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 a similar experience to the original game
• Vastly improved production/movement AI
• Visual changes on map rendering and random map generation
• More config options for many previously fixed settings in the game engine
• Additional options for resolution settings and other user interface features
• 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.

If you liked this mod, consider also supporting the development.

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"

 

[Induktio]

As a separate announcement Alpha Centauri Wiki has been rehosted at a new address. This was made possible using a relatively recent backup that also included all images attached on the wiki so the end result was really good.

Additional edits are welcome but we have some moderation in place on the wiki for new accounts. To get the account approved the easiest way to get hold on one of the moderators is to visit Thinker discord or alternatively email the accounts from Mediawiki interface.

 

[Psyringe]

In case someone's interested, I played one full game with Thinker v4.8 and had quite a positive experience. I shared my impressions here:

Very positive experience with the Thinker mod

Hi! I haven't posted here for a long time, but I've been playing SMAC/SMAX on and off since they came out. Every few years I want to experience it again, because I think it has amazingly well thought-out mechanics and a fascinatingly implemented setting. However, similar to Planet's...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[Bandenere]

Difficult question: How does thinker mod compare to this mod: SMACX AI Growth mod 1.58 ... the author there look pretty confident of "his product"

 

[Psyringe]

Difficult question: How does thinker mod compare to this mod: SMACX AI Growth mod 1.58 ... the author there look pretty confident of "his product"

Well, as a mod creator, you kind of have to have confidence in your project. Otherwise, it would be rather difficult to spend all that time and effort on it. That said, I agree that the AI Growth mod looks pretty well done.

But to answer your question (I haven't played the AI growth mod, but looked into its files): Both mods aim for the same goal (a better-performing AI), but their methods are practically the exact opposite of each other. The AI Growth mod doesn't change the AI at all, instead it changes a lot of the game's rules and parameters (tech tree, all factions, prototypes, social engineering, etc.) into something that the existing AI can handle better. It's not shy of doling out new bonuses to AIs or removing features entirely from the game if the AI can't handle them. Some of the changes looked pretty drastic to me, but it's hard to tell without having played it.

The Thinker mod uses the exact opposite approach: It tries to keep the game's original rules intact, but rewrites substantial parts of the AI so that it can handle them better. Modding the AI has traditionally been very difficult because all changes had to be hacked in assembler code into space that the game already used for its existing code. Thinker, however, skips all that by "just" hacking in a link to Thinker's own dll, and that dll contains Thinker's own AI code, which the author wrote from scratch in C++. Effectively, Thinker bypasses large parts of the game's original AI (which was never very good), and replaces it with its own. This makes it MUCH easier to let the AI do complex calculations and smarter decisions, because the AI no longer has to work within the constraints of pre-2000 game development.

Personally, while I respect the work that Brendan put into the AI Growth mod, it simply isn't what I was looking for. I'm fine with the game rules as they are - I think for the most part, they were designed pretty well. I just always wished that the AI actually understood them. That's what Thinker does.

That said, if both mods look interesting to you, there's no reason not to try both. You can easily create several copies of a fresh SMAX installation and use each for a different mod. Considering that the Thinker AI is remarkably flexible and avoids hardcoded values, you could probably even combine Thinker's AI with the alphax.txt and faction data from the AI Growth mod - some manual adjustments to alphax.txt may be necessary, but technically it should work. Not sure how well the AI would actually perform, though, given that the AI Growth changes were optimized for the original AI.

 

[Bandenere]

Thank you for your extremely competent reply, you provided me with the exact kind of info i was looking for!!!