Fixing SMACX Bugs

[Petek]

Can you take a screenshot? I've never seen that message before but I'll kill it if it's a useless check. I can always use more space to put my own patches.

Sorry, I thought everyone else was seeing this msg. I don't think that it's generated by the game. Here it is:


Never mind. I just realized that I can suppress the msg by unchecking the "Always ask before opening this file:.

Petek

[Darsnan]

Here is a playtest scenario concerning the ship bombardment/ altitude bug. Essentially move the Gaian ships one tile away (preferably onto a "higher elevation") from the Hive, then bombard them. Note that you should also be able to use the Marine Detachment ability this way to capture the Hive ships, which (being kinda nit-picky here) is a bug IMO in that marine detachments should be for close quarter ship-to-ship combat only.

I also seem to recall that perimeter defenses didn't work on sea bases, but they seem to be working in this scenario. Has anyone else had any experience with these? Same with gravship chassis not being able to recover pods or Unity Wreckage: gravships used to go over the pod/ wreckage, and the pods/ wreckage would disappear, however now the gravships just go over top of said terrain.

D

[vyeh]

If a seabase with a land unit and a perimeter defense is attacked by a naval unit or an air unit, there is no perimeter defense bonus. I discovered this in ACDG5.

I think that perimeter defense would only give the defender a bonus against a land unit (i.e. an amphibious land unit attacking from a transport).

[Darsnan]

If a seabase with a land unit and a perimeter defense is attacked by a naval unit or an air unit, there is no perimeter defense bonus. I discovered this in ACDG5.

Ah, OK.

I think that perimeter defense would only give the defender a bonus against a land unit (i.e. an amphibious land unit attacking from a transport).

I agree.

[Lord Avalon]

Does perimeter defense give a land base defensive bonus against air and naval attacks?

[Russia4Life]

IMO sea bases with perimeter defenses should protect against naval attacks. I could understand it not being effective versus air attacks but against naval attacks it should definitely come into play.

[vyeh]

Lord Avalon,

No. Perimeter defense only gives a +100% bonus against land units. If a naval unit attacks a land base, it is only a naval bombardment (the naval unit can't destroy the defender, but it attacks every unit in the base).

Russia4Life,

There is a logic. Naval Yards give defenders (whether a land unit or a naval unit) +100% defense against naval attacks. Aerospace complex gives defenders a +100% defense against air attacks.

Note that Tachyon Field adds +100% to all defense. So perimeter defense + tachyon field is +200% against attacks by land units.

[scient]

The altitude bug is already fixed and will be included in next update. Maybe tomorrow I'll see if I can put together a quick run down how battle bonuses work.

@Petek: Ya, that message is a Windows thing.

I am sorry if this has already been covered.

Could you look up what governs base riots and defections especially? It is a rare thing to occur in SP, and it seems that drones always join the nearest faction. I am not even sure if Free Drone advantage for defection works properly.

Sure, will have a look. I have this one game as Free Drones where one of their bases defects to Angels. I thought it was kinda odd because FD are suppose to be less prone to this. Granted, I was running everything into the ground to test something and I had extremely high tech Angel military units setup all around Drone's territory.

Did you ever get this to work?

1) Activate scenario editor.

2) Place cursor on any ocean square (every ocean square that can be reached from the highlighted ocean square will be effected, so you can use this to increase the nutrient yield of all open ocean squares).

3) Then Edit Map > Place Natural Landmark > Freshwater Sea.

I had no problems using an existing game file or editing the map of planet.

No I haven't. I noticed that in this one saved game (see attachment) it places it but down at bottom of map even though I'm trying to set it in some other location. The same thing happens in my patched exe and vanilla. I select tile at (50,50) and do steps above but it gets set at (6,78) which is down at bottom of map. I start a fresh quick start game, same thing. I even tried removing it first but it still messes up coordinates. Can anyone else confirm? Maybe this bug doesn't exist in OSX version.

[vyeh]

I got the same result. Here is the explanation.

