SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Support

I think I'll pick the first version with flat support per unit. Moreover, I'll distribute support across bases proportionally by their mineral intake. Similar to facilities maintained from a single pool. I think it is fair and help both AI and player when some bases have too many units assigned. There won't be need to send them to new home base for reassigning. I hate cases when an ally keep transferring units to me and they all get assigned to the closest base and every turn they all die because base support is exhausted already. 😠
AI may have similar problems.

I will not redraw the support symbols on units in base view. Instead I'll recalculate support value per base and set it. So it may not match what individual units support shows.

Another option would be to reassign units between bases proportionally to bases mineral intake. This will mess up home base assignment if anybody cares about it.

[Nevill]

I hate cases when an ally keep transferring units to me and they all get assigned to the closest base and every turn they all die because base support is exhausted already.

Isn't this a case of a dysfunctional mechanic?

When a base exhausts its support, it shows negative mineral income on the production tab, similar to how negative growth appears when a base experiences hunger. Except that unlike stored food/growth indicator, the production progress never goes down.

I think the game was supposed to detract minerals from current production, and only disband units when there are no production minerals left (similar to how a base loses pop when there is no food left), but the current implementation goes straight to disbanding units, which is how you get a situation you describe.

So I have two questions.

1) Is it possible to make minerals work like food (if you get negative income, wait until you have exhausted your current supply before you start losing pop/units)?
2) Do you have an example in mind when you say you'd distribute support "proportionately"? As in, it will always be a fraction of the current mineral production?

I think Civ IV did have a system like this, with all units funded from treasury. It's a cool idea, but I'd like to see some numbers to better understand how it compares to what we have.

[Hagen0]

In Civ4 all maintenance cost of anything come from your gold/energy account. The advantage of this approach is that there is no shuffling around of units between bases as the support system is global.

You have a certain amount of free units depending on empire size and chosen government. Any above that cost one gold per unit I believe. You pay additional 0.5 gold per unit which is outside your territory.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

1) Is it possible to make minerals work like food (if you get negative income, wait until you have exhausted your current supply before you start losing pop/units)?

I don't think so. The relation between nutrients and population is not the same as between minerals and units. I'd leave it like it is. It works pretty logically even though it disband units immediately this is not a big deal. Just don't go overboard.

2) Do you have an example in mind when you say you'd distribute support "proportionately"? As in, it will always be a fraction of the current mineral production?

I think Civ IV did have a system like this, with all units funded from treasury. It's a cool idea, but I'd like to see some numbers to better understand how it compares to what we have.

I meant proportionally to mineral intake. Let's say we have base A with 10 minerals intake and base B with 5 minerals intake. Base A owns 1 unit. Base B owns 2 units. Let's also say we are on 0 SUPPORT. So each unit consumes 1 mineral. We have totally 3 units = 3 minerals to support totally. Now base A produces twice as more minerals as base B. Then we need to distribute support between them as 2:1. Therefore, base A is burdened with 2 mineral support and base B with 1. This guarantees that as long as combined units support is no greater than combined bases mineral intake they won't die regardless of which base they belong to.

[Nevill]

The idea seems pretty interesting.

You might want to consider when exactly support costs for new units will be applied now that it affects bases other than the ones building units. There is nothing more frustrating than building something expensive and essential, and coming up one mineral short when you need it most. It also causes mineral production loss in bases with mineral intake in double digits, as only 10 minerals carry over to the next queue item.

Since turns resolve from the oldest bases to the newest, a bunch of new units on smaller older bases might cause a SP delay on a more productive base, with no way to plan around it.

Is it possible to do "support reassignment" after production orders for the turn complete on all bases?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Since turns resolve from the oldest bases to the newest, a bunch of new units on smaller older bases might cause a SP delay on a more productive base, with no way to plan around it.

Is it possible to do "support reassignment" after production orders for the turn complete on all bases?

What? You lost me.

[Nevill]

I don't know how you will be doing this implementation, but.

How it works now:
Base 1 builds a scout; loses 1 mineral intake worth of support.
Base 10 builds a scout; same.
Base 20 completes a Sectet Project as was projected last turn.

How it may possibly work:
Base 1 builds a scout; Base 20 loses 1 mineral intake worth of support; production for Base 20 resolves later in the turn.
Base 10 builds a scout; mineral loss still goes to Base 20 because it is the most productive one.
Base 20 loses an amount of mineral intake that is impossible to predict; Project is delayed 1 turn.

Planning ahead is an important part of a strategy game, and I find this might make it harder as base production can no longer be estimated from the base screen itself.

Of course, the mod already introduces these elements with base contributions which are impossible to estimate correctly across 20 bases, and have to be found out empirically. So "not my problem" can also be a valid answer.

Edit:
What I asked you if it would be possible to do this:
Base 1 builds a scout
Base 10 builds a scout
Base 20 completes a Sectet Project
Support calculations happen

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I don't know yet myself how to implement it. And I agree with you that with more and more modifications it is more difficult to tie all ends together. I am trying to avoid modifications if they get mixed feedback or controversial. That is why I discussing them first with focus group. So no worries - if it takes long to discuss then be it. Whenever I do something drastic like project contribution I try to leave clues like this popup with percentage completed.

