On the borehole cluster one could edit the description that is displayed for them.
What about a fungal tower that appears when you open a unity pod full of fungus? The proposed change would cause missiles to appear from the pod ???.
Fungal towers that come from a pod full of fungus will appear in a random adjacent tile to the unity pod. In addition, what about ecodamage related fungal blooms that produce fungus and fungal towers?What about a fungal tower that appears when you open a unity pod full of fungus? The proposed change would cause missiles to appear from the pod ???.
Do Fungal Towers pop from pods on the tile itself? AFAIK the unit popping a pod enters the tile. And if it is adjacent, then a mind worm graphic will be seen for one turn if it is linked to the proper slot in the units.pcx file.
Question: In SMAX, does the major fungal bloom catastrophe still occur after a faction finishes building the Voice of Planet secret project, but before a faction builds the Ascent to Transcendence?
Question: In SMAX, does the major fungal bloom catastrophe still occur after a faction finishes building the Voice of Planet secret project, but before a faction builds the Ascent to Transcendence?
I'm not sure what you mean by "major". Fungal blooms can still happen post-VoP, and actually are twice as likely to happen, but do not contain worms once the VoP has been built.
It's the global bloom that happens upon completion of the Voice, and it ruins all the nice, neat terraforming you've done. Yes, it still happens, but if you have the Progenitors in the game, you have to get the Voice and Transcend before they build the right number of Subspace Generators to phone home - if that happens, all humans are toast (or served on toast).
I think it's just a single bloom in SMAX; is it substantially more in SMAC?
I think it's just a single bloom in SMAX; is it substantially more in SMAC?
It's a continuous map-wide fungal bloom, adding new tiles every lapsed turn.
At least if the effect isn't different in scenarios. I saw it last in action on my Mars scenario.
I never investigated to see if that happens in SMAX too; if not, something of that sort (with moddable associated variables) is already on my to-do list, as I think it will help give that "Planet rising" feel (especially if the VoP is moved down the tech tree somewhat so that there's a nice period in there.)
I never investigated to see if that happens in SMAX too; if not, something of that sort (with moddable associated variables) is already on my to-do list, as I think it will help give that "Planet rising" feel (especially if the VoP is moved down the tech tree somewhat so that there's a nice period in there.)
The scenario is SMACX-based.
IIRC, finishing the VoP enables the construction of the Ascend SP for every faction in the unmodded game. Never came far enough with one of your mods to see if you changed that trigger somehow?
Changes between versions which SMACers are okay with (kyrub you can veto these, just let me know)
Freeing captured faction leaders probe op (?)
New landmarks (?)
-Borehole Cluster, Unity Wreckage, the Manifold Nexus, Fossil Ridge
Hotseat/PBEM support
I'm happy with keeping the BC and MN. A variable to make the other two optional seems reasonable. The Unity Wreckage's Mining Laser is a no armor laser infantry with a special name, and the Engine Core gives a chunk of credits (iirc it's around 100-150, can't test from here). I've never found the wreakage to be particularly great, but it's a fun thing to come across with four minor one-off bonuses. It's nice if you get to it really early, and pretty much pointless if you get it late.Changes between versions which SMACers are okay with (kyrub you can veto these, just let me know)
Freeing captured faction leaders probe op (?)
New landmarks (?)
-Borehole Cluster, Unity Wreckage, the Manifold Nexus, Fossil Ridge
Hotseat/PBEM support
As I have said, my stance on "changes" is really conservative. From my experience from working patches for old games, I find it important to be able to show the new hybrid game and say: truly, you may play your old SMAC, if you wish (there is a good number of players, who want their "retro" experience.) No hidden surprise, and you may share our goods (patches/mods/experience) with the community. - For optional content, there's always room.
