scient replied

[551262]

I think I have XCode on a CD. Let me check...yeah it's XCode version 2.0, dated 2005. It's for 10.4 Tiger. It says that it has support for 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3. I have all of those versions on CD and a spare iMac G4 800MHz that I can devote to the job. Probably needs new heatsink compound on the ... little contact, aside from that it should be fine. Right now it has 9.2.2 and 10.4.11 on a 60GB HDD.

EDIT: I'm seeing gcc 3.3 and gcc 4.0 under the /Packages directory. *shrugs*

[Buster's Uncle]

 

[scient]

That gif!

@551262: I already have archived copy of XCode v4 that still compiles for 10.5/10.6 along with support for PPC. I believe that is the last version available. I'm pretty sure once Apple moved over to llvm, they dropped support for PPC. It is probably better to use whatever the latest version of Xcode possible.

Either way, having a full compilable version for windows, let alone mac, is many years off.

[vv221]

Is it just me dreaming, or am I looking at the making of an open-source re-implementation of SMAC/SMACX?

Dunno if I can help in any way at the moment, with my programming skills limited to some shell scripts…
Well, might be the time to learn a couple more languages!

Anyway, I’ve a Loki native Linux version of the game here that I used as a base to build .deb packages (for Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.), if you need some precisions on the file formats or whatever used there (including the .mpg movies).

[PlotinusRedux]

How goes it, Scient?  I've suspended all my activity except for looking at the .cvr files with Ford until you release your IDA DB.  I'm eager to try my hand at turning the disassembly into a compile-able C++ app.  Your DB doesn't need to be perfect, or your final, complete work--an interim release will let me move forward writing and testing the IDA python scripts to do the conversion, which will probably take me up to a month to perfect anyway, then we can run them on your final product later.

[ete]

pinged him by email with that message, since he's not logged into the forums for ~20 days.

[PlotinusRedux]

Is it normal for him to be gone this long?  His profile still shows Dec 25th as his last log on.

[Buster's Uncle]

It normal, alas.

[PlotinusRedux]

Hmm.  On the one hand, I'm finding Pandora to be about 70% of what I hoped to achieve with a SMACX 2.  On the other hand, I was really looking forward to bringing SMACX into the new century.

I basically halted all my work for the past 2 months because it would have been duplicating what Scient has already done.  But he planned to release his work by the end of the year--which seemed a very optimistic time frame to me--and now over a month later he's still silent. 

If you're reading this, Scient, I completely understand you not being ready to release by the end of the year, I just need to hear something from you to know if you're still working on it, in which case I'm happy to continue to wait, or if you've just abandoned the whole project, in which case those of us left can move forward on our on.  Obviously I'd rather wait for you if you're still working on it, but with no contact at all, I don't even know if you're still alive.

[Buster's Uncle]

scient disappears.  He just does; I'd advise trying to contact him directly, and if that hasn't worked pretty quickly, proceed without him.

[Yitzi]

Hmm.  On the one hand, I'm finding Pandora to be about 70% of what I hoped to achieve with a SMACX 2.

Does it have the same sense of character and scale-of-storyline?

[PlotinusRedux]

Yitzi,

The character, story, and atmosphere aren't as good as SMACX by a long shot, but they're light years better than BE.

The factions themselves are basically SMAC clones--scientist, religious, ecological, military, diplomat, etc.  And that is integrated fairly well into the diplomatic conversations--other factions will accuse the scientist of dangerous experiments whereas if you're the scientist you get to speak very condescendingly to the other factions.  The bit of flavor missing there is no character is given to 3rd parties in conversation--the religious leader will talk about sin and converting the world as well as what she specifically likes or doesn't like about your faction, but if she asks you to declare war on the ecology leader she just gives that leader's name rather than calling her a crazed tree huger dancing naked under the stars.

There's no grand unifying story like the world you're on achieving consciousness, but there are a couple of storied events that drastically affect play--a gradual eclipse that drives the native life mad, and a world wide invasion by the former inhabitants of the planet that tends to suspend all wars while everyone cooperates to survive.

It's clearly meant to be a SMAC clone--it's got the same unit workshop, fungus, etc.

It has an interesting mechanic that randomizes what techs are prerequisites for what (within limits), so you have to come up with a different tech strategy each game.

It's missing wonder and victory/defeat movies, which is a big negative for me as I find they add a lot of atmosphere to games.  But BE and Civ 5 don't have those either.

It's also missing the sense of climate.  You can raise and lower terrain, but you're just changing whether that hex is plains, hills, or mountains like the Civ games rather than pulling a 3D grid up or down, and I haven't noticed that doing so has any affect on rainfall.

