Torture Mod, Ongoing Discussions

[Blake]

Wouldn't the nuts 2->3 be a little too extreme , considering the starting SE penalties, slower research and elimination of crawlers? It would also make ICS look incredibly attractive, due to the extraordinary challenge of increasing a bases population above size 2.

A better solution to forest n' forget is changing forest to 1 nut, 2 mins. With no energy from forests solar panels look a lot more attractive

[korn469]

ok first i wanted to note that i also added a -1 morale penalty to none future society, just because i think it is way too easy to get unit right out of the box, and this means that power is of little use as an SE choice

Vel

ok here is my comments on your splinter factions

The Heretics of Chiron:
ok i think they should have an SE aversion (probably planned...they don't want it's bloated industries despoiling planet) and you mentioned in your notes that they get a moral bonus...are you talking about their planet rating or did you forget to add a bonus?

DataPirates:
i think that they too should have an SE adversion (police state seems a natural) also i do not think they should start with a former...instead their starting unit should be a probe team (you yourself said they were lazy hackers)

my only problem is that this faction might be a powerhouse in disguise...with dem/FM/know they would be
+2 probe
+2 economy +1 energy per square
+4 efficiency paradigm economy
+2 research
-2 support
-3 planet
-7 police
so i think changing their +1 effic to something else is in order...because the only factions that can get +2 econ and +4 effic in the early game from SE alone is the cyborgs and morgan

The Circle of Ashaandi:
ok maybe i'm crazy but i think that the circle looks way under powered...first thing
*change their penalties to -2 support and -2 morale
*change the built in blink to built in cloak devices (they are sneaky assassins...this might not change single player very much but this would make them deadly in multiplayer)
*give the circle a +25% bonus to PSI combat
*drop the starting former
*replace the former with a custom unit that has an infantry chassis, fission reactor, psi attack, and psi defense
*keep the punishment sphere
*add drone, 3 to faction text, so they really would need punishment spheres
*keep sharetech 3
if you implement all of those changes then p-spheres would be vital to the circle, and they would have more of a telepathic assassin feel because of their starting unit, the free cloaking device, and the psi combat bonus, and they would still have fairly significant penalties...such as problems being able to pop boom (no golden ages and significant problems running dem), a fairly small and weak conventional army...research penalties

Honshu’s Militia:
they seem like a fairly balanced faction, though i do think that they should have an SE aversion, but i'm just not sure what would suit them the best...
*change robust morale to Morale, 0
MORALE = Morale modifier if 0, indicates an exemption from negative modifiers from other sources
and i think they need one more small positive benefit i'm just not sure what though...but like i said something small because i think they are just about right

as for the other factions i'm not really getting any vibes on them yet...but i will post more soon

blake

i really don't think it would be too harsh, and i think it encourages players to really terraform their land...plus the fact that bases can die of starvation seems like a feature that is very fitting to this mod...possibly the amount of food from a soil enricher could be increased by 1

plus the inefficiency penalties will work to help curb ICS

[Velociryx]

Hello all! (and good to see your name popping up here Korn!)

Excellent points raised all ‘round….I like the ideas presented in Korn’s thread re: the SE table, and am currently digesting all that information, with an eye toward implementing many (and likely most) of those ideas, mixing them with the ideas already in place.

I’m a little leery about fiddling too much with the N’s required per citizen, mostly because we’ve already got some pretty harsh growth penalties built in. Those, combined with the higher per citizen nutrient requirements may very nearly paralyze the game in the early goings. I totally agree that it’d make it more realistic (which is exactly what I’m shooting for), but I’m worried about the frustration factor….I’m wondering if anybody will want to play a game where it takes 60 years for a base to grow from size 1 to size 2.

So….I’m sitting here with this mountain of ideas, currently trying to make them mesh into a workable, more realistic system while at the same time preserving the fun factor of the game…tough balancing act….LOL…I’m not sure I’m cut out to do this stuff for a living, but we’ll see how it goes.

