Atrocities or not in human multiplayer games?

[Earthmichael]

Yes, copters (without CBA) are speed 10.  My test bed for some of my comments was the Nomads scenario, since I am right in the middle of it.  Copters do indeed get 12 moves in this Nomadscenario, 9 for interceptors.  And this is a SMAC scenario, so there is no CBA.  I tried to test my rovers, but could never manage a battle where I was less than half dead to see if I would get another attack.  So I started a new game where I played all factions and see that rovers and hovertanks indeed can attack multiple times.  But no ship and no aircraft other the copters can attack multiple times.  Copters can bomb terrain enhancements, but they take damage doing so (at least in the Nomads game, I forgot to test in my other game.)

Anyone who doubts the effectiveness of copters should look at my Nomads game.  I did not start my attack until after I got copters, and I quickly blitzed through my entire continent in no time flat.  No defending bases had aerospace complex, only some AAA defenders.  The problem for the defenders was, even when I lost a copter or two getting through the AAA units, my remaining copters could quickly wipe out everything else: rovers, police, etc.  So they had no means to counterattack when I waltzed up to take the base with my land unit.  Of course, my copters usually landed in the just-taken base.


I think that all of these suggested changes would overly weaken the air power tree, which would end up making needlejets and gravships underpowered.

The problem is, copters are an anomaly.  They are the ONLY non-land unit that can attack multiple times.  And furthermore, you don't pay a premium price for this feature!

Rather than change the tech tree, and make AAA cheaper and more effective, etc., etc., why not deal directly with the problem?  Either ban copters from the game, or charge a truly premium price for the chassis, so that you have to think twice about it.  The chassis should cost at least 1-2 more rows than the Hovertank chassis.  Even then, I am sure copters will be built, but probably not to where 90% of your force is copters.

As for supply crawlers, sure they are useful, but they are an essential part of the game.  At most, I can see limit crawlers to only the basic style, nothing more, but that is to just mitigate the pod autocomplete exploit.  I think terraformers are just as powerful if not more so than crawlers, but I don't see anyone talking about banning them.  I personally would not play in a game where crawlers or terraformers were banned.  These two units give SMAC its richness.  Without them, I might as well be playing Civ 4.

Nor is FM overpowered.  There are a LOT of negatives to deal with for FM.  There is no need to increase hurrying cost to 150%, either, since low cost hurrying is only limited to structures.  And whats with reducing Democracy growth by one?  Democracy is not overpowered.

And as for ICS, it is not a viably strategy except in a huge world is so widely separated that the opponent cannot reach you until turn 100 or so, so I do not consider it overpowered.   I just don't play worlds large enough that ICS could work; games take far too long to complete.  The Vets map is the largest map that I play regularly, and I would not play a game in anything larger.  And I can definitely reach you on the Vets map before you can get ICS going.

[Yitzi]

Yes, copters (without CBA) are speed 10.

I'm pretty sure it's 8 without CBA, 10 with CBA.

Copters can bomb terrain enhancements, but they take damage doing so

Ah, that makes sense.

Anyone who doubts the effectiveness of copters should look at my Nomads game.  I did not start my attack until after I got copters, and I quickly blitzed through my entire continent in no time flat.  No defending bases had aerospace complex, only some AAA defenders.  The problem for the defenders was, even when I lost a copter or two getting through the AAA units, my remaining copters could quickly wipe out everything else: rovers, police, etc.  So they had no means to counterattack when I waltzed up to take the base with my land unit.  Of course, my copters usually landed in the just-taken base.

Isn't that AI?  I'd think humans would be smarter about making defenders against a copter-heavy force.

I think that all of these suggested changes would overly weaken the air power tree, which would end up making needlejets and gravships underpowered.

So the issue is specifically making copters weaker as compared to needlejets and gravships?  That's a trickier goal, as if a copter ended its movement after attacking the way that needlejets and gravships do, then it would "crash" and take damage.  The only thing I can think of that might work (other than banning copters or making them essentially useless) is to make a rule that a copter can't attack more than once even though it has movement left.  Unless coders can be found capable of such a task, it would have to be as a house rule.

Although even so, air power is strong enough that I think lowering AAA to Optical Computers and giving it +150% defense vs. Air and pricing it like Trance would not weaken it too much.

The chassis should cost at least 1-2 more rows than the Hovertank chassis.

It's not that simple because it's not a fixed price for the chassis...but if we assume 1-2 more rows for pure-attack units at the tech level where hovertanks become available (so Plasma Shard and Fusion Reactor), the hovertank costs 13X4/8=6.5, rounds to 7 rows, so you'd want a plasma chopper to cost 8-9 rows.  Taking 8 so we have room to fudge in either direction (as I'm pretty sure it rounds uo), 8X8=64, times 4 is 256, divide by 13 for around 20, minus 2 for its armor, so you'd want to give a chopper a cost of 18; this would mean an unarmored chopper would have a cost roughly 125% that of an equivalent hovertank.

As for supply crawlers, sure they are useful, but they are an essential part of the game.

How so?  What do they accomplish that the game would suffer without?

At most, I can see limit crawlers to only the basic style

What is the basic style?

I think terraformers are just as powerful if not more so than crawlers

I'd say they aren't, for two reasons:
1. They cost support (at least until clean reactor), and are therefore limited in numbers.
2. They improve worked tiles, but do not themselves work the tiles, so their economic usefulness is limited by your bases.

Without them, I might as well be playing Civ 4.

Tell me...does Civ 4 require you to balance production/tile improvement against ecological stability in order to avoid being attacked by barbarians?  I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Nor is FM overpowered.  There are a LOT of negatives to deal with for FM.

Such as?  You can't go on the offensive, and you need empath units to deal with mind worms.  That's pretty much it.  I'd like to add one more, namely that you can't have anywhere near as much minerals/advanced terraforming without running into ecological problems.

