SMACX AI Growth mod

[Vidsek]

   Looks good.  I've made the changes to the Merge, and can't wait to test them out.

 I have one suggestion on predesigned units: A Rover Former, same as the regular, but with a speeder chassis.
I've found them to be far superior to the slow ones, saving many many moves in doing the same work, but for some reason, with most factions, the AI never designs them, even when it is designing several other new speeder based units.  It *will* make Sea Formers on a foil hull without hesitation and it *will* build rover formers if I give them the design, so this omition may be a flaw in the AI that the predesigned unit would work around.

  Edit: I took a look at adding that unit and hit a snag: the speeder chassis is from Doctrine: Mobility, the former equipment from Centauri Ecology.  Both are early techs, and there is no certainty which will be discovered first. 
  Can a pre-designed unit be given *two* tech prereq's?  All the existing ones have just one.
  Otherwise, adding it in would be simple.

[bvanevery]

Predesigned units are specified in terms of a chassis, a weapon, an armor, one tech prereq, and any ability flags you want them to have.

The basic problem with handing over predesigned units, is they make the chassis type available for free in the Unit Design Workshop.  If you've got Speeder Formers, you've got Speeder Kill-Yous.  A partial answer to this is to pick a later tech than what you strictly need to cook it up.  I did this with Planetary Networks for probe teams.  I made it dependent on both Doctrine: Mobility and Doctrine: Flexibility, so that giving out Speeder and Foil versions of probe teams wouldn't be a free lunch.  That could still be subverted by tech trades, or by sheer laziness in making prototypes, but I'm willing to accept those warts.

Making a chassis, weapon, or armor available as a predesigned unit, does have the undesirable effect of making a prototype of that capability available immediately.  This is why I've at times "given up" about offering predefined units, and just accepted that the human has an advantage that the AI does not.

My doctrine on Fission Rover Formers is to make very few of them.  They're good for laying roads, that's their main benefit.  I then send conventional Formers along those roads.  They're useful for reassigning terraformers to various parts of one's empire, but that is traded off against their additional expense of production.  The latter could impact the AI negatively.

Fusion Rover Formers have no cost issue.  Lately I haven't paid attention as to whether the AI makes them.

Cruiser Formers are desirable over Foil Formers, especially because in my mod, these chasses are half the cost.  They're comparable to speeders and hovertanks on land.  The main problem here is giving away a Cruiser prototype prematurely.  I suspect that sea terraforming is not actually a problem for factions, due to the higher movement rates of sea units, so I've let it be.  The Pirates, for instance, mine out all kinds of ocean stuff.  They know how to take advantage of their +1 sea minerals bonus, so much so, that I don't give them bonuses that other factions get.  They're pretty over the top!

Hovertank Formers are very useful for clearing fungus and building rails over rocky terrain.  As with many other useful Hovertank unit variations, the problem is giving away the Hovertank chassis without prototyping.  In the case of probe teams, I decided I don't even like being pestered by AI probe teams, so I let it slide.

What to do?  Well, I gave up on predesigned units for human convenience rather a long time ago.  There are a few nifty designs possible, but they're not worth giving free prototypes away.  The kind you can actually make available without penalty, is when only an ability is added.  That's why I've added an ECM Probe Team, and not armored probe teams or especially an ECM 3-Pulse probe team.  Sure it's better, but I don't want the player getting 3-Pulse armor without having to prototype it.

Sometimes some weapons are available without needing to prototype them, and I'm not sure why.  I think if you already know R-Lasers, you don't need to prototype a Chaos gun once you get that tech.  Tachyon and Shard guns often seem to show up without needing prototypes, don't know why.

I think for me, the test of whether to include more predefined Former units in the mod, would be whether they actually improve AI terraforming in some readily observable way.  If they don't, then no point.  It just becomes more expensive units in the fission era, a handicap.  So if you want to test this, feel free.

