Restricting economical growth

[Nexii]

That might boost echelons a bit much. They can have farm+enricher, so something like 4-0.5-8 is a lot. I think they'd be as powerful as boreholes were. Maybe even better, since nutrients and energy rather than minerals and energy. With borehole and condensor nerfed down a bit I'd consider just trying echelons as they are. Maybe make them and enrichers a little faster to terraform. It seemed to work for me.

Anyways terraforming is only the half of it. Satellites and specialists are as much to blame. Especially if you're finding it late-game tech quickness and not mid-game. And commerce, though I like commerce as it is. Vastly underrated how much energy commerce can give. If you pact everyone and have global trade pact it can triple your total energy or so. That's probably one area the AI could play a bit better. It only signs pacts to gang up on an enemy, not for commerce reasons.

[Hagen0]

If forests aren't that good anymore there is no point to make them so expensive. I really don't understand the logic behind this. If you want to make them the option for bad land why punish players with bad land by making their terraforming take much longer too?

In the same way solar panels could be reduced to 4 turns too.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

If forests aren't that good anymore there is no point to make them so expensive. I really don't understand the logic behind this. If you want to make them the option for bad land why punish players with bad land by making their terraforming take much longer too?

In the same way solar panels could be reduced to 4 turns too.

It is not that good anymore and does not compete with regular terraforming in good land but it still an absolute best for barren land.

12 turns is not at all expensive. You need to compare with combined tile terraforming efforts, not with a single operations.
Forest is just one operation = 12 turns. It's one turn complete square terraforming solution. You never ever need to do there anything else. It also spreads. If it spread two times you get three forests by for these 12 turns = 4 turns / forerst. However, it actually will continue to spread for the duration of the whole game. So it is like 10-20 times.

Now, normal terraformed square would require:
1) farm + enricher + mine = 20
2) farm + enricher + solar = 16
In this regards forest is also quite cheap.

Usually I need two formers per base to keep up with conventional terraforming. I need just one or lesst (one per few bases) to start planting forest and then I don't need it anymore. You can see how much cheaper it is.

Pricing it at 4 turns in initial game was an oversight. It is absolutely not needed to be that fast! You won't know what to do with all these forests. They grow faster than population.

[lolada]

About that Echelon Mirror thing i didn't even consider it can have soil enricher - i never build them so take that ida with grain of salt. I think I never valued them because there was always enough energy in vanilla game. They might be usable in will to power as they are now. I preferred condensers but if population is limited (drones) i can maybe see myself building echelon mirror occasionally.

[Hagen0]

The things you need to compare are the yields for the tiles. A farm on a good tile is 4 turns for 4 resources. A forest is 12 turns for 3 resources. As it is if you have subpar tiles you don't build a forest on it you don't use that tile and instead expand somewhere else.

If you want to make forest more expensive due to the spread 8 turns would still be OK, 12 is excessive. Note that in your mod forest spreading is not even necessarily a boon as it increases terraforming costs if it spreads somehere you don't want.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

The things you need to compare are the yields for the tiles. A farm on a good tile is 4 turns for 4 resources. A forest is 12 turns for 3 resources. As it is if you have subpar tiles you don't build a forest on it you don't use that tile and instead expand somewhere else.

If you want to make forest more expensive due to the spread 8 turns would still be OK, 12 is excessive. Note that in your mod forest spreading is not even necessarily a boon as it increases terraforming costs if it spreads somehere you don't want.

You need to pick a way to look at things. Either compare fully terraformed tiles with each other or individual operations. You cannot eat both.

For a first approach I've already listed numbers.

If you are down to individual operations then farm actually adds only one resource. So it's 4/1.
It's tough to say how much forest "adds" since it just replaces everything. 3 - on completely barren land 0-0-0. However, on average it may be somewhere in range 1-3.

Fine, I'll reduce it to 8.
😝
It is not that relevant as forest is not an ultimate solution anymore.

[Hagen0]

Haha, wore you down?

My point was exactly that your way of looking at it is not useful. What matters for you terraforming choices is the total yield of the tile after terraforming since you can only work so many tiles. An exception of course to this is if one option takes much longer to build. But in this case we have the weaker option being much more expensive so that doesn't apply.

[Nexii]

Yea 1-2-0 is very low production. Most of the time the base will have at least one tile that's moist+ and 1k+ elevation. So you get 2-0.5-2 or so. Sometimes a bit more/less nutrients and energy, but we can say around 4-4.5 FOP is typical.

I'd say either makes forest 4 turns at 1-2-0, or take much longer at 1-2-1. 1-3-0 is also an interesting option to try out. Though I don't think it's forests to blame for the fast late game. Most of the energy is probably coming from boreholes and tidals.

[lolada]

This is my terraforming with nerfed forest 1-2-0 in current game. It has unlocked yields so mines are good - i used them instead of forest if base has rocky tiles.
I am planting forest on arid/flat tile - especially near fungus - we didn't mention that - they are great for that.



Capital - i got the command nexus at 400 mineral (its trascend WTP game, normal tech pace).

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Upon pondering I don't believe reducing borehole yield is a significant impact. Usually I have 1 borehole per base. Reducing its yield by 2 minerals and 2 energy will reduce base income by 2-4 minerals and 2-4 energy in total. That is pretty much unnoticeable thing. Still a lot of resources come from all other worked tiles in summary. As was correctly pointed out by other there is no much need in reducing minerals. After all, it is still possible to build another borehole to compensate for shortage.

