SMAX Bugfix

[#endgame]

Ages ago, some guy called Switek did all these bugfixes for Total Annihilation, which fixed all these little stupid things.

I'm wondering if something similar would be possible for SMA(C/X)?

Suggestions:
Add predesigned rover formers to help the AI

Change the default probe team (the one prototyped with plan. nets) to infantry chassis, and predesign a rover probe team that requires plan. nets and doctrine: mob.

Probe rollover bug fix: Set the angels to +1 SEProbe instead of +2? What about fundy?

Progenitors: Need : Balancing? Alien Faction : Flag : Much depends on it. Battle Ogre : Directed Research : Survey : Energy Grid.

Beef Cha Dawn?

Move this to the AC-Creation forum?

Ideas people?

I envisage an Apolyton Standard Bugfix Pack.

[Skanky Burns]

I have no idea how to do it, but I support these bugs being fixed. Obviously.

[#endgame]

I think some of it is in the files like angels.txt and some would be alpha/alphax.exe

[Kody]

Add predesigned rover formers to help the AI

Change the default probe team (the one prototyped with plan. nets) to infantry chassis, and predesign a rover probe team that requires plan. nets and doctrine: mob.

Requiring PN and Mobility isn't possible. However, the other two ideas are possible to implement.

Note that rover formers probably wouldn't help the AI that much. They wouldn't know how to use it properly, and the increased cost would slow the AI down more I think.

Probe rollover bug fix: Set the angels to +1 SEProbe instead of +2? What about fundy?

Some players think it's a significant disadavantage to get their probe reduced by 1. Instead this bug needs to be fixed in the source code.

Progenitors: Need : Balancing? Alien Faction : Flag : Much depends on it. Battle Ogre : Directed Research : Survey : Energy Grid.

No clue what you're talking about. Sentences would help.

Beef Cha Dawn?

It'll take a long time to arguing on how Cha Dawn could be or shouldn't be fixed.


The bugs that really need to be fixed are in the source code, if source code for SMAX was available. Then someone could actually write a real patch for the game. Alpha centauri has a really long buglist.

[#endgame]

Still, we should do what we can.
What I'm saying is that the Progenitors have a flag "Alien Faction"that does the following:
- Starts their game with a Battle Ogre Mk1 and extra colony Pod
- Gives them Progenitor Psych and Field Modulation
- Changes their graphics
- Disables Commerce & enables City Energy Grid
- Sets conquered bases to size 1 and spawns C-Pods for the defeated faction (The reverse is also true).
- Gives them unity survey, even if it's disabled
- Gives them directed research, even if it's disabled

But some progenitor things that could be changed:
The free rec.tanks at each base O.O
The Combat bonuses (Example: Usurpers get 3 levels of morale bonus at the moment: +1 from their natural SE bonus and +2 from their "Resonance sensitivity")
Caretakers on top of what they can currently do, can also capture mindworms.

[#endgame]

I hate to double post, but here goes:

I meant alpha(x).txt not .exe since we don't have the source.

For speeder probe teams, you could auto-design them at cyberethics since the requires D:mob and Plan Nets (Unless you trade for Cyberethics). Maybe it's just better to leave it at autodesigning an infantry team at Plan Nets and assume that anyone who uses the pack will understand how the unit workshop works.

If the above idea were to be used, also add foil probe teams on autodesign. Apparently it helps the AI (thanks to Straybrow), but make the requisite tech Doctrine: Initiative, since that requires IA (plan nets) and D: Flex. As for speeder formers, I can't find a reasonable early game tech that depends on both (tech charts scramble my brain). Rover formers wouldn't be that useful anyway, I suppose.

Another thing that the Alien Faction flag does is block communication until the Aliens get social psych or the humans get progenitor psych.

[Commy]

Actually, the AI does use rover formers, but only in certain conditions. I just made a post about this somewhere else. Basically, Domai had two rover formers make a road to my small empire to hurry war parties against his enemies, which apparently I was being a buffer zone. So, I accepted a pact and gave hime "right of passage" so that he would go on to kill Aki-Zeta...

As for infantry probe teams, I honestly don't like the idea. The nice thing about rover probes is that they can have a one square gap between them and their target, so that an infantry garrison can't get them...

[#endgame]

Yeah, I read that thread, and it also mentioned the probefoils.
The purpose of infantry probes is to prevent them being revese engineered, but you can still make them with D: Mobility.

