SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Hagen0]

Could be that reactor_cost_factor_0 is merely a calibration factor for the other reactors.

[Nevill]

Probably, in which case... can we enable "discounts" for fission unit costs, for testing purposes? So a calibration factor would be 100, and then we'd have values for all four reactors?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Incentivising vertical growth doesn't require anything extreme. You'd need to reduce nutrients required for growth and buff drone control options a bit maybe. Increasing the economy buildings multipliers would have serious unintended consequences. I can almost guarantee that. (One that comes to mind is building super-economic bases with crawled energy.) If you want to buff facilities in general why not abolish maintenance costs? This would also make drone control better.

Reducing growth requirements is the same as giving more nutrients at base tile = faster growth. That requires to cope with growth problems much more often than usual. I'd say it creates more problems than solutions. At least I feel like I want to slow their growth down by producing more colonies! The opposite to growth incentive.

We need encourage base size not how fast it gets there. I agree that increasing multiplication effect is not good as everything is already balanced out. However, that could be said to any other "solution" - it will break fine tuned balance in some way. Same happens with abolishing maintenance costs. Everybody will end up with over extra money = faster building = at some point everybody has nothing to build anymore.

I don't think we need to fight this ICS thing. Try to play on large map and you'll see how difficult it becomes to spread beyond say 20-40 bases.

I agree that SUPPORT encourages more smaller bases to support more units total. Maybe we can think of something in this direction?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Is there a way to play with the cost formula?

There are the following strings in thinker.ini:
reactor_cost_factor_0=100
reactor_cost_factor_1=80
reactor_cost_factor_2=65
reactor_cost_factor_3=50

And this is from the readme:
unit cost = [PI cost + (SI cost - 1) / 2] * reactor factor * abilities factor + abilities flat
reactor factor = reactor cost / Fission reactor cost

I assume it takes reactor factor = 100% for fission, and then applies discounts according to the values above.

However, changing reactor_cost_factor_0 to anything other than 100 does not actually change the cost of fission units, but changes the cost of units with other reactors.

What do these numbers stand for then?

Personally, I'd like to test the game with the values of 70/60/50/40 from what the current costs are, but I am not sure how to go about it.

I've updated description. Hope this is more clear.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer#unit-cost-formula

reactor cost factor = reactor cost / Fission reactor cost

So Fission units cost never changes. I assumed people would take Fission unit cost as a base for further discount. If you want to reduce all costs including Fission then it probably would be clearer to reduce the cost of components, correspondingly.

However, I can change formula to use absolute reactor value and not relative to Fission if you like to test that.

[Nevill]

However, I can change formula to use absolute reactor value and not relative to Fission if you like to test that.

If it wouldn't be too much trouble.

[lolada]

Wohoo lots of changes lately i need to catch up. I am now interested in starting new game to see all new things. Might start new AAR current one is almost done.

Really interesting changes to secret projects, looking forward to that. Terraforming as well.

On topic of growth and formers/colony pods - i am split on that.. Maybe its better that they are cheaper and early game goes faster - its valid thing to do. Colony pods and formers being expensive does change start in sense that its way more important to build facilities like Recycling Tanks and Recreation Commons compared to vanilla. Vanilla colony pod ICS-like spam is boring and tiring to play. It would be still different to play in WTP though - as rushing units is expensive.

On topic of combat volatility, well i guess it can be easily modded by user - i got used to it. There's something good in chance of losing super advanced experienced units - otherwise game become cakewalk for player and interest is lost much quicker.

Hard to comment on the rest - some AI in general grows very quickly.. maybe even too quickly while others stagnate. Lots of it was due to ecological damage and bad terraforming - that might be changed. Hard to say without more playtesting now.

[Nexii]

Recycle tanks might be as much to blame for ICS though they're not mentioned a lot. Very fast payback. They put the base tile to 7 FOP. In some ways they might be seen as a strong terraforming improvement that requires very low tech. Early game forming has you at around 4 FOP a tile. Forests at 1/2/1 as an example, or 2/1/1 farm/solar.

4 FOP a tile means 2 goes to food, 2 is leftover, say 1M and 1E. But that pop also requires police or facility to control. Leaving with even less remainder, 1M per extra pop. Compared to the first pop in another base at 7 FOP (5 net) it's little wonder ICS is so good.

