What's next?

[Folket]

We're still in release-mode right now, so not a lot of development is being done. Some fixes and tweaks will come probably soonish, we would like to at least do some performance, UI and diplomacy improvements, but we haven't yet decided what features we do first and what will be free.

If you think something in particular should have priority, let us know.

Cheers.

Hotseat, I would really enjoy hotseat.

[SephiRok]

Just implemented some exciting new former features. We still need art and text for it, so I don't want to give too much away yet, but some good stuff should be coming around soon.

[boulugre]

Just implemented some exciting new former features. We still need art and text for it, so I don't want to give too much away yet, but some good stuff should be coming around soon.

Sounds great! Can't wait to see this game fleshing up!

[SephiRok]

Think I can now share what will be coming in the very near future. Probably in steps. Gameplay logic is already implemented. The graphics part still needs to get done.

Added:
* Added ability to raise and lower terrain.
* Added ability for formers to harvest food, minerals, credits and research from territories.
* Added new former improvements: suburb, purifier, construction bay, field laboratory and energy park.
* Added amphibious former unit, unlocked through the new technology Amphibious Landscaping.
* Added diplomacy options to ask someone to declare war or to offer peace to a third party.

Changed:
* Credits, research and production territory features now provide a flat bonus instead of a percentage increase.
* Changed Plains from +25% for mechanical ground units to -25% for ground units.
* City no longer provides +1 food and +1 minerals.
* Changed negative food to decrease growth instead of sharply applying a negative growth.
* Doubled maximum rank from 10 to 20.
* Doubled connection timeout from 60 seconds to 120 seconds.
* Reduced upkeep for experience and defense buildings from 2 to 1.

Fixed:
* Fixed "Could not initialize game." issues.
* Fixed spitters and AI artillery not attacking.
* Fixed spectators crashing when a player is eliminated.
* Fixed crash when selecting to load a single player spectator game.
* Fixed fanatic friendly to neutral transition cinematic.

The new improvements have the following effects:
<entry name="ConstructionBayStats" value="<icon texture='Resources/Production'/> +1"/>
<entry name="EnergyParkStats" value="<icon texture='Resources/Credits'/> +2"/>
<entry name="FieldLaboratoryStats" value="<icon texture='Resources/Research'/> +1"/>
<entry name="PurifierStats" value="<icon texture='Resources/Pollution'/> -2 <icon texture='Resources/Credits'/> -2"/>
<entry name="SuburbStats" value="<icon texture='Resources/Habitat'/> +1 <icon texture='Resources/Credits'/> -1"/>

I'm quite excited by the possibilities of the new former functionality, in particular harvesting. What we still need to think through is how we spread the new features. Raise/lower will certainly be a new technology, not sure about harvesting and the other improvements yet -- I'm tending towards no for harvesting and yes for the other improvements.

[jdmillard]

I'm excited too. This is great. I can't wait to give some feedback after I give it a spin.

[boulugre]

WOW, thats what I call an update ! can't wait for all those points to come out.

I havea few comments and questions

* Added ability to raise and lower terrain.

-Will we be able to raise new lands from the sea? Or is it just plain <> hills <> mountains?
-With this feature it becomes even more important to not let human player able to modify AI controlled lands without diplo consequences.

* Added ability for formers to harvest food, minerals, credits and research from territories.

That is an awesome, game changing feature . I would like to make a few parallel with SMAC crawlers as they are a lessons to take from them :

- Make sure AI knows how to exploit this. In SMAC AI was not using them and it gave a game breaking advantage to human player
- In SMAC you could endlessly spam crawlers as they were no limitation on
1. the total number of crawler you could link to a town
2. you could crawl territories out of your border zone.
I think you should introduce some kind of limits to avoid making it overpowered like for example capping them to X formers ( where X is the population of the city it crawls resource to ), limit to one crawler by hexe, making crawling out of your border impossible.

* Added diplomacy options to ask someone to declare war or to offer peace to a third party.

That is good. That is awesome. Just hope it won't be as hard than forge an alliance with AI...

* Added amphibious former unit, unlocked through the new technology Amphibious Landscaping.

I am curious to know what kind of improvement those sea former will be able to do?

[ErissN6]

* Added ability for formers to harvest food, minerals, credits and research from territories.

Even from enemy territory, maybe(?).

* Changed Plains from +25% for mechanical ground units to -25% for ground units.

Why so much? For balance? That's though. I think -10%, or maybe -15% max, should be enough.

* City no longer provides +1 food and +1 minerals.

Maybe some factions could keep it (if balance needed), like Gardeneers and Productivists.

* Doubled maximum rank from 10 to 20.

That was dearly needed, I don't know why I had not already think about this.

[jdmillard]

* Doubled maximum rank from 10 to 20.

That was dearly needed, I don't know why I had not already think about this.

I agree. This change is amazing.

Upon hitting Transcendence Era and unlocking all the rank bonus buildings, it's possible to get new units starting at rank 8. So I used to wonder: "why pay to refit my rank 10 units if it costs considerably less to wait until I unlock all the Transcendence weapons/armor/devices, and purchase them starting at rank 8?" Now, it's a whole different story! It will be worth upgrading the rank:20 units at a higher price than purchasing new ones because that's a difference of 12 ranks! This really brings the military progression balance to where it should be. I can't wait to see how it affects game-play.

