This is not a critical bug, and since you are still in pre-alpha the numbers are likely to be changes all across the board anyways but I thought I would mention it.

Federation Type 1 University output is 12 but it gives 14 per when manned.


Edit: Problem Solved: It seems the difference is the morale bonus that the Feds were starting with, see below in the thread for more info.

I wonder if a research bonus is being added in there (per lab) because of another structure you have built.

I was still on turn 1, just started (Did nothing). I was looking all over the place for a bonus and couldn't find it. There were no bonuses listed in the science bonus screen either.

Good find.

Morale bonus.

Good point, just didnt realize that you started with a morale bonus and I couldn't easily find the effect of the morale I had.

Actually that's something I mentioned quite some time ago, and might need to be revised. The empires start with different Morale levels (base value), which affects their production (industry and research). That kind of compounds with racial bonuses and Buildings.
It's easy enough to change though.

The base values are:

(Default) 120
FEDERATION 130
CARDASSIANS 150
ROMULANS 120
KLINGONS 100
DOMINION 100

The reference value is 110, max is 200. So the Feds start with a Morale bonus of 130/110=1.18 which is what you've seen in the labs (12*1.18=14).

These values kind of work against the races' descriptions. The Cards get a boost to their research, the Klingons and Dominion a penalty to industry...

Not sure it's a good idea having these differentiated values.

Yeah I noticed it was a 16.666% difference, that’s why I didn't think it was a morale bonus also. I went in search of this 16%, figured it might be 15% that got rounded or something.

Honestly all the morale bonuses should be the same for each of the empires. The only difference should be how easy it is to get higher levels with one race over the other; also the methods you use to gain higher morale might differ from race to race.

Is there no negative morale? I would think something like

90% - Distain
95% - Unhappy
100% - Satisfied
105% - Happy
110% - Loyal

You could fill in more from 80-120 or whatever but...

I guess there is a negative if you get 100/110; I'm guessing it’s calculated like that so that there is a scale to gain morale gradually. Those numbers just seem odd to work with, at least the value in % should be displayed somewhere (i.e. the Fed +18% you calculated), unless I missed it somewhere.

The other weird thing is that if it is 18% it is 14.16 per PF, does that mean I get 141 for 10 or 140?

One more thing, I tend to see morale as a two pronged issue.

One its a happiness issue.
Two its a loyalty issue.

I can't see the Dominion being unloyal or working any less hard because of morale. I don't see the Dominion as being very happy people either. The Dominon tends to rule by fear, strength and manipulation.

You might then want to do something related to the effects of morale, which I think the original numbers were trying to do. Reduce the effects of morale on races that are Loyal like the Dominion. So where at happy the feds might get 10% the dominion would get 5%, but on the flip side in the negatives they would get half the penalty, either that or remove morale from the Dominion, as a bonus/penalty of the race.

Each race has different Morale bonuses/penalties for each event type.



If by negative you mean lower than 100%, yes there is. Morale goes from zero to 220, so that max bonus is x2.



It's actually:

210 Fanatic
190 Patriotic
170 Devoted
145 Optimistic
110 Stable
80 Displeased
45 Restless
30 Defiant
0 Rebellious






140 I think. The value is truncated.

Yeah, we discussed this some time ago. Splitting it into 2 would probably not be a good idea, it'd most likely have conflicting effects and complicate things for little gain.




We discussed making the Dominion have a special way of being played, like not being able to colonize but expand by annexation and conquest alone. This could be another perk.

If they play like all other races, we could have them have the same Morale behavior as the Cards - maybe even replacing them in that role.
Basically, Morale increases and decreases with certain events - subjugating a system, losing a system, losing a battle, etc. Every turn, your current Morale value will tend to the modified base value (racial base value + permanent mods like Building bonuses) of your empire. The Cards have a drift value of 2, while all the other empires have 1, so Cards react faster to Morale changes (both positive and negative). I guess we could have the Dominion have a higher drift value to simulate their relative "immunity" to the effects of Morale.

Well what I was aimming at was more along the lines of having 1 morale system but have each race react to the moral differently (or may only the Cards or Dominion).

210 Fanatic
190 Patriotic
170 Devoted
145 Optimistic
110 Stable
80 Displeased
45 Restless
30 Defiant
0 Rebellious

So assume you have the Feds at Fanatic 210% get +110% bonus, the Domion would get maybe 0% and the Cards get (half) 55% bonus. Now the opposite is also true Rebellious the Feds get 0% -100% penalty, the Dominion 0%, and the Card -50% penalty.

So the racials of the empires could be

Dominion Immune to Morale Bonuses/Penalties (this is both good and bad)
Cards Resistant to Moral Bonuses/Penalties (Less extremes)
The other races work as normal.
or something like that.

But otherwise I think if you are at for example Devoted with the Feds, Devoted with the Romulans, Klingons, etc. it should always be +70% bonus.

I might be mistaken in the way the morale works so forgive me if I'm making poor assumptions, I honestly find it semi confusing and I don't think that’s what you are going for.

Making the Dominion immune to Morale is pretty easy, just make all their Morale modifiers zero, and remove any Morale bonuses from Buidings. Not sure how interesting that would be - the Buildings part at least.