By the way, since you counting every brick, would it be beneficial to add an exact cost/produced numbers in contribution popup? Maybe also estimated number of turns, etc.? Would it help much?

Then with this support thing it'll be drastic too as it changes support model from per base to per faction globally. And yes, producing something in one base will possible affect other bases production.

Regarding your request here is how it works in vanilla.

support is calculated for existing units
yield is calculated
based on the above the intake - support = surplus is calculated
surplus is added to production
check on completion - change production
possibly new unit got produced - support is updated to be displayed correctly for next turn production

So whatever surplus you see in base screen is what is going to be added to production. It won't be affected by newly produced units. At least this is my understanding. Is this what you worried about? This can also be tested to make sure it works as needed.

Now support is easy to work with since it already has a visual representation so it can be (re)calculated at any moment to give an actual picture and prediction for next turn. I was thinking about similar adjustment for "contribution" feature but it is much more difficult to visualize as there is no visual slot for it. I surely can just decrease the surplus by contributing amount but it'll puzzle user as yield won't add up.

[vonbach]

What does this mod change exactly? I'm a bit late to this party.

[Nevill]

By the way, since you counting every brick, would it be beneficial to add an exact cost/produced numbers in contribution popup? Maybe also estimated number of turns, etc.? Would it help much?

Well, it needs to be somewhere.

Right now it's impossible to see anything in the base screen (the mineral bricks are too small for expensive facilities), so I have to resort to hurrying up, dividing the cost by four to get the number of minerals left, writing it down (in the base name), and doing the same thing next turn to calculate the difference with the raw base production. That's how I find out the amount other bases are contributing.

I don't know what you can do with the tools you have. Having a breakdown available at the beginning of the turn would at least help eyeball it, but if you could make this popup come up at anytime the player wants and calculate the projected contribution amount for the next turn, that would be swell. I need to know when my project finishes every time I reassign workers.

Sometimes you really need that project, and can afford to let some bases starve for that final push... but you have to know it's worth it.

So whatever surplus you see in base screen is what is going to be added to production. It won't be affected by newly produced units. At least this is my understanding. Is this what you worried about? This can also be tested to make sure it works as needed.

That's how it works in vanilla, yes. A newly produced unit can't detract from production at the base it was produced on.

I was worried about what happens mid-turn with the new proposition of assigning support proportionally. Base production resolves one by one, so if a base produces a unit and support for it is assigned to a different base further down the list, the first step of the algorithm you listed will count the new unit among existing ones, reducing the surplus in the space between the end of the last turn and the beginning of the current one.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

What does this mod change exactly? I'm a bit late to this party.

Are you asking what it has changed? If you just want to skim it - read changelog. 😊
Otherwise, I can answer specific questions.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Right now it's impossible to see anything in the base screen (the mineral bricks are too small for expensive facilities), so I have to resort to hurrying up, dividing the cost by four to get the number of minerals left, writing it down (in the base name), and doing the same thing next turn to calculate the difference with the raw base production. That's how I find out the amount other bases are contributing.

The F4 screen shows exact numbers of accumulated minerals and total cost.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I don't know what you can do with the tools you have. Having a breakdown available at the beginning of the turn would at least help eyeball it, but if you could make this popup come up at anytime the player wants and calculate the projected contribution amount for the next turn, that would be swell. I need to know when my project finishes every time I reassign workers.

Sometimes you really need that project, and can afford to let some bases starve for that final push... but you have to know it's worth it.

I don't know yet myself. A lot of discoveries every day. Maybe I can adjust actual surplus in all bases to display right amount. Then your F4 screen and base screen could even estimate number of turns left. This way it sticks and you can see it any time in F4 screen. Sounds convenient.

I just don't know how to explain user why surplus doesn't match base yield in base screen. Maybe use one of these notification lines when they say something like "production boom" in right top corner?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I was worried about what happens mid-turn with the new proposition of assigning support proportionally. Base production resolves one by one, so if a base produces a unit and support for it is assigned to a different base further down the list, the first step of the algorithm you listed will count the new unit among existing ones, reducing the surplus in the space between the end of the last turn and the beginning of the current one.

You are right they are resolved one by one. So I probably need to emulate physical reassignment like if user manually set different home base.
So at the turn unit is built it does not affect support.
And then after complete production cycle I may reassign them between bases and correct bases corresponding support. Then you'll see correct prediction as you yourself set home bases for few units at the beginning of the turn.

This is all tedious work but if you, guys, help me test it, I'm up to try it.

The question is - does the game need this change. I am not satisfied with any of my proposed support changes. They use fractions and SMACX is pure whole number game (emulating board game with dice). So I don't really want to mess with fraction and rounding. This will be tough to explain users. I'll keep this on my back burner but for now I really question this idea value.

[vonbach]

Are you asking what it has changed? If you just want to skim it - read changelog. 😊
Otherwise, I can answer specific questions.

Well I'm tying to  figure out how it changes the game. Like how it changes the AI.
It looks interesting but if I want to change this back I'll probably need to  reinstall
from GOG.