My Torture Mod Version: Weapons

[TeknoMerc]

My Torture Mod Version: Weapons

here is the 3rd installment -- Weapons changes

my goals are to:
a. slow down the momentum strategy
b. strengthen the infrastructure, discovery, growth focuses
c. balance discovery of weapon/armor techs
d. re-align techs to reflect type of research focus (fight, discover, infrastructure, planet/growth)
e. slow the game down to make the struggle for survival real and bring more interest to the middle and end game

changing when weapon techs are received directly affects goal C and indirectly A and E. there is nothing seriously changed here -- just a tweak. I changed no weapon values, except the Missle Warhead. the tech prereqs are the main change. some of my choices were also influenced by reasonable tech gaps between weapons and no shortcuts. my typical shortcut was to bypass Gattling Laser and beeline for Missles. I tried to have the weapon make sense with the associated tech, but since this was a low priority some are not a perfect fit. oh well. to understand what the changes mean, please refer to the tech change thread.
this slightly bumps the Laser to the Plasma Shard up in the tree a bit. the ResLaser is also moved up to match the others in time-to-acquire.
analysis: new number of techs to acquire weapons:
Laser = 3
Part. Imp = 6
Gattling Laser = 11
Missle = 14
Chaos = 17
ResLaser = 21
Fusion = 24
Tachyon = 31
Shard = 36
ResBolt = 37
Quantum = 43
Graviton = 50
SingLaser = 69

< Laser, Laser, 2, 0, 2, -1, Physic,
< Particle Impactor, Impact, 4, 0, 4, -1, Chaos,
< Gatling Laser, Gatling, 5, 1, 5, -1, Super,
< Missile Launcher, Missile, 6, 2, 6, -1, Fossil,
< Tachyon Bolt, Tachyon, 12, 1,12, -1, Unified,
< Plasma Shard, Shard, 13, 2,13, -1, Space,
< Resonance Laser, R-Laser, 6, 1, 8, -1, Bioadap,
< Planet Buster, Planet Buster, 99, 0,32, -1, Orbital,
< Colony Module, Colony Pod, 0, 8,10, -1, None, ; Noncombat packages
< Terraforming Unit, Formers, 0, 9, 6, -1, Ecology,
< Probe Team, Probe Team, 0,11, 4, -1, PlaNets,
< Conventional Payload, Conventional, 12, 0,12, -1, Orbital,
< Tectonic Payload, Tectonic, 0,13,24, -1, NewMiss
< Fungal Payload, Fungal, 0,14,24, -1, NewMiss
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Laser, Laser, 2, 0, 2, -1, Chaos,
> Particle Impactor, Impact, 4, 0, 4, -1, Super,
> Gatling Laser, Gatling, 5, 1, 5, -1, Fossil,
> Missile Launcher, Missile, 6, 2, 6, -1, DocSec,
> Tachyon Bolt, Tachyon, 12, 1,12, -1, NanoMin,
> Plasma Shard, Shard, 13, 2,13, -1, Surface,
> Resonance Laser, R-Laser, 6, 1, 8, -1, GeneRes,
> Planet Buster, Planet Buster, 99, 0,35, -1, ARocket,
> Colony Module, Colony Pod, 0, 8, 6, -1, None, ; Noncombat packages
> Terraforming Unit, Formers, 0, 9, 6, -1, None,
> Probe Team, Probe Team, 0,11, 4, -1, InfNet,
> Explosive Payload, Explosive, 15, 0,12, -1, Rocket,
> Tectonic Payload, Tectonic, 0,13,24, -1, Orbital,
> Fungal Payload, Fungal, 0,14,24, -1, Orbital,

the PB and missle payloads are close to what the original Torture Mod proposed, and Probes moved to InfNet per SNAX, the Colony Module is cheaper to build and the former has no prereq.

a major complaint about missles is that they are expensive to build and don't damage much for a one-shot weapon. therefore, I'm experimenting with a slightly cheaper chassis cost and increased warhead (12 -> 15). this is a recent change that has not been tested much. I also tried to create 3 types of conventional missle warheads that were increasingly harder to discover and did more damage. the weapon section of the alphax.txt file is hard-coded to a particular length and my entries were rejected. if anyone knows how to extend this, please let me know!

> ;Advanced Payload, Advanced, 18, 0,18, -1, ARocket,
> ;Superior Payload, Superior, 24, 0,24, -1, Solids,

[Avenoct]

Looks good TechnoMerc, solid changes.

As to the weapon-types list, this is hard-coded as far as I can tell. You can introduce extra units as you of course know, but since a weapons strength isn't a unit attribute from the special abilities list, this is pretty much a no-go. However, you can change the build cost, so you could settle on a hard-hitting weapon that got cheaper to build at 3 levels. One other thing I've wondered, though never tried..

#UNITS
14
Colony Pod, Infantry, Colony Pod, Scout, 8, 0, 0, None, -1, 000000000000000000000000

is the start of the UNITS section. The other sections do not use a number (14 in this case, and changeable) at the beginning to define their length, but I wonder what would happen if you threw in a number there for the weapon/packages section? Worth a try if you havn't yet.

-Smack

[TeknoMerc]

you're right, the SMAC code is weird. one group has an adjustable counter (UNITS) while others don't. I will give your idea a try with the weapons section.

hopefully, today or tomorrow, I can post my list of 47 units and what I figured out about the abilities, etc.