SMAX technology tree improvement

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

This discussion seems to drag me off course much. I'm going to ask specific questions then.

Nonlinear Mathematics <- Applied Physics + Information Networks
Applied Physics seems to be overloaded already because every science stems from it. Besides, usually breakthrough in math is extended to science and not other way around. Would it be more logical to drive something nonlinear from Progenitor Psych instead? I understand it is a stretch (as anything else in a tree) but it sounds explainable and involves progenitors technologies more into main branch. Currently they kinda stay aside.

Industrial Economics   <- Industrial Base
That is perfectly fine. However, I feel the Economics part needs another prerequisite. How about Biogenetics? It seems like most economical aligned first level tech. Other options would be Centauri Ecology and Social Psych but they are very overloaded already.

Intellectual Integrity <- Ethical Calculus + Doctrine: Loyalty
Ethical Calculus seems on target but Doctrine: Loyalty is clear opposite to "unburdened by prejudices" and "clarity of undistorted knowledge". Yet, despite their own description game designers perceive it as a military/totalitarian technology that unlocks Citizen's Defense Force, High morale and non-lethal methods. So maybe this dependency is fine in a scope of a game.

Centauri Empathy <- Secrets of the Human Brain + Centauri Ecology
Centauri Ecology is a logical "Centauri" prerequisite. Secrets of the Human Brain is kinda off target, though. How human brain function align with Centauri anything? Too big of a stretch. I think it is a perfect opportunity to involve more alien technologies and make Centauri Empathy dependent on Field Modulation, for example.

Superconductor <- Optical Computers + Industrial Base
This is one of the off standalone tech those are difficult to tie to any other SMACX concept. It sounds both scientific and industrial a bit. So dependency on Industrial Base seems fine. However, Optical Computer doesn't seem to fit the bill. I have no ideas here. Theoretically it should come from physics/chemistry probably but these two are very overloaded already. Any other suggestions?

Silksteel Alloys <- Advanced Subatomic Theory + Industrial Automation
Another ambiguity. It seems to be an application rather than a pure science. So any relation to industry is fine. However, it is not clear how Industrial Automation can help there. Advanced Subatomic Theory is clearly off the chart here. Alloys are more of chemistry level stuff. Again, no ideas. Open for suggestions.

Planetary Networks <- Information Networks
That is fine. I just want to add another prerequisite like Secrets of the human brain. It seems logical since Planetary Networks enable Hologram Theater that may need to understand human brain. Another choice would be Social Psych for the same reason.

Organic Superlubricant <- Synthetic Fossil Fuels, Fusion Power
I see how it can be connected to Synthetic Fossil Fuels. However, Fusion Power? Besides, it won't connect to any future technology. Why fusion laser is enabled by it is a mystery. I think it is better just to remove or rename it.
I'll rename it to "cold fusion". I guess it makes better sense as fusion power application as well as further advances in spaceflight based on it.

Matter Editation <- Self-Aware Machines + Super Tensile Solids
Doesn't make sense. Name matches Matter Compression. Picture matches nanotech.

There is also a lot of interesting connections on higher levels. For example, Graviton Theory <- Quantum Machinery + Mind/Machine Interface, etc. I guess they can be linked either way because they are mostly science. For the same reason people wouldn't complain about it much.

[Trenacker]

tnevolin, are you able to add new techs to the tree, or are you limited to having to "rewire" the existing tree to make the linkages and dependencies more sensible?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

tnevolin, are you able to add new techs to the tree, or are you limited to having to "rewire" the existing tree to make the linkages and dependencies more sensible?

There are three unused slots in the list those can be added. All tech are completely customizable. So in addition to rewiring they can be renamed. However, this'll be a completely new experience for user. There are tons of mods out there with renamed techs. I am trying to stick as close to vanilla. However, I am open to suggestions. Like small renaming here and there to make it stick together better.

