Hello everyone!
I'm new as it said.
I have a question and please redirect me if it's the wrong place.
I searched and found nothing about this in mods that I saw.
I have never liked how the combat worked in SMAC/X. Has anyone ever fiddled with making combat a combination of weapon+armor vs weapon+armor? Rather than weapon vs armor?
Subtracting W - A would make tech gaps even more impactful than they are now.
DMG = W * (1 / A) would make them about equal in 'power' and would give a smoother curve. But may again make A not strong enough so A may need a constant multiplier applied.
Yea though the problem with very high unit costs is that native life doesn't scale up the same way. In the late game then what happens is native life beats all, or you're disincentivized to use your best weapon/armor. The system should encourage always using your best weapons and armor, even if the cost does rise a bit.
Or, native life is just useless with default cost
Scout Patrol = 10 minerals,
Mindworm - 50 minerals
Late game 'super unit' - 150 minerals
So A counters B - B counters C - C counters A - but it's kind of nonsensical to make troops late game with primitive weapons. A handful make native life useless and it's even more unit clutter.
If native life somehow got stronger and costed more as the game went on, that'd work. It gets outscaled badly by the time conventional units get expensive, due to slow movement and no abilities. It would have to fight with HP as though it had reactors, or perhaps get extra movement/intrinsic abilities with tech to be something actually usable. All of which would be a big project.
But I would say that the game really didn't have the balanced interesting unit choice that they claimed...there was about 3 units you'd ever use (rover, jet, copter) all with X/1 in a default settings game.
I do think higher late game unit costs are preferable (to reduce insane micromanaging) - I just see a lot of problems remaining if good units are super expensive.
A straight lifecycle boost (+1/+2/+3) at positive PLANET ratings might work. Or giving PLANET a defensive PSI bonus.
I've felt that PSI combat should follow the same 2:1 ratio the problem then becomes it always loses on defense, because it has no defensive modifiers. I suppose you can pair it with conventional troops.
Well in all practical wars, native life is useless. When you can make a clean trance scout for like 10 minerals, and it beats a 50 mineral mindworm, no one will ever produce the mindworm.
Agree it's tricky to balance. At a certain breaking point native life will dominate. I had MWs at 20 minerals and they tended to crush most things.
Maybe PSI artillery should do what you've described. Rather than damage units it could reduce morale for a time.
I'd like to say that patches should merely correct known bugs.A straight lifecycle boost (+1/+2/+3) at positive PLANET ratings might work. Or giving PLANET a defensive PSI bonus.
The latter will become available in the next patch; as for a lifecycle boost, I was actually thinking of making it more dependent on facilities where you build it and so on (in particular, my plan was that each lifecycle-increasing facility gives +2 to lifecycle instead of +1, but each lifecycle increase, whether from facilities or combat or monolith, has a (5-PLANET)*10% chance of not happening.)
I'd like to say that patches should merely correct known bugs.A straight lifecycle boost (+1/+2/+3) at positive PLANET ratings might work. Or giving PLANET a defensive PSI bonus.
The latter will become available in the next patch; as for a lifecycle boost, I was actually thinking of making it more dependent on facilities where you build it and so on (in particular, my plan was that each lifecycle-increasing facility gives +2 to lifecycle instead of +1, but each lifecycle increase, whether from facilities or combat or monolith, has a (5-PLANET)*10% chance of not happening.)
If you begin to change mechanisms, it should become a mod.
Otherwise I fear it could end like with the Dominions series where a few hardcore gamers who dominated the forums totally changed some factions and some ways the game plays to make it more balanced, more cool or whatever. And of course once they started they could never reach the right spot so every 4-6 months people had to download and use a new mod with a new set of rules, new tables for creatures and artifacts... It never ends.
If we are to agree that copters/Empath Guild/Cloudbase Academy are too powerful (to take a used exemple here), we have to do it at the start of each MP or GotM game but the less we change the better for me.
Concerning native life, though not an expert, I can't see how one would deem them useless.The problem is once you get to the more powerful reactors the alien units get weaker and weaker.
In SP I use them in some nice and nasty strategies. They have some properties other units don't have until very late if ever (repairing out of base / no refuel locusts / oblivious to enemy reactor /...).
Native life is decent vs the AI because the AI doesn't use mobile units all that well. Mostly it just spams infantry and attacks in bad patterns. Also the AI doesn't build many trance/empath units...not like a human player would if you tried to use native life. Also, a human player will counter hit native life a lot more. Against the AI you can attack a base, then retreat to heal up. That doesn't work so well against a human player. There's also that it easily gets blasted down to 1 HP by later game artillery...just so many counters.
Copters I would argue aren't that overpowering if you play with cheaper armor costs on units. It's rare you can take out much more than 1 or 2 units in a turn then anyways.
Everyone says EG is so strong...perhaps in an FFA MP game I don't know. I'd say that a lot of the time you might end up pacting which gives intel or just using probe foils which cost about the same. CBA is definitely undercosted though compared to Airport Complexes (and the huge factor of being indestructable on defense). I play with CBA at around 60 rows to buy.
But yea all mods, all subjective really. SPs should be good though as they're the main incentive to tech ahead of others.
Is it true?
While the game display shows the relative forces of the opponents, it seems to use only the morale of the conventional unit.
With a mindworm at 10.0 with superior lifecycle, you can win over a scout at 20.0 with average morale.
It seems to me the type of reactor doesn't come into play in Psy combat (just like the defence perimeter).
But I may be mistaken.
You are correct; higher reactors are not effective against psi.
QuoteYou are correct; higher reactors are not effective against psi.
It gives more hit points for the higher grade reactors I think.