Wow, choppers are grossly OP !!!

[Yitzi]

Avalon, I hadn't thought of a 1-4-1 Silksteel Sentinel having any weaponry other than a pea-shooter. If it has a supplementary anti-something weapon, maybe that could be described by a special ability (AAA, SAM).

But this doesn't make sense for a 1-4-1 vs 1-4-1 battle. Would there be anti-infantry supplementary guns?

The way I envision it, a battle between a 1-4-1 and a 1-4-1 should be a pillow-fight. The battle might result in less than 25% damage dealt to each unit -- similar to an arty duel between land and sea units.

However, a 4-1-1 vs 4-1-1 should be a blood-bath. Neither has any armor! Both should take heavy damage. To the death! As it is now, the attacker easily wins 99.9% of the time. Of couse, this is exactly how Firaxis wants it. It is their game. I'm voicing my opinion, my dreams.

A 4-1-1 vs a 1-4-1 should be moderately destructive. Both ratios are 1:1, 4 vs 4 and 1 vs 1. I'm not sure if it should be a fight to the death...

If it's not a fight to the death, then what you're saying makes sense.

However, if it is a fight to the death, then 1-4-1 vs. 1-4-1 would just keep on going until one side is dead.  As such, you'd effectively end up with only one combat strength, similar to Civ4.  Which has nothing wrong with it, but isn't how SMAC/X works.

If you describe exactly how you want things to go, I can make it an option at some point, though it probably won't be that high on the list.

[Green1]

This is a matter of unit choice for Ai , too. Choppers suck vs AA garrisons. Does not matter how many attacks it has, chopper will lose. Chopper also can not capture cities. Yes, it owns troops outside bases, Yes, no AA means you get owned. But is it OP?

[Nexii]

It might be more realistic to make armor reduce damage taken, but would be more difficult to balance.  For example a 4-1 Impact Rover, would get counter-hit 3x harder by a 4-3 Impact Infantry.  To counter this you'd have to put the heaviest armor possible on all unit types.  And since by default armor is costly on all but infantry, you'd see all infantry (with some artillery mix) armies.  It would thus require using something like cost mode 2/4.

It can work mind you.  I'm not saying it's bad to make the best armor required on all units.  In fact, that's probably a good thing and a lot of the reason the defense part of the tree is often ignored. To scale it right armor would reduce damage taken by something like [1-(1/X)] where X is the armor value.  Therefore the damage ratio would stay at about 2 all game.  The difference though is that you end up not having attack or defense units so much as units with certain functions, based on their unit abilities.  It would get complex in other ways though, like how terrain affects the attacker, how do reactors play in to the damage ratio, etc. 

[Yitzi]

It might be more realistic to make armor reduce damage taken, but would be more difficult to balance.

Unless the "duel to the death" mechanic is changed, there's not much difference between "reduce damage taken" and "increase damage dealt".

And since by default armor is costly on all but infantry

Actually, by the default rule armor is cheaper on rovers/hovertanks, and to an even greater extent ships, than on infantry, relative to the same effect for weapons.

For example, a 10/1/2 rover costs 2+2/3 times as much as a 10/1/1 infantry (assuming fission reactor, the infantry costs 3 rows, and the rover costs 8 rows), whereas a 1/6/2 rover costs only twice as much as a 1/6/1 infantry (assuming fission reactor, the infantry costs 4 rows, and the rover costs 8.)

Of course, things chance substantially if you have weapons and armor more than 1.

[Nexii]

Yea, there wouldn't be much difference between weapon and armor in this system, since they would just multiply together to make the combat power.  A 4/3 would be better than a 10/1, and probably cost less (and take less tech).  I guess you could compare that, but I would think only infantry can have much armor and not cost a lot.  Again not a horrible thing in some cases.  Certainly changes the dynamic though.  I would expect artillery use to be very heavy, similar if you increase defense or defense modifiers a lot.  I found in the end flatter unit costs were better, as you also have to account for native life.

[Qes]

Unless the "duel to the death" mechanic is changed, there's not much difference between "reduce damage taken" and "increase damage dealt".

Yitzi you're kind of my personal hero.  I've long loved this game since it came out back in 1999.  And I've loved the deep immersion it's had, and it probably inspired me to investigate philosophy and critical thought in my formative  years.   But the gameplay always annoyed a bit - and you have without a doubt, provided some of the best fixes to much of what annoyed me in this game I love so much.

But there is still one thing I could never mod, and your fixes have not yet addressed. 

Weapons and Armor in immersion.

Like the people have been discussing in this thread, there is a deep unintuitive nature of combat in that armor is the sole determiner of defense, and weapons are the sole determiner of offense in regards to capability.  Everything else is modifiers.

I have, perhaps the greatest request of you.  And I know that it would not be priority but I see the potential for amazing things and so I must ask:


Would it be possible to change combat substantially?

My ideal would that morale would be a hard number, not a % bonus.  This number would influence your likelihood to "win" a given combat round: damage the enemy and not get damaged.  % Modifiers in all the other ways they exist, could and should still exist.  They wouldnt even need to be changed.  But the Base numbers would be morale.   + modifiers could be differentiated into attack and defense bonii. (So the base number would be a set morale, and modifiers to morale would improve offense or defense base numbers).   This would be an added flavor bonus, since the command nexus blurb explicitly talks about how well thought out plans can beat technology, even with inferior force.

Weapons and armor then, would have new function.  I have long wished for armor to either represent raw hitpoints/power (NOT REACTORS) and for weapons to be essentially a "firepower" mechanic which determines how much damage is done in a given "win" of a combat round.

I would like reactors to remain about the cost of the unit, but perhaps they could serve some other function as well.

I agree wholeheartedly that this would mean that combat would have to be limited to a set amount of rounds (perhaps a combination of the reactors of both units?  Higher reactors = more rounds of combat?)  And that units would not necessarily die from any single combat.  I consider this a VAST improvement over the nature of the game.  It opens up many new avenues of strategy - changes the nature of the support mechanic a bit (saving troops vs tossing them and getting new ones), adds layers of complexity to combat (withdrawal and counterattack) and would have a significant impact on the "Chopper" unit.    It would still be able to attack several times - but now none of those are necessarily guaranteed to kill in one go.  This means it serves the same exact purpose, and with the same effect, but the whole of combat is slowed and retarded so combat feels a bit bigger.

What I have in mind is essentially longer versions of the "Artillery duels" but for standard units.  Artillery themselves would be very useful - because stack bunching is a natural consequence of this change - and artillery can damage multiple units at once - lending them increased utility.


Given all this, i firmly believe SOME things should be all or nothing.  In particular:  PSI and anti-air combat.   Things that can attack the air from the ground should get one shot at it, and if it hits - death.  Air v Air should be to the death.  Here, perhaps reactors could serve as they do now - distance increasers - very very useful for air superiority. (Especially when modded with your tools).   These changes also make PSI combat particularly nasty.  Not merely because of their inherent 3:2 ratio - but also because they'd always be to the death.  They would make excellent shock troops (as the game flavor implies they are) Suddenly sending in the mind worms first becomes ideal rather than questionable.

In summary.  You are my hero.  you've given me back my passion for this game by reinvigorating it.
I beg of you to consider adding these (they should be optional) changes to the Exe so that entire new strategies and games can be played.

-Morale formulae determine combat wins per round (mixed with reactor perhaps? see below)
-Weapon formulae determine combat damage in a 'won' round to enemy
-Armor formulae determine Power/hp (or possibly weapon mitigation? HP seems easier)
-Reactor formulae determine cost and number of combat rounds?  (Maybe reactors determine number of shots taken, and morale determines hits and misses.  Different reactors therefor get different total shots against the opponent in combat)

WITH ALL MY THANKS 
-Qes

P.S.  This thread and the discussion in it, and the HINT that it might be possible to change this is what encouraged me to post for the first time, and to tip my hat and then throw it in with the rest of you here.  I might not post much but am exceedingly grateful to this community for merely existing.

