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Leland
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quote:
Originally posted by Chaos Theory
I'd much rather have .1283257 bureaucracy drones in a city than have a 1/8 chance of getting one when I plant my next base, or need to determine its position in the global base list.
When a number is the result of division, such as for global support, the floating point number can be used internally, and the fraction (3/29 or whatever) can be shown to the player, potentially with the decimal expansion as well, for comparison to other fractions.
Breakpoints caused by discretization cause a lot of micromanagement headaches, such as checking bases to see in what year they'll grow and need more drone control, or squeezing out that last point of labs by getting as many bases as possible to produce an odd number of energy units. |
You can't get rid of all fractions: turns, tiles, units, facilities, etc. are still going to be whole numbers. If only part of the quantities in the game are floating points, you still get the same headaches when transforming production into units or predicting in which turn something is going to be ready or not. It would be better to have everything as discreet quantities.
As for micromanagement, that could be reduced by a smart message system where you get notified in advance if something nasty is going to happen next turn. And whether fractions are rounded up or down could be deterministic, and there is no reason why the remainders of research couldn't be carried to next turn.
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paramir
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I feel that 2 difrent modes would be nice, one for those of us that enjoy micromanaging(only me), and one for other people
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Chaos Theory
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Missouri / Misery; CC
Oct 2002
time: 04:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Leland
You can't get rid of all fractions: turns, tiles, units, facilities, etc. are still going to be whole numbers. If only part of the quantities in the game are floating points, you still get the same headaches when transforming production into units or predicting in which turn something is going to be ready or not. It would be better to have everything as discreet quantities.
As for micromanagement, that could be reduced by a smart message system where you get notified in advance if something nasty is going to happen next turn. And whether fractions are rounded up or down could be deterministic, and there is no reason why the remainders of research couldn't be carried to next turn. |
Turns, when played, will be integers, but events can take place at various points between turns. Tiles, if used, are discrete and limit possibilities for unit movement to integers or at least small-denominator fractions. Units need not be discrete at all - one garrison can be large (2.7143 "units" worth) and another can be skeletal or badly damaged (.4 "units" worth). Each garrison you move will be a distinct unit, but need not be of "unit" size. Facilities need not necessarily be discrete, though there are a lot of possibilities for them.
Better information about the next turn is crucial, no matter how else the game is designed. Rather than calculating for yourself various quantities such as when a facility will be ready, that information should be readily available, and you should be able to hurry it so that it can be completed at a specified date, if that is what you need.
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Petek
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Berkeley, CA
Jul 2000
time: 21:21
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Here're some ideas to change crawlers, one minor and one major. The basic idea behind these suggestions is to make crawler less powerful.
If a square that's being crawled isn't connected by a road to the crawler's home base, it gets -1 nut, -1 min or -1 energy (depending on which FOP is being crawled). If the square is connected by a road, production is normal. If the square is connected to the base by a mag tube, you would get +1 FOP. (The last part is optional, since it might be too unbalancing.)
I can't think of any way to change trawlers (sea crawlers) along these lines. Any ideas? Perhaps a new terraforming option for sea formers to connect the trawler to the base? Also not sure how to treat crawlers that are on a continent different than the home base (rare, to be sure).
This idea sort of makes sense, since the existence of a road/mag tube would facilitate the harvesting of a resource. It also would require more effort to ramp up crawler production, making crawlers weaker in the early game. Roads/mag tubes also would become a strategic target when in vendetta. However, this suggestion wouldn't eliminate mass production of crawlers. Hence, my other suggestion is:
Building a crawler/trawler would cost the base one point of population. This idea would make it more difficult to crank out tons of crawlers/trawlers. The rationale is that each crawler/trawler requires a small part of the base's population for support and maintenance. Perhaps, in the case in which the crawler is cashed in to rush a SP, the population could then be restored.
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zsozso
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of Chiron
Oct 1999
time: 00:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Petek
If a square that's being crawled isn't connected by a road to the crawler's home base, it gets -1 nut, -1 min or -1 energy (depending on which FOP is being crawled). If the square is connected by a road, production is normal. If the square is connected to the base by a mag tube, you would get +1 FOP. (The last part is optional, since it might be too unbalancing.)
