Strange Units.

[Infernis]

I'm a long time lurker here at Apolyton, first time poster. Mainly because before I came here I 'thought' I knew how to play SMAC. Beat the game on Transcend with ease, played head games with the Original Seven just for kicks. And only played a few games of MP as my connect sucks.

Now, I see I've barely scratched the surface. Learning about the lethal efficiency of ICS and looking over the mods in Creation. Well, let's just say I've been a tad unwilling to voice my opinion in the face of all this experience.

But, I ran into something strange today. A Fungicidal Missle Foil? What? I found myself puzzled. And then intrigued. I immediately rushed a Foil Probe over and requisitioned it in the name of the Provost's need for new toys.

Brought up the workshop screen, found it on the list. But, it never showed on the screen. Simple Missle Foil, no mention of Fungicidal on the Workshop screen. But, there it was down on the list. Fungicidal Missle Foil. I never could make my own.

Looked like a Missle Foil with a set of yellow graphics attached to the front of it on either side of the missle rack.

Anyone else run into this?

[smacksim]

It's easy to make this possible by editing the alpha(x).txt. However, I've never seen it happen 'by accident' with a normal game. Take a gander down at the units part of alpha.txt and you'll see a bunch of

; Mode    = Offense mode (or noncombat package type)
;           Combat modes: 0=Projectile, 1=Energy, 2 = Missile
;           Noncombat: 7=Transport 8=Colonist
;                      9=Terraformer 10=Convoy 11=InfoWar
;                      12=Artifact

and then the weapons packages themselves (skipping to terraformer):

Terraforming Unit,    Formers,        0, 9, 6, -1, Ecology,

Changing that 9 to something else could allow terraforming on other units. But much easier is to just change things like 'fungicidal' or 'super-former' to be allowed on combat units. That's further down the page in alpha.txt

; Flags  =
;          00000000001 = Allowed for Land units
;          00000000010 = Allowed for Sea units
;          00000000100 = Allowed for Air units
;          00000001000 = Allowed for Combat units
;          00000010000 = Allowed for Terraformer units
;          00000100000 = Allowed for Noncombat units (non-terraformer)
;          00001000000 = Not allowed for probe teams
;          00010000000 = Not allowed for psi units
;          00100000000 = Transport units only
;          01000000000 = Not allowed for fast-moving units
;          10000000000 = Cost increased for land units

Which are applied to the abilities right below here:

Super Former,           1, EcoEng2,  Super,     00000010111, Terraform rate doubled

or in your case

Fungicide Tanks,        1, Fossil,   Fungicidal,00000010111, Clear fungus at double speed

either of which, if a '1' is place in the appropriate slot, will make a unit appear with two yellow (usually) 'super-former' ears stick out of a combat unit.

That was more of an answer than you asked for, but I've been workin' on this stuff today anyways. And welcome to Apolyton, where lurking is an art.

-Smack

Edit: Note, this is just slightly different in alphax.txt, where there are 4 more abilities and 2 more zeros on the special abilities.

[Infernis]

See, this is what I mean. Knowing about all the txt things and how to modify the game. Not me. And I'm not quite ready for that yet.

Anyways, yeah. I can see how you could 'make' it happen, but I've 'never' seen the game do it on its own before. Shocked the hell out of me and I'm wondering 'why' would you want to do that, anyway? Armed Formers? Crazy

[Maniac]

Re: Strange Units.

Originally posted by Infernis
Anyone else run into this?

Yeah indeed. It was kinda fun to see those.

Would my guess be correct that it was Miriam who had those fungicidal missile foils?

[Infernis]

Santiago, actually. I was playing as the good Provost and the blackhaired devil woman came calling one day not long after I got PN. She bullied some tech out of me before I got my probes built and then I went calling. Found those Fungicidal freak-machines on their way over to visit.

