How would you improve SMAC or SMACX

[Blake]

Some 'facts': (from planets.txt)
Chiron is 84% larger (radius) than Earth
The day length is only 73% of that of Earths.
The gravity is 31% stronger than Earths.
The tides are 5% 'stronger'.
The surface temperature is 5 degrees hotter than Earths.
Atmospheric pressure is 71% higher than Earths
The year is 6% longer than Earths.

From what I know about weather everything except the year length is going to make winds more fierce, currents stronger and storms more frequent than we have on Earth (also wave action will be more intense). Add to that "mindworms which can chew through steel" and you'd have to be mad to want to go out in a boat which hasn't been designed for and tested in Chiron's oceans. (I'm betting that little chironion ocean critters can chew through steel too)


Atmospheric oxygen %age is only 41% of that of earths.

Heres another issue, theres less oxygen, that means (reliable!) machinery will be required to extract extra oxygen from the air. (The chiron air wont kill you too quickly, because the CO2 %age is very low, but you'll quickly become very weak breathing it...).
This (combined with strong currents) would be enough to make rafting or other small scale ocean travel sucicidal.

[GeneralTacticus]

From what I know about weather everything except the year length is going to make winds more fierce, currents stronger and storms more frequent than we have on Earth (also wave action will be more intense). Add to that "mindworms which can chew through steel" and you'd have to be mad to want to go out in a boat which hasn't been designed for and tested in Chiron's oceans. (I'm betting that little chironion ocean critters can chew through steel too)

I guess, but that doesn't refute my point that the Foils would be pretty vulnerable to storms too.

However, I guess you are correct in that designing and testing a useful raft for Chiron's oceans would be harder and more costly than developing foils etc.

[Grail Quest]

Originally posted by Blake
Some 'facts': (from planets.txt)

a myriad of facts utterly destroying my point... deleted for brevity

Oh, all right. Jeezus. No rafts, then.

But I DEMAND to have "refugee drones" as a unit! Refugee Drones, especially from the Hive (and those should get a +4 Morale bonus) are desperate enough to do anything! Even cavort naked with mind worms just to get away from their oppressors!
Have them randomly emerge from a base and wander off to start a little struggling colony of their own.

To top it off, crushing them utterly (that is, using anything other than Mind Control on their refugee base) should count as a mild Atrocity, similar to Nerve Stapling.

[Blake]

Agreed about the need for refugee types, they'll be a feature of FreeAC.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I just got back to this game after a halfyear hiatus. I still love it to bits, but there are a few things that I think we could definitely do with.

1. Choppers are overpowered (as has been mentioned many times on this thread). I suggest that they should be fully effective only against units out in the open. A chopper attack force trying to take on a city should have a much lesser chance of survival than a needlejet attack force since they move much slower and are therefore easier targets (say, attack at -50% effectiveness vs base). This would relegate the chopper unit to "sniping" strafe runs against infantry or vehicles in the open, at which it would be more effective than needlejets, but reduce the amount of abuse that goes into base operations.

2. Secret Projects should only give a low-power unique ability, OR a high-power ability available through base facilities. I like SPs like the Planetary Energy Grid and the Command Nexus, since if you miss out on building the SP you can just build the facilities in each of your bases as a second-best option. SPs like the Telepathic Matrix (drones never riot ), the Hunter Seeker Algorithm (probe proofing), and The Planetary Transit System a very powerful, and their effects cannot be emulated through other means.

3. I think the refugee idea is sound but needs to be incorporated into the game in a more gradual way. A look at Democracy in SMAC and in Civ2 will show that the government type enjoys high population growth. Why is this? Well, if you think about it, people in a Democracy don't actually have a considerably higher birth rate than those not in a Democracy (democracy's a government form, not an aphrodisiac ). What actually happens is that people from less "open" social models often prefer to leave for the new Democracy. So bluntly put, Democratic models gain population points at non-Democratic nations' expense.

This is of course a gross simplification of the case (since just being called a "Democracy" doesn't always translate into positive immigration counts) and many other national factors are important concerning refugees and immigrants. Ideally I had hoped that Civ3's Culture points might be able to implement something similar to this. A country could be quite undemocratic but attract people on quite different facets, eg economy, trade, standard of living. Of course democracy helps but it's the economy and not the politics that make people most want to go.