There is no need to increase hurrying cost to 150%, either, since low cost hurrying is only limited to structures.

Yeah, for units it's the "build cheap units and upgrade them" tactic that's the problem.  So perhaps a hurrying cost increase isn't needed, at least once energy parks are made impossible.  (Energy parks produce far more energy/square than you can feasibly get min/square, so if they're allowed to remain the energy-to-mineral ratio would have to be weakened to depower energy focus to not be the only valid choice.)

And whats with reducing Democracy growth by one?  Democracy is not overpowered.

I got the idea from Marid Audran's mod, and my reason is the same as his: To make it impossible to get an "easy" pop boom.

And as for ICS, it is not a viably strategy except in a huge world is so widely separated that the opponent cannot reach you until turn 100 or so, so I do not consider it overpowered.

So why does it seem that a lot of people use it?

Also, I feel that ICS should be least viable in a builder game where you're focusing on the long term.

I just don't play worlds large enough that ICS could work; games take far too long to complete.  The Vets map is the largest map that I play regularly, and I would not play a game in anything larger.  And I can definitely reach you on the Vets map before you can get ICS going.

So then what city layout is generally used on smaller maps?  Somehow, I doubt it's the "20-25 squares per city" approach that I favor in SP (and which is vastly superior in the late game).

[Earthmichael]

I'm pretty sure it's 8 without CBA, 10 with CBA.

On my straight planet test game, copters have speed 10.  With Nomands scenario, they have 12.  Try it yourself.  Let me know if you get a different result; that means there might be a problem with my normal settings.

So the issue is specifically making copters weaker as compared to needlejets and gravships? 

I think they are just too cheap for what they do.  So the simple solution is to make them cost more.  No further tweaking needed.

Although even so, air power is strong enough that I think lowering AAA to Optical Computers and giving it +150% defense vs. Air and pricing it like Trance would not weaken it too much.

I don't think it is needed.  Needlejets can at most attack once every other turn (and less often if they need to repair between).  When they attack, they are completely exposed for a counterattack.  They are completely vulnerable in bases when landed.  So I do not think Needlejets need tweaking.

How so?  What do they (supply crawlers) accomplish that the game would suffer without?

A large number of strategic options disappear.  Need a bit more food in a base?  Crawler to the rescue.  More minerals?  More energy?  Want to permanently shuttle some resources between bases?  Need some speed up a SP?

In fact, this question seems backward.  If supply crawlers are not that critical to the game (in your way of thinking), then why mod to remove them?  I personally think they are very useful, but less so than terraformers.  So if we are going to get rid of "overpowered" units, I guess terraformers have to go.

What is the basic style (for crawlers)?

Speed 1 chassis, 1 armor, no special features.  The default supply crawler preconfigured in the game.

I'd say they (terraformers) aren't (as powerful as crawlers), for two reasons:
1. They cost support (at least until clean reactor), and are therefore limited in numbers.
2. They improve worked tiles, but do not themselves work the tiles, so their economic usefulness is limited by your bases.

1. Clean reactor comes pretty early, so that limitation is only for the early game.
2. Supply crawlers usefulness is limited by your bases as well.
3. A terraformer can turn a useless square into a square that generates 12 resources.  It reduces movement with roads and magtubes.  It can raise land out of the sea (or reverse).  It can build sensors for defense.  It can create new rivers.  It can build bunkers.  And more, much more versatile than supply crawlers.  As much as I like supply crawlers, if each faction could choose to only have either supply crawlers or terraformers, I would take terraformers.  But why cripple the game by removing either supply crawlers or terraformers???

Earthmichael said: "Nor is FM overpowered.  There are a LOT of negatives to deal with for FM."

Such as?  You can't go on the offensive, and you need empath units to deal with mind worms.  That's pretty much it.  I'd like to add one more, namely that you can't have anywhere near as much minerals/advanced terraforming without running into ecological problems.

First, you lose the ability to use police.  Once non-lethal methods are discovered, this costs at least two drone controls per base.  This is a major negative, especially in the early game.

Second, you can't build any aircraft, even defensively, without major drone penalties for EACH aircraft built.  And as you said, forget about going on the offensive.

Third, you have MUCH more trouble with ecodamage.  You have to greatly limit the mineral output of your bases or spend lots of resources building ecological facilities.  Otherwise, you will have swarms of mindworms coming at you constantly, made that much harder to deal with because of the hugely negative planet rating.

Fourth, being forced to build dedicated empath and trance units IS a big deal.  And the easiest way to deal with mind worms, air power, has huge drone consequences.

I am not sure how much experience you have running FM in a multiplayer human game, but it is not a picnic.  I rarely go to FM as early as I can, generally preferring Planned for the early development stage.  I will sometimes (but not always) use FM during a portion of the midgame.  And I almost always swap out of FM during the late game to either defend myself or to go on the offensive.  FM can be a useful tool if managed properly, which is quite difficult, but it is in no way overpowered.

Yeah, for units it's the "build cheap units and upgrade them" tactic that's the problem.  So perhaps a hurrying cost increase isn't needed, at least once energy parks are made impossible.  (Energy parks produce far more energy/square than you can feasibly get min/square, so if they're allowed to remain the energy-to-mineral ratio would have to be weakened to depower energy focus to not be the only valid choice.)

Mineral parks can easily produce 4 to 6 minerals per square worked.  Energy parks are typically limited to about 4 to 6 energy per square.  I don't see the big difference here???  Furthermore, it takes 2 energy (at best) to substitute for 1 mineral for building, so I really don't understand how energy is overpowered?

I got the idea from Marid Audran's mod, and my reason (for weaking Democracy) is the same as his: To make it impossible to get an "easy" pop boom.

