More specifically: Yitzi's patch does not work with your AI Growth Mod (or other alphax mods) unless you hand merge the two alphax.txt versions. As I have done and am in the process of testing.
Would it be possible to make a new .txt file separate from alphax which could contain all the modifications that otherwise would be in alphax and which the program would (optionally) read as an extension of alphax? Not for Yitzi's patch, but as a better approach to a mixed project like his.
By the way, my tests of the Merge of Yitzi 35d and AIG 1.30 have so far not found any bugs or weard behavior up to the early mid-game.
I'll get around to posting the merged alphax.txt here very soon so anyone else interested can take a look at it and see how it works.
I've tried playing induktio's thinker mod with SMAC-in-SMAX. After 40 turns, I'm already impressed by the AI's much better use of formers. However, there are "spore launchers" all over the place! I think SMAC-in-SMAX requires Yitzi to get rid of these.
So I wonder, what are the prospects that Yitzi's mod can be made compatible with thinker? I realize they are both "hard mods."
By the way....what is the formula for conventional missile power in the basic game?
I know fungus ones cover more squares/tiles,
do the conventional do more damage to one tile,
Great to have more players! However, spore launchers are not part of SMAC and the game shouldn't be spawning any of them when smac-in-smacx mod is activated with Thinker. It seems to me you're running the game without actually enabling the smac_only mode. To see if the parameter was passed properly, check if the main menu changes shade to blueish color. If it has greenish color, then the game is just running in the usual SMACX mode. You also need to install the modified txt files from smac-in-smacx mod's Github page for it to work correctly.
Well, there are no SMACX techs, facilities, or secret projects, so I'm happy with it. But it's true that the main menu has green text and says Alien Crossfire. I just loaded the text files from SMAC-in-SMAX using the mod launcher as recommended on the thread for that mod, manually replaced the map of planet with a SMAC version, made the above described change to spore launchers, and replaced the sounds for all unit chassis types with a short silent file. The result is basically SMAC.
I don't understand why would you manually edit the txt files when they have been already edited to exclude the SMACX stuff.
Spore Launcher, Infantry, Psi, Psi, 0, 5, 0, Disable, 5, 00000000001000000000000000The smac-in-smacx mod will not work as intended unless you *also* start the game with smac_only=1 variable or -smac command line parameter, either of them works. This is required to disable many SMACX behaviours that are present in the game binary.
I don't understand why would you manually edit the txt files when they have been already edited to exclude the SMACX stuff. Get them from here (https://github.com/DrazharLn/smac-in-smax). The smac-in-smacx mod will not work as intended unless you *also* start the game with smac_only=1 variable or -smac command line parameter, either of them works. This is required to disable many SMACX behaviours that are present in the game binary. You can still edit the txt files to tweak the random map generator for example, but it's not required.
If the Alien factions are too goofy,
Maybe the modded txt files could be bundled with Thinker, but it's really simple to download them separately too.
If the Alien factions are too goofy,That's my problem.
If you really can't accept those factions, but you're willing to accept the 5 new human factions, perhaps it would be expedient to simply delete caretake.txt and usurper.txt. Then you could, for instance, select games with random opponents and you'd never get Alien factions in the game. I haven't tried this approach so I'm not 100% sure it works, but I do know if you delete enough stuff pertaining to those factions, they're not going to be available. There are a few other files associated with a faction, but getting rid of the *.txt might do it.
Some people have issues with the technologies the Alien factions introduce, and want those gone. I'm not hardcore like that, I can't be bothered / flapped that easily. I did, however, rebalance those techs in my mod. In particular, Soporific Gas Pods are overpowered. I made them late and helluh expensive, a "soft" way of taking them out of the game. You can have them if you're willing to pay through the nose for them. And with lotsa things being otherwise more expensive and harder to obtain in my mod, you'll probably think better of it. And then you won't miss them. You won't fret about whether you should have built the Soporific Gas Pod version of everything anymore.
I really don't like anything introduced in the expansion. Even the five other human factions make no sense in the context of the game universe. Why is there already a cybernetic faction, when that tech is available only late in the game?
And a "cult of planet" run by a child, before Centauri Meditation, etc.?
Not to mention the factions based on a skill rather than a utopian social ideal - "Data Angels" and "Pirates".
University is almost like that, but at least they can be rationalized as some kind of technocracy, which has been seriously proposed on earth.
"battle ogres" (why exactly do you discover better kinds as the game goes on?)
and the very worst are, of course, "spore launchers."
Mind worms were already an enormous stretch, but an organism that projects spores two grid squares, destroying terrain improvements?
Why not? Seed hurling plants exist on Earth. Could it be that you think the unit artwork looks stupid?
I got the files from the git that you link, and I am launching the game from SMACXLauncher, as the author recommended. I am not launching from a command line, so I don't know where I can set any "smac_only" variable. It does work, however: almost all the expansion content is gone.
The distance of two grid squares, and the explosive power necessary to destroy mines, are a bit much for a seed hurling plant.
Again, I understand you're just looking at it as a board game where the pieces don't have to make sense (just as no one asks why the knights can jump in chess), but I like the setting, aesthetically, flawed as it is.
Spore launchers tend to lurk on the outskirts of a settlement, expelling bursts of corrosive spores that can destroy manmade or Progenitor improvements from a range of two squares away.
So there you have it. Corrosive, not explosive.
Even assuming these are wind-dispersed, rather than projected through the stratosphere like artillery shells,
there are no corrosion resistant coatings or materials?
Even modern artillery shells pass through the stratosphere or close, with ranges upwards of 40 km,
which is 1/1000 the circumference of Earth - less than one map square.
As for that Deirdre quote, I guess I can't get behind that either. There's clearly a lot in the original that doesn't add up, as the designers appear not to have been as scientifically literate as might be desired. Anyway, it's just my two cents. The spore launchers are not to my taste.
I hate the voice acting for Svensgaard though.What do you expected to hear, constant arrghs and other TLAPD stuff? They wouldn't put a thug in a chief Unity astrogator position.
I hate the voice acting for Svensgaard though.What do you expected to hear, constant arrghs and other TLAPD stuff? They wouldn't put a thug in a chief Unity astrogator position.
I hate the voice acting for Svensgaard though.What do you expected to hear, constant arrghs and other TLAPD stuff?
They wouldn't put a thug in a chief Unity astrogator position.
If the mod was included with thinker releases, the whole smac mode enabling process and instructions would consist of: "change smac_only variable in thinker.ini file from 0 to 1" ;)
According to the poll in the other thread 20-30% of users could be interested in trying this mode.