SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[bvanevery]

Yea. As I said I don't have any preference on boreholes. This is more of fans suggested change.

Frankly though, I have to wonder about the wisdom of nerfing the energy bit, when it's called a thermal borehole.  It's not called a lava flow.

[bvanevery]

I thought to let artillery duel uses armor as well. However, I don't think it is too relevant. Making artillery armored is still important to protect from direct counter-strikes from air and helicopter, for example.

The problem with armoring artillery in the stock binary, is that another artillery piece bypasses it.  This is totally unrealistic.  Armored artillery pieces have been a thing at least as far back as WW II.  They were generally called "Self-Propelled Guns", and their big distinction compared to a tank is they don't have a turret to adjust their firing.  So with this unrealistic and expensive weapon, you just get clobbered for no good reason.  This discourages putting any armor on it at all, due to the magical way of bypassing the armor.

[Hagen0]

Planned + seems very strong. +1 Industry and +1 Growth are already quite powerful.

Regarding the worms, making them weaker during base attacks is a good change. I almost lost a base because it was empty. With Morgan (really with any faction) it is often optimal play to forego base defenders and leave them empty on size 1. Of course that has its downsides

[bvanevery]

- these units are non-combat but actually quite strong if armored.... looks stupid

In the stock game, a unit that is armored is a combat unit.  It does not suffer the non-combat defense penalty.  There's nothing stupid about such units.  In WW II for instance there were armored mine flayers that were used on the beaches of Normandy.  They had a job to do in combat and they did it.  Laying down roads or land bridges to kill your enemy can easily be a front line siege activity.  And if you're still allowing your game to build Bunkers, that's something a Former does for you.  I don't allow it because the AI is so stupid about building them, but if you do, that's something that Formers do under fire.  Formers get attacked by mindworms and that's another reason to armor them, if you're so inclined.  Sea Formers get attacked by enemy ships all the time.

If you literally mean such units "look" stupid, well that's an art direction issue, not a game mechanical issue.  I think armored Former units look just fine.

Needlejet (or any strong attacking unit for that matter) should have 90% chance to kill Crawler.. not 50% or 30%..

This is a problem with the 1) silly attack vs. defense system, which is an inherent flaw of SMAC.  For instance AAA units have their armor leap out to shoot back at you, by some kind of magical woo.  2) Possibly compounded by what Tim's trying to do with combat odds and perception of danger.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Planned + seems very strong. +1 Industry and +1 Growth are already quite powerful.

Could be. There are multitude ways to shuffle SE models. We can discuss this too. List your opinion about each one of them in current WtP and then we can see about tweaking.

[Nexii]

Frankly though, I have to wonder about the wisdom of nerfing the energy bit, when it's called a thermal borehole.  It's not called a lava flow.

Yea this is why at one point I had boreholes only giving energy and zero minerals. Realistically you're only getting heat out. Though it did seem a little weird that they didn't pollute at all with Tree Farm / Hybrid Forest. Theme wise I liked it, but it also highlighted how much better energy was than minerals. And it also made mineral facilities a lot less useful than they already were. Perhaps just cost decreasing them would suffice

[bvanevery]

If I were inclined to change thermal boreholes, I would make them 5-5, 4-4, or 4-5, or 3-5, or 3-6.  To always emphasize they are a source of energy.  Doesn't a borehole itself do eco-damage, quite beyond the minerals it adds to your unclean minerals pile?  I forget.  If true, then shouldn't worry about minerals needing to carry the burden of eco-damage.  It's still a borehole.

In my own mod, I didn't care to change their output.  I just put them late in the game, and made them take more turns to make.  I like the outrageous "double sixes" appearing on the city screen.  Aesthetically it indicates they're powerful and damaging as all get.

And I never build them anymore.  I may harness the 3 existing ones, but new ones?  I've got better things to do.  I hand terraform every square, and a flood just wipes out all my hard work.  I don't want them.

[Nexii]

There is terraforming ecodamage. But a worked borehole only gets about 1.25M more of ecodamage from it. And that 1.25M goes away with Hybrid Forest. Most of the ecodamage is from minerals.

[lolada]

- I wouldn't mind too much about real-world explanation - gameplay effect is more important. For example if one would make them only produce energy then some bases would simply have no enough minerals without crawlers. There's lots of energy around - minerals are usually lacking.. People get around this by just forest (almost) everything tactic.

Its kind of tempting to have good and bad bases.. but thats what Civilization series has - and it has big downsides. If civilization loses its capital and 1-2 big important cities its game over. In Alpha Centauri AI can make 10 equaly strong cities and you don't even care which one is capital. Even crap terrain can be turned to good one with some forests and adv. terraforming - a borehole being important.

- I actually build some artillery with armor - arty is important in the mod - and after some time armor doesn't make it more expensive - base builds it in same number of turns anyway. Its useful when arty gets attacked - it happens sometimes.. unarmored arty is very vulnerable to needlejets for example.

