Fission Armor mod (SMAX)

[bvanevery]

After extensive endgame combat experience, I've decided the Blink Displacer is going into the "baby game" section of the tree, Threshold of Transcendence.  It keeps company with The Telepathic Matrix and the Transcendii.  These should never, ever be in a real game.  Rather than completely remove them from the game, I leave them as toys for people to contemplate in the endgame, when they've already won.

There is no point in having a progression of weapons and armor, going all the way up to strength 30, being blown by bypassing base defenses.  It's like children playing the game of insulting each other.  "Whatever you say bounces right off of me and sticks back to you!"  That's a direct quote from my childhood, 6 year olds literally say that kind of thing to each other.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

After extensive endgame combat experience, I've decided the Blink Displacer is going into the "baby game" section of the tree, Threshold of Transcendence.  It keeps company with The Telepathic Matrix and the Transcendii.  These should never, ever be in a real game.  Rather than completely remove them from the game, I leave them as toys for people to contemplate in the endgame, when they've already won.

There is no point in having a progression of weapons and armor, going all the way up to strength 30, being blown by bypassing base defenses.  It's like children playing the game of insulting each other.  "Whatever you say bounces right off of me and sticks back to you!"  That's a direct quote from my childhood, 6 year olds literally say that kind of thing to each other.

You are right to be raged.

However, it is impossible to make this game absolutely perfect even less perfectly balanced. There will always be something that blows off something else. If not BD then destroying defensive structures as you yourself went back and forth on it. If not that than certainly something else like reactors, terraforming, see combat, native combat or whatever else. Practically any thing breaks some other thing.

My strong yet humble opinion is that this is not a pure strategic game. This is a discovery game. There are 85 technologies in research tree and about 400 different features. This is much more than in other pure strategical games like Starcraft, X-COM, ... have. Due to that enormous number of technologies and stuff they allow it is impossible to pre-plan and direct your research toward specific improvement/feature. You just fund research and see what cool thing falls out for you and then try out this cool thing and see how cool it is! So, no, it won't be a pure strategical game ever. The only difference between all these cool features is that some of them stay just a cool features but others may change strategical balance but giving you better something (weapon, armor, way of action, ability, etc.). You may definitely say that when you acquire such better thing it breaks previous strategy that existed before it to some extent. Breaking previously existing strategy/feature is not that bad by itself. It is an evolution. You said yourself you want to discover something that gives you an advantage and win the game. Worse when it breaks future strategy/feature. Meaning that whatever you will discover in future won't give you an additional advantage. You already have a best strategy/feature so far. Then this future thing is just a cool toy as you named it. This is what I am trying to change by rearranging feature time of appearance and their cost/benefit. I.e. build a gradually increasing progression of betterness so that each next feature gives you more and more advantage so you are always interested in further research.

Now returning back to our destroying defense probe ability vs. BD. Probe ability cost and success chance stays about the same throughout the game. Whereas BD unit cost is proportional to the contemporary attacker and defender cost. Due to that fact it is much much easier to price it right. You just need to see how much proportion you want to keep for them. What's important that proportion stays regardless of contemporary unit costs.
I feel like out of these two strategies probe team breaks things more than BD.

[bvanevery]

Practically any thing breaks some other thing.

A game is in the writing.  The game provides time windows when various actions matter, then they cease to matter.  In the limit, all actions cease to matter when you win the game.  You are Done.  An abstract objection that "things break anyways" isn't valid.  A game is about controlling when these things break.  Or it is not a game, it is a childhood facsimile of a game with no consequence.

Probe teams breaking down walls is acceptable because defensive probe teams can also be put into place.  The problem is the AI doesn't do this as much as it should.  The rules, the play mechanic itself, and the tech tree are not the problem.  Soon I'll be testing whether the AI can be reasoned with, if it will believe me when I tell them an armored infantry probe team is a "Defensive" unit instead of a probe unit.  If not, well, I suppose there's either binary patching, writing a new game, playing against humans, or completely removing probe teams from the game.

Due to that enormous number of technologies and stuff they allow it is impossible to pre-plan and direct your research toward specific improvement/feature.

