I Did It. [Archive] - .com.unity Forums

Ragnarok

April 5th, 2003, 08:45 PM

I never use intel enough to even know that you could blow planets up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

But I think instead of blowing the planet into an asteroid field, it should just destroy all facilities and make the planet so that you could barely survive on it even with a dome. Like make it a max population of only 1 or 2M people. Maybe even make it so those conditions only Last a small period of time. 5-10 years. (No, not turns, years.)

This in my opinion would be cool to see in SEV if possible. Because in real life I can imagine a huge stock pile of nukes, or biological weapons blowing up for some reason and it taking a large chunk of land with it. Along with the ability of rebuilding in that area for a few years. This is all IMHO of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Fyron

April 5th, 2003, 09:00 PM

You can not do it unless you mod the intel projects by adding a new one with destroy-planet or whatever the ability is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

PsychoTechFreak

April 5th, 2003, 10:14 PM

What else could be possible with intel mods? Star destroying, black holes, close WPs, atmosphere converting, Plagues?

Fyron

April 5th, 2003, 10:47 PM

You could go d/l the Adamant Mod alpha, linked in my sig, for ideas of what can be done. There is undoubtedly more possible. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

April 6th, 2003, 08:06 AM

Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:
What else could be possible with intel mods? Star destroying, black holes, close WPs, atmosphere converting, Plagues?In principle everything that occurs as random event can be modded to be an intel project. However you can't target e.g. a star destruction project to a specific star and therefore it cannot be used. Plagues however work very nicely!
Even the AI will use these projects. And planet gravitational shields will not protect you against the planet destruction.

[ April 06, 2003, 07:07: Message edited by: Q ]

Atrocities

April 6th, 2003, 11:35 AM

Intel should not do things like destroying planets...
In a day an age where a race has the ability to destroy stars and planets, why should it not then have the ability to use covert action to destroy an enemies world. A weapon of ultimate mass destruction. This is where you will seriously want some counter intel to prevent it from happening to one of your worlds.

oleg

April 7th, 2003, 01:50 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Intel should not do things like destroying planets..."Intel inside" -warning label http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

smitty

April 7th, 2003, 02:58 AM

Originally posted by trooper:
Beware, UN inspectors will be sent to check your laboratories... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif I do not think this is a concern, the UN has proved itself sterile. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[ April 07, 2003, 01:58: Message edited by: smitty ]

Atrocities

April 7th, 2003, 04:16 AM

I do not bow to the childish whims of patetic planets who think they can control my destiny! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Fyron

April 7th, 2003, 06:14 AM

Originally posted by Atrocities:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Intel should not do things like destroying planets...
In a day an age where a race has the ability to destroy stars and planets, why should it not then have the ability to use covert action to destroy an enemies world. A weapon of ultimate mass destruction. This is where you will seriously want some counter intel to prevent it from happening to one of your worlds.<hr /></blockquote>I was posting from a balance perspective. Being able to use intel to destroy planets whole-sale will create a much worse situation than the ummodded SE4 intel system.

Atrocities

April 7th, 2003, 06:38 AM

I know what you were posting, I was just being demigodic about it.

I agree, that it would be a balance issue, but no more than any other catostophic event.

Make the cost of the project very expensive, and the requirements the same. If you set up a game that does not allow stellar manipulation, then the project would not work. IE its availablity is directly tighed into stellar manipulation.

No stellar Manipulation, no Doomsday Intel Project.

Fyron

April 7th, 2003, 06:55 AM

You can not in any way shape or form compare events to intel projects. Intel projects from a single empire can destroy up to 12 planets in a single turn (though more likely 11 or fewer, as the attacker will need at least 1 CI), and then 12 planets in each subsequent turn, turn after turn. Events could never do that. I think there is a limit of 1 event per turn.

Also, more expensive means harder to defend against as well. So, those planet busters become even more of a problem if you make them really expensive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

spoon

April 7th, 2003, 05:50 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Intel projects from a single empire can destroy up to 12 planets in a single turn
Like he said, though, it can be balanced through cost. If it takes, say, 5,000,000 pts to blow up a planet, you aren't likely to see 11 of these in a single turn.

Also, more expensive means harder to defend against as well. So, those planet busters become even more of a problem if you make them really expensive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif This is technically true, but is also a misleading statement. Generally, you won't see the projects become "harder to defend against" except in a few circumstances since, generally, you put the projects you want to succeed late in the queue, and will have either sapped all the CI points by the time they are attempted, or all your projects will fail anyway.

Fyron

April 7th, 2003, 08:27 PM

5,000,000 is rather excessive, and guarantees that the project will succeed when you finish it.

