Adding NEW terraforming & units for SMAC!!!

[heardie]

Originally posted by Jasonian on 12-11-1999 08:38 PM
Both of you,

I'm aware of the "None" for the tech name. I had origionally put it as "EmpEth" (Empire Ethics), but changed it to "Disable". Now it's on "None" so I can build some Jedi in case mine get whacked, and also so I can see how much they would cost. Just a little testing thing.

Just out of curiousity, if it doesn't cost 400 for that dino-of-a-fusion-speeder unit, what does it cost?

Sorry I tried to qoute Alexander and that is waht happened.
not sure what it will cost maybe 200? It is very powerful.



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-Chiron Creators-
"http://members.xoom.com/acchiron"

[AlexanderIII]

A good way to compare costs for new units is to create a few standard units in the #UNITS section, one similar to the one you are creating but with legal limit of two abilities, and a few humdrum ones like armored speeders, infantry with a few goodies, that sort of thing, just as a testing benchmark. Then create your new test unit as well. Make sure the number under #UNITS represents the correct numner of units there.

Then go into the game, call up a new game, then look in the help section of standard units or something like that. Each unit will have its final cost in minerals displayed. Again, whatever you hardcode/assign as cost of your unit, the real mineral cost that will show in the help will be x9. So, say you want your unit to cost the equiv of a benchmark test unit you made up earlier, say a Photon Speeder. Take the cost indicated in the help screen for that example unit, divide by nine, and that's the number you put in alpha.txt for your newly created unit.

Bear in mind that for every change in #UNITS, all saved games using new units will be associated with the old #UNITS version, as it appears the game file records the #UNITS in it. So trying to test a new unit with an existing saved game might cause you problems, like units not showing up on screen or in the help files, abilities and costs being wrong or units subing for other units. So every time you test a new configuration of #UNITS, no matter how small the change, load up a new game -- then just use ctrl-k to test the unit, shift-f1 to place units to pit them in test conditions against one another.

[AlexanderIII]

Quoted from heardie:
Just thought I’d start a new thread for those of us with slow ISP’s . About my Stegosaurus unit, it now has a cost of –1. The amount you put in for cost is not multiplied by 10 or 9, it is that amount, so if something costs 1000, if a unit costs 100 this does not cost the same as the thing that costs 1000. I hope this makes sense.

B.T.W; This is our 500th posts.

Not too sure what you mean... if you look in the help section in-game, whatever cost you indicate in #UNITS it will multiply by 9. This is the REAL cost of total minerals for that unit. Does not mean how many turns to produce, obviously.

[heardie]

What i mean is this:
I did a test. I set the cost to 400 would should equal 3600mineral.
Then I went into the scenario editor and made the Acenst to Transcend SP available.
But the Dinosual was going to be available alot quicker than the SP, so this led me to believe that it wasn't times by 9.
I really dont know now.

------------------
-Chiron Creators-
"http://members.xoom.com/acchiron"

[civman2]

is there a way to make MORE units with custom graphics than the number of vertical slots in units.pcx?

[AlexanderIII]

That's a darned good question... try creating test patterns on the vertical bars to the right of the screen which have chassis names beside them (probably when they were betatesting SMAC), and then create a unit in #UNITS with a graphic number higher than the max number of slots, say by 2. Load the game, and see if your test pattern shows. If not then I guess your answer is no you can't.

[civman2]

I'll try it but it probably won't work

[AlexanderIII]

Thought of a new idea for terraforming, if anyone wants to risk overbalancing the game.

quote: Originally posted by Alexander III on May 10, 2000 13:16, AC-Strategy, "NeedleJet Colony Pods" ____________________________________________ Originally posted by korn469 on 05-10-2000 01:03 PM i am almost positive that you cannot put a former package on a needlejet or on a copter but i know that you can on a gravship korn469 ____________________________________________ The interesting thing, from a Creation point of view is that, in the #UNITS section of alpha(x).txt, if you build a former on a Needlejet chassis, you can terraform without ever having to refuel!! It's illegal to do in the workshop, but if you handcode it as one of the basic units of the game you can create one helluva former unit!! Though I can see why this unit is too powerful.