[Vidsek]

         My intent with the idea of a predesigned rover former was to give the AI more parity with human players using them, however, if they cannot be delayed until *both* the appropriate technologies are discovered, then making some later tech the prereq for them could be a reasonable compromise.  I'll look over your tech tree and see if there is a choice that doesn't have negative impact.
  If fission rover formers are available, the AI does design similar fusion versions, at least for the player's faction. I'll need to check if that is also true for AI factions and if any factions actually build them.

  I should clarify that *some* factions *do* make rover formers when they can.  It's just that the majority do not.  Perhaps that is due to the cost.

  On the "killer formers" or "wall of formers" issue, I find noncombatant units being so potent in combat unrealistic and harmful to gameplay (at least as I want the game to play).  Therefore, in alphax, I make them *much* weaker by modifying the line:

50,      ; Combat penalty % -> Non-combat unit defending vs. combat unit 
    to
90,      ; Combat penalty % -> Non-combat unit defending vs. combat unit

and am thinking of making it 95 or 100%.

  They still attack with light weapon ("hand weapons") strength, but that isn't terribly unrealistic.

  Turning them into a "wall of tissue paper" makes them a resource to be defended, not a defence in themselves.

[bvanevery]

I'll look over your tech tree and see if there is a choice that doesn't have negative impact.

To summarize, since I made such a wall of text previously: the issue is not whether a spot in the tech tree can be found.  If desirable enough, it can be.  The issue is whether it actually helps AI factions to terraform better.  If it doesn't, I'm going to leave it alone.

I wonder if clean reactors were available much earlier in the game, if the AI would use it much?  It could alleviate the problem of the AI running out of minerals.

  On the "killer formers" or "wall of formers" issue,

This is an issue?  I've often used mere Scouts to kill mere Formers.  Scouts take wounds but hey, I figure they're shooting all the drivers of the Formers in the head or some such.  A Former's defense might be a little too good on Rocky terrain, but otherwise I haven't seen a big problem with them dying appropriately.   Anything more than hand weapons is cake.

Are you disgruntled about the defense of Fusion Formers later in the game, against fission units?

If someone wants to pay extra to have a Former be armored, I think that's a legitimate tactic.  Although I wonder if some kind of combat unit or combat cost distinction should be made.  I wonder if Former armor can have exhorbitant cost.  Hmm, doesn't look like it... an ability can have exhorbitant cost due to speed and/or armor.  Such as for a Super Former or Fungicidal Former.  But a straight Former, I don't think anything can be done about tough armor.

  They still attack with light weapon ("hand weapons") strength, but that isn't terribly unrealistic.

I got confused by the double negative.  I think you're saying it's somewhat realistic.  I myself figure that Planet is a violent place and lots of people are carrying hand weapons.  Various parts of a terraforming crew could also be used as improvised armor, explosives, or catapults.  I mean, they're Planet wreckers... they're not just tractors.

[BFG]

So, I'm just looking at this thread after a lengthy (i.e. several-year) hiatus.  Veeeeery interesting and I applaud your efforts!  I'll try to catch up as RL allows.  But, a few questions in the meantime.  Some may be due to my misunderstanding of what you're doing here.  I'm not sure whether you are solely tweaking INI files (factions, the game itself, etc.), or also making changes to the EXE to improve the AI's inner workings.

1. You mentioned reorganizing the tech tree.  I don't suppose you also reintroduced the two missing techs, Inertial Damping and Global Energy Theory?  (I always like to reintroduce those in my game so all 4 branches have the same number of techs total.  It also gives an excuse to add the unused perk, Heavy Chassis, and makes maxing out the tech tree take just a bit longer.  So...just curious.)
2. Pet peeve of mine, as I like to stretch games out: does the AI have any idea yet how to use Gravship Formers?
3. Personal philosophy: I agree the alien factions shouldn't be OP versus the human factions, but, I would expect them to get some healthy initial perks - both to counter the 10 turn delay, and realism (I'm sure they could salvage SOME of their tech...)  Is that what you did here?
4. I've never seen AI use Orbital Insertions or aerial troop carriers.  Both could be highly effective if used correctly.  Don't suppose either is addressed here?

