posted 03-06-99 11:34 AM ET        

just wanted to summarize all bugs I've noticed since I've got the game... Ha! Former 'bug report' forum now either called 'tech support' or doesn't exists at all, I can't remember that. Is this means there are no more bugs?

I am sorry if some of those always mentioned before anywhere, this all stuff is really big to read (I mean forums). Also, sorry if some of these bugs are already fixed in new patch, I've not checked all this in it. I'd like to see if some are fixed there, though. (much of these bugs remains in patch, as I've recently discovered, however)

Maybe I've forgot something (bugs are everywhere, just start playing and keep your text editor accessible), just I cannot remember all that...

First, some things that seems to be a bugs and somewhat annoying problems, about gameplay...
-- executive veto applies even when unanimous votes achieved. Ha! It seems that my only 'nay' vote counts as non-unanimity!
that case was 'melt polar caps'. I don't understand why all of them, even my allies, agreed (i had not any surrendered factions that time). This is when I am much more powerful, I've almost all techs, and a lot of money. They could take much from me, but none but Morgan agreed (morgan - for 9000 bux, for whom i needed to sell all genejacks and something more... By the way, morgan summoned that council). What is so good in that agenda for everybody?

-- no grav struts on air units allowed, but in the datalinks there said that there they're increasing moves depending of the reactor level

-- Again, about Space Elevator SP. That seems too bad about ecodamage (ED). I then have to specially take bases with low minerals for producing orbitals. (I am playing as Gaians and very aware of ecodamage (hordes of mindworms teach me some things in the last games), in fact I've NO ED at all, while some bases has near 100 minerals. Beyound 120 minerals base starting polluting, no facilities can defend it beyound that). I think the worth solution would be decreasing mineral cost of all orbitals. Besides, this seems more realistic... Space Elevator in fact decreasing or eliminating cost of lifting things to the orbit, isn't that it? Somebody said that 'planet awares of things we making on the orbit'. But I think that this is just contrary -- more orbitals decreasing need in terrain improvements, hence decreasing ecodamage.

-- When your military unit travelling by the enemy territory, when it steps on the bunker, all his moves that he has left abondoned and the "bunker captured" message appears. Is this how it supposed to be (I mean the method to slow enemy movement by his territory) or it is possible to add some option for not capturing bunkers? (from the game concept POV)

-- somewhat strange thing. When the faction wants to surrender, it somewhat asks for a good knowledge. But you really not seem to have any reason to make even a little excuse or a gift like a good tech when he wants to ask about surrender. And until you capture his last base he will not surrender before you give him some tech he asked. This isn't like a realistic...

-- after the surrender of almost all faction due to diplomatic victory the mood of factions to you doesn't change somewhy... (heh, I had empath guild and clinic immortality projects, and a huge population, so I was able to make this vote only by my own votes). This was possible to encounter due to some faction's refusion to join the council.
At all, what is the benefits of surrendering? The surrendering faction does anything you tell it -- I understand this, but why sometimes they don't let you speak with them? Strange thing. Also, can they resign the pact?

-- actually, once I have summoned the planetary council and was elected as supreme leader. But the strange thing is that the surrendered (to me) faction has defied it (funny, but they voted "yea")! So is there even any reason to accept surrender if this faction can easily betray me? By the way, my faction was far more powerful than all rivals in sum. Those who surrendered to me and then betrayed was almost conquered by me.

-- sometimes (frequently) I am noticing that 'income' statement does not match fact income. Sometimes in 'income' (on soc. eng. table) shown negative value, but in fact I am getting surplus. However, I've not learned really reason of that..

