SMAniaC

[Maniac]

Originally posted by stuntman19
First off thanks and congratz on making such a nice mod. I really like alot of what you have done with techs and units.

Thanks. My pleasure.

Morgan: that -2 support has him not doing much at all in games so far. In fact in current game he's trying to run uni police to compensate with not much success.

Yeah I agree. I tend to notice the same thing. Even I set the faction strategy towards building lots of colony pods, he still refuses to expand.

Drones: that -3 research and no research for first 5 yrs is a crippler. A nice challenge for a human player maybe, but in both games I have played they where eradicated early. Might just be bad luck with a hostile neighbor in each game(Hive and Spartans).

I remember them beating them the crap out of everyone in one game. In another game he did nothing. It kinda varies. (In the standard game they have to wait for ten years before being able to research btw - the inherent -3 Research is in the beginning offset by the +2 Research from Technocrat elite)

Perhaps I should create some special super-AI faction files for boosted AI performance, like Aldebaran did? I guess +3 Industry, +2 Growth, halved tech costs and the techsteal ability (to keep aggressive factions like the Conclave in the tech race) should do the trick.

To improve AI performance I've created two scenarios where all AI factions have been given some satellites. Perhaps you could try these out? In the Cult game Morgan is still behaving weak, but for the others they will at least stay competitive longer than normal.

The first scenario is with the Consciousness. You can find it here.

The Cult scenario I have attached to this post. I played it a while to see how the Cult turns out with their modified fungal boni. The Cult in SMAniaC is FUN! imho

The -1 planet for the Cyborg is a good penalty for them, although seems to be missing from info in selection screen of the game.

They don't have -1 Planet. That Planet penalty probably comes from running a Frontier society. I guess I should include a readmefirst.txt in the download, as questions about social engineering often return. (Also beware of the Talent SE factor that is used, I'll also mention then)

I'm not sure what you did with the world builder, but in my games so far the continents seem to be connected which is nice since AI has probs with sea invasion.

It's a modified version of the Aldebaran worldbuilder. The intent is to create two or three big continents, including some high elevation terrain. These goals work somewhat against each other though, as the elevated terrain sometimes merges all continents into one big landmass.

[stuntman19]

Ok...thx for the scenario files. I prolly won't get to try them until the coming weekend though. I have classes starting up at University this week, overnight job Mon-Thur, plus gf B-day this week so will be fairly busy.

I think you are right about the Drones, if they can't get to better SE choice due to early game conflict, then they do poorly.

I do have one problem or possible bug with your mod I want to report to you, and hopefully you can help me with it. In a current game on the turn I complete the Secret Project Gattica(Bioh Center each base), I'm getting a terranxicd crash. I played it from the autosave(I play ironman) twice now, and each time the Secret Project movie starts to play the Cloud Base Academy Project movie. I'm not certain if the CBA Project is renamed in your mod, but I'm fairly certain it's crashing since Gattica seems to be trying to play the wrong SP movie. Have you encountered any problem like this?

Neways...when I have time I'll try your scenarios and also try and get past the crashes. Maybe just not complete the SP if I can't get around it.

Regards,
Stuntman19

[Maniac]

Originally posted by stuntman19
I do have one problem or possible bug with your mod I want to report to you, and hopefully you can help me with it. In a current game on the turn I complete the Secret Project Gattica(Bioh Center each base), I'm getting a terranxicd crash. I played it from the autosave(I play ironman) twice now, and each time the Secret Project movie starts to play the Cloud Base Academy Project movie. I'm not certain if the CBA Project is renamed in your mod, but I'm fairly certain it's crashing since Gattica seems to be trying to play the wrong SP movie. Have you encountered any problem like this?

I keep forgetting to check this.

The cloudbase movie is the correct one for Gattaca btw. There has been a lot of reshuffling. If you don't care about seeing the movies btw (some don't match very well anyway due to the renamed projects), you could always just copy the original movlist.txt file over the new one, if that's causing the problem.

No one seems to get the Gattaca reference btw. It's a movie with a eugenetics theme. In case anyone's interested, the wikipedia link.

[Maniac]

I can't reproduce your problem with Gattaca I'm afraid. Works fine for me.

[ERKUTHER]

I've started a few games using this mod and I like it a lot. The Pirates become mean SOB''s with this mode, I was playing as Dee and had to fight off both aliens, Lal and Miriam in the early game so I couldn't do my builder thing right off. Were about 150 years in and Sven has about 70 cities and is researching techs at about 1 every 4 turns. He also has about 5 times as many units as I do and the oceans are flooded with his battleships.

