Yitzi's unofficial SMAX patch 3.1e

[Question]

You have no shortage of nutrients, but are you able to support a large number of engineers and thinkers?

Not sure why i would want that. Every worker gives me 2 minerals/2 energy from a hybrid forest before bonuses. By the time i get access to advanced specialists, the game is pretty much over and its way too late to start a lengthy terraforming process. An engineer is 3 econ/2 labs before bonuses, which is 5 energy.

So lets say you have a energy bank, tree farm and hybrid forest at this stage giving a total of 150% to econ and a network node and research hospital giving 100% to labs. That engineer is giving you a total of 7.5 econ and 4 labs. A worker on a hybrid forest would give you 3 nutrients, 2 minerals, 3.5 energy and 3 labs. In terms of rush buying stuff, both are equal (the equivalent of 7.5 energy) but the engineer has 1 more lab. This assumes no energy lost to inefficiency. I suppose the engineer would be better if you were hitting the clean mineral limit easily, in a strictly forest or engineer scenario. Also switching from the auto-selected empaths to engineers constantly is annoying.

I did luck out in my current game and managed to find a base spot which was pretty high, so i tried solar collectors. The problems with it were that it took more than twice as long to terraform and was much more micro intensive and since i was getitng low food from arid tiles (and had no space for condensors), i had to rely on pop booming to grow the base. Also for it to be optimal i would need to leave a one tile layer of echelon mirrors beyond the base radius, which is not always possile due to map placement of resources, etc.

Relying on a rush buying strategy instead of minerals also created a micromanagement nightmare since you have to rush buy everything instead of queing a bunch of facilities and letting the base build them.

The first can be done with alphax.txt; the second wouldn't help much, I think, as I think it would automatically just lead into the existing river.

Yea i think it would help if the base turns were lowered, but allowing people to drill to aquifer adjacent to rivers allows you to essentially "fix" rivers that decide to flow somewhere totally unexpected or for some reason, makes a land drier, as well as auto placed rivers with bad flows. It also lets you fix rivers that have gone haywire after terrain elevation changes.

See pic, the initial square was moist, but after a river flows through it, it becomes arid for some reason....which makes no sense...sometimes creating another river nearby can completely alter a current river's flow for no clear reason, often with a worse result. RIght now its too random to use without the scenario editor checking before hand to see what the resulting river would look like.

What were your social engineering settings and tech?  A strong commerce rating in comparison to your opponents makes cornering a lot cheaper.[/qu

Ah i see, i was playing as morgan and had +4 economy, so that might have been why...it wasnt mentioned in the datalinks that the economy SE lowered the cost to corner the global energy market.

Just rocky.

It seems that you still need a road if you put a mine in a mineral bonus tile though?

I'm not sure what you mean.

I mean that any specialists still wont count as talents for the purpose of golden ages even with drones rule 8.

That's strange; scient's patch followed by mine should be the same as just mine.

But what about scient's patch without mine?

And what about scient's and Kyrub's but without mine?

I meant that without scient's patch and only your patch + the official patch, i was getitng lots of game breaking glitches like mouse cursor suddenly not responding, etc. I didnt try kyrub's patch because it was mared for AC and not AX. He doesnt want to send you any files by the way (see the reply he posted in his thread).

True, but that's not default and it's not fair to balance only with such a mod.

Okay but what is the point of having a land based gun bonus vs naval? Land based guns cost a lot less less than naval ones and can be hidden in any bases (including sea ones, where they still count as land based guns for some reason). It makes it pointless to use naval artillery since, IIRC, one land based gun can take on 3 naval guns of the same strength with ease, not to mention dragging the artillery duel out for several turns. It doesnt even make sense realism wise because naval ships can easily mount higher calibre guns.

By default its super easy to make a base immune to sea invasions. Just stick a few cheap infantry artillery units in there to prevent naval bombardment plus AAA to take care of air units. The enemy wont have any way to soften up defenses before attacking head on into naval yard + tachyon fields.

That sort of depends on how many minerals you're producing in the first place, doesn't it?  Plus, of course, on how fast your units die.

Not sure how it goes for everyone else, but my bases typically have one garrison + one former in the early game. If theres a war i try to have a rover as a quick response unit, plus a artillery unit to defend against bombards and when the enemy gets air power, at least two interceptors per front line base. Thats a lot of minerals for the bare essential defence force. Considering how slow infantry formers are, im often tempted to get a lot more to speed things up even with weather paradigm. Then factor in sea formers and a few naval units for coastal defence and you can have a base with 6+ minerals gone to support which is pretty significant.

I think it would help a lot if formers at least didnt have support requirements, just like probe teams. Imagine if you had to pay support for probe teams too...also the CM limit is calculated before subtracting minerals from support, so thats another incentive to be as mineral efficient as possible.

Another annoying thing about support is that you usaully have a base good for producing units but want it supported by another base, and there doesnt seem to be any way to do that other than produce the unit and painstakingly move it to another base, change the home base, then move it back to the frontline. Its much easier to not worry about that with clean reactors (or maxing out on SE support).

Forest instead of monolith doesn't really make in-game sense, though, the way that fungus instead of monolith does.

Well they are just two different types of plant life in the same tile surrounding a monolith. Its just annoying that you can end up with hybrid forests that are better than monoliths but still get the lower monolith yield.

Didn't get any message myself.

Strange, i loaded the save several times and kept getting it...

No matter how many minerals you're able to carry over, you can never carry over minerals that were not produced this turn (in this case, 42.)  This rule was probably made in order to prevent abuse involving different rush costs.

That doesnt make sense because in the first turn, i had 42 minerals go towards the secret project. In the next, i assigned a expensive supply needlejet to the secret project. So what the game should have done is assign 42 minerals from the first turn towards the secret project, fill up the remainder from the supply needlejet, then carry over whatever is left from the needlejet to the biology lab (and those minerals were produced this turn).

I think this is because they are inactive in such squares.  Fungus works the same way.

Is there a way to make it permanently active then? Also i noticed that if you raise a sea tile with a bonus resource to land level, the bonus resource will vanish.

Can you provide the faction file?

Im pretty sure it affects all factions, try changing yang's immunity from EFFIC to GROWTH, i did that and i was still getting negative growth modifiers from going GREEN.

You can recycle them after the project too if you want.  Something that comes from both project and actual presence will IIRC have a star next to it, and can be recycled (removing the star).

Auto recycling would be a bad idea; if you conquer or build the Command Nexus but aren't sure you'll be able to keep it, you might not want to recycle all your existing command centers and then not have them if you lose the Command Nexus.

Oh good point, i didnt think of that.

Depends on difficulty level.

Any idea if theres a list of modifiers that the AI get posted somewhere?

The reason this happens is because interception takes the form of moving to the attacked unit's square and being attacked instead, meaning that both units use their attack values and it counts as a dogfight.

