Yeah, Nexii, that is the typical stuff built. Not much variety.
I wish that combat losses were determined by the defender's weapon strength -- not armor. It makes no sense that a 1-6-1 can inflict huge casualties on anything! Indeed, it should absorb a lot of damage, but it shouldn't deal much out.
I think the mechanics of combat should be split into two parts:
1. Compare attacker's Weapon vs defender's Armor to determine defender's losses.
2. Compare attacker's Armor vs defender's Weapon to determine attacker's losses.
A 6-6-1 should be a very powerful and useful unit. But currently, building a 6-1-1 and a 1-6-1 are a far more effective combo for not much difference in default cost.
Yeah, Nexii, that is the typical stuff built. Not much variety.You're taking issue with a simplistic combat simulation not reflecting reality, yet ignoring the reality that infantry units carry supplementary weapons. Well, really, I should say combat units and perhaps supplementary systems. Infantry units have used antitank missiles, RPGs, antitank mines, satchel charges, etc. Tanks have machine guns, and various defenses against antitank weapons have been employed. Airplanes have chaff and flares to distract missiles. Why wouldn't future units have the futuristic equivalents?
I wish that combat losses were determined by the defender's weapon strength -- not armor. It makes no sense that a 1-6-1 can inflict huge casualties on anything! Indeed, it should absorb a lot of damage, but it shouldn't deal much out.
I think the mechanics of combat should be split into two parts:
1. Compare attacker's Weapon vs defender's Armor to determine defender's losses.
2. Compare attacker's Armor vs defender's Weapon to determine attacker's losses.
A 6-6-1 should be a very powerful and useful unit. But currently, building a 6-1-1 and a 1-6-1 are a far more effective combo for not much difference in default cost.
Modding Yitzi's variables can address this somewhat.
Avalon, I hadn't thought of a 1-4-1 Silksteel Sentinel having any weaponry other than a pea-shooter. If it has a supplementary anti-something weapon, maybe that could be described by a special ability (AAA, SAM).
But this doesn't make sense for a 1-4-1 vs 1-4-1 battle. Would there be anti-infantry supplementary guns?
The way I envision it, a battle between a 1-4-1 and a 1-4-1 should be a pillow-fight. The battle might result in less than 25% damage dealt to each unit -- similar to an arty duel between land and sea units.
However, a 4-1-1 vs 4-1-1 should be a blood-bath. Neither has any armor! Both should take heavy damage. To the death! As it is now, the attacker easily wins 99.9% of the time. Of couse, this is exactly how Firaxis wants it. It is their game. I'm voicing my opinion, my dreams.
A 4-1-1 vs a 1-4-1 should be moderately destructive. Both ratios are 1:1, 4 vs 4 and 1 vs 1. I'm not sure if it should be a fight to the death...
It might be more realistic to make armor reduce damage taken, but would be more difficult to balance.
And since by default armor is costly on all but infantry
Unless the "duel to the death" mechanic is changed, there's not much difference between "reduce damage taken" and "increase damage dealt".
I have, perhaps the greatest request of you. And I know that it would not be priority but I see the potential for amazing things and so I must ask:
Would it be possible to change combat substantially?
My ideal would that morale would be a hard number, not a % bonus. This number would influence your likelihood to "win" a given combat round: damage the enemy and not get damaged. % Modifiers in all the other ways they exist, could and should still exist. They wouldnt even need to be changed. But the Base numbers would be morale. + modifiers could be differentiated into attack and defense bonii. (So the base number would be a set morale, and modifiers to morale would improve offense or defense base numbers). This would be an added flavor bonus, since the command nexus blurb explicitly talks about how well thought out plans can beat technology, even with inferior force.
Weapons and armor then, would have new function. I have long wished for armor to either represent raw hitpoints/power (NOT REACTORS) and for weapons to be essentially a "firepower" mechanic which determines how much damage is done in a given "win" of a combat round.
I would like reactors to remain about the cost of the unit, but perhaps they could serve some other function as well.
I agree wholeheartedly that this would mean that combat would have to be limited to a set amount of rounds (perhaps a combination of the reactors of both units? Higher reactors = more rounds of combat?)