[The diplomat]

I have 2 more suggestions. I hope they were not already mentionned:

1) strategic ressources like in civ3

I really like the strategic ressources in civ3 and how they are handled gameplay wise. It would be great to see them in a future SMAC. I would suggest that the extra food tile (the green leaves sticking out of the ground), and the extra mineral tile (those blue minerals sticking out of the ground) be treated as strategic ressources so that they can be traded. It would be fantastic to be able to trade food and minerals. We could finally buy food from another civ when we are facing a famine. Furthermore, we could buy extra minerals from a civ when we want to boost a Secret Project production.
I would also suggest some strategic ressources unique to Chiron. It would further illustrate the alien-ness of the planet. it would also make the game more unique as we would have strategic ressources completely different from Earth with therefore different affects on gameplay.

2) less casual SE switching.

I think X amount of credits is not enough to prevent the player from switching SE options on a whim. The player can still basically switch between radically different SE options whenever they choose. THERE SHOULD BE DRAMATIC SOCIAL EFFECTS TO CHANGING BETWEEN RADICALLY DIFFERENT SE. For example, changing suddenly between a police state to a democracy should have huge social repercussions, just look at Russia!

This could probably be done easily by having an increase in unhappiness for X turns in between switching. So if I make a switch, I woulf get X turns of increased unhappiness, then the switch would be made. Kinda like civ2/3's period of anarchy but much less severe. I don't think we need to always throw a civ into anarchy in between SE switching. Increased unhappiness should be enough. This would encourage and favor the player that has a higher happiness. Their faction would be more stable during SE switching!

[fluxcapacitor]

add another vote for bugs. There are so many bugs left in this game it can be very very frustrating to play at times.

[RGE]

I would improve SMAC by simplifying it so that the AI could keep up. If the AI can't be programmed to use a feature, I'd limit that feature until the AI can take full advantage of it, or perhaps limit that feature to multiplayer.

A better map generator would be nice, but not having one at all would be a cheaper option, as it ought to be easy enough for fans to make their own maps with an editor.

It would be nice with some kind of limit to the amount of bases that a faction could control. After all, how close to total world domination have any one civilization been here on earth? Maybe a faction should only be able to control as many bases as they have population in their biggest base, or maybe in their headquarters? A faction could still occupy an opponent's base and freeze production and economy there by putting as many combat units in there as there are citizens, but the citizens wouldn't join the occupying faction until that faction could accomodate it.

Furthermore, occupying units could be supported first hand by the would-be mineral production of the base that they're occupying, so it would be advantageous to keep the rioting to a minimum. Citizens for which there are no occupying units work any tiles the occupied faction wants them to, as well as the base tile. Only when the base is completely occupied does the faction lose all benefits from any SPs in that base. In the end you don't prove the excellence of your faction's ideology by force, you prove it by having the biggest and best bases on Planet! I suppose this could be similar to the culture aspect that Civ3 has, but I wouldn't know for sure since I don't plan to play that game. I also believe I've seen someone else suggest something like this, but since it wasn't in this thread I thought it worth repeating.

Maybe the leader of the opposing faction would also have to willfully release the base to the occupying force? This would only be possible if that faction could accomodate the new base and the base would then shrink (if necessary) to the same size as their biggest base. Reasons to do this would be if the occupied faction wants to colonize some other part of planet and need to give up one base so that they would be allowed to build a new one. This would give the impression of peace negotiations where some citizens stay and join the occupying force, while others move to a new base somewhere else.

Likewise, if the faction has been completely conquered the conquerer still has to release some bases during negotiations, or those bases will just remain permanently occupied, maybe taking up valuable terraformed space. Extended occupation could also result in commerce sanctions, much like any other atrocity, and as soon as a faction has occupied bases with a total population that is higher than the faction's own, total war should be declared, as it is now evident to all other factions that this one faction is actually bent on world domination. And should they manage to occupy every base on Planet, a conquest victory is theirs! Just because nobody has been able to pull that one off on earth doesn't mean that it's impossible. It's just that in SMAC it's simply too easy.

I think that would be one major improvement, to turn SMAC into less of a war game, while still letting war remain as a useful tool.

[Sikander]

I think choppers could be reworked very easily just by noting how they are employed currently and why.

