SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Nevill]

Alright. Seeing the Infiltration expiration added made me think of any other features we long wanted to see introduced/fixed. Not some new mechanics, but perhaps improve places where the old mechanics failed in some way.

I. My next biggest beef is probably with the way the game handles orbital facilities, boosters, and the like. I think the code which runs orbital defences is a mess that is easily abused. I am not scient, so I can't disassemble it, but I can list my own observations. Currently at work, so I can't load the game and verify it just yet, but from what I remember...

Flechette defense systems get two chances to shoot down a Buster instead of one. Two messages appear instead of one.
Orbital defense pods have two chances to shoot down a Buster. The first shot makes them deployed, and the second one sacrifices the Pod. (?)
Orbital defense pods react to Fungal and Tectonic missiles, and they can't be told to ignore them. It is thus a common tactic to exhaust their number by using lesser missiles before launching the big ones.
Unlike Fungal and Tectonic missiles, Busters can't be detonated over terrain, which leads to one of the stupidest methods of defense by vacating the area of units and hoping it would crash harmlessly finding no targets.

I will check this in-game and update the info if it is not as I remember it.

What would we like to see?

1) Personally, I'd like busters to be treated as other special missiles in that you can detonate them anywhere. I'd also like it if moving a buster into a base time with no unit didn't produce a message "can't capture the base", but detonated the buster over that tile instead. Same with the other two special missiles.
2) I'd like for Flechette Defense Systems to attempt to shoot down a buster first... once, with a 50% chance per any FDS in range as advertised.
3) I'd like for orbital defense pods to either not react to tectonic/fungal missiles, or only using their "free" shots and never sacrificing themselves in the attempt.

II. My second biggest beef is how selective some combat mechanics are, which I suspect is partially due to bugs. I'll have to dig for specific examples, but it has to do with Needlejets, Air Superiority, Artillery, Psi combat and the like. I mean, you do know about the bug that, say, a <SAM> Chaos Needlejet with Psi-armor would use their weapon but forse a enemy to use a Psi-weapon (power=1) instead? Or the inability to attack units under a needlejet if you don't have <SAM>. Or the weirdness in collateral damage when units of several types are mixed. I had an entire list of those things noted down... somewhere. I'll try to dig it back up.

Perhaps the worst was how in sea duels a unit with less defensive value would be picked in certain cases, i.e. out of the two ships 1-4-4 and 4-1-4 the first one would be picked for an artillery duel (and swiftly sunk, of course).

Of the other things bothering me I can recall the strange collateral damage wildlife suffers (if your land unit kills one unit in the stack of land units, all those units get killed. Not true for jets), which makes ecodamage a joke as you kill them all quickly... and you may even capture them as a stack, though I haven't seen this before the endgame.

Or how scrambling works for <SAM> Interceptors, in that an air unit can lure them out of a base by attacking a nearby unit, making them scrable, and then cancelling the attack.

Or the cloak ability sometimes failing due to the game inexplicably keeping track of some units that you should have no vision of. Have you notices that, sometimes, a mind worm that killed your forward scout is visible through the fog of war even though you have no one in the area? This kind of thing.

Does anyone have things like these?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

MY 2273.  After a lot of oceanic theft I finally learn Power.  I wonder whether my buddy Svensgaard will approve of it.  In my mod he pursues Wealth, but in WTP and the stock game his agenda is Power.  This is listed in his faction profile.  Well what is he actually pursuing?  Wealth.  If I soon learn Wealth or Knowledge as well, it's going to be really annoying if he's criticizing me about that, while doing Wealth himself.  "Fat and weak, gonna carve you up."  Uh huh.  Dialog will go stupid.

These gaffes aren't quite as jarring with the Alien Crossfire factions, because most of them did not have strong enough characterization to be convincing in their ideologies.  But with the original 7 game characters, it's pretty much dealbreaker territory.  For instance:

This is completely stupid.  If Yang isn't pushing Police State, then who would?

