Nomination thread: New features and bugfixes for Yitzi's patch 3.6

[Yitzi]

Would it be feasible to include the additional bonuses for the Citizens as described in the #CitizenHeck section of the help file? This might become my second nomination if it remains a viable option.

It would be fairly major, though doable at the cost of limiting bonuses to a maximum of 127 and minimum of -128.  (I don't think that will be an issue.)  We'd have to figure out what each of those bonuses means, though.

I think it best that we stick with tackling the probe team issues at the moment because that way the workload remains manageable, and we can tackle issues that already exist within the game before adding anymore features that might create additional issues. I am able to help with the probe teams because I have become fairly familiar with that section of the code. I think I will stick with the nominations for the probe teams except for the fact that so many of them have a classification as "features."

Maybe you're misunderstanding; when I call something a feature, I don't mean that it's something difficult to add, I just mean that it's going to be up to .txt modding (which does add some difficulty to adding it) because it's not actually a bug and therefore needs to preserve the ability to do it the old way.

I had an idea this morning. This idea went something along the lines of the fact that the game already checks a maximum and a minimum morale level for probe teams. Would it become possible to add a variable in alphax that corresponds to the location in this procedure that checks the the probe team morale level before it returns from the procedure?  This would allow an individual to set the maximum and minimum morale levels that the game uses while determining probe team morale.

Does it also set the probe team morale starting at Disciplined, though?  You've looked at that part of the code more recently than I have, so you'd know, and if it does then just changing the minimum wouldn't change that.

However, that sort of thing is the idea; anything that involves a new variable in alphax gets nominated as a feature, though.

Most of the citizens bonuses appear fairly clear except for one.
The efficiency bonus could operate in a similar manner to a children's creches.
The morale bonus could operate in a similar manner to either the children's crèche or command center depending upon what people want.
The Psi Defense bonus could increase the basic base bonus during psi combat.
The commerce bonus appears fairly clear because I have a fairly good Idea where the game calculates the commerce income at each base. I imagine it might operate as a commerce tech for the purpose of that base.
The aliens bonus could operate in a similar manner to biology labs.
The production bonus remains the only questionable bonus because it could mean many different features depending upon the context.

And there were a few questions there (e.g. morale bonus as creche or command center)...but yes, they could be resolved.  The production bonus would probably be a bonus to minerals just like normal specialists add to energy-related things.

[Dio]

The unit display for Probe team Morale has its own small section in the procedure. The first step checks if the unit role is below colonization and jumps if it is below this value. After that it checks if the unit has a "InfoWar" Plan and jumps if it does not. It then enters the morale section for probe teams that controls modifiers from all sources that effect the entire faction (PROBE, Telepathic Matrix, and Technology that provide a morale bonus [In that order]). After this, it checks if the base probe team morale is less than disciplined and jumps to a section that makes it disciplined. If it does not jump, than the game checks if the morale value exceeds Elite and sets it to elite if it does. The last step in the display section jumps into another section if the Probe team morale is equal to or less than green.

[Dio]

It presently appears as though the calculations for Probe Team Morale start at green. This appears because the various bonuses for Probe Teams all have (Bonus-1) included.

[Dio]

Was this particular feature intended by you? I do not think it was because it appears in scient's patch from 2010. The bugs from this unusual occurence include:
1. The morale bonus from the PROBE bonus operates in your current version of the patch as (PROBE Bonus[1-3]-1).
2. The bonus from Covert Ops Centers  operate in the same manner for the first +1 Bonus.
3. The bonuses from the Technology do not appear until you have at least a +1 bonus from another source or more than two techs with this bonus discovered.
4. The game has five techs that grant a morale bonus to Probe Teams and these bonuses would boost a disciplined probe team past elite.
5. These bonuses operate as expected while the base probe team morale is set at green. I have tested them.

[Yitzi]

It presently appears as though the calculations for Probe Team Morale start at green.

Ah, ok.  Then just changing the minimum should be enough.

This appears because the various bonuses for Probe Teams all have (Bonus-1) included.

What do you mean here?

Was this particular feature intended by you? I do not think it was because it appears in scient's patch from 2010. The bugs from this unusual occurence include:
1. The morale bonus from the PROBE bonus operates in your current version of the patch as (PROBE Bonus[1-3]-1).

I'm not sure what you mean here.

And no, I didn't change anything in probe morale yet.

[Dio]

I found the location that cause this particular bug. In the latest version of your patch the address of this bug occurs at 004C1DA8. The game only calls this if particular morale check if the unit weapon is a probe team module. This location then proceeds to push 0 and 0 onto the stack as arg 1 and 2 in this particular check. The regular morale check for probe teams is push 0 and 1 onto the stack. This means that the game checks the morale at this point as though the unit had a green morale level. In order to fix this bug you need to change the push command at address 004C1DA8 to push 1.
   On another note, I hope this change does not cause this issue to disappear because I know the designers late in the development process must have changed this feature. I also noticed that -2 Morale does not halve the probe team morale bonus from Covert Ops Center because the bonus occurs outside the procedure that controls this feature.

