SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[lolada]

Now I will remove myself from this discussion hoping you'll forge some agreement with Nexii.

Moving them later - since they are quite op - might be good idea. Not too late tho.. There is The Weather Paradigm - its way too strong if it unlocks Boreholes too early only for 1 faction. On plain Thinker AI mod - The weather paradigm is like the best wonder in game. The Weather Paradigm loses lots of value if its not available early - its already tech level 3 in your mod and 600 minerals. Or one could remove boreholes from weather paradigm and just unlock it at some later tech.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Hmm. Maybe it happens in normal way terraforming but scenario editor allows it to ovrelap? Need to test.

[Nexii]

Restricting bases by distance would work too, and it's probably better than scaling costs. Maybe it's just a preference, but there's way too many bases to manage given the UI functionality available. In the end it's kind of the same whether factions have 20 cities or 100. EFFIC and b-drones reduce ICS a bit but I'd argue things like support, ecodamage favor it. Smaller bases pollute much less due to CM mechanics. I suppose I like fewer better bases more, it's less about colony pod spam and more about improving the existing bases.

Re: boreholes, their ecodamage from terraforming isn't really all that much. It's 2/8 from working an improvement and 8/8 for the borehole itself. So only 1.25 minerals of ecodamage. Then you have tree farm which cuts terraforming ecodamage in half and hybrid forest which reduces all of it. It all counts I suppose but the vast majority of ecodamage is from mineral production. And that's probably fine really, given how little the UI explains ecodamage mechanics.

Yea WP was always among the very best SPs in game. Only Cloning Vats compared in terms of power.

[Hagen0]

Thanks for adjusting the combat formula. I will finish my current game and then give the version a whirl.

Are you able to fundamentally change mechanics like support and eco-damage to make them less ICS-friendly? Sounds tricky.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Thanks for adjusting the combat formula. I will finish my current game and then give the version a whirl.

No need to wait. You can change this parameter in your current version as well. This is only computational change so save backward compatible. Besides, as I pointed out before, it won't change the tide on big scale only your experience in isolated combat. So no harm to try it in the middle of the game.

Are you able to fundamentally change mechanics like support and eco-damage to make them less ICS-friendly? Sounds tricky.

Absolutely. However, it costs time, which I don't have much. Therefore, I tend to ponder about all potential future changes before implementation, as you probably already noticed on this thread. So come up with some well rounded solution and we will give it a thought.

[Nexii]

Well forcing a bigger space between bases does solve a lot of the ICS. And it makes EFFIC more relevant

I think a 100% distance formula could be fine to retain for EFFIC. Here's idea #2 for a simplified efficiency:

EFFIC = 1 - (4 - EFFIC) * HQ DISTANCE / 200, min of 25% max of 100%

-4 EFFIC would lose 4% efficiency per 1 distance (8/200) from the HQ
0 EFFIC would lose 2% efficiency per 1 distance from the HQ
+4 EFFIC would have 100% efficiency at any distance

The 200 factor could be adjusted by map size, but it's probably roughly what it should be for a normal sized map.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Here - thats 1 turn before they rush Att. 106 turns to go.. 11 minerals per turn. Pirates are at +1 industry (fund + planned + power + thought police). If you click next turn they will fully rush it.

Amazing work, man. You did a great service to community as I discovered another undocumented quirk which I wasn't aware of and, I believe, nobody else as well. At least Induktio missed it in its hurry cost calculation too.

About AI first. They have a special code that cuts 1 mineral from row if human is leading. Then they also get -1 if some other special condition happens. Then they also get -1 or -2 if other special condition happens. That is all in addition to INDUSTRY effect so it overpass its -5 maximal benefit. That is how your Pirates got 4 minerals per row. Cheaters. 😁
Correspondingly, their AtT cost is 300 * 4 = 1200. This leaves them 1200 - 41 = 1159 minerals to go and 1159 * 4 = ~4636 credits to hurry it. They had 6k on turn before so this all adds up.

