Firaxis' Greatest FAILURE: The Design Workshop [This one is dedicated to Pique]

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Author Topic:   Firaxis' Greatest FAILURE: The Design Workshop [This one is dedicated to Pique]

yin26 posted 04-02-99 05:40 AM ET
Brian Reynolds and crew made the assertion last December that they were the team with experience. THEY were the ones who had "been down" the game creation road before. The Activision team, according to him, had little chance of making a balanced game.
His "best" example? The number of units, particularly the special units in CtP, were "obvious" clues that Activision simply doesn't understand the delicate art of TBS.
However, I submit to you the Unit Workshop in SMAC.
First, Firaxis itself was proud to boast that such a system allows for "a million" distinct units, with an endless combination of special abilities and unit chasis to do your dirty work. CtP, on the other hand, has but a handful of units by comparison. Using Brian's own logic, who designed the more unbalanced game? At least in CtP, the relatively limited unit selection, even though it includes some novel ideas, is both easier to manage and far more difficult to abuse.
SMAC's design workshop, in contrast, is both unwieldy and capable of creating enormous unbalance--particularly against an AI that didn't even have missle ranges programmed properly into it let alone the "intelligence" to deal with infinitely individualized units. At least in CtP the AI is already well aware of the special units and, by many reports, can both defend against and use them well.
To conclude, Firaxis, far from being the veteran team with the so-called hard-earned vision of what a balanced TBS truly is, has but shown themselves to be something on the order of the Bumbling Professor: Great brilliance, perhaps--but little ability to relate to the real world, OUR world as gamers.
With SMAC's Design Workshop as proof, Firaxis has produced little more than a amateurish effort to unite endless customability with balanced gameplay.
Clearly, they are incapable of doing so.
[Kalahari--take some notes.]
sphinx_1981 posted 04-02-99 07:05 AM ET
yin26,your points make sense but your conclusions are ridiculous. the customizable units allow players to "invent" their own strategies. it is not about "balance" but about the ability to design units towards a purpose. sure, the ai may not be able to defend against such "new" strategies but that shouldnt be a determining factor in limiting the players ability to think. no ai ever created has ever been truly smart enough to defend against an intelligent human player. a good example was kasparov's inevitable triumph over deep blue. if you have become tired of "cheating" the ai with "cheap" tactics why not start playing multiplayer. you make the point that the ctp ai is aware of all special abilities possible. what fun is that?!? the game obviously becomes a game of micromanagement and "work" rather than a game of strategy, thinking and ingenuity. obviously you need to go to the dictionary and find the reason behind playing games instead of making shallow statements about firaxis.
cousLee posted 04-02-99 07:48 AM ET
I agree with the comment that the DW is unweilding and hard to work with when you have a lot of units and discover a new reactor type, or capture(by probe) an AI base when that AI chose diffrent unit designs that are now also part of your unit roster, but unbalancing? no. i agree the AI does some stupid stuff, but that has no affect on the DW interface. Apples and oranges yin. I agree with a lot that you have posted in other threads, but not this time. the DW interface and game balance are 2 diffrent things.
edromia posted 04-02-99 09:16 AM ET
I can only speak for myself, Yin, but personally, you would irritate me a lot less if you would quit couching your criticisms in terms of "assertions" made about the game company's reputation and instead judge the game on its own merits.
I could give a rat's ass about what the BR-SM team says about themselves. It's advertising; obviously it's designed to put them in the best light possible. What would you have done if you were in charge of PR? I can see the glossy ads in gamers' magazines:
"FIRAXIS: we don't really have a damn clue what we're doing, but we're willing to give it our best shot. Try to ignore all the bugs."
Sales would go through the roof, sure.
The design workshop interface is poor, yes. So far it hasn't overshadowed my enjoyment of the game, but it is a weakness. You have my sympathy. I'm not convinced that it cripples the AI's effectiveness; you might ask some of the folks over in the TI threads what they think.
That's my informed opinion, and any self-promoted Firaxis hype is entirely irrelevant to it. You, on the other hand, seem to have taken the discrepancy between opinion and hype as a personal affront. Do you disagree with me? Get a good night's rest and then re-read your post up there.