What I have in mind is essentially longer versions of the "Artillery duels" but for standard units. Artillery themselves would be very useful - because stack bunching is a natural consequence of this change - and artillery can damage multiple units at once - lending them increased utility.
Given all this, i firmly believe SOME things should be all or nothing. In particular: PSI and anti-air combat. Things that can attack the air from the ground should get one shot at it, and if it hits - death. Air v Air should be to the death. Here, perhaps reactors could serve as they do now - distance increasers - very very useful for air superiority. (Especially when modded with your tools).
Yitzi,
My ideas are a bit muddled I admit, and I'm trusting your own judgment on what might be possible, and indeed, preferable.
I am not sure of formula, but I have a general idea of what i'd like as a result of it.
Rough Idea:
5 Main features of any given unit:
Chasis
(Morale)
Weapon
Armor
Reactor
:Chasis:
As it is, the chasis functions as the mobility of the unit - I see no reason to alter or change this, the function is intuitive and pretty good. (Though I raise speeder speed to 3, and hovertanks to 5 - to allow for APC uses on speeders, it changes the game very little.)
:Morale:
The biggest change I'd like is for Morale to be the fundamental decider of capability of a unit. The skill of the unit if you will.
I imagine that Very Green, Green, Disciplined, Hardened, Veteran, Commando and Elite would all have specific "base" combat values.
Possibility 1- The formula here should roughly run a spectrum between the attack value of 1 to 30ish (as weapons do) The defense value should run between 1 and 12 as armor does. If we can create a Morale system which reflects this - then the rest of the game doesnt need its numbers changed. (possibly)
I read the treatise on Morale by someone, and I admit I dont understand quite how the + and ++ modifiers work. I was and am hoping you do.
Possibility 2 - Perhaps there could be a base of 3 attack to 2 defense (seems to work well for PSI) and Morale, instead of adding % bonii, could provide a direct additive bonus. Perhaps 1 per level? And perhaps + and ++ (depending on what they're meant for) could provide bonuses to attack or defense specifically. This would make Elite INCREDIBLY accurate and nimble against very green troops. But instead of determining the whole of battle - it would merely determine if the unit "scored a hit" against the opponent.
Possibility 3 - We use the 3:2 model directly, and continue to use Morale as % bonii, changing nothing else. However this feels so similar to PSI combat, that players might feel confused or befuddled by graphical information describing the battle.
This may also necessitate a very fundamental shift in the way morale is distributed, gained and lost. Preferably there would be a increasing difficulty to gain higher and higher level troops. I would think perhaps that military buildings and combat itself should provide the raw base morale, and other morale modifiers should come in offensive and defensive flavors. SE and Faction choices should obviously have an important role to play, but I'm uncertain if that should be offense/defense bonii/penalty specialties - or raw morale. (See below) Base morale should be an investment found in combat and proper infrastructure.
Also - i think Morale gains should occur for surviving units - not necessarily killing units. If two units fight and neither dies, both should have a possibility of a morale upgrade. Combat Morale upgrades might have to be tweaked to be even rarer.
Example Morale distribution:
Default Morale: Green
Appropriate Military Building: +1 Base Morale
Bioenhancement: +1 Base Morale
High Morale specialty: +1 Base Morale
Combat Promotions: +1 Base Morale
0 MORALE: No change
-1 to -4: Base: Very Green, -1 to -3 MORALE on defense (- mods?)
+1 to +4: Base: Disciplined, +1 to +3 MORALE on offense (+ mods?)
(At first i wanted these to be the opposite, but given the variety of % bonus to defense, and minimal to offense, i figured this should be how it works given that low-morale tend to be builders, and high-morale tend to be armies) Low morale on the attack and high morale on the defense would be almost even. However, the reverse would be a HEAVY advantage to the high morale., meaning the builder should counter attack often.
The reverse, low=-offense and high=+defense, means (i think) that fights would be even longer, and high-morale bases could not be taken nearly ever from low-morale attackers.
Other Facilities: (Creche and others?) +1 Defensive Morale or as appropriate.
Native life: As normal? Not sure how this works
Other modifiers?: ? Not sure of what else is involved.
