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Author Topic:   Fixin' jobs for SMACX

Shining1 posted 05-16-99 10:28 PM ET
Now that nearly all the ideas for SMACX are out, there's the small matter of making actual improvements to SMAC. Some priorities:
1) User Interface: pretty bad. The major issues:
* CITY MANAGEMENT: Three points here.
1) You need a popup menu in the actual city screen informing you of the current relevant benefits/penalties caused by social engineering and city improvements. Information on morale, growth, industry, etc.
2) A find city system that allows the player to view a map of the immediate region around a city (say 10-20 squares radius) and allows the player to select a city and move to that city's dialogue screen - the current next city buttons, based on alphabetical order, are next to useless when trying to manage cities as a coherent group.
Moveover, moving a supply crawler to a city should allow you to 'link' those two cities together - so they can exchange resources between them (for instance, allowing surplus nutrients to be transferred from a city that has maxed out its available hab facilities to one that hasn't).
Limiting the number of resources transferred between cities would also be a key - say 2 max for each crawler exchanged between cities, with a +1 bonus for each level of reactor after fission.
Such cities should be linked by coloured lines on the city dialogue map, and as such are limited in their maximum distance appart. Efficiency may also have a roll in this.
3) The city production menu also needs to be altered. Instead of the current mess of buttons, a simple row of production is needed (five lines only).
Secondly, a new button, allowing you to create a list of current production items to be saved as a default. Up to five items can be saved in this kind of list.
[SMACX expansion example: Send a colony pod to a location, along with a fusion supply crawler. Build city. Link the city to an existing, built up base with the supply crawler. Go to build menu, select the new city build list you made eariler. And your new city, complete with +3 minerals, starts building a Plasma Sentry, Rec Commons, Recycling tanks, Impact scout and a Perimeter defense. All done in one turn, with a bare minimum of clicking.]
*MAIN MAP
1) A system that automaticially changes the information in the terrain info window to show the square currently under the cursor would eliminate a lot of clicking. Much like the system in total annihilation.
2) A 'build orders' list for terraformers is a must. So you can queue up multiple improvements at once. Linking formers to the city they are improving would be an even better idea. Think 'Control From' and the new regional map (see above) in the city menu screen.
3) The main map (lower right) needs to have units displayed as well as cities. Making it much easier to see PBEM or hotseat invaders, as well as those you have simply forgotten about.
4) Unit stacking needs to be properly implimented, something along the lines of Heroes of MoM III or WarlordsIII is needed.
Included with this should be a more sophisticated unit behaviour interface, allowing you to do point and click selections for orders like hold, sentry, and interceptor.
5) The RTS 'goto number' system should be included, allowing you to jump to designated units, cities, or squares.
Shining1 posted 05-16-99 10:50 PM ET
2) Combat Interface - terrible! Issues:
* COMBAT GRAPHICS
1) I've stated repeatedly that the single animation/sound combo for the combat system is a major disappointment, taking a big step back on CivII. At the very least there should be sounds for each weapon, and since the graphics are simply a 2D overlay, there should also be some change between weapons. The required art is almost at a level that I could do it myself - I'm sure Firaxis' professionals shouldm't take more than a couple of days max to produce a couple more variations.
* COMBAT SYSTEM
1) Okay, I don't need to state that the system of weapons for attack and armour for defense is a bit... simplistic. Not to mention counter intuitive - when a newbie complains that his fusion squad got killed by a scout rover attack, I understand his confusion. Any RPG fan can write a better version than this, and keep it within SMAC gameplay guidelines (i.e the attacker/defender dichotomy)
2) The current system of bonuses tends to favour rush tactics during the early part of the game - not a popular idea for a long term empire game, I would have thought, especially given the current RTS backlash against the tactic.
3) Naval combat in its current format is ridiculous - the attacking ship will ALMOST ALWAYS win. This is because the armour value receives no ship to ship bonuses when at sea.
Solutions: either make all ship combat artillery based (duh... it would seem like that should already have been done) or redo the combat system to correct this.