[Yitzi]

I have, perhaps the greatest request of you.  And I know that it would not be priority but I see the potential for amazing things and so I must ask:


Would it be possible to change combat substantially?

Definitely.

The general rule is that changing how things work is usually fairly easy (unless it's a huge number of changes, such as is involved with allowing more than 7 factions), whereas anything that requires keeping track of new information is hard.

My ideal would that morale would be a hard number, not a % bonus.  This number would influence your likelihood to "win" a given combat round: damage the enemy and not get damaged.  % Modifiers in all the other ways they exist, could and should still exist.  They wouldnt even need to be changed.  But the Base numbers would be morale.   + modifiers could be differentiated into attack and defense bonii. (So the base number would be a set morale, and modifiers to morale would improve offense or defense base numbers).   This would be an added flavor bonus, since the command nexus blurb explicitly talks about how well thought out plans can beat technology, even with inferior force.

If you describe the exact formulae you want (including how morale would change with MORALE rating, Morale faction ability, facilities, won battles, and time passed in the case of non-faction-controlled native life), I can probably do it at some point.

Weapons and armor then, would have new function.  I have long wished for armor to either represent raw hitpoints/power (NOT REACTORS) and for weapons to be essentially a "firepower" mechanic which determines how much damage is done in a given "win" of a combat round.

Interesting idea, and should be doable...

I would like reactors to remain about the cost of the unit, but perhaps they could serve some other function as well.

Cost should be plenty.

I agree wholeheartedly that this would mean that combat would have to be limited to a set amount of rounds (perhaps a combination of the reactors of both units?  Higher reactors = more rounds of combat?)

Poor idea, as that would mean that a stronger reactor could be worse.

What I have in mind is essentially longer versions of the "Artillery duels" but for standard units.  Artillery themselves would be very useful - because stack bunching is a natural consequence of this change - and artillery can damage multiple units at once - lending them increased utility.

I believe artillery duels are in fact to the death.  Perhaps you meant artillery attacks against non-artillery?

Given all this, i firmly believe SOME things should be all or nothing.  In particular:  PSI and anti-air combat.   Things that can attack the air from the ground should get one shot at it, and if it hits - death.  Air v Air should be to the death.  Here, perhaps reactors could serve as they do now - distance increasers - very very useful for air superiority. (Especially when modded with your tools).

What do you mean by distance increasers?

[Qes]

Yitzi,

My ideas are a bit muddled I admit, and I'm trusting your own judgment on what might be possible, and indeed, preferable.
I am not sure of formula, but I have a general idea of what i'd like as a result of it.

Rough Idea:

5 Main features of any given unit:
Chasis
(Morale)
Weapon
Armor
Reactor

:Chasis:
As it is, the chasis functions as the mobility of the unit - I see no reason to alter or change this, the function is intuitive and pretty good. (Though I raise speeder speed to 3, and hovertanks to 5 - to allow for APC uses on speeders, it changes the game very little.)

:Morale:
The biggest change I'd like is for Morale to be the fundamental decider of capability of a unit.  The skill of the unit if you will.
I imagine that Very Green, Green, Disciplined, Hardened, Veteran, Commando and Elite would all have specific "base" combat values.

Possibility 1- The formula here should roughly run a spectrum between the attack value of 1 to 30ish (as weapons do)  The defense value should run between 1 and 12 as armor does.    If we can create a Morale system which reflects this - then the rest of the game doesnt need its numbers changed. (possibly)

I read the treatise on Morale by someone, and I admit I dont understand quite how the + and ++ modifiers work. I was and am hoping you do.

Possibility 2 - Perhaps there could be a base of 3 attack to 2 defense (seems to work well for PSI)  and Morale, instead of adding % bonii, could provide a direct additive bonus.  Perhaps 1 per level?   And perhaps + and ++ (depending on what they're meant for) could provide bonuses to attack or defense specifically.   This would make Elite INCREDIBLY accurate and nimble against very green troops.  But instead of determining the whole of battle - it would merely determine if the unit "scored a hit" against the opponent.

Possibility 3 - We use the 3:2 model directly, and continue to use Morale as % bonii, changing nothing else.  However this feels so similar to PSI combat, that players might feel confused or befuddled by graphical information describing the battle.

This may also necessitate a very fundamental shift in the way morale is distributed, gained and lost.   Preferably there would be a increasing difficulty to gain higher and higher level troops.  I would think perhaps that military buildings and combat itself should provide the raw base morale, and other morale modifiers should come in offensive and defensive flavors.   SE and Faction choices should obviously have an important role to play, but I'm uncertain if that should be offense/defense bonii/penalty specialties - or raw morale.  (See below)  Base morale should be an investment found in combat and proper infrastructure.
Also - i think Morale gains should occur for surviving units - not necessarily killing units.   If two units fight and neither dies, both should have a possibility of a morale upgrade.  Combat Morale upgrades might have to be tweaked to be even rarer.

Example Morale distribution:
Default Morale:  Green
Appropriate Military Building: +1 Base Morale
Bioenhancement:  +1 Base Morale
High Morale specialty: +1 Base Morale
Combat Promotions: +1 Base Morale

0 MORALE: No change
-1 to -4: Base: Very Green, -1 to -3 MORALE on defense (- mods?)
+1 to +4: Base: Disciplined, +1 to +3 MORALE on offense (+ mods?)
(At first i wanted these to be the opposite, but given the variety of % bonus to defense, and minimal to offense, i figured this should be how it works given that low-morale tend to be builders, and high-morale tend to be armies)   Low morale on the attack and high morale on the defense would be almost even.   However, the reverse would be a HEAVY advantage to the high morale., meaning the builder should counter attack often.
The reverse, low=-offense and high=+defense, means (i think) that fights would be even longer, and high-morale bases could not be taken nearly ever from low-morale attackers.

Other Facilities: (Creche and others?) +1 Defensive Morale or as appropriate.
Native life:  As normal? Not sure how this works
Other modifiers?:  ? Not sure of what else is involved.

I feel like these changes would also influence a few special abilities nicely:  Soporific Gas pods, Dissociative Wave and Blink Displacer

:Weapon: I would like this to be the "damage" inflicted, at perhaps a 1:1 ratio between rating and damage against the target. E.g. an Impact unit would do 4 damage against it's opponent for every successful "hit" it scores.

:Armor:  This I imagine is 10 * the armor rating of the unit - in power/hp.   So synthemetal sentinels would have 20 hp. Plasma sentinels would have 30, as would the res and pulse versions, however they'd get bonii to fighting (still hit bonii/morale/combat, not damage reduction).  Given this - it might mean that armor will need to be changed to accommodate the ever increasing damage of weapons somehow.  Perhaps just a raw .txt file boost.  (It takes a 1-1-1*1 unit 10 shots to kill a 1-1-1*1 ; but it takes a 12-8-1*1 only 7 shots to kill another, etc)

:Reactor:  Cost-alone, as you said, may be sufficient, given that "higher cost" units will now be in greater demand.

***

If done right - a lot of combat should be "similar to" but "more solid" than existing combat.

All of this would necessitate significant changes to the interface describing combat result possibilities.

***Desired Results***

Given the above, units could still serve their respective purposes, generally.  But the AI favors counter attack heavily anyway - and this would suit that end.   Armored units would be very effective at slowing advances, or generally slowing combat down, allowing time for players or AI to counter attack with other more heavily weaponed units (which they do now anyway).  But defense units could not kill on their own - unless the attacker was very poorly armored - making this effective against support units (artillery or pure attack units.)
Support and Non-combat units shouldnt do damage at all to attackers.  But perhaps if they win a given combat round they "escape" and combat immediately ends?  Non-combat penalties would still apply, so the possibility of escape is still low.  Plus given that unit death in general is much slower - they'll tend to survive longer anyway.  Though, by the impact era the odds of a unarmored-non-combat unit surviving an attack from a impact attack unit should be relatively low and probably near impossible for a missile unit.
Pure weapon units would still be viable, but would be primarily for swarm (cheapness) tactics.  As the deathtoll would be high.
Finally the Weapon+Armor units that exist would finally justify their exorbitant costs.

