Monsters

Creation, discussion, and balancing of game content such as techs, buildings, ship parts.

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wobbly
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Re: Monsters

#46 Post by wobbly »

Started working on this. I'm going with slower growth/evolution and then we probably do something about the spread of nests.

As far as an option to play without I lean towards just spawning them wild. So with game option on you can still outpost the nest, but you need nest eradication to stop getting hostile monsters.

Daybreak
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Re: Monsters

#47 Post by Daybreak »

+1

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LienRag
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Re: Monsters

#48 Post by LienRag »

Do you integrate Megafauna techs in the formula ?

I really think that they should have some impact. The fluff clearly calls for it, and it's reasonable balance-wise too.


Do you intend to implement the limits on concentration of monsters that I proposed (piggybacking on Ophiuchus' "decline" idea) ?
I consider them really useful for balance and strategic development.


Oberlus wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 4:58 pm Good point, LienRag. DMF is too cheap (and unlocks plenty of stuff).

Unlocking tamed krakens should be easier than unlocking tamed juggernauts and harder than tamed snowflakes.

And then, controlling mature beasts should cost more than larval ones, and less than great ones.


What would you think of adding a new military policy to unlock maturing into bigger stages?
That policy could add some IP cost per turn per each mature and great monsters (depending on monster type and stage). Thus, having many nests (or few but very productive) must be backed up with many planets set to influence.

If that policy is deadopted (or lost), all non-larval monsters would be automatically scrapped (to avoid players shooting their food by unconsciosly deadopting this policy), or, I'd like more, all non-larval monsters would become wild on next turn (POW!). Scenarios with the latter mechanic: a) you decide to give up on monsters, scrap them all and de-adopt the policy; b) enemies conquer your Command Center, the policy is de-adopted, it wreaks havoc among your mixed fleets, and some of the monster start attacking your planets, etc.; c) you stack up all your monsters, attack with then into enemy space, then deadopt the policy, they become wild but the problem is for your enemies.

Including a Military Policy is probably coherent with how the game works, but scraping the policy shouldn't have the drastic consequences you propose. Giving a small probability each turn that the monster go wild should be sufficient (in addition to not growing additional monsters). I like the scenarios you propose but it's still too drastic to have all the Monsters go wild immediately.
Could be called "Specialized Tamers" so as to explain why removing it makes the monsters go astray.

No IP cost though - the goal isn't to nerf monsters out of existence. Having Nests as strategic objectives for all players improves the game.

I'd like to still have a small chance of maturing without the Policy though.

Note also that in the thread about Breeding Megafauna I rejected replacing the buildings I proposed by Policies, but I'm not against requiring a Military Policy ("Megafauna weaponization") to allow these buildings.


Oberlus wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 4:58 pm Good point, LienRag. DMF is too cheap (and unlocks plenty of stuff).


DMF isn't too cheap imho as it's fine to be able to take a chance at Nests early. But yes maturing monsters (especially powerful ones) should require more advanced techs (though again I'm in favor of keeping a small chance of spontaneous maturation with just DMF).

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Oberlus
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Re: Monsters

#49 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 7:54 am No IP cost though - the goal isn't to nerf monsters out of existence.
How would an IP upkeep per monster nerf monsters out of existence?
Until you provide proper argumentation instead of hollow statements, it seems pretty ridiculous.

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Re: Monsters

#50 Post by wobbly »

I wasn't going to over complicate things by touching techs but now that I think about it I could easily make the spawn rates * 0.75 with just DMF and *1.25 with DMF + Megafauna eco and later someone can decide if MF bonus should require a policy

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Re: Monsters

#51 Post by Oberlus »

+1

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LienRag
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Re: Monsters

#52 Post by LienRag »

wobbly wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:15 am I wasn't going to over complicate things by touching techs but now that I think about it I could easily make the spawn rates * 0.75 with just DMF and *1.25 with DMF + Megafauna eco and later someone can decide if MF bonus should require a policy
Yep, that's the idea.
It's more the maturation rate that needs later techs, though.

Possible techs, fluff-wise :
LifeCycle Manipulation (could raise maturation rates for all forms)
Xenological Genetics (could raise maturation rates for the first forms)
MegaFauna Endocrine system (could either unlock last form or raise maturation rates for all forms)
MegaFauna Ecology (could raise spawn rate and raise maturation rates for all forms)

The fluff of Controlled Ravenous Bioadaptation would be nice to unlock a Policy that would make the monsters more dangerous (maturing more quickly at least), but also more likely to go wild.



