26-03-2001 01:46									#1
	What do YOU want in SMAC2 Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

I am preparing to post a big file once I finish it later on to Apolyton forums and Firaxis team. But first I need feedback...

So what do you guys want improved? Here are some suggestions:

*Game Interface
*AI
*User Creation
*MP
*Misc. Ideas

oh yeah and most importantly (cos I need ideas for this one)
*what do you think the post-apocalitptic Earth should look like?

I've already got some ideas. These include new human/amphibian lifeforms, mars/moon colonists and roaming mutant hordes (like mindworms or barbarians in civ)

Your opinion...

------------------
"I hate this storm. The others all pretend they're not afraid but I know better. They're as scared as I am, but they won't admit it. They look at me and smile and make brave faces and they can see how frightened I am. The wind howls out there and they all pretend they don't hear it. And when I turn my back to them, when they think I can't see them, they laugh at me. I can hear them laughing at me even over the noise of the wind."

Extract from
"Return to Mars"
by Ben Bova

	27-03-2001 10:15									#2
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

The AI is the main problem. It simply does too many nonsensical things and misses opportunities like there is no tomorrow.

	27-03-2001 00:47									#3
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better AI particularly for combat.

more storyline included on disk, perhaps accessable from Faction Profile.

story writers would like a logging fuction that records the story significant parts of there gamess: firsts, contacts, diplomacy events, combats, captures.
[This message has been edited by Lefty Scaevola (edited March 26, 2001).]

	27-03-2001 02:34									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Unfortunately AI's fail to understand there is a tommorow. They exist only in the "now" so to speak.

What should be done is improved understanding of terraforming and facilities, and the importance of them, this should be implemented in an editable file so it can be changed as strategies evolve, with such things as priorities for different terraforming, and where it can (not) go, and ratios between terraforming types. As much as possible concerning AI should be in .txt files, AI's can't evolve, but humans can update them to use advanced strategies. One of the main reasons the SMAX AI stalls is because it doesn't update it's terraforming - and it doesn't use most of it's terraforming. If the AI's understanding of infrastructure and facilities was improved to be comparable to a human player (or cheated to make it look like it) then it would be much much stronger.

	27-03-2001 04:25									#5
	Inflate your Upload Space

Aside from the AI issues mentioned above I'd like to see a substantially more complex diplomacy engine. I've yet to play a SMAC/X game and get a feeling for a faction leader's personality that wasn't.. well.. artificial. The factions need a lot more personality variables to determine how they'll act in different situations. Not for the sake of predictability, but for consistency and motive.

	27-03-2001 04:43									#6
	Got spare money?

Just a word of warning to anyone considering posting story ideas. There is a chance that if you post an idea here, that Firaxis will be unable to use it for legal reasons.

	27-03-2001 13:20									#7
	Increase the size of your Attachments

I would like to choose the number of factions to play with.
What an imagination to play on a huge map with 20 factions

If the CPU wouldn't get a meltdown....

	27-03-2001 16:22									#8
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I would like a faction design thingy, where you can create point-based balanced factions from major and minor traits, this would be quite a lot of work, and need a LOT of balancing, and probably would need to be updated in patches as various traits are found to be overpowered for the cost - or effectivly neutralised by another trait or whatever. So it would be a lot of work but would also add alot to the replayability (atleast in my opinion). Ofcourse it would also have to include a bunch of pre-designed factions, like the SMAX ones.


Anoter idea I had is to have a certain number of factions, lets say 14. You can choose how many you want in a game. Then extra cool you have 56 (or 1000) AI leaders, and each leader plays differentely (ie builder, momentum, hybrid.. agressive, passive, co-operative, backstabber etc). Either have something like 4 leaders per faction, or even better (but harder) have 28 leaders, which can each play ANY faction, in there own "unique" playstyle. These leaders should be editable, with preferences like "lots of bases" or even "one base challenge". A leader would NOT alter the faction strengths in any way, for example having a leader with growth focus would not give a + to growth SE, only encourage construction of colony pods and so on...

So pair off the factions with the leaders, you have the same factions all the time, but lots of combinations of leaders+faction, for greater longlivity. Thus no faction would be bound to a particular AI leader (ie the Peacekeepers wouldn't always be led by back-stabber Lal, The Hive wouldn't always result in a sprawl of poorly developed cities...)