Landmarks: Borehold cluster and Manifold Nexus is in SMAC v.4. For me, that means that it automatically goes in our hybrid. The other two, I don't know. I really like Fossil Ridge as a landmark, but I have many doubts about Unity Wreckage from the description. Can anybody explain more? -- Do I want to know where other factions are? Nah, that's game changer, we old gamers like our slow uncovering of the shrowd. And what is Mining Laser, please? Engine Core, huh? (And if we don't admit Unity wreckage, then we should make Fossil Ridge optional as well, to be consistent...).
What does freeing of faction leaders do, exactly?
Hotseat / PBEM, that goes obviously in. Nice.
I'm happy with keeping the BC and MN. A variable to make the other two optional seems reasonable.Good.
Is the land where the wreckage is always arid?I think -too lazy to check- it's just that the landscape art for the wreckage looks arid. They had to pick a background.
I don't have a strong opinion on allowing SMAX factions to be selectable, but bear in mind that they can be added as custom factionsAh, OK then by me.
"If possible, all valid faction files should be selectable from the little arrow menu (is this one of those impossible things? I think Yitzi has said so)."
There's a limit on the custom factions you can have loaded into the custom factions menu (8 or 9 iirc). Expanding that may be doable if it's just making room for more bytes, but it may involve annoying GUI work which would make it extremely hard. We can preload one set of 7 in the custom faction menu though.
Hmmm. The X faction select screen is just plain better, and the only problem is that some people really object to the second seven factions.
I've been doing some fiddling. A prospective smac_in_smax mod file is attached.That sounds good. Not perfect, but should make FTs do basically nothing.
I've managed to remove fungal towers from view. Making them air units didn't work, but turning them into foils does. They don't appear on the initial map and only appear for one turn when produced by a pod. I've given them cloaking devices so that they're even harder to spot.
Spore Launchers can be replaced easily and transparently (and I've done so, only tell at the moment is I've left the name different for testing reasons).Replaced by MWs?
Replacing sealurks with isles of the deep doesn't work properly because slot 10 (isle of the deep) use a hardcoded .cvr file if you set the display option to auto-generate (-1), but slot 15 (sealurks) will display a normal foil unit with the appropriate weapons if you set it to -1.Right.. maybe copying each angle of the IoD image into units.pcx would give it correct rotation?
The only possible fix without .exe modding are to draw an isle of the deep graphic in units.pcx (but then it won't rotate like normal IoD). (Trying to drown the unit by making it infantry won't kill it if it spawns in water).
Don't know how to properly remove Battle Ogres. Probably not possible as those slots are hardcoded to both spawn from pods and be unrepairable and unaffected by monoliths. Looks like they'll have to be a .exe thing.hm, I think ideally we'd want the pod pop for BOs to reroll the pod pop until it got a non-BO event? Otherwise you've either got a new event or imbalanced chances for existing events, even if you figure out how to turn the BO into some other SMAC pod event.
I think the Mk1 Ogre is also hardcoded to be given to the usurpers.
For now, I set them to be "Unity Robotic Formers" with clean reactors, which is less weird than the ogres.
Depending on how the game handles native life generation, having no fungal towers could make native life weaker than normal. But we could buff that.Yep, seems sensible.
I've also replaced the opening film, menu background and maps of planet (copied and renamed the files from smac). The buttons are still green, though.Good stuff :)
I've played a very pleasant game with this mod on today and everything works as intended. (Currently sealurks use the sealurk art but act as IoD).Sounds great :D. I'd also add in switching the graphics of the middle faction select UI for something without progenitors, if there's an artist who can make that happen. Oh, and a few misc text files like labels.txt may need tweaks here and there to remove progenitor references.
Left to do in non-exe modding:
Change back to the SMAC tech tree. (#TECHNOLOGY)
Remove alien crossfire entries from the datalinks.
Possibly re-write the borehole interlude
Change default second set of factions (#NEWFACTIONS)
Change list of custom factions (#CUSTOMFACTIONS)
Add the best of the custom units CMN's have been using to make the AI smarter
New exe-modding necessary to provide tools to make this mod:
Change button colours
Provide switches to enable/disable native lifeform types from being spawned or appearing in pods
Provide switches to enable/disable units appearing in pods
Provide switches for landmarks
Useful but not strictly necessary .exe modding
Make the special abilities associated with particular slot numbers in #UNITS (no repair + no monolith interaction, fungus walk) into normal special abilities.
