Fission Armor mod (SMAX)

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Hello, fellow players.
Ideas I developed in http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21046.0 crystallized into a full fledged mod. Thank to bvanevery who tested first versions extensively and helped out with suggestions to make it relatively playable.

The complete idea is described in readme. Here is the short summary.

I believe SMAC/X is a greatest game of all times. It outdid Civ I and Civ 2 - also greatest games ever until SMAC/X. What's stunning, it keeps outdoing all the follower Civ versions hands down. It is amazing how many innovations they ingested in it. Looks like game designer also did a hard work of making sense for each one of them and balancing them out. Unfortunately, the sheer number of features poses a real challenge making them work together. That's why only few of them present viable strategies. Others just either completely unusable or not viable at all. Being playing this game for decade I have learnt all features, exploits, and sole best strategy that is the fastest way to victory. After applying it over and over again I got bored and don't play vanilla version any more. I feel sad that there are so many aspects of the game I never used just because they happen to be accidentally under-powered below any sense. This mod is an attempt to bring previously underdog features to light. Let them be not only interesting and unique featurs but also be valuable to the player as a good strategies at some point.

The motto of this mod is all features should be valuable for winning at some point. They may be circumstantial and not applied in every single game but they should be applied quite often. In other words, there should not be any extremely over or under powered features/strategies those used more than 90% or less than 5% of the time. Player should have a good mix of tools on their hand and should be able to apply one of the other in light of the changing game state.

Let me do a quick disclaimer here. Balancing strategies means that some of them becomes less attractive in general. That is a definite drawback for those who got used to a certain play style. The nature of the well balanced game is that it does not have a style defined before game starts. You need to be flexible and assess you current state, strengths and weaknesses in order to chose a best approach at a time. That also certainly means it becomes more challenging as you need to think on your feet more often. That's the beauty of it for me and I apologize to those not sharing my passion.

Here are a summary of main things I did to the game.

• Balanced weapon and armor strength so that you start with slightly stronger armor. Weapon catches up with armor closer to the middle of the game and then growths somewhat faster to the 3:2 ratio toward the end. That eliminates the indestructible army exploit which was the main reason I've started this mod.
  
• Mercilessly deleted all unused, unusable, and unbalanceable things as well as those directly contradicting game paradigm.
  
  • Unused or barely used technologies
  • Unusable abilities
  • Combined weapon and armor
  • Higher reactors
• Modified cost and/or effect of over and under powered features to make their value suit their purpose better and be strategically comparable to other choices.
  
  • Weapon and armor rating
  • Facilities cost and maintenance
  • SPs cost
  • SE models composition
  • Abilities strength and cost
• Completely rearranged tech tree and feature appearance in tech tree to put their discovery time closer to the point when they actually start to be needed. Thus reducing the clutter of unneeded items in build list or workshop. This may make tech tree quite not what it is in box game but I don't think technology naming and connection is too much of importance. After all they always can be renamed and re-linked as needed.
  

After all this let me reiterate once more that I do not plan to achieve some phantom perfect balance as I believe it doesn't exist. I am satisfied when I see no unused features and every feature in the game has unquestionable value at some game at some point. In this regard the specific shape of the txt configuration is optional and I welcome everybody to be co-authors on it. Feel free to shoot you suggestion on feature timing, value, technology names, tech tree structure, etc. I believe together we can make this great game infinitely playable again!


One more disclaimer to make. This is txt mod and, theoretically, it should go easily with any pure exe mod. However, I have built and tested it on top of Thinker mod. That's why I didn't address problems already addressed there.

Enjoy and thank you in advance for your feedback and suggestions.

[bvanevery]

I have some solid opinions on endgame combat now.

Blink Displacers are pointless.  Instead of the cost of equipping every offensive unit with that, you can just send an Algorithmically Enhanced probe team to destroy any Tachyon Field in your way.  It's easy to make those teams Elite by this point in the game, just with a Covert Ops Center and a Command Center etc.  They can specifically target a facility with an 88% success rate.  75% if there's been a lot of previous probe team action against the city.  Losing 1 team is definitely an acceptable expense as probe teams don't cost all that much to make.