I see no problem with the Democracy/Planned/Creche pop boom.  I think some factions with a growth negative, that this is supposed to be part of their penalty, that they cannot pop boom in this way.  If I felt a pressing need to weaken something to prevent this pop boom, I would weaken Planned rather than Democracy.

So why does it seem that a lot of people use it (ICS)?

Probably because they have not played me.

So then what city layout is generally used on smaller maps?  Somehow, I doubt it's the "20-25 squares per city" approach that I favor in SP (and which is vastly superior in the late game).

The best layout on smaller maps is opportunistic, taking most advantage of the terrain and specials with your initial cities, and then either expanding further if the opportunity is available, or filling in gaps if it is not.  Of course, this is not pretty; it will not preserve a perfect ICS grid.  But I assure you that if the other player is the slightest bit aggressive, you will not have time to complete your ICS grid before you will have to shift anyway to defend yourself on a smaller map.

[Yitzi]

On my straight planet test game, copters have speed 10.  With Nomands scenario, they have 12.  Try it yourself.  Let me know if you get a different result; that means there might be a problem with my normal settings.

When I get a chance I will...if copters do have speed 10 normally, then a depower is definitely in order.

I think they are just too cheap for what they do.  So the simple solution is to make them cost more.  No further tweaking needed.

Increasing the price is always one approach.

I don't think it is needed.  Needlejets can at most attack once every other turn (and less often if they need to repair between).  When they attack, they are completely exposed for a counterattack.

If the enemy has D:AP.  But how powerful are needlejets if one player beelines for D:AP and the other doesn't?

How so?  What do they (supply crawlers) accomplish that the game would suffer without?

A large number of strategic options disappear.  Need a bit more food in a base?  Crawler to the rescue.  More minerals?  More energy?  Want to permanently shuttle some resources between bases?  Need some speed up a SP?[/quote]

I suppose all those are valid, if they aren't taken too far. 
A bit more food in a base is not game-breaking, a base that crawls all its food and goes pure specialist might be.
Minerals aren't likely to be a problem anyway, due to ecodamage issues.
Somewhat more energy is not game-breaking, energy parks are.
Shuttling some resources between bases is not game-breaking, moving all your energy to your HQ is.
Speeding up an SP slightly is not game-breaking, finishing it the turn you get the requisite tech (or even two or three turns later) most certainly is.

So it seems that the answer then would be to allow supply crawlers, but have some way to limit how many you can have.  Any suggestions on how to do that (preferably without more than alpha.txt mods and house rules, but even if it requires scient-level modding I'd be interested in hearing it if it's a good idea)?  (Increasing cost or tech won't really help; that just means there's either none, or just as much as before.)

In fact, this question seems backward.  If supply crawlers are not that critical to the game (in your way of thinking), then why mod to remove them?

You're conflating two meanings of "critical".  In the sense of "has a huge effect", there's no question that they're critical.  The question is whether that effect is positive or negative; it seems that the answer is "positive when there's a few of them, negative when they can be produced without limit."  Formers, on the other hand, have far more of a positive effect, and less of a negative effect; their only negative effect is when advanced terraforming (boreholes,condensers,mirrors) is used all over rather than sparingly.

What is the basic style (for crawlers)?

Speed 1 chassis, 1 armor, no special features.  The default supply crawler preconfigured in the game.[/quote]

That would stop the "upgrading crawlers" exploit if reverse-engineering is banned, but wouldn't stop the other issues.

2. Supply crawlers usefulness is limited by your bases as well.

How so?  Can't a single base accommodate any number of crawlers?

3. A terraformer can turn a useless square into a square that generates 12 resources.  It reduces movement with roads and magtubes.  It can raise land out of the sea (or reverse).  It can build sensors for defense.  It can create new rivers.  It can build bunkers.  And more, much more versatile than supply crawlers.  As much as I like supply crawlers, if each faction could choose to only have either supply crawlers or terraformers, I would take terraformers.

So would I.  The first former is worth far more than the first crawler.  But the hundredth crawler is worth more than the hundredth former.  If crawlers went down in usefulness the more you had the same way that formers do, that would solve the issue nicely.

First, you lose the ability to use police.  Once non-lethal methods are discovered, this costs at least two drone controls per base.  This is a major negative, especially in the early game.

Ok, that makes sense.  You sacrifice population stability; it looks to me, though, like you're supposed to sacrifice ecological stability as well, and the clean mineral system (especially with the exploit) means that you don't.  If your third point was a serious issue, I'd agree that FM would be balanced, so let's address that next.

Third, you have MUCH more trouble with ecodamage.  You have to greatly limit the mineral output of your bases or spend lots of resources building ecological facilities.  Otherwise, you will have swarms of mindworms coming at you constantly, made that much harder to deal with because of the hugely negative planet rating.

Not really.  Let's consider a typical case:
-Say it's not one of the top two difficulty levels.
-Average native life
-Not perihilion
-There are 77 techs in SMAC, 86 in SMAX, so let's assume a faction at roughly the midpoint, at 40 techs.  This should correspond to the early midgame.
-Finally, we have to set what's a "safe" amount of eco-damage per base; let's say 5% (as with a decent-sized empire that means you have to deal with a fungal pop at least once every other turn, probably more; any more than that will be seriously unmanageable).

So now let's compare three factions with those settings.  One is running FM, one is running planned or simple, and one is running Green.  So let's see how their minerals/base compares:

The eco-damage formula, when it's not perihilion, is {minerals over clean mineral limit}X{Diff modifier (3 at librarian and below)}X{techs known}X(3-PLANET)X{native life level (2 for average)}/300.  Crunching the numbers, that comes to (for all of our test factions): {minerals over clean mineral limit}X(3-PLANET)X0.8.  Using our safe value of 5 ecodamage per base, that means that {minerals over clean mineral limit}X(3-PLANET) can be up to 5/0.8=6.25.  So:
-Our Green faction (PLANET rating 2) can afford 6 minerals over the clean mineral limit.
-Our "neutral" faction (PLANET rating 0) can afford 2 minerals over the clean mineral limit.
-And our FM faction (PLANET rating -3) can afford 1 mineral over the clean mineral limit.

