Nomination thread: New features and bugfixes for Yitzi's patch 3.6

[Yitzi]

Good to know.  I used Free Drones instead and ran the game about 50 turns.  What I saw was that fungus was popping around the AI base however never once did native life spawn - even after a dozen or more pops.  I know if a human player had that many you would be getting significant amounts of native life.

As part of 3.5, I'll be analyzing the rules for when native life pops.

Another thing I saw was that the roaming native life seems to scale up with the highest player's TECH (not the fungal pops).  Was seeing Locusts of Chiron wandering around in YR 2102.  This might be a known fact also.

Don't know if it was known, but it's definitely interesting, and probably worth keeping (especially if the pop frequency doesn't scale with tech as well.)

I may have also discovered a bug while playing around with this.  It seems the AI can trigger a second (or more) Global Energy Market victory before the current one has run its 20 turns.  I think this will set back the timer to 20 turns from the current turn.

Feel free to nominate it for fixing (assuming you haven't already nominated two bugs).

[Nexii]

Yea I think the roaming life 'evolving' with TECH is fine.

I'll nominate the Global Energy Market bug then for a bug fix, the other 2 nominations were features

Another thing I should note is that forests seemed to grow abnormally fast over the AI fungal pops.  Almost always within a turn if not two, and I think sometimes even if forest wasn't directly bordering.  Might be related to the native life not spawning in some strange way.

[Yitzi]

Yea I think the roaming life 'evolving' with TECH is fine.

I'll nominate the Global Energy Market bug then for a bug fix, the other 2 nominations were features

Nominated.  Although I'll probably decide to include both of the features in 3.5 (without voting), since once I'm in the area anyway for the bonus to projectile weapons vs. energy armor and vice versa it should be quite easy.

[Nexii]

Ok I'll nominate the sliding scale idea I had for SE switching costs I had awhile back. 
A formula something like: energy cost = faction population*(number of SE changes)^2

I think the slow conversion implementation would be a lot of work for what it'd be worth.  A simpler implementation I had was something like Civ where you would have an X turn delay (~4) before your new SE choices would come into effect, rather than an energy cost.  Maybe not a huge deal I don't know others thoughts on this one

[DrazharLn]

An extra cost for having recently changed policy would be good,too. Some factor based on number of SE Changes over last 50years or something. I guess smac might not track that, though.

[Nexii]

Personally I kind of preferred the costless switching like in Civ2.  From a builder SE set to momentum SE set the energy isn't a big factor, but in the other direction it's more difficult.  In some ways I feel like a delay to change between SEs was a better gameplay design (and more realistic)

[Yitzi]

Ok I'll nominate the sliding scale idea I had for SE switching costs I had awhile back. 
A formula something like: energy cost = faction population*(number of SE changes)^2

Is this replacing one of your existing nominations?  When I say they'd make it into 3.5 without a vote because I'm there anyway, that doesn't mean they don't take up nominations.

[Nexii]

Na keep the nominations as they are

[Dio]

Yea I think the roaming life 'evolving' with TECH is fine.

I'll nominate the Global Energy Market bug then for a bug fix, the other 2 nominations were features

Another thing I should note is that forests seemed to grow abnormally fast over the AI fungal pops.  Almost always within a turn if not two, and I think sometimes even if forest wasn't directly bordering.  Might be related to the native life not spawning in some strange way.

It appears as though the cap for the maximum ecodamage at a base has a relationship to the number of technologies that a faction has discovered. I believe this particular area ignores the free starting technology.

[Yitzi]

It appears as though the cap for the maximum ecodamage at a base has a relationship to the number of technologies that a faction has discovered. I believe this particular area ignores the free starting technology.

I don't remember there being such a cap.  But yes, the free starting tech(s) do(es)n't count toward techs for ecodamage.

[Nexii]

Yea I don't think there's an ecodamage cap.  Can be in the thousands or more if you make the ecodamage divisor small.

[Nevill]

Is it possible to make Infiltration last a set amount of turns instead of it being 'for life'?

Can the amount of drones the spies incite through Drone Riots action be altered? Can their position be altered to that of Pacifist Drones, or potentially even more influental, so that even police couldn't handle them (only Talents)?

[Nexii]

Could be PROBE SE dependent even, somehow.  But it's your suggestion

[Nevill]

Well, I don't have a formula or something. I'd just prefer to see a line in alphax.txt that sets the limits for each PROBE setting, like this:

-2/-1/0/+1/+2/+3 - PROBE rating of an infiltrated base.
20/15/10/5/3/1 - turns of infiltration.

The PROBE rating of a base exists to factor in the Covert Ops center.

Alternatively, it could factor the PROBE rating of a whole faction, making running Fundy a way to nullify enemy infiltration.

Say, the Infiltration action adds 100 infiltration points. Each turn subtracts the number of points depending on the faction's PROBE setting.
-2 subtracts 5 points, making infiltration last for 20 turns.
-1 subtracts 7 points, making it last 15.
0 subtracts 10 points
+1 subtracts 15
+2 subtracts 30
+3 subtracts 50

An infiltration against a faction with +2 rating would only last 4 turns. Might make Fundy worth adopting once in a while. Multiple infiltration actions can be taken in different bases to increase the infiltration points counter (infiltrating the same base twice could provide diminishing returns as it works now with stealing techs and increased risks).

I am not hung on exact implementation, as long as Infiltration isn't 'for life' and is customizable.

[Yitzi]

Is it possible to make Infiltration last a set amount of turns instead of it being 'for life'?

It'd be tricky due to the need to keep track of the amount, but I could probably either do it or move substantially toward being able to do it (depending on the exact details of some of the program's internals; I'd need to make room for stuff).

Either way, having exact values for each PROBE setting might be a bit much; better to just set the "X points, and each turn subtracts Y points minus Z per point of PROBE" approach.  Since infiltration is faction-wide, Covert Ops center probably shouldn't affect it.

Can the amount of drones the spies incite through Drone Riots action be altered? Can their position be altered to that of Pacifist Drones, or potentially even more influental, so that even police couldn't handle them (only Talents)?

The amount of the effect could be altered; however, that is not the major limiting factor.  Take a look at this thread.

Bigger changes, like letting them exceed the limit on "captured base" drones or special details about what can handle them, would be a lot trickier, though again probably doable.

So let me know what changes in particular you'd like...