The code in SMACX for this would be:
Needlejet Former, Needlejet, Former, Scout, 9, 0, 0, Space, -1, 00000000000000000000000000 (delete 3 0's at the end for SMAC)

Tech assigned is, say, Advanced Spaceflight.

[This message has been edited by AlexanderIII (edited May 10, 2000).]

[Avenoct]

Wherp, double post...guess I'll add here the I found this juicy thread while trying to track down SNAC. every thread I found under that search was nifty, but no SNAC yet. -Smack

[Avenoct]

Bump, back from the dead!

Someone was asking about IOD/Locust graphics?
this is a treasure trove of useful stuff, almost should be top-ed

-Smack

[Tokamak]

Just read this thread. I just found out about the multiple special abilites thing myself. I thought I was the first one

Oh, well...

The special abilities field of a unit is represented by a string of 26 digits, each digit coresponding to a special power. A zero means the ability is not present, a 1 means that it is.

Here are all the powers, listed in order, for your reference...

1) Wave
2) Gas
3) Slow (given to Unity Foils and Choppers to make them suck)
4) Police
5) Repair
6) X
7) Heavy (refers to 'heavy transport,' which is normally disabled)
8) Trance
9) Blink
10) Clean
11) Artillery
12) Trained
13) Fungicidal
14) Secure
15) Empath
16) Grav
17) ECM
18) AAA
19) Carrier
20) Sub
21) SAM
22) Drop
23) Amphibious
24) Cloaked
25) unknown (possibly Deep Radar)
26) Super (terraformer power)

Marine Deattachemnt, Algorithmic Enhancement, and Feul Nanocells and apparently not represented.

Also, and more interestingly, I found out that messing around with Sven's 'FREEABIL, 26' parameter can get some nifty results. Changing the 26 alters which power his units get for free. I haven't found a pattern yet, but I do know that it works. Changing it to 25, for example, gave all his units Wave.

Remember that the faction has to have discovered the relevant techs first, or this power won't work.

Velociryx: You've expressed interest in being able to give AI factions free clean reactors. It is now theoretically possible. With about an hour's worth of experimentation, I'm sure you can find the correct value for clean reactors (I'd do it myself, but I really don't have time to even being making this post ).

It is possible to add two new techs to the tree (there is a generic 'user tech' slot and a 'deleted' slot). Make this a prereq for clean reactors, and put it in a dead-end somewhere, preferably high up the tech tree. You can then safely give the AIs this tech without disrupting play. This -will- make clean a power eventaully available to players (which I know you don't want), but if the tech is up high enough, by the time they get it, the game will be long over (especially in your tech-stag environment).

[Tokamak]

Ahhh.... I finished my RL work and was able to engage in some relaxing AC research.

It turns out that there is a very simple pattern to the FREEABIL codes. Here's the list for easy refrence (mod-makers, just cut-n-paster this onto a text file):

26 Marine
25 Wave
24 Gas
23 Slow
22 Police
21 Repair
20 X
19 Heavy
18 Trance
17 Blink
16 Clean
15 Artillery
14 Trained (adds the morale bonus properly)
13 Fungicidal
12 Secure
11 Empath
10 Grav-Struts
9 ECM
8 AAA
7 Carrier
6 Sub
5 SAM
4 Drop
3 Amphibious
2 Cloaked
1 Super

Logically, Algorithmic Enhancement and Nanocell Fuelcells should be numbers 27 and 28, but those numbers don't seem to work.

A few snags...

Preset units won't get these powers. They have to be manually created from the workshop. The AI isn't bright enough to do this, so it will do annoying things, like crank out tons of non-clean Scout Patrols, etc. I suggest disabling these units. This'll force the AI to design its own units. I think (but am not sure) that it is bright enough to reconize the need for a crawler-based colony pod and for scout patrols.

Other points...

