Predesigned Units

[Impaler[WrG]]

I know this should realy go in the Creation page but its been their a week with no one responding so I am putting this here for attention. (Dont be upset Admins )

I have never realy liked the Design workshop of SMAC and I suspect many of you might not either. The reasons are many, poor design by AI, complexity, constant upgrading, Broken or exploitable combinations, HORIBLE graphics!

I am wondering if perhaps we simply produced a long list of all the desirable units we want, link them each to a specific tec in the game and then Disable all the weapon/Chassies/Armors/abilites. This would create a militry much more like traditinal Civ.

I have done a bit of experimenting and I have figured out a way to greatly uncresse the number of movment options. By changing infantry too 2, Rover too 4 and Tanks to 6 and then combining each of these with the slow ability I can in effect create units with 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 movment points. Doubling the number of Chassies!

I can also speficie the adsact number of mineral lines for any unit I want, this will alow any consivable unit to be balanced regardless of the components it contains.

Another observation, I can Disable weapons/shielding and Abilities from the Unit Design shop yet predesigned units are still functional. This could potential kill the subvert unit, ability stealing Bug.

One downside though, I am unable to give anything but Fission Reactors to a predesigened unit because their is simply no paramiter for reactors, they all default to Fission.

And their is potential here to greatly improve the AI here as it will have predesigend access to all units that can be built by anyone.

Is their any interest in having the comunity colaborate on a project like this? Has anyone tried anything like this before? If so then start throwing out ideas, we might start by copying units form Earlier Civ games and integrating them into the Tec Tree in anyway we like theirs a remarcable level of freedom incvolved here we can make make any combination of Chassie, weapon, armor and an UNLIMITED number of abilites combined together into a unit and link it to any tecnology in the game.

[Flubber]

Personally, I don't have the time for such a project but others might. A few comments

1. I turn off both the auto design and autoprune features of the design workshop. Every new unit, I build myself and NOTHING disappears until I take it out myself

2. People have done tweaks to get the AI building better units-- googlie has modified something so the AI will build probeships . . . very effective IMHO

3. MOving rovers to 4 movement points radically changes the game. It might be interesting but it would certainly be very different

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Flubber
2. People have done tweaks to get the AI building better units-- googlie has modified something so the AI will build probeships . . . very effective IMHO

What Googlie did was modify the part of his Alpha(x).txt file that contains the core group of units the AI will build. Specifically, this is the "#UNITS" Section, and this is the line he added:

Cruiser Probe Ship, Cruiser, Probe Team, Scout, 11, 0, 0, AdapDoc, -1, 00000000000000000000000000

Five notes to anyone who decides to try to add this line (or experiment and add others, as I have done): first, make a backup copy of your Alpha(x).txt file before beginning, so if anything goes wrong, your not hosed. Second, directly below the "#UNITS" line there is a number. This corresponds to how many units are in this section, and if you add one unit, increment the number by one, if you add two new units, increment by two, etc. Third item is always add units to the end of the list (i.e. don't substitute them in the middle of the pack!). Finally, when editing the line, don't use the Tab key. For each of the spaces in between each comma on a line, use the spacebar key only! Finally, edit the Alpha(x).txt file using only a text editor like MS Notepad (i.e. don'[t use MS Word or something of that nature!). FYI.


D

[Chaos Theory]

When adding pre-designed units, beware the restriction that each can only have one prerequisite. This lies behind the rover probe team reverse engineering exploit. If you make a singularity hovertank and tie it to singularity weapons, someone without hovertanks can build it despite not having the tech for hovertanks. If you tie it to hovertanks, someone with hovertanks can produce it without having the tech for singularity weapons. Units with special abilities, reactors, or armor complicate this even more.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Yes the incressed movment dose radicaly change the game, by Doubling the movment of all units its as if the map is several sizes smaller then it actualy is. Because I play such large maps it tends to balance them out and excelerate the early game.

Thanks for the Tips Darsnan, personaly discovered the "put them at the bottom" one myself when I had these squares of spegetti looking stuff apear when I poped a pod and got the "infested with mind worms" message. These things were functionaly Probe Teams though. Aparently their is some Hard Coding involved and the Alien Life Forms must stay in the adsact same position on the list. This is no problem though as their seems to be no limit on the number of units that can be added at the bottom of the list.

I dont realy see the single prerequiste as a problem. Because I am trying to completly eliminate the Design process entirely I simply Disable the ability in question a this prevents a person from using it in a Design even after they get a pre-designed unit that has that Ability.

