Fission Armor mod (SMAX)

[bvanevery]

I believe I changed SA back to +25%.

Checking, I see that at least as of 1.4, indeed you did.

So you are saying even 16+25%(SA) is stronger than 28?

Yep.  In a base.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

So you are saying even 16+25%(SA) is stronger than 28?

Yep.  In a base.

Ah, you mean non-infantry attacker? Hmm, even then 16*1.25*1.25 = 25. Still less than 28.

[bvanevery]

No, it was an infantry attack against the base.  28 to 25 isn't enough to ensure victory, you're going to lose units.  Real world experience is you're going to need 2:1 odds to be sure of victory.  Close to 1:1 often results in your death.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

No, it was an infantry attack against the base.  28 to 25 isn't enough to ensure victory, you're going to lose units.  Real world experience is you're going to need 2:1 odds to be sure of victory.  Close to 1:1 often results in your death.

Ah, you mean to kill for sure. Understood.
Well the whole point of my and your mod in this regard is to disable sure defender kill at a base.

[bvanevery]

I think this discussion is getting sidetracked by SA.  It's not relevant.  I get rid of SAs because I can, because I'm going to take losses if I don't.  I'm not interested in having random combat experiences against an enemy, I'm interested in winning.  So I take the steps needed to win, to give me overwhelming advantage.  The AI destroys SAs too, by shelling them.  It's one of the few areas where AI almost competes on an equal footing with the human.  I have not seen the AI send a sacrificial unit to pillage SAs in the rear.  That's my trick, the AI doesn't know how to do it.

Anyways I'm starting to find it very confusing to try to recount details of combats finished days ago.  I wrote down whatever I did at the time, it's in the other thread.  There may be some combat data in some screenshots, there may not be, as I don't remember taking any combat snaps.  It is best if you just crank up the game and try it out for whatever you're wondering about.  I just set prereqs to "None" when I want to test something like that quickly.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Makes sense. I also started to understand the difference between destructible and indistructible modifiers. That's why I reverted SA back to 25% not willing to invest too much into deductible defense. Unfortunately, most of attacker modifiers (infantry vs. Base, sophoric) cannot be negated. Whereas genetic defensive ones (SA, walls) can. If I could decrease walls effect I would do that and increased base defense strength instead.

[bvanevery]

Why do you need infantry vs. base to be negated?  You can take those out of the game if you don't like the mechanic.

Code: [Select]

25,      ; Combat % -> intrinsic base defense
25,      ; Combat % -> Infantry vs. BaseSoporific Gas Pods, again if you don't like it, take it out of the game.  I have all but taken Blink Displacers out of the game.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Why do you need infantry vs. base to be negated?  You can take those out of the game if you don't like the mechanic.

Code: [Select]

25,      ; Combat % -> intrinsic base defense
25,      ; Combat % -> Infantry vs. BaseSoporific Gas Pods, again if you don't like it, take it out of the game.  I have all but taken Blink Displacers out of the game.

I never said I want them to be negated. Just made an observation that defensive bonuses can be negated by some tactical operations whereas attacking can not. I am not sure if I want to remove something from the game yet. So far just speculating about transferring part of wall defensive bonuses to the base armor value thus making defenders less susceptible to tactical operations.

Again, I don't want to bother myself with super-puper fine tuning. It's not really needed. I guess I'll leave it more or less as is for now and see how it plays.

[bvanevery]

I used to make Gas Whatever units all the time.  Lately I don't.  I feel like it's just another gewgaw and I'm bored with it.  I'd probably start using them if I was having trouble killing some enemy, but my games are often getting decided by more strategic factors anyways.  As a default I feel like it's more "breadding", superfluous design, the disease of the game trying to convince me there's something important that has more play value, when it doesn't.  It's very easy for me to diss Blink Displacers because it's exactly the same thing.  Plus I got to see some late game consequences for how it affects things, which usually doesn't happen in my own test games.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I used to make Gas Whatever units all the time.  Lately I don't.  I feel like it's just another gewgaw and I'm bored with it.  I'd probably start using them if I was having trouble killing some enemy, but my games are often getting decided by more strategic factors anyways.  As a default I feel like it's more "breadding", superfluous design, the disease of the game trying to convince me there's something important that has more play value, when it doesn't.  It's very easy for me to diss Blink Displacers because it's exactly the same thing.  Plus I got to see some late game consequences for how it affects things, which usually doesn't happen in my own test games.

This can be said about any feature in the game. They are all toys to some extend. Even the whole game is a toy. Each feature targets certain subset. Like Gas is for non-natives, there are features for natives, fast units, air units, sea units, etc. By features I mean not only abilities but facilities, terraforming, etc. Certainly, some of them are more focused than others. Like with Gas ability its non-native focus is a widest one among them as non-native units are majority. This is not the reason to disable it, though. Even if it is a most toyish toy of them all. Let it be. Some players may like it.

[bvanevery]

This can be said about any feature in the game.

I disagree.  The game has some basic backbone structure, where you wouldn't have a game if you didn't have some things in there.  Then there are toys on top of it.  For instance, "Drill to Aquifer".  That's a toy.  Terraforming in general matters, but there are definitely advanced terraforming commands that are simply gewgawism.   How much conscientious use of Echelon Mirrors have you engaged in, for instance?

