SMACX AI Growth mod

[Vidsek]

   Well, that was fun!

   Now I'm eagerly awaiting the results of triple digit eco damage    Bring it on!!

[ChaDawnFanatic]

Zakharov is a little [poop].

 

[bvanevery]

Details red tide of the apocalypse

red tide of the apocalypse

MY 2400.  I count 13 huge fungal pops, almost all in my home territory.  However there are no stacks of Locusts, meaning I've already faced massively worse earlier in the game.  I made all these Gravship units expecting to be attacked that way again.  By comparison, this is a cakewalk that's going to make me a lot of money.  At least this turn, I can certainly afford to toy with the humans however I like.  This turn pretty much proves that annihilation by Singularity Planet Busters is quite winnable.

If all of these pops had been stacks of 64 Locusts, like I got before, I would be worried.  The problem with a Locust stack is you can't just kill them all in one shot, you have to kill every single one of them.  Generally speaking you can't, so you have to just sit there taking hits.  I survived a few attacks like that earlier, like maybe 3 in one turn, by stocking up on defenders in the affected cities.  My Neural Amplifier and Trance 12-Res AAA units do hold up rather well to the abuse, but multiple such units are needed to hold the line.  If lots of cities are attacked at once, it becomes difficult to move enough units into position.  I've also relied on Trance Formers to help with the resistance.

I'm not fooling around with these mindworms.  I have a rather large reserve of mindworms, back from when I occasionally captured massive stacks of 32 units at a time, during those earlier embroilments.  It is only the difficulty of moving them from continent to continent, that kept me from sweeping the globe with them.  I just send them out to summarily slaughter the big stacks.  I will likely have enough reserves from unaffected cities, and enough of a rail network, to mop up all the single unit stragglers.

I only have 2 cities that need Pressure Domes.  The Peacekeepers were expecting a flood as well, so all those conquered cities have them.  I don't need new military units, so I'm making Temples of Planet everywhere I haven't.  Otherwise, more Gravships.

Details Victory over Planet

Victory over Planet

The mindworm scourge has been eradicated.  I used all of my own mindworm reserves to do it, leaving them out on the fungus to obstruct any invisible stragglers.  I also used the various fission units that have been hanging around since the beginning of the game for this purpose, a few hovertanks here and there, and some of my new Gravships.  I find that the expensive R-Bolt Empath Gravships don't do any better than plain Phase Gravships.  Maybe that's due to the Dream Twister and my +3 PLANET rating?

Anyways this was rather easy, as long as I don't have to keep doing it!  Even if I did have to, my defensive units are still unscathed, and I have lots of Gravships to obstruct the movement of enemy ground units.  It's only Locusts I fear.

The moment of reckoning comes now.  Don't worry, Zhakarov is gonna get what's comin' to him!
 

[bvanevery]

Details another one bites the dust

another one bites the dust

I fibbed a bit.  The 2 nukes are really for Lal, as he's the only one with city groupings left.  I took over his last large land city with conventional forces.  This grouping of 4 cities in the ocean goes bye bye.  I take various sea bases conventionally from various factions, using Psi Gates to move a few units around. 

Details what can you do with an earthquake missile

what can you do with an earthquake missile

Disdaining subtlety, I use a Tectonic Missile to lift one city out of the water to make it easier to conquer.  I'm all about expending the existing inventory.

Details hey hey ups and downs

hey hey ups and downs

Oh good grief, how did I miss?  I thought Singularity missiles had a radius of 4.  Must be 3.  It wasn't a Quantum missile, I just checked on that.  Oh well.  This could cost me another turn of futzing.

Details I'm not dead yet

I'm not dead yet

I thought that was it for Peacekeeper cities.  Where is he hiding the last one?  Maybe there's just a turn delay until I get the faction eradicated message, when using a nuke.

[bvanevery]

Details converted to atoms

converted to atoms

The 2nd most dead faction!  The Usurpers got there first a long time ago.  Or maybe it's 3rd most dead.  I seem to have wiped out the Spartans, and I don't remember getting any notification about that.  Maybe it's 4th most dead as I don't see any Peacekeeper cities.  Maybe a nuked faction just gets silently removed between turns.