Poking around alphax.txt, it seems that the settings for binary armours are still in the game (i.e. the projectile/energy/missile settings vary for weapons and the armour types vary). Has this been disabled by hardcoding? I can't find combat % for different armour types in alphax.txt, but I think it changes the game too much anyway

Also, it appears that there were once techs to disable mainenance costs for facilities (e.g. Network nodes were planned to be free after self aware machines), but that feature got canned too.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Kody
No clue what you're talking about. Sentences would help.

The progenitors need balancing.
The FLAGS in alpha.txt are important.
What about the Battle ogre, energy grid, directed research and unity survey?

Seriously, you can't speak Progenitor?
Speech: Progenitor: To remember: Easy.
Therefore
Kody: N00B
Enigma: to PWND1: Kody

[#endgame]

At least someone understood what I said. But you did have the advantage of my later posts. Another Progenitor trait that I forgot to mention is:

- Cannot pact with humans
- Cannot treaty with other aliens
- Caretakers cannot transcend.

I'm wondering if something like CSPL for CivII: ToT is possible, to get around the source code thing.

[Qwerty88]

Still, we should do what we can.
What I'm saying is that the Progenitors have a flag "Alien Faction"that does the following:
- Starts their game with a Battle Ogre Mk1 and extra colony Pod
- Gives them Progenitor Psych and Field Modulation
- Changes their graphics
- Disables Commerce & enables City Energy Grid
- Sets conquered bases to size 1 and spawns C-Pods for the defeated faction (The reverse is also true).
- Gives them unity survey, even if it's disabled
- Gives them directed research, even if it's disabled

Some of these just modify the rules, if you play as aliens everyone can direct research, if not aliens can't direct research either, the same may be true of unity survey

At least someone understood what I said. But you did have the advantage of my later posts. Another Progenitor trait that I forgot to mention is:

- Cannot pact with humans

I've had pacts of servitude as aliens from all humans and as humans from both aliens

- Caretakers cannot transcend.

through a bug caretakers can transend as dicussed in my thread 'Impossible Victory Achived'.

[#endgame]

Qwerty88, the transcending caretakers was what I meant as per your thread.

I meant pacts of brotherhood, not servitude.

How does the alien faction stuff work in multiplayer, I wonder?

... Tests ...

It seems that the surver and blind research are handled as per the game settings. Phew. Imagine the overpoweredness of directed research when everyone else was researching blind!

Since the effects of facilities is not in any text files, I expect it would be in terranx.exe? My thought is to change the covert ops centre to +1 PROBE so then only a Fundy Miriam would probe rollover by building them. Of course, a Fundy Roze will probe rollover anyway, with this fix or not.

[#endgame]

Double post again... Sorry

Another thing would be to fix errors in the datalinks, most notably the eco damage. I sent an email to the guy who made the CSPL, but I haven't heard back yet.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by #endgame
Poking around alphax.txt, it seems that the settings for binary armours are still in the game (i.e. the projectile/energy/missile settings vary for weapons and the armour types vary). Has this been disabled by hardcoding? I can't find combat % for different armour types in alphax.txt, but I think it changes the game too much anyway

If you want to learn how to edit and fix some of the bugs in the alpha(x).txt file look here . FYI.


D

[#endgame]

Darsnan, that's really nifty!

Say, what do people think about the following bugfixes: From the alphax thing Darsnan posted:

Bug-fix: The Antigrav Struts ability is not applicable to air units by default, even though both the manual and help texts say so. Looking at the flags of this ability it becomes clear that the Antigrav Struts ability is disabled for air units. To enable the ability for air units the tenth binary flag has to be set to 1:
Antigrav Struts, 1, Gravity, Grav, 000000111101, +1 movement rate (or +Reactor*2 for Air)



Bug-fix: The Amphibious Pods ability is not applicable to Probe Teams, although the game sometimes suggests that you apply this ability to your Probe Teams. To fix this change the seventh binary flag in Amphibious Pods special ability to 1, which allows the ability to be applied to non-combat units. This possibly affects other units as well, but I see no problems with that, since this actually makes sense (amphibious ground transports etc.):
Amphibious Pods, 1, DocInit, Amphibious,000000101001, Attacks from ship

Also, any datalinks errors found, please send to:

SpamWeldingMaskMan AT hotmail DOT comSpam

Any links for the research and ecodamage formulae would be handy too.