@eteAt that point I was writing it as a SMAC->SMAX changelist and referring to SMAX specific modules which need removing, nothing to add don't worry :)
In your list, you also have stuff about adding new weapons and armour. I think that's quite contentious and could be out of scope for a "smac in the smax engine" project.
@othersAll those not in SMAC should go. People who want SMAX stuff can add in exactly what they want, and many who want it will be purists.
Do we want to remove all smax technologies, units and facilities or are there some that clearly add to the game and should not be removed even from this quite conservative mod?
Alternatively, am I wrongly characterising this as a quite conservative modding effort?
Attached mod doesn't have the video in it because it's too big. Just copy opening.wve from movies to openingx.wve in the mod.Excellent progress :)
Also, I may be using the wrong maps of chiron, haven't tested that part yet.
@BUncle, et. al
I think keeping the existing smax faction select screen is a good idea. Replacing the second set of factions with an alt set is also easy and a good idea.
On BC and MN giving evidence of prior habitation which harms flavor: Monoliths. Prior habitation evidence was there from the start, and those landmarks were in SMAC.
@BU: I like the idea of showcasing some cool new community factions more than having clones of defaults. Giving wider choice of factions is great for repeat playability.
I've managed to remove fungal towers from view...That sounds good. Not perfect, but should make FTs do basically nothing.
Spore Launchers can be replaced easily and transparently (and I've done so, only tell at the moment is I've left the name different for testing reasons).
QuoteReplacing sealurks with isles of the deep doesn't work properly because slot 10 (isle of the deep) use a hardcoded .cvr file if you set the display option to auto-generate (-1), but slot 15 (sealurks) will display a normal foil unit with the appropriate weapons if you set it to -1.Right.. maybe copying each angle of the IoD image into units.pcx would give it correct rotation?
The only possible fix without .exe modding are to draw an isle of the deep graphic in units.pcx (but then it won't rotate like normal IoD). (Trying to drown the unit by making it infantry won't kill it if it spawns in water).
QuoteDon't know how to properly remove Battle Ogres...
For now, I set them to be "Unity Robotic Formers" with clean reactors, which is less weird than the ogres.
hm, I think ideally we'd want the pod pop for BOs to reroll the pod pop until it got a non-BO event? Otherwise you've either got a new event or imbalanced chances for existing events, even if you figure out how to turn the BO into some other SMAC pod event.
I've played a very pleasant game with this mod on today and everything works as intended. (Currently sealurks use the sealurk art but act as an IoD).
Left to do in non-exe modding:
Change back to the SMAC tech tree. (#TECHNOLOGY)
Remove alien crossfire entries from the datalinks.
Possibly re-write the borehole interlude
Change default second set of factions (#NEWFACTIONS)
Change list of custom factions (#CUSTOMFACTIONS)
Add the best of the custom units CMN's have been using to make the AI smarter
New exe-modding necessary to provide tools to make this mod:
Change button colours
Provide switches to enable/disable native lifeform types from being spawned or appearing in pods
Provide switches to enable/disable units appearing in pods
Provide switches to disable the cloning event
Provide switches for landmarks
Useful but not strictly necessary .exe modding
Make the special abilities associated with particular slot numbers in #UNITS (no repair + no monolith interaction, fungus walk) into normal special abilities.
Sounds great :D. I'd also add in switching the graphics of the middle faction select UI for something without progenitors, if there's an artist who can make that happen. Oh, and a few misc text files like labels.txt may need tweaks here and there to remove progenitor references.
I think the unit is only actually made by scenarios and the time warp event and the asterisk is just there to signify that for some reason.
Well, it's predefined, but its pre-requisite is set to Disabled, so it's not possible to build it (and it's not dropped from pods).
The only way for it to get in the game is for some unusual event to put it there.