Now in the stock game, units are cheapened in cost by bigger reactors.  So, one "might as well" put a Blink Displacer on a unit, because the costs aren't so bad.  In your mod, adding a Cost 2 Ability to a unit makes it very expensive.  So there's just not a reason to do it, it's a waste of time.  If nothing else changes, then in accord with your "removing clutter" philosophy, you might as well get rid of this one as it's pointless.

I always thought it sounded too much like Dungeons & Dragons anyways.  I think I'm fighting a 4-tentacled panther.

With weapons vs. armor in the endgame, a strength 28 String Disruptor can always smash through a Perimeter Defense and strength 16 Stasis armor.  Assuming an infantry attack on the city, equally trained units, etc.  Do you want weapons to have this advantage at the end?  In my mod, both weapons and armor go to strength 30.

[bvanevery]

I have realized that the lack of Fusion or higher reactors in the game, has consequences for the benefits of the Nethack Terminus.  It provides Algorithmic Enhancement for probe teams with Fusion reactors or higher.  Since there are none, it doesn't happen.  I have also noticed that the AI does not seem to be smart enough to make an Algorithmically Enhanced probe team.  Thus, the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm actually has value in practice late in the game.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I have some solid opinions on endgame combat now.

Blink Displacers are pointless.  Instead of the cost of equipping every offensive unit with that, you can just send an Algorithmically Enhanced probe team to destroy any Tachyon Field in your way.  It's easy to make those teams Elite by this point in the game, just with a Covert Ops Center and a Command Center etc.  They can specifically target a facility with an 88% success rate.  75% if there's been a lot of previous probe team action against the city.  Losing 1 team is definitely an acceptable expense as probe teams don't cost all that much to make.

Now in the stock game, units are cheapened in cost by bigger reactors.  So, one "might as well" put a Blink Displacer on a unit, because the costs aren't so bad.  In your mod, adding a Cost 2 Ability to a unit makes it very expensive.  So there's just not a reason to do it, it's a waste of time.  If nothing else changes, then in accord with your "removing clutter" philosophy, you might as well get rid of this one as it's pointless.

I always thought it sounded too much like Dungeons & Dragons anyways.  I think I'm fighting a 4-tentacled panther.

With weapons vs. armor in the endgame, a strength 28 String Disruptor can always smash through a Perimeter Defense and strength 16 Stasis armor.  Assuming an infantry attack on the city, equally trained units, etc.  Do you want weapons to have this advantage at the end?  In my mod, both weapons and armor go to strength 30.

I completely agree. There are so many features discovered at the end game that it is impossible to balance them in principle. I always consider end game as a spectacular show where you can try out some interesting stuff and see how it works.


You have a point that 2 for end game abilities is too much. I'll review them.

I believe the problem with Algorithmically Enhanced probe teams (as with any quite sophisticated tactics) is that computer won't use them en masse. So if I raise armor it will not be able to penetrate human of fellow AI defense and turns the game into WWI tranches those you don't like so much. Only human will be able to advance by applying above mentioned sophisticated tactics. Fixing this would be pretty complex work on AI priorities. Make them flood their cities with probes so you cannot penetrate them from afar and then wipe out your stopped probes?

Besides, even with only perimeter and sensor best weapon is still slightly weaker than best armor. You got a point, though. 2:1 is too much even for end game anyway. I should make it something 3:2 probably.

Another consideration is that at the end game we don't need to maintain a perfect war balance anymore. As you said yourself, at some point you/somebody should be able just to win the game already. So when there is nothing to research anymore the conquest should become relatively quick.

Speaking about reactors I considered two options. One is removing them altogether. Another is let them be but spread across the tree so that on average the item strength-cost progression is still more or less smooth. Still at breakthrough points one would get an enormous advantage easily tilting the equilibrium if even for short period of time. The only counter for that is to keep armor even stronger at least up to Fusion reactor discovery time. This in turn makes discovering Fusion reactor a must have prerequisite for early conquest. We can surely give it away for free at the beginning so everybody starts with Fusion. This makes reactor problem more bearable. I don't want to dive into this for now. It is a huge work and I have other things to look at now.

