Ideas for a potential "Splinter MOD"

[Tokamak]

I'm not exactly a gameplay guru, so I can't really evaluate the balance of those factions ('though they sound really cool).

I do like the notion of using 'natural' effects to ban specific factions from different SE choices. The Ashaandi *could* run Democracy, but the -5 Support rating would make this a disaster. It's a very elegant and gentle-handed method of designing the faction aggendas.

Check out the terraforming thread in the Creation forum. ProvostB claimed that he had found a way to make Monoliths a terraforming option. This would be a perfect high-end power for the Builder's Coven! I haven't been able to duplicate his results, though, so he may have been in error. Still, it's worth checking out. Maybe someone will find a way to make it work.

This takes me to another problem that I've been mulling over. providing specific technologies to certain factions is cool, but what do you do about probe teams? Should another faction be able to steal Dr. Pavel's unique (but hypothetical) Monolith Building technology? could it be traded? Etc.

Disabling tech stealing goes a long way towards addressing this problem. In fact, it is so easy to steal from the AI that I simply stopped doing it after a while... it felt like cheating. However, this option would probably not be as balanced in MP games, where momentum players typically rely on probes to give them their tech.

[Nadexander]

Originally posted by JustinSane
This mod looks extremely cool, though also mercilessly difficult. I can't wait to play it
I've got a couple of questions though. First, have you checked the immunity faction ability? I'm pretty sure it just keeps the value from dropping below zero. As an example, once I ran Yang as police state, planned, knowledge, and cybernetic. His efficiency in social engineering was 0, whereas it should have been +3 if it was a true immunity. Also, I believe it only says that it eliminates negative efficiency effects. Ambiguous, but it would seem to allow for the above phenomenon. Impunity on the other hand actually seems to eliminate the negative effect of a given social setting, for instance with impunity police state, running police state, free market and knowledge, eff. is +1.

I believe that that the setting ROBUST IFFEC will make it so that
positive eficiency is possible but efficiency can never drop below zero. Either that or that all negative efficiency effects are ignored.

-Nadexander

[curtadams]

Minor problem: -3 growth means no growth at all, so the green group can't even get started.

[Velociryx]

Tokamak….excellent idea ‘bout being able to terraform monoliths (and making that a high-end Coven ability!). That’d really redefine warfare for them….bring along a forming unit with the attack force to set up a more permanent camp for rest/repair. Better still, bring the whole family (colony pod), set up shop on enemy turf, and then psi-gate a big chunk of your army through (and a few formers too!) YOW!

Also, I’m glad to hear you liked how I “persuaded” Ashaandi’s faction away from Dem. I figure, even with their slower expansion, they’ll have pretty well filled up an average sized starting continent by the time Dem rolls around….they’ll be churning out garrisons and formers….a couple scouts….suddenly Dem starts looking REALLY expensive….::evil grin::

Hmmm….excellent points raised about the techsteal thing, and that’s kinna making me lean more toward doing away with techsteal for probes entirely. That, combined with no nerve gas and weak choppers, pretty much kills the momentum game entirely. Then again, no crawlers and no pop boom pretty much kills the “standard” builder game, so perhaps that’s not a bad thing. I’m not sure there are many ways around it tho.

Nadexander: Yep….I believe you’re right, and I’ve made modifications to the factions based on a better understanding of how all that stuff works!

Curt: Also dead on. I realized that when I got home last night, and, after a review of options, I decided the best solution was to disable pop boom at the high end, and make –3 growth give 30% slower growth, rather than none at all. Even doing this, however, I may still reduce the Coven’s growth penalty….they strike me as being weaker than the Humanists and Ashaandi’s group.

As it stands now, if I had to pick a “most powerful” faction or group of factions, I’d give the prize to Ashaandi and the Humanists, with Honshu and the Heretics coming in next, and the rest lagging a bit. One potential surprise there might be the DataPirates though….not sure, I’ll have to rough out some faction files and give them a try.

Also, I’ve followed suit with Tokamak and Smack, and copied all the most current Mod information over to the Creation thread where we can continue this at length!

-=Vel=-

[Docfeelgood]

Hovertanks.
I have felt that they come too late in the game.

[Ned]

Vel, In another thread, we have found that limiting the AI's ability to build anything but forests until they have reached the first B/W forces the AI to build forests. Their presence, in combination with an interest in Build, causes the AI to build Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests, both of which are critical in a number of ways, including adding to Clean Minerals after the first POP. Armed with this latter knowledge, the smart human player now tries to force a pop before building any Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests or Centauri Preserves. However, the AI is not so smart, and may build quite a few before their first POP.

So a suggestion:

Move Genejack facilities earlier in the game. I believe the AI will build at least some of these and cause enough ED to create a pop before it begins to build Tree Farms.

Also, I would really like to keep the current Factions. I just think we need to work out some of the obvious bugs in the game that allow the human to dominate the AI or an MP player to easily win.

[Ned]

Oh, and one more idea: The SeaLurk is a really underappreciated animal. It has the ability to kill units on land and in bases, something ships cannot do. It needs to be moved much earlier in the game and be given at least one more movement point.

Ned

[Vultur]

Originally posted by Ned
Oh, and one more idea: The SeaLurk is a really underappreciated animal. It has the ability to kill units on land and in bases, something ships cannot do. It needs to be moved much earlier in the game and be given at least one more movement point.

