Advanced Ground Troop Pod

[Sloth]

This patch adds a new ship part: Advanced Ground Troop Pod.

Advanced Ground Troop Pods have twice the capacity and twice the cost of normal Ground Troop Pods. They have the advantage that you need to build less Troop ships (mostly to have a lower FLEET_UPKEEP_MULTIPLICATOR).

The ship part is unlocked by Nanotech Cybernetics which already has a fitting icon and description and that branch of the tech tree needed a little more content.

EDIT: Patch removed. Use patch below.

[biza]

It is good to have new addition to the game!

I just design new ship and put as many troop pods I need....
Eg:
troop ship - basic small hull with 1 pod cost 14.9 and 2 turns .
My organic troop ship - organic hull with 4 pods costs 21.8 and 3 turns.
My medium troop ship - basic medium hull with 3 pods cost 39.1 and also 2 turns.

So 3 troop ships = 44,7
1 my medium troop ship = 39.1 with same number of turns and number of pods as 3 troop ships.
Organic troop ship have best price per pod, but it takes 1 turn longer to produce.

With this advanced troop pod my organic troop ship will have capacity of 8 normal pods for price of 35,65 ?!?

So I can conquer planet with 15 troops with one ship with cost of 35,65 and 3 turns cool!

Cheers!

[Geoff the Medio]

It would be nice if a committer who is more familiar with the state of balancing than I am could take a look at this...

[Dilvish]

Sloth, could you comment on how you see this balancing with the Garrison technology? As it stands, it seems that the effect is primarily to cancel out a significant portion of Garrison tech, which never seemed all that strong to me to begin with.

[Vezzra]

Sloth, could you comment on how you see this balancing with the Garrison technology? As it stands, it seems that the effect is primarily to cancel out a significant portion of Garrison tech, which never seemed all that strong to me to begin with.

I've to agree with that. Actually, I'v been considering to suggest to boost the garrison techs significantly, both raising the troop bonus granted by the existing techs as well as adding additional refinement levels to increase the max even more. And making them depend on the current pop meter - a huge planet with high pop should be way harder to capture than a tiny one with very low pop (which has already been suggested in other threads).

That said, enhanced/advanced troop pods are still a good idea to keep the troop ship count from skyrocketing, especially later in the game. But they should be sufficiently expensive to build so producing enough troops for invasions remains a considerable effort.

[Dilvish]

That said, enhanced/advanced troop pods are still a good idea to keep the troop ship count from skyrocketing, especially later in the game. But they should be sufficiently expensive to build so producing enough troops for invasions remains a considerable effort.

Yes, pegging the price based on a representative hull, like organic, so that an organic hull troopship with 4 of the new pods would cost twice as much as an organic hull troopship with 4 of the regular pods (and likewise for total cost/troop ratios for any further advanced troop pods added). They would still offer the strong benefit of fewer troop ships, reducing the troopship management hassle and reducing troopship-induced fleet maintenance, while not adding to the complexity of adjusting/balancing/augmenting garrison techs.

[Sloth]

And making them depend on the current pop meter - a huge planet with high pop should be way harder to capture than a tiny one with very low pop (which has already been suggested in other threads).

I very much support this idea. I think some of the races/buildings/techs should grant a flat bonus and some a population based bonus (so outposts can still profit).

That said, enhanced/advanced troop pods are still a good idea to keep the troop ship count from skyrocketing, especially later in the game. But they should be sufficiently expensive to build so producing enough troops for invasions remains a considerable effort.

Yes, pegging the price based on a representative hull, like organic, so that an organic hull troopship with 4 of the new pods would cost twice as much as an organic hull troopship with 4 of the regular pods (and likewise for total cost/troop ratios for any further advanced troop pods added). They would still offer the strong benefit of fewer troop ships, reducing the troopship management hassle and reducing troopship-induced fleet maintenance, while not adding to the complexity of adjusting/balancing/augmenting garrison techs.

Currently an organic hull troopship with advanced troop pods will cost 63% more than an organic hull troopship with normal troop pods. That means you get 200% effect for the price of 163% cost. That's good, but doesn't really break the balance.

Building big troopships also has the little drawback of usually more capacity being wasted when they are consumed during an invasion.

[Dilvish]

Currently an organic hull troopship with advanced troop pods will cost 63% more than an organic hull troopship with normal troop pods. That means you get 200% effect for the price of 163% cost. That's good, but doesn't really break the balance.

Ok, so that works out to about a 20% discount -- nontrivial, but not out of line for a refinement tech, sure. Could you figure out some augmentations to the Garrison techs, one or two with bonuses based on planet pop, and one or two regen boosting techs, that could go in at the same time as the advanced pods?

[Sloth]

Ok, so that works out to about a 20% discount -- nontrivial, but not out of line for a refinement tech, sure. Could you figure out some augmentations to the Garrison techs, one or two with bonuses based on planet pop, and one or two regen boosting techs, that could go in at the same time as the advanced pods?

