Wow, choppers are grossly OP !!!

[TarMinyatur]

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.

Yes. Most combat would not be a fight to the death, unless the Weapon/Armor quotients are strongly in favor of it. In a 10-1 vs 10-1 duel, one faction should definitely perish. In a 1-6 vs 1-6 skirmish, neither side should take more than, let's say, 16.6% damage, based on Weapon/Armor.

As others have mentioned, there's no point in replacing one low-diversity system for another. There should be uses for unarmored combat units. Perhaps unarmored infantry units could enjoy an extra move, or disengage like speeders sometimes do.

I'll give this some more thought when I have time to do the mathematics.

[Nexii]

I think low armored and low weapon units should be more discouraged than encouraged.  It's really easy to say de-power this tech and that, and eventually you have little incentive to tech.  Unit variety can come from chassis and ability choice.  The exercise of trying to get the most cost efficient weapon and armor is a rather tedious one.   For example, if you cost armor too high, then non-armored is more efficient vs PSI.  Is that very intuitive?  For that matter, is hand weapons being *more* cost effective vs PSI intuitive?  I'd argue not.  It's a bit silly...I think the devs intended conventional to be more neutral. 

Probably both weapon and armor cost should be flat.  At least that's what I'm going to experiment with next in a few games.  It should make momentum feel more like it since you can upgrade units for free.  I'll see how it goes though.

[Qes]

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

What about specialists that add marginal "industry" like effects?  Like -5% mineral costs in that base? (2 specialists would equal a +1 industry effect in that base, essentially) would that be easier?  Or is that giving new functions to specialists itself is the problem?

Generally the weapon/armor relationships is my biggest concern.  Everything else is just mind gravy and still not very solid in my head for what I want.  It would need wider discussion from the multiplayers and calculators out there.

I think low armored and low weapon units should be more discouraged than encouraged.  It's really easy to say de-power this tech and that, and eventually you have little incentive to tech.  Unit variety can come from chassis and ability choice.  The exercise of trying to get the most cost efficient weapon and armor is a rather tedious one.   For example, if you cost armor too high, then non-armored is more efficient vs PSI.  Is that very intuitive?  For that matter, is hand weapons being *more* cost effective vs PSI intuitive?  I'd argue not.  It's a bit silly...I think the devs intended conventional to be more neutral. 

That entirely depends on how you view PSI-combat.  If you view it as "yet another kind of combat," sure, you're right.   But I view it as a strange and alien sort of warfare.  Secret, more than a little morally ambiguous, and highly dangerous.  It is not straight forward.  In a way, it is marginally terrorist and non-linear.

The use of Gunships, Tanks, Aireborne infantry, and Battleships against, say, a terrorist cell is largely OVERSPENDING on a problem.  Where as calculated spy-networks and applied intelligence and special forces are probably more reasonable to combat that method of warfare.  It IS a cost-benefit analysis.   If you can kill something with a battleship 22-inch gun, or a .22 caliber handgun, the .22 handgun is the BETTER choice for its cost.

This isnt a departure, in my esteem, from normal military thinking.   If your biggest problem at the moment is not other factions, but PLANET itself, and a flame gun is the best weapon available to purge mindworms;  then you'll use flame guns - with every single unit.    Weapons and armor are useful in fighting mindworms because they are not a physical threat.  So you're not going to treat them like a physical threat and produce heavy infantry and tanks to combat them.  You're gonna train and hire scouts and rangers who know their job and require minimal equipment to accomplish it.  You wouldnt send these patrols into situations of war with a heavily armed infantry.  But you will send them out as exterminators to take care of your pest problem.

Probably both weapon and armor cost should be flat.  At least that's what I'm going to experiment with next in a few games.  It should make momentum feel more like it since you can upgrade units for free.  I'll see how it goes though.

I would generally like to retard the advantages of momentum.  As in history, and general game play, I find that momentum tends to be a double edged sword. I like for there to be a bell curve.  One can conquer the world, but the more one conquers, the more problems one faces, and the sources of problems multiply (and often become internal).

