Self-Sustaining, Xenophobia, balance and bugs

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MatGB
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Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Self-Sustaining, Xenophobia, balance and bugs

#1 Post by MatGB »

In the pedia, Self Sustaining says it gives a bonus equal to all three growth specials. Except that it seems to give more than that, especially if the species has Good Population.

For an Organic species with GP and all the growth specials, the specials are applied after, whereas an SS species with GP gets the bonus applied after self sustaining, increasing the bonus. In addition, SS species in general are, well, a Bit Good.

I think they ought to be rebalanced a bit so that the bonus is equal to two growth specials, not three, applied after good population (if currently possible) and with the bonus coded in a clearer manner (ie in the same way as the growth specials instead of the multiplication method currently used that, frankly, I can't follow.

In addition, the Xenophobic malus for Trith was meant, and is implied in the pedia, to simply negate the SS bonus. In fact it seems to have a bigger effect than this in several cases and is coded in a completely different way to the bonus.

Thread is basically both a bug report and a scripting/balancing issue, not sure which is most important but they're linked. I've long been worried that SS is OTT, but Trith are getting penalised more than intended to balance their power without it. I'm still not sure other aspects of xenophobia are right, but the population bonus/malus should be fine if it worked properly, it doesn't currently.
Mat Bowles

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