Mind Control Center and other worthless things

I agree with quite a bit of what you say, like the temples and the *shiver* Galactic Guidebook, but I find that +1 speed from accelerators a nice add-on (As I've been in countless situations where that one last move saved my planet from invasion.) Also, the Secret Police adds 20% BASE its quite different from an entertainment that adds 25% while considering a ton of other situations placed upon it.

However, as for miniturization, I don't know if they changed it in the current beta, but the tech branch increases hull capacity not decrease object size, so your claim on it increasing object size than decreasing as the others have done is confusing to me. However, I'm open to criticism.

Miniturization increases hull capacity, but most components have a size modifier (sp?) added to it. So when the hull becomes large enough, the component gets larger to. And you gain nothing, on some hull sizes you sometime lose space. Not sure if it's a bug or not

I often see the miniturisation complaints, but I never see the bad side to it all. At most things increase one to four (and four is an upward guess, I can't think of anything that goes up that much) space points, yet you gain a fairly large amount of size bonus. I can get tiny sized hulls with three Arnorian battle armour slots and two phasors once I've got supreme miniaturisation, and still plenty of room for engines and life support systems.

And the Black Hole eruptor may not be that great compared to others when you're looking at all the maths, but I'm firmly of the opinion the beam weapon slot is best. They seem easiest to research, and I have no hard evidence but they seem to increase in damage faster then the mass drivers, while always being alot cheaper then missile weaponry.

I agree with all your comments about the buildings you mentioned, and sometimes increasing your miniaturization value leads to strange results, yes.
I'd like to add one to the list: I think the Planetary Defense building ("+25%") doesn't do a thing (I didn't check again for the 1.2-Betas, but I didn't find anything in the logs about it).

My suggestions:
Mind Control Center - just make it do what it says.
All three alignment Temples - give them a greater (or more lasting) effect, I mainly build them for flavour right now.
Gravity Accelerators / Hyperion Shipyard - give them a larger speed bonus, +3 maybe?
Planetary Defense - please fix it (unless I'm wrong or it has been done already)
Miniaturization - maybe change the way the results are rounded internally?

So aside from costing a lot to build, does the Mind Control Center actually do anything?

Actually, yes... it gives you a 100% economy bonus, and that means +100% economy for ALL planets.

Really, I don't understand why so many people don't see how cool Mind control center is

Actually, yes... it gives you a 100% economy bonus, and that means +100% economy for ALL planets.

True! The Mind Control Center is by far the mightiest planetary improvement in the game. If you align to evil, don't forget to build one.

The description should probably be fixed though...

Gravity Accelerators and Hyperion Shipyard? All I can say is "Hell yes". Speed does matter when trying to defend an empire that spans a good percentage of a large or gigantic map. It is not 'just' movement, it is also an additional attack against stacked ships (or planets without an Orbital Manager).

As for the high-end weapons, if you are only choosing them for the cost/damage/power ratio, then you are making a big mistake in your games. I always modify my fleets to take advantage of the weaknesses of the enemies I face. The BHE might have the best damage/size, but it's pointless using them against fleets that have lots of Armor. A ship with even half the damage output in an undefended weapon type will be just as effective.

Gravity Accelerators and Hyperion Shipyard? All I can say is "Hell yes". Speed does matter when trying to defend an empire that spans a good percentage of a large or gigantic map.

Speed matters a lot, yes. But +1 speed doesn't matter much when your ships have 10-20 speed anyway.

Speed matters a lot, yes. But +1 speed doesn't matter much when your ships have 10-20 speed anyway

Totally concur, torwards the portion of the game when I can and are typically able to build these wonders I simply don't bother as I already have two or three small hyperwarp drives giving me 13 to 20 speed as it is.

W/R
Suralle

I agree with Drafell, the best weapon is one that the enemy has no defense for.
If they are not putting shields on their ships the Doomray is a great weapon, especially since the research cost is less and they can be had sooner in the game than the other top weapons.

It looks a heck of a lot better than the missles, and does not take nearly as much time getting to its target.

If you find the gravity accelerators to be not worth it by the time you build them, then perhaps you should consider spending more time researching the morale enhancing tech path. Usually my ships are about speed 4-5 when I get them, and that's a very nice bonus.

And it's basically free. (Well, just one pathetic tile...)

I agree with some of your points. I think I'll make a mod to shore up the weaknesses of some of these improvements.