So by running FM, and getting +1 energy every square and +2 commerce rating, he's forced to give up...5 minerals per base (10 with a Centauri Preserve)?  That doesn't seem like a lot, especially when you consider that it's not lost minerals; he can produce something else instead of those minerals.

So yes, running FM should force you to greatly limit the mineral output of your bases and/or spend lots of resources building ecological facilities.  But it doesn't.  Changing that fact would be quite sufficient to balance FM.

Fourth, being forced to build dedicated empath and trance units IS a big deal.

Nowhere near as big a deal as +1 energy per square.  Trance is essentially free on defensive units (except that it takes up an ability slot), and isn't needed for FM-ers more than anyone else.  Empath is more of a concern, but empath scouts are still fairly cheap (cheaper than mind worms, and even Miriam running FM will get a better than even kill ratio with them.)

And the easiest way to deal with mind worms, air power, has huge drone consequences.

Air is actually a horrible way to deal with native life, due to a little-known feature: If you attack a stack of native-controlled mind worms with a land unit and win, you kill the whole stack.  If you do the same thing with an air unit, you only kill one mind worm.  When stacks are large, that means that infantry are more effective at worm-killing than choppers.

I am not sure how much experience you have running FM in a multiplayer human game

I have none personally, but the authors of this FAQ sound like they have a lot, and they seem to think that Market is a strong strategy; it's also a sentiment that I've encountered in other contexts.

But yes, if you were correct about #3, Market would be balanced.

Yeah, for units it's the "build cheap units and upgrade them" tactic that's the problem.  So perhaps a hurrying cost increase isn't needed, at least once energy parks are made impossible.  (Energy parks produce far more energy/square than you can feasibly get min/square, so if they're allowed to remain the energy-to-mineral ratio would have to be weakened to depower energy focus to not be the only valid choice.)

Mineral parks can easily produce 4 to 6 minerals per square worked.  Energy parks are typically limited to about 4 to 6 energy per square.  I don't see the big difference here???

Firstly, the only way to get "mineral parks" is by using an exploit to build boreholes next to each other.  The best mineral-producer other than boreholes is mines on rocky at 4, but there's no way to make rocky squares, and they're not that common.  The best mineral-producer that can really be made in large quantities is forests, and that's only 2 per square.
Secondly, remember what we saw: Even running green, you can only afford (and actually that was a pretty generous definition of "afford") roughly 5 minerals above the clean mineral limit (10 with a centauri preserve).  That's a pretty harsh cap right there.

Furthermore, it takes 2 energy (at best) to substitute for 1 mineral for building

And it takes 2 minerals to substitute for 1 energy for cash; as for energy for research, there's no way at all to substitute minerals.

What should be is that each has its advantages, and they can be substituted for each other only with substantial difficulty.  But that only works when the two are roughly competitive beforehand; the lack of effective mineral parks besides boreholes, and the harsh cap on minerals that you can produce safely, make that not work.

I see no problem with the Democracy/Planned/Creche pop boom.

It seems to me that something as powerful as a pop boom should be hard to get.

I think some factions with a growth negative, that this is supposed to be part of their penalty, that they cannot pop boom in this way.

That's the Pirates and the Cyborgs.  The Pirates have no trouble booming anyway because the ocean is great for energy (especially in SMAX with Thermocline Transducers), and the Cyborgs are one of the most powerful factions despite that; I think increasing their GROWTH penalty to -2 (because, seriously, who thought that a net of +3 was balanced) on top of the Democracy decrease would do it (since it will prevent them from booming at all).

If I felt a pressing need to weaken something to prevent this pop boom, I would weaken Planned rather than Democracy.

I considered that, but I decided against it because I feel that, if used in conjunction with a fix for that "PLANET doesn't really affect safe minerals" problem I mentioned, Planned should be required for a pop boom, in order to give each economic choice a role: Planned is for growth (with a minor boost to production), FM is of course for energy with a heavy penalty to production, and Green is for production (since with that fix it'll let you produce a lot of minerals safely.)

So why does it seem that a lot of people use it (ICS)?

Probably because they have not played me.

Could be; how do you deal with ICSers?

The best layout on smaller maps is opportunistic, taking most advantage of the terrain and specials with your initial cities, and then either expanding further if the opportunity is available, or filling in gaps if it is not.  Of course, this is not pretty; it will not preserve a perfect ICS grid.  But I assure you that if the other player is the slightest bit aggressive, you will not have time to complete your ICS grid before you will have to shift anyway to defend yourself on a smaller map.

So essentially it's the same close spacing as ICS, just without that careful grid?  I'm looking for something where that close spacing won't be the best way to go.  (Also, for any sort of grid, be it ICS or staggered 4X5* or 5X5, you can just draw your grid and then fill it in opportunistically; you lose a small amount of speed because you're not always going for the closest position, but it's fairly fast and lets you complete the grid later.)

*Like this (it maximizes area per base without having any spaces not in the base radius):
********************
********************
**X****X****X****X**
********************
********************
********************
****X****X****X****X

[Earthmichael]

"But how powerful are needlejets if one player beelines for D:AP and the other doesn't?"

A player MUST have some counter to needlejets fairly soon after his opponent can bring them to bear.  Otherwise, when the opponent gets into range, each needlejet will probably kill an average of 1 unit every 3 turns.  So one can either have their own needlejet interceptors, defensive antiaircraft tech, or offensive antiaircraft tech.  So hopefully whatever tree one is researching will give one of those 3 solutions.

