SMAX - The Will to Power - mod

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Many people tried to find a common denominator for different features in the game. It sounds great to have some way to compare them 1:1. Unfortunately or fortunately, this is not possible with some acceptable precision. The variation of features and strategies based on them is so big nobody yet achieved a deterministic way to do it which is 100% accepted by community. We have to live with this and resort to play testing for some degree to express unsupported opinion.

You are actually welcome to do the same and present your statements, assumptions and math to the public if you have something in mind. Just saying something should cost less is not a thing to discuss.

[bvanevery]

I think things should have a cost proportionate to their utility. I think that one 6-1-1 is less useful than one 1-6-1 and therefore should have a lower cost. If you disagree, that's fine.

Fine, put your mod out to lots of people and see if you get any feedback counter to your own opinion.  Be advised that very few people actually give specific and actionable feedback, when you're a $0 modder for an old game, even when you're one of the 3 leading mod makers.  This is a strong motivation for me to produce a commercial title.  People just don't pay attention to things they don't have to pay for, for very long.

If it's your own opinion, and you have strong play style biases, what would ever disprove your confirmation bias to yourself?  I mean I could regale you with tales of all the enemy units I've killed on the walls of my bases, over decades of play, with these exceptionally cheap 6-1-1 units.  But why would you care?

It's not just SMAC either.  "Armored unit accompanying glass cannon" is standard drill in every single Civ-style game I've played.  Heck in Freeciv, City Walls were strong enough that I'd be like, "Guess I'm waiting until I've got Cannons."  Musketeers ain't gonna cut it.

[Neil]

Personally I like super formers and upgrade as soon as possible. I find they come at a time they are still useful (haven't tried this mod yet). I'm probably not that good at the game though, so it's just my experience.

[Buster's Uncle]

That's basically my experience w/ superformers, too.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I don't really understand all this detailed discussion about super vs not super formers. Of course, when one already have excessive number of former, they don't need to build any more formers.
However, when one does need to build a former and a super former option is available - which one they are going to build? Is anyone seriously trying to prove super former is NOT superior over regular one from any point of view?

[Neil]

If enemy does a lot of pillaging, then super formers would be very useful to rebuild.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/wtp_changelog.md#version-289

[Neil]

Do these fixes get applied to base Tinker Mod as well?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Not by me. This is question to Induktio.

[Neil]

I thought this mod is based on the other one? It would be good to have a common base, so fixes get applied to both.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

WTP is based on Thinker. Everything that is in Thinker (up to certain version) is in WTP but not other way around.
Induktio occasionally pulls some of WTP fixes back into Thinker codebase at his own discretion.

I agree it would save tremendous amount of time by having common codebase and I proposed the same to Induktio few times but he didn't like the idea. See if you can persuade him.
🙂

[bvanevery]

How would "common codebase" reduce Induktio's workload?  If it's something he's expected to maintain, as some kind of API and coordination standard, in small scale open source that's not an attractive offer at all.

What actually works, at the scale of 2 developers with semi-independent projects, is someone pulls or pushes something they want.

Like, a Management Chart Hierarchy is not needed, and is counterproductive.

If Thinker had more major mod consumers, the situation might be different.  But it doesn't.

So you have yourself, myself, Induktio, and arguably Scient, as major modding players.  None of whom actually coordinate closely about anything.  Some of it due to historical personality differences.  Others due to rather different design and project goals.  No "single project" has emerged from these 4 people's efforts.

I am a veteran of many $0 open source projects.  The vast majority of which, my contributions ultimately failed.  SMACX AI Growth mod is my only success story.  I had a substantial contribution to a Wesnoth campaign a long time ago.  But by now, there's no telling what's left of whatever I did.  Got booted off that project.  I had a Windows build system for someone else's Scheme programming language, working really well for about 6 months.  Until the language author couldn't hide his lack of enthusiasm for the burdens Windows imposed.  We had sharp words and that was that.  It was a rude lesson that even if you build 100% useful infrastructure, other people aren't going to just step into the gap and keep going with it.  Quality of work doesn't mean anything, if you haven't surrounded yourself with people who have a vested interest in using the work.

People will coordinate when they have a vested interest in coordinating.  Do not try to recruit tepid people to a cause.  In that direction, is a river of tears.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I wasn't sure you were answering to me or Neil. Either way I agree that Induktio has no benefit in helping competitors. His generous enough gesture to develop and allow to use his project. I am happy where I am and do not insist on whatever coordinated efforts. I understand Neil and other users of two mods would prefer some general fixes to be in each and every mod. From that point of view it is beneficial for mod users to standardize them. I don't mind if they can persuade developers to do so.

[bvanevery]

My response was actually to a lot of people, you included.  Users at times need education about developer relationships.

For instance: since forever, I could have packaged up Yitzi's Patch to be more beneficial to end users.  Contemplated requirements.  Things like a Python installer, to assess the compatibility issues and make the appropriate changes.  Contemplated mod managers.  Did all the provisional homework on requirements for such things.

But how does any of that, benefit me?  I just get to do work, to make other users happy, with "some configuration" they think they want and think they're interested in.  For a patch that doesn't even have an active author behind it anymore.  And yet, by virtue of being a binary patch, gets disproportionate attention compared to my own "plain .txt" work.

Users, for some reason, respect code hacking and things that are called patches.  They tend to assume that they're automatically beneficial.  They imagine all sorts of improvements, particularly to AI performance.  When in fact, none may exist.  And, may never have even been intended.

So, yeah.  Competition.  Attention.  Users think it would be neat to have all this different stuff.  What's the reality though?  Various people off on version A, B, C, or D.  Not really making a lot of time for the other versions.  And so their knowledge and attention, becomes more and more limited.

It's a small version of the general game selling problem.  Sure, people buy and play more than 1 game.  Plenty of game companies can coexist.  But, there is competition, and a "discovery problem", and losers.

The only one who wins, is the fatcat known as Steam.  They win no matter how many indie devs lose.  Because some indie devs win.  It's a pyramid scheme, where Steam cleans up.

[Neil]

Wow didn't realize the modding world is so competitive.