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Zeiter
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Here are the most important changes I've come up with:
*No crawlers!
*"Forest and forget" strategy diminished in effectiveness
*AI terraforming is much more useful now
*Cost for all air units increased
*Choppers moved back in tech tree and movement decreased
*AAA ability now gives 150% bonus vs. air units
*Because air units are less effective, tough land campaigns are still required far into the game.
*No pop-booming possible with regular SMAC (without using golden ages) - this, along with no crawlers, really makes the game more competitive with the AI.
*Land transports useful now!
*Cool abilities moved forward, like carrier deck, deep pressure hull, etc.
*Artillery made more powerful
*New SE table makes greater distinction between conquer and build strategies
Just by editing the alpha.txt file, I've made the game much more fun.
Here's the full list of the Alpha.txt changes I've come up with: (the attached file is at the end). And don't forget, always keep a backup copy of the original alpha.txt file! 
Alpha.txt changes:
No nutrient penalty for mine squares (makes AI’s farm+mine+road strategy useful)
10% combat bonus for attacking along roads
25% combat bonus for attacking from higher elevation
25% combat penalty for attacking from lower elevation
10% combat bonus for defending against mobile in rough
Comm jammer bonus only 25% (Comm jammers no longer make rovers and hovertanks obsolete)
Max arty damage to land units: 100%
Additional arty damage per level of altitude: 33%
Retool strictness: 3 (any switching, even between SP’s counts)
Minimum # of turns between council: 10
Minerals for harvesting forest: 10
Tech that allows +1 min from mining platforms: Ecological Engineering (AI’s farm+mining platform strategy works better now)
Humans cannot automatically contact each other in hotseat/pbem games from the start
Prototypes cost 100% more (makes skunkworks facility more useful)
Smacksim’s worldbuilder section used
Terraforming: (My main goal was to decrease the effectiveness of “forest and forget”)
Farms – 3 turns
Soil enricher – 6 turns
Mine – 6 turns
Solar collector – 3 turns
Forest- 6 turns
Bunker – 2 turns (bunkers now have tactical significance)
Airbase – 4 turns (ditto for airbases)
Sensor arrays can be built in water after Adv. Mil. Algorithms
Chassis:
Infantry cargo – 3 (land transports are now really useful)
Speeder cargo – 4
Hovertank cargo – 5
Hovertank chassis moved to monopole magnets (To get more use out of it)
Foil moves: 5 (I wanted to increase the effectiveness of sea units in general)
Foil cargo – 3
Cruiser moves: 8
Cruiser cargo – 6
Needlejet cost increased (making a pure airpower strategy less effective)
Chopper movement: 6
Chopper cargo capacity - 3
Chopper cost increased
Chopper chassis moved to Nanomettalurgy
Gravship cost increased
Units:
Probe cruiser added
Crawlers completely disabled (This makes gamplay MUCH more fun)
Probe team cost increased (Makes you use your probe teams more carefully. No more “mass producing 2 probe defenders in every base” strategy)
Abilities:
Deep pressure hull moved to silksteel alloys (now we actually get to use it!)
Carrier deck moved to MMI (Ditto)
AAA now gives +150% bonus vs. air units (Decreasing the overpowering effectiveness of air power)
Clean reactor moved to frictionless surfaces (makes the game more difficult)
Heavy transport moved to doctrine: Initiative (now you get to use this)
Nerve gas pod cost doubled
Repair bay moved to bioengineering
Facilities and SPs:
Skunkworks cost and maintenance decreased (encourages you to actually build them)
Naval yard moved to doc:flex and cost and maintenance decreased (Ditto)
Satellite costs increased (Makes mass producing satellites harder)
Hologram theaters moved to optical computers (makes sense, right? Plus, I’m now making optical comp a useful tech)
The virtual world moved to optical computers (Ditto)
Nano Factory moved to nanominiaturization (Did this to make nanominiaturization a useful tech)
Clinical Immortality moved to secrets of creation (Ditto for Secrets of Creation)
Ascent to Transcendence cost increased
Citizens:
Technicians become available at industrial base
Thinkers become available at applied relativity (taking away some of the overpowering usefulness of MMI)
Transcendi only yield 2 econ, 2 psych, and 3 labs (Hopefully slowing down the endgame just a bit)
Social Engineering settings:
The basic idea behind the SE changes was to make a clearer distinction between a conquer strategy and a build strategy. For instance, PS/planned/power now makes an awesome conquer setting, whereas demo/fm/wealth now makes for an even better builder setting.