- About worms.. they are fine.. fungal pops are dangerous.. single worms aren't really.. it happens that they kill units sometimes - unescorted colony pod is always at some risk

[Hagen0]

Changed free market is also very good. Similar powerlevel to Planned+. I don't quite see the point of Green though. Seems only useful for a worm war.

I was able to stay in Police State with without Efficiency being much of an issue. Is there a effective second drone control (or Psyche facility) next to Recreation Commons? Do Children's Creches still increase effiency? From what I read they don't give Morale bonuses anymore, right?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Changed free market is also very good. Similar powerlevel to Planned+. I don't quite see the point of Green though. Seems only useful for a worm war.

I was able to stay in Police State with without Efficiency being much of an issue. Is there a effective second drone control (or Psyche facility) next to Recreation Commons? Do Children's Creches still increase effiency? From what I read they don't give Morale bonuses anymore, right?

They have their up and downs and this varies depending on game situation and game stage. There is no single preferable choice. As I said, state your thoughts about all of them and we will discuss.

Keep in mind that SE compete in single category. So it is a relative comparison of PS vs. Democracy vs. Fundamentalism.

Yes, Creches increases efficiency and growth but not morale.

[Hagen0]

I was comparing Green with Planned+ and Free Market which are in the same category. Planned+ and Free Market both have their place depending on the situation. Green, however, is +2 Planet +2 Effiency -3 Growth -2 Industry. So some very pedestrian advantages and utterly horrific downsides. I can see two situations when Green might be useful. If you attack someone with worms or when knocking out the last few techs before trancendence. In any other situation, switching to Green is approximately equal to retiring.

[lolada]

Green is only for The Manifold Harmonics i think and for combat its great. Without these penalties are too harsh. I used it a lot in my AAR - basically late when growth doesn't matter as much.. and I picked something (Fundamentalism) to counter -2 Industry.

I really really don't like Power.. 2 Supp, 2 Mor, 1 Probe, -2 Industry everything is ruined by industry.. 1 Supp, 2 Mor, 1 probe, -1 Industry; .. or +2 Supp, +2 Mor, -1 Ind..: or something like that would be much more interesting.. What's the point in picking it when it makes producing everything so hard.. i'd rather have more units.

I wanted to post this from my current game. This is real issue - AI is going crazy on ecological damage and fungus pops a lot. I myself also went same strategy to increase clean minerals to test it.. and with high eco damage in few bases its worms and fungus popping often.. Anyway worms kill formers, break base defenses if you are not prepared. And if you don't have good planet you can screw yourself. Base yields are terrible in factions with negative planet. (They use crawlers.. but that +3 +4 food was before nerf +5 +6)

Conqueror Marr is really crap AI - it seems so. Angels are here doing bad also. Drones have positive planet and is saving them. (Zakharov died again - he's awful - he really needs a buff.. i think -2 Probe is huge nerf to him.. he needs help.. drones every 4 also are terrible).

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I was comparing Green with Planned+ and Free Market which are in the same category. Planned+ and Free Market both have their place depending on the situation. Green, however, is +2 Planet +2 Effiency -3 Growth -2 Industry. So some very pedestrian advantages and utterly horrific downsides. I can see two situations when Green might be useful. If you attack someone with worms or when knocking out the last few techs before trancendence. In any other situation, switching to Green is approximately equal to retiring.

I believe you underestimate the value of EFFICIENCY. It grows directly proportional your empire size and even faster as it also reduce b-drones. It has almost zero value on 10 bases but on 50 it is enormous. Especially later in the game when total cash flow growth as well. It is the most uneven effect. I'd say it is impossible to live without positive efficiency past mid game. Otherwise, you will just won't have money to pay maintenance. That is how important it is. Of course, there are other ways to increase it. Children Creche is one. ECONOMY also may compensate for it. However, no other model has +2 EFFICIENCY alone.

-3 GROWTH is also a huge penalty since it stops bases from increasing population. However, anything above it is perfectly fine. Even -20% growth speed is no biggie for base with extra 2 nutrients surplus. On top of it you have Children Creche that guarantees you won't stop growing with Green.

-2 INDUSTRY is a huge penalty, though, throughout the game. So maybe I should give Green a slack here.

[Nexii]

EFFIC is more of a nice to have IMO. Unless you're playing on very large maps then it gets more valuable

It's only 3 less drones in your empire per 2 EFFIC on a normal map. On a huge map, about 5 less drones.

It has fairly quick diminishing returns, as it's a 1/x function. Creche gives +2 getting you over the worst part of the curve.

However being at negative EFFIC is crippling for the same reason, how the function curves.

EFFIC means less in the late game because specialists contribute directly to econ/labs/psych

Overall the first +2 EFFIC is good to have but it's nothing compared to +2 ECON or +2 GROWTH