Think that's it for now...thanks...

[bvanevery]

To be quite technical, alphax.txt and the 14 faction.txt files are changed.  .ini files are not within the appropriate scope of a modder's changes.  That's something you personally do on your own game installation, like whether you want sound turned on or off, whether you want to set DirectDraw=0 to enable widescreen on modern displays, whether you want to be warned about the end of a Golden Age, etc.  Nothing to do with modding.

I do not make any changes to the .exe at all and do not provide an .exe.  A side effect of this, is my work is fully legal and permitted by Firaxis.  Statements to that effect were made by Firaxis at the top of all the various .txt files I actually modified.  Not that much of anyone cares about the legalities, but I thought it interesting to mention the distinction.

1. Inertial Damping and Global Energy Theory... I looked at them at one point in the modding.  I could swear that in doing so, they broke something, like the game crashed.  So I quickly undid it.  I could look into this again, particularly if you yourself have a track record of enabling these and not seeing bugs / crashes as a result.

2. I haven't even used a Gravship Former myself!  I've used Hovertank Formers plenty, but didn't teach the AI about them.  Nor about Rover Formers.  The general problem is that giving predesigned units, also means those chasses don't have to be prototyped.  As you may know, we've had other recent discussion about "Former problems" in this regard.  I'd like to know, if the AI is given these things, does it have any observable effect on their ability to terraform?  If not then there's no point providing them, because it just becomes a way of giving away a chassis.

3. I powered down the Aliens.  An early set of complaints was made about them, by someone who never actually played my mod, and I find those complaints completely unjustified.  The Usurpers are still the leading faction for stomping everyone, even with my nerfs.  Directed research is that powerful.  At least, compared to other AIs.  I don't think the Usurpers are some uber threat to a real human player anymore, but that was the point of my changes, I didn't want them to be.  I wanted them to be "just a faction among factions", and I've achieved that.  The Aliens may be weaker now, but all other factions are also stronger now.  TBH the one I find myself puzzling over the most lately is the Pirates.  As economic competition at least, they uh, often get ahead of me now.  And it's such a morass to deal with them militarily, because they spawn all over the oceans and you can't just build rails between things.

4. I have not playtested the AI trying to make use of orbital insertion tactics.  TBH I knock the crap out of the AI long before then.  I see orbital insertion as an advantage that a real human player enjoys at AI expense.  Even so, it can get old.  By that late in the game, isn't it less effort to just win?  I haven't made it to enough late games to really have strong opinions on this.  I can make the game tap out with Marines if I want to, so...?

One thing I can confirm, is that my delay of Sky Hydroponics Labs etc., does allow the AIs to build plenty of Orbital Defense Pods to completely block you from getting easy access to space resources.  It is extremely tedious to fight their never ending screen of ODPs.    The only real answer IMO is ground intervention, or Treaties.  If you try to have satellite battles, well the AI doesn't get tired and you do!

ICBM combat is similar in that the thrill of being able to hit anything on Planet will quickly wear off.  It becomes too much whack-a-mole.

[BFG]

Thanks for the reply and clarifications!  A couple quick responses to your questions.

1.  No, there's no instability inherent to these two technologies.  I've enabled them on my games and never had any problem.  The key is to make sure the tech tree is set up correctly...and, because the icons for those texts are duplicates of used icons, I've created my own.  They're uploaded on this site and you are welcome to them.
2.  The biggest problem with Gravship Formers is that the AI treats them like land based formers: the AI never develops sea squares with them, despite their being capable of both land and sea modifications.  Plus, they have the highest move rates, and no move limitations, so are effectively the "best" Formers possible.  (Same with Supply Gravships etc.  Now if only Probe Gravships were possible...)  They are more efficient for the AI than building separate land and sea units, which is why I asked.

