SMACX Thinker Mod

[induktio]

Looks like I have not yet posted a thread here about Thinker Mod for SMACX that I've been updating for many years.

At the beginning Thinker was mainly an AI improvement mod but the features have expanded greatly since then.

• Includes Scient's patch, can be also used with several other mods
• Possible to play SMAC-in-SMACX mod for more vanilla experience
• Vastly improved production/terraforming AI
• AI combat units are rewritten to use more variety in tactics
• AI colony pods reach their destinations much more often
• More config options for many previously fixed settings in the game engine
• Many enhancements to random map generation/spawn locations
• Visual changes on map rendering and other user interface additions
• Some automation features are also available for player factions

While the homepage can be found on github, there's a separate feature backlog on discussions where I try to keep tabs on ideas that could be implemented later. There is also discord for mod discussions.

Direct links for downloads: release versions and develop builds.

Sometimes there are update announcements on reddit.com/r/alphacentauri/ but the latest news are on the project homepage.

 

[Blake00]

Thanks for bringing your work to CFC @induktio , I've lurk followed your work at alphacentauri2 forums for years!

 

[induktio]

Newest develop build includes some interesting visual changes on the base screen:
* If any satellites are active, bonuses from satellites are shown on bottom left corner.
* Nerve staple turns and upcoming drone riots warning is shown on right side corner.
* Captured base extra drone turns left is shown on the psych sub window (can be up to 50 turns).

Some of this stuff previously was not shown on the user interface at all, so could be useful.

Apparently there has also been a long-standing visual bug when the game is run on Win 10 that caused some random characters to appear on the diplomacy scan display on the world map. This issue should be fixed now but would be useful if somebody can confirm it doesn't appear anymore on Win 10.

 

[induktio]

Version 3.5 is now available with those changes I listed above and a bunch of other stuff, see the full list here.

 

[induktio]

Updated version 3.8 improves the accelerated start feature (more moddable, roughly the same resources for all factions). There has also been balance changes for choppers and nerve stapling and other bugfixes. See changelog here.

 

[induktio]

Updated version 3.9 is now available. This time it adds more config options for events, adjusts the starting unit spawning options and fixes a couple of bugs that may have caused crashes. Changelog here.

 

[Bibor]

@induktio I'd just like to say how much I appreciate all the work you've done. I reinstalled SMAC after many years and I'm really enjoying it. The graphics is a bit hard on the eyes, one'd really need a 1080p or lower res monitor to play it.

 

[induktio]

Yeah thanks. There's some limitations in dealing with the graphics as the GUI doesn't scale that well on larger displays but the mod applies a couple of patches on it anyway. Today Thinker version 4.0 was also released to add a bunch of features. See changelog here.

 

[induktio]

Regarding the original game binary, there has been lots of reports of game crashing consistently after clicking some tiles on the world map. This is caused by the game not properly supporting resolutions not divisible by 8. Thinker now implements fixes for these issues and they are available for preview in Mar 14 develop build. It also removes the old DirectDraw and windowed mode options and replaces them with video_mode option which allows for more flexible choices with custom resolutions.

; Select display mode for the game window.
; 0 = fullscreen using the native desktop resolution.
; 1 = fullscreen using the custom resolution set in window size options.
; 2 = borderless windowed mode using the window size options.
; Alt+Enter can be used to switch between windowed and custom resolution modes.
video_mode=0

 

[induktio]

Here is also an example of the base window overlay feature that displays population counts, various drone riot, golden age or population boom notifications and satellite production bonuses. It was also part of the latest release.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Does this mod change anything about the fact that the vanilla AI just tends to generally get more and more demanding as the game goes on and eventually just turns randomly hostile for no reason even if they were your friends by the time you reach the end game?

 

[induktio]

For the most part, the mod changes diplomacy only indirectly. There are some exceptions mentioned in Details.md. The AIs tend to always dislike the largest faction and any others that run opposite social choices from their preferred social model. Not sure now but this diplomatic logic might have been also mentioned in general terms in the manual. These are maybe the most important factors that often made the AIs very hostile by the end game. Thinker doesn't change that except there was a minor patch on the function that decides if the AI should attack another faction.

 

[induktio]

Playing the original game with DirectDraw=0 adjusted most of the backgrounds to fit the screen but there were some exceptions that were not scaled properly. In the newest build we have an update that scales both interlude and credits screen backgrounds on all resolutions. In the previous versions we already had the game setup screen to adjust the planet preview background based on selected properties on all resolutions.

 

[Edoo]

I have finished one full playthrough with Spartans, Col. Santiago recently so anyone interested in the mod can see how it plays out here:

Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri - Thinker mod - Santiago

Alpha Centauri playthrough - Spartans - Col. Santiago. Thinker difficulty.

www.youtube.com

That one is finished, starting another one as well.

Also made short install, intro guide for the mod. And I guess I will be uploading more stuff and guides about the Alpha Centauri, so I guess check the channel occasionally if you are interested.

 

[induktio]

New version is now available from the project homepage. This time there are a couple of general and stability improvements. Notable things to mention is that the governor has a couple more options and the game can now parse "Free Technology" defined for each facility when facility_free_tech option is enabled. These definitions exist on default alphax.txt for a couple of facilities but they were not used by the game. Those facilities still require maintenance if it is defined though. The separate config option could even be removed and make this the default behavior but it is currently this way since this game feature has not been used before.

Recycling Tanks,    4, 0, Biogen,  EcoEng2, > free with "Adv.Ecological Engineering"
Recreation Commons, 4, 1, Psych,   SentEco, > free with "Sentient Econometrics"
Energy Bank,        8, 1, IndEcon, QuanMac, > free with "Quantum Machinery"
Network Node,       8, 1, InfNet,  HAL9000, > free with "Self-Aware Machines"