[Trenacker]

Are you picking on the names of the techs, or what the techs give you?  Because I'm inclined to view the former as whatever techno babble they came up with, and not problematic.  BTW it's Nanometallurgy, not Metallurgy.  Metallurgy is what gives you Cannons in Civ II or Freeciv.  The dumb part about some of that was giving you things like a Carrier Deck as some kind of "advanced" ability.  This is an artifact of skinning the tech tree of Civ II.

Both. There is much more scope in a written project to rename techs, but I am trying to keep all the original ones because they constitute a ready-made trove of universe-appropriate material. Nonetheless, the technobabble they came up with does sometimes violate the plausibility principle. When I build “Industrial Base,” I can intuit that my factories will work better. I don’t have the same instant recognition for “Nonlinear Mathematics” or “Monopole Magnets.”

For reference, I am both rewiring and adding to the tech tree. As previously mentioned, I’m adding a “Tier 0” with breakthroughs relevant to the cannibalism and reverse-engineering of Unity materials.

Bad guidance if it's to be SMAC.  You have to explore an alien landscape to understand and utilize its flora and fauna.  Xenobiology 101.  You can discover anything.  You can discover you had an extra sandwich in the back of your refrigerator.  If you're climbing a tech tree, how is anything not a discovery?  Only thing I can think of, is the things inserted in the tree that aren't actually techs, but social conditions.  Like Democracy.

The answer to this would be to use a word other than “Discovery.” I’ve made a conscious choice to keep using it because it was part of the original tech tree. I’ve just added a small explanatory remark to help players get a good sense of what happens if they go down that path in the limited context of my game. That’s exactly what Alpha Centauri did by printing out the tech tree as an insert poster packaged with the software: they gave a very simple roadmap to help players figure out what “Monopole Magnets” could do for them.

So we agree on that problem, that "to discover" doesn't mean much in a tech tree.  At least the original game is recursive about it!  "Discover is about making discoveries more quickly."  Yeah, uh, discover what?  "Everything".  Well except you'll spend most of your time discovering the discoveries that make you discover everything faster.

We have nothing to research, except... research itself!

Yes.

I'm trying to tell you that your tonal poem "Command vs. Choose" means more to you, than it does to an arbitrary player trying to figure out what's going on.  It's a specific instance of the general game design problem, "categories mean more to the designer who wrote them, than the new player who hasn't seen them used before."

So does the tonal poem “Monopole Magnets.” So you give them small cues. Not novellas, but bullet points or colors.

Players actually quit games when guidance is fantastically bad.  It may take more than one such thing, but player irritation with things they don't understand, is cumulative.

Based on experience from 2014 and feedback from other reviewers, this isn’t causing irritation to anyone right now.

There are three unused slots in the list those can be added. All tech are completely customizable. So in addition to rewiring they can be renamed. However, this'll be a completely new experience for user. There are tons of mods out there with renamed techs. I am trying to stick as close to vanilla. However, I am open to suggestions. Like small renaming here and there to make it stick together better.

Only three? Is there any practical way to expand that number? It feels like the available mods are slowly growing more ambitious as the relative simplicity of the source code increases while the years pass.

I haven’t run across mods with renamed techs, but I’d be curious to find a list of those techs, if you know of any.

Nonlinear Mathematics <- Applied Physics + Information Networks

This one feels fine to me, but I don’t have any objection to swapping Applied Physics for Progenitor Psych, or simply adding Progenitor Psych as a new prerequisite.

Industrial Economics   <- Industrial Base

I don’t see the need, but Social Psych seems the most plausible new input.

Centauri Empathy <- Secrets of the Human Brain + Centauri Ecology

My take on the lore is that Planet is approachable enough for humans. Indeed, the implication that Planet was once Earth makes the connection explicit. Yes, some warping of the mind is inevitable—looking into the Abyss means that Abyss looks back into you, and all that. But Planet’s never presented as Lovecraftian in its ineffability.

Silksteel Alloys <- Advanced Subatomic Theory + Industrial Automation

Agreed. Maybe Advanced Subatomic Theory and Gene Splicing, because of the mention of silk? High Energy Chemistry also seems a relevant precursor.