Bottom line is: if you've got a beef with the interface or the AI, beef about the interface or the AI. If you have a beef with some perceived disingenuousness on the part of Firaxis, beef about that, but 1) don't mix the two, and 2) you should have known better. Anyone who buys a game purely on the claims of the game's creators deserves precisely what they get.
-M.
Incidentally, the oddest thing about this post is that I really wasn't expecting it from you at this point. You seem to have taken a sharp backslide into viciousness since CTP came out. Any thoughts on why that is?
Pique posted 04-02-99 10:06 AM ET
Thanks Yin! My universe is back on track...just in time, I could only sleep about 3 hours last night after Kalamari's (whatever) post.
Lucid criticism, rational responses...gotta love it.
Before everyone jumps on Yin again, see a thread titles "CTP gets perfect score."
Pique
edromia posted 04-02-99 10:36 AM ET
yin:
Just read Kalahari's, er, *critique* down in "CTP gets perfect score," and now I find I have to lighten my stance a little bit. Just a little bit, though. Even gadflies need gadflies.
So, uh, do you have any insightful comments about the relative, uh, "gayness" of SMAC vs. CTP?
-M.
Glak posted 04-02-99 11:39 AM ET
not counting most special abilities Alpha Centuari has very few units. Pretty much (I haven't played a game that lasted to the later techs) these are the units and their roles:
colony pod (colonizing)
rover (field combat)
infantry attacker (seiging cities)
infantry defender (defense)
probe team (being mean)
artillary (yeah I can't spell)
tanks
missles
planet busters (yahoo I love these things!)
bomber
fighter
former (which I hear it doesn't really use)
sea based versions
native life forms
transports
I think I got them all, or at least most. Although none of my games have lasted to the high tech stages I think this is pretty much it. The computer looks at each unit and has it do stuff. Giving them radar or making them trained units doesn't really matter, especially since the computer just plain cheats when it comes to vision.
It doesn't even really need to understand the special abilites, it just needs to know when to toss them on. Lots of rovers? Get ECM on those guys. Then it just uses the unit like it was before.
I wouldn't really call the design workshop bad or good, it is just how the game it. I do think that the interface could be much better. When I go to upgrade an obsolete unit it moves the cursor (selection thing I mean) to what the unit was upgraded to. While this may seem logical it is very poor design. Right afterwards I have to go all the way back through the slow scroll bar by repeatedly hitting the arrow just to get back to the next obsolete unit. What it should do is scroll if you have your arrow over the cursor. Also it is too slow, probably because it has to redraw all those 3d units. It should make those small pictures 2d. How hard would it be to quickly make a 2d picture out of every unit once you make it in the design shop? Then you could use the picture in the scroll bars and that menu (build screen I think it is called). Everything moves way too slow (I am not talking about the memory leak either).
Imran Siddiqui posted 04-02-99 03:54 PM ET
Ah yes, the Yin we all know and love. I guess hwe was tired of being assimlated (resistance is futire!). Oh well, welcome back, old Yin .
Imran Siddiqui
CBH posted 04-02-99 05:30 PM ET
Pray enlighten us what you would have designed in place of the Unit Workshop, Yin. Nothing like a disparaging post with absolutely no attempt at suggesting something better.
Xentropy posted 04-02-99 10:20 PM ET
It's a Yin thread. You have to expect poorly thought out criticisms and no attempt at recommendation of a fix.
PrinceBimz posted 04-03-99 12:04 AM ET
Actually Yin, those are your opinions and I do believe they are not my visions. The Design Workshop a failure? This is one of my favorite things about SMAC and I am sure alot of others love it also. Come on, do you see everything that you can do with it? All kinds of units for different things. AI can be worked on but does that make it a failure?
Anyway SMAC has some the best ratings I have ever seen for a game so far in magazines, websites, charts you name it. So obviously, Firaxis has done something very right here which is create an outstanding game. You say "a million" units with endless combinations? Nope not a million and not endless but definitely alot which is 32,000.
