Influence by Terraforming OP?

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Grummel7
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Influence by Terraforming OP?

#1 Post by Grummel7 »

After several other ways to generate influence have been reduced, the policy terraforming is now seems a little to strong in comparison.

Gaia-form a tiny planet (takes some time, but doesn't cost much), replace the species by one, whose good environment is 4 steps away from the planets original, and you get 4 additional points of influence and a planet that is likely stable enough to profit from capital markets, too.

I am sure there are creative ways to completely change it, but for 0.5 I would prefer a simply change.

How about: reduce the bonus to 0.5 / step?

Btw.: just looked for an example planet, so I sorted planets by steps away from original type. First planet was a Honeycomb one that was never settled by anyone. Does the Honeycomb special "terraform" a randomly generated planet instead of setting the original type to Barren?

Ophiuchus
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Re: Influence by Terraforming OP?

#2 Post by Ophiuchus »

Grummel7 wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 4:13 pm Does the Honeycomb special "terraform" a randomly generated planet instead of setting the original type to Barren?
probably it sets the planet type and not the original planet type
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LienRag
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Re: Influence by Terraforming OP?

#3 Post by LienRag »

Terraforming is completely stupid, that is the main problem.
First version only diminished the time needed to Terraform, which made it quite lame since the main problem of Terraforming is its cost, not its duration.
Adding boni to terraformed planet breaks immersion as no fluff can justify it, and also makes Terraforming usually preferable to Environmentalism rather than a balancing factor.

I don't know what this Policy should do though...

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Grummel7
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Re: Influence by Terraforming OP?

#4 Post by Grummel7 »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 4:40 pm probably it sets the planet type and not the original planet type
There is not even a function to set the original type via FOCS.
Perhaps Planet::SetType could also set the original type when current_turn is 0?

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Oberlus
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Re: Influence by Terraforming OP?

#5 Post by Oberlus »

Grummel7 wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 4:13 pm How about: reduce the bonus to 0.5 / step?
That seems reasonable. The maximum you can get is +2 IP per influence-focused planet, and it requires a long term commitment (species changes, a lot of time for the techs and the buildings) but regardless of species (unlike Artisan Workshops), seems well balanced.

This probably makes Artisan Workshops again the most powerful influence boost (when Artistic species are available, which always happens if you are Cray, Egassem, Human or Scylior), but that can be solved with another change in Artisans (maybe make them +1 IP when focused, and increase the stability requirement for the +0.5 unfocused to 15).

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Grummel7
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Re: Influence by Terraforming OP?

#6 Post by Grummel7 »

LienRag wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 4:47 pm Adding boni to terraformed planet breaks immersion as no fluff can justify it, and also makes Terraforming usually preferable to Environmentalism rather than a balancing factor.
Environmentalism: People are (influenced to be) proud to live in a natural environment
Terraforming: People are (influenced to be) proud to live in a technically optimised environment.

Fluff works for me.

The only problem is that currently Terraforming is OP, while Environmentalism is hardly ever useful.

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Re: Influence by Terraforming OP?

#7 Post by Ophiuchus »

Grummel7 wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 4:51 pm There is not even a function to set the original type via FOCS.
Perhaps Planet::SetType could also set the original type when current_turn is 0?
I think that is too much magic. Better expose the the game concepts to the scripter; i.e. let's rather add a Planet::SetOriginalType
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Grummel7
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Re: Influence by Terraforming OP?

#8 Post by Grummel7 »

Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 5:51 am I think that is too much magic. Better expose the the game concepts to the scripter; i.e. let's rather add a Planet::SetOriginalType
I re-did my PR.

Btw.: Should we perhaps add a better way to see the fact that a planet has been modified and what its original type was?
Both can be found in the object list, but I wonder how many players players will find it there.

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