Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 21, 2018, 11:47:11 pm

Title: Predesigned unit cost in workshop and base
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 21, 2018, 11:47:11 pm

Fellow players.
I have noticed strange thing and hope anyone could shed a light on it.

I've predesigned a unit and set its cost. Now when I am in the game and this predesigned unit becomes available I see it in workshop and base build selection list. It costs whatever I set it up for in base build selection list all right. However, in workshop it shows autocalcuated cost even though it appeared there by itself just because prerequisites have been met. Is it should be like that of is this some problem with my configuration?

Title: Re: Predesigned unit cost in workshop and base
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 06:33:10 am

I am not sure, but tonight I did notice that among the various denominations of armored Supply Crawlers I built, one has lower cost than the default Supply Crawler unit, even though it has more armor.   My designed unit will often indicate 2 turns to build, while the default unit will take 3 turns.  Yet, the default Crawler seems to display a lower number for its cost.  Perhaps it is the same bug.  Perhaps the actual cost is reflected in the number of turns it takes to build, but an autocalculated cost is being displayed in the Workshop screen.

I notice in your alphax.txt you have a Supply Trawler sea unit.  I haven't seen the AI build such a sea unit in my game, but I haven't been paying attention either.  You've hardwired the cost of that as 6, rather than using autocalculate.  I'm betting that has no effect on a human player designing their own units.  I don't know whether the AI will obey it or design a different unit that costs something else.

I just looked at the Security Nexus for all the factions, since I have infiltration everywhere.  The Pirates and the Drones are the 2 factions most likely to have built a Supply Trawler.  Neither currently have one.  That could be for any number of reasons, but the most likely reason is, they don't believe it's worth building.  Have you tried AI vs. AI games and actually observed this unit getting built by the AI?  If they don't do it, it's not worth bothering to include as a predefined unit.

Title: Re: Predesigned unit cost in workshop and base
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 22, 2018, 02:18:49 pm

Quote from: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 06:33:10 am

I notice in your alphax.txt you have a Supply Trawler sea unit.  I haven't seen the AI build such a sea unit in my game, but I haven't been paying attention either.  You've hardwired the cost of that as 6, rather than using autocalculate.  I'm betting that has no effect on a human player designing their own units.  I don't know whether the AI will obey it or design a different unit that costs something else.

This is for human mostly. Autocalculated cost is 8 so I downed it to 6 to match with land one. Sea unit is not more beneficial to land one anyway.
And to answer you second question - it does have effect on everybody. The preset cost is what you actually pay when building it. Workshop shows autocalculated value maybe because it was designed that way to not take preset cost into account. However it does take predefined unit into account. Predefined units cannot be retired - they can be only obsoleted. When you build new unit matching predefined one - you cannot save it into different slot - it will snap into matching predefined one.

Overall it is not a game disruption, just an inconvenience when you cannot see exact predefined unit cost in workshop.

Title: Re: Predesigned unit cost in workshop and base
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 06:59:26 pm

Quote from: tnevolin on December 22, 2018, 02:18:49 pm

When you build new unit matching predefined one - you cannot save it into different slot - it will snap into matching predefined one.

So I put Deep Radar or not Deep Radar on it, depending on what you did, and I don't have to use your version anymore.  It is pointless to try to tie the player's hands this way, unless you're going to predefine every variation you can think of.