Tactics arising from this could be cheap and underteched units - but ones that are excellent fighters.  Built en mass, they may take forever to accomplish their goal, but they could achieve it.

Also, high tech but few units could accomplish much the same thing - for opposing reasons.

The middleground, held by the ai - would still do well with this, I should hope.

***
Thanks for even considering it!  If you have a simpler way to achieve immersive results, let's just assume I'm a fan of it.
-Qes

EDIT:  Distance increasers =  Speed boosts from reactor, which effectively increases distance.

EDIT2:  Also It'd be preferable to have the results of PSI combats look identical to how they are now.   Deadly, absolute, and 3:2 on land, etc.  This would make it feel even more different than regular combat.

EDIT3:  Oh, and if at all possible, Needlejets and Gravship units attacking non-air-superiority units should function like artillery.

EDIT4(i'll stop now i swear):  Is it possible to have artillery attacks in city squares have a % chance of destroying a facility? Maybe like 1%( /5 for command center, /5 for pressure dome, /20 for tachyon field) per weapon rating?   Best weapon would have a 30% chance, reduced significantly for each building present.  (Perimeter defense doesnt sound like hard bunkers, but a relay/network of scouts)

And is it possible for there to be A) the destruction of a pressure dome for a sea base by this (or probe teams), AND for this to have consequences? (like when sea levels rise? - emergency domes are again constructed but with half the population dying.)

[Yitzi]

Yitzi,

My ideas are a bit muddled I admit, and I'm trusting your own judgment on what might be possible, and indeed, preferable.
I am not sure of formula, but I have a general idea of what i'd like as a result of it.

Rough Idea:

5 Main features of any given unit:
Chasis
(Morale)
Weapon
Armor
Reactor

:Chasis:
As it is, the chasis functions as the mobility of the unit - I see no reason to alter or change this, the function is intuitive and pretty good. (Though I raise speeder speed to 3, and hovertanks to 5 - to allow for APC uses on speeders, it changes the game very little.)

:Morale:
The biggest change I'd like is for Morale to be the fundamental decider of capability of a unit.  The skill of the unit if you will.
I imagine that Very Green, Green, Disciplined, Hardened, Veteran, Commando and Elite would all have specific "base" combat values.

Possibility 1- The formula here should roughly run a spectrum between the attack value of 1 to 30ish (as weapons do)  The defense value should run between 1 and 12 as armor does.    If we can create a Morale system which reflects this - then the rest of the game doesnt need its numbers changed. (possibly)

I read the treatise on Morale by someone, and I admit I dont understand quite how the + and ++ modifiers work. I was and am hoping you do.

Possibility 2 - Perhaps there could be a base of 3 attack to 2 defense (seems to work well for PSI)  and Morale, instead of adding % bonii, could provide a direct additive bonus.  Perhaps 1 per level?   And perhaps + and ++ (depending on what they're meant for) could provide bonuses to attack or defense specifically.   This would make Elite INCREDIBLY accurate and nimble against very green troops.  But instead of determining the whole of battle - it would merely determine if the unit "scored a hit" against the opponent.

Possibility 3 - We use the 3:2 model directly, and continue to use Morale as % bonii, changing nothing else.  However this feels so similar to PSI combat, that players might feel confused or befuddled by graphical information describing the battle.

This may also necessitate a very fundamental shift in the way morale is distributed, gained and lost.   Preferably there would be a increasing difficulty to gain higher and higher level troops.  I would think perhaps that military buildings and combat itself should provide the raw base morale, and other morale modifiers should come in offensive and defensive flavors.   SE and Faction choices should obviously have an important role to play, but I'm uncertain if that should be offense/defense bonii/penalty specialties - or raw morale.  (See below)  Base morale should be an investment found in combat and proper infrastructure.
Also - i think Morale gains should occur for surviving units - not necessarily killing units.   If two units fight and neither dies, both should have a possibility of a morale upgrade.  Combat Morale upgrades might have to be tweaked to be even rarer.

Example Morale distribution:
Default Morale:  Green
Appropriate Military Building: +1 Base Morale
Bioenhancement:  +1 Base Morale
High Morale specialty: +1 Base Morale
Combat Promotions: +1 Base Morale

0 MORALE: No change
-1 to -4: Base: Very Green, -1 to -3 MORALE on defense (- mods?)
+1 to +4: Base: Disciplined, +1 to +3 MORALE on offense (+ mods?)
(At first i wanted these to be the opposite, but given the variety of % bonus to defense, and minimal to offense, i figured this should be how it works given that low-morale tend to be builders, and high-morale tend to be armies)   Low morale on the attack and high morale on the defense would be almost even.   However, the reverse would be a HEAVY advantage to the high morale., meaning the builder should counter attack often.
The reverse, low=-offense and high=+defense, means (i think) that fights would be even longer, and high-morale bases could not be taken nearly ever from low-morale attackers.

Other Facilities: (Creche and others?) +1 Defensive Morale or as appropriate.
Native life:  As normal? Not sure how this works
Other modifiers?:  ? Not sure of what else is involved.

I feel like these changes would also influence a few special abilities nicely:  Soporific Gas pods, Dissociative Wave and Blink Displacer

:Weapon: I would like this to be the "damage" inflicted, at perhaps a 1:1 ratio between rating and damage against the target. E.g. an Impact unit would do 4 damage against it's opponent for every successful "hit" it scores.

:Armor:  This I imagine is 10 * the armor rating of the unit - in power/hp.   So synthemetal sentinels would have 20 hp. Plasma sentinels would have 30, as would the res and pulse versions, however they'd get bonii to fighting (still hit bonii/morale/combat, not damage reduction).  Given this - it might mean that armor will need to be changed to accommodate the ever increasing damage of weapons somehow.  Perhaps just a raw .txt file boost.  (It takes a 1-1-1*1 unit 10 shots to kill a 1-1-1*1 ; but it takes a 12-8-1*1 only 7 shots to kill another, etc)

:Reactor:  Cost-alone, as you said, may be sufficient, given that "higher cost" units will now be in greater demand.

***

If done right - a lot of combat should be "similar to" but "more solid" than existing combat.

All of this would necessitate significant changes to the interface describing combat result possibilities.

***Desired Results***

Given the above, units could still serve their respective purposes, generally.  But the AI favors counter attack heavily anyway - and this would suit that end.   Armored units would be very effective at slowing advances, or generally slowing combat down, allowing time for players or AI to counter attack with other more heavily weaponed units (which they do now anyway).  But defense units could not kill on their own - unless the attacker was very poorly armored - making this effective against support units (artillery or pure attack units.)
Support and Non-combat units shouldnt do damage at all to attackers.  But perhaps if they win a given combat round they "escape" and combat immediately ends?  Non-combat penalties would still apply, so the possibility of escape is still low.  Plus given that unit death in general is much slower - they'll tend to survive longer anyway.  Though, by the impact era the odds of a unarmored-non-combat unit surviving an attack from a impact attack unit should be relatively low and probably near impossible for a missile unit.
Pure weapon units would still be viable, but would be primarily for swarm (cheapness) tactics.  As the deathtoll would be high.
Finally the Weapon+Armor units that exist would finally justify their exorbitant costs.

Tactics arising from this could be cheap and underteched units - but ones that are excellent fighters.  Built en mass, they may take forever to accomplish their goal, but they could achieve it.

Also, high tech but few units could accomplish much the same thing - for opposing reasons.

The middleground, held by the ai - would still do well with this, I should hope.

***
Thanks for even considering it!  If you have a simpler way to achieve immersive results, let's just assume I'm a fan of it.
-Qes

EDIT:  Distance increasers =  Speed boosts from reactor, which effectively increases distance.

EDIT2:  Also It'd be preferable to have the results of PSI combats look identical to how they are now.   Deadly, absolute, and 3:2 on land, etc.  This would make it feel even more different than regular combat.