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, +PROBE, -EFFIC, -ECONOMY, -GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, +EFFIC, -SUPPORT, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, +MORALE, ++PROBE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --PLANET, --POLICE, -SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, +++INDUSTRY, +GROWTH, ---EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, --INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY, -RESEARCH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, --PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, +INDUSTRY, +ECONOMY, --MORALE, -PLANET
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH, -POLICE, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, +EFFIC, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, --SUPPORT, -RESEARCH
Miscellaneous:
Diplomatic victory enabled at Homo Superior
Commerce increases added to various techs
 Attachment: modified alpha.txt file ver 3.zip
This has been downloaded 16 time(s).
Last edited by Zeiter on 13-08-2004 at 03:33
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Natalinasmpf
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True, forests should take a much more incredible time. I mean, a lot of people would be using forests if not for the fact that reforestation takes a lot of time to put up. 10-20 years, actually.
But then, actually, it would actually increase the strategy of "forest and forget"....it would encourage building less forests, and emphasis on having the first forest square up.
Thought control should NOT take away research. If one has read 1984, the thought control society knows how to make one loyal to the government without diminishing the ability to research science due to the doublethink ability.
quote:
Wealth, IndAuto, +INDUSTRY, +ECONOMY, --MORALE, -PLANET
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Eh? Wealth driven doesn't necessarily mean lack of planetary concerns. Often they can go hand in hand, as well as oppose each other.
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The basic idea behind the SE changes was to make a clearer distinction between a conquer strategy and a build strategy. |
But I don't want such a distinction, actually. It doesn't seem as fun, actually.
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Democratic, EthCalc, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, +EFFIC, -SUPPORT, ---POLICE |
Too extreme. Democracy does not make for a better economy, not really, and the police?!
I'd prefer the old setting.
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Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --PLANET, --POLICE, -SUPPORT |
Yes, that change is good.
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Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, ++RESEARCH, --INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
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The +2 research is way overpowered. Too extreme, even with --industry....the negative growth was a good trade off.
Power, would lose even more charm as it is, and the minus research, nah. Eudaimonic does not make for more effic, etc. etc. I think you should take a second look at the SE settings, they are very extreme changes....its just my opinion, though.
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Transcendi only yield 1 econ, 2 psych, and 3 labs (Hopefully slowing down the endgame just a bit) |
Then empaths shouldn't be obsolete. Getting the tech for transcends would be actually be BAD. Having econ with psych goes a bit down....
But disparity between engineers and transcends should be given: give Engineers +4 Econ.....
quote:
Bulk matter transmitter cost decreased |
It increases your mineral output by 50% as well as +2 minerals, IIRC.
Also, what about air transports?
quote:
10% combat bonus for attacking along roads
10% combat bonus for attacking from higher elevation
10% combat penalty for attacking from lower elevation
10% combat bonus for defending against mobile in rough |
25% from higher, actually. Really increases tactical significance.
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Zeiter
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quote:
Thought control should NOT take away research. If one has read 1984, the thought control society knows how to make one loyal to the government without diminishing the ability to research science due to the doublethink ability. |
Yeah, I've read 1984, but I still think that there would be less innovation and free exchanging of information that is usually so vital to research under thought control. A faction could still have knowledge as their values, and would still have good research.
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Eh? Wealth driven doesn't necessarily mean lack of planetary concerns. Often they can go hand in hand, as well as oppose each other. |
I would figure that with businesses primarily concerned about wealth, that the planet would not be given any concern except for how it could be exploited. Yes, certain environments could be protected if they helped to meet those ends, but in general, planet abuse would go up. Plus, the planetmind just wouldn't like all of the industry.
Note with the SE table: You still have middle of the road strategies, like fundy/green/knowledge and such. I just wanted to give the conquerors and builders more to work with. This setting for power actually makes it so much stronger. When you are running power, you should be doing so for conquest and short term aims. The former industry penalty really hurt in this regard before, but with an econ and research penalty, the short term potential to crank out military units isn't dampened, which really makes power much more effective.
As far as green: yeah, I originally had it at only +1 research. I may change it back. But the -2 industry really hurts, especially when you consider that you could be having +3 industry with planned. That's a 50% difference in production capacity. A faction running planned would just roll right over a faction running green, all other things being equal.
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Too extreme. Democracy does not make for a better economy, not really, and the police?! |
I definitely think that democracy leads to a bad police rating. The citizens get to question the government and protest, and many citizens will be pacifists, and will protest military units being sent abroad. Overall, I think it's still balanced.
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Then empaths shouldn't be obsolete. Getting the tech for transcends would be actually be BAD. Having econ with psych goes a bit down.... |
Whoops! I didn't realize that. Thanks for pointing that out! I'll probably change transcends to have +2 econ then. Although I'm a little leary about giving engineers +4 econ. They already way overpower thinkers.
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It increases your mineral output by 50% as well as +2 minerals, IIRC. |
Really? Wow, I didn't know that. Okay, I'll change it back then.
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Also, what about air transports? |
Ah yes, I forgot to mention that I also gave choppers a cargo capacity of 3.