"I suppose all those (crawler uses) are valid, if they aren't taken too far. "

We have a diffierence of opinion as to what is game breaking.  Making a secret project soon after you get the tech, assuming you have planned well on your crawler build, is just good sense, not game breaking.  It is the reward for getting there first, technologically speaking.

Moving energy to your HQ just makes sense to avoid as much corruption as possible.  Conversely, spreading your minerals between all of your bases makes sense for minerals.  Neither are broken, just good strategy.

I don't think there is a need to limit crawlers; essentially, crawlers are limited by the space you can control and project, just like bases are.  Any space you service with a crawler is a space you cannot use with a base.  On non-huge maps, the space you control and protect is always going to be your limitation; it is your choice how you split this between bases and crawlers.  You say this is a "negative effect".  I don't see it.  As I said, it increases the strategic options BOTH players have, which to me is a "positive effect".

"The hundredth crawler is worth more than the hundredth former.  If crawlers went down in usefulness the more you had the same way that formers do, that would solve the issue nicely."

I don't see this at all.  I never have enough formers.  I can always use them to create land if I don't have a better use for them.  Then this land can be used for more bases and/or crawlers.

"you're supposed to sacrifice ecological stability as well, and the clean mineral system (especially with the exploit) means that you don't."

What exploit are you thinking of here?  I may not know it, because I have plenty of trouble with ecological stability, and have to work constantly at it.  I do know that even if ecodamage is largely coming from somewhere else, if you have a low planet rating, you suffer from the bulk of planet's retaliation, if you are just slightly damaging.  I end up building ecological faciilities everywhere to keep this under control.

"Say it's not one of the top two difficulty levels."

This is not a realistic scenario.  All multiplayer games are played on transcendant by default.

"It seems to me that something as powerful as a pop boom should be hard to get."

It is fairly hard to get.  You have to build a creche everywhere.  You have to pay to shift to a government that you probably don't really want, just for the effect.  You have to keep enough food going to your bases to continue growth.  You have to keep drone control.  You have to pay to leave the government to go back to what you really want.  And it is balanced; every faction can do it except the ones who are supposed to be penalized by not be able to do it.

Comparatively speaking, the cloning vats are a piece of cake for pop booming.

"Could be; how do you deal with ICSers?"

ICS is fairly inefficient in the short run.  It takes a lot of terraforming and tech to get in going well.  As I said earlier, I don't play on anything larger than the Vets map, so I just use opportunistic use of terran for more rapid early development, and then I attack.

"So essentially it's the same close spacing as ICS, just without that careful grid?"

Not at all.  Unless great terrain and specials are all crammed close together, I can have a fairly large separation between my bases to get to some great specials and reasonable terrain.  I then expand outwardly to establish large boundaries, and only expand inwardly when further outward expansion is not practical.

To clarify about mineral crawlers, I am not talking about a literal field where they are all colocated, just that all of the mined rocky terrain and boreholes taken together can form a substantial pool of extra minerals.  However, the optimum strategy for minerals is to distribute them.  This allows all bases to build something useful (without hitting ecodamage limits), since no matter how much minerals I give a single base, I can only build one thing per turn.  Far better to have every base having 30 or 40 minerals, than for a bunch of minerals to be concentrated in a single base.  Which is another reason supply crawlers are useful, because they allow me to transport these distributed minerals to come together to form a big project.

[Kirov]

So now let's compare three factions with those settings.  One is running FM, one is running planned or simple, and one is running Green.  So let's see how their minerals/base compares:

The eco-damage formula, when it's not perihilion, is {minerals over clean mineral limit}X{Diff modifier (3 at librarian and below)}X{techs known}X(3-PLANET)X{native life level (2 for average)}/300.  Crunching the numbers, that comes to (for all of our test factions): {minerals over clean mineral limit}X(3-PLANET)X0.8.  Using our safe value of 5 ecodamage per base, that means that {minerals over clean mineral limit}X(3-PLANET) can be up to 5/0.8=6.25.  So:
-Our Green faction (PLANET rating 2) can afford 6 minerals over the clean mineral limit.
-Our "neutral" faction (PLANET rating 0) can afford 2 minerals over the clean mineral limit.
-And our FM faction (PLANET rating -3) can afford 1 mineral over the clean mineral limit.

So by running FM, and getting +1 energy every square and +2 commerce rating, he's forced to give up...5 minerals per base (10 with a Centauri Preserve)?  That doesn't seem like a lot, especially when you consider that it's not lost minerals; he can produce something else instead of those minerals.

So yes, running FM should force you to greatly limit the mineral output of your bases and/or spend lots of resources building ecological facilities.  But it doesn't.  Changing that fact would be quite sufficient to balance FM.

Guys, you discuss so many things it soon will be impossible to join. Keep it up! We may want to split it into several threads, tho.

But before I find some time to discuss air/AAA or the glories of FM, I feel I may mention something quite important. The eco-damage formula in Datalinks is broken. There is no such a thing as a set clean mineral limit, you can manage it, and it's really not that difficult. You probably know that but let me link to a post which can explain it all to those who haven't already met with the revised eco-damage formula. The description is somewhat long, so to wrap it up:

Your standard clean limit is 16, and this is the worst problem with your ecodamage. Facs like tree farms, centauri preserves and hybrid forests, apart from reducing ecodamage in that base, also increase your limit by 1. However, in order for that effect to take place, you must experience (read: force) at least one fungal pop. Then I'd recommend another one. The first two fungal pops don't produce NL (Native Life forms) and each fungal pop also increases your clean min limit by one.

Two interesting side notes:

1) you may build a mineral-heavy polluting base, especially for causing fungal pops, equipped with empath units. Be careful not to cause global warming, tho.

