posted 05-04-99 04:27 AM ET        

[Big Breath. Hold it. Now, exhale.]

Ok, now, seriously, this has aggravated me and aggravated me and AGGRAVATED me. I find at times like this that I think the guy or gal that got the bright idea to have the between player turn events show up on the main map screen as a text overlay should be taken out and given 40 lashes with a cat-of-nine-tails. And then liberally sprinkled with salt. And then...

This struck me as a bad idea in demo v1.0 and its STILL a very bad and cruel idea. Who came up with this, Catbert? Do you realize what a utter piece of crap this is when you have like 10 or more screen text overlaid messages get displayed AND you have and interlude or two in that same turn resolution? All that "BoreHole Destroyed" "Forest Destroyed" "Farm Destroyed" "Solar Array Destroyed" "Sensor Destroyed" etc etc etc are gone forever! I think you guys should REALLY put that in the small central multi-function display, just like the "Nutrients Shortage in base YYYYY" and the other events. Then I would be able to at least SEE what is that my Pentium II 400 MHz system just whipped through in less than a second or so...

Give us a break! Stop raising our blood pressure already!

Thanks...

posted 05-04-99 06:10 AM ET            

You feel better ?

Here's what you have to do: after your 500'000 messages have zipped up your screen (I wish they did on mine... P100 ) AND BEFORE YOU GET AGGRAVATED, just look below, to the area where the PowerGraphs appear. To the right you'll noticed two little blue buttons, one labeled "I" (Information, I guess), and one that reads "M" (for... TADA ! Yes, you guessed it, Messages).

Simply press this guy, and you'll see a list of all messages that you can scroll up and down at your leisure, and even right-click on the message to have SMAC zoom you to the appropriate location.

How was that for your blood pressure ?

posted 05-04-99 10:53 AM ET            

"Improvement destroyed" is but one example of the lost "event" messages. There are many. When there are only a couple, then its ok. But when you have more than 2 or 3, well...

posted 05-04-99 12:56 PM ET            

Anyway, I can't think of any messages that I have had pop up on the main screen that I couldn't go back and scroll through in the messages area during my turn.

It may be a choice in the preferences section, but I have never felt like messages were gone for good before I got a chance to view them.

Goob

posted 05-04-99 01:48 PM ET            

Low nutrients, Unit finished, prototype finished, non-combat finished, etc etc etc... lots of those options, but they didn't include everything that they send to main map screen.

Jam, what is wrong with agreeing with me? Is that a Forum Atrocity? Like agreeing with Yin?

posted 05-04-99 02:35 PM ET            

Nah, it's not an atrocity. It's just that you and I find ourselves on opposite sides of the fence so often. Therefore, when given the opportunity to agree with you, I jump at it. Now, Yin is another story...

posted 05-04-99 02:41 PM ET            

You may even be able to agree with Yin without sinking as low as I have.

Uh, of course whatever Aredhran says is correct on this matter.

Goob

posted 05-04-99 07:08 PM ET            

The crap screen messaging is just a symptom of the greater problem - the U.I generally sucks. It ranks as pathetic and appalling when compared to RTS games, and doesn't do well when compared to some other TBS games either (unit stacking for instance, a crucial part of Heros and WarlordsIII, is given only the briefest of nods in AC).

The blind tech selection options are dull when compared to CivII, which made you agonize over the choice of tech to research. Okay, it's supposed to be blind, but giving some information about which techs you could end up with for each option would make it so much more fun.

Like CivII, AC keeps the "collection of individual cities" feeling - you get a bunch of seperate towns that work against each other rather than together. The only links between cities is the alphabetically ordered next city key - virtually useless except for getting a quick tour of everything. You can't automatically send units to another destination, ala RTS style (incidentally, I challenge anyone who claims RTS games are mere click fests to play AC with a time limit - now that's bad for your mouse!)

Also, finding out information on a per city basis is difficult - you need to consult the Social engineering and the base improvements list and manually do the math for each town.

It's a small complaint, but you can't set number keys on any locations or units - instead you must either remember the location, manually go through all the units, or else use the 'find city' menu. None of which are nearly as convinent as simply pressing '1'.

Finally, the world map in the bottom corner of the main screen is almost useless. It gives no information on unit locations (neither self nor enemy placements), nor does it scroll to keep the map view in the centre of the world view (ala CivII).

SMAC is only 'good' because of it's uniqueness. It updates CivII, a game which nothing else in the TBS market comes close too. Unfortunately, SMAC stays with the same crummy UI that CivII had - a fact that, in light of it's increased complexity, makes the U.I seem even worse.

