Ideas for a potential "Splinter MOD"

[Velociryx]

Been thinking seriously about making a SMAX mod with the revised splinter factions, and wanted to solicit for ideas, and get some feedback on some thoughts that I had.

Things I’m considering changing:
 Increasing the costs of techs!! As it is, the game moves much too quickly and so many people have gotten very good at getting multiple techs per turn, or tech in 1 that a slowdown seems in order.

 I really like the changes made in the SNAC mod re: choppers, though I’m not sure I agree with the four!? Movement rate for them. I was thinking six, which would still make them useful on the attack (and able to GET to a distant battle), but they’d no longer be the lords of the air that they are now. So, either six mv. With increased cost per the SNAC mod, or four move with the same cost. Thoughts here?

 Setting up a more realistic unit support scheme. Since there’s no way to create a situation where creating a combat unit decreases the population of your base (which would be more realistic, IMO), then the only alternative I see to limit the size of the unit pool is to do away with clean reactors as a special, and give all factions an inherent support penalty. Doing so will force you to really weigh your options regarding what unit to create, and it will make the inherently “clean” probes and crawlers even more useful.

 Thinking about disabling a number of SP’s too, starting with the CBA, but I’m also considering dropping the Cloning Vats into the Recycling Tanks.

 Pulling some of the late game projects forward. No specific thoughts here, but it’s been said repeatedly that there are a number of really good late game SP’s, made almost useless by just how late in the game the ability to build them arrives.

 Carrier deck NEEDS to be in the game sooner, rather than later, especially if chopper movement is reduced. Was considering making it available at the same time Cruisers and MTC (Doct: Initiative).

 Anybody know if it’s possible to introduce new graphics for units or terrain enhancements into a mod? At the moment, I’m just thinking out loud…haven’t even cracked open the editor to see what all I can and can’t do, but if there’s a way to add custom graphics, then it opens up a whole lot of options….

 Gonna revise the splinter factions and use them as the basis for the unique factions in the game. It’d be really cool if I could give the AI players the equivalent of “clean” reactors, but turn that option off for players. I have no idea if that’s possible or not, but…

 Anybody know if it’s possible to increase the price you pay when you make SE changes? 40 credits just ain’t enough!

 Was considering starting every faction out with a former, but pushing the advanced terraforming options back (and because of this, potentially eliminating the WP)

 Making pods such that you NEVER get tech or AA’s from them

 Was also considering starting every faction off with a –2 Research hit, meaning that you get no tech at all for the first ten turns, forcing you to make the most of your starting former

 With a –2 Support hit, and a –2 Research hit off the bat, obviously some tweaking will have to be done with the SE table, or certain choices just wouldn’t be viable. Was also thinking of (and I don’t know if this is even possible), adding a +1 research bonus to the player who completes the HGP, which would be HUGE, under these conditions, and perhaps adding +1 Support to whomever snags the VW(?)

 All SP’s should at least double in price, IMO.

What I’m shooting for is a game with more realism built in. It should be damned <I>hard</I> starting out on a new world, building up an empire from scratch. SMAC is a fun game….god knows I’ve stayed up all night too many times to count playing for “just one more turn.” And maybe what I’m proposing here wouldn’t be of interest to many folks, or maybe I’m just masochistic. What I want though, is to create a mod which would be more in keeping with just how difficult it would really be to get started on an alien world.

Thoughts and opinions please!

-=Vel=-

[Avenoct]

Vel, go for it!

After a long neglect, the orphan Creation threads seem to be kicking up again and you might want to post this over there as well. There is one person in particular working on the graphics that I know about. As to your other questions, my own opinion is that each player would create slightly or vastly different mods, just as we each play differently, so I suggest you make the mod that you would most enjoy playing. Since so much of AC is easily modified, whoever uses your variant could easily change a few characteristics here and there if they felt they needed to do so. Nonetheless, here's my personal opinion on your options, since you asked for feedback:

1. Yes! I think you can also add techs which would slow down the progress as well and provide multiple pathways along the tech tree..something I'm working on.