I started focusing on on green/psi combat bonus techs so I could create locust swarms and start obliterating his bases to cut down his energey productions. Just as I was starting to roll and had wiped out about 8 of his bases, the game started getting weird on me. When I would click on my cities it would show my units their, but also show units from an aposing city their also. If I tried selecting on the opposing units, all the units would completly disappear and the city would show itself as unoccupied. a few turns later it started crashing on so I had to kill the game (which sucks because I've never has such an interesting game before).

Did you change anything that determines how close everyone lands towards each other? Every game I've started I end up running into 3-4 factions within 10 squares of my home base. I'm playing on a large map so I assumed we all would be a little more spread out.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by ERKUTHER
I've started a few games using this mod and I like it a lot.

Were about 150 years in and Sven has about 70 cities

Wow. Is that without any boosts??

Just as I was starting to roll and had wiped out about 8 of his bases, the game started getting weird on me. When I would click on my cities it would show my units their, but also show units from an aposing city their also. If I tried selecting on the opposing units, all the units would completly disappear and the city would show itself as unoccupied. a few turns later it started crashing on so I had to kill the game (which sucks because I've never has such an interesting game before).

That sucks. Have you had this before under normal SMAC, or is it the first time? Personally I've never encountered any such problem, but I've heard similar things mentioned before under normal SMAC. Perhaps it was because the Pirates had so many units??

Did you change anything that determines how close everyone lands towards each other?

Nope that isn't possible AFAIK. The world builder is modified though and it tends towards creating maps with say two big continents, instead of eg long tracks of archipelago land all over the place as sometimes happens under normal SMAX. So with the bigger concentrated landmasses, I guess you're more likely to run into several factions earlier.

If you don't like this, you could perhaps copy the old worldbuilder over the new one in alphax.txt? Though I'd suggest to always keep the numbers that encourage shallow ocean tiles (to make life easier on the aquatic factions and improve that aspect of the game, as you seem to have noticed well ).


I'm currently working on a new faction set and super AI files for a bigger challenge btw. I should be able to update SMAniaC with a new (and probably final) version once I get over my graphics creation problems.

[ERKUTHER]

That sucks. Have you had this before under normal SMAC, or is it the first time? Personally I've never encountered any such problem, but I've heard similar things mentioned before under normal SMAC. Perhaps it was because the Pirates had so many units??

I haven't run into that issue before playing normal SMAC, but I've never seen the AI have that may bases before either so I think your right and it had something to do with the extreme amount of bases.

QUOTE]Wow. Is that without any boosts??[/QUOTE]

No boosts, just any changes the mod made. It was pretty ridiculous how much energy he was generating (and wasting, alot of the bases were losing all their energy to ineffeciency).

I'm currently working on a new faction set and super AI files for a bigger challenge btw.

I'm looking forward to it

[Maniac]

The update is basically ready, but I'm having a little dilemma with creating my super AIs. I have two goals with these:
1. Make all the AIs more powerful
2. Make all the Ais perform more equally well, so that the same old same old don't always run away with the game, and run over the same weaker factions, eg the Morganites as mentioned in this thread.

Unfortunately these two goals tend to conflict with each other.

The aquatic factions perform *terribly* well. They always run away with the game and overpower the others. So now I'm actually reducing their bonuses a little, but that takes away from goal 1 of creating a challenging AI.

Other problems are:
1. the Bree build lots of sea terraformations even if fungus is more productive. And I'd like the fungal faction to keep in character by planting fungus.
2. the Cult seems to perform worse the more bonuses I give it. Their biggest problem is unlike all other factions as the AI they only start with one colony pod (so I discovered only a few months back). And if the stupid AI wanders a couple year with the colony pod before settling, or runs into an early worm that damages that single pod, the whole Cult game is already lost.

[Maniac]

The set of seven new custom factions is ready! As are the Super AIs! Download them in my link, and read the readme.txts in the original post of this thread.

Some changes to the core game have also been made. Here follows the list of major changes. Also downloadable from my signature.

Update 27/2/2006

* The Consciousness growth penalty has been replaced by a 15% penalty to psi combat.

* The formers and sea formers basic unit have been renamed AI formers and AI sea formers, made cheaper and are now super fungicidal. This is to make sure the AI can terraform more with the few formers they build. Just like with the AI Probe, you as human player are not supposed to build the AI basic units. I’d suggest to just make the designs obsolete, so they don’t clutter up your build option list. Of course don’t forget to design your own former now.

* The probe cruiser basic unit has been replaced by the ‘AI Probe Foil’, available at Centauri Hydrology. This will ensure the aquatic factions will start sending some naval probes out earlier. As with the other ‘AI’ units, you’re not allowed to build this basic unit, at least not until you have researched Information Networks.

