[MOD] Planet Roanoke, a/k/a all SMAC'ed up

[Padmewan]

Thanks, that is very helpful. Not surprising, as I haven't given the Mutagen and its related buildings / units any thought since practically the first release of this mod. It needs serious reworking anyway, so I'll look into that this weekend...

 

[jenks]

Done a bit of testing on 1.48, stuck some comments on the other forum...

Any chance we could up the circulation of the mod, by making it a self-executable install over a rar?

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Two problems:

1st: experience for the irregular militia is capped at 12. Thus your first unit caps at 3 promotions, which is by far not enough to withstand a continuous onslaught of xeno waves (playing marathon will leave you a long time with irregulars).

2nd: as a result AI civs tend to die off quickly early in the game.

Two possible solutions: either don't play slow games, or add a 2nd unit for slower games.

 

[wiseguy101]

Seems like a great mod. I'll try it out soon.

 

[Padmewan]

Two problems:

1st: experience for the irregular militia is capped at 12. Thus your first unit caps at 3 promotions, which is by far not enough to withstand a continuous onslaught of xeno waves (playing marathon will leave you a long time with irregulars).

2nd: as a result AI civs tend to die off quickly early in the game.

Two possible solutions: either don't play slow games, or add a 2nd unit for slower games.

I didn't know units' XP could be capped... or is it because the unit runs out of promotions? (Woodelf, any thoughts?)

We have not yet implemented a working halt to the onslaught of energy waves. It's supposed to stop after it knocks out any civ, but that logic check seems to be failing for some reason. More investigation needed here...

Thanks for everyone's patience in testing out what is definitely a very beta product!!!

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Is your logic checking if the energy waves knocked out a civ, or if they took it over?

AI doesn't seem to handle pop growth that well yet. So the energy waves often knock out 1 pop towns -> town isn't taken over by them.

 

[woodelf]

I didn't know units' XP could be capped... or is it because the unit runs out of promotions? (Woodelf, any thoughts?)

It's capped in the Global Defines xml file. I think the cap should be raised to a 100 or so for now.

 

[woodelf]

Is your logic checking if the energy waves knocked out a civ, or if they took it over?

AI doesn't seem to handle pop growth that well yet. So the energy waves often knock out 1 pop towns -> town isn't taken over by them.

That's a good point. Gene, how exactly is that coded up?

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Make it either 50 or 101 ^^. Cause 50 is the 7th and 101 is the 10th promotion.

 

[Padmewan]

XP caps -- actually it's not a hard XP cap per se, it's a cap on XP you get from barbs (which I upped to 12 from 10). (Pulses are "barbarian" units).

The CTD is definitely linked directly to the Pulse Dampener. Python warns you of a C++ exception when you mouse over the flag, and you get a CTD if you try to select the Dampener using its button from the lower-middle display. Since it has no trouble displaying the unit, I doubt it's a graphics-related problem, though I can test that out. More likely, there's some text that isn't showing right. I'll try combing through this line by line; if anyone's got a sharp eye for something out of place, I'd appreciate any help. I've been eliminating anomalies one by one; for example, by making sure all the units and unit classes have TXT_KEY values, I've reduced it from 5 Python popups to 1 or 2. Once we get that down to 0, hopefully the CTD will go away too.

I changed the Python code last night to generate a number of Pulses equal to the number of unhealthy faces in your city. This pretty much tracks how far your faction has progressed, I think. I'll upload this newest version after we kill whatever the error is with the Dampener....

 

[Padmewan]

btw, if it helps with the debugging, the exact error Python throws is:

 File "CvScreensInterface", line 598, in forceScreenRedraw

File "CvMainInterface", line 688, in redraw

File "CvMainInterface", line 2650, in updateHelpStrings

RuntimeError: unidentifiable C++ exception
ERR: Python function forceScreenRedraw failed, module CvScreensInterface

... which is what makes me think it has something to do with the text (specifically, updateHelpStrings).

 

[Padmewan]

Latest version 0.148a

• Cleaned up XML to get rid of CTD when mousing over PUlse Dampener -- successful?
• Upped Vitologist to 4 food to account for 3-food population
• Fixed Python code that left fake "Terraform" improvement in place after being built
• Inserted warning about Pulses
• Changed Pulse code to generate 1 pulse / unhealthy pop; ends at Era II (not a permanent fix)

Assuming we've nailed this bug (not really, see my forum for a picture of the problem), I'd like to move on to the successor to the pulse; Great Vitologists; Era II Vitologist-related Wonders; and thinking about Era III. Would love someone to propose how to clean up techs for Era I.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Is the mutasom problem fixed in this patch, or should we restrain from building preachers?

 

[Padmewan]

No, I'm afraid I forgot about the Mutasom. Based on this:

I'm assuming that the CTD's are related to some incorrect XML node defining the unit, unit class name, or combat type. (Both the Mutasom and the Pulse Dampener are defined as Psi Combat -- the Pulse Dampener for lack of something better to come up with).

I think for the next major version I'm going to also start eliminating Era I techs to simplify things and also get rid of elements that aren't working. I'd also like to see why the AI is building so many units rather than infrastructure, despite researching rather effectively. It seems to really hold off on building workers and colonists, maybe because it is programmed to wait until a certain population point before building units that require food?

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Padweman, probably. Actually most players dont build workers nor settlers until a town reached at least size 3, so why shouldn't the AI do otherwise?

 

[Padmewan]

Padweman, probably. Actually most players dont build workers nor settlers until a town reached at least size 3, so why shouldn't the AI do otherwise?

I dunno, I stopped playing the game several months ago, when the common wisdom was "Chop your first settler!"

The problem for the AI is that if it doesn't build that first worker, it can't get to 3 pop. Maybe the Biosynthesizer should not require any tech?

The basic problem right now with Era I is that there's an "optimal" path through the techs, which is the Bio track first. Applied Physics picked up new life with the Pulses, but the science branch is, I guess, premature.

Any thoughts on how to reform this? Changing the yield values of the land REALLY changes the dynamics of the game very radically. Maybe the hothouse improvement should also be free? (But again, the problem isn't if the AI has the tech, it's whether it gets around to building a worker. I think the AI did better when workers didn't cost food).

 

[woodelf]

Free worker at the start?

 

[The Great Apple]

Free worker at the start?

I was thinking that...

 

[woodelf]

The problem originally is that there was nothing for the worker to do in the beginning. Now I think it makes sense to simply have one at landing.

 

[Padmewan]

If each base started with the 4 minimal tiles from the first cultural expansion, there would at least be that "much" to work off. If, also, the hothouse were free and didn't require any new tech, that might work too. I'm game to try both, esp. as I'm looking at truncating the Era I tech tree...

Woodelf or others, any thoughts on what that bug is? Isn't it wierd???