Planetary Networks <- Information Networks

Sure.

[bvanevery]

Nonlinear Mathematics <- Applied Physics + Information Networks
Applied Physics seems to be overloaded already because every science stems from it. Besides, usually breakthrough in math is extended to science and not other way around.

These are not unreasonable dependencies from a narrative point of view.

The biggest question is whether it's appropriate to have a strength 4 weapon come so quickly after a strength 2 weapon.  I say it isn't appropriate, I don't do that, and the original game made a fundamental mistake doing it.  I have the strength 3 R-Laser, which I believe you and I discussed eons ago.  Currently in my tree, they are not a linear sequence.  They are in different parts of the tree, the R-Laser being part of the Alien tech sequence.  Particle Impactors and R-Lasers are actually equal cost weapons on the same tier.  I have a gap between strengths 2 and 4, there is simply no "plain" strength 3 weapon.  This is because weapon artwork is strictly locked to weapon strength in the game.

The second major concern, is whether an obviously Discover tech such as Information Networks, should be a research bottleneck for a Conquer tech.  Generally in my mod, with its clean separation of Conquer as a research concern, that's a no-no.  I do make a few exceptions here and there out of necessity, but usually Conquer techs have Conquer prereqs.

Gameplay trumps narrative.  When you have a conflict between narrative and gameplay in the tech tree, IMO you have to jettison narrative.  In many releases of my mod, I've had "minor warts" of this sort, transitions that don't make a lot of narrative sense.  Over time, as I became more intimately familiar with every single last shred of tech and quote, I found ways to solve these problems.  A different change in the tech tree, would often "free up" something to be used elsewhere.

In very late, mature development, it becomes necessary to consider fundamental repurposings, because everything is tied up and in use.  There's no flexibility left in the tree anymore.  My most recent big flash of insight, is that Superconductor should be a Build tech, not a Conquer tech.  It's Morgan's line about "superconducting fiber alone makes our present economy possible".  For me this now gives the Energy Bank and the Merchant Exchange, and it's at Tier 3.  This is 100% a lore fit, it's just counter to player experience.  Gatling Laser is gone, moved it to C5 Doctrine: Air Power.  I'm not 100% thrilled about giving that gun and the Needlejet chassis at the same time, but it's not a great harm at that point in the game, and I'm out of techs.

Later in the game, I typically give a weapon and an armor of the same strength in the same tech.  This frees up more techs to be used for other things.  By late game it's like, let's get on with the war already.  Don't need to crawl over whether you've got a weapon or an armor now.

Would it be more logical to drive something nonlinear from Progenitor Psych instead?

No.  That would be anti-character and anti-lore.  Progenitor Psych is about Progenitor stuff.  Languages composed from tonal relativity. (So what's their written system, game narrative geniuses?  What a boner.)  Shadow regiments, cloaking stuff.  Ways of influencing Planet.  There's nothing mathematical or "dry lab" about these Alien characters at all.  It's clearly Zhakarov's kind of research area.  Paying attention to who's voicing the quote for the tech, can usually give guidance about who's area it is.  Not always, but usually.

[bvanevery]

Industrial Economics   <- Industrial Base
That is perfectly fine. However, I feel the Economics part needs another prerequisite. How about Biogenetics? It seems like most economical aligned first level tech. Other options would be Centauri Ecology and Social Psych but they are very overloaded already.

Nexii had the insight that Industrial Base is a more meaningful way to give Formers than Centauri Ecology.  Well it's debatable, but a Former is a heavy piece of industrial machinery.  A sort of Planet Raper, if you will, although one could plant "nice trees" or relatively benign crops with it as well.  Anyways, I ran with it in my mod, and gave him an acknowledgement.