Tech Tree:
I’ve not yet seen Smack’s mod, but I’m very curious to see what he did with the tech tree.

Specifically, I like the idea of re-arranging things so that certain powerful SP’s must be reached via dead end branches on the tree. That’s good stuff, and it’s prompted me to do a bit of thinking along those lines.

What I’m working with at the moment is the notion of breaking the tech tree down into several major categories (akin to the game’s “build, explore, conquer, discover” paradigms, but more specialized).

Tentatively, those categories are:
Power (reactor-types)
Resonance (resonance)
Guns (weapons)
Butter (restriction lifting)
Defenses (armor and other defensive techs)
Vehicles (chassis research)

And further, I really like the idea of having separate research branches for certain SP’s. No specific thoughts on this yet, but I’m breaking out the index cards as well, and plan to see how much I can do with it.

Wish me luck….

-=Vel=-

[Avenoct]

Vel,

Just a quick note before you dismantle the tree...I suspect building a tech tree is varyingly difficult depending on how a person's brain is wired. For me, it was darn difficult, and if I had to do it again, I'd approach it a liitle differently. So I'll outline the two approaches I've used as a sort of testimonial. Maybe it'll help you make the changes you'd like, a bit easier.

1. The 'Patch' Approach. Instead of wiping out the tree, I think next time I'd try to change the existing tree one tech at a time. This way, each inter-dependent relationship gets addressed as you go, you are able to make the 'important' changes first, and I think over all, less work has to be done. On the other hand, the tech tree would become a mix of your ideas, and those of the original game.

2. The 'Rewrite'. This is obvious. 77 techs, 20 Special Abilities, 3 Restrictions...etc... What helped me was that I assigned variables to the different levels in the tree. all the techs you can research without a prereq (the starting seven I call them) get the variables A1, B1, C1, D1, etc. The next level of techs uses these variables in their sub name, so C2 uses A1 and C1. The third level of techs can only be researched if some tech from the second level has been learned. That's what distingushes the 'levels'. So, C3 might depend on D1, and C2. It's full sub-name is now: C3 (A1C1C2D1). This makes it easy to see how many techs are required to 'beeline' to this tech, C3.

I know that everyone approaches these kind of logic-problems differently, but I thought I'd share part of my methodology to toss in the think tank.

One more thing. A tech can be a prereq for any number of other techs, but the display (F2) only works for 4-techs-branching from here.

-Good luck, and happy Crawlering!
-Smack

[Nadexander]

I think the minuses for frontier/simple/survival is a great idea. However, this may wind up hampering the ai more than expected because i notice that the ai will run these choices in SE even late into the game. Has anyone else noticed the ai factions running everything basic except for their agenda most of the time? Maybe just something to consider.

-Nadexander

[Avenoct]

Nadexander,

Yes, I have, and I have yet to fully experiment with this, but the line in the faction text r/e socio-economic dispostions affects this. I've been wondering if one could simply expand this:

'Politics, Democratic, GROWTH'
'Politics, Fundamentalism, nil'

to:

'Politics, Democratic, GROWTH, INDUSTRY, ECONOMY, EFFIC'
'Politics, Fundamentalism, nil'

or:

'Politics, Democratic, GROWTH'
'Politics, Democratic, EFFIC'
etc.
'Politics, Fundamentalism, nil'

-Smack

[Nadexander]

Keeping the AI out of SE trouble

On a similar note, is there a way to give the computer players preferences with out giving them more agendas? If not i think it would be best to simply give the AI's more agendas so that they are stuck with a certain well balanced SE configuration. Although it would reduce the AI's flexibility i think the AIs would perform much better if the possibility of screwing itself with social enginnering settings was removed. Any suggestions on some well balanced (i.e. usefull for most situations and with out any really debilitatin downsides) social engineering settings for the AI to use? The general idea is just to keep the AI out of trouble. This is what i came up with off the top of my head...