That's false.  Play an Alien faction, you can direct your goals just fine.  Blind Research is a deliberate play mechanic for everyone else.  Personally I think it is a better idea than a worse one, and I've learned how to push my research towards one thing or the other over the years.

When modding, it is possible to separate the research categories to be much more inherently meaningful.  I did this in my mod.  It has been a huge effort, and it is still ongoing.  The original designers just doled out toys to the various research foci every so often.  I don't do that.  I require factions to play to their strengths and trade or steal what they don't have.

I've realized that Secret Projects are the fundamental barrier to trade, the basic impediment.  If I want something traded, I have to remove Secret Projects.  I think I made a fairly substantial mistake in my 1.26 this way, and I'm reversing course for 1.27.  Factions will have easy access to Politics and Economics choices again.

Breaking previously existing strategy/feature is not that bad by itself. It is an evolution.

The backbone of design stability in the game is the relationship between weapons and armor.  I am very rigid about that.  An ironclad discipline is maintained all the way to the end of the tech tree.  Frankly that's how the tech tree ends, because weapons and armors are boring.  There are way more of them than needed in the game. 

You already have a best strategy/feature so far.

So I win in the era of Marines.  I'm ok with that.  I already learned more than a decade ago that the game can be won with Marines.  To push the point, I've made Marines available as a Tier 2 tech.  If all you need are Marines and some productivity, fine, have at it!  See you on the other side of contemplation of productivity.  I took the easy Supply Crawler economy away.  And the easy factories.  You'll have to actually earn your minerals.

Some people think Air Power is the big game breaker.  I think it's boring because they don't have enough logistical range to get anything done.  Too tedious pushing them around.  The supreme logistical weapon, is the mag tube.  So again, I give them at Tier 2.  If all you need are mag tubes and productivity, have at it!

You just need to see how much proportion you want to keep for them.

I'd end up pricing it so high that nobody in their right mind would use it.  Might as well just put it at the end of the tree, to declare that this thing is kept in the game in name only.  I don't have a difficult Ascent sequence like you do.  If someone gets there, the game is going to end in a few turns.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

You already have a best strategy/feature so far.

So I win in the era of Marines.  I'm ok with that.

I meant something different. Say you didn't win with Marines early but found them so effective that you build build only them throughout the rest of the game ignoring other unit types available for you later. That is what is broken. You discover new things but they are unusable because there is already better thing discovered earlier.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Practically any thing breaks some other thing.

A game is in the writing.  The game provides time windows when various actions matter, then they cease to matter.  In the limit, all actions cease to matter when you win the game.  You are Done.  An abstract objection that "things break anyways" isn't valid.  A game is about controlling when these things break.  Or it is not a game, it is a childhood facsimile of a game with no consequence.

Well, I meant it in exactly this way: saying that something breaks something is not valid. The better wording would be that some feature gives you an advantage which may result in switching to more advanced strategy. Now how big advantage you get - whether measly one or game ending one - is another story.

[bvanevery]

I think I was pretty clear that all the Blink Displacer accomplishes, is ruining the backbone of weapon vs. armor ratio throughout the game, grossly favoring offense.  Let's say BD comes at the the same time as a strength 16 gun.  Now you don't even need the strength 20, 24, and 30 guns.  Might as well forget that final part of the tech tree.  I prefer to forget BD and put it at the end of the tech tree.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I think I was pretty clear that all the Blink Displacer accomplishes, is ruining the backbone of weapon vs. armor ratio throughout the game, grossly favoring offense.  Let's say BD comes at the the same time as a strength 16 gun.  Now you don't even need the strength 20, 24, and 30 guns.  Might as well forget that final part of the tech tree.  I prefer to forget BD and put it at the end of the tech tree.

I'm sorry man, I don't follow your logic. BD gives proportional strength increase. So with or without it going from 16 to 24 or from 16+BD to 24+BD gives you exactly same proportional strength increase. Researching new weapon still brings same exactly value.

BD doesn't negate weapon or armor. It counters defensive structure and not for free. Depending on its cost it may render capturing bases with such defense cheaper or it may not.

Here is the simple math.