I can't think of any way to change trawlers (sea crawlers) along these lines. Any ideas?
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I like this idea, but would extend it further to use distance based decay: i.e. you would lose as many FOP points as the distance from the base. Of course, distance would count considering roads/mag-tubes just as for movement, thus without roads crawlers become useless in just a few squares away, with roads you can send them 3 times as far. With magtubes the loss is gone completely. E.g. if you have a mineral resource + mine square (7 mins) at 6 squares away without road connection, it gives you only 1 mineral, when connected with road, your loss is only 2 mins, so it brings in 5.
This model would also work proportionally if you have partly completed roads between the tile and home base. Same thing also works for sea crawlers and fungus/rocky terrain can further decay the FOP income just like the movement.
The other idea (to lose a population) I dont like because that would completely destroy the value of the cralwers. I see no point using them except from very large cities that can't work more tiles.
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Senethro
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Didn't someone once suggest that you could need a specialist to work crawlers? Perhaps the first two crawlers are free but above 2 crawlers a base, you need one "crawler specialist" for every 4 crawlers otherwise the resource is not gathered.
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Straybow
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SG(2)… gone but not forgotten
Jan 1970
time: 23:21
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quote:
Originally posted by zsozso
quote:
Originally posted by Petek
If a square that's being crawled isn't connected by a road to the crawler's home base, it gets -1 nut, -1 min or -1 energy (depending on which FOP is being crawled). If the square is connected by a road, production is normal. If the square is connected to the base by a mag tube, you would get +1 FOP. (The last part is optional, since it might be too unbalancing.)
I can't think of any way to change trawlers (sea crawlers) along these lines. Any ideas? |
I like this idea, but would extend it further to use distance based decay: i.e. you would lose as many FOP points as the distance from the base. Of course, distance would count considering roads/mag-tubes just as for movement, thus without roads crawlers become useless in just a few squares away, with roads you can send them 3 times as far. With magtubes the loss is gone completely. E.g. if you have a mineral resource + mine square (7 mins) at 6 squares away without road connection, it gives you only 1 mineral, when connected with road, your loss is only 2 mins, so it brings in 5.
This model would also work proportionally if you have partly completed roads between the tile and home base. Same thing also works for sea crawlers and fungus/rocky terrain can further decay the FOP income just like the movement.
The other idea (to lose a population) I dont like because that would completely destroy the value of the cralwers. I see no point using them except from very large cities that can't work more tiles. |
Degrading of performance by distance is one way. I don't think getting the AI to recognize it would be easy. Population for crawlers doesn't work well either. Why not just put a cap on resources gathered by crawler?
Base can draw maximum 5 or [Size + #crawlers] resources, maximum of 5 or [Size] for any one resource.
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Chaos Theory
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Missouri / Misery; CC
Oct 2002
time: 04:21
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Perhaps crawlers are unbalancing as-is, but I can imagine futuristic cities with robotic workers (crawlers) providing for most of their needs, with the citizens either providing creative insight (labs specialists), manipulating money or tweaking economic gains out of the city (econ specialists), entertaining each other (psych specialists), or being idle and causing trouble (drones).
Without brutally efficient eugenics or Telepathic Matrix-calibur cooperation, unproductive, parasitic, violent, useless citizens are inevitable, which leads to the idea of preventing specialist-only cities under most circumstances. Perhaps workers are intrinsically happier than specialists, and each specialist has a negative psych effect unless it produces its own psych, since gathering the best and brightest into a scientist specialist leaves the rest of the population worse off. In any case, converting every citizen to a (productive) specialist is a cheesy way to dodge several sources of drones. Without this ability, workers become more appealing (by necessity) and crawlers become less important, though still very useful.
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skrobism
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Hi. I'm basically an outsider. I bought SMAC because I loved Civ2. I didn't play too much SMAC. There were some things that I could not get past.
The wierd graphics. I know it's an alien world but nothing was recognizable. The vehicles, the units, I couldn't connect to any of it.