A corollary to this, is that Centauri Ecology needs to do something else.  I think I had the insight to use it for Recycling Tanks.  Nexii can correct me if it was really his idea, but I think it was mine.  I've been playing with "Centauri Ecology is Tier 1 and gives the Recycling Tank" and I really like the change.   It's a way better lore fit to hippie skippy Gaian "conservationist" sensibilities.  Yeah don't ruin my rainbow by talking to me about plastic bag sorters.     I like to think that the Gaians have implemented large scale biological recycling.  Even Yang is in on the act: "it is every citizen's final duty...."

Tier 1 Recycling Tank encourages more vertical play.  Yeah I guess the original game does that too, just with Biogenetics.  I've had Recycling Tank at Tier 2 for a very long time, so its effect on gameplay moving it back to Tier 1, seems like a big deal to me.

I have Industrial Base and Centauri Ecology as my prereqs for Industrial Economics.  I'm surprised to see that the original game only had Industrial Base as a prereq, no 2nd one.  My tech tree is a very strictly "2 prereqs" tree with tiers in lock step, always Tier N preceding Tier N+1.  This is only violated at the very end of the game.  My tree is dense and the Tier of a tech does have inherent meaning for when it's more likely to occur in the game.  The time window of appearance is bounded by how wide or narrow a given tier is.  For instance, you get Tier 2 techs pretty quickly in my mod, because there are no Secret Projects guarding them from being traded.  But there are a lot of them, so getting all Tier 2 techs takes quite a bit longer.  Factions will definitely be specializing in Tier 3 before they get all of Tier 2.

The Tier 1 techs being overloaded, is a "prereq puzzle" I've worked through many times.  Some of my mod releases were very cramped.  I think the lowest number of Tier 1 techs I managed, without grossly violating dependency sensibilities and after piles of hard thought about narrative implications, was 5.

Past experience has shown that the Command Center must be given on Tier 1.  Otherwise the AIs are gonna suck.  They may suck anyways, for some reason in my mod they're not that great about building Command Centers.  This is rather different than the unmodded game where the AI factions seem to build Command Centers excessively.

Recently I had the insight that Doctrine: Loyalty wasn't serving an important purpose where I had it.  That I could move the Punishment Sphere somewhere else, and that Fundamentalist / Extremist / Theocratic did not have to be there.  I put that in Social Psych, and the PS went to Ethical Calculus.  "Gonna be good or evil?"  PS is only important for conquering distant bases, it has no value as an early game accelerant, I've found.  It's always cheaper / better to just do Rec Commons etc. until your bases get really big.  And by then, it's your core empire and you're not gonna just tear that stuff up and screw over your research.  Slaves are empire, not core.

Anyways, completely freed up Doctrine: Loyalty.  Put the Command Center in that and made it a Tier 1 tech.

Generally speaking, this is the kind of maneuver you do when you've got too much pressure on your Tier 1.  Find a tech somewhere else that has something that's not that important, and shift its stuff to other parts of the tree.

[bvanevery]

Intellectual Integrity <- Ethical Calculus + Doctrine: Loyalty
Ethical Calculus seems on target but Doctrine: Loyalty is clear opposite to "unburdened by prejudices" and "clarity of undistorted knowledge". Yet, despite their own description game designers perceive it as a military/totalitarian technology that unlocks Citizen's Defense Force, High morale and non-lethal methods. So maybe this dependency is fine in a scope of a game.

No, the actual use of Intellectual Integrity in the game is completely totally stupid BS.  I will go so far as to say, they had a more fitting idea at some point, but were forced for reasons of gameplay balance, to shuffle things around.  I.I. is clearly voice acted as a Zhakarov science tech.  Citizens' Defense Force is totally nonsensical and they stuck it in there "because they wanted it to happen at that time in the game".

In my mod, I.I. is a pure Discover tech that gives the Universal Translator, and unfortunately nothing else because there's only so much pure Discover stuff available.  I'm not happy about the U.T. video coming so early in the game, but it's an acceptable loss.  It's also quite intellectually disingenuous to have Miriam's "God translator stele" be a part of II, but eh whatever!  This is a case of gameplay trumping narrative for videos.  The actual play mechanic of the Universal Translator, is pretty useless to have later.  It costs 300 minerals, equivalent to 6 Alien Artifacts.  Well you could pop 2 Artifacts and you'd get the same "2 new techs" bonus.  It is clearly not worth it, and there's no way I'm going to put it later in the game, where Secret Projects generally cost more minerals.  And being able to cash an infinite number of Artifacts, that's really only worthwhile in the early game, when you don't have a lot of Network Nodes at your disposal.