AGENDAS
Morgan: Demo/Green/Wealth
Zak: Demo/FM/Knowledge
Yang: PS/Planned/?
Diedre: ?/Green/Wealth
Lal: Demo/FM/Knowledge
Miriam ?/?/?
Spartans ?/Planned/Power

Roze: Demo/FM/?
Pirates: Demo/?/Knowledge
Domai: Demo/Planned/Wealth
Dawn: PS/Green/?
Cyborg: Demo/FM/Knowledge
Caretakers: Demo/Green/?
Usurpers: Fundy/Green/Power

A few concerns: I often see a faction like morgan run FM and demo (-3 support) and still have hordes of non-clean penetrators running around. Im sure this cant be healthy. I'll often see diedre or dawn not running green when a good chunk of their armies are native. Also not a good thing. Giving all the AIs the "build/explore/discover" priority for construction and research as someone mentioned in a previous thread will make presets for social enginnering more useful.

-Nadexander

[Scipio Centaurus]

Re: Keeping the AI out of SE trouble

Originally posted by Nadexander
...is there a way to give the computer players preferences with out giving them more agendas? If not i think it would be best to simply give the AI's more agendas so that they are stuck with a certain well balanced SE configuration... Any suggestions on some well balanced social engineering settings for the AI to use? ... This is what i came up with off the top of my head...

AGENDAS
Morgan: Demo/Green/Wealth
...
A few concerns: I often see a faction like morgan run FM and demo (-3 support) and still have hordes of non-clean penetrators running around. Im sure this cant be healthy...

-Nadexander

Sounds like a reasonable idea, but I think you may be allowing your judgement to be clouded on a couple of the proposed social agenda.

I play Morgan faction extensively, so I'll only comment on them. First it would be a little disingenuous to 'saddle' a free marketeer like Morgan with a green social agenda. Might as well make Dierdre use a free market agenda well we're at it. It just flys in the face of reality. I play Morgan as Democratic/FM/Wealth almost all the way. Sometimes if I have huge EC reserves I'll switch to Police/FM/Power to take someone out, but I usually switch right back to wealth accumulation when I get the chance. I suspect there is very little chance for the AI (or even a human player) to corner the global energy market without running the FM/Wealth combo.

The 'problems' I have experienced with Morgans FM settings are, as you suggest, non-clean penetrators (and strike copters and missiles) and naval combat vessels leaving their home base and causing drone problems. I solve the latter problem by building only defensive combat vessels until I'm ready to switch to military social settings. The combat vessels are just left on alert in various sea and coastal bases - no drone problems. In fact I think as long as a naval vessel moves only within the dashed territorial boundary of the realm, there won't be any drone problems. Naval exploration must be conduct with transports. Not the same with strike aircraft, though. The second you complete construction of the penetrator there are drones. My solution is to build defensive interceptors or choppers and just leave them on alert in various bases. There are no drones when you build these types of aircraft.

The penalty for Morgan's FM agenda is he cannot easily (read that as 'cheaply') take the attack to his enemies. The game mechanics attempt to restrict him to defending his realm, perhaps just the way it should be for a laissez-faire free trader.

Of course there are ways around these defensive restrictions. When I want to strike at a target, I switch some crawler supported bases to penetrator construction and then immediately rush build them (the miracle of FM/Wealth!). The bases begin drone riots but I just switch all base personnel to specialists and let the crawlers maintain the mineral support for the base's units. Sure, the personnel starve (I prefer to think of it as my loyal followers voluntarily getting 'lean and mean' for the cause) for a turn or two but they can handle that. After the attacks are resolved, there are two outcomes. If I lose, then the base no longer needs to support the strike combat unit and the base personnel can return to work. If I win, I usually just go ahead and disband the damaged combat unit immediately and then the base personnel can return to work. Either way, I can always build a new ad hoc strike force because I'm rollin' in the dough with FM/Wealth.

I do not claim to know if that is how the AI conducts its affairs when playing the Morgan faction, but I did want to point out that their was a way it could be done.