4) Air attacks require a bit too much suspension of disbelief. Like when attacking unarmoured formers with a laser jet - you still take a fair deal of damage. How would this happen? If NATO can go head to head with the serbs and lose 1 plane of 1000 to enemy fire, how come you can still take 20% damage from bombing a group of defenseless mining tools - again, a counterintuitive result.
Shining1 posted 05-16-99 10:59 PM ET
3) Game editor - diabolical!!!
* MAP EDITING
Currently, this is only slightly worse than the original CivII map editing tool. Starcraft this ain't, man.
And this exposes the main disadvantage to SMAC - unless Firaxis goes the whole hog and builds a 3D design system in SMACX, making new, senario specific units will be next to impossible.
* RULES EDITOR
Likewise, having to dig through textfiles is a bit rough, though I have to admit I've encounted only one bug in the process (changing weapon attack values changes the actual weapon graphic you get in the game.)
But I'm sure this should be a part of any senario editor in the expansion.
Evk posted 05-16-99 11:34 PM ET
4.) Miriam's portrait - Disgusting!!!!!!!
*Can we get her a nose job or something?
Shining1 posted 05-16-99 11:48 PM ET
Heh heh heh. It'll take more than a mere nose job to cure that face...
Shining1 posted 05-17-99 12:05 AM ET
5) Diplomacy
* INFORMATION
1) The lack of any way to check up on an opponents social engineering needed to be fixed. After all, the A.I is making decisions based on what your choices are...
2) A.I hostility measurements: Currently, diplomatic victories are a bit of a gamble - you're often not sure which factions will go against you and why. A note on how the enemy A.I (and, for interests sake, how a human player) perceives you would be useful.
3) A.I Stability: The A.I tends to break pacts of brotherhood for odd reasons, indeed often for no apparent reason at all. Tightening up this part of the game would help, especially allowing you to pressure a fellow A.I or player to change their social settings to comply with your own (and vice versa of course).
4) Psuedo cheating: The A.I does seem to get some advantages in diplomacy that the player does not (for instance, the social engineering settings). Like the free wonders in Civ, this does tend to irk - while you can't always threaten the A.I, it can threaten you, even if you refuse to see it.
Urban Ranger posted 05-17-99 12:11 AM ET
5) Unit Design Workshop -- Ugh!!
This needs to be revamped. Nobody at Firaxis seemed to have done any serious designing of units before letting the game out the door. With the undocumented keyboard commands it's almost bearable, but just almost. Several points:
1. Get rid of the scroll bar and use a large matrix layout for choosing units.
2. Add "retire" to the right click menu for the build command in the city menu.
3. Retiring a design should not move the pointer to the end of the list. That is a totally stupid behavior. Just move it to the next design and leave it there.
4. Auto-prune doesn't work. It doesn't eliminate obsolete designs with no active units.
5. There should be options allowing me to which units do I want to add reactor upgrades. I don't want the game to staple quantum reactors to my probe teams or formers.
6. I should be able to save designs and recall them in other games. Doing everything from scratch every time is a major pain in the posterior.
Urban Ranger posted 05-17-99 12:15 AM ET
5a) Diplomacy (continued):
-- Right now the computer players can ask for conditional treaties or truces, i.e., "Gimme this and I'll stop bashing your head in," but the human player cannot. Just a tad unfair, eh?
-- Computer players know what you have without inflitrators. This must be fixed.
Urban Ranger posted 05-17-99 12:19 AM ET
7) Upgrades
* The game should allow upgrading across different chasis types, perhaps with a penalty in morale. It simply means you move the organic components to newer widgets, that's all.
* Currently some of the "upgrades" are actually downgrades. For example, if I bribe an enemy impact cruiser while I am already up to Chaos, the game would want to know if I want to "upgrade" my "obsolete" Chaos cruisers to these brand spanking new impact cruisers. Come again?
