SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[bvanevery]

Not paying maintenance only when parked in fungus and only on this turn is too micro and it actually forces player to end turn in fungus or suffer hefty penalty.

SUPPORT penalties are only meaningful in the early game to early midgame.  Once you've got various kinds of minerals multiplier factories going, SUPPORT is immaterial.  If at that point you are stressing about the support cost of any unit, not just mindworms, then that's your own irrational OCD about playing perfectly.  Which, admittedly, is an emotional response that many adherents to the 4X genre actually do feel acutely.  4X selects strongly for people with those tendencies, who rate their well being or irritance with how perfectly they're playing the game.

Myself, after zillions of games, I learned to finally get over various "perfection" issues.  Especially EFFIC and drone issues, trying to build the "perfect" number of cities according to the map bureaucracy calculation to avoid it.  It's not worth the effort.  Nowadays I just keep building until the drones get really bad.   Then I sorta cut off citymaking.

If we can rationally agree that SUPPORT is only meaningful in the early to midgame... (if we can't, I have no basis for discussion with anyone.  In my view they're plain wrong.)

...then the question is, how are mindworms used in early to midgame?  I use them to explore and pop pods.  They're going to be on fungus at least 2/3rds of the time.  Also, captured mindworms are usually Independent.  It is known strategy to capture them at a distance from one's cities, to make sure they're Independent when captured.  One way you could simplify circumstances, is to guarantee that captured mindworms are Independent.  Find the spot in the code that assigns a captured unit to a nearby city and disable it.

In the original game, you could make mindworms yourself by gaining E3 Centauri Empathy.  In my mod for a long time, it was E3 Centauri Genetics, to have more of a "laboratory work" flavor to it.  Same position in the tech tree, a Tier 3 tech.  Well, I don't allow that anymore.  Mindworm manufacture doesn't come until late game.  So it is simply not possible to build a lot of SUPPORT requiring mindworms in the early to midgame, that you can stress over the minerals they're consuming.  Problem doesn't exist for me.

[Hagen0]

Is support subtracted from minerals pre multipliers or after?

[bvanevery]

After.

SUPPORT is clearly irrelevant when you have a factory belching out 40 minerals/turn.  Or even 20 minerals/turn.

[dino]

Add free native support when in base with a brood pit and most of peacetime micro gone

[bvanevery]

In most mods, by the time you have gained a Brood Pit, you don't need one.  You should have won the game already.

[Neil]

Could it be possible for units with better reactors to have a higher upkeep cost? Like 2x for fusion. I know this wouldn't make sense though, if reactor combat bonus is disabled. I'm just thinking how to make support costs more significant in the late game.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Don't believe people telling support is not significant in late game. Player waging war may have 10-20 units per base depending on game stage. More unit types got discovered. Army needs more units variations: artillery, navy, air, anti-air, natives, anti-native, fast, slow, mixed, etc. Even if one reached the point when every base produces 40-60 minerals, 20 units eat 30-50% of the production. That is 30-50% slower development comparing to peaceful factions. This is probably extreme case but even 20% slower development is equivalent to -2 INDUSTRY, which is significant. Think about it.

Support seems more significant earlier just because of of units base has to support even in peace time: formers, police, native protection, scouts. That's why vanilla wisely gives 2 free units to account for minimal set: police + former. If you think this is not enough we can give more free units per base to balance it.

WTP solves this problem to some extent.

• Number of free units does not change with SUPPORT rating allowing bases to keep minimal number of units for peaceful development.
• Number of free units is adjustable. Currently it is 2 as in vanilla. Could be increased.
• The rest of the units support is proportional to SUPPORT rating. It's 1 at zero and changes by 1/4 at each step up and down. Even slightly negative SUPPORT now bites warmongers.

If you think this the above settings is still not enough it may be tightened to increase SUPPORT effect on military.
For example, we can increase number of free units to reduce pressure on minimal peaceful base unit set: 2 formers + 2 defenders = 4. At the same time we can set 1/2 support per rating step. So that it changes from 1/2 at best to 4 at worst. This way supporting army would seriously require positive SUPPORT.


Some people also say Clean Reactor solves support problem. Well, yes, for the cost of Clean Reactor which is not free. One probably can slap it on formers and permanent garrison units but not at all combat units as it may turn to be even worse than paying support. It takes an ability slot too. Clean Reactor does not make support go away. It offers an option to pay with mineral cost to reduce support which may help to some extent or may not. The mere talk about using Clean Reactor show how significant support is at any stage of the game! Otherwise, people would stop bothering with it beyond mid game.