- Scipio

[Trev-MUN]

Heeeeeey!

I've been checking out the Torture MOD you guys have been working on... I must say that it sounds very interesting (and very hard!)... However, I do have some points I disagree on. Feel free to counterpoint or ignore, I mean... it IS their MOD.... Most of my suggestions are based upon realism, taking into consideration the civilization AC's peeps left from was already a little more than half up the tech tree.

First off, I highly dislike where Choppers are in the game. It makes no sense: Why do you need a computer crammed upside your head in order to build homegrown whirlybirds, but you can pick up a Unity Chopper from pods (although rare) and from the U.N.S Unity Wreckage? :banned:

This is what I would do: Even today we have a bit of a problem with weight on air units. We can't heavily armor them that much, nor can we overload them with too many weapons. Therefore, instead of pushing back or cutting out move rates, I would only let them use guns, lasers and missiles... and no armor. That's for all units. And, to make it fair, these restrictions would be lifted with one of the gravitonics tech.

I would put copters in Doctrine: Mobility or Flexibility... Or something early. You don't theoretically need gas to fly a chopper, and the fact that the Unity had some despite a complete lack of fossil fuels tells me that they were powered by their reactors. Meaning... you SHOULD be able to have copters early in the game. I would just weaken them attack/defensively, and not hit them in the tech tree/movement rate.

Brings me to something else... I think the air, sea and land units should either have HIGHER movement rates, OR we cut the passage of time per turn down. Think about it, yo. One year to move 100 km or so in the game? If an infantry unit was on the bounce, they could pull that off in a DAY, so they could certainly make 100,000 km a month. To make it more realistic, I would cut the passage of time down by twelve (dividing the passage of time per turn into a month), and increase the movement units for all units (ESPECIALLY Needlejets, rovers, hovertanks and infantry. Copters are fine because they're rather slow, but infantry SHOULD be able to move a little slower than they do, and speeders a little faster. Today's jets can span continents in one sitting, so I think movement rates on them should be upped a bit).

Ohyes - something else - it'd be cool to have floating bases (naturally in the gravitonics era) and airborne carriers (gravships as mobile airbases... think of it!). For something more realistic earlier in the game, there should be some kind of heavy jet unit that can refuel other aircraft, just like in real life.

That's mah two cents!

[Nadexander]

Re: Re: Keeping the AI out of SE trouble

Originally posted by Scipio Centaurus

I do not claim to know if that is how the AI conducts its affairs when playing the Morgan faction, but I did want to point out that their was a way it could be done.

Exactly. I personally wont run demo/green/wealth with morgan unless im at war. Almost always i go demo/FM/Wealth because i know a whole slew of tricks to get around the particularly nasty downsides of the settings (clean reactors, punishment sphere cities, empath rovers/copters to deal with worms, etc.) while maximizing the benefits. This is contrast to the computer which has no clue what to do in these settings. The idea here is just to prevent the computer from making idiotic SE choices. It is especially important to prevent the comp from using the frontier/simple/survival settings which carry nothing but negatives in this mod.

Is there a way to give the AIs and aversion to frontier/simple/survival ? This might be a better solution (although i think giving them a couple hints on SE would be good). It might prevent the AI from going back to these options once they switch to another SE choice.

Are the splinter factions and the torture mod 2 seperate projects? 'Cause I personally might want to play them both seperately or together. I especially would like to permanently patch my game to the torture mod.

Also I think completely removing crawlers is a great idea. I played my last couple games limiting myself to not using crawlers and the game ceratinly much more of a challenge. The AIs actually managed to put up a fight (for awhile) and they got a couple of the projects too. I eventually broke down though and used a crawler on a mine/rocky/mineral bonus (I couldnt help myself! It was begging for a crawler!) I'll sure miss those guys though. How about making theyre prereq Super Tensile Solids At least that way we got something to look forward to in the end game.