I would like the vast majorities of wars to be fought for dominance of the moment, not for the total-war that has been the halmark of most game conflicts.    War, with the progression of technology, has become less and less about the extinction of the loser.   It has turned more and more into the occupation/subjugation and oppression of the loser.  There are exceptions to this in history, but they are farther back in history, and become increasingly rare with population sizes and technological advance.

I would like war to be more about the temporary "confinement" of a problem.   A rival set back on his heels, perhaps indefinitely, but not eliminated.  I think that captured cities should not be able to produce UNITS, of any kind, until the "captured base" problem goes away.  They may produce facilities, and perhaps energy, but no units.  As the only volunteers for the job should be mistrusted by both the rioters and the new occupational force.  It would also mean that cities must be defended with the force BROUGHT to it.  I also think Hurrying should be completely barred in the new city until the conquered problem is resolved, because contractors to finish projects, and facilities probably are untrustworthy.  (Or at the very least, hurry costs should be quintupled.)   I also think that if someon recaptures a base and liberates it - the base should experience a temporary (same as captured base length?) TALENT boost.  The people are glad to be back with their faction - back to what they know. (Even if it's hive-life...people are comfortable with what they know).  Or perhaps this can and should be influenced by SE mechanics.

I wish very much that citizens were assigned factions. (Like culture mechanics in later games, but slightly different).  I wish these faction assignments would determine not only the loyalty and ratio of Talents/drones that a base has - but also the productivity and subterfuge actions that could happen independent of other factions.  It'd be neat if a city could rebel and create units to fight small civil wars.  As opposed to merely joining other factions.  I would like also for riots to increase drones in OTHER bases.  As any leader who could allow his bases to descend that far into chaos could and should be questioned.

I also think that TALENT/DRONE ratios should greatly affect politics throughout the world.  Having more talents should somehow be enviable.  Having more drones should be looked down on.   In fact, I wish we could complicate the "drone riot" mechanic all together.

I would love to see bases of nothing but drones - but that wouldnt mean that riots occur: perhaps due to police, se choices, or other factors.
I'd love to see bases with almost nothing but talents, but the single drone causes regular rioting - do again to various factors.

I'm not sure how to influence this, but it would add a great deal of breadth and immersion to a fantastic game.  It would be particularly great if drones served a PURPOSE for having.  Some Machiavellian distopian productive reason.  Drones of the hive should be a common sight.   Talents too should be a purpose, other than population booms and countering drones.

After all, I'm always curious about why the game says "Dont go, the drones need you, they look up to you..."   And I think...but I have no drones...

I'm not yet sure how this would look mechanically.

EDIT:
A REALLY fun idea would be very difficult to implement:

When a base is captured, it produces automatically and instantly (but still costing minerals to the base and non-dispandable.) probe teams.  The number would be equivalent to the number of excess talents (positive psyche) the city previously had. These probe teams would belong to the faction that lost the base.  We could even call them "Dissenters."    These probe teams would have a special kind of probe function, that would make ALL actions by them cost 0 credits, but they would not be able to convert military units. Instead, they'd have a kind of artillery function and could damage units only, they could also destroy improvements.  Essentially they'd be similar to Paritsans from Civ2, but with diplomatic functions.   Also they should retreat from EVERY battle as soon as they can. (Speeder mentality, but assumed loss at the start of combat).  This would not apply if fighting a real probeteam.

[Yitzi]

What about specialists that add marginal "industry" like effects?  Like -5% mineral costs in that base? (2 specialists would equal a +1 industry effect in that base, essentially) would that be easier?  Or is that giving new functions to specialists itself is the problem?

The problem isn't one of new functions to specialists so much as new types of specialists.

Although now that I think of it, since a base never uses all the specialist types together anyway, it probably could be set up...though it might require help from our graphics designers to make the appropriate sort of specialists for everything, and would be a fairly sizable project in any case.

Generally the weapon/armor relationships is my biggest concern.  Everything else is just mind gravy and still not very solid in my head for what I want.  It would need wider discussion from the multiplayers and calculators out there.

