Fixing SMACX Bugs

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

scient, off-topic, but I used your name in vain in a new thread in Creation here. You're the only one mentioned I thought might miss it; just a heads-up.

[Russia4Life]

p. 41. "Ocean and ocean trench squares can not support bases or be enhanced."

I discovered in ACDG5 that both human and AI players can establish bases in ocean and ocean trench squares.

This may be outdated due to the Nautilus Pirates. They can improve ocean and trench squares with the discovery of advanced ecological engineering. Also I believe forcing them to only be able to make cities in shelf squares would seriously handicap them. If there is a way to still allow the pirates to build cities in ocean/trench tiles while prohibiting the other factions I would be for the change of this.

[vyeh]

ACDG5 was a SMAC game. The aquatic faction ability allows the Pirates to build terraforming improvements in ocean and ocean trench squares, which non acquatic factions can not do.

[vyeh]

Another bug report by Darsnan on the CFC thread:

"Falls under the "Getting the AI to play more sensibly" bug: if an AI lands an Interceptor (i.e. the fighter was airborne at the beginning of the current turn) at a base which has an enemy needlejet adjacent to it, then if the AI has movement points left on its Interceptor it should then attack the enemy fighter (currently it does not).

Bug: sometimes when Probe Ships are repatriated, they are placed into bases which have no naval outlet."

I think I remembered there were times when I could use a plane that had been airborne at the beginning of the turn to attack an adjacent enemy unit and other times when I couldn't.

[Russia4Life]

ACDG5 was a SMAC game. The aquatic faction ability allows the Pirates to build terraforming improvements in ocean and ocean trench squares, which non acquatic factions can not do.

Other factions cannot improve ocean or trench squares I am aware of this. If the only way to fix the trench and ocean tile cities though would also prohibit the pirates from building a colony in an ocean or trench square I would be against it. If possible maybe limit the ability to build a colony in ocean and trench to an aquatic faction.

I just feel if you put a limitation on them that forces them to stick strictly to shelf tile colonies you will screw them over quite hard, after all why have the ability to make ocean/trench improvements if you can't fully utilize them by having a trench or ocean colony.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

scient, this is an expression of appreciation you should see.

...I'm horribly jealous of you...

[vyeh]

Another Darsnan CFC bug report:

"Bug: if you are in treaty with an AI and you attack the AI's city which only has an artifact in it you suffer no diplomatic hit for this attack - you are still in treaty after this, even if it means your attack destroys the city.

D"

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

For Petek's observation with a user-created map to which I am responding below, see here, towards the end of the post.

In regular games, I frequently get "[some faction's] Formers have altered the rainfall patterns near $BASENAME0.", with the base named usually being my youngest. I also get "Our formers" when I build condensors, boreholes, or raise/lower, which I do a lot late-game.

For both, it never seems to have anything to do with my base that is named in the message, and, outside the effects supposed to occur, I rarely notice any effect anywhere, let alone the vicinity of my named base- though it's hard to keep track even on the small maps I favor. Seems buggy.

[vyeh]

Darsnan stated on the parallel thread:

"Can anyone confirm the following for me: if you take away the Progs starting techs from their text files, then start as said Prog faction, you still get the two techs (i.e. these tech selections are hardwired for the Progs). If this is confirmed would this be considered a bug or a feature? Personally speaking I'm leaning towards "feature" as it frees up space in the text files to insert other abilities.

D"

I responded:

"I recently checked the techs that the aliens got on starting a randomly generated game.

The Caretakers got Centauri Ecology, Progenitor Psych, Biogenetics, Information Networks and Field Modulation. However, this is the line from CARETAKE.TXT:

ALIEN, 0, DEFENSE, 125, SOCIAL, +PLANET, TECH, Biogen, TECH, InfNet, TECH, Ecology, FACILITY, 3

Note that Progenitor Psych and Field Modulation are not listed.

