Scrangos wrote:
The benefit is hard to judge, since the type changes not only its base fids, but the exploitation bonuses.

Hum... That seem way more complicated than i thought, and i wonder why so many players actually cares about that . But one thing i do notice is that terraforming doesn't scale with the size of the planet so there you already have a cost-efficiency problem as it gives you more bang for the Industry to terraform larger planets and leave alone the small ones (they aren't worth the expense). Will have to thinker something about that; i think that alone should aleviate a bit of the "terraforming disapproval" (TD) i'm getting for my mod lol.

With only a tier 3 tech it makes small/tiny planets as big as medium ones, so they dont really factor in. Crowded planets, sustainable supercities and non baryonic shielding slightly improve the fids boosts. Horatio helps too.



One of the X's in 4x is exploit, gotta milk out the territory as best as we can! :x

While I agree that terraforming should take a lot longer, imho, so should everything else in the game (the turn should be represented by far more than 1 year)... however, by increasing the time taken in the way you have, you've effectively taken terraforming out of the game as a viable tactic.



In recent versions, I've found that the Cravers tend to now be OP, as fleet size has now become more important. With their initial planet boost, they can get ahead in everything (that's normal), but then maintain it with fleet size well above others, crushing everything in their path and other factions later natural counter, terraforming, is no longer a possibility. Have you changed anything else there? This might be worth considering, how to make them more balanced...

I believe terraforming is the intended method for defensive or peaceful races to grow their fids without having to take over system through war.

The_Quasar wrote:
While I agree that terraforming should take a lot longer, imho, so should everything else in the game (the turn should be represented by far more than 1 year)... however, by increasing the time taken in the way you have, you've effectively taken terraforming out of the game as a viable tactic.



In recent versions, I've found that the Cravers tend to now be OP, as fleet size has now become more important. With their initial planet boost, they can get ahead in everything (that's normal), but then maintain it with fleet size well above others, crushing everything in their path and other factions later natural counter, terraforming, is no longer a possibility. Have you changed anything else there? This might be worth considering, how to make them more balanced...

I didn't mod anything specific to them besides AI; didn't touch their affinities and their specific techs are in line with the others (as far as i can tell). Maybe i tuned them better than the other races. Do the other AIs get crushed by them or do they keep up?

Scrangos wrote:
I believe terraforming is the intended method for defensive or peaceful races to grow their fids without having to take over system through war.

I'll keep that in mind while re-adjusting things up. I may end up rebalancing planet's bonuses and population as well in the same manner i did with the modules. Planet size may matter a bit more in v1.23.

Can you move around the tech trees? Why not just make terraforming later game, make it more realistic. I mean come on, the Endless didnt finish terraforming everything, but you get it so early? Pfft And change them at fast?

stasik28 wrote:
Can you move around the tech trees? Why not just make terraforming later game, make it more realistic. I mean come on, the Endless didnt finish terraforming everything, but you get it so early? Pfft And change them at fast?

I could, but that may end up being a hell of a job. I plan on messing with the tech tree eventually so all that text match what we get, not sure how it will affect the placement of terraforming.





I'm cooking up a new balance for planets and terraforming. For one thing i made it so lower tier planets offer more fids at the cost of population and disapproval, but also bumped the population on *lower* tier planets. Also increased the difference between the planet size. And last i'm trying to code some modifier so the only planets costing the full price for terraforming will be the huge planets, cost decreasing by 20% each size lower. Now it's the balancing of all this that may take a while...





Btw, anyone want to report about how my AIs perform this time around? Is it challenging and do all the races keep up with each others?

I don't see how the planet size should make such a big difference.



I mean it's like this:

Tiny Barren: 1 Pop

Tiny Desert: 2 Pop

Tiny Tundra: 3 Pop

Tiny Jungle: 4 Pop



Huge Barren: 4 Pop

Huge Desert: 5 Pop

Huge Tundra: 6 Pop

Huge Jungle 7 Pop



So terraforming gives you the same amount of additional pop regardless of planet-size. Of course larger planets will benefit a little more from the fids from the pop that already lived there but I'd feel that a cost difference of 10% would be more appropriate.

Small and tiny might as well not exist since theres a relatively low tier research that bumps em to medium levels. Keep in mind theres an odd interaction between tier balance and terraforming. The more worth a lower tier planet is the less worth terraforming is. The fids per type isnt too hard to balance.. its the approval thats the most complex since it can have an empire wide effect. Colonizing a lava could knock your entire empire down off fervent. System sizes also have an impact, the more planet the more disapproval from them if you fully colonize, So a small system can suck up having lower tier planets thorugh improvements.



Its quite the endeavour to re-adjust all that. Best to start from a very clear definition of what the problem is and what the goal is.

Ail wrote:
So terraforming gives you the same amount of additional pop regardless of planet-size. Of course larger planets will benefit a little more from the fids from the pop that already lived there but I'd feel that a cost difference of 10% would be more appropriate.