Mind Control Center: It may need a better name, but damn it kicks ass. Anyone does not want their economy doubled is a moron. But I think I'll change to 100% Influence.

Secret Police: There's a thread out their that explains exactly how it works. From what they said their, it's numbers are actually pretty impressive. But I might make it 30%.

Propoganda: I'll increase it to 25% and make it cheaper to build.

Galactic Guidebook: Yeah, it sucks. Does anyone have an idea how to make worthwhile (besides putting it earlier in the tech tree). I would like to have it double or triple an empire's tourism income, but I don't know if you can do that.

Miniaturization: I've seen it explained how it all works and it involves way to much math for me. So I'm just going to leave that one.

Gravity Accelerators and Hyperion Shipyard: No matter how fast you're going, it never hurts to go faster. The extra movement is a tactical advantage that you're enemy doesn't have. But I think the Hyperion Shipyard should do more than a +1 speed bonus, considering it only affects ship build on that one planet. I'll see if I can't increase the Grav Accelerator speed bonus to a percent (increase to 20) bonus, and I'll give the Shipyard a +4 speed bonus.

Temples: I believe Temples affect all races, not just the ones of your same alignment.

I mostly agree with the sentiments above.

I never build The Secret Police Center, The Propaganda Center, The Galactic Guidebook (the definition of useless) or Hyperion Shipyard.

All of the temples are of questionable use, and only good under specific circumstances. Given that I tend to quick games, they seem to never be capable of paying their own way.

While Gravity Accelerators are nothing to get excited over, at least there is a tangible benefit no matter where you are at in the game. I really like the idea of changing them to a percent though. I think that would make them much more useful. It would also help keep it well balanced, no matter when you reached them in the game.

I obviously need to pay more attention to the affects of the late miniaturization techs! So no comment on that at this point.

I'm OK with the Doom Ray. Basically, in my games, it's often a matter of what weapon you can get to quickly. A weapon that is inefficient on some level, cost, size etc. has often won me the game, simply because I could field it in large quantities. If I haven't made it to better/more efficient weapons and don’t have the time to research them…Besides, in reality, it's not uncommon to see weapons that are poor on some level, be effective on a battlefield for these very same reasons.

Speed matters a lot, yes. But +1 speed doesn't matter much when your ships have 10-20 speed anyway.

the grav accelerators are available from a fairly cheap tech (even if the AI never grabs it early) and can be traded for other items. i'm fine with a +1 boost.

i'd much rather see the hyperion ship yard be an upgrade to the starport, or otherwise affect you bonus rather than ships in that yard. or make it a boost to HP or something. i can't justify building a hyperion shipyard on my main industry planet usually for the little bonus it does give. those ships usually group with ships built on other planets, nullifying most of the benefit of an extra +1 movement.

personally i'd rather see an upgrade series for the starport that did this for any of your ships. and also roll in the "orbital fleet manager" functionality perhaps.

damage / (cost / 100) : size ratio Doom Ray: 0.917:1 Black Hole Eruptor: 1.116:1 Black Hole Generator: Still 1.333:1

true, but they all have the same size mod value (6). take a look at GC2Types.xml, the rations for the bases sizes are:

beam: 2.2000
missile: 2.2727
gun: 2.6667

that's dividing damange by BASE size. as you can see, when you actually put these on ships the differences slim up a bit. but you're looking at the weapons in a vacuum.

defense: absorb/ base size = defense efficiency
ultimate invul: 9 / 3 = 3
aereon defense: 10 / 4 = 2.5
zero point armor: 10 / 3 = 3.3333

as you can also see, driver defense is also "easiest" (not cheapest, but most space efficient). personally, i prefer to research drivers because of how cheap the high end weapons are. also consider the fact that early drivers are pretty bad, except for the nano-ripper which is increadibly expensive for its time.

personally, i'm more annoyed at what happens with high-end beam weapons. yes, i want to research something that's worse than disruptors. i'm posted about it a couple times. i figure if SD wanted to change it, they would. i've tried modding around things a bit myself.

tried increasing the damage caused by missile weapons. starting at photo torps, i made them increasingly more powerful but a lot more expensive. re-did the missile defense tree. didn't really like it. tried redoing beam weapons to make them more powerful. didn't really like it. the reason i don't stick with any of these mods ive tried making is because it's too difficult to really test it. if you want to mod an aspect of the game, though, i suggest applying a certain change equally across the board.