EDIT3:  Oh, and if at all possible, Needlejets and Gravship units attacking non-air-superiority units should function like artillery.

EDIT4(i'll stop now i swear):  Is it possible to have artillery attacks in city squares have a % chance of destroying a facility? Maybe like 1%( /5 for command center, /5 for pressure dome, /20 for tachyon field) per weapon rating?   Best weapon would have a 30% chance, reduced significantly for each building present.  (Perimeter defense doesnt sound like hard bunkers, but a relay/network of scouts)

And is it possible for there to be A) the destruction of a pressure dome for a sea base by this (or probe teams), AND for this to have consequences? (like when sea levels rise? - emergency domes are again constructed but with half the population dying.)

I think the best approach would be to multiply the 3:2 or 1:1 (depending on land or sea/air, i.e. the same ratio as for psi) by the morale value.  The question is then what range morale should take (it can go fairly high; 100 would be quite doable, I think), and exactly how it should be affected by promotions and bonuses.

I don't think low MORALE giving a penalty just on defense is such a good approach.  I think it might make more sense for them both to affect primarily offense, so that when builders fight the defender has an advantage but when warlike factions fight the attacker has an advantage.

Everything else you asked about would be doable...but I think that when sea levels rise and a base without a pressure dome ends up in the water, there isn't an emergency dome built, but rather the base is completely destroyed.

[Nexii]

One thing I never got was why sea was 2:1 for conventional and 1:1 for PSI.  Same with air you could say although AAA counters...with sea there's no terrain to counter.  I tend to put PSI sea and air at 3:2 myself, as the defender can get modifiers and it makes sea popping more viable early game if you are unlucky enough to start on a tiny island.

I guess making armor determine HP or as a damage reducer (functionally equivalent really, since HP regenerates as a %) would alleviate some of the imbalance between attack and defense units.  Sea combat, especially.  Still I think the tendency would be to require full weapon + armor on all units.  That's not bad, as tech should be rewarded.  Just something to keep in mind, that your end result might not be all that different from cost mode 4 with flat weapon and armor costing.  I did try some games with units costing 100+ and what happens then is that native life ends up being universally superior.  Which arguably always gets countered by cheap fission empath units.  But due to defensive choice you end up with a kind of ramping up of defense (you can put trance and standard defender on same tile, and defender has increasing initiative as the stronger defender is chosen).  One thing I wanted to see was native life costing and speed going up with tech, but I'm not sure how viable that really is. 
 
Slower wars where less units are outright killed might not be a bad thing either.  As I play more, I find that ideally you do not war all that much unless you vastly out skill your opponent, or you had a vastly superior start by luck.  Granted the AI doesn't play this way for thematic reasons.  What tends to happen with the current A/D paradigm is that even if you build a lot of defensive units, they lack initiative.  An attacker can just circumvent around a heavily fortified city and conquer everything else, or wait to artillery down the stack.  I think one thing that might help would be to allow retreating for slower units even in battles where the attacker is faster.   I guess what I'm getting at is whether intuitiveness really helps much versus balance.  When you make all units requiring weapon and armor, counters then have to revolve around chassis and special abilities.  Otherwise you just end up with a different single unit type which dominates everything.

So then you have to look at unit functionality, and where they should be strong.
Infantry - powerful for attacking and defending cities (these bonuses exist).
Rovers/Tanks - powerful in open terrain (this bonus exists).

A few of the triangles of 'rock/paper/scissors' would go:
Non-AAA Rovers/Tanks beat AAA infantry, which beat Air, which beat non-AAA Rovers/Tanks
Non-AAA Sea units beat AAA sea units, which beat Air, which beat non-AAA sea units
Non-ECM land beats ECM land, which beats Rovers/Tanks, which beat non-ECM land
Non-Trance/Empath beats Trance/Empath, which beats PSI, which beats non-Trance/Empath.

And so on.  I guess what I mean is that all units need to have a cost effective counter.  So special abilities need to be strong and also have a cost (which they tend to).

I do like the idea of reactors increasing speed of all units, rather than affecting unit cost and HP.  I think then you would see more war as the game goes on.  War would still be best avoided early game.  You have to conquer an enemy very fast to make it worth it, especially when a lot of their facilities get smashed and then considering the C&B drones.  Plus far bases tend to have high energy loss, and cities beyond your largest pact mate also produce much less energy.  Generally I've found 'more crawlers/formers' better than another city.

1-1 to start the game for A:D ratio isn't typical.  The game quickly goes to 4-2 with rovers, and 6-3 around the time of air.  I would say 2:1 is the standard, though it goes beyond 4:1 almost for awhile with Shard 13-3 being typical.  5 rounds to kill an enemy troop is still quite awhile, compared to just one round currently.  You'd want to keep more defense for sure if armor was boosted up.  For example a 10-6 would be 50% stronger than a 13-3...in fact you might see armor tech beelining since armor effectively multiplies weapons which are twice as strong.  Although by doing so you would sacrifice weapons, so it'd be okay I think.

[Qes]

I think the best approach would be to multiply the 3:2 or 1:1 (depending on land or sea/air, i.e. the same ratio as for psi) by the morale value.  The question is then what range morale should take (it can go fairly high; 100 would be quite doable, I think), and exactly how it should be affected by promotions and bonuses.

Would it be better to have it a multiplicative or additive benefit?  I sorta imagine each level of morale to have a different base, which is then modified by % modifiers.

So, Default 3:2.   -1 for Very Green, 0 for Green, +1 per level above green.  This would put the best attack ratio at 8:1 before modifiers, and the best defense ratio at 2:7. 
If we allow + modifiers to extend beyond "levels" (and be just further additional increases),  then we could have 11:1 best attack ratio, and 2:10 best defense ratio.   

Given various defense % modifiers, this seems very reasonable to me, but I admit i'm not delving into the math too much.  Would it be desirable for the top and bottoms of morale to be further apart?  I worry for low-morale builders.

I don't think low MORALE giving a penalty just on defense is such a good approach.  I think it might make more sense for them both to affect primarily offense, so that when builders fight the defender has an advantage but when warlike factions fight the attacker has an advantage.

You're right, I think i was just fixated on symmetry for no discernible reason.

A thought occurred to me on PSI combat. MORALE probably should not influence native-lifeforms base-level growth. One should not increase the quality of their produced lifeforms with MORALE settings, I feel.  This would make Native-Life more fickle.  Perhaps we can make it solely influenced by PLANET?  PLANET ratings equate to MORALE settings for produced life forms?  Makes planet a bit more interesting. And would set up some fun Gaian vs Spartan immersion - considering the "high morale" spartans lose to low morale gaians in the story.

(Though to be honest, I never really sussed out how MORALE settings affected native life, it seemed influential but strange.   MORALE in general operates strangely, so I might be mistaken here as to what is happening between them)

Everything else you asked about would be doable...but I think that when sea levels rise and a base without a pressure dome ends up in the water, there isn't an emergency dome built, but rather the base is completely destroyed.

Actually that sounds kind of awesome.  It might cut down on sea-spam.   Especially if we have "ships attacking sea bases" be artillery based - just like when they attack land bases.
Why do this?  Because it makes thematic sense, and would be more purely destructive.  Other ships in harbor would prevent this - it'd be ships fighting, not shelling the base.  Plus if we include that pressure domes reduce the possibility of facility destruction anyway - it wouldnt be THAT big of a problem - and would force different means of seabase capture.   (Choppers or Amphibious infantry).   More seabases would tend to be destroyed outright, keeping the oceans somewhat volatile.

Probeteams:  Erm...hm, can we simply make this difficult to pull off?  Perhaps an atrocity? (Specifically for that facility in a seabase only?)
*****

I think the tendency would be to require full weapon + armor on all units.

I sorta disagree, but i'd like to playtest to see what realities would bare out.

Right now I see Weapon+Armor units as being the 'semi-standard' of field troops.  For unknown situations and without a specific goal or plan in mind.