[BlueTemplar]

CRAWLERS!!!

Yay, that's a great list of new features, I see I did the right thing in supporting you by buying this game!

* Credits, research and production territory features now provide a flat bonus instead of a percentage increase.

Why this change, wouldn't that decrease the incentive to specialize cities?

- In SMAC you could endlessly spam crawlers as they were no limitation on
1. the total number of crawler you could link to a town
2. you could crawl territories out of your border zone.

You forget 3. Crawlers don't have any maintenance cost! Formers in Pandora do, but it's rather low...

[Apheirox]

* Credits, research and production territory features now provide a flat bonus instead of a percentage increase.

Why this change, wouldn't that decrease the incentive to specialize cities?

You can say that it will, but there's still plenty of incentive to specialize since the city improvements themselves provide percentage modifiers. What this change will really result in is that the incentive to expand more horizontally and build more cities will greatly increase, something the game was sorely lacking (too little reason to expand beyond just a handful of ciites).

[boulugre]

You can say that it will, but there's still plenty of incentive to specialize since the city improvements themselves provide percentage modifiers.

Agreed, plus you will also be able to specialize the terraforming of each city based on what you want to do with them.

What this change will really result in is that the incentive to expand more horizontally and build more cities will greatly increase, something the game was sorely lacking (too little reason to expand beyond just a handful of ciites).

Agreed again, this plus the fact that with crawlers you will be able to exploit much larger territory, (that is if they only let you crawl hexes your cities covers) making growing large a viable and very powerful strategy...

[boulugre]

* Credits, research and production territory features now provide a flat bonus instead of a percentage increase.

Why this change, wouldn't that decrease the incentive to specialize cities?

I think they plan that to nerf a little the research towers and xenite jungle that can be pretty unbalanced if concentrate in the same faction territory. That change however leaves the hot spring special resource as way more powerful than all the other one, with a +20% ressource bonus from all workers....

You forget 3. Crawlers don't have any maintenance cost! Formers in Pandora do, but it's rather low...

True, but if they limit the number of crawlers to the territory your cities cover and / or a cap similar to your pop in each city I think it should be balanced. Plus former are pretty expensive and each former you build is one less tank for your army so you will need to careful chose your production...

[SephiRok]

The reason they have been changed to flat bonuses is so it's streamlined and formers can harvest it.

This mechanic is mainly intended for territories outside your borders.

[jdmillard]

I think all these comments are astute and add to the discussion. It's true that we'll need to play it out to get a feel for any tweaks or adjustments need to be made (which I'm not too worried about), but one of the most important points about the formers and new enhancements is whether or not the AI will intelligently take advantage of it. They already struggle with city specialization; they will probably continue to make terraforming decisions based on the local needs of individual cities rather than the "big picture" needs of the faction. Right now they can get away with this because their inherent morale bonus tends to compensate.

[jdmillard]

The reason they have been changed to flat bonuses is so it's streamlined and formers can harvest it.

This mechanic is mainly intended for territories outside your borders.

As of now: Production and Research special territories grant percentages. Mineral and Food special resources grant flat bonuses. What if some new special resource hexes were introduced?

-Keep observatory as a % research bonus.
-Introduce new resource hex that grants a flat research bonus.
-Keep xenite flowers as % production bonus.
-Introduce new resource hex that grants a flat production bonus.
-Convert one of the many special mineral hexes to a % bonus.
-Convert one of the many special food hexes to a % bonus.

The flat bonuses will be more strategic in the early game and the % bonuses will be more powerful in the mid/late game. Formers can go harvest worthy hexes outside of borders and players aren't disillusioned by the loss of the % bonuses. Everyone wins.

[SephiRok]

If we can figure out ones that make sense, sure. Problem is, not being able to harvest a gold mine with your former doesn't. And I want to be able to do it.

Might also eventually restrict how many workers and scientists you can have based on tiles, improvements and buildings. Meaning they actually work or research on tiles or in buildings.

[jdmillard]

If we can figure out ones that make sense, sure. Problem is, not being able to harvest a gold mine with your former doesn't. And I want to be able to do it.

A fair point. If I come up with any that make sense I'll post them here.

[boulugre]

Might also eventually restrict how many workers and scientists you can have based on tiles, improvements and buildings. Meaning they actually work or research on tiles or in buildings.

I support this idea because it will give a powerful incentive to plant new city and generate conflicts to grab more lands.

[Piruparka]

I'm very excited about these news! Any ETA yet?

[Zak0r]

I hope formers will be able to harvest only after researching a technology. Else this will mean Solar-Dynasty starts with 2 pop.

Also the Empire's formers should get their maintenance cost lowered to 1 credit instead of 1.5. Else they will have a big disadvantage from this change. And if you're on it set maintenance for empire colonisers to 1 as well. It doesn't make much sense for non-combat units to want to be paid more because they fight better.

And last but not least: The formers/crawlers will be needed to be assigned to a city for it to work. You could set it to the nearest city but what if two cities have the same distance?

Nice changes though, looking forward to it!