2) the limit is increased for every fac built, not owned. Scrapped facs still affect the limit. You may consider setting aside a base which constantly builds and recycles a Centauri Preserve (I consider it kinda exploit, but sure go ahead)

Link:
http://apolyton.net/content.php/708-Column-175-SMACX-ECO-DAMAGE-FORMULA-REVISED!

The credit goes to Ned, Blake and Fitz. I can only say that when applying this knowledge, eco-damage under FM is hardly a problem for me. Sure I can't work 60 mins, but then nobody can. I switch to FM as early as reasonably possible and I don't use any at all empath units to deal with NL. I encounter so little mind worms I can actually afford to lose a scout patrol or a former every now and then. And this is with abundant NL setting.

Enjoy!

[Yitzi]

A player MUST have some counter to needlejets fairly soon after his opponent can bring them to bear.  Otherwise, when the opponent gets into range, each needlejet will probably kill an average of 1 unit every 3 turns.  So one can either have their own needlejet interceptors, defensive antiaircraft tech, or offensive antiaircraft tech.  So hopefully whatever tree one is researching will give one of those 3 solutions.

The problem is that once you have Industrial Base and Gene Splicing, the easiest way to get one of those three solutions is to go for Air Power, so you get a race to D:AP, which is undesirable.  Hence my suggestion to bring AAA down to Optical Computers; it's not that big a chance, gives an important use to an otherwise useless tech, and makes it easier to include defensive antiaircraft tech in your tech tree.

We have a diffierence of opinion as to what is game breaking.  Making a secret project soon after you get the tech, assuming you have planned well on your crawler build, is just good sense, not game breaking.  It is the reward for getting there first, technologically speaking.

Clearly we have a difference of opinion as to what is game-breaking; if you get a major reward (and most projects are pretty major) for being slightly technologically ahead of your opponent, that favors research-savvy factions and energy focus far more than is balanced.  Research should be important, but a research advantage should not be more important than a comparable production advantage.

Moving energy to your HQ just makes sense to avoid as much corruption as possible.

It negates one of the classic mechanics of the game; how is that not broken?

I don't think there is a need to limit crawlers; essentially, crawlers are limited by the space you can control and project, just like bases are.  Any space you service with a crawler is a space you cannot use with a base.  On non-huge maps, the space you control and protect is always going to be your limitation; it is your choice how you split this between bases and crawlers.  You say this is a "negative effect".  I don't see it.  As I said, it increases the strategic options BOTH players have, which to me is a "positive effect".

That would make sense if servicing a space with crawlers were not clearly superior to servicing it with a base.  But it is superior except in a few niche cases (such as boreholes), because:
1. You get to avoid ecodamage from terraforming.
2. You don't have to set population (and thus nutrients) on it.
3. You don't have to wait for population to grow.

Or so I understand from the fact that everybody seems to think crawlers are the way to go; I've even seen a suggestion that crawlers be used in the base radius to crawl 6-food condenser/enricher/farm squares (with a hybrid forest for terraforming ecodamage) in order to maximize specialists; without mods, that strategy (using engineers) will produce a lot of research and cash (by the late midgame with satellites and improvements, you can pack size-13 bases at 1 every 3 squares and, running 40% psych/40% labs/20% cash, get an average of 7.5 minerals, 33.66... cash after maintenance, and 27.33... research, per square of territory).

I don't see this at all.  I never have enough formers.  I can always use them to create land if I don't have a better use for them.  Then this land can be used for more bases and/or crawlers.

But that's a less useful role...and creating land still costs controllable territory that could otherwise hold water bases.

What exploit are you thinking of here?

The one Kirov explained.  And even if not done with "sell and rebuild", it means that your PLANET rating is really not that important to your overall ecodamage.

This is not a realistic scenario.  All multiplayer games are played on transcendant by default.

Not quite sure why, but if playing on transcendent then the safe mineral limits are decreased by 40%, so it's even worse; instead of having 5 less minerals per base you can produce safely on FM than on Green, it's only 3 less.

How's this for an idea (though it'll require exe modding):
-There are no clean minerals.  It starts at 0, facilities do nothing, and fungal pops do nothing other than decrease the penalty for major atrocities.
-When calculating eco-damage, mineral production is divided by 5, and then the total at the end is divided by 10.
That way, FM does require you to severely curtail mineral production (by the late midgame, you get 1 ecodamage for every 2 minerals, or every 4 minerals with a centauri preserve), but Green can produce large amounts safely (with a centauri preserve, a 100-production base would be a possibility with proper defenses.)

It is fairly hard to get.  You have to build a creche everywhere.

Generally desirable anyway.

  You have to pay to shift to a government that you probably don't really want, just for the effect.  You have to keep enough food going to your bases to continue growth.  You have to keep drone control.  You have to pay to leave the government to go back to what you really want.  And it is balanced; every faction can do it except the ones who are supposed to be penalized by not be able to do it.[/quote]

If it's balanced, then why does the guide by JChamberlin and Velociryx state "One of the centerpieces to strategy in the Middle-Game is getting yourself ready to execute a population boom, and a bit should be said about that right up front, because it is such a powerful thing to do. It will, over the course of 7-10 turns of game play, take you from being an average power, to rocketing ahead of everyone else on the chart."?  It's very powerful, and should require more than a facility you're going to want anyway and spending 80 credits (not a lot) to run Planned for a half dozen turns.

ICS is fairly inefficient in the short run.  It takes a lot of terraforming and tech to get in going well.

But it's also inefficient in the long run (as later in the game, bases are some of the least productive spaces), so why do people do it?

To clarify about mineral crawlers, I am not talking about a literal field where they are all colocated, just that all of the mined rocky terrain and boreholes taken together can form a substantial pool of extra minerals.