I was talking about a 100k project compared to a 50k project (for example), so the price difference does indeed directly translate to harder to defend against there. Also, I never said se4's intel system was any good (in fact, it is about as bad as an intel system can be). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

spoon

April 7th, 2003, 08:33 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
5,000,000 is rather excessive, and guarantees that the project will succeed when you finish it.5,000,000 isn't as much as it seems - it's not uncommon to have 500k intel points available, so a 5M project would only take 10 turns... Also, can't you mod the size of the CI projects to cost more that 5,000,000? What is the max value you can set those things to, anyway?

spoon

April 7th, 2003, 08:56 PM

I was talking about a 100k project compared to a 50k project (for example), so the price difference does indeed directly translate to harder to defend against there. Not really, though. With the example you give above, you could just do the 50k project twice -- and there is little difference between defending against two 50k projects and one 100k project.

Atrocities

April 8th, 2003, 04:47 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
You can not in any way shape or form compare events to intel projects. Intel projects from a single empire can destroy up to 12 planets in a single turn (though more likely 11 or fewer, as the attacker will need at least 1 CI), and then 12 planets in each subsequent turn, turn after turn. Events could never do that. I think there is a limit of 1 event per turn.

Also, more expensive means harder to defend against as well. So, those planet busters become even more of a problem if you make them really expensive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I wonder if I can put restriction on it somehow? Naw, your right, to unbalancing for normal game play. It is just cool to see an intel project actually blow up a planet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

There must be a work around for it. Any one have any suggestions?

Atrocities

April 8th, 2003, 04:49 AM

This is where a good counter intel feature would come in very handy. I wonder........

Atrocities

April 8th, 2003, 04:51 AM

Ok, how does the counter intel work in SEIV? Is it hard coded, or can we mod it?

Counter Intel 1
Counter Intel 2
Counter Intel 3

If we can mod them, and I doubt we can, then we can beef them up. Each one providing a better use of the Intel points given to them.

Is this possible, and if so how?

Fyron

April 8th, 2003, 06:21 AM

Originally posted by spoon:
Not really, though. With the example you give above, you could just do the 50k project twice -- and there is little difference between defending against two 50k projects and one 100k project.That works when you have an unlimited number of project spaces. But, SE4 only allows you to perform 12 projects at once. You can do 12 100k projects, but not 24 50k projects.

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Ok, how does the counter intel work in SEIV? Is it hard coded, or can we mod it?The Effect Amount line of the CI projects determines what the points stored in the project are multiplied by for their effectiveness. For default SE4, this is 1, 2 or 3, depending on level of project.

[ April 08, 2003, 05:23: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

ZeroAdunn

April 8th, 2003, 07:57 AM

I just got to say, this is a crazy cool intel project. Imagine, late in game, entire empires with almost no starships, no stabases, nothing but units and intell facilities. Spending all their money on intell projects to try and blow up enemy shiznit.....

spoon

April 8th, 2003, 06:42 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
That works when you have an unlimited number of project spaces. But, SE4 only allows you to perform 12 projects at once. You can do 12 100k projects, but not 24 50k projects.
But that still isn't as big a deal as it seems. Especially with higher costed intel projects, since you won't have the points to do more than one or two per turn anyway. And even with lower cost projects, it only means that you have to put a couple high-cost projects in the queue first so you don't end up wasting points.

I still think it is feasible to mod in 5M point projects (like Blowing Up Planets, which would be so cool!) as long as you drastically increase the maximum level of defense for CI projects. (Something I'd recommend anyway, because it sucks having to micromanage your intel projects to ensure you aren't spending more that 5k on CI in order to maximize it's lifespan...)

So I stick to my point here, higher cost projects aren't significantly more difficult to defend against, and shouldn't be a reason to NOT mod them into a game.

-spoon

Fyron

April 8th, 2003, 08:09 PM

Ok. Micromanage it so that a lot (10 or so) of high-cost projects all finish on the same turn. That will definitely cause them all to succeed. If it is an unbalancing project like PPP or a planet-buster, then there is a big problem.

Phoenix-D

April 8th, 2003, 08:52 PM

"Ok. Micromanage it so that a lot (10 or so) of high-cost projects all finish on the same turn. That will definitely cause them all to succeed."

If your opponent has been putting points in counter intel..it shouldn't.

Say you have equal intel points, he's using CI 1 (i.e. no point modifier). 20k per turn each, half toward attack. You both attack with a 20k project. A attacks one at a time, B attacks en mass with micromanagement.

