SMACX AI Growth mod

[esch1lus]

let me elaborate: I was just asking if I can disable one of the features of your mod.
For example, if I want to do not make "clean reactors" available from first turn, should I delete the line code from alpha.txt?

[bvanevery]

alpha.txt is for the original game terran.exe binary.  alphax.txt is for the terranx.exe Alien Crossfire binary.  You would do your alterations in the latter.

Currently Clean Reactors has a line with the word "None" in it.  That's because there's no tech requirement in my mod for them.  They're available at the start of the game.  First you would change that "None" to the abbreviation for some tech in the game.  Then any predefined units in the #UNITS section that have the Clean Reactor ability, you're probably going to want to delete those.  They will probably all be coming before wherever you decide the Clean Reactor should appear.  You will also need to change the number of #UNITS accordingly, or when you start a new game you'll get an error.

Be advised that if you do this, you're probably going to hurt the AI's early game performance a great deal.  As much as you may have been conditioned to think the Clean Reactor is a "big reward" that you shouldn't have in your hot little hands so quick, you should objectively reevaluate the situation.  I didn't make that change for kicks.  It solves the AI's early game SUPPORT problem in the stock binary, per my design notes.

[esch1lus]

I think I did it let me know if it's correct, it seems to work in game.

[bvanevery]

I ran WinMerge to compare the old lines to the new.  Looks correct to me!

[esch1lus]

Be advised that if you do this, you're probably going to hurt the AI's early game performance a great deal.  As much as you may have been conditioned to think the Clean Reactor is a "big reward" that you shouldn't have in your hot little hands so quick, you should objectively reevaluate the situation.  I didn't make that change for kicks.  It solves the AI's early game SUPPORT problem in the stock binary, per my design notes.

It was an example in order to understand how alphax.txt works. I don't think I'm going to make any relevant change to your work since I don't have any real proficiency in game mechanics; but I would like to experiment something on my own, just for personal fun.

I played WTP recently and the modder did a great job in many regards but he has to fix recycling tanks opness (and AI not building them at all) and the strange city spam which makes easier to conquer and win (especially if you add the "steal tech" rule after taking a city). If these fixes are made, it could be a nice addition to your mod (not sure if everything could be merged anyway).

[bvanevery]

I played WTP recently and the modder did a great job in many regards but he has to fix recycling tanks opness

I was Alpha Centauri Bear's biggest / most thorough playtester for awhile.  Took a break from my own work.  Totally agree about having an early minerals multiplying "factory" is a bad idea.  Don't seem to have convinced him of that yet.  He'll need to hear it from other people.

(and AI not building them at all)

He did fix that.  If it's not happening nowadays, it's a regression.

and the strange city spam which makes easier to conquer and win

In all my playtesting I never actually finished a game.  Too much city spam.

(especially if you add the "steal tech" rule after taking a city).

Even without that, the frontage of poorly defended cities is so huge, that stealing anyone's tech with a probe team is trivial.

If these fixes are made, it could be a nice addition to your mod (not sure if everything could be merged anyway).

Uuuuh, no.     I didn't do my mod just to pile up game features and ideas.  I did my mod to push exactly how I want it as a game designer, to put my Quality Assurance on how things should be.  I don't share credit with anyone, except of course the people who originally wrote the game.  The modding is all my work.  And it was a pile of work.  The CHANGELOG is huge.

My mod occupies the development space of "doesn't need any binary modding to run".  That imposes various limitations, but you can do a surprising amount, even with that restriction.  Someone should have the arch ultimate example of what you can do without any binary modding at all, and that's gonna remain me.

If someone else wanted to integrate my mod and WTP, and be responsible for the release and quality of that integration, there's nothing stopping them.  I put my mod under CC-BY-NC license and I think WTP is under the GPL.  All a bit of a formality dance anyways as if Firaxis or EA ever got interested, I don't know what would hold up in court anyways.  Anyways the point is that people have been encouraged to DIY.

[esch1lus]

Another question: is it feasable on a .TXT level to help ai decide what design to take? I don't think that every design combination should be built, but I would like to see some SAs\reactors etc. that ai is not willing to build in any circumstance. It could be interesting to see those underused elements for a better game experience.

[bvanevery]

You can make specific designs in the predefined units section, that starts with #UNITS.  I think there is probably a limit to the number of designs you can provide.  Then the game is gonna barf.  I'm not sure what the limit is.

What's a "SA" ?  Special ability?  I have just called them "abilities", but I guess alphax.txt does comment them as "special unit abilities".

In the stock binary, there's no way to specify a reactor size for a unit.  However one of Scient's patch features is you can actually do this.  I've never used it because I'm not willing to require Scient's patch for my work.  However there's nothing stopping anyone from using Scient's patch with my mod.  It's known to work fine.

