Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Bug/Patch Discussion => Topic started by: AndroAsc on May 25, 2013, 06:55:22 PM

Title: Has the Unit Limit issue been fixed in the patches following Scient's?
Post by: AndroAsc on May 25, 2013, 06:55:22 PM

Ok, a few years back, I was trying out Scient's patch (same version as the "latest" version I could find from a quick google). As of mid-2011, the unit limit increased from 2048 to a much higher number, but it never worked. After the 2049th unit was produced, no new units would be created (or there was some problem with Scient's unit limit increase).

Has that issue been fixed with the unofficial patches released post-Scient? For e.g. Does the Yitzi series of patches fix this unit limit, or is it still capped at 2048?

Title: Re: Has the Unit Limit issue been fixed in the patches following Scient's?
Post by: Yitzi on May 26, 2013, 03:24:03 AM

One of the most important limitations of assembly-language modding (which is what all the unofficial SMAC/X mods use) is that it's next to impossible to add room for new things, such as units.  So caps on the numbers of units, factions, bases, and so on are not going to be changed except by remaking the game from scratch (or from a source code, but that's probably been lost).

Title: Re: Has the Unit Limit issue been fixed in the patches following Scient's?
Post by: scient on May 26, 2013, 05:59:21 PM

This change has been rolled back in kyrub/yitzi's patch as well as one I'll be releasing soon.  The problem is that there is fixed amount of space allocated for unit and base structures so you can't really allocate more without shifting all the other structures and references to those structures.  Doing this at the assembly level isn't feasible.  Maybe in the future there might be solution but for now, unfortunately we're stuck with various hardcoded limits.

Title: Re: Has the Unit Limit issue been fixed in the patches following Scient's?
Post by: AndroAsc on May 26, 2013, 10:51:10 PM

Many thanks to the experts for explaining about the unit limit thing. So, how are you guys getting past the unit limit? In the mid game, I can have 500+ non-combat units (formers, crawlers, etc...) for starters, and with the total unit limit of 2048... it makes things unplayable on larger maps.

Title: Re: Has the Unit Limit issue been fixed in the patches following Scient's?
Post by: Yitzi on May 26, 2013, 11:19:40 PM

Well, why do you have so many units, and what are they doing?  Also, what size map are we talking about here?