starts with a support value of 0—given the way I intend to change the default SE settings--and this is an important edge, IMO. Add in the fact that they still get free minerals when switching to Dem, and they can expand almost as well as Ashaandi’s group (not quite as well of course, cos the drones WILL eventually catch them, but not bad at all. The free facility comes pretty early in the game, and is not terribly expensive to build manually, but I thought it was a nice perk for the group, and it undoes their morale hit from the moment they get Ethical Calc. The inability to run in a Police State stems from their PK origins, and plays well with the faction’s beliefs (essentially, while Lal is a humanitarian, “Mother” Washington is a humanist….similar but not the same. Still, they both have low regard for Police states and those who use them). The inability to run Power was added out of necessity, to prevent the group from getting to +4 Support. This is still possible in the late game (Living Refinery(?), but by then it’s impact won’t be as crushing.

OoO


(to be continued)
-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

The Builder’s Coven - Led by Professor Franklin Pavel: +1/+1/+1 From Fungus tiles, Free Psi-Gate in every base, +1 Planet, -1 Economy, -2 Growth. Tech at start: Centauri Ecology, 1 Scout. Not allowed to run wealth.

Design Notes: Breakaway group from Dee. Dr. Pavel’s group shares a love of Planet with the faction he broke from, but where Dee would rather spend her time communing with Planet, the Doctor’s group strives to unlock the mysteries of the monoliths, and the alien culture that was obviously once here. As such, a great deal of their time has been spent studying the Monoliths, and the Psi-gate at every base is meant to be the “human constructed equivalent” of the Monolith—in the fanfic I’ve written about Chiron, Monoliths were (among other things) rapid transport systems used by the aliens to move around Planet. Thus, the Psi Gate represents mastery over that particular aspect of the technology for this group). Besides, I think the Psi Gate is a pretty cool, though under used facility, and it has intriguing possibilities for the group, both offensively and defensively. The growth penalty was meant to slow them down (they get LOTS of productivity from fungus tiles), and the econ penalty really MEANS something (unlike in Honshu’s case), as the Coven is unable to cling to Wealth to be rid of that particular negative.

OoO

The Energy Masters - Led by Phillipe Christo: -1 Research, +1 Efficiency +2 Police, 2% Interest on money in the bank, Starting Tech: Industrial Base, Centauri Ecology. No SE aversions. Free Energy Bank at every base, and Energy masters are immune to negative impacts of their police rating (private, heavy-handed security forces for the wealthy are everywhere!)

Design Notes: A cash-rich, research poor faction, which is something of an oddity. These guys care more about counting their energy credits than they do about gaining additional tech advances, and they start with the basics to do it with a vengeance. They’re good at building infrastructure, thanks to a combination of industrial might (not with a classical industry boost, but with the interest earned on credits, allowing for more and more rushes as wealth amasses) and economic know-how, expressed in the form of efficiency. These guys are masters of control, too, as their kick in effie allows them to run a police-oriented market and not worry a thing about drones! This puts them in a camp somewhat similar to Ashaandi’s where control is concerned, allowing them to focus on infrastructure to increase wealth and eliminate their research penalty, rather than worrying much about building drone control facilities.

End Notes: I’m definitely interested in hearing more comments about the factions in their present form! If you feel a twist or tweak is in order, by all means, let me know! We’ll keep hammering out the details here on this thread, and the end result will be….tough. Very tough indeed!

Synopsis, faction-by-faction (at game start)
Heretics: -2 Support, -1 Growth, -3 Research, -2 Industry, +2 Planet, +1 Morale
Pirates: -2 Support, -1 Growth, -2 Research, -1 Industry, +1 Efficiency, -2 Police, +2 Probe
Ashaandi: -5 (!) Support, -1 Growth, -2 Research, -1 Industry, -3 Morale
Honshu: -2 Support, -1 Growth, -2 Research, -1 Industry, -1 Econ, +2 Morale
Humanist: 0 Support, -1 Growth, -2 Research, -1 Industry, -2 Morale, -2 Police
Coven: -2 Support, -3 Growth, -2 Research, -1 Industry, +1 Planet, -1 Econ
Masters: -2 Support, -1 Growth, -3 Research, -1 Industry, +1 Efficiency, +2 Police

Classic Crossfire “broken” techs (If I’m missing some, please chime in and help me fill in the blanks!)
It was pointed out in another thread that there are just some techs that are overpowered, and others that are….well….just this side of useless.

By “spreading around” the abilities granted throughout the course of the game to different techs, we will come closer to equalizing the overall strengths of techs overall, and further slow the development of the game down (which, IMO, is a good thing!). We’ll start with the overpowered techs, and then move to the 98 pound weaklings.

Overpowered Techs:
1) Industrial Automation
2) Doctrine: Air Power
3) MMI
4) Fusion
5) Bio-Engineering (Clean)
6) Planetary Networks

(Again, I don’t have the tech list in front of me, so I’m sure there are more….if you have a “ringer” for the overpowered list, feel free to chime in!)

Industrial Automation:
The more I think about it, the more tempted I am to simply take crawlers out of the equation. Even if I raise the price AND require support, the basic problems with the unit would still remain….true, those things would mean it’d take longer for them to be notable, but it would happen in the end. I think the crawler has to go, but it’s not as simple as that. In order to fill the gap, I think that the orbital stuff should be brought forward dramatically, perhaps allowing for hydro-sats as early as fossil fuels (the ability to launch multi-staged rockets to the upper atmosphere), but again, we’re “bunching” abilities by doing that. Ideas on exactly where we could start making orbitals available?

Fusion:
IMO, Fusion is okay where it is….even a dead beeline for it will take you a while to reach it. I like its overall position on the tree (though it could be argued that getting Fusion Reactors, Engineers, AND Fusion Labs from that one tech is a bit over powering….perhaps then, engineers could be pushed to another, weaker tech?)