Details triad of the trivial

triad of the trivial

I think these 3 University cities are all that's left.  I also think I've used up my Gravships this turn, so the mindworms get one more go at me.  I've run out of things to do with most of my Formers, and fungus is really high yield now, so I'm plowing over any Flat non-forested terrain and Rocky Mines as I'll get higher yield.  A lot of land is Endangered and not worth working on.  I have repaired my rail networks sufficiently for the next onslaught.

Details overkill

overkill

I had 1 nuke I forgot about.  Only 1 city was left on the map that wasn't in radius of my own, so I used it.

Details overpriced

overpriced

Some combo of my income and killing mindworms has elevated my coffers to 58,696 credits.  I check on the cost of Cornering the Energy Market for sake of form.  I guess when there are only 2 enemy cities left, not much!  I won't bother to spend the money to get it started, since I will not be waiting for it to complete.

[bvanevery]

Details post nuke inter turn information

post nuke inter turn information

The death of the Peacekeepers was indeed delayed because of the nuke.  Good way to go I suppose.

Details like I care

like I care

You wouldn't know from all the fungal popping that I just built umpteen zillion Temples of Planet.  This turn I'm building umpteen zillion Tachyon Fields that I've otherwise never cared about or had a need for.  Nor will I now.  I'm just wasting time with all the forced inter-turn updates.

Details death from below

death from below

One city got trashed by piles and piles of Isles that I never even saw coming.  I don't think there was even a fungal patch to mark their existence.  This demonstrates that down in the water is a pretty dangerous place to be.  You may not notice one of the stacks on land, but at least you can easily block movement on land.

Details the last free city

the last free city

Time to end this nonsense.  I'm not spending a bazillion mouseclicks on mindworms, Formers, etc.  I attack the last 2 cities with Gravships I had moving into theater last turn.  I gate an Isle in to take one of the cities.  Now for the final Gravship conquest.

Details Planet a little more melted than before

Planet a little more melted than before

So, about 45 Singularity Planet Busters was enough to take over the world, plus a smattering of conventional forces, plus a hefty anti-mindworm garrison.  Doable.  I think 60 SPBs would have been enough to do it in 1 turn.  If I had to use Quantum or Fusion PBs it would take more, due to less opportunity to wipe out city groupings.

Details eat it you slag heaps!

eat it you slag heaps!

Does Morgan's logo have MORGAN in it ordinarily?  I can't remember.  I am using someone's sound mod, but I don't remember changing any of the visuals.

Details little blobs of yellow

little blobs of yellow

To me the most noticeable things about this map, are the absence of other factions, the disparate continental groupings due to orbital invasion, and the craters.

The moral of this story is, don't let sunspots get you down!  And that I seriously overproduce empires when victory was achievable earlier by violent means.  Maybe I shouldn't fear mindworms and flooding quite so much, although those giant stacks might have gotten old to deal with from turn to turn.

That's the most nukes I've ever used in a game.  Let alone lived to tell about it!

[bvanevery]

CHANGELOG
Changed from version 1.30 to 1.31:

- PROBECOST: increased to 150 for all factions, except the Data Angels which is increased to 100.  The cost of mind controlling enemy units and cities is increased because it's way too easy for a nearly defeated AI to liberate cities with a probe team.  Mind controlling cities has never been realistically proportional to the number of military units in them.

- AAA bonus vs. air units: reduced to +50%.  Weapon vs. armor ratios are lower, and Sensor Arrays are tougher.  Units shouldn't be invulnerable to air attacks.  Meant to do this in 1.30 but changed the wrong setting, "Air superiority unit vs. air unit".  That one might as well be reduced to +50% as well, so I'm not changing it back.
- Comm Jammer: changed description text to match actual +25% setting.

- Black Hole Gun: reduced to cost 61.  This causes a Singularity infantry unit with Inertial Damping armor to cost 600, equal to 2 Planet Busters.  Upper end costs were getting absurd.
- Singularity Laser: reduced to cost 51.  This causes a Singularity infantry unit with Inertial Damping armor to cost 500.
- Graviton Gun: reduced to cost 45.  This causes a Singularity infantry unit with Inertial Damping armor to cost 450.