Its a bit of a bonus the way I see it, you could tax them the max, pretty much abuse your people and not worry about many or any side effects. Perhaps that is a bit too good, maybe 10% effect, so you can’t go crazy or something.

Can you explain the morale system to me if you have some time, I mean the math behind it and the concept on how it works? I'm very interested in how it works.

Not sure there'll be a tax slider...

----

Two examples:

The Feds start with Morale 130 (Stable). That's a 130/110 bonus (NOT 130-100 or something like you seemed to be using), or +18% productivity (industry and research).
If they eliminate a minor race for example, they get a -20 (NOT %) modifier to their current Morale rating (which is still 130), so that it goes down to 110 (still Stable, but at +0% productivity bonus).
Each posterior turn, Morale will go up (in this case) by one, from 110, until it reaches the Feds' base Morale level (130). The Morale modifier is updated every turn.
+ Morale Empire-Wide and local (system level) Morale bonuses from Buildings modify the base Morale value.

The Cards start with 150 (Optimistic), +36% bonus.
Eliminating a minor will modify this by +4, for 154. Since they have a Morale drift of 2 (instead of 1 like everyone else), they'll return to their base value in 2 turns.

Oh no that was me simplifying my example to get non-off numbers like 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30% etc. (mostly me being lazy).

Thanks for explaining it; it now makes a lot more sense. It basically works like I was thinking but the part that I didn't know was the drift part, I didn't realize the morale reset to a basic tendency (which makes sense), thanks for that example.

So the baseline morale of 110 is 0% bonus to production. Just curious why 110 was chosen as the number?

I asked the same thing. It's not really relevant though, you don't get to see Morale quantified in the game anyway.

Can buildings, tech, etc change the race's natural morale tendency?

So normally the Feds are at 130 can let’s say a few government buildings, recreational sites and some holodeck program tech move that base number to 150-ish etc. or do those building keep modifying the current values?

Does anything Building/Tech adjust the drift values?

Does the game (I might have missed it) display the effects of morale to the user? For example a mouse-over the word Fanatic should show me +100% production (or some screen should list the bonus %).

Lastly I noticed I’m at fanatic with the Feds which should be 210/110 = 190%, yet my research seems to be 200% (70 output but giving 140), I looked for a building that’s adding to research as a bonus but couldn’t find it. Now this might be my understanding of how the morale works, but is 210 the cap or can it go higher than that value?

Thanks again for taking the time to explain.

Yes, that's what Buildings that affect Morale do. They affect it permanently (the base value). Some affect Morale locally (that particular system only), some affect Morale Empire-Wide, all your systems.




Not that I know of, no. Could be something to look into though.




Not currently, no. But that's a good idea. Maybe in the new Inte\Colonies screen too.




Fanatic is 210+, up to a max of 220 (the Morale cap)which corresponds to double production.




Glad to help. Feel free to ask anything. And keep throwing those ideas around, we appreciate the feedback.

This could be another way to specialise/differentiate empires too. You could have empires with lots of morale bonuses, but that can be affected by big, but temporary, morale swings (Federation, Romulans?); and empires with few bonuses, but stable morale that is largely unaffected by outside influences and events (Dominion?).

This could either be achieved through pre-set morale tables or special buildings.

BOTF had this system, and it was very useful in explaining production differences between systems. We definitely need to add this to Supremacy.

Empires are already differentiated by their reactions to events (Morale modifiers). The Feds and Roms usually are affected negatively by war related events and the rest positively.
They all have the same Morale table (same events), but some have larger mods (which not only have a higher net effect but also last longer) and others lower mods (effectively having little effect).
Also, remember that we have Martial Law and the like to help alleviate a negative Morale mod. And that it has a cost, which would probably not happen with Buildings or techs.

I'm sure Mike already had thought of adding tooltips, at least since the last time we discussed Morale

I think what Matress was meaning was it would be a way of differentiating the more rigid empire that have the persona of not swinging one way or the other.

The Dominion might for example have next to 0 Moral buildings and tech but they might also drift the least, so maybe 0.25 per cycle versus some race like the fed which are very sensitive to morale that might drift at 2, and the Cardasians that drift at even more.

Races like the Borg (should someone mod them in) would be likely to have 0 morale buildings (in the way we know them, they may have efficiency instead) and have a drift of 0. But Borg are probably a bad example.

And that's also what I was replying to
If you look at the Morale table, you'll see that the Dominion generally has low mods, effectively not having much of an impact - try applying the formula to a +4 modifier for example, and see what kind of bonus you get. Notice you don't see the bonus directly, so you might not even notice a change in Morale level.

Also, having both lower morale mods and lower drift values kind of cancels out, since the effects will pretty much be similar - instead of a bonus that decreases over a long period of time, you have a more or less constant bonus over a long period of time.

About Buildings that provide Morale, you don't actually have much control over that. Minors have plenty of those (both local and empire-wide), and you just can't know how many of those will join the Dominion. The Dominion proper, can't recall off the top of my head, but they have The Great Link (EW Morale) and one of the Ketracel-White facilities (IIRC - not sure if it's the one buildable in the non-native systems).