BD against Perimeter defense decreases defender multiplier from 2.00 to 1.25. You spend 2.00 times less faster units or 2.22 times less infantry units.
BD against Tachyon field decreases defender multiplier from 3.00 to 1.25. You spend 3.25 times less faster units or 3.76 times less infantry units.
These are example numbers, not exactly what you get in the game but they give you some feeling.

a) If BD multiplies unit cost by less than 2 times, it makes perimeter somewhat less effective but somewhat effective nevertheless! It renders tachyon useless.
b) If BD multiplies unit cost by between 2 times and 3.25 times, it keeps perimeter as effective as it was and it makes tachyon less effective but somewhat effective nevertheless!
c) If BD multiplies unit cost by more than 3.25, it keeps all defensive structure same effective and BD itself becomes useless.

Another consideration about perimeter and tachyon. Say you attack base with max attack bonuses (infantry, Sophoric gas pods) against same strength armor with max defense bonuses (sensor).
No defense: 1 losses
Perimeter: 2.2 losses
Tachyon: 3.8 losses

You see that perimeter doubles attacker losses while perimeter+tachyon quadruples them, not just triple as one would expect. Me and other player who tested that feel this is too much. Apparently, this is the reason AI cannot penetrate same strength defenders behind tachyon at the end of the game. While perimeter allows weaker faction withstanding stronger neighbor tachyon completely seals the border which is not the desired result. You said it yourself you don't like impenetrable trenches.
I was trying to cope with this by slowing down armor progression at the end of the game but looks like BD gives much more elegant alternative to adjust it to whatever number you like to decrease tachyon effectiveness to. I chose to price BD unit 2.5 times higher. That keeps tachyon effective but not as incredibly effective. Actually, I have a strong suspicion designers introduced BD for the same exact reason: just to cope with too powerful tachyon!

[bvanevery]

I'm sorry man, I don't follow your logic. BD gives proportional strength increase. So with or without it going from 16 to 24 or from 16+BD to 24+BD gives you exactly same proportional strength increase. Researching new weapon still brings same exactly value.

Combat in the real world is not weapon vs. armor.  Combat is all factors combined.  Base defenses are necessary to hold off assailants, armor alone won't do it.  Thinking of things orthogonally and in a vacuum, is not a game design virtue.  This game is about taking over cities.  There are already abilities that debuff weapons vs. armor: Soporific Gas Pods, Dissociative Wave, Psi combat.  Ground units escorted by a Needlejet escort are impossible to counterattack, unless you shoot down the plane.  Offense doesn't need yet another thing seriously favoring it.

You said it yourself you don't like impenetrable trenches.

Solved by targeted probe team sabotage.  Not planning on getting rid of probe teams in my mod.

Actually, I have a strong suspicion designers introduced BD for the same exact reason: just to cope with too powerful tachyon! 

Nope.  It's this game's version of Civ II howitzers, which bypassed city walls.  There wasn't any 2nd layer of walls in Civ II.  Whenever you are wondering where a game mechanic came from, most of them came from Civ II.  Howitzers came late game, exactly the same as Blink Displacers.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Actually, I have a strong suspicion designers introduced BD for the same exact reason: just to cope with too powerful tachyon! 

Nope.  It's this game's version of Civ II howitzers, which bypassed city walls.  There wasn't any 2nd layer of walls in Civ II.  Whenever you are wondering where a game mechanic came from, most of them came from Civ II.  Howitzers came late game, exactly the same as Blink Displacers.

It's like we are talking different languages. That is right there is only one layer of walls in Civ II. Which triple the defense. SMAC just split this combined effect in two layers not changing the combined value.

[bvanevery]

I didn't know Civ II walls were that strong, but we're not speaking different languages.  I said debuffing city walls comes from Civ II.  The unit that could do that was called the Howitzer.  All that SMAC did is make that an ability you could throw at various units in the Workshop.  Lots of things in SMAC can be a 'Howitzer'.

Debuffing a city wall wasn't invented in SMAC.  It wasn't implemented because of overpowered Tachyon Fields.  It exists because debuffing walls was an endgame mechanic in Civ II.

