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ExitJudas
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Hi there.
Im new to the forums here, but just reinstalled SMAX. Its still brilliant. However I think (and I can see thats a normal thing that people agree on) that aircraft, choppers and droppods are - among other things - overpowered in the game, leading to this being the only viable option often.
So I was wondering. Is there any popular and well tested balance mods out there that many people use?
cheers!
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Senethro
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I'm not sure theres anything that can be done to balance SP except turning the game into Civ3.
With players winning with a single city against 6 factions on Transcend what more can you do?
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Zoetrope
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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Sep 1999
time: 05:37
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Air units occur and become dominant too early, so that the naval phase is too brief.
Proposal 1: Defer air technologies so that naval warfare has 100 to 150 turns to entertain us.
Naval warfare isn't entertaining enough, however, because:
(a) Unlike ground units, ships lose all movement points immediately they initiate an attack (including capturing) an empty sea base), even if they would otherwise have enough movement to attack several more times (or capture 1 or 2 more sea bases).
(b) The AI totally cheats re visibility. It knows exactly where all of our units (including submarines) are all the time, whereas we can't see any of their navy beyond a 2 square radius; thus the AI sneaks up on our ships all the time, but we can never surprise the AI's in that way;
(c) As afflicts all forces (land, sea and air), ships don't cooperate: fleets don't exist. This is exacerbated by SMAC being (mostly) alternate-turn based.
Proposal 2: Edit ships so that they lose only one movement point per attack.
Proposal 3: Either blind the AI (would be best if only the game, and therefore the AI, had a concept of massed assault), or provide us human players with long radar on our (selectively designed) ships.
Difficulty (c) is a core problem with SMAC (and Civ 1, 2 and 3), so there's certainly no quick fix, but I'll propose a notion of a solution in case a true SMAC2 happens:
Proposal 4: A combined force of aircraft carriers, cruisers, submarines, and sea probes, should be able to respond to an encroaching threat and engage it. Therefore, an assault on any vessel in a fleet should result in one or more of the others that are within range of assailant(s) immediately opening fire and/or launching bomber aircraft against enemy ships and fighters against enemy aircraft.
The trouble is, how to do that properly within a TBS. But we have something approaching that with artillery engagements (on land and at sea) and with fighter aircraft defending a base. Defending a fellow member of a fleet (or army) should be also be a rapid response.
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ExitJudas
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thanx for the replies. Any suggestions to new movement values for choppers and planes?
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ExitJudas
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another question. I heard someone talk about SMAX being bugged. Are those bugs game breaking? Do you guys like SMAC more than SMAX because of those bugs?
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Dis
SMAX doesn't have any bugs that I know of. Somethings might be overpowering like the planetary energy grid and the cloudbase academy. The original game was slightly more balanced. |
Surely you jest
Probe rollover bug anyone?
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Cataphract887
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LOL i find new bugs everytime i play-minor and often graphical and errors on info reporting on f4 screens etc but occiasianly big bugs as well...
theres about a zillion bugs
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Senethro
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quote:
Originally posted by Cataphract887
errors on info reporting on f4 screens
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LIES!
I use the F4 screen because of the drone bug on the base screen.
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Hercules
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in Tir Na Og
Sep 2002
time: 05:37
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At this stage I don't want to promote the ACDG3 game.
Well alright I do.
This game, here
sought to restrict the power of choppers.
Last edited by Hercules on 05-08-2005 at 19:22
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Darsnan
The Data Angels can run SE Settings that give them a Probe Rating higher than the game can understand, and so instead of the Angels receiving a probe SE rating of +6, the computer rolls the value over to the beginning again, giving them a minimum probe rating. That would then, IMO, be called a serious bug....
D |
very serious. In fact, It puts you in the weird position that adopting SE choices with a NEGATIVE probe rating is to your benefit.
Darsnan-- I always thought it rolled over after +3 so that +4 would effectively be 0 and +5 would effectively be a 1?
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Maniac
+3 SE Probe or higher doesn't give you the immunity to mind control you're supposed to get. .[/list] |
The rest of what you said was no suprise ( sorry if I was imprecise but I never thought the probe rollover bug had any effect on morale) but I always thought with mind control that +3 worked ok and it was only going to +4 that led to the rollover for mind control purposes. I experienced an inability to probe Believer units when they were in +3 Probe. Was that +3 working correctly or am I forgetting some Believer attribute (I almost never play them)
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Maniac
IIRC I myself didn't test that, but back when we were discussing the probe rollover bug before the start of ACDG3, other people said that only the Believers get mind control immunity at +3 SE Probe. Probably some hardwired code I guess. |
OK-- that would explain why I thought things worked ok-- since IIRC it is only the Believers that easily get to exactly +3 anyway.
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Zeiter
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Well, I'll put in a plug for my modern earth mod, I guess.  Although I've tweaked it a bit since I posted it a few months ago, so here's the slightly new version. It has all of the features which you are asking for (air power less powerful, AI tougher, etc.).
Note: In addition to this mod, for it to fully work graphically, you'll need to copy the following files and name the copies as follows:
spartans.pcx -> copy -> rename sparta.pcx
spartans2.pcx -> copy -> rename sparta2.pcx
spartans3.pcx -> copy -> rename sparta3.pcx
spartans.flc -> copy-> rename sparta.flc
SPARTANS.tmp -> copy-> rename SPARTA.tmp
SPARTANSvals.tmp -> copy-> rename SPARTAvals.tmp
(I needed to create a slightly new faction based on the spartans, the only difference being a new starting tech for this mod to be balanced).
And, of course, you'll have to rename the alphamodernearthmod.txt file to just alpha.txt for the mod to work, but only after you have copied the original alpha.txt, of course.
 Attachment: modernearthmod.zip
This has been downloaded 1 time(s).
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04-08-2005 04:05
. That's my field having worked in Navy ship engineering plants my whole career. Of course, that would make everything I learned obsolete. 
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