realistic growth

[Buster's Uncle]

There IS something somewhere swaps out mod parts for you.  Google "SMACX Mod Manager", actually...

Yah.  BD is just a .txt mod, IIRC - based on SMAniaC. 

[bvanevery]

Hm, I don't know how well it works, but maybe what's really needed is a canonical packaging and distribution system.  If the invitation is to fiddle with mods oneself, and one has to read many posts to get that point of even basic awareness, that's not optimal for takeup.  Ideally a game itself has a way to get 3rd party content, as in the case of The Battle for Wesnoth.  I doubt SMACX can fit the ideal, but I wonder how close it could come.

[Buster's Uncle]

An old community comes with homework. [shrugs]

[bvanevery]

I'm just commenting on what I've seen work for growth - and not work - in other places.  The Wesnoth community, for instance, was completely insensitive to issues of 3rd parties who wanted to see their content showcased.  Not just do piles of work relegated to obscurity.  People also debate voting systems about mods, to have that info available in an in-game browser or not.  There are some other proxies for quality, like the last time bugs got fixed etc.

[Buster's Uncle]

We could definitely use someone making a project of organizing more of the useful old stuff - see also Altera Centauri, a scenario-collection sub of MP...

[Fibonacci]

Binary Dawn 3.1 does say it requires Yitzi's Patch 3.5d. I'm not sure whether its necessary for the politics modding however.

The bit that got changed in alphax.txt:

Code: [Select]

#SOCIO
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
Politics, Economics, Values, Society
Freehold,        None,    +ECONOMY, -GROWTH, --RESEARCH
Democracy,       AdapEco, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --SUPPORT
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++SUPPORT, ++POLICE, --EFFIC
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++PROBE, +MORALE, +TALENT, --RESEARCH
Subsistence,     None,    +GROWTH, -PLANET
Free Market,     IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, --PLANET, -----POLICE
Planned,         Algor,   ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --EFFIC
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, --GROWTH
Knowledge,       None,    ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, --PROBE
Power,           Neural,  ++SUPPORT, ++MORALE, -INDUSTRY
Empathy,         Integ,   ++TALENT, +PLANET, --POLICE
Wealth,          Subat,   +INDUSTRY, +ECONOMY, --MORALE
Conservative,    None,    +TALENT
Cybernetic,      NanEdit, ++EFFIC, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH, ---POLICE
Psionic,         WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, --SUPPORT
Oviparous,       EcoEng2, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, +INDUSTRY, ---RESEARCH

Modding SMAC instead would go in alpha.txt, right?

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes.

[Fibonacci]

Part of realistic growth is going to be the existence of techniques and availability of improvements to medicine and sanitation. The multiple-choice style bonus on the Longevity Vaccine project feels like a good approach. However, modding secret project effects seems to be well into the Yitzi's Patch level of difficulty to accomplish. Looking at the text config files is giving me an itch to design a mock up using XML, but that's likely getting into the need for an entirely different game to make use of it.

[bvanevery]

Spacefaring civilizations know about sanitation.  "You've got an aqueduct / sewer" is more applicable to Civ games where at some point in human history, people didn't know that much about sanitation.  I don't know if there's any sci-fi analogue.  To the extent that Planet has exotic organisms whose effect on human biology needs to be studied, that would be the various Biology oriented bits in the tech tree.  The inorganic hazards like the atmosphere, are obvious to anyone with the tech to land on Planet in the 1st place.

One of my mods is to remove The Human Genome Project from Biogenetics, and put it later into Gene Splicing, since it is a powerful SP to have all game.  I remove Recycling Tanks from Biogenetics because they have nothing whatsoever to do with the stated subject matter.  It is an industrial practice, so I've made them available with Industrial Base.  This leaves me with a completely empty Biogenetics, so what do I put there instead?  Bio labs, stolen from Centauri Empathy.  Now this becomes a pure research tech, meaning it is only good for getting more research faster, if you leave aside the alien lifecycle bonus.  This is what Discover oriented research should really look like.  When informing the AIs what to research, I suppose I will have to make it a Discover 4, Explore 2 tech, due to the lifecycle bonus of the Labs.

I'm not sure if I should also make it a Conquer 1.  I'm thinking not.  All captive bred lifeforms are useful for conquering, but if we regard them all that way, the Explore tech tree almost doesn't exist.  By comparison, foils have to be a Conquer tech, because you get seaborne artillery that way.