Ned

I've thought the same thing, so I've changed the chassis of the Sealurk from "Foil" to "Cruiser"

-Vultur

[Blake]

Ned, I believe you overestimate the importance of forcing a pop. I will NEVER delay tree farm production while trying to forcce a pop - it's just not worth it, sure I attempt to force a pop early, but it's no biggie if I complete half my tree farms before suceeding. Treefarms are too darn good to delay building for any reason.

In the case of the AI eco damage is a non issue, for several reasons.
1) Pitifull mineral production
2) Highly staggered treefarm production - because AI's tend to expand often, and dont have an emphasis on treefarm production they can take a century or more (from aquiring EE) to complete treefarms in most of there bases, generally as a few of their high producing bases start running ED, several of the smaller bases will still be building tree farms - in contrast to the human player which tends to do a global treefarm build after EnvEco.
3) Worm control: AI's seem to get combat bonuses against wild mindworms, they also have plenty of spare military units, and if their formers aren't cleaning up fungus they'll probably just be doing uselss terraforming.
4) Intristic AI planet bonus - transcend AI's suffer 1/3 ecodamage, this happens at the same step as factoring in the planet rating.

That said, I would probably still go for moving genejacks forward - simply because they are one of the few good ways for AI's to get decent mineral production.

[Velociryx]

Hey guys….wow….was a busy evening on the forums! I came in this morning and had a LOT of reading to do….fortunately, today seems a pretty slow one here at work, giving me some time to lurk!

Good ideas churning out here, too. I like the notion of moving the hover tank closer, but I’m not sure exactly where it should fall….perhaps shortly after the Fusion era? Beyond that, anybody have a tech candidate in mind?

Sealurks: Very good solution to make them cruiser based…the plus two movement makes the unit much more a menace. Again, any suggestions regarding what tech to move to (shows you how much I know, I don’t even know off hand what tech makes them available now!)

With crawlers out, moving the Genejack closer in makes sense for the human player as well, but again, I don’t presently have a tech in mind to move it to, so if anybody has a suggestion, don’t be shy….

And as to the original factions….I like ‘em….I’m used to them, and they’re good. Very different game experiences with each. I think they’d do well in the Mod I’m proposing, but since I have the splinter factions, I figured I’d touch them up and include them with the Mod for folks looking for something a bit different. (also, when I get to mucking around in the “story” text files, I’ll probably create story elements with the splinter groups in mind).

-=Vel=-

[Ned]

Well Blake, I did move Genejack forward - to Optical Computers in my current game. (Optical Computers right now gives the player nothing.)

Well, the AI is gloriously building Genejacks as soon as they get the tech! Most of them still do not have Environmental Economics. So the plan seems to be working.

Blake, I'm surprised that you would build half your Tree Farms before the first pop. After all, forcing the pop was your idea!

Ned

[Velociryx]

Hmmmm….Optical Computers is an interesting choice for Genejack. I’m not sure I see the relation between the tech and the facility though…what prompted that choice for you?

I like where it is on the tech tree, and certainly moving Genejack there makes Opticomps a MUCH more attractive tech than it used to be—especially in the absence of crawlers, I’m just wondering if perhaps it (Genejack) ought not be relegated to one of the “genetics-oriented” techs near that one in level and position.

Whatcha think?

-=Vel=-

[JustinSane]

Being a native nut, I've always like sea-lurks. I'm not even sure that they need the extra movement, though it would be useful. They currently come at Centuari Psi though, which is very much too late, especially since Locusts are available one tech earlier, and are superior in almost every way. However, there doesn't seem to be another tech well suited for them either. It might not be balanced to give centauri meditation another unit type in addition to the centauri preserves, empath, IOD, and decent special project. Maybe if they are going to be moved to a cruiser chassis, then just putting them back one level to Centuari Genetics would be best. That tech would then be very strong, but it's a long bee-line, with some marginally useful techs on the way, so it's not too bad an idea to give a decent reward at the end of the path. Another possibility would be bio-engineering, which has been significantly weakened with the removal of clean reactors. It's a bit odd to have a build tech as a preq. for a native life form, but both in it's place on the tree and my guess as to what it does, it makes some sense. Centuari PSI is D8, Centauri Genetics is D7, and I believe Bio-engineering is B5, though it might be B6.

[Ned]

Vel, I picked Optical computer solely from memory of many games. It is usually researched just about the same time as or just before Environmental Economics despite it being a level 3 tech and EE being a level 5 tech.

The only other reason is the obvious one, Optical Computers now gives the player nothing. Genejacks would make its far more desirable.

Regardless, the switch to Genejacks earlier in the game has had dramatic effects on gameplay! Just as one would suspect, the AI is very competitive in mineral production. And, because I have already put in the mods that forces the AI to build forests, I fully expect it to build Tree Farms when the time comes.

(Just as an aside Vel, you really don't have to make the AI units clean in your mod. If you make them all passive, what happens is that they do not fight each other, but instead form treaties and pacts. As a result, they invest heavily on infrastructure and less on military - exactly the way a human would play.)

[Nadexander]

Hab Structures

Hab Complexes and Hab Domes
The first comes too soon and the other way too late so 90% of he game seems to be with cities maxed at 14 and then jumping to 40 in the end game. Perhaps there is a way to make a more fluid growth model. If popbooming can be removed somehow, i think it would be good to move hab domes to a much earlier part of the tree. If there is no way to get rid of pop booms maybe Hab Domes can be moved much sooner and raise the pop cap to 21 instead of removing the limiits entirely.

I think the best solution, assuming it is technically feasable, is to add another Hab structure some where in the tech tree between complexes and domes to raise the limit to 21.

-Nadexander