You think Brian has SMAC more unbalanced then CTP? Well, CTP has been out for only a few days now thats it. How can you determine how balanced CTP is compared to SMAC in only a few days? Now I had posted my thoughts about CTP and SMAC compared in a post below which could change after playing CTP more.
Now, indeed CTP is a great game and have you seen the people involved in creating it? Man, almost as many people as it takes to make a movie I have never seen that many names in a game's credits EVER before. So anyway the CTP team is HUGE!
You say Firaxis being far from the veteran team??? Man, where do you think CIV and CIV2 came from? Activision's CTP team??? It was Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds, its their game and their design. If it were not for Brian CTP would not exist. Activision had a design(Brian's)to work with already. All they had to do was make it look better, sound better, and add more thats it. Don't sound to tough to me, nothing like starting an entire new idea.
Game programing and design is an art that not everyone has and I know who the best is.
Well, you can use the Design Workshop as your proof of faiulure but its my proof of some of what makes the game great. I give SMAC and Firaxis a FULL 5 STARS just like ALL the rest of the world! Thumbs up, and keep up the good work gentlemen!
Gyromancer posted 04-03-99 10:18 AM ET
I think the real problem with the DW is that the UI is soooo unwieldy. on my 133, scrolling through the #@%%# unit list takes about 60 seconds of my undivided attention in the late game, then when you upgrade or obsolete something it plops you out to some other part of the list. I found a pretty neat workaround, which involved right clicking on the unit in the production list. (hmm, wouldn't it have been nice to have that list available in the DW) Unfortunately, they "fixed" that feature in the 3.0 patch. (Now right clicking gives only production queue options) I think one of the real problems behind the scenes here is that turning off animations in the preferences does NOT turn off animations in the DW. Sigh ....
Aredhran posted 04-03-99 05:30 PM ET
Gyromancer: I asked the same question a few days ago, and someone (can't remember who) gave me the answer...
In the menu that appears when you right-click on a unit, the last option is "Help". Select that, and it will bring the DW up. (If it's a base facility or SP, you'll get the Datalinks).
Hope this helps
-Aredhran
Xentropy posted 04-04-99 10:00 PM ET
Also, to help with scrolling in the DW, pageup pagedown home and end all work as if it were a vertical list... much better than one box at a time scrolling...
CrayonX posted 04-05-99 12:47 PM ET
Call me stupid (uh oh) but I agree with Yin. The DW is unweilding and clunky. I think they were more concerned about the funky spinning 3D effect than the actual interface. Call me lazy (boy, I'm just asking for it) but I just revert to the new default designs every time, and with auto governor, auto formers, and watching the Simpsons between each turn at the end game, I haven't lost a game yet.
I liked the MOO2 design interface much better.
CrayonX
Zero posted 04-05-99 01:10 PM ET
Now that you can make a design obsolete from the build screen, you don't have to deal with the bad workshop interface nearly as much. It also helps if you turn auto-design off; damn thing just never understands that I want AAA on everything.
CrayonX, it sounds like you've hit on a really challenging way to play - let the automation run everything. Have you tried automating half your military too?
Darkstar posted 04-05-99 02:16 PM ET
I have automated everything. You can do this and WIN on the lowest 2 levels. I did it initially just to see the AI in action. On Large Spaghetti land masses, I still turn over about 1 in 6 or 8 military units. It can be most entertaining watching you older rovers patrol back and forth across the land. :-) And it really lets you see that brain dead AI in action. Most interesting see what your troops can do that you can't.
For those of you who have experimented like this, have you seen your Rovers suddenly tear off for parts unknown so that they can overrun an undefended base of a treaty-mate? I have. I have seen them tear into the fungus to kill probe teams... amazing what your troops can do on their own sometimes... And despite all their ESPer abilities, they can't manage to do a coordinated (or sustained) assault... :-)
-Darkstar
GreasyPig posted 04-05-99 03:11 PM ET
I love the idea of workshop.
My only complaint is that its not deep enough.
I wish it had been more like Moo2.
