Post if you're not a bot! (And how did you find us?)

[Wiglaf]

I was looking around the web for new scenarios/maps to play, and ran across you guys. Looking forward to joining some good games.

[I)arkness Falls]

I'm so not bot its hot. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Whatwhat?

[Herfelt]

Hello everybody.

My name is Herfelt and I'm a civil engineer who enjoys strategy games. I started playing Civ II back in the late 90's, however I was not introduced to SMAC/SMAX until 2008, when I started at Technical University of Denmark. 5 years later I'm still enjoying the game, and I have a couple of friends I play with whenever possible.

I found this forum via CFC a couple of years ago, however I didn't register until today.

[Buster's Uncle]

Welcome to AC2, Herfelt.  Good to meet you.

[DrazharLn]

Hello again, everyone.

[Buster's Uncle]

No, it's post if you're NOT a bot. 

Your programming is max, however.

[DrazharLn]

Maybe I should prove that someday. I'll be getting a fancy qualification to say that I should be able to prove it quite soon.

[Buster's Uncle]

...Still interested in SMAC(X) .exe coding/modding?  You'll surely notice that we have three members practicing that who can help you - perhaps start a thread in Bug/Patch Discussion and ask a few questions?

Also, gimme a minute, and I'll give you access to the GotM folder; we could sure use another perspective/anything that might get things rolling agin.

[DrazharLn]

I'll have a look at the GotM subforum, for sure.

As for .exe hacking... maybe. I have a number of other projects on right now, but I could have a look if someone pointed at me at what tools they're using. I'm a pretty good programmer and software architect, but I don't have any experience decompiling code or reverse engineering stuff. Going through workflows with scient, Kyrub or Yitzi could be quite useful.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, Yitzi's on right now, and I just sent scient a link...

If you'll poke around the GotM stuff and comment when the fancy strikes you, I'll be grateful.  You have a good grasp of the creative aspect, and we're frankly short-handed on the tech end.

[Yitzi]

I use ollydbg, plus the Intel software developer's manual machine code reference.  It does require knowledge of assembly language, but I found it fairly easy to learn.

[Geo]

Something weird happened.
Last night, when I tried to enter the forum, a message appeared my login was permabanned due to multiple accounts and being a hackbot.
It started on a ferry with only satellite-enabled internet, but earlier today, in a hostel with a normal wifi connection, the problem continued. I just cleared my cache so I wasn't logged in automatically, and things now seem to work normal.
Can one of the admins perhaps enlighten me under what conditions things like permabans and hackbot stuff are enabled? Bit worried here my login is nicked.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yeah; I got a PM from Uno about this, and looked into it a few hours ago.  As I told him:

I'll look into it; it's probably an accident.  I certainly didn't ban him by name, and sisko surely would have said something.

Then:

Okay - I can confirm that Geo is getting a ban message, but I don't know why.  His account hasn't been banned, his IP address hasn't been, and the only IP on the ban list (100% bots, to the best of our knowledge, aside from Dale's expired ban) getting the same message is an entirely different number from his.  Oddly enough, it was only under error messages to his IP that I found conformation:

"Sorry Geo, you are banned from using this forum!
hackbot; multiple accounts
This ban is not set to expire.
?pretty;action=profile"

Please tell him this is some sort of glitch and we're not mad at him, and we're working on it...

Then:

Also, I notice that he's posted from a number of different IPs in the months since he joined - the problem is probably with the IP he ended up with today, and if he's posting from public wifi, trying from a different location would surely make the "ban" go away.

I hope sisko can make sense of this -I copied him on everything- because I'm stumped.  Are you doing anything different this time beside the re-login?  You seem to be coming from the same IP as when the problem appeared about seven hours ago...

We apologize for the inconvenience, BTW.

[Sigma]

Oh, uh, I guess I'm not a robot.