Yea the problem is that theres no reason to use interceptors when they cant get their SAM bonus when intercepting. At the very least they should get the SAM bonus, that way you would need to use your own interceptors to clear enemy interceptors. Right now its easier to just build normal needlejets and zerg the enemy airbase instead.

Is this true even when attacked by non-artillery units?

They probably do, but not if attacked by an artillery unit. For that matter, higher altitude artillery doesnt get the altitude bonus when attacked by lower atltitude artillery either.

That's because they're not really there.

But they do cost energy to maintain so they are there...

I thought I fixed this.  Savegame please?  (Although note that to build 2 satellites you'd need a huge amount of production to finish one and then build the entirety of the second.)

Load one of the previous saves i posted and try using the scenario editor to boost mineral production at one of the bases or give the base tons of left over minerals. Build one satellite and leave nothing else in the game. Only one satellite will get built, but if you queue multiple satellites, you can build multiples of them in a single turn.

No, it'll make it less useful because you don't need it as often.

Its less useful already because instead of actually going for higher levels of support, its much easier to just spam mostly clean reactor units. You dont have to worry about moving units from one side of the map to the other to change their home bases either. At support 0 you can only have a garrison and former before you start taking mineral penalties and going police state is only useful in the early game or unless you can hit support 3 where you can get up 16 units free per base (with hab complex + ascetics). Even 4 free units per base is pretty much nothing considering how many formers you need at that stage plus air and naval units. Sure, clean reactor units are expensive, but so is having 1/4th of your base minerals taken up by support.

No, as the default is that air units can't get it, so that's the "fixed" version and anything else is a mod.

Uh isnt the default clearly bugged? I mean the game clearly says that air units should be able to get it, yet they cant.

[Yitzi]

Not sure why i would want that. Every worker gives me 2 minerals/2 energy from a hybrid forest before bonuses. By the time i get access to advanced specialists, the game is pretty much over and its way too late to start a lengthy terraforming process.

So if you want to make farm/solar more powerful in comparison to forests, maybe you should mod so that hybrid forest isn't available until later (on par with advanced specialists) and the game lasts longer.

So lets say you have a energy bank, tree farm and hybrid forest at this stage giving a total of 150% to econ and a network node and research hospital giving 100% to labs. That engineer is giving you a total of 7.5 econ and 4 labs. A worker on a hybrid forest would give you 3 nutrients, 2 minerals, 3.5 energy and 3 labs.

You need not run 50/50, you know...

In terms of rush buying stuff, both are equal (the equivalent of 7.5 energy)

Energy has other uses too, such as probe team actions, and of course it can be used to rush buy at a base other than where it was produced.

but the engineer has 1 more lab. This assumes no energy lost to inefficiency.

And no commerce.

However, you're assuming that the population is fixed; with varying nutrient outputs between farm/enricher and forest, and hard pop booming (or hab domes) it need not be.

Also switching from the auto-selected empaths to engineers constantly is annoying.

Doesn't have to be done that often, though.

I did luck out in my current game and managed to find a base spot which was pretty high, so i tried solar collectors. The problems with it were that it took more than twice as long to terraform and was much more micro intensive and since i was getitng low food from arid tiles (and had no space for condensors), i had to rely on pop booming to grow the base. Also for it to be optimal i would need to leave a one tile layer of echelon mirrors beyond the base radius, which is not always possile due to map placement of resources, etc.

It is a harder method.

Relying on a rush buying strategy instead of minerals also created a micromanagement nightmare since you have to rush buy everything instead of queing a bunch of facilities and letting the base build them.

You could always get some of each...

Yea i think it would help if the base turns were lowered, but allowing people to drill to aquifer adjacent to rivers allows you to essentially "fix" rivers that decide to flow somewhere totally unexpected or for some reason, makes a land drier, as well as auto placed rivers with bad flows. It also lets you fix rivers that have gone haywire after terrain elevation changes.

True; it's a possible future request, then.

Ah i see, i was playing as morgan and had +4 economy, so that might have been why...it wasnt mentioned in the datalinks that the economy SE lowered the cost to corner the global energy market.

But it is in the wiki that commerce affects it.

It seems that you still need a road if you put a mine in a mineral bonus tile though?

Indeed; otherwise you're limited to 1+1 instead of 2+1.

I mean that any specialists still wont count as talents for the purpose of golden ages even with drones rule 8.

Technically true, but with rule 8 you can get "virtual talents" which have the same effect.

I meant that without scient's patch and only your patch + the official patch, i was getitng lots of game breaking glitches like mouse cursor suddenly not responding, etc.

And I found that strange.

I didnt try kyrub's patch because it was mared for AC and not AX.

He has one for AX as well.

Okay but what is the point of having a land based gun bonus vs naval?

Elevation and stability give an advantage in artillery, and from a gameplay perspective because it's more specialized.

It makes it pointless to use naval artillery since, IIRC, one land based gun can take on 3 naval guns of the same strength with ease

I find that hard to believe.  But yes, if you want artillery and mobility isn't an issue, land-based is better.

It doesnt even make sense realism wise because naval ships can easily mount higher calibre guns.

I think it's assumed that the total firepower is the same across all chasses.

By default its super easy to make a base immune to sea invasions. Just stick a few cheap infantry artillery units in there to prevent naval bombardment plus AAA to take care of air units. The enemy wont have any way to soften up defenses before attacking head on into naval yard + tachyon fields.

That sort of thing is how invading a prepared base is supposed to be.  Hard-to-take bases makes for a longer and more interesting game.

Not sure how it goes for everyone else, but my bases typically have one garrison + one former in the early game. If theres a war i try to have a rover as a quick response unit, plus a artillery unit to defend against bombards and when the enemy gets air power, at least two interceptors per front line base. Thats a lot of minerals for the bare essential defence force.

Not if the rover, artillery, and interceptors are only for front line bases and there aren't that many of them.

Considering how slow infantry formers are, im often tempted to get a lot more to speed things up even with weather paradigm. Then factor in sea formers and a few naval units for coastal defence and you can have a base with 6+ minerals gone to support which is pretty significant.

Significant but not crippling unless there's effectively a real "limit" of clean minerals (as opposed to going 20 minerals over clean minerals and still being able to handle it).

Another annoying thing about support is that you usaully have a base good for producing units but want it supported by another base, and there doesnt seem to be any way to do that other than produce the unit and painstakingly move it to another base, change the home base, then move it back to the frontline. Its much easier to not worry about that with clean reactors (or maxing out on SE support).

Why wouldn't your high-mineral bases be the best for producing units?

Well they are just two different types of plant life in the same tile surrounding a monolith.

No, fungus is related to monoliths in that they're both based on high-end Progenitor tech.

Its just annoying that you can end up with hybrid forests that are better than monoliths but still get the lower monolith yield.

True, and possibly a future target for changes.

