Max number of bases (and units)?

[Psyringe]

Hi

I just fired up SMAX again and found out that with my current PC, I'm able to generate maps as huge as 256x256 tiles in one or two seconds. That's the advantage when you're playing games which where designed for 100MHz PCs, you may be able to play them on a truly epic scale now.

My question is whether there are some limitations that would make the game unplayable (or at least not enjoyable) on maps of this size. Possibilities are:

- Limited number of bases. If there is a hard limit (say, of 256 bases, if they store it in a single byte variable), then playing maps of this size is pointless.

- Limited number of units (same reason)

- Research speed: Does it scale with the size of the map? It should be slower for larger maps (it's no fun to have copters before you've even met anyone else). Does SMAX lower research speed automatically, or will I have to mod that?

- Game end time: Currently fixed at 2500/2600 AD, I'll probably have to mod that. Fortunately that's easy.

So, if anyone has experience with SMAX games of this scale, any help, answers, or hints are welcome.

[Petek]

I play mostly on 256x256 maps. Have never built much more than ~100 bases with my own faction and have never encountered a hard limit (either for one faction or for total bases of all factions). Likewise have never run into a limit on total number of units. I don't know whether or not there are such limits, just that I haven't seen them.

Research speed automatically scales based on the larger map size.

You may run into a bug on 256x256 maps. Very often one or more factions are eliminated on turn 1. This happens so frequently that I now save the game on turn 1 and open the scenario editor to make sure that all factions are present.

[Lazerus]

Research speed does slow significantly on larger maps so yes that's taken into account.

Yeah changing the game end time is easily done in the alphax.txt

As for the max number of bases and units i've never heard of a hard quoted value therefore i can only think that you can have nigh on unlimited though i reckon the stability of the game might go into doubt.

[Lazerus]

oo same timing

[Psyringe]

Wow, two replies after just about 90 minutes, I didn't expect this. Shows that SMAX is still alive.

Thanks for the answers, I'll start my first super-huge SMAX game now. Special thanks for the bit about the faction eradication bug, I'll look for it (would have been a letdown to put hours and hours into such a game, just to find out that part of the competition didn't even get a chance to play).

[Travelerstein]

I generally tend to run 125x125, my experience in the past has been that the AI played a rather abbysmal game with super large maps. Mind you I made an almost comletly land map, the AI didnt seem to play all that well. On this topic, any mods out there that make the AI play a little more agressively? or at least be a little less passive. Once you get around the year 2400-2500 It kind of more or less sits on its hands and really doesnt do a hell of a lot, even if you lauch a massive all out attack on them. Be nice to run a mega map AND have the AI actually DO something interesting beside sit in its half built cities waiting for you too attack. ... Think Ill put pause my current game and fire up a mega map. Havent experienced the missing faction bug before.

[Petek]

Originally posted by Travelerstein
Havent experienced the missing faction bug before.

I'm pretty sure that this is a SMAX bug, not SMAC.

[Lord Nword]

There is indeed a limit on bases: 512 (unfortunate, but probably good for my health in some ways)

There seems to be a limit on units of some sort, but I'm not sure what it is. A point comes where bases just don't build new units anymore... And iirc, SMAC/X is buggy when it tells you how many units you have, if you have a lot....

[Psyringe]

Hmm, okay ... what would be a good map size for 512 bases?

I just completed a game on the pre-designed "Huge Planet" map. In the end I had about 150 cities, and the remaining opponents together had 60. So we had 210 cities (and some free space, I could've fit some more cities on and around one continent and one island I conquered) on a huge map with 8K tiles ... So I should probably limit myself to about 16K tiles (e.g. e.g. 90x180) for a builder's game (where I'll build many cities) ...

[Zeiter]

I've had over 1,200 units on the map at once before, and another 800 units or so if you count the AI units. The computer turns pass really slowly, and it's a good idea to save at the end of each turn, because the game is liable to crash rather frequently, but it still works even with that many units.

Indeed, SMAC is buggy with regards to counting your units. That's because its unit counter for the F7 screen resets at 255. That means that after you get more than 255 of one type of unit, the value for that unit flips to 0. Fortunately, your units remain in existence, but the F7 screen just doesn't register the number correctly. I know because in the aforementioned game I had something like 350 1-1-1 police garrisons. When I passed the 255 limit mark my F7 screen suddenly registered a lower number of units in my faction. I was freaked out for a second, thinking that hundred of my units had dissapeared, but then I realized that the counter just flipped.

As for a limit on cities, I'm not sure.

[Commy]

Perhaps one thing to keep in mind on superhuge maps is that the efficiency formula doesn't accomodate for map size...this is truly strange, but in any case...

It won't affect anyone who is ICSing, but, for those far-spaced sprawling empires, this could be a problem...

Even on a huge map, this isn't too much of a problem, but on the 2 games I've played on superhuge maps, it is a slight problem...

[Royale]

one thing I would like to see modded in the game, is if it can be recodded to have all 14 factions in a game, now that would be fun.

[Straybow]

I dunno if it's just my comp, but I find lots of long games lock up, and saving every turn doesn't help. Reloading the previous turn and changing something doesn't eliminate the bug.

[The_Reckoning]

Originally posted by Royale
one thing I would like to see modded in the game, is if it can be recodded to have all 14 factions in a game, now that would be fun.

I was going to make a thread to ask this, but just to save space, can it be done?

[Straybow]

Not likely. Especially since we don't have the code.