[bvanevery]

Summary of global flooding in the test game I played as Zhakarov.  I started with version 1.0, and overwrote all the way through 1.4 before quitting the game.  For a large portion of the game, I was subjected to continuous and painful flooding caused by other factions.  I haven't really seen that happen in a game before.  Usually I'm the cause of flooding and it's been due to a direct or indirect choice on my part.  Primary suspicion falls on AI factions getting access to Genejack Factories and Robotic Assembly Plants way too early, without much in the way of prereqs to restrain the AI from going hog wild with them.  Secondary suspicion is Free Market factions causing lots of eco-damage with -3 PLANET.

MY 2304.  Domai is the dominant military power of the game.  He is beginning to destroy Lal's cities next to him.  Domai's empire is centralized on the biggest land mass of the game.  Lal's empire forms an arc around Domai's empire, as though Lal spread out during a Treaty to grab what land he could.  Lack of mag tubes until very late in the game, possibly make Lal's empire completely indefensible.  Domai and Lal had similar strength earlier but Lal's geographic position is totally untenable.

Domai is Fundamentalist Planned Power.  I believe at this point in the game, the ruleset in use was still giving +1 PLANET for Fundamentalist.  Domai definitely didn't have a negative PLANET rating.  He has built 5 Genejack Factories and is working on a 6th.  He has 6 cities doing 2..6 eco-damage, at least according to 1.4 rules.  He has built 9 Tree Farms and can be regarded as a fairly responsible AI from a pollution standpoint.  Possibly according to earlier rules, he may have had +1 PLANET and may not have been doing any eco-damage at all.

Morgan Industries has not learned Genejack Factories yet.  They are Democratic Free Market Power with a -3 PLANET rating.  1 city is doing 4 eco-damage.

The Data Angels are doing 7 eco-damage on Mt. Planet.  No factories.  They are Democratic Free Market with a -3 PLANET rating.

The Peackeepers are Democratic Planned Power.  They have 3 Genejack Factories and 3 Centauri Preserves.

My own University faction has built 8 Tree Farms.  I am Democratic Planned Knowledge.  I have 4 Robotic Assembly Plants in progress and no Genejack Factories.  I am doing 0 eco-damage.

MY 2359.  That's the next saved game that I have.  I've suffered substantial eco-damage and spend time every turn repairing land or raising it up again.  The Ruins is underwater.  The Manifold Nexus is at 18 meters and endangered.  Not that long from now it sinks completely, destroying it.  I'm doing 4 eco-damage in 1 city, otherwise 0.  I am Police State Green Knowledge Thought Control with +2 PLANET.

The Data Angels have a Genejack Factory, Robotic Assembly Plant, and a Quantum Converter on Mt. Planet.  They are doing a whopping 56 eco-damage, greater than any other city in the game.  They are Democratic Free Market Thought Control, thus -3 PLANET.  I myself have Quantum Converter technology as well, but I chose not to build any, due to risk of even more flooding that I was already getting.  The Data Angels only have this 1 awful city, they are otherwise a sparse empire.

The Morganites have 3 Genejack Factories and 6 Robotic Assembly Plants.  They are Democratic Free Market Power Cybernetic, seeming to result in only -1 PLANET.  They drilled 2 boreholes.  Don't know if any others sunk, but I bet that's all they did.  They have a city doing 22 eco-damage, and a city doing 12.

The Pirates have 1 city doing 18 eco-damage merely from sea minerals, no factories.  Otherwise a city doing 4, and a city doing 2.  The are Fundamentalist Free Market Power Cybernetic, probably -1 PLANET.

The Spartans have cities doing 13, 13, and 8 eco-damage.  No factories.  Fundamentalist Free Market Power Thought Control, probably -3 PLANET.

The Peacekeepers have been majorly killed by the Free Drones.  They are doing no eco-damage.  They have 2 Genejack Factories and a Robotic Assembly Plant.  They are Power Thought Control, so +0 PLANET.

The Free Drones are Fundamentalist Planned Power and the dominant military force of the game.  They will go on to threaten Transcendence.  Only the very very long time to build the Ascent to Transcendence enables me to compete against them in the endgame.  I eventually quit the game when it became clear that I would in time beat them, at the cost of many further hours of play.