And if you want to play a relativly peacefull game to high technology assign every faction a builder leader, or for kicks design a OCC leader and play a OCC game against AI's. It would add great versitality and the diplomacy would stay fresh much longer. Leaders would have there own agenda, as well as the faction agenda. Is this Zak who wants to peacefully research his way to transcendence, or Zak's evil twin who's secret agenda is to planetbust every living thing on planet!

I think it would be really cool and build on SMAC's greatest strength - the leaders.

	27-03-2001 20:02									#9
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

or how about a AI personality that only has one single goal, transcend as quickly as possible, say 76 years?

edt : or a psycho AI that would first beat you senseless and then some special constructed "bug" would force you to stay in that game not able to start a new one until the AI is done with (which could take something like 20-30 turns... )



[This message has been edited by knowhow2 (edited March 27, 2001).]

	27-03-2001 20:25									#10
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Other than the AI, I think some new things to build would be nice. For instance, bridges and aqueducts could have helped out in alot of situations.

	27-03-2001 23:06									#11
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

All wicked ideas guys! Keep 'em coming!

BTW why, if you post your story idea here, mcannot Firaxis use it for their own design purposes?

	28-03-2001 01:43									#13
	Put an end to popups!

One feature I did like in CTP was undersea tunnels. This removed the PIA factor of having to transport troops by ship, especially because turns take so much longer later in the game, you don't want to have to wait a turn or two to have the transport ready.
It would be nice if bases just off the coast could be fitted with a "bridge" improvment (built as facility) which allows units to treat the seacity like a road square. This way you could plonk a city down in a channel and have units cross freely. Ofcourse the "bridge" could be sabotaged by probe teams, and also be used be enemies w/o marine detachment.

(whoa, what happened to my maths study I was doing...!)

	28-03-2001 03:38									#14
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Hmmm... Landbridge... Couldn't the user create his own in the existing SMAC? Just input in alpha.txt, in terraform section, that roads (or what do you wana call them) are allowed to be built at sea after discovering certain tech? Haven't tried this one, but I know that bunker, sensor and soil enricheners (renamed by someone to kelp enricheners) can work that way.

Whoops! The above should really got to Creation forums...

	28-03-2001 19:30									#15
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Cool idea, and no-one really reads the creation forum anyway

I'm not sure it would work, I havn't suceeded in placing "sea roads" in the scenerio editor, I have placed "sea magtubes" but they have no picture or benefit.

I usually make a "bridge" unit (trans-1-1, clean), but any units lose movement when moving to the base. A proper bridge would rock. Ofcourse if you really insist just raise the base out of the sea... But hopefully in SMAC 2 raising terrain is not allowed! The idea of getting huge mountains from nowhere is stupid, rather it should be possible to "level" terrain, creating more beach or shelf. And global warming should be much reduced, and have more climatic impact rather than sea level change. Condensors should be allowed, but must also be limited in the ability to create wetness.

I would really like the option to play on truly horrid planets which must be terraformed on a grand scale, prehaps planets with no oceans at all, and little capacity for plant life.

Some terraforming things I would like:

Hydro Lab, creates 3 Food on ANY land tile, immune to restrictins. Expensive. (incurs upkeep) Only way to generate decent food on arid worlds.
Hydro Dam: Generates energy. Can only be built on rivers. Quite clean.
Rivers should be more permament fixtures, without raise/lower terrain the course would reamin unchanged.
Geothermal Plant: Generates energy in certain low-lying or volcanic areas (ie drill deep into crust, pump down water, boiling water comes back up and drives turbines) Very clean.
Greenhouse Gas Generator: Factories designed to pump up the atmosphere with gas, creating global warming. Production bonus from tile too.

Council type:

Ice Meteor Impact: Collide a large icey comet into the atmosphere, introducing more water and creating denser atmosphere = warmer climate.

It'd be cool if the map could be split into regions or layered, for example have multiple large aquafors, and only one river can be drilled to each. And areas of volcanic activity, and viens of high mineral concentrations. And areas of excellent fertile soil...
Iow making it more like a real planet.

Anyway, must sleep!

	28-03-2001 20:05									#16
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Blake, you haven't by any chance read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy have you?

