SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[bvanevery]

For instance, the idea of being able to get mass refunds from upgrading to cheaper models has always felt a little weird to me.

Yeah I just encountered that.  Only got a total of 40 credits back from 2 units, because I'd been a cheapskate about what I built, but that's one hell of a recycling program!

Details quittin' time

quittin' time

I had a rather cynical idea before this game started, that the safest place to project naval force from, would be one of the Poles.  So I planned to make an inland only empire with only a polar city spitting out Gun Foils.  Well la dee da, the game makes me Caretakers on a smallish island.  I proceeded with my plan anyways.  An earthquake slightly enlarged my island to the west.  It took me some time to realize that I could fit 1 more city over there.

The AI factions filled up the water with sea base spam.  That wasn't how I imagined my development would go.  They can do that faster than I can get through the choke point of only 1 naval base.  A long time later, I got the Raise Land ability, so I made a base to cut off the Pole.  I don't think I was getting indigenous sea spam by then though.  I was surprised to recently get Locust spam.

Sealurks do seem to get stuck in east-west bays.  They may tend to accumulate in any east-west indentation in a land mass, such as the funnel I had in my last game.

I made no Social Engineering choices for most of the game, because all of the Politics and Economics choices seemed pretty awful.  Eventually I stole Cybernetic from the Cyborgs.  No police or meaningful force projection seemed like a good trade for my situation.  I then belatedly realized that Roze is Democratic, not into Thought Control like in my mod.  So I sycophantically went for that.  Ditto Free Market to please my ally Morgan, since by that point I could make it +0 PLANET.  I thought about going for Power to suck up to the Spartans, but I had a Living Refinery to finish first.

Then I quit the game, because it's 1:30 AM now.  The amount of base spam, and the size of the enemy cities, is overwhelming.  By comparison I have practically nothing.

My original plan was to get Doctrine: Air Power, then make chemical attacks on everyone around me.  But Morgan allied with me again instead of being a jerk, and things sort of went like that.  The Cyborgs were too far away to hit, and it's not useful to clear them out.  I'm also now realizing there would have been so much Whack-A-Mole to do, that it just wouldn't be worth it.  What a drag!

I can't really tell if my fighting position was viable.  Although I did prototype various weapons, I had way more stuff than I could ever use.  I had an "empire" that was still half Scouts.  The Spartans managed to land some Empath Fusion Scout Rovers on me at one point.  I repelled them, mostly by nearly destroying them with super artillery, then sending peons at them.  I actually lost 1 mindworm larva because I was in denial about which square they moved to.  It didn't matter, it just rubbed it in my face how useless my captured mindworms were most of the time.

I could have gone Green to piss off Morgan, then inflicted Marine coastal harm on all his cities clogging me.  But, whatever.  I don't think alliances help me much as an Alien.  Not like Morgan gave me any free units, and I pretty much had to buy my tech.

Tech research cost, seems to work differently.  I think I read that lower tier techs cost less than higher tier ones, and that it's not dependent on how many techs you previously researched.  This meant it was always wise to fill out the lower tier techs first, before committing to stuff that takes longer to learn.

I fumbled around with "Where are the Fungicidal Tanks?" for quite some time before realizing they were part of Synthetic Fossil Fuels.  I never thought that made much sense and modded it out a long time ago.

[Tayta Malikai]

RE: Police State:
-EFFIC effects are a lot milder than they were in vanilla, so even -4 EFFIC from running Police State+Planned is not so bad at the beginning at the game. I agree having the -INDUSTRY from PS cancel out the +INDUSTRY from Planned feels pretty bad though. Likewise for -SUPPORT from Planned offsetting ++SUPPORT from Police State. Yes, it's a potent early game combo, but one generally migrates to other options once energy provides more bang for your buck.

I am not angry just quite puzzled.

I really don't get what is everybody's problem about round numbers? How does it matter if certain combos reduce certain effect to zero and not say to +1 or -1 or to whatever other number?! Why it is so frustrating see some options have opposite effects? It is not enough effects to make it never happen. Sometimes some effects will be moving in opposite directions. Of course, if someone is dedicated to maximize certain effect than they would look for certain options to avoid negative contributions but other than that it is pretty much irrelevant.