Yes, but that doesn't let you focus full-out the way you can with energy (where you can colocate them, and get more benefit from that).

This allows all bases to build something useful (without hitting ecodamage limits), since no matter how much minerals I give a single base, I can only build one thing per turn.

By the time bases are producing a lot of minerals, you're generally going to be building stuff that costs even more.

[Kirov]

Even with fusion, I don't think it affects movement unless you have antigrav struts.

It does. With Fusion, needlejets get 12 and interceptors 9, I checked.

That's got the same problems as land units using nerve gas: You lose commerce, too much and everybody declares vendetta, and it's still only a 50% bonus.

How is it not strong enough? It turns our hypothetical situation 6-1-10 vs. 1-<4>-1 in favour of the former.

I have a slightly different approach than Earthmichael - I believe the entire air power is very strong/maybe too strong, but then the choppers get than ridiculous attack bonus, as if someone thought they don't have enough. Still, I would always bring some needlejets with me, and not only interceptors.

Why can't you just march on his base?  It has to be close for air power to work, so a rover force should be able to make it in a few turns (and with AAA units in the stack, he can't use his choppers to defend at anything near cost-effectiveness).

There are a few problems with this story. First, of course you can prevent any incursions of your enemy colony pods, but still the best way to do this is to use needles as scouts. And you just deprived yourself of this option, going to OC instead of DAP. So yes, let's assume you let your enemy in a couple of tiles from your peripheral base. He's got several needles, several choppers and several probe teams.

Secondly, your 1-<4>-2 AAA rovers are actually more costly than 6-1-10 choppers/needles. Sounds like a strong case, doesn't it?

So you notice the enemy base and it's time to amass your assault stack in that nearest base of yours. So you waste 1-2 turns at least to gather units, maybe upgrade scout rovers to 1-<4>-2 model (for 90 ec). You gather several 5-1-2's, but you must be wary - if they are caught in the field without a defender, they may perish.

Then you move your stack towards him. The roads are already bombed, so you move max 2 tiles per turn. And he can simply block you with his needles' ZOC (it takes 4 jets to work in 2 shifts to block a 6-tile area quite literally forever, unless you bring SAM units). But you're smarter than that and you use probe teams to maneuver through his ZOC. Fine, but this strategy can also be circumvented by his probe teams, which may target yours immediately. But let's say you make your way somehow, although sometimes only 1 tile per turn (fungus/rocky/forest). Your enemy sees your advance all the time as he scouts with his air units. When he sees your units 2 turns away, he simply disbands one of his choppers and instabuilds a 6x-1-2 nerve gas rover. You move one turn farther, he moves out to attack. He's got 9 attack (6+3), you've got, let's say, 6 defence (4+2 from terrain). Pretty good odds for him. He kills your defender, damages the others and then maybe self-destructs to inflict further damage. And if you somehow still manage to come up and knock on his door, he may still move all his units to an adjacent tile and cover them all with a single jet (you can't do anything to this stack without SAM, you can't even use your probes against his probes). Then you take the base and the very next turn he can mind control it from under your feet, along with your entire precious stack.

This is just a hypothetical situation and of course you may think of many counters to that, maybe you got several probe teams to mind control his base, maybe you've got strong AAA units in the field to help with the advance. But what I'm saying is not that "my Batman beats your Spiderman". What I'm trying to say is that against you there are units 1) with 10 mp 2) capable of blocking ground units with ZOC 3) capable of protecting every other kind of units under their wings if not in base and if you don't bring SAM 4) capable of scouting and bombing your improvements as you fumble your way through the outskirts of your empire, praying you won't meet mind worms, get stuck on that fungus/rocky tile for like forever or who knows, maybe even discover a fungal tower (I play with high rockiness and abundant NL, so YMMV).

And his reinforcements keep pouring in, while if you've just built a 5-12, it must wait for another 1-<4>-2 to help that stack of doom of yours.

All in all, I say a row of minerals spent on a needlejet is worth several times more than that spent on comparable rover. And to add insult to injury, your defensive 1-<4>AAA-2 rover is actually more expensive than the missile chopper/jet.

(Of course you need ground units to advance, but that's another story; the art is in owning as little of them as required).

Your moving AAA to OC seems like a good idea, but I still wouldn't consider going that path before D:AP. Maybe it could come quite useful after MMI, who knows.

[Yitzi]

snip

My university's internet connectivity is horrible where I am, and my post got eaten twice already, so I'll keep this short, focusing on the key points:
-Nerve Gas Pods are powerful, but they come at the cost of sanctions, and so are usually not worth it.
-It sounds like air units are getting the effect of antigrav struts for some reason; if that can't be debugged, it'd probably be best to put -4 on all air units' movement.
-Air power should be able to take a base by concentrating forces, but at a very low efficiency (by efficiency I mean damage done divided by damage taken).  Normal efficiency for taking a base is probably around 2/3, so let air units have 1/3; that way, they can take bases, but if it's used often then it'll cost so much that the counterattack will be devastating.  I'll have to think about the best mods to do that (and in any case, it'll probably be a bit better just after fusion comes along, because fusion reactors are very friendly to expensive units.)
-Using air power to protect a stack of units or produce ZOC because the enemy lacks air superiority is broken, plain and simple.  The only answer might be to have air superiority come earlier in the tech tree than needlejets, I'll want to think about how to best implement that.

but then the choppers get than ridiculous attack bonus

What ridiculous attack bonus are you referring to?

Also, while we're on the topic of absurdly broken things, the cheap upgrade cost that you mentioned is definitely one of them.