This is also completely stupid.  He's Green??  I'm Green, I'm Deidre.  He went to war with me over this.  He used to be my ally.  It isn't just narratively jarring, it breaks the diplomatic system.

This was a very bad game design choice on Induktio's part, done in the name of AI performance only.  I strongly urge you to get rid of this in WTP.  I believe we've had this conversation already, some time ago.  But now I jog your memory with actual screenshots of how ludicrous this is.

For whatever reason, the Cultists, Data Angels, and Believers actually chose their correct agendas.  At least right now.  Believers aren't hard to figure out, as just about everyone wants the benefits of Fundamentalist.  I'm surprised that the Data Angels are Democratic, as it's not a popular choice among factions.  The Morganites are the only other ones that did it.  Maybe they wanted EFFICIENCY, but they also got their butts kicked.  Nobody wants to do Police State.

Not surprising what the Cult chose, as Green isn't a controversial choice.  In fact, almost everyone has gone Green, me included!  The only exception is Svensgaard, who has chosen Simple economics.  Free Market and Planned are hated, with good reason.  The AI knows they're bad choices, and so do I.

Thank  you for bringing this to my attention. I've put this on TODO list.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/issues/21

From a purely gaming perspective I prefer the AI to be flexible when it comes to SE settings over the strict adherence to the narrative. I'd like Morgan to be able to run Green from time to time, and Yand to run Fundy for INDUSTRY. I do it myself, after all.

It would be nice to see them weighed a bit more, or else the factions being incentivized to run their preferences in some fashion. Yang being immune to negative PS effects was, perhaps, the most obvious example, but it could be more subtle. Lal running Democracy out of the box would be crippling, but if his faction had a Robust, SUPPORT, he could likely survive it as "Morgan with benefits", and the extra pop would give him some minerals to work with.

We want an AI that could at least pretend to be moderately sensible. If we give FM -5 POLICE, PLANET, INDUSTRY and GROWTH, we don't want Morgan shooting himself in the foot. Which means, we want them to at least look at the options they have available instead of plopping on whatever is written in their faction files.

You are right that wise SE choosing contributes to computer player intelligence and overall strength. However, this restriction is limited to only one category. That is not that devastating especially if we keep this in mind and make these choice more sensible for them in general. After all if we make every computer player to pick a best choice they lose their personality. Their rigidness is part of the game fun too. I agree on this with bvanevery.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I did way better than the odds calculator would have me believe.  I lost 2 worms during the initial onslaught.  Then I got warnings about 23% odds of victory, but I won both of those battles.  The 1st one made me 60% wounded, the 2nd only 20%, which is not what I'd expect if the odds are against me.  Something is wrong with the calculator for psi combat.

Psi combat is calculated same way as any other one taking units strengths into account. They just ignore weapon/armor. Displayed odds are correct.

Are you playing on vanilla setting for alternative_combat_mechanics_loss_divider? Even if you are, you may still see some randomness not that often than in WTP default but still. One cannot escape it completely. 😊

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Multiplayer lacks the ability to give away bases to other human players. I have to think about what the implications of this might be. Helping your ally retake his bases would be easier, for one.

Never new it is prohibited there. I would think it is to avoid humans gang up and build super empire.

[Nevill]

The interface to give away a base just isn't there in MP. Normally they are given via a faction dialogue, which is not possible between human players in PBEM.

Humans can gang up and build super empires anyway, it just requires an agreement between two players and a rover to capture bases. Of course, a lot of buildings get lost in the transaction.

[bvanevery]

I do it myself, after all.

You making a choice about it, and the AI making choices about it, are not the same thing / symmetric at all.  Not only does it bust the narrative, but it busts the diplomatic system.  Putting pressure on you to comply with their ideological bent, is a core game mechanic.  You as the single human player have never been able to tell the AIs what their ideology should be.  It's always them to you.

Lal running Democracy out of the box would be crippling,

First off, you can't.  It takes some time to learn the tech for it in WTP.  Second off, by the time it's available, it's not. 

[bvanevery]

Psi combat is calculated same way as any other one taking units strengths into account. They just gnore weapon/armor. Displayed odds are correct.