2. Not sure. Havn't played enough games, especially MP to know how to mod Choppers.

3. Very interesting. I support that.

4. While I'm thinking of nearly doubling the SP's! Sounds reasonable though.

5. Excellent idea. Other than disabling Transcendence, those late game SP's are currently useless.

6. Absolutely! consider making this a free tech for all factions. Having to research it might or might not happen for beelining players.

7. Check the Creation threads and Kassiopeia's thread here about graphics

8. Yes and no. It's possible to give every faction or any faction the tech, but you'd have to always play the same faction to have it disabled for the player.

9. Don't think it's possible, maybe.

10. I use this mod currently. It's wonderful. About the WP, why? It's still great!

11. Perfect pod idea, easy to do in the SE, not sure about able to do in the alphatext.

12. Excellent idea to change the early gameplay

13. Personally I'd do the opposite. The HGP and VW are already overpowered and singular. I'd maybe add a project or two for research and support..custom project!

14. No opinion really, benfits and problems with increasing SP costs on both human and AI sides.

As to your whole plan, looks great! Think about how the game would play at all difficulty levels and maybe it could be valuable to average players as well as the masters.

-Smack

[Velociryx]

Hiya Smack! And thank you for the speedy reply! Was doing some more thinking about it (and I’ll be heading over to the creation thread to see if anybody has already asked this), but if it’s possible, I’d like to assign SE bonuses to players as they discover techs.

True, researching certain techs gives you the ability to make SE switches which provide plusses and minuses of their own, but what I was thinking about is that if I am able to modify certain techs such that they provide SE bonuses, I can really dish out a lot of negatives in the beginning, forcing players to research their way back to zero, as it were.

Basically, it’s going to mean doing a top to bottom review of every tech in the tree, seeing if there are limits to how many I can add (and I didn’t even know you could add your own SP’s! That rocks!)….::gulp:: I think it just dawned on my exactly how massive an undertaking this really is…..

-=Vel=-

[Tokamak]

This all sounds really good! In particular, I really like the slower tech and and costlier projects.

As I've stated elsewhere, I think choppers are currently WAY overpowered. Since I'm thinking of reducing their power in my own mod, i'm really taking notes here.

The support thing sounds brutal, especially for fledgling bases that need a former and a garrison, just to be minimally functional.

Instead of altering each faction's research stat, I suggest you alter the "tech discovery rate" line in alpha.txt. Much easier, and 'cleaner.'

Pulling the late-game Projects in earlier is an idea whose time has come.

I seem to recall there being some way to black certain effects being triggered by pods. If that's true, the pod idea would be easy to implement. Some of those pod events are so disruptive to the game that I've taken to manually erasing them all before I play.

A free former is a must in a tech-stag environment. Otherwise, the gaians (and possibly the University) just have too big an edge. The Drones and Miriam, in particular, would REALLY need this.

This would make a great MP mod! I'm not so sure how it would work in SP, though, since the AI won't be so easily forgiven for its mistakes. It's already disastrous provicilty towards mass-producing useless units would be amplified by the higher support costs, and its often-times random forays into the tech tree would be further penalized.

[RedFred]

I like a lot of your ideas and I encourage you to proceed. What started out as an idea to create some modified factions now seems to have progressed into a project to create almost a whole new game.

My regret is that Firaxis no longer seems interested in fixing or improving the current game themselves. While I admire their philosophy of allowing user modifications to the game, I believe that they would more easily be able to bring the resources to such a project than one of us.

While I don't want to rant or whine, surely there has to be more money in SMAC2 than in some of Sid's other ideas, such as the now shelved Dinos.

[Method]

Originally posted by Smack
13. Personally I'd do the opposite. The HGP and VW are already overpowered and singular. I'd maybe add a project or two for research and support..custom project!

there already is a project for support! the living refinery-advanced spaceflight

[Avenoct]

In the variant I'm working on I'm trying to increase the available SP's, possibly doubling them. While the additional SP's would be very similar to current SP's, they'd serve as 'Second Best' options to the existing ones. The point would be to massively increase the choices of SP, limiting the denial strategies and limiting the singular power that only having one SP of a type now provides. This is along the same lines as expanding the techtree, to horizontally expand the feeling of the game. Heh, but Vel wants to do something different, and I for one encourage that!

