Efficiency modding

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Some time ago I've raised question abut Efficiency modding in WTP thread. I've postponed it at the time as it very difficult to mod and the sum of compelling reasons didn't overweight it yet. Today I am returning to the question as I cannot use Police State + Planned due to combined -4 EFFICIENCY which is completely devastating to the economy.

Problem statement

Corruption is heavily nonlinear by EFFICIENCY scale. The last -3 to -4 step could drive it from 50% to 100% corruption. Whereas +3 to +4 is barely noticeable.

It also hits pretty hard on moderate negative values. Even -2 EFFICIENCY can cause 100% corruption on not very distant bases on normal map.

Maintenance eats fixed amount of economy. There is some threshold below which the income becomes negative. That renders particular SE combinations like (Police State + Planned) completely unusable.

Desired functionality

EFFICIENCY should be more linear regarding corruption to make investment in it valuable at any level.

Probably do not allow 100% corruption. Keep some bare minimum for maintenance. Factions still can cross it to negatives with high maintenance but some guaranteed income should ease the pain.

Adjust distance to HQ effect so it is not that drastic on distance. On 0 EFFICIENCY The max corruption should occur at about 1/2 of map horizontal size. In vanilla this is much shorter.

Probably split effect on two: HQ dependent and not HQ dependent. Then even factions without HQ would produce some energy and do not collapse immediatelly.

Proposed formula

Paradigm change. Formula calculates energy gain (from zero up) not energy loss (corruption).

Guaranteed minimum is 1/4 of energy intake.

Non HQ related effect adds 1/16 of energy intake per EFFICIENCY rating (0 to 50%).

HQ related effect adds 1/2 * (1 - <distance to HQ> / <1/4 of map width>) regardless of efficiency rating. 1/4 of map width is a half of max horizontal distance on cylindrical map. So if whole map is populated by faction bases only about 1/4 of them closest to HQ will benefit from this effect.

Summary for EFFICIENCY ratings -4 to 0 to +4
HQ base:                                            6/8 - 8/8 - 8/8
1/4 of map width distance and farther: 2/8 - 4/8 - 6/8


Update

I think with both flat rate and HQ effects I can drop guaranteed intake for formula clarity. The HQ effect *is* the guaranteed intake since it is not dependent on the rating.


Update2

This is done. Turned out to be relatively easy implementation wise. See changelog for last version.

[bvanevery]

I passed through a period of modding where the full spectrum of EFFIC penalties was expected.  You could get down to -4 and it wasn't hard to do.  Someone pointed out to me how devastating even -2 EFFIC was to bases 16 squares away, possibly you.  I changed course and made it a more subtle thing.

I renamed it to JUSTICE.  This is the metaphor by which I explain its effects.  Police State, Power, and Cybernetic all give -1 JUSTICE.  Democratic, Green, Knowledge, and Eudaimonic give +1 JUSTICE.  Socialist gives +2 JUSTICE.  I renamed Planned to Socialist because I'm tired of the trope of anything Socialist being a dirty word that doesn't work and results in bad things.  There isn't really any logic in a Planned economy triggering high GROWTH, it's a game mechanic only.  My Socialist doesn't have any GROWTH bonus anymore, although that's a fairly recent change and I retained a nominal GROWTH bonus for a long time.  Basically the Socialism I'm modeling in my SE table, is not the Communist bloc Stalinist stuff, but rather Social Democracy as seen in countries like Sweden etc.

So although one could have -3 JUSTICE in my mod, in practice it doesn't happen much.  AI factions certainly don't choose that level of penalty, they'll generally buffer their Police State or Power with Socialist.  The Spartans are also Robust in the face of JUSTICE penalties, suffering only half as much problem.  Their 2nd Amendment fanaticism allows them to shoot back if their leader is too tyrannical.  The Spartans thus don't have as much trouble with Power as other factions.  The same can't be said for Conqueror Marr, who also seeks Power, and who cannot choose Democratic politics.  But hey, it doesn't seem to slow him down any!  Alien economics has some basis in the sheer size of one's empire, so maybe the penalties don't work out to be quite so bad.

So although one could alter the lopsided formula to make EFFIC penalties less onerous, I don't really see a problem with modding the SE table so that large EFFIC penalties don't actually happen in practice.  It's just a case of putting EFFIC on a diet.  Don't blow the dynamic range on the stuff.

I do not hand out EFFIC bonuses like candy to the factions.  The Cyborgs and the Gaians only get +1 JUSTICE, and nowadays, I might question why the Cyborgs should get any JUSTICE bonus at all.  Seems like a legacy issue, before the time when I decided Cybernetic is evil, per Miriam's protests.  But the Cyborgs haven't been playing in any kind of noticeably strong fashion lately, so I don't much feel like nerfing them.  My excuse for their JUSTICE is "Collectivist allocation and adjudication of resources".  I short, they are pseudo-Socialist by nature.