That doesnt make sense because in the first turn, i had 42 minerals go towards the secret project. In the next, i assigned a expensive supply needlejet to the secret project. So what the game should have done is assign 42 minerals from the first turn towards the secret project, fill up the remainder from the supply needlejet, then carry over whatever is left from the needlejet to the biology lab (and those minerals were produced this turn).

No, it most certainly should not have done that, as applying supply units to facilities that way is extremely exploitative.

When I said "this turn", I meant from the base's own production.

Is there a way to make it permanently active then?

It's a possible future project.

Also i noticed that if you raise a sea tile with a bonus resource to land level, the bonus resource will vanish.

I think that's because bonus resources are calculated differently for land and sea squares; there are probably times when raising a tile to land will create a bonus resource.

Im pretty sure it affects all factions, try changing yang's immunity from EFFIC to GROWTH, i did that and i was still getting negative growth modifiers from going GREEN.

Works for me; you get 0 GROWTH instead of the expected -1.

(Immunity doesn't prevent negative modifiers to cancel out positive modifiers, it just means the total can't be below 0.)

Any idea if theres a list of modifiers that the AI get posted somewhere?

Probably somewhere; you can search the internet as well as me.

Yea the problem is that theres no reason to use interceptors when they cant get their SAM bonus when intercepting.

They can still fight better than formers...

At the very least they should get the SAM bonus, that way you would need to use your own interceptors to clear enemy interceptors. Right now its easier to just build normal needlejets and zerg the enemy airbase instead.

As I said, there are changes slated for the future.

They probably do, but not if attacked by an artillery unit.

That's because it's considered a duel, where both use offense.

For that matter, higher altitude artillery doesnt get the altitude bonus when attacked by lower atltitude artillery either.

It most certainly does (assuming there's a full category of altitude difference).

But they do cost energy to maintain so they are there...

No, I mean the one from the project isn't really there.

Load one of the previous saves i posted and try using the scenario editor to boost mineral production at one of the bases or give the base tons of left over minerals. Build one satellite and leave nothing else in the game. Only one satellite will get built, but if you queue multiple satellites, you can build multiples of them in a single turn.

You appear to be correct (except for the tons of leftover minerals, which never counts toward the next item, which is how it should be.)  I'm putting it on my list to fix this.

Its less useful already because instead of actually going for higher levels of support, its much easier to just spam mostly clean reactor units.

Not necessarily; remember, if all you build is units, having to build all clean units is as bad as -5 INDUSTRY (or maybe -3 or -4 if you've got another expensive ability too).  In such a situation (which is extreme, but probably not that far from the truth in the sort of situations where you'd get Police State or Power), +SUPPORT could be quite useful.

and going police state is only useful in the early game or unless you can hit support 3 where you can get up 16 units free per base (with hab complex + ascetics).

Or if you're conquering a lot of bases and need the police units to keep them stable (which is also the case where transferring to new bases is easiest, as they're there anyway.)

Even 4 free units per base is pretty much nothing considering how many formers you need at that stage plus air and naval units.

How many formers per base do you need?  What are you building, and how fast do your bases grow?

Sure, clean reactor units are expensive, but so is having 1/4th of your base minerals taken up by support.

True; keeping a standing army is expensive no matter what.

Uh isnt the default clearly bugged? I mean the game clearly says that air units should be able to get it, yet they cant.

Or maybe the datalinks entry is bugged.  Or maybe the datalinks entry is referring to what happens if you do mod.

If you want, you can start a thread about the matter, and if there's a strong consensus that the current method is a bug I can change it in the next patch.

[TarMinyatur]

Minor inconsistency with the display of Prototype Cost:

When designing units in the Workshop, all chassis types will show a +50% prototype cost, even if you set Land cost to 100%, Sea to 25%, and Air to 10%, for example in alphax.txt's rules.

However, when selecting units for the build queue, the correct prototype adjustment to minerals is displayed.

[Yitzi]

Minor inconsistency with the display of Prototype Cost:

When designing units in the Workshop, all chassis types will show a +50% prototype cost, even if you set Land cost to 100%, Sea to 25%, and Air to 10%, for example in alphax.txt's rules.

However, when selecting units for the build queue, the correct prototype adjustment to minerals is displayed.

Good point (though I'm fairly certain I did not introduce it); I'll put it on the list to fix.

[Question]

So if you want to make farm/solar more powerful in comparison to forests, maybe you should mod so that hybrid forest isn't available until later (on par with advanced specialists) and the game lasts longer.

I think the game lasts long enough as it is, the early game takes wayyyy too long IMHO, with serious shortages of everything. I would say the problem is more that the other terraforming options are underpowered, not that hybrid forests are overpowered. Hybrid forests do have a huge cost to build too (although thats usually a one time cost).

Energy has other uses too, such as probe team actions, and of course it can be used to rush buy at a base other than where it was produced.

True, though typically this is only useful when you have most facilities built in a base and dont need to build any units at all (which is pretty rare unless you are playing drones, who can build stuff fast enough for that).

It is a harder method.

Its not just harder, its impractical. Even against the AI, spamming solar collectors/echelon mirrors will leave you behind compared to you if you did mostly forests + boreholes. I cant imagine people in MP giving you the time you need to do all the mass raising and terraforming either.

You could always get some of each...

But the way the game works, if you are going to go energy focused, its best to go all the way due to % boosts and because having some minerals isnt going to do much, unless you hit the CM cap. The one place where minerals are definately superior to rush buying is with units, since units dont use a simple formalue of 2x mineral cost for the hurry cost. It gets ridiculously expensive to rush buy units, which makes sense as you dont want someone rush buying a massive defence army quickly.

But it is in the wiki that commerce affects it.

Oh, thanks. How does one edit the ingame datalinks anyway? I thought it would be in helpx.txt, but i cant find certain portions like "Ecology (Revised)".

Technically true, but with rule 8 you can get "virtual talents" which have the same effect.

The virtual talents do not appear to work though, i have it set to rule 8 but with very large (30+) bases where more than half of the pop are forced to be specialists, i do not get a golden age. See test.sav, more than enough psych for infinite talents, but couldnt go into golden age because of too many specialists.

Technically true, but with rule 8 you can get "virtual talents" which have the same effect.

Oh, you mean the nov 2012 one in the downloads section? Since its so outdated im not sure if testing it would make a difference...

Elevation and stability give an advantage in artillery, and from a gameplay perspective because it's more specialized.

Hmm you are right in that naval units dont have to use a ability slot to bombard. Im not sure if they should in that case, my main issue is that a 50% bonus for land vs naval is huge...given that land artillery is many times cheaper than naval units anyway.

That sort of thing is how invading a prepared base is supposed to be.  Hard-to-take bases makes for a longer and more interesting game.

