Voting for features and bugfixes for patch 3.6

[sisko]

Fix the MP faction graphics bug
100

Create the possibility for "interlude landmarks"
100

The same for me. Thx

[RemoveFungus]

Not to concerned one way or another about most options.

F8: 100 _ God yes the 2048 unit limit needs to be higher. You're essentially limited to Small or lower worlds if you wanna have enough units to completely fill the world.
F14: 50 _ Being able to change where you save files to might come in handy for keeping your saves organised.

[bvanevery]

The point may be moot but I'll respond anyways.

1. Create the "Focus Research" production option, a research equivalent to "Stockpile Energy".

That smells like cheating.  It's definitely a major change in game mechanics.  I'm currently writing up a very long AAR about the Believers.  If I had this, wouldn't it basically make me not have the pain of my traditional faction research penalty?

4. Enable bombing as artillery for air units.  Air artillery would be at range 1 and only against non-air targets (and would have the effects of nerve gas against bases).

Nerve gas for free against bases, without atrocity consequences, would be cheating.  Claiming that strategic bombing of a city is an atrocity, is quite the politically loaded historical argument.  Everybody did it in WW II, and the British started it.  I'd prefer this can 'o' worms not be opened.

5. Make it moddable to require a network node in a base to carry out techsteal and/or Kill Prominent Researcher in that base.

Factions often have far more items of research than they have Network Nodes.  You are actually creating a defense for players: only build the bare minimum of Network Nodes.

9. Make infiltration not necessarily permanent; instead, infiltration would create a "pool" that is then depleted over time, with the rate of depletion being affected by the target's PROBE rating; when it hit 0, infiltration would end.  Repeating the infiltration action would restore the pool to maximum, and The Empath Guild would both increase the size of the pool and set it to maximum once built (but once it ran out, you'd need to infiltrate again).

I think you are offering to make single player games more tedious, especially on Huge maps.  It can take a long time to infiltrate.  For Roze, getting a unit all the way across the board to infiltrate is an important strategic objective, so that she'll get techs from infiltrated factions.  Why do you want to make people's lives hard?  Is this a Multiplayer bias?

10. Make an option that artillery vs. ship battles are to the death.

That would make Pirate incursions far more volatile.  You could lose quickly or they could lose quickly, instead of having it be a stalemate where the Pirates go away.  I prefer the latter because the Pirates are obnoxious and artillery is the antidote for them.

15. Allow faction bonuses for forest nutrients/minerals/energy just like for fungus

No.  That's grossly unbalancing.  You're supposed to have to obtain Ecological Engineering to get to a 4 minerals threshold on most tiles.  If you can just plant forests and get 3 minerals instead of 2, well that's some kind of silly baby game where the person who plants the most forests wins.  Getting a bonus for n/m/e means finding a resource bonus and putting your city in range to work it.  Or building your supply crawlers like you're supposed to.

16. Allow setting of PROBE modifier to be immune to infiltration, and modifier to be immune to all probe team actions (as Hunter-Seeker Algorithm).

And why should anyone ever be allowed to do that?  Probe teams are overpowered, but that doesn't mean it should be "fixed" by having someone become magically immune.

17. Turn the Caretakers' "cannot build Voice of Planet" and "cannot build Ascent to Transcendence and will declare vendetta on anyone who does" into faction features that can be applied to any faction for any project, facility, or predesigned unit.

For facilities, that sounds baroque.  Players will need to know what facilities they cannot build, such as modifying the faction's Help description and providing a popup saying they can't do X when they try.  For units, that sounds easily worked around in the unit design editor.  And just what kind of predesigned unit should be verboten?  Mindworms?  Any kind of missile?  Helicopters are the mark of the Devil?  I'm not seeing the point.

18. Allow users to assign a single faction ability to each project or facility, to then apply to the base with that facility/faction with that project.  (Start-of-game things such as TECH and UNIT wouldn't apply, of course, and something faction-wide like TECHCOST would work for projects but not facilities.)

This is coming across as word salad and smells like excessive micromanagement.

19. Allow the cost of changing social engineering to be proportional to total population as well as difficulty.

I can already be broke enough to not be able to afford social changes at times.  I don't think you are offering to make the game more enjoyable with this.  Rather, much more painful.