-Smack

[Velociryx]

Potential solution to help the AI “get around” the tougher game I’m proposing:

Two solutions come immediately to mind. The first is to tie the player to a single faction. Not a great solution in my mind, as it sorely limits replayability.

The other though, would be to make two copies of each faction…a player copy and an AI copy. The AI version of the faction would get bonuses to offset the harsh beginning. That way, the player could still have a full “menu” of faction choices, and simply set the AI up to use their special made versions of the factions. In that way, I could also give the AI faction “clean” or whatever else to balance it better.

Been doing some research in the creation threat….bad news on the SP’s and Facilities, apparently. You can make them, but you can’t get them to DO anything. ::frown:: That’s no good. One idea I saw that I rather liked though, was where facilities are concerned. You can, apparently, give these “do nothing facilities” a negative upkeep cost, so at least that’s something.

Apparently too, there are only a limited number of tech “slots,” limiting the amount of delay you can build into the acquisition of key techs. My research so far has not revealed whether or not it’s possible to grant a permanent SE boon for researching some tech or another, so I guess I’ll have to take a look at the actual txt file to see if that’s possible.

I dunno….considering that there’s no relatively user friendly way to make the modifications in question, the whole thing might wind up being more trouble than it’s worth…. You need a thousand dollar piece of software to make changes to graphics, you gotta look at rows of 000000000000000000000000’s till your eyes bleed….GRRR

-=Vel=-

[Avenoct]

Ironic that you mention the '000000000000' thing as that's one of the very lines from the alphatext in all the special abilities, techs, sp's and whatnot. It IS a pain. Too bad it isn't any easier. I wonder how the Firaxians modify their own games to test them? And again, it would appear that you're right about the SP's and techs..but maybe just maybe there's a way 'round that difficulty.

I've faced these same darn obstacles in the few games I've tried to modify and I'll tell you one of the first things I do: I change the opening graphics to display a 'hacked' graphic so that I know that I'm dealing with MY version of the game...there is no point to that other than to encourage me to keep at it. I suggest giving it a try, it's refreshing! There's lots of Shareware graphics editors out there (at least on the mac) that allow easy graphic manipulations, but I never do much of that as #1 I'm not a graphic artist and #2 it is really slow going and #3 it doesn't change how the game is played, just the mood.

Let's look at the brightside though. Firaxis gave us an apple from heaven in the form of the factiontexts and alphatexts. Just changing those (and maybe a few graphics) makes an entirely different game...as all of you are attesting to in the WW Smac thread! So Vel, whether you choose to pursue your Mod or not, I sympathize! Moreso, I'm encouraged by seeing a few others testing the Variants waters. We've got the player-base for testing, the interest, and the talent all right here to make some outstanding games.

Happy Crawlering,

Smack

[Velociryx]

Hmmm….damn…much as I’m tempted to just say “it’s too much trouble,” the idea won’t get out of my head.

This then, is the distillation of stuff I’d like to put in the mod. I’m not at all sure if this is even possible, but here’s the gist of what I want to do so far (with more to be added over the weekend, I’m sure)

Each faction starts with 2 Independent Scouts, 2 Colony Pods, and a Former

As a baseline, every faction starts with the following negatives:
-2 Growth (high death rate on a hostile alien world)
-2 Research (limited supplies, no infrastructure, most of the “research” done is by observation)
-2 Support (no infrastructure, no industry…difficult to support much of anything)
-1 Industry (some basic tools salvaged from unity, but the starting “industry” is primitive, at best)

I left police, probe, morale, and economy alone for a number of reasons, but in general, it didn’t make sense in my mind to adjust the first three—though morale could certainly be arguable, and even though the initial economy would almost certainly be barter based, it’d still be there, so I left it as it was too. Plus, by leaving at least some options untouched, it makes customization possible, so that each faction is still unique, but faces the same harsh beginning.