* The ‘nuclear missile’ basic unit has been stripped of its nerve gas ability and is now a simple conventional missile. While it’s nice to see your enemies use nukes against you, it’s annoying when your AI friends also use nukes, and receive decades of sanctions. That removes the aspect of commerce, a big consideration in diplomacy with the AI. It also now has been given psi attack. That should keep them useful throughout the entire game. Though less damaging in the early game.

* Green and Anthropocentric Societies have switched places in the SE system. The effect being that the Cloning Vats now cancel the Anthropocentric instead of Green penalties. Actually I’d prefer the Cloning Vats to have no effect at all on societies, but since that’s impossible, I gather it’s better to let it effect Anthropocentric, as that SE choice becomes kinda useless anyway after building the Cloning Vats. modSE.txt, helpx.txt & Script.txt edited to reflect this change.

* Base names added to all faction files except the Conclave.

* Where possible, “The” has been added to the full faction name. Before it wasn’t streamlined. For instance The Data Angels and The Free Drones but also Human Hive and Spartan Federation…

* A readmefirst.txt with some common questions about social engineering has been added to the documentation folder.

[Maniac]

Anyone interested in a multiplayer game with this latest version of the SMAniaC?

I made a thread in the multiplayer forum here.

[Maniac]

Aargh typical.
The day after I upload an update, I always discover a little little problem... I discovered that the +25% fanatic attack bonus does not count in psi combat. I assumed it did. As a consequence the Templar psi attack is actually lower than the standard one, while it was supposed to be higher. This has been corrected by giving the Templar OFFENSE, 125 instead of FANATIC, 0. They've also been given robustness towards Planet penalties. The idea of that is to keep the Planet penalty of the Templar as low as possible while at the same time ensuring that they can't go positive and go capture mind worms.

For those who would have already downloaded the old customfactions.zip and Super AIs.zip, here's a little 4k zip containing the normal Templar and SAI Templar faction file. A little less time consuming to download than 3.5 MB customfactions.zip and Super AIs.zip...

[Kataphraktoi]

I actually do not like most of the mod civs. Balance wise they are OK, but 12 factions are already pushing the limit of validity, such as a organised hacker faction, the planet cult, etc. Whereas the original seven are perfect because they sum up so many base idealogies, the mod factions are a little bit out there. Templar\telepathic are very redundant, just IMHO. I have a few factions id rather see...

[Maniac]

Well DUH!
Indeed the ideologies of custom factions will always seem less ideologically profound than the original seven.
I do hope though they can offer a different gameplay experience.
For example it's IMO nice to have a couple other aquatic factions than always the Pirates.

I have a few factions id rather see...

Do tell!

[Addled Platypus]

did all the sugeested file moves and changes..nothing

[Maniac]

Where did you move them?

Here's a screenie of my setup. I made of a copy of the standard SMAC folder and then moved the SMAniaC files in it. Then I have a shortcut on my desktop linking to the terranx.exe in the SMAniaC directory.

[Maniac]

Oh I had a "wtf I can't put empath song on my choppers?!?" moment while playing yesterday, so I thought a document detailing the changes to special abilities might be useful.


Special Abilities

The overall goal of the changes to special abilities is to make combat more varied, to avoid there is one strategy or unit type that works for all situations. Therefore changes have been made to the following abilities:

AAA Tracking

Now also available for noncombatant units (including terraformers) and psi units.

Empath Song
Hypnotic Trance
Blink Displacer

No longer available for air units.
Empath Song and Hypnotic Trance now only give a 40% bonus to psi combat.

These changes are based on the goal of weakening air power and strengthening psi combat.

Dissociative Wave

No longer available for fast moving units.

Just like air power is overpowered compared to land and naval combat, so can within land combat rovers and hovertanks be too powerful compared to infantry, and is it possible to see only rover rushes. If Dissociative Wave would be available for fast moving units, then they could bypass the defense against them: Resonance Pulse (ECM). Now this is prevented, and might infantry hopefully keep a larger role in offensive combat.

Fuel Nanocells
Antigrav Stuts

Now also available for naval units.

This might hopefully make naval combat a bit more varied, by allowing the player to build eg fast scout ships.

Space Superiority (SAM)

This ability now comes free of cost for air and naval units, but still costs the same for land units (similar to Deep Radar).

This addresses the problem that fighters cost more than bombers, making offensive air combat more attractive than defensive air combat.

Heavy Artillery

The cost now increases with armour, not anymore both with armour and speed.

Artillery is hardly used in standard SMAC. The biggest attempt at correcting this is simply making artillery more likely to do damage. This here, decreasing the cost for fast moving artillery might also help a little.