I feel like these changes would also influence a few special abilities nicely: Soporific Gas pods, Dissociative Wave and Blink Displacer
:Weapon: I would like this to be the "damage" inflicted, at perhaps a 1:1 ratio between rating and damage against the target. E.g. an Impact unit would do 4 damage against it's opponent for every successful "hit" it scores.
:Armor: This I imagine is 10 * the armor rating of the unit - in power/hp. So synthemetal sentinels would have 20 hp. Plasma sentinels would have 30, as would the res and pulse versions, however they'd get bonii to fighting (still hit bonii/morale/combat, not damage reduction). Given this - it might mean that armor will need to be changed to accommodate the ever increasing damage of weapons somehow. Perhaps just a raw .txt file boost. (It takes a 1-1-1*1 unit 10 shots to kill a 1-1-1*1 ; but it takes a 12-8-1*1 only 7 shots to kill another, etc)
:Reactor: Cost-alone, as you said, may be sufficient, given that "higher cost" units will now be in greater demand.
***
If done right - a lot of combat should be "similar to" but "more solid" than existing combat.
All of this would necessitate significant changes to the interface describing combat result possibilities.
***Desired Results***
Given the above, units could still serve their respective purposes, generally. But the AI favors counter attack heavily anyway - and this would suit that end. Armored units would be very effective at slowing advances, or generally slowing combat down, allowing time for players or AI to counter attack with other more heavily weaponed units (which they do now anyway). But defense units could not kill on their own - unless the attacker was very poorly armored - making this effective against support units (artillery or pure attack units.)
Support and Non-combat units shouldnt do damage at all to attackers. But perhaps if they win a given combat round they "escape" and combat immediately ends? Non-combat penalties would still apply, so the possibility of escape is still low. Plus given that unit death in general is much slower - they'll tend to survive longer anyway. Though, by the impact era the odds of a unarmored-non-combat unit surviving an attack from a impact attack unit should be relatively low and probably near impossible for a missile unit.
Pure weapon units would still be viable, but would be primarily for swarm (cheapness) tactics. As the deathtoll would be high.
Finally the Weapon+Armor units that exist would finally justify their exorbitant costs.
Tactics arising from this could be cheap and underteched units - but ones that are excellent fighters. Built en mass, they may take forever to accomplish their goal, but they could achieve it.
Also, high tech but few units could accomplish much the same thing - for opposing reasons.
The middleground, held by the ai - would still do well with this, I should hope.
***
Thanks for even considering it! If you have a simpler way to achieve immersive results, let's just assume I'm a fan of it.
-Qes
EDIT: Distance increasers = Speed boosts from reactor, which effectively increases distance.
EDIT2: Also It'd be preferable to have the results of PSI combats look identical to how they are now. Deadly, absolute, and 3:2 on land, etc. This would make it feel even more different than regular combat.
EDIT3: Oh, and if at all possible, Needlejets and Gravship units attacking non-air-superiority units should function like artillery.
EDIT4(i'll stop now i swear): Is it possible to have artillery attacks in city squares have a % chance of destroying a facility? Maybe like 1%( /5 for command center, /5 for pressure dome, /20 for tachyon field) per weapon rating? Best weapon would have a 30% chance, reduced significantly for each building present. (Perimeter defense doesnt sound like hard bunkers, but a relay/network of scouts)
And is it possible for there to be A) the destruction of a pressure dome for a sea base by this (or probe teams), AND for this to have consequences? (like when sea levels rise? - emergency domes are again constructed but with half the population dying.)
I think the best approach would be to multiply the 3:2 or 1:1 (depending on land or sea/air, i.e. the same ratio as for psi) by the morale value. The question is then what range morale should take (it can go fairly high; 100 would be quite doable, I think), and exactly how it should be affected by promotions and bonuses.
I don't think low MORALE giving a penalty just on defense is such a good approach. I think it might make more sense for them both to affect primarily offense, so that when builders fight the defender has an advantage but when warlike factions fight the attacker has an advantage.
Everything else you asked about would be doable...but I think that when sea levels rise and a base without a pressure dome ends up in the water, there isn't an emergency dome built, but rather the base is completely destroyed.
I think the tendency would be to require full weapon + armor on all units.
That's not bad, as tech should be rewarded.