It's true that Police State and Planned have opposite SUPPORT and INDUSTRY effects. Do you want this to change specifically for that not to happen? Then other combination will clash. I am all for fiddling with SE but there are much stronger considerations than above.

It feels bad because it doesn't feel like you're getting ahead. This is the issue with overbalancing things. If all options appear equally good and bad, one might as well not pick any of them, and then what's the point of unlocking them?

So essentially, yes, it is bad if too many options cancel out to zero. That's not to say it can't ever happen. I have run Fundamentalist (++PROBE, +MORALE, +INDUSTRY, --RESEARCH) together with Knowledge (+EFFIC, ++RESEARCH, --PROBE, -POLICE) in the past, and still come out ahead overall (+1 INDUSTRY, +1 MORALE, +1 EFFIC, RESEARCH and PROBE cancel out).

Other cases where SE effects cancel out are also not considered bad because you gain something desirable in exchange. The main examples of this in vanilla are Democracy+Planned (+4 GROWTH, EFFIC cancels out), Democracy+Green (+4 EFFIC, GROWTH cancels out), and Police State+Green (+2 POLICE, +2 SUPPORT, +2 PLANET, -2 GROWTH, EFFIC cancels out). This isn't quite the same in Nevill's mod, but the point remains: yes, there are downsides, but on the whole you get (or appear to get) more than you put in, which makes it a worthwhile and satisfactory investment.

That being said, I played a little further on my v141 SP game and gave it a chance, but Police State is actually really bad right now. Why? It provides very little benefit compared to its costs.

• One unit suppresses one drone. To match a RecCommons you will need 2 units. Most of the ++SUPPORT is eaten up just supporting police units. Support that goes to police units is not available to build former fleets or armies.
• Clean Reactors and Non-Lethal Methods which might affect this calculation are not available until tier 9, which is so late that it might as well not matter for the sake of balancing an early game SE setting.
• And to top it off, it kills your INDUSTRY and EFFIC, so you can't even take advantage of what extra productivity you might gain.

At the moment I am using it purely as a stopgap measure until I can get RecCommons built in all my bases. Then it will be off to Democracy and never look back.
And I'm playing as the Omega Foundation, which can at least teleport units between bases to juggle support. Other factions aren't so lucky.

Honestly, I'd just get rid of the -INDUSTRY penalty for Police State entirely. Democracy is still better once you set up all your bases and start to transition into the mid-game, but at least PS won't totally suck before then.

Screenshots from the game. I have not encountered any sort of native wildlife apocalypse, though some Spore Launchers and Sealurks did pay me a visit. Recycling Tanks have been built in key bases and will be essential to grabbing projects, which I intend to accelerate by building probes and disbanding them. Some Biology Labs have been built to speed up research. My budget is down to the wire due to maintenance costs and -EFFIC, which is why I plan to build one more base and then switch to Democracy. Overall I am nicely keeping pace with the AIs in spite of their various production advantages.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

The old unit upgrade formula is based on (difference in weapon strength + difference in armour strength + mineral row cost to build the new unit).
The new unit upgrade formula is simply the difference in mineral rows between the old unit and new unit.

Initially I praised this for being more intuitive, but further playtesting has found some issues with it. For instance, the idea of being able to get mass refunds from upgrading to cheaper models has always felt a little weird to me. It was much worse when you could upgrade your entire terraforming fleet to fusion and quantum reactors for the refund, which thankfully got patched by making reactors not discount equipment costs.

However, Nevill found that in some cases you could intentionally build more expensive models of units, and then upgrade them to cheaper models, effectively allowing you to convert minerals to energy at a rate of 2 credits per mineral. Compare this to 1 credit per 2 minerals for using the Stockpile Energy order.

This also leads to the case that bvanevery found, where units that cost exactly the same (i.e. those with abilities that cost the same) can be freely converted from one to the other at zero cost, requiring only a single turn to do so (and not even that, if you use the unit designer to do so). I am not sure if this is desirable or not. Perhaps some fixed cost could be added to upgrade costs? Even a 10 credit minimum would discourage free conversions unless it was truly necessary.

