Modding Terraforming and Ecodamage

[Nexii]

So I'm curious what modifications people play with for terraforming, and highly related, ecodamage formula. 

Currently I'm trying to mod such that the following are true:
- raised farm/solar (+condensor/echelon), and forest+borehole are both viable.  Hybrid advanced terraforming could be considered (i.e. specialized bases or hybrid within a base).
- no clean minerals
- less formers required per base (3 tops, ideally)

This will be calcs for a size 14 base.  It's quite late game that you get Hab Domes, at least as the tech curve goes now.  Assuming more tightly packed bases, very late game Transcendi are fine.

Forest/borehole:
11 forest, and 3 borehole (36 food w/Hybrid).  136 FT (former-turns) by default.  Gives 36 N / 42 M / 42 E (~57E if +2 ECON).  3 borehole because it's often hard to pack in all 4, if bases are close.

Raised farm/solar:
If using 14 squares, then you can get around 63N,9M,54E(~68E if +2 ECON).  This uses 2 condensors, 4 echelons, and 8 solars per base. 
Gives 63N / 9M / 66E (81E). 
14*4+14*8+2*12+4*12+8*4+14*12=440FT, plus 448E.

I have been playing with 0 clean minerals, so as the game goes on ecodamage gets worse.  This is probably a good thing in order to favor raised farm/solar over forest/borehole.  Generally it would be Green economics if forest/borehole, and FM if raised farm/solar.  Problem is this: FM gets 6x the pollution, so 9M is 45M effective, so it pollutes as much as forest/borehole+Green.  And FM doesn't deal with native life near as well.  Truly, raised/farm solar can only compete with forest/borehole if it has +2 ECON and forest/borehole does not.  It is much superior very late game, when the extra nutrients matter.  Unfortunately for most of the game, they don't help.  On top of this the extreme former time required makes farm/solar non-viable.

So I modded former times down, much down.  Since 448E has to be spent, raised farm/solar needs to be a lot faster.
Farm - 2 FT, Solar - 1 FT (*is affected by terrain, so saying 2FT), Enricher - 2 FT, Condensor - 4 FT, Echelon - 4 FT, Raise - 4 FT.
Instead gives 14*2+14*2+2*4+4*4+8*2+14*4=122FT, plus 448E.  94FT if you leave enrichers until later. 
 
Similarly I increased Forest to 12FT, since it spreads.  Borehole to 12FT to be fair.
11*12+3*12=168FT.  Take off 2 for autospreading -> 144FT.

100-150FT for a base I feel is about right.  That's 30-40 turns for 3 formers, keep in mind there will be some fungus removal and rocky to remove.  Similarly Forest/Borehole may need to lower land, so I consider that roughly a wash vs Forest taking out Fungus.

Now for just E/M differential, assuming Green Forest/Borehole and FM Raised Farm/Solar:
Forest: +33M
Farm/Solar: +24E (+39E if Green doesn't get to +2 ECON).

Closer than I thought, to be honest.  Farm/Solar may need a small boost, but there are more E multipliers until very late game.  Also E is superior in peace time, commerce is huge.  M is of course much superior in war, as unit buy rates are expensive.  This also assumes a perfect setup which may/may not be possible.

So there's a few options:
1 - Let Hab complex take city size to 20.  This allows specialists, and gives the farm/solar player a population advantage.  However it doesn't help the balance all that much since Forest/Borehole can do similar, but takes up more *land*.
2 - Mod PLANET such that FM pollution rate is around 3x, Planned is 2x, and Green 1x.  Not sure if I like this or not.
3 - Keep it as is.  Farm/Solar is better in peace/pact than Forest/Borehole.  However, Forest/Borehole can actually deal with the ensuing pops easier and better make energy off it also. 

Now to add some complexity, I mod such that Demo is +1 ECON, and so Demo/Green/Wealth is an option also for +2 ECON in Forest Borehole.  Similarly, +3 ECON is possible with Demo/FM/Wealth (good in extreme peace), and Demo/FM/Knowledge is your more general go-to research SE combination.  And there's Planned (but I don't really consider it for builder.  It's more to pump out things with surplus energy, or support a larger army in my set).

Differences:
Demo/FM/Knowledge: 0 IND, +2 GROWTH, +2 RESEARCH, -1 MORALE, -2 PROBE, -3 PLANET
Demo/Green/Wealth gets -1 IND, -1 GROWTH, +2 RESEARCH, -1 MORALE, +3 PLANET

So I guess considering those boosts, perhaps the two strategies are pretty close now.  One question is how high to set the ecodamage.  What sorts of mineral divisor and ecodamage divisor are people playing with?  How does it feel?  Is Green mandatory late, or just an option?  I find a game where managing the native life is interesting, rather than war.  Sometimes the gains in energy can be huge, but losing formers or base facilities can be just as costly.  I also noted that even low Ecodamage numbers tend to cause quite a few pops.  I wonder if anyone knows the odds curve?