Turn 1:
A puts 10k into CI, total 10k
B puts 10 into CT, total 10k
A puts 10k into A1, total 10k
B puts 10k into B1, total 10k

Turn 2:
A: 10k CI, 20k total
B: 10k CI, 20k total
A: 10k into A2 (A1, A2 10k each total)
B: attacks with B1: 20k lost from A's defense

Turn 3:
A: 10k CT, 10k total
B: 10k CI, 30k total
A: 10k into A3 (A1-3 10k each)
B: 10k into B2, 10k total

Turn 4:
A: 10k CI, 20k total
B: 10k CI, 40k total
A: 10k into A4 (A1-4 10k each)
B: attacks with B2, 20k lost from A's defense

Turn 5:
A: 10k CI, 10k total
B: 10k CI, 50k total
A: splits into A1-4 (A1-4 12.5k each)
B: 10k into B3, 10k total

Turn 6:
A: 10k CI, 20k total
B: 10k CI, 60k total
A: splits into A1-4 (1-4 15k each)
B: attacks with B3, 20k lost from A's defense

Turn 7:
A: 10k CI, 10k total
B: 10k CI, 70k total
A: aplits into A1-4 (1-4 17.5k each)
B: 10k into B4, 10k total

Turn 8:
A: 10k CI, 20k total
B: 10k CI, 80k total
A: attacks with A1, A2, A3 and A4. 80k lost from B's CI.
B: attacks with B4, 20k lost from A's CI

Net effect: same. The only benifit you get is if your attacks can go over the total amount of CI that can be stored by the other empire- if they use all 12 slots, you'd need a project that costed 500k points or more. In unmodded SE4, all they have to do to ensure they stop this sort of attack is have four CI3 projects. And this if ALL your CI slots are used up with the most costly project.

Phoenix-D

Fyron

April 8th, 2003, 09:01 PM

What was the point of that long post? I know how the intel system works, and I already said that it is very terrible.

Phoenix-D

April 8th, 2003, 09:21 PM

Proving your statement wrong was the point of that post. Actually it was overly friendly to the attacker..

Phoenix-D

Fyron

April 8th, 2003, 09:22 PM

My statement holds if there are more than 2 empires. My statement holds if the attacker produces much more than the defender (which is a more likely occurance than both making the same amount of intel). Your proof only holds when the defender makes relatively the same level of intel as the attacker(s).

[ April 08, 2003, 20:26: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Phoenix-D

April 8th, 2003, 09:41 PM

In which case you could -also- get through with one project at a time, which defeats the point of the argument in the first place- that massing your intel points would be more effective.

The only advantage to massing projects is it gives your target less time to respond by putting more into CI. If he's already doing 100% defense (or enough to stop your attacks) mass won't help.

Phoenix-D

spoon

April 8th, 2003, 10:29 PM

yup, you have x points to attack with each turn. Doesn't matter if you do x per turn or 10x every 10 turns. You still reduce CI the same amount.

[ April 08, 2003, 21:29: Message edited by: spoon ]

Fyron

April 9th, 2003, 01:34 AM

My statement was never meant to include a situation in which the defender has more defense than the attacker can ever under any circumstances breach. It was never meant to include a situation in which the defender has 12 CI 3 projects running. That is a very special and specific circumstance that is irrelevant to my general statement.

Massing your intel points is not meant to be more effective at getting the same number of projects through in the same amount of time. That is never what I said it was for. It is for breaching a high level of stored CI points all at once. If their CI projects are nearly maxed out (which always happens in games where both sides get some intel and there is a peaceful build-up), then spending X each turn on attacks can be blocked with Y CI production each turn, where Y is the equivalent to X in defense points. If you instead hold your attacks until a lot of projects are ready to complete at once, then you can get a larger multiple of X (C*X) all at once, which will not be canceled that turn by Y, and so a lot of stored CI points can be defeated in that turn. If C*X is large enough, you can get projects through in that turn. You will not be able to get them through in the next turn, because you can only get X attack points in, and they can still make Y defense points. So, you can get nothing to succeed by spending X each turn, or you can get some projects to succeed by massing C*X points into attacks and have them all finish at once.

If the defender has enough intel production to fill a few CI projects each turn, then of course nothing will ever be able to get through. I was never talking about such a situation.

Phoenix-D

April 9th, 2003, 01:58 AM

Fyron, that's a special case in and off itself. In regular SE4, the largest project you'd want to use is 100k. CI3 holds 500k, so even ignoring all the bonus you need 5 of them to beat it. He can stop your massed attacks with just three CI projects and have points left over to smash a few more projects from other empires. Meanwhile, you have NO CI defense.

Even using the 150k project doesn't help that much. You can put a max of 1800k into a one-turn attack; that needs four CI3 to counter, nowhere near the max he could have.

In a mod, yes the CI points storeable would have to be raised if the cost of intel was raised, or this would work.

Phoenix-D

Fyron

April 9th, 2003, 02:12 AM

It is not a special case, it is the general case. It applies to most game situations that are not the end-game.

spoon

April 9th, 2003, 02:19 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
If you instead hold your attacks until a lot of projects are ready to complete at once, then you can get a larger multiple of X (C*X) all at once, which will not be canceled that turn by YBut Y increases each turn by the same amount. If you take an extra 10 turns to launch your simultaneous attacks, then your opponent has an extra 10 turns of CI stored up.

