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Progress Report:
I’ve opened the Alphax.txt file and have begun the (insert several “choice” words here) process of making the changes necessary….UGH….man, what a way to cause blindness! But, a good deal of progress was made, and here are some of the highlights:
Three new techs added:
Basic Rocketry
Advanced Rocketry
Perpetual Motion Mechancis
Notes here: Basic Rocketry is actually pre-air power, and is now one of the pre-requisites for that tech—I was looking for a way to delay DAP, and that seemed as good a way as any.
As promised, the orbital stuff has been moved forward a great deal, with hydrosats coming available at Basic Rocketry, mining sats at DAP, and energy sats at advanced rocketry.
PB’s are also available at Advanced Rocketry, and ODP’s are available at Orbital Spaceflight, so there is very definitely a window of opportunity to use “da bomb.”
The Quantum Reactor has been moved to the Perpetual Motion tech, which rests some 6-7(?) techs above fusion.
Discovery rate has been set to 35% of standard….I was using the PK’s as my “test faction” and found that on building my first base, my “next discovery” was listed at 27 years….not including the first ten years in which there was no research being done….that seems really harsh, but there’s no other way around it if you want the late game to have meaningful delays in tech acquisiton, and it certainly does give players a good reason to grow and expand! (I had experimented with setting tech discovery to 20% of standard, but that put my first tech arriving in 112 years, and I figured that might be just a shade overboard!)
The GeneJack factory is now the “Sweatshop,” and resides at Industrial Automation. Price remains unchanged, but the facility now has no upkeep cost—I figured that dealing with the extra drone was “upkeep” enough!
Hovertanks are available at Doctrine Initiative, as is deep pressure hull (and repair bay is somewhere nearby)
Hovertanks now serve as land-based transports with a capacity of four. I realize that given the size differences here, this creates a bit of a logic problem, but I think that viable land-based transports have a place in the game (and besides, it was kinna cool to have my Hover-Missile Launcher milling around my empire, lobbing missiles at enemy troops)
Messed around with the “slow” special ability, and if I could find a way to make slow units CHEAPER, it’d be a viable defensive option, but as it stands, slow units cost just as much as regular ones, so I’m not sure who would ever use this even if it WAS enabled…..
Heavy Transports have been enabled.
Terraformers are available from game start, with no pre-requisite technology.
Forests take an extra turn to plant.
It takes a LONG time (30 turns!) to raise and lower land.
Sensor Buoys may now be built at sea (not yet tested)
As discussed earlier, Clean Reactors, Nerve Gas, and the Supply Crawler have all been removed from the game.
The Chopper had its wings clipped.
The AI factions have been given a much greater interest in infrastructure.
Played out two partial test games and found it pretty tough goings! Even under market conditions and geared for research, the best I could do by 2200 was get tech in 9 (7 if I ruined my economy), so that part looks good!
AI Miriam is a BEAST! Twice in a row she actually got SotBH before anybody else!
Splinter Faction Notes:
Started with Ashaandi, since I suspect his faction will be the toughest one to balance. From my limited testing so far, I think I’ll need to do something further to bring the faction to heel, as I think they’ll still run away with the game.
With a –3 Support penalty and a –3 Morale, it sounds funny to say that I’m worried about them running away with the game, but consider:
1) No drone problems, ever….meaning they can ‘borg
2) The Support problem pretty much forces them to make Doctrine: Loyalty their first tech….but when they get it (and thank GOD it’ll take them a while!), their support rating goes from –5 to –3, suddenly allowing them to actually field some units….that’s when things start getting ugly.
I have not yet added in their free ability (just kinna bare bones at present), but when I do….I don’t think it’ll be hard at all for them to just run over everybody….I may have to give them an even harsher support penalty to keep them in check…dunno yet.
But, a pretty productive weekend….got a lot of the groundwork in place.
A question for you guys:
Are you basically happy with the SMAC tech tree, or would you be interested in seeing a re-design? I’ve got a new tree outlined, and I’ve tested it a few times….it works pretty well I guess, but in taking a close look at the existing tree, I’m surprisingly happy with the way it’s put together…..I made a few cosmetic changes to it, but nothing major in the mod so far (tho I DID save my re-designed tree in case there was interest in seeing it put in place).
More later….it’s back to the SMAX proof with me!
-=Vel=-
I’ve opened the Alphax.txt file and have begun the (insert several “choice” words here) process of making the changes necessary….UGH….man, what a way to cause blindness! But, a good deal of progress was made, and here are some of the highlights:
Three new techs added:
Basic Rocketry
Advanced Rocketry
Perpetual Motion Mechancis
Notes here: Basic Rocketry is actually pre-air power, and is now one of the pre-requisites for that tech—I was looking for a way to delay DAP, and that seemed as good a way as any.
