SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[bvanevery]

This one?
    #define MOD_VERSION "Thinker Mod v1.0"

What should I put there?

Obviously, "The Will To Power mod v45" or whatever release number you're on.  Unless you're trying to simulate / fool / exercise GPL freedom and have it appear to be Thinker Mod.   

I don't have such difficulties, doing *.txt only modding of the stock binary.  A player did ask me about displaying a version number the other day.  I had to explain why I couldn't.  It's to your advantage if you can.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Self-destruct damage is one of the reasons you can't build a stack. Any unit can be self-destructed in the field (even worms I think ). They damage any unit on that tile and adjacent tiles for weapon strength * reactor level/2 rounded down. Units in bases are not effected. So self-destructing two fusion needlejets or a conventional missile and a laser needlejet will wipe out anything on adjacent tiles provided same reactor level is used. This is from memory from years ago so I can't guarantee it is perfectly accurate but should be about right.

I never saw AI used this. Should we ban this self-destruction? It doesn't matter whether you stack them or just placed close to each other. Self-destruction should still splash them.

I never thought missile could be self-destructed. Would it be a much more powerful usage of it than just direct attack?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

This one?
    #define MOD_VERSION "Thinker Mod v1.0"

What should I put there?

Obviously, "The Will To Power mod v45" or whatever release number you're on.  Unless you're trying to simulate / fool / exercise GPL freedom and have it appear to be Thinker Mod.   

I don't have such difficulties, doing *.txt only modding of the stock binary.  A player did ask me about displaying a version number the other day.  I had to explain why I couldn't.  It's to your advantage if you can.

Where it is displayed? Some credits or something?

[lolada]

Version 46.
Here you go with more expensive Brood pit. Didn't move it earlier yet. It is still L10 (78% in tech tree). Where do you want it? 50%, 60%?

More expensive Brood Pit is logical and it pays for itself quite quickly anyway. I am fine with that. Now the main reason why would i want it earlier is due to The Cult of Planet faction. Its like one of their strength that get used very late. Thats the reasoning - now i am not sure on balancing side. For example if it comes earlier and its on 150/4 costs that balances it. Still Cultist get it for free!! So that cost change practically balances Gaians (or anyone using Mindworms) and changes nothing for The Cult of Planet.
Maybe you can try moving it one level earlier - to level 9 techs - i don't know how you get those % tech values -78% in tech tree. It E10 tech.. there is no E9 tech, E8 is Adv. Ecological Eng - Superformers. E7 are Isle of The Deep. Its definitely strong facility don't move it much if you decide to make the change.

Are you saying native warfare is too OP at the end game?

No its fine i wouldn't touch it. Its strong if +Planet is stacked and its hard to stack. One must eat -2 industry AND -3 growth from Green and for example pick Cybernetic and eat -3 Police rating. Now police rating can be overcome, but its not easy pick - Cha Dawn for example has good police bonus and its a shame to ruin it with Cybernetic. He does have +2 base Planet so he can actually skip Cybernetic and have strong worms. It also means not picking Knowledge for example. Its fine i think.

Brood Pit on its own is not game-breaking, but in every base is strong - once i got it i could spam experienced worms quite faster - thats op. Good reason not to move it too early.

[Hagen0]

It depends on the circumstances a bit. If you just have the missile self-destructing it will narrowly not kill anything adjacent. Also if you want to eliminate defenders of a base the self-destruct won't do anything. However, if you have two missiles you can eliminate any number of stacked units (or merely close) units. That was my point. Due to this, the way air power works and stack damage conventional warfare like in other civ versions is impossible in vanilla Smac. If you did not change the mechanic this still holds for your mod once weapon power reaches a certain point (Missile/Chaos weapons).

It is useful to be able to disband units, but they should not deal any damage in the process. If you have access to the executable you could just change the behavior.

[bvanevery]

Where it is displayed? Some credits or something?

