Maintenance cost always halved at Transcend difficulty (bug or intended?)

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Author Topic:   Maintenance cost always halved at Transcend difficulty (bug or intended?)

VictorK posted 06-01-99 11:42 AM ET
I just figured out that at Transcend difficulty, the maintenace cost of all your facilities is halved. At Thinker, it is reduced by 25%. At the other easier levels, the maintenance costs are normal. (One can easily verify this by using the cheat mode to change difficulty for a saved game. It isn't shown in the F3 report screen; you have to click next turn and note the change in energy reserve.)
Now I don't think this is intended. The Transcend level is supposed to be difficult as hell, and if anything the maintenance cost should be increased by 50%, not reduced by 50%. No wonder why at Transcend I always find my energy reserve to be much higher than it should be. Personally, I wish I could play the Transcend setting at normal maintenance costs.
If this is a bug, it is yet another terrible bug regarding energy calculation (much more serious than the one I mentioned earlier). Did the programmers of the game ever PROOF-READ the formulas in the program? Also, I would be surprised if no one else has noticed this, but I haven't seen anyone mentioned this before.
VictorK posted 06-01-99 02:02 PM ET
I could speculate where this bug is from. I think maintenance costs are supposed to be reduced for the easiest levels, not the hardest ones. I guess they mistook Transcend for Citizen, and Thinker for Specialist. This might sound silly but in the program, numbers were used to represent difficulty levels. For example, if 1 was used to represent Transcend, 2 for Thinker, and so on, and 6 for Citizen, they could have mistaken and thought the order was inverted when they wrote the code to calculate maintenance (i.e. they mistook 1 for Citizen, etc.). The error would probably be in a conditional statement, i.e. something like

if (difficulty==1) {...}
should be like
if (difficulty==6) {...}
This bug should be fixed in less than one minute.
TheScientist posted 06-01-99 05:15 PM ET
I tried what you suggested and experienced something similar:
Citizen: -67 Energy per Turn (EpT)
Specialist...: -68 EpT
Thinker: -43 EpT
Transcend: -18 EpT
I built a city with all improvements (cost: 75 EpT) and changed the difficulty levels. You can easily see, that the cost decreases at the two highest levels, but on my computer, Transcend is only 1/4 as expensive as Citizen.
Also Interesting is, that Citizen costs 1 EpT less than Specialist. If you compare the costs for each base improvement, you find out, the the command center costs 0 at Citizen, but 1 at Specialist.
Has anybody an explaination for that?
VictorK posted 06-01-99 10:51 PM ET
I experimented a bit more on this, and I would like to correct my previous post. The maintenance cost at Transcend isn't reduced by 50%; it's reduced by 66%. And the maintenance cost at Thinker is reduced by 33%. This agrees with the results posted by TheScientist. (The difference between Specialist and Transcend is 50EpT, 66% of the total maintenance cost.)
In any case, this is a bug.
As for the command center costing 0 at Citizen, this might be intended (since Citizen is the easiest level).
tfs99 posted 06-03-99 08:05 PM ET
This explains why I am getting so much energy per turn playing as Morgan at Transcend. Good catch VictorK.
Better e-mail Firaxis quickly with this one as I heard that patch 4.0 has gone to QA at EA.
SMAC n ... Ted S.
MatFis posted 06-04-99 05:29 AM ET
I�m playing Morgan too, now in Level (in german called "Bibliothekar") "bibliothekian" (in english it will be so, I think), and I have mutch (!!) energy...
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-04-99 09:14 AM ET
MatFis is playing at librarian.
DeVore posted 06-04-99 11:25 AM ET
LOL Now I know why I'm always 2 or 3 credits away from bankrupcy when I play Librarian LAN games and a rich mofo when I single play Transcend.
I think it's time to re-evaulate what's really the hardest level, I doubt it's transcend.
Well done Victor.
/Dev
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Author	Topic: Maintenance cost always halved at Transcend difficulty (bug or intended?)
VictorK	posted 06-01-99 11:42 AM ET I just figured out that at Transcend difficulty, the maintenace cost of all your facilities is halved. At Thinker, it is reduced by 25%. At the other easier levels, the maintenance costs are normal. (One can easily verify this by using the cheat mode to change difficulty for a saved game. It isn't shown in the F3 report screen; you have to click next turn and note the change in energy reserve.) Now I don't think this is intended. The Transcend level is supposed to be difficult as hell, and if anything the maintenance cost should be increased by 50%, not reduced by 50%. No wonder why at Transcend I always find my energy reserve to be much higher than it should be. Personally, I wish I could play the Transcend setting at normal maintenance costs. If this is a bug, it is yet another terrible bug regarding energy calculation (much more serious than the one I mentioned earlier). Did the programmers of the game ever PROOF-READ the formulas in the program? Also, I would be surprised if no one else has noticed this, but I haven't seen anyone mentioned this before.
VictorK	posted 06-01-99 02:02 PM ET I could speculate where this bug is from. I think maintenance costs are supposed to be reduced for the easiest levels, not the hardest ones. I guess they mistook Transcend for Citizen, and Thinker for Specialist. This might sound silly but in the program, numbers were used to represent difficulty levels. For example, if 1 was used to represent Transcend, 2 for Thinker, and so on, and 6 for Citizen, they could have mistaken and thought the order was inverted when they wrote the code to calculate maintenance (i.e. they mistook 1 for Citizen, etc.). The error would probably be in a conditional statement, i.e. something like if (difficulty==1) {...} should be like if (difficulty==6) {...} This bug should be fixed in less than one minute.
TheScientist	posted 06-01-99 05:15 PM ET I tried what you suggested and experienced something similar: Citizen: -67 Energy per Turn (EpT) Specialist...: -68 EpT Thinker: -43 EpT Transcend: -18 EpT I built a city with all improvements (cost: 75 EpT) and changed the difficulty levels. You can easily see, that the cost decreases at the two highest levels, but on my computer, Transcend is only 1/4 as expensive as Citizen. Also Interesting is, that Citizen costs 1 EpT less than Specialist. If you compare the costs for each base improvement, you find out, the the command center costs 0 at Citizen, but 1 at Specialist. Has anybody an explaination for that?
VictorK	posted 06-01-99 10:51 PM ET I experimented a bit more on this, and I would like to correct my previous post. The maintenance cost at Transcend isn't reduced by 50%; it's reduced by 66%. And the maintenance cost at Thinker is reduced by 33%. This agrees with the results posted by TheScientist. (The difference between Specialist and Transcend is 50EpT, 66% of the total maintenance cost.) In any case, this is a bug. As for the command center costing 0 at Citizen, this might be intended (since Citizen is the easiest level).
tfs99	posted 06-03-99 08:05 PM ET This explains why I am getting so much energy per turn playing as Morgan at Transcend. Good catch VictorK. Better e-mail Firaxis quickly with this one as I heard that patch 4.0 has gone to QA at EA. SMAC n ... Ted S.
MatFis	posted 06-04-99 05:29 AM ET I�m playing Morgan too, now in Level (in german called "Bibliothekar") "bibliothekian" (in english it will be so, I think), and I have mutch (!!) energy...
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-04-99 09:14 AM ET MatFis is playing at librarian.
DeVore	posted 06-04-99 11:25 AM ET LOL Now I know why I'm always 2 or 3 credits away from bankrupcy when I play Librarian LAN games and a rich mofo when I single play Transcend. I think it's time to re-evaulate what's really the hardest level, I doubt it's transcend. Well done Victor. /Dev