Also in the mod, I think I’ll make the general assumption that the military plays a fairly large role in research (primarily as a source of funding). Thus, when new breakthroughs occur, the military gets them first. As such, the fusion reactor will remain with the Fusion tech, but the Fusion Lab might get pushed back to the next D-level tech on the tree. Don’t know, but that’s kinna my thinking.

Likewise, to help even out the gap difference between fusion -> Quantum and Quantum -> Singularity, I’ll move the Quantum reactor forward (again, the military gets it first), and leave the Converter where it is….how’s that sound?

Air Power:
This could be undone as a “power play” by simply making AAA tracking come well before the planes…ideas for what tech to move AAA tracking to? (since mil algos already has Power attached to it, we could leave it as is, and simply move AAA to some weaker tech, further down on the tree).

MMI:
In the mod, choppers will be severely limited in their movement, and the CBA won’t exist, leaving the Cyborg Factory and the (weakened) chopper chassis with the tech. In my mind, it’s certainly an attractive tech still, but not the game breaker it once was.

Bio-Engineering:
Clean exits stage left, making this a good, but not a game breaking tech.

Planetary Networks
IMO, overpowered in the original game because it allowed for Probes, Planned, and a SP, all in one tech. Two freebies on a tech seems okay, but three’s pushing it, especially when one of them is a very powerful SP, and another is one of the most versatile units in the whole game. I plan to address this problem by moving probes down on the tech tree, making them available as soon as Information Networks are available (see elsewhere in this document for additional notes on this).

Specific Questions:
Given all of the above changes, and in an effort to find a non-game breaking substitute for Crawlers, I want to make orbital stuff available sooner, but I’m not yet clear on exactly what I’m looking for.

1) What tech do we make hydrosats available? (should be something in the neighborhood of Air Power, IMO)

2) Energy sats? (perhaps something along the same timeframe as Fusion??)

3) Mineral sats? (1-3 techs after Energy??)

4)As mentioned earlier in the document, I’m looking to increase the viability of the “Chiron Blue” strategy, by making navy a more potent force, early on. Thus, I’m shopping for opinions on exactly what tech to make Carrier Deck and Deep Pressure Hull available. I’d like to see them come online at around the same timeframe as fossil fuels/air power, but have no specific techs in mind at this time. Ideas here?

5) Quantum reactors need to be available for troops much sooner than they are. Ideas for tech there?
6) To help further counter the air power threat in the game, and make it an even less attractive beeline, AAA Tracking needs to be made available sooner than the planes themselves (the development of primitive radar would make it possible, even if attack jets are only theoretical at that point). I’m thinking opti-comps for this, how’s that sound?


More stuff to be added as discussions unfold!

-=Vel=-
(taking careful notes for the mod!)

[Gallagher]

How have you affected what the various levels of SE do? For example, how did you get -3 GROWTH to slow, rather than stop, population growth? Or +6 GROWTH to not pop boom? I was under the impression that these were hardwired into the program, and their presence in alpha.txt was simply for information. I don't think changing those lines in alpha.txt changes game play.

I agree with you about the unrealistic ease of colonization though. I'm close to finishing my own, much simpler mod along the same lines--Harsh Planet. Quite a bit of my work involves the Worldbuilder segment of alphax.txt, getting maps that don't allow ICS and yet remain AI friendly (most of my gaming is SP). I'll post when complete.

[Velociryx]

Hey man….the short answer is….I haven’t yet….LOL…right now, all of this stuff is just proposed. I saw the Growth thing in the Alpha.txt and assumed it could be tweaked. If it turns out that it can’t be, I’ll need to do something else (perhaps assign a default –1 growth penalty to every faction), and of course, I’ll need to reduce the Coven’s growth penalty to compensate for not being able to stop –3 Growth from “freezing” the population size.

The general plan is to get everything mapped out here, using the discussions here to alter it as needed, then write up a bare bones synopsis of the stuff to change and use that as my roadmap when I crack open the alpha.txt file.

I’m curious to see your Mod when you finish with it by the way! Having only recently gotten into the guts of this stuff, I’m fascinated by it!

-=Vel=-

[Avenoct]

Vel, glad to see you over here, and NICE SUMMARY (I'm having an All caps kinda day). While I busily hammer out my version of the game in secret, it's nice to see what you've done. If you'd like a copy or notes about what I'm doing I'll be glad to send them, but I'm trying to perfect it before I post it as a beta, and playable version.

Anyways, one thought I had about your mod, which I've been variously considering for my own would be to aim for putting the most-playable difficulty in the middle, rather than at the Transcend End. I know it'll complicate game testing, and might not be possible, but by making the game tough and playable at Librarian level, the upper two levels would make for easy scenarios where the AI is almost surely going to win. Along those lines would be considerations about:

1. Drones..these are far less at lower levels.
2. AI Growth and Industry and Research
-can the AI deal with your harsh-planet at lower levels, or does it need the *3 benefits it gets at Transcend?

Just an additional vertical dimension to consider, or not.

-Smack

[Tokamak]

Another techincal hurdle that need to be dealt with...

The problem with factions getting free facilities and unit abilities is that they have to have the prerequisite tech, first. This means that the Ashaandi, for example, won't get their powers until AdvMilAlg and Matter Transmission. That's too late in the game.

There are two basic approaches to this problem...

1) You can pull these abilites down into the earlier techs. Not too apealing, because then it becomes available to everyone (although not for free).

2) You can have the faction in question receive the requiste tech at the start. Intially, that sounds like it would be a disaster for gameplay, but it doesn't have to be like that. Some gentle massaging of the tech tree can fix things up for you.

To illustrate, I'll show you what I did in my own mod. I wanted the AI to start with Clean Reactors, but didn't want to make them available any sooner than normal. I created a new tech, called "Adiabatic Chambers," and moved Clean Reactors there.