I did try some games with units costing 100+ and what happens then is that native life ends up being universally superior.I think in this kind of game they'd make a great niche unit. Essentially - excellent shock troops. But defense would be questionable if PSI-combat always leads to a kill.
Slower wars where less units are outright killed might not be a bad thing either. As I play more, I find that ideally you do not war all that much unless you vastly out skill your opponent, or you had a vastly superior start by luck. Granted the AI doesn't play this way for thematic reasons. What tends to happen with the current A/D paradigm is that even if you build a lot of defensive units, they lack initiative. An attacker can just circumvent around a heavily fortified city and conquer everything else, or wait to artillery down the stack. I think one thing that might help would be to allow retreating for slower units even in battles where the attacker is faster. I guess what I'm getting at is whether intuitiveness really helps much versus balance.
When you make all units requiring weapon and armor, counters then have to revolve around chassis and special abilities. Otherwise you just end up with a different single unit type which dominates everything.I dont think it's requisite - it's merely a new viability. Previously there were fewer and fewer reasons to have "weapon+armor" type units as the game progresses. Now there is a reason, but it doesnt negate the specialists.
So then you have to look at unit functionality, and where they should be strong.
Infantry - powerful for attacking and defending cities (these bonuses exist).
Rovers/Tanks - powerful in open terrain (this bonus exists).
A few of the triangles of 'rock/paper/scissors' would go:
Non-AAA Rovers/Tanks beat AAA infantry, which beat Air, which beat non-AAA Rovers/Tanks
Non-AAA Sea units beat AAA sea units, which beat Air, which beat non-AAA sea units
Non-ECM land beats ECM land, which beats Rovers/Tanks, which beat non-ECM land
Non-Trance/Empath beats Trance/Empath, which beats PSI, which beats non-Trance/Empath.
And so on. I guess what I mean is that all units need to have a cost effective counter. So special abilities need to be strong and also have a cost (which they tend to).
I do like the idea of reactors increasing speed of all units, rather than affecting unit cost and HP. I think then you would see more war as the game goes on. War would still be best avoided early game. You have to conquer an enemy very fast to make it worth it, especially when a lot of their facilities get smashed and then considering the C&B drones. Plus far bases tend to have high energy loss, and cities beyond your largest pact mate also produce much less energy. Generally I've found 'more crawlers/formers' better than another city.
1-1 to start the game for A:D ratio isn't typical. The game quickly goes to 4-2 with rovers, and 6-3 around the time of air. I would say 2:1 is the standard, though it goes beyond 4:1 almost for awhile with Shard 13-3 being typical. 5 rounds to kill an enemy troop is still quite awhile, compared to just one round currently. You'd want to keep more defense for sure if armor was boosted up. For example a 10-6 would be 50% stronger than a 13-3...in fact you might see armor tech beelining since armor effectively multiplies weapons which are twice as strong. Although by doing so you would sacrifice weapons, so it'd be okay I think.
Would it be better to have it a multiplicative or additive benefit? I sorta imagine each level of morale to have a different base, which is then modified by % modifiers.
So, Default 3:2. -1 for Very Green, 0 for Green, +1 per level above green. This would put the best attack ratio at 8:1 before modifiers, and the best defense ratio at 2:7.
If we allow + modifiers to extend beyond "levels" (and be just further additional increases), then we could have 11:1 best attack ratio, and 2:10 best defense ratio.
Would it be desirable for the top and bottoms of morale to be further apart? I worry for low-morale builders.
A thought occurred to me on PSI combat. MORALE probably should not influence native-lifeforms base-level growth. One should not increase the quality of their produced lifeforms with MORALE settings, I feel. This would make Native-Life more fickle. Perhaps we can make it solely influenced by PLANET? PLANET ratings equate to MORALE settings for produced life forms? Makes planet a bit more interesting. And would set up some fun Gaian vs Spartan immersion - considering the "high morale" spartans lose to low morale gaians in the story.
Though to be honest, I never really sussed out how MORALE settings affected native life, it seemed influential but strange. MORALE in general operates strangely, so I might be mistaken here as to what is happening between them
Actually that sounds kind of awesome. It might cut down on sea-spam. Especially if we have "ships attacking sea bases" be artillery based - just like when they attack land bases.