Helicopters are less efficient flyers than fixed wing aircraft. This is why they don't hold any aviation records. Fixed wing aircraft can fly further, carry more, and can fly faster. Helicopters can take off and land from almost anywhere. Thus they are great for transporting troops and equipment to and from areas where there are no airbases. Most military helicopters are used as transports.

Helicopters as offensive weapons are used to some extent as fire support for ground forces, and their ability to hover makes them good gun platforms. The main reason they are used though is because they can be used by a mobile formation from improvised bases. A parking lot for instance. Note that attack helicopters tend to be organic assets rather than theatre assets, in other words they are assigned to provide close air support for a particular ground formation.

I would limit helicopters in a strategic game like SMAC to transport missions only. There is no reason for them to exist as strategic airpower assets, especially with range and combat power equal to fixed wing aircraft (or as implemented in SMAC/X, superior). Attack helos should be integrated into ground units and never appear as units on the map, but rather should be in the form of an improved weapon.

[GeneralTacticus]

Attack helos should be integrated into ground units and never appear as units on the map, but rather should be in the form of an improved weapon.

Maybe have 'support choppers' as a special ability that increases attack/defense?

[The Vagabond]

IMHO, SMAC is pretty close to perfect as it is. I believe no radical changes are needed, except for only minor ones in order to correct some small imbalances.

1. Agree about Copters. Way too powerful. Perhaps they can be made more balanced by limiting the number of attacks per turn (say, to two).

2. Agree that some SPs are too powerful. E.g. Hunter-Seeker could simply result in +2 PROBE, instead of the complete immunity.

3. Pop booming should be forbidden. +6 GROWTH should merely imply a faster growth. Besides, this is unfair to Morgan and Yang, for whom +6 GROWTH is unattainable. Likewise, Cloning Vats should merely result in +2 GROWTH.

4. IMHO, the AI are too agressive, even those who are formally "pacifists", especially Lady D. Yang, Miriam and Santiago are almost permanently seething, whatever the situation and my social choices. At the very least, there should be an option to reduce the overall agressiveness.

5. The AI are made too intolerant of social choices other than their preferred ones in the same cathegory. I believe this is wrong. I believe that such intolerance should occur only if someone uses their AVERSION.
For example, the Believers get mad when you switch to either Democracy or Police State (i.e. non-Fundy), but at the same time they are indifferent if you set Knowledge (their aversion) as the value. It should be vice versa: they should be indifferent to Democracy and Police State, but hate those who choose Knowledge. But of course being indifferent would not necessarily preclude them from preaching Fundamentalism during conversations.
On the other hand, the AI seem to make no emotional difference between the"Simple" Social Choice and their preferred one. This is also wrong. While the AI should indeed be indifferent to the "Simple" choices, they should give some appreciation to the followers of their "party line". For example, the Believers should like you more if you switch to Fundamentalism.

6. Perhaps, an option such as "trade sanctions" (both partial and complete) should be available. This would provide more flexibility in punishing or pressuring someone without actually denouncing the Treaty.

7. The AI should be more thankful. For example, if you make a gift, the AI's attitude should not immediately jump back to, say, Seething as soon as you disconnect. Instead, it should relax back more gradually, over many turns.

8. Agree that it should be more difficult to change Social Settings. In any case, it should be impossible to switch to Green in order to speak to the Gaians and then switch back to your original setting at the very same turn with recovering the money.

9. Stop the mess with the sea bases! I am extremely annoyed when the AI make sea bases near my coasts and rob me of tiles in the productive city radius.

10. The ecodamage effect is too strong (and besides somehow changes from game to game). The destruction of all the improvements by fungus +8 Mindworms (Locusts) is too much.

11. After the Voice of Planet is completed, all the factions (except for the Gaians) should get an additional +1 FOOD in fungus squares. For otherwise it is quite unpleasant to observe your bases starve out little by little. Besides, the specials should not be negated by fungus (again, only after the Voice of Planet is completed).

12. I like the idea of the landmarks you control giving you global bonuses (e.g. the Manifold gives +1 PLANET). Likewise, the Mount Planet could result in, say, +1 INDUSTRY, etc.

13. The effect of inefficiency is sometimes too strong. For example, even with +6 EFFICIENCY, remote bases lose up to 1/3 of their energy. Too much. I suggest to introduce a more drastic dependence on the EFFICIENCY parameter.