AdCham has Bio-Engineering has a prequiste, and therefore occupies almost the same spot on the tech tree as before. The important thing is that AdCham is a dead-end tech, that is, it doesn't lead anywhere. I could then safely give this tech to the AIs without starting them out halfway up the tree.

An approach like this would work well for you, especially since you want to spread out the goodies between techs more.

[JustinSane]

In the faction editor, I'm pretty sure it is possible to start factions out with their free facilities from turn one, and likely abilities are the same. Free facility(prereq) gives the facility upon the discovery of the needed tech, whereas free facility gives the facility from the beginning of the game.
The modifications look great, the factions look balanced and extremely cool. I can't wait for the mod to be completed!

[Gallagher]

I hate to see crawlers go. In fact, in a slow population growth game, it seems like there should be something to bring in production since you can't work very many squares.

I didn't know the trick about upgrading the things to speed Project building, that does seem like a cheat. How about this:

Disable the Supply Crawler "module" (under #Weapons in alphax). But keep the unit (#Units). That way you get the basic unit, but-theoreticaly- not the opportunity to upgrade or its use in the Workshop. (This is what I did with Choppers in Harsh Planet. Seems to me they shouldn't be anything but scout vehicles and a way to knock off non-combat units, so the only Chopper is the Unity scout chopper--with its movement _increased_).

Unfortunately, b/c of bug, I believe there is an underhanded way to get around the 'no workshop' restriction. Would a house rule take care of that?

[Scipio Centaurus]

Hi Velocyrix.

I won't even attempt to respond to your messages in detail, as there is just too much to digest. I have had SMAC/X for about a year now and just started playing PBEM in January. I won my first solo game at transcend difficulty level last weekend, so I'm no expert.

What I read in your messages looks pretty good to me for the most part. Here's why. In my recent victory at transcend level, I wound up in second position on the faction dominance graph at about half the level of the Believers faction. I was able to hold my border militarily, which gave me time to implement the following strategy.

When the Believers commenced work on the Voice of Planet, I immediately switched all non-frontier bases (except for 3 interior bases) from whatever infrastructure they were currently working, to producing aerospace centers. Those that already had aerospace centers began producing satellites exclusively. I let each base produce the same satellite type over and over till the end of the game. I was producing about equal numbers of each type of satellite and ODPs all the rest of the way. When the other bases completed construction of their ACs, I had them begin making satellites too. I rush built at least one of each kind of satellite every turn the rest of the game.

I switched the 3 special interior bases mentioned previously to infinite crawler build. As you might imagine I already had several crawlers already at work.

When the VOP was completed and all factions had started the Ascent to Transcendance, I moved all existing crawlers to the base where I was working on the Ascent and cashed them in immediately. Then each turn after that I always rush built the crawlers at my 3 special bases and immediately moved them to the Ascent base for cash conversion. I then used remaining energy credits to build as many satellites as I could in the other bases.

My frontier bases handled all combat production.

I transcended shortly thereafter.

Needless to say I completely agree with your decision to eliminate the supply crawler from the game in your mod. Not because it becomes nothing more than secret project 'scrip', but because, quite frankly, I find the supply crawler to be the single ugliest unit in the game.

Therefore... Death to all Crawlers!

Also, based on the game experience I just described, I suggest caution concerning your idea to move satellites to an earlier stage in the game. They can become an overwhelming advantage when produced in bulk - and its sort of a subtle process, since you don't see a carpet of ice cream cone crawlers scattered about the countryside.

Some suggestions. Let the satellites come in earlier, as you suggest, except for the ODPs. Keep those back till the land/sea/air triad is well developed. Then the peaceful industrial factions - if you can find any - have some realistic possibility of developing a viable space presence. Increase the cost of the satellites so that it becomes a major event to put one in orbit in the early and middle game and quite a bit harder in the late game than allowed by the current setup. You may also want to key the availability of each type of satellite to its own appropriate kind of tech so that factions must make 'tough' choices about the techs they need to research to produce the type of satellite they want to bring into play first.

Just some thoughts.

Good luck with the mod. It sounds like you have the experience to make good judgements about the 'unbalancing' factors that exist in the game. I hope you will post regular progress reports as I will follow them closely.

- Scipio

[Velociryx]

Hey guys, and Smack….an excellent idea….one that had not occurred to me….I like it! If we could make “Thinker” the default level, then….::shiver:: OMG, Transcend (esp. Transcend TECHSTAG…OUCH…--joining you in the all caps!)

Toka, I thought it was possible to give a free facility or ability without requiring the pre-requisite techs….if no, then I’m in for a bit of wrestling with the alpha.txt….UGH…but if that’s what I gotta do….::sigh::

Gallagher: Yeah…believe me, as an AVID (there go those caps again! Lol) user of and believer in crawlers, I know exactly what you mean, but to compensate we’ve got the following:
1) Genejack facility moved closer in (a new idea brought forth by Ned!) – This gives you heightened productivity with a tradeoff….more minerals, more drones. I like that, and it fits nicely with the overall theme of the mod.

2) Early acquisition of orbital stuff. While this is not nearly as efficient as crawling goods, it’s not a bad alternative.

Essentially, you can get MOST of the benefits of crawling, but none of the game breaking aspects. And, everything is much more investment oriented, requiring more minerals to be spent to get the benefits, and significant maintenance costs.

Scipio: Thanks for the compliment bud….I’m sure gonna try to keep everything in balance, and hopefully, when completed, this new mod will add a totally new angle to the game (my fingers are crossed about that!).

I like the idea about keeping ODP’s relatively further back on the tree (but still making sure they’re available before PB’s! Yikes!). The cost of sats….I’m not sure there. Right now, one of the reasons it’s so easy to build sats by the late game is the fact that you’ve got an inflated mineral suite thanks to lots of supply crawlers. Kiss those g’bye, and it’s probably a good deal harder to get an orbital into orbit. Just in case though, you’ve put the bug in my ear about it, and if testing shows that it’s still too easy to get the sats launched, then we’ll add 20-30% to their cost (padded NASA budgets?), and that should do it.