Fyron

April 9th, 2003, 02:36 AM

No, Y is constant. It is their production per turn, not their total storage. And, I quite cleary stated that their CI projects were nearly full. There would be no room for storing more. This is under the assumption that it is an intel war, and they are launching attacks on you too.

[ April 09, 2003, 01:37: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Phoenix-D

April 9th, 2003, 02:40 AM

And, I quite cleary stated that their CI projects were nearly full."

And I quite clearly provided a rebuttel to that. Care to explain why you think its wrong?

Desdinova

April 9th, 2003, 02:53 AM

fyron, in your statement are you assuming that the ci project is near to completion and by the time the enemy's intel attack occurs the ci will have completed and thus they will be starting over on accumulating points. if this is the case then you are correct a massive attack will breach where several smaller ones will not. if both atk and ci projects start at the same time and would complete at the same time then it would not make any difference. in the 2nd case then phoenix-d is correct. if i figured out the intel project correctly from the intel ideas thread and also that x and y are the same amounts.

[ April 09, 2003, 01:59: Message edited by: desdinova ]

Atrocities

April 9th, 2003, 06:14 AM

The Effect Amount line of the CI projects determines what the points stored in the project are multiplied by for their effectiveness. For default SE4, this is 1, 2 or 3, depending on level of project. Is there a way to effect this number? Say increase it or decrease depending upon what needs to be done to improve counter intel or create a specific facility that does nothing but generate Counter Intel?

Atrocities

April 9th, 2003, 06:14 AM

And just a note. My God Fyron, you are a posting monster. How do you do it?

spoon

April 9th, 2003, 04:57 PM

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Is there a way to effect this number? Say increase it or decrease depending upon what needs to be done to improve counter intel Here are the lines you can affect in IntelProjects.txt.

---
Cost := 500000
...
Effect Amount := 3
---

Cost is how much intel points you can effectively store per CI project. Effect Amount is the multiplier. (The above two lines are for CI3)

There is also this line in settings.txt:
Intelligence Defense Modifier Percent := 120

Which is essentially another multiplier for CI projects.

or create a specific facility that does nothing but generate Counter Intel?Unfortunately, no. As a side note, that would also make for a cool research-based facility -- For example, Research Facilities that generate a goodly amount of research, but could only be used for a specific area. Could be general areas (eg, Weapons) or specific (eg Stellar Manipulation).

[ April 09, 2003, 16:01: Message edited by: spoon ]

raynor

April 10th, 2003, 02:27 PM

Originally posted by Atrocities:
And just a note. My God Fyron, you are a posting monster. How do you do it?My theory is that Imperator Fyron isn't really just one person. Rather, it's an entire ARMY of people who all share that one identity. I think it's the only way to explain the high number of Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Fyron

April 10th, 2003, 08:13 PM

Originally posted by raynor:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Atrocities:
And just a note. My God Fyron, you are a posting monster. How do you do it?My theory is that Imperator Fyron isn't really just one person. Rather, it's an entire ARMY of people who all share that one identity. I think it's the only way to explain the high number of Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <hr /></blockquote>My theory is that Fyron has lots of answers and types fast, so he can get lots of Posts in a short amount of time. That, and he likes arguing with people, so that is a big post-padder. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Krsqk

April 11th, 2003, 01:28 AM

That, and he likes arguing with people, so that is a big post-padder.Does not. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Atrocities

April 11th, 2003, 02:14 AM

I debated about posting this idea in a new thread, but opted to keep this one going.

I have created a system wide counter intel facility. I would like to know if you think this will work? I have tested them out and they seem to work ok.

If they are workable, how can we make them better?

Counter Intel Facilities (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1050019927.txt)

[ April 11, 2003, 01:17: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

spoon

April 11th, 2003, 02:21 AM

Heh, never noticed that ability... What exactly does it do?

Change Bad Intelligence Chance - System

Fyron

April 11th, 2003, 05:51 AM

Originally posted by spoon:
Heh, never noticed that ability... What exactly does it do?

Change Bad Intelligence Chance - SystemI _think_ it is supposed to give a chance for the project to fail if it is targeted on an object in the same system.

It is on Fate Shrines and I believe on one of the Temporal facilities too.

[ April 11, 2003, 04:52: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Fyron

April 11th, 2003, 06:23 AM

I have been testing Change Bad Intelligence Chance - System, and it does not seem to work at all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

April 11th, 2003, 10:45 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I have been testing Change Bad Intelligence Chance - System, and it does not seem to work at all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif It never did.
I reported this to MM several months ago and received confirmation he read my mail, but apparently it was not possible to fix it.