As it is, I would say to keep the new formula on for SP but disable it for MP.

Yes. It is purposefully designed like that. Reducing waste in minerals conversions through disbanding and rebuilding units and also waste in mouse clicks and player attention. Game does all accounting giving you all the benefits you deserve not a penny less.
I can remove the refund completely to reduce sudden spikes in money flow.

Sadly the current game in progress is inaccessible due to internal forum drama.

Drama?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=RPG%20Codex
I am even thinking now whether I should show my face up there. 🤔

"
The RPG Codex is a forum for butthurt edgy teens who are "too cool for mainstream RPG's". The result is that they spend all their time playing old RPG's (but not that old) whilst slandering new ones (which they still play anyway). They stalk developers and modders such as Tessera and Wesp5 (who are all apparently German for some reason according to them) and have a weird obsession with many Bioware developers who they delve into the personal and private information of. The stalking of Tessera and Wesp5 has continued for 7 years by several insane individuals who use the Codex.

90% of the posters on the forum could have their own entries on Encyclopedia Dramatica due to how insane they sound. The Codex also hates the RPG Watch which is actually the real place for sophisticated RPG discussion and not the Codex where you're more likely to find a racist or homophobic thread.
"

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

That being said, I played a little further on my v141 SP game and gave it a chance, but Police State is actually really bad right now. Why? It provides very little benefit compared to its costs.

• One unit suppresses one drone. To match a RecCommons you will need 2 units. Most of the ++SUPPORT is eaten up just supporting police units. Support that goes to police units is not available to build former fleets or armies.
• Clean Reactors and Non-Lethal Methods which might affect this calculation are not available until tier 9, which is so late that it might as well not matter for the sake of balancing an early game SE setting.
• And to top it off, it kills your INDUSTRY and EFFIC, so you can't even take advantage of what extra productivity you might gain.

At the moment I am using it purely as a stopgap measure until I can get RecCommons built in all my bases. Then it will be off to Democracy and never look back.
And I'm playing as the Omega Foundation, which can at least teleport units between bases to juggle support. Other factions aren't so lucky.

Honestly, I'd just get rid of the -INDUSTRY penalty for Police State entirely. Democracy is still better once you set up all your bases and start to transition into the mid-game, but at least PS won't totally suck before then.

You have described the problem of police in general that every police unit requires support. This is not a problem of any SE model that grants POLICE rating. Although, supporting police definitely make POLICE rating less valuable in general.

On the police usage in general.
Do you think it is absolutely inferior to use police comparing to psych facilities and psych allocation?

On Police State tweaking.
I agree that we may want to remove INDUSTRY penalty from it as it makes it even less appealing in later game.
What about making it +1 SUPPORT and +1 INDUSTRY instead? That may make it slighter better in later game.
From the other side, INDUSTRY is already taken by Fundamentalisms. Tweaking SE is so tough task. 😢
Maybe this one will work: --EFFIC,     ++SUPPORT,   ++POLICE,     -GROWTH (replacing INDUSTRY penalty with GROWTH one)?
May be closer to Nevill's version (+2 POLICE, +2 SUPPORT, -1 GROWTH, -1 PROBE). However, I think, original EFFICIENCY penalty may be more suitable for PS than PROBE and not that bad in WTP with reworked inefficiency.

[dino]

I am even thinking now whether I should show my face up there. 🤔

Maybe the codex does not scale to your level ?

But seriously, what you do is for experienced SMACers, not for newbies and every SMACer from the codex or anywhere else at least lurk here and would interact with you if he wanted.

As for upgrades I also don't like 100% refund that flood you with money when upgrading reactor.
Simple solution would be to refund 50, or 75% of the original unit cost depending how much better than disbanding you want upgrade to be.
You could make upgrade refund percentage adjustable, so no one would complain about it anymore.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I am even thinking now whether I should show my face up there. 🤔

Maybe the codex does not scale to your level ?

But seriously, what you do is for experienced SMACers, not for newbies and every SMACer from the codex or anywhere else at least lurk here and would interact with you if he wanted.

No. I meant I am scared to become a target of uncontrolled internet attacks.