Hopefully, we'll get AC2 sooner instead of later. What with the U.I, the dumbass combat system/combat graphics, the lack of units (8 chassis in total, which doesn't rate well with CivII's unique looking array of 100+ units), and the poor stability, I've given up on AC, even with an expansion set in the works. AC does the deep things well - the A.I ranks supreme in the gaming universe, the social engineering system is a stroke of genius, the story, setting, and characters are both colourful and engaging, and the tech tree is at least a reasonable stab at future advances. But simple stuff, like fighting and managing the empire, is what spoils this game. AC is halfbaked, but in the most unusual way - solid on the inside, gooey on the surface.

posted 05-05-99 01:58 AM ET            

I do think that they could have gone another step or three in the evolution of the TBS. Adding what the cities are building to main display was nice, but... The reports in SMAC need to be expanded, etc etc etc...

posted 05-05-99 02:55 AM ET         

For example, why is there a button to the right, and you have to click on it to get to more choices? Sure, that's just an extra click, and most of those functions can be accessed by pressing the function keys, but those extra mouse clicks add up, and frankly, all this is WORK and irritating. Why don't they just have a row of buttons or tabs along the top of the MFD?

Another thing is the unit rooster doesn't do much, since it doesn't tell you where these units are. You have to go to each city and look. That's a pain.

The blind research feels realistic. How could you tell where your reseach leads beforehand, unless you are omniscient? However, the research can be better designed, such as letting you to assign a weigh factor to the various branches a la MoO.

The combat system is dumb, though. Promotion seems to be random. Quality (morale/tech) isn't emphasized enough. Stacks are just units that happen to sit in one place instead of an organic organisation. The Group Move doesn't work (faster units run ahead of slower units instead of moving as a stack).
It is also pretty funny to have planes that run on nuclear power to go back to a base to refuel every turn (maybe every 20 years).

posted 05-05-99 03:25 AM ET         

Similarly, the unit design UI is a pain to use. Why not pop up an 8x8 matrix of slots instead of forcing the user to plod back and forth along another unit bar?

posted 05-05-99 06:54 AM ET            

Now that you mention it, I don't recall seeing "improvement destroyed" messages in the special window. Forest growth, and a bunch of others, yes, but... Geez, maybe I spoke too quickly ? I'll have to check that out...

Aredhran
<amazed that he's actually admitting that he *may* be wrong >

Goob: Thanks for your support, pact brother. Now let's discuss this level 2 tech

posted 05-05-99 07:13 AM ET            

Not only MANY messages don't show in the MFD, but when I was in the reload phase of my learning curve, the onscreen yellow lines lingered long from the previous game after a reload.

I complained a lot, long ago, about the UI.
Now, I adapted myself to it, like wearing goggles that make you see the world upside down.

posted 05-05-99 12:57 PM ET            

Like Planet, your poetry just gets better an better.

Darkstar,

So, for SMACx or v4.0 patch you're putting in a request for all flash messages be reproduced in the message box, right? I don't know a damned thing about programming, but it seems to be a relatively simple thing to do, routing them to the message box instead of the map screen. I'm behind you all the way on this, lead the crusade!

posted 05-05-99 07:01 PM ET            

That Singularity sure does seem to be spitting up a lot of things other than X-Rays these days... Yin, Alabama, Shining1...

A Star's apparent brightness is affected by your distance. And we don't know if Shining1 is self Illuminating or just reflecting another luminescent body's light...

A Darkstar can be an apparently faint star, an not so (actual) bright star, or a black hole. Its the observer's choice. And relative to the conversation at the time...

And I used to use this as a tag for a while

posted 05-05-99 07:10 PM ET            

"You can't automatically send units to another destination, ala RTS style..." - misinterpreted by some, and easy to see why (I got an email on this one!) - I was referring to the ability to get a city to make a unit and then send that unit to a prechosen location - like the rally point command in Starcraft, for instance.

As for SMAC bashing, I thought I was pretty fair. I could be wrong about SMACx too - anybody know how hard it is to rewrite a U.I?
Obviously the messaging shouldn't be too hard to fix - but the rest of it could take a whole bunch of work (incidentally, I do have a big list of fixes for the U.I, and the combat, and SMACx already promises more chassis. But I'm too tired to post them now, especially with 4 hours + labs work this afternoon and more lessons (C++ tutorial book) to motivate myself for tonight).

As for not playing SMAC, I do start the occasional game now and then - but I'm also trying to click my way through Total Annihilation: Core Contingency as well. And, like I said, nothing else in the TBS market comes close to the depth of the CivII model of research and conquest.

posted 05-05-99 11:28 PM ET            

Singularity is a bit over the top, but hey, if he wants to be Yin's yes man, let him. Everyone should have some attainable goals.

I'm not convinced that you can't recover from being a singularity... if the stuff that is in it is the same stuff that to be in the great seed mass before the Big Bang, that sounds like if a large enough singularity mass if far enough away from outside influences... BANG! Strange things are singularities, and wide the range from microscopic to macroscopic... Any Quantom and Sub-Quantom experts kicking around?