[Dio]

I modified it so that base squares give two nutrients, one Mineral, and two Energy default. I also have made forests give one nutrient and two minerals base and the maximum standard FOP for fungus two nutrients, two minerals, and two energy. I have not touched clean minerals or eco-damage. These changes allow bases an equal production of economy and laboratories. This also makes energy harder to produce in the beginning of the game. I have also moved the forest tech pre-req to Centauri Empathy.

[Nexii]

Interesting.  I considered weakening Forest by removing the energy.  Personally I think it's more how fast they are to plant than how good they are per se.  How did you mod fungus production?  I assume by tying some techs to it, that's all I know of. 

+1 energy a base seems like a good mod.  Probably speeds up the early game tech a bit, which could stand it.  PS sprawl shouldn't benefit too much because far bases get EFFIC loss. I think I will try 2 energy/base also, it should balance my Planned (-3 ECON) and Yang (-2 ECON) a little better.  Hurts him to run Planned a little more, but at the same time he gets more energy relative to everyone else outside of Planned.  At the least, it ensures Recycle Tanks still give +1 energy even at -3 ECON.

[Nexii]

No one is trying with clean minerals out?  Lately I've been trying with this - seems that lower mineral divisor and higher ecodamage divisor works better for rounding as Yitzi hinted at.  Reduces impact of Tree Farm / Hybrid Forest on ecodamage but they're already amazing facilities, I think I'm fine with that.

8        ; Bonus borehole ecodamage {-32768 to 32767}
6        ; Bonus mirror ecodamage {-32768 to 32767}
4        ; Bonus condenser ecodamage {-32768 to 32767}
0        ; If non-zero, borehole count per base is squared when determining ecodamage {under -2 billion to over 2 billion}
0,       ; If non-zero, bonus ecodamage is not affected by PLANET rating or clean minerals {under -2 billion to over 2 billion}
0,       ; Starting "clean minerals" {-32768 to 32767}
0,       ; CM per fungal pop {-32768 to 32767}
0,       ; CM per relevant facility {-32768 to 32767}
1,       ; Extra "virtual minerals" per relevant atrocity/missile {-32768 to 32767}
0,       ; If non-zero, fungal pops reduce the effects of atrocities/missiles but do not increase CM {under -2 billion to over 2 billion}
0,       ; If non-zero, ecodamage is based off Planet Busters rather than major atrocities {under -2 billion to over 2 billion}
1,       ; Mineral divisor for ecodamage (applied before clean minerals) {1 to 32767}
3        ; PLANET multiplier at 0 PLANET rating {-128 to 127}
1        ; Minimum PLANET multiplier {0 to 127}
6        ; Maximum PLANET multiplier {minimum rating to 127}
10000,   ; Ecodamage divisor {1 to over 2 billion}
-1,      ; Extra ecodamage per base {-32768 to 32767}

[Nexii]

Took my ecodamage divisor down to 4000 which is 2.5x the ecodamage.  I assume no one is really modding ecodamage with CMs out?  I am working on some spreadsheets which show Ecodamage per mineral (EPM) at various TECH levels, and PLANET ratings.  Multi-axis though as there are many other variables, Perihelion, Difficulty, and Native Life setting.  So not sure how best to represent.  Of course this all depends if you mod the base SEs.  Taking out CMs certainly makes -3 PLANET a steep penalty.

[Nexii]

Hmm well I guess no one is playing without CMs, I'd still be curious to know how anyone does mod if so.

I ended up putting ecodamage divisor back to 8000, as 4000 made Free Market too unmanageable even with farm/solar.  Feels about right.

I think a better mod to make farm/solar more appealing is to switch the tech requirements of Paradise Garden and Hybrid Forest.  This way you can't get the 3/2/2 from Forest so early (7 FOP is quite good, only surpassed by farm/solar with a lot of raising and echelons).  Tree farm is okay about when you get it (2/2/1), and really Forest isn't overpowering early at 4 FOP (farm/solar gets around 4-5 FOP typically early).  May play around with making raising/lowering slow, and level/echelons fast.  Therefore making Forest and Farm/Solar closer in the time between Super and Hybrid Forest.