When working with the stock binary and trying to get the AI to use your predefined unit designs, the big trick is whether the AI will actually find the design valuable and produce it.  I've tried many, many designs where the AI completely ignored them.  Nice ideas on my part, but eventually I had to accept that the AI wasn't going to bite.

And sometimes you get the opposite: the AI obsesses about the design.  To the complete detriment of all other work it should be performing.  Then you have to get rid of the design lest the AI cripple itself.

I never, ever provide designs for human player convenience anymore.  Predefined units should strictly be for whatever you want to instruct the AI to produce, IMO.

[esch1lus]

yes, SA = special abilities
So according to your experience AI choices are hardcoded/unpredictable so we can't hope for it to build everything we throw in. But it could be interesting to add something inside #units table, hoping AI will build it (never ever seen soporific gas SA attached to any unit, while AAA is in the top of the list of spamfest).
Maybe I would like to know how scent's patch works so I can work on reactors then thanks for the answers, I really appreciate your dedication to this (very)old game (and you should make your own project maybe through patreon).

[bvanevery]

Soporific Gas Pods are overpowered.  They're nearly at the end of my tech tree.  I call that sort of thing "soft retirement".  If you don't want something in the game, put it so late in the game, that nobody's gonna care about it by then.  Nobody who's seriously trying to win in the minimum amount of time, that is.  Still there for sandboxers.

My point is, in my mod as it stands, the AI factions will have long since been beaten to a bloody pulp.  At least, in my games they would be.  People are at different levels of ability, and sometimes I've been surprised at the field reports of people, who are fighting really serious late game wars.  As they tell it.

In my upcoming release, due any day now, I'm hard retiring High Morale.  I don't want it messing up the game's Morale progressions.  It's a boring ability anyways.  Pay more to be better.

[bvanevery]

As the Morganites, I got trashed by the Spartans in a test game.  We started sharing a small continent.  I did a bangup job out-colonizing and out-exploring them.  Only to become complacent about defense, preferring to stick to the default research focus of Build.  They researched Conquer and came at me with Recon Rovers.  I had no answer for it, and the 2 other factions hadn't researched that tech.  Had only recently learned Information Networks, so cashing Artifacts to get missing techs wasn't an option.  They wiped out the Scout defender in one of my overextended cities as I was trying to get Synthmetal Garrisons together.

Pretty much all my fault.  This isn't the 1st time that a militant faction has proven dangerous with Recon Rovers in close quarters in the early game.  I've put plenty of defense biases and delays to keep AI factions from being gratuitously overrun, but nothing can save me from being complacent about an adjacent threat.  I probably should have strangled the Spartans in their crib, using Scouts to block them up.

[bvanevery]

CHANGELOG
--------------

Changed from version 1.51 to 1.52:

FACTIONS

- Cult of Planet: removed SUPPORT bonus.  I'm not sure if the faction AI needs to be propped up with it anymore, but it's certainly not needed by a human player.  The Cult gets tons of mindworms for free and they're all Independent.
- Morganites: may not use Socialist economics.  I decided it really is ridiculously out of character.  All of those little gold domes on the map, just don't have any Socialist vibe to them.
- University: raised RESEARCH bonus to +3.  It was supposed to happen in version 1.49 and it appears in the faction description, but the actual value was not changed.  Playtester fihttf caught the bug.

OFFENSIVE ABILITIES

- Nerve Gas Pods: now cost 2.  They're way too good an exploit to cost only 1.  When used by Aliens, or when fighting Aliens, they have no penalty on their use at all.  Other than making that faction want to kill you.
- Doctrine: Flexibility: set growth=1.  Heavy Transport is not that helpful for exploration, given the extra cost.  I want this path to me more firmly oriented towards conquest, since this tech is a prereq for C3 Adaptive Doctrine and the Command Nexus.
- Empath Song: now only gives +25% bonus.  +50% is too powerful for only a cost=1 increase.  The main value of Empath Song is making sure mindworms are not selected as defenders when attacking a base, so that the attack value of a big gun is not wasted on them.  It's essentially like a R-Laser or R-Bolt that can fit onto any weapon.
- High Morale: set to Disable.  I do not want this messing up the Morale progressions of the game.  There are plenty of other ways to increase Morale.

CLOAK AVAILABILITY

- Cloaking Field: moved to E5 Centauri Psi.  When the Aliens had this as a starting ability, it prevented any predefined units from being able to immediately use it, because the Aliens would have those units available at the start of the game.
- Field Modulation: set power=1 and growth=4, making it an E3 tech.  It now provides no benefit and is essentially a speed bump / barrier technology.  It's a prereq for E4 Bioadaptive Resonance.  Aliens have an advantage overcoming the research barrier.
- Cloaked Recon Rover: removed.
- Cloaked R-Laser Speeder: new predefined unit available with E5 Centauri Psi.  A better investment against mindworms.