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25% from higher, actually. Really increases tactical significance. |
Okay, I'll try that.
Thanks for all of the tips! I stick by most of my SE changes, but I see your points. I'm going to update this mod with some of your suggestions.
Edit: Revised version posted.
Last edited by Zeiter on 10-08-2004 at 11:53
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Natalinasmpf
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Is there a cloning vats SP?
You are keeping in mind that Cloning Vats will still take away the detriments of power and thought control; network backbone taking away the detriments of cybernetic society, etc.
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Zeiter
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quote:
You put another ability on MMI? |
But like I said, I moved choppers to nanomettalurgy, and I moved thinkers to applied relativity. So now, MMI has the cyborg factory, drop pods, and the carrier deck. Still a very useful tech, but not quite as overpowering. And also, I don't have SMAX, so this alpha.txt is meant to be played with SMAC. If I did have SMAX, I'd disable the CBA entirely, as it sounds way overpowered.
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You are keeping in mind that Cloning Vats will still take away the detriments of power and thought control; network backbone taking away the detriments of cybernetic society, etc. |
Yep. Actually, I haven't changed the positives of these SE choices at all, so they would have the exact same effect with the Cloning Vats and Network backbone as they used to have.
Huh, the road bonuses don't work? I'm pretty sure they show up on the combat panel along with all of the other bonuses. Although it's possible that they just aren't factored in. Oh well, doesn't hurt to try to incorporate road attack bonuses.
Last edited by Zeiter on 10-08-2004 at 19:57
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Natalinasmpf
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Yes, except now the detriments combined with the other SE choices that were neutralised or reduced will suddenly jump back up again, possibly too much.
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Zeiter
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quote:
Originally posted by Natalinasmpf
Yes, except now the detriments combined with the other SE choices that were neutralised or reduced will suddenly jump back up again, possibly too much. |
Er...I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean that the other SE choices will be less viable? Or that there are too many negatives on the SE table? Or what?
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Natalinasmpf
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As in, with Cybernetic, that had earlier discouraged pop booming, would allow it with golden ages....etc.
Because now these SP's take away two penalties to an Future Society choice, rather than just one, which could radically change the predefined settings you had in mind...
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Zeiter
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Oh, I see what you mean. Well, first of all, I intended to make it so that there would be absolutely no pop-booming. It works on SMAC, because the GA growth bonus doesn't work. However, on SMAX, I'd have to do something different to make sure pop booms don't happen. I guess take away the growth bonus of planned and reduce the democracy growth bonus to +1, is what I'd have to do.
Second: even though there are now penalties from two different categories in some of the future choice settings, there are the same number of penalties total. Like with thought control, instead of -3 support, it now has -2 support and -1 research. It still has 3 penalties though. So I don't see how this will negatively effect how the cloning vats and network backbone function. And if thought control and cybernetic are a little stronger compared to eudaimonic now, I think that's good, because I always thought that eudaimonic was a little overpowered, even when the player had the cloning vats and network backbone.
Although now, if a player gets the cloning vats, PS/planned/power/thought control is just an insanely strong conquer setup. Although, to counter that, there's demo/green/knowledge/cybernetic, which gives insane +5 research, or there's demo/green/wealth/eudaimonic, which gives +4 econ, +4 efficiency, +1 industry, and +1 research!
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Darsnan
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New Syracuse, Beta Prime
Dec 2001
time: 00:33
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 12-08-2004 03:04
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#11
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Re: Simple Alpha.txt changes to make SMAC more fun:
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Tired of ads?
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quote:
Originally posted by Zeiter
No nutrient penalty for mine squares (makes AI’s farm+mine+road strategy useful) |
I like this! In my own mod I've also given boreholes a nutrient bonus, which, even though the AI still won't build them (  ), why they will now use boreholes, and does give the AI's a nice mid-game boost when they discover the restriction lifting techs.
quote:
10% combat bonus for attacking along roads
25% combat bonus for attacking from higher elevation
25% combat penalty for attacking from lower elevation
10% combat bonus for defending against mobile in rough
Comm jammer bonus only 25% (Comm jammers no longer make rovers and hovertanks obsolete) |
I've made some changes in this area as well, and so have others. See gwillybj's alphax.txt changes thread
quote:
Terraforming: (My main goal was to decrease the effectiveness of “forest and forget”)
Farms – 3 turns
Soil enricher – 6 turns
Mine – 6 turns
Solar collector – 3 turns
Forest- 6 turns
Bunker – 2 turns (bunkers now have tactical significance)
Airbase – 4 turns (ditto for airbases)
Sensor arrays can be built in water after Adv. Mil. Algorithms |
Actually I really like SmackSim's strategy of moving farms up the tech tree while decreasing the turns for forests. Essentially I'm finding for a human player that ganging formers together (which is a natural human strategy) defeats the increased turn strategy, and turns the AI even farther off to terraforming forests. By not having farms immediately available upon Planetfall, then at least the core AI bases will have quickly established lots of nice forest squares. The only downside to this I am finding is that when I conquer the AI's why I don't have to bring along a bunh of formers to build forests! 
quote:
Units:
Probe cruiser added |
Googlie went to Deity status in my book when he introduced this mod to the game!