Why do this? Because it makes thematic sense, and would be more purely destructive. Other ships in harbor would prevent this - it'd be ships fighting, not shelling the base. Plus if we include that pressure domes reduce the possibility of facility destruction anyway - it wouldnt be THAT big of a problem - and would force different means of seabase capture. (Choppers or Amphibious infantry). More seabases would tend to be destroyed outright, keeping the oceans somewhat volatile.
Probeteams: Erm...hm, can we simply make this difficult to pull off? Perhaps an atrocity? (Specifically for that facility in a seabase only?
SE Questions:
Is it possible to extend some SE qualities beyond their base? Like could we provide benefits for higher levels of POLICE, bigger ranges of consequences for PROBE and SUPPORT and ECONOMY?
Mostly because beyond very early, infiltrate will let you see it coming a mile away. Now if PROBE modified infiltrate, that would change things.
Well if you make it so unit HP = 10*armor value, then unarmored air and rovers will only have 10 HP. That won't be very useful when standard ground troops have 30 HP (Plasma) plus hit back for their weapon damage, and then add in things like ECM/AAA.
Currently the defensive aspect is based around 2:1 ratio (arguably flawed) and having every unit attack with its weapon would change that to 1:1.
If fights are not to the death so much then I suppose the attacker can get away with fighting battles that result in more damage taken to them. I still say it's very hard and not worth it to conquer an equally skilled player; even in the climate of very aggressive and fast styles like chop and drop or rover rushing.
Mostly because beyond very early, infiltrate will let you see it coming a mile away. Now if PROBE modified infiltrate, that would change things.
Now this can be changed too, ironically by lowering building costs you can make a more aggressive game. Players can choose whether to then sink that into pods/formers/crawlers (play economic), or probes and army (play aggressive). Both should have their merits.
Making PLANET give +native lifecycles would probably make more sense than the current +10% PLANET on attack per rank. But it's pretty similar end effect really. PLANET can already be quite powerful especially if you mod ecodamage. Ecodamage should be the main consideration for PLANET rating...native life capture and use secondary. INDUSTRY should only relate to minerals production though. Making INDUSTRY boost energy doesn't really make sense to me. INDUSTRY already synergizes with both itself and energy production very well (due to build rush). Probably INDUSTRY should have been a production modifier rather than cost modifier. Cost modifier means many exploits such as where you tank and then raise INDUSTRY to complete an SP fast using supply crawlers. INDUSTRY thus being something like +X minerals per base, or +X minerals per square (more elegantly, perhaps just -X%/+X% minerals production). ECONOMY should only factor in for energy production and commerce. I suppose nutrients consumed is a decent idea but that would fit more with higher levels of the GROWTH SE. Making higher GROWTH affect N production would be another idea. But I think you'd see potential starvation if you switched out of the SE. That could be the risk I suppose if vendetta was declared on you. The current way GROWTH is handled is pretty good I'd argue as it doesn't allow you to outgrow your natural N production. The main flaw is that sometimes you can't get +1N from that next worker (usually due to drone control, but it could result from bad terrain, or more rarely no more terrain). A base that's just grown will immediately starve resulting in all the N used to make that worker to be lost. I think the fix for that in Civ2 was to make it so a base that grows only uses half its nutrients (to give some reasonable time to convoy or increase N, a city would never consume all its food at once in typical circumstances). Once you use pop booming later in the game this isn't seen as much, since it requires +2N the next worker will usually be fed whether it is a PSYCH specialist or not.
I feel another logical inconsistency in SMAC is the way that PSI and conventional weapons are used. You can see the developers didn't really think this design through when looking at how conventional artillery vs PSI defender is treated.
I don't think that a non-PSI unit would be downgrading to hand weapons ('1', though multiplied to '3' on attack or '2' on defense) vs a PSI unit.
PSI armor, well that is also a complexity. Right now it's not that useful anyways. Most likely it could be changed to give HP dependent on MORALE (20*rank or something similar). That or it could be a true counter to PSI attack, giving a strong damage reduction when defending vs PSI (but low total HP, so conventional weapons crush it).
I feel like, strangely, this makes more sense. Builders, or the inexperienced would fight more desperate and aggressive struggles, while the experienced would be forced to calculate moves and tactics rather than mere strategy. But that's arguable and your point is well made.