TRANCE DEFENSE

- Trance bonus defending vs. psi: increased to 100%.  Mindworms are the One True Weapons Platform of the game.  They can defeat anything.  They ignore Perimeter Defenses, which is terribly overpowered.  Although my AI tweaks have caused the AI to produce more Hypnotic Trance units, it's not enough.  The units that are produced need to be a lot tougher, to stop a human player from summarily walking all over the AI with mindworms and mag tubes.
- Hypnotic Trance: moved to C2 Neural Grafting.  When the Aliens had this as a starting ability, it prevented any predefined units from being able to immediately use it, because the Aliens would have those units available at the start of the game.
- Bioadaptive Resonance: now has C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory as a prereq.  This is to make sure C2 Neural Grafting is an ancestor so that 2 unit abilities and Hypnotic Trance are available.  It also causes Plasma and 3-Res armor to be in a strict ascending sequence.  When they are not, Plasma designs can end up canceling or preventing 3-Res designs.

MINDWORM AVAILABILITY

- Centauri Empathy: now an E3 tech.  Due to the need to fix a bug in the original game binary, Green has no downsides in my mod.  Since capturing mindworms provides the most powerful weapon of the game, and any faction can do it, the ability to do so should be delayed.  This gives factions that start off with a positive PLANET rating more of an advantage.
- Centauri Genetics: set power=0 and wealth=2.  It no longer gives Mind Worm or Spore Launcher.  Removing nutrient restriction increases food, which increases growth, which does provide more workers.
- Centauri Meditation: set power=0 and wealth=1.  It no longer gives Isle of the Deep.  Increasing nutrients in fungal squares sligntly increases food, which slightly increases growth, which slightly provides more workers.
- Centauri Preserve: moved to E6 Eudaimonia.  Putting mindworm techs later.
- Mind Worms, Spore Launcher: moved to E8 The Will To Power.  Mindworms are the One True Weapons Platform of the game.  It makes no sense to give out the best weapon of the game as a Tier 3 tech.  It's possible to gain tons of mindworms by capturing them.  Disallowing the captive breeding of mindworms until late game, will give conventional weapons systems a chance to be useful.  Otherwise mindworms and mag tubes are the One True Strategy for conquering Planet.
- The Xenoempathy Dome: moved to E8 The Will To Power.  Putting mindworm techs later.
- Isle of the Deep, Sealurk: moved to D9 Secrets of Alpha Centauri.  Putting mindworm techs later.
- Locusts of Chiron: moved to D10 Secrets of the Manifolds.  Putting mindworm techs later.
- The Neural Amplifier: set cost=80 and moved to E10 Sentient Resonance.  Putting mindworm techs later.
- The Dream Twister: moved to D11 Secrets of Creation.  Putting mindworm techs later.
- Clinical Immortality: moved to B11 Matter Editation.  Putting mindworm techs later.
- Matter Editation: set growth=3.  It gives Clinical Immortality.
- Fungal Payload: moved to D11 Secrets of Creation.  With a big reactor on the missile, it's a consistent way to generate wild mindworms.  These could be consistently captured by a human player.  The mindworms and fungal towers could also be farmed for credits.
- Psi Attack, Psi Defense: moved to B12 Matter Transmission.  Putting mindworm techs later.
- Matter Transmission: set growth=3.  It gives psi attack and defense, and psi gates do help movement logistics.

POLICE AVAILABILITY

- Non-Lethal Methods: I tried moving it to C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory, but I really hated having to wait for it.  I tried using cost=-2 increases with weapon value, combined with the "cost increased for land units" flag, so that minimum cost=1.  Although it worked, it also displayed a confusing cost=0 in the unit workshop.  It isn't worth confusing the player.

TRANCE UNITS

- Trance Synth Garrison: new predefined unit available with C2 Neural Grafting.  The AI doesn't figure out to build this unit on its own.
- Trance Plasma Garrison: new predefined unit available with C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory.  The AI doesn't figure out to build this unit on its own, and will typically rush a plain Plasma Garrison when a base is about to be overrun.
- Clean Plasma Garrison: removed.  Trance Plasma Garrison is a better defense even though it costs SUPPORT.  By the time the unit is available, SUPPORT is not quite as pressing a problem.  Whereas, Clean Synth Garrison is definitely needed to mitigate the AI SUPPORT problem at the beginning of the game.