The game is specifically designed to favor attacking vs defending though. If you look at land bases, there are always options to take one filled to the brim with units...in the very worst case situation, you can out artillery it even if it has perimeter + tachyon. That option isnt available for sea bases or when launching an amphibious invasion because of the 50% artillery bonus that land units get. This is more of an issue in MP where a human player may actually make a sea base nearly imprenetable. But even in SP, if the AI puts land based artillery near a coastal base, this basically grinds warfare to a halt till you get carrier decks, which are pretty late game.

Theres also a faction balance issue here because if you are someone like miriam and need to get across the water to get at, say, university, you are going to get stuck. Any faction without a research penalty will easily out-tech you and they dont need to spend much on military because of how easy it is for land artillery to take out naval ones.

The fact that land vs naval (and vice-versa) artillery duels only last two rounds also makes it very easy for someone to stall a invasion forever. Lets say it takes 3 rounds of combat to kill a artillery unit this way, thats more than enough time to feed in reinforcing artillery faster than you can kill. I think i will start a topic on this in the general discussion forum...

Not if the rover, artillery, and interceptors are only for front line bases and there aren't that many of them.

Somewhat true, depending on battle lines. I find that at bare minimum, against the AI, you need at least two interceptors for a front line base, although ive had to use up to 4 sometimes to cover for the refueling interceptors.

Significant but not crippling unless there's effectively a real "limit" of clean minerals (as opposed to going 20 minerals over clean minerals and still being able to handle it).

But it is crippling in the early game when the problem is getting enough minerals in the first place. A size 4 base is only going to make about 10 minerals or so, thats not even enough to hit the default CM limit. A size 7 might hit the limit without needing a borehole, although i typically find that getting enough minerals to get there is VERY difficult unless you have kelp farms or start somewhere like the monsoon jungle. If you dont have any rainy tiles, which are pretty rare even if you have the map generator se tto 100 million miles/dense cloud, hitting cap 7 without kelp farms is going to be nearly impossible.

With a support of 0, just having enough units to terraform and defend yourself is going to use up a quarter or more minerals per base, let alone trying to mount the most basic of offensives (Say, 4 units). It gets worse if you go demo. Ironically, demo, which is for peaceful factions to grow, can strangle your bases as formers use up minerals too.

Why wouldn't your high-mineral bases be the best for producing units?

They are, but if you are sending them to other bases to change their home base, it can easily add 4+ turns before they can get to the front lines. That assumes a full road network, since an infantry unit can only move 3 tiles by road. This wouldnt be a problem if you could set the home base without needing to be physically in the base, which makes sense since you only need to call up the base and tell them to send supplies to the unit. The unit doesnt need to go in person. But i dont know if its possible to mod that...

No, it most certainly should not have done that, as applying supply units to facilities that way is extremely exploitative.

When I said "this turn", I meant from the base's own production.

Im confused, i thought using supply crawlers to speed up secret projects is one of the key uses of the unit (which is why it gets the special popup screen)? How would it be exploitative?

I think that's because bonus resources are calculated differently for land and sea squares; there are probably times when raising a tile to land will create a bonus resource.

I thought the game set the bonus resources when the map is first generated, not when the elevation is changed from land to sea or vice-versa?

Works for me; you get 0 GROWTH instead of the expected -1.

(Immunity doesn't prevent negative modifiers to cancel out positive modifiers, it just means the total can't be below 0.)

Ah i see. That was the problem then.

That's because it's considered a duel, where both use offense.

That does make offense modifiers overpowered though, i believe the intent was to make caretakers a defence oriented version of usurpers, and its a balance issue if their 25% defence bonus doesnt work for stuff like defending against enemy artillery.

It most certainly does (assuming there's a full category of altitude difference).

Hmm you are right, i guess i must have seen the combat window incorrectly.

No, I mean the one from the project isn't really there.

Well maybe they should count for the progenitor energy grid bonus? If they cost energy to maintain, they should provide a grid bonus, especially since its weird that building them without the secret projects will contribute to the grid bonus, but not if they are obtained from a secret project.

You appear to be correct (except for the tons of leftover minerals, which never counts toward the next item, which is how it should be.)  I'm putting it on my list to fix this.

Strange, i can get a base to build more than one satellite a turn assuming they are queued. Did you try turning on the "carry over unlimited minerals" option?

Not necessarily; remember, if all you build is units, having to build all clean units is as bad as -5 INDUSTRY (or maybe -3 or -4 if you've got another expensive ability too).  In such a situation (which is extreme, but probably not that far from the truth in the sort of situations where you'd get Police State or Power), +SUPPORT could be quite useful.

True, but clean reactors pay for itself quite quickly in many cases. Mainly for units that you will keep around for a lot time (like garrisons and formers, or if you are on a continent by yourself and teching with no real opposition). For example a 1-3-1 garrison costs 18 minerals. Adding clean reactors bumpst he cost up by 50% to 27 minerals. So the clean reactors will pay for itself within only 9 turns, and a game can last 200+ turns easily unless you manage to get an early economic or conquest win somehow. If its for stuff that will die really quickly, like if you have a really intense battle near your base, then no it wouldnt be worth it. But in single player where you have most units stick around for 10+ turns, then yea it is.

Or if you're conquering a lot of bases and need the police units to keep them stable (which is also the case where transferring to new bases is easiest, as they're there anyway.)

True, although i find that even without any extra police units, its very easy to keep a newly conquered base under control. Typically the base size is small and i can just assign extra doctors anyway. But i usually dont bother to take over a base as the AI is very bad at base placement, and its better to obliterate then resettle (also far off bases have massive energy penalties). But i guess it could make a difference in MP.

How many formers per base do you need?  What are you building, and how fast do your bases grow?

Well with pop booming or cloning vats, they usually grow fast enough that the only real limiter is how many minerals/energy i can pump into facilities like tree farm/hab complex and how fast i can drop terrain improvements. Ive been leaning more towards rover formers lately, even though they are much more expensive to build, they are more future proof and being able to move then terraform the same turn really saves a LOT of time. But once i get pop booms going or am playing Lal, i typically need at least 2 formers per incomplete base at bare minimum. This excludes the formers you need for drill to aquifer, raising land, creating bore holes for crawlers, creating new roads/tubes, etc. At bare minimum i would use 2 formers tag teaming for stuff like boreholes as it takes too long otherwise. Coastal bases also have one sea former each at bare minimum until they fill up their coastal slots, but i usually have one sea former making additional tidal harnesses if i have a coastal HQ (for energy crawling).

So that can easily add up to 10+ minerals in non-combat units. Basically imagine if you need to pay support costs for probes/crawlers, thats how many minerals formers can eat up. I dont know if people in MP make more or less formers though, but since i use mostly forests, you are going to need a lot more formers if you do condensors, raising more than a few patches of land and farms + solar collectors.

Questions :

-Do you have any idea why a river flowing through a tile can make that tile arid? Seems like a bug, isnt it supposed to increase the rainfall level in any tiles the river flows through?

Issues :

-Very green units only receive a 12% penalty when defending, whereas they receive a 25% penalty when attacking.