[Yitzi]

I think a better mod to make farm/solar more appealing is to switch the tech requirements of Paradise Garden and Hybrid Forest.  This way you can't get the 3/2/2 from Forest so early (7 FOP is quite good, only surpassed by farm/solar with a lot of raising and echelons).  Tree farm is okay about when you get it (2/2/1), and really Forest isn't overpowering early at 4 FOP (farm/solar gets around 4-5 FOP typically early).  May play around with making raising/lowering slow, and level/echelons fast.  Therefore making Forest and Farm/Solar closer in the time between Super and Hybrid Forest.

Interesting idea, though it means that forests become underpowered once you get thinkers/engineers and soil enrichers.  An in between approach might be to change the prerequisites of Planetary Economics to be Environmental Economics and Pre-Sentient Algorithms, delaying hybrid forests until around the time when farm/solar/enricher/mirror/raised terrain can give you quite a bit of nutrients and energy, and specialists can use the nutrients to give you quite a bit more energy.  It would also help to set things so that condensers can be in the same square as solar (though if doing that, condensers would need to give 0 nutrients), but I haven't gotten to enabling that yet.

[Nexii]

Yea, I prefer to keep the tech tree in the default order, but that could work too.  I haven't found that enrichers really have much impact (N are in excess by this point).  The N part of Hybrid is less powerful than the +1 E, and ECON/PSY benefits.  With a 14 pop cap, you only need 28N.  Generally it's hard to pack in more than 3 boreholes per base anyways.  So you're looking at needing 25N from 11 squares (assuming all workers).  You'd be a bit short with just Tree Farm/Forests, but not horribly so.  There's a lot of ways around (rainy+farm+condensor, aquatic, crawling, satellites).  The excess N I think only helps much post Hab Domes, or with many bases packed tight?  I may need to re-evaluate specialist strategies, but my gut tells me they aren't that good unless you have no pacts at all?  I guess they do save on former time...and land space...

I do agree Condensors are probably powerful enough even at 0 N, something I'll try with this.  Solar+Condensor on the same tile probably isn't needed even to make solar good.  I think doing so might take out some of the choice (every tile gets condensor then and enricher is redundant in function).  Solars are pretty strong when you start stacking echelons.  Personally I kind of like echelon, condensor, borehole how they are.  Makes the terraforming layouts & decisions more interesting.  Although that might not be everyone's cup of tea.  Might be hard to represent Solar+Condensor in the same tile graphically anyways? 

I think one of the most underrated terraforming is sea, actually.  5E/sq is really powerful in peace scenario...and sea is very quick to terraform.  Being able to break out former times for land vs sea (i.e. farm/kelp differing, and solar/tidal differing), would be helpful too.  Solar can be cheap on land since there's raising+echelon costs, but on sea it's just drop the tidal (and kelp's the same issue vs condensor+farm+enricher). In a peaceful game the Believers out-teched everyone else because they went more aquatic, even with their penalty to research.  Granted, sea has higher investment (aquafarm/thermocline aren't free) and E >> M only in peace.  At war, or spying cold wars, I feel M still has the edge.

[Yitzi]

Yea, I prefer to keep the tech tree in the default order, but that could work too.  I haven't found that enrichers really have much impact (N are in excess by this point).

I forgot; you'd also want to increase the without-hab-dome population cap, and probably make booming harder, so that N becomes more important.

I may need to re-evaluate specialist strategies, but my gut tells me they aren't that good unless you have no pacts at all?

Not really true; you are right, however, that heavy specialist strategies are more dependent on having excess population, which means post-hab-domes.

So if changing things to make nutrients more relevant, sentient econometrics would probably be too late for hybrid forest, but if not then it seems good.

I do agree Condensors are probably powerful enough even at 0 N, something I'll try with this.

Actually, the fact that you can't build a solar there means it should probably get 1 N.

Solar+Condensor on the same tile probably isn't needed even to make solar good.  I think doing so might take out some of the choice (every tile gets condensor then and enricher is redundant in function).

No, as (1) condensers are still quite expensive in terms of former-time, and if they give no nutrients then placing condensers everywhere is redundant, and (2) enrichers would still give +1 N, so they're not redundant.

Solars are pretty strong when you start stacking echelons.

Though that is expensive in former time...

Might be hard to represent Solar+Condensor in the same tile graphically anyways?

I'd have to see what happens when I try.

I think one of the most underrated terraforming is sea, actually.

I think sea is actually a bit underpowered past the early game, due to the high cost of sea formers, and the fact that you can't boost things as much with raising/echelon.

Being able to break out former times for land vs sea (i.e. farm/kelp differing, and solar/tidal differing), would be helpful too.

That might be a bit tricky because it means adding new data, but it may be doable.  Not making the short list, though.

