Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Topic started by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 29, 2018, 04:53:16 PM

Title: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 29, 2018, 04:53:16 PM

Hi fellow modders.
I am on my crusade to balance some strategical aspects of the game to highlight currently shadowed options. See my generic thread on the topic: http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21046.0. (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21046.0.)
This work also includes unit cost modifying and balancing. I have pretty good picture in mind how do I want to balance combat units but non combat ones are escaping my creativity grasp yet. I have some thoughts but no strong preference. That is why I'd like to run this through player community and gather your opinions. I will appreciate a feedback.

First of all, let me highlight that original game basic unit cost is absolutely arbitrary. It seems that designers didn't intend to balance them and didn't even plan to. The fact that non combat modules are priced something like 4,6,8,10 and then are just auto calculated via weird unit cost formula speaks for itself. No well thought system there. So please do not base your opinion on a vanilla experience. Said experience is there for historical reasons and I believe we should try to make basic unit cost right based on player needs and not to try to resemble what is there now.

Below are my take on what it should be with some reasoning. I just want to present it as a reasoning example and a discussion starting point. Doesn't plan to defend my initial thoughts.

Colony Pod
The exponential spread is a common concern expressed by other players. Сheap land Colony Pod makes it much easier to spread than grow bases. In the early game nutrients available for growth almost do not increase with base size. Whereas minerals available for production do increase proportionally. Due to that average base constantly producing Colony Pods would stay on size 2-3. With nutrient bonus it grows a little bigger while with mineral bonus it produces Colony Pods so fast that it cannot get beyond size 1 and has to wait until second citizen appears. Overall I feel like it is in desperate need of repricing. Expanding strategy is good way to victory but currently expansion speed depends mostly on faction nutrient intake completely ignoring production power. I believe everybody observed that factions luckily placed on jungle was spreading fast and became most powerful. I feel it is unfair. Faction should develop both nutrient and mineral intake to support expansion.
My wild guess is Colony Pod should cost somewhere 5-6. This will prolong expansion a little bit putting a check on land claim rush making it more dependent on your economical development and terraforming and not just on occasional nutrient bonuses.

Former
Terraforming is the key to the game. Former is the best income source there is. With that in mind I think this unit should cost 2-3 times more than early combat units to highlight its value. From the other hand, since you are going to build at least one per base anyway, I don't see much sense in overpricing it hindering young base progress. Player should start terraforming as early as possible.
Proposed cost: 3-5. Definitely not higher than that.

Transport Foil
Three considerations here. First, they are excellent mean of scooping sea pods and harvesting artifacts early on which makes them quite valuable. I consider this a human exploit as AI doesn't focus on this strategy. Second, you don't need to build them constantly for transportation. Just one or two is enough if you need to escape in early game and four would probably do for combat unit transportation later on. They are not designed to die in the battle. If enemy starts knocking them out you send combat units for protection instead.
All together I propose to price Transport Foil somewhere at 4-6.

Supply Transport
Other people before me said many words about Supply Transport abuse and how cheap it is comparing to its benefit. Pricing it higher would be an easy fix to put it in line with other recourse multiplying facilities. Take a Genejack Factory as an example for comparison. In a base with 10 minerals production it produces extra 4 equivalent minerals and pays for itself in 25 turns. Crawler harvesting 4 minerals from rocky mine should cost 100 to be comparable to Genejack Factory. Even at this price it is still very lucrative investment as it brings raw minerals those further can be multiplied by mineral multiplying facilities. Besides, there is no limit on number of crawlers you can have.
My thought: 8-12. Definitely not cheaper.

Probe Team
This is pretty useful war helping unit that is not intended to die pretty often. It is capable of converting enemy units so it should cost somewhere in range of medium strength unit. Not the cheapest one.
My proposition: 4-6.

Scout Patrol
Two consideration here. First, as with Transport Foil this is a mean of quickly popping a lot of land pods with goodies and artifacts. The ROI is too much for 10 minerals cost unit. AI pops pods as well but it doesn't spawn swarm of cheap units to swipe the land clean as fast as possible. Second, Scout Patrol with Hypnotic Trance is a basic base protector unit used at 95% of your bases. Again this is too cheap to put any strain on base infrastructure. Comes as no brainier. Pricing it as least 2 would make a difference between basic one and Hypnotic Trance one.
Proposition: 2. Anything more costly is too much strain for young base to protect themselves.

