Perihelion initial year

[kyrub]

It sounds good if I understand it. Yes.
Right now I don't need it since all I am trying are "test platforms", no finished good.

I'll inform you when I am done with this. Could be early or never, who knows.



EDIT:
Personnally, I would prefer if all of things that are "bug fixes" from my patch went into that (your) part of the patch. That means those that are confirmed as bugfixes. Energy stockpile thing and creche defense bonus come to mind. Some of the others are not correct, base exchange fix is wrong f.i.

[Yitzi]

Not true.  Kyrub used yours, but I used Kyrub's.  So mine includes Kyrub's (as well as a bunch of other stuff.)

There is a plugin for installer I'm using that lets you create small file with different changes between exe versions.  So, idea was that for future releases of their patches could be rolled in as component of unofficial patch installer.  That way you'd have option to apply AI or other changes forked from my bug fixes.  It would be up to them if they want to do this.

I'm fine with it, the only concern is that if both yours and mine affect the same piece, it could run into problems.  (Also, mine changed a lot, and is going to change a lot more, and that's on top of Kyrub's, so it might make more sense to add your changes to mine instead of the other way around.)

base exchange fix is wrong f.i.

How so?  (And what does f.i. stand for?)

[Guv’ner]

There is quite a nice buglist on Apolyton: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7650-Official-SMACX-v2-bug-list-READ-ONLY-PLEASE!

It's creakingly old but there was at least one text file only bug on there that was unfixed till now. Maybe we need to coalesce around the bug fixes and then divide into fact finding groups on the AI and option expanding improvements.

We could wiki a current list of bugs but it needs experienced game players to vet them.

[Yitzi]

There is quite a nice buglist on Apolyton: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7650-Official-SMACX-v2-bug-list-READ-ONLY-PLEASE!

It's creakingly old but there was at least one text file only bug on there that was unfixed till now. Maybe we need to coalesce around the bug fixes and then divide into fact finding groups on the AI and option expanding improvements.

I'm currently working on making the option-expanding stuff not need a hex editor to use with old maps; I'm making progress but it'll still be a while.

[Guv’ner]

I'm currently working on making the option-expanding stuff not need a hex editor to use with old maps; I'm making progress but it'll still be a while.

Well if Scient can include all the bugfixes in his update and we can patch over other updates on top that's great. I'm still stuck on D&D rivalling cooperative games so can't change map. It would be easier though if we could combine all the unofficial updates into one ‘unauthorised unofficial update’. Just so we had an easily referenced base.

[Lord Avalon]

There is quite a nice buglist on Apolyton: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7650-Official-SMACX-v2-bug-list-READ-ONLY-PLEASE!

It's creakingly old but there was at least one text file only bug on there that was unfixed till now. Maybe we need to coalesce around the bug fixes and then divide into fact finding groups on the AI and option expanding improvements.

We could wiki a current list of bugs but it needs experienced game players to vet them.

There is also the SMAC Annotated Bug List, 2nd Edition over at Civ Gaming Net.

[Guv’ner]

I'm not a member of those boards, but paste it over, that could be a start. We have three people active at the moment who are Big Bang Theory enough to look at the code, If bugs are still going to be splatted it'll probably be here.

[Lord Avalon]

Can't really do that:  first couple posts are long and have many links to discussion threads.  I see the fifth post from ete mentions the Apolyton thread.

Last post is "chuft slaps scient around a bit with a large trout." 

[scient]

@kyrub: Yah, I'd be cool with adding the bug updates. I actually wanted to do that before.

[scient]

Er, I guess my phone posted my incomplete reply before I gave up trying to type out response.

@Yitzi: What I meant was, you use kyrub's and kyrub's is based off of mine.  Right now, I have about double the patches currently in v1.0 fixing various things.  But I haven't had a chance to have a look at what you've done so I don't really know if we've crossed code wise.  I just know kyrub's was outside areas since I never touched AI.  I might be able to make it easier to apply my patches but personally, I'll always want bug fixes only for myself.

Back on topic, I was thinking about the random bit earlier today and thought out a solution.  Basically, what I would do is split the variable for storing the starting date in half.  Currently, it's a DWORD which is really unnecessary so making it a WORD you wouldn't lose anything.  This would mean I'd have to go through 5-6 instances where it's called and modify how data is accessed.  Once it's been split, I now have two bytes I can work with.  One for creating a random perihelion start date from 2151 to 2160 (0-9) and another I can use at some future date.

[Yitzi]

Er, I guess my phone posted my incomplete reply before I gave up trying to type out response.

@Yitzi: What I meant was, you use kyrub's and kyrub's is based off of mine.  Right now, I have about double the patches currently in v1.0 fixing various things.  But I haven't had a chance to have a look at what you've done so I don't really know if we've crossed code wise.  I just know kyrub's was outside areas since I never touched AI.  I might be able to make it easier to apply my patches but personally, I'll always want bug fixes only for myself.

Back on topic, I was thinking about the random bit earlier today and thought out a solution.  Basically, what I would do is split the variable for storing the starting date in half.  Currently, it's a DWORD which is really unnecessary so making it a WORD you wouldn't lose anything.  This would mean I'd have to go through 5-6 instances where it's called and modify how data is accessed.  Once it's been split, I now have two bytes I can work with.  One for creating a random perihelion start date from 2151 to 2160 (0-9) and another I can use at some future date.

That is essentially what I'm currently in the middle of doing for almost all the alphax RULES variables (to each its own required length), in order to allow me to put in new RULES variables somewhere where it'll be convenient (e.g. loaded each time you load the game but not loaded with a new map/savegame).  Starting date actually should remain DWORD, though, as it's allowed to go up to a fairly high number (far more than 64,000), but there are plenty of other ones that can be reduced in size.

[scient]

Ah nice! I didn't actually look at code just thinking it out.  I'm surprised nothing breaks with very high start dates.

[Yitzi]

Ah nice! I didn't actually look at code just thinking it out.  I'm surprised nothing breaks with very high start dates.

Well, it does still have a maximum, just one that's higher than a word can handle.  (Dword can handle it fine, though.)

[ete]

Both of the linked collections of bugs are part of the wiki's bug page (the Aploy one is linked, and the one Lord Avalon linked was copied onto wiki with Nevill's permission and is based off the apoly one). I'd like some help moving bugs onto the wiki's bug tracker so the programmers have an easier time keeping track of bugs, especially with so many of them around these days.

As for the perihelion initial year.. I think the original system is probably a balance decision. Having it hit 30 turns sooner is pretty major, you've got 60 rather than 90 turns to prepare. Having it be consistent with the lore would be great, but maybe this is something which should go in as an alphax option rather than a bugfix, at least for testing (maybe the AI will handle it badly and get even more crippled by MWs than usual or something)?

[Guv’ner]

That list is certainly a long one, where is the bug tracker located? My last two datalinks rewrites have ended up revealing bugs and it would make sense if I wrote them up at the same time as the entry.