Weapon troops (especially high morale ones) would be functionally identical when pressing the attack.   When you get to choose your targets, you can pick your battles, and with morale determining things, it should be easy to assign your weapon-only troops, and they'd be significantly cheaper (allowing the fielding of more of them) than the weapon-armored troops.

Armor troops would also be ideal for cost on defense.   They'd effectively be a wall.  They may not even be designed to "win" battles - but merely buy time for other troops to be made/reinforce their positions.  This would be ideal for builders who might not want to invest very much time and effort into an army, but can "respond" by building one if need be.  Also - while armored troops wouldnt do terribly well against the Weapon/armored category - they'd still do fairly well against the pure weapon troops.   And at a cheaper cost, and with % bonii.  Though Morale here would still rule the day.

That's not bad, as tech should be rewarded.

I admit i'm really curious how this would turn out.

I did try some games with units costing 100+ and what happens then is that native life ends up being universally superior.

I think in this kind of game they'd make a great niche unit.  Essentially - excellent shock troops.  But defense would be questionable if PSI-combat always leads to a kill.

Slower wars where less units are outright killed might not be a bad thing either.  As I play more, I find that ideally you do not war all that much unless you vastly out skill your opponent, or you had a vastly superior start by luck.  Granted the AI doesn't play this way for thematic reasons.  What tends to happen with the current A/D paradigm is that even if you build a lot of defensive units, they lack initiative.  An attacker can just circumvent around a heavily fortified city and conquer everything else, or wait to artillery down the stack.  I think one thing that might help would be to allow retreating for slower units even in battles where the attacker is faster.   I guess what I'm getting at is whether intuitiveness really helps much versus balance.

I think that's exactly what intuitiveness winds up doing.  I'd argue that as it stands, the game is heavily geared towards blitzkrieg.  Initiative/surprise is truly king. And I suppose that should be, on some level, rewarded.   But as this is not a tactical but strategic level of a game, I'd prefer to mitigate it *somewhat.*   Counter attacks are more viable when holding ground and retreat are possible.  Elongating fights, even slightly, will change the nature of maneuverability significantly.  Fast units (and multiple attacks) will then serve very directly the blitzkrieg mentality, and allow for dynamic battles within a given conflict.  But first units must be seen as actual occupational hazards, rather than speed bumps.

When you make all units requiring weapon and armor, counters then have to revolve around chassis and special abilities.  Otherwise you just end up with a different single unit type which dominates everything.

I dont think it's requisite - it's merely a new viability.  Previously there were fewer and fewer reasons to have "weapon+armor" type units as the game progresses.   Now there is a reason, but it doesnt negate the specialists.

So then you have to look at unit functionality, and where they should be strong.
Infantry - powerful for attacking and defending cities (these bonuses exist).
Rovers/Tanks - powerful in open terrain (this bonus exists).

A few of the triangles of 'rock/paper/scissors' would go:
Non-AAA Rovers/Tanks beat AAA infantry, which beat Air, which beat non-AAA Rovers/Tanks
Non-AAA Sea units beat AAA sea units, which beat Air, which beat non-AAA sea units
Non-ECM land beats ECM land, which beats Rovers/Tanks, which beat non-ECM land
Non-Trance/Empath beats Trance/Empath, which beats PSI, which beats non-Trance/Empath.

And so on.  I guess what I mean is that all units need to have a cost effective counter.  So special abilities need to be strong and also have a cost (which they tend to).

I do like the idea of reactors increasing speed of all units, rather than affecting unit cost and HP.  I think then you would see more war as the game goes on.  War would still be best avoided early game.  You have to conquer an enemy very fast to make it worth it, especially when a lot of their facilities get smashed and then considering the C&B drones.  Plus far bases tend to have high energy loss, and cities beyond your largest pact mate also produce much less energy.  Generally I've found 'more crawlers/formers' better than another city.

1-1 to start the game for A:D ratio isn't typical.  The game quickly goes to 4-2 with rovers, and 6-3 around the time of air.  I would say 2:1 is the standard, though it goes beyond 4:1 almost for awhile with Shard 13-3 being typical.  5 rounds to kill an enemy troop is still quite awhile, compared to just one round currently.  You'd want to keep more defense for sure if armor was boosted up.  For example a 10-6 would be 50% stronger than a 13-3...in fact you might see armor tech beelining since armor effectively multiplies weapons which are twice as strong.  Although by doing so you would sacrifice weapons, so it'd be okay I think.

This would all have to be played with to get right.  And I'm ok with old standard strategies not surviving as long as a few replacements (that are intuitive or nifty) replace them.

Consider that chop and drop is still viable - but now serves more of a niche role rather than standard practice in this system.  You're simply not going to empty a base with one or two choppers anymore.  And those choppers might not survive the attempt without support and backup.

Needlejets/gravships (as artillery) would be profoundly useful for their ability to hit multiple units.  They would truly be "air support" as ground troops could mop up after much more easily.

Artillery would be almost universally more useful in general, etc.

Essentially this would become true:   Cost = utility.  The more expensive a unit, the generally more useful it would be. Across the board.   And because of this - IN-EXPENSE of units would itself become a more profound utility.   Sacrifice of some quality for quantity would still be viable.

As it stands, there are some units where it is simply not useful to build:   Needlejets with armor, Armored Hovertanks, and weapon-using defenders.  Now there would be a reason but not a necessity.


****

SE Questions:

Is it possible to extend some SE qualities beyond their base?  Like could we provide benefits for higher levels of POLICE,  bigger ranges of consequences for PROBE and SUPPORT and ECONOMY?

I have personally refined the 7 original factions to feel far more distinct from one another and embrace their philosophies more obviously, while still being balanced. So I have changed all the SE settings accordingly.  But I'm always limited in that, at certain points, extra levels into the positives and negatives of some SE effects simply dont differentiate.  SUPPORT and POLICE are the most glaring.

BUT I'd even like to change the nature of "ECONOMY" itself.  Right now, ECONOMY really means (to a point) "Extraction"   I always envisioned ECONOMY to mean essentially "transfer"

I would *love* to move the + Energy bonuses for squares (not base) to the INDUSTRY SE effect (maybe at +3/+5?), and to replace ECONOMY's effect with specialists benefits.  It would also be great to be able to punish negative economy further.

-5 -3 Energy per base -2 commerce levels
-4 -2 Energy per base -2 commerce levels
-3 -2 Energy per base -1 commerce level
-2 -1 Energy per base -1 commerce level
-1 -1 Energy per base
0  Normal
1 +1 Energy per base +1 commerce level
2 +2 Energy per base +2 commerce level
3 +3 Energy per base +3 commerce levels, +1 Specialist ops/energy production
4 +4 Energy per base +4 commerce levels, +2 specialist ops production
5 +5 Energy per base +5 commerce levels, +2 specialist energy, -1 nutrient requirements per "worker"

The working classes (the tile-workers) would only consume 1 food each at level 5 economy, allowing for more specialists.

[Yitzi]

Would it be better to have it a multiplicative or additive benefit?  I sorta imagine each level of morale to have a different base, which is then modified by % modifiers.

So, Default 3:2.   -1 for Very Green, 0 for Green, +1 per level above green.  This would put the best attack ratio at 8:1 before modifiers, and the best defense ratio at 2:7. 
If we allow + modifiers to extend beyond "levels" (and be just further additional increases),  then we could have 11:1 best attack ratio, and 2:10 best defense ratio.

If you make it additive, then high-morale fights will be nearly even, whereas low-morale fights will be strongly attacker-favored.  I don't think that'll result in the sort of play you want (most likely, it'll cause builder wars to be more vicious than wars between militant powers).

Would it be desirable for the top and bottoms of morale to be further apart?  I worry for low-morale builders.

It is important to balance the morale advantage to be strong enough but not too strong, and I'm not really sure what would be the best approach.  But when you decide, I can (once I finish everything that's higher priority) almost certainly implement it.