The weapon/armor relationship, and the resulting effects on morale, also didn't seem quite that solid.

I would like war to be more about the temporary "confinement" of a problem.   A rival set back on his heels, perhaps indefinitely, but not eliminated.  I think that captured cities should not be able to produce UNITS, of any kind, until the "captured base" problem goes away.  They may produce facilities, and perhaps energy, but no units.  As the only volunteers for the job should be mistrusted by both the rioters and the new occupational force.  It would also mean that cities must be defended with the force BROUGHT to it.  I also think Hurrying should be completely barred in the new city until the conquered problem is resolved, because contractors to finish projects, and facilities probably are untrustworthy.  (Or at the very least, hurry costs should be quintupled.)   I also think that if someon recaptures a base and liberates it - the base should experience a temporary (same as captured base length?) TALENT boost.  The people are glad to be back with their faction - back to what they know. (Even if it's hive-life...people are comfortable with what they know).  Or perhaps this can and should be influenced by SE mechanics.

All this would probably be doable...

I wish very much that citizens were assigned factions.

This is probably not feasible.

It'd be neat if a city could rebel and create units to fight small civil wars.  As opposed to merely joining other factions.

This is a special form of "more than seven factions", which is not feasible.

I would like also for riots to increase drones in OTHER bases.  As any leader who could allow his bases to descend that far into chaos could and should be questioned.

This would be doable, but fairly tricky.

I also think that TALENT/DRONE ratios should greatly affect politics throughout the world.  Having more talents should somehow be enviable.  Having more drones should be looked down on.   In fact, I wish we could complicate the "drone riot" mechanic all together.

When you decide what you want, I can probably tell you if it's feasible.

A REALLY fun idea would be very difficult to implement:

When a base is captured, it produces automatically and instantly (but still costing minerals to the base and non-dispandable.) probe teams.  The number would be equivalent to the number of excess talents (positive psyche) the city previously had. These probe teams would belong to the faction that lost the base.  We could even call them "Dissenters."    These probe teams would have a special kind of probe function, that would make ALL actions by them cost 0 credits, but they would not be able to convert military units. Instead, they'd have a kind of artillery function and could damage units only, they could also destroy improvements.  Essentially they'd be similar to Paritsans from Civ2, but with diplomatic functions.   Also they should retreat from EVERY battle as soon as they can. (Speeder mentality, but assumed loss at the start of combat).  This would not apply if fighting a real probeteam.

Probe teams don't actually cost support...and what you describe would probably be doable but fairly difficult.

[Qes]

The weapon/armor relationship, and the resulting effects on morale, also didn't seem quite that solid.

I hope the idea is understood, if not the implementation.

All this would probably be doable...

When/if you get around to requests, I'll hope to endeavor to come up with some kind of design document to express my wish, something more concrete.  Though, life can and does get in the way, I usually eventually come back to SMAC.  Thanks for listening.

Do you have any design wishes that you're thinking on?   What would you like to see in smac more?

Probe teams don't actually cost support...and what you describe would probably be doable but fairly difficult.

Right, I was hoping these special probe teams could require support.  A draining "rabble" of sorts.   But again, this is all just wishful thinking.  The primary thing I want is to find a way to get over the immersion skip of weapons and armor purposes.

[Yitzi]

The weapon/armor relationship, and the resulting effects on morale, also didn't seem quite that solid.

I hope the idea is understood, if not the implementation.

Yeah, the basic idea is understood, but not well enough to clearly decide on an implementation (though if I thought about it I could probably come up with something), and I can't implement it without an implementation.

Do you have any design wishes that you're thinking on?

Of course; where do you think the "short list" comes from?

Right, I was hoping these special probe teams could require support.

Would be doable, though perhaps not that realistic to have them automatically take support rather than having to take actions to steal it.

But again, this is all just wishful thinking.  The primary thing I want is to find a way to get over the immersion skip of weapons and armor purposes.

I'm thinking it over, and I can probably come up with a good implementation.

