Transcendent Thoughts...

[Sir Isaac Newton]

I have heard that in Civ II, once you discover 255 Future Techs, the tech tree resets itself and you start rediscovering ancient techs.

I was wondering if this or something like it can happen in SMAC or Civ III. I played a game as the University through to Transcendence the other day, and just for fun I kept playing afterwards. I was discovering 2-3 Transcendent Thoughts per turn, and I got it up to 255, 256,..., 260. And there I stopped, because the limit I had had in mind obviously wasn't really there. Does anybody know what the limit is, or if a limit exists, or if it's all just hokum? Thanks for your help in this matter.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

Well, I do not know what the limit is, but from a computer programming perspective there must be one. The question is what happens when it is reached.

Since from your testing, 255 is not the limit. My guess would be it is 2147483647. My reasoning behind this is follows...

Because the value is most likly stored as a standard programming number such as a byte (which you proved to not be the case), short, integer, or long. The limits would be as follows based on signed and unsigned values:

byte (8bit): 127 or 255
short (16bit): 32767 or 65535
integer (32bit): 2147483647 or 4294967295
long (64 bit): 9223372036854775807 or ~1.84x10^19

Also, since SMAC cannot run in Windows 3.11 it is not a 16bit game. Although that does not mean it cannot use 16 bit number, it makes it more unlikely.

Finally, because a signed 32 bit number would be more than enough space, the programmer probably did not worry about making it unsigned.

Thus, they probably used a signed interger.

Well, that was a bucketload of information!!!

 

[Terje]

Wow. My respect for CrackedCrystal increases for every one of his/her post I read. Even though I suppose others also know this. But that reasoning! Again, WOW. My hat is off to you...

 

[CrackedCrystal]

Originally posted by Terje
Wow. My respect for CrackedCrystal increases for every one of his/her post I read. Even though I suppose others also know this. But that reasoning! Again, WOW. My hat is off to you...

Thanks! It helps I have 7 years of computer programming experience and love working with computers.

And I am male.

 

[philippe]

I never get to transcendand thought.... lucky guys...