Pokemon Mod

[iMac722]

If you go to the SMAC general forum and read, Pokemon on SMAC/SMACX, you'll know what i mean by this, I never made a mod in my life so this is just a suggestion.

[Helium Pond]

Well, it's really too bad you can't make custom units for a faction, because it would be great fun to make a pokemon faction with all those cute little guys running around, fighting against the stiff-looking 3D infantry of SMAC/X. But it's all or nothing, you'd have to do a mod for the whole game, which is just too dang much work. However, I'll take a stab at a Pokemon-themed *faction*...

Okay, my first thought is giving it FREEABIL, 15 (Heavy Artillery)... except I'm not quite sure how FREEABIL works, having never played the Pirates. (FREEABIL is a new faction parameter available in SMAX.) If it means that you *can't* design units *without* that ability, great! If it only means that you don't have to pay extra for that ability, that's not so good. But, I think it would be absolutely hilarious, not to mention appropriate, to have a faction that can *only* make artillery. The reason it's appropriate is that Pokemon never *kill* anything--they just fight until one of them retreats! So if putting this in would make the faction have an all-artillery army, that'd be cool. (Hmmm... could you modify the alphax.txt to make *all* factions only able to build artillery? And further, could you disable the rule that makes artillery vs. artillery a duel to the death? No, no, getting too big, here...) Of course, to make an "all-artillery" faction, it'd have to have Polymorphic Software at the start.

I'm kinda stumped as to SE mods. Maybe a + to Growth, because there's so many different kinds of Pokemon? Maybe a + to research, because Pokemon is all about discovering new things? Maybe a + to Planet, because Pokemon is all about "capturing native life forms?"--but no, capturing a lot of fungus would work against the "all-artillery" idea, and plus, fungus doesn't look anything like Pokemon. So, maybe some minuses in Planet, to discourage building a native army. How about this:

+1 SUPPORT (to encourage proliferation of units--those Pokemon are everywhere!)
+1`GROWTH (again, Pokemon proliferation)
-2 PLANET (to discourage forming a native army)

Well, it's a stab, at least. I'm kind of unhappy with the Planet thing, because capturing mindworms really does obviously correlate to capturing Pokemon, except of course for the fact that Pokemon are all different, and fungus is all the same. Hmm. Maybe a slight re-tooling of my Surly Underclass faction (see my post elsewhere) would be appropriate, thinking along the lines of "capturing by probe-team"="capturing by Poke-ball". Here's how that might work:

(throwing the all-artillery thing out the window)
2% Interest on energy reserves/turn (money for probe team captures)
+2 PROBE (makes capturing easy)
-3 SUPPORT (makes it hard to build lots of units)
-2 INDUSTRY (makes it hard to build lots of units)
+2 GROWTH (lots of workers will be needed to provide the minerals to support the army)

Of course, one could take a whole different tack, and make a faction called the POKEMANIACS--the nation that united around the desire to play Pokemon 24 hours a day:

+3 RESEARCH (populace loves gadgetry)
-2 MORALE (populace too busy playing Pokemon to effectively train as soldiers)
-2 INDUSTRY (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome at epidemic levels)

Well, there's my initial thoughts on the matter. Anyone else?

(Editing my message: I was so tickled by the "all-artillery" idea, I had to go try it out. It works! You can try to design a non-artillery unit, and it'll look like you've succeeded in the unit workshop, but the game will turn it into an artillery unit once you close the workshop. This opens up whole new possibilities--what if you modifies all the existing factions to be artillery-only? Oh, drat, I keep forgetting about that whole thing that makes artillery vs. artillery a fight to the death... rats...)

[This message has been edited by Helium Pond (edited March 30, 2000).]

[Jasonian]

quote: Originally posted by Helium Pond on 03-30-2000 04:21 AM Well, it's really too bad you can't make custom units for a faction, because it would be great fun to make a pokemon faction with all those cute little guys running around, fighting against the stiff-looking 3D infantry of SMAC/X.

Who says?

Anyway, "all artillery" sounds fun. How about "all drop" or "all sporrific gas pods"... or all three! That would be great! Give all 7 factions gravitron theory, those abilityes, and a small map. Hmmm....

[Helium Pond]

Is there a way to give one faction its own unit art? I thought if you changed the unit art, it changed for all factions in the game.

I think only one faction should be all-artillery, otherwise it just turns into the same old game, minus armor and proximity balances.

[Jasonian]

You could create some custom units and only allow them to be built with a certain tech... and give that tech to the Pokemon faction at the begining. That is possible.

My 'all artillery ect' idea was off-topic. It would make an interesting game, but it's not for this mod.

[Helium Pond]

Hmmmm, really? That's an interesting idea... I haven't been watching these forums too closely, is it possible to create graphics for custom units? How do you do that?

Sorry about knee-jerking negatively about an all-artillery/drop/gas game. Actually, the more I think about it, the cooler it sounds. An insanely combative game in which, once built, any unit can drop itself anywhere! Neat...

[Helium Pond]

Okay, so, now that we've seen that it's possible to add units for just one faction--what do you think would be good specs for Pokemon units? If we can come up with 12 or 15 good units I may be tempted to actually make this mod. Obviously, we can't do all of them--151? 152?--because I just wouldn't want to put in the time. But what are our favorite Pokemon, and how would they act?