Citizens' Defense Force went to the same Tier 3 tech that gives Plasma Armor.  I see it as a kind of wall.  Hey, that's what they actually draw on the map.  Doesn't matter to me if you're supposed to imagine little beefy Spartan women in cutoff camo t-shirts running around flaming mindworms with flamethrowers.  You draw an armored base, I'm going to say it's an armored base.  1st person to get to the armor, can build better armored bases.

Oh, and Non-Lethal Methods.  Why is this even an invention / tech?  I guess SMAC had some deep Black Lives Matter conversation for a very long time, and they forgot basic concepts in policework.     Anyways it's not an intellectual issue, it's a POLICE issue.  If you think the methods are really some kind of extra surveillance, well that would be a good argument for renaming the ability.  I'm not deeply invested in doing so though.  Keeping N.L.M. is less confusing for veteran players, absent some higher concern, that I don't actually have.

I'm currently giving N.L.M. the same time I'm giving Police State.  I've predefined some police units like the Synth Police and Plasma Police, so that the AI factions will build them.  I've seen some uptake of those, not as much as I might like but some.

BTW... all these interlocked concerns, are demonstrating that as a system of authorship, this kind of "narratively constrained tech tree" idea really sucks.  It wastes incredible amounts of production labor, having to think hard and shuffle around these relationships.  To the extent that I contemplate doing a commercial 4X TBS game myself, I've been thinking about an "event driven" system.  Define needed game conditions and areas of narrative relevance.  Fire the event when sufficient thresholds are reached.  A certain degree of randomness of "what comes when" would be expected, but the tech and narrative continuities would be preserved by the algorithm.  There would be no "fixed static tree".

With such a system, I could model things like why some societies build Recycling Tanks everywhere and other societies don't.

[Trenacker]

Two quick thoughts.

I think it makes more sense for Formers to come from Centauri Ecology because, while industrial plants build Formers, their proper use depends on a full understanding of Centauri geology, hydrology, etc. Technically speaking, it is Industrial Base that builds everything in the game. Why have any other techs?

Non-Lethal Methods may actually best belong at the beginning of the tree. Shredder pistols were presumably no less, and perhaps even more, lethal than slug weapons, and chosen for the reduced likelihood they would pierce Unity's hull. But you have to wonder if the stun gun/Taser was also in widespread use. Hard to believe otherwise.

[bvanevery]

Centauri Empathy <- Secrets of the Human Brain + Centauri Ecology
Centauri Ecology is a logical "Centauri" prerequisite. Secrets of the Human Brain is kinda off target, though. How human brain function align with Centauri anything? Too big of a stretch. I think it is a perfect opportunity to involve more alien technologies and make Centauri Empathy dependent on Field Modulation, for example.

My SotHB prereqs are D2 Information Networks and E2 Centauri Empathy.  Empathy is how you start getting better at controlling mindworms with your own mind, so in terms of game lore this is not crazy.  My SotHB gives you the 1 free tech + the Virtual World.  V.W. is a lore fit as well, you're jacking into the brain to give a virtual experience.

The Kantian quote is also hand-wavy possible to say it's about "distinguishing reality from non-reality".  I didn't actually plan that, I only just looked it up, but hey it fits well enough.  I'm not a big fan of the various philosophical sprinklings.  It educates the player about what it's like to major in Philosophy in college, but it usually waters down the characterizations of the major game characters.  Like, I'd rather hear Yang or Zhakarov talk about this stuff, not Kant.  And indeed they do, but I'd like more of them, less of the dead guys.