The problem is that there is little encouragement to use the older technologies, besides a very small price drop. Why would you build a unit using the older weapons and defense. It will probably die on the first encounter with any adequate enemy. You mind as well build the latest at a high price so it will at least last you a while.
THIS WAS NO PROBLEM IN MOO2. In moo2, every hull had a certain capacity. That capacity improves with inventions and technology. Unless there was a very special reason, it almost always benafits a player to use the older (more mature) weapons. Because these could be improved and systematicly made smaller so that they 1 cost less and 2 you could use more of them to get the same effect as some of the latest weapons. This was INTEGRAL to MOO2's success IMOHO.
I like SMAC. With patch 3, I find I like it more each time I play. But as far as the workshop (geezz, they could have done so much here). I find I always build nearly the exact units every game.
GreasyPig
CrayonX posted 04-06-99 03:12 AM ET
Automate everything...hmmmm...
I really wished SMAC provided more of a challenge. I really tried to enjoy it. Unfortunately the design workshop and the fact that I can automate everything while I pick my teeth isn't a game, in my opinion. The design shop seems more like a chore.
Unlike Civ2, where the outcome always varied regardless of the formulatic AI, I find SMAC too repetitive in nature. Why should I be able to build 10 cities in less than 25 turns? I know this is SCI FI but come on! In Civ2 at least there was some semblance of a struggle to survive, even on the easiest levels. Kind of ironic that it's the same guys who made both games.
Anyhoo, back to the Design Workshop, I agree with the comment that MOO2 made more "sense" in terms of micro-manufacturing. Here in SMAC the units all look the same yadda yadda yadda.
I haven't played SMAC in almost 3 weeks. Actually I'm hooked on a neat little game by that Chris Sawyer guy, Roller Coaster Tycoon. Now THAT'S what I call a design shop!!! Sure, the graphics are antiquated, but who cares?!!! But, that's another topic for another day...
CrayonX
Zoetrope posted 04-06-99 04:34 AM ET
To be fair, you can't tell what's in an enemy's MOO2 starship by looking at its exterior shape, especially not at a distance on the main map.
Many people found MOO2 to have fallen into micromanagement traps that the same (Steve Barcia's SimTeX) team avoided cleverly in MOO1.
But yes, the UDW is a serious chore, and the jumping of the cursor after an upgrade or a retirement of a design is very, very, very annoying.
And there are more problems with changing to the wrong unit (eg, a chopper when we were working on a garrison troop) and badly timed retention of a unit name. (No, I don't want to call this land or air unit a Sub Carrier.)
As I've said before, there are many loose threads in this product. A glaring example is when you go into the Scenario Editor and rest the mouse pointer over one of the painting glyphs: the bubble help for one pattern refers to 50-70% water. Huh? This isn't a random world generation option, you know Brian, it's a paintbrush!
By what Firaxis have said on these forums, they divided the task of testing the game wrongly between the official QA company and volunteer beta testers. I cannot believe that the volunteers missed any of these obvious flaws that my ordinary eyes noticed immediately; but their brief, as represented by Brian's statements here, excluded them from having any input on those issues. Very, very bad mistake.
A great game, but fix these practical interface flaws (which will nag until they are fixed) and it will be improved another substantial notch on the enjoyment merit scale.
Please, just do it!
MoSe posted 04-06-99 07:58 AM ET
The more I read, the more I get angry.
Are Windows API copyrighted?
Couldn't they stick to windows API?
A focus? A scroll-bar?
DW is a great idea, and one of the weakest interfaces in the game.
In one place no way using movement keys. In the next one you drop them and you discover they work the opposite way (usually horizontal arrows can scroll vertical lists).
Makes me think seeing your ice-dream in a show window, but they opened no window between the counter and the back lab / fridge room, so they have to call DHL to get your ice-cream on your table: what you get is a squish-squash, bugs fell in on the way, and the cup leaks. Of course they give you a fork instead of a spoon.
Right-click this!
MoSe posted 04-06-99 08:13 AM ET
Forgot one good:
My vote to place on all SMAC boxes on the shelves an ad stamp with edromia's slogan:
"FIRAXIS: we don't really have a damn clue what we're doing, but we're willing to give it our best shot. Try to ignore all the bugs."

