Author Topic: Faction Bonuses and Penalties Interactions  (Read 2102 times)

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Offline Dio

Faction Bonuses and Penalties Interactions
« on: March 01, 2014, 03:26:02 AM »
Can you think of any ways that the original SMAC faction bonues/penalities interact, stack, synergise, or negatively synergise?

The list of original effects are: TECH, MORALE, PSI, FACILITY, RESEARCH, DRONE, TALENT, ENERGY, INTEREST, COMMERCE, POPULATION, HURRY, UNIT, TECHCOST, SHARETECH, TERRAFORM, SOCIAL, ROBUST, IMMUNITY, IMPUNITY, PENALTY, FUNGNUTRIENT, FUNGMINERALS, FUNGENERGY, MINDCONTROL, FANATIC, VOTES, FREEPROTO. You can find their exact effects above the bonusnames section in the Alpha(x).txt game file.
Note: I will note any differences from what is said in the file.
Here is what I have come up with so far:

TALENT, population, and POPULATION, -n.
Note: Talent, Population gives you an additional talent for the first citizen of each base and then is rounded up from their. I.E. TALENT, 4 means each base would get +2 Psych at size 1 and +4 at size 5.
This combo allows you to get additional talents before hitting the population limit.

INDUSTRY and HURRY
It reduces the cost of hurrying a production even further.

+ECONOMY and +RESEARCH:
The additional energy which is created can go into research output and labs.

PSI, number and SOCIAL, PLANET:
THis combo allows you to capture free mindworms and get an additonal attack bonus during PSI combat.

+POLICE and +GROWTH:
Police helps control the additional drones that appear as your base's population increases faster. This is especially powerful on higher difficulties.

SOCIAL RESEARCH, RESEARCH and TECHCOST:
Note:
The labs bonus from the RESEARCH non social bonus stack with all other effects that increase labs output at a base.

Basically Social research multipies the labs output of all your bases which already get extra labs each turn from the RESEARCH bonus. In addition, Tech cost reduces the "tech cost value" of breakthroughs.

+ ECONOMY and COMMERCE:
Note: +4 Economy actually gives +1 in each non base square, +4 energy in each base square and +2 Commerce unlike in the game which says it gives +1 energy in each non base square, +2 Energy in each Base square and +2 commerce.
+3 - +5 ECONOMY give commerce bonuses which stack with the COMMERCE.

INTEREST and ENERGY:
The ENERGY provides additional staring energy credits to which the INTEREST bonus is applied.

POPULATION and GROWTH:
This allows you to grow larger bases at a faster rate.

+3 SUPPORT and POPULATION:
Allows you to support more units for free at each base.

SUPPORT and POLICE:
Allows you to additional police units at each base for no extra mineral cost.

MORALE and SUPPORT:
This allows you to support more highly trained units for free at each base.

SOCIAL MORALE and MORALE:
Note: MORALE, 1 actually gives +2 morale for all of your units and MORALE, 2 +4 and so on.
Also this effect does not stack with SOCIAL +MORALE effects.

Offline Nexii

Re: Faction Bonuses and Penalties Interactions
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2014, 05:19:28 PM »
All the bonuses synergize since everything is multiplicative in SMAC.  I view SMAC as more of a race, where you're constantly either trying to outbuild (builder mode) or conquer enemies (war mode).  This is simplifying a bit since builder SEs do help some in war mode as do war-oriented ones somewhat in peace.  And sometimes you're in between modes - trying to keep enough military to fend off pressure while building as much as possible.  For example +IND helps production of both base facilities and military units.  +MORALE, less beneficial in peace since it only helps against alien life. 

Now that being said, sometimes a bonus isn't used to its fullest.  For example if you have high +GROW but cannot control the drones resulting from new population.  Or high +IND but unable to build much with minerals (due to low tech level or SUPPORT).  These are situations to avoid.  Another common one is conquering and having low EFFIC/POLICE such that new bases provide little benefit.  SHARETECH and RESEARCH negatively synergize, as do MINDCONTROL and PROBE (less incentive to need the related SE, but there's some benefit).  FUNGNUTRIENT/etc goes positively with PSI/Planet, since you can keep Fungus around with less worry.  VOTES I'd argue is as good for both builder and war (comparing infiltration vs commerce).  TALENT means less POLICE required early on, etc.

What I've noted is most SEs have power breakpoints that are the most critical to go for.  Obtaining these has a lot more impact than synergies between SEs and non-SE bonuses/penalties.

+4 GROW SE: Pop Boom with Creche
+2/+3 SUP: +2 or more minerals per base early game vastly outweighs +IND.  +3 SUP later on can as well, but comes at a cost vs Clean.
+2 ECON: +1 en/sq is much more powerful than other -/+, since multiple squares worked per base.  (have to do some commerce testing to better evaluate the commerce benefit from higher +ECON)
+5 IND: IND gets more powerful the more you get.  +5 IND is double production whereas +1 IND is only 10/9 or +11%.
MORALE: the point at which you can make elite troops out of the gate.  Elite troops are worth at least double in practice. 
MORALE/PLANET: the combination at which you can reliably win attacking vs native life.
+3 POLICE: much more powerful than lower POLICE SEs - an extra (super)drone per police is huge as this is 2/4 PSYCH.  Both pre-NLM and after NLM, though as noted POLICE is highly tied to difficulty rating.

Offline Yitzi

Re: Faction Bonuses and Penalties Interactions
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2014, 08:24:49 PM »

+2 ECON: +1 en/sq is much more powerful than other -/+, since multiple squares worked per base.  (have to do some commerce testing to better evaluate the commerce benefit from higher +ECON)

With a trade pact and multiple pact brothers, it's huge.

Quote
+3 POLICE: much more powerful than lower POLICE SEs - an extra (super)drone per police is huge as this is 2/4 PSYCH.  Both pre-NLM and after NLM, though as noted POLICE is highly tied to difficulty rating.

Also, note that it becomes less important as bases grow in size and psych multipliers increase.  Of course, conquered bases will tend to be small, not produce much energy, and not have many psych multiplier facilities...

Offline Nexii

Re: Faction Bonuses and Penalties Interactions
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2014, 04:14:10 PM »
Yea for sure POLICE gets diminished later on.  But I maintain that it's really important early game.  So far as that I've been rushing to Doc:Loy more in my recent games.  Granted, I play with crawlers somewhat diminished (-1 penalty, but only 20 mineral cost).  Anyways I find that Rec Commons and Holo Theatre are both very expensive for small to midsize bases - both in minerals and upkeep.  Best to put 100% into pods, formers, and sentries.  Dumping excess energy into Recycling tanks or making them when you fill your land.

Offline Dio

Re: Faction Bonuses and Penalties Interactions
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2014, 12:05:07 AM »
Which faction do you think should get SHARETECH?

Offline Geo

Re: Faction Bonuses and Penalties Interactions
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2014, 06:46:47 AM »
Of the 7 original ones? Canonwise, the only one that comes close are IMO the Morgans ("Where do you want your Network Node today?").

 

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