In the years 2330s - crash with Data Angels

[Petek]

You probably haven't applied the Win 2k/XP compatibility patch for SMAC. Doing so deletes the terran.icd file, increases the size of terran.exe and removes safedisc protection from SMAC (i.e., no CD required to start SMAC). I only learned this a month or so ago when scient pointed it out.

Petek

[BlackCat]

Well, since I can run SMAC/X without these patches I'm pretty happy

And that brings us back to Dan_grr's problem. My unmodified PP can apparently run without problems while the newly released can't.

Dan_grr - it migth be a far out sugestion, but could you try to uninstall, install and apply the patch that apparently is on the CD but NOT apply the XP patch ?

[scient]

The 2000/xp patch has a number of files with it but I think only the SMAC and sound.dll are updated. After extracting all the files from installer, most of the files have time stamp from 1999 or 2000 while dll/exe are from 2002. At some point I'll check all the files crc's to see if any are actually updated. Actually, it looks like 2000/xp patch doesn't makes any changes to SMAX so isn't necessary in this case.

One ini setting I highly recommend is:
DirectDraw=0

After disabling directdraw I can now use mouse wheel in almost all the menus.

[Petek]

I have to respectfully disagree here. I think that Dan_Grr should try my suggestion in post #8. Has anyone else tried my suggestion? Open the save file. You see a blinking cursor on Free Drone Central. Press the "V" key. This activates an Angel NeedleJet in Digger's Descent. Do something with the NJ. The rest of the turn now plays out as normal and the MY advances to 2336.

I've been offering computer tech support here and in my former job for 17 years. When someone says that their system "crashes" or "freezes" it does not necessarily mean what we think it means. Dan_Grr could easily mean that the game stops responding, but there's some easy way to get it going again.

Finally, the Windows 2k/XP update has absolutely no effect on SMAX. It modifies neither terranx.exe nor terranx.icd.

Sorry for ranting.

Petek

[Dan_Grr]

Hey guys, I checked and there is no more units to move. There's a jet I move and a missile battery that I Shift+A to automate and then the game freezes.

I pressed Ctrl+F4 in-game to check the version and it's:

"Alien Crossfire, Release 2.0 - 20-Dec-1999"

So when the game freezes I have to press Ctr+Alt+Del and I noticed the program I have to shutdow says "TERRANX.ICD" instead of "terranx.exe" which was the Alien Crossfire .exe I click to play. This is probably not important but I decided to mention anyway.

By the way my "terran.exe" is 2.79MB; my "terranx.exe" is 243KB and my "TERRANX.ICD" is 2,93MB.

[Russia4Life]

Have you started/played any other games? It sounds to me that your save is corrupted or something. It may not be desired to just give up on a game that you are in the middle of but if your next game freezes to you will have a definite confirmation if it is the saved game or the program.

[Dan_Grr]

It happened with 2 games already, both in the 2330 decade.

[Petek]

I've reproduced your problem and, yes, the game is freezing. When you first open the save file, the two Angel Chaos Artillery units are set to automatic. However, when their turn comes to move, the automation is removed (presumably because of the nearby presence of the enemy Pirate Needlejet). If the artillery units are moved manually, no freeze occurs. Only when they are re-automated, as you point out, does the game freeze.

I was able to reproduce this problem in your game in the scenario editor: If I create an Angel artillery unit (any weapon or chassis) and place a NeedleJet (any other faction) exactly two squares away, the game freezes when I automate the artillery unit. However, I couldn't reproduce this behavior in a new game.

This definitely appears to be a bug in the game and not with your installation or PC configuration. However, I couldn't find a way around it. Perhaps scient can figure out what's gone wrong, now that we have a way to reproduce the freeze.

Petek

[scient]

I found the code that is going into an infinite loop which is most likely automation AI. I also know why it's going into infinite loop. The artillery wants to hit the air units but can't. For some reason because the AI can't have it's way it goes all screwy. If you give the artillery "Air Superiority" and "Heavy Artillery" with Neural Grafting then it hits the needlejets fine and doesn't freeze.

[vyeh]

In the first game that crashed in 2231, were there also artillery and needlejets involved?

[scient]

Try to bombard an air unit when artillery doesn't have SAM. It does nothing and unit still has it's turn left. This is exactly what is happening with automated unit except because it's on auto it gets stuck in a loop. And because of that, the code that would normally send you to the next active unit gets stuck and game freezes. How to fix this? Not sure yet.

[Petek]

Update: I now was able to recreate the bug in another game (Uni artillery vs. Believer NeedleJet).

Petek

[BlackCat]

Try to bombard an air unit when artillery doesn't have SAM. It does nothing and unit still has it's turn left. This is exactly what is happening with automated unit except because it's on auto it gets stuck in a loop. And because of that, the code that would normally send you to the next active unit gets stuck and game freezes. How to fix this? Not sure yet.

I think that the Automate function needs a serious overhaul - while I don't automate military units, I often set formers on autoimprove. It works reasonably in the early years, but after Monopole Magnets, it just goes haywire. Formers will often shift between two tiles doing nothing until movement points are used up.

[WolfRenault]

When you automate a unit, does that mean it decides what to do based on what it is and what's around it, or does it mean that it is played with as if the AI of your faction was put in charge of it?

[scient]

Ok, it has nothing to do with SAM or whatever. If you exit out of the game completely and relaunch it will cause artillery attempt to fail. The problem is with a global not being set that causes the attack code to end prematurely. The global gets set in a tons of places like moving, attacking, artillery (hotkey/right click), etc. There is a function for automation that handles what task to do where it sets this global in certain areas. So it's a problem here with it not being set. I'll have to look at it some more but it should just be a matter of setting global. Then no more freezes.

Oh and ya, I've heard that as well that automation code is buggy.