Basic units sea versions
Sea bases are designed to be rich in nutrients and energy and poor on minerals. Land bases got minimum +1 mineral per worker even before any terraforming. Sea is just so mineral barren that in early years you can get at most 1 mineral per square after terraforming! Free recycling tank doesn't change the balance but merely help young sea bases to at least build their defender, former, recreation commons.
With that in mind I don't see a single reason why sea base units should cost any different than their land counterparts. That includes probe teams as well. Sea Colony Pod prices more than twice as land one in vanilla is not a way to go. If anything, I would even make sea former cheaper to facilitate terrarorming start for sea bases. Other basic units should be the same.

The sea basic units reasoning above is for normal factions, not aquatic ones. Aquatic factions are broken due to their +1 mineral in each square. Fixing this is an other discussion topic.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: bvanevery on November 29, 2018, 07:21:22 PM

Quote from: tnevolin on November 29, 2018, 04:53:16 PM

Colony Pod

I didn't mess with this.  The real problem I observe in AI play, is they stupidly blunder lots of Colony Pods into fungus and mindworms.  And they don't make bases even when they could.  Pods will just mill around instead.  They also don't go on straight enough paths to destination sites.  Decreasing the cost of colony pods may be a giveaway to the human player, but I'm doubting it'll change the AI performance much, because the AI already uses lots of them stupidly.

What might actually help AI expansion, is a Trance Colony Pod.  However I don't think I'm willing to make this a free ability, and I'm not sure if the AI will us it if it costs more than a regular colony pod.

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Former

I made them slightly cheaper.

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Terraforming is the key to the game.

I dispute whether it's key to the early game though.  Although I'm known for my habit of planting Forests on Flat Arid / Moist terrain, a city with enough resource specials may not need any terraforming immediately.  I've been experimenting with not obsessing about Formers immediately in such cases and doing other stuff.

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Former is the best income source there is.

If you mean energy, I'm not convinced that credits or research even matter all that much to winning the game.  I've won an awful lot of games with low grade military units.  Minerals I agree are important.  Mines on minerals specials, forests, and enough food to make those squares workable, are the keys to victory.  Whereas, it seems like if I get into the "build another lab / economy building" dance, the game just takes forever.

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With that in mind I think this unit should cost 2-3 times more than early combat units to highlight its value.

Nope.  In doing so you are designing a more tedious game.  That's not a virtue.  The game takes long enough as is, and already goes in slow motion as is.  You get more Formers sooner, the AI gets the same, so it's a wash.

Recently vonbach commented that the AIs in my mod terraform better, and I didn't have a good answer for why that would be.  Now I am realizing, I made Formers cheaper for everyone a long time ago, and I'm used to playing the game with those.  vonbach probably isn't and so he may be seeing the difference.  The only other thing I've done recently is make a Rover Former predefined unit.  The AI does build some of those, and that probably does help, because they're quicker at laying roads.  But the AI doesn't build a lot of them, so it's probably not a big impact.

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Transport Foil

I made the Foil and Cruiser chasses cost half as much as in the stock game.  They are now comparable in cost to Speeders and Hovertanks respectively.  Again this is the philosophy of the faster game, with everyone in the same boat (pun intended).  I have noticed that sea base combat becomes an "easy come, easy go" affair.  Yes I may spam out a lot of ships to take a lot of bases, but then the enemy does the same thing and takes them right back.

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First, they are excellent mean of scooping sea pods and harvesting artifacts early on which makes them quite valuable. I consider this a human exploit as AI doesn't focus on this strategy.

The real answer to that problem, is to have the human play with no supply pods except at starting locations.  I played that way for about a year, on very large maps.  Nowadays I don't care.

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Supply Transport
Other people before me said many words about Supply Transport abuse and how cheap it is comparing to its benefit.

Ocean minerals are not worth anything.  Even if you spend a lot of time building mines on top of minerals resource specials, they only yield 4, the same as any Rocky terrain on land.  There's usually tons of Rocky terrain on land, much closer than the uncommon Ocean minerals special.  You will wear yourself out pushing Supply Transports around trying to get to the things.  If a player wants to torture themselves with this kind of marginal gain, I say let 'em.

Costs within the game aren't the only cost to consider.  Real world costs of the player's time and aggravation should be considered.  I call this "the mouseclick budget".  Too many of those, and the human player falls asleep!  Whereas the AI never gets tired and will do the most tedious things over and over again.

