SMAC2 Wish List

[Straybow]

Busta, I know about the reveal terrain feature. But I don't want to have to keep cycling through the reveal terrain thing all the time. I want to be able to toggle it so I can play the game that way until I untoggle it. And I want it specifically for the non-combat units. This game has tons more than any Civ-type so far, and they clutter the map.

Why is it that games don't use capabilities that every computer user considers normal? For example, cut and paste. Most people would highlight a group in a build queue and copy it so that it could be pasted to another city. Or highlight one item and drag it to another position in the list. Most games live or die by the interface as much as by game features. I don't enjoy CTP2 because the interface is dreadful. My enjoyment of SMAC is diminished by the interface.

[Phil_de_geezer]

I love to see the concept where roads enhance the terrain in some way.

You mean like in Civ where they give +1 trade? I really hate that! Roads get built EVERYWHERE inside the city radius and just look dumb.

Why can't i tell my formers to automatically plant forests? WHY??!
I mean - that's all they ever do and my shift and f button are wearing out!

sigh

At least they expand by themselves.

[Straybow]

Yeah, like as if in America or Britain or France or Germany there are roads everywhere? And who would use roads for trade, of all things? No, we still use horsecarts and cut cross-country for that. And why make trade the basis for an economy? That's the most absurd thing I've heard in a long time.

[Grail Quest]

(1) I wish there was an AI line somewhere that says, if forest has grown into the square, STOP REMOVING FUNGUS!

I have to keep my eye on those stupid formers all the time. It's damned tedious.

(2) A colony pod should have basic terraforming capabilities. It's just a convenience thing not to have to lug a former out to the new base site. What would happen is that if you decide to put a base on a Rocky Fungus square, the Colony Pod will start terraforming away the fungus, and then levelling away the Rockiness, and then finally plant a base.

(3) Pre Centauri Empathy (?), if any terrain enhancement (especially Forests, which I like) you build will be in a fungus square, the former automatically starts removing fungus.

(4) Mag tubes for the sea.

(5) Sky Base Carriers: that is, using the Sky Base as a carrier, with decent carrying capacity, and the ability to drop off troops anywhere.

(6) Decent carrier decks and transports for all chassis types. I've enabled it in alphax.txt, but there's hard-coding that does strange things to movement.

(7) Chopper Transports should be able to unload troops outside of an airbase/base. They're choppers, for crying out loud.

[Phil_de_geezer]

So roads that don't actually go anywhere increase trade? Hmmm... who are the people trading with?

I suppose it depends on how you interpret the city radius - do people live in the city itself or are they spread out all over the radius? If they were spread out then roads would increase trade within the city. If everyone lived in the centre then roads would be pointless unless they actually went somewhere.

Of course the above pondering is fairly irrelevant as all that's required is a fair and balanced game system - how realistic it is isn't that important.

thinks for the first time in years

Perhaps a city could receive an extra trade icon for every city it is connected to - although there's bound to be some major flaw with that (don't know what but i'm sure someone will tell me).

[Patashu]

Originally posted by Phil_de_geezer
Perhaps a city could receive an extra trade icon for every city it is connected to - although there's bound to be some major flaw with that (don't know what but i'm sure someone will tell me).

And that is that it gives too much. 2 cities connected will give you 2 extra trade, while 3 cities will give you 6, 4 cities 12, 5 cities 20, 6 cities 30, etc. 50 cities connected will give you 2450 trade.

[Straybow]

That's why Civ limits it to 3 trade routes.

In Civ it is definitely the case that people live there. With SMAC it is hard to tell, but since there is already a game mechanism for remote resource extraction I'd have to say yes, people live in the tiles that are being worked. They are probably caretakers more than laborers with the level of automation possible.

Commerce in purely intangible items (software, for example) can only make up so much of an economy. Service sector often requires transport to and from the location where the services are performed. The rest will be in real goods, and they have to moved from one place to another. It is rural resources being used for commerce even if the size of rural populations isn't large.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Check out FreeAC.org they are always looking for ideas and intelectual debates on game features. They have even desided to use some of the ideas I sugjested.