14. When upgrading units there should be an option to upgrade ALL units of this type to units of that type. Perhaps this option already exists, but I was unable to find it. It is quite annoying to upgrade units one by one.

PS I play SMAC. I am not familiar with SMAX.

[GeneralTacticus]

14. When upgrading units there should be an option to upgrade ALL units of this type to units of that type. Perhaps this option already exists, but I was unable to find it. It is quite annoying to upgrade units one by one.

There is, if you go into the Design Workshop to the design you want to upgrade you can upgrade it to another design. This also allows the units to retain their movement. The downsides are that you lose the design you upgraded and you can't do this with units you mind control (because generally the other faction's units are of a different design, even if you have a design with the same stats).

[Grail Quest]

(1) When a faction whose Research you can see acquires a technology you do not have, raise an alert.

(2) When two factions trade, allow hiding research if they cannot see all of it. For instance, right now, the game chooses which technology the AI wants, from your entire list of options. But theoretically, the AI faction cannot know what you have unless they have Infiltration, are the Planetary Governor, are Pacted with you, or have the Empath Guild.

[James Adams]

Great suggestion keep it up!

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
There is, if you go into the Design Workshop to the design you want to upgrade you can upgrade it to another design. This also allows the units to retain their movement. The downsides are that you lose the design you upgraded and you can't do this with units you mind control (because generally the other faction's units are of a different design, even if you have a design with the same stats).

Oh yes, thanks. I missed that option. Stupid me.

Grail Quest, your first suggestion is great

[Grail Quest]

(1) Option to omit resource harvesting.

In my current game, I had a base with the present maximum Mineral Production without triggering Eco-Damage. The very next turn, there's a mineral production boom (+1 per square). Suddenly, my Pop 9 base has Eco-Damage rating 25 and freakin' fungus is flowering over my forests.
I can't disable working any resource squares because my Nutrients would fall below what is necessary to support the base. I'm hoping it won't lay waste to my forest before 10 years is up.
No, I don't have crawler technology yet. It's only about 80 turns into the game, and I'm playing with Blind Research.

(2) More clearly directed research.
It seems that no matter what research focus I choose, the % research discovered always seems kind of even across all 4 categories with Blind Research. I imagine it's because of critical technologies that must be discovered before research can progress further.

[Grail Quest]

(1) Allow a "Just Enough" Hurry or JIT production Hurry, where the Energy amount buys minerals equal to (minerals required - mineral production for current turn) so that production is completed and the next item in the queue starts with 0 minerals.
This is related to point #2, which is...

(2) Allow banking more minerals than 10 without loss. If I have a city that is crunching out, say, 30 minerals per Turn, and I just want to build a weeny former that costs 16, I don't want to lose all those excess minerals!
Perhaps bank them as crawler pods without any chassis, so that they can't go anywhere, but can be slapped onto a chassis at any time.

(3) Recommend a HQ location from time to time, or on demand.

[Securion]

SMAC/X is good as it is. (except the poor AI)

But if I could put a couple of artists and designers on the game I would order them to make the game more... "dark". More like Starship Troopers vs Aliens 2 kinda atmosphere. Who came up with the brilliant idea of having pastell colors in the game anyway?
Anyone remeber that futuristic combat scene in Terminator 2? Do you remeber how cool it was? THATS how a future war will look like! Alot of rubble, ruins and robotics... And it would be nice to have in a game.

So basicly, make a new "darker" SMAC/X ith more power to the user to really design his own military forces.
Make the player LOVE hes creation/empire.

[Securion]

One more thing...
Who says that, in the future, we must go out ourself to fight wars when we have super advanced computer AI and robots?
Wouldnt it be esier to just send out military robots?

Put that in SMAC/X also... The more advanced civ, the more robotics would be available for designing military forces.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Grail Quest
(1) Allow a "Just Enough" Hurry or JIT production Hurry, where the Energy amount buys minerals equal to (minerals required - mineral production for current turn) so that production is completed and the next item in the queue starts with 0 minerals.
(

This can be accomplished thru the "Make partial payment" option in a Cities Production Screen. When you click on a city and decide to "Hurry" that cities current production, the screen that comes up gives you the option of cancelling, making full payment, or making partial payment. In this case select the "Make Partial Payment" option. Look at the number of EC's it will take to complete the item in question. Divide it by the number of turns it will take to complete the same item (this is in the "Turns to Complete" box visible when you click on a city).
Example: you click on a city and it tells you it will take 12 turns to complete the Impact Rover currently in production. You want to rush it, so you click on the "Hurry" button to rush the cities production. It says it will take 80EC's to complete the production. Take the number 80 and divide it by 12, and it will give you the whole number of 6. Subtract the 6 from 80, and it gives you 74. Select the "Make Partial Payment" option, and enter 74 EC's into the screen. The Impact Rover will now show as being completed in one turn. FYI.

