Fixing SMACX Bugs

[Petek]

Cmcastl,

If you could continue to post game saves just prior to your crashes/freezes, we could look at them. These errors are among the easiest for scient to fix. This Firaxis page contains all the official patches for SMAC and SMAX. Except for scient's work, I know of no other patches (by which I mean changes to the exe files). If you know of any, please post a link.

Also, please visit the WePlayCiv site. The Alpha Centauri community there is very active.

Petek

[Cmcastl]

Many thanks, Petek.

As I said, the original SMAC has an atmosphere to it and "one more turn and I shall go to bed" that the Civ IV version just does not have!

Live long and prosper.

[Russia4Life]

*wonders what scient is doing*
Haven't heard anything from him in a while.

[GooglyBoogly]

Sometimes RL just gets in the way, have patience.

[Cmcastl]

Scient,

Looking at your very first thread, one of the SMAC guys kindly looked at my crashed game with a large map and said that a Gaian fighter aircraft was at fault. You mention a fix for this. Where is that, please?

Live long and prosper.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

See the first two posts for mention of a Pressure Dome glitch.

Bug, or poorly thought-out feature?

[zsozso]

Sorry for chiming is no late, but did you guys know about this very old thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7650

You probably covered most of them here already, but it might be worth a browse just in case...

[Petek]

Sorry for chiming is no late, but did you guys know about this very old thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7650

You probably covered most of them here already, but it might be worth a browse just in case...

This project actually began in this thread at CFC. Your thread was mentioned there, but thanks for bringing it up.

Petek

[Cmcastl]

Guys, what are you trying to tell me? I can only repeat that I read on some thread or other that when SMAC gets too big, because of modern processor power and OS, it freezes. SMAC always has frozen for me since I returned to it a few months back. I just cannot complete a game. (I have installed the XP compatibility patch). I cannot even begin a game with Alien Crossfire! Is there a patch for any of this out there or what?

Live long and prosper.

[Doux]

Guys, what are you trying to tell me?

As far as I can deduce no post after your previous post was trying to tell you specifically something.

In Nim's bug, when you conquer a base, facilities show up in bases that you originally built.

Agreed, a bug.

In my bug, you have a faction that gets a free facility, e.g. University gets a free network node. Usually when you conquer a base, you get your free facility, i.e. network node, in the the captured base. However, occasionally you don't get your free facility.

I think this is not a bug. The free facility seems to me to be treated like any other facility and therefore has a chance to be destroyed randomly.

Can we agree that

"Children's Creche. ... All negative morale effects are cancelled for units in base square; instead such units receive a +1 morale modifier." (p. 166)

means

(1) For units in the base square, the table on p. 159 becomes:

MORALE (from social engineering, Doux)
-4 Normal Morale (where normal means unmodified, Doux)
-3 Normal Morale
-2 Normal Morale
-1 Normal Morale
0 Normal Morale
1 +1 Morale
2 +1 Morale (+2 on defense)
3 +2 Morale (+3 on defense)
4 +3 Morale

AND

(2) All units receive a +1 morale modifier?

Can we agree that morale shouldn't affect lifecycle (that is why they use different terms and it doesn't except in the limited case of units defending inside a base under morale SE=3 and 2)?

The lifecycle is influenced in a different way than the morale, agreed. Also, (1) and (2) are true, in my opinion.

One aspect I am missing from all morale-modifiers-rules is the fact that when a unit's home base is rioting, it receives a -1 morale penalty (regardless of it being in a base, it's home base or in the open field). That is correct, isn't it? I could not find it in the manual nor datalinks, but I do remember seeing units with a - after their morale. Can somebody confirm this? Of course there is also the MORALE from SE that has to be applied (see later this post), but I think the -1 morale from a riot should be countered in this phase already by the CC. I don't know how the scheme continues though, since this is only part of the morale modifications.

Stating again, if that effect that riots reduce unit morale exists, it should be countered by the Children's Creche, following the definition. If there are other morale reducing penalties for units in the base square, they should also be negated. Again, all from the definition of the CC.

This assumes that you agree with me on #379 and #381

For a defender in a base, morale_fin starts out as unit's current morale so 0-6

• if base has HQ, +1 to morale_fin
• if bases has CC, +1 to morale_fin
  if unit is not native
  -> retrieve morale SE value, if < -4 set to -4.
  -> if > 0, set to 0
  -> if < -1, +1
  So range is from -3 to 0, it now takes this value and calculates: morale_fin = morale_fin - moraleSE_mod. Where moraleSE_mod is the bounded morale SE value.;
  else
  After this check, if unit is native and Brood Pit is present in base: +1 to morale_fin
  endif
• If base doesn't have CC but does have a BP and defending unit is native, +1 to morale_fin and delete {do following
  -> retrieve morale SE value, if < -4 set to -4.
  -> if > 4, set to 4
  -> if < -1, +1
  So range from -3 to 4, it now takes this value and calculates: morale_fin = morale_fin - moraleSE_mod. Where moraleSE_mod is the bounded morale SE value.}
• If base doesn't have BP/CC or BP/CC checks are done, do the following.
  ->If unit is not native and if morale SE value is 2 or 3, +1 to morale_fin
  -> If unit is Aliens (red) faction, +1 to morale_fin (I couldn't get an additional morale boost when I put an alien (red) faction in a base without a CC or a BP)
• set morale_fin bound to 0 instead of 1 to sort issue with very green units not getting penalty

This fixes the following bugs:
(1) HQ defensive bonus not implemented, p. 104 ("Units in a headquarters base automatically gain +1 Morale when defending.")
(2) Native units getting a boost from BP and CC when there is no morale SE penalty when morale SE < 0.
(3) Native units getting a penalty from BP when morale SE > 0.
(4) Native units getting a defensive kicker in a base under morale SE=3 and SE=2 only (and not from any other morale SE values).
(5) Very green defensive issue (however, this happens outside a base, so I believe the fix isn't in the part of the code that deals with bases).

This should work, but it is still too similar to the game code, which leads to the bug that lower morale units get a higher morale bonus from the CC than higher morale units.
It should work in the sense that the CC gives a +3 morale bonus if SE choices lead to -4 MORALE, which should later be subtracted again (from the MORALE: morale_fin -> morale_fin -3 ) so that the CC effectively cancels the morale penalty. This is at the moment not the case, or so it seems from the realtime game data, but it might have to do with that the MORALE penalty is somehow not subtracted, I don't know.

[Russia4Life]

One aspect I am missing from all morale-modifiers-rules is the fact that when a unit's home base is rioting, it receives a -1 morale penalty (regardless of it being in a base, it's home base or in the open field). That is correct, isn't it? I could not find it in the manual nor datalinks, but I do remember seeing units with a - after their morale. Can somebody confirm this?

This is correct it doesn't matter where the unit is if it's home base is rioting it get's a (-)

[Cmcastl]

K... Well, is everyone but me able to play a full game of SMAC on Windows XP with a large map, for I surely can't!

[Russia4Life]

I can, and I can play on vista as well with no problems.

[Ironwood]

You know, I just realized something.

Since multiplayer games require that all players use the same version of the game (I think...), and the .exe that is being fixed is, well, an .exe, if it becomes the de facto standard for the multiplaying community, those of us who are happily playing the Loki version are likely to end up incompatible.

[GooglyBoogly]

well, yeah cannot have different game rules for each player - that would be MADNESS.