[Maniac]

The diplomacy text for (dis)liking Unitary Police State and Federal Democracy was switched. This is strange, as I already ran into this problem before and though I had already fixed it.

In any case, here is the correct Script.

[Maniac]

An update for those who use Maniacal Rushing. See sig for download.

* The diplomatic text lines for when factions tell you’re a good/bad boy for running Federal Democracy or Unitary Police State were switched. Fixed.

* A possible change some might not agree with: Retool strictness has been changed to Always Free. This is done to make using Maniacal Rushing (see me Treatise on Hurrying) not such a hassle by needing a prototype, having to retire designs etc… Now you can just set production to a secret project cash in a crawler, and immediately switch to the real production of your choice.
Of course this also has another unintended side-effect: you can circumvent the higher hurry costs of units and secret projects by setting production to a facility, hurrying at 2 credits per mineral, and then switching to the real intended production. If you want my opinion, I’d prefer a house rule which forbids this for a facility->unit switch. However I’d allow it for a facility->project switch. Why? 1) you can hurry secret projects at cheaper than 2 credits per mineral anyway with upgraded crawlers. 2) making hurrying projects with credits cheaper reduces the need to have crawlers to have a realistic shot at building a secret project. And things that reduce the need to b-line quickly to crawlers in each game are always good.

[Mart]

A bug:
- In diplomacy, when speaking with AI, "Ambivalent" mood term has an additional character, which game displayes as a square. Stop character in alphax.txt should be checked.
- term "information databanks" has it in front of it

[Maniac]

Weird. I assume it's the problem as here.

I checked ghost.txt here on a university computer (strange enough I not see those characters on my own laptop) and those rectangles had appeared in it again. Strange, as I had already cleaned that file before.

I don't notice anything wrong about Ambivalent in alphax.txt though. I haven't touched the AI moods btw, so I have no idea how those stop characters could have changed anyway.

[Mart]

I can check files in hexeditor. Binary says all

[Maniac]

I made a minor update:

* The Boosted Metabolism special ability is now available a bit earlier: Retroviral Engineering instead of Eugenetics. Reason: Retroviral Engineering seems a lightweight tech to me if the Longevity Vaccine has already been built. An extra ability could make it a little more attractive. Eugenetics is already attractive enough with the Genejack Factory and Eugene specialist.

* Unlike what I thought, the Fuel Nanocells ability does not increase naval movement points, only those of air units. While I had intended that ability to increase naval combat variety. The antigrav ability does affect naval movement though. Therefore:
-> The Fuel Nanocells ability has been renamed Aerofuel Nanocells and is once again only available for air units.
-> The Antigrav Stuts ability has been renamed Naval Fuel Nanocells, is available at Nanominiaturization, and is now a naval-only special ability. Also the cost increases with weapon value. As a consequence the best use of this ability would be on lightly armed scout or guerilla ships.


The update contains two alphax.txts, one without the custom factions, and one with. Rename the one you want to alphax.txt and drop it in your SMAniaC folder.

Download link:
http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?...date060506.zip

[Kataphraktoi]

Sorry maniac, i need a replace. I hope the position is tenable for the next player, it seems decent.

GG, GL, HF

seeyall

[Maniac]

No prob - I think the Spartans have already found a worthy successor.

[dfy]

Hey SManiac,

just wanted to try your mod today as those new SE settings look really tempting . As the mod doesn't change the game executables, I thought it should work okay with the Loki Linux Port of SMACX, but it dies before showing the main menu - an strace didn't leave anything I can use either.

Would be really glad if anyone had a solution to that problem

Thanks,
dfy

[Maniac]

I'm afraid I don't have a clue what could be the problem. Don't know anything about Linux.

Perhaps you could ask it in this forum, but it seems rather dead.

[The_Reckoning]

hey there, I was wondering how you managed to get the leader pictures to have that authentic monitor-sytle lined effect?

[#endgame]

Originally posted by dfy
Hey SManiac,

just wanted to try your mod today as those new SE settings look really tempting . As the mod doesn't change the game executables, I thought it should work okay with the Loki Linux Port of SMACX, but it dies before showing the main menu - an strace didn't leave anything I can use either.

Would be really glad if anyone had a solution to that problem

Thanks,
dfy

Maybe you need to run dos2unix or unix2dos over the txt files?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by The_Reckoning
hey there, I was wondering how you managed to get the leader pictures to have that authentic monitor-sytle lined effect?

All the "new" graphics are remixes of factions that are on www.networknode.org. It was described there how to do it IIRC. Unfortunately the site's bandwidth seems to be constantly exceeded the last couple months.

[vyeh]

Try accessing networknode at the beginning of the month. I was able to get on the site June 1.