-Several bugs with the scenario editor. You can only select the first unit in a tile using the editor if it does not belong to your faction. You can right click - select/edit unit for the other units in the tile but it will not work. It only works if you they are at a enemy base and you go into the base screen and select them from there. This also means that you can only delete the first enemy unit in a tile and not any others.

-The UI is bugged and will not let you edit data for needlejets (see screenshot).

-Unit name when editing units frequently gets bugged, see screenshot.

-You do not get a "the odds are heavily against us" warning even if the odds are more than 4-1 against you (in this case, 4.5 vs 18 did not trigger the warning). The warning does trigger if the odds are even worse though, but im not sure at what level.

-Air units will always defend against enemy air units, even if a better defender is available (e.g. Elite AAA plasma garrison and a very green 1-1 interceptor is attacked by a missle needlejet, the game will have the interceptor defend instead of the AAA garrison (this assumes the interceptor does not scramble)

-Locusts can be attacked without SAM, and they will always defend against enemy air units even if a better defender is available. E.G. If a locust attacks a square with a very green needlejet and a elite AAA 8r garrison, the game will still pit the locust vs needlejet.

-Psi units always count as on "open ground" when bombarded by naval units at sea.

-Naval transports bombarded at sea will get the open ground defence bonus, including all loaded troops. Exception : Unless bombarded by a spore launcher and loaded spore launchers also do not get the open defence bonus (they will never get it infact, even if they are on a clear land tile). For some reason, sometimes a transport may not get the open grounds defence bonus at sea...i cant figure out why. Check out test2.sav, the transport at 16,30 does not get the open defence bonus but the one next to it at 17, 31 will ,even though they are both on open sea tiles.

-If a ground unit below 1000m elevation on land bombards a loaded sea transport, it will get a 25% altitude bonus vs loaded ground units, but not the sea transport itself (they also will not get any altitude bonuses vs non-combat sea units, even if bombarding from 1000+ meters land). Spore launchers will not get the altitude bonus vs either loaded ground units or non-combat sea units. Ground artillery will get the altitude bonus even if they are bombarding from a sea transport (but not spore launchers). Neither spore launchers or ground artillery may get altitude bonuses vs armored sea transports (and presumably formers).
 
-Naval bombardment vs enemy naval combat units is weapon vs weapon, except the defenders armor strength is shown. E.G. 6-3 foil attacked by naval bombardment will show Plasma steel armor, but actual combat strength will be 6 + modifiers.

-Air units with resonance weapons and empath song get no bonus when attacking locusts, but ground and naval units get the bonuses when attacking locusts.

-Locusts may be attacked by non-SAM units.

-Empath song and resonance weapons give no bonuses when bombarding psi units. They also give no bonus when engaging spore launchers in an artillery duel.

-You can equip artillery units with nerve gas pods and you get a popup asking if you want to use them when bombarding a non-native unit. If you use them, you get sanctions as per normal but you do not get the 50% nerve gas bonus. You will get the 50% attack bonus if you are attacking in an artillery duel though.

-When bombarding psi units at sea (including loaded psi units) the game will show the attacker's weapon as "Psi:1" but the actual combat strength used will be the weapon's strength (e.g. 6 for a missle launcher). However psi units at sea will defend with the psi value of 1 and probably get one shotted by anything above particle impactors (huge problem, means that demon boil sealurks and isles can be easily one shotted by low morale naval ships). Exception : When bombarding spore launchers on a transport, the attacker will use the psi value of 3 vs 2 instead.

-Artillery units on a sea transport can make artillery attacks, but not engage in artillery duels with other loaded artillery units.

-All units (including air units) stationed at an airbase get the 50% open grounds bonus when bombarded by artillery.

-SAM units do not get the 100% air to air bonus when attacked by non-SAM air units. E.G. SAM chopper is at a base and gets attacked by a non-SAM air unit, it will not get the air to air bonus.

-Tachyon fields confer a 100% defence bonus instead of 75% as stated in the datalinks.

-Base defences (tachyon fields, perimeter defences, etc) do not function in artillery duels.

-Soporofic gas pods do nothing in artillery duels. They also do nothing when a SAM air unit with soporofic gas pods attacks another SAM air unit (but they work if attacking a non-SAM air unit).

-AAA units get the tracking bonus vs attacking locusts, but SAM air units do not get it when attacking locusts.

-Believers 25% attack bonus does not apply to the following :

Any form of psi combat, including your own mindworms vs enemy scout patrols

Artillery duels (including both ground and naval)

Artillery bombardment

SAM air units attacking another SAM air unit (not via scrambling to intercept)

For comparison the usurper attack bonus applies to most of these scenarios.

-Huge bug : Land based gun bonus applies even if for naval units bombarding enemy naval units, see screenshot. The bonus also doesnt apply when a land based artillery starts an artillery duel with a sea unit, only when a sea unit attacks a sea unit or land based artillery unit.

-Conventional missles have a flat 18 attack strength for some reason? See screenshot.

[Question]

Conventional missle screensot.

[Nexii]

I would say that energy based strategies are more powerful in MP.  The AI wars very easily, whereas a human player will value commerce more.  Commerce can double or triple the base energy of a base.  Against AI, minerals are stronger as the AI doesn't war all that well.  Also in a FFA MP game, you will not want to war lightly.  The risk is high unless you catch them teching/buildering.  In which case conquer can be worth it.  Games on smaller maps or with Spoils of War will be more aggressive.

I think non-combat units requiring support is fine.  The issue is more having to make so many formers per base relative to military unit count.  Take down terraform times and you won't have to make 8-10 formers per base any more.  Long terraform times are a big reason as to why the early game is slow (curvilinear tech cost, and high early building costs also being big causes).  ~5-10 FT/square like in Civ2 really cuts it down from some of the silly default values.

Also despite the -2 SUP, Democracy was by far the best of the default SE choices.  It is only -1 mineral a turn compared to 0 SUP.  Small bases can make a lot more minerals even early if you prioritize boreholes.  3-4 boreholes per base and then crawl in N. 

I do agree that the 'some of each' terraform strategy tends to be a bit more suboptimal, but more due to how echelons multiply than CMs.  High mineral bases can get eco facilities.  Though the default ecodamage variables aren't that good - FM typically wins out for economic SE.  Wealth+GA can also give the +2 ECON though.

[Yitzi]

I think the game lasts long enough as it is, the early game takes wayyyy too long IMHO, with serious shortages of everything.

True, perhaps the early game should be sped up and the late game slowed down.

I would say the problem is more that the other terraforming options are underpowered, not that hybrid forests are overpowered. Hybrid forests do have a huge cost to build too (although thats usually a one time cost).

Though as you said they provide economy and psych too.

True, though typically this is only useful when you have most facilities built in a base and dont need to build any units at all (which is pretty rare unless you are playing drones, who can build stuff fast enough for that).

Or are trying to get a new base up and running quickly...