- Missile Chassis: now costs 1.  This makes it easier to calculate the final cost of a missile weapon across all the different reactor sizes.   Previously the fission version of a Conventional Missile was exorbitantly expensive.  The cost of Conventional, Fungal, and Tectonic missiles vary with reactor size, but Planet Busters do not, so they did not need to be changed.
- Conventional Payload: now costs 64.  Conventional Missiles now cost 150, 120, 80, and 60 with increasing reactor size.
- Fungal Payload: now costs 32.  Fungal Missiles now cost 150, 120, 80, and 60 with increasing reactor size.
- Tectonic Payload: now costs 80.  Tectonic Missiles now cost 400, 300, 200, and 120 with increasing reactor size.  The cost of Raising/Lowering Land with Formers was doubled to make it a more weighty choice, so this is increased as well.

- Unity Foil predefined unit: now called Unity Transport.  Removed Slow ability.  Added Deep Radar ability.  I think Slow ships are a completely pointless play mechanic.  The game is enough of a drag pushing around units as is.
- Unity Gunship: added Deep Radar ability.

The attachment limit per post is 5, and I eventually ran out of room at the top of the thread.  Consequently, this becomes the new home of version 1.31.  It was downloaded 145 times before I moved it here.

[Vidsek]

   Thanks for update 1.31 !

   When you release monthly at the end of the month it's a great reminder to me that it is time to pay the mortgage.

   For the Data Angels, a PROBECOST of 100 is the same as not specifying a probecost.  I suppose putting it in does keep the format consistent, so I'll leave it in their file for the Yitzi/AIG Merge.

   When you say: "Comm Jammer: changed description text to match actual +25% setting", where did you edit that text?  In alphax?  Or in another text file?

[bvanevery]

Don't mortgage your life to SMACX.

Data Angels is for consistency.  It is a change from the stock alphax.txt.

Comm Jammer change is of course in alphax.txt.  That sort of thing does not appear in faction.txt files and I've never shipped any kind of file other than alphax.txt and faction.txt.

[bvanevery]

I still hate this game.  After the nuke fest, I started another game to see if I could relive the glory more quickly.  But it was an incredibly boring game and I quit.  Too much faffing around with mindworm exploration.  Then I started again today as the Gaians.  More mindworm faffing but did a better job at it.  Was making a point of concentrating only on essentials and not pointless stuff, so was starting to get a rail network built.

Then the game says all my research goes bye bye because I didn't build any Network Nodes.  So much for doing what I want to do, to save mouseclicks, as opposed to what the game wants me to do.  Ok, I start building Network Nodes everywhere.  At least I have to wait for my rails to get completed before launching an invasion anyways.

I have a hard time stealing techs and some Secret Projects slip past me.  I accumulate massive amounts of money because of all the mindworm faffing around.  Even finally finishing up the Xenoempathy Dome, I have like a 1400 credit surplus, or maybe it's 1700, I forget.  Then the game decides it would be fun to take 75% of my money away in a market crash, leaving me with 400 credits.  That's an entire Secret Project's worth of money.

I rage quit and flame this game.  I swear I'd delete it if I weren't a mod author.  A year spent modding, and it's still a complete POS here and there.   Devs in the late 90 were partly morons, or just mean, same diff.  Hey, let's take stuff away from the player!  They won't mind.  The game is so scintillatingly well paced, with all the !#$@# units to move around, that everyone just wants whatever progress they've made to be summarily wiped out.  This isn't even a roguelike with a deep dungeon dive, where at least you know the basic play mechanic is "press your luck".  No, this is just random grief, because, devs.

I would need to be able to mod the random events to not be driven crazy by this.  Turning them all off is not what I want.  I want to get rid of the ridiculously punishing ones.

And probe teams still suck too.  They suck rocks.  I've tried to tweak that in 1.31, who knows if it helps.  Probably will irritate someone that I made everything else expensive, just to keep the cheap city takeover nonsense from happening.  Another area where I'd totally gut the formulas if I could.

But I don't think it's worth trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  There is this point of diminishing returns.  Debatable whether I passed it awhile ago, but at least all the changes I've made, I felt should be made.

Still can't solve the core problem that it's SMAC.  The game takes forever.  I've made the progressions more fair / balanced I think, so there aren't golden abuse paths through the game, but that also makes things take longer.  Which sucks.