Here - you mean AC2? Not so sure about it. Until like a middle of this year I wasn't even sure this is an ultimate AC resource since there are a lot of other related communities out there. Their content is no match to that one but one would understand this only after exploring the content. The forum frequency interactions from the other side could be much quicker in other places. So thread here could not be even noticed unless we cross post to lure people here.

I also disagree my mod (or any other in this regard) is for experienced players. This is not a chess kind of game and neither mod around is more difficult to play master than vanilla. The play mechanics is essentially the same with just some tweaks in some parameters those largely skipped by newbies. Moreover, I believe part of my work is play mechanics simplification to reduce amount of quirks player need to remember and be aware of. So from this point of view it should be even easier to master than vanilla.


Just skimmed their forum a little. Look at that. They are aware of WTP! 😁
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-unsurpassed-brian-reynolds-alpha-centauri-thread.101751/page-32#post-6874700

[dino]

One has to be an experienced SMACer to understand what and why you are trying to do and that he wants it.

"The codex does not scale to your level" is an inside joke from the days when Bethesda inroduced in Oblivion an ultimate retardation of unlimited level scalling of all content to player character level since lvl 1.
So unlike Oblivion the codex does not scale to low level of other communities and their users

Worry not, encyclopedia dramatica entry is a joke, written by a codexer most likely and I was dissapointed that you took it seriously ( if you did ), hence the joke.
That said I'm sure that every smacer from the codex at least lurks here.

[Nevill]

Haven't been keeping up with the discussion, sorry about that.

I could probably make this kind of thread in Issues, tell me if you want it there instead.

1) Alien Artifacts don't appear to add anything to the projects, even if they write they do. How to reproduce: have an artifact, press Space, choose to contribute. Nothing happens.
2) I see that AI options in the multiplayer section are different from the ones in SP. SP seems more advanced. Why is that? Why is there a difference at all?

MP has these ones:

(click to show/hide)

; AI production parameters
;
; relation type matching forces coefficient
ai_production_threat_coefficient_vendetta=1.50
ai_production_threat_coefficient_truce=0.50
ai_production_threat_coefficient_treaty=0.25
ai_production_threat_coefficient_pact=0.00
; minimal and maximal base native protection + priority multiplier
ai_production_min_native_protection=0.0
ai_production_max_native_protection=3.0
ai_production_native_protection_priority_multiplier=2.0
; max distance from base to search for unpopulated territory
ai_production_max_unpopulated_range=7
; min number of unpopulated tiles to consider urgent population
ai_production_min_unpopulated_tiles=25
; colony production priority
ai_production_colony_priority=0.5
; avoid building too expensive units
ai_production_unit_turns_limit=20

SP has these:

(click to show/hide)

; AI production parameters
;
; relation type matching forces coefficient
ai_production_threat_coefficient_vendetta=1.50
ai_production_threat_coefficient_truce=0.50
ai_production_threat_coefficient_treaty=0.25
ai_production_threat_coefficient_pact=0.00
; minimal and maximal base native protection + priority multiplier
ai_production_min_native_protection=0.0
ai_production_max_native_protection=2.0
ai_production_native_protection_priority=2.0
; max distance from base to search for unpopulated territory
ai_production_max_unpopulated_range=15
; min number of unpopulated tiles to consider urgent population
; for local and global expansion
ai_production_expansion_coverage=20.0
ai_production_ocean_expansion_coverage=40.0
; expansion production priority
ai_production_expansion_priority=2.0
; avoid building too expensive units
ai_production_unit_turns_limit=10
; facility paying off for itself in that number of turns gets 1.0 - 0.0 priority
ai_production_facility_effect_coefficient=0.5
; production minimal mineral surplus for combat units
ai_production_combat_unit_min_mineral_surplus=2
; number of unexplored tiles per unit of speed
ai_production_exploration_coverage=5.0
; number of unimproved tiles per terraformer
ai_production_improvement_coverage=1.0
; number of turns to project future population - used to predict need for pop limit and psych facilities
ai_production_population_projection_turns=20
; proportion of time Thinker's choice replaces Vanilla's.
ai_production_Thinker_proportion=0.50

They aren't even the same parameters!