Also, one other I just remembered...have you tried giving the AI Needlejet Colony Pods?  That's fun

[bvanevery]

1.  No, there's no instability inherent to these two technologies.  I've enabled them on my games and never had any problem.  The key is to make sure the tech tree is set up correctly...and, because the icons for those texts are duplicates of used icons, I've created my own.  They're uploaded on this site and you are welcome to them.

Ok, I will look at what they do.

2.  The biggest problem with Gravship Formers is that the AI treats them like land based formers: the AI never develops sea squares with them, despite their being capable of both land and sea modifications.

I have no way of changing that behavior at the .txt mod level.  Ergo, it is pointless to add them as predefined units, as the AI will never use them differently than a cheaper Hovertank Former.  I'm presuming that the movement rate of a Hovertank is plenty good enough for terraforming, having used as many as a hundred of the things at a time.  Rail power!  Actually that's another reason to blow off Gravship Formers: they don't follow rails.

Same with Supply Gravships etc.

If you have not built a real rail network by this point in the game, your empire is stupid!  Or if you don't have cash coming out your ears to insta-buy Secret Projects, your empire is stupid.  I have made various denominations of Hovertank crawlers, and just various expensive crawlers, so that I can soak up the maximum production of a base when turning it into a crawler.  However this consumes more unit design slots than I think is appropriate to withhold for predesigned units, and I seriously doubt the AI knows how to utilize precise denominations of crawlers anyways.  So it's an optimization that I leave to the humans.

Now if only Probe Gravships were possible...

I believe Probes cannot be used on air units.  I think I tried to play with this, and got canned dialog boxes about how it could not be done.  Not sure if I tried to make a predefined unit to get around this.  I thought I tried and the unit simply didn't work, but I can go back and check on this again.

Also, one other I just remembered...have you tried giving the AI Needlejet Colony Pods?  That's fun

I haven't even tried it for my own empires.  I'm aware of the possibility, but by the time I could do that, I've long since created enough cities with enough stuff in them.  I don't even use Fusion Rover Colony Pods anymore, they come too late in the game to be of any importance to me.

[BFG]

Yeah, several of the units I've mentioned are only practical for people like myself who like to prolong the game.  (What can I say?  I'm a bit odd...I like to AVOID winning until as late as possible, just to see how far I can develop.)  I'm probably the only one on here who would care about a Gravship Former or Supply.

The Aero Colonies do have two practical uses though: first, settling distant no-road points in far fewer turns than traditional Colonies, even when additional build time is factored in; second, settling tiny islands or polar caps quickly.  It's also (rarely) possible to place a colony on a new land mass with one before being informed it's already owned, thus avoiding AIs getting upset over encroachment.  The AIs I've given them to seem to utilize them well.

And you're right about aerial probe teams not being possible; that was my point.  It'd be fun if they were

[bvanevery]

When you said "Heavy Chassis", did you really mean Heavy Transport ability?  I already enabled that with Silksteel Armor.

I've got Global Energy Theory and Inertial Damping working without any errors.  Of course, they are empty techs, so now I have to contemplate how or why I'd insert them into a tech tree that's already been through 5 months of refinement.  I'm not going to change their icons, for reasons of deployment convenience.

I found acceptable places in the tech tree to put Rover Former, Cruiser Former, Cruiser Probe Team, Hover Former, and Hover Probe Team.  In most cases I put them 1 tech later than when the chassis appears.  Rover Former is 2 techs later in Monopole Magnets.

EDIT: got Global Energy Theory and Inertial Damping squeezed into the tech tree.

[BFG]

That’s fine regarding the icons; I can appreciate not wanting to deploy a new folder and two new PCX files.  Hopefully people won’t mind a couple of duplicates, and if they do, they can always download the modded ones themselves.

Yes, I meant “heavy transport”.  Going off of memory here.  I thought it made sense for that one to be paired with Inertial Damping but that was in the vanilla tech tree.  For Global Energy Theory I usually gave an energy production bonus, but again, that may only make sense in vanilla.