[Foehn]

In most mods, by the time you have gained a Brood Pit, you don't need one.  You should have won the game already.

I'd argue this is also the case in vanilla, by the time you get the BP, you don't really need it. a couple of cheap garrisons with non-lethal methods will be  more useful.

[bvanevery]

Don't believe people telling support is not significant in late game.

If you can't beat up the various AIs within the confines of a 20+ minerals factory, you're not any good.

In multiplayer, it may be a different story.  But I don't care about that.

Otherwise, people would stop bothering with [clean reactors] beyond mid game.

People who are smart, and have gotten over their perfection compulsions, and who are only trying to beat AIs, actually do so.

The mere talk about using Clean Reactor

is because people are psychologically conditioned to regard any bell, whistle, or gewgaw that the game presents them later on, as a reward for all their hard work of empire building.  They don't like having their sense of reward invalidated by having the thing become available with no tech requirements at the start of the game.  It's a kind of sunk cost fallacy.  I've climbed this tech tree; therefore, whatever is at the top of the climb, must be valuable.

Caveat about tech tree climbing ruses: people are capable of seeing through them, if the ability granted is almost absolutely useless.  Like cloaking device, because the AIs ignore that you're invisible.  Ignoring zone of control isn't that big an advantage.

Clean Reactor looks like it has value, so people insist it has value.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I am actually thinking to raise number of free units to 4 in future releases.


Another option I didn't yet decided on is to scrutinize it stronger for large military. However, it is more voluminous change too lazy to even think about details right now.

• Free units: 6 instead of 2 as of now.
• Support increment by level: 1/2 instead of 1/4 as of now.
• Increase cost for any SUPPORT granting bonuses, projects, etc.
• Rearrange SE models to value SUPPORT more and don't give too much positive values.

[Foehn]

I am actually thinking to raise number of free units to 4 in future releases.


Another option I didn't yet decided on is to scrutinize it stronger for large military. However, it is more voluminous change too lazy to even think about details right now.

• Free units: 6 instead of 2 as of now.
• Support increment by level: 1/2 instead of 1/4 as of now.
• Increase cost for any SUPPORT granting bonuses, projects, etc.
• Rearrange SE models to value SUPPORT more and don't give too much positive values.

and what about The Living Refinery, which (I think) adds SUPPORT?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I am actually thinking to raise number of free units to 4 in future releases.


Another option I didn't yet decided on is to scrutinize it stronger for large military. However, it is more voluminous change too lazy to even think about details right now.

• Free units: 6 instead of 2 as of now.
• Support increment by level: 1/2 instead of 1/4 as of now.
• Increase cost for any SUPPORT granting bonuses, projects, etc.
• Rearrange SE models to value SUPPORT more and don't give too much positive values.

and what about The Living Refinery, which (I think) adds SUPPORT?

Increase cost for any SUPPORT granting bonuses, projects, etc.

This is not an exhaustive list anyway. Just an idea that would require major rebalancing.

[Nexii]

I always felt like SUPPORT was good enough as-is. On par with most SEs, except ECONOMY and INDUSTRY. Though it does have a pretty big jump at the default -2 and +3 breakpoints. That being said stock AI spams units so much that I am now avoiding SUPPORT penalties in the SE table

[Hagen0]

These number thrown around are not realistic. Noone is gonna have 20 or even 10 combat units per base. There is not enough time in the game to build them.

What support really influences past the early game in vanilla is how many stock formers a base can employ. If you get into a real war the support cost obviously also matters but fairly quickly up-to-date combat units become much more expensive per unit than 2 row formers.

[Foehn]

These number thrown around are not realistic. Noone is gonna have 20 or even 10 combat units per base. There is not enough time in the game to build them.

What support really influences past the early game in vanilla is how many stock formers a base can employ. If you get into a real war the support cost obviously also matters but fairly quickly up-to-date combat units become much more expensive per unit than 2 row formers.

I agree with this, even endgame at Talent level difficulty, my entire army might be 10-15 offensive units, not counting however many garrisons per base. Early game, support is very powerful as you want to crank out some formers quickly, and even mid and late it's powerful as you can pick up the more juicy secret projects.