TRANSPORT OBSESSION

- Transport: removed.  The AI obsesses about building Transports, particularly the Pirate AI.  I was trying to stop it by removing this unit.  However, basic naval units have no tech requirements, so the game just designs a Transport for the player anyways.  At least this saves a predefined unit slot.
- Clean Transport: removed.  The AI obsesses about producing this.
- *Sea Formers: removed.  It's a disabled unit design.  Recycling this slot makes the unit table shorter.  Hopefully this does not trigger any bugs.  I've been paranoid about that possibility, but I've never seen any evidence of it.
- Clean Plasma Transport: new predefined unit available with C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory.  Takes the slot in the unit table that was occupied by *Sea Formers.  The AI is determined to obsess about Transports, and some kind of unit will need to be provided sometime.  Clean Synth Transport is an obvious design, but it is not offered.  It causes the AI to start obsessing about Transports way too early.  Starting with C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory is a compromise.
- Clean 3-Res Transport: new predefined unit available with C4 Bioadaptive Resonance.  Takes the slot in the unit table that was occupied by Transport.  The AI is determined to obsess about stacking sea bases full of transports, so it is best to offer a unit with the maximum defensive benefit.

PROBE TEAMS

- Probe Team package: now available with C1 Polymorphic Software.
- Probe Team, Foil Probe Team: new predefined units available with C1 Polymorphic Software.  Infantry and foil chasses, no armor.  These are the cheapest probe units.  The AI can probably use them effectively in some circumstances.
- Command Center: moved to C1 Doctrine: Mobility.  C1 Polymorphic Software already gives enough stuff.
- Probe Defense, Foil Probe Defense: removed.  Plasma armor costs the same to make, so the AI will wait until it's available  to make armored probes.
- Probe Wall, Foil Probe Wall: new predefined units available with C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory.  Now that it's in sequence before C4 Single Sided Surfaces, we shouldn't have to worry about it canceling the 3-Res probe designs.
- Tank Probe: new predefined unit available with C7 Mind/Machine Interface.  This is so the AI will use hovertank probe teams against the human player.
- Enhanced Tank Probe, Enhanced Cruiser Probe: new predefined units available with C8 Self-Aware Machines.  This is so the AI will use Algorithmic Enhancement against the human player.  They will be uneconomical fission designs, but the AI factions can afford that with their INDUSTRY bonus.

THOUGHT CONTROL

- Retroviral Engineering: set wealth=0 and growth=0, making it a pure Conquer tech.  It only gives genetic warfare.  Thought Control was moved to C7 Mind/Machine Interface in version 1.51.
- Mind/Machine Interface: set growth=3 and wealth=1.  +3 POLICE increases happiness.  As with Police State, an increase in happiness is worth a modest increase in wealth, since more squares are worked around the base.

DROP WARFARE

- Drop Rover, Drop Plasma Garrison: new predefined units available with C6 Synthetic Fossil Fuels.  Set AI Plan = -1 Autocalculate.  These are the cheapest drop units available.
- Laser Tactical: new predefined unit available with C6 Synthetic Fossil Fuels.  It's cheap, can kill Formers, and can interfere with enemy planes.
- Drop Laser Needlejet, Drop Laser Tactical: tried offering these with C6 Synthetic Fossil Fuels, but the AI didn't make use of their drop capability.  So, didn't add the designs after all.

UPGRADES

- Fake 30th ability bit: improved the explanation of when fake abilities need to be used with predefined units.  Now using the 31st bit instead of the 30th.  Used 0 for predefined units that have no abilities and cannot be upgraded to.  Used only the minimum number of digits for units that have abilities but cannot be upgraded to.

TECHSHARE

- TECHSHARE: corrected its description in alphax.txt to how it actually works.  You do not use it with SHARETECH and you must specify the # of players that need to be infiltrated.  Data Angels in the original game have "TECHSHARE, 3".


The attachment limit per post is 5, and I eventually ran out of room at the top of the thread.  Consequently, this becomes the new home of version 1.52.  It was downloaded 395 times before I moved it here.

[Believers_Eph2810]

Thanks for creating this mod. I think it is great. In ~3 hours of gameplay I haven't noticed any bugs.

I hadn't played smacx for about 10 years until a month ago. I played some partial games on 2nd-hardest difficulty on tiny map.

Then, I came across your mod (1.51) and scient 2.1 exe. I've only played one game, but it is an improvement over the original game.

I played on 3rd-hardest difficulty on tiny map with default land/water ratio. Using random factions, I got the Caretakers. Strongest opponent is Pirates.

I like to play on Tiny map for a quicker game, but it still takes forever.  I'm going to start another game on 1.52, 2nd-hardest difficulty, Tiny map, 30% water.

Thanks!

[esch1lus]

great update sir 

[bvanevery]

Your welcomes!

Tiny maps?  I'm not sure I've ever played my mod on a tiny map.  It's been many years since I even played the original game on a tiny map.

I went in the opposite direction for awhile, making maps as large as possible.  Still have some text-only After Action Reports from that period.  Eventually started doing screenshots, and wrapped up my pursuit of the original game with a so-called Giant map, a format that's available in my mod.  After that Giant map game, I think I finally started modding.  Not counting the world generation stuff of course.  That was sort of pre-modding.