Announcing! Aldebaran 1.beta.1 (prerelease notes)

[Avenoct]

Tokamak, good to see you back. Ah, na, going to keep the Vats as there is one faction that either needs them or GA to boom. Seeing as the AI doesn't GA very well.....

Well, it's good to see you both back on the forums. It's going to take me a bit to digest your feedback Cybergod, but at first glance I think I can make a few comments. Oh, and congrats on moving into your new digs. Can I come over?

First off, thanks for the detailed report! Second, yeah, there are a few things which, all though humorous, probably go too far. Heck, the whole 'Propaganda section' of SE is probably offensive to someone. But compromise is good here, as long as it's not too soft.

Second. The tech graphics. Go for it!

Third. The overall graphics and factions. Nice honest feedback. Not sure if you read the 'Writer's Package' at all, but there I woefully admit that though there is a nice story for Zak and the Galactics, and even a few others, they certainly aren't finished. Also, the graphics are temporary you nut! Oh, and The Network Node has agreed to let us use whatever graphics / stories, etc., as long as credit is given where it is due.

I could defend the Syndicate, but it's a long story. They were a very close match (in looks and name) to the idea I had with Yang's minister of economics.

Oh, by the way, before you go off making up better stories, just know that Kassiopeia is doing the same, and not everybody can be right.

Yes to a Lara Croft type pic for the Outlaws. Matt D. is also looking for a pic for that faction.

I've heard back that the Galactic (and by default for now Univ.) leader pic is from some video game? Anyways, we'll need an original pic for them, not one lifted from a recognizeable source.

On rebalancing the factions. Well, this is what will take me a bit to digest. All I can say at first glance is: Good ideas, BUT, . It sounds like you are playing the Beta.5. The growth situation is a bit different in later versions. Ah, all AI factions cause ecodamage in the first 100 years, at least on Transcend or Thinker Level. This is a good thing. I can explain if you like. I'll get back to you about the other things you suggest. Basically I think you are viewing things 'Holisticly', trying to balance out the graphics with the story with the gameplay. The angle I'm taking is getting the gameplay really working well and balanced, then working on the look and feel of the game, from graphics to background story, etc..

Enough for now. I'll be posting the latest beta update in an hour or so. I've been flip-flopping the availability of crawlers just to play from different angles. I think I have it worked out. The major problem with late crawlers is that on Transcend the human will NOT get any early projects. The only way on that level is by force. Let the AI build them and then take them. But I think this is balanced by the fact that eventually the human does get crawlers, and using them well, might survive a hundred and 20 years or so. Also, finished the help text, but I won't include it as it crashes my OS, not sure why. And finished playing with the psi vs. normal weapons trees. The AI now actually uses the Psi branch.

-Smack

[Kassiopeia]

Umm.... advances on Story front reported... Sidney, Brionin and their friends are en route to Aldebaran now... Do you want to read it so far, it's pretty much following the Writer's Package readme. Now the hard part starts, hammering out the Chironian/Galactican conflict and the mysterious unveiling of the superrace... or something... Cybergod, if you have anything to say, go for it!
EDIT: Unless someone is already writing the techlongs, I have done some of it when I've had nothing else to do (That is, quite often

[Avenoct]

Kass, the new names for the faction leaders have my blessing. They sound good. As to the part 1 of the story, mind sending it to me first? I'd just want to be sure it doesn't contradict any potential future scenarios, etc.. After that, if you'd like to post it on the fiction threads, that'd be great! You've been productive. I'm glad you mentioned the tech-longs again. I havn't gone back to them yet. If you want to finish them off, go for it, otherwise, send me a list of the ones you have worked on, or are working on so I can go work on different ones.

With Cybergod back (and hopefully working on some graphics? nudge nudge) we may indeed be close to a public release of the beta. Should we time that with the release of the story? I think that's up to you Kass. Or perhaps we should let the story develop a bit so we can hijack clips from it for the interludes? Just thinking out loud.