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Pricing it higher would be an easy fix to put it in line with other recourse multiplying facilities.

I just put them later in the tech tree.  For awhile I had them too late, to the point of ridiculous.  Now they come "midgame to late midgame".  I don't have a problem with a player gaining an advantage by which they can win the game, once they've done a lot of stuff to put themselves in a position to win.  If the player has exerted themself sufficiently, let them go ahead and win.  In the real world, the mopping up operations are going to take several more hours anyways.  This game has way too much waiting around and tedium in it. 

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Even at this price it is still very lucrative investment as it brings raw minerals those further can be multiplied by mineral multiplying facilities.

Have fun with the Global Warming floods and mindworm apocalypses.  Feel free to let the children have power tools to cut their own fingers off with.

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Probe Team
This is pretty useful war helping unit that is not intended to die pretty often.

I dunno, I don't train 'em, because I can't really afford to put a Command Center in every city.  Got other things to do.  Military units get made in Command Centers, probe teams usually don't because that's where I've got the spare capacity to make them.  Probe teams often die anyways even when they are trained, so as far as I'm concerned, they're disposable.  If I get a free tech from a probe team, that's a good trade.

In my mod I eliminated the +2 PROBE benefit of Fundamentalist.  The Data Angels are the only faction that get a PROBE bonus, and I'm about to eliminate the University's PROBE penalty as well.  Basically I've nerfed them.  I've found the AI's propensity to spam them to be very, very obnoxious.  This misfeature has caused the single largest number of rage quits over the years.  In my mod, they're down to a dull roar now, because the AI doesn't perceive them as being the world's most ultimate advantage.

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Scout Patrol

That's a combat unit.  Particularly in my mod where you can't get armor until Tier 2, and can't get a weapon (in my version 1.26 under test) until Tier 3.  Scouts get +25% against enemy bases because they're an infantry unit.  Yes I'm having a lot of Scout vs. Scout fights lately.  It was a thing in Civ IV as well, storming the enemy with the Aztec's early Jaguar 1-1-2 unit.

I'm evolving towards every time a new ability is granted, a new Whatever Scout predefined unit is made available as well.  Currently I'm testing Marine Scouts and Cloaked Scouts.  Trance Scouts are already field proven for a long time now; the Aliens start with those.  I've got Light Artillery as well.  They don't do much damage, but they do enough against Scouts to have some value, and they can tear up terrain improvements.  Gotta knock out those +50% defense Sensor Arrays somehow.

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Two consideration here. First, as with Transport Foil this is a mean of quickly popping a lot of land pods with goodies and artifacts. The ROI is too much for 10 minerals cost unit.

They're bloody slow.  Are you sure you want people to actually play this game??  You seem to be looking for ways to penalize very basic gameplay like there's some big problem with it.  Knocking out Scouts is not a free lunch, they cost Support.  Scouts get killed by mindworms.  There's no problem here, please move along, nothing to see.  Go home folks...

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AI pops pods as well but it doesn't spawn swarm of cheap units to swipe the land clean as fast as possible.

So again, play without pods in your game if it bugs you so much.  Rather than trying to uproot very basic game mechanics around this issue.

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Second, Scout Patrol with Hypnotic Trance is a basic base protector unit used at 95% of your bases.

What's wrong with defending against mindworms?  Not like they're any good against any other weapons.  They're not even good against other Scouts, as attacking Scouts have the +25% advantage against a base.  Well, better trained Scouts do fine against worse trained Scouts, and that's how it should be.  Anyways, going on about the mindworms, you sound like some kind of Nature Loony!
 ;hippy

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Sea bases are designed to be rich in nutrients and energy and poor on minerals.

With the notable exception of the Pirates, whose +1 minerals on water is the biggest free lunch in the game.  That's why they're now my "sit back, relax, and do nothing" faction.  They don't need to fight anybody!

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With that in mind I don't see a single reason why sea base units should cost any different than their land counterparts.

Because I made Foil and Cruiser chasses costs cheaper, sea colonies are also cheaper.  They do produce more quickly.  Playing in the water is far less of a drag now.  The Pirates aren't the only faction that benefits from this.  The Alien factions seem to have AI that believes in water bases.  Also any faction that has a small island start, can go oceanic.  I've minimized the potential of small island starts with better map generator settings, but it can still happen.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 29, 2018, 08:13:43 PM

Quote from: bvanevery on November 29, 2018, 07:21:22 PM

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Former

I made them slightly cheaper.