Because you picked a sea square, every sea square that a naval unit could travel to from that square became fresh and the name of the landmark was placed at the bottom-most square.

Note the solution in post #2.

[Russia4Life]

I thought of a bug that I don't recall being mentioned yet(at least I consider it a bug). Involving a Sea base next to the shoreline, normally you cannot move a land unit from the base to the land square without the amphibious ability or a transport, but if you have another unit of yours or one of a pact brother/sister on the target square you can freely move from the base to the shore even if there is no transport available and you do not have the amphibious ability.

[Illuminatus]

Never mind. I just realized that I can suppress the msg by unchecking the "Always ask before opening this file:.

I remember that message. I guess the rest of us immediately suppressed it.

[Psyringe]

I thought of a bug that I don't recall being mentioned yet(at least I consider it a bug). Involving a Sea base next to the shoreline, normally you cannot move a land unit from the base to the land square without the amphibious ability or a transport, but if you have another unit of yours or one of a pact brother/sister on the target square you can freely move from the base to the shore even if there is no transport available and you do not have the amphibious ability.

Ah, that could explain why in my last game I seemed to be able to move a former from a sea base to the shore even though I thought it shouldn't be possible.

[scient]

I thought of a bug that I don't recall being mentioned yet(at least I consider it a bug). Involving a Sea base next to the shoreline, normally you cannot move a land unit from the base to the land square without the amphibious ability or a transport, but if you have another unit of yours or one of a pact brother/sister on the target square you can freely move from the base to the shore even if there is no transport available and you do not have the amphibious ability.

Fixed. There is a check while attempting to move an unit that sees if tile you're moving to is occupied by another unit. If so, it skips over a set of checks that are the only branch linking to "AMPHIBBASE2". This is the id for fail message when you try to move an unit from base to land without amphibious pods or transport. The checks after this one that get skipped include does unit have amphib pods, is there a transport in same square as unit and three others I haven't determined what they do. All these checks if passed jump to same code that first check goes to. So, there really is no point in having that check. I'll have to do some more testing like with enemy and pact units. I'm also going to have a look at set of checks for land to base since that is working correctly.

[Psyringe]

So, there really is no point in having that check.

I'm not sure if I understood your description correctly, but I suspect that the check might be necessary for ZOC rules. The ZOC of other (non-pact?) player's units prevents you from moving past them unless the tile you're moving to is already occupied by a friendly unit. Is it possible that the game (correctly) checks whether the destination tile is occupied by a friendly unit, so that ZOC rules don't need to be checked, but then (incorrectly) skips the checking of land/sea transition rules as well?

[vyeh]

I'm not sure if I understood your description correctly, but I suspect that the check might be necessary for ZOC rules. The ZOC of other (non-pact?) player's units prevents you from moving past them unless the tile you're moving to is already occupied by a friendly unit. Is it possible that the game (correctly) checks whether the destination tile is occupied by a friendly unit, so that ZOC rules don't need to be checked, but then (incorrectly) skips the checking of land/sea transition rules as well?

You can always move to any square adjacent to a base when leaving a base even if the base and the square you're moving to are both in an enemy ZOC rule. p. 90 says a unit can always move into a base square regardless of ZOC, but does not mention moving out of a base square.

The rules say a base exerts a ZOC. However, an empty base does not.

Note the rules are slightly inconsistent. The first sentence talks about "an enemy." The second paragraph exempts "Pact of Brotherhood."

It turns out that "treaty partners" do exert a ZOC.

Note that while factions that are in vendetta or truce prevent you from working a square they are standing on, a faction that is in treaty with you does not prevent you from working a square.

So treaty partners exert a zone of control preventing your military units from moving freely, but do not prevent your workers from harvesting resources from the square they are standing on.

Anyway, the empty base not creating a zone of control is a bug since p. 90 says, "Bases and land and air units exert a "zone of control."

I suppose that being always able to move out of a base despite enemy ZOC is a bug since it is not mentioned as an exception to ZOC rules.