[Nexii]

More talents do give Golden Age, which is +1 ECON, +2 GROWTH for the base.  That's quite significant.  I suppose one idea for eliminating drone riot mechanic is to make 'soft' inefficiencies/bonuses rather than riots and possibly GA.  How would this work?  Well, you could modify the FOP of each individual worker (or more simply, each drone/talent could give base FOP +/-).  Kind of like a satellite, I supppose.  For example each talent might produce +1E.  Each drone might subtract 1E, superdrone maybe 1M or 1E additional over drone.  I guess ideally it could be customized, I think  +/- to N might be quite powerful, but might work too.  One thing I'd note though is that workers are already a lot better than specialists.  Not sure if I really like the idea of boosting Talents even more.  Also POLICE tends to get outclassed by EFFIC/PSYCH late (though can argue the opposite early game).  I guess it's debatable though with Self Aware Colony and and Punishment Spheres (which can be modded cheaper to be useful to have +POLICE SE). 

I've modded unit costs like this (mode 2): Infantry 20, Rover 30, Needlejet 40, Chopper 60, Foil 40, Cruiser 40, Gravship 40, for any combat weapon/armor/reactor.  Upgrade cost = mineral cost, though I might double this.  It makes the popular IA/EnvEco beeline much more risky.  If you want things to be a little more defendable from momentum style, one option is to mod sensor arrays to be more powerful.  Another is to decrease the costs of Perimeter Defense and Tachyon Field.  I guess it's up to interpretation but I never took the game/devs as intending higher units to be worse against native/PSI or that conventional troops use hand weapons to fight PSI (i.e. the flame guns that are mentioned once I think in the early SP CDF, could just be early game 1/3 sentinels).  The factor of 1/2/3 just represents that neutrality in cost that was intended for conventional vs PSI, at least that's my belief.  For example the default cost of 10M for empath/trance scouts versus 50M for mind worms wasn't balanced.  A higher reactor (Singularity) scout being less effective than Fission vs PSI isn't intuitive or sensical at all and same goes for weapons/armor upgrades.  Armor's never taken on troops by default for the same reason: overcosted.  Similarly, chopper chassis is undercosted by default (the original topic here).  Over/undercosting is a bad thing as it tends to degrade the tech side of the game into pre-ordained choices, rather than strategic depending on situation.

[JarlWolf]

I want to see, depending on the conflict and such to have discontent with wars within the populace or support for it- I can't imagine a population mindlessly following their faction into every conflict without having an opinion. And from the wars in Afghanistan and for the Americans, Vietnam we all know full well how public opinion can have on the stability of a war effort, very much so if your population is motivated they will go over piles of their brethren to drive back the invader.

I want to see a morale system for populations, to have riots when people are discontent with how wars are going or if you are fighting to many wars, I want to see public discontent if you do certain atrocities as it sparks outrage amongst your people.

I want to have propaganda campaigns either to inspire my own people or to demoralize the enemy's, or to encourage others to revolt and rally to our banners.

This would be interesting mechanic, would like to see this.

[Yitzi]

I want to see, depending on the conflict and such to have discontent with wars within the populace or support for it- I can't imagine a population mindlessly following their faction into every conflict without having an opinion. And from the wars in Afghanistan and for the Americans, Vietnam we all know full well how public opinion can have on the stability of a war effort, very much so if your population is motivated they will go over piles of their brethren to drive back the invader.

I want to see a morale system for populations, to have riots when people are discontent with how wars are going or if you are fighting to many wars, I want to see public discontent if you do certain atrocities as it sparks outrage amongst your people.

I want to have propaganda campaigns either to inspire my own people or to demoralize the enemy's, or to encourage others to revolt and rally to our banners.

This would be interesting mechanic, would like to see this.

That's too vague to say whether it's feasible.

[Nexii]

+Drones/base for being at war for too long?  Though that's pretty similar to pacifism drones.  It might have to be based on who declared war on who, and if a truce is offered.  It would not be good game play to be punished because an enemy is unwilling to surrender.  And I think some factions would be more willing to war than others (i.e. Spartans vs Gaians)...it would be pretty similar to POLICE rating as it is.  POLICE is quite well designed, P-drones make aggressive war very difficult.