Slightly cheaper than 2 rows of minerals???

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 29, 2018, 08:17:17 PM

Quote from: bvanevery on November 29, 2018, 07:21:22 PM

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Former is the best income source there is.

If you mean energy, I'm not convinced that credits or research even matter all that much to winning the game.  I've won an awful lot of games with low grade military units.  Minerals I agree are important.  Mines on minerals specials, forests, and enough food to make those squares workable, are the keys to victory.  Whereas, it seems like if I get into the "build another lab / economy building" dance, the game just takes forever.

I mean everything. Including minerals. And I agree minerals are most important resource. That is why I convert all income/expenses into mineral equivalent.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 29, 2018, 08:19:30 PM

Quote from: bvanevery on November 29, 2018, 07:21:22 PM

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With that in mind I think this unit should cost 2-3 times more than early combat units to highlight its value.

In my following reasoning I make the same point as well. Even though it is valuable there is no point to puff its price too high. Everyone are bound to build one-two of them per base. So why just hinder the development.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 29, 2018, 08:21:50 PM

Quote from: bvanevery on November 29, 2018, 07:21:22 PM

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Transport Foil

I made the Foil and Cruiser chasses cost half as much as in the stock game.  They are now comparable in cost to Speeders and Hovertanks respectively.  Again this is the philosophy of the faster game, with everyone in the same boat (pun intended).  I have noticed that sea base combat becomes an "easy come, easy go" affair.  Yes I may spam out a lot of ships to take a lot of bases, but then the enemy does the same thing and takes them right back.

Agree. Chassis cost is the parametr in equation only, though. How much is your Transport Foil unit?

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 29, 2018, 08:25:12 PM

Quote from: bvanevery on November 29, 2018, 07:21:22 PM

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Supply Transport
Other people before me said many words about Supply Transport abuse and how cheap it is comparing to its benefit.

Ocean minerals are not worth anything.  Even if you spend a lot of time building mines on top of minerals resource specials, they only yield 4, the same as any Rocky terrain on land.  There's usually tons of Rocky terrain on land, much closer than the uncommon Ocean minerals special.  You will wear yourself out pushing Supply Transports around trying to get to the things.  If a player wants to torture themselves with this kind of marginal gain, I say let 'em.

I was talking about Supply Transport in general: both land and sea. I agree that land Supply Transport is more abusable. So sea counterpart may easily cost much less.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Mart on November 29, 2018, 11:52:48 PM

Ocean tiles can give good yields. Mineral convoys are probably most common, but getting nutrients and energy is often giving very good results.
There are also these new facilities in expansion, that give additional resources from ocean tiles, I guess this works with crawlers too, similar like Merchant Guild does? So crawlers can extend it outside of base "x" tiles.
Fusion reactors make crawlers cheap on chassis other than infantry.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: bvanevery on November 30, 2018, 12:22:04 AM

Quote from: tnevolin on November 29, 2018, 08:13:43 PM

Slightly cheaper than 2 rows of minerals???

In the stock game, a Terraforming Unit has a cost of "6".  I've made it have a cost of "4".  Works for me.  Vonbach thinks my mod has better AI terraforming.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: bvanevery on November 30, 2018, 12:34:11 AM

Quote from: tnevolin on November 29, 2018, 08:21:50 PM

How much is your Transport Foil unit?

The cost of a Transport Foil predefined unit is autocalculated.  I am not clear what the cost formula is.  The Foil chassis costs "2", half as much as the stock game.  The Troop Transport module costs "4", same as the stock game.  This results in a Transport Foil cost of 20 minerals, assuming no INDUSTRY bonuses or penalties.

A Destroyer Transport also costs 20 minerals.  Once you've got Doctrine: Initiative, in my mod there's not a lot of reason to use the Foil chassis anymore.  However, some things still manage to be more expensive with a Cruiser than a Foil.  Again I'm not clear on how the total cost formulas work, I just know when I'm playing that certain unit designs are "gimmes". 