[smacksim]

Any ideas Maniac on what triggers this 'feature'? I know you have some ideas

See, there ya go. An experienced modder like me comes along, and there is always someone more experienced

Come to think of it, I think I have seen this. Are you running just Smac, and not Smax? Armored Formers have their use, but Formered-Military is just silly.

-S

[Infernis]

Just SMAC. Don't have SMAX and can't get it online and it's nowhere near where I live. Don't ask. I hate Credit Cards now.

Anyways. Just SMAC, patched to the hilt, run on WinXP.

[smacksim]

Ok, well I've played a lot more Smac than Smax, so it could still happen in Smax. Not sure. I hope you don't have to have an answer, 'cause I don't think anyone really knows.

This is my guess as to what happens: The AI builds 'custom' units all the time, right?

Tangent-1: Sometimes the AI has it's formers attacked, and decides to send out a few armored ones. Just at that time, they happen to be prototyping a new armor. Now you have a 1-3-1 armored former (that happens to be fungicidal). Oh no, now they need a new ship. They take the best-armored unit they have and build a prototype from that base. IE turn a 1-3-1 former into a 1-3-4 foil. Step one, change the chassis to a foil. Step two, change the 'weapon' to a gun. Step three: publish new unit

Tangent-2: Variations of above, but with gifted units. The special ability sticks to the newly 'customized' units built on shiny old prototypes.

-S

[Infernis]

That has the sound of logic to it. I'm going to write it off with that explanation simply to bring some closure to the insane thing. Only Santiago would put a missle launcher on a Former unit.

[smacksim]

What, you mean you don't take a gun with you to the garden? Santiago probably has missile launchers in every room of her house, just in case a fly needs swatting

[Qwerty88]

What do you mean 'missiles on formers', Fungicidal Missle Foils can't terraform, the ablility does nothing at all, I know because I tried giving the Unity Mining Laser the ability to terraform and attack but theres no way short of making all formers able to attack or all lasers able to terraform.

[smacksim]

I believe that was somewhat figurative. See the top of the thread for the unit in question.

[gwillybj]

Originally posted by smacksim
What, you mean you don't take a gun with you to the garden? Santiago probably has missile launchers in every room of her house, just in case a fly needs swatting

In my house it's snakes, so I keep a hatchet at the ready. ssssCHOP
I'm working up the nerve to cook one for dinner.
As for strange units: A couple of weeks ago I opened a pod in fungus and got the "Indigenous Lifeforms!" announcement, but what appeared was one "Alien Colony Pod". This was a SMAX game but with the SMAC-7 factions, so no Progenitors. It looked just like a standard human colony pod, with 0-0-1 for the Weapon-Armor-Chassis, but the body was red instead of white. It had a red morale flag, so it did, indeed, belong to the Eighth Faction. I didn't attack it because I wanted to see what it would do: Would it attack like a mind worm? Would it establish a base? It just moved off into the fungus, though, and I never saw it again.

[Commy]

But what about weird graphics? For example, play one of the scenarios, like Single Player Fun, on Crossfire, and the graphics for some of the units are all screwed up...

[Zeiter]

As for strange units: A couple of weeks ago I opened a pod in fungus and got the "Indigenous Lifeforms!" announcement, but what appeared was one "Alien Colony Pod". This was a SMAX game but with the SMAC-7 factions, so no Progenitors. It looked just like a standard human colony pod, with 0-0-1 for the Weapon-Armor-Chassis, but the body was red instead of white. It had a red morale flag, so it did, indeed, belong to the Eighth Faction. I didn't attack it because I wanted to see what it would do: Would it attack like a mind worm? Would it establish a base? It just moved off into the fungus, though, and I never saw it again.

Hehehe, wierd. I have noticed that in the scenario editor, it lets you create any unit in #units part of alpha.txt for any faction, including the aliens. So, if you want to try that again, open up the scenario editor, hit shift+F1, and choose colony pod (why not give them a rover or two also) and choose "aliens" as the faction. I've never tried this before, so I'd be kinda curious to see what happens...