Psychogenic Domination

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Bigjoe5
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Psychogenic Domination

#1 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Building off of this thread, I'd like to start a discussion about changing or removing this tech. Some current suggestions:
Dilvish wrote:...having [Psychogenic Domination] impair craft in some way rather than actually taking them over; perhaps making them freeze in place
yandonman wrote:I think PsychoDom should be moved to a ship part that is only equip-able on capitol ships.
Setting aside the fact that we don't have the ability to make parts that can only be placed on 'capital ships' yet, that's an interesting possibility. Making it a building could also work.

The part about randomly taking over enemy ships definitely needs to go, though. The feeling I get is that the concept is best suited for some kind of espionage or political application, like influencing happiness on planets, or security on ships - but of course those things don't exist yet. Other ideas?
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em3
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#2 Post by em3 »

Short time domination of some of the chip's crew during combat:
  • A chance that a ship can randomly attack a friendly target instead of an enemy.
    A chance to prevent a ship from firing.
    Chance to damage a ship through a sabotage by a dominated crew member.
    Boost to boarding combat (if implemented).
https://github.com/mmoderau
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BraveSirKevin
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#3 Post by BraveSirKevin »

Newly signed up to the forum, but I've been downloading and playing FreeOrion for about 2 years now. Newest release is actually playable, and at least as much fun as I remember MoO2 being back in the day.

Psychogenic Domination is an awful tech as it stands because you're kinda forced to tech towards it defensively even if you had no intention of using it offensively. Playing against AI, I generally don't want their ships, but I have to have the tech so that the AI with the massive research bonus isn't stealing all the powerful ships I've got sitting at the borderpost.

I have a few thoughts on this:
• Psychogenic Domination should be an optional tech path, and researching it should only give you the offensive benefit.
• It shouldn't be an automatic effect. It should either be a building, or you'd have to set the focus of a planet to psychogenic domination in order to get the effect. I'd prefer the latter, or both.
• The effect can stay the same, but various points along the physical brain tech path gradually give the player increased immunity to it. For example, having researched psionics may reduce your opponent's PD chance to 7%, and Unified Consciousness could reduce it to 1%. Perhaps because there's now a cost associated with using it, there is no such thing as complete immunity any more, just a greatly increased defense against it.

When tactical combat becomes a part of the game, then a ship part can be added that takes up room that would usually be used for guns, and using it would work slightly differently. You'd use it instead of firing guns, and you'd have to pick a single target. You'd have a much higher chance of success, with the defender having a proportional defence against it based on the psionic techs they've researched. In that environment, Psychogenic Domination would actually be really awesome, and it should be kept in the game for that reason alone!

Finally, Psionic Snowflakes should follow the same rules, with defensive techs gradually gaining one increased resistance (but never full immunity) to their effects.

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eleazar
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#4 Post by eleazar »

The niche i see for Psy Dom, is that is is a less cheap replacement for a straight-out tech victory. -- An overpowered tech that most empires won't get, that gives you a huge advantage-- but doesn't exactly guarantee victory.

Obviously it doesn't fit that bill very well ATM. It feels more broken than overpowered.

Off the cuff:

I like SirKevin's idea of activating it via a planetary focus, and that there are a couple techs that give you resistance to it-- but nothing that gives you full invulnerability.

If instead it was something that operated via a ship part, limiting the number of capture attempts per ship part would balance it better. I.E. one Psychodomination Generator would only have an X% chance of turning 5 random ships per turn.

Maybe immobilizing ships would be a better effect, i.e. the ship can't attack or leave, but can be attacked-- though i suspect that can't be cleanly done via scripting ATM.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

eleazar wrote:...ship can't attack or leave, but can be attacked-- though i suspect that can't be cleanly done via scripting ATM.
Setting all the weapon part meters to a large negative number would work. Doing that for all possible parts is presently quite cumbersome, though. Disabling specific parts in this manner would be doable easily now, and potentially interesting as an earlier level tech.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Here's a patch that partly reworked Psychogenic Domination.

With the patch, the tech unlocks a focus that needs to be set to activate the effects.

The effect only works on ships in the same system, and not on telepathic species or empires that also have the tech.

The tech also doesn't have the move effect any more, as this isn't needed since it only works on objects in the same system.

A graphic reference is included, but the file itself isn't in the patch. I just copied the psicorp.png tech icon to use as the psi_domination.png focus icon for lack of a better image.
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Dilvish
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#7 Post by Dilvish »

I haven't tested it out, but the changes sound fine to me.
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MatGB
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#8 Post by MatGB »

Am testing but it'll need AI changes to make it work fully, most players object to PsyDom when the AI uses it against them, it's use weirdoes that don't like getting substandard outdated ships they need to scrap that object to it the other way. Plus, manouvering AI fleets to be in orbit around your planets isn't as easy, I'll have to hold off on killing them a bit...
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#9 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:...it's use weirdoes that don't like getting substandard outdated ships they need to scrap that object to it the other way.
...what?

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MatGB
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#10 Post by MatGB »

Sorry, being silly. I don't like PsyDom because I don't like capturing AI ships, especially given it only works if you're ahead in tech so you'll tend to be building better ships. But if it's a defensive focus option that's not as bad, you're not randomly grabbing ships out the starlanes, you're persuading ships attacking your world to stop it.

I like the idea of making it a focus actually, didn't occur to me before, we were talking about buildings and ship parts, but I think this is a better approach, nice one.
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winter leaf
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#11 Post by winter leaf »

I also think its a good idea,giving balance to it.This way the AI or player has to sacrifice some RP,PP,or something else before using it.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#12 Post by Geoff the Medio »

winter leaf wrote:I also think its a good idea,giving balance to it.This way the AI or player has to sacrifice some RP,PP,or something else before using it.
Such as requiring a building to be produced on a planet to enable the effect?

If you mean an immediate cost, each time something is controlled, that's not really compatible with the existing scripting system (although an Effect to cause a one-time boosts to PP or RP output would be a useful addition...)

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winter leaf
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Re: Psychogenic Domination

#13 Post by winter leaf »

I was actually thinking about the focus idea...say,your focus was set to research on a planet,it would have to change the focus to get psy domination to work.that means your research on that planet must be lowered in order to make it work.
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