Easing drone control (i.e. SE POLICE) is one way, though its tricky. A lot of times I've modded Police State to be too powerful.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

# Version 80

* Reactor value is weapon/armor percentage multiplier.
Enjoy

* Now actually renaming technologies. Didn't work first time.
After I renamed them I realized that the old artifacts are still there: picture, description, quote. Picture I (or somebody else) may draw, description is just text but quote is voice - difficult to modify. But first lets test them. If they happen to be well named then we can think about description/picture for them. Otherwise, we can rename them.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Agree about Recycling Tanks. Any flat bonus benefits smaller bases. What can we do about it? Remove from game? Make it expensive? Make it add proportional value to total base yield?

Make it add FOP proportional to base size maybe? Like +1 each FOP for each 4 pop? So only 4+ bases benefit from it?

[Nexii]

Probably just more tech for what it does. It can be okay if facilities like this and booming fuel later expansion waves

I considered more +TALENT options in my SE set too, to ease drone control a bit.

I think a big reason facilities aren't great early is the low tile production before you get things like condensor, borehole, tree farm. +2 ECON or not makes a huge difference when production is still low

[Nevill]

Wait, what? You are blaming ICS on RecTanks?

I know my ICS, and I'll say that nobody has time for them. Oh sure, they can be part of a strategy for some factions like Morgan (who has money to hurry them up) or Lal (who has the tech out of the gate), but it's only at a couple bases... and usually somewhere that is either capable of building them (a mineral bonus), or has trouble growing (no nutrient bonus), or both. Otherwise it's better to build Colony Pods and formers. The payback may be fast, but not faster than a new base can provide. And by the time you stop building bases the bureacracy drones start rearing their heads, and you have RecCommons to build... and then Creches, and then Network Nodes to keep up with the research.

It isn't rare that I enter 2200s with only about three or four RecTanks to show for it. I usually build them as part of pop-boom prepwork, because that's where a single food point can make a difference.

Just give more attractive terraforming options, and the base squares won't be the only thing worth harvesting.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

About support I am thinking to remove any flat bonuses and make it directly proportional depending on SUPPORT rating and base size.

Sample rule:

SUPPORT rating - minerals per unit support
-4 - 4.0
-3 - 3.5
-2 - 3.0
-1 - 2.5
 0 - 2.0
+1 - 1.5
+2 - 1.0
+3 - 0.5

Then each pop above 1 base size takes -0.1 off this value. So with SUPPORT = +3 any 6+ pop bases have free support.

This is just random numbers example. We can adjust SUPPORT and base scales so they never free but quite small instead.

This proportional approach actually should be pretty good as it will keep SUPPORT very important throughout the game.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Probably just more tech for what it does.

Huh? 😕

[Nexii]

At default costs...yea colony pods were better at 30 than tanks at 40

With pods at 60 its a different story I think they're very close then

Formers at 20 are also a bit ridiculous for what they do, but unformed land isnt an option for anyone...

But yea, the low base terraforming is really the culprit. Early game options should be 5 FOP probably or so

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Wait, what? You are blaming ICS on RecTanks?

I know my ICS, and I'll say that nobody has time for them.

Yes, he does. And I agree that it does fuel ISC. Maybe partially but still.

Based on your description it seems you don't play RecTanks right. They are extremely useful especially in low mineral bases. Let's take an extreme example - zero mineral surplus. Don't know how it happened. Maybe no rolling tiles around, whatever. Then you cannot build nothing there. Not even former to plant a forest. +1 RT mineral increases your production speed by infinity. Well, let's take less extreme example: 1 mineral surplus. RT is about same cost as colony. So you can either build one colony per 40 turns or build RT and then build them one per 20 turns = it pays itself off in 40 turns and then doubles your production speed for free. Regardless of mineral surplus it pays its mineral cost in 40 turns with extra nutrient and energy on top of that. It's a quickest payoff investment in game.

The above is valid even if you don't pop pods. If you do then sooner of later you pick one that completes RT construction instantly. The longer you build it the more chance for this to happen. They you also just collect credits from it to spend on hurrying. Facility is twice as cheap to hurry than unit.

Also whatever you said about extra base producing more than extra RT is not entirely correct. When base issues a colony it looses its production power by 1 worker it happens immediately and lasts until new colony reaches its destination. Say 10 turns or so. Then new base adds 2 worked tiles. That covers your losses in about 5 turns. So 15 turn of payoff. While RT is a plain addition comparable to 1 worked tile that pays off in 20 turns or so. On top of that while you built it your base also accumulated production potential and now can spit out colonies even faster. Remember that mineral production is roughly proportional to pop+1. So if you don't build colony while you were building RT you just accumulated 1.5-2 times more production power.

I am not proving my theory is correct. I am just saying that they are pretty close and only computer simulation can show the difference.