Its not just harder, its impractical. Even against the AI, spamming solar collectors/echelon mirrors will leave you behind compared to you if you did mostly forests + boreholes.

Long-term, I'm not so sure about that.  Nutrients become quite powerful in the late game (earlier with mods), and farm+enricher+condenser is unquestionably the best for nutrients.  (Even with condensers nerfed somewhat, it's still enough to give a large advantage over forests+boreholes if not for requiring higher former time.)

I cant imagine people in MP giving you the time you need to do all the mass raising and terraforming either.

It might depend on your defensive capabilities, and of course whether there's a third player would would just love for you and your rival to weaken each other fighting...

Now, there are issues with those aspects...but that's not a core issue with terraforming.

But the way the game works, if you are going to go energy focused, its best to go all the way due to % boosts and because having some minerals isnt going to do much, unless you hit the CM cap.

It'll mean you don't have to rush buy as often, which was the point at hand.

Oh, thanks. How does one edit the ingame datalinks anyway? I thought it would be in helpx.txt, but i cant find certain portions like "Ecology (Revised)".

It's spread out among several text files; conceptsx probably has the ones that you're not finding in helpx.

The virtual talents do not appear to work though, i have it set to rule 8 but with very large (30+) bases where more than half of the pop are forced to be specialists, i do not get a golden age. See test.sav, more than enough psych for infinite talents, but couldnt go into golden age because of too many specialists.

I found the problem, and fixed it; because there are several major bugfixes that I need to do, I'll put up 3.2 once I've finished them all, and include it in that.  (Unfortunately, I will be unable to work on the patch the end of this week or any of next week, so it may be a bit later until it's actually ready if I can't fix them tonight.)

Oh, you mean the nov 2012 one in the downloads section? Since its so outdated im not sure if testing it would make a difference...

I meant the thing whose not-working is the bug you just found and I just fixed.

Hmm you are right in that naval units dont have to use a ability slot to bombard. Im not sure if they should in that case, my main issue is that a 50% bonus for land vs naval is huge...given that land artillery is many times cheaper than naval units anyway.

On the other hand, naval is more mobile, and can attack non-artillery (vs. other ships) as well.

The game is specifically designed to favor attacking vs defending though.

No, it's specifically designed to favor attacking in the field, but defending in bases.  The viable-in-most-cases options to take one filled to the brim with units are, while not quite bugs, unintended flaws in the game.

But even in SP, if the AI puts land based artillery near a coastal base, this basically grinds warfare to a halt till you get carrier decks, which are pretty late game.

Not to a halt; you can always attack formers/crawlers, go after less-well-defended bases, or simply be a more military-focused faction (from faction ID or social engineering.)  It does limit warfare, which is a good thing (since SMAX loses a lot of its depth if it becomes just a war game).

Theres also a faction balance issue here because if you are someone like miriam and need to get across the water to get at, say, university, you are going to get stuck. Any faction without a research penalty will easily out-tech you and they dont need to spend much on military because of how easy it is for land artillery to take out naval ones.

Can't you just use transports, with warships to escort them?

The fact that land vs naval (and vice-versa) artillery duels only last two rounds also makes it very easy for someone to stall a invasion forever. Lets say it takes 3 rounds of combat to kill a artillery unit this way, thats more than enough time to feed in reinforcing artillery faster than you can kill.

Except that by the same token, that's more than enough time to land land units from transports.

Somewhat true, depending on battle lines. I find that at bare minimum, against the AI, you need at least two interceptors for a front line base, although ive had to use up to 4 sometimes to cover for the refueling interceptors.

Even so, front line bases will probably be only a small percentage of your total bases.

But it is crippling in the early game when the problem is getting enough minerals in the first place.

Yeah, in the early game you shouldn't have tons of formers...but in the early game there are no hybrid forests (and, if you mod so that Environmental Economics isn't needed for 3+ energy, no tree farms either), so you don't need raising and mirrors and condensers to keep farm/solar or farm/mine competitive with forests.

If you dont have any rainy tiles, which are pretty rare even if you have the map generator se tto 100 million miles/dense cloud, hitting cap 7 without kelp farms is going to be nearly impossible.

No, it's quite easy if you don't go mostly forests.

They are, but if you are sending them to other bases to change their home base, it can easily add 4+ turns before they can get to the front lines.

Why are you sending them to other bases, if they're already homed to the bases that can afford to support them?

This wouldnt be a problem if you could set the home base without needing to be physically in the base, which makes sense since you only need to call up the base and tell them to send supplies to the unit. The unit doesnt need to go in person. But i dont know if its possible to mod that...

It would be possible, but it doesn't seem a high priority to me, as you can just spread things out by having each major base produce a few units to fill out its free support, and have most of the rest be from the high-mineral bases where it's not such a heavy burden.

Im confused, i thought using supply crawlers to speed up secret projects is one of the key uses of the unit (which is why it gets the special popup screen)? How would it be exploitative?

Because you're trying to use it to speed up a biology lab, which is not a secret project.

I thought the game set the bonus resources when the map is first generated, not when the elevation is changed from land to sea or vice-versa?

I believe it sets, for each square, "bonus resources on land" and "bonus resources at sea", and they're not necessarily the same.

That does make offense modifiers overpowered though, i believe the intent was to make caretakers a defence oriented version of usurpers, and its a balance issue if their 25% defence bonus doesnt work for stuff like defending against enemy artillery.

True, but artillery isn't meant to be such a huge part of the game that it becomes a major issue.

Well maybe they should count for the progenitor energy grid bonus? If they cost energy to maintain, they should provide a grid bonus, especially since its weird that building them without the secret projects will contribute to the grid bonus, but not if they are obtained from a secret project.

You misunderstand: The one from the project is not really there and does not cost energy to maintain or provide a grid bonus, whereas one that is built (even if it is later gotten from a project as well) costs energy to maintain but does provide a grid bonus.

Strange, i can get a base to build more than one satellite a turn assuming they are queued. Did you try turning on the "carry over unlimited minerals" option?

Yes, and it can build more than one satellite per turn when queued if it has enough production.  But not if you just increase minerals to 1000 but still have only 40 production.

True, but clean reactors pay for itself quite quickly in many cases. Mainly for units that you will keep around for a lot time (like garrisons and formers, or if you are on a continent by yourself and teching with no real opposition).

Very true, and in that sort of case you generally won't want to focus on SUPPORT; you want SUPPORT when at war.

Well with pop booming or cloning vats, they usually grow fast enough that the only real limiter is how many minerals/energy i can pump into facilities like tree farm/hab complex and how fast i can drop terrain improvements.

Ah; I think the solution there is to weaken pop booming so they don't grow quite as fast (especially if you're going forest rather than farm/enricher).