[bvanevery]

I believe the problem with Algorithmically Enhanced probe teams (as with any quite sophisticated tactics) is that computer won't use them en mass.

I'm not sure I want any probe teams to be used by the computer en masse.  Historically, the AI has done exactly that when I've invaded.  The problem is so bad, the last ditch effort of the AI to cough up tons of probe teams and buy back conquered cities, that I've often had to wait until I've gotten the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm to make an invasion.  I have rage quit the game more times than I can recall over overpowered probe teams.  I find it a complete drag that in addition to the number of ordinary military units I have to bring to invade, I also have to make quite a complement of probe teams, to avoid the AI's obnoxiousness in that regard.  I am quite thankful that for whatever reasons, the AI is calmer about this in my mod.  I'm still not sure whether it's due to giving Foil Probe Teams to the AI, or because I nerfed PROBE in the SE table.

I don't think it would be controversial to add Algorithmically Enhanced predefined units when that ability becomes available.  I think I'll do this in my own mod.

Speaking about reactors I considered two options. One is removing them altogether.

When literally performed, it leaves an unattractive black hole in the unit artwork.  The units will still have the same strength anyways.  Maybe they're even still called Fission units, I can't remember.  Anyways there is no advantage to this.

We can surely give it away for free at the beginning so everybody starts with Fusion.

This has consequences for the range of ships, planes, and missiles.  It also increases the blast radius of missiles.  It may also mess up predefined units, as the AI frequently doesn't know to make a Fusion version of a unit.

This makes reactor problem more bearable. I don't want to dive into this for now. It is a huge work and I have other things to look at now.

Yes the big work you'd have to do, is rebalancing every cost in terms of Fusion reactors.  And then you might still have trouble with Quantum and Singularity going up after that.

I don't actually have a problem with basic cost of troops in the endgame.  With fully populated cities, one can do a lot even with only a Robotic Assembly Plant, no other factories, and no supply crawling.  Fungus can provide lots of minerals in the endgame.  I plant fungus instead of forests on flat terrain, because it takes half as long to plant, and has much higher minerals and energy yield.  Only food is better with forests, if you've got Hybrid Forests.

The main "problem" with your costs, is that some kinds of units are completely pointless to buy, because they are way too expensive for what they offer.  For instance, high caliber battleships.  A single cheap Sealurk will destroy them, so Sealurks rule the waves.  I have reverted to rail and infantry invasion tactics because those are clearly more cost effective than any other method.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I have realized that the lack of Fusion or higher reactors in the game, has consequences for the benefits of the Nethack Terminus.  It provides Algorithmic Enhancement for probe teams with Fusion reactors or higher.  Since there are none, it doesn't happen.  I have also noticed that the AI does not seem to be smart enough to make an Algorithmically Enhanced probe team.  Thus, the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm actually has value in practice late in the game.

I can create predefined Algorithmic Enhancement probes for AI as usual. Maybe it will start building them.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Speaking about reactors I considered two options. One is removing them altogether.

When literally performed, it leaves an unattractive black hole in the unit artwork.  The units will still have the same strength anyways.  Maybe they're even still called Fission units, I can't remember.  Anyways there is no advantage to this.

What hole? Unused higher reactors?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

The main "problem" with your costs, is that some kinds of units are completely pointless to buy, because they are way too expensive for what they offer.  For instance, high caliber battleships.  A single cheap Sealurk will destroy them, so Sealurks rule the waves.  I have reverted to rail and infantry invasion tactics because those are clearly more cost effective than any other method.

This is not a problem with unit cost per se. It is the problem with normal unit cost vs. native unit cost. The former need to grow to account for stronger unit. Whereas native unit cost is fixed. Maybe having higher reactors justifies this but it creates other problems. Like everybody stamps tons of cheap units at the end of the game increasing mouseclicks tremendously, etc.

