New Puke w/some ?'s

[Primus Pilus]

i've been playing SMAX for ~3-yrs. running XP Pro 2.8 Ghz w/i believe all the game updates(?). here's my ?'s: (1) is there a cmd line in alpha.txt or alpha.ini that will allow MP online games? every time i try to access and use MP or Scenario the game crashes or will not allow more than one human. i know that firaxis dropped online support (AlphaHQ) (2) i can't make any terrain improvements in map editor even though the game will still generate a random map. (3) how does PBEM work w/o 'live' gaming? (4) where's a good site for cd-crack?...btw, i like this site and have enjoyed reading the banter. i am interested in joining a game. i find ICS as blasphemous and brilliant at the same time. reminds me of how The Matrix would build a civ...anyway, all help is good, and please be kind to a newbie...

Lead Spear
Chaos Legion

[Darsnan]

Re: New Puke w/some ?'s

Originally posted by Primus Pilus
i've been playing SMAX for ~3-yrs. running XP Pro 2.8 Ghz w/i believe all the game updates(?).

I am assuming if you are running SMAC(X) on a 2.8GHz system you've downloaded all of the pertinent patches from Firaxis, yes?

(1) is there a cmd line in alpha.txt or alpha.ini that will allow MP online games?

I believe this is hardcoded material, not something that is easily edited, and so would say no to your question.

every time i try to access and use MP or Scenario the game crashes or will not allow more than one human.

Are these MP and Scenarios games you've generated yourself, or ones you've downloaded (i.e. generated by another machine)? This could help diagnose where the problem is. One way to ehlp deifine this issue better would be to download some of the Scenario "Challenges" from either here or CGN, as this could help define whether your scenario building problem is with your machine, or just in general.

(2) i can't make any terrain improvements in map editor even though the game will still generate a random map.

Don't know what to say there. Its starting to sound more like you may have some corrupted SMAC(X) files to me. [/QUOTE]

(3) how does PBEM work w/o 'live' gaming? (4)

Once your done your "turn", you zip the saved off file and E-Mail it to the next player in sequence.

where's a good site for cd-crack?...

Rynn's Gallery. I'm OOT currently and don't have the website available. PM Googlie for the website.

Cheers and good luck fixing your problem(s).


D

[Maniac]

Hi Primus Pilus, Welcome on Apolyton.

It indeed seems you have some corrupted files. Have you already tried a reinstall to solve some of the problems you mention? That's what I do if something doesn't work right anymore, and it has helped every time until now.

[Qwerty88]

I think I recognize your second problem, when I select new senario or open map or something with the senario editor already on I don't get the terrain emprovements menu, pressing 'Y' twice (turning the editor off then on) my put the menu option back on the bottom.

[Googlie]

Re: Re: New Puke w/some ?'s

Originally posted by Darsnan
Rynn's Gallery. I'm OOT currently and don't have the website available. PM Googlie for the website.

Naw - I took it off the Gallery as I was bumping my free upload limit.

You'll get the smac one here

and the smax one here

[Qwerty88]

There's a cd-crack for smac, I didn't think it needed one, I thought you could always run it without the cd

[Chaos Theory]

Installing SMAX changes SMAC to require a CD. It's pretty lame, though easy to undo with a crack.

[Commy]

Perhaps you have forgotten to hold the Ctrl key when trying to place improvements?

As for multiplayer, it might not be your game, it could be your computer or internet protocol...

[Primus Pilus]

thanks for the info. i didn't get any manuals, so for ex i didn't know about the ctrl key in map editor. i will retry it. i seem to recall the MP problem from my old bootleg game version, and it's still here w/my legit CD. i will reload after i finish my huge (256x256) solo game...PP

[johndmuller]

Errors in the AlphaCentauri.ini file can cause fatal errors when loading the game (references to factions that are not defined in your AC directory, for example). Once in a blue moon (watch out, there is one this month), the game itself will write a dysfunctional AC.ini file if it encounters odd errors or is interrupted by oddball events like your cat (or your best friend ) chewing on the power cord. Having an assortment of known good AC.ini files to try out is one of the easier ways to deal with what otherwise seem like intractable problems.

If you have a second complete installation (one that works ), you could even swap executables just to convince yourself that the program itself hadn't gotten corrupted somehow (which is, IMhO, a hugely unlikely event). You could further swap .txt files, or whatever else you think you might have changed until you discover somthing 'interesting', but at some point, it becomes tempting to just massively replace stuff or reinstall : instead of persisting until you figure out exactly what happened (after all, you probably won't like what you figure out, as it will probably be something you did to yourself even if you couldn't have known better).

Errors in the FactionName.txt files can cause fatal errors when trying to include that faction in the game. Some of these can be quite subtle, like replacing the initial intro text for the faction with a long string (which may look OK in your text editor due to wordwrap) without enough CR's to keep the longest individual string short (255?) enough for SMAC/X to digest.

Needless to say (unfortunately), many of these errors will not display any error messages (or at least not anything relevant to the problem) and can be awfully hard to find. That's why the imfamous "ReInstall" advice is so freely given (don't you hate it when tech support people tell you to do that - more particularly, the way they do it , as if throwing away all the work you put in customizing and tuning things up meant absolutely nothing).

[Maniac]

Originally posted by johndmuller
but at some point, it becomes tempting to just massively replace stuff or reinstall : instead of persisting until you figure out exactly what happened (after all, you probably won't like what you figure out, as it will probably be something you did to yourself

[Primus Pilus]

i moved my massive sav game and did a complete re-install. to my pleasure and chagrin now i have MP capability. what puzzles me is that i have never messed around in any of the txt nor ini files, so something must have been corrupted along the way, ala the infamous dll files which are the cornerstone of the supreme windows OS (NOT!!!)...PP