Modifying Fungus Pollution for a Faction

[fireflutterpony]

I've been messing around with altering a faction's yield on a given feature, and I've noticed that in the faction's file, I can't modify the pollution yield from a tile, either by the add/sub or min/max tags. By way of example:

Code: Select all

		<modifier>
			<conditions>
				<territory>
					<features>
						<feature name="Fungus"/>
					</features>
				</territory>
			</conditions>
			<effects>
				<mineralsPerTurn add="2"/>
				<foodPerTurn add="1"/>
			</effects>
		</modifier>

This code alters the food and mineral yields of the fungus feature to match the yields the Ecological faction would get from a Forest feature. Straightforward, and it works. But if I try to use the pollution value (as used in the Features and Buildings folders) to replace the normal fungus pollution value with that of a Forest feature:

Code: Select all

			<effects>
				<mineralsPerTurn add="2"/>
				<foodPerTurn add="1"/>
				<pollution sub="2"/> //base Fungus pollution is +1, -2 brings it in line with Forest
			</effects>

This doesn't work.
Am I correct in assuming the pollution effect isn't currently implemented in faction definitions?

[mrowka]

Try <pollution add="-2"/>, its only a theory thrugh

Workaroud would be making advncemtn and giving it to that faction on the start, from my early try at modding, i seen that advencment got the most shared fuctions working.

[fireflutterpony]

That sounds workable. How exactly can I do that? Is it possible to just give the faction the advancement through the faction file, or do I need to rig up a dummy technology that makes the advancement available?

[mrowka]

That sounds workable. How exactly can I do that? Is it possible to just give the faction the advancement through the faction file, or do I need to rig up a dummy technology that makes the advancement available?

Well here is the problem, i didnt see any way to limit who gets what, so making a technology or advencemnt in most cases will be avaliable to everyone, without view of classes you wont know without testing if you can use class from <faction> in class of <building>. Keepy in mind that i didnt mod pandora from version 1.3 and up so thers might be some more cluse in .xml files, and all below is my theory

So you give a faction a custom unit, that like in case of most aliens give you that technology/advencment on kill, i dont think is needs to die to get that advencment, but you can play with disband/destroy option in its skills.
You can also try to do something similar but with operations.

[kliyo]

How about adding adding a condition on the pollution effect on the fungus.xml feature that checks for faction of the unit and applies differet values accordig to that condition. Not sure how it would be written but i'm sure i've seen something like:
<playerConditions>
<faction name="whatever"/>
</playerConditions>

[Xilmi]

Btw. from an experienced players perspective I will tell you that what you are trying to do here would be super-OP in the lategame.
4/5-tiles with -1 pollution instead of +1 pollution is like an integrated tile-improvement that normally costs 3 credits support.

But if you need to do it, have a look how being The Ambassadors (Diplomatic.xml) gives you a discount on Scanners. Use the same technique to give an additional bonus to the Fungus-Advancements. That should be the easiest way.

[PlotinusRedux]

I kind of get what's he's going for here. In SMAC/X, the concept of pollution is one of harming the planet's natural ecosystem, so fungus, being native to the planet, doesn't increase pollution, whereas things like mines, boreholes, etc., do. On the other hand, even with eco techs, fungus never comes near the productive power of boreholes, etc., that do cause pollution, and without the eco techs it produces nothing. In Pandora, the concept of pollution is more one of toxicity to humans, so fungus causes pollution even though it's native to the planet.

I prefer SMAC/X's method--the native life attacked the high polluters more vigorously, and it wouldn't make sense for them to attack factions that had left the native fungus alone. And it fed into a whole story line involving the native ecology. But it would take a lot of modifying to transfer the idea to Pandora--the tech bonuses to fungus would have to be severely nerfed and additional improvements like boreholes with high production and high pollution would need to be added, and the AI would have to be updated to understand all that.... Probably best just to stick with Pandora's current concept of pollution.

[unsubstantiation]

You can do this successfully, I have it set up in somewhere in my old mod to benefit the the Xeno faction I made, so you could just copy the code from there it probably still works.