The Nauticons. Aye, they are boring, especially their temporary base names. Basically I wanted a faction that would be able to exploit the sea from the get go. The terraforming of the sea is much improved on Aldebaran and I wanted to give players a chance to exploit that. The background story for them is kind of funny (the Spartan Submarine commander, etc.) but they need a bit more 'umph'. What is their plan for Aldebaran? How do they feel about the other factions?

The Peaceniks: Egad, that was just a temporary name! If you come up with something else, let's by all means use it!

The Planetlovers: Again, temporary name. Even 'New Gaians' might be better. Waiting for brilliant renaming......anyone?

The Outlaws: As you know, that's just a nickname for the UNF..the United Noncomplicity Front. But if a better name/concept comes along, by all means, let's have it!

Look for Beta.8 in a few minutes...it'll include just the alphatext update.

[Edit: Got the story. Great work Kassiopeia! As we discussed in email, I think it's ready for release on the fiction threads. We can put a link to it here easily. Also, let's think about other places we can publish it! To the Beta group, if there is a delay in releasing the story, you all should get a copy...Kass makes my nutty ideas seem pretty good and adds so much to the plot.

One final note....a tweak to the AI if you'd like, ignore it if you'd rather just wait for the next beta, which as we know will happen before too long.: Change the tech in alphatext 'Tacit2' to increase the AI's interest....the 4 AI influencers should be 8, 8, 8, 8 instead of 1, 1, 4, 1.

Note Two (later): going to push 'Planet Labs' back a bit as the AI seems to think they are wonderful infrastructure. This should shave off 3-5 turns before the AI is ecodamaging. Also, I'll probably just stick to posting these minor tweaks here and withold the next beta, as I said, till feedback comes in. Also, I'll rename Eugenics to Genetics for 'Practical Genetics'

Note Three: Midnight. Yawn . Have tuned down the peacekeeper industry one notch, hindered them a little bit with efficiency as well. Helping along the new Gaians (planetlover), though I am going to keep their growth penalty. Originally they were way overpowered, and after the Syndicate, are my favorite faction to play. The planetlab pushed back worked miracles. In the most recent auto-game I've run, the AI was ecodamaging in 50 years. All this goes for naught though once they find some reason to go to war with each other. Cybergod, by the way, where would you have the specialists placed? And news on the tech-longs...looks like Kass and I will work something up for that. If anyone would care to give my precarious helptext a try, it needs a tune up rather badly. Whenever I click on 'all-categories' of help, the game crashes. That's the news.-Smack

The AI and factions are getting pretty close to balanced. I'll wait for another round of feedback before I suggest that we prepare to release the beta.]

-Smack::

[Velociryx]

Hi guys! It was a productive weekend indeed, though I see that I’m pretty far behind where testing is concerned.

I suspect that since we’re now up to beta 8, many of my comments regarding SE settings and factions have already been covered/addressed and changed, but there are a few comments I’ll make now, and then download the latest version to see what’s new!

First off, great mod! It’s quite a lot of fun to play, and I find myself really jazzed at being generally bewildered about where things are in the tree!

One thing I found myself chaffing at was the inability to build roads without researching a tech first. I can certainly see how it helps the AI, as it pretty much forces them to plant forest seeds, but from a game-logic pov, I was a little confused by it….(found myself thinking: What? We suddenly forgot how to build roads?) Then again, I’m a big fan of roads, so mostly, it was me panicking at not being able to get my colony pods speeded to their build sites…lol

Second thing, my experiences with TF’s was dramatically different…..once I saw that all I could do was forest, and once I saw how early I could get TF’s, once I had the tech, I’d set a newly built base to build a TF as their first build. True, it DID slow my expansion, and I didn’t snag as many projects as I do in SMAX, but I still got the ones I really wanted, and because my growth was slower (thanks to the very early investment in TF’s), my position on the power chart was lower (I was “wanting” or “sufficient” for much of the early game) – this had the side effect of making it very easy for me to keep good relations with the other groups….I wasn’t running away with the game, so the other factions were content to play nice. I actually got more techs in trade than I did via my own research, and once those TF’s were in place, I pretty much exploded off the chart (though it was nip and tuck for a while….my little bases had a devil of a time paying upkeep for the expensive facilities, but once they kicked up to size three, it was all gravy!).