The Usurpers got Centauri Ecology, Progenitor Psych, Biogenetics, Applied Physics and Field Modulation. This is the line from USURPER.TXT:

ALIEN, 0, OFFENSE, 125, SOCIAL, +GROWTH, SOCIAL, +MORALE, SOCIAL, -PLANET, FACILITY, 3, TECH, Ecology, TECH, Physic, TECH, Biogen

Again note that Progenitor Psych and Field Modulation are not listed.

Comparing the faction characteristics in the SMAX manual on the disc with the faction text, one can infer that "ALIEN, 0" gives the two techs, "energy grid" in lieu of commerce, "space survey," nonblind research and deep radar ability for all units.

I went ahead and took away the Progs starting tech for each Prog and started each Prog. I will confirm that they both had Progenitor Psych and Field Modulation."

[vyeh]

In ACDG5, we were in a pact with the Gaians, who were in a pact with the Spartans. We were in a vendetta with the Spartans.

A Gaian unit was in a Spartan base. If we attacked the Spartan base, we had to declare a vendetta on the Gaians.

If the Gaian unit was out in the open, we could move onto its square without any problems.

I think this is a bug.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

In ACDG5, we were in a pact with the Gaians, who were in a pact with the Spartans. We were in a vendetta with the Spartans.

A Gaian unit was in a Spartan base. If we attacked the Spartan base, we had to declare a vendetta on the Gaians.

If the Gaian unit was out in the open, we could move onto its square without any problems.

I think this is a bug.

Yes, and the converse, of course- I get submission pacts broken this way a lot when unit-stacked w/ someone the submissive faction is in vendetta with, or happen to be standing on a wild mindworm that popped up. (I release into the wild a lot when an AI submissive needs pruning, so not that I don't deserve it, but still.) After which, they pursue the renewed vendetta enthusiastically...

Like Petek's message bug, I'm not posting just to be helpful- I'd like this bug dead.

[Petek]

Like Petek's message bug, I'm not posting just to be helpful- I'd like this bug dead.

I just want to be clear that I was not reporting a bug with the popup message. I was reporting an anomaly with a condensor creating arid tiles and wondered whether or not this behavior was standard.

Petek

[vyeh]

I've seen farmed tiles go from moist to arid when I constructed a borehole several squares away. I have not noticed farmed tiles going from moist to arid when I constructed a condensor.

I set up a situation in the scenario editor where I had a 5x5 square of moist tiles (place a Great Dune and remove it). Using the map editor, I placed a condensor. The immediate squares went to rainy but nothing happened to the squares that were 2 squares away.

I also tried a situation in which a faction built a condensor. No changes.

I did notice when placing a condensor around places that had elevations that sometimes tiles further than the adjacent tiles would go from arid to moist, but that seemed to follow the rule that there couldn't be an arid square next to a rainy square.

But I couldn't get a situation where placing a condensor caused a formerly moist square to become arid.

[Petek]

Thanks for checking that out. The situation that I described might have resulted from playing on a 1024x2048 map. When I completed the condensor, the game froze for about ten minutes (the same thing happens when popping either an earthquake or a river from a pod). It seems as though the entire map is somehow being regenerated to account for the change. I'll surely build more condensors in the game, so I'll watch for this to happen again.

Petek

[vyeh]

The situation that I described might have resulted from playing on a 1024x2048 map. When I completed the condensor, the game froze for about ten minutes (the same thing happens when popping either an earthquake or a river from a pod). It seems as though the entire map is somehow being regenerated to account for the change. I'll surely build more condensors in the game, so I'll watch for this to happen again.

Petek

Another method would be to save your current turn. Go into the scenario editor and remove the condensor via the map editor. My experience was that when I placed and removed a condensor I returned to the same situation.

The one time I loaded that huge map into my map editor, I noticed that it took a long time to move via the arrow keys (using the mouse was a lot quicker).

I'm sure that after a condensor is completed, the game first increases the moisture content of the condensor square and each adjoining square and then it must run every square through the program to check for various conditions like no arid square next to a rainy one.

Edit: Is it possible to take a screenshot (say 10 by 10 squares) centered around the condensor in question (I assume the farm squares that turned arid would be within the screenshot)?