SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[MercantileInterest]

From an acquaintance:

Interesting, especially regarding having the pop check every TURN and reducing pop, I think the risk of PROBE is anyway a bit overstated. Targeted facility destruction is a harder probe action for one (untargeted sabotage is easier), the other thing is if you can get a probe team in and sabotage a facility, might as well wreck a perimeter or other defensive bonus facility and attack the base in force to raze it.

One way to make it less obnoxious would be if maybe the depopulation could remove just one pop per turn, until it gets to the limit. Plenty of time to rush it back, random facility loss (ex. from low income) wouldn't [fuddle-duddle] you over as much and you would still have a reason to keep it long term and not scrap it.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Yes. I thought about slow depopulation too. Another even slower option is to subtract some nutrients from nutrient surplus (or reduce them at base tile) and, if it gets negative, base will slowly die of starvation.
That doesn't deny the energy bonus which, I think, is nice to have too.

[MercantileInterest]

Idea: foil chassis can sail up river squares.

[Drinniol]

Idea: foil chassis can sail up river squares.

Something I've always wanted, possibly with some sort of terraformer thing required to widen/deepen the river first.  In real life some of the greatest cities were on rivers that had access to the sea.  Would really help integrate land and sea more, especially since you can drill rivers.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I don't think it will work well for this game especially since player can drill for them.
Think about it. Drilling may change whole river grid completely. Rivers just jump from one place to another. This is minor impact when they are just roads for land troops and extra energy but sea units traveling on them may get stranded.

Besides, what do you actually want for sea units inland? What would be their role? For one they can get closer to enemy troops and territory to bombard them. This role is already taken by land artillery that is cheaper. So no practical benefits there. Other than that I don't see any meaningful use. Transporting troops? They already travel pretty fast on rivers themselves.

[Drinniol]

I don't think it will work well for this game especially since player can drill for them.
Think about it. Drilling may change whole river grid completely. Rivers just jump from one place to another. This is minor impact when they are just roads for land troops and extra energy but sea units traveling on them may get stranded.

Besides, what do you actually want for sea units inland? What would be their role? For one they can get closer to enemy troops and territory to bombard them. This role is already taken by land artillery that is cheaper. So no practical benefits there. Other than that I don't see any meaningful use. Transporting troops? They already travel pretty fast on rivers themselves.

Extra production capacity from land for the ocean or vice versa, not just your coastal bases.  Ability to reinforce landbases from sea routes.  Imagine making a river canal across a continent to unite two seas without cutting it in half with terraformers. 

I agree it wouldn't work well with the current river system, but if we ever got an open source version to mod the ability to make canal routes as something built on top of rivers would be nice. 

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Canals could be useful. But they are not rivers. It is already possible to build canals with formers through land not cutting it in half. Just connect them diagonally at some point then you will keep both land and sea connected. Other option is to draw canal through base which will be passable for both land and sea units.
Usually there is no need to connect oceans because in 99% maps they are all already connected except maybe small inland lakes. I have quite rarely saw disconnected oceans in my games.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I have reread the Habitation Complex/Dome discussion and idea struck me. Their major flaw is their discrete effect on population growth. Why don't we just make it more spread across the population to make it work all the time and have more smoother effect.

Essentially population size facilities should affect the growth speed not the population limit. I.e. is more crowded and more difficult to grow without them over certain population level. That can be reflected in effecting either GROWTH in base or nutrient bonus/penalty (or both).

Here possible implementations.

1.
Missing habitation facility penalizes base GROWTH proportionally to base size above limit.
Optional and very interesting effect is to benefit base GROWTH proportionally to base size below limit when such facility is present. This way having it before base hits the limit would not be a waste but will contribute to population growth.
Of course, -3 GROWTH halts growth completely at base. With CC one can stretch up to 5 citizen above the limit with harsh growth penalty.

2.
Missing habitation facility penalizes base nutrient surplus proportionally to base size above limit.
Similar option for beneficial effect when base is below limit and facility is present.

I prefer solution #1 as all the mechanics is there in the game already and we need only hook habitation facilities to GROWTH.

[MercantileInterest]

After more play-testing, became apparent that selling hab complexes isn't really worth it.

Still, option #1 does interesting as it adds a new gameplay option of building the complex early to boost growth.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Habitation facilities revamping.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-199

[dino]

Since you are active again, I'll try to sell you an idea ( maybe I've mentioned it already but don't remember ).