A thought occurred to me on PSI combat. MORALE probably should not influence native-lifeforms base-level growth. One should not increase the quality of their produced lifeforms with MORALE settings, I feel.  This would make Native-Life more fickle.  Perhaps we can make it solely influenced by PLANET?  PLANET ratings equate to MORALE settings for produced life forms?  Makes planet a bit more interesting. And would set up some fun Gaian vs Spartan immersion - considering the "high morale" spartans lose to low morale gaians in the story.

Would be interesting.

Though to be honest, I never really sussed out how MORALE settings affected native life, it seemed influential but strange.   MORALE in general operates strangely, so I might be mistaken here as to what is happening between them

I think MORALE has no effect on native life...but we'd still have to figure out how lifecycle works, as it'd play the same role as morale.

Actually that sounds kind of awesome.  It might cut down on sea-spam.   Especially if we have "ships attacking sea bases" be artillery based - just like when they attack land bases.
Why do this?  Because it makes thematic sense, and would be more purely destructive.  Other ships in harbor would prevent this - it'd be ships fighting, not shelling the base.  Plus if we include that pressure domes reduce the possibility of facility destruction anyway - it wouldnt be THAT big of a problem - and would force different means of seabase capture.   (Choppers or Amphibious infantry).   More seabases would tend to be destroyed outright, keeping the oceans somewhat volatile.

Might make Pirates unplayable, though.

Probeteams:  Erm...hm, can we simply make this difficult to pull off?  Perhaps an atrocity? (Specifically for that facility in a seabase only?

Yeah, that shouldn't be too hard as these things go.

SE Questions:

Is it possible to extend some SE qualities beyond their base?  Like could we provide benefits for higher levels of POLICE,  bigger ranges of consequences for PROBE and SUPPORT and ECONOMY?

Definitely.  You describe it, and I can probably (eventually) add it.  Keep in mind it might be a while, though...

[Nexii]

Well if you make it so unit HP = 10*armor value, then unarmored air and rovers will only have 10 HP.  That won't be very useful when standard ground troops have 30 HP (Plasma) plus hit back for their weapon damage, and then add in things like ECM/AAA.  Those same defensive modifiers may create a lot of stalemates if the defender hits back at 100% plus their modifiers.  Currently the defensive aspect is based around 2:1 ratio (arguably flawed) and having every unit attack with its weapon would change that to 1:1.  If fights are not to the death so much then I suppose the attacker can get away with fighting battles that result in more damage taken to them.  I still say it's very hard and not worth it to conquer an equally skilled player; even in the climate of very aggressive and fast styles like chop and drop or rover rushing.  Mostly because beyond very early, infiltrate will let you see it coming a mile away.  Now if PROBE modified infiltrate, that would change things.  Also the benefit of pacting others and trading techs is immense.  Playing against the AI you can think it's a war game; but its really one more of diplomacy and trading like its older successor Civilization.  Only very late is war worth it as a desperation measure, when behind.  Now this can be changed too, ironically by lowering building costs you can make a more aggressive game.  Players can choose whether to then sink that into pods/formers/crawlers (play economic), or probes and army (play aggressive).  Both should have their merits.

Making PLANET give +native lifecycles would probably make more sense than the current +10% PLANET on attack per rank.  But it's pretty similar end effect really.  PLANET can already be quite powerful especially if you mod ecodamage.  Ecodamage should be the main consideration for PLANET rating...native life capture and use secondary.  INDUSTRY should only relate to minerals production though.  Making INDUSTRY boost energy doesn't really make sense to me.  INDUSTRY already synergizes with both itself and energy production very well (due to build rush).  Probably INDUSTRY should have been a production modifier rather than cost modifier.  Cost modifier means many exploits such as where you tank and then raise INDUSTRY to complete an SP fast using supply crawlers.  INDUSTRY thus being something like +X minerals per base, or +X minerals per square (more elegantly, perhaps just -X%/+X% minerals production).  ECONOMY should only factor in for energy production and commerce.  I suppose nutrients consumed is a decent idea but that would fit more with higher levels of the GROWTH SE.  Making higher GROWTH affect N production would be another idea.  But I think you'd see potential starvation if you switched out of the SE.  That could be the risk I suppose if vendetta was declared on you.  The current way GROWTH is handled is pretty good I'd argue as it doesn't allow you to outgrow your natural N production.  The main flaw is that sometimes you can't get +1N from that next worker (usually due to drone control, but it could result from bad terrain, or more rarely no more terrain).  A base that's just grown will immediately starve resulting in all the N used to make that worker to be lost.  I think the fix for that in Civ2 was to make it so a base that grows only uses half its nutrients (to give some reasonable time to convoy or increase N, a city would never consume all its food at once in typical circumstances).  Once you use pop booming later in the game this isn't seen as much, since it requires +2N the next worker will usually be fed whether it is a PSYCH specialist or not.

I feel another logical inconsistency in SMAC is the way that PSI and conventional weapons are used.  You can see the developers didn't really think this design through when looking at how conventional artillery vs PSI defender is treated.  I don't think that a non-PSI unit would be downgrading to hand weapons ('1', though multiplied to '3' on attack or '2' on defense) vs a PSI unit.  A non PSI unit would always be using their given conventional weaponry to fight (i.e. Missile, Shard, or whatever), and their damage taken *from* PSI would depend on the differential between attacker and defender's morale (not armor).  Thus PSI would be a % based attack (as it is now, technically)...either to the death or not it will work.  To balance this, native life needs to increase in HP as the game goes on (which may not be possible, I guess Yitzi would have to say).  If it can't then armor costs would have to be flat in lieu to keep the PSI vs conventional balance in check.  Unfortunately flat armor costs end up with all units having the heaviest armor possible and doesn't really fix the artillery vs native problem.  PSI armor, well that is also a complexity.  Right now it's not that useful anyways.  Most likely it could be changed to give HP dependent on MORALE (20*rank or something similar).  That or it could be a true counter to PSI attack, giving a strong damage reduction when defending vs PSI (but low total HP, so conventional weapons crush it).

[Qes]

Yitzi

(click to show/hide)

If you make it additive, then high-morale fights will be nearly even, whereas low-morale fights will be strongly attacker-favored.  I don't think that'll result in the sort of play you want (most likely, it'll cause builder wars to be more vicious than wars between militant powers).

I feel like, strangely, this makes more sense.   Builders, or the inexperienced would fight more desperate and aggressive struggles, while the experienced would be forced to calculate moves and tactics rather than mere strategy.  But that's arguable and your point is well made.

It is important to balance the morale advantage to be strong enough but not too strong, and I'm not really sure what would be the best approach.  But when you decide, I can (once I finish everything that's higher priority) almost certainly implement it.

I admit most of this is just coming out of my hat at semi-random.   I care about the results, less so about how we go about achieving them.   I simply want intuition to match immersion and for both to match gameplay.  I'm honestly not sure what formula(e) would be best.  Perhaps we need more input from multiplayer folk.  I myself only typically play friendly multigames and SP.  As such my concerns are immersion, less balance - but I do absolutely recognize the need for the latter.

Might make Pirates unplayable, though.

Doubtful, their mere starting advantages assure that unless some shenanigans occur, they're going to have sea supremacy - and essentially unimpeded expansion.   One simply couldnt destroy enough seabases - and they're largely decentralized anyway.  Plus they can do the same back, and probably more frequently.  It could actually make them *stronger.*   The exception to this is sea bases within the reach of land artillery which is, admittedly, frequent.

Definitely.  You describe it, and I can probably (eventually) add it.  Keep in mind it might be a while, though...

Yeah, I realize that you're quite busy with your plans. (Which by the way took some severe investigatory work to find.   Your work deserves a "features list" with your notes attached. A miniwiki of it's own: preferably including all that stuff from the "gonna do next" thread I saw.)

***
Nexii

(click to show/hide)

Well if you make it so unit HP = 10*armor value, then unarmored air and rovers will only have 10 HP.  That won't be very useful when standard ground troops have 30 HP (Plasma) plus hit back for their weapon damage, and then add in things like ECM/AAA.