I'd buy 10.
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Author	Topic: Firaxis' Greatest FAILURE: The Design Workshop [This one is dedicated to Pique]
yin26	posted 04-02-99 05:40 AM ET Brian Reynolds and crew made the assertion last December that they were the team with experience. THEY were the ones who had "been down" the game creation road before. The Activision team, according to him, had little chance of making a balanced game. His "best" example? The number of units, particularly the special units in CtP, were "obvious" clues that Activision simply doesn't understand the delicate art of TBS. However, I submit to you the Unit Workshop in SMAC. First, Firaxis itself was proud to boast that such a system allows for "a million" distinct units, with an endless combination of special abilities and unit chasis to do your dirty work. CtP, on the other hand, has but a handful of units by comparison. Using Brian's own logic, who designed the more unbalanced game? At least in CtP, the relatively limited unit selection, even though it includes some novel ideas, is both easier to manage and far more difficult to abuse. SMAC's design workshop, in contrast, is both unwieldy and capable of creating enormous unbalance--particularly against an AI that didn't even have missle ranges programmed properly into it let alone the "intelligence" to deal with infinitely individualized units. At least in CtP the AI is already well aware of the special units and, by many reports, can both defend against and use them well. To conclude, Firaxis, far from being the veteran team with the so-called hard-earned vision of what a balanced TBS truly is, has but shown themselves to be something on the order of the Bumbling Professor: Great brilliance, perhaps--but little ability to relate to the real world, OUR world as gamers. With SMAC's Design Workshop as proof, Firaxis has produced little more than a amateurish effort to unite endless customability with balanced gameplay. Clearly, they are incapable of doing so. [Kalahari--take some notes.]
sphinx_1981	posted 04-02-99 07:05 AM ET yin26,your points make sense but your conclusions are ridiculous. the customizable units allow players to "invent" their own strategies. it is not about "balance" but about the ability to design units towards a purpose. sure, the ai may not be able to defend against such "new" strategies but that shouldnt be a determining factor in limiting the players ability to think. no ai ever created has ever been truly smart enough to defend against an intelligent human player. a good example was kasparov's inevitable triumph over deep blue. if you have become tired of "cheating" the ai with "cheap" tactics why not start playing multiplayer. you make the point that the ctp ai is aware of all special abilities possible. what fun is that?!? the game obviously becomes a game of micromanagement and "work" rather than a game of strategy, thinking and ingenuity. obviously you need to go to the dictionary and find the reason behind playing games instead of making shallow statements about firaxis.
cousLee	posted 04-02-99 07:48 AM ET I agree with the comment that the DW is unweilding and hard to work with when you have a lot of units and discover a new reactor type, or capture(by probe) an AI base when that AI chose diffrent unit designs that are now also part of your unit roster, but unbalancing? no. i agree the AI does some stupid stuff, but that has no affect on the DW interface. Apples and oranges yin. I agree with a lot that you have posted in other threads, but not this time. the DW interface and game balance are 2 diffrent things.
edromia	posted 04-02-99 09:16 AM ET I can only speak for myself, Yin, but personally, you would irritate me a lot less if you would quit couching your criticisms in terms of "assertions" made about the game company's reputation and instead judge the game on its own merits. I could give a rat's ass about what the BR-SM team says about themselves. It's advertising; obviously it's designed to put them in the best light possible. What would you have done if you were in charge of PR? I can see the glossy ads in gamers' magazines: "FIRAXIS: we don't really have a damn clue what we're doing, but we're willing to give it our best shot. Try to ignore all the bugs." Sales would go through the roof, sure. The design workshop interface is poor, yes. So far it hasn't overshadowed my enjoyment of the game, but it is a weakness. You have my sympathy. I'm not convinced that it cripples the AI's effectiveness; you might ask some of the folks over in the TI threads what they think. That's my informed opinion, and any self-promoted Firaxis hype is entirely irrelevant to it. You, on the other hand, seem to have taken the discrepancy between opinion and hype as a personal affront. Do you disagree with me? Get a good night's rest and then re-read your post up there. Bottom line is: if you've got a beef with the interface or the AI, beef about the interface or the AI. If you have a beef with some perceived disingenuousness on the part of Firaxis, beef about that, but 1) don't mix the two, and 2) you should have known better. Anyone who buys a game purely on the claims of the game's creators deserves precisely what they get. -M. Incidentally, the oddest thing about this post is that I really wasn't expecting it from you at this point. You seem to have taken a sharp backslide into viciousness since CTP came out. Any thoughts on why that is?