Satellites are overpowered, better then most SPs and the bigger the faction the more it gets from them.

Instead of them giving a resource point to unlimited amount of bases, make them create a pool of resources, 10 points per satellite and then distribute them among the bases up to their satellite resource limit.

[MercantileInterest]

Another out-there idea: Cloudbase Academy does not have current effect. Instead, gives +2 movement for air units and enemies cannot airdrop anywhere within your territory.

Admittedly, with modding, haven't built the CA in years, as it's pushed to the end of the tech tree. It's current effects are a bit hokey, since aero-complexes give a lot of bonuses.

On similar note, space elevator that didn't halve costs for Orbital Defense Pods would be an improvement. Very powerful project that allows total space dominance.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Since you are active again, I'll try to sell you an idea ( maybe I've mentioned it already but don't remember ).

What do you mean "again"?
😂

I am checking this forum quite regularly. Nobody complained to the latest changes and and nobody posted new ideas recently except MercantileInterest's channels. So I went modding MM6 instead. You know you can always reach me in PM to wake me up if needed.

Satellites are overpowered, better then most SPs and the bigger the faction the more it gets from them.

Instead of them giving a resource point to unlimited amount of bases, make them create a pool of resources, 10 points per satellite and then distribute them among the bases up to their satellite resource limit.

Currently game just checks how many satellites to add to each base disregarding all other bases on a planet. With distribution it will be a pretty complex and painful algorithm to account to which base has already received benefit and which bases to skip when distributing, etc. A complete horror of programming and further testing. Please invent something simpler.
😢

One option I have already proposed some time ago is to reduce the effect limit to 1/2 or 1/4 of the base size which will make the effect pretty mild comparing to conventional way of acquiring resources.

Or just make their price enormous the usual way.


Another option is to make the effect proportional to existing intake. Sort of multiplying facility. For example, each satellite gives 5% of resource intake rounded down up to 50%.

Another option is to introduce a reduction coefficient proportional to number of bases. This will work similar to your initial idea only more jumpy due to the rounding functionality. Like if one has 100 bases building 10 satellites would add +1 intake to each and so on.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Another out-there idea: Cloudbase Academy does not have current effect. Instead, gives +2 movement for air units and enemies cannot airdrop anywhere within your territory.

What's wrong with it giving AC? It is one of the many similar facility granting projects. Should be just fairly priced for better facility.

+2 movement makes sense. Similar to Maritime Control Center.

No airdrop seems to be a very strong feature attached to a single project. Should be a function of AC or Flechette defense system or Geosynchronous survey pod or similar facility.

On similar note, space elevator that didn't halve costs for Orbital Defense Pods would be an improvement. Very powerful project that allows total space dominance.

I don't think this project secures the victory. It costs 8 defense pods. If opponent start building them while you are wasting time on this project they will be ahead of you in pods until you both reach 16 of them. They may very well first strike you and win.
At this very late point in game it is pretty rare to have few equally developed factions. The leader usually wins projects or no projects.

[MercantileInterest]

Aerospace complexes give +2 morale to all air units built in the base, +100% defense against air attacks, they allow for rapid repair of air units, they prevent airdrops within 2 squares of the base and they allow the base to build satellites. Not only does it do a lot, what it does is important. Hybrid forests do a lot too but they're not essential. Cloudbase Academy gives all of these bonuses to every base in your faction.

The other facility secret projects give:

(1) Command Centers (+2 morale to ground units and repair injured ground units quickly)

(2) Perimeter Defenses (increase base defensive bonus from 25% to 100% against ground attacks)

(3) Network Nodes (+50% research at base, cash in an artifact)

(4) Energy Banks (+50% econ at base)

(5) hologram theater if base already has network node (+psych and less drones)

In other words, aerospace complex, as a facility, already gives more bonuses than any other facility, which is fine for one base but quite a lot for a project. You can just increase the SP's mineral cost but I like the idea of a SP that does a few new things rather than lots of things that you can get by building facilities. No airdrop in territory is a lot better than no airdrop within two tiles of bases but you'd make up for it by the project not giving all the old aerospace bonuses. Extra movement opens up new tactical options.

Just had an idea that your air units don't run out of fuel inside your territory if you have cloudbase academy but, even before thinking about it, probably way too powerful.