[Blake]

Yeah, if anyone does have an idea of how a future economy should work I'd love to hear it. I'm quite disatified with the SMAC system, mainly on the basis of realism. In particular I think labs should be divorced from cash altogether, so things which give cash are different to things which give labs - IIRC MOO2 did something like this, but not sure if it had cash at all...

[johndmuller]

Don't real labs cost real money? I would think that at least some part of the research equation ought to be financed by the central government and/or local coffers, but there are also independent breakthru's and garage inventors too, which are only inadequately addressed in the game with that rare event where a NetNode is credited with gaining a breakthru (probably the opposite side of the event which loses all your research points).

The concept of 'education' could be a slightly different direction - at least if it was more than just renaming the facilities. Perhaps your cultural egghead quotient would have a bearing on other parts of the game, i.e. your troops would be better and you industry more efficient if you were smarter - of course, your sports teams might not be as good.

[Phil_de_geezer]

Don't real labs cost real money? I would think that at least some part of the research equation ought to be financed by the central government

It is. The Social Engineering screen allows you to set different economy and research rates - by increasing the research rate you normally have to decrease the economy and so you get better research but less money (energy). Either that or you cut back on psych (public services?). This means that you are paying for your research.

I don't think idenpendant researchers or 'garage inventors' would have much chance of making a breakthrough in superstring theory or singularity mechanics!!

[Blake]

I disagree. In SMAX you fund research with *energy* not cash. In the early years presumably the factions are a near cashless society.
The other way research can be done is per population point - you might get a basic amount of +0.5 per head, and then building research facilities would further boost research (like by another +1 per head..). Obviously these facilities would require a monetary upkeep, but this isn't quite the same as the research directely being funded.

[Straybow]

Nobel-class economists have proven (about as thoroughly as anything in economics can be proven) that pure cashless & pure command economies cannot exist on any non-trivial scale.

For example, a unit of energy doesn't always cost the same. A joule of energy to move a car by means of internal combustion engine doesn't cost the same as a joule of energy to cool your house with an electric powered heat pump.

A source of energy is useless if there is no means to utilize it. If I have ten gallons of diesel fuel I can't run my gasoline engine car or my electric heat pump. If I invest in a diesel generator then I could power the heat pump, but I've raised the incremental expense of that energy.

One unit of research (if there can be such a thing by an objective measure) won't always cost the same. Trying to pay for research with "energy" is compounding the problem.

As for research itself, for the most part a facility is required. Even the garage inventor makes a lab for himself. More importantly, those garage inventors have to have spare time from survival tasks to work. That requires infrastructure, enabling higher productivities that make spare time available. There are lots of factors to consider.

[Phil_de_geezer]

I don't think that the factions do have all the energy they need. I mean carrying reactors into battle IS kinda weird but then maybe you need a LOT of energy to power those probability sheaths and fusion lasers? We can assume that the units you build support themselves in terms of energy, and that the bases don't build any reactors or power plants by themselves (without player intervention). This means that energy is provided by the base facilities YOU build. Maybe energy banks ARE giant capacitors that reduce the amount of energy wasted by storing electricity that isn't used during low-consumption times. Perhaps a fusion lab has it's own fusion reactor and therefore produces more energy (increasing current energy production by 50% is just a game function).

So our bases are producing energy (probably in the form of electricity) which is used to power all the base facilities (represented by maintenance costs). Then any excess energy could be used to power some particle accelerators (research) or lay on a few extra holovids at the hologram theatre (pysch).

I think an energy economy is the only way to model a future economy.

As for energy on the map - maybe it's an abundance of a particularly useful radioactive isotope or a thermal vent.

[Chowlett]

If you want to see some of your ideas possibly included in a game framework (albeit a different environment - fantasy rather than SF), check the Courts of Candle Bre forum, and drop by the live chat tomorrow. We're always open to sensible ideas.

