any way to modify the game so their is no max unit cap?

[mezmerizer]

I have been working an amazing campaign on SMAC the original playing as Morgan. I have the game map set to 1000x1000 custom... all factions have huge empires that span across huge continents which means the war and battles are epic...

It is at the climax of action finally and i just realized the past three turns that none of my bases are producing new units... I have read that their is a max cap on units in the game...

This kind've infuriated me because it's been such an amazing campaign so far, i'd hate to see it end just because i cant build any more units.... how stupid...

anyone have any advice or anything i can do so i can keep tearing away at this amazing campaign or am i condemed to uninstalling this game?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

It's been discussed in the past. There seems to be no way to do that.

What you need is to track down scient- if he ever resumes work on the scient-ific Patch, this sounds like something he might address...

 

[Petek]

You write that "none of my bases are producing new units". Are you using the base governors? You might want to turn off the governor in one base and see if you can manually build new units. Although it's thought that there is a hard coded upper limit on the number of units in the game, the governors may very well stop building units before that number is reached.

You also may want to check on the size of your map. See this thread and the link in its first post for more information about really large maps.

HTH

Petek

 

[mezmerizer]

thanks for the quick responses gentlemen...

I am running a 1000x1000 map, playing the game on transcend... so there are continent spanning empires with each faction.... And there have been some amazing epic battles in this campaign so far...

No I do not use governors in any of my bases, but that is a good suggestion Petek, thank you for posting.

I guess i have two choices really...

I can change my military strategy up a bit with this limitation being known... instead of conquering new bases and using those bases to benefit myself, I can "starve-out" each base I attack and wipe the base off the map. Or i can use the quick approach with planet busters, but that is not my style, i'm not the MacArthur of SMAC lol... The starve-out method will not work with naval bases though because they have pressure domes built-in (aka recycle tanks) and i wont be able to drop their nutrients enough to drop their population to 1 so i can sweet the base w/o an atrocity...

...I do have an enormous amount of terraformers that I could probably disband...

everything aside my second choice would be not to play this game because of the limit... the fact that the most satisfying aspect of this game, the fact that you can have a HUGE customizable military and conquer a massive planet with it... is limited, is a MAJOR turn off to the game itself after years of playing it. I'd say i should just limit myself to the smaller maps, but i've had my share of capaigns on smaller maps and they have gotten too linear for me. The massive amounts of space requires more thought with massive military ops... and this is what i like...

If you guys do find anything to help or mod the game please let me know. thanks again for the quick responses...

 

[Petek]

I'm curious about how the inability to build more units manifests itself. Do units no longer appear as available? Or what? If possible, please post a save from when you can't build units. Perhaps I can figure out what is the limit. Thanks.

Petek

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Do no new units build when old ones get killed?

 

[mezmerizer]

I got elected planetary governor to do some research on the subject matter here...

ok infilitrator on the other factions gives me the totals on units in the game (with the exception of the native life-forms)

ok so first turn i check it
Me: 440 total units
deidre: 289
yang: 627
prov: 117
spartans: 217
believers: 166
UN: 174
total: 2030 total units (and then add on any native lifeforms present)

but... i went on to the next turn and...
Me: 440 still
deidre: 294 ( =WTH?)
yang: 627 still
prov: 117 still
spartans: 219 ( =WTH?)
UN: 175 ( =slight WTH?)

so i'm guessing that the native life has some effect on it... any normal turn passes and any given faction could be producing 20-30 units at a time... especially factions as powerful as mine or the hive...

 

[Gelion]

Maybe your intelligence just got more accurate? Isn't there an indication of the limit in the manual?

 

[RMcD94]

I would be very pleased if you posted a screenshot of your massive empires, it sounds awesome.

 

[vyeh]

scient is looking into this issue. He could use a save where this problem arose.

Well, just doing a quick scan through I think I found values I need to look at. But a save game would definitely help otherwise will have to create a new game with 2048 units myself to test.

 

[vyeh]

We generated our own save and confirmed that the unit limit is indeed 2048. It also looks like there is something (scient speculates it is the spawning of new native life) that stops at 1792.

To answer the opening post, it is likely scient will have a new patch shortly (on the order of a month after testing), that will address the problem. You will be able to install the patch and then reload your save, so you can continue your game.