Poison advance

For topics that do not fit in another sub-forum.

Moderator: Oberlus

Message
Author
godel
Space Dragon
Posts: 267
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:58 am

Poison advance

#1 Post by godel »

I got done with a game, and wanted to check out the hyperspace shunt power system.
The description made it seem to be a poison advance, one that would lose.
On turn 293 I had:
5.64K work units
2.54K population
3.68K research
and this was stable over several turns.

I saved the game and installed a hyperspace shunt power system

ON turn 351 I had
5.16K work unites (I have been poisoned!)
3.66K research (slight poison)
2.27K population.
This was stable over several turns.

This is at an almost completed or actually completed research tree.

Conclusion, this advance is a trap, and must be avoided. Please update or remove.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Poison advance

#2 Post by Vezzra »

Just to be sure: you'r talking about the Hyperspatial Dam, right?

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Poison advance

#3 Post by MatGB »

From the description, it has to be, I'm guessing that's a backward translation from a different stringtable.

Anyway, Known Issue: Hyperspatial Dam needs reworking, it's marked for post 0.4.6 because it's been bad for so long another Release won't actually hurt, but the numbers are stupid bad at the moment.

Personally, I'd like to see it balanced so there's a marginal-to-no benefit if you've got a Black Hole Generator but a fairly good one if you haven't, ie it's a higher tech way to get hold of a bonus that's not always possible on galaxy layout (although it's easier now we can move planets around more reliably).

Short term tho: changing the population loss to be planet size instead of flat 5 would be a good start and would make it less bad, not sure it'd actually make it good (yet), but less bad. It would in theory need a minor AI adjustment but the AI doesn't use it anyway, any objections?

I started on a spreadsheet to work through the numbers on it ages ago but lost it when I switched computers.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

godel
Space Dragon
Posts: 267
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:58 am

Re: Poison advance

#4 Post by godel »

Thanks!
I was looking for a power up beyond the black hole one.
And, yes, I mispeled this one.
It is Hyperspatial Dam.

dbenage-cx
Programmer
Posts: 389
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:08 am

Re: Poison advance

#5 Post by dbenage-cx »

MatGB wrote:Short term tho: changing the population loss to be planet size instead of flat 5 would be a good start and would make it less bad, not sure it'd actually make it good (yet), but less bad. It would in theory need a minor AI adjustment but the AI doesn't use it anyway, any objections?
My main issue with this building is the potential to kill off some colonies.
As noted, there is a good deal of micromanagement added for determining if and when it would be beneficial overall.

Reducing the pop malus from planet size would make it slightly more attractive, though I doubt enough for use here.
Some limit to pop reduction (50% of max?) could help, the production bonus could even be scaled/gated with the pop reduction.

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Poison advance

#6 Post by MatGB »

Just looked at it in game to remind myself, the pp bonus is only 0.4 per pop, I recently toned down the black hole generator to 1.0—while the latter is still OTT, for a supposedly 'better', more advanced tech to give such a substantially lower bonus and reduce the effect of virtually every other bonus the game grants isn't good.

Gating the malus so it's at most half the population of any given world (and given a late enough priority that it doesn't conflict with other effects) would reduce the "is this suicidal" problem (which should in theory be rare in the very late game but not impossible, especially if we think about other effects with similar motivation), and if we also boost the bonus a bit it would be less bad without instead becoming overpoweringly good (we want to reduce all[/] production boosting effects at some point soon afterall).

IIRC, when it was first introduced it gave a Health malus, Health was a weird stat now removed that had a complicated effect on both population growth and total target population, I never got my head around all the formulae it was used in and I don't miss it at all. I suspect when Health was removed from the game it was changed to a population malus without enough thought and it's simply sat there since waiting for someone to summon the willpower to sort it out.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Poison advance

#7 Post by Vezzra »

Hm, if I may throw in my two cents - I don't think a pop malus as the major drawback for the HSD is a good idea anyway, for two reasons: First, it's not very original, not to say boring. Second, regardless which way you decide to calculate that malus in the end, the player will just have to do some more or less complicated math to figure out if that thing would actually give them a net increase in production that's worth the investment, given the current situation/composition of their empire. There is no actual choice here, either it will give a big enough boost that actually is worth it or not. It's just boils down to numbers. That doesn't sound very fun to me.

Looking at the lore of this tech and building gives me the impression of something that is very powerful/highly effective, yet risky and dangerous to harness. The choice of detrimental effects intended to counter the power of the HSD should reflect that. Instead of balancing the powerful boost to one stat (production) by imposing proper mali on other stats, why not try something completely different (maybe exotic ;))? The HSD supposedly tampers with dimensions, the space-time continuum or something like that, so I'd suggest something like a small chance each turn for each fleet passing through a system containing colonies with industry focus to be redirected to a random neighbor system. Stationary fleets could have a small chance each turn of being thrown across the empire to another (randomly chosen) system that has colonies with industry focus. Or both stationary and fleets passing through could suffer the latter effect (more severe).