Pique	posted 04-02-99 10:06 AM ET Thanks Yin! My universe is back on track...just in time, I could only sleep about 3 hours last night after Kalamari's (whatever) post. Lucid criticism, rational responses...gotta love it. Before everyone jumps on Yin again, see a thread titles "CTP gets perfect score." Pique
edromia	posted 04-02-99 10:36 AM ET yin: Just read Kalahari's, er, critique down in "CTP gets perfect score," and now I find I have to lighten my stance a little bit. Just a little bit, though. Even gadflies need gadflies. So, uh, do you have any insightful comments about the relative, uh, "gayness" of SMAC vs. CTP? -M.
Glak	posted 04-02-99 11:39 AM ET not counting most special abilities Alpha Centuari has very few units. Pretty much (I haven't played a game that lasted to the later techs) these are the units and their roles: colony pod (colonizing) rover (field combat) infantry attacker (seiging cities) infantry defender (defense) probe team (being mean) artillary (yeah I can't spell) tanks missles planet busters (yahoo I love these things!) bomber fighter former (which I hear it doesn't really use) sea based versions native life forms transports I think I got them all, or at least most. Although none of my games have lasted to the high tech stages I think this is pretty much it. The computer looks at each unit and has it do stuff. Giving them radar or making them trained units doesn't really matter, especially since the computer just plain cheats when it comes to vision. It doesn't even really need to understand the special abilites, it just needs to know when to toss them on. Lots of rovers? Get ECM on those guys. Then it just uses the unit like it was before. I wouldn't really call the design workshop bad or good, it is just how the game it. I do think that the interface could be much better. When I go to upgrade an obsolete unit it moves the cursor (selection thing I mean) to what the unit was upgraded to. While this may seem logical it is very poor design. Right afterwards I have to go all the way back through the slow scroll bar by repeatedly hitting the arrow just to get back to the next obsolete unit. What it should do is scroll if you have your arrow over the cursor. Also it is too slow, probably because it has to redraw all those 3d units. It should make those small pictures 2d. How hard would it be to quickly make a 2d picture out of every unit once you make it in the design shop? Then you could use the picture in the scroll bars and that menu (build screen I think it is called). Everything moves way too slow (I am not talking about the memory leak either).
Imran Siddiqui	posted 04-02-99 03:54 PM ET Ah yes, the Yin we all know and love. I guess hwe was tired of being assimlated (resistance is futire!). Oh well, welcome back, old Yin . Imran Siddiqui
CBH	posted 04-02-99 05:30 PM ET Pray enlighten us what you would have designed in place of the Unit Workshop, Yin. Nothing like a disparaging post with absolutely no attempt at suggesting something better.
Xentropy	posted 04-02-99 10:20 PM ET It's a Yin thread. You have to expect poorly thought out criticisms and no attempt at recommendation of a fix.