[bvanevery]

That way, the limiting factor on terraforming isn't former numbers, so there wouldn't be a reason to get such a huge (and annoying to manage) number.

False.  You are clearly not playing on Huge maps routinely.  It doesn't matter how many Formers you build, or how fast they work.  There will always be far more squares than you are willing to make Formers to deal with, no matter how many Formers you make, and no matter how fast they work.  In late game I can remove fungus in 1 move.  At some point you've made so many Formers that you just aren't willing to make any more, for the sake of the mouseclicks.  I say this as someone who works every square by hand, because I think the AI is too stupid to be trusted with the job.

Please don't go mucking up the traditional relations between The Weather Paradigm, ability to cut fungus due to techs and Secret Projects, and Super Formers as far as former speed goes.  They ain't broke and don't need fixing.

[gwillybj]

These would have been my picks:

Options for Features
(100) 8. Increase the 2048 unit limit to something set by alphax.txt.
(90) 10. Make an option that artillery vs. ship battles are to the death.
(80) 19. Allow the cost of changing social engineering to be proportional to total population as well as difficulty.

Options for Bugfixes
(100) 1. Make children's creches actually work right (i.e. fix all creche-related bugs).  This is fairly straightforward, and gets its total score doubled.
(100) 6. Make it so that in an artillery duel, the attacker does not sometimes have a -100% hasty penalty.
(100) 8. Make the faction energy bonus/penalty show up in the energy report screen (F3).

Did any make the cut?

Voting is now closed, and the features and bugfixes slated for 3.6 are as follows:

-I intend to fix the creche morale bugs once and for all, and while I'm at it make it somewhat moddable in terms of effect on units homed to that base, as well as enable some modding of probe team morale rules.
-I intend to implement "bombing" (air artillery).
-I intend to implement an "interlude landmarks" system.  A guide to using the system will be included with the patch.
-I plan to check how difficult it will be to allow non-permanent infiltration; if it's not too hard, I intend to implement that as well.
-Territory rules for sea bases, and for sea bases affecting land spaces and vice versa, will be moddable.
-Disabling autodesign will apply to reactor-based autodesigns as well.
-The prompt about breaking a truce/treaty will apply before attacking with artillery or having air attacks intercepted.
-Scient has done quite a bit since his patch version that Kyrub (and then I) built off of, and I plan to start implementing some of that as well.

From my selections, only the Children's Creche bugs are to be fixed. Everybody has been wanting that since Day One.

Slightly disappointed that features #8 and #19 aren't in. In #8, 2048 was likely set because of the limited memory availability in 1999. I doubt it's an issue now, and the number could easily be doubled. The challenge in #19 would have been fun for me.
Not disappointed about feature #10, although it seems like a "real" enough thing.

[vonbach]

Auto plant forests.

[Buster's Uncle]

You mean added as a specific auto-setting?  Great idea.   Seconded.

[bvanevery]

I'm not sure what "auto plant forests" would mean?  I don't want them planted everywhere, only on flat terrain that's arid or moist.

[vonbach]

I'm not sure what "auto plant forests" would mean?  I don't want them planted everywhere, only on flat terrain that's arid or moist.

You can always chop them down. Auto plant forests would save me a huge amount of time.
Another idea is having the green settings affect how many resources you get from forests.

[Buster's Uncle]

I get it, b.  I don't use ANY auto-settings or governors, but I can see how someone who did might like the foresting option.

[bvanevery]

You can always chop them down.

That doesn't make any sense.  It means the capability of the Former is being wasted.  It also means I'd have to do more mouseclicks correcting its stupidity.  What I need is a specification paradigm with enough options that I can distinguish when I want stuff to be planted.  I wonder if it's less than a programming language.

Another idea is having the green settings affect how many resources you get from forests.

I'm inclined to view that as unrealistic.  Going "Green" generally means embracing sustainable practices, which means lower yields than a Free Market.  Free Markets denude forests.  The realistic way to implement it, would be for all the trees to get chopped down in a Free Market.  Then eco-damage would be done because you don't have trees.  That's not SMAC though.

[vonbach]

That doesn't make any sense.  It means the capability of the Former is being wasted.  It also means I'd have to do more mouseclicks correcting its stupidity.

Some people like to plants forests all over the place. I'm one of them and I don't think I'm alone. Auto plant forests would be a huge time saver.
Especially when  you build as many cities as I do. Besides you get minerals for chopping them down as I recall.
They also look nicer than mines or farms.

