SMACX Thinker Mod

[Induktio]

Just wanted to pop in and say that it's really cool these mods are still being actively worked on, amazing stuff with all sorts of small but essential improvements to the game!

Maybe one day I'll actually try playing against the AI again :V

You mentioned elsewhere that the RPGCodex PBEM group plays WTP but most "Thinker/WTP" changes turned off. So what was the rationale for using WTP if most of the changes are turned off? What kind of changes were disabled then? Also do many players consider it important to slow down movement on magtubes since you mentioned this is enabled? Or also apply PLANET bonus for defense?

[Tayta Malikai]

You mentioned elsewhere that the RPGCodex PBEM group plays WTP but most "Thinker/WTP" changes turned off. So what was the rationale for using WTP if most of the changes are turned off? What kind of changes were disabled then? Also do many players consider it important to slow down movement on magtubes since you mentioned this is enabled? Or also apply PLANET bonus for defense?

Like I said there, the option for extra formers and colony pods at the start is actually a pretty big deal. It allows doing an accelerated start to power through the boring early game where not much happens, and helps to ameliorate the effects of getting a lousy start in the desert or wherever, ensuring players get a more equal opportunity to succeed.

PLANET bonus on defense is considered a good balance change, as it gives you a way to better defend against native life (instead of having the bonus only apply when attacking), and opens up the option to rely on psi defense (which can be helpful when nerve gas is being deployed left and right, as it neutralizes nerve gas).

Instant movement across magtubes exacerbates the issue where, past a certain tech level, wars are often won by performing a massive blitzkreig on your turn that obliterates the opponent's ability to resist before they can respond on their turn. They also reduce the value of tactical planning, since any unit can be instantly moved between bases as needed. So we agreed to nerf them to 1/6 of a standard move.

There are also the changes to the faction landing site distribution algorithm (which is overall more balanced than vanilla's), the ability to have 2 nutrient bonuses spawn at landing sites (helps with accelerated start mentioned above), the ability to play SMAC-in-SMAX (although we ended up moving to SMAX anyway to have more variety in the tech tree), and the various bug fixes included in the mod (the last mod, MercantileInterest's Binary Dawn using Yitzi's patch, was discontinued for being too unstable and crash-prone in late game). So there's plenty of reason to use the mod(s) even without many of the big-ticket items.

[Hagen0]

It fixes the exploits connectedwith fiddling with the Industry rating. That's a big one.

[Induktio]

Like I said there, the option for extra formers and colony pods at the start is actually a pretty big deal. It allows doing an accelerated start to power through the boring early game where not much happens, and helps to ameliorate the effects of getting a lousy start in the desert or wherever, ensuring players get a more equal opportunity to succeed.

Yeah originally I added it as optional AI bonus, it didn't include the option for player factions, but I guess somebody playing WTP or Tim figured out it would be a good bonus for player factions also. So I added that feature also in Thinker.

Magtubes are certainly OP at the late stages of the game and a very long time ago I considered a nerf on them, but it was not implemented as it was not that important considering the other priorities. Now I'm just wondering if this WTP's implementation causes side effects elsewhere in the game as it requires multiplying Rules->mov_rate_along_roads variable with the tube_movement_rate_multiplier config option. It's a global alphax rules variable and used by the vanilla game.

It also requires patching hex_cost function but that by itself should not be anything unusual. But at least changing the rules variable would make the game state inconsistent if a save is reloaded mid-turn, but that setting is not intended to be changed mid-game anyway.

It fixes the exploits connectedwith fiddling with the Industry rating. That's a big one.

; Mineral contribution from artifacts, disbanded units, hurrying will be adjusted to current INDUSTRY rating.
fix_mineral_contribution=1

I'm assuming you mean the above? That one also seems to require a bunch of binary blob patching. I've been trying to avoid including it too much as it tends to be not very maintainable, but have to think about it.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Magtubes are certainly OP at the late stages of the game and a very long time ago I considered a nerf on them, but it was not implemented as it was not that important considering the other priorities. Now I'm just wondering if this WTP's implementation causes side effects elsewhere in the game as it requires multiplying Rules->mov_rate_along_roads variable with the tube_movement_rate_multiplier config option. It's a global alphax rules variable and used by the vanilla game.

It also requires patching hex_cost function but that by itself should not be anything unusual. But at least changing the rules variable would make the game state inconsistent if a save is reloaded mid-turn, but that setting is not intended to be changed mid-game anyway.

Yeah. It did require a lot of pathing here and there. I think I tied all the ends but, as always, any code analysis or play test comment on its stability is appreciated. Bvanavery caught a lot of bugs those got fixed. Nothing fresh in a long time.

I am changing this rule variable at game launch time. There is a function that actually reads them from alphax.txt. So I substitute it on the fly as if it had different value in config file. Should not disrupt any save/load.