I plan on changing that balance. The planet difference will matter more.

Scrangos wrote:
Its quite the endeavour to re-adjust all that. Best to start from a very clear definition of what the problem is and what the goal is.

Yeah, basically the problem was i bumped terraforming cost too much and just halving it could have alleviated the problem. But i'm the kind that like to change things .



For the approval issue, i think i could divide it among the planets; the more planets you have in a system, the least approval rating of each planets matter as you colonize them. Or i could make it per pop... Well, i'll try a few things in that regard to see how it turn out.

What are the recommended settings for this mod? My last game with Sophons was overwhelmingly easy on normal speed and difficulty. My science jumped to lightning speed (Sophons).

Vanavaramban wrote:
What are the recommended settings for this mod? My last game with Sophons was overwhelmingly easy on normal speed and difficulty. My science jumped to lightning speed (Sophons).

Well, first i mostly balanced this mod around Normal difficulty, so you can start from there. Then i would suggest a larger galaxy if your computer can handle it so you will have some time to experiment before running into other AIs. And last, play against more than one AI so you can see how they interact with each others (and potentially allie themselves with or against you).



Your last game was with FF v1.22 or vanilla?

Foraven wrote:
Well, first i mostly balanced this mod around Normal difficulty, so you can start from there. Then i would suggest a larger galaxy if your computer can handle it so you will have some time to experiment before running into other AIs. And last, play against more than one AI so you can see how they interact with each others (and potentially allie themselves with or against you).



Your last game was with FF v1.22 or vanilla?

played FF 1.22. There is no problem with AI. I just thought there might be too much boosting economy, science. In round 40 I already had 200+ production and science. Is that normal?

Well i reverted the industry costs for terraforming and halved rounding up the values of disapproval for planets... The approval for anomalies and luxuries still messes it up. Theres some crazy disparity in approval from system to system based ont he luxury rng. Started a 8 player large ovoid game on serious.. im about 4 turns away from being able to terraform with custom sowers (which are probably the fastest that get to it). At this point im about 33% ahead of the second place and about double ahead of most other races.... So I could just spam some ships and curbstomp the rest of the galaxy... Unless their keeping some ridiculously powerful fleets hidden from me.



So im not really what to suggest for approval, hard to balance all the sources.

Vanavaramban wrote:
played FF 1.22. There is no problem with AI. I just thought there might be too much boosting economy, science. In round 40 I already had 200+ production and science. Is that normal?

Yeah, maybe. Either from heroes or planet improvements, or something is out of whack. Grrr, that mean i screwed it up if my 1.22 ai perform worst than in 1.21.



Edit: Did you use a lot of Heroes?

Scrangos wrote:
So im not really what to suggest for approval, hard to balance all the sources.

Well, i decided to lower the effect by 20% accross the board (either positive or negative), that should help a bit.

Ok, first fix in line, economically, will be to adjust dust and research from outpost; will reduce research and dust to 50% there. I'll do a similar thing to the other influences. Blockades will have a similar effect, hurting science and dust more than the other 2 fids. Now i have to take a look to improvements and see if there is imbalance or whackiness there (might have to tone down a few changes i made there).

Foraven wrote:
Yeah, maybe. Either from heroes or planet improvements, or something is out of whack. Grrr, that mean i screwed it up if my 1.22 ai perform worst than in 1.21.



Edit: Did you use a lot of Heroes?

Yes, I always have max Heroes.

Vanavaramban wrote:
Yes, I always have max Heroes.

Do you feel the heroes gave too much bonuses? I may have boosted them too much without meaning to...

I did my change to terraforming... That...was..long... Added tons of entries, i hope it won't affect performance. But having done that, i can easily mess with cost and even add new entries for the Sowers and Automatons so they have discounts on cost (tried to do this by some modifier, but i could not make it work ). Right now i halved the terraforming cost i had set in the previous version and started from there. Adjusted a few costs, added a 20% increase per size (that mean tiny and small will be more commonly terraformed while it will be rarer to see a huge planet turned into terran.



My changes to population works well, though i have some issues with the population icons on huge planets; too many little dudes appearing around planets. It's not game breaking, but i wish i could change how it's displayed so large population count can be seen better. I should have a version to send today if i find no bugs.

Vanavaramban wrote:
Yes, I always have max Heroes.

Well, i have been checking out what could make the Sophon more powerful than the rest and i think the main reason why you soared to the skies while the AI lagged behind was that the AI don't build basic research improvements unless it's in research mode (just like it didn't build colonies because they were not of the right type of ressource). I'm currently reworking that so my next version might be more balanced in that regard.



I'm also tempted to change the Sophon affinity; the -50% cost for support module is a bit too big of an advantage. It's sad i never managed to alter the cost of colony modules from the affinity, i find it alright otherwise.



Anyway, fixing the research priorities might take some time. Doesn't help my eyes are tired and i need to take a break . That will delay my next version .