From within a game, Menu.. Help.. Show Version Number.  Might help someone verify that they've installed their mods properly.  Not terribly important to me as I'm doing *.txt mods only.  Players do have questions anyways, and tend to overthink / not recognize or understand the difference between binary and *.txt mods.  I mean my installation procedure is "copy my files on top of your existing installation", that's it, not rocket science.  But it all feels fuddly and fidgety to some people and causes a little concern.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

More expensive Brood Pit is logical and it pays for itself quite quickly anyway. I am fine with that. Now the main reason why would i want it earlier is due to The Cult of Planet faction. Its like one of their strength that get used very late. Thats the reasoning - now i am not sure on balancing side. For example if it comes earlier and its on 150/4 costs that balances it. Still Cultist get it for free!! So that cost change practically balances Gaians (or anyone using Mindworms) and changes nothing for The Cult of Planet.
Maybe you can try moving it one level earlier - to level 9 techs - i don't know how you get those % tech values -78% in tech tree. It E10 tech.. there is no E9 tech, E8 is Adv. Ecological Eng - Superformers. E7 are Isle of The Deep. Its definitely strong facility don't move it much if you decide to make the change.

Brood Pit on its own is not game-breaking, but in every base is strong - once i got it i could spam experienced worms quite faster - thats op. Good reason not to move it too early.

Sooooo, do you want it earlier or not? I don't think Cult is OP by itself. Some strong boost in the mid game won't necessarily let them win outright. Moreover, we can increase maintenance even more so that even if they got it free they still have to pay for it.

I would generally agree to move it earlier.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

It depends on the circumstances a bit. If you just have the missile self-destructing it will narrowly not kill anything adjacent. Also if you want to eliminate defenders of a base the self-destruct won't do anything. However, if you have two missiles you can eliminate any number of stacked units (or merely close) units. That was my point. Due to this, the way air power works and stack damage conventional warfare like in other civ versions is impossible in vanilla Smac. If you did not change the mechanic this still holds for your mod once weapon power reaches a certain point (Missile/Chaos weapons).

It is useful to be able to disband units, but they should not deal any damage in the process. If you have access to the executable you could just change the behavior.

Yea. I guess this is OP feature. Strangely, I never used it.

Let's remove it? Everybody agrees?
I don't think it worth balancing as anything that is relates to weapon strength only and ignores opponents armor completely is just a can of worms about to break the game.

[lolada]

Yeah The Cult could use the boost - they really don't have much going for them except relying on worm warfare and police. Move it earlier, just not too much - after Isles of the Deep, before Locusts. In that case 2 or 3 maintenance is plenty - 4 is a lot for every base. Somehow i thought Free means no maintenance.. silly me !? The cost can stay at 150 min, it gives +2 police + other goodies after all.

Btw on that missile or destruction thing - it looks stupid strong to kill stack that way. I wouldn't like being the victim there and i doubt AI knows how to use it. So that can be removed.
I actually played a bit with Conventional missiles in the mod and i was pleasantly surprised. They are useful lategame with ton of bases. I just placed several far-away bases on missile production and used them to bombard targets at will. Singularity missiles move 20 tiles away - its awesome - and they could straight-up kill full HP defenders in bases in some cases. If defender has tracking and base aerocomplex missiles appear ineffective. Base without Aeroxomplex is quite vulnerable if i remember well. I can post some screenshots tomorrow.
Also they were great for sniping any units outside of bases. They are even cost-effective in some cases - since defense is so strong in the mod - attacking unit is in real trouble of dying - it makes sense to smash a missile into defender if it will kill him or at least badly hurt him.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Yeah The Cult could use the boost - they really don't have much going for them except relying on worm warfare and police. Move it earlier, just not too much - after Isles of the Deep, before Locusts. In that case 2 or 3 maintenance is plenty - 4 is a lot for every base. Somehow i thought Free means no maintenance.. silly me !? The cost can stay at 150 min, it gives +2 police + other goodies after all.

The higher the cost and the lower the maintenance the more Cult benefits from getting if free. 150 seems too much. Nobody else will build it this way. I prefer to crank maintenance for specialized facilities like this one. This way Cult will get it immediately free but incur strong maintenance cost in return.

[bvanevery]

Let's remove it? Everybody agrees?

I'm not going to miss it.  It could now be my candidate for most obscure feature of the game, since it's something I've almost never remembered to do in the real world.  I've drilled many Aquifers by comparison, and I almost always forget to do those.

[bvanevery]

150 seems too much.

I disagree.  The Brood Pit is a super giveaway.  I've now made it cost as much as a Nanoreplicator and as much to maintain.  360 minerals, 6 energy per turn.  And it comes at Tier 10 in my tech tree, same time as the overpowered Manifold Harmonics.