Ive been leaning more towards rover formers lately, even though they are much more expensive to build, they are more future proof and being able to move then terraform the same turn really saves a LOT of time. But once i get pop booms going or am playing Lal, i typically need at least 2 formers per incomplete base at bare minimum. This excludes the formers you need for drill to aquifer, raising land, creating bore holes for crawlers, creating new roads/tubes, etc. At bare minimum i would use 2 formers tag teaming for stuff like boreholes as it takes too long otherwise. Coastal bases also have one sea former each at bare minimum until they fill up their coastal slots, but i usually have one sea former making additional tidal harnesses if i have a coastal HQ (for energy crawling).

So between crawling and pop booming, you don't have enough formers; I don't think crawling and pop booming were intended to be used to that extent.

-Do you have any idea why a river flowing through a tile can make that tile arid? Seems like a bug, isnt it supposed to increase the rainfall level in any tiles the river flows through?

Raininess computations are complicated and I do not yet know how they work.

-Very green units only receive a 12% penalty when defending, whereas they receive a 25% penalty when attacking.

Yes, it appears that very green units get a free +1 morale on defense, probably in order to prevent them from being too easy to take over.

-Several bugs with the scenario editor.

These are not particularly high priority, because they do not affect the primary game.  They are possible future projects, however.

-You do not get a "the odds are heavily against us" warning even if the odds are more than 4-1 against you (in this case, 4.5 vs 18 did not trigger the warning). The warning does trigger if the odds are even worse though, but im not sure at what level.

This is a decision by the game designers as to when to trigger it, and adjusting warnings is definitely not a high priority.

-Air units will always defend against enemy air units, even if a better defender is available (e.g. Elite AAA plasma garrison and a very green 1-1 interceptor is attacked by a missle needlejet, the game will have the interceptor defend instead of the AAA garrison (this assumes the interceptor does not scramble)

I'll put it on the list.

-Locusts can be attacked without SAM, and they will always defend against enemy air units even if a better defender is available. E.G. If a locust attacks a square with a very green needlejet and a elite AAA 8r garrison, the game will still pit the locust vs needlejet.

Being attackable without SAM is intentional, so that they're not too strong early on (as native life forms, they can appear earlier than air if there's heavy ecodamage, and they don't even need fuel.)  The other bug is simply the same as you described before.

-Psi units always count as on "open ground" when bombarded by naval units at sea.

This is because sea tiles have a rockiness level like land tiles (though it isn't shown and doesn't have many consequences), and if it's not rocky it's considered open ground; the only reason it's psi and unarmed units only is that non-psi units with attack can shoot back and so it's a duel rather than bombardment.

-Naval transports bombarded at sea will get the open ground defence bonus, including all loaded troops.

See above.  (And spore launchers have some funny rules due to it being psi combat and artillery; bombarding an isle of the deep is not considered psi combat IIRC.)

For some reason, sometimes a transport may not get the open grounds defence bonus at sea...i cant figure out why.

It depends on the rockiness of the square (which also affects the time taken to build tidal harnesses.)

-If a ground unit below 1000m elevation on land bombards a loaded sea transport, it will get a 25% altitude bonus vs loaded ground units, but not the sea transport itself (they also will not get any altitude bonuses vs non-combat sea units, even if bombarding from 1000+ meters land).

This is because the altitude bonus is vs. land units only (it's probably supposed to be replaced by the "land based guns" bonus vs. sea units, but that only applies for an artillery duel; if you start a thread about whether it's a bug and the consensus is that it is, I'll put it on my list.  Otherwise it'll probably wait.)

Spore launchers will not get the altitude bonus vs either loaded ground units or non-combat sea units. Ground artillery will get the altitude bonus even if they are bombarding from a sea transport (but not spore launchers). Neither spore launchers or ground artillery may get altitude bonuses vs armored sea transports (and presumably formers).

Basically, you only get it if you're a land unit and you're bombarding a land unit.
 

-Naval bombardment vs enemy naval combat units is weapon vs weapon, except the defenders armor strength is shown. E.G. 6-3 foil attacked by naval bombardment will show Plasma steel armor, but actual combat strength will be 6 + modifiers.

I suspect that it's the armor being shown that is the bug, and that's not going to be a high priority, but if the consensus is otherwise I can fix that too.

-Air units with resonance weapons and empath song get no bonus when attacking locusts, but ground and naval units get the bonuses when attacking locusts.

This is because an air unit attacking another air unit with SAM (except maybe in a base, I'm not sure) is considered a dogfight, which has different rules.

-Locusts may be attacked by non-SAM units.

Appears to be intended.

-Empath song and resonance weapons give no bonuses when bombarding psi units. They also give no bonus when engaging spore launchers in an artillery duel.

Artillery also has different rules.

-You can equip artillery units with nerve gas pods and you get a popup asking if you want to use them when bombarding a non-native unit. If you use them, you get sanctions as per normal but you do not get the 50% nerve gas bonus. You will get the 50% attack bonus if you are attacking in an artillery duel though.

Probably also because artillery has different rules (and when I rework combat, many of these things will probably change at least in the alternate forms); the ability to use it to no effect is a bug, but not such a high-priority one.

-When bombarding psi units at sea (including loaded psi units) the game will show the attacker's weapon as "Psi:1" but the actual combat strength used will be the weapon's strength (e.g. 6 for a missle launcher). However psi units at sea will defend with the psi value of 1 and probably get one shotted by anything above particle impactors (huge problem, means that demon boil sealurks and isles can be easily one shotted by low morale naval ships). Exception : When bombarding spore launchers on a transport, the attacker will use the psi value of 3 vs 2 instead.

Known, discussed, will be changeable in a future mod.

-Artillery units on a sea transport can make artillery attacks, but not engage in artillery duels with other loaded artillery units.

As far as I can tell, they can't make artillery attacks.

-All units (including air units) stationed at an airbase get the 50% open grounds bonus when bombarded by artillery.

That would be because they're not in flight and therefore get the open ground bonus...

-SAM units do not get the 100% air to air bonus when attacked by non-SAM air units. E.G. SAM chopper is at a base and gets attacked by a non-SAM air unit, it will not get the air to air bonus.

This is because it's defending on the ground, not in the air.

-Tachyon fields confer a 100% defence bonus instead of 75% as stated in the datalinks.

It's a bug in the datalinks; I'll fix it.

-Base defences (tachyon fields, perimeter defences, etc) do not function in artillery duels.

-Soporofic gas pods do nothing in artillery duels. They also do nothing when a SAM air unit with soporofic gas pods attacks another SAM air unit (but they work if attacking a non-SAM air unit).

Artillery and dogfights follow different rules.

-AAA units get the tracking bonus vs attacking locusts, but SAM air units do not get it when attacking locusts.

The SAM bonus does not apply against other SAM units.

-Believers 25% attack bonus does not apply to the following :

Any form of psi combat, including your own mindworms vs enemy scout patrols

Artillery duels (including both ground and naval)

Artillery bombardment

SAM air units attacking another SAM air unit (not via scrambling to intercept)

For comparison the usurper attack bonus applies to most of these scenarios.