I think I'll revert borehole to 0-6-6. The more important factor would be to reduce multiplier coefficient for facilities.

[Nexii]

Increasing facility costs would achieve the same goal I think? Whether they are cheap and weak or expensive and more powerful, it ends up being similar. I kind of favor the latter after going through similar design decisions with native life. Because otherwise each facility is just a quick tick box in every base once you get the tech.

I think especially in the early-mid game a lot of the energy comes from +2 ECON. +2 ECON is extremely strong I think you should boost up Planned and Green. I think it would be hard to run much SEs other than Fund/FM/Wealth. +2 ECON only diminishes maybe around when you get thinkers/transcendi. Or 6E boreholes

[lolada]

Its not the same effect. Reducing minerals or boreholes slows everything down: units, facilities and secret projects. I don't think units and projects are cheap - it takes time to build them and they die a lot - so less units is not good. Facilities can be rushed easily - so they are money drain. Facilities are rushed at 2 energy per mineral, units and SP at 4.

+2 Eco is strong but there are downsides:
Free Market: +2 Eco, -2 Planet, -2 Police, -1 Probe. So this is total 2 - 5 = 3 points. No police (its -1 at default means you are running at -3) - means lots of loss also - at least 1 tile per base. Or running psych slider.. or having to build Hologram theaters which are net gain, but have -2 maintenance and cost 60 min to build. - Probe is no joke - if AI breaks your defense they'll take the mind-probe the base.

Wealth: its +1 Eco +1 Ind -2 Mor, -1Pol

Eudamonia (comes at midgame so it can be used a lot): +2 Eco +1 Ind, -1 Eff, -3 Morale - Now this is obviously great in peace - BUT i was not in peace ANY game on transcend - its impossible i think AI is just crazy with diplomacy. So morale hurts badly new units are very weak.

Here is my current game with Morgan.. new units come out very green and fight -25% - i have command nexus.. i will have to move out of Eudaimonia eventually but i am using this to build up infrastructure (+3 industry) and i just defend. I am also running 20% psych.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Increasing facility costs would achieve the same goal I think? Whether they are cheap and weak or expensive and more powerful, it ends up being similar. I kind of favor the latter after going through similar design decisions with native life. Because otherwise each facility is just a quick tick box in every base once you get the tech.

This will be a different effect.

Cheap and weak facilities = faster build but low total production increase.
Expensive and strong facilities = slower build but higher total increase.

Since we are talking about limiting production boom in end game specifically the second option sounds right on target. I think as long as facility is profitable it will be build regardless the cost. Higher cost will just somewhat delay it. So first option will delay the boom but won't limit it at all.

I think especially in the early-mid game a lot of the energy comes from +2 ECON. +2 ECON is extremely strong I think you should boost up Planned and Green. I think it would be hard to run much SEs other than Fund/FM/Wealth. +2 ECON only diminishes maybe around when you get thinkers/transcendi. Or 6E boreholes

First, I tried to balance SE so that ECON is not overpowered. Fund/FM/Wealth should not be the best combination anymore. Try it out and let me know if it still is.
Anyway, we are not talking about changing ECON functionality. It is too subtle matter.

[lolada]

Reducing its yield by 2 minerals and 2 energy will reduce base income by 2-4 minerals and 2-4 energy in total. That is pretty much unnoticeable thing.

Its 80+ energy for 20 bases which a player should have. I suggest leaving Borehole at 0-4-4 or revert them to 0-6-4. Lets try reducing energy in game a bit at least. They are plenty strong even with 0-4-4.

Another thing i got surprised a bit with Condensers now. So I built condenser as usual on that nutrient resource and destroyed solar collector. Result here I lost 2 energy and got 0 food + eco damage + lost turns. Eghm. Yes i made 3 tiles green that i don't use. This Condenser I built currently its clearly a mistake. They are situational now - if i put to use other tiles then its worth it. I don't mind the change just stating what happened - didn't expect it ^^.



You also have a display bug - this should be fixed i rely on those tooltips for example.
- Also not that fungus is good food/energy but no mineral.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Reducing its yield by 2 minerals and 2 energy will reduce base income by 2-4 minerals and 2-4 energy in total. That is pretty much unnoticeable thing.

Its 80+ energy for 20 bases which a player should have. I suggest leaving Borehole at 0-4-4 or revert them to 0-6-4. Lets try reducing energy in game a bit at least. They are plenty strong even with 0-4-4.

What I meant is that I don't have any opinion on them. Either way is fine. Somebody suggested 0-4-4 or 0-6-4. I can do either.

Another thing i got surprised a bit with Condensers now. So I built condenser as usual on that nutrient resource and destroyed solar collector. Result here I lost 2 energy and got 0 food + eco damage + lost turns. Eghm. Yes i made 3 tiles green that i don't use. This Condenser I built currently its clearly a mistake. They are situational now - if i put to use other tiles then its worth it. I don't mind the change just stating what happened - didn't expect it ^^.

Well, wasn't this requested at this very thread? So I implemented it. I still can add +1 nutrient to condenser square to compensate for inability to build anything else. Also this should help AI as it does not place them on resources AFAIK.

You also have a display bug - this should be fixed i rely on those tooltips for example.
- Also not that fungus is good food/energy but no mineral.

Damn. Yes, I should. How did you get 5 nutrients there? Rainy farm with nutrient resource?