I'd appreciate if people could share examples of ICS.

[Yitzi]

...Some of it is a matter of not having much choice once I've got all the min-boosting SPs.  And I just enjoy that red endgame.  You can learn to love the fungus...

Indeed...it also makes a lot of sense story-wise...as you move toward Transcendence, Planet becomes more a friend than an enemy.

[Nexii]

...Some of it is a matter of not having much choice once I've got all the min-boosting SPs.  And I just enjoy that red endgame.  You can learn to love the fungus...

It would be pretty cool if Fungus spread rather than Forest post-Voice.  Or if Hybrid Forest actually changed the graphics for your Forests.

[Earthmichael]

...Some of it is a matter of not having much choice once I've got all the min-boosting SPs.  And I just enjoy that red endgame.  You can learn to love the fungus...

It would be pretty cool if Fungus spread rather than Forest post-Voice.  Or if Hybrid Forest actually changed the graphics for your Forests.

Or if Hybrid Forest changed the Forest to behave like fungus once the fungus bonus exceeds the Forest bonus.  And maybe at that point, the graphic changes accordingly, showing a red forest with fungus properties.

[Buster's Uncle]

Not a bad idea, but tough to implement - if the coding was even feasible, which I doubt, I don't think there's enough space in the file where the forest graphic is to insert another version, so it might take some sort of hue-shift by the game, which I doubt it can do.

[Yitzi]

It would be pretty cool if Fungus spread rather than Forest post-Voice.

I don't think so, as forests are "new" and therefore can only spread next to other forests, whereas the fungus goes so deep that it can show up anywhere.

But you know what would be cool?  If the Voice doubled the frequency of fungal pops, but made them not come with mind worms.

In fact, it's so cool, and such a good idea, that it was actually implemented.

Or if Hybrid Forest actually changed the graphics for your Forests.

Interesting idea, but not that clear (what if something is in the radius of two bases, one with a Hybrid Forest and one without), and meddling with graphics is always a pain.

Or if Hybrid Forest changed the Forest to behave like fungus once the fungus bonus exceeds the Forest bonus.  And maybe at that point, the graphic changes accordingly, showing a red forest with fungus properties.

So forest would act like fungus once it's better?  Interesting, and a bit tricky but definitely possible to implement.  If you really want it, keep it in mind for a request when I start taking them.

Not a bad idea, but tough to implement - if the coding was even feasible, which I doubt, I don't think there's enough space in the file where the forest graphic is to insert another version, so it might take some sort of hue-shift by the game, which I doubt it can do.

That's probably not all that difficult (read: It'd be tricky, but doable); it could just add a "2" at the end of the file name or whatever, and have a new file for that forest.

I'm assuming here that tile graphics are in separate files and not the main executable, which I'm pretty sure is correct.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yessir; the file in question is texture.pcx, and I could create a draft of a texture2.pcx fairly easily if you like...

[Yitzi]

Yessir; the file in question is texture.pcx, and I could create a draft of a texture2.pcx fairly easily if you like...

Actually, if they're all in one file, it might be easier to add another entry if that's possible.  I won't know which will work better until I inspect the code, and it's not a high priority.  Just know that if you can make the graphics file, I can probably make the .exe use it.

[Dio]

If you really want it, keep it in mind for a request when I start taking them.

Can you give a general timeframe for when you will start taking general requests?

[Yitzi]

If you really want it, keep it in mind for a request when I start taking them.

Can you give a general timeframe for when you will start taking general requests?

I'd guess sometime in the spring, but that's very rough.  The real answer is "when I finish all the stuff I personally want included."

[Earthmichael]

There's this Ascent speedrun won on turn 76 (Transcend difficulty).  Not super ICS but most bases stay at size 9

http://www.dos486.com/alpha/

That was a very interesting article.  There is a quote here that I think is important to why the author (and I) believe that ICS is not optimal.

Let me also talk a little bit about build density. SMAC is well-known for encouraging ICS strategy, but I'm not going maximum full-blown here. I actually think it's more efficient to give the bases a little room to breathe, about 8 tiles each. The reason for this is buildings, primarily the Children's Creche but also any multiplier facilities. Each building costs the same amount but is worth twice as much in a city twice as big. This network of bases is already working every available land tile at size 7. If I had more bases, they would both need more Creches and not all be able to boom to size 7, for the same total population and output.