Yeah, I realize that you're quite busy with your plans. (Which by the way took some severe investigatory work to find. Your work deserves a "features list" with your notes attached. A miniwiki of it's own: preferably including all that stuff from the "gonna do next" thread I saw.)
I always thought this should be slightly different too. Even with given rules. Yitzi - would it be possible to modify the Infiltrate Datalinks option to a time limit? Perhaps 10 or 20 years? We have to assume societiies upgrade their security every once in a while - which would require a new infiltration (and to notice it was absent).
IN FACT. If I had one superwish - it would be that we drop the concept of "minerals" and revert back to "production" of some kind abstractly. And I wish that we could have a specialist citizen who produces "minerals/production."
Hurrying units should be inexpensive in comparison to facilities, which in turn should be inexpensive compared to Secret Projects. Though I am personally of the belief that while secret projects are being built - both (local)economy AND minerals should add to their construction. (Perhaps make them more expensive to compensate)
I also feel like building colony pods should be constructed with nutrients AND minerals (again increasing expense as necessary)
I also generally wish population growth was separated from nutrient supply in general (as poor food-security nations tend to have higher population growth, and birthrates are not quite directly linked to food supplies), but that is an issue with abstraction that the whole of these games suffer from - so it's just quibbling at that point.
Speaking of which. THE BIGGEST MYSTERY IN SMAC is this:
How did the Gaians capture their first mind worm boil? I wanna know how that worked. Did the mindworm boil the Gaian scout patrol happen to find share an affinity for kale and they bonded? Mindworm submission is a strange idea. "Mom they followed me home, can I keep them?"
If it's not a fight to the death, then what you're saying makes sense.
However, if it is a fight to the death, then 1-4-1 vs. 1-4-1 would just keep on going until one side is dead. As such, you'd effectively end up with only one combat strength, similar to Civ4. Which has nothing wrong with it, but isn't how SMAC/X works.
If you describe exactly how you want things to go, I can make it an option at some point, though it probably won't be that high on the list.
Specialists for minerals/production could be fairly difficult...
I think low armored and low weapon units should be more discouraged than encouraged. It's really easy to say de-power this tech and that, and eventually you have little incentive to tech. Unit variety can come from chassis and ability choice. The exercise of trying to get the most cost efficient weapon and armor is a rather tedious one. For example, if you cost armor too high, then non-armored is more efficient vs PSI. Is that very intuitive? For that matter, is hand weapons being *more* cost effective vs PSI intuitive? I'd argue not. It's a bit silly...I think the devs intended conventional to be more neutral.
Probably both weapon and armor cost should be flat. At least that's what I'm going to experiment with next in a few games. It should make momentum feel more like it since you can upgrade units for free. I'll see how it goes though.
What about specialists that add marginal "industry" like effects? Like -5% mineral costs in that base? (2 specialists would equal a +1 industry effect in that base, essentially) would that be easier? Or is that giving new functions to specialists itself is the problem?
Generally the weapon/armor relationships is my biggest concern. Everything else is just mind gravy and still not very solid in my head for what I want. It would need wider discussion from the multiplayers and calculators out there.
I would like war to be more about the temporary "confinement" of a problem. A rival set back on his heels, perhaps indefinitely, but not eliminated. I think that captured cities should not be able to produce UNITS, of any kind, until the "captured base" problem goes away. They may produce facilities, and perhaps energy, but no units. As the only volunteers for the job should be mistrusted by both the rioters and the new occupational force. It would also mean that cities must be defended with the force BROUGHT to it. I also think Hurrying should be completely barred in the new city until the conquered problem is resolved, because contractors to finish projects, and facilities probably are untrustworthy. (Or at the very least, hurry costs should be quintupled.) I also think that if someon recaptures a base and liberates it - the base should experience a temporary (same as captured base length?) TALENT boost. The people are glad to be back with their faction - back to what they know. (Even if it's hive-life...people are comfortable with what they know). Or perhaps this can and should be influenced by SE mechanics.
I wish very much that citizens were assigned factions.
It'd be neat if a city could rebel and create units to fight small civil wars. As opposed to merely joining other factions.