	28-03-2001 21:55									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

How about fungus of varied colour? I mean pink, pink, pink??? Yeeechh! What about purple, brown and orange? Those are valid colours for fungus.

Eye-candy.

	29-03-2001 01:42									#19
	Put an end to popups!

is still miss a real planet faction, who doesnt care about the normal militairy techs and so on.

who is planet him-/herself. planet ech/planet economics/planet mind.

speaking in general, i would like more distinguished alternate factions, who can walk their own special path.

	29-03-2001 01:43									#20
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Yeah, a good terraforming game.. I wouldn't mind buying that at all. Guess that's another reason why I enjoy playing SMAC/X. Sometimes I just wish that the other factions would leave me alone so I could tend to my bases without having to care for troups and such. Well, most of the time actually. Me, a builder? Noo..

Looking forward to seeing what Maxis/EA manage to do with Sim Mars. (Have to admit that I've read those books my KSR too.. ) Would be cool if they manage to make a good game out of it.

	29-03-2001 06:53									#22
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I think it would be cool to be on the Progenitor "homeworld" and Planet before the so-called "Tau-Ceti flowering".
This would allow you to do ALOT more terraforming. Why you ask? You would be laying down monoliths , creating the fungus (in labs maybe?) and breeding life forms to populate Planet. But you cannot discount warfare and diplomacy, can you? You may build Battle Ogres, fight against whatever caused the "Tau-Ceti flowering" maybe go through the earlystages of the Progenitor civil war, meet other spacefaring races (???) and of course lots of space-travel .
Otherwise (if they don't do a prequel) your ideas are really good and I would have never have thought of some of them .

------------------
If practice makes perfect and nobody's perfect why practice?

	29-03-2001 09:16									#23
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Cybergod,

What are your ideas?

	29-03-2001 09:22									#24
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Multiplayer, Brighter colors, and better AI.

	29-03-2001 10:51									#25
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Sorry, more terraforming

Space Mirrors! Build big mirrors in orbit and reflect light onto the planet, increasing temperature and light levels, and increasing daylight hours near the poles. And ( ) have a big solar lense, in a low orbit, which focuses light on a small patch of ground, burning a massive trench in the ground as it passes over. Kinda like an orbital deathray.

Windmills would be an interesting prospect for energy generation. The current terraforming want (wish) list!

Food:
Farm
Hydroponics Lab (Good food output, clean, incurs energy cost for upkeep)
Sea farm


Energy:
Solar
Geothermal
Hyrdo
Windmill
Tidal harnass

Production:
Mine (clean)
Strip Mine (destructive version, eliminates food production in tile)
Gas Factory (Average mineral boost, high global warming rating)

Misc:
Thermal Borehole (Energy / Mineral / Global Warming, river flowing in makes steam = rain, kills most nearby life)
Thermocline Borehole (Sea version, creates lots of steam = rain, kills most life in nearby tiles)
Condensor: Encourages rainfall in the area, causes areas downwind to dry out, overuse may deplete atmosphere of water vapour = bad.

Biological/Nanotechnological:
Whatever is cooked up in the labs, can dynamically evolve in enviroment, may produce dramatically different resources in different areas. Species may die out as the planet is terraformed.

Grand Scale Terraforming:
Icey Comet: Increase global atmosphere density, water content
Astroid: Slam into planet to increase atmosphere density, very deadly to life.
Solar Shade: Cools planet
Solar Mirror: Heats planet, increases light = promotes plant growth.
Orbital Power Generator: Produces energy, split between bases with Microwave receivers. Can also be used as a death ray.
Orbital Manafacturing Plant: Boosts production

An idea for a play arena is a gas giant with many moons, moon hopping would be quite easy, allowing one moon to invade another. With large moons terraforming options would be just as varied as for planets.

	29-03-2001 23:31									#27
	Suffering from ads?

Just to nitpick, it's "participate" in Terran Council.

Not bad, Cybergod. Very creative. Just make sure the aliens aren't as overpowered as they are in smax.

--------------------------

Money is the key to end all your woes
Your ups and your downs, your highs and your lows
Won't you tell me last time that love bought you clothes?
It's like that, and that's the way it is

	30-03-2001 01:46									#28
	Remove this text

"Whoops! How could I not say 'participate'?!"

