Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Bug/Patch Discussion => Topic started by: Kilkakon on September 17, 2019, 06:07:24 AM

Title: State of affairs of current patches?
Post by: Kilkakon on September 17, 2019, 06:07:24 AM

Hi all,

I still enjoy having a game of LE every 6-12 months or so, and I thought as it's been a few years I should check in to see how everyone's been doing. Hello :read:

As far as I can determine there are like 4+ different community patches now. What are the relative health levels of each? I'd be looking for something that lets me continue what I'm doing, enjoying my TC with friends in multiplayer. Currently we're using ZeroTierOne to do the virtual LAN type situation as direct port forwarding was not possible. While the game still has a few graphical glitches and doesn't look great on my widescreen monitor it's the best I've had for some time.

I was using the old scient patch. I understand there's other options and wondered what people would recommend. I did see that Yitzi has enabled some interesting features, the Thinker patch allegedly improves the AI and Scient has resurfaced. I take it that I have to choose between which fixes I want then?

On another note, how does anybody play in multiplayer on water maps when units "sink" when inside transports? ;ulrik; It's one reason we've had to stick to the same old random maps over and over due to intercontinental play being difficult at best.

Title: Re: State of affairs of current patches?
Post by: DrazharLn on September 17, 2019, 12:12:48 PM

Hi :)

The Thinker patch definitely improves AI performance a lot, but it does not work (or does not work properly) in networked multiplayer, unfortunately. It should work fine for hotseat/PBEM games.

The only actively developed projects are Thinker and the OpenSMACX project (which is not yet useful for players).

PRACX gets occasional maintenance from me. Scient's patch would probably get fixes from scient if there were any .exe bugs and I recently fixed an issue with the text files. Yitzi and kyrub aren't really in the community any more, but might return. Their patches are not maintained.

The scient v2 patch was mostly integrated into yitzi's patch, so you can choose between them if you like. Yitzi's patch has at least one bug (skunkworks does not reduce prototype cost sometimes), but that's not a big deal.

Personally, I would recommend scient v2.1 for MP games unless you want to use Yitzi's modding enhancements and Thinker for singleplayer games. You can install them both at the same time.

PRACX is compatible with all of them and I quite like it. It is not tested in MP, but believed to work.

Could you detail how exactly you get MP to work? Some other people have been trying but not succeeding and it would be nice to publish a guide.

Title: Re: State of affairs of current patches?
Post by: Induktio on September 17, 2019, 10:28:46 PM

So yeah, network multiplayer is not currently implemented in Thinker due to various technical limitations. It would be nice to have, but currently there isn't any good tooling to implement it without major difficulties in debugging.

However, you can still mod the random map generator by editing alphax.txt (can be found under WorldBuilder). I didn't like how the default random map generator created so many tiny islands, so it was changed in Thinker's alphax.txt. It can be copy pasted no matter which patch you're using.

Title: Re: State of affairs of current patches?
Post by: Kilkakon on September 18, 2019, 04:08:03 AM

Thank you both for the quick response. It's nice to see the new projects emerge and flourish ;deidre; Hope everyone has been doing alright.

To be honest I am morbidly curious to see how Thinker behaves with LE. It might accidentally create unstoppable monster powerhouses or fall into a screaming heap. Might be fun to give it a go sometime. :read:

In general it does sound like some experimentation is required. Yitzi's improvements sound intriguing, most specifically being able to nerf the power of building expired secret projects and the faction ability to ignore prerequisites to create faction unique units. Scient's ability to give units reactors is also fun, although I designed my game around them not being a thing so while appreciated I do not need them at this time. Of course I would want the game to remain stable so it might be case of trying out Yitzi's one and then seeing if it performs nicely or explodes. Alas neither patch gives my big wishlist item, more unit graphic slots, but as I've been away I can't complain.

I'd have to refresh my memory on how we play multiplayer. We set up a connection through ZeroTierOne, which is a more modern hamachi/Tungle replacement basically. It does work well, just has the infamous boat issue.

Title: Re: State of affairs of current patches?
Post by: Nevill on September 18, 2019, 06:18:51 AM

What exactly is the "boat issue"? You mean units sinking inside transports?

Is this specific to ZTO?

Thanks for mentioning it, by the way... I've been looking for an alternative to Hamachi since its performance was getting unreliable lately.

Title: Re: State of affairs of current patches?
Post by: Kilkakon on September 18, 2019, 07:00:36 AM

I refer to units sinking inside transports. From memory it happened even on LAN play back in the day, although it's been some time. I think it's just a bug in the game, possibly with simultaneous moves.

Title: Re: State of affairs of current patches?
Post by: scient on October 10, 2019, 03:40:00 AM

Does the units sinking only happen in multiplayer? I wonder if something where the sea transport moves and doesn't sync the sentry/board units it's carrying properly. So once it gets to them, it removes them from game.

Also, while I don't really maintain my patch if you do come across a bug in it I will have a look. Any bandwidth I have is now focused on decompilation for OpenSMACX. Probably by end of next month I should have my scripts and build process all pushed to Github. That way, you can apply it and get benefit at the very least on top of my existing patched exe.