And/or let each colony with industry focus have a small chance each turn to suffer from a collaps of the local HSD installations - resulting in a planet-wide disaster killing a certain amount of pop, destroying infrastructure (by that I don't mean the stat, but all the planetary installations represented by the various stats, so all stats could suffer a certain decrease). You can probably think of all sorts of similar things.

Bottom line, the HSD would give you an incredible boost to industrial output, but at the cost of a certain degree of frequent, potentially very dangerous disruption (imagine an important battle fleet headed to a contested frontier system where it has to arrive asap getting diverted and arriving a turn to late because of that, and so on).

Of course the probabilities and severity for these disrupting effects have to be chosen carefully. If the disruptive effects are too severe and happen to frequently, the HSD isn't a viable option (besides being highly annoying, frustrating and un-fun). If they are too harmless and infrequent, the HSD will be overpowered. But if we get it right, that thing could become a very interesting option IMO.

Oh, and another thought: there could be refinement techs that help reducing the disruptive effects (by reducing the chance of them happening). Something more interesting than the standard run-of-the-mill increase of the boost the original tech gives...

godel
Space Dragon
Posts: 267
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:58 am

Re: Poison advance

#8 Post by godel »

Goodness! Space fleets going anywhere on the map, potentially!
No way would I touch this.

(There is another effect/advance that IIRC, kills an entire system and screws up space fleet routing. I would never install that unless I needed to block an enemy from a territory. Since I tend to play full conectivity, and since there are ways to create connectivity, I doubt that it would be effective. )

Good try for novelty, but you are replacing one horror with another, creating yet another useless thing.

Just give the empire a power boost. Maybe have that 'leak' over to neighbor hood systems? But the programmign on that might be a horror in itself.

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Poison advance

#9 Post by MatGB »

Vezzra wrote:Hm, if I may throw in my two cents - I don't think a pop malus as the major drawback for the HSD is a good idea anyway, for two reasons: First, it's not very original, not to say boring. Second, regardless which way you decide to calculate that malus in the end, the player will just have to do some more or less complicated math to figure out if that thing would actually give them a net increase in production that's worth the investment, given the current situation/composition of their empire. There is no actual choice here, either it will give a big enough boost that actually is worth it or not. It's just boils down to numbers. That doesn't sound very fun to me.
Agreed, overall. Basically, I'd like to do a short-term fix ASAP then rework it when we've got a solid plan.

I thought the old Health malus was actually interesting, but overall I'm glad that mechanic went, overly complex for no real benefit except at the margins (like this).
Looking at the lore of this tech and building gives me the impression of something that is very powerful/highly effective, yet risky and dangerous to harness. The choice of detrimental effects intended to counter the power of the HSD should reflect that. Instead of balancing the powerful boost to one stat (production) by imposing proper mali on other stats, why not try something completely different (maybe exotic ;))? The HSD supposedly tampers with dimensions, the space-time continuum or something like that, so I'd suggest something like a small chance each turn for each fleet passing through a system containing colonies with industry focus to be redirected to a random neighbor system. Stationary fleets could have a small chance each turn of being thrown across the empire to another (randomly chosen) system that has colonies with industry focus. Or both stationary and fleets passing through could suffer the latter effect (more severe).

And/or let each colony with industry focus have a small chance each turn to suffer from a collaps of the local HSD installations - resulting in a planet-wide disaster killing a certain amount of pop, destroying infrastructure (by that I don't mean the stat, but all the planetary installations represented by the various stats, so all stats could suffer a certain decrease). You can probably think of all sorts of similar things.

Bottom line, the HSD would give you an incredible boost to industrial output, but at the cost of a certain degree of frequent, potentially very dangerous disruption (imagine an important battle fleet headed to a contested frontier system where it has to arrive asap getting diverted and arriving a turn to late because of that, and so on).

Of course the probabilities and severity for these disrupting effects have to be chosen carefully. If the disruptive effects are too severe and happen to frequently, the HSD isn't a viable option (besides being highly annoying, frustrating and un-fun). If they are too harmless and infrequent, the HSD will be overpowered. But if we get it right, that thing could become a very interesting option IMO.
Agreed.

Another thought though: currently the Black Hole Collapser is essentially useless, to use it you need to get supply into enemy territory, then wait until it's built, then it destroys a chunk of the map. Geoff introduced it in part as a proof of concept.