Oberlus wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 8:26 am How would an IP upkeep per monster nerf monsters out of existence?
Influence is a rare and valuable resource, and monsters are already being nerfed by Wobbly (for good reasons, following collective discussions, and apparently in a balanced way).
But you may be right that if the IP cost is really small it may have a balancing factor, reducing the sheer luck problem.

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Re: Monsters

#53 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Sat Oct 08, 2022 12:39 pm Finding a way for relatively homogeneous deployment of nests and other specials is the way to go.
I suspect I now know a way to do this, and the question is to what extent to force even spread. And how many/what options to use. 2 states (pure random and pure balance) is easy for instance.

So:
You can decouple monster probabilities from specific planets. e.g. x probability rolls for x number of gas giants
You can divide the pool of GGs in the Galaxy into y number of pools where y is the number of players.

Of course there are other possible ways if there's an issue with that solution.

Edit: I could get 0 - 100 % ordered distribution with 2 options. 1 to set a probability and a bool to set no. of nests divisible by no. of players.

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LienRag
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Re: Monsters

#54 Post by LienRag »

Options are good.

wobbly
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Re: Monsters

#55 Post by wobbly »

So some numbers for maturity:
A parked nest monster has a 50% chance of maturity by 21 turns old.
I followed a few larval krakens. The 1st took about 60 turns, the next lot took about 30 and then I realized I had extreme krill numbers and tried with a juggernaut. A wild juggernaut left unharassed takes somewhere in the range of 60 - 90 turns.
I'm going to pull a number out of my #@!$ and say that wild and domesticated monsters should both take around 40 turns.

In the case of wild monsters my proposal is that their AI tries to steer them towards the right environment at around this point.
In the case of domestic monsters I'd suggest halving the odds unless the player has adopted military policy foo unlocked by life cycle manipulation. Suggestions on a policy name?

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Re: Monsters

#56 Post by wobbly »

wobbly wrote: Mon Jul 03, 2023 4:41 am In the case of domestic monsters I'd suggest halving the odds unless the player has adopted military policy foo unlocked by life cycle manipulation.
Alternatively lift the base unless policy foo adopted. So instead of reaching 1% on turn 11, it reaches 1% on turn 26. I think I prefer this option. Encourages less parking and easier to match wild and domestic up.

wobbly
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Re: Monsters

#57 Post by wobbly »

I'd like to reduce some of the variance in maturity age, so proposal:

Code: Select all

activation = And [
	Turn low = max(30, LocalCandidate.LastTurnActiveInBattle + 1)
	Random probability = Source.Age*0.01 - 0.1
becomes:

Code: Select all

activation = And [
	Source.Age > min(29, 19 if condition policy adopted)
	Turn low = LocalCandidate.LastTurnActiveInBattle + 1
	Random probability = Source.Age*0.01

wobbly
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Re: Monsters

#58 Post by wobbly »

Suggested idea: dysons grow faster on bright stars. So .5x for dull and 1.5x for bright on growth, regen and floaters becoming trees?

I had a question here, how do you ensure krill fighters are always an integar value in FOCS. Let's say capacity = age * 1.5 except you don't want the fractions?

Currently floater spawn probability is 0.03, it'd maybe be nice if that was age dependent? Something like (sqrt age)/100 gives the same at age 9 and double at 36? Again with age * star_factor?

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Oberlus
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Re: Monsters

#59 Post by Oberlus »

wobbly wrote: Mon Jul 03, 2023 4:41 am In the case of domestic monsters I'd suggest halving the odds unless the player has adopted military policy foo unlocked by life cycle manipulation. Suggestions on a policy name?
I did some research but I can't find anything fancy that I like.
Military Space Fauna?
Bestial Warfare?

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Oberlus
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Re: Monsters

#60 Post by Oberlus »

wobbly wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 7:40 am I had a question here, how do you ensure krill fighters are always an integar value in FOCS. Let's say capacity = age * 1.5 except you don't want the fractions?
In python you can round it to integer however you like. No idea in FOCS.
wobbly wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 7:40 am Currently floater spawn probability is 0.03, it'd maybe be nice if that was age dependent? Something like (sqrt age)/100 gives the same at age 9 and double at 36? Again with age * star_factor?
That makes sense. It's similar to what krill swarms do.

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