Picachu, of course, *has* to be in there, along with Squirtle, Charmander, Bulbasaur, Meowth, and Mew. Who else is a must-have? I've only played the game about halfway through, and I've only seen the show a couple times, so I don't know who the most essential Pokemon are. Snorlax? Poliwhirl? Jigglypuff? I really like Psyduck, just for his paranoid face. I see Gengar on promotional stuff, is he a fan fave?

Oh, man, I just came up with the best idea for this mod! It's a way to make all the Pokemon have to travel with a trainer! What you do is, you base all the pokemon units on the chopper chassis, but with 0 movement. Then, you make a new unit called ASH (and maybe one called GARY or just TRAINER also) which is basically a land transport, on an infantry chassis, with a carrier deck! Naturally, you give it a carrying capacity of 6. That way, you have to build the trainer so he can carry all your Pokemon around! The only worry is, can a unit with 0 movement make an attack? If not, I'd have to make the Pokemon have 1/3 of a move, or something. Hmmm... if only there would be a way to make non-Pokemon units unable to "board" the Trainer...

I think all the Pokemon should be psi units, because that fits best with the whole "training" idea. Unforunately, that means that Psyduck can't be the only psi Pokemon unit, but oh well. I'm having a really hard time thinking of good ways to specialize the units, however. Anybody? Maybe they should just have different defense/offense bonuses. Some more help is needed in this department.

[Jasonian]

Whoa there! Three things:

1) You can only create 3 custom graphics for units without deleting stuff. The rest would have to have normal pictures.

2) All untits have a minimum of 1 move, even if you try to give them less.

3) The AI would be a moron with those trainer things.

[Jasonian]

Some random ideas:

Pikachu:
2 move points (Quick attack, generally energetic)
Artillery ('projectile' based thunder attacks)
SAM (strong against flying)

Mew (or MewTwo):
Empath Song/Hypnotic Trance (Awesome psycic powers)
PSI attack (but not PSI defence)

Bulbasaur:
Artillery (seed/wind attacks)
Perhaps a terraformer?!

Squirtle:
Amphibious Pods/Marine Detachment (water superiority)

Couldn't think of something for Meowth. Perhaps a probe team? We would need a flying one to give Drop Pods to, and maybe a Lapras to be a Sea Transport.

[Helium Pond]

Man, that really bites about only being able to have three units! I'm racking my brain trying to think of a way around that. What if I modified the units.pcx file so that it had more rows? Do you think that would work?

Nice ideas on the PokeMon, Jasonian! Good thinking. Yeah, Meowth as a Probe Team makes good sense, cuz then he can steal money, just like his Pay Day attack.

My current thinking is, forget making a PokeFaction. The best thing to do for a PokeMod, is make the PokeMon come out of unity pods! You keep the trainer-as-transport idea, but make the Trainer a new basic unit that anyone can build. That way, each player can go out trawling for PokeMon and find different ones! Is there a way to specify that a custom unit should be included in the Pod lotto?

Obviously, the AI would suck at using the Trainer. But it would be a fun mod for a multiplayer game! The other thing is, it solves the problem of how powerful to make the PokeMon. If you're making the PokeMon specific to a PokeFaction, you have to make sure they're not too powerful. If they're equally available to all factions, via colony pods, they can be as powerful as seems appropriate! I think it would be fun to play a PBEM game where we all had different, powerful PokeMon. That suits the PokeMon concept better than just having one faction, I think.
[This message has been edited by Helium Pond (edited April 06, 2000).]

[Sinapus]

quote: Originally posted by Jasonian on 03-30-2000 06:05 PM Who says? Anyway, "all artillery" sounds fun. How about "all drop" or "all sporrific gas pods"... or all three! That would be great! Give all 7 factions gravitron theory, those abilityes, and a small map. Hmmm....

I tried making a faction which got drop pods with the right tech and.... it didn't work. It *said* they had drop pods, but I couldn't make airdrops. Kept insisting I didn't have drop pods. *sigh* Oh well.

Of course, the thought of a Pokemon faction inspires the frightening thought that Team Rocket might show up...

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|"Anything I can do to help?" "Um. Short of dying? No, can't think of a |
| thing." -Morden, Vir. 'Interludes and Examinations' -Babylon 5 |


[This message has been edited by Sinapus (edited April 07, 2000).]

[Helium Pond]

So, no one knows how to make custom units come out of unity pods?

[Jasonian]

It doesn't work? Dang! There's gotta be a way around.

I believe Unity Pods are out of our control... which sucks, because they could act like Pokeballs and have random guys come out!

I could make the custom graphics for the new units. Assuming you get rid of Battle Ogres, ALL mindworms, and alien artifacts, we could have 9 different graphics.

[Helium Pond]

I'm very curious about modifying the .pcx file. I've worked in computer games, and I'm familiar with the kind of system that the units.pcx file seems to be using. It is probably just counting the boxes from the top left box down, and it probably doesn't have an internal limit on the box size, only a graphic one. In other words, if we modified units.pcx so that it had more rows, it might very well be possible to add many, many more units.

Yeah, the art for a PokeMod would be really easy. I'm not so sure that we can't do pods yet. I need to play with all this, and I don't have the time right now. But I will.

[Jasonian]

I already tried to add another row, and created a 'smiley face' picture, and replaced it with a scout patrol. Didn't work.