Sats vs. Crawlers: Lots of good news on that front. Sats are vastly more expensive than crawlers, and while they carry no upkeep costs, their impact on bases is limited by that base’s size. If I build a base late game now, I’ll generally build 3-4 crawlers to go with it…that way, BOOM, it’s instantly got a giant industrial capacity for it’s size, and is able to do it’s infrastructure work very quickly. But with sats, a size one base only gets one FOP from each category of sat you’ve got in orbit. Helpful, yes…but not devastating like crawlers can be.

-=Vel=-

[Gallagher]

Vel, JustinSane is correct. You can give facilities without the prereqs. I forget the exact wording--I always use the faction editor. And I'm pretty sure you can do the same with unit abilities.

btw, could someone tell me why no one likes the faction editor? I almost never have any trouble with it, but maybe I'm doing it wrong. Or maybe I'm just not noticing what's not working.

[curtadams]

Growth: Has been modified in two ways. First, a –3 Growth rating no longer prevents growth, but instead, gives the expected –30% slower rate. Also, +6 growth gives 60% growth in bases. The ability to “Boom” has been removed from the game.

Velocyrix, how do you do that? I really wanted to do that to zap pop booms rather than the SE/players growth mods I had to resort to.

[korn469]

Vel

here are some suggestions...i have yet to test these ideas, but i think they would be very fitting

Frontier Politics
-1 police, -1 support, -1 efficiency
Early governing bodies on Chiron verged on the edge of anarchy, these ad hoc commitees had problems establishing order, raising a organized militia, and administering the colonies.

Simple Economics
-1 economy, -1 industry, -1 growth
The early economic systems on Chiron resembled a barter economy, where the industrial infrastructure had yet to be developed; this hampered economic growth and industrial output of the colonies

Survival Values
-1 morale, -1 research, -1 probe
In the early years on Chiron there were no available resources to pour into the military, education, or covert activities.

None Future Society
-2 planet, -1 support, -1 efficiency, -1 morale
Chiron held many secrets that would take time for humanity to unlock, also only the most advanced implementations of social engineering could deploy resources in the most beneficial configurations.

Cybernetic Future Society
+2 Efficiency, +2 Economy, +2 Research, -3 Growth
Connecting with planet is highly unlikely for a machine based society, also the police rating is too easily overcame.

Eudaimonic Future Society
+2 Planet, +2 Growth, +2 Industry, -3 Morale
The -2 morale was the same penalty as wealth, with eudaimonic being more than twice as good as wealth; plus communing with planet seems more reasonable for people striving to achieve fulfillment and self enlightenment.

*all prototypes should cost 100% more instead of 50% more
*retool strictness in the alpha text should be set to 3=never free
*retool exemptions should be set to 0
*Defend vs. mobile in rough should be 25%
*Terraforming Unit cost changed from 6 to 8 (or whatever it would take so that terraformers cost 3 bars instead of 2)

and the most important suggestion of all for making SMAC challenging is (drum roll please)...

*Nutrient intake requirement for citizens set to 3 instead of 2

by increasing the nutrient intake for citizens
*it eliminates the forest and forget strategy
*forces players to use advanced terraforming options
*makes it possible for a base with a recycling tank to starve
*generally makes colonization of Chiron more difficult
*destroying terraforming is now more devastating
*enhances seige warfare

i think all of these changes are appropriate for your mod vel and i think they could help to enhance it...but what you have so far looks good

[mark13]

Hiya Vel,

First up - great work on the mod - keep it up!

Secondly, a quick note on the placing of ODPs. Making themavaiable before PBs, IMO, would be a mistake. Put simply, this would eliminate PBs as a viable force, in one of two ways:

- The only viable use of PBs would be for someone way ahead in tech - they'd be used to kill a smaller faction off, rather than as a balance issue
- Otherwise, PBs would become virtually obsolete as an option.

Now, I like PBs. Not only as a game-balancer, but also 'cause they're fun - especially in MP.

Instead, what I propose is this:

If you're going to keep PBs & the missile chassis at Orbital Spaceflight, move ODPs to Advanced Spaceflight. Why? This would mean that in specialised circumstances, a PB would be viable, if a smaller factin put enough resources toward it (i.e. a bunch of probesto steal the tech.) Not only that, but your lack of crawlers mean such things are a devil to rush in any case - meaning the PB would otherwise essentially become obsolete.

In summary, whilst I agree that the PB-ODP gap is way too large as it is, PBs must come before ODPs - even if it's only a couple of techs - simply to make them something resembling a viable option. Removing PBs from the game altogether would be a mistake, IMO - just to throw an extra dimension into the game, if nothing else.

Just my opinion, anyway.

Korn - great work! Agreed wholeheartedly on the nuts issue - I actually had a go doing that (a long time ago, mind you) and for one thing - it made the AI terraforming see a lot more sensible. The one single thing I would disagree with is your 'None Future Society' penalties. The -2 planet in itself would render any faction's +ve planet rating obsolete until the late game - IMO future societies should simply be bonuses, as they don't come until the late game.

[korn469]

mark13

The -2 planet in itself would render any faction's +ve planet rating obsolete until the late game

this is exactly what i had in mind...i think it is ridiculous to think that any faction, (even the gaian) would be able to almost immeadiately develop telepathic abilities that would enable them to capture mindworms...the gaians with their +1 planet and the +2 from going green would be able to capture mind worms and have a positive psi attack rating before late game, but without the manifold nexus none of the other factions would be able to do this

plus the -2 planet would make native mindworms all the more dangerous

throwing in -1 support and -1 efficency also makes expansion and conquest harder...plus if you notice in my revised SE choices every category has a negative

[Blake]

Wouldn't the nuts 2->3 be a little too extreme , considering the starting SE penalties, slower research and elimination of crawlers? It would also make ICS look incredibly attractive, due to the extraordinary challenge of increasing a bases population above size 2.