[Induktio]

I am changing this rule variable at game launch time. There is a function that actually reads them from alphax.txt. So I substitute it on the fly as if it had different value in config file. Should not disrupt any save/load.

It is fairly trivial to change how the alphax file is parsed by patching the reader function. That is not the point here. I was referring to changing the meaning of the mov_rate_along_roads variable when dozens of pathfinding functions depend on it. The issue that I tried to highlight is that moved units store their spent movement points in road_moves_spent field and this directly relates to mov_rate_along_roads variable. At least in that case, save game state becomes inconsistent for one turn if this setting is changed mid-turn. But that is a minor issue, since the setting is not supposed to be changed mid-game. There might be some other, more subtle bugs that the change introduces in the existing code. Or there might not. Haven't checked them in detail yet.

[EmpathCrawler]

Does your new world builder use all of the values in the WORLDBUILDER section of alphax? I've been tinkering with some stuff, but I can't tell if it's making any difference. I'm doing so by editing alphax while the game is running and then running Quick Start. Does that matter?

[Induktio]

To be on the safe side, always save the alphax.txt file before opening the game. I don't think the changes take effect if you reload some save file after adjusting alphax.txt.

This mentioned in Details.md still applies "Any WorldBuilder variable names starting with Land, Continent, Hills or Plateau are not currently used by the generator." We might also add Plains, Beach and Peaks variables to the unused list. Unless there's some subtle effect in vanilla code climate generation or similar that might potentially use these variables. The new map generator is so different it does not have a need for much of those variables.

[EmpathCrawler]

D'oh. Well what I was trying to do was discourage dry, flat land, particularly in the east. When continents get long longitudinally, particularly a Pangaea style one, the east doesn't get a lot of moisture and large deserts form when there aren't enough terrain level changes to catch the moisture. I had some success with the default one by playing with the plateau setting (foolishly deleted the alphax when I reinstalled for Thinker 3, oops). If I get the time maybe I'll make a study of it.

I was impressed, though, by a rather well executed surprise naval invasion by the Hive in my last game. Maybe I should relax my Pangaea supremacist views.

[Hagen0]

It fixes the exploits connectedwith fiddling with the Industry rating. That's a big one.

; Mineral contribution from artifacts, disbanded units, hurrying will be adjusted to current INDUSTRY rating.
fix_mineral_contribution=1

I'm assuming you mean the above? That one also seems to require a bunch of binary blob patching. I've been trying to avoid including it too much as it tends to be not very maintainable, but have to think about it.

The key change is that invested minerals get adjusted when you change industry rating. If you have 100 minerals invested in some SP and switch to Wealth (0 industry to +1) you only retain 90 of them. Tricks like switching to Power, disbanding units and then changing back to Wealth (with a refund no less) don't work anymre because of this mechanic.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

FYI, Induktio.

There are two vanilla functions: kill and veh_kill.
Former seems to be a wrapper for latter checking whether vehicle is a transport and deciding whether whole stack need to be killed.
So it seems as the most safe way to kill the vehicle. Although both are heavily used all over the program. Ugh.

[Induktio]

Thinker uses veh_kill in some really rare circumstances, like disbanding unused formers or colony pods, so in this case it probably won't run into problems because it shouldn't ever disband transport units. Maybe could change the function anyway? It's somewhat annoying some of these functions have really short, generic names that might also get easily confused with some library functions.

> I was impressed, though, by a rather well executed surprise naval invasion by the Hive in my last game. Maybe I should relax my Pangaea supremacist views.

Post some screenshots too if you have time. Sometimes the map generator biases a lot towards pangaea layout, it might still need some tweaks to produce more separated continents, although there's already some implemented.

[EmpathCrawler]

I'm attaching some screenshots to illustrate why I wanted to tweak elevations. All my examples were generated with middle settings on everything.

Old 1 is an example by the original worldbuilder. Note the frequent, undulating elevation changes and how it helps trap at least some moisture in long east to west stretches of land so you don't get vast, barren expanses.

New 1-4 are some examples of your worldbuilder, which tends to make stretches of broad, flat land. The files with "added" have some elevation changes I manually plopped down here and there just to break things up. You can go back and forth and see how even very slightly changes in elevation had an enormous and beneficial effect.

The large dry plateau to the east in new4 is just the Unity wreckage so ignore that part.

[Induktio]

Yeah I meant mostly screenshots about the naval invasions, but there's a point in those screenshots too. Selecting higher river amounts would help to alleviate the lack of moisture in some areas. The original engine is a little weird in the way it handles those elevation changes. Might have to think about some tweaks on the hill generation code, but overall the new world builder is the way to go.

[EmpathCrawler]

Ah, I'm afraid I saved over that game (he brought too many impact rovers and I ragequit). It does do continent shape very well. No more stringy noodle landmasses, and I don't see those stupid one tile islands that the original one puts everywhere. Can it be taught to put more peaks to break up flat plateaus? Perhaps easier said than done.