About beelining to Industrial Automation...

[Dis]

I still don't do this, I know I should beeline for IA.

But I'm silly. I still always go for secrets of the human brain first. Although that depends on which faction I am. If I'm playing against the University I usually don't even try. I have no chance.

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by HongHu
Not traded because I was looking at first available tech. You know, at turn one.

If you're talking about a PBEM, at least one generated by the Scenario Editor, I think the traded-techs thing needs to be set to 'Yes' (even) at the beginning; apparently the action of a CMN assigning the starting techs is equivalent to trading in the game's lights. I think the spreadsheet just cycles the tech counter once or twice anyway, like modifying the slot number.

Although in my experience the spreadsheet generally works just fine, I think that sometimes, like when using the University, for example, it might be necessary to lie about some of the settings to get the spreadsheet to work right; it's just a matter of getting it to focus once on the right group of techs to withhold when you first start using it for a particular game, the rest of if (namely the joker tech and all the misc mechanics like the prereq's and all the subsequent tech choices) seems to be OK without the need to jigger at all once it has been tuned in. If there seems to be trouble, just mess with the slot number til the techs withheld match what is actually the case in the game in question, then everything will be alright after that.

[GeoModder]

Frankly, I don't understand what you're talking about.

A game/scenario creator giving techs to a faction in the scenario editor is considered as traded techs between factions?
Or are you saying that the tech cost will increase more then it should by giving techs pré-game to the factions?

Is this solved if you only give starting or free choice techs to factions then?

[Enigma_Nova]

Is it CTRL-F2 or SHIFT-F2?
Do you force a tech breakthrough or assign the techs via the big tech list?
Or, like me, do you generate a game, open the scenario editor, clear the map and take it from there?

There will be a different mod shift on each one.

[Snowflake]

I don't think we are talking about tech cost here Geo. Only tech availability.

[smacksim]

Originally posted by gwillybj

{referring to HongHu's and Minute Mirage's question/answer about twiddling the alpha.txt during an MP game}

The order of the techs in alpha.txt is extremely important. The "line numbers" (which begin with zero) are keyed to every other part of the game that is keyed back to a tech's "line number" - some of which is hard-coded. If the order is changed, it will break many, many things.

Three things.

One, if you know what you are doing you will break nothing. This is a large part of mod making. The text isn't hard to understand. You must follow the rules though. IE, techs need prerequisites that exist. Spelling / syntax must be accurate. Other than that, it's a fun and powerful way to change the game. Just be sure you keep a backup and use it for MP games that you start.

Two, changes made to the alpha(x).txt are 'picked up' by the scenario editor in scenario games and likewise in regular MP games. Thus, whoever creates the game determines these things for the whole game. So don't start a game with a tweaked alpha.txt and then expect to be able to change it back mid-game.

Three, I'm not 100% positive about number 2 .However, I can say I've played a few modded games and scenarios in which the changes (made by the creator) took effect irregardless of anything I did or didn't do with my local copy of the text. I'd need to do more thorough testing to see if this is always true. If it is, as I suspect, then MP games are nicely vaulted against this sort of tampering or accidental mis-match of texts.

-Smack

[Hydro]

B-lines and directed research are for whimps!

[Snowflake]

Perhaps ACDGIV could be blind research.

[Illuminatus]

Indeed.

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by smacksim
. . . . Two, changes made to the alpha(x).txt are 'picked up' by the scenario editor in scenario games and likewise in regular MP games. Thus, whoever creates the game determines these things for the whole game. So don't start a game with a tweaked alpha.txt and then expect to be able to change it back mid-game.

Three, I'm not 100% positive about number 2 .However, I can say I've played a few modded games and scenarios in which the changes (made by the creator) took effect irregardless of anything I did or didn't do with my local copy of the text. I'd need to do more thorough testing to see if this is always true. If it is, as I suspect, then MP games are nicely vaulted against this sort of tampering or accidental mis-match of texts.
-Smack

I can give a strong "YesNo" to that, or a "BooRay" if you prefer .

Some stuff is 'captured' in the scenario (like the #Units list) but most stuff isn't. For example, if you change the chopper speed in the #Chasis table (so they don't go as far) in your alpha(x).txt, and then play a PBEM, your choppers will be affected in the PBEM (but later players with a normal alpha(x).txt will not). Some stuff from the faction.txt files is also captured, like maybe everything up to (and I think including) the #BaseNameLists, but again, some is not, like probably the #Datalinks and beyond - don't know about the #Blurb, but if it only shows when you are starting a game, it wouldn't make sense for them to have gone out of their way to store it.

Regarding Blind Research, it is quite likely that it behaves in a similarly predictable way (presumably more complicated though); if we used that in the next ACDG, it would no doubt interest someone in doing the legwork necessary to figure it out. OTOH, perhaps there is a weighted randomness involved in the Blind Research algorithm, which would keep it from being as predictable (although that imperfect predictability is anathema to some ).

[smacksim]

BooRay indeed

Glad to see you've taken up the creative end of things JohnD. And whatever is 'picked up' or not, it is wise not to meddle unless you are confident of your file-swapping abilities.

-S

[Chaos Theory]

Actually, in my experience, the base name list is not only not attached to saves and scenarios, it's not even in memory in the current game! I was tinkering with a faction file's base name list during a game, and although I kept saving the faction file, I didn't reload SMAX. However, one of the bases I subsequently founded had a new name. It's ridiculously inefficient to reparse the faction file every time a base is founded, but you can get away with that in UIs...

[Maniac]

*BUMP*

After for a time fruitlessly seeking out why the tech choices the tech choice simulator gave me didn't match the real choices, I finally discovered the "Starting techs" setting in the simulator doesn't seem to work, does't have an effect on what techs will be available: it doesn't matter whether I have 1, 2 or 10 starting techs set. Am I the only one with this problem, or is it a programming error in the excel file?

In any case, once again a big thumbs up for Minute Mirage and his tech choice simulator.

[Maniac]

More specifically, the "b" doesn't seem to be calculated in.

I think I've got the basic formula figured out now. This is what seems to work for me:

t = position of tech in alphax.txt (0-88)
n = total number of technologies for the faction
b = number of technologies at the beginning of the game for the faction
s= slot number of the faction

The condition is

(n + t + s - b) mod 3 != 0

[Hercules]

I found that the slot number has a significant effect.