I need to ask a favour

[bondetamp]

Hmpf.

I reinstalled SMAX the other day, and now it crashes violently whenever I try to start a new game, just before the screen where you choose factions comes up.

Yes, it is patched, and I've tried reinstalling.

Quick start works fine, though, but it seems the default is Aki on citizen with default rules.

And that sucks.

So if anyone with SMAX could make a save file from the first round of play, so I could load it, play it, and most importantly (if this works) mak it so that it becomes the new default for quick start, I'd be happy once again.

Here are my preffered parametres:

huge random planet with everything at medium (medium rainfall, erosion etc) wirh Zak as my man and on the second hardest difficulty. I also want directed research, slow research, look first, planet over view (or whatever it is called, the rules option that makes you able to see the continents from the start), all victory conditions on, cooperative victory on and do-or-die on.

(I think that's it)

If anyone could make a save file with this stuff on it and post it here, I'd be very happy.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I about something like this that occured when a custom faction which was in the last game started was deleted, but the .INI file would be cleared by the reinstall, so that should not be it.

[Method]

here. i picked random factions, and ecology as your free tech.

[bondetamp]

Thanks!

[Todd Hawks]

AFAIK you can change the default settings in the .ini. So you can start a default game with the settings you like if you don't manage to get the game to work properly.

[Iskandar Reza]

Did you delete all traces of the game when you uninstalled it? Maybe there are some files still left over that causes this.

[bondetamp]

Originally posted by Iskandar Reza
Did you delete all traces of the game when you uninstalled it? Maybe there are some files still left over that causes this.

I did that.

Originally posted by Todd Hawks
AFAIK you can change the default settings in the .ini. So you can start a default game with the settings you like if you don't manage to get the game to work properly.

Really? I'll have to look into that!

Any good tips?

[bondetamp]

hmpf.

this is my .ini file:

[Alpha Centauri]
ds3d=1
eax=1
FastUnitAnim=0
SmoothUnitAnim=0
MainFontSize=16
InterludeFontSize=16
DisableOpeningMovie=0
Prefs Format=12
Difficulty=0
Map Type=2
Top Menu=1
Faction=1
Preferences=10111011111000011001110110000110
More Preferences=1010100111100101101000
Semaphore=00000000
Announce=111100001010101001
Rules=1101000001110
Customize=0
Custom World=2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
Time Controls=1
Latest Save=
Latest Scenario=
DontResetBeginnerPrefs=0
Main Volume=127
Voice Volume=85
Music Volume=63
SFX Volume=95
WindowsFileBox=0
Base Sort=2
[PREFERENCES]
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0

Anyone got any idea what numbers I should put where?

[RedFred]

I am not a techie guy so I have no clue if posting my .ini file helps. All I know is it has no trouble starting new games:

ds3d=1
eax=1
FastUnitAnim=0
SmoothUnitAnim=0
MainFontSize=16
InterludeFontSize=16
DisableOpeningMovie=0
Prefs Format=12
Difficulty=5
Map Type=0
Top Menu=4
Faction=5
Preferences=10111011111000011101010010000111
More Preferences=101111101111100101101000
Semaphore=00000000
Announce=111100001010101001
Rules=1100000001110
Customize=1
Custom World=2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
Time Controls=1
WindowsFileBox=0
Latest Save={I have omitted this due to space}
Faction 1=JENN282
Faction 2=JENN282
Faction 3=JENN282
Faction 4=JENN282
Faction 5=JENN282
Faction 6=JENN282
Faction 7=JENN282
Latest Scenario=
Main Volume=127
Voice Volume=85
Music Volume=63
SFX Volume=95
Gamma Correction=100

[PREFERENCES]
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0

[Method]

hmmm. it seems you're able to change everything right in there in the ini. change everything to what you want, and hit quick start (is that what you were saying there Todd?).

