Some minor alterations to SMAX proper

[DeathandGravity]

Hello Apolyton. For a longer and more detailed hello, see here.

Despite not knowing one end of a crawler from another until fairly recently, I do know my way around simple modding of the game, and have actually done a bit of this for my own amusement for years. I've never intended a total-conversion mod like SMAniaC, but recently I decided I wanted to fix some of the things I thought were problems in SMAX proper, without mucking around with it too much. Reading these forums over the last month, particularly comments in two threads on Tim the beginners modding thread and Marid Audran's SMAX Mod have greatly informed some of the changes I've made.

To this end, I have done the following:

Units / Weapons / Abilities
Native life costs cheapened to encourage building them (MW 30, IoD 60, LoC 80, Spore Launcher 30, SeaLurk 50, moved to Centauri Genetics)
Hovertanks available at Monopole Magnets (come too late otherwise)
Gravships available at Advanced Spaceflight (see hovertanks)
Chopper movement halved to 4 (to curb chop and drop)
Gravship movement reduced to 6 (they come earlier so need less range, and shouldn't have the range of a Needlejet)
Unity Scout Chopper has air superiority removed (just slows it down, and makes no sense at all. Also, chopper only has 4 moves unless this is done)
Unity foil no longer slow (so they can actually, you know, get to their first pod and die horribly a little faster)
Plasma Shard cost/dmg changed to 14, moved to Super Tensile Solids (otherwise I almost never build Fusion Lasers or Resonance Bolts)
Hypnotic Trance moved to Progenitor Psych (because I never bother to get it otherwise, and it just makes more sense here)
Carrier Deck moved to Doctrine: Air Power (because it comes way too late to be useful otherwise)
Heavy artillery disallowed for fast moving units (AI artillery is useless, and I'd rather it didn't build it as much)

Question: Are NL units still too expensive? I still don't build them.

Terraforming
All Factions start with a former, except Caretakers / Usurpers (doubt they're standard issue on scout ships, and both are powerful enough as it is) and Planet Cult (have other advantages, see later).
Road, forest, kelp available from the start (minimal tech required, encourage AI forests).
Farms require Centauri Ecology
Solar, Mine, Tidal Harness, Mining Platform require Industrial Base (well, they would).
Soil Enrichers moved to Gene Splicing (I had never, ever built one until I moved them, and still only build them at 2000m+ altitude where the solar energy is good. But the AI loves farm/solar, farm/mine where it should use forest, and this makes them suck a little less. Also, enriching soil is more complicated than drilling 20km into the planet? Really?)
Mag Tubes pushed back to Nanominiaturization (swapped for Hovertanks, movement points mean something for a little longer)
Different techs give fungus bonuses (to help the useless Planet Cult, and make red factions more viable):
+1 Nutrients - Centauri Ecology
+1 Energy - Centauri Empathy
+1 Minerals - Bioadaptive Resonance
+1 Energy - Centauri Meditation
+1 Nutrients - Centauri Genetics
+1 Minerals - Centauri Psi
+1 Energy - Secrets of Alpha Centauri

Question: I really want to put boreholes at Advanced Ecological Engineering, but if I do I have to put The Weather Paradigm at Ecological Engineering (Condensers and Echelons at Environmental Economics) and I'm worried that The Weather Paradigm will give too much of an early borehole advantage if I do this. Thoughts?

Facilities / Projects
Moved Robotic Factory to Industrial Automation, cost to 16 (all the mineral-boosting buildings come way too late)
Moved Nanoreplicator to Industrial Nanorobotics, cost to 24 (32? really? it's more than a secret project? and so much more than the later Quantum Converter?)
Swapped Ascetic Virtues with Planetary Energy Grid (tech descriptions make more sense, and project power is more appropriate to tech level)
Swapped Virtual World and Planetary Datalinks (see above)
Moved Cyborg factory to Biomachinery (MMI too awesome)
Moved Cloning Vats to Homo Superior
Moved Universal Translator to Centauri Psi

Question: Should the cost of Nanoreplicator actually stay at 320? To preserve Genejack / Robotic Factory and Quantum Converter / Nanoreplicator price symmetry? Or maybe 300?