How about there being a chance of this thing setting off black hole collapses in nearby stars that could, in some way, be prevented by some sort of (costly) intervention but would otherwise induce the mechanic?
Oh, and another thought: there could be refinement techs that help reducing the disruptive effects (by reducing the chance of them happening). Something more interesting than the standard run-of-the-mill increase of the boost the original tech gives...
And this would also be good—still playing with other "techs stop malus being so bad" ideas, xenophobia's a prime example for that.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Poison advance

#10 Post by Vezzra »

godel wrote:Good try for novelty, but you are replacing one horror with another, creating yet another useless thing.
Not necessarily. It's all a matter of properly balancing things. Sure, if the disruptive effects are too frequent and too severe, we'd just be replacing one horror with another. But if we get the balance right that would create a very interesting and challenging choice - you can get a really powerful boost to your industrial capacity, but at the cost of a certain degree of chaos in your empire.

Or do you think that it will be impossible to get that balance right? If yes, why?
Just give the empire a power boost.
Boring. I agree, there have to be a certain amount of techs/buildings/specials that just give simple boni to the various stats. But honestly, if every tech/building/special just adds another bonus, and the only difference are the various lore/fluff explanations for them, that would be exceedingly dull. A bit more variety and creative ideas about how those techs/buildings/specials work and which side effects the different boni have can turn a dull game into a good one (IMO).
Maybe have that 'leak' over to neighbor hood systems?
See, that's what I'm talking about. This is a interesting, creative idea - a technology that gives you a major boost (very good thing!), but has the nasty side effect of not only boosting your colonies, but also nearby enemy colonies (not so good thing ;)).
But the programmign on that might be a horror in itself.
AFAIK that should already be scriptable in FOCS without any backend code changes.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Poison advance

#11 Post by Vezzra »

MatGB wrote:How about there being a chance of this thing setting off black hole collapses in nearby stars that could, in some way, be prevented by some sort of (costly) intervention but would otherwise induce the mechanic?
By "this thing" you mean the Hyperspatial Dam and not the Black Hole Collapser, right? And by "some sort of (costly) intervention" you mean e.g. an expensive building (maybe high build cost, low min build time)?

Yes, that would be another very interesting idea.

I see there are a lot of ideas, and I'd like to make use of all of them. However, we can't use all of them for one single thing like the HSD. But there are other techs/buildings we could extend in that way, one example that comes immediately to my mind is the Black Hole Power Generator. That thing too is currently vastly overpowered and could use some drawbacks. Maybe the whole process of harnessing the power of a black hole could potentially destabilize all stars within a certain distance (like 500uu)?

godel
Space Dragon
Posts: 267
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:58 am

Re: Poison advance

#12 Post by godel »

Maybe just tone down the Black hole powerstation boost if you think it is too much.

The HSD could be a tad unstable and stablized by a later advance, effectively costing more research points. Or you could directly hike the research cost.

Making people wish that they never had put the research into an advance, wish that they never had put it in plae is not a useful thing. It was paid for, and people should get some overall benefit from it.

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Poison advance

#13 Post by MatGB »

With this specific tech, you have advantages, it unlocks several other powerful things. That the building itself is currently a bad thing is itself a bad thing, but that it's almost certainly always going to be an active choice whether to build it or not after researching it is an objective—the BHG is location dependent so you normally have to work to be able to use it, this isn't and should remain that way, but it should therefore have other drawbacks.

The intent is to make them fun/interesting/challenging, I am very happy with the idea that something could be available to you that isn't always going to be useful for you in the game, I'd like to see more of that sort of thing, encouraging player choices, etc.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

AndrewW
Juggernaut
Posts: 791
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2013 10:15 pm

Re: Poison advance

#14 Post by AndrewW »

What about a tradeoff?

The power output from the BHPG (Big Honking Plasma Gun?) disrupts starlane travel in a 50uu radius, reducing ship speed by 20? Or some such.

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Poison advance

#15 Post by MatGB »

AndrewW wrote:What about a tradeoff?

The power output from the BHPG (Big Honking Plasma Gun?) disrupts starlane travel in a 50uu radius, reducing ship speed by 20? Or some such.
Ooh, I like this idea, would basically negate Interstellar Logistics, possibly make the malus stacking for each industry focused world within 50? That could be pretty harsh at times. PRobably need to have a maximum possible reduction (half total speed?).

On the other hand, I use stargates a lot so it would hurt the AI and defensive players a LOT more than me.

OK. Short term, I'm going to script up a PR for the AI team to review that simply reduces the population penalty to planet size and increases the bonus to equal the BHG—should I give them a stacking group?

But that's a pre-release temporary fix to make it a not-awful building/tech not a long term solution. Next cycle we need to choose which above idea we go for and use some of the other ideas for other things because I very much like several of them.

Thinking about it, I really like having 'terrain' and atmospherics, perhaps a few more Storm Fields and/or specials with effects on nearby ships could be added?
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Post Reply