They have 13 Genejack Factories, 17 Robotic Assembly Plants, 10 Quantum Converters, 11 Tree Farms, 5 Hybrid Forests, and 9 Centauri Preserves.  They have cities doing 12, 16, 12, 32, 40, 16, and 16 eco-damage.   They are the big offenders of the game.

Conclusion: factories are available too soon.

Secondary factor: inability of Peacekeepers to defend their empire, when they were once on roughly equal footing with the Free Drones.  Possibly due to lack of mag tubes.  Possibly due to offense outstripping defense.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I didn't know Civ II walls were that strong, but we're not speaking different languages.  I said debuffing city walls comes from Civ II.  The unit that could do that was called the Howitzer.  All that SMAC did is make that an ability you could throw at various units in the Workshop.  Lots of things in SMAC can be a 'Howitzer'.

Debuffing a city wall wasn't invented in SMAC.  It wasn't implemented because of overpowered Tachyon Fields.  It exists because debuffing walls was an endgame mechanic in Civ II.

Yeah. Somewhere lost in words. Yep, I remember about howitzer and that this is version of it in SMAC.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Combat in the real world is not weapon vs. armor.  Combat is all factors combined.  Base defenses are necessary to hold off assailants, armor alone won't do it.  Thinking of things orthogonally and in a vacuum, is not a game design virtue.  This game is about taking over cities.  There are already abilities that debuff weapons vs. armor: Soporific Gas Pods, Dissociative Wave, Psi combat.  Ground units escorted by a Needlejet escort are impossible to counterattack, unless you shoot down the plane.  Offense doesn't need yet another thing seriously favoring it.

You are right about multiple factors. However, I am not writing a math esse to get the exact statistical distribution. I am trying to get the very very rough and first level estimate of the effect.

So here for completeness sake I tried to estimate how valuable PD and TF for defender depending on different original attack to defense strength ratio.

d/a   no   PD   PD+TF   PD imp   PD+TF imp
   1.25   2.00   3.00         
0.60   0.60   1.40   2.60      2.33      4.33
0.80   1.00   2.20   3.80      2.20      3.80
1.00   1.50   3.00   5.00      2.00      3.33
1.20   2.00   3.80   6.20      1.90      3.10
1.40   2.50   4.60   7.40      1.84      2.96
                  
               2.05      3.51

Obviously, the weaker the defender the more defense structures benefit it. Saying the same with different words, the stronger the attacker comparing to defender the more BD benefits is. To the edge case when attacker with BD becomes much stronger than defender and may potentially turn into indestructible attacker phenomena. I haven't think about this yet but, I guess, with quite high BD price this won't make much difference anyway. Stronger faction can as well build 3 times more regular attackers and wipe out neighbor perimeter or no perimeter.

[bvanevery]

Something to note about your 1.4 is you had the strongest armor at strength 16, and the strongest weapon at strength 28.  Yet I still needed either SA+PD+TF gone, or SA gone + BD, to kill defenders in a base.  This is even with the +25% infantry attack bonus.

In my own mod, armor and weapons both max at 30.  I don't really know what happens with a BD in the endgame in my own mod.  I've always stomped the AIs.  They do better but I am still ultimately a human being that plays better than they do.  They've never had gratuitous flooding to protect them, nor excessive Secret Project costs to sap any other kind of development I might engage in.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Something to note about your 1.4 is you had the strongest armor at strength 16, and the strongest weapon at strength 28.  Yet I still needed either SA+PD+TF gone, or SA gone + BD, to kill defenders in a base.  This is even with the +25% infantry attack bonus.

In my own mod, armor and weapons both max at 30.  I don't really know what happens with a BD in the endgame in my own mod.  I've always stomped the AIs.  They do better but I am still ultimately a human being that plays better than they do.  They've never had gratuitous flooding to protect them, nor excessive Secret Project costs to sap any other kind of development I might engage in.

I believe I changed SA back to +25%. So you are saying even 16+25%(SA) is stronger than 28?