As promised, the orbital stuff has been moved forward a great deal, with hydrosats coming available at Basic Rocketry, mining sats at DAP, and energy sats at advanced rocketry.
PB’s are also available at Advanced Rocketry, and ODP’s are available at Orbital Spaceflight, so there is very definitely a window of opportunity to use “da bomb.”
The Quantum Reactor has been moved to the Perpetual Motion tech, which rests some 6-7(?) techs above fusion.
Discovery rate has been set to 35% of standard….I was using the PK’s as my “test faction” and found that on building my first base, my “next discovery” was listed at 27 years….not including the first ten years in which there was no research being done….that seems really harsh, but there’s no other way around it if you want the late game to have meaningful delays in tech acquisiton, and it certainly does give players a good reason to grow and expand! (I had experimented with setting tech discovery to 20% of standard, but that put my first tech arriving in 112 years, and I figured that might be just a shade overboard!)
The GeneJack factory is now the “Sweatshop,” and resides at Industrial Automation. Price remains unchanged, but the facility now has no upkeep cost—I figured that dealing with the extra drone was “upkeep” enough!
Hovertanks are available at Doctrine Initiative, as is deep pressure hull (and repair bay is somewhere nearby)
Hovertanks now serve as land-based transports with a capacity of four. I realize that given the size differences here, this creates a bit of a logic problem, but I think that viable land-based transports have a place in the game (and besides, it was kinna cool to have my Hover-Missile Launcher milling around my empire, lobbing missiles at enemy troops)
Messed around with the “slow” special ability, and if I could find a way to make slow units CHEAPER, it’d be a viable defensive option, but as it stands, slow units cost just as much as regular ones, so I’m not sure who would ever use this even if it WAS enabled…..
Heavy Transports have been enabled.
Terraformers are available from game start, with no pre-requisite technology.
Forests take an extra turn to plant.
It takes a LONG time (30 turns!) to raise and lower land.
Sensor Buoys may now be built at sea (not yet tested)
As discussed earlier, Clean Reactors, Nerve Gas, and the Supply Crawler have all been removed from the game.
The Chopper had its wings clipped.
The AI factions have been given a much greater interest in infrastructure.
Played out two partial test games and found it pretty tough goings! Even under market conditions and geared for research, the best I could do by 2200 was get tech in 9 (7 if I ruined my economy), so that part looks good!
AI Miriam is a BEAST! Twice in a row she actually got SotBH before anybody else!
Splinter Faction Notes:
Started with Ashaandi, since I suspect his faction will be the toughest one to balance. From my limited testing so far, I think I’ll need to do something further to bring the faction to heel, as I think they’ll still run away with the game.
With a –3 Support penalty and a –3 Morale, it sounds funny to say that I’m worried about them running away with the game, but consider:
1) No drone problems, ever….meaning they can ‘borg
2) The Support problem pretty much forces them to make Doctrine: Loyalty their first tech….but when they get it (and thank GOD it’ll take them a while!), their support rating goes from –5 to –3, suddenly allowing them to actually field some units….that’s when things start getting ugly.
I have not yet added in their free ability (just kinna bare bones at present), but when I do….I don’t think it’ll be hard at all for them to just run over everybody….I may have to give them an even harsher support penalty to keep them in check…dunno yet.
But, a pretty productive weekend….got a lot of the groundwork in place.
A question for you guys:
Are you basically happy with the SMAC tech tree, or would you be interested in seeing a re-design? I’ve got a new tree outlined, and I’ve tested it a few times….it works pretty well I guess, but in taking a close look at the existing tree, I’m surprisingly happy with the way it’s put together…..I made a few cosmetic changes to it, but nothing major in the mod so far (tho I DID save my re-designed tree in case there was interest in seeing it put in place).
More later….it’s back to the SMAX proof with me!
-=Vel=-
Redesigns are fun. But there is a point somewhere where a Patch (ala Hydromechanics) becomes a New Game (Star Wars Mod), or something in between (SNAC). I think you've crossed over into the New Game area. So my advice, don't settle for half-way. But of course, you could expect I would say that. It's just that it's pretty hard to view major changes as good 'ol Smac. The game will play differently, have different strategies across the board, etc., so whatever makes it the best possible 'New Game' the better, once crossing that line, IMO.
. What I mean is, since some of these things are going to be similar between Aldebaran and the Torture mod, does this class of mods need it's own name? Super-smac? Chuckles. 
and it still doesn't look right.)
(and Aki and Zak will have more problems that probes...)
and I've seen that someone has downloaded my changes... 
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