[gruedragon]

Vel,

I've been lurking here for a while. Being currently totally engrossed with SMACX (and your guide) and thinking of ways to make it better, but not necessarily harder, this tread struck a chord with me (as has Ned's comments in various other threads about helping the AI out).

First off, I agree with you about Supply Crawlers; they make the game way too easy. I also agree that the orbitals need to be moved forward to help compensate. Here are my suggestions for techs:

Sky Hydroponics Lab - Move from Orbital Spaceflight to Doctrine: Air Power. The best solution, though, is to create a new tech, "Rocketry", with the prereqs Doctrine: Air Power and Advanced Military Algorithms, and have it offer SHLs and the Missile chassis and payloads (Orbital Spaceflight would keep the PB). The prereqs for Orbital Spaceflight would then be changed to Pre-Sentient Algorithms and Rocketry.

Orbital Power Transmitter - Move from Advanced Spaceflight to Orbital Spaceflight.

Nessus Mining Station - Move from Self-Aware Machines to Advanced Spaceflight.

Orbital Defense Pods - Move from Self-Aware Machines to Advanced Spaceflight. This way, PBs are still a factor for a limited time.

As for the Secret Projects you want to move forward:

Space Elevator - This allows orbital insertions, thus eliminating the need for a navy or air force. Are you sure you want to move this forward? If you want to emphasize naval forces, moving a SP forward that allows you to instantly transport your army to any point on Planet is not the way to do it.

Nethack Terminus - The first tech that comes to mind is Digital Sentience, but that moves it forward only a single level and DigSent already offers a SP. Pre-Sentient Algorithms is my second choice, as it will make it harder for the same faction to get both the HSA and the Nethack Terminus. My third choice is Biomachinery.

Clinical Immortality - Move forward to Biomachinery (if it doesn't get the Nethack Terminus), or Retroviral Engineering.

Telepathic Matrix - Move forward to Centauri Psi.

Bulk Matter Transmitter - Matter Transmission seems like the perfect tech for the Bulk Matter Transmitter, but in the interests of increasing its game life, howabout Self-Aware Machines, where Nessus Mining Stations currently are?

Singularity Inductor - Move forward to Graviton Theory.


As for Carrier Decks and the Deep Pressure Hull, I'd move the Carrier Deck forward to Doc: Air Power. I'd make the Deep Pressure Hull available at the same time the Cruiser chassis is, Doc: Initiative.

Hope this helps.

[Velociryx]

Wow….been working on getting the final kinks out of the SMAX guide proof (which I must say is really looking pretty sharp!), and hadn’t had the opportunity to head over this way in a few days….LOTS of outstanding ideas here!

Trev-MUN: Very creative ideas re: the chopper and floating bases! I’d like to do the latter (ohhhh how I wish I was good with graphics!), but I don’t think there’s a way to restrict a certain chassis type to certain weapons….don’t know, but it’s something that bears looking into.

As to the timeframe….I agree, it’s totally off the mark, but I don’t think there’s a way we can change the amount of time that a single turn represents. That’s something else I’ll look into though….if I CAN change it somehow…heh…I like what it would do to the game!

Gruedragon: All I can say is WOW! Your observations are dead-on, and I like your ideas re: moving techs, abilities, and projects around….and seeing your thoughts regarding the Space Elevator….especially considering that we’ve already got one faction that can get around using navy-power to get the bulk of their troops into position on the attack (Builder’s Coven, with their Psi-Gates). No sense in making that problem worse by moving that particular project forward. I don’t think it’s so overpowered that it ought to be outright eliminated, however. Comes pretty late in the game, and by the time you get it, you’ve got a significant investment in your navy already.

I’m still hacking at the re-arrangement of the tech tree for this game, and I like the addition of Basic Rocketry….that’s good stuff, and it falls nicely in line with the other techs already there.

More information about the Torture Mod tech tree it begins to fall into place (hopefully sometime this weekend, in between test games of Smack’s mod!)