Again, theoretically speaking, this is the nature of proper countermeasures. You see enemy flooding waters with sealurks - you build cheapest empath-trance 1-1 ships to take them out.
Maybe I also need to raise sealurk cost as well. It is indeed too cheap comparing to normal ships.
The rule of thumb is certain native type should cost about 2-3 time cheaper than highest end normal unit of same type but about 2-3 times more expensive than best equipped cheapest counter native (empath-trance) unit. For ground units. In my mod the cheapest one counter native infantry is 2, the expensive pure attacker hovertank is 26 and Mind Worms is 5.  So they seem to be a little bit on a cheap side. I should probable bump all native prices.

[bvanevery]

I have found a valid use for a Blink Displacer.  Geosynchronous Survey Pods give the defense of a Sensor Array, and they are not destroyable on the ground.  When doing a sabotage mission, they aren't even listed as an available target, leading me to some head scratching for awhile about where the Sensor Array was supposed to be.  Meanwhile, Perimeter Defenses cannot be destroyed if they come from the Citizens' Defense Force.  These 2 indestructible defenses together, can definitely stop a String Disruptor.

Now, one could still take the Blink Displacer out of the game, on the premise that if someone has gained these advantages, they should have them. the Citizens' Defense Force, it should be super tough in the endgame or something.

EDIT: Geosynchronous Survey Pods are targetable by probe teams after all.  I don't know where the Sensor Array was that was giving Domai a defensive advantage.  I couldn't see any.

[bvanevery]

I have found that the cost=4 Empath Song is nevertheless worth using, if the enemy's mindworms are too tough.  A unit equipped with this is going to cost on the order of 40..60 minerals, but in the endgame that's ok as lots of cities will produce even more than that.

A curious endgame phenomenon is I think once the Voice of Planet is activated, mindworm stacks don't accompany fungal pops.  I also think global flooding ceases.  I know that under ordinary circumstances, without the Voice, the planet would be completely destroyed for the kind of eco-damage I was seeing.  The result of bases doing 150 eco-damage is not pretty!

I found Soporific Gas Pods to be pretty much unaffordable and not worth having in the endgame.  Blink Displacers are what I needed to crack open the unsabotageable Citizens' Defense Force.  I really couldn't afford that + Gas, and Gas alone doesn't do didly squat against walled bases.  Gas might be useful in the open, but I was facing an enemy that was raging with mindworms and spore launchers.  It has no effect on those.

I never bothered with Dissociative Wave.  I was usually attacking bases with infantry, so none of the special ability buffs were applicable against my attacking units.  Similarly, mindworms don't have special abilities, and that's the main enemy I was facing in the open.  DW could be useful for Penetrators, but aircraft in general are prohibitively expensive in this mod and not much used by anyone.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I have found that the cost=4 Empath Song is nevertheless worth using, if the enemy's mindworms are too tough.  A unit equipped with this is going to cost on the order of 40..60 minerals, but in the endgame that's ok as lots of cities will produce even more than that.

I've switched back to original unit cost model. Now Scout Patrol is 1 and Scout Rover is 2. So you can have anti-native units even cheaper.

I found Soporific Gas Pods to be pretty much unaffordable and not worth having in the endgame.  Blink Displacers are what I needed to crack open the unsabotageable Citizens' Defense Force.  I really couldn't afford that + Gas, and Gas alone doesn't do didly squat against walled bases.  Gas might be useful in the open, but I was facing an enemy that was raging with mindworms and spore launchers.  It has no effect on those.
I never bothered with Dissociative Wave.  I was usually attacking bases with infantry, so none of the special ability buffs were applicable against my attacking units.  Similarly, mindworms don't have special abilities, and that's the main enemy I was facing in the open.  DW could be useful for Penetrators, but aircraft in general are prohibitively expensive in this mod and not much used by anyone.