Not useful against heavily-weaponed defenders, sure. But the virtue of that is that the defender is not going to have *many* weapon+armor defenders for cost issues.  Or if they do have a bunch, they are likely not to be elsewhere geographically. OR they're gonna be running into industry/support issues.  And remember that since weapon is only damage, a high morale, high weapon, low armor unit still might kick the crap out of a low morale, high weapon high armor unit.  Elite units may simply have very little NEED for armor against low morale units. (Depending on what final formulae Yitzi agrees to)

  I still say it's very hard and not worth it to conquer an equally skilled player; even in the climate of very aggressive and fast styles like chop and drop or rover rushing.

I admit I cannot speak to this:  I can only suggest that the rules for unit design will be largely flat, and that players will adjust their strategies accordingly.   The fear is optimization instead of alternate viabilies,  I realize.  And a "one unit" mold for every generation of war would be dull indeed.   But I dont think that will be the case.   The most intutive form of variety is chasis.  Chasis determines, in large part, the main purpose of the unit.   This is subcategorized, but combined arms would still be at play.   I think players would figure out how to utilize non-weapon+armored units, but I admit I can only guess as to how.

  Also the benefit of pacting others and trading techs is immense.  Playing against the AI you can think it's a war game; but its really one more of diplomacy and trading like its older successor Civilization.

Very true.  I like SP.

Only very late is war worth it as a desperation measure, when behind.  Now this can be changed too, ironically by lowering building costs you can make a more aggressive game.

I will have to look into doing that! The cost for upgrading units vs the cost for building infrastructure always surprised me.  Upgrading units should be cheaper, but they are a pittance compared to hurry costs.  Not to mention the immersion issues with time.

Ecodamage should be the main consideration for PLANET rating...native life capture and use secondary.

I agree completely.

  Mostly because beyond very early, infiltrate will let you see it coming a mile away.  Now if PROBE modified infiltrate, that would change things.

I always thought this should be slightly different too.  Even with given rules.   Yitzi - would it be possible to modify the Infiltrate Datalinks option to a time limit?   Perhaps 10 or 20 years?  We have to assume societiies upgrade their security every once in a while - which would require a new infiltration (and to notice it was absent).


ON INDUSTRY and Concepts

(click to show/hide)

  INDUSTRY should only relate to minerals production though.  Making INDUSTRY boost energy doesn't really make sense to me. 

I disagree completely.
When trying to increase the individual flavor of the 7 original factions, and move SE things around...and generally "increase the SMACness of SMAC"  I discovered that I had to force myself to look at words and objects in multiple ways, but that in doing so each faction would lose flavor.  I started to treat words differently than they are described in vanilla smac, because I was trying to reach the smac flavor goals, but was too constrained with smac-mechanics.  And I care a great deal about mechanics being fun and varied.

Ultimately - I decided that industry is NOT production alone.  It is Efficiency. (Much to the name-sake's chagrin)  Industrial efficiency is the ability to work *well* given a population.  It's not necessary working "harder" it's working "smarter."  It means using better tech, better methods, better management, better and higher skill sets, etc.   A high Industry rating for me means a very well made system and tool.   Low industry is "try over and over until it works."

In my mod of the game, Green economies have low industry, for their restraints and efficiency with biology and harmonious life keep them from being the same with productive output.   The Hive are not by any stretch masters of industry - they just have the pure numbers to make up for it. (I gave them all sorts of population benefits instead)  The Morganites are the ones who benefit from a industrial boon in my mod. And it is all well and balanced.  (I test by throwing the AI against other AI, over and over.   Parity is reached OFTEN (sans super-luck for any given ai), so i'm pretty happy with it, but still tweaking.

So conceptually, here is how I mod my SMAC:
ECONOMY -  Transfer of energies across and within a system.  Commerce primarily, with BASE energy representing intrafaction commerce.  (The + energy per square bugs me therefore, as it more represents extraction as a resource)
INDUSTRY - productive efficiency and extraction of energy and materials (and nutrients, I suppose),  systems which utilize these efficiently.  This means infrastructure, productive capability, and energy acquisition from tiles would file under this because it's all the "system" involved.  In fact this should really just be called "Productivity"
EFFICIENCY - (semi-poorly named, though understandably so)  The mechanic which this actually does seems to represent the consequence of a greater mechanic.   This seems like political efficiency.  Essentially if the society prizes a relationship from top of hierarchies to bottom of work-waste relationships.  It is sort of a mirror of Industry but with already owned resources.   If industry is the extraction and application of minerals and energy, then efficiency is the management of energy.
GROWTH - Growth covers, because of the nature of this game-design, a VERY broad category of ideas.  Nutrient  consumption, fertility-rates AND immigration/emigration.    This is the hardest to conceptually nail down.  Wealth suffers Growth problems, because as wealth in nations increases, birthrates tend to drop (and immigration kicks in), for example.   What growth doesnt represent is nutrient production - that would be productivity/industry. (Though I've done nothing to represent this).  In my mod the Hive has +2 Growth becuase they have a low standard of living: Simply put they feed their people less which means they have more food for more people.  The Peacekeepers have +1 Growth because they tend to have higher immigration rates.   The Morganites have -1 Growth for low birthrates and high standards of living (high consumption: opposite of hive).    In the SE choices Growth represents more of a "goal" of standards of living.  Essentially a combination of all of the above.  Democracy and Planned gain growth benefits because they encourage a higher standard of living or equality among people.  And survival (the base SE choices get effects in my mods) also encourages growth, but at a cost of other effects.  All 3 of these are an attempt to "improve living conditions" on planet.  The reason this is not TALENT, is because TALENTS and DRONES are essentially the political opinions of Chiron - the approval rating and to a degree "the castes" of Chiron.   They also represent quality of life through luxury, but not basic needs.  Primary needs are covered by Growth I feel.

*Example scenario for Industry vs Econ vs Efficiency vs Growth*
A corporation mines, refines and produces materials to help create some products, which are then sold markets local and abroad.

Industry covers the mining, refining, and production of materials, as well as the skill and excellence with which the products are built.
Economy is the corporate marketing team's excellent job at selling thousands of these units locally and abroad.
Efficiency is the skill and intelligence with which the company reapplies and keeps the profits earned in the venture.
Growth would be the improved quality of life for those who own the product.

This has allowed some very nice flavor balancing, as Industry really just becomes "productive efficiency"  But it means that the +1 per square could also be moved there legitimately.   It would allow for Industry and Economy to be further separated in SE choices.

IN FACT.  If I had one superwish - it would be that we drop the concept of "minerals" and revert back to "production" of some kind abstractly.   And I wish that we could have a specialist citizen who produces "minerals/production."  I realize that Crawlers supposedly fill this role, but as the AI utilizes them poorly, they tend to deal decently with individual maximization in bases.

I want massive Hive Bunkers filled with angry, hungry, suppressed workers who churn out huge amounts of production - but not because they are efficient at it, but just that there are so g-damn many of them doing it.  It is my opinion that the Hive should regularly have the largest population in the game, almost regardless of territory size.  I want Yang to use the 'human machine' like a cudgel.  Brute production, as it were.   But then I want to set against this nimble industries.

The other way to achive this same goal, as you said, would be with having industry provide % bonii to minerals production, rather than more inexpensive things.   But then to balance against that, I think that "hurrying" would represent those nimbler industries.   Doing so would mean that drastic cost changes should occur.   It might be ideal if we could differentiate "kinds" of hurry costs.

Hurrying units should be inexpensive in comparison to facilities, which in turn should be inexpensive compared to Secret Projects.  Though I am personally of the belief that while secret projects are being built - both (local)economy AND minerals should add to their construction.  (Perhaps make them more expensive to compensate)

I also feel like building colony pods should be constructed with nutrients AND minerals (again increasing expense as necessary)

I also generally wish population growth was separated from nutrient supply in general (as poor food-security nations tend to have higher population growth, and birthrates are not quite directly linked to food supplies), but that is an issue with abstraction that the whole of these games suffer from - so it's just quibbling at that point.

