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...- Judging by the 800 cost weight you put on it, you are very, very opposed to players obtaining The Empath Guild in the timeframe they ordinarily do in the game. Why? Do you believe it is a game ender? Do you believe that nobody should be allowed to communicate for long distances? What size of map do you typically play on? Do you primarily play single player or multiplayer? If The Empath Guild is so bad, why don't you just remove it from the game?
- The Cloudbase Academy is widely regarded as overpowered. Raising its cost is not an unreasonable idea. But why do you believe it is twice as powerful as The Cyborg Factory? Do you think that everyone always builds Sky Hydroponics Labs to drive their civilization and that's the only thing anyone cares about? Have you not heard of Hybrid Forests or Aquafarms?
- The actual long term value of The Weather Paradigm is your terraforming goes significantly faster. Being able to raise land and build advanced facilities is only a short term advantage. Ecological Engineering and Environmental Economics do come around mid-game, all factions can do these things. You can't get full mineral and energy values out of things like Thermal Boreholes until you research those techs anyways. Raising land isn't forbidden, it's part of the game. The WP makes players able to do it early, that's its main function. By imposing a 3x cost on making it - let's put this in perspective, I could have The Human Genome Project, The Command Nexus, and The Merchant Exchange for the same price you've set - you are saying you're very, very opposed to people being able to raise land early. Why? And if you are so opposed, why not just take it out of the game?
- Why do you think the Planetary Transit System even affects the game? Do you have some personal playstyle where you've found a way to make this SP overpowered and incredible? I've been playing the game 18 years. I'm not seeing why you're picking on a pretty lame SP here. Are you a big fan of Infinite City Sprawl? Do you think everyone is?
- Why if you are on a crusade about "shouldn't get certain SPs until later", did you leave The Virtual World alone? Is it because you think Zhakarov would be hurt if he can't try to build it on the usual schedule?
- Why do you think it's ok for people to get The Human Genome project in the usual timeframe? It's pretty powerful to have 1 extra Talent. It's arguably the best early 200 point SP, and it will benefit you the whole game.
- Since The Planetary Datalinks is likely to become available at a similar time to The Planetary Transit System and The Planetary Energy Grid, why did you leave it alone?
And finally:- Do you honestly believe that the packaging value of containing all rules changes in alphax.txt, warrants large distortions of the game as we know it? You can change other files to make SPs be tied to later techs. You can have players install parallel copies of SMAC installations, it is not hard. I'm not sure if I recently taught you how to do that; I definitely reminded you that it can be readily done.
I am sufficiently unfamliar with modding, that I have just realized the requirements for Secret Projects are completely contained in alphax.txt. There is no packaging problem here. If one wants a SP to be gained later, move it to a tech where it is gained later. Questions still remain as to why one wishes to do that, as I've not found gaining Centauri Empathy to be a cakewalk. But I'm not seeing the basic reason to implement a "delay of The Empath Guild" by using a 4x production cost increase.Also: why cripple Deirdre and Cha Dawn? The Explore tech tree is definitely Deirdre's tech tree, and often coincides with Cha Dawn's interests as well. Zhakarov isn't being picked on with The Virtual World. Lal isn't being picked on with The Human Genome Project. Yang isn't getting picked on with The Command Nexus. Morgan isn't being picked on with The Merchant Exchange. Why Deirdre? Why should she have to "fight from behind" while other factions get good core Secret Projects for their empires?
I do not want to change SP techs. WP is with Centauri Ecology, and I think it should stay that way. SP cost change effects techs much less than removing an SP to another technology.
Just an observation about life that it's possible to be 100% correct and still charge at it TOO hard. -That's a wall up there.
I do not want to say it, so that I do not spoil the experience to try it without knowing.
I see no reason that the 'multiplayer bias' should take a back seat to the 'singleplayer bias'.
But the thing is, ridiculous prices for singleplayer don’t hurt it as much as cheap game-breaking projects do for multiplayer.
Likewise, the election is always a huge event. This kind of power should not be vested in any single particular thing to do.
CBA - Aero Complexes have several unreported effects, of which the morale bonus may be very well the least important. They confer +100% bonus to air defence and prevent air drops.
They help with (building and benefitting from) satellites.
On the top of that, CBA gives that movement bonus (crucial for interceptions).
Up until Fusion Power, there are several key techs which force quite a strict beeline without the blind research.
This is one of the biggest problems with the overall SMAC strategy. But messing with that may very well go beyond what Mart’s trying to accomplish here.
In general, for MP games I would rip the air power apart.
Remember also that introducing Probe Cruisers to the list of template units will actually make the AI build and use them.