These 'inherent' powers don't take up slots in the design workshop, and don't increase the cost of the unit. The only restriction is that you can't double stack a workshop power with a duplicate faction power (no double trained soldiers).

This opens up all kinds of new faction possibilites. Imagine a 'farmer' faction, who gets free fungicidal tanks and super formers! Or a Psionics guild, with free Trance and Empath powers. These are just a few possibilites (and probably highly imbalanced ones, at that).

Also, between this and the things discussed in my previous post, some really wacky units are possible. Some of my favorites...

The mobile airbase! Just add carrier powers to any infantry unit. aircraft land on him just fine, and he carries them with him. He doesn't have to be a transport, either. Arm him to the teeth! This might make a good 'SCUD missile launcher.'

The Air Tanker. A Needlejet with carrier powers. Other aircraft can 'land' on him and refuel in mid-air. Neat! The only snag is that he refeuls himslef, too. D'oh!

The super-former infantry! He's a normal infantryman with superformer powers. He can't actually terraform , but he still gets those strange tesla coils added to his icon! Wierd...

And so on

I hope that this wasn't stuff that everybody already knew. It was new to me!

[Avenoct]

Tokamak, great posts!

There isn't a natural FREEABIL, (param) for Smac, unless it's hidden and believe me I'll try it. I'm so jealous! The possibilities are endless. you could have a faction with the tech for cloaking given free along with the ability. INVISIBLE Faction! Wowies. Wouldn't that be something? And your unit ideas are great ones, quite funny, and perhaps quite useful!

I've been spending time trolling for ideas and found some nice posts by Shining1 over in the CIV 3 threads...man are they organized! I've also been writing the background story for my mod, which is going be in two parts...one a general 'patch' for Smac, that'll probably end up being like SNAC, even though I still can't track that down. The other will be a full mod using all these nifty things we CAN do. A four part story with 4 scenarios. Just a hint, we're leaving Chiron, perhaps forever .

While I'm rambling a bit, I began thinking that Smac interest is going to die down dramatically this fall/winter with the Civ 3 game coming out, and even with my own preference for AC I was chomping at the bit while looking at the nice screenshots posted here on Apolyton (of CIV 3). Anyways, I'm probably going to just do a rush-job on my project b/c there will be very little interest soon in yet another mod. Mine will of course be the end-all-be-all, but like the story behind my scenarios, will come too late.

Off to test some bizzare units with my alphamods...again great post to this zombie-thread!

-Smack

[Tokamak]

A more careful preusal of the thread revealed that you can add marine, enhanced, and nanocuel powers to indvidual units, just by adding three extra zeros to the abilities field of the unit. Dunno about faction powers, though.

This illustrates a problem that the Creation group has: no centralized data source. There are tons of fantastic ideas on this forum, but it's so hard to find specific data that we keep duplicating each other's work.

The strategy people have Velociryx's archetypal guide to organize their efforts. The mod-makers need their own. Maybe as a start, we could start a new thread and do nothing but cut-and-paste previous posts with juicy data onto it. No kibitzing! Just raw data. This would make writing a "Mod-Maker's Manual' much easier for whatever industrious soul decides to take that task on.

[Avenoct]

Tokamak,

Good thinking...and speaking of reinventing the crawler, it appears that TWO such mod-makers manuals are either in existence or were planned, couldn't get my probe teams to link with them though. Like this thread, I've spent a lot of time trolling around for things:

factions for the database yielded the Network Node (thanks to Cybergod) , an excellent site with reference to a mod-guide but not sure if it's there? Just be sure to have Flash for your browser if you go here. Network Node

This thread and a few others while looking for SNAC so that I don't just reinvent that.

A whole bunch of permanently closed or disabled websites that USED to contain mod-guides or factions or mods

As to the cut and paste idea: You and I think alike! I've been doing that, but it's a huge file and would take a lot of distillation. I'm not interested, at least not until I've sucessfully made a mod

I did a little tech-testing last night, the results of which are in Vel's mod thread and in the monkey-sweats thread.