I'd definitely recommend it, and it's the closest modern game to SMACX I've seen--it's about 70% of the way to what I'd want SMACX 2.0 to be, which is a lot closer than anything else has come.

[Yitzi]

Yitzi,

The character, story, and atmosphere aren't as good as SMACX by a long shot, but they're light years better than BE.

The factions themselves are basically SMAC clones--scientist, religious, ecological, military, diplomat, etc.  And that is integrated fairly well into the diplomatic conversations--other factions will accuse the scientist of dangerous experiments whereas if you're the scientist you get to speak very condescendingly to the other factions.  The bit of flavor missing there is no character is given to 3rd parties in conversation--the religious leader will talk about sin and converting the world as well as what she specifically likes or doesn't like about your faction, but if she asks you to declare war on the ecology leader she just gives that leader's name rather than calling her a crazed tree huger dancing naked under the stars.

There's no grand unifying story like the world you're on achieving consciousness, but there are a couple of storied events that drastically affect play--a gradual eclipse that drives the native life mad, and a world wide invasion by the former inhabitants of the planet that tends to suspend all wars while everyone cooperates to survive.

It's clearly meant to be a SMAC clone--it's got the same unit workshop, fungus, etc.

It has an interesting mechanic that randomizes what techs are prerequisites for what (within limits), so you have to come up with a different tech strategy each game.

It's missing wonder and victory/defeat movies, which is a big negative for me as I find they add a lot of atmosphere to games.  But BE and Civ 5 don't have those either.

It's also missing the sense of climate.  You can raise and lower terrain, but you're just changing whether that hex is plains, hills, or mountains like the Civ games rather than pulling a 3D grid up or down, and I haven't noticed that doing so has any affect on rainfall.

I'd definitely recommend it, and it's the closest modern game to SMACX I've seen--it's about 70% of the way to what I'd want SMACX 2.0 to be, which is a lot closer than anything else has come.

Sounds to me more like 50%, with SMAC/X itself being 70% or 80%.  (Remember, a sequel should be better than the original).

Of course, that's still closer than anything else...

[PlotinusRedux]

Yeah, I was taking SMAC unchanged except for a modern GUI and graphics as 100%.

I've actually really been enjoying playing it the more I understand it.

Currently it just has the original SMAC factions (I mean, literally identical down to the sex of each faction)--I hope they add the SMAX expansion factions soon.  Apparently players can make factions, but it's mod management is non-existent.

I don't like it's pollution system at all.  Pollution in SMACX is as it should be--it damages the planet, infuriates native life, and pisses off the ecology faction.  In Pandora, pollution does nothing but increase unhappiness--and fungus, native to the planet, causes pollution!  Pollution is more toxicity to humans than ecological damage.

I do really like the randomizing of tech for each game--it makes for very different strategies depending on what techs are earlier in the tree and what ends up as a prerequisite for what.  Techs are always in their tech era, and it has code that insures within an era improvements on the same tech come later than each other in the tree--so 50% bonus armor is always further in than 25% bonus armor, though 25% may or may not be a prerequisite for 50%.  And you can only see 3 steps down the line from the techs you've discovered.

To pull that back into SMACX would require turning on the option that lets you choose your tech and adding a display of the entire tech tree--probably too much to do.

[Yitzi]

Yeah, I was taking SMAC unchanged except for a modern GUI and graphics as 100%.

I've actually really been enjoying playing it the more I understand it.

Currently it just has the original SMAC factions (I mean, literally identical down to the sex of each faction)--I hope they add the SMAX expansion factions soon.  Apparently players can make factions, but it's mod management is non-existent.

I don't like it's pollution system at all.  Pollution in SMACX is as it should be--it damages the planet, infuriates native life, and pisses off the ecology faction.  In Pandora, pollution does nothing but increase unhappiness--and fungus, native to the planet, causes pollution!  Pollution is more toxicity to humans than ecological damage.

I do really like the randomizing of tech for each game--it makes for very different strategies depending on what techs are earlier in the tree and what ends up as a prerequisite for what.  Techs are always in their tech era, and it has code that insures within an era improvements on the same tech come later than each other in the tree--so 50% bonus armor is always further in than 25% bonus armor, though 25% may or may not be a prerequisite for 50%.  And you can only see 3 steps down the line from the techs you've discovered.

To pull that back into SMACX would require turning on the option that lets you choose your tech and adding a display of the entire tech tree--probably too much to do.

Actually, while possibly somewhat much for SMAC/X, I have some ideas (largely inspired by Master of Orion) for how a sequel could use a semi-randomized tech tree/discovery rates to make things much more interesting (including a compromise between blind research and directed research that will let you focus on one area but sometimes get things you weren't trying for).