I would like also for riots to increase drones in OTHER bases. As any leader who could allow his bases to descend that far into chaos could and should be questioned.
I also think that TALENT/DRONE ratios should greatly affect politics throughout the world. Having more talents should somehow be enviable. Having more drones should be looked down on. In fact, I wish we could complicate the "drone riot" mechanic all together.
A REALLY fun idea would be very difficult to implement:
When a base is captured, it produces automatically and instantly (but still costing minerals to the base and non-dispandable.) probe teams. The number would be equivalent to the number of excess talents (positive psyche) the city previously had. These probe teams would belong to the faction that lost the base. We could even call them "Dissenters." These probe teams would have a special kind of probe function, that would make ALL actions by them cost 0 credits, but they would not be able to convert military units. Instead, they'd have a kind of artillery function and could damage units only, they could also destroy improvements. Essentially they'd be similar to Paritsans from Civ2, but with diplomatic functions. Also they should retreat from EVERY battle as soon as they can. (Speeder mentality, but assumed loss at the start of combat). This would not apply if fighting a real probeteam.
The weapon/armor relationship, and the resulting effects on morale, also didn't seem quite that solid.
All this would probably be doable...When/if you get around to requests, I'll hope to endeavor to come up with some kind of design document to express my wish, something more concrete. Though, life can and does get in the way, I usually eventually come back to SMAC. Thanks for listening.
Probe teams don't actually cost support...and what you describe would probably be doable but fairly difficult.
The weapon/armor relationship, and the resulting effects on morale, also didn't seem quite that solid.
I hope the idea is understood, if not the implementation. :(
Do you have any design wishes that you're thinking on?
Right, I was hoping these special probe teams could require support.
But again, this is all just wishful thinking. The primary thing I want is to find a way to get over the immersion skip of weapons and armor purposes.
I want to see, depending on the conflict and such to have discontent with wars within the populace or support for it- I can't imagine a population mindlessly following their faction into every conflict without having an opinion. And from the wars in Afghanistan and for the Americans, Vietnam we all know full well how public opinion can have on the stability of a war effort, very much so if your population is motivated they will go over piles of their brethren to drive back the invader.
I want to see a morale system for populations, to have riots when people are discontent with how wars are going or if you are fighting to many wars, I want to see public discontent if you do certain atrocities as it sparks outrage amongst your people.
I want to have propaganda campaigns either to inspire my own people or to demoralize the enemy's, or to encourage others to revolt and rally to our banners.
This would be interesting mechanic, would like to see this.
Maybe each round of combat could inflict up to, let's say, 36%, instead?
The main idea is that a 6-1-1 vs a 6-1-1 battle should not be a nearly guaranteed victory for the initiator. Both should be nearly destroyed. I'd like to see this happen in SMAC!
Each of the combat rounds could be ineffective (0% damage dealt), marginal (18%, or half of maximum), or victorious (36%, or the maximum). The weapon/armor quotient would determine the probabilities.
For example, Fusion vs No Armor (10 vs 1) could be 95% victorious and 5% marginal per round.
Gun vs No Armor (1 vs 1) could be 50% victorious, 25% marginal, and 25% ineffective.
Gun vs Silksteel (1 vs 4) could be 12.5% victorious, 12.5% marginal, and 75% ineffective.
What do you think? I'm open to all sorts of ideas to greatly simplify the calculations.
That's good stuff to ponder, Yitzi.
Hmm...
I do like your term, "rocket tag", to describe combat between unarmored Missile Infantries.
I'm thinking about your example of 1-5-1 vs 1-5-1. I'm struggling to see how this pillow-fight can result in serious destruction, or be the bloodiest based on winner's final damage.
I think 8 rounds is plenty (i.e. 4 attacks, 4 counter-attacks) for Fission units or psi units. However, for Fusion reactors, maybe increase to 12 rounds? Some adjustment would need to be made for combat between differing reactor levels.
Should combat become more destructive as reactor values increase while Weapon/Armor ratios remain similar? I can imagine advanced-reactor units staying in the fight, pressing for a victory this year, not next year. Both sides are willing and able to take more damage.
In more detail, the probabilities of the 6-1-1 vs. 6-1-1 battle would come out roughly as follows:
41.4%: Initiator wins in first round, takes no damage.