***i'm just figuring this out as i'm posting it***

Difficulty=0-5, 0=citizen 5=transcend
Faction=Faction # you want (see below)
Rules=you have the rules code in that save i posted.
Latest Map=you can make a map, save it and put it here. i.e. E:\Games\Alpha Centauri\maps\xplanetx otherwise, play map of planet every time
Faction 1=enter GAIANS
Faction 2=the PIRATES
Faction 3=factions UNIV
Faction 4=you ANGELS
Faction 5=want MORGAN
Faction 6=to PEACE
Faction 7=play DRONE

you said that it was set on aki on citizen, so that explains why your difficulty is 0 faction is 1. i don't know what all the rest of that stuff does though.

if you can't fix it any other way, i can just make you a sav. every time you want a new game, and we each get another post each time (not that you need it, you already have your custom avatar)

BTW, did i just say stuff everyone else already knows?

[Major Guz]

Did you play custom factions before you reinstalled?
If so, the alpha.txt (when playing SMAC) or alphax.txt (when playing SMACX) could have a paragraph starting with #FACTIONS. Look underneath this heading and there should be something like
Gaians, Gaians
Morgan, Morgan
etcetera when playing SMAC
or
Pirates, Pirates
Cyborg, Cyborg
etcetera when playing SMACX

If the names of your custom played factions are there and the game can't find them then the program will crash.

Yesterday I wanted to play my custom factions, but I did not put their files ([Faction].pxc, [faction2].pxc, [faction3].pcx and [faction].txt) in the main alpha centauri directory but in subsequent subdirectories. Then the game crashed at the faction selection screen. This problem was resolved when i moved the files in the alpha centauri root directory.

I hope this can help you...

[Googlie]

Problem seems to me to be that you have a line:

Faction=1

in your .ini file but there is no faction 1 listed, so it will crash looking for it.

You need to enter seven factions in your .ini file, in which case a quick start will then select faction 1 as the lead in.

Here are the seven smac factions in order, to cut and paste to your .ini file:

Faction 1=GAIANS
Faction 2=HIVE
Faction 3=UNIV
Faction 4=MORGAN
Faction 5=SPARTANS
Faction 6=BELIEVE
Faction 7=PEACE

And as major Guz saya, you obviously need to have these seven factions as the defaults in your alphax.txt file (I'm assuming that they have not been altered in your alpha.txt file)

so in alphax.txt, there should be a block of text (almost at the end of the file):

#FACTIONS
GAIANS, GAIANS
HIVE, HIVE
UNIV, UNIV
MORGAN, MORGAN
SPARTANS, SPARTANS
BELIEVE, BELIEVE
PEACE, PEACE

Then should come the smax factions:

#NEWFACTIONS
CYBORG, CYBORG
PIRATES, PIRATES
DRONE, DRONE
ANGELS, ANGELS
FUNGBOY, FUNGBOY
CARETAKE, CARETAKE
USURPER, USURPER

After that you can list your custom factions (here's the extract from my alphax.txt:

#CUSTOMFACTIONS
ACADEMY, ACADEMY
WORKERS, WORKERS
COVEN, COVEN
NAUTILISTS, NAUTILISTS
MERMAIDS, MERMAIDS
SEAMEN, SEAMEN
GUNRUNNERS, GUNRUNNERS
DISCIPLES, DISCIPLES
MERCHANTS, MERCHANTS

(you obviously need to have the respective faction.txt files and graphics files in your smac root directory to be able to see these as choices for a game)

Going back to your .ini file - while editing this, many vets will also disable the opening movie (set the flag to =1 from =0), delete the "dont reset beginner" line (or set to =1) and will toggle the Force old voxel line from =0 to =1. many of us also toggle the Windows filebox line from =0 to =1, to bring up classic windows boxes instead of the smac variants - seems to make for much easier navigation thru the various smac directories and PBEM saves, etc.

I hope this helps

Cheers

G.

[bondetamp]

OOh! Thanks all! I'll have to try this.

I feel kind of silly for never having opened those files before. Not much of a tech head, I suppose.