Comprehensive SMAC->SMAX changelist

[kyrub]

I'm happy with keeping the BC and MN. A variable to make the other two optional seems reasonable.

Good.
@ete and @LordAvalon, thanks for description. I'd like to keep that optional, even 100-150 credits is really strong early and I would rather avoid knowing where other players are.

Freeing leaders: I suggest keep it in the game. Reason: It is entirely optional, for the player to choose the action himself. One may easily play a game without noticing. And it is not a strong feature; it also sits well with the original theme.

SMAX factions: (I may surprise here some of you.) Could we actually keep the option to add new factions in a SMAC game? I mean, the player chooses himself the setup, no? As far as the old factions are default setup, I'd go with it, it's simple enough. (Surely, that brings up the question of alien factions, which I'd like to avoid... as it really makes the game different, not sure how to face this). Any ideas on it? Different opinions from fellow SMACers here?

Dio, what are your factions? Where should I look?

[ete]

Okay on freeing faction leaders. Very rarely an AI may use it (I've literally never had it in all my games, but have heard of it happening), but, yea, it has minimal real impact.

Current versions of Dio's factions are on the last page of this thread, and outline for the project on the first: http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=4102.0

They're remakes of the original 7 with custom bases and stuff, partially based on pre-release art/info, with the constraint of using every available bonus and penalty at least once in the set. There's also the option of including them as a bunch of custom factions pre-loaded in alphax to consider.

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 factions either way and having them available by default means you could get them if you roll random.

[DrazharLn]

I think replacing the set of seven SMAX factions (as the second of the three faction choice boxes, if you know what I mean) with something else would be a good idea. I haven't had a look through Dio's factions, though, so I can't comment on them.

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).

I think that adding new interludes is a very good idea, and I'd be up for writing a couple. Does anyone know whether this can be done without .exe modding?

I think some of the more overtly gamey diplomacy dialogue might be altered too; every time you sign a treaty, you get reminded that this will increase trade between your people with the same words. It would be nice to word this more subtly and to do it differently for each faction.

I think it would be a good idea to keep all artificial landmarks removable. The flavour of the game changes if there's evidence of prior inhabitation and each of the landmarks do slightly weird things.

Ideally, we could make each landmark selectable for new random maps, but I expect that's a task for yitzi.

The Unity Wreckage in particular should be removable as it has weird effects that could ruin the flavour of modded games. The argument for removal of the borehole cluster is similar: it's mechanical effect marks it as not-natural, which makes it harder to mod it into a natural landmark, even if you can reskin it.

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Anyway, is anyone experimenting with the suggested text file changes? Seems (naively) like it would be fairly easy to just copy the SMAC tech tree over.

The unit stuff is a little weirder. I did some research on that years ago: http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?3191-Customizing-supply-pod-goodies&p=114692#post114692

The relevant lines are that fungal towers get experience based on the amount of fungus around them (which depending on the fix could cause problems) and that sealurks don't get free movement in sea fungus as Isles of the Deep do.

EDIT: Apparently scient fixed the sealurk thing, so just doing a straight replace should be fine.

For anyone new to alphax editing, darsnan and Ruben wrote a good reference guide here http://www.civgaming.net/wiki/index.php/Alpha(x).txt_editing

It's not up to date with the unofficial patches, though.

[Buster's Uncle]

The text of the interludes is easy to alter, of course.  Adding triggers for new ones would take .exe modding, yes.

[Buster's Uncle]

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.

[kyrub]

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 factions

Ah, OK then by me.

[Geo]

On avoiding SMACX factions when starting a game: there's the option to "play with original factions" during faction setup. So there's no real need to edit them out in a SMAC-adjusted alphax file.

[diessa]

@kyrub You can find Dio's alternate original seven factions here.

Re: SMAX factions

Moving them to the custom faction pool is an easy solution that provides unobtrusive choices to the player, so I continue to consider it as a strong option. I'm unsure what to do with the SMAX faction menu. In the design document, I suggested disabling it. Would that be possible, mechanically? However, providing a set of factions, such as Dio's, sounds like a good option to me as well.

Re: Landmarks

Can we control where the Unity Wreckage spawns? Could we, for example, put a minimum distance on it to prevent it from spawning adjacent to a faction starting area? That would prevent its modest benefits from being accessed too early. I played a game on the normal Map of Planet, and the wreckage was beside the Freshwater Sea. I found that too close for balance and too crowded in general (i.e., that area had wreckage, the sea, and two factions).

@Lord Avalon I can confirm that the wreckage makes the soil arid.

[ete]

"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.

@diessa: removing the middle menu is possible with .exe editing, like everything else, but working with GUI/menus is particularly tricky and replacing the SMAX factions with others (Dio's, Sigma's, or jarlwolf's, they all have a pack of seven) would be both much easier and showcase some of the community's best factions.

Again for unity wreakage it would be *possible*, but likely a lot of work for little gain. Making it optionally disableable seems like a better idea.

[Yitzi]

"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.

Making room for more bytes is also fairly difficult in many cases.

[ete]

Right. Generally less crazy than attempting GUI modifications though?

[Buster's Uncle]

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.  Less modification is better, provided it still pleases those who otherwise regect X.  I have a set of alt. original seven that are literally nothing but the original seven with the names and graphics changed.  Is there something in that for vanilla lovers?

[DrazharLn]

I've been doing some fiddling. A prospective smac_in_smax mod file is attached.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

@ete
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.

@others
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.

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.

[Buster's Uncle]

http://alphacentauri2.info/My%20Custom%20Factions/Custom%20Factions.htm#Alternate%20Offical%20Factions

It turns out I never bothered with the text files on most of them, because I was expecting Darsnan to take care of that - but I recall from the ones I did that it's a very minor job.  Change a few names in the faction.txt, and the name of the first (founding and headquarters) base on the list for good measure.  All the bases would be even better but coming up with 30 or so new names is a real job. 

Anyone who took an interest in making .txts would be welcome to go to it  with my blessing.

These all have the original bases, hue-shifted, so they're playable alongside their originals - this was inspired by some artless splinter factions of Darsnan's with a lot of input from him on many, as he liked to use splinter factions in scenarios set on other planets.  I no longer remember what-all was just me.

[kyrub]

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.

My problem is that I don't have SMAX installed, so I really don't know what GUI we are talking about. That's why I don't have a clear opinion on it. I will try to have a look at them somewhere.