This is exactly the logic I use for why ICS is not so great.  I think he missed the point himself a bit.  His logic is give the cities twice as much room to expand (8 squares each, verses 4 for ICS), so each facility is effectively twice as valuable.  If you extend that, why not double again, give each city 16 squares.  His logic was not wanting to building housing structures.  I think this is faulty.  If you are going to build other structures anyway, what are a couple of housing structures?  So I would go further to state that cities ideally are spaced to give each city as much room as possible, so that all ground is covered with a minimum number of city, instead of ICS which uses the maximum number of cities possible in a given area.  This minimal cities means the fewest of each structure so that each square worked still gets maximum bonuses.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yessir; the file in question is texture.pcx, and I could create a draft of a texture2.pcx fairly easily if you like...

Actually, if they're all in one file, it might be easier to add another entry if that's possible.  I won't know which will work better until I inspect the code, and it's not a high priority.  Just know that if you can make the graphics file, I can probably make the .exe use it.

Hmm.  I can definitely do it - the question is whether you'd rather deal with addressing a new file with the alt. forest in the same position, or have me move a couple of thing to make room for alt. forest in the original.  scient told me changing the positioning was definitely doable when I made the negative resource icons, so which would be less trouble is up to you.  I won't fool with it until you know which is better/ you want. 

-The second file option would have the advantage that I could alter some other things to reflect a new status quo, like flecks of green in the fungus.  No room to add anything but alt. forest in the original...

[Fal]

I am by no means an ICS expert, or even advocate (although I do strongly believe in some base overlap), but I think there's one important point that could work in its favor.  If things like crawlers and condensers are considered overpowered, what about pop booming?  To me, pop booming is *the* most broken aspect of SMAX.  And if you took pop booming out of the game then ICS would have a big advantage in faster population growth.  Maybe not enough to make up for its drawbacks, but it would certainly make things closer.

[Nexii]

I am by no means an ICS expert, or even advocate (although I do strongly believe in some base overlap), but I think there's one important point that could work in its favor.  If things like crawlers and condensers are considered overpowered, what about pop booming?  To me, pop booming is *the* most broken aspect of SMAX.  And if you took pop booming out of the game then ICS would have a big advantage in faster population growth.  Maybe not enough to make up for its drawbacks, but it would certainly make things closer.

Yea it's too easy to Pop boom.  I think it's an okay mechanic late-game but Demo+Planned+Creche shouldn't be enough to boom early.  Nor should Cloning Vats on its own.  That's why I've been toying around with the SE settings in my other thread (putting Demo/Planned down to +1 GROWTH each).  I think Cloning Vats would still be really good at +2 GROWTH (or with the Power/TC negations taken out).  It's probably the most powerful project second only to Weather Paradigm.

Putting Condensors to +1 nutrient each and a crawler resource penalty of 1 also do a lot to counter ICS, you can set these variables.

[JarlWolf]

Just know that if you can make the graphics file, I can probably make the .exe use it.

Just let us know what you wish and the graphics will be made, to make a vice versa statement. I've made a few unit PCX's/terrain alterations already, I was thinking of doing a Nuclear Winter mod or Return to Earth Nuclear Winter conversion pack...

[Earthmichael]

Actually, I think there are enough balances to pop-booming already.

Early game, the most you can boom to is 7, until you get Hab Complexes.   You probably can't get drone control for size 7 bases all that easily.

Mid game, you can boom up to 14 with the Hab Complexes, but you still have a problem of getting enough nutrients and drone control for this.

Late game, you can boom up to whatever you food and drone control will allow.  I like this.  If you can't boom, you are pushing the game strongly toward ICS, where you don't expect to have large bases.

It is the large bases that make best use of all facilities, which is stronger than the ICS approach.

Changing crawlers to harvest multiple resources changes all of this.  With multi-resource crawlers, you would not have any incentive for actually working a single square of land with a worker.  You would just crawl every square on the board.  So it would not matter so much how large a city is, since it can still have the same effect as a large city if a lot of crawlers are homed to it. 

I don't like the idea of multi-resource crawlers for this reason.  It takes away planning for putting cities near important multi-resource square to work them.  Otherwise, cities can be anywhere.