[Nexii]

Yea, the fact that sea forming is cheap on FTs is somewhat balanced with higher former costs.  It's tricky though to put sea chassis very expensive vs land, since you don't want military foils and cruisers to be too expensive.  I wouldn't say its weak at any stage though, at least not in a very peaceful game.   Believers got well ahead of even the PKs who were on Monsoon Jungle.  The thing is you can get 4/0/4 on any shelf tile.  It's only with a lot of echelons and raising that solar surpasses 8 FOP.  Especially with booming out, I think sea gets stronger (which maybe isn't so bad).  Though deep sea is expensive to raise, in practicality you can't just plunk bases in the open ocean and get much.

I had Condensors and Echelons reduced some in former time (at least until you can mod Super's strength).  To get mass former amount down I think most tiles should only take around ~12 FT.  I do have former cost increased somewhat to balance the faster forming.  I'm leaning more to having raise/lower terrain being on the higher side for FTs though.  Personally I'm not a huge fan of the land bridge raising tactic to open new fronts, especially with Weather Paradigm.  For solar raising, I've found that making a few tiles 3ks and surrounding areas get 2k for free, is a lot less expensive and more practical than trying to get everything to 3k.  Also, the condensor tiles themselves do not need high altitude.  Level terrain got to be expensive on FTs too, so I reduced that some.

With Hybrid Forest late I might put Forest planting back to 4-6 FT, making it more back to the original concept of a faster terraforming option.

Making booming harder how?  Giving everyone -2 GROWTH on Futures tier, was my only good idea for that (which unfortunately makes Aki/Pirates unplayable, unless you change their penalties).  It would make N-sats a lot more crucial.  I play with just +1 GROWTH on Planned in my SE set, which arguably makes booming quite a bit harder (Demo+Planned was a lot easier than GA-based, at least for everyone but Yang/Morgan). 

10/20 pop caps are something I'll play around with again.  I think they aren't necessarily a bad mod, since they promote wider city spacing and can make surplus N amounts more important.  But then Cloning Vats becomes even more crucial, not sure I like that.  Maybe Cloning Vats and Dream Twister reqs could be swapped?  Size 20 does add a lot of production though over 14 into the mid-game.  Would be countered a lot by harder booming though.  Getting to 20 would realistically take enrichers and satellites, before Future SEs,  I found even with enrichers at 2 FT they weren't near as helpful as getting solars/echelons up.  I also fear it might diminish Democratic a bit, but would have to see how it plays out

[Yitzi]

Yea, the fact that sea forming is cheap on FTs is somewhat balanced with higher former costs.

Except it isn't really that cheap (keep in mind that tidal harnesses take 8 turns, not 4 like solar collectors), and is also balanced by the fact that it can't produce as much as advanced terraforming (4 energy/square before FM might sound like a lot, but compared to raising land and echelon mirrors it really isn't.  Alternating lines of mirrors with collectors comes out to around that, at the same cost in FT as harnesses.)

It's only with a lot of echelons and raising that solar surpasses 8 FOP.

Not really.  Farm/enricher in rainy with alternating mirrors and collectors will give around the same 4/0/4 (except it also gives a bit of minerals), and you can do quite a bit more.  Of course, there is the extra FT cost of the enricher, but you can also get a lot more.  (And all the arguments for enrichers being weak apply to those 4 nutrients for sea as well.)

Making booming harder how?  Giving everyone -2 GROWTH on Futures tier, was my only good idea for that (which unfortunately makes Aki/Pirates unplayable, unless you change their penalties).  It would make N-sats a lot more crucial.  I play with just +1 GROWTH on Planned in my SE set, which arguably makes booming quite a bit harder (Demo+Planned was a lot easier than GA-based, at least for everyone but Yang/Morgan). 

Increasing the amount of GROWTH needed to boom seems the best way; it's on my list.

[Nexii]

Actually Tidals take between 4 FT and 8 (usually 4).  Something I have to look into, seems like an odd formula perhaps related to sea depth, surrounding tiles, maybe a few other factors. 

Usually enrichers would be left to very last for farm/solar bases.  Same with raising (raise every 3rd tile in a grid to 3k, such that the surrounding 8 tiles get 2k altitude for free).  An echelon will typically boost 3-4 solars meaning it is about 3-4x as good as raising a single 2k altitude tile to 3k, since both cost 12 FTs (not to mention the energy cost of raising).  I'll have to test the viability of farm/solar vs forest in some more games.  Typically vs. AI forest is the better bet, as it's rather war-crazy energy gets diminished.  I think against more logical opponents, farm/solar might be okay without too much modding.  Taking out CMs alone is a decent boost to farm/solar, as is putting Hybrid Forest a bit later.