in other words, change black hole eruptor to 32/18 or so, so that it matches the black hole gun. maybe 32 / 20, since size mod affects each comp individually (in other words, if you put a 32/18 and a 16/9 on a massive hull, the 32 / 12 will probably end with a better damage/space ratio, depending on your mini bonus). make the tech and comp both cost more, and boost defenses accordingly. also make previous missile weapons and defenses and their costs appropriately balanced. now do you see why it's so difficult? it isn't just math taking place in a vacuum. i've won a couple wars by retrofitting a chunk of my fleet with a newly-designed but inferior weapon, simply because my foe wasn't ready to defend against it (anti-matter torps to plasma beams? sure!).

honestly, i usually start by researching missiles. in a perfect world i follow up with drivers.

every game is different. the usefulness of a weapon or defense is determined first and foremost by your enemies' technologies.

i think with the new battle system coming into play, we might expect a rebalancing of the weapons and defenses. not too sure really.

i'm over modding the weapons and defneses right now. i did think of one more alternate system based more on realism. let me take a step back. i don't see any reason why sensors should have any size mod at all. the colony pod, troop pods, constructor and trade comps all have 0 size mod, and it makes sense. those parts shouldn't need to be any bigger on a large hull than a small one. the same seems like it should be true for sensors, IMO, and weapons.

yes, i said it. for better realism, weapons should have 0 size mod. defenses, engines, and life support in my mind would obviously need to be bigger to achive the same effect for a larger ship, but not weapons. what i'd rather see are the later-gen weapons having exponentially larger base sizes, so that it's very difficult to put the ultimate weapon of any type on a tiny fighter (either that, or the sizemod tag should also affect the amount of damage weapons do, but i think i'd actually prefer my method). my hesitation with a mod like this is that i don't think the AI would intuitively account for the differences. it seems to always use the most expensive weapon available, even on its tiny fighters.

i guess this idea is based more on how i build ships. my large and huge ships end up decked out with defneses and the best weapons, while my fighers are typically designed for minimal cost and usually extra speed, since i'm hurrying them off to the front line. (that's why i'd also love a carrier comp, and since i'm making wishes, a structural reinforcement comp line, to boost hit points on a ship... maybe even nerf eyes of the universe since it gives the human player such an unfair advantage, and makes sensors and sensor bonuses meaningless, and since the AI can't use it fully even if it does beat you to it).

anyway, i think bottom line is, if you feel drivers are obviously that much better, use them and don't worry about it. or if it bugs you that much, change it yourself. nearly all the files can be edited in notepad, and the tag names in the xml files are pretty self-explanatory. i'm not trying to dismiss your opions as all. i agree with several of them for the most part. but thie game is balanced enough for now, and SD is working on developing and fine-tuning other aspects. the kinds of changes you want are, for the most part, things you can mess around with yourself. if i can do it, it can't be that hard.

It looks a heck of a lot better than the missles, and does not take nearly as much time getting to its target.

actually, i prefer watching the battles play out more dramatically by using missiles and drivers. in some of the more cinematic angles (and with speed on 2x), i love watching my swearms of bullets and missiles reach their targets, and maybe seeing a black hole erupting off in the background.

i just wish the game had all ships firing at once visually, instead of all attackers, all defenders. i'd like to see more volleys and weapons exchanges on screen.

And the Black Hole eruptor may not be that great compared to others when you're looking at all the maths, but I'm firmly of the opinion the beam weapon slot is best. They seem easiest to research, and I have no hard evidence but they seem to increase in damage faster then the mass drivers, while always being alot cheaper then missile weaponry.

I agree that Mass Drivers tend to progress the slowest in-game, but they are cheap so it's easier for me to mass produce ships with them. Beam weapons appear to me to get pricier at a faster rate than missle, they just don't end up being as pricey as missle. I still tend to research beam techs early, but usually stop at Phasors VII or Disruptors III if I have more time to kill, that switch to missles once the A.I. starts equipping their ships with Beam defense. Forunately, the A.I. seems to always use Missle Offense and Defense at first, so the beams are more effective initially.

defense: absorb/ base size = defense efficiency ultimate invul: 9 / 3 = 3 aereon defense: 10 / 4 = 2.5 zero point armor: 10 / 3 = 3.3333

Base size doesn't matter to me, what matters is what size the game makes it after all of the Miniaturization bonuses. For example, on a massive hull, the U.I. and Z.P.A. go up to a size of 6, while Aereon M.D. goes up to a 7. You'd think that since missles are the most damaging, the A.M.D. would be as good as, if not better, than the Z.P.A.