[Yitzi]

So I've come up with the following, which should depower air power enough:
1. AAA tracking only requires Optical Computers, gives a 150% bonus, and is priced the same as Hypnotic Trance.
2. Air Superiority requires AMA instead of Doctrine: Air Power.  Obviously you can't put it on Needlejets until D:AP, but you can make SAM units.
3. Doctrine:Air Power has as its second prerequisite AMA, instead of Doctrine: Flexibility.  Note that this adds 3 (in SMAC) or 4 (in SMAX) techs to the tree leading up to it (plus information networks, which you probably had already), making it that much less of a tempting target for beelining.
4. Air chasses have their cost doubled ( 16 instead of 8 ), and movement reduced as needed to reduce fusion needlejets to 8 movement.  (So if they do get extra movement based on reactor, then 4; if not, it'll stay at 8.)

[Kirov]

What ridiculous attack bonus are you referring to?

I meant of course the attack ability, i.e. multiple attack.

So I've come up with the following, which should depower air power enough:
1. AAA tracking only requires Optical Computers, gives a 150% bonus, and is priced the same as Hypnotic Trance.
2. Air Superiority requires AMA instead of Doctrine: Air Power.  Obviously you can't put it on Needlejets until D:AP, but you can make SAM units.
3. Doctrine:Air Power has as its second prerequisite AMA, instead of Doctrine: Flexibility.  Note that this adds 3 (in SMAC) or 4 (in SMAX) techs to the tree leading up to it (plus information networks, which you probably had already), making it that much less of a tempting target for beelining.
4. Air chasses have their cost doubled (16 instead of , and movement reduced as needed to reduce fusion needlejets to 8 movement.  (So if they do get extra movement based on reactor, then 4; if not, it'll stay at 8.)

FYI, I just checked. With four different types of reactor, air units get 10, 12, 14 and 16 mp. Units with SAM get 8, 9, 11 and 12 mp, respectively.

Your ideas look fine by me, although I'm afraid it's not gonna be easy to find a sparring partner in order to test them in human vs. human.

[Earthmichael]

OK, you have officially swatted a fly with a sledgehammer.

The only real problem here are copters, which can be fixed by either making them far more expensive, or banning them outright.  Copters are an anomaly anyway, as the ONLY non-land unit capable of multiple attacks.

IF you find yourself behind the tech battle, then sacrifice a border base to the enemy, then probe the heck out of it.  With copters more expensive or banned, you are going to be primarily dealing with Needlejets, which do not have nearly the same momentum as copters since they can only attack at most every 2 turns.

If you want to set up a game with all of these mods for your own enjoyment, have at it.  But I shudder to think about this becoming "standard".

[Kirov]

These changes would never make it through to be accepted as standard, AFAIR the SMAC community never accepted any changes to the official rules apart from bug fixes.

And I think it would be fun not to rely on air so much for change. Needles may be far weaker than choppers, but if the latter are banned, the former would still comprise much of my gang. Effective, yes, inspiring or interesting, I'm afraid not.

[Yitzi]

I meant of course the attack ability, i.e. multiple attack.

That's not really an attack bonus, in that it won't increase survivability against decent-defense targets.  And it also is only that useful quite close to a base.

FYI, I just checked. With four different types of reactor, air units get 10, 12, 14 and 16 mp. Units with SAM get 8, 9, 11 and 12 mp, respectively.

Yeah, from an internet search it seems that's the case.  Can you just check one more thing for me?  It's a few steps, but should really give us the info we need:

1. Go to alpha.txt (or alphax.txt if using SMAX to test), find the line with antigrav struts, and change the third-to-last 0 to a 1.  (So instead of 00000111001, it should read 00000111101).

2. Run the game, use the scenario editor, give yourself D:AP, and check what needlejet movement is.
3. Give yourself Graviton Theory, and design a needlejet with the Antigrav Struts ability.  Check what its movement is.
4. Quit the game, and go back to alpha.txt and undo the change from step 1, just so you can play normally afterward.

Your ideas look fine by me, although I'm afraid it's not gonna be easy to find a sparring partner in order to test them in human vs. human.

I'm planning to add them to my list of fixes/balance changes I want to play with, so once that's done (a tall order, as some of it involves hardcoded stuff) I'd be willing to play (though perhaps not on Transcend, as I'm not really used to playing SP on such a high difficulty level.)

OK, you have officially swatted a fly with a sledgehammer.

That seems to be very disputed.

The only real problem here are copters

Clearly false.  The two biggest abuses mentioned in this thread, that of using air units for ZOC and that of using air units to protect a stack, are generally done with needlejets.  My biggest changes were purely to deal with that issue.

IF you find yourself behind the tech battle, then sacrifice a border base to the enemy, then probe the heck out of it.

When "probe the enemy" is the only way to avoid losing horribly, the game is broken.  (Doubly so if he has HSA or there's a sensor under the base and he has the foresight to kill your probe team in time).  Probes should be hard to use and with big payoff, not an absolute necessity.

With copters more expensive or banned, you are going to be primarily dealing with Needlejets, which do not have nearly the same momentum as copters since they can only attack at most every 2 turns.

The problem with air power isn't its momentum; once the auto-antigrav bug is fixed, copters will have very limited momentum until the endgame (as 8 move isn't enough to go very far and attack more than a couple of times), and that strategy is only useful if you attack soft targets (those that do less than 50% damage to the attacker) anyway.

These changes would never make it through to be accepted as standard, AFAIR the SMAC community never accepted any changes to the official rules apart from bug fixes.

We can always make a semi-official mod for a different playstyle for that subcommunity that prefers a different style of game.  None of these changes would be made official rules or unavoidable, other than the air movement thing if it does turn out to be a bug (and I'm over 99% certain it is; it's just too similar to antigrav struts to be a coincidence).

[Buster's Uncle]

I wonder about the possibility, since we're imagining extensive .exe modding anyway, of inserting a new screen where one can check off what mods the user wants enabled/disabled...