-- The design workshop's UI bug is exactly bug, nothing else. In fact designs of existing units are required for upgrade, even if these designes are obsolete. But when there is no even a single unit of the obsolete design, why not make it possible to get rid of it? Frequently I need to modernize some obsolete design to a newer (I mean upgrade it) and I have to scroll very long time to find that design. Also, when I need to obsolete many designs, it takes a lot of time to scroll back and forth: find a design, obsolete it, cursor jumps to a beginning of list; then scroll long time back to non-obsolete designs, find needed, obsolete, again scroll... Terrible!
-- A strange "feature". When developing new reactor type, game makes strange and absolutely unnecessary, even bad things. It creates a lot of unneeded and forthknown obsolette designs -- designs of almost all existent designs, but with modernized reactor. First, this is stupet, because far not all units will benefit from the new reactor (for example, cost may increase; formers, police and some other units does not needs better reactor if it is not decreasing the cost). Then, it names all new designs with its own fashion wich I don't like, and I have to rename them (if not deleting them, wich more possible; I am used to name units more shortly and clear, depending of the type and purpose of it). Then, it is somewhat unintelligent. It assumes that reactors appearing in this order: fusion, quantum, singularity. But once I've a singularity engine before quantum (no cheat, probably by some artifacts or so), and when I researched quantum reactor, it made that idiotic "upgrade" from singularity to quantum! I think that it's more wise not to touch this at all, let player to decide all the unit designs himself. Or at last why not make this an option?

Now, the technical troubles (shortly, bugs).

First of all, the game always crashes on NT, but on win98 seems to be working. From some point of play it crashes every turn [while computer moves] many times (on NT). I have MSDS, so I choose to 'ignore'=debugging. Then I just switch on next instruction and continue. Sometimes this is performed a several times, but after all game continues. This happens commonly during compouter moves, but once it crashed when I was moving. That time I've attacked with bomber a unit near enemy base, and air unit in that base scrambles to point of attack. During his flight to the place, game crashed several times. I don't remember, either this happened on NT or on w98, but I remember that game once crashed on win98 during computer moves.
Note that I was playing on a very big map. (but still, it doesn't crashes on w98)

-- when some dialog active, mouse at edge of screen scrolls even with this option off.

-- have you guys ever tried to turn sound or some of its option off? If not, try it, please. Picture there starts jump and corrupts somewhy. This persists even in 2.0. [try clicking on area near switches, probably it's for volume regulation?]

-- Why don't I know any other game that has those strange stummering voices and sounds under NT similar to those SMAC has???
About sound. This is just my opinion, but I think that this 'turn complete', 'do you really want ...' so-called 'cpu-voice' annoying me because of its worthless. This is not said about tech, base facilities and movies voices. So why not make standalone option for 'cpu voice' in sound/video preferences?
By the way, there is another bug. I usually resetting sound options because of its sluttering. But when I exit game and then restart it (or, after movie played), even when those options are off, sound again damn active. So I have to set it on and then back off to disable it. WHY, oh WHY IS IT SO BUGGY???????

Ok, go on.

-- Under NT, minimap display renders a really strange in compare with one in w98, especially on the big map.

-- Also, on big maps, when finishing the game, expansion doesn't shows.

-- About the displayng of terrain enhancements. Try making soil enrichers over the solar collectors. This looks scarry. Especially with mag tubes. Isn't this resolvable?

-- When using 'DirectDraw=0' in alpha.ini, game does not switch sceen mode, but it also somewhy does not let any other window overlap game window. This seems seemless (I want to use this option as method for proper display of other apps while playing smac without using Display Properties to switch mode to 16-bit color). Also, I still don't know how to I minimize game...

-- Iron man is really strange thing. You can't save without exit. I thought that this is to prevent the making random generator's results look how you want (for example, save-load until you get what you want from supply pod, until you win in battle etc). But game is really strange. It still saves autosaves, and even lets you load game! Is this makes any sense? Oh, this is useful to prevent you from wasting disk space with back-up saves (game crashes pretty frequently). I thought that this rule lets you save game free, and no load, except for loading from start menu. Isn't this seems obvious?

And, to the end, a little question. Is a minor additions to multiplayer and even less additions to gameplay, plus fixing of some minor bugs, worth calling 'v2.0'? IMO, it's no more than 1.3 or 1.5...

posted 03-08-99 03:04 AM ET            

I think I've got the reason of those crashes. It fails somewhat late in the game; now, it fault once when enemy air unit scrambles to protect its unit from nearby base. Now it crashes when my air unit scrambled to protect from air attack on my units. During his flight, game crashes after every 'step' on map he made. So I think that's the problem -- there's a things to check out, IMHO... [that was on patch 2.0]

The quantum and singularity reactors appears in the game in the game time (sometimes I am getting two choises when choosing next tech to discover: quantum reactor tech or singularity reactor tech), and so one of them seems to be useless, except for price differences.