Yitzi's unofficial SMAX patch 3.3

[Yitzi]

Includes some useful bugfixes. Details in the .txt file.
Yitzi's unofficial SMAX patch 3.3
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=281

[Guynemer]

Thanks again Yitzi!

I noticed a small UI bug, not sure if it was a holdover from a previous version (haven't played since 2.something or other): on the domestic advisor screen, the "Best Bases" area is not displaying correctly.  It just says PSYCH OUTPUT or something or other down the line.  If you click on one, it will display and sort your bases according to minerals, energy, etc, so it is just the UI display itself that is fouled up.

[Yitzi]

Very strange, as it works fine for me...

[Guynemer]

Well that is quite bizarre.  Must have been a snafu with my installation.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Actually, regarding a possible installation snafu... is it normal AI behavior in your patch for an AI to send wave after wave after wave of probe teams to be murdered by the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm?  Or wave after wave of them to simply infiltrate datalinks over and over again?

[Buster's Uncle]

Sounds typical to me.

[Yitzi]

Yeah, the AI seems fairly stupid at times...

[Guynemer]

C'est la vie.  Just wasn't sure if that was another symptom of a install snafu, or a limitation of what could be done with the AI in a 15-year-old program.  Thanks again for your hard work!

[Yitzi]

C'est la vie.  Just wasn't sure if that was another symptom of a install snafu, or a limitation of what could be done with the AI in a 15-year-old program.  Thanks again for your hard work!

Actually, I'm pretty sure that more could, in theory, be done with the AI even with a 15-year-old program (I know I've found at least one other place where the AI doesn't make much sense); it's just that the SMAX AI designers seem to have either not been top quality or were short on time.

[Buster's Uncle]

I never thought an incredible amount of effort went into Crossfire as it so clearly did for the original.

[Ms Lucifer]

Thank you!

Do I need to install 3.1 and 3.2 first?

[gwillybj]

Thank you!

Do I need to install 3.1 and 3.2 first?

No.

[Guynemer]

I did a fresh install from GOG on my wife's netbook and installed the patch, and still got that weird best base UI thing.  I'll try to get a screenshot to post here.

[CuriousCursor]

Screens for what Guy is seeing attached.

First shot is of the Best Bases screen from a game started under Yitzi's 3.3 patch with the enhanced information flag in alphax.txt set to 0.

Second shot is from the same game loaded after setting the enhanced information flag to 1.

Hope this helps.

[Yitzi]

Very strange, as I'm not getting that bug...

CuriousCursor, are you getting it on your own machine, or did you get those files from Guy?

And I'd like input from everyone else, about whether they are encountering this bug or not (and whether they got from GOG before patching or not; that shouldn't make a difference, but maybe it is.)

Another question: With enhanced information, going into each base screen should cause there to be a number after "PSYCH" in the upper middle buttons corresponding essentially to talents minus drones (but also maybe counting "virtual" talents and drones, superdrones, etc. depending on which drone rules you're playing with); the number on the base screen should correspond to one of those bases, probably either the last one in the base listing or the last one you visited.  I'd like to know which base it actually does correspond to.

And there are some more things that require someone who has the bug and is willing to help me by using a debugger to figure out what's going on...I have an idea of what sort of thing might be going on, except that I'd need confirmation and can't do it myself because I don't have the bug...

[TarMinyatur]

If I load a saved game from patch 3.2, I get the enhanced information bug described by CuriousCursor.

If I start a new game using patch 3.3, the display of "Best Bases" is normal.