By the way, PLEASE IGNORE THE "See the ___ section" PARTS OF THE THING

The terraform suggestions of someone above (sorry pal, forgot the name ) are very good and could be added to this. The "clean" terraforms, such as wind-power, could be available after discoveing another terraform-related tech, since, in modern-day experience, we see that alternative energy tends to be more expencive (in this case needed higher tech).

Of course, if the user wanted to, in scen editor or even maybe in a game option, he could make the planed be NOT Earth.

	30-03-2001 01:46									#29
	Got spare money?

Double post...
[This message has been edited by Cybergod (edited March 30, 2001).]

	30-03-2001 02:43									#30
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Damnit! Another double post! Why is this happening?!

Sorry for forgeting yor name Blake .

I was thinking also about a newfeature in the game: Space Exploration/Combat. This would probably include building spaceships and space colonies on other planets, maybe also asteroid mining stations. There should be a special tech for special weapons/shields/models of chassises/spec reactors for the space ships, with its own design screen (so that the user can design it). What about a stealth ability on a space ship? Nah, getting too Star Trekkie (stopped watching that LONG time ago for some odd reason, now glued to here or MTV). The space colonies wouldn't be able to grow on their own but you will need to build them directly from Earth. The problem of drone riots in space is settled by simply NOT letting the drones actually travel there, only Workers and Talents (the ones born there will be reassigned on Earth). Of course, a space based spy (probe team) could still bribe the colony to go under enemy rule. You will need a higher tech to build these (Adv Space FLight?) than satellites. They take longer to build that them but cannot be destroyed by Orb Def Pods and satellites are eaier to destroy with space ships than these lot. Plus the further away the colony, the longer the ship needs to reach it. You may choose to dock a space ship in them but not repair them unless it's a Ship Repair Station. Different types of colonies:

* Recreation Colony - doesn't do anything, but takes away 1 citizen from a base that builds it and sends it to the planet/moon. A bit like a Colony Pod. If your/enemy faction gets eliminated, if you have these, you/them will still live and you/enemy will have to Colony Combat, see below. Fortunately/Unfortunately, these settlements don't grow.

* Mining Colony - provides you with some extra minerals get destroyed with your/other-about-to-be-eliminated faction.

* Plantation Colony - nutrient bonus, same as above

* Energy Colony - guess what? An energy bonus + same as above

* Gas Depletion Colony (only on gas giants) - gives you a bigger energy bonus that above but much the same

* Ship Repair Station - not really a Colony but repairs damaged ships docked here.

* Enterprise Colony - offers a Holywood style experiences to other people in other factions, generates you a +1 energy from commerce, which increase/decreases with economically related techs.

* War Colony - gives your other colonies on the same planet a defence/offence bonus against enemy colonies and their attacks on the same planet.

Colony Combat would consist with two enemy faction colonies fighting each other, with one being there long with a larger bonus due to higher experience. Space ships docked in a defending colony add to the attack bonus as those in the defending colony (which give an offencive bonus). I was thinking of giving one of the terran factions, the industrialist one, a free lunar mining colony at start. The story behind them is that they are decendants of Moon colonists who escaped the chaos of Earth and have chosen a time to resettle it. The other faction stayed there through all the chaos and torments of the apocaliptic Earth.

Different species should have different name for different thing (like eg. humans call a facility Recreation Commons but natives call it Mutant Respiratories while zo'or call it Drone Grounds and robots don't have them at all). Maybe in an alpha.txt (or whatever) file it would look like this:

...
Recreation Commons, 1, Mutant Respiratories, 1, Drone Grounds, 1, Recreation Commons, 0 ...

ie. human name, do they build it? (1=yes, 0=no), mutant name, do they build it?, alien name, do they build it?, robot name, do they build it?...

More to come, please comment so far ...

------------------
"I hate this storm. The others all pretend they're not afraid but I know better. They're as scared as I am, but they won't admit it. They look at me and smile and make brave faces and they can see how frightened I am. The wind howls out there and they all pretend they don't hear it. And when I turn my back to them, when they think I can't see them, they laugh at me. I can hear them laughing at me even over the noise of the wind."

Extract from
"Return to Mars"
by Ben Bova