D

[Grail Quest]

Originally posted by Darsnan
Look at the number of EC's it will take to complete the item in question. Divide it by the number of turns it will take to complete the same item (this is in the "Turns to Complete" box visible when you click on a city).

Sorry, but not exactly.

If the city is producing +30 minerals, and you are building a unit from scratch that costs 32 minerals, it will show that production takes 2 turns.

According to your strategy (which in the early game works well enough because mineral production is low) if you spend half the credits needed (i.e., Hurry it by 1 turn so that it is complete at the end of the present turn), you will buy 16 minerals.
That means at the end of the current turn, +30 minerals will be added to the 16 you bought, for a total of 46, which is 14 more than necessary, meaning 4 lost and a carry-over of 10, which is the limit.

The correct amount to buy for Just-In-Time production was only 2 Minerals.
To figure this out, with SMACX as it is right now, I need to go to Base Status and look at production, then Zoom to Base and look at minerals production, before I calculate the minerals to buy, then go to Hurry to get the EC figure to find out how much the present EC cost per mineral is (it varies from x2 to I think as high as x8 or more).

Obviously it's not a big deal for cities with under +10 mineral production, but in the mid- to late- game, I've got cities pushing +70 mineral production.

There is a line in alphax.txt that can adjust the carry-over,but I think it adjusts the free minerals for a base, also -- can someone confirm? Or have I adjusted the wrong line?

[Kirnwaffen]

Sorry, became redundant while I was typing.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Grail Quest


Sorry, but not exactly.

If the city is producing +30 minerals, and you are building a unit from scratch that costs 32 minerals, it will show that production takes 2 turns.

Sorry for the delay in responding - what with 'poly being down, then playing hide and seek with me, have'nt had a chance to respond!
Of course you are absolutely right in your response to my proposition. This is an oversite on my part, specifically because I've never had cities produce so many minerals (such as the +30 you are describing) that, when I used this technique, I experienced a mineral penalty on the carryover! Glad you pointed this out to me, in case I ever get to needing a city with mineral production of that quantity! However, I contributed this technique because, in a number of games, I came up against opponents who were paying the full cost to rush items, whereas it was much more economical to to make the partial payment and have the unit ready in one turn, thus saving the EC's to use for other purposes. FYI.

D

[Impaler[WrG]]

A 4th Social enginering Choise in each catagory. I am thinking Olagarcy for goverment, Gift Economy (think of the Mars Triligy by Kim Stanly Robinson) and Justice as the new Value. As for effects of these choices I have no idea but Justice could incresse your police rating. I can't think of any new future societys. Also in response to an ealier idea about incressing the severity of social changes I whole hartedly agree. Here is an outline for how I would change it.

First off upheval cost is not 40 EC, its your polulation multiplied by 8 or more so its going to be a BIG bill. Secondly Each change of Goverment, Economy and Values would have a differnt upheval effect. The first transition from the "simple" to some more advanced form is half price and dose not suffer the following penaltys, so make that first choice well. Reverting back to a Simple would then cause the same thing as switching to a totaly differnt system.


For goverment you losse the ability to conduct diplomacy (like a sun spot), rush or change any production in your bases and your bases experience double the abount of inefficency loss they would normaly loss.

Changing your Economic system results in -1 of every resorces harvested in all squares (like an economic colapse, cloud cover and Crop failure combined!!)

Changing your Values results in additional Drones (like Zark has 1 per 4), incresses probe vulnorability and if we are adding culture points like in Civ3 they stop acumulating, also all golden aging stops.

This state will continue for 1 turn per difficulty level and your society will experience the negative modifiers of your past and future changes but none of the positives. At any time after the start of the transition you could revert back to your original but you resieve no EC refund.

Future Sosietys would most likly be perminent, its rather unimaginable that a sosiety would go from Eudiamonaic to Police State in ANY time scale we would include in the game.