[Fibonacci]

I have often been asked: if we have traveled between the stars, why can we not launch the simplest of orbital probes? These fools fail to understand the difficulty of finding the appropriate materials on this Planet, of developing adequate power supplies, and creating the infrastructure necessary to support such an effort. In short, we have struggled under the limitations of a colonial society on a virgin planet. Until now.

  Planet: A Survivalist's Guide

Spacefaring nations know about spacefaring as well...

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein, explores a few ideas about societies' expanding into as well as over the surface of the Moon.  Air circulation, ice farming, waste collection, food production, etc. And in his typical way, he also explores variations on family structure due to the huge imbalance between the male and female populations on the Lunar prison colony.

I wonder if AI Morgan is smart enough to rush purchase the recycling tanks with them attached to Industrial Base. Any of the base facilities that changes the growth rate by increasing nutrient "income" is fair game for retuning.

I know you talk about playing blind research most of the time, but if your mod just happens to make directed research more interesting than choosing between Secrets of the Human Brain, Industrial Automation, or Intellectual Integrity I'd be most pleased. The techs descending from Doctrine: Mobility, Applied Physics, Social Psych, and Progenitor Psych all feel useful... later... unless you're on a small map. Your adjustments to Biogenetics and Industrial Base both look good. I wonder whether Doctrine: Mobility can swipe the land transport module from Doctrine: Flexibility without the Aquatic version by tacking on a premade Truck unit (speaking of things they should already know about, getting into and out of vehicles should be one of those things, not just being born/manufactured into one and being stuck in it).

[bvanevery]

Spacefaring nations know about spacefaring as well...

Look Industrial Base will get you plumbing.

I know you talk about playing blind research most of the time, but if your mod just happens to make directed research more interesting than choosing between Secrets of the Human Brain, Industrial Automation, or Intellectual Integrity I'd be most pleased.

I've changed so many things around that at this point, "who can say?"  I'm not entirely clear on whether those AI weights are simply for AI benefit, or also define the degree to which a tech is a member of {Explore Discover Build Conquer}.  I do know that the dominant AI number for it, defines which primary category it's in.

I wonder whether Doctrine: Mobility can swipe the land transport module from Doctrine: Flexibility without the Aquatic version by tacking on a premade Truck unit (speaking of things they should already know about, getting into and out of vehicles should be one of those things, not just being born/manufactured into one and being stuck in it).

Why wouldn't you just change the tech prereq in the following line to whatever you want?  It's a "weapons" module.

Troop Transport,      Transport,      0, 7, 4, -1, DocFlex,

As for premade trucks, I'm concerned that the AI will have no idea how to use them.

[Fibonacci]

I'm beginning to think that making AI bots, like those designed to play chess, would be an interesting project. I'm imagining something like a human player, and 6 Raspberry Pi boards conducting a multiplayer game. Each RPi would get a multiplayer turn. Figuring out how to program them to behave would be a fantastic experiment. I'd be interested in seeing what people could come up with to customize their own AI to suit a particular faction. More specifically, can you take off the "training wheels" bonuses that the AI currently get as the difficulty level is increased and still come up with a competitive AI?

At some point the quest for realism suffers if you're concerned the AI won't take proper advantage. At which point, improving the AI so that it can take advantage by being subtle, or sneaky, or opportunistic, or merciful, or altruistic, or brutal as fits that particular faction will probably be a more difficult but potentially rewarding project.

[Buster's Uncle]

...Even if chess AI's were good enough to SOLVE chess, SMACX is not a consistent or as limited a board/problem parameter - first-rate play might be beyond whatever latest Deep Blue iteration-level of AI running on a new Cray...

GREAT project idea, but I'm just sayin' one HECK of a challenge...

[Fibonacci]

And that's a stumbling block for a general purpose AI. I'm proposing players being allowed to customize a client that plays as AI for just one faction style. That's something that can benefit from incremental improvements. The bar isn't set terribly high by the general purpose AI, as exemplified by the need to give the computer factions better production/growth/research rates. First rate play would be a nice goal, but I'd settle for improving computer strategies to the point that the "training wheels" can come off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War is one of my inspirations for the suggestion. The idea of competing AIs in a battle simulation isn't new. The idea of connecting them to other games isn't terribly new either (auto aim bots in Quake and other FPS have been around for ages).

[Buster's Uncle]

...This is all an excellent line of thinking.  By-faction would help reduce the problem-space limits a good deal...