For a year's effort, I've made better SMAC.  But it's still SMAC.  There are still places where this game is junk.

Better SMAC.  It's driving me crazy.  And I don't remember any of the binary patches actually addressing these issues that seriously bug me.

[vonbach]

With all the effort you put in this game you could just make a mega mod for civ v or beyond earth or get a team together negotiate something and make alpha Centauri 2.

[bvanevery]

A mega mod for Civ V won't make me a dime.  Can they raise / lower land anyways?  As for making SMAC 2, it's not my forte to negotiate money for such things, I wouldn't even be doing a Creative Commons licensed mod if it were.  I also think the rights for that are in limbo or something.

I'm brooding over how to approach my next project.  Looking at other games' art direction for maps is on my list of things to do.  I think a game needs to be more than a map, it needs to be a narrative vehicle.  I really hate the full screen text interludes in SMAC.  They're not all that well written, and they interrupt everything with this big screen of text.  I want something integrated, where the game doesn't stop just because you are reading text.

[bvanevery]

Details the biggest jerk of the game

the biggest jerk of the game

Now I'm playing as the University.  I haven't botched anything yet, nor been rudely victimized.  I almost blew a gasket when this foil probe team took over my sea base, since I just did the mod to make that much harder to do.  Then I realized it's the Data Angels and this is their thing.  So I guess I have to forgive it.  They declared war on me awhile ago, but they're so far away I hardly know where they are.  At least this will give me the opportunity to infiltrate them and steal a tech.

I wasn't sitting still on probe team garrisoning either.  Many cities have them.  Just hadn't gotten to that one.  That foil probe team traveled a long way to bother me.  The AI is like that.  I can hardly equal its ponderousness.  I have like 3 foil probe teams I'm pushing around, trying to infiltrate distant targets, and it's a chore.

[bvanevery]

Details AI skips straight to Treaty

AI skips straight to Treaty

I've never had an AI skip straight from war to a Treaty, nor offer to give me a base before.  The base in question is one I took from the Pirates, then they took it from me.  So that makes it laundered, "my" base.  Cha Dawn's claim that he "never wanted" this war is a bold face lie!  I've been Democratic for a very long time, and in my mod he's the Fundamentalist yahoo of the game.  I'm just becoming technologically much more advanced than most factions, let alone the Cult of Planet.

I'm happy to make peace so I can go after the real enemies, the Data Angels.  Or the Free Drones, I haven't really been paying attention.  They're off on their side of the world, I'm off on mine.  I've built Flechette Defenses in all my cities and some Orbital Defense Pods.  I've got the Space Elevator so I could do orbital insertion warfare against them.  I don't have great productivity though, as I've been studiously avoiding building factories.  Global warming has started anyways, mainly due to the Drones.

At 6:30 AM I ended up quitting that game.  I was in the lead, but all I was doing was sitting around waiting to save enough money to build Secret Projects.  Having a research advantage means I get first shot at all the SPs.  However they're so expensive that it's not actually wise to try to get them all.  Old ingrained compulsions are hard to ignore though.  I didn't build any factories out of fear of flooding.  But even as it was, the Free Drones caused some flooding anyways.  I'm wondering if it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

[bvanevery]

Details The Almighty Dollar

The Almighty Dollar

Wow, I just realized how boring the Believers look on the Social Engineering screen!  One might infer that all they believe in, is money.  I've had all sorts of reasons not to give them various bonuses anymore.  Individually they've all seemed like good decisions.  Collectively, this is a very dry sandwich!  No mayo.

Details Miriam's rap sheet

Miriam's rap sheet

The situation doesn't look nearly as bad in the faction's datalinks entry.  They've got a middle of the road amount of text describing them.  The Spartans are the worst, having a truly spartan amount of text describing them.

Details love me for my words

love me for my words

I think I considered giving the Believers +1 SUPPORT, but then I decided against it.  No factions get a SUPPORT bonus or penalty in my mod.  I think I made other changes and said, let's see how this faction plays.  I've seen the AI play it a few times recently and I can't remember if it does well or badly.  A clear pattern didn't stand out in any event.  What I haven't done much of, is actually play the Believers myself.  I generally allow random factions to be handed to me, and it hasn't come up in awhile.  I guess I'll see whether anything needs adjustment.