The tech tree. This is where they really lost me. I know it's the future but I should feel like I know something about what is being researched. We are humans from earth, right? Maybe the Tech tree should start in our current 21st century techs. I'm sure that if I crash landed on an island never mind an alien planet, we'd have to re-discover how to do some things that we took for granted. Like I know what a radio is and how to use it, but how do I build one? Some stuff like that before the tech tree goes into a complete fantasy world.
Same thing with the factions. I would guess that even though we traveled through space away from Earth we keep some of the terms. Religions and gov't type wouldn't change that much, new terms might develop but everything wouldn't get scraped.
I liked the story line. I liked the borders. I liked the ability to design my own units. These were all great things that made SMAC something like Civ2.5. Playing Civ3 you can see how some of these ideas were tested in SMAC.
Hope this helps.
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Hydro
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Winfield, IL, USA
Jun 1999
time: 05:21
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Some things I’d like to see:
Terraforming: More realistic terraforming – trees, farms, river, solar collectors are all fine. BUT, drilling to an aquifer to make a river makes no sense at all (this is a pet peeve – I’m a hydrogeologist, after all). Likewise, raise and lower terrain violates the conservation of matter – no small thing to consider. Where does all the extra soil/rock come from or go? And consider the scale! A sector is something like 10,000 kms square. Raising a tile 500 m over that area is a stupendous amount of material! Now, if these types of terraforming were available as uber high tech that would be OK.
Movement: More realistic representation of distances wrt unit movement, and tile utilization (already well discussed by others).
Support: Better representation of support (well discussed by others).
Eco damage: IMPORTANT – keep the concept of ecological damage, BUT make those that violate Planet pay through the nose. Right now eco pollution makes it possible to pollute more. Surely a programmer made an equation error since, in my mind at least, any ‘white blood cell’ reaction to pollution by Planet would make Planet more sensitive, not less, to future pollution. So, pollution without mitigation will not pay.
Tech rate/ability: Make technology available based on what you do, and maybe your SE or faction agenda. For instance, an industry and pollution heavy faction should have a very difficult time getting Planet friendly techs. This might be done by giving certain factions a bonus toward some types of techs (eg – Gaians to Explore, and Morgan to Build), but negatives toward others.
Tech function: Another possibility is that a tech may simply not work at all or very well if your actions (eg – ecopollution) or faction disposition is wrong. So the Gaians might steal Morgan’s industry tech, but have a bit of a struggle getting it to work. Likewise, the Morgans might really struggle to get farms, forests, etc to work well on Planet since they just don’t get it.
Hydro
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girlfight_club
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on an alternate Chiron
Feb 2004
time: 05:21
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I had a dream earlier this year.
I had just been awakened from my cryocell-- but the colony had been in operation for some time! I was being walked around our "base" on Chiron-- most of the structures were very simplistic-- almost like game symbols themselves-- but each represented a specific facility. I saw shelters, farms, and a few other buildings-- not a lot of military development, but the dream didn't address that.
I remember our being fortunate enough to build near a river. The others discussed their plans to build a hydroelectric plant, mostly on the opposite bank. Apparently my expertise was very much needed, and they were glad to have been able to revive me-- being born on Earth made me a kind of instant celebrity, even though barely a generation had passed.
It felt very challenging and exciting, seeing everything from ground level, and having tasks to perform, and a little bit of authority.
...
Now, I've liked the Sims and SimCity, but they're nothing compared to my passion for SMAC. Turn-based god games rule. But I wonder if there couldn't be a kind of scalability brought to SMAC. Work your way up to be a base governor, or even the faction leader. More authority as you go. Less RPG than the Sims or WoW, but slightly more than SimCity-- political intrigue, but your orders to build and attack still get carried out.
At its top level (which should always be an option, at least with a cheat code) you're playing a perfected old-school SMAC with extra 2.0 jinglies: Faction leader, conquering Planet.
This way, you could have political parties inside of factions. At what point do they rebel to become their own faction, join another, or find themselves without resources and die? What kind of compromises would you be willing or able to make to hold your colonies together?
SMAC deserves the vertical expansion WarCraft and SimCity have received-- because a political intrigue game is half the reason I prefer it over the rest-- and that with only a handful of original characters!
GFC
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01-06-2005 04:39
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