I'm inclined to view that as unrealistic.  Going "Green" generally means embracing sustainable practices,

Trees  grow back after you cut them. Besides using a forest doesn't just mean chopping it down for wood.
It should represent a host of smaller decentralized industries. From hunting to building materials to processing wood for fuel.

[bvanevery]

Some people like to plants forests all over the place. I'm one of them and I don't think I'm alone.

Ok, admittedly in my last game I found out it isn't irrational, if you have Hybrid Forests.  I had to go back and undo a lot of my farm + solar collector squares because they weren't as high yield as just plain trees, minerals notwithstanding.  I will be more careful next game, as those farm squares can be worthwhile in the early game, but aren't worthwhile later.  I will try not to overproduce them, as that's wasting the capability of the Formers.

Besides you get minerals for chopping them down as I recall.

That can be useful for rushing productivity at the beginning of the game when your mineral yields are low, if you have spare trees to do it with.  Otherwise, I'm not going to bother as 5 minerals is not worth the mouseclicks.  Also in mid to late game it is better to have as many trees as possible, presuming you have Hybrid Forests.  Actually in the very late game the Fungus becomes super valuable, if you've got the Manifold Harmonics.  However by then, I think you should have won the game already by some other means.  So that makes it more of a sandboxing curiosity.

They also look nicer than mines or farms.

I do have a forest aesthetic bias and do not want to plant fungus on anything, even when it becomes far more valuable than forest.  I leave it all be.  I figure humans should live with trees, not mindworms.

Trees  grow back after you cut them. Besides using a forest doesn't just mean chopping it down for wood.
It should represent a host of smaller decentralized industries. From hunting to building materials to processing wood for fuel.

I don't think there's a tech universe we live in yet, where Green practices are going to yield more minerals and energy than scraping everything out of the earth and leaving it bleeding profusely with toxic waste.  Maybe someday, but I've studied a fair amount about wood gasification for instance, and I'm just not seeing it.  I'd really like a "wood gathering and chipping robot".

[bvanevery]

I find myself going over this old thread, wondering whatever happened to Yitzi, and a little sad about it.  I add another $0.02 with the wisdom of 6 months of modding hindsight.

The point may be moot but I'll respond anyways.

15. Allow faction bonuses for forest nutrients/minerals/energy just like for fungus

No.  That's grossly unbalancing.  You're supposed to have to obtain Ecological Engineering to get to a 4 minerals threshold on most tiles.  If you can just plant forests and get 3 minerals instead of 2, well that's some kind of silly baby game where the person who plants the most forests wins.  Getting a bonus for n/m/e means finding a resource bonus and putting your city in range to work it.  Or building your supply crawlers like you're supposed to.

This comment of mine was particularly spot on.  In my mod I came to recognize that the Pirates have enormous geographical advantage, due to their +1 Minerals on water bonus.  They already have piles of energy and food, and this the only thing that was lacking.  I changed their personality and their social engineering choices, making them Passive and pursuing Wealth.  They have this huge moat of vast resources around them, why should they stress or bother to conquer stuff?  Well they shouldn't.  My change works really well.  They're a very threatening faction in my games, because the AI is now leveraging an inherent geographic resource advantage.

Do this for forests on land, and it would be a disaster.  Game over, forest faction always wins. 

16. Allow setting of PROBE modifier to be immune to infiltration, and modifier to be immune to all probe team actions (as Hunter-Seeker Algorithm).

And why should anyone ever be allowed to do that?  Probe teams are overpowered, but that doesn't mean it should be "fixed" by having someone become magically immune.

I actually did end up using the existing MINDCONTROL faction ability, for the Believers.  You can do other things to them with probe teams, but you can't take over their units or bases.  It has an important effect on AI vs. AI fights.  Once the Believers start gaining enemy bases, they don't lose them, to the AI's usual probe team retaliation. 

So nowadays, I'm not so quick to dismiss the merit of having a full HSA ability as an option.  The key with such options, is to use them judiciously.  Like only 1 faction has the ability, it's thematically appropriate for them, and it's been play balanced. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Yitzi was close to graduating college when he was last active here - stands to reason that we've lost him to having a real life, at least for now.  -But pinging him couldn't hurt.  He's missed, not just for the modding...