So….considering how early TF’s come, I’d make them even more expensive, increase maintenance, or something to prevent a human player from ‘sploding ahead of the AI’s.

I’ll dl the latest beta and take it home with me to see how she plays, but so far, I’m loving it!

-=Vel=-

[Avenoct]

Ah well good! I was wondering what would happen if someone actually tried to build tree farms at their bases in the early game. Looks like that might be a good way to come out gangbusters and rip through the AI. Its the one strategy-general I can't manipulate the AI around: Stay low until you know you can win. The AI will attack the strongest, especially on Transcend. It plays pretty roughly with a human that starts strongly and gets stronger, but if the human stays relatively small (ie building tree-farms for however many turns) the AI might even solicit the human player to go gang up on the big AI in the jungle. Then when the player has all they need to start a war, they can surprise the dim-witted AI with an agression from one of the previously ignored (by the AI) small factions.

TF's were originally pretty far back, but as I got the AI to ecodamage earlier and earlier, I felt that TF's should be in their arsenel of responses. As it is, about every third auto-game i run, the AI will ecodamage and then start TF's, eventually moving on to build Parks if they continue ecodamaging. In other games the vary building parks and tree farms, and in a few games they build tree farms too early...ie before ecodamage. This is great to see, but!!! I think it's a bit too early. I'd rather have the AI build parks or take some worm-damage than encourage players to slow down their growth. [Er, what I mean is, slow down in the short term only to emerge so quickly in the long term that the AI can't counter]

Roads. Yes, it's frustrating. I wonder if it should be changed back, considering the AI ignores this rule? Also considering 'You mean we have to learn how to build roads?'. Sure, there could be some plot explanation, like...the horrible acidic rainfall, combined with lack of native resources..blah blah..

So to reply to these points Vel: You hit one two important things right away...excellent! Both have been changed back and forth trying to find the perfect balance. As I think about it, again in a new light, I think TF's should be pushed back again---to just beyond Human Ecology. And roads? Who knows. In a way it's nice to have to think about whether to start making roads now (study the tech), or something even more important. At least the tech for roads is important in a lot of other ways too, so it's not just a 'road tech'. Let's get a bit more feedback on roads.

[Edit1: Ah, well I see I already made roads free and Treefarms require Tacit1 and Aldebaran environments. I think those changes made it into the last beta. Still, TF's could be even further back. I've been toying with the 'passive' setting for factions. At the moment, only the Galactics are set to 'erratic', with the rest passive. This appears to differ wildly between Thinker level and Transcend. On Transcend, the AI, once alarmed, switches to all-military production no matter what the setting. This is too bad, but hopefully this will not happen in most Transcend games until the AI factions have already built a large portion of their infrastructure. On Thinker level, the AI behaves quite well, dividing it's production between military and infrastructure during times of Vendetta.- Smack]

-Smack

PS. Feel free to play 'as if' tree farms came later, until the next beta is released.

[Avenoct]

Beta Group and whoever else be on the ship for Aldebaran, Kassiopeia just finished posting the introductory chapters to 'Aldebaran'. Here's the thread:
Aldebaran

Whoo hoo!

-Smack

[Cybergod]

Great stuff Kasiopeia! I can't wait for the next chapters.

Smack, I did not get Beta updates number 6 and 7 (I got number 8 after I made the "cyberfix" though). But, unless you were tweaking with the factions, it doesn't matter.