Social Engineering
Politics, Economics, Values, Society,
Simple, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -ECONOMY, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +GROWTH, -POLICE, --SUPPORT
Theocratic, Brain, +POLICE, +MORALE, ++PROBE, --RESEARCH
Subsistence, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --PLANET, ----POLICE
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, --GROWTH
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, +POLICE, --INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, -POLICE, --PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, +INDUSTRY, +ECONOMY, --MORALE, -TALENT
Frontier, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, ++RESEARCH, ---POLICE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++INDUSTRY, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, ---SUPPORT

Arrgh! Here I'm really stuck. You can see what I've done. I liked Marid Audran's renaming of Fundamentalist; it had bothered me too. I liked a lot of the things he did to make the choices the AI often picks less sucky, and reign in some of the more awesome choices like Knowledge and Wealth. I lessened the huge penalties on free market because I had increased them on Democratic / Knowledge, and extra energy is useless without more efficiency from those choices.

I liked Marid’s idea of making pop booms hard, hence only +1 Growth for Democracy, but I also wanted to give it a police penalty. -2 support is meaningless mid-game, and -1 police is actually sensible; I don't think you'd get away with nerve stapling that easily in a Democracy. Also, I wanted it to be hard to make war under a free market Democracy, but possible under a Theocracy or Police State/Free Market/Power combo without much trouble, since the AI likes to run this. It also amused me to think that the U.S. could be considered a Free Market, Power, Theocracy type society, and has an ok time making war until their values swing back to wealth, the drones come out, and they grumble if more than one military unit is away from home…

Anyway, should I give Free Market its original penalties back? Did I nerf Democratic too much? I don't know.

I thought that having Cybernetic give a planet bonus was stupid; there was really no reason for it to be there. Robotic control of industry would likely lead to more pollution not less, as the health of human workers is no longer a concern. Also, it would mean better industry, hence the change. I would like to put that +1 or +2 planet back somewhere, but I don't know where. (+1 Planet in Eudaimonic in place of 1 point of growth? +1 Planet in Knowledge? They’re already both so powerful...) I also toyed with adding -1 planet to frontier society (my renamed "none" for future society, now just society) as in SMAniaC, as it was one of the changes I really liked. It means the Gaians can't wander from their crash site in year one and go "Oh! Hello psionic terror-inducing ravenous alien hellspawn, will you be my friend?" and get free mindworms, which I always thought was dumb (and overpowered on abundant life maps). The Cult, on the other hand, can do this (Cha Dawn is born of the fungus and all that).

Problem is, this really locks some societies out of ever getting a decent planet rating, and putting in another -1 Planet makes life harder for the Cult. Is this a bad thing? Thoughts?

Factions
Everyone gets a former, apart from Aliens and the Cult, as mentioned earlier.
Set conquer to 0 and build to 1 for *all* factions. Anyone with conquer of 1 tends to end up with next to no production pretty damned fast, even with build at 1. Build actually makes them a lot more dangerous. Untouched aggression values still mean war, and it's often more fun because they have a better industrial base (even just having built recycling tanks everywhere makes a huge difference).

Gaians: No changes
Hive: Now have robust efficiency and Impunity, Police State (not quite so awesome as the Immunity that they had before)
Believers: Now have Impunity, Theocratic (they are already a theocracy really, and suck quite enough at research as it is)
Spartans: Impunity, Power (AI really kills its industry with this choice, and Spartans usually suck in the mid game anyway)
Morgan: Population limit raised to 5 (Morgan AI is often crippled by low population)
University: Impunity, Knowledge (to prevent Probe roll-under bug, until / if I ever get scient's mod)
Peacekeepers: No change (thought of lowering votes bonus to 50%, is this a bit mean?)

Cybernetic Consciousness: -1 support (still too powerful?)
Drones: -1 Planet (still too powerful?)
Angels: Only start with Planetary Networks, agenda changed to Knowledge, have Immunity, Probe. (too powerful again? wanted to avoid the probe bugs)
Pirates: No changes
Cult: Only start with Centauri Ecology, but have +1Nutrients and +1Minerals in Fungus (so fungus is 2,1,0 at start, and 2,2,2 at same tech level as tree farms. Cult is not quite so crap anymore, though I don't think the AI gets it.)
Caretakers: No changes
Usurpers: No changes

So there it is. I'm not sure on a lot of things, so feel free to tell me something I've done is stupid. I really want to balance the Social Engineering better, but in a not so dramatic way as SMAaniC. I've toyed with adding more effects to the starting choices, but I'm not exactly sure what would be appropriate, though I do keep coming back to the idea of -1 Planet in "Society" category, and maybe a +1 Police for survival values, +1 efficiency for simple "direct" politics, something like that.