You can kind of simulate willingness to fight a defensive war by increasing sensor array power.  Atrocities like nerve gas / planet buster, I guess sanctions work ok?  For nerve staple, a possibility is reduced base production rather than sanctions.  There's a probe op to make more drones in a base already.  I guess that could be strengthened a bit but made more temporary.  Propaganda is sort of represented by Doctor/Empath/Transcendi specialist already.  That and military sentinels.  I guess what you might be looking for would be new probe team ops, some of them perhaps even defensive in nature (i.e. used on your own cities).

[TarMinyatur]

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

Attacker and Defender are always affected by morale. Only the Defender can benefit from terrain, facility, and sensor bonuses. Combat consists of alternating attacks and counter-attacks. How many? It is arbitrary, but 8 seems good enough to allow for randomness. "Attacker" is defined as the initiator of combat. The Attacker will defend itself, but it is always the Attacker. Likewise, the Defender will counter-attack, but it is still the Defender in terms of combat. 

Abbreviations:

Attacker's Weapon = Wpn1
Defender's Armor = Arm1
Defender's Weapon = Wpn2
Attacker's Armor = Arm2

Round #1, #3, #5, and #7: Wpn1 vs Arm1. Defender's damage is calculated. (Attacker cannot be harmed.)
Round #2, #4, #6, and #8: Wpn2 vs Arm2. Attacker's damage is calculated.  (Defender cannot be harmed.)

The level of destruction per round is a maximum of 25%. Some combat will not result in the destruction of either or of both units. The fight is likely to be to the death if Wpn1 > Arm1 and Wpn2 > Arm2. This calculation needs to be kept simple.

Let's look at an example...

A Disciplined 4-1-1 Impact Squad attacks a disciplined 1-1-1 Scout in rocky terrain. The Scout is in trouble. That's 4 vs 1.5 accounting for terrain.

Round#1: 4 vs 1.5 (The Scout probably takes 25% damage, since Wpn1 is much greater than Arm1.)
Round#2: 1 vs 1 (The Impact Squad takes something like 0%, 12.5% or 25%)
Rounds#3 through #8 are similar.

The likely outcome is that the Scout will be destroyed and the Impact Squad will be about 50% damaged.

I'll continue this later...

[Yitzi]

I wouldn't cap it at 25%, as then an uninjured combatant can never be killed before its last "taking damage" round, and will survive unless it takes max damage every time.

Even so, how this works would depend a lot on how the damage per round is determined as a function of the relative combat strengths.

[TarMinyatur]

Thanks for your input, Yitzi.

With the defender's advantage of Command Centers, destroying any unit inside a base would be very difficult if battles to the death were uncommon.

Maybe each round of combat could inflict up to, let's say, 36%, instead?

If that were the case, three convincingly victorious rounds (out of four) would destroy one (or both) units.

The main idea is that a 6-1-1 vs a 6-1-1 battle should not be a nearly guaranteed victory for the initiator. Both should be nearly destroyed. I'd like to see this happen in SMAC!

Each of the combat rounds could be ineffective (0% damage dealt),  marginal (18%, or half of maximum), or victorious (36%, or the maximum). The weapon/armor quotient would determine the probabilities.

For example, Fusion vs No Armor (10 vs 1) could be 95% victorious and 5% marginal per round.

Gun vs No Armor (1 vs 1) could be 50% victorious, 25% marginal, and 25% ineffective.

Gun vs Silksteel (1 vs 4) could be 12.5% victorious, 12.5% marginal, and 75% ineffective.

What do you think? I'm open to all sorts of ideas to greatly simplify the calculations.

[Yitzi]

Maybe each round of combat could inflict up to, let's say, 36%, instead?

I'd say have it be unlimited, but for an even match average around 25%.  That way, if each round is an even match there's a decent chance of either one side dying or not, whereas with attack-heavy units it'll tend to be to the death and with defense-heavy units it'll tend to not be.