Thanks, as before, for your hard work on this!

[bvanevery]

I thought it made sense for that one to be paired with Inertial Damping but that was in the vanilla tech tree. 

Where did you put Inertial Damping?  The point of using that tech at all, IMO, is to gain Santiago's voiced dialog.  It talks about ordinance simply stopping in mid-air.  The default icon is a Singularity icon and considering these 2 things together, it's an endgame technology of some kind.  I decided to use it for strength 30 armor, which I already had in my tree.  They were called "Singularity Shields" before and have the artwork of the old Stasis Generator armor, which in my mod doesn't exist.  Basically, I just made Inertial Damping one of the prereqs for Threshold of Transcendence.  That's as late in the game as it gets!

So in my tech tree, there's no reason you'd wait all the way to the end of the game to get an increase in transport capacity.  You'd already have Singularity engine transports by then anyways, giving you 16 units on a boat!  If you can't wipe someone out with that kind of cargo capacity, well I don't think you deserve to be playing the game anymore.   

I've questioned the wisdom of providing the extra transport capacity as early as I have, with Silksteel Armor.  Which incidentally in my mod is strength 5 armor, to match the prevailing weapons at that time.  Photon armor is strength 8, etc.  Armor is more significant in my mod, it's worth something.  Anyways, I decided to just throw it in there and have people playtest it.  I bet people don't even remember to use it, and I don't think it's going to break the game.  If some consensus of players in the far future says it's overpowered, I'll deal with it then.

For Global Energy Theory I usually gave an energy production bonus, but again, that may only make sense in vanilla.

I had a cramped situation with Orbital Power Transmitters and Nessus Mining Stations in the same tech.  So I uncramped it.  I wish Morgan's dialogue wasn't so boring though.  Sounds like a placeholder.

Thanks, as before, for your hard work on this!

You're welcome!

[BFG]

I made an assumption, based on the fact that Inertial Damping / Tech 24's quote was from Santiago, that that should be a fairly early tech.  (Santiago's quotes stop fairly early on in the tech tree, making me think the "official" story is that the Spartans die early.)  Global Energy Theory / Tech 70 can't be placed that way since Morgan's quotes continue through the late techs.

In my modded game I put Inertial Damping after Photon/Wave Mechanics and Unified Field Theory, which put it at Conquer 8 (midlevel) if I remember right.  Global Energy Theory I put after Planetary Economics and Pre-Sentient Algorithms, which made it a Discover 6.  (I hated assigning Global Energy Theory to Discover instead of Wealth, but Discover had to have it to make sure all 4 branches had 22 techs apiece.)


And, just for fun, here are the icons I designed.

[bvanevery]

Sadly, I am finding the AI won't make any use of certain new unit designs.  I ran a few AI vs. AI test games, and also tried moving these units to earlier spots in the tech tree.  Shuffling the order of units didn't make any difference either, on some theory of earlier units "overshadowing" later ones or something.

Code: [Select]

;Unfortunately the AI won't build the following units even when enabled,
;and even when given earlier in the tech tree.  Left here for reference.
;Rover Former,        Speeder, Formers,      Scout,      9, 0, 0, Magnets, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
;Cruiser Former,           Cruiser,     Formers,      Scout,      9, 0, 0, Orbital, -1, 00000000000000000000000010
;Cruiser Probe Team,    Cruiser,  Probe Team,   Scout,     11, 0, 0, Orbital, -1, 00000000000000000000000010
;Hover Former,        Hovertank, Formers,      Scout,      9, 0, 0, NanoMin, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
;Hover Probe Team, Hovertank, Probe Team,   Scout,     11, 0, 0, NanoMin, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Some good news though: the AI will build a Fission Super Fungicidal Rover Former of its own accord without any help.  I saw Morgan do it.  This makes me wonder if adding Super or Fungicidal to a unit would get the AI interested.  Problem is, the guaranteed intersection of "Super" and the other chassis types would come rather late in the tech tree.  Not a problem for Fungicidal though, so I'll experiment with that.