All in all, I agree, a modguide NEEDS to come out that has some more permanent host, but what I'd like to see happen is a reawakening of the supposedly existing guides, and then just 'upgrade' them with new information, if we have any to add. To this end I've emailed a couple people, including Alexander here..hehe...we'll see if they're still active. On the other hand, at the rate you are working, and me, to a lesser degree, on mods, we need them NOW! So I'm just keeping notes and crossing my fingers that someone who has been down these roads before wakes up and reads their email. If you do decide to write one, I'll help any way I can. I think you write very well and are the man for the job.

-Smack

[Alinestra Covelia]

Greetings from America! It's good to hear that Jasonian's back with the Star Wars modpak! How long has it been? A year? Two years?

Anyhow I don't have any technical knowledge to share, but would like to commend you on your efforts to take the game to bits and build something better!

I have two questions for you designer elite bods out there - does anybody know where I can find a copy of SNAC? And the second question is - does anybody know of a way to make chopper units less powerful than they currently are? I am aware that infantry get a +25% when attacking a base, and that interceptors get a -50% when attacking ground units. Is there any way of altering these so a chopper gets, say, a -50% for attacking a base? I'm keen to keep penetrators as the main anti-base air unit, and choppers as a battlefield-sweeping unit if possible.

Otherwise, great job guys - it's people like you who keep those design houses on their toes!

[Tokamak]

"Greetings from America?" Are you in the states right now or something? Your bio says you're British.

The oft-requested but never found SNAC can be found here , at the Chironian Guild.

Implementing the combat modifiers for the chopper is probably not possible. However, there are other ways to weaken the over-powered helicopter. SNAC severely limits choppers, for instance. There is an excellent discussion about this very topic in

Vel's thread . Look for Blake's post. i will probably using his suggestions for my own SMAC Down: 2200.

Many popular games have been almost completely reverse- engineered by their fans. Try going to teambg.com . These guys have their own custom tools, and have actually created an unoffical add-on for Baldur's Gate! Incredible. The venerable Forgoten Realms: Unlimited Adventures has also been almost completey remade by dedicated fans.

I'm not so sure if AC will be so easy to change, though. Baldur's Gate was deliberately made to make add-ons easy. FRUA was modular to begin with. SMAC has the text files, which are nice, but also limit what we can do. I guess time will tell.

Also, has anyone tried ProvostB's monolith terraforming ideas? (they're on the first page of this thread). I couldn't make his trick work.

[Avenoct]

Havn't tried the Provost Monolith-terraform yet, but hope to make it work..I was concerned abut the key-recognition part and thought I might see if I could add it to another, less likely terraform, say, Drill to Aquifer (Q) and make it take twice as long.

As to choppers..ditto to Tokamak..the special abilities are pretty much defined by the game apparatus. I can't even think of a way to use one of the available mods, like 'attack along road bonus' to sneak it into the chopper b/c there's not a way to access how the chopper thinks of itself...it's a chopper..it's an air unit...you could I suppose make it a ground unit with bigger movement (movement triad options for chassis) though I'm not sure if that's possible (don't have the alpha open right now...I'm lazy).

Oh, the Apolyton Download section (at the top of the site) is now working! SNAC is back. As is Alexander III's aquapac..wow. Going out to play.

-Smack

[Avenoct]

Bump for Nadexander

[Googlie]

^ bump ^

[Gufnork]

The number tells the game how many rows of minerals it costs. This is done to make it easier to adapt to industry on the SE table (so it's 10 minerals for the normal faction, 11 for spartans, etc). So it would be 4000 minerals on average. Ascent cost 2000 if I'm not mistaken.

[dgh64]

You can terraform a monolith. Just change the alpha.txt file to this under #TERRAIN:Monolith, AlphCen, Monolith, Disable, 10, Place Monolith, a, a,

Hope this helps.



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-The Provost

I've been trying to get this to work all day, but it doesn't, in either SMAC or SMAX. Are there any other changes that need to be made, in alpha(x).txt or any other files?