Actually, yes... it gives you a 100% economy bonus, and that means +100% economy for ALL planets. Really, I don't understand why so many people don't see how cool Mind control center is

I didn't notice a +100% Empire wide economy bonus, I didn't get an extra 100% in my racial abilities stats in the Empire Manager screen. I'd really like it a lot better if it did what it said it did. Then again, once the economic nerfing comes at 20000bc, a +100% bonus wouldn't be that noticeable. I believe I am still correct about the amount of reduction, but I haven't checked it with the latest v1.2beta2

Percentage of reduction to tax revenue = Current tax rate divided by 2. (i.e. tax rate of 50% means your tax revenues will drop by 25% after all of the economic modifiers)

Also, the Secret Police adds 20% BASE its quite different from an entertainment that adds 25% while considering a ton of other situations placed upon it.

I thought that when it said BASE value that it might be something special. So by base value do they mean it won't decrease in effect as population grows?

Back to the 3 final tech weapons... Lastly, I just have to say, why is the Doom Ray larger than the Black Hole Eruptor? The Black Hole Eruptor does more damage and only costs 10 points more.

Also, if anyone remembers the previous miniaturization bug where components were going smaller than their listed value, that was sorta nice. The Black Hole Eruptor would drop from a size 14, to 13, the Doom Ray would go from a size 16 to 14, but for some reason, the Black Hole Generator go the highest bonus by going from a size 12 to 9. The listed size would be correct, but the actual sizes would drop.

if you have any saved designs from previous game, you can still exploit it by re-using these saved designs. The only downside being you can't upgrade them or you will be forced to make them within legal bounds. However, you can rename them, but they won't appear until your next game with that race.

Finally, strictly opinion here... shouldn't weapons be the same size on EVERY hull? For example, shouldn't a Laser V that is about twice as large on a Massive Hull compared to a Medium Hull, do twice the damage since it is a larger version? Defenses, engines, and Life Support I can understand getting bigger as hulls get larger because larger hulls are heavier (bigger engines needed), larger surface area (more space for defenses to cover), and most likely would have larger crews (More mouths to feed).

I'll stop once again, I like to ramble

Why not make the galactic guide book open up new anomilies that only you can see.

The Mind Controll Center is awesome! I don't know why you wouldn't build one. It really helps out on small planets that have no economy buildings. Also if you have alot of planets, you can get 1000-2000 bc a turn!

Why not make the galactic guide book open up new anomilies that only you can see.

Nice idea for the devs... but almost certainly not a mod-job.

Ok, the description of the Mind Control Center says it causes a planet to defect almost instantly when it revolts. However, I have yet to actually notice any change with or without it. The stat window for it says it grants a +100% economic bonus, which it also doesn't do...

Yes its broken, their is no difference.

The thing is too that it says its bonus is 100% to economy. I noticed quote a few "wonders" that says it does a certain thing but gives a different bonus. Their is one that says in its description that it helps with influence but it gives a 20% bonus to diplomacy.

Their are a lot of broken thing as far as structures in this game goes.

The thing is too that it says its bonus is 100% to economy. I noticed quote a few "wonders" that says it does a certain thing but gives a different bonus. Their is one that says in its description that it helps with influence but it gives a 20% bonus to diplomacy.

***25% bonus, and it's the Galactic Showcase. So essentially it's the Diplomatic Translators for a much greater cost and no sharing.

The one that does give a +20% Empire wide influence bonus is the Restaraunt of Eternity.

The Galactic Bazaar is the one whose description says it doubles the perceived value of your offers in trade. I think it refers to trading with other races making your side of the trade look better to them than it really is. At least that would explain why I could trade "Superior Deflectors" for Phasors I, II, and III, and still ask for some cash too.

It's true, it's all true. All those things are screwed and like a lover one grows tired of, the flaws get more irritating every day.

Ah well, how does everyone like the new combat system.

Yup, there are lots of bugs and typos in the .xml-files but the developers keep ignoring them.

For example, the text says in the Civilization Manager that governments give bonuses to production and research which is false. I could fix it myself and test it so it works in under two minutes (and I have done so), but since I play Metaverse games, I can't actually play with the change. Irritating.

I'm a bit confused, some of the posts contradict each other.

What does Mind Control actually does? What about other wonders that are ill described, what do they do? What about goverments? Anyone who has checked this can make it clear please?