The game mechanical consideration for me, is I use Explore techs as the Happiness techs.  The Virtual World is a Happiness device.  Therefore, it should have an Explore component to the tech.  In my mod it does.  It's cross-listed, although Discover is more dominant than Explore.  So I have both a Discover and an Explore prereq.  One might wonder why the Virtual World should be a Discover tech at all in my regime, since all it does is provide happiness and doesn't make research go any faster.  I rationalize that it provides happiness while you're doing research.  I'm also goosing Zhakarov along.  He's got all those free Network Nodes to make use of, and he's the pure Discover poster child in my mod.  It's "his tech tree".

I don't give Zhakarov that "unethical drone penalty" though.  Can't abide the harm to AI performance.  In fact he gets an unethical bonus, his POLICE penalties are halved.  My SE table evolved to have Knowledge and Cybernetic as the main anti-POLICE options for a long time, so this was necessary.

If you're building lotsa N.N.s then the V.W. is a good thing to have.  Although it's less important in my mod, because Hologram Theaters are cheaper and require less maintenance.  But, you don't get them right away nowadays.  It takes some time, and they're on a different path to keep the AI from redundantly building both H.T.s and the V.W.  For various factions, the V.W. may be the 1st tech that gets them to that level of happiness in a cost-effective manner.

Centauri Empathy isn't my "make mindworms" tech.  Mine's Centauri Genetics and it's Explore 3.  Centauri Empathy is my Green tech and it's Explore 2.

A Field Modulation dependence, is a judgment call about whether you think things should depend on Alien ways of looking at things, or if humans could have jolly well figured it out themselves.  With some grey area for game mechanical requirements.  It's not a foreign idea to me, as I say the Aliens taught everyone Hypnotic Trance and the humans didn't figure it out.  I don't exactly like that as it's not original game, but play mechanically it works.  My Progenitors start the game with Hypnotic Trance available, via Progenitor Psych which is Explore 3.  Field Modulation is Conquer 2 and gives the Cloaking Field, which is Cloaking Device renamed to be a better lore fit.  Walking around invisible is totally what these Aliens do.  It's also a useless ability when playing against the AI, so I'm pretty happy to give it away early as unimportant.  It enabled me to use Frictionless Surfaces for something else, which I actually renamed to Single-Sided Surfaces at one point, to make it more applicable to other stuff.

[bvanevery]

I'm afraid I'm "worn out" as far as providing detailed blow-by-blows of the slate of questions you had, Tim.  I've provided heavy input on the first several concerns.  For the rest, "play my mod", or read my copious CHANGELOG.  All my rationalizations are in there, 2+ years worth.

There are three unused slots in the list those can be added.

For 2 of them, their quotes and voice acting can be reactivated.  I suggest you do so, because it's pretty much easter egg content to people familiar with the game.  I have Global Energy Theory and Inertial Damping.  The User Technology, it's not useful because the icon is stupid looking, an electric light bulb with either a question mark or a 9 in it, I forget.

All tech are completely customizable.

Only if you're willing to edit blurbsx.txt and provide new voice acting, or turn off / waylay the voice acting, and also edit the icon artwork.  That's a lot of work and it would be better to regard each tech, as being inherently stuck with some fixed content.  This is what makes the techs a narrative constraint.

[bvanevery]

I don’t have the same instant recognition for “Nonlinear Mathematics” or “Monopole Magnets.”

You have a point that Nonlinear Mathematics is ripe for repurposing as something else, much as I repurposed Superconductor according to Morgan's actual quote and voice acting.  But from a game modding standpoint, for what?  There aren't actually enough Discover oriented pure research techs, to put it into the Discover tree where the name and Zhakarov voice acting actually belong.  And what's going to give the Particle Impactor if not that?  I think narratively they did some "high energy science techno babble" for various weapons, so that's what we've got.

And is it a problem really?  Do Star Trek watchers get "upset" when someone talks about a "quantum phase inverter" or whatever <insert techno babble here> is being used to explain energy physics that obviously we have no current understanding of?  I'd say if you're watching a sci-fi show and can't handle this sort of thing, you need to watch something else.  Which admittedly, can be a problem when a game hemorrhages its audience to something more "historical", as in the case of SMAC vs. Civ.  The historical story is way easier for most people to digest.