The main idea is that a 6-1-1 vs a 6-1-1 battle should not be a nearly guaranteed victory for the initiator. Both should be nearly destroyed. I'd like to see this happen in SMAC!

I'm actually thinking of using the chi-squared distribution with 1 degree of freedom (or rather a very close approximation that's far easier to calculate) for randomization, in which case in the 6-1-1 vs. 6-1-1 case the chance of winning in the first round would be 41.4%, meaning a better than even chance of the initiator still taking some damage.  (There'd even be a roughly 0.02% chance that they'd both survive all eight rounds of combat.)

In more detail, the probabilities of the 6-1-1 vs. 6-1-1 battle would come out roughly as follows:

41.4%: Initiator wins in first round, takes no damage.
24.3%: Defender wins in second round, with median loss around 20%.
17.7%: Initiator wins in third round, with median loss around 20%.
8.58%: Defender wins in fourth round, with median loss around 50%.
4.69%: Initiator wins in fifth round, with median loss around 50%.
1.96%: Defender wins in sixth round, with median loss around 60%.
0.881%: Initiator wins in seventh round, with median loss around 60%.
0.333%: Defender wins in eighth round, with median loss around 67%.
0.203%: Both combatants survive, taking damage around 67%.

So that sort of combat would be highly risky, with a chance (as the initiator) of taking no damage, and with the winner sometimes taking heavy damage but usually not.  Which is what "rocket tag" combat probably would be actually like, for the simple reason that in a situation like that, if you take a solid hit there's a pretty good chance it'll kill you.

If you want a more "winner is heavily damaged at the end" sort of combat, what you'd want is more rounds; the more rounds there are, the lower the chance of the initiator winning in the first round, and the more damaged the winner will be at the end.  More balanced attack-defense ratios will also tend to be bloodier, and stuff like 1-5-1 vs. 1-5-1 will actually be the bloodiest, if you count the winner's damage when it finally ends and not damage taken per turn.

Each of the combat rounds could be ineffective (0% damage dealt),  marginal (18%, or half of maximum), or victorious (36%, or the maximum). The weapon/armor quotient would determine the probabilities.

For example, Fusion vs No Armor (10 vs 1) could be 95% victorious and 5% marginal per round.

Gun vs No Armor (1 vs 1) could be 50% victorious, 25% marginal, and 25% ineffective.

Gun vs Silksteel (1 vs 4) could be 12.5% victorious, 12.5% marginal, and 75% ineffective.

What do you think? I'm open to all sorts of ideas to greatly simplify the calculations.

Chi-squared multiplied by the ratio is the best approach, I think: It's smoother than none/half/full, is fairly easy to calculate, and doesn't require figuring out percentages for every ratio.

[TarMinyatur]

That's good stuff to ponder, Yitzi.

Hmm...

I do like your term, "rocket tag", to describe combat between unarmored Missile Infantries. It makes sense to me. There's a first-strike advantage. If your attack misses the mark, the counter-attack could really hurt. Sounds good.

The AI could benefit from this scheme. What was a very easy kill for a player is now not so easy.

I'm thinking about your example of 1-5-1 vs 1-5-1. I'm struggling to see how this pillow-fight can result in serious destruction, or be the bloodiest based on winner's final damage. But if this is a consequence of a uniform "chi-squared" method, that's totally fine to keep things simple. Neither a player nor the AI is likely to initiate this conflict.

I think 8 rounds is plenty (i.e. 4 attacks, 4 counter-attacks) for Fission units or psi units. However, for Fusion reactors, maybe increase to 12 rounds? Some adjustment would need to be made for combat between differing reactor levels.

Should combat become more destructive as reactor values increase while Weapon/Armor ratios remain similar? I can imagine advanced-reactor units staying in the fight, pressing for a victory this year, not next year. Both sides are willing and able to take more damage.

Should a duel between 4-2-1 units be essentially the same as one between 8-4-1*2 units?