If possible, I’d like to introduce modifiers to most of these as certain techs are researched. If that’s not possible, then I’ll simply modify the SE choices to offset these initial penalties.

If it’s the first case, however, here’s at least a rough idea of how it would play out:

Industrial Automation – Confers a +1 Industry bonus as soon as you research the tech

Planetary Networks – Confers a +1 Research boost when you discover it

High Energy Chemistry - Also provides a +1 Research boost

Centauri Empathy(?) – Gives the faction a +1 Growth offset

Note here, that this still leaves every faction in the game with a baseline –2 support and a –1 Growth, which makes pop booming a tough gig, and dramatically increases the cost to field an army. It also means no free minerals at base founding and makes overpayment when rush building all the more important.

Advanced terraforming options are “pushed back” one tech level, across the board.

Tech costs are tripled. SP costs are doubled. SP’s which provide a facility “per-base” are quadrupled in price, if the facility that the project gives carries a maintenance cost.

Some Projects are disabled. These include: WP (keeping it defeats the purpose of pushing back the advanced options, and overpowers the project), CV, CBA, and any project which doubles council votes.

Late Game Projects: In general, the plan is to “pull them forward” by two tech levels (ie – a project that is normally available at E-14, now becomes available at E-12. Obviously, this general statement will need to be modified case by case, so as not to create conflicts….giving a Quantum Converter at every base before you can even BUILD Quantum Converters, for example).

Choppers: Reduce movement to 5, leave cost alone.

Found out in my research that you can’t make additional SP’s do anything, nor new facilities—but you can create a facility that has a negative upkeep, making it a source of cash. Thus, I’ve been thinking of adding one new tech to add some “fat” somewhere. Not sure the level or category yet, but it is:

“Perpetual Mechanics”
And with it comes the Perpetual Motion Engine, a facility that can be built at each base for a cost of 80(?) Minerals, that carries with it a –2 upkeep.

Clean Reactors will be removed.

Since the AI never uses it anyway, nerve gas will be removed.

The splinter factions will be unique, each providing various benefits and so forth, but rather than beginning with “all zeroes” in the various categories, we’ll start with the negatives mentioned above and go from there.

A separate “copy” of each faction will be made specifically for the AI. In this way, human players still have their pick of which faction to play, and should select the “enhanced” versions of the factions not selected for play by humans, in order to make a tougher AI.

Where the AI is concerned, I’m considering giving them “clean” troops to help offset their tendency to build hordes of useless stuff, and study the recent threads on creating a better AI in general to make additional modifications on their behalf.

And….that’s all I can think of for the moment….besides, it’s time to head home and try to beat the evil alliance again….

-=Vel=-

[Tokamak]

A thought on the custom SPs...

If you copy/paste the data from one of the SPs to one of the blank slots, you MIGHT create a duplicate SP. While not quite what we'd all like to see, it would provide 'spares' for factions that missed the boat on a vital Project. Also, you could alter the cost and prereqs of these second projects to create a host of subtle tweaks. A copy that appears later but is more expensive would be a way to punish the slower factions. A copy that is later but cheaper is even more interesting, since to actually provides an incentive to let someone else do the 'prototyping' for you (this is actually exactly what most tech corporations do in RL). Similiar effects can be made by making earlier copies, with thier own price variance.

It is just possible that altering the seemingly random numbers in the SP data fields could create some novel combination of powers that we've never seen before. Imagine a HGP and ME, all rolled into one! EXTREME care would have to be used when making something like this.

Come to think of it, I wonder if multiple MEs would stack? That would turn this from a mediocre SP to a potentially awesome one...

The negative upkeep thing is a truly inspired idea. A gold star to whomever thought of that.