I've been working hard on the faction graphics . No, seriously! I just need some help: should we keep Zakharov's face as the leader of the Universali? What about Nauticon? (I'd like a less shadowy face for them) I got some great graphics from the internet for the rest. BTW Smack, the face for the Galactic Alliance is from the System Shock 2 game - the evil AI called Shodan . I am asking other beta testers whether they are happy with her face (I am changing their symbol - it's rubbish this way!) OR you want this face, at the bottom of this post (basically, it is the face of a character from a sci-fi series called "Farscape" (www.farscape.com) and here it is! The big blue bald-headed bit** herself! ):

[Kassiopeia]

I haven't decided yet, but I think Zakharov is going to get into a slight state of consciusness, and somehow Sydney and Brionin could keep him at least as a puppet leader if nothing else. So, i think Zak's image should be kept (Just the opinion of the author ) He would be at least reminding the people of Chiron IMHO.

And I noticed SHODAN, it freaked me out because that was the first comp games I played and I still sometimes have nightmares of it. Damn it's a good game! All those hidious aliens lurking around...

New chapter is finished BTW, thank you Cybergod

[Avenoct]

Ok, I had wondered about whether the Beta's were going to everyone. I'll send them individually from now on as my batch-group mailer doesn't seem to be working properly.

Next chapter? New graphics? Awesome. I really like the feel of this being a group effort. It's much more satisfying than trying to do everything oneself.

Er, Cybergod, CAN we use graphics from private sources like that? I think we might need permission! I wonder if we can come up with public-access free-for-all graphics? I know it's easier to just swipe them (the commercial graphics) from the net, but there has to be a way to either get permission or find 'original' sources. Besides which, do we really want to associate the game with these other games/ TV shows? Personally, I don't...but if I'm out-voted here, I'll back off.

So, I'll send out a Beta.9 to everyone in a bit. Sorry if the 5-8 didn't reach everyone. Things are up to snuff as far as game play. I can beat the AI on Thinker, but not on Transcend. Still, I'd like some help from the masters (Vel, Blake, Toka? Not to say the rest of us arent' fine players...) in making things a little more tough, without breaking the game engine.

That bald-headed empath...hehe...it's a great TV show, were you going to use her for Awen? I'm thinking of a rougish and tough woman for her (read, sexy). Oh, if you don't want to use the dark-character for the Nauticon (need a new name!) maybe I'll use him for an alternate faction. I'm thinking of releasing a full alternate set of factions with the game, to help people make the game they want.

-Smack

[Kassiopeia]

If there is going to be a "vote" using the SHODAN graphics, I'll say that it scares me so much that I'll Abstain on a "voting". I'm not even a "legitimate" beta tester, just the story author.

[Cybergod]

I'd really like Shodan as the head of the Galactic Alliance (it's getting too long to write it all - I'm writing just G.A. from now on)! Oh well, I already have her as a leader of another faction that I have sent to ther Network Node. If not Shodan, maybe the leader should be the blue bit** whose picture I already posted...

Smack, it is legal if you give the source a call and you mention them in your readme file or something. They would sure let you! BTW, here is a pictureI had planned to be the leader of the Outlaws (again from www.farscape.com), I had a shot of just her head for the portrait - god knows what she was doing with Crichton!:

[Avenoct]

Egad, that's hilarious! The dress and looks are a match in my mind, but the pose !

Well, good point, people DO use graphics from commercial sources all the time. Let's see what the rest of the group has to say, if they're alive?

-Smack

Forgot to say that I like the graphic for the Galactics (the face), but since they are supposedly human, it might be best to save it for the super-race? Cybergod, did you get the plot-background? If not, I'll send you a copy..They will be appearing in Scenario 3.

P.S. The Beta 1.9 was just sent out. A word of warning..Don't click on either 'all categories' or 'techs' from the help screen. This has never worked since I started this, and I can't seem to fix it.

[Kassiopeia]

I have never seen Farscape (Damn Finnish TV Channels! First they show the door to Star Trek TNG, then to ST Voyager, then to every other good scifi series like X-Files, and then they don't air Farscape!) but that picture seems just right. And maybe the superrace could be somehow cybernetic (That allowes the author to use William Gibson!) and joined up in a hunk of AI. SHODAN would serve that purpose well, maybe we could name the race as the "Many" But we do need a human-looking human female to "play" as Empress Donatella Riley. And a female to do Shera Nehred. And we need Skipp, and... Gosh, that's up to you Cgod I guess.