A better solution to forest n' forget is changing forest to 1 nut, 2 mins. With no energy from forests solar panels look a lot more attractive

[korn469]

ok first i wanted to note that i also added a -1 morale penalty to none future society, just because i think it is way too easy to get unit right out of the box, and this means that power is of little use as an SE choice

Vel

ok here is my comments on your splinter factions

The Heretics of Chiron:
ok i think they should have an SE aversion (probably planned...they don't want it's bloated industries despoiling planet) and you mentioned in your notes that they get a moral bonus...are you talking about their planet rating or did you forget to add a bonus?

DataPirates:
i think that they too should have an SE adversion (police state seems a natural) also i do not think they should start with a former...instead their starting unit should be a probe team (you yourself said they were lazy hackers)

my only problem is that this faction might be a powerhouse in disguise...with dem/FM/know they would be
+2 probe
+2 economy +1 energy per square
+4 efficiency paradigm economy
+2 research
-2 support
-3 planet
-7 police
so i think changing their +1 effic to something else is in order...because the only factions that can get +2 econ and +4 effic in the early game from SE alone is the cyborgs and morgan

The Circle of Ashaandi:
ok maybe i'm crazy but i think that the circle looks way under powered...first thing
*change their penalties to -2 support and -2 morale
*change the built in blink to built in cloak devices (they are sneaky assassins...this might not change single player very much but this would make them deadly in multiplayer)
*give the circle a +25% bonus to PSI combat
*drop the starting former
*replace the former with a custom unit that has an infantry chassis, fission reactor, psi attack, and psi defense
*keep the punishment sphere
*add drone, 3 to faction text, so they really would need punishment spheres
*keep sharetech 3
if you implement all of those changes then p-spheres would be vital to the circle, and they would have more of a telepathic assassin feel because of their starting unit, the free cloaking device, and the psi combat bonus, and they would still have fairly significant penalties...such as problems being able to pop boom (no golden ages and significant problems running dem), a fairly small and weak conventional army...research penalties

Honshu’s Militia:
they seem like a fairly balanced faction, though i do think that they should have an SE aversion, but i'm just not sure what would suit them the best...
*change robust morale to Morale, 0
MORALE = Morale modifier if 0, indicates an exemption from negative modifiers from other sources
and i think they need one more small positive benefit i'm just not sure what though...but like i said something small because i think they are just about right

as for the other factions i'm not really getting any vibes on them yet...but i will post more soon

blake

i really don't think it would be too harsh, and i think it encourages players to really terraform their land...plus the fact that bases can die of starvation seems like a feature that is very fitting to this mod...possibly the amount of food from a soil enricher could be increased by 1

plus the inefficiency penalties will work to help curb ICS

[Velociryx]

Hello all! (and good to see your name popping up here Korn!)

Excellent points raised all ‘round….I like the ideas presented in Korn’s thread re: the SE table, and am currently digesting all that information, with an eye toward implementing many (and likely most) of those ideas, mixing them with the ideas already in place.

I’m a little leery about fiddling too much with the N’s required per citizen, mostly because we’ve already got some pretty harsh growth penalties built in. Those, combined with the higher per citizen nutrient requirements may very nearly paralyze the game in the early goings. I totally agree that it’d make it more realistic (which is exactly what I’m shooting for), but I’m worried about the frustration factor….I’m wondering if anybody will want to play a game where it takes 60 years for a base to grow from size 1 to size 2.

So….I’m sitting here with this mountain of ideas, currently trying to make them mesh into a workable, more realistic system while at the same time preserving the fun factor of the game…tough balancing act….LOL…I’m not sure I’m cut out to do this stuff for a living, but we’ll see how it goes.

Tech Tree:
I’ve not yet seen Smack’s mod, but I’m very curious to see what he did with the tech tree.

Specifically, I like the idea of re-arranging things so that certain powerful SP’s must be reached via dead end branches on the tree. That’s good stuff, and it’s prompted me to do a bit of thinking along those lines.

What I’m working with at the moment is the notion of breaking the tech tree down into several major categories (akin to the game’s “build, explore, conquer, discover” paradigms, but more specialized).

Tentatively, those categories are:
Power (reactor-types)
Resonance (resonance)
Guns (weapons)
Butter (restriction lifting)
Defenses (armor and other defensive techs)
Vehicles (chassis research)

And further, I really like the idea of having separate research branches for certain SP’s. No specific thoughts on this yet, but I’m breaking out the index cards as well, and plan to see how much I can do with it.

Wish me luck….

-=Vel=-

[Avenoct]

Vel,

Just a quick note before you dismantle the tree...I suspect building a tech tree is varyingly difficult depending on how a person's brain is wired. For me, it was darn difficult, and if I had to do it again, I'd approach it a liitle differently. So I'll outline the two approaches I've used as a sort of testimonial. Maybe it'll help you make the changes you'd like, a bit easier.

1. The 'Patch' Approach. Instead of wiping out the tree, I think next time I'd try to change the existing tree one tech at a time. This way, each inter-dependent relationship gets addressed as you go, you are able to make the 'important' changes first, and I think over all, less work has to be done. On the other hand, the tech tree would become a mix of your ideas, and those of the original game.

2. The 'Rewrite'. This is obvious. 77 techs, 20 Special Abilities, 3 Restrictions...etc... What helped me was that I assigned variables to the different levels in the tree. all the techs you can research without a prereq (the starting seven I call them) get the variables A1, B1, C1, D1, etc. The next level of techs uses these variables in their sub name, so C2 uses A1 and C1. The third level of techs can only be researched if some tech from the second level has been learned. That's what distingushes the 'levels'. So, C3 might depend on D1, and C2. It's full sub-name is now: C3 (A1C1C2D1). This makes it easy to see how many techs are required to 'beeline' to this tech, C3.