I don't know what you mean with regen boosting techs, but here is what my new patch changes (in addition to the advanced troop pods):

The Self Defense tech will grant a bonus of 0.2 troops per population instead of a flat 2.
The Cyborgs tech will grant an additional bonus of 0.2 per population.

The end result (both techs, but without homeworld/palace/species boni):
Planets with a population of 50 can now reach troops of 40 (before 20).
Planets with a population of 25 can now reach troops of 30 (before 20).
Planets with a population of 5 can now reach troops of 21 (before 20).
Outposts will be unchanged (max troops of 10).

Natives will have troops calculated by 5 + 0.2 per pop (instead of a flat 8 ). Which means that a medium planet (which normally has a target population of 15) will reach the same troops value (8).

[Dilvish]

I don't know what you mean with regen boosting techs

?? Like all other meters, the base rate of increase if below max is one troop per turn. The other defense-type meters (defense and shields) have techs that increase their regen rate above that & I was proposing something similar for troops. Howabout a first troop regen tech that upps the regen to a flat 2 per turn, and then a second troop regen tech upping it by another 1+ 0.1*max_troops

The other changes you mention sound ok in some respects, but it seems it would make a lot of native planets significantly easier to capture in the early portion of the game when they are still ramping up their population, which doesn't seem to me like a desired result.

Also, it seems to me there should be something that could be applicable to outposts as well -- some outposts can have very important buildings deserving of a lot of protection. How about a barracks building that had a per-troop cost much greater than for troop pods, something like 5 times as much per troop as the pod per-troop cost (with a cost increase mechanic, fleet maintenance would most reliably have it track the pod cost change, though the colony cost increase might seem to fit better in other ways; perhaps we could take the larger of the two.)?[/quote]

[Vezzra]

Also, it seems to me there should be something that could be applicable to outposts as well -- some outposts can have very important buildings deserving of a lot of protection. How about a barracks building that had a per-troop cost much greater than for troop pods, something like 5 times as much per troop as the pod per-troop cost (with a cost increase mechanic, fleet maintenance would most reliably have it track the pod cost change, though the colony cost increase might seem to fit better in other ways; perhaps we could take the larger of the two.)?

Ugh, and here we have yet another case where these cost-increase mechanics complicate proper balancing. I mean, the idea of the barracks building is actually a good one IMO, but the tweaks necessary to balance it's build costs properly are not very pretty, and probably confusing for the player (max of two differently calculated build cost values, based on two different cost-increase mechanics... ).

[Sloth]

?? Like all other meters, the base rate of increase if below max is one troop per turn. The other defense-type meters (defense and shields) have techs that increase their regen rate above that & I was proposing something similar for troops. Howabout a first troop regen tech that upps the regen to a flat 2 per turn, and then a second troop regen tech upping it by another 1+ 0.1*max_troops

I don't mind an effect like this, but please don't add a new tech for that. Just add it to the Garrison techs or some tech that sounds like it could have this effect.
Ground combat is far too insignificant to warrant another exclusive tech.

The other changes you mention sound ok in some respects, but it seems it would make a lot of native planets significantly easier to capture in the early portion of the game when they are still ramping up their population, which doesn't seem to me like a desired result.

Even when a normal sized planet starts with a population of 1 it will have full population (and thus 8 troops) by turn 15. If you are really really fast maybe you can start an invasion on turn 10 and face only 7 troops instead of 8. I wouldn't call that significantly easier.

Also, it seems to me there should be something that could be applicable to outposts as well -- some outposts can have very important buildings deserving of a lot of protection. How about a barracks building that had a per-troop cost much greater than for troop pods, something like 5 times as much per troop as the pod per-troop cost (with a cost increase mechanic, fleet maintenance would most reliably have it track the pod cost change, though the colony cost increase might seem to fit better in other ways; perhaps we could take the larger of the two.)?

I like the idea of an outpost update, but once again i don't think a new tech should be created for this building.

[Geoff the Medio]

Even when a normal sized planet starts with a population of 1 it will have full population (and thus 8 troops) by turn 15.

What species were you testing with? I didn't see a normal size, but various other native populated planets in a test game took 30-55 turns to grow from their initial populations to their maxes.

[Dilvish]

I over-generalized/mispoke a bit when I said

Like all other meters, the base rate of increase if below max is one troop per turn.

I should have said *nearly* all other meters, because this is not true for population meters, which have a much more complicated rate of increase calculation. It goes slowly when the current pop is low. I suspect Sloth may have been relying on my over-broad statement when he made the assertion about planet pops reaching max at turn 15.

[Sloth]

I over-generalized/mispoke a bit when I said

Like all other meters, the base rate of increase if below max is one troop per turn.

I should have said *nearly* all other meters, because this is not true for population meters, which have a much more complicated rate of increase calculation. It goes slowly when the current pop is low. I suspect Sloth may have been relying on my over-broad statement when he made the assertion about planet pops reaching max at turn 15.

Yes, sorry. Got that wrong.

But anyway, the initial troops will vary from 5 to 9, which is still not so much different from 8.