I don't see the problem with Monopole Magnets.  You get mag tubes.  It's a glorified monorail in the future.  I mean if you're a certain age and you don't know about monorails, you're a dummy.  Or poor / in some other part of the world or something.  I was exposed to the things at Disneyland, which I guess means I was "rich" as a kid.  As an adult, they were in downtown Seattle to get to the World's Fair grounds and back.

So does the tonal poem “Monopole Magnets.”

Educated grade school kids know that magnets are dipole.  Talking about them being monopole may be exotic, but it's hardly off-topic.  Adults may not remember the terminology because their teachers aren't whipping them for compliance  , but if a player is really put out by this and can't wrap their head around it at all, they're dummies and shouldn't be playing a sci-fi game.  Let alone roleplaying one in your extended wargame.  I mean there's a point at which "I don't know what 'monopole' means" just isn't a valid objection about anything.  It would be like "don't write with fifty cent words", which is a non-goal for making a sci-fi game.

[Trenacker]

Part of the goal of letting leaders speak with regard to techs and ideas uncharacteristic of their societies is to show the benefit of multidisciplinary thinking and new perspective. Did we ever expect to hear pacifistic Skye talk about the aftermath of a military victory against the Spartans? How about Lal talking about mobility?

Some Trekkies do get upset when the inconsistencies and discontinuities stack up, yes. The idea is that you are creating a story that should have some internal consistency, not that you can't have future tech. Nonliner Mathematics doesn't present a problem by merely existing--it is just that it has no obvious application at first glance. It needs the benefit of flavor text a while lot more than does Industrial Base.

Monopole Magnets is problematic because the immediate industrial application of a magnet isn't intuitive. Again, "Industrial Base probably enhances my manufacturing." What do monopole magnets do for me? I know what a magnet is, and I know what monopole magnets must be in broad strokes, but I don't immediately think "monorails!" What if I thought, "Gauss cannon!" instead?

Educated grade school kids know that magnets are dipole.  Talking about them being monopole may be exotic, but it's hardly off-topic.  Adults may not remember the terminology because their teachers aren't whipping them for compliance  , but if a player is really put out by this and can't wrap their head around it at all, they're dummies and shouldn't be playing a sci-fi game.  Let alone roleplaying one in your extended wargame.  I mean there's a point at which "I don't know what 'monopole' means" just isn't a valid objection about anything.  It would be like "don't write with fifty cent words", which is a non-goal for making a sci-fi game.

There are times I wonder if you just enjoy argument for its own sake.

You complained previously that a good game is one in which the players needn't do too much intellectual gymnastics to apprehend what happens if they push Button A or pull Lever B. Now, you're waving all that away.

[bvanevery]

Players actually quit games when guidance is fantastically bad.  It may take more than one such thing, but player irritation with things they don't understand, is cumulative.

Based on experience from 2014 and feedback from other reviewers, this isn’t causing irritation to anyone right now.

Well you have the luxury of hand picking your crew of ~15 players for the extended wargame you're running.  And personally answering any questions anyone has about what they're vague on.  And we established, unfortunately on the Discord, that your game designing isn't mass audience facing.  You are neither concerned with how it will be narrated to someone who is not playing, nor whether anyone else would adopt your gaming system as a standard.  And finally, I believe you're saying that you haven't actually run the game with the "Choose" category in it yet. 

If you're not personally going to tell people what's going on, there's a reason to come up with a better category name.

[bvanevery]

Technically speaking, it is Industrial Base that builds everything in the game.

That's false.  It's Industrial Base, not Industrial Everything.  Listen to what Morgan actually tells you when you get that tech.  You gotta start somewhere, and the Former is the most basic piece of industrial equipment to the whole game.

