Would anyone be able and willing to take on a mod-enabling project (EXE editing)

[Yitzi]

alpha.txt/alphax.txt is a wonderful tool.  But there are some important (often balance-affecting) variables which theoretically could be in there (thereby enabling mods) but aren't.  I'm wondering if any of the more programming-capable members of this forum would be interested in taking on the project (preferably for both SMAC and SMAX).  Here are some ideas of mine, but anyone who wants to add more should do so:

High priority:
-Including Scient's patch (possibly Kyrub's too), just because it's already done and most people will want to have the modding capability without giving up the bugfixes of the patch.

-Include variables for ecological mechanics (this is a big one, because it's potentially so important to the game):
   -Starting clean minerals (i.e. base is 16)
   -Clean minerals given per fungal pop (i.e. base is 1)
   -Clean minerals given per "magic facility" built (i.e. base is 1)
   -Clean minerals given per major atrocity (i.e. base is -5)
   -Maximum clean minerals (with some way to say "no maximum")
   -Minimum clean minerals (with some way to say "no minimum")
   -A flag determining whether a PLANET rating of 3 eliminates ecodamage completely (base is no)
   -The denominator of the ecodamage formula (base is 300)
   -Automatic ecodamage per base (base is 0; it should allow positive or negative numbers, though the final ecodamage will never be less than 0.)
   -A flag determining whether crawled spaces are counted as worked spaces in the base's radius when determining ecodamage.
   -A flag determining whether echelon mirrors and condensers are counted if next to the base's radius (or a worked square if that flag is yes.)
   -The bonus ecodamage from mirrors, condensers, and boreholes (base value is 6, 4, and 8 respectively.)
   -A flag that, if activated, changes improvement ecodamage to the following slightly different order (i.e. tree farms and hybrid forests don't help for bonus damage from advanced improvements):
      1. For each base, total the number of boreholes times, 8, echelon mirrors times 6, and condensers times 4 (or whatever numbers were set). 
      2. Reduce the result of step 1 by up to the number of forests.
      3. Total the number of mines, solar collectors, farms, soil enrichers, roads, mag tubes, condensers, and boreholes. Items in squares that are actually being worked count double.
      4. If the result of step 1 was reduced by less than the number of forests, reduce the result of step 3 by the remainder.
      5. Halve the result of step 4 for each base that has a tree farm, and eliminate it if it also has a hybrid forest.
      6. The sum of steps 2 and 5 is your total improvement ecodamage.

-Change the formula for upgrade costs, with more variables:
   -Cost per mineral line of the new unit. (base is 10)
   -Cost per square of the mineral lines of the new unit (this is if you want upgrading to be as expensive as hurrying.)
   -Refund per mineral line of the old unit.
   -Refund per square of the mineral line of the old unit.
   -Cost per added weapon cost (base is 10)
   -Cost per added armor cost (base is 10)
   -A flag that determines whether you can get energy if the new unit is refunds are higher than the costs (generally because you're upgrading to a cheaper unit by upgrading the reactor.)
-A variable that lets you make a global modifier for hurry costs (this is lower-priority for SMAX, due to the faction editor allowing faction-specific variables).

Lower priority:
-For SMAX, a flag that determines whether aliens can participate in cooperative victory; if it's set to "no", then it would probably be advisable to modify the AI for added suspicion across species as a result.  (Even without the AI modification, it would still be worth doing for multiplayer, although the fact that it can be house-ruled at the cost of ending scoring early is why it's low priority.)
-A variable that determines how far apart bases have to be from each other, and whether diagonals count.  (Base value is they need a distance of 2, not counting diagonals.)
-For each facility, entries that determine common effects (labs boost, psych boost, economy boost, mineral boost, drones suppressed.)
-A flag that, when set, modifies the Supercollider and Theory of Everything secret projects to also boost the boost from other facilities rather than just counting as twice a network node.  (So a city with network node, research hospital, fusion lab, and Supercollider would produce 5 times the base labs rather than only 3 and a half times.)
-And some things that other people have mentioned in another thread:
   -Make it possible to build monoliths if that option is enabled in the alpha(x) document.
   -Allow new rows and columns of social engineering choices.
   -Allow zero-movement units (probably at a cost decrease or defensive bonus.)
   -Allow beyond four reactor levels.

[Buster's Uncle]

Good idea starting a wish-list. 


-Allow more than seven factions at once.  (This is the most popular change request I hear over and over, going back years.)
-Add some user-programmable interlude triggers and greater flexability with interlude displays, such as more control over length (the option to go to a second page) and ability to insert pics.  (SMAC(X) is a superior game with the story-telling, and the GotM team/scenario creators  could sure get some use out of those options - it would allow us to insert our stories into the actual game.)


As I told Kyrub when I PMed him the other day, if someone wanted to be worshipped and adored like a GOD in this community, some .exe decompiling/coding skills and time to take requests would do it.  scient wishes he had time to just mod AC all the time - told me so the last time we spoke a few weeks ago.  DrazharLn is interested in this stuff, and I was coincidentally preparing to email him when I spotted this thread - but he has university and a grilfriend, so don't hold your breath.

The community definitely needs to find/nurture some coders, whatever it takes.  Everyone's been praying to scient for years, but he rarely finds time for his own project.  That pesky RL, y'know?