Urban Ranger posted 05-17-99 12:20 AM ET
8) Support
* Right now, if I want to switch support of a unit, I must move it into a different base first. That's totally stupid. Why can't I do it in the field?
quizara tafwid posted 05-17-99 07:59 AM ET
Fix the limit of 2^10 units you can build! How can I cover the surface of Planet with Drop Supply Crawlers with this limit in place? (other than playing on smaller maps )
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Author	Topic: Fixin' jobs for SMACX
Shining1	posted 05-16-99 10:28 PM ET Now that nearly all the ideas for SMACX are out, there's the small matter of making actual improvements to SMAC. Some priorities: 1) User Interface: pretty bad. The major issues: * CITY MANAGEMENT: Three points here. 1) You need a popup menu in the actual city screen informing you of the current relevant benefits/penalties caused by social engineering and city improvements. Information on morale, growth, industry, etc. 2) A find city system that allows the player to view a map of the immediate region around a city (say 10-20 squares radius) and allows the player to select a city and move to that city's dialogue screen - the current next city buttons, based on alphabetical order, are next to useless when trying to manage cities as a coherent group. Moveover, moving a supply crawler to a city should allow you to 'link' those two cities together - so they can exchange resources between them (for instance, allowing surplus nutrients to be transferred from a city that has maxed out its available hab facilities to one that hasn't). Limiting the number of resources transferred between cities would also be a key - say 2 max for each crawler exchanged between cities, with a +1 bonus for each level of reactor after fission. Such cities should be linked by coloured lines on the city dialogue map, and as such are limited in their maximum distance appart. Efficiency may also have a roll in this. 3) The city production menu also needs to be altered. Instead of the current mess of buttons, a simple row of production is needed (five lines only). Secondly, a new button, allowing you to create a list of current production items to be saved as a default. Up to five items can be saved in this kind of list. [SMACX expansion example: Send a colony pod to a location, along with a fusion supply crawler. Build city. Link the city to an existing, built up base with the supply crawler. Go to build menu, select the new city build list you made eariler. And your new city, complete with +3 minerals, starts building a Plasma Sentry, Rec Commons, Recycling tanks, Impact scout and a Perimeter defense. All done in one turn, with a bare minimum of clicking.] *MAIN MAP 1) A system that automaticially changes the information in the terrain info window to show the square currently under the cursor would eliminate a lot of clicking. Much like the system in total annihilation. 2) A 'build orders' list for terraformers is a must. So you can queue up multiple improvements at once. Linking formers to the city they are improving would be an even better idea. Think 'Control From' and the new regional map (see above) in the city menu screen. 3) The main map (lower right) needs to have units displayed as well as cities. Making it much easier to see PBEM or hotseat invaders, as well as those you have simply forgotten about. 4) Unit stacking needs to be properly implimented, something along the lines of Heroes of MoM III or WarlordsIII is needed. Included with this should be a more sophisticated unit behaviour interface, allowing you to do point and click selections for orders like hold, sentry, and interceptor. 5) The RTS 'goto number' system should be included, allowing you to jump to designated units, cities, or squares.
Shining1	posted 05-16-99 10:50 PM ET 2) Combat Interface - terrible! Issues: * COMBAT GRAPHICS 1) I've stated repeatedly that the single animation/sound combo for the combat system is a major disappointment, taking a big step back on CivII. At the very least there should be sounds for each weapon, and since the graphics are simply a 2D overlay, there should also be some change between weapons. The required art is almost at a level that I could do it myself - I'm sure Firaxis' professionals shouldm't take more than a couple of days max to produce a couple more variations. * COMBAT SYSTEM 1) Okay, I don't need to state that the system of weapons for attack and armour for defense is a bit... simplistic. Not to mention counter intuitive - when a newbie complains that his fusion squad got killed by a scout rover attack, I understand his confusion. Any RPG fan can write a better version than this, and keep it within SMAC gameplay guidelines (i.e the attacker/defender dichotomy) 2) The current system of bonuses tends to favour rush tactics during the early part of the game - not a popular idea for a long term empire game, I would have thought, especially given the current RTS backlash against the tactic. 3) Naval combat in its current format is ridiculous - the attacking ship will ALMOST ALWAYS win. This is because the armour value receives no ship to ship bonuses when at sea. Solutions: either make all ship combat artillery based (duh... it would seem like that should already have been done) or redo the combat system to correct this. 4) Air attacks require a bit too much suspension of disbelief. Like when attacking unarmoured formers with a laser jet - you still take a fair deal of damage. How would this happen? If NATO can go head to head with the serbs and lose 1 plane of 1000 to enemy fire, how come you can still take 20% damage from bombing a group of defenseless mining tools - again, a counterintuitive result.