No they are not.  The empirical evidence is my mindworms are winning WAY more than the odds say they should.  Odds say I should be suffering many defeats and depleting my forces.  Instead I'm getting something closer to a traditional cakewalk, although not as bad as vanilla.

I guess it's going to take some screenshots to convince you.

Are you playing on vanilla setting for alternative_combat_mechanics_loss_divider?

Yes.  I have consistently made note of my settings at the start of recent test games.  If the odds display is not taking this variable into account, that could account for the discrepancy.

Or, could it be that the use of a PLANET rating for defense is calculated wrong somehow?  This is mindworm combat, somehow the problem is mindworm specific.

[Nevill]

After all if we make every computer player to pick a best choice they lose their personality.

I would make a note that there already is an option to randomize faction personalities and agendas, right in the game rules.

I am not opposed to it, but I do not want to lose what gives Thinker its name. Maybe a toggle?
Not a hill I would die on, though. And I understand that supporting multiple types of logic isn't the way to go, so I'll concede the point.

[bvanevery]

I would make a note that there already is an option to randomize faction personalities and agendas, right in the game rules.

It's your choice to ruin their narratives that way in favor of variety.  It's not a default.  It doesn't deserve privilege or equal treatment, any more than cheating with directed research does.  It gives the game some life extension for some people.  And they still insist on their actual ideologies, whatever those randomly happen to be.

I am not opposed to it, but I do not want to lose what gives Thinker its name.

That's quite the exaggeration.  And the name of this mod isn't Thinker.  It's Will To Power.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Thank you for keeping tabs on these. It definitely helps other not to search for them. I would suggest to post this on wiki in like "known bugs/flaws" section so other can keep adding to this. Maybe this page already exists somewhere. Should not be fancy formatted as long as bug mention is there.

Also I want to remind you a hard truth of life (game). There are bottomless pit of bugs/flaws/exploits there. We won't be able to ever fix them or even tap into them all. It is not effort cost effective to go through entire list. We must focus on the most frustrating issues and then maybe move on to next one in rank, etc. As you stated yourself, you just ignore some minor exploits as they are not worth your game time.

My next biggest beef is probably with the way the game handles orbital facilities, boosters, and the like. I think the code which runs orbital defences is a mess that is easily abused. I am not scient, so I can't disassemble it, but I can list my own observations. Currently at work, so I can't load the game and verify it just yet, but from what I remember...

Keep in mind these are pretty late game things. Game is probably already decided at this point. So even if there are many inconsistencies there they are not on everybody's hot list. Any exploit at this point is pretty much not decisive. See my feasibility point above.

Flechette defense systems get two chances to shoot down a Buster instead of one. Two messages appear instead of one.

Are you sure it is not *two* of them acting? They have a wide coverage. Need to test.

Orbital defense pods have two chances to shoot down a Buster. The first shot makes them deployed, and the second one sacrifices the Pod. (?)

That is how it is designed. They sacrifice themselves only after all shots of all pods are exhausted.

Orbital defense pods react to Fungal and Tectonic missiles, and they can't be told to ignore them. It is thus a common tactic to exhaust their number by using lesser missiles before launching the big ones.

I think it is also by design as game consider all of them to be offensive weapons. Do they cost less than buster so it is cheaper to sacrifice them?

Unlike Fungal and Tectonic missiles, Busters can't be detonated over terrain, which leads to one of the stupidest methods of defense by vacating the area of units and hoping it would crash harmlessly finding no targets.

I never detonated them over terrain. How is it done? Some keyboard shortcut? If so, then maybe it could be extended to busters. However, busters could attack units only since Civ1 - historical reasons.

II. My second biggest beef is how selective some combat mechanics are, which I suspect is partially due to bugs. I'll have to dig for specific examples, but it has to do with Needlejets, Air Superiority, Artillery, Psi combat and the like. I mean, you do know about the bug that, say, a <SAM> Chaos Needlejet with Psi-armor would use their weapon but forse a enemy to use a Psi-weapon (power=1) instead? Or the inability to attack units under a needlejet if you don't have <SAM>. Or the weirdness in collateral damage when units of several types are mixed. I had an entire list of those things noted down... somewhere. I'll try to dig it back up.