As to the question regarding the Torture Mod and the Splinter Project – When the Torture Mod is ready for prime time, the Splinter Factions will be included with it, but should be seen as an optional thing only. True, some of the changes made will be made with the Splinter Group specifically in mind, but the hope is that the mod will be enjoyable with the original seven, smax seven, or any other faction you might care to bring into the fold!

And, on that note, I’m off to do some more editing, before it’s time to head home!

-=Vel=-

[Trev-MUN]

Wow. been working on getting the final kinks out of the SMAX guide proof (which I must say is really looking pretty sharp!), and hadn’t had the opportunity to head over this way in a few days.LOTS of outstanding ideas here!

Trev-MUN: Very creative ideas re: the chopper and floating bases! I’d like to do the latter (ohhhh how I wish I was good with graphics!), but I don’t think there’s a way to restrict a certain chassis type to certain weapons.don’t know, but it’s something that bears looking into.

Cool! He likes my ideas! Well, with floating bases, the cheapest way to do it (I'd think) is to take the sea base graphics, raise them into the air and change the color of the ripples to resemble clouds. Hey, it'd work!

However, I do think there is a way - have you ever tried making missile colony pods? They're restricted from being used, which means you can probably do the same to other chassi. The only thing I see iffy is the ability to temporarily restrict those types. (Graviton theory/applied gravitonics could prolly lift restrictions on armor and weapons, since there would probably be antigrav mechanics built into air units by then. Hell, you could probably use the antrigrav strut special on air units to specifically express the ability to use those armors)

And Gravships probably wouldn't have restrictions at all, since they have antigrav anyway.

As to the timeframe.I agree, it’s totally off the mark, but I don’t think there’s a way we can change the amount of time that a single turn represents. That’s something else I’ll look into though.if I CAN change it somehow heh I like what it would do to the game!

Yeah. I know that in Civ 2 you can divide time up into months and (I think) days as well. If you wanted to keep movement rates the same, you could turn it to a turn per day and it would work, but then the entire span of the game would only take less than two years...

A turn per month with the movement rates upped sounds the best.

By the way... No one has said anything about my two ideas from another thread! What do you think about A) Upping the number of factions in-game to 14 (that way, the original SMAC and SMACX factions could play at the same time and it make sense on a map like Huge Map of Planet)? In multiplayer games, it'd be hellacious, but really fun for those who like fast and furious one-hour games involving scout patrols

Also, what do you think of the script I prepared of a SMAC RPG? It's in the Questions and a Suggestion (or sometihng like that) thread I started.

[Basil]

Nadexander:
The AI is smart enough to react to changes to the properties of the different SE settings. In one of my less-inspired variants I (among other things) gave Police State an extra +1 Probe. The AI promptly decided that Police State/Planned was a great SE setting for all factions So I think that the AI will try to avoid using the generic SE's if they are given anything like the penalties proposed.

Velociryx:
Since you are considering ways of making the opening game harder, focusing on the difficulty of colonizing a new planet, here are a couple of ideas:
- reduce the amount of food produced by a base square by 1.
- In the standard game, 1 tech gives you farms, forests, roads, sensor arrays, mines, and solar panels, as well as a secret project. If you give the various terraforming options differing tech prerequisites and remove the prerequisite for formers, then you can make the very early game a bit more variable. Normally this doesn't matter too much, but it might be useful in your variant.

[Avenoct]

Ditto to Basil's post. I'll add that while the human can't make roads, etc. without the appropriate tech, the AI seems to skip that requirement to some degree. I'm sure you'll see that on Aldebaran if you watch the AI factions. It appears that basic terraforming (roads, sensors, and to some degree, farms) can be done by the AI regardless of limiting these to later techs. That will certainly help this project.

The only SE choices which the AI seems to have difficulty with are Police. In one recent test run of Aldebaran, a faction switched to a high-economy, low police SE choice, got drones everywhere the following turn, then switched to something else, only to return to this pattern later. They will switch out of bad choices, but if the choice is still attractive, they may indeed switch back to it.