XP and Aliens

[Gremnon]

Ok, tried the old voxel thingy to get SMAX to work on XP, and it didn't work.
So I used the patch.
Now the I can't play as the alien factions.

Well, ok, you can, so long as you don't want to use the unit workshop, since when you make a new unit both unit abilities become a line of some weird symbol, and then when you exit, the game crashes.

Any ideas anyone, or am I just spouting nonsense as usual?

[Petek]

I was able to reproduce the crash, but only when adding abilities or armor to alien Colony Pods. A similar problem was reported in this thread, but for the Mac OS.

This appears to be a genuine bug. Does your game crash when adding special abilities to units other than Colony Pods? If this happens only when modifying Colony Pods, you should be able to live with it.

Petek

[Gremnon]

For me, if I make a unit that has no abilities, I get the odd symbol.
The only exception is if there's premade units - then the symbol doesn't show up until I select a different unit.
And the crash itself happens on exiting the design workshop by using Done, or after making a unit, with cancel.

If there really isn't any way around it I can put up with it, but I'd prefer to play the aliens if I can.
Userpers, for preference, incidentally.

[Petek]

Sorry, I can't reproduce your problem, only what I described above.

I can only suggest that you uninstall/reinstall/patch. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you.

Petek

[Gremnon]

Ok, my mistake on that one, it was my way of designing units at fault there.
I did try a complete reinstall, also re-tried the voxel and the xp patch and it still seems to do the same.
I've got one idea I'm going to try, but I don't have high hopes on that one.

[Gremnon]

I hate to double post, but you might forgive me after you see why.
The little idea I had worked.
Replace (and back up, of course) the ACOLPOD.cvr file with a copy of drop.cvr.
Your alien colony pods will look like human ones, though with a top bit missing, but it does fix this bug. Now you can play as aliens on XP.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Gremnon
I hate to double post, but you might forgive me after you see why.
The little idea I had worked.
Replace (and back up, of course) the ACOLPOD.cvr file with a copy of drop.cvr.
Your alien colony pods will look like human ones, though with a top bit missing, but it does fix this bug. Now you can play as aliens on XP.

You can always edit your post, which is what I did on the thread that reported your problem for Mac OS.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4922726#post4922726

If more than a few hours have passed, a double post is preferable (except in my case when I was adding a note in case someone like Petek finds the old thread) so your edit isn't missed.

Personally, I don't have a problem with double posts. I sometimes do it to keep each post focused on a particular thought.

Thank you for reporting a solution!

Edit: Added link to previous thread.

[Petek]

Nice troubleshooting! I can confirm that your solution fixes the bug.

Petek

[Gremnon]

Heh, thanks...
I'm trying to work out exacty what it is in the ALCOLPOD.cvr - aka alien colony pod anims - that XP doesn't like, but since all I have is a cvr animation viewer, there's not much I can do.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Gremnon
Heh, thanks...
I'm trying to work out exacty what it is in the ALCOLPOD.cvr - aka alien colony pod anims - that XP doesn't like, but since all I have is a cvr animation viewer, there's not much I can do.

No, thank you!

I've seen Petek help many gamers here and at CivFanatics. You're the only one I know of that has found a new solution.

I can tell you that the problem and solution also exists under Mac, so it isn't just the XP operating system.

I performed a quick test on my Mac (running classic under Tiger). I confirm that the solution works for Mac.

I wonder why this bug causes crashes under both Windows and Mac.

I'm glad a solution was found for this bug. Armored CP's are useful.

[Gremnon]

I'd be able to make some progress if I knew a bit about how cvr animation mechanics work, how the game accesses them and the like, but as said, all I have is a viewer. Which I think I found through a link from here, actually.
That, and it's been a long time since I did anything like this at all, so I'm a little rusty.

[Petek]

According to this thread and this thread no one has ever been able to modify caviar files. It might be possible to do so using 3D Studio Max, but the current retail price is $3495!

Petek

[Gremnon]

Hmm.... inconvenient.
But for the moment, I could do with just understanding how the dratted things work.

[WBird784]

CVR issues

In case you are still interested, the windows cvrplayer available on the internet doesn't work on anything newer than a Pentium II. I uploaded a hacked version that effectively calls all newer processors PII so it does work.

As far as the problem you were discussing, ACOLPOD.cvr is an animation (it includes animation instructions) DROP.cvr does not. It is likely that the animation instructions are causing the problem.

As far as the file format, it appears to be a fairly simple one. There is an 8 byte file header the contains "CVR" and the file length and a number of segments. Each segment has an 8 byte header that includes a segment number (or type?) and a segment length (including the header). The contents of the segments is the difficulty here and that isn't obvious. If this is still an issue I could probably remove the animation instructions see what happens.

[vyeh]

If you could remove the animation instructions from Acolpod.cvr and upload the hacked version, I could test it for a Mac. It would be nice if the alien colony pod looked alien.