This even a bigger can of worm than first one. No surprise multiple combat mechanics mixed together is impossible to balance. These sharp edges will stick out here and there all the time. We can fix only a limited amount of them and only those extremely OP and abused.

Perhaps the worst was how in sea duels a unit with less defensive value would be picked in certain cases, i.e. out of the two ships 1-4-4 and 4-1-4 the first one would be picked for an artillery duel (and swiftly sunk, of course).

Did you mean the opposite?

Of the other things bothering me I can recall the strange collateral damage wildlife suffers (if your land unit kills one unit in the stack of land units, all those units get killed. Not true for jets), which makes ecodamage a joke as you kill them all quickly... and you may even capture them as a stack, though I haven't seen this before the endgame.

That's an original feature to protect tender soul of casual player and don't let them be frustrated by losing to some randomly popped worms. That can be changed, of course, to beef up the challenge. I'll add it to TODO.

Or how scrambling works for <SAM> Interceptors, in that an air unit can lure them out of a base by attacking a nearby unit, making them scrable, and then cancelling the attack.

Never experienced it. I think in case of scrambling player is not even given the chance to alter decision. Not even odds dialog. Please show a case if you think you can recreate it.

Or the cloak ability sometimes failing due to the game inexplicably keeping track of some units that you should have no vision of. Have you notices that, sometimes, a mind worm that killed your forward scout is visible through the fog of war even though you have no one in the area? This kind of thing.

Yeah. It does keep track of "invisible" units. That's an well known thing. Impossible to fix globally as it is scattered across the logic all over, as you noticed. We can focus on some individual cases, though.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

The interface to give away a base just isn't there in MP. Normally they are given via a faction dialogue, which is not possible between human players in PBEM.

Ah. Maybe that's the reason. It may require immediate decision of both participants or something. However, how then humans can exchange techs and money and other stuff? Does it happen during somebody else's turn as if just someone is calling you? Should other human be network connected?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Psi combat is calculated same way as any other one taking units strengths into account. They just gnore weapon/armor. Displayed odds are correct.

No they are not.  The empirical evidence is my mindworms are winning WAY more than the odds say they should.  Odds say I should be suffering many defeats and depleting my forces.  Instead I'm getting something closer to a traditional cakewalk, although not as bad as vanilla.

I guess it's going to take some screenshots to convince you.

Yes. Please post them if you have them.

I just didn't think they will be anything different from conventional combat as it is the same calculation routine. However, if you are saying they may be off - I'll certainly have another look into it.

[MercantileInterest]

Will send details in PM.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

After all if we make every computer player to pick a best choice they lose their personality.

I would make a note that there already is an option to randomize faction personalities and agendas, right in the game rules.

I am not opposed to it, but I do not want to lose what gives Thinker its name. Maybe a toggle?
Not a hill I would die on, though. And I understand that supporting multiple types of logic isn't the way to go, so I'll concede the point.

Definitely configurable. Probably vanilla by default and then people can mess up with it as they like.

[bvanevery]

However, if you are saying they may be off - I'll certainly have another look into it.

I started taking screenshots but was unable to duplicate the problem.  My PLANET is different now, due to Cybernetic.  I lost a truly ridiculous quantity of mindworms taking over only 2 of Yang's cities.  The home territory bonus is mostly to blame, it's pretty over the top.  Conversely, it is ridiculously profitable to wait for the enemy to try to attack inside your own territory.  I don't think this "hard wall" of magic difficulty on one side or the other of the border, is a good idea.  But anyways, I don't have a photo gallery of mindworm problems to show you now.  Maybe the phenom is more noticeable at lesser PLANET ratings.  Maybe I had a consistent run of good luck.  Maybe the MORALE of Yang's troops has changed.  I'll just have to wait and see.