There is not such thing as absolutely "unaffordable". Things could be relatively unaffordable comparing to some other way of achieving the goal. For example, you lose so many assault tanks capturing enemy base protected with all defenses in the end game. At the same time you lose about 2-4 times less units equipped with Blink Displacer. This is how valuable Blink Displacer is. Of course, you don't need it when enemy cities are not protected with defense but when they are you do. This ability is worth its price. Fighting heavily protected enemy bases is the most common scenario in the end game so this ability will come handy quite often. From my point of view it seems both valuable and usable. I think even 3 is too low cost for it.

Soporific Gas Pods is 1 in original game. It gives +25% odds increase so it may cost just that. From the other hand, High Morale ability is even less useful but it costs 1 too. Maybe I should remove High Morale from the game. It is quite unusable. There are plenty of other ways to raise unit morale.

Dissociative Wave counters enemy abilities and is situational. You may equip your aircrafts with it to counter AAA tracking, for example. However, since it just cuts enemy ability in half I don't think it should be priced 2. Just 1 should be enough.

[bvanevery]

There is not such thing as absolutely "unaffordable".

Sure there is, when you would lose the game if you bought those units.  No question that aircraft were unaffordable in that test game I played.  I think a String Disruptor in the air was 3x the cost of the same thing as infantry on the ground.  For awhile I had enough trouble producing the ground units.  And if your answer to that is "build more factories" well I spent the entire pre-Ascendance part of the game dealing with floods.  If I had done factories, I would have gotten hordes of mindworms to go along with it, which probably would have killed me.

This is how valuable Blink Displacer is. Of course, you don't need it when enemy cities are not protected with defense but when they are you do.

Actually the value of Blink Displacer isn't anti-defense, it's anti- Citizens' Defense Force.  Ordinary defenses are far cheaper to destroy with probe teams.  Although I don't know what the odds of targeted sabotage are against the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, sort of the inverse problem.  Also the AI defends itself poorly from probes, at least in your mod in the endgame.  I've seen it do a little better in my mod earlier in the game, because I have some predefined armored probe team units.  It doesn't do a great job with those though, it's just an occasional barrier.

Maybe I should remove High Morale from the game. It is quite unusable. There are plenty of other ways to raise unit morale.

I wouldn't object.  It's rare for me to make such units.  I've had some fear that you just pay for what you'd get from a Monolith anyways, but I'm not sure if that's true.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

There is not such thing as absolutely "unaffordable".

Sure there is, when you would lose the game if you bought those units.

I don't get you. Do you mean adding this ability to units makes things worse and makes you lose the game?

[bvanevery]

Concrete example: in my test game of your mod, I had to limit my factory output to prevent global catastrophe.  The world already flooded with my limits on industry in place, due to other factions going nuts with relatively early factories.  If I had added fuel to the fire, I would have gotten even more flooding, plus big mindworm stacks to fight off.  It's not pretty when things get that bad, you can lose games that way, so my limitations on minerals output were there for a reason.  There's only so many minerals my bases can output in the real world and not lose the game due to flooding and mindworms.

That was with highest PLANET rating I could muster at any time, to minimize damage.  In 1.4 you also added -3 INDUSTRY penalty to Green, which I suffered through in the endgame.  I took the tradeoff because I needed the +60% Psi offense to counteract the enemy's Neural Amplifier.  The higher EFFIC also helped me make more money, although in practice, I didn't end up having anything to do with that money.  Bases were far too expensive to subvert, and Cornering the Energy Market would have taken a million, not tens of thousands of credits.

With these strictures, I found that I could stomach units costing up to 150 minerals.  I could get a 150 minerals unit done in 3 turns.  I could use tactics, hold off Domai's offense, slowly make progress against his cities, and slowly gain a route to sabotaging his Ascent to Transcendence.  150 minerals per unit was realistically all I could afford, and I added some cheaper units into the mix, to do various jobs that didn't need as much production.  For instance, suicidal scout hovertanks to destroy enemy Sensor Arrays.

