PRACX v1.10 Release

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't know - that looks about equal to the alternate-lined version, to me.

Well, PRAX users can call it; I think outlined combined with every other line inside would be too much, so I'm probably done, here.

[hilton]

BUncle,
After playing with both for a bit I think I prefer the fogged/scanlined version for play. Thank you very much for your efforts.

There may be slight room for improvement. I've noticed the following:

• The scan-lines don't always line up, which is especially noticeable when the icons overlap. You can see the effect on the 1-nutrient 2-mineral and 1-mineral 2-energy squares in the first screenshot below. The overlapping seems to be a SMAX layout problem, as you can also see it just to the right of the city on a worked tile - maybe that particular issue is as simple as moving all the 1-nutrient and 1-mineral icons (worked and unworked) a bit to the left? But even so, the scan lines don't line up, which you can see in the second screenshot even when the icons are side by side (look at the unworked 3-2-2 squares - the scanlines on the mineral icons are offset a pixel from the icon on other side of them). This is a fairly minor issue, all in all, barely noticeable, except when the icons overlap.
• The numbers on some of the larger unworked icons become difficult to read due to the scanlines. Most of them are mineral icons, so the one-pixel adjustment noted above MIGHT help them? Here is what I've noted:
  
  • 1 and 2 are easy to read on all icon types.
  • 3-mineral is hard to read, always think it's a 6 or an 8 until I think about the size of the icon. 3-nutrient and 3-energy are alright as long as they're not over kelp or tidal harnesses.
  • 4-mineral is a little awkward looking but still legible. 4-nutrient and 4-food are okay, except 4-food is hard to see over kelp.
    
  • 5-nutrient and 5-energy are alright. 5-mineral is nearly invisible for some reason, at least over a mine which is pretty much the only place you'll see it.

I actually wonder if keeping the scanlines on the icons as they are, but making the numbers solid again might work out well. Even the easy-to-identify numbers can be difficult to see on certain bright/colourful terrain types (over kelp, farms when there are 3 icons, solar collectors, tidal harnesses, etc.)

[Buster's Uncle]

I'll have another look to see if one of the icon rows is out of synch; otherwise, there IS no practical fix for the scanlines lining up -I did all of them at a stroke; your problem may be the game's placement of the icons- unless you can talk an .exe modder into running down the placement code and adding the machine code equivalent of an IF/THEN statement to the vertical coordinates formula to do only even or odd.

Numbers, I can think of a couple things to try to make more visible.  -Maybe put the icon-type color back in the numbers for improved info on single-resource squares...

[Buster's Uncle]

Embarrassed to not have gotten to this a lot sooner, but the mineral row was indeed rowed out of synch with the other two, so I started over with Plot's originals and scanlined the rows separately and made the numbers white.

See how this sucker works out in-game.

[hilton]

I like it. The white numbers are much better in my opinion - despite being scanlined, they are readable against every terrain. I ran through all my current game's cities and the only spot I couldn't 100% clearly see the number was the 3-mineral against a mine, but even it was really obvious. The top part of the '3' blended with the white parts of the mine, but the entire bottom half of the '3' was clearly visible so there was no mistaking it.

[Buster's Uncle]

  I thought white would work.  It was sort of squint-and-lean-in legible before - just needed a boost.

[hilton]

Can I make two feature requests for PRACX?

- Another zoom level between normal and the next zoom out. There are only two zoom out levels (on my system at least) versus 3 zoom in levels; each of the zoom out levels feels like too big of a jump, especially in comparison how little zoom in moves in. I'd like at least one more step added that isn't quite as zoomed out.
- Real time updates on minimap click-drag. Would like to be able to survey by click-dragging around the minimap and having the world map move with it.

[DrazharLn]

Number of zoom levels is already configurable. Open the PRACX menu in game.

Minimap thing sounds sensible. Feel free to add it to the github issue tracker and I'll try to get round to it sometime - unfortunately these conceptually easy things are often quite difficult.

[hilton]

It shouldn't be too difficult. SMAX already has a drag handler (used for issuing Goto commands by mouse); on the assumption that the handler is available on all the in game objects, it would theoretically be as simple as issuing a map re-center call on mouse move if button is being held down instead of just on click.
I'll add it to Github.

One more request: Show base grid when hovering over the city. The game already does this full time, of course, but it blends city outlines, making it difficult to see what tiles a city actually covers when there are many cities clumped together. I find myself constantly counting squares when terraforming. Should be a different colour than the red used now, i.e. pop up an orange outline. Should work on ALL cities, not just the player's.
Bonus points if you can make it shade squares that are unavailable to the city (being worked by a crawler or another city). Understandable if that part will not show up for opponent cities, but if that is the case, more bonus points if you can make it so it DOES work on Pact opponent cities.

[Vox Imperatoris]

It should be mentioned that this mod doesn't work unless you delete the Alpha Centauri.ini file.

At least, that's what I had to do. Before then, the PRACX menu would simply not show up, nor would any of the options work.

You might want to add this to the installation guide. It took me quite a while to troubleshoot this!

Edit: actually, it appears this had to do with Yitzi's mod: looks like it disables PRACX in the settings by default!

[DrazharLn]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'll put a note in the OP.

[Vox Imperatoris]

Thanks.

Also, does this mod break the secret project videos? I haven't been getting them since I've installed it. (It could be Yitzi's patch, though.)

Is there any way to get this mod working with the videos? I do enjoy having them.

[DrazharLn]

The secret project videos should work fine, though they're displayed by an external program. Check that you can view the videos in /movies/ with /movies/playuv15.exe

'opening.wve' is the intro movie and is safe to watch without spoilers.

To play it, open a command prompt in the movies directory (Shift+rightclick), then run 'playuv15.exe -software opening.wve'

[Vox Imperatoris]

The secret project videos should work fine, though they're displayed by an external program. Check that you can view the videos in /movies/ with /movies/playuv15.exe

'opening.wve' is the intro movie and is safe to watch without spoilers.

To play it, open a command prompt in the movies directory (Shift+rightclick), then run 'playuv15.exe -software opening.wve'

Okay...so the player works fine when I try that.

But the movies don't play at all (except for the opening, oddly enough! never mind, the opening doesn't play, either) in version 1.08 in the actual game.

Even going to the scenario editor and directly selecting a project movie to play doesn't work. It doesn't even "try" to load anything.

The funny thing is: it works just fine in the version included with Yitzi's 3.4, which I believe is...PRACX 1.06? Have you made sure they work in the latest version? What OS are you using (I'm on Windows 10)?

I appreciate your help, and I'd like to troubleshoot this so it works properly in the latest version.

[Vox Imperatoris]

I fixed it!

Sorry to have taken up your time with this.

It seems to have been another mysterious incompatibility with the "Alpha Centauri.ini" file changing its format between versions. After I deleted it and allowed it to regenerate, the movies worked properly. (And no, they weren't simply disabled in the preferences menu!)