Now to the fun part. Apparently, when VoP is built in any base it additionally doubles all hurry costs! Projects, facilities, units - everything. Looks like designers also understood the abundance of credits at end game and tried to slow down natural unstoppable hurrying at finish line. That is why your hurry cost is double of normal if you calculate it. Whereas Thinker hurry code does not account for it and mistakenly calculates AI hurry cost without this VoP factor.

I tested this VoP effect in base UI screen for both human and AI factions. It works for both. I am not sure if this also accounted for in AI base upkeep code that does not use UI. However, I tend to believe it does. Otherwise, it would be a huge discrepancy between AI hurrying it itself and scenario editor hurrying it on behalf of AI which should mimic AI abilities 1:1.

With that being said it becomes obvious that hurrying projects in late game is much much easier than building them with minerals due to overwhelming cash flow. In this regard it would be logical to increase project hurrying cost even more. They are too valuable to just buy them as units. Say facilities are x2, units are x4, and projects are x8. And, of course, VoT doubles all the above numbers. What do you think?

[Nexii]

Well it's hard to stop rushing by asymmetric costs because then you'd just rush units and crawlers and turn those in. Unless they get an according penalty I suppose

Then theres other considerations, like that you can rush a facility and swap to SP. Again an additional penalty has to be applied...

Granted SPs are always the best to rush so I'm kind of mixed on it. It's not like 8E:1M is all that efficient... my custom PKs have 2x rush costs so I have a bit of a feel for it.

Minerals should be the best for something whether it's units or SPs

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Well forcing a bigger space between bases does solve a lot of the ICS. And it makes EFFIC more relevant

I don't see how it restricts human who usually place bases quite far apart comparing AI who often put 3 bases on a crater. At the same time human is biggest ICS abuser.

I think a 100% distance formula could be fine to retain for EFFIC. Here's idea #2 for a simplified efficiency:

EFFIC = 1 - (4 - EFFIC) * HQ DISTANCE / 200, min of 25% max of 100%

-4 EFFIC would lose 4% efficiency per 1 distance (8/200) from the HQ
0 EFFIC would lose 2% efficiency per 1 distance from the HQ
+4 EFFIC would have 100% efficiency at any distance

The 200 factor could be adjusted by map size, but it's probably roughly what it should be for a normal sized map.

-4 EFFIC would lose 4% efficiency per 1 distance (8/200) from the HQ - you mean lose 4% energy intake?
If so then it makes sense.

[Nexii]

Yes, 4% inefficiency per 1 distance. So at 25 distance, 0% energy but then the 25% minimum kicks in.

I'd say Thinker AI uses ICS quite well, it puts bases 3 distance apart from what I've seen. More extreme ICS can do 2 distance apart I suppose but I think its debated some what's ideal. Forcing 4 tiles apart might feel a bit overkill but it would stop it hard.

Perhaps for SPs they can't be rushed with anything till 25% complete with minerals. I do think that was sort of their intent with the 4x rush cost till 4 rows are complete thing. Only problem was it still allowed rushing the early part, and it didn't really scale up for the more expensive SPs.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

# Version 63

* VoP doubles hurry cost. This is now correctly calculated in AI hurry code.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Perhaps for SPs they can't be rushed with anything till 25% complete with minerals. I do think that was sort of their intent with the 4x rush cost till 4 rows are complete thing. Only problem was it still allowed rushing the early part, and it didn't really scale up for the more expensive SPs.

Any restriction for minimal hurrying threshold is unclear. Why it is 10 in vanilla? Why not 20, 50? What difference does it make? I never understood the significance of this number but I had to remember it to exploit it properly.

[Nexii]

Not sure I understand. I was talking about rushing SPs not colony costs.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Sorry. It is all mixed up in my head. The same question about hurrying SP. What difference does it make if you restrict it to 25% built?

[Nexii]

Having to build part of it with raw production ensures that the SP race lasts at least a few turns.