[Xian]

The time problem, i know its turn based but the game has to have the WORST sense of time in any strategy game EVER ONE YEAR TO MOVE ONE SQUARE???? Since it takes place on another planet they should take advantage and use altered months as teh time unit

CAshless societites without ANY form of currency have existed for 50,00 years and have been perfectly succesful

[Securion]

Why not make SMAC2 a game that works? Like a game that you can play for a very long time without freezing? Wouldnt that be cool?!?

By the way, have anyone been able to see what the game is like after Air power? Anyone have screenshots? All my games keeps freezing shortly after Air power. And NO, it dosnt matter what kinda computer i play on and NO it dosnt matter if i reinstall the game 50 times.

I have been told by alot of ppl that they have "no problems" at all with SMAC/X/Whatever freezing. Ofcourse they are liars and/or getting money from firaxis. My question is: is it my moral duty to find these ppl and kill them?

[Blake]

Originally posted by Xian
The time problem, i know its turn based but the game has to have the WORST sense of time in any strategy game EVER ONE YEAR TO MOVE ONE SQUARE????

The worst sense of time of any strategy games except Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, CTP1, CTP2, all these games take up to 20 or even 40 years to move one tile

Unfortunately tis a sad truth there is no easy way around it. You see, if you made it a turn a month, it would take about 50-80 turns for your first city to grow by one pop point. Around 60-100 turns to get your first tech (well, you could make tech research faster but can do nothing about the pop growth - the growth rate at times is already 10%, which is darn high for humans, a more reasonable growth rate is around 2%-4%).

You see, SMAC is a game primarly about building. Using a year a month you would utterly sacrifice the builder aspect and leave only a war game

Note that I did this analysis as part of FreeAC, however we will be doubling or quadrupling movement factors. This will work, because we are using simulatenous turn execution, meaning one player can't conquer another player before he can react.

[gwillybj]

Originally posted by Securion
I have been told by alot of ppl that they have "no problems" at all with SMAC/X/Whatever freezing. Ofcourse they are liars and/or getting money from firaxis. My question is: is it my moral duty to find these ppl and kill them?

Playing SMAC 4.0 (don't have AX) on a three-year-old system with no whiz-bang parts :
AMD K6-266, 64MB, S3 ViRGE/DX video (2MB), DX7, OPTi sound system, Kensiko PS/2 dual-scrolling 3-button mouse - drivers fully enabled, no interceptor crashes .
I never lie .
If I was getting money from Firaxis, I wouldn't have a three-year-old system .

[Xian]

Originally posted by Blake

Unfortunately tis a sad truth there is no easy way around it. You see, if you made it a turn a month, it would take about 50-80 turns for your first city to grow by one pop point. Around 60-100 turns to get your first tech (well, you could make tech research faster but can do nothing about the pop growth - the growth rate at times is already 10%, which is darn high for humans, a more reasonable growth rate is around 2%-4%).
.

A solution would be to make the exploration parts of the game interesting and complex, not just chess with guns.. Also, in the future things would be built a lot faster and technologies would arrive MUCH faster. Remember that 100 turns can still only take five minutes if all your doing is moving one scout.

It could work

[Xian]

oh and like i said, Firaxis could abuse the "month" and make it only 7 or 6 per year and easily get around the problem.

[Chowlett]

Originally posted by Chowlett
If you want to see some of your ideas possibly included in a game framework (albeit a different environment - fantasy rather than SF), check the Courts of Candle Bre forum, and drop by the live chat tomorrow. We're always open to sensible ideas.

Or alternatively - check the date for yourselves, 'cos I'm incompetent. The chat is this coming Saturday, as mentioned in the announcement.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Xian
Also, in the future things would be built a lot faster and technologies would arrive MUCH faster.

Remember, factions start with only 20000 people, and all of them are rather busy staying alive (and breeding like horny bunnies).

Remember that 100 turns can still only take five minutes if all your doing is moving one scout.

Not in multiplayer. Then it could be a hundred days.

It could work

Afraid not.