PrinceBimz	posted 04-03-99 12:04 AM ET Actually Yin, those are your opinions and I do believe they are not my visions. The Design Workshop a failure? This is one of my favorite things about SMAC and I am sure alot of others love it also. Come on, do you see everything that you can do with it? All kinds of units for different things. AI can be worked on but does that make it a failure? Anyway SMAC has some the best ratings I have ever seen for a game so far in magazines, websites, charts you name it. So obviously, Firaxis has done something very right here which is create an outstanding game. You say "a million" units with endless combinations? Nope not a million and not endless but definitely alot which is 32,000. You think Brian has SMAC more unbalanced then CTP? Well, CTP has been out for only a few days now thats it. How can you determine how balanced CTP is compared to SMAC in only a few days? Now I had posted my thoughts about CTP and SMAC compared in a post below which could change after playing CTP more. Now, indeed CTP is a great game and have you seen the people involved in creating it? Man, almost as many people as it takes to make a movie I have never seen that many names in a game's credits EVER before. So anyway the CTP team is HUGE! You say Firaxis being far from the veteran team??? Man, where do you think CIV and CIV2 came from? Activision's CTP team??? It was Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds, its their game and their design. If it were not for Brian CTP would not exist. Activision had a design(Brian's)to work with already. All they had to do was make it look better, sound better, and add more thats it. Don't sound to tough to me, nothing like starting an entire new idea. Game programing and design is an art that not everyone has and I know who the best is. Well, you can use the Design Workshop as your proof of faiulure but its my proof of some of what makes the game great. I give SMAC and Firaxis a FULL 5 STARS just like ALL the rest of the world! Thumbs up, and keep up the good work gentlemen!
Gyromancer	posted 04-03-99 10:18 AM ET I think the real problem with the DW is that the UI is soooo unwieldy. on my 133, scrolling through the #@%%# unit list takes about 60 seconds of my undivided attention in the late game, then when you upgrade or obsolete something it plops you out to some other part of the list. I found a pretty neat workaround, which involved right clicking on the unit in the production list. (hmm, wouldn't it have been nice to have that list available in the DW) Unfortunately, they "fixed" that feature in the 3.0 patch. (Now right clicking gives only production queue options) I think one of the real problems behind the scenes here is that turning off animations in the preferences does NOT turn off animations in the DW. Sigh ....
Aredhran	posted 04-03-99 05:30 PM ET Gyromancer: I asked the same question a few days ago, and someone (can't remember who) gave me the answer... In the menu that appears when you right-click on a unit, the last option is "Help". Select that, and it will bring the DW up. (If it's a base facility or SP, you'll get the Datalinks). Hope this helps -Aredhran
Xentropy	posted 04-04-99 10:00 PM ET Also, to help with scrolling in the DW, pageup pagedown home and end all work as if it were a vertical list... much better than one box at a time scrolling...
CrayonX	posted 04-05-99 12:47 PM ET Call me stupid (uh oh) but I agree with Yin. The DW is unweilding and clunky. I think they were more concerned about the funky spinning 3D effect than the actual interface. Call me lazy (boy, I'm just asking for it) but I just revert to the new default designs every time, and with auto governor, auto formers, and watching the Simpsons between each turn at the end game, I haven't lost a game yet. I liked the MOO2 design interface much better. CrayonX
Zero	posted 04-05-99 01:10 PM ET Now that you can make a design obsolete from the build screen, you don't have to deal with the bad workshop interface nearly as much. It also helps if you turn auto-design off; damn thing just never understands that I want AAA on everything. CrayonX, it sounds like you've hit on a really challenging way to play - let the automation run everything. Have you tried automating half your military too?
