Torture Mod, Ongoing Discussions

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Gluegun
I would like to find some sort of mod like this... what is the status of these sorts of mods?? Did this get finished? ???

Don't know the status of the Torture mod - it may be lost in the mists of time. However, you can implement the changes to your Alphax.txt yourself. The SMAC Academy has an article called "Guide to Editing the Alpha.txt File" which is very straightforward. FYI.


D

[gwillybj]

Old Threads Never Die
They Just Hang There
Waiting to be Pulled

It does look like the Torture Mod as described herein got shelved, though.
fwiw, I incorporated several ideas from this thread into a heavily edited alpha.txt for my solo games and posted the details here on 26Jan2003: my alpha.txt changes. Although it received almost no feedback within the thread, a few people downloaded the zip, and I received a couple of direct messages of a positive nature. I posted a revision in that thread on 21Nov2003.
I recently obtained Alien Crossfire, am making similar alterations to it, and will post my alphax.txt changes with the reasoning and excuses .

[The Mad Monk]

While pulling up threads this old is typically frowned upon, I think this was a good catch -- a few of those factions may soon find their way onto my computer!

[Impaler[WrG]]

I too have taken a look at this project and would like to see new discussions on all aspects, I will likly incorporate some or all of your ideas in my personal Single Player games and if we are successfull perhaps even a Multiplayer game or two to tweek the Mod would be a nice idea.

Some additonal ideas I had:

Make a modified version of each of the Factions, focusing on overall balance and on any balance changes needed specificaly for the Mod. In addition new abilites might be added to each faction as their are several unused paramiters such as interest or freeability that are functional and can be used to spice the factions up a bit. I was thinking of adding DeepRadar to all Spartan Units, NonLethal Methods to the Hive, Trance to the Gaians ect ect.

Making the games Tec Progression smother and avoiding the late game Tec explosion. My idea is to enchance Early game Energy collection from a variety or sources and decresse late game energy sources. Then aply an overall tec stagnation to the whole thing thus keeping the early game to about ware it is now wial having a significant slow down in the late game which is what many of us are interested in.

Keep the Population growth of all factions closer together by incressing the Nuts per Row. Aplying -1 Growth to None Future Society and reducing growth bonues earlier in the game.

Changing the names and clasification of many Tecs to more acurately reflect what they do. For Example Air Power is an explore tec when its got Purely Military aplications. And having a Secret Project called the Human Genome Project is a bit lame when that feat has already been completed on Earth. Recomend we call that the Human Eugenics Program as that would be a bit cooler and be consistent with the effect of the Project.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Lets do a run down of Each Secret Project and everyone give their opinion on if it should go UP in the tec tree or DOWN. Give a general sense of when you think it should be or a specific tec if you like.

> The Human Genome Project, Up one level perhaps
> The Command Nexus, Good
> The Weather Paradigm, Up quite a bit, Ecological Enginering perhaps
> The Merchant Exchange,
> The Empath Guild, Up again, Centuri Meditation
> The Citizens' Defense Force, Good
> The Virtual World, UP to Optical Computers or later
> The Planetary Transit System, Up well past the point when you will be hitting the Buracracy limit and thus already have most of your bases, Super Conductors perhaps
> The Neural Amplifier, Good
> The Maritime Control Center, Good
> The Planetary Datalinks, Good
> The Supercollider, Good
> The Longevity Vaccine, Good
> The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, Good
> The Cyborg Factory, Good asuming MMI overall is weakened like moving Copter to a differnt tec
> The Theory of Everything, Good
> The Dream Twister, Good
> The Universal Translator, Good if late game tecnolgy can be slowed enough to make 2 tecs desirable by this point
> The Network Backbone, Good
> The Nano Factory, Good
> The Cloning Vats, Up a bit
> The Self-Aware Colony, Down a bit, +2 Support aint much
> Clinical Immortality, Good
> The Space Elevator, Good
> The Singularity Inductor, Down a Lot as its on the Doorstep of Trancendence
> The Bulk Matter Transmitter, Down a Lot, Posibly filling gap vacated by Planetary Transit System
> The Telepathic Matrix, Good
> The Manifold Harmonics, Good
> The Nethack Terminus, Down a bit
> The Cloudbase Academy, Way up, beyond Orbital space flight
> The Planetary Energy Grid, Good

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
I too have taken a look at this project and would like to see new discussions on all aspects, I will likly incorporate some or all of your ideas in my personal Single Player games and if we are successfull perhaps even a Multiplayer game or two to tweek the Mod would be a nice idea.

Some additonal ideas I had:

Make a modified version of each of the Factions, focusing on overall balance and on any balance changes needed specificaly for the Mod. In addition new abilites might be added to each faction as their are several unused paramiters such as interest or freeability that are functional and can be used to spice the factions up a bit. I was thinking of adding DeepRadar to all Spartan Units, NonLethal Methods to the Hive, Trance to the Gaians ect ect.

Heah Impaler [WrG],

concerning the two items above: I have already modified my Alphax.txt a great deal to reflect the previous discussion, as well as change out the units for the 8th Faction. What I have done is do a second loading of SMAX onto my D: Drive, and am building the mod for the game there. If you want, I can E-Mail you what I have to date, and you can try it out and see what you think.
As far as modifying the Faction Files are concerned, why I am building my mod to start in MY2492, with an ending date around MY3000, so I would need new Factions (or at least Faction Leaders) to populate this mod with, as the original Faction Leaders aren't likely to be leading their Factions in MY2492. If you are going to concentrate on this area, let me know, as I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with.


D

[waab]

I think this thread is very intresting, and I must say that I am very intressted playing/testing anything that is created after this thread.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Well actualy the Games storyline seems to indicate some kind of Gene Therapy keeps the leaders alive for long enough for them to eventualy achive Clinical Imortality (and contunie to rule their Faction as a Brain in a Jar). So in my mind their nothing wrong with having the original leaders.

On the other hand you likly had your heart set on new leaders, I cant do portraits but I might put to gether some paper factions. Were your thinking of having very focused and weird factions or onces that are just the originals but with a new name. Or pehaps hybirds of some sort?

[Gluegun]

Actually, they stay human for the entire time... even if its lategame, tech and timewise, they still can do the human things like going to other bases (ie, if an opposing faction captures a base of yours...), and the "faction defeated" animation shows a *human*... doesn't Gene Therapy let pretty much just the leaders and maybe a few others be long-lived, and Clinical Immortality let a few individuals be immortal as a brain in a Jar, and the Longevity Vaccine let most *anyone* in your faction be long lived?