24.3%: Defender wins in second round, with median loss around 20%.
17.7%: Initiator wins in third round, with median loss around 20%.
8.58%: Defender wins in fourth round, with median loss around 50%.
4.69%: Initiator wins in fifth round, with median loss around 50%.
1.96%: Defender wins in sixth round, with median loss around 60%.
0.881%: Initiator wins in seventh round, with median loss around 60%.
0.333%: Defender wins in eighth round, with median loss around 67%.
0.203%: Both combatants survive, taking damage around 67%.
In more detail, the probabilities of the 6-1-1 vs. 6-1-1 battle would come out roughly as follows:
41.4%: Initiator wins in first round, takes no damage.
24.3%: Defender wins in second round, with median loss around 20%.
17.7%: Initiator wins in third round, with median loss around 20%.
8.58%: Defender wins in fourth round, with median loss around 50%.
4.69%: Initiator wins in fifth round, with median loss around 50%.
1.96%: Defender wins in sixth round, with median loss around 60%.
0.881%: Initiator wins in seventh round, with median loss around 60%.
0.333%: Defender wins in eighth round, with median loss around 67%.
0.203%: Both combatants survive, taking damage around 67%.
How do you roughly calculate damage? For example, in Round#2 the victorious Defender suffers 20% damage. Would it be common to lose 10% or 30%? Is this distribution in the form of a steep bell curve?
I think part of the problem is that air units dont need armor so they are much cheaper than typical land units. There is a risk with building unarmored rovers in that if they get caught, they will likely die without putting up a fight. The risk just isnt there with air units so you get super cheap air units.
Also without any movement bonuses choppers have very limited range. 8 MPs basically means you can move 3 squares, attack 2 times then head back to base.
Because air units spend most of their time in a safe base or airbase. Unarmored rovers trekking across the map are really vulnerable once spotted.
Also since they are cheaper than rovers
But choppers dont get bonus MP from reactors as it is?
Unless you stack them with higher-armor units.
QuoteUnless you stack them with higher-armor units.
Sure but for every attack rover + defence rover you make, your opponent can make more than 2 air units focused soley on weapons without worrying about armor.
So for example if you have 2 attack rovers and 2 defence rovers with AAA, i have 4 (or more) choppers or needlejets. Since i have first strike, i also get the benefits of any offense abilities like sophoric pods, nerve gas, etc. You may or may not have terrain bonuses (you are going to have to cross open ground sooner or later) and even with a 50% defence bonus, its 4 attackers v 2 defenders so i can win via attrition. Once your defenders are gone, your weapon rovers are defenceless and can be picked off at my leisure.
? Wouldnt a missle air unit vs a plasma steel AAA defender be roughly 50-50?
You also have to look at expected mineral loss, not just the combat odds. If an air unit costs 40M and infantry 20M, and it's 50-50 combat odds, then the defender is coming out ahead. This is why infantry should cost less than air. Air will still have use for scouting, bombarding sensors, or multi attacking lone units. AAA although strong isn't a given on all land units as there are many other good abilities. For sea I'll agree that AAA is pretty much a given in one slot once you get it.
Yea, and rovers were probably somewhat overcosted by default (or air undercosted). The only advantage rovers really have is mobile vs open.
? Wouldnt a missle air unit vs a plasma steel AAA defender be roughly 50-50?
But that's not even levels of tech; missile is level 4 requiring 8 techs total (counting itself), and plasma steel is level 2 requiring 3 techs total. A better comparison would be missile vs. silksteel (level 4 requiring 10 techs total).
Of course, there is the issue of air power requiring Synthetic Fossil Fuels and nothing of significance until much later requiring Silksteel, but that can be fixed without my help.
Hmm i never really noticed that before, but i think its not an easy comparison tech wise because its much easier to get missles than to get silksteel.
Its probably easier to get chaos guns than silksteel actually...and the game does max out armor strength as half of weapon strength (up till AX added string disruptors).
So am i right to say that pre-air power, people spam armorless rovers for offence, but that doesnt work after you get air power because airpower is cheaper, so people switch to AAA armored infantry? But if everyone is using AAA infantry that makes air units useless...