I mean, this whole tree isn't in a vacuum of "words, categories, and player preconceptions".  There's extensive narrative guidance, voice acted.  This is why we're still playing the game 21 years later, and why nobody has equaled this thing.

[bvanevery]

Did we ever expect to hear pacifistic Skye talk about the aftermath of a military victory against the Spartans?

No, and it's out of character.  The problem is, why is Deirdre using a quantum tank to plow through a wrecked Sparta Command?  Deidre fought totally conventional war, and won against the Spartans?  FFS why?  We're being given a narrative reversal, that "Gaians, despite being pacifist, can actually kick some ass."  And we'd be right to question the writing here.  If Deidre had mindwormed and locusted everyone to death, we'd get it.  We might even expect it.  But quantum tanks?  Well I guess Gaian research is pretty darned spiffy over the long haul.  And what's the secret in "Our Secret War" ?  It's supposed to be mindworms; Buster's Uncle got me wise to one of the most obscure commands of the game, "Release mindworms into the wild."  There is a secret war.  What's up with this quantum tank stuff?  Deidre amassed a sizable legion of quantum tanks secretly, despite the preponderance of probe teams in this gaming universe, and did some kind of fooled ya sucker punch invasion?

Not buying it.  I'm a modder; I know the game did some things wrong.  But redoing voice acting is expensive and not low hanging fruit.  "...as our mindworm boil slithered over the rubble... there were few screams of human life."  That's how you take out Spartans when you're 'pacifist'.

Deidre is an eco-Nazi anyways.  She never fooled me.  Must be all that cartooney one-dimensional faction diplomatic dialogue, in the cookie cutter template that doesn't allow for anything else.

How about Lal talking about mobility?

Out of character.  Probably written and voice acted at a time where they didn't fully know where they were going with stuff yet.  Or, they may have realized they didn't have enough "Lal lines" and tossed in a mediocre one to make up for it.

Or maybe they just didn't have the writing chops to make Santiago into a credible military leader.  It clearly should have been her area.  She's the weakest of the original lineup.  She never invades anything, shoots anything, gives an order... she does the "philosophical" thing like everyone else, and that's not a convincing portrayal of a military leader.  Warlords kill and bomb stuff.  They also execute the insubordinate on the spot.

Nonliner Mathematics doesn't present a problem by merely existing--it is just that it has no obvious application at first glance.

SMAC doesn't have to be a 'glancing' narrative.  There's piles upon piles of game lore that Nonlinear Mathematics techno-babble fits into.  Just keep listening to Zhakarov, he'll set you straight.

Monopole Magnets is problematic because the immediate industrial application of a magnet isn't intuitive.

It is if you know you're getting mag tubes and have ever seen a monorail.  Monorail monomagnet monopole monowhatever.  Mono mono mono mono mono.  If Yang had started talking about monotheism in all of this, I might be worried, but he talked about Yin without Yang, North without South, Pleasure without Pain.  This is a very Enlightened way to travel.  It's hardcore application of indoctrinal woo.

I know what a magnet is, and I know what monopole magnets must be in broad strokes, but I don't immediately think "monorails!"

They tell you what it makes, so you shouldn't have any problem figuring it out.  It's not like this is a game of "guess the application" and "enter it into a text parser to solve a puzzle".

What if I thought, "Gauss cannon!" instead?

How about if you're even capable of contemplating how a railgun works, you already know how a monorail works?  You jolly well should.  And those that don't know either, aren't a problem, because the tech entry explained what everything is for.  And used the prefix "mono-" to make a hand wavy connection in the mind of the audience as to how they're related.  The techno babble here is perfectly fine.

There are times I wonder if you just enjoy argument for its own sake.

I don't think you like your own design biases laid bare.

You complained previously that a good game is one in which the players needn't do too much intellectual gymnastics to apprehend what happens if they push Button A or pull Lever B. Now, you're waving all that away.

I can't even begin to understand why you personally have a blind spot about the basic technology of a monorail.  But you do, and there it is.

Go do an internet survey on how many sci-fi fans know what a monorail is.