Like with Gas ability its non-native focus is a widest one among them as non-native units are majority. This is not the reason to disable it, though. Even if it is a most toyish toy of them all. Let it be. Some players may like it.

It's one of the Alien techs, it comes with Bioadaptive Resonance.  You threw out other kinds of Alien tech "just 'cuz", so you personally can't make that argument.  You may say R-Lasers and 3-Res armor are 'clutter' in the weapons and armor, and therefore deserve to be streamlined, but Soporifics are no different.  The net effect in most cases is to give you a more powerful weapon than you've got.  It's pretty unusual to fight enemy units that have no training at all, that didn't come out of a Command Center at least.  I easily make the argument that rather than have Gas available to you, go research a stronger weapon.

I've left things like this in the game, if I haven't been shown how they're breaking the game.  Blink Displacers, I've seen how they break the game, so they're all but out.  It's easy to handle those because they're late game anyways, I can move them all the way to the end of the tree and not actually get rid of them.  Soporifics are mid-game, so I'd have to outright remove them.  If I someday see evidence though, I will.

I don't even get why people come up with this junk.  I want to say it's simply Expansion Pack gewgawism.  That's why they're actually in the game in this case, so it's hard to see that summation as wrong.  They add yet another minor flavor to weapons getting better.  In so doing, they make the AI that much more complicated to write.  Pointless.

Was there some great narrative reason to have the Aliens use sleeping gas on people?  None that I can see, as there is no other lore about it.  I've never seen an AI faction make Gas units either.  Maybe it's a narrative or game mechanical road they started down, but didn't finish.  So they shipped what they had, justifying it as mostly harmless.  Or maybe they think everybody loves multiplayer so much, that an ability that is only used by human players in practice, is ok.

[bvanevery]

I've decided in my mod, Soporific Gas Pods are out.  I got into a lot of 3-2-1 fighting with the Believers.  Making those into Gas units, seemed to make attacking a Perimeter Defense pretty cakelike.  I think it's equivalent to raising 1..2 weapons levels and I don't want that.  Just Say No to goofy Alien stuff!

I'm not able to do any eco-damage with merely a Genejack Factory.  Granted, I systematically built Tree Farms before building the factories.  Even with the Morganites and -2 PLANET (because I had the Manifold Nexus) I did 0 eco-damage.  If I built Hybrid Forests and Centauri Preserves before building Robotic Assembly Plants, I bet I wouldn't do any eco-damage then either.  Of course the AI doesn't have to be as disciplined about building the eco-saving stuff.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I'll remove it too then.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

New version uploaded.

At this point I feel like it is what I wanted it to be. These are my biased feelings.

It feels dynamic. Usually I have a feature I need when I need it and it is easy to get to it if I don't have it yet. At the same time I don't get feature I won't need in foreseeable future.

Armor feels adequate. Of course, as always one could rush weapon, chassis, military abilities, buildings, and tactical combat to make their conquest more effective (=less casualties per captured base). That is a well deserved reward. However, I almost never see zero casualties any more. Which is desired result.

SP appearance time and building time feel right too. They start appearing at level 2 when factions can invest in them. They are also not get built almost instantly anymore. They are hanging in my build choices for some time letting to compete for them even for those a little bit late to the party.

Base spreading is more controllable now. I original game even when I build two scout patrols before first colony pod I quite often sent this pod to the dark - not knowing the good spot to place it. Now I, at least, can explore nearby territory before I come up with the pod. Same thing applies to AI factions. The competition for territory is now more timely and planned and strategical. Not like in original game when I rush-rush-rush my first colonies to grab territory adjacent to neighbor but they still take everything even before I get there. Now it is possible to claim territory in the middle but it is quite expensive. Usually I build Former - Recycling tanks - Colony since former and RT are cheaper but give a resource boost. So it is more beneficial long term. However, sometimes I can rush colony for 160 credits just to get to some cool landmark. Strategical choices in action.

Terraforming and development feels more dynamic too due to removed restrictions. In original game it took like 50-100 turns drag to get to the steady growth state.


Things to think about.

• Colony Pod is now 6. Thinking of making it 5, at least for land ones. May speed up spreading a little.
• My technology tree structure is that each technology depends on one of previous level and one of two levels below. This feels pretty adequate for research paths variability. However, it makes reaching higher levels easier. That sometimes leads to some quite advanced weapon fighting against not so advanced armor. Maybe I need to change it so that each technology depends on exactly two of previous level - making reaching higher level more difficult.

[bvanevery]

In my mod I'm getting rid of the Infantry vs. Base bonus.   I know you thought about doing this, but you haven't in 1.6.  In my case, I was playing the Spartans.  The University showed up and was hostile.  I had a Disciplined Scout defending Sparta Command, and the University attacked with a Green Scout.  My faction has +2 MORALE which says:

Code: [Select]

2, +1 Morale (+2 on defense)
That would be me, defending my base.  I got killed anyways!  I didn't get a screenshot of my actual combat odds.  It happened too fast and I was flabbergasted that this pathetic interloping unit could actually take out my capitol.  I said this sucks rocks and vowed it would never happen in any game ever again!  In my mod, bases deliberately favor defenders, and you have to do a lot to earn weapons to overcome the defense advantage.  The Infantry vs. Base bonus is messing up the program and has to go.

I am also upping the Intrinsic Base Defense bonus to 50%.  I think if you went to all the trouble to get a colony established somewhere, it should mean something.