I am trying to compile a new version of my mod to introduce a new player, and am torn on which one to use.

[Buster's Uncle]

The AC2 management would like to formally invite them there alleged Codex lurkers to scale up, sign up and get involved here - with the caveat that nobody engaging in racist homophobic stalking is going to last very long...

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I could probably make this kind of thread in Issues, tell me if you want it there instead.

Feel free to add them directly to issues for those you can easily formulate (i.e. not requiring additional discussion).

1) Alien Artifacts don't appear to add anything to the projects, even if they write they do. How to reproduce: have an artifact, press Space, choose to contribute. Nothing happens.

https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-155

2) I see that AI options in the multiplayer section are different from the ones in SP. SP seems more advanced. Why is that? Why is there a difference at all?

Well, obviously, because I forgot that I am supporting it! 😂

Here.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-156

Either download this version or use SP ones in current version and tweak them.

From now on they may start to diverge. Naturally, it is pretty difficult to tune-test them without playing the multiplier so I would need your feedback on that as only active MP users for now. Or you or Tayta can just send me MP config updates for including in future versions.

[Tayta Malikai]

That being said, I played a little further on my v141 SP game and gave it a chance, but Police State is actually really bad right now. Why? It provides very little benefit compared to its costs.

• One unit suppresses one drone. To match a RecCommons you will need 2 units. Most of the ++SUPPORT is eaten up just supporting police units. Support that goes to police units is not available to build former fleets or armies.
• Clean Reactors and Non-Lethal Methods which might affect this calculation are not available until tier 9, which is so late that it might as well not matter for the sake of balancing an early game SE setting.
• And to top it off, it kills your INDUSTRY and EFFIC, so you can't even take advantage of what extra productivity you might gain.

At the moment I am using it purely as a stopgap measure until I can get RecCommons built in all my bases. Then it will be off to Democracy and never look back.
And I'm playing as the Omega Foundation, which can at least teleport units between bases to juggle support. Other factions aren't so lucky.

Honestly, I'd just get rid of the -INDUSTRY penalty for Police State entirely. Democracy is still better once you set up all your bases and start to transition into the mid-game, but at least PS won't totally suck before then.

You have described the problem of police in general that every police unit requires support. This is not a problem of any SE model that grants POLICE rating. Although, supporting police definitely make POLICE rating less valuable in general.

On the police usage in general.
Do you think it is absolutely inferior to use police comparing to psych facilities and psych allocation?

On Police State tweaking.
I agree that we may want to remove INDUSTRY penalty from it as it makes it even less appealing in later game.
What about making it +1 SUPPORT and +1 INDUSTRY instead? That may make it slighter better in later game.
From the other side, INDUSTRY is already taken by Fundamentalisms. Tweaking SE is so tough task.
Maybe this one will work: --EFFIC,     ++SUPPORT,   ++POLICE,     -GROWTH (replacing INDUSTRY penalty with GROWTH one)?
May be closer to Nevill's version (+2 POLICE, +2 SUPPORT, -1 GROWTH, -1 PROBE). However, I think, original EFFICIENCY penalty may be more suitable for PS than PROBE and not that bad in WTP with reworked inefficiency.

From what I've played with it so far, -GROWTH is a reasonable alternative penalty for Police State, and works better at moderating the PS+Planned combo. It also suggests an interesting combination with Green to effectively arrest your population growth on demand. And it may even be desirable to slow down pop growth if you are already having trouble keeping drones in order.

I'm fine with keeping the --EFFIC. -PROBE matters more for multiplayer where the threat of bribery is more tactically relevant and can be forgotten by careless players. As I learned to my detriment in the last game... (Protip: make sure you stack more than one unit inside bunkers to prevent bribery!)

As for the concept of police in general...

You're right that it suffers greatly from the need to support the police units. Since the idea of policing drones is to allow you to work more tiles, this means the usefulness of police depends on tile yields - keeping in mind that workers still need food to support themselves. Trading 1 mineral of support in exchange for 4 minerals from a rocky mine could be worth it. 1-2-1 from a forest, probably not as much.