Shining1	posted 05-16-99 10:59 PM ET 3) Game editor - diabolical!!! * MAP EDITING Currently, this is only slightly worse than the original CivII map editing tool. Starcraft this ain't, man. And this exposes the main disadvantage to SMAC - unless Firaxis goes the whole hog and builds a 3D design system in SMACX, making new, senario specific units will be next to impossible. * RULES EDITOR Likewise, having to dig through textfiles is a bit rough, though I have to admit I've encounted only one bug in the process (changing weapon attack values changes the actual weapon graphic you get in the game.) But I'm sure this should be a part of any senario editor in the expansion.
Evk	posted 05-16-99 11:34 PM ET 4.) Miriam's portrait - Disgusting!!!!!!! *Can we get her a nose job or something?
Shining1	posted 05-16-99 11:48 PM ET Heh heh heh. It'll take more than a mere nose job to cure that face...
Shining1	posted 05-17-99 12:05 AM ET 5) Diplomacy * INFORMATION 1) The lack of any way to check up on an opponents social engineering needed to be fixed. After all, the A.I is making decisions based on what your choices are... 2) A.I hostility measurements: Currently, diplomatic victories are a bit of a gamble - you're often not sure which factions will go against you and why. A note on how the enemy A.I (and, for interests sake, how a human player) perceives you would be useful. 3) A.I Stability: The A.I tends to break pacts of brotherhood for odd reasons, indeed often for no apparent reason at all. Tightening up this part of the game would help, especially allowing you to pressure a fellow A.I or player to change their social settings to comply with your own (and vice versa of course). 4) Psuedo cheating: The A.I does seem to get some advantages in diplomacy that the player does not (for instance, the social engineering settings). Like the free wonders in Civ, this does tend to irk - while you can't always threaten the A.I, it can threaten you, even if you refuse to see it.
Urban Ranger	posted 05-17-99 12:11 AM ET 5) Unit Design Workshop -- Ugh!! This needs to be revamped. Nobody at Firaxis seemed to have done any serious designing of units before letting the game out the door. With the undocumented keyboard commands it's almost bearable, but just almost. Several points: 1. Get rid of the scroll bar and use a large matrix layout for choosing units. 2. Add "retire" to the right click menu for the build command in the city menu. 3. Retiring a design should not move the pointer to the end of the list. That is a totally stupid behavior. Just move it to the next design and leave it there. 4. Auto-prune doesn't work. It doesn't eliminate obsolete designs with no active units. 5. There should be options allowing me to which units do I want to add reactor upgrades. I don't want the game to staple quantum reactors to my probe teams or formers. 6. I should be able to save designs and recall them in other games. Doing everything from scratch every time is a major pain in the posterior.
Urban Ranger	posted 05-17-99 12:15 AM ET 5a) Diplomacy (continued): -- Right now the computer players can ask for conditional treaties or truces, i.e., "Gimme this and I'll stop bashing your head in," but the human player cannot. Just a tad unfair, eh? -- Computer players know what you have without inflitrators. This must be fixed.
Urban Ranger	posted 05-17-99 12:19 AM ET 7) Upgrades * The game should allow upgrading across different chasis types, perhaps with a penalty in morale. It simply means you move the organic components to newer widgets, that's all. * Currently some of the "upgrades" are actually downgrades. For example, if I bribe an enemy impact cruiser while I am already up to Chaos, the game would want to know if I want to "upgrade" my "obsolete" Chaos cruisers to these brand spanking new impact cruisers. Come again?
Urban Ranger	posted 05-17-99 12:20 AM ET 8) Support * Right now, if I want to switch support of a unit, I must move it into a different base first. That's totally stupid. Why can't I do it in the field?
quizara tafwid	posted 05-17-99 07:59 AM ET Fix the limit of 2^10 units you can build! How can I cover the surface of Planet with Drop Supply Crawlers with this limit in place? (other than playing on smaller maps )