Trance Synthmetal Garrison starts Obsolete

[bvanevery]

Details pre obsolete unit

pre obsolete unit

I just started this game as the Pirates.  I'm playing with pods only at landing sites.  There were 2 next to my starting position, and I got Industrial Base out of 1 of them.  Subsequently I met the University and traded Centarui Ecology for Secrets of the Human Brain.  I went to design the usual Trance Synthmetal Garrison and the game says it's obsolete!  What gives?

In the previous very long game I played, I remember something weird happening late in the game.  My ally Cha Dawn gave me a 1-2-1 unit to help defend against aggression.  I was way past that tech and had long since obsoleted both 1-2-1 and 1-2t-1 unit designs.  I got the message for having been given the unit, but I never saw such a unit materialize.  I wonder if that incident is related?  What could be lying around from an old game that would affect a new game?

For some reason there's an "Alpha Centauri Autosave 1.SAV" file in my main game directory, not the /saves subdirectory.  This .SAV is from yesterday, not my current game.  I wonder if that's relevant?  I also have no idea how it got there.

I'm remembering that when I started playing today, I accidentally loaded an old saved game from yesterday, just out of force of habit.  Then I just selected "Start New Game" from the menu.  I'm guessing that the settings from the old game, did not get completely wiped out.  I hope I don't end up with lots of units affected, or permanently affected.  We'll see.

[bvanevery]

Details after researching Social Psych

after researching Social Psych

I think the next turn, but no more than 2 turns later, I researched Social Psych on my own.  Then the unit designer began working normally.  I do know that the auto-designer kicks in whenever you get a new tech, so perhaps some housekeeping chores and initialization were performed.

[Buster's Uncle]

You can turn off auto design in your game settings, and I totally do.

(-There's a nasty bug associated that might turn all your formers into colony pods or something else useless -because of a build queue rollover exploit I use to build a few units before I have the tech- when you discover fusion, and I actually depend on it for yet another exploit I'm probably the sole discoverer of, to turn