I’ve thought about moving (or removing) crawlers, but I can’t see a good place to put them (from an "appropriate tech" perspective). I don’t really abuse them still; I limit myself to 3 or 4 per base; no crawler parks for me. I also though about moving Hab Complexes, but with easy pop booming disabled, it doesn’t really matter that they’re relatively early, and again, I couldn’t see a good place for them in the tech tree (Silksteel Alloys or Synthetic Fossil Fuels?)

Has anyone made a mod that’s still considered to be SMAX, but has fixed all the minor gameplay issues? Am I pointlessly retreading old ground? I liked the look of Marid’s mod (obviously) but wanted to do a bit more in some areas. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[Mart]

...
Has anyone made a mod that’s still considered to be SMAX, but has fixed all the minor gameplay issues?

Hi DeathandGravity,
We all have somewhat different vision of what perfect smacx could be. And then with time we usually discover few more things about the game, that we haven't noticed for years, so....
But there are few things that most of players agree: weak AI compared to experienced player, even on Transcend, overpowered copters, etc.

Am I pointlessly retreading old ground?

No, we still have new ideas, after 10 years of the game modding of smacx is very fun to do.

I liked the look of Marid’s mod (obviously) but wanted to do a bit more in some areas. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Assemble some modded files, recently smacx is revived a bit more, after few "quiet" years, so chances are they will be tested soon.

[Quadhelix]

Moved Robotic Factory to Industrial Automation, cost to 16 (all the mineral-boosting buildings come way too late)

IMO, that makes it available way too early in the game: the Genejack Factory is supposed to come first because it provides the same advantage but with a very important disadvantage (more drones). However, the prerequisite for the Genejack Factory (Retroviral Engineering) requires Bio-Engineering, which requires Neural Grafting, which requires Industrial Automation.

Instead of moving up the Robotic Assembly Plant, why not move the Genejack Factory (to, say, Bio-Engineering, or even Gene Splicing if you want it available really early).

Actually, looking at the tech tree, the only reason that Industrial Automation would come well before Industrial Nanorobotics (as I thought it did) is the need for Nanominiaturization. Of course, Nanominiaturization requires Organic Superlube, which requires Fusion Power, which does, indeed, place Industrial Nanorobotics well after its prerequisite Industrial Automation.

Moved Nanoreplicator to Industrial Nanorobotics, cost to 24 (32? really? it's more than a secret project? and so much more than the later Quantum Converter?)

Well, from the "fluff," a Nanoreplicator (think Star Trek) would require Matter Editation, rather than "simple" Industrial Nanorobotics.

Also, IIRC, the Nanoreplicator, in addition to boosting mineral production, also acts as a Centauri Preserve-type structure.

I thought that having Cybernetic give a planet bonus was stupid; there was really no reason for it to be there. Robotic control of industry would likely lead to more pollution not less, as the health of human workers is no longer a concern. Also, it would mean better industry, hence the change.

Not that I'm against giving Cybernetic an Industry bonus, but you've kind of missed the whole point:

In the far future, citizens may turn many of the tasks of governing society over to artificially intelligent computers, increasing
efficiency and freeing individuals for more creative tasks. But will
workers displaced by computers sink into despair, poverty, and
possible unrest?

So the Efficiency, Industry, and Planet boosts would all be explained by the fact that computers are regulating the industry for maximum efficiency. There are still human workers, but their positions/duties are determined by the computerized government.

Spartans: Impunity, Power (AI really kills its industry with this choice, and Spartans usually suck in the mid game anyway)

On a side note, what about the possibility of replacing the Spartan's Industry penalty with a Support penalty? This, as I have noted elsewhere, reflects their tendency for a small, well trained fighting force without significantly affecting their infrastructure in other areas.