Any units more expensive than 150, would have been suicide.  I was fighting with only 9 bases and they didn't all have stellar high minerals production.  Battleships and Needlejets were, generally speaking, suicidally expensive.  400 minerals for a String Distruptor Tactical, no thanks!  You take such a thing out once, you kill 1 unit, it immediately gets killed by something cheaper.  Now you are seriously losing the big battle of Attrition.  You can't fight that way when you're not the industrial megapower of the game, it will lose you the game.

Fortunately these egregious costs gave the enemy pause as well.  I don't remember ever seeing a well armed Cruiser in this game.  They usually had pop cannons, which made it really easy to put a cheap Artillery piece on land and drive them off.  I think I got attacked by a Needlejet maybe twice.  Partly the enemy didn't have cities in range of my homeland, but partly they were too expensive to bother with compared to other things.  The oceans were ruled by Sealurks, and the skies were not contested at all by anyone.  You priced air combat mostly out of existence.

Why did I only have 9 bases?  Because you made SPs cost so much that fighting those races crippled any other kind of empire growth.  Domai got half of the SPs as is.  And I had no idea that the Neural Amplifier would turn out to be the most strategically important race, that I lost.  In fact, that I even conceded not realizing what the consequences would be.

If you say "just don't build something", well I say, how do I know this isn't going to seriously bite me in the ass for not having done it?  So, I did as many as I could.  Like, he got the Citizens Defense Force, probably way earlier than I could have done anything about.  How was I supposed to know, that the unsabotageability of that, would have such a serious effect on the endgame?

Anyways the unit endgame came down to:

- String Disruptor Infantry: affordable, but will not penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Gas String Infantry: expensive, and won't penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Blink String Infantry: expensive, but will penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Gas Blink String Infantry: prohibitive.  I only made 1 of these before thinking better of it.

and all of these don't do a good job against mindworms.  There were almost always a few mindworms in the bases, which could cost me a few units.  I found String Artillery to be effective against mindworms, it would seriously wound them in bases and almost kill them out in the open.  But that's also an expensive unit, so I had a limited supply of them.

This combat made it clear to me why the concept of a Resonance weapon is actually useful.  Defenders switch around to whatever is best for them, whether armor or Psi.  Only a combination weapon that is adequate in both areas, and costs ok, provides a viable offense in that case.  I noticed this when designing Empath units that merely had handguns.  Instead of fighting the mindworm in the stack, I'm fighting the Recon Rover in the stack that only has 2 armor.  So I made some variants that had a tougher main gun, although I honestly couldn't have killed much more than a Recon Rover with such guns.  Too expensive to have Cost=4 Empath and a serious weapon.

I think the Resonance weapons in the stock game, are designed for circumstances that don't actually come up very much.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Concrete example: in my test game of your mod, I had to limit my factory output to prevent global catastrophe.  The world already flooded with my limits on industry in place, due to other factions going nuts with relatively early factories.  If I had added fuel to the fire, I would have gotten even more flooding, plus big mindworm stacks to fight off.  It's not pretty when things get that bad, you can lose games that way, so my limitations on minerals output were there for a reason.  There's only so many minerals my bases can output in the real world and not lose the game due to flooding and mindworms.

That was with highest PLANET rating I could muster at any time, to minimize damage.  In 1.4 you also added -3 INDUSTRY penalty to Green, which I suffered through in the endgame.  I took the tradeoff because I needed the +60% Psi offense to counteract the enemy's Neural Amplifier.  The higher EFFIC also helped me make more money, although in practice, I didn't end up having anything to do with that money.  Bases were far too expensive to subvert, and Cornering the Energy Market would have taken a million, not tens of thousands of credits.

With these strictures, I found that I could stomach units costing up to 150 minerals.  I could get a 150 minerals unit done in 3 turns.  I could use tactics, hold off Domai's offense, slowly make progress against his cities, and slowly gain a route to sabotaging his Ascent to Transcendence.  150 minerals per unit was realistically all I could afford, and I added some cheaper units into the mix, to do various jobs that didn't need as much production.  For instance, suicidal scout hovertanks to destroy enemy Sensor Arrays.