I know that everyone approaches these kind of logic-problems differently, but I thought I'd share part of my methodology to toss in the think tank.

One more thing. A tech can be a prereq for any number of other techs, but the display (F2) only works for 4-techs-branching from here.

-Good luck, and happy Crawlering!
-Smack

[Nadexander]

I think the minuses for frontier/simple/survival is a great idea. However, this may wind up hampering the ai more than expected because i notice that the ai will run these choices in SE even late into the game. Has anyone else noticed the ai factions running everything basic except for their agenda most of the time? Maybe just something to consider.

-Nadexander

[Avenoct]

Nadexander,

Yes, I have, and I have yet to fully experiment with this, but the line in the faction text r/e socio-economic dispostions affects this. I've been wondering if one could simply expand this:

'Politics, Democratic, GROWTH'
'Politics, Fundamentalism, nil'

to:

'Politics, Democratic, GROWTH, INDUSTRY, ECONOMY, EFFIC'
'Politics, Fundamentalism, nil'

or:

'Politics, Democratic, GROWTH'
'Politics, Democratic, EFFIC'
etc.
'Politics, Fundamentalism, nil'

-Smack

[Nadexander]

On a similar note, is there a way to give the computer players preferences with out giving them more agendas? If not i think it would be best to simply give the AI's more agendas so that they are stuck with a certain well balanced SE configuration. Although it would reduce the AI's flexibility i think the AIs would perform much better if the possibility of screwing itself with social enginnering settings was removed. Any suggestions on some well balanced (i.e. usefull for most situations and with out any really debilitatin downsides) social engineering settings for the AI to use? The general idea is just to keep the AI out of trouble. This is what i came up with off the top of my head...

AGENDAS
Morgan: Demo/Green/Wealth
Zak: Demo/FM/Knowledge
Yang: PS/Planned/?
Diedre: ?/Green/Wealth
Lal: Demo/FM/Knowledge
Miriam ?/?/?
Spartans ?/Planned/Power

Roze: Demo/FM/?
Pirates: Demo/?/Knowledge
Domai: Demo/Planned/Wealth
Dawn: PS/Green/?
Cyborg: Demo/FM/Knowledge
Caretakers: Demo/Green/?
Usurpers: Fundy/Green/Power

A few concerns: I often see a faction like morgan run FM and demo (-3 support) and still have hordes of non-clean penetrators running around. Im sure this cant be healthy. I'll often see diedre or dawn not running green when a good chunk of their armies are native. Also not a good thing. Giving all the AIs the "build/explore/discover" priority for construction and research as someone mentioned in a previous thread will make presets for social enginnering more useful.

-Nadexander

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Nadexander
...is there a way to give the computer players preferences with out giving them more agendas? If not i think it would be best to simply give the AI's more agendas so that they are stuck with a certain well balanced SE configuration... Any suggestions on some well balanced social engineering settings for the AI to use? ... This is what i came up with off the top of my head...

AGENDAS
Morgan: Demo/Green/Wealth
...
A few concerns: I often see a faction like morgan run FM and demo (-3 support) and still have hordes of non-clean penetrators running around. Im sure this cant be healthy...

-Nadexander

Sounds like a reasonable idea, but I think you may be allowing your judgement to be clouded on a couple of the proposed social agenda.

I play Morgan faction extensively, so I'll only comment on them. First it would be a little disingenuous to 'saddle' a free marketeer like Morgan with a green social agenda. Might as well make Dierdre use a free market agenda well we're at it. It just flys in the face of reality. I play Morgan as Democratic/FM/Wealth almost all the way. Sometimes if I have huge EC reserves I'll switch to Police/FM/Power to take someone out, but I usually switch right back to wealth accumulation when I get the chance. I suspect there is very little chance for the AI (or even a human player) to corner the global energy market without running the FM/Wealth combo.

The 'problems' I have experienced with Morgans FM settings are, as you suggest, non-clean penetrators (and strike copters and missiles) and naval combat vessels leaving their home base and causing drone problems. I solve the latter problem by building only defensive combat vessels until I'm ready to switch to military social settings. The combat vessels are just left on alert in various sea and coastal bases - no drone problems. In fact I think as long as a naval vessel moves only within the dashed territorial boundary of the realm, there won't be any drone problems. Naval exploration must be conduct with transports. Not the same with strike aircraft, though. The second you complete construction of the penetrator there are drones. My solution is to build defensive interceptors or choppers and just leave them on alert in various bases. There are no drones when you build these types of aircraft.

The penalty for Morgan's FM agenda is he cannot easily (read that as 'cheaply') take the attack to his enemies. The game mechanics attempt to restrict him to defending his realm, perhaps just the way it should be for a laissez-faire free trader.

Of course there are ways around these defensive restrictions. When I want to strike at a target, I switch some crawler supported bases to penetrator construction and then immediately rush build them (the miracle of FM/Wealth!). The bases begin drone riots but I just switch all base personnel to specialists and let the crawlers maintain the mineral support for the base's units. Sure, the personnel starve (I prefer to think of it as my loyal followers voluntarily getting 'lean and mean' for the cause) for a turn or two but they can handle that. After the attacks are resolved, there are two outcomes. If I lose, then the base no longer needs to support the strike combat unit and the base personnel can return to work. If I win, I usually just go ahead and disband the damaged combat unit immediately and then the base personnel can return to work. Either way, I can always build a new ad hoc strike force because I'm rollin' in the dough with FM/Wealth.

I do not claim to know if that is how the AI conducts its affairs when playing the Morgan faction, but I did want to point out that their was a way it could be done.