[Straybow]

You must play MP with idiots.

MoO uses "month" long game-turns, 10 per year. But growth rates are absurd. Bottom line is that it is hard to make a game realistic.

If you want realistic play you have to redefine many things: unit composition, movement, production, resource types, resource extraction, resource utilization…

That is more work than designers are willing to go into.

If you want realistic play you have to be prepared, as the player, for a certain amount of boredom. That's life, especially on a survival level.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Straybow
You must play MP with idiots.

A turn a day is fairly standard for PBEM, especially with more than 2 or 3 players. (whether or not they are idiots is an entirely different matter )

MoO uses "month" long game-turns, 10 per year. But growth rates are absurd. Bottom line is that it is hard to make a game realistic.

I've seen some scary growth rates in SMAC. Like bases can grow from size 1 to size 2 in 6 turns. That means theres around ten thousand new 1-6 year olds. And then they go and put all these children to work on a tile.
Pop-booming can be even scarier. Growing from size 1 to size 14 in as many turns. Thats means there is 130,000 children in the base and only 10,000 adults. That many adults could only create about 8000 children per year, yet 10000 sustained are being created. You reach the horrifying conclusion that children (many under 5) must be breeding.
Then realise that with those 14 tile workers, only 1 in 13 workers is actually an adult. All the rest are young children. Picture a couple of adults and two dozen children out toiling in the field. Thats what it's like.
Scary isn't it.

[Impaler[WrG]]

You are killing the Pop boom in FreeAC right, I could maybe see poupation growing if you have cloning vats (and also the clones would all be adults too I imagin). But that would be realy unbalanced in my opinion and would be rediculous to supose that any society would so redaly except that +90% of its population is going to be clones (well maybe Yang would)

[Phil_de_geezer]

When making a game a balance has to be struck between realism, game mechanics and gameplay. Personally, i prefer gameplay over realism and so things like population growth really don't bother me.

[Fosse]

Near the top of my wish list for an AC sequal would be for the removal of "forced" diplomacy. Here I am mostly refering to the sanctions and atrocities componant.

If I am playing the Hive and at war with the Peacekeepers, and a third party (Lets say Santiago) is allied with me and captures a UN base. Great. Now she nerve staples that base, and I have to stop trade with her for ten turns.

I understand that nerve stapling is an atrocity unless we have repealed the UN charter, but I don't care! I should be given the option to follow the laws or just keep right on trading like I darn well please.

And when Lal starts pummeling my ally and I decide to nuke UN Headquarters? Now every faction is at war with me, my best allies (who I helped by this action), subversives, and even the faction with only one city left ona tiny island somewhere.

It's crazy. We should be given an option. If someone commits an atrocity we should be told about it, have the laws explained, and then asked for our action. We could impose full sanctions like we are legally entitled to, we could simply "denounce" the actions... saying we don't like it and scolding the offending party, but not really doing anything, or we can just ignore it.
To ignore it would come with a reputation hit on its own, and denouncing would come with a lesser one (except from the faction in question, of course!) Heck, I'd even like to see a "Congratulate them for nuking the jerks right off of Planet" option.

Similarly, when the human player commits an atrocity the AI factions should consider what they have to gain and loose by what I've done and thier potential responses to it. In an ideal world, this would mean that they would consider how my action directly effects them, the impact sanctions would have on my faction and their own, and the risk of either pissing me off, or the other factions off if the do or do not impose sanctions.

Also... why not repeal atrocity prohibitions individually or as a package? Maybe a planet where nerve gas is acceptable as long as we don't use Planet Busters is ideal for one game, while a planet where nerve stapling is considered okay might serve another time.

[Xian]

Originally posted by Blake

A turn a day is fairly standard for PBEM, especially with more than 2 or 3 players. (whether or not they are idiots is an entirely different matter )

Thats only if your forced to play by e-mail, i suppose IP play would be added

[Xian]

MORE THAN SEVEN FACTIONS IN PLAY AT A TIME!!!!!!!!!