Any units more expensive than 150, would have been suicide.  I was fighting with only 9 bases and they didn't all have stellar high minerals production.  Battleships and Needlejets were, generally speaking, suicidally expensive.  400 minerals for a String Distruptor Tactical, no thanks!  You take such a thing out once, you kill 1 unit, it immediately gets killed by something cheaper.  Now you are seriously losing the big battle of Attrition.  You can't fight that way when you're not the industrial megapower of the game, it will lose you the game.

Fortunately these egregious costs gave the enemy pause as well.  I don't remember ever seeing a well armed Cruiser in this game.  They usually had pop cannons, which made it really easy to put a cheap Artillery piece on land and drive them off.  I think I got attacked by a Needlejet maybe twice.  Partly the enemy didn't have cities in range of my homeland, but partly they were too expensive to bother with compared to other things.  The oceans were ruled by Sealurks, and the skies were not contested at all by anyone.  You priced air combat mostly out of existence.

Why did I only have 9 bases?  Because you made SPs cost so much that fighting those races crippled any other kind of empire growth.  Domai got half of the SPs as is.  And I had no idea that the Neural Amplifier would turn out to be the most strategically important race, that I lost.  In fact, that I even conceded not realizing what the consequences would be.

If you say "just don't build something", well I say, how do I know this isn't going to seriously bite me in the ass for not having done it?  So, I did as many as I could.  Like, he got the Citizens Defense Force, probably way earlier than I could have done anything about.  How was I supposed to know, that the unsabotageability of that, would have such a serious effect on the endgame?

Anyways the unit endgame came down to:

- String Disruptor Infantry: affordable, but will not penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Gas String Infantry: expensive, and won't penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Blink String Infantry: expensive, but will penetrate a Perimeter Defense.
- Gas Blink String Infantry: prohibitive.  I only made 1 of these before thinking better of it.

and all of these don't do a good job against mindworms.  There were almost always a few mindworms in the bases, which could cost me a few units.  I found String Artillery to be effective against mindworms, it would seriously wound them in bases and almost kill them out in the open.  But that's also an expensive unit, so I had a limited supply of them.

This combat made it clear to me why the concept of a Resonance weapon is actually useful.  Defenders switch around to whatever is best for them, whether armor or Psi.  Only a combination weapon that is adequate in both areas, and costs ok, provides a viable offense in that case.  I noticed this when designing Empath units that merely had handguns.  Instead of fighting the mindworm in the stack, I'm fighting the Recon Rover in the stack that only has 2 armor.  So I made some variants that had a tougher main gun, although I honestly couldn't have killed much more than a Recon Rover with such guns.  Too expensive to have Cost=4 Empath and a serious weapon.

I think the Resonance weapons in the stock game, are designed for circumstances that don't actually come up very much.

I understand you compare Blink Displacer effect with destroying defense with probes. In this case, yes, it should be relatively cheap to be comparable to building more probes. However, I consider sending hordes of probes an exploit based on low probe team cost. It would be better to fix probe team cost then equalize everything else to it. However, if it is unfixable then setting Blink Displacer cost low is a good choice. I'll think about it.

Meanwhile, let's see how much minerals you need to destroy both perimeter and tachyon. With Algorithmic Enhancement versus highest security you need 4 teams for each = 8 teams total = 24 mineral rows. My 1.5 strongest unarmored hovertank is 26 (don't remember about 1.4). So even with probe exploit double priced Blink Displacer hovertank makes sense! Actually it is even better as Blink Displacer gives you certainty while probes not. You can go even further and put Blink Displacer on speeder (20) or even strong unarmored infantry (7). Unarmored infantry can be accompanied by defender or not if you have MagTubes and you probably have at this point. This makes things even cheaper comparing to probe team hordes. I don't understand why you complain.


My bad. Forgot that Algorithmic Enhancement costs too! So with its 4 cost it doubles the cost of your probe hordes against HSA. Yay. So by all means Blink Displacer is worth its price.