Darkstar	posted 04-05-99 02:16 PM ET I have automated everything. You can do this and WIN on the lowest 2 levels. I did it initially just to see the AI in action. On Large Spaghetti land masses, I still turn over about 1 in 6 or 8 military units. It can be most entertaining watching you older rovers patrol back and forth across the land. :-) And it really lets you see that brain dead AI in action. Most interesting see what your troops can do that you can't. For those of you who have experimented like this, have you seen your Rovers suddenly tear off for parts unknown so that they can overrun an undefended base of a treaty-mate? I have. I have seen them tear into the fungus to kill probe teams... amazing what your troops can do on their own sometimes... And despite all their ESPer abilities, they can't manage to do a coordinated (or sustained) assault... :-) -Darkstar
GreasyPig	posted 04-05-99 03:11 PM ET I love the idea of workshop. My only complaint is that its not deep enough. I wish it had been more like Moo2. The problem is that there is little encouragement to use the older technologies, besides a very small price drop. Why would you build a unit using the older weapons and defense. It will probably die on the first encounter with any adequate enemy. You mind as well build the latest at a high price so it will at least last you a while. THIS WAS NO PROBLEM IN MOO2. In moo2, every hull had a certain capacity. That capacity improves with inventions and technology. Unless there was a very special reason, it almost always benafits a player to use the older (more mature) weapons. Because these could be improved and systematicly made smaller so that they 1 cost less and 2 you could use more of them to get the same effect as some of the latest weapons. This was INTEGRAL to MOO2's success IMOHO. I like SMAC. With patch 3, I find I like it more each time I play. But as far as the workshop (geezz, they could have done so much here). I find I always build nearly the exact units every game. GreasyPig
CrayonX	posted 04-06-99 03:12 AM ET Automate everything...hmmmm... I really wished SMAC provided more of a challenge. I really tried to enjoy it. Unfortunately the design workshop and the fact that I can automate everything while I pick my teeth isn't a game, in my opinion. The design shop seems more like a chore. Unlike Civ2, where the outcome always varied regardless of the formulatic AI, I find SMAC too repetitive in nature. Why should I be able to build 10 cities in less than 25 turns? I know this is SCI FI but come on! In Civ2 at least there was some semblance of a struggle to survive, even on the easiest levels. Kind of ironic that it's the same guys who made both games. Anyhoo, back to the Design Workshop, I agree with the comment that MOO2 made more "sense" in terms of micro-manufacturing. Here in SMAC the units all look the same yadda yadda yadda. I haven't played SMAC in almost 3 weeks. Actually I'm hooked on a neat little game by that Chris Sawyer guy, Roller Coaster Tycoon. Now THAT'S what I call a design shop!!! Sure, the graphics are antiquated, but who cares?!!! But, that's another topic for another day... CrayonX
Zoetrope	posted 04-06-99 04:34 AM ET To be fair, you can't tell what's in an enemy's MOO2 starship by looking at its exterior shape, especially not at a distance on the main map. Many people found MOO2 to have fallen into micromanagement traps that the same (Steve Barcia's SimTeX) team avoided cleverly in MOO1. But yes, the UDW is a serious chore, and the jumping of the cursor after an upgrade or a retirement of a design is very, very, very annoying. And there are more problems with changing to the wrong unit (eg, a chopper when we were working on a garrison troop) and badly timed retention of a unit name. (No, I don't want to call this land or air unit a Sub Carrier.) As I've said before, there are many loose threads in this product. A glaring example is when you go into the Scenario Editor and rest the mouse pointer over one of the painting glyphs: the bubble help for one pattern refers to 50-70% water. Huh? This isn't a random world generation option, you know Brian, it's a paintbrush! By what Firaxis have said on these forums, they divided the task of testing the game wrongly between the official QA company and volunteer beta testers. I cannot believe that the volunteers missed any of these obvious flaws that my ordinary eyes noticed immediately; but their brief, as represented by Brian's statements here, excluded them from having any input on those issues. Very, very bad mistake. A great game, but fix these practical interface flaws (which will nag until they are fixed) and it will be improved another substantial notch on the enjoyment merit scale. Please, just do it!
MoSe	posted 04-06-99 07:58 AM ET The more I read, the more I get angry. Are Windows API copyrighted? Couldn't they stick to windows API? A focus? A scroll-bar? DW is a great idea, and one of the weakest interfaces in the game. In one place no way using movement keys. In the next one you drop them and you discover they work the opposite way (usually horizontal arrows can scroll vertical lists). Makes me think seeing your ice-dream in a show window, but they opened no window between the counter and the back lab / fridge room, so they have to call DHL to get your ice-cream on your table: what you get is a squish-squash, bugs fell in on the way, and the cup leaks. Of course they give you a fork instead of a spoon. Right-click this!
MoSe	posted 04-06-99 08:13 AM ET Forgot one good: My vote to place on all SMAC boxes on the shelves an ad stamp with edromia's slogan: "FIRAXIS: we don't really have a damn clue what we're doing, but we're willing to give it our best shot. Try to ignore all the bugs." I'd buy 10.