[Yitzi]

One of the challenges of coding is simply figuring out the best methodology/programs to use, perhaps it would make sense, the next time you speak to the existing coders, to just find out what methodology they use (decompile/edit/recompile, or disassemble/edit/reassemble, or simply disassemble to figure out what's going on and then use a hex editor) and what programs (decompilers, disassemblers, tracers, etc.) they use to do it.  A rough guide to which lines are used for which mechanics (at least what's known) wouldn't hurt either, although care might need to be taken to avoid anything that could cause a legal problem due to being usable for copyright infringement*).

*Fortunately, SMAC/SMAX in the original (pre-GOG) sale seems not to have a EULA, so fair use principles should avoid legal problems with the rest of it.

[Buster's Uncle]

Welcome to AC2, prid.  How did you hear about us?

One of the challenges of coding is simply figuring out the best methodology/programs to use, perhaps it would make sense, the next time you speak to the existing coders, to just find out what methodology they use (decompile/edit/recompile, or disassemble/edit/reassemble, or simply disassemble to figure out what's going on and then use a hex editor) and what programs (decompilers, disassemblers, tracers, etc.) they use to do it.  A rough guide to which lines are used for which mechanics (at least what's known) wouldn't hurt either, although care might need to be taken to avoid anything that could cause a legal problem due to being usable for copyright infringement*).

*Fortunately, SMAC/SMAX in the original (pre-GOG) sale seems not to have a EULA, so fair use principles should avoid legal problems with the rest of it.

I wouldn't know enough to ask intelligent questions or understand the answers - I'm not completely useless on technical stuff, but it's way, way outside my interests.  I'll try to steer those guys here to talk to you instead.  I did link this thread when I wrote Draz, though he's more interested in learning how than able to, last I know of.  He'll probably pick up more in university, as that's the sort of thing he's studying.

As to the legal issues, Firaxis actively tried to encourage AC modding in the original release, and to my knowlege has never reversed stances.  I think that would get some lawyer traction, but more to the point, very much leaves us in the ethical clear and indicates that it's very unlikely for lawyers to take interest as long as fan mods remain fan and nobody does anything to make a profit off their IP or undermine the ability of the IP owners to do so.

[Rymdolov]

-Allow more than seven factions at once.  (This is the most popular change request I hear over and over, going back years.)

I've requested this myself, but I think that chuft had a point when he said that fixing bugs should take precedence when scient has the time to do some programming. More than seven factions is probably a huge project.

[Yitzi]

I'd say that fixing bugs should take precedence over most mods, but the mods that I marked as high priority are there for the most part because they're going to be usable to fix what many (including myself) would consider to be serious gameplay/balance issues, and so might be more important than relatively uncommon bugs.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, we need more people working on these things, and then, perhaps, more than one area can be addressed...

[Rymdolov]

I'd say that fixing bugs should take precedence over most mods, but the mods that I marked as high priority are there for the most part because they're going to be usable to fix what many (including myself) would consider to be serious gameplay/balance issues, and so might be more important than relatively uncommon bugs.

I'm with you on that one. A lot of the fun of the game is mod-related for many players and, as you say, balance issues are sometimes as important as bugs.

[Buster's Uncle]

To me, as a modder and part of a scenario creation team, and the creative end at that, the interludes mod is WAY more important than any bugs.  Seriously.

[Yitzi]

I think the priorities can be roughly put as follows:
1. Bugs that show up fairly often and make the game unplayable.  (I think those are all licked)
2. Balance issues, and bugs that can be worked around or ignored if need be.
3. More general modding issues that a lot of people might want (more factions, variable-trigger interludes*, etc.).
4. Rare bugs.
5. Modding issues that are going to be used by maybe one or two people (artwork technically falls into this category, but can be done by people who can't do the programming and so gets higher treatment).

And of course whoever's actually doing the project can move anything they want to top priority.

*With a variable-trigger interlude, it's easy to further enable a two-page interlude you can make a two-page interlude; simply have two interludes with the same trigger.  In fact, I think there is already one such example, for building the Voice of Planet.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, I do assume that it wouldn't be a major coding thing to lick - as is, the GotM team, especially sisko, did a lot of research for weeks into what can be done with interludes, before we gave it up for a bad job.  Programmable interlude triggers seems like a fairly obvious thing to have if you want to really tell an integrated story in a scenario.  What's available now is simply too limited and unreliable to be any use.  We can sometimes manage a victory one if it's not very long, and that's about all that's any use even trying.

One I forgot til now:

-Flygon's custom citizens display in the base screen (There's a thread here, and scient swore he was looking in to it when he fell out of touch...)

[Flygon]

One I forgot til now:

-Flygon's custom citizens display in the base screen (There's a thread here, and scient swore he was looking in to it when he fell out of touch...)

Just to expand on that, Kilkakon and I had a discussion privately around two nights ago. Custom bioscans would also be pretty cool.

[Buster's Uncle]

Would that take a coding mod, and not just new .flcs?  I guess coding if you want more than human & Prog, not simply replacing them for everyone.

[NewAgeOfPower]

We have coders now?!?!

I can't wait.

[Buster's Uncle]

I WISH we had coders.  We need some.