Good luck with the C++. Its a very good language for Commercial Software Development. But not for all the reasons taught in school... Just one word - MAINTAINABILITY. Nothing is really more important to the Corporation that creates a software product in many sectors than being able to fire the entire team that develops and supports that software, and later hire someone to make a couple of bug fixes/enhancements.

posted 05-06-99 01:21 AM ET            

Overall, it's a good thing.

As for sub-quantum experts - there's no such thing. A quanta is a single indivisible unit - you can't chop it up any further. Hence they play an important role in sub atomic physics, because they work differently to the classicial theory, in which you can keep dividing things like energy up without limit.

The physics in SMAC isn't the best available - take it with a grain of salt. Zakhorov's "behind electrons we find quarks" quotation is all the evidence you need to define the limits of BR's technical knowledge.

As for singularities - that's a whole different kettle of physics. The really cute thing about them is that relativistic physics doesn't work after passing the event horizon and quantum mechanics doesn't work on a large enough scale to properly describe their macroscopic effects. So what you say COULD be true, but then there could always be ANOTHER, even rarer explaination for gamma ray bursters and the big bang.

"Good luck with the C++" - thank you, I'll need it. Last night I discovered the difference between a .cpp file and a .f one. You should put library calls in the second one. Otherwise C++ will try to reformat your brain.

Incidentally, how often is it necessary to fire an entire developement team? Is the Microprose - CivII situation a good example?

posted 05-06-99 03:57 AM ET            

"Now that you mention it, I don't recall seeing "improvement destroyed" messages in the special window. Forest growth, and a bunch of others, yes, but... Geez, maybe I spoke too quickly ? I'll have to check that out..."

I did check it out last night... I was at war with the Gaians, they had artillery bombard my terrain enhancements and also some ground troups "manually" destroying them. Every single one of these messages showed up both on the "pop-up" message area (yellow letters on the map) AND in the MFD below.

posted 05-07-99 01:29 AM ET            

Anyways, Corporate America frequently destroys the development team. For any reason. And then since you have 0 worker loyalty due to how badly you are treated by the Corps, internal pressure will destroy a team. You know, opportunities to make more money elsewhere. Chance to do something new, or have more control over the project, etc etc etc. Also, people can get cranky when they don't get their way.

As far as Game Development Teams go, I think you'll find that while they don't have as much as a threat of their Corp deciding to fire them to make room for some out-of-town managers that just moved local temporarily to work on a contract proposal. (Been there, seen it.) But I think you have more internal pressure to split... being a bit more non-conformist (typically), you may not want to work with the team in the pressure cooker again... Offers of money from others looking to gain someone with your proven skills, etc etc etc... So it is more likely that the team splits from its own reasons that get canned. But that still tends to lead to the same thing... no one working at the company that wrote the code. That makes it difficult to stomp bugs, or make improvements...

posted 05-07-99 02:08 AM ET            

Heh. I'd always thought of corporations as the new empires of the world. Complete with mutiny, civil war, and arrogant lords too, it would appear.

Hmmm, France. They blew up a boat in our harbour, they set off nukes in the South Pacific (yes, 5000km IS too goddamn close!), they're snobby and arrogant and they can't play rugby - so they're stealing our players. There are a lot of reasons to not like the french - if you live in New Zealand you can add these to the list .

Then there's the food, the wine, the style, and the fact they do actually play rugby. And their customs departments (apparently) are infinitely more friendly than the British ones. So it's important to forgive them their bad points, too.

Hint: if america wants ALL the yank bashing in the world to end instantly, all they have to do is learn to play football and rugby properly. Global economy, trade tarriffs, McDonalds type corporations, loud mouthed arrogant tourists, MTV culture - all of this pales when compared to the fact that you CAN'T PLAY FOOTBALL PROPERLY(!!).

The bonding effects of a good test match are undeniable. Violent, but undeniable.

Besides, I'd just love to see footage of some of those big redneck types going toe to toe with a pack of english soccer hooligans over a proper game of football. That would really be a match and a half.

posted 05-08-99 02:40 AM ET            

Maybe we don't play Football and Rugby right because we are too prudish. There seems to be a LOT of contact in those games. :O And this is a Western country founded by religious zealots (and other crazies), prudes, and criminals with some other odds and ends thrown in.

Urban Ranger - Almost everything degenerates into a silly thread around here.

And I owe an apology to Firaxis... the flash messages do indeed show up in the MFD. Its just that I seem to click to long, and since I could only see the topmost messages or the bottommost messages, I never realized that was true. Funny that only SMAC thinks I am still clicking, but there it is... maybe my hands are just tired after SMACking for 4 to 8 hours straight...