[mnk]

As usual, I forgot about this site for a few months.

So, I'd like to point back to what I've asked for back here - basically a request for an enhancement or two wrt. save handling.

Even just remembering last save directory would be a significant improvement, but I hope it would be possible to get closer to the ingame directory creation.

[Yitzi]

I found the location that cause this particular bug. In the latest version of your patch the address of this bug occurs at 004C1DA8. The game only calls this if particular morale check if the unit weapon is a probe team module. This location then proceeds to push 0 and 0 onto the stack as arg 1 and 2 in this particular check. The regular morale check for probe teams is push 0 and 1 onto the stack. This means that the game checks the morale at this point as though the unit had a green morale level. In order to fix this bug you need to change the push command at address 004C1DA8 to push 1.

You must have mistyped something; 4C1DA8 is the middle of an instruction.  And which bug is this causing?

On another note, I hope this change does not cause this issue to disappear

When I get to changing it, I'll make sure (as best I can) that it doesn't cause any unwanted changes in the process.

I also noticed that -2 Morale does not halve the probe team morale bonus from Covert Ops Center because the bonus occurs outside the procedure that controls this feature.

Yeah, MORALE is not supposed to affect probe teams.

[Dio]

I found the location that cause this particular bug. In the latest version of your patch the address of this bug occurs at 004C1DA8. The game only calls this if particular morale check if the unit weapon is a probe team module. This location then proceeds to push 0 and 0 onto the stack as arg 1 and 2 in this particular check. The regular morale check for probe teams is push 0 and 1 onto the stack. This means that the game checks the morale at this point as though the unit had a green morale level. In order to fix this bug you need to change the push command at address 004C1DA8 to push 1.

You must have mistyped something; 4C1DAB is the middle of an instruction.  And which bug is this causing?

On another note, I hope this change does not cause this issue to disappear

When I get to changing it, I'll make sure (as best I can) that it doesn't cause any unwanted changes in the process.

I also noticed that -2 Morale does not halve the probe team morale bonus from Covert Ops Center because the bonus occurs outside the procedure that controls this feature.

Yeah, MORALE is not supposed to affect probe teams.

The proper address is 004C1DAB and the correction described above fixes the miscalculation that occurs when the game determines bonuses to Probe Team Morale. This bug appears, for example, when you run Fundamentalist with a faction. The faction should receive a +2 bonus to Probe Team Morale and this bonus would cause a disciplined probe team to reach veteran without any other bonuses. The bug, however, causes the probe team to have a displayed morale of Hardened instead of Veteran.

[Yitzi]

I found the location that cause this particular bug. In the latest version of your patch the address of this bug occurs at 004C1DA8. The game only calls this if particular morale check if the unit weapon is a probe team module. This location then proceeds to push 0 and 0 onto the stack as arg 1 and 2 in this particular check. The regular morale check for probe teams is push 0 and 1 onto the stack. This means that the game checks the morale at this point as though the unit had a green morale level. In order to fix this bug you need to change the push command at address 004C1DA8 to push 1.

You must have mistyped something; 4C1DAB is the middle of an instruction.  And which bug is this causing?

On another note, I hope this change does not cause this issue to disappear

When I get to changing it, I'll make sure (as best I can) that it doesn't cause any unwanted changes in the process.

I also noticed that -2 Morale does not halve the probe team morale bonus from Covert Ops Center because the bonus occurs outside the procedure that controls this feature.

Yeah, MORALE is not supposed to affect probe teams.

The proper address is 004C1DAB and the correction described above fixes the miscalculation that occurs when the game determines bonuses to Probe Team Morale. This bug appears, for example, when you run Fundamentalist with a faction. The faction should receive a +2 bonus to Probe Team Morale and this bonus would cause a disciplined probe team to reach veteran without any other bonuses. The bug, however, causes the probe team to have a displayed morale of Hardened instead of Veteran.

You sure?  It looks to me like that change would affect only the penalty applied when drone riots are present in a base...

[Buster's Uncle]

Hey Yitzi - would fixing the no-tabout junk introduced in the GOG version so users of it don't have to find and implement the workaround be out side the scope of this project?  I'm guessing that would be a popular feature, so good for the community, good for the patch project and good for you...

[Green1]

So far, the workaround is renaming terranx to something like terranx-1.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm still surprised that trick doesn't introduce a million other problems...

[Yitzi]

Hey Yitzi - would fixing the no-tabout junk introduced in the GOG version so users of it don't have to find and implement the workaround be out side the scope of this project?  I'm guessing that would be a popular feature, so good for the community, good for the patch project and good for you...

Way outside.  It might be viable for PRACX, though.

I'm still surprised that trick doesn't introduce a million other problems...

There's really no reason it would; SMACX is set up so that it looks up other files but not vice versa, so the only thing that cares what terranx.exe is called is the change from the game installation that says "don't allow alt-tab while running terranx.exe".

[Green1]

Just for my clarification.

The .txt in the package in downloads IS NOT the .txt used for the patch. The current .txt is in a previous package?