- Scipio

[Trev-MUN]

I've been checking out the Torture MOD you guys have been working on... I must say that it sounds very interesting (and very hard!)... However, I do have some points I disagree on. Feel free to counterpoint or ignore, I mean... it IS their MOD.... Most of my suggestions are based upon realism, taking into consideration the civilization AC's peeps left from was already a little more than half up the tech tree.

First off, I highly dislike where Choppers are in the game. It makes no sense: Why do you need a computer crammed upside your head in order to build homegrown whirlybirds, but you can pick up a Unity Chopper from pods (although rare) and from the U.N.S Unity Wreckage? :banned:

This is what I would do: Even today we have a bit of a problem with weight on air units. We can't heavily armor them that much, nor can we overload them with too many weapons. Therefore, instead of pushing back or cutting out move rates, I would only let them use guns, lasers and missiles... and no armor. That's for all units. And, to make it fair, these restrictions would be lifted with one of the gravitonics tech.

I would put copters in Doctrine: Mobility or Flexibility... Or something early. You don't theoretically need gas to fly a chopper, and the fact that the Unity had some despite a complete lack of fossil fuels tells me that they were powered by their reactors. Meaning... you SHOULD be able to have copters early in the game. I would just weaken them attack/defensively, and not hit them in the tech tree/movement rate.

Brings me to something else... I think the air, sea and land units should either have HIGHER movement rates, OR we cut the passage of time per turn down. Think about it, yo. One year to move 100 km or so in the game? If an infantry unit was on the bounce, they could pull that off in a DAY, so they could certainly make 100,000 km a month. To make it more realistic, I would cut the passage of time down by twelve (dividing the passage of time per turn into a month), and increase the movement units for all units (ESPECIALLY Needlejets, rovers, hovertanks and infantry. Copters are fine because they're rather slow, but infantry SHOULD be able to move a little slower than they do, and speeders a little faster. Today's jets can span continents in one sitting, so I think movement rates on them should be upped a bit).

Ohyes - something else - it'd be cool to have floating bases (naturally in the gravitonics era) and airborne carriers (gravships as mobile airbases... think of it!). For something more realistic earlier in the game, there should be some kind of heavy jet unit that can refuel other aircraft, just like in real life.

That's mah two cents!

[Nadexander]

Originally posted by Scipio Centaurus

I do not claim to know if that is how the AI conducts its affairs when playing the Morgan faction, but I did want to point out that their was a way it could be done.

Exactly. I personally wont run demo/green/wealth with morgan unless im at war. Almost always i go demo/FM/Wealth because i know a whole slew of tricks to get around the particularly nasty downsides of the settings (clean reactors, punishment sphere cities, empath rovers/copters to deal with worms, etc.) while maximizing the benefits. This is contrast to the computer which has no clue what to do in these settings. The idea here is just to prevent the computer from making idiotic SE choices. It is especially important to prevent the comp from using the frontier/simple/survival settings which carry nothing but negatives in this mod.

Is there a way to give the AIs and aversion to frontier/simple/survival ? This might be a better solution (although i think giving them a couple hints on SE would be good). It might prevent the AI from going back to these options once they switch to another SE choice.

Are the splinter factions and the torture mod 2 seperate projects? 'Cause I personally might want to play them both seperately or together. I especially would like to permanently patch my game to the torture mod.

Also I think completely removing crawlers is a great idea. I played my last couple games limiting myself to not using crawlers and the game ceratinly much more of a challenge. The AIs actually managed to put up a fight (for awhile) and they got a couple of the projects too. I eventually broke down though and used a crawler on a mine/rocky/mineral bonus (I couldnt help myself! It was begging for a crawler!) I'll sure miss those guys though. How about making theyre prereq Super Tensile Solids At least that way we got something to look forward to in the end game.

[gruedragon]

Vel,

I've been lurking here for a while. Being currently totally engrossed with SMACX (and your guide) and thinking of ways to make it better, but not necessarily harder, this tread struck a chord with me (as has Ned's comments in various other threads about helping the AI out).

First off, I agree with you about Supply Crawlers; they make the game way too easy. I also agree that the orbitals need to be moved forward to help compensate. Here are my suggestions for techs:

Sky Hydroponics Lab - Move from Orbital Spaceflight to Doctrine: Air Power. The best solution, though, is to create a new tech, "Rocketry", with the prereqs Doctrine: Air Power and Advanced Military Algorithms, and have it offer SHLs and the Missile chassis and payloads (Orbital Spaceflight would keep the PB). The prereqs for Orbital Spaceflight would then be changed to Pre-Sentient Algorithms and Rocketry.

Orbital Power Transmitter - Move from Advanced Spaceflight to Orbital Spaceflight.

Nessus Mining Station - Move from Self-Aware Machines to Advanced Spaceflight.

Orbital Defense Pods - Move from Self-Aware Machines to Advanced Spaceflight. This way, PBs are still a factor for a limited time.

As for the Secret Projects you want to move forward:

Space Elevator - This allows orbital insertions, thus eliminating the need for a navy or air force. Are you sure you want to move this forward? If you want to emphasize naval forces, moving a SP forward that allows you to instantly transport your army to any point on Planet is not the way to do it.

Nethack Terminus - The first tech that comes to mind is Digital Sentience, but that moves it forward only a single level and DigSent already offers a SP. Pre-Sentient Algorithms is my second choice, as it will make it harder for the same faction to get both the HSA and the Nethack Terminus. My third choice is Biomachinery.

Clinical Immortality - Move forward to Biomachinery (if it doesn't get the Nethack Terminus), or Retroviral Engineering.

Telepathic Matrix - Move forward to Centauri Psi.

Bulk Matter Transmitter - Matter Transmission seems like the perfect tech for the Bulk Matter Transmitter, but in the interests of increasing its game life, howabout Self-Aware Machines, where Nessus Mining Stations currently are?