Nobody else will build it this way.

I don't let the Cult have it for free at all.  Aside from it being overpowered, the Cult was never going to get to it that late in the tech tree anyways.  It's the same kind of game design mentality as the later Civ series "custom units for nationalities".  So the Germans would get a special Panzer unit, and the Americans would get a F-16.  Late game bennies.  The difference is, that bonus regime is scaled across many nationalities for all time periods, so you can beat up your enemies with Aztec Jaguars, which are warriors that move 2, if you're so inclined.  It's just a question of when you're going to "burst" your empire.  I also think it's a kind of pointless gewgaw that merely adds flavor.  SMAC is not so regular as to what you can do, or when.  Like I said, the Cult never gets there, so this is only of benefit to a human player.  And they don't need that kind of power for cheap.

The Brood Pit is dumb stuff that was introduced in Alien Crossfire.  It's bad game design.  They basically took a Police Station from Civ II and dialed it up to Eleven.

My Cult AI is currently underperforming, but it never had a Brood Pit in the real world, so that's not the issue.  It tends to take up quite a bit of map space, and it's not easy to kill, but it never succeeds in the late game and it builds very few Secret Projects.  Maybe because I made it Aggressive?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

360/6 seems to be expensive. It grants 1/4 off the cost and 1/8 to lifecycle. So with 80 mineral cost worm it is roughly 30 minerals save per worm. Minus 6 energy (=3 minerals) per turn. Imagine you have 20 production and stamp a worm every 4 turns. BP generates you 30 / 4 - 3 = 4.5 mineral profit every turn. So you need 360/4.5 = 80 turns to just break even building worms exclusively! And then when you stop building them you start losing big. That seems too low of ROI.
Of course it increases POLICE but again you need to build police units to utilize that and it also cost maintenance. So 6 energy + 2 minerals (= 10 energy) just to quell 2 drones. For 10 energy you can quell 5+ drones easily. Of course, this is just rough estimate and there is "double police power" POLICE RATING, etc. However, this still seems like an overpricing.

Somehow I don't remember it becomes a game breaker in vanilla where it cost just 80/2.

[bvanevery]

360/6 seems to be expensive.

I don't want this thing in the game.  When I don't want something in the game, I "soft" retire it by pushing it very late in the game, and making it very expensive.  So that if someone wants to sandbox the game, it's still there to be used, but that players won't be making rational decisions about winning the game, with this facility as a factor.  Even when I had it not quite that expensive, it was "standard drill" for me to obsess in late game about putting the +2 POLICE facility in every single city.  It's pointless busywork.  It disrupts the careful requirements of making the player work for their Happiness.  Players can still do it, but it costs more than other stuff, so players are curbed of the tendency to build every single Happiness facility they can get their hands on.

As I said before, it was a stupid lazy game design on Firaxis' part, whoever did this part of the expansion.  It's not like the game needed mind-numbing numbers of mindworms to be produced, or they were terribly expensive units.  It's not like there aren't enough other kinds of factories to build, or minerals to crawl.  It shows a complete lack of interest in game balance, and is mainly just a gewgaw to try to tell a story about the Cult.

Clean Reactor Police units do not cost SUPPORT.  It is a false argument.  Also by the time the Brood Pit appeared in the game, SUPPORT is a non-issue.  As you know, I put Clean Reactor at the beginning of the game, available to everyone from Turn 1, because the beginning is the only time it can actually have a meaningful impact.

The Covert Ops Center is also stupid, just not as stupid as the Brood Pit.  The main reason I've left the COC alone is because it doesn't actually do much good and players can't remember to build it anyways.  I did get rid of every single "base probe team boost" flag for the techs, as I believe you did too.

This game has 3X more junk in it than any game would actually need to be a commercially viable game.  The ongoing act of shipping "expansion packs" results in pointless drivel like this.  At least it gives us modders something to do, 20 years later.  2 years worth of low hanging fruit due to crap like this.

[Hagen0]

I used the self-destruct mechanic in a Pbem once. My opponent was very confused. Yes it should not exist. It's one of those ideas that sound cool in a brain-storm meeting but is not properly thought through.

As for the Broodpit 360/6 does sound wildly excessive.