On the other hand, compare it to the efficacy of facilities. Two police scouts cost 20 minerals to build and 2 minerals to support*. A RecCommons costs 40 minerals to build and 1 energy to support. The former is cheaper upfront, but the latter is a better investment long-term. Holo Theatres are more expensive (60 minerals and 2 energy), but by the time you build you should have more minerals to do so, and the +50% Psych bonus makes them even more useful later on.

*Even if the scouts themselves are support-free, they come at the expense of supporting formers or armies, so I think this is a fair basis of comparison.

I'm less certain of the relative efficacy of Psych spending, as I am still not fully across this aspect of the game. But it only really becomes an option later on anyway once you have the energy income to support it. With 2 Psych needed to turn a drone into a worker (and another 2 to turn them into a talent), you really need multiplying facilities to get the best out of it.

So at the moment, it seems like police are best used to complement facilities and Psych, rather than supplant them. Much like I am doing in my current SP game.

I think it would really require Non-Lethal Methods to be returned to early in the tech tree in order to make going police-heavy viable as a mid-term alternative to facilities. (In the long term I would expect most factions to switch fully to facilities and psych anyway, as they become more efficient and provide other benefits. This is probably around the Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests era of the game.)

Nevill does something pretty interesting in his mod, which is to make Scout Patrols with Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game. (The more recent RPGCodex games also make this change.) This makes police scouts a lot more affordable than facilities, and lets you coast on Police State for quite a while without building facilities, though of course you will need to eventually to grow your population higher. It is a fairly major change though, not sure if it would fit with the rest of WtP.

[Nevill]

https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-155

I have v156, and it doesn't work there.

[Tayta Malikai]

So I made the switch to Democracy+Planned, and hooooly bajeezus, this is painful. Every single unit costs minerals to support; I can either have formers, or I can have an army. No such thing as a free lunch in this mod!

Fortunately there is a way around this. It involves an advanced technique known as the support base. As the name suggests, you build extra bases with the explicit purpose of soaking up unit support costs, allowing you to maximize output in your important bases. Three bases are at 15 minerals now, and I should be able to push it to 20 soon.

I have also begun work on Hologram Theatres in bases approaching size 4. This will allow me to trim more fat by disbanding excess scout patrols. The maintenance costs will be covered by drilling more boreholes and building tidal harnesses everywhere. The good news about switching to Democracy is that not only did it remove the hated -INDUSTRY penalty, it also allows me to actually have an energy income (going from 1/turn to 20+/turn with 60% Econ). Power to the people!

[lolada]

In my Spartan game I have some issues with Morale mostly, Power SE, and Planet is a bit weird.
I think there's way too much morale in the game. Its either too strong in pluses or in minuses in both SE and facilities. Spartans have +2 Morale, but i don't even have to pick Power or build Bioenhanced facilities because my morale is topped all the time. Actually optimal thing looks like to pick Euidaimonia with its -3 Morale since it will be great anyway.. and economy would be fantastic. You can have it all.
Its not at all hard to max morale in midgame.. Meanwhile lots of AIs like to pick all the -Morale options, forget to build facilities and ruin themselves to Very Green even during wars.

So i suggest to go much easier on + and - morale (especially on negative.. AIs like Euidaiomania with -3) and maybe to even revert starting morale very green because of dumb AI. Just start the player on very green if possible or you feel like its needed. Help the AI to have decent morale most of the time.

There needs to be some balance here.. ideally it should be hard to get to great or terrible morale.. with most faction staying most of the time around disciplined. If in war they could notch up a bit here they would be much better. In general, SE points are hard to get.. like Support.. Growth Police rating, but there's so many Morale sources around (for the player.. AI is somehow ignoring them).
Worms are much harder to level up for example because their facilities give only +1 cycle. Nerfing Command Centers and other morale facilities to +1 (decrease maintenance) is one way of improving situation.

Its a complex issue - i feel balance would be better if the morale disparity is reduced a bit.

Planet is similar but better balance, either you end up in very red or very green; both end of spectrum are strong. Lots of -worms really ruins faction vs worms and eco damage. Ecology is quite a big issue for both player and AI. In lategame SE stacks and its possible to have tons of +planet (+facilities) which is kind of op; we discussed some of this earlier.