No research for X turns

[MercantileInterest]

What about manipulating the tech cost? Does setting it to 120% have the same effect as -2 Research? It would look like this in the txt file: TECHCOST, 120,

[Yitzi]

I'd say that higher E per base actually hurts Believers relatively, since they have bad energy efficiency into labs.  +1 GROWTH or removing their -1 PLANET goes far to helping them out.

What about making it so that the Fanatic gives a bigger boost to psi combat (as long as it's the opponent that's native) than regular combat instead of no boost at all?

The other reason I think is that +PROBE is kind of lacking.  It's a bit better if you take out all the free probe morale boosts though.  Being even a level up on probes means you'll win probe vs probe battles, helping with tech steal a lot.  I had been playing with 2/2/2 base square but found that a bit too pro-ICS/PS.

With a boost to psi combat (either by tweaking fanatic or removing the PLANET penalty), though, they'd be able to explore and expand much more easily, and the bigger/more spread out you are the more you can use resistance to mind control...

[MercantileInterest]

You wouldn't have to tweak Fanatic with exe modding. You could just give the Believers the Progenitor offensive bonus, provided you're using SMAX.

[Yitzi]

You wouldn't have to tweak Fanatic with exe modding. You could just give the Believers the Progenitor offensive bonus, provided you're using SMAX.

True...although if you want fanatic to be stronger against psi than against non-psi (which makes a lot of sense thematically) then you would.

[MercantileInterest]

What do you think of adding +2 talent to Fundamentalist? It seems too weak otherwise. Traditionally, I've always played University, so I wouldn't know by experience.

[Yitzi]

What do you think of adding +2 talent to Fundamentalist? It seems too weak otherwise. Traditionally, I've always played University, so I wouldn't know by experience.

Could work, but doesn't really fit with the apparent intended use for it.  I think a better fix for Fundamentalist might simply be making morale more important for combat.

[Nexii]

Morale giving ~20-25% power per rank might do that.  Point for point it's not as strong as say INDUSTRY even if you go full military.  +5 INDUSTRY is double troops for example (not counting SUPPORT, so this isn't entirely accurate).  Whereas +4 MORALE is only +50% unit power and +1 move.  More combat power per rank for probes would go a long way to making PROBE SE more valuable as well.

The X turns of no research...my opinion on it is that it should be removed.  It's too steep of an early game penalty in most cases.  IMO the simplest way to mod around this would be to give Believers, Drones, etc another starting tech (Laser, perhaps).

[Yitzi]

Morale giving ~20-25% power per rank might do that.  Point for point it's not as strong as say INDUSTRY even if you go full military.  +5 INDUSTRY is double troops for example (not counting SUPPORT, so this isn't entirely accurate).  Whereas +4 MORALE is only +50% unit power and +1 move.

Admittedly, +1 move is probably worth close to "double troops" by itself.

The other possibility is giving more complex bonuses, as a large MORALE bonus would make the High Morale and Soporific Gas Pods abilities too strong.  The current thing I'm thinking of is actually 5 parts to the effect of MORALE:
1. A simple bonus between 10% and 12.5% per rank.  So pretty close to what's there now, maybe even a bit weaker.
2. A huge bonus to probe team and psi combat, probably somewhere between 50% and 100% bonus per rank.
3. An extra morale-based bonus when a faster unit attacks a slower one, with a bonus that grows much faster than rank.  (I'm thinking of having it depend on 3Xattacker morale-2Xdefender morale, with the ECM ability giving +5 to the defender's total instead of its current effect; when that is 1, it would be only a ~2% total bonus, but at the max of 18 for elite attacking very green it would be around 650X strength (more precisely, a bit over 25X damage dealt, and a bit under 1/25 as much damage taken).  The difference between "no effect" and "2X strength to the attacker" would be around 2 ranks of attacker morale, or 3 of defender morale.)
4. When attacking a stack, instead of the better unit always defending, the choice of defender would be highly dependent on morale; the attacker would have a morale-only pseudo-combat (similar to psi combat) against each unit in the stack, and the number of victories would affect how many good defenders it could ignore to try to hit a juicier/more vulnerable target.
5. The same movement bonus that exists now.

That way, morale becomes more powerful than it is now, but in a way that you have to build your military strategy around.
  More combat power per rank for probes would go a long way to making PROBE SE more valuable as well.

[Nexii]

Well I think the mobile in open is sufficient for fast unit having their niche advantage.  Only maybe it shouldn't apply for mobile vs mobile (I think it does).  I wouldn't say that attacking needs to be strengthened by #3-4, if anything I mod defense a bit more cost effective.  Because what happens is armor and all armor abilities like ECM just end up ignored.  Fast armorless units was a bad design, I'll stand by that opinion.

Now thinking on it, probably more the issue with INDUSTRY is that it's a discount rate rather than interest rate.  MORALE SE is mostly linear in other words and INDUSTRY is not.  So for example +5 INDUSTRY is -50% production costs but +100% minerals equivalent.  If +5 INDUSTRY were say +50% minerals production instead, then it'd be more on par with MORALE SE without changing the combat %s.  Maybe all the SEs shouldn't have to be equivalent I mean you can mod around the amounts easy enough.

Edit: I suppose it's not that easy to fix, since -3 INDUSTRY would also become 70% minerals production.  Right now it's 1/1.3 = 77% minerals production.

[MercantileInterest]

Additional minerals result in additional pollution. Reduced mineral costs do not.

[Nexii]

Yea, another reason not to tweak INDUSTRY.  Though in a way you can argue that +INDUSTRY reduces relative ecodamage as you can make more units/formers to fight/clean up the effects.  For example on +5 INDUSTRY I can make double the scouts with the same ecodamage as someone on 0 INDUSTRY.

It is a bit flawed in another way, when changing INDUSTRY it keeps minerals done rather than % completed.  So you can raise INDUSTRY for a turn to hurry complete SPs or big facilities in progress.

[MercantileInterest]

The X turns of no research...my opinion on it is that it should be removed. It's too steep of an early game penalty in most cases.  IMO the simplest way to mod around this would be to give Believers, Drones, etc another starting tech (Laser, perhaps).

As a moddable factor, this could be quite useful. Would probably use it on the Consciousness to distinguish them from the University. Makes better background too. They'd be spending the first couple years stapling hard drives onto everyone's brains instead of conducting research.

In the Binary Dawn mod, the Gaians gain free tree farms in every base. (Someday, .exe modding may allow +1 nutrient for their forests, which would be better, but this works alright.) Right now, they start with a random tech to delay them throwing down forests immediately. A ten turn research penalty would help too.

Would take this off the Believers and Drones. They have permanent research penalties.

[MercantileInterest]

And, of course, applying this negative to sea factions could have huge balance implications, although it would be even better to start them later, like aliens or Planet Cult.

[Buster's Uncle]

Newb with instaban.