[Avenoct]

Hmm, without giving away too much on this 'public' thread, I think that idea for the super-race might work fine....There is in the Smac general concept, a convergeance of technology with super-consciousness in the form of Transcendence anyways; that the super-race would aquire this from the tech-end rather than the solely-biological is perfectly possible in the plot. I think I'll write up some ideas for that and send 'em your way Kass. I'm sure you have some of your own too.

-Smack

P.S. Cybergod, mind editing the download off your post? It's not supposed to be available yet, even in fragments. -Smack

[Blake]

Well, turned out that at the start of the weekend I got addicted to a new game (Jump Gate), and well, the jumpgate playing weekend ended on wedensday (oops). Anyway, I played a game on Huge map of Aldebaran, as Skipp.

Firstly, I agree that faction is over-powered, and in fact the pressure dome has exactly the oppisite effect to what was desired - because sea cities no longer come with a "free" pressure dome, (well they do, but land cities get one too...) it made the land cities even more attractive than sea cities. Prehaps give free naval yards? That way they would get the best navies from the word go.

I regret to say that I owned the AI (this is Thinker), starting with a rapid expansion to about 18 bases, building rec commons, then tree farms. I pod-boomed the HQ to size 5 and started building a SP, which eventually became the Greatest Game.
, I got the shroud guild (at about 2370), then called govoner, my pop was twice that of the next closest AI, and because half the gimp AI's pacted with me I completely cleaned up the election. Then I called a tract pact, that got accepted too. And with my 3 pacts, 3 treaties I was making 140 credits a turn.

At about 2380 I got my first pop, then a heap more, because I built all the treefarms before forcing a pop, then I built a heap of genejacks which created quite a lot of ED at quite a lot of bases... I re-built a few tree farms, and also some empath hovertanks just in case...

The AI did manage to get a reasonble number of SP's (altough I could have had my choice of the Bank, Dozer Factory, People Factory, Greatest game). My strategy to hurry the SP's was firstly to build heaps of rover formers, and disbanding them (and most of my old formers) into the SP bases. Once I go shrouds I started building non-stop shroud-tanks and disbanding them to hurry SP's. This pretty means that any SP which comes my way is mine, crawlers or no disbanding is a very powerfull method to accelerate SP production (in original SMAC I used it with Yang so I could snag the WP or HGP). Unfortunately aint nothin' you can do about this, because making the SP's more expensive would just hurt the AI's more, and IRRC there isn't a variable for %age returned when disbanding.

Things I noticed:
Forest n' forget is highly effective, I definetely reccomend making other terraforming slightly cheaper so it can compete - remember that forest spreads by itself, so forest has a high built in 'discount'... an additional thing to do could be making formers more expensive, so the infantry former costs 30 instead of 20. Also, I have to wonder if the nut restriction lifting should come earlier... so farms can better compete with the 2-2-1 forest tiles. Though the tech it is on is just so appropriate (possible solution, put soil enricher on Gastric Frontiers, rename soil enricher "Cultivate Aldbaran crops","Aldbaran crops" or something..., on that note the kelp enricher still has no key bound, gotta use the menu)

(I just had a strange idea, change forest to 0-2-2, making it a source of construction materials and fuel, but not food until tree farms, would make farms a heck of a lot better, this doesn't fit in Aldebaran though)

Pacifist AI's: They are pathetic when it comes to pacting, indeed I imagine a human player should have no need to build any military... with the reduced need for military prehaps facilities should be made more expensive... but doing so would make it more attractive to simply overrun the AI with an offensive rush, hmmmm...

I really like the way you changed orbitals to matter-transmitter type thingies.

I'll continue playing this game tommorow or something, to play with the rest of the tech tree (which I must say is vastly improved over Beta1), but the AI is not that much a challenge for a veteran SMAC player... (atleast you dont have to worry about the AI beating up players , indeed quite the oppisite because they tend to play nice).