SMACX AI Growth mod

[Believers_Eph2810]

Game is off to a good start. The 30% ocean setting gave a better map than standard.  I found the jungle early on, but I could not stake a claim before the Usurpers swept through it. They are dominating and we are on the verge of a war.

[bvanevery]

Congratulations on conquering the South Pole!   

Morgan Gravitonics

[glorsh66]

Is it possible to use this mod for vanilla alpha Centauri (without crossfire)?
I don't like new factions.



BTW - have you changed supply crawlers or the limit on minerals per tile?

[bvanevery]

Is it possible to use this mod for vanilla alpha Centauri (without crossfire)?

Not straight out of the box.  You'd have to mod my mod.

I don't like new factions.

If that's your only objection, and not to other game elements introduced, then the path of least resistance is to hand select the original 7 factions to play with.  Plenty of people think the 7 added factions are goofy.  My least favorite character of all of them, is Svensgaard.  Not the character in principle, but the voice acting that was done for it.  Any permutation of a pirate I can think of, that's just not a pirate talking.  It's some yuppie.

BTW - have you changed supply crawlers

Supply crawlers are more expensive and you can't have them until late game.  This penalizes players who want to spew out a lot of them to harvest minerals and energy and so forth.

or the limit on minerals per tile?

The timing of the limits is similar to the original game.  One might argue that I've made the food limit more difficult, by shoving it up the Explore tree.  Energy, you have to be doing Build Morganite type stuff.  Minerals, that's in Ecological Engineering, which is cross-listed between Explore and Build.

The quantity of the limits are the same as in the original game.  They didn't provide anything in alphax.txt to change that.  You can only change when the limits are lifted.

[glorsh66]

Btw - what is the best/recommended unofficial binaries? (in addition to pracx) Or is it even possible to use modifies binaries alongside with pracx?

[esch1lus]

Gog > scient > pracx > growth mod

[bvanevery]

Yeah I don't personally use Scient's patch or Pracx, but there's no reason they shouldn't work.  They don't interfere with anything.

I do actually use a slightly modified binary that Scient cooked up for me.  It keeps saved games for every turn.  We were trying to hunt down an obscure bug that doesn't show up very often.  Can't remember if we nailed it!

I should see how OpenSMACX is doing nowadays.

[glorsh66]

Gog > scient > pracx > growth mod

But does pracx fix bugs or is it purely visual mod (although quite nice and pleasant on widescreen)?

[glorsh66]

Yeah I don't personally use Scient's patch or Pracx, but there's no reason they shouldn't work.  They don't interfere with anything.

I do actually use a slightly modified binary that Scient cooked up for me.  It keeps saved games for every turn.  We were trying to hunt down an obscure bug that doesn't show up very often.  Can't remember if we nailed it!

I should see how OpenSMACX is doing nowadays.

Am I right that i can just install your mod (by coping files) on Gog version of the game (or with pracx) so there are no additional requirements?
)

[bvanevery]

My mod is targeted at the stock binary and has no additional requirements.  That's part of why I'm going to keep it the way it is.  I'm legally in the free and clear, and there's no complication other than knowing how to unpack a .ZIP file.  Which is pretty easy on Windows nowadays, since the OS can read .ZIP archives and unpack them just fine.

I say, Pracx does not fix any bug.  It provides a few capabilities, that may have been more important in the past, but probably from Windows 7 onwards, were not important.  For instance, task switching while playing the game.  I hit CTRL-ALT-TAB, works just fine.  More of a finger move than ALT-TAB, but so what, it's just learning how to do something.  Screen resolution, I type "DirectDraw=0" into my Alpha Centauri.ini file.

Pracx provides some resource overlay displays.  Although useful, I've played tons of games without it.  Not like I need it.

[esch1lus]

Pracx is needed in order to have modern scrolling and terrain layer details, it's basically a cosmetic/qol change.

[bvanevery]

"Modern scrolling" ?  What does that mean?  I've been scrolling around my maps somehow, just fine, all these years.  Do you mean continuous scrolling?

What you call "terrain layer details" I called "resource overlay displays".  Although useful, I don't need them.

My qol is fine.

[esch1lus]

Maybe I [messed up - or loved very much] up this time  but bear in mind that English is not my native language 

[bvanevery]

Your English is fine, but we have different points of emphasis.  Mine is that, Pracx fixes no bug.  You can task switch with the stock binary.  You can get widescreen resolution with the stock binary.  You can scroll with the stock binary, even if it is not continuous scrolling.  It has an enhancement of displaying more details about resources on the map, but you don't need that to play the game.  If you are experienced at least.  Maybe a beginner, would find that visualization more helpful.  I've done so many umpteen zillion games of SMAC/X, that I definitely know what's going on.

[bvanevery]

Making a note that the Pirates faction description has a bug:

Code: [Select]

^TECH: {Doctrine: Flexibility}
An AQUATIC faction doesn't automatically gets this tech.  It's not like the Caretakers and Usurpers, where being an ALIEN they get 2 techs and you can't do anything about it.  In the original game, the Pirates get TECH, Mobile, TECH, DocFlex and I don't give either.

So, this is a documentation bug.  But this 1 minor thing, is not enough for me to start opening up my readme_mod.txt and planning a new version.   Wake me in another 6 months lol.