Come to think of it, maybe I should predefine a Cruiser Transport with Deep Radar.  I'm not sure the AI ever figures out that it should have the radar, as I keep having to actually make Deep Radar versions of units.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: bvanevery on November 30, 2018, 12:50:06 AM

Quote from: tnevolin on November 29, 2018, 08:25:12 PM

I was talking about Supply Transport in general: both land and sea.

The land unit is called a Supply Crawler.  The "weapon" module is called Supply Transport.  I found that confusing because it's never actually referred to that in the game, only the word "Supply" is used in the generated unit names.  "Transport" made me think of something sea going.

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I agree that land Supply Transport is more abusable. So sea counterpart may easily cost much less.

Since I solved the problem of sea costs in general by making chassis costs equal with land units, I have no issue in my mod.

Notably, I never changed Air chassis costs.  I don't know how those cost formulas work, but I never felt that planes were overpriced for what they offered.  Ships on the other hand, I think they're pretty ridiculous in the stock game.  This isn't WW II.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: bvanevery on November 30, 2018, 01:01:37 AM

Quote from: Mart on November 29, 2018, 11:52:48 PM

Ocean tiles can give good yields. Mineral convoys are probably most common, but getting nutrients and energy is often giving very good results.

I've convoyed the crap out of oceanic energy, as the ocean is totally abundantly laden with energy.  Typical ruse is to convoy everything to my capitol for a huge research bonus, building the Supercollider etc. there as well.  But... I honestly don't care if people want to win the game that way.  It's like people want to play "builder game" or SimCity or something.  It's a lot of mouseclicks, to put proper tidal harnesses on all those ocean tiles, and maybe raise up ocean floors too.  If someone wants to go to all that trouble I say fine, let them have their fun.

I know that people talk about making energy parks by raising high altitude land.  However I don't see any economic point in it, because oceans contain abundant energy even at sea level, for a lot less work.  I think of that sort of thing as a "terraforming demonstration" game, not a practical way to win the game more quickly.

A "terraforming demonstration" game might be a good AAR to do for SMAC though.  Like put it up on /r/4Xgaming to drum up more interest.  Recently, people were really turned on by the $1.49 sale at GOG.  For that kind of money, how can you lose?

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There are also these new facilities in expansion, that give additional resources from ocean tiles,

I suppose you mean the Thermocline Transducer.  Yes, once you've got a few Tidal Harnesses for a city, they're worth building.  They don't cost that much for what they offer, and any facility that gives you more energy is typically a slam dunk, because it'll pay for its own maintenance.

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Fusion reactors make crawlers cheap on chassis other than infantry.

Yeah.  The Scient 2.0 patch allows you to add a Reactor designation to a predefined unit.  That would be very useful to my modding, I've wished for that feature.  But I don't wish hard enough to require a Scient 2.0 patch.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 30, 2018, 01:11:10 AM

Quote from: bvanevery on November 30, 2018, 12:22:04 AM

Quote from: tnevolin on November 29, 2018, 08:13:43 PM

Slightly cheaper than 2 rows of minerals???

In the stock game, a Terraforming Unit has a cost of "6".  I've made it have a cost of "4".  Works for me.  Vonbach thinks my mod has better AI terraforming.

Hm. Terraforming Unit cost 6 translates to 2 mineral rows. Does 4 makes it 1?

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Mart on November 30, 2018, 01:21:22 AM

Quote from: bvanevery on November 30, 2018, 01:01:37 AM

Yeah.  The Scient 2.0 patch allows you to add a Reactor designation to a predefined unit.  That would be very useful to my modding, I've wished for that feature.  But I don't wish hard enough to require a Scient 2.0 patch.

There are 2 slots in pre-defined, Battle Ogre 2 and 3, they have hard-coded fusion and quantum reactors respectively.
However, the disadvantage is, that these units can appear from unity pods. But 2 and 3 are less often found, compared to the first Battle Ogre. Probably because unity pods are mostly collected by mid-game.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: bvanevery on November 30, 2018, 01:27:22 AM

Quote from: tnevolin on November 30, 2018, 01:11:10 AM

Hm. Terraforming Unit cost 6 translates to 2 mineral rows. Does 4 makes it 1?

No idea.  I have no analytic precision of cost formulas, I don't even know what they are.  As you said in your initial post, they're capricious and not well thought out.  So I don't basically care.  I know what when I cut it from "6" to "4", the Formers got cheaper and the game got better.  That's the goal of modding.  I modded it.  You don't always need precision or pre-meditated "waterfall" design to do modding.  Just get in there and change something that's broken, see what happens.  Play test games, see how it works out.  IMO, in that case it worked out well and I recommend that change to others.  Formers should cost something, they shouldn't be giveaways, but they shouldn't be made of precious gold bars either.