Singularity Inductor - Move forward to Graviton Theory.


As for Carrier Decks and the Deep Pressure Hull, I'd move the Carrier Deck forward to Doc: Air Power. I'd make the Deep Pressure Hull available at the same time the Cruiser chassis is, Doc: Initiative.

Hope this helps.

[Velociryx]

Wow….been working on getting the final kinks out of the SMAX guide proof (which I must say is really looking pretty sharp!), and hadn’t had the opportunity to head over this way in a few days….LOTS of outstanding ideas here!

Trev-MUN: Very creative ideas re: the chopper and floating bases! I’d like to do the latter (ohhhh how I wish I was good with graphics!), but I don’t think there’s a way to restrict a certain chassis type to certain weapons….don’t know, but it’s something that bears looking into.

As to the timeframe….I agree, it’s totally off the mark, but I don’t think there’s a way we can change the amount of time that a single turn represents. That’s something else I’ll look into though….if I CAN change it somehow…heh…I like what it would do to the game!

Gruedragon: All I can say is WOW! Your observations are dead-on, and I like your ideas re: moving techs, abilities, and projects around….and seeing your thoughts regarding the Space Elevator….especially considering that we’ve already got one faction that can get around using navy-power to get the bulk of their troops into position on the attack (Builder’s Coven, with their Psi-Gates). No sense in making that problem worse by moving that particular project forward. I don’t think it’s so overpowered that it ought to be outright eliminated, however. Comes pretty late in the game, and by the time you get it, you’ve got a significant investment in your navy already.

I’m still hacking at the re-arrangement of the tech tree for this game, and I like the addition of Basic Rocketry….that’s good stuff, and it falls nicely in line with the other techs already there.

More information about the Torture Mod tech tree it begins to fall into place (hopefully sometime this weekend, in between test games of Smack’s mod!)

As to the question regarding the Torture Mod and the Splinter Project – When the Torture Mod is ready for prime time, the Splinter Factions will be included with it, but should be seen as an optional thing only. True, some of the changes made will be made with the Splinter Group specifically in mind, but the hope is that the mod will be enjoyable with the original seven, smax seven, or any other faction you might care to bring into the fold!

And, on that note, I’m off to do some more editing, before it’s time to head home!

-=Vel=-

[Trev-MUN]

Wow. been working on getting the final kinks out of the SMAX guide proof (which I must say is really looking pretty sharp!), and hadn’t had the opportunity to head over this way in a few days.LOTS of outstanding ideas here!

Trev-MUN: Very creative ideas re: the chopper and floating bases! I’d like to do the latter (ohhhh how I wish I was good with graphics!), but I don’t think there’s a way to restrict a certain chassis type to certain weapons.don’t know, but it’s something that bears looking into.

Cool! He likes my ideas! Well, with floating bases, the cheapest way to do it (I'd think) is to take the sea base graphics, raise them into the air and change the color of the ripples to resemble clouds. Hey, it'd work!

However, I do think there is a way - have you ever tried making missile colony pods? They're restricted from being used, which means you can probably do the same to other chassi. The only thing I see iffy is the ability to temporarily restrict those types. (Graviton theory/applied gravitonics could prolly lift restrictions on armor and weapons, since there would probably be antigrav mechanics built into air units by then. Hell, you could probably use the antrigrav strut special on air units to specifically express the ability to use those armors)

And Gravships probably wouldn't have restrictions at all, since they have antigrav anyway.

As to the timeframe.I agree, it’s totally off the mark, but I don’t think there’s a way we can change the amount of time that a single turn represents. That’s something else I’ll look into though.if I CAN change it somehow heh I like what it would do to the game!

Yeah. I know that in Civ 2 you can divide time up into months and (I think) days as well. If you wanted to keep movement rates the same, you could turn it to a turn per day and it would work, but then the entire span of the game would only take less than two years...

A turn per month with the movement rates upped sounds the best.

By the way... No one has said anything about my two ideas from another thread! What do you think about A) Upping the number of factions in-game to 14 (that way, the original SMAC and SMACX factions could play at the same time and it make sense on a map like Huge Map of Planet)? In multiplayer games, it'd be hellacious, but really fun for those who like fast and furious one-hour games involving scout patrols

Also, what do you think of the script I prepared of a SMAC RPG? It's in the Questions and a Suggestion (or sometihng like that) thread I started.

[Basil]

Nadexander:
The AI is smart enough to react to changes to the properties of the different SE settings. In one of my less-inspired variants I (among other things) gave Police State an extra +1 Probe. The AI promptly decided that Police State/Planned was a great SE setting for all factions So I think that the AI will try to avoid using the generic SE's if they are given anything like the penalties proposed.

Velociryx:
Since you are considering ways of making the opening game harder, focusing on the difficulty of colonizing a new planet, here are a couple of ideas:
- reduce the amount of food produced by a base square by 1.
- In the standard game, 1 tech gives you farms, forests, roads, sensor arrays, mines, and solar panels, as well as a secret project. If you give the various terraforming options differing tech prerequisites and remove the prerequisite for formers, then you can make the very early game a bit more variable. Normally this doesn't matter too much, but it might be useful in your variant.

[Avenoct]

Ditto to Basil's post. I'll add that while the human can't make roads, etc. without the appropriate tech, the AI seems to skip that requirement to some degree. I'm sure you'll see that on Aldebaran if you watch the AI factions. It appears that basic terraforming (roads, sensors, and to some degree, farms) can be done by the AI regardless of limiting these to later techs. That will certainly help this project.

The only SE choices which the AI seems to have difficulty with are Police. In one recent test run of Aldebaran, a faction switched to a high-economy, low police SE choice, got drones everywhere the following turn, then switched to something else, only to return to this pattern later. They will switch out of bad choices, but if the choice is still attractive, they may indeed switch back to it.