On PSI combat

(click to show/hide)

A non PSI unit would always be using their given conventional weaponry to fight (i.e. Missile, Shard, or whatever),

I always got the impression every military unit comes with flame guns.  EVERY psi-fight is with flame guns because it's the most efficient.   Like the little beasties arent hard to kill physically.   Fire does it perfectly well, efficiently most likely.    The problem is, that little beasty is inside your head reminding you that your mother never really loved you, that you're probably going to die all alone on Planet as a 17 year old virgin who joined the corps early because of troubles at home, and then reminds you that girls laughed at you the last time you were at the cafeteria.  OH and that's right, YOU HAVE A MASSIVE FEAR OF BATS! AND NOW THE MINDWORMS ARE TRANSFORMING INTO HORRIBLE ALIEN BATS! OMG WHY DIDNT THE LEADERSHIP TELL US THEY COULD DO THIS!  RUN YA POOR BASTARDS!  etc.

In the end you're not even running from werebat-mindworms, as it's all in your head. You're just on the ground drooling and covered in your own piss, twitching occasionally, while the mindworm boil slowly crawls over you and 'eats' you.

Speaking of which.  THE BIGGEST MYSTERY IN SMAC is this:
How did the Gaians capture their first mind worm boil?  I wanna know how that worked.  Did the mindworm boil the Gaian scout patrol happen to find share an affinity for kale and they bonded?  Mindworm submission is a strange idea. "Mom they followed me home, can I keep them?"

I think personally, if I were on planet, I'd not do so well in the Gaian faction.  "IT'S PUSTULATING AT ME, KILL IT WITH FIRE."


EDITS:  Spoilered to reduce length of post

[Yitzi]

Well if you make it so unit HP = 10*armor value, then unarmored air and rovers will only have 10 HP.  That won't be very useful when standard ground troops have 30 HP (Plasma) plus hit back for their weapon damage, and then add in things like ECM/AAA.

Unless the air/rovers are high enough morale to almost never lose the round and/or used against low-armor targets only.

Currently the defensive aspect is based around 2:1 ratio (arguably flawed) and having every unit attack with its weapon would change that to 1:1.

Not if the attacker gets an automatic bonus to its strength for the round.

If fights are not to the death so much then I suppose the attacker can get away with fighting battles that result in more damage taken to them.  I still say it's very hard and not worth it to conquer an equally skilled player; even in the climate of very aggressive and fast styles like chop and drop or rover rushing.

I think that making it unfeasible to conquer an equal-strength opponent is probably a good thing, as it helps keep the game long enough to be interesting.

Mostly because beyond very early, infiltrate will let you see it coming a mile away.  Now if PROBE modified infiltrate, that would change things.

That is actually up on the list before I start taking requests (though it'll take some doing to make it possible to store the information of turns left to infiltrate); what we're discussing here is just one possible request for when I start taking requests.

Now this can be changed too, ironically by lowering building costs you can make a more aggressive game.  Players can choose whether to then sink that into pods/formers/crawlers (play economic), or probes and army (play aggressive).  Both should have their merits.

Even without lowering building costs, an aggressive player can simply not build all the energy-multiplier buildings, or wage war somewhat later when production rate pulls ahead of tech rate.

Making PLANET give +native lifecycles would probably make more sense than the current +10% PLANET on attack per rank.  But it's pretty similar end effect really.  PLANET can already be quite powerful especially if you mod ecodamage.  Ecodamage should be the main consideration for PLANET rating...native life capture and use secondary.  INDUSTRY should only relate to minerals production though.  Making INDUSTRY boost energy doesn't really make sense to me.  INDUSTRY already synergizes with both itself and energy production very well (due to build rush).  Probably INDUSTRY should have been a production modifier rather than cost modifier.  Cost modifier means many exploits such as where you tank and then raise INDUSTRY to complete an SP fast using supply crawlers.  INDUSTRY thus being something like +X minerals per base, or +X minerals per square (more elegantly, perhaps just -X%/+X% minerals production).  ECONOMY should only factor in for energy production and commerce.  I suppose nutrients consumed is a decent idea but that would fit more with higher levels of the GROWTH SE.  Making higher GROWTH affect N production would be another idea.  But I think you'd see potential starvation if you switched out of the SE.  That could be the risk I suppose if vendetta was declared on you.  The current way GROWTH is handled is pretty good I'd argue as it doesn't allow you to outgrow your natural N production.  The main flaw is that sometimes you can't get +1N from that next worker (usually due to drone control, but it could result from bad terrain, or more rarely no more terrain).  A base that's just grown will immediately starve resulting in all the N used to make that worker to be lost.  I think the fix for that in Civ2 was to make it so a base that grows only uses half its nutrients (to give some reasonable time to convoy or increase N, a city would never consume all its food at once in typical circumstances).  Once you use pop booming later in the game this isn't seen as much, since it requires +2N the next worker will usually be fed whether it is a PSYCH specialist or not.

The "uses only half its nutrients" in civ2 was the effect of the granary, which in SMAC is covered by the GROWTH effect of the children's creche.

That said, everything you mention can probably be adjusted by changes; just describe what you want once I start taking requests.

I feel another logical inconsistency in SMAC is the way that PSI and conventional weapons are used.  You can see the developers didn't really think this design through when looking at how conventional artillery vs PSI defender is treated.

That is actually treated now as conventional artillery vs. unarmored non-PSI defender; I'm planning to give the option to change that, though.

I don't think that a non-PSI unit would be downgrading to hand weapons ('1', though multiplied to '3' on attack or '2' on defense) vs a PSI unit.

Actually, vs. PSI units you'd use flame guns or the like, because normal weapons aren't very effective against worm swarms, so making weapon not matter does sort of make sense.

PSI armor, well that is also a complexity.  Right now it's not that useful anyways.  Most likely it could be changed to give HP dependent on MORALE (20*rank or something similar).  That or it could be a true counter to PSI attack, giving a strong damage reduction when defending vs PSI (but low total HP, so conventional weapons crush it).

Yeah, we'd have to figure out how to make that work too.

I feel like, strangely, this makes more sense.   Builders, or the inexperienced would fight more desperate and aggressive struggles, while the experienced would be forced to calculate moves and tactics rather than mere strategy.  But that's arguable and your point is well made.

You'll be the one making the request, so just let me know when it's time what exactly you want.

Yeah, I realize that you're quite busy with your plans. (Which by the way took some severe investigatory work to find.   Your work deserves a "features list" with your notes attached. A miniwiki of it's own: preferably including all that stuff from the "gonna do next" thread I saw.)

I'll consider it.

I always thought this should be slightly different too.  Even with given rules.   Yitzi - would it be possible to modify the Infiltrate Datalinks option to a time limit?   Perhaps 10 or 20 years?  We have to assume societiies upgrade their security every once in a while - which would require a new infiltration (and to notice it was absent).

It's on the list.

IN FACT.  If I had one superwish - it would be that we drop the concept of "minerals" and revert back to "production" of some kind abstractly.   And I wish that we could have a specialist citizen who produces "minerals/production."

Specialists for minerals/production could be fairly difficult...

Hurrying units should be inexpensive in comparison to facilities, which in turn should be inexpensive compared to Secret Projects.  Though I am personally of the belief that while secret projects are being built - both (local)economy AND minerals should add to their construction.  (Perhaps make them more expensive to compensate)

I also feel like building colony pods should be constructed with nutrients AND minerals (again increasing expense as necessary)

All this could be done.

I also generally wish population growth was separated from nutrient supply in general (as poor food-security nations tend to have higher population growth, and birthrates are not quite directly linked to food supplies), but that is an issue with abstraction that the whole of these games suffer from - so it's just quibbling at that point.

Might still be doable, if you can describe how things should work instead.

Speaking of which.  THE BIGGEST MYSTERY IN SMAC is this:
How did the Gaians capture their first mind worm boil?  I wanna know how that worked.  Did the mindworm boil the Gaian scout patrol happen to find share an affinity for kale and they bonded?  Mindworm submission is a strange idea. "Mom they followed me home, can I keep them?"

Not sure, though the novelization might explain it better.