This is known, and not conclusively determined to be a bug.  Providing the option to enable it is a possible future mod.

-Huge bug : Land based gun bonus applies even if for naval units bombarding enemy naval units, see screenshot. The bonus also doesnt apply when a land based artillery starts an artillery duel with a sea unit, only when a sea unit attacks a sea unit or land based artillery unit.

That's a bug alright; it'll be fixed in 3.2.

-Conventional missles have a flat 18 attack strength for some reason? See screenshot.

By default, they get +50% to strength rather than the described reactor-based change.  This is moddable.

[SenniTreborius]

Yitzi, how stable is it to change the screen resolution to something like 1024 x 720 in your mode. (Yes, still plugging away at getting OBS to work).

[Yitzi]

Yitzi, how stable is it to change the screen resolution to something like 1024 x 720 in your mode. (Yes, still plugging away at getting OBS to work).

I can think of no possible reason that it would be any less stable than under Kyrub's patch, which is probably the same stability as the original.

Of course, I can also think of no reason that alt-tab should fail to work with my patch...

[SenniTreborius]

Yitzi, how stable is it to change the screen resolution to something like 1024 x 720 in your mode. (Yes, still plugging away at getting OBS to work).

I can think of no possible reason that it would be any less stable than under Kyrub's patch, which is probably the same stability as the original.

Of course, I can also think of no reason that alt-tab should fail to work with my patch...

I believe that it may have something to do with having OBS installed. In that I can't Alt-Tab out of even unmodded AC. Will investigate.
Edit: Actually its the gog version, one has to Ctl-Alt-Tab.

[Question]

Just a quick update regarding some more bugs i noticed, will respond in more detail when i have time.

-Obtaining units with unresearched tech through gifting or subversion seems pretty buggy. The design is added to your worksho so you can make units with armor/weapons/etc that you dont have access to normally, but you still need to make a prototype. Even if you have access to the tech, you still need to prototype it even though you already have at least one unit with the new weapon/armor/etc around.

E.G. You have missle launchers but not yet prototyped. Someone gifts you a unit with missle launchers, but it doesnt count as prototyping it so you still need to prototype it. Thats weird.

Also i cant seem to do reverse engineering anymore, isnt it just disbanding the unit in a base?

-Im having some weird bugs with drones in my latest game, not sure if its drones rule 8 related or not. I have +1 talent from the human genome project but my HQ is still rioting every turn even though drones and talents are both equal. See test.sav.

Also the number of drones in my other bases is unequal for some reason. If you compare the hive and the great collective, you can see the hive starts off with more drones for some reason but the great collective is turning workers into talents via psych (which resulted in more drones) but the hive isnt bothering to do that. If every 2 psych = 1 less drone, then i should be getting -3 drones at both bases but that doesnt appear to be true...see b.sav and screenshot. They both have the same number of drone reducing facilities.

-Mouse cursor near a volcano mouth appears to be very buggy. The game constantly thinks you are clicking on the volcano mouth when in reality you are clicking the tiles around the mouth. This often results in failed artillery bombardments that hit the volcano mouth when you are trying to hit something near it instead. See screenshot, im trying to bombard the morgan base next to the mouth but it keeps hitting the volcano mouth instead. Even if you do right click - long range fire the game will force you to bombard the volcano mouth randomly.

[Question]

Also noticed that the growth bonus doesnt appear to be calculated normally.

From size 6 to 7 and 0 GROWTH, it takes 64 nutrients. At 20% growth, its 57 nutrients and at 40%, 43 nutrients. I dont know how this is calculated because 80% of 64 nutrients is obviously not 57 nutrients...

[Lord Avalon]

-Obtaining units with unresearched tech through gifting or subversion seems pretty buggy. The design is added to your worksho so you can make units with armor/weapons/etc that you dont have access to normally, but you still need to make a prototype. Even if you have access to the tech, you still need to prototype it even though you already have at least one unit with the new weapon/armor/etc around.

E.G. You have missle launchers but not yet prototyped. Someone gifts you a unit with missle launchers, but it doesnt count as prototyping it so you still need to prototype it. Thats weird.

Why is that weird? You were given the unit, but you don't know how to build it yourself - that's why you need to prototype it.

[Yitzi]

Just a quick update regarding some more bugs i noticed, will respond in more detail when i have time.

-Obtaining units with unresearched tech through gifting or subversion seems pretty buggy. The design is added to your worksho so you can make units with armor/weapons/etc that you dont have access to normally, but you still need to make a prototype. Even if you have access to the tech, you still need to prototype it even though you already have at least one unit with the new weapon/armor/etc around.

As Lord Avalon said, this makes sense.

In fact, I think it would make more sense for it not to end up in your workshop at all until you are able to build it normally; accomplishing that without problems involving the original owner retiring the design would require some doing, though.

Also i cant seem to do reverse engineering anymore, isnt it just disbanding the unit in a base?

Reverse engineering refers to the exploit where you take that unit with missile launchers and change the chassis, armor, reactor, and/or abilities to get new units despite not having the tech for missile launchers.

-Im having some weird bugs with drones in my latest game, not sure if its drones rule 8 related or not. I have +1 talent from the human genome project but my HQ is still rioting every turn even though drones and talents are both equal. See test.sav.

It is indeed drones-rules-8 related; you have 1 superdrone (bright red drone), which counts as 2 drones under rule 8, and only 1 talent, which is why it riots.

(There seems to be something funny going on with ecodamage, though; I can't investigate now, but I'll put it on my list to deal with next week.)

Also the number of drones in my other bases is unequal for some reason. If you compare the hive and the great collective, you can see the hive starts off with more drones for some reason but the great collective is turning workers into talents via psych (which resulted in more drones) but the hive isnt bothering to do that. If every 2 psych = 1 less drone, then i should be getting -3 drones at both bases but that doesnt appear to be true...see b.sav and screenshot. They both have the same number of drone reducing facilities.

Again, this is because the Hive has superdrones, which need to be cancelled out via psych before workers can turn into talents.

-Mouse cursor near a volcano mouth appears to be very buggy. The game constantly thinks you are clicking on the volcano mouth when in reality you are clicking the tiles around the mouth. This often results in failed artillery bombardments that hit the volcano mouth when you are trying to hit something near it instead. See screenshot, im trying to bombard the morgan base next to the mouth but it keeps hitting the volcano mouth instead. Even if you do right click - long range fire the game will force you to bombard the volcano mouth randomly.

Seems to work fine for me.

Also noticed that the growth bonus doesnt appear to be calculated normally.

From size 6 to 7 and 0 GROWTH, it takes 64 nutrients. At 20% growth, its 57 nutrients and at 40%, 43 nutrients. I dont know how this is calculated because 80% of 64 nutrients is obviously not 57 nutrients...

Can I have a screenshot of the amounts required?