Another temporary workaround for GROWTH might be to put Creches later, swapping them with something else (if you don't like early booming).

[Yitzi]

Actually Tidals take between 4 FT and 8 (usually 4).  Something I have to look into, seems like an odd formula perhaps related to sea depth, surrounding tiles, maybe a few other factors. 

I thought it was always 8.  Do you have a savegame where it's 4?

Usually enrichers would be left to very last for farm/solar bases.

Depends how important nutrients are...

Same with raising (raise every 3rd tile in a grid to 3k, such that the surrounding 8 tiles get 2k altitude for free).

Or you could raise each tile from 2k (due to its neighbor being raised) to 3k; that would give nearly 150% times the benefit (at 3X the cost).  Or every 5th tile, for nearly 2/3 the benefit at only a bit over 1/3 the cost.

An echelon will typically boost 3-4 solars

Why so few?

meaning it is about 3-4x as good as raising a single 2k altitude tile to 3k, since both cost 12 FTs (not to mention the energy cost of raising).

Actually, a mirror is more like 8, as you're not building a solar in that square.

Another temporary workaround for GROWTH might be to put Creches later, swapping them with something else (if you don't like early booming).

Yeah, but that has other effects too...

[Nexii]

Sure, see attached.  Each of the 3 formers has a different time (at least for me, I see 4, 6, and 8 FT to make a Tidal with default terraforming settings)

Usually echelons will only touch 3-4 solars, if you are touching more than that it's more beneficial to replace a solar with an echelon.  Discounting altitude, an echelon makes 0E compared to a solar.  So it's at roughly 50% echelons that you're optimized (usually a checkered grid, if bases are tightly packed).  In that case each solar gets +4E for an average of +2E/sq.  This gets skewed a bit with echelons outside the base and needing condensors though.  I've found that generally condensors are good touching the base at the non-diagonals.  Echelons at the diagonals, and outside ringing the base.  Something like this for a single base (B - base; S - solar, E - echelon, C - condensor; X - outside base):

XSSSX
SECES
SCBCS
SECES
XSSSX

Well going from 2k to 3k is only +1 E at that square for 12 FT.  Every third square might not have been the best descriptor.  I meant more like, a wide spacing grid.  So essentially it'd be one square out of every nine or so at 3k, on an infinite grid.  Though this too can get messed up a bit if you have a base at a '3' location, since you can't raise on a base tile (I'm not sure why this is really).  Something like this layout:

222222222
232232232
222222222
222222222
232232232
222222222

[Yitzi]

Sure, see attached.  Each of the 3 formers has a different time (at least for me, I see 4, 6, and 8 FT to make a Tidal with default terraforming settings)

Well, I found the reason: Tidal harnesses and solar collectors both add 50% to the time it takes for each level of rockiness.  (While rockiness of a sea tile is not shown and has no other effect until the tile is raised above sea level, the tile still does have a rockiness value.)  I think I'll raise the question of whether this is a bug.

Usually echelons will only touch 3-4 solars, if you are touching more than that it's more beneficial to replace a solar with an echelon.

Not true; if you alternate rows between mirrors and collectors, you'll get 6 collectors touching each mirror, but because each collector is touching 6 mirrors, it's not beneficial to replace it.

Discounting altitude, an echelon makes 0E compared to a solar.  So it's at roughly 50% echelons that you're optimized (usually a checkered grid, if bases are tightly packed).

Yes, tight-packed bases might be different, but that's not exactly the best approach when optimizing energy anyway (due to the cost of all the multiplier facilities.)

Otherwise, a checkered grid is a horrible setup, as you want to minimize the number of adjacent pairs of mirrors, and a checkered grid maximizes that number for that number of mirrors.

Well going from 2k to 3k is only +1 E at that square for 12 FT.

It's not quite so simple, as it also means that when you get to several squares over it'll be only 12 FT and not 36.

Every third square might not have been the best descriptor.  I meant more like, a wide spacing grid.  So essentially it'd be one square out of every nine or so at 3k, on an infinite grid.  Though this too can get messed up a bit if you have a base at a '3' location, since you can't raise on a base tile (I'm not sure why this is really).  Something like this layout:

222222222
232232232
222222222
222222222
232232232
222222222

I thought that was what you meant.  It is more efficient (in terms of FT/energy) and less productive (in terms of energy/square) than raising everything, and is less efficient and more productive (by close to the same ratio on both counts) than the following:

1111111111
1222112221
1232112321
1222112221
1111111111