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Crawlers completely disabled (This makes gamplay MUCH more fun) |
I have to say from playing games like this that it prolongs the "grey area" of whether you are going to win or lose a game. It is a nice SP tool.
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Probe team cost increased (Makes you use your probe teams more carefully. No more “mass producing 2 probe defenders in every base” strategy) |
Is this to penalize humans in MP or AI's in SP, as the AI's are relatively good at focusing their probe teams when need be, IMO.
quote:
Abilities:
Deep pressure hull moved to silksteel alloys (now we actually get to use it!) |
I moved it to Doc Init in my mod, what with the MCC movie featuring a sub in it!
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Carrier deck moved to MMI |
I have only once seen an AI land an air unit on a carrier!
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AAA now gives +150% bonus vs. air units (Decreasing the overpowering effectiveness of air power) |
 I was in an air defense unit in the military and all I can say is that it really is a "hit and miss" affair... However in SMAC(X) why decreasing the overwhelming advantage of aerial units is not a bad idea, IMO.
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Heavy transport moved to doctrine: Initiative (now you get to use this) |
I'd do it for MMI or something in that region. Also, the AI has absolutely no idea how to handle land transports from my experience. 
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Nerve gas pod cost doubled |
Now that I really like! Reflects the unwillingness of people to build such things, thus extra "incentives" are needed in order to coerce them into doing this.
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Repair bay moved to bioengineering
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Does the AI build these? I've never seen the AI do this myself.
All in all some really nice ideas! I'd say look over gwillybj's mods as well, as there are some really good ideas encompased there.
D
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Zeiter
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I just read gwillybj's thread, and he definitely had some great ideas.
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Is this to penalize humans in MP or AI's in SP, as the AI's are relatively good at focusing their probe teams when need be, IMO. |
This is meant to penalize humans, both in SP and MP. From what I've experienced, the AI's probe team use can be easily countered. All a human has to do is either station probe defenders in key bases or stack a few units on a vital road approach to a base. The AI will then mindlessly send its probe teams off to get slaughtered. Even in conquests, when the human player is most vulnerable to probe activities, the AI doesn't exploit the opportunity like it should, so I decided to make it harder for the player to keep up tech parity with the AI and mind control incoming AI armies by making probe teams cost more. If I could lower the success rates or make these things cost more, I'd do that instead, but unfortunately those are hardcoded.
Yeah, it's unlikely that the AI will use things like carriers, but it's still nice to let the human player(s) use these nifty things.
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Natalinasmpf
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Are they? They seem to work very well.
Oh the AI uses them a lot if only you gave them the design. Or if they probe it from you. After I lost a police fusion silksteel garrison to Yang, they suddenly built it across their lands, and Yang especially who got ascetic virtues (!!) uh, made it very hard suddenly to incite drone riots.
Drop probe teams is another thing. I gave one to an ally, and when it turned on me, guess what happened....
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Zeiter
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Ah, yes, I forgot, I also edited the max artillery damage for land units to 100%. Should I also increase the modifier for each level of elevation? Would 50% be too much? Or how about increasing it slightly to 33%? Ah, yes, I think I'll do that.
Edit: New version with modified artillery damage posted up above.
Last edited by Zeiter on 13-08-2004 at 03:37
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Natalinasmpf
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Uh....what about 1 nutrient, 1 minerals and 1 energy? I think thats far better. They do provide food, minerals to build, AND stuff to burn.
There should be a "young forest" and "mature forest" and "ancient forest" with more rewards as the forest becomes older kind of thing: Thus it will encourage actively planting forest to get more older forest squares as possible.
The problem this is also going to encourage continously building forests, then chopping them down by building a farm or something. Or maybe it should be that way? Then you should get a higher reward for chopping them down. Units should get health points for chopping down enemy forests then too! Or something.
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DilithiumDad
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What about increasing the benefits of farms and solar collectors? The AI builds tons of these, while humans build very few. Thus, raising farms to +2 nutrients and solar collectors to +2 energy would benefit the AI greatly. You could even have farms give +2 nutrients and +1 minerals, to make them more competitive with forests.
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DilithiumDad
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Geo: Yes, the Tree Farm and Hybrid Farm nutrient bonuses would still apply. A better approch would be to reduce minerals so that forests are 1-1-1 or take away the energy.
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