Another way to calibrate settings, is look at what other stuff costs in those tables / listings.  If you've played the game enough, you probably have a feeling for what is "a reasonable deal", or "too cheap", or "kinda painfully expensive".  Just change things up and down according to what you think it should be, in accord with what everything else already is.

Like cutting ship chassis costs in half, that wasn't even remotely hard to contemplate.  This isn't WW II.  Their pricing structure was a Civ II holdover, the big buildup until you finally fight WW II with atomic bombs.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 30, 2018, 03:02:32 PM

Here is your answer.

Terraforming Unit = 6
Former (scout) = 2
Former (speeder) = 5
Former (foil) = 4

Terraforming Unit = 4
Former (scout) = 2
Former (speeder) = 3
Former (foil) = 3

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 30, 2018, 03:05:40 PM

I agree about former. Turned it back to lower price.
I agree about Scout Patrol as well. Cannot turn it back to 1, though. Whenever I change lowest armor cost or lowest chassis cost it jumps to 2. I can fix it to 1 as predefined unit but all of its modifications (like the one with Hypnotic trance) will be higher anyway. Maybe that is fine.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: bvanevery on November 30, 2018, 07:06:42 PM

Scouts with 1 ability aren't higher cost in the real world.  The cost algorithm seems to round down.   That's why I have so many "Whatever Scouts" in my predefined units.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 30, 2018, 09:08:00 PM

I guess my solution will be fine then. I'll keep it as is.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: Mart on December 01, 2018, 10:12:44 AM

I would add something about crawlers costs.
Some time ago I tried larger costs and it worked, that I found it worth to place expensive crawler only on few tiles, that were giving large single resource, like nutrients on bonus with condenser or mine on bonus and rocky with road tile. Other uses pop booming, when for example a base has +1 nutrient, so for a few turns there is need for +2 and after that it is ok to get +1 or 0 to maintain population.

But very large use would be for instabuilding SPs. And here there is some advantage for AI, that have better opportunity to instabuild, e.g. AI starts a crawler or several of them. It can cash even several of crawlers into SP, I have seen such attempts. So when a crawler cost 30-50% of SP cost, it can get good result.
The drawback is that human player also has that a bit easier with unity pods, that can produce "mineral pods" giving practically limitless number of minerals. So expensive crawler gets them all in 1 turn. It is also micromanagement nightmare when you change production in bases to prepare for possible mineral pod.

After years of playing, I find, that strategies like crawlers-everywhere or ICS are not that useful. So I do not build a lot of crawlers any longer, I prefer to have a base somewhere near and place a worker on a tile to get all 3 resources and not only selected one from a crawler. Crawlers are pretty much not overpowered after population boom is possible, since you have workers available in greater number. Some factions have that limited, that is true, e.g. Morgan stays on limit 4. So crawlers help Morgan not to spam that many bases.
But with crawlers comes Hab Dome, so limit goes up to 11 actually. Factions that have difficulty pop booming may have larger use of crawlers. There is though Golden Age pop booming, that maybe many players do not use.

Title: Re: Desired basic unit cost
Post by: bvanevery on December 01, 2018, 03:43:36 PM

Interesting that the AI might do better building Secret Projects with more expensive crawlers.  But as I actually want to build Secret Projects myself, I'm not really looking to make it easier for the AI to do.   ;lol  I'd much rather have the AI have an easier time at fighting or expanding or something.

I have been known to make multiple denominations of Supply Crawlers, costing 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 minerals.  That way in the later game, I can start projects that do not waste the output of big bases.

My Industrial Automation comes somewhat later in the game, although I'm not doing the super duper late thing anymore.  I also got rid of Morgan's population restriction.  In hindsight, I think it's completely stupid.  With all the crippling stuff they put on him like -1 SUPPORT, they seriously overrated the value of a +1 ECONOMY bonus.  In my mod he gets +2!  My Believers are the new Morgan, with a +1 ECONOMY bonus from "tithings".

If the AI actually rushed Secret Projects to the tune of 1000 credits at a go, things would be different.  But it doesn't.  It has a hole in its brain.