new default units in alphax.txt

[Glacialis]

Tried to add in another one, let's call it "Armored Colony Pod". Duplicated and altered the colony pod entry. Sure, no problem. Saw the 23 up at the top and yup, there's 23 units -- so I changed it to 24. Faction editor doesn't recognize it. Is this a valid unit or do I need to stick it in somewhere else?

[Marid Audran]

I've had problems inserting pre-designed units in the alphax.txt as well. The biggest one is that they don't appear on the pre-design lists at all, ergo, the AI remains clueless about them. I'm pretty sure I've input all the parameters correctly, including special ability tags, to the letter. When I tried giving a custom faction of mine a free Fungicidal Former, I got some weird-looking 1-1-1 unit instead, with an icon that looked like a city on a black asteroid. When it fought a mindworm it promptly crashed the system.

I've tried designing a Probe Foil, Probe Cruiser, Needlejet Colony Pod, Police Citizens, and Clean Guards, but nothing showed.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Marid Audran
I've tried designing a Probe Foil, Probe Cruiser, Needlejet Colony Pod, Police Citizens, and Clean Guards, but nothing showed.

Hmm - I'm having great success with probe foils and foil supply ships - and yes, the AI does build them.

I struggled at first trying to give the 2 prereqs for the unit, but the game just recognizes one, so I defaulted them to a later tech that encompassed both.

here's the extract from my alphax.txt:

#UNITS
25
Colony Pod, Infantry, Colony Pod, Scout, 8, 0, 0, None, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Formers, Infantry, Formers, Scout, 9, 0, 0, Ecology, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Scout Patrol, Infantry, Gun, Scout, 3, 0, 0, None, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Transport Foil, Foil, Transport, Scout, 7, 0, 0, DocFlex, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
*Sea Formers, Foil, Formers, Scout, 9, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Supply Crawler, Infantry, Supply, Scout, 10, 0, 0, IndAuto, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Probe Team, Speeder, Probe Team, Scout, 11, 0, 0, PlaNets, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Alien Artifact, Infantry, Artifact, Scout, 12,10, 0, Disable, 2, 00000000000000000000000000
Mind Worms, Infantry, Psi, Psi, 1, 5, 0, CentEmp, 3, 00000000000000000000000000
Isle of the Deep, Foil, Psi, Psi, 7, 8, 4, CentMed, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Locusts of Chiron, Gravship, Psi, Psi, 4,10, 0, CentGen, -1, 00000000000000000000100000
Unity Rover, Speeder, Gun, Scout, 3, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Unity Scout Chopper, Copter, Gun, Scout, 4, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 00000000000000000000100000
Unity Foil, Foil, Transport, Scout, 7, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 00100000000000000000000000
Sealurk, Foil, Psi, Psi, 6, 6, 0, CentPsi, 4, 00000000000000000001000000
Spore Launcher, Infantry, Psi, Psi, 0, 5, 0, Bioadap, 5, 00000000001000000000000000
Battle Ogre MK1, Infantry, R-Laser, 3-Res, 0,10, 0, Disable, 6, 00010000000000000000000000
Battle Ogre MK2, Infantry, R-Bolt, 8-Res, 0,15, 0, Disable, 6, 10010000000000000000000000
Battle Ogre MK3, Speeder, String, Stasis, 0,20, 0, Disable, 6, 10010000000000000000000000
Fungal Tower, Infantry, Psi, Psi, 3, 0, 0, Disable, 1, 00000000000000000000000000
Unity Mining Laser, Infantry, Laser, Scout, 0, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Sea Escape Pod, Foil, Colony Pod, Scout, 8, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Unity Gunship, Foil, Gun, Scout, -1, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Foil Probe, Cruiser, Probe Team, Scout, 11, 0, 0, DocInit, -1, 00000000000000000000000000
Foil Supply, Foil, Supply, Scout, 10, 0, 0, AdapDoc, -1, 00000000000000000000000000


As I say, the AI does build them - in a recent game the angels built scads of probe foils

G.

[Glacialis]

I'm speaking of both ACEdit 2.0 (I don't really find much usefulness in that program, to be honest) and the SMAX faction editor. For the 'bonus units', I suppose I could just type it in manually in the faction file, though I wasn't thinking of that last night . What I was getting at was that the faction editor and ACEdit both don't appear to respect that 23, 24, 25 or whatever listing how many lines of units there are. They just take the first 23. Is this true? If so, fine and dandy I manually edit. If it's not, I'd like to know how to force it to work. Thanks Googlie, regardless

[Googlie]

It's actually the first 22 - and if you simply go into alphax.txt and change the order, it will bring up the unit in facedit if it is one of the first 22 on the list (so you might want, for example, to drop the fungal tower, artifact, locust, Ogre III and maybe the sealurk to the bottom of the list, as it'd be unlikely you'd be giving them as a free starting unit.)

So, for example, you could create a nautical Angels and give them a free foil probe to start in lieu of a regular one.

G.

[Glacialis]

...it's just for faceditor, not the actual game? Yay!