For Example I started off (naturaly) by making several modified Colony Pods. I made the Traditional Colony Pod a slow unit as my Infantry Chassie has a movment of 2. Then I reduced the Cost to 2 lines (something I had read about on the Creation Forum). Then I created a second Colony Pod that cost 3 lines of minerals but lacks the slow and linked it to Doctorine Mobility. Then I made A Sea Colony Pod and Reduced its cost and linked it too Super Tensile Solids. Then I Disabled the Colony Pod from the Weapons list. It works perfectly, the units apear when they are suposed too and work properly, yet I cant use Colony Pods in any new Designs.

Best of all the AI began to use ICS strategies with the new designs.

I have also reduced Costs on Ocean Trawler units (Cruisers with Supply Crawling) to make them more usefull. With Sea Bases delayed untill late game yet with cheap Trawlers the sea becomes a valuable source of resorces. Next up Carriers and HoverTank Armored Personel Carriers.

[Commander Jace]

Pre-designed units are for sissies with a computer that can play SMAC

Real men make all their units custom

[HeymlicH]

@impaler:
great idea, thanks alot Why didn't I think of this myself?

However, I'm afraid it will be a problem for the AI, since they usually design stuff I would never consider

[Ecthy]

I turn off autodesign because it comes up with totally useless units, and too many of them as well.

Would have loved to see a workshop in Civ3.

[The Andy-Man]

This is one small flaw with SMAC, is the units. Way tomany, and non seem to really matter because they seem to get outdated almost as soon as you build em

[TimeTraveler]

That's most of why there's the upgrade option.

[igtenos]

Not to mention you can use the Unit Workshop (U) to upgrade all your units of one model to a new type by using the 'upgrade' button provided you have a prototype built. Not quite as accessible as the CTRL+U shortcut in Civ3, but it does the job.

[Commander Jace]

Like I said before real pimps always use custom made units
If you use the units the computer has made up then your opponents will have ways to conquer them because they have the same unit with the same capabilities.

It will only be a matter of time before you perish like the Believers vs. my faction

[Straybow]

Another minor bug in the Workshop is the limit to 64 designs. I usually end up probing enemy units, which adds to my list.

In a longer game the Workshop begins overwriting obsoleted unit records, but the record is not completely wiped. You end up having a new unit with stats in the F7 window showing losses even though you have yet to build one!

Here's a case where I needed some cheap amphib rovers, and hadn't yet put one into production:

[Mongoose]

Another thing about that 64 user slot limit...

I think that if you capture a ship using the marine ability and the original owner subsequently retires that design, you lose your captured ship. (or gound units if on board a captured transport) I can't prove this, but it's the only thing I can think of to explain why captured units mysteriously vanish. You will also note that the captured units cannot be upgraded from the workshop, even if they match exactly one of your own designs. Further, they aren't counted and aren't displayed on your F7 screen.

[Straybow]

Upgrade? Nah, I usually send them to the front as-is, or disband them to make something better and retire the design.

[johndmuller]

Personally, I like the Design Workshop despite its various faults and quirks, and Firaxis' failure to carry it into Civ3 was a big negative for me (and coupled with the ample supply of ho-hum to bad reviews that I've seen has so far kept me away from it). Liking the DW does not mean that I do not find many aspects dangerous or frustrating, but I have mostly adjusted to it and seldom have any significant trouble with it.

Basically, I like the ability to mix and match and create interesting units and the fact that the build costs are reasonably well tuned to the utility of the resulting units (note that I said 'reasonably' well tuned, not 'perfectly').

Mostly, I make a point of always keeping a few -empty- slots at all times, and especially when a reactor upgrade is imminent, when I would want to have a sufficiently large number of empties to accomodate the upgrades that the production chief proposes. I don't know for sure that maxing out the 64 slots is always a problem, but I think possibly the game has some bugs related to that particular boundary condition. To get rid of obsolete designs which have no remaining units and convert them to -empty- cells, just 'upgrade' that design (some things you might get stuck with, like if you abandon foil-based designs in favor of cruisers, but it is possible to at least minimize what you have left over). 'Retiring' designs also works, but it is said to have nasty side effects, particularly regarding other players in the game, who may lose their units along with you. Sometimes keeping down the number of different designs crimps my style a little bit, but I could use the discipline anyway.

The upgrade costs are not always rational, and you are essentially buying the entire unit over again, no matter how minor the improvement; it is even willing to make you pay throught the nose for things that are essentially downgrades.

While I would not want to obsolete the DW, I would be interested in seeing a 'standardized' improved version of the game, such as seemingly could be made by judiciously tweaking the various parameter files and including the addition of such units that would assist the AI in playing better. Googlie has created a set of guidelines and numerous scenarios where the AI puts up a good fight (at least for a pretty long time) and Darsnan and Rubin have recently put together a fine document explaining much of the Alpha(x).txt file's contents. Many others have done similar things as well.

The main problem is getting a concensus on any particular set of changes.