I think a general problem of the AI, is it will build a few Formers at the beginning of the game, then get preoccupied with building all kinds of other stuff, never really revisiting the priority of making more Former units. 

[bvanevery]

CHANGELOG
Changed from version 1.20 to 1.21:

- placed my work under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
- Biogenetics: set wealth=1 and growth=3.  Lifecycle improvements shall be considered Explore techs.  Make it of slight interest to Build researchers so that Synthetic Fossil Fuels is not blocked.
- Doctrine: Mobility: set wealth=1 and growth=3.  Clearly it helps Exploring.  Make it of slight interest to Build researchers so that Synthetic Fossil Fuels is not blocked.
- Synthetic Fossil Fuels: now has Centauri Ecology and Doctrine: Mobility as prereqs.  Made Fungi Rover Former predefined unit to help AI.  This completes a Speeder chassis prototype, so is done later than Doctrine: Mobility.
- Centauri Empathy: set wealth=3 because Green economy increases ECONOMY.
- Ethical Calculus: set wealth=2 because Democratic politics no longer gives an ECONOMY bonus.  The EFFICIENCY bonus is worth some money.
- Progenitor Psych: set power=0 and growth=1.  This tech only allows one to communicate with the Progenitors, who may not even be in the game.  Talking to them does not help Conquer anybody.  NOT talking to them is often the safest option for humans, so it is given a low chance of discovery.
- Field Modulation: set power=2 and growth=4.  This tech only gives Hypnotic Trance, which is only good for defending against mindworms.  It's not that useful for Conquering and is mainly useful for Exploring without getting killed so easily.
- Polymorphic Software: changed from a C4 to a C3 tech.
- Neural Grafting: changed it from a C5 to a C3 tech and set wealth=3. Decided that Super Fungicidal units really do help Build after all.
- Adaptive Doctrine: set growth=3 because it gives defenses against mindworms.  Moved the Neural Amplifier to this tech.  Changed ECM Probe Team predefined unit to ECM 3-Pulse Probe Team.  This tech has Advanced Subatomic Theory as a prereq, which makes Plasma armor available.  Completing a Plasma armor prototype also completes 3-Pulse and 3-Res prototypes, so it's ok to immediately use 3-Pulse here.
- Organic Superlubricant: changed it from a C5 to a C4 tech.
- Doctrine: Initiative: changed it from a C5 to a C4 tech.  Moved Deep Radar ability to this tech.
- Advanced Military Algorithms: set growth=0 as it no longer gives Deep Radar ability.  Moved High Morale ability to this tech.
- Single-Sided Surfaces: changed it from a B5 to a B4 tech.
- Bio-Engineering: changed it from a B5 to a B4 tech.
- Retroviral Engineering: changed it form a C6 to a C4 tech.
- Nanominiaturization: changed it from a C6 to a C5 tech.
- Doctrine: Air Power: set growth=3 as it does help Exploring.
- Silksteel Alloys: moved Deep Pressure Hull and Carrier Deck abilities to this tech.  Made Doctrine: Initiative a prereq.  Made Submarine Probe Team and Cruiser Colony Pod predefined units to help AI.   This completes a Cruiser chassis prototype, so is done later than Doctrine: Initiative.
- Homo Superior: moved Bioenhancement Center to this tech.
- Global Energy Theory: enabled as a B8 tech.  Set wealth=4, other settings 0.  Moved Orbital Power Transmitter to it.
- Inertial Damping: enabled as a C13 tech.  Set power=4, other settings 0.  Moved Singularity Shield to this tech, and renamed it as Inertial Damper.
- changed many prereqs to fill in holes and keep continuity of research foci.

The attachment limit per post is 5, and I eventually ran out of room at the top of the thread.  Consequently, this becomes the new home of version 1.21.  It was downloaded 29 times before I moved it here.