[Avenoct]

As far as I can tell, the negative upkeep thing is Vel's brilliance in looking over the alphatext. Tokamak, thanks for the idea on the SP's. In the interest of keeping this on the topic of Vel's mod and not mine, I'll not comment too much on that here. I will say that I'm heading out to play havoc with the alphatext. Testing is a pain, reloading the game, play, close, tweak, reload, ad nauseum, but it's kinda fun, and I think I have a really good chance of crashing the game! Whoo hoo! Glad to hear you're pursuing it Vel. I know a bunch of us will be interested to hear how it goes!

I think I'll report on my own mods over in the Creation forums, and I have a little news update for my current one...too tempting..going to post it here. I Accidentally used my modificatons in a PBEM! The other two players have graciously agreed to continue, as much surprised as I was. What pertains here for Vel is the Free former and pushing back terraforming a bit. I've found these great helps to the AI. Lots more about that can be found in some older (last week?) posts by Ned and a few others who were playing around with what led to being the gifted ideas of the SNAC mod as far as terraforming goes.

Off to crash the alphatext !

-Smack

[Tokamak]

Inspired by the folks on this thread, I started mucking around with alpha.txt The results are disheartening.

I copied the Human Genome Project line and placed an exact duplicate of it directly beneath the old one. Feeling whimsical, renamed the new copy "The Alien Genome Project." I then started up a fresh game.

To my delight, Biogenetics now offered both projects! Great! I rush-built the Alien Genome Project and crossed my fingers. The game didn't crash. Unfortunately, the AGP turned out to be a carbon copy of the Command Nexus. All I had done was push every project down one spot on the list

Adding new items to the end of the list doesn't work either. The new projects are just ignored.

This is bad, because it suggests that there is a limited number of slots for projects (and probably facilities as well), meaning we can't add new ones without removing old ones.

Also, I tried altering the mysterious numbers that appear after each project's name, but couldn't detect any differences in the behavior of the project.

AlphaX.txt at least has blank spots available for new projects, but I doubt these could be activated without rewriting terranx.exe (not something that's gonna happen).

There might still be a way, but it's going to take some serious work.

[Avenoct]

Ditto.

I tested in nearly the same way with nearly the same results in Smac..verra bad! I've put out a distant plea to Firaxis over on the Creation threads. Oddly enough, in the main program some of the projects are listed in order, but not a full list, not that I'm even Thinking about trying to recompile the main app.

-Smack

[Blake]

I dont think anyone commented much on the choppers!
Movement of 4 is about right, this is increased to 6 with a fusion reactor (and eventually 10 with singularity), 6 with fusion, compared to needlejets 12 is really quite nicely balanced, the chopper can still attack at the range of a noodle, and possibly make it home alive.

However, the best comparison is probably fusion chopper with the hovertank.

Hovertanks moves 3 (4 when elite), which means 4 attacks per turn, reduced if damaged. The chopper has movement 6(7), # attacks not reduced by damage. Neither is effected by terrain.
The chopper gets 1/4 price weapons.
The chopper can traverse water, but takes damage from being outside of base at end of turn. The hovertank can make use of roads and magtubes, and can also use drop pods.
The chopper ignores defense bonus from forests.
It also ignores ZoC.


I think, when compared to the hovertank the SNAC choppers are almost right on. Speaking of the hovertank - that should come somewhat earlier in the tech tree. Maybe push the chopper back to Biomachinery (CV tech), and bring the hovertank forward a few techs, prehaps to Monopole magnets (like in SNAC).
So, IMO choppers should be changed like in SNAC, with the exception of tech pre-req, push them back but not as far as in SNAC. Or maybe not pushed back at all.

The WP : rather than removing it push it back to a tech like Eco Engineering (or even adv.eco.engineering), the cheaper terraforming would still be valuable if clean reactors are removed! Also raising terrain should require much more former time (prehaps 30). (are you going to do a major revamp of the terraforming like in SNAC?)

Thinking about the SP's, the one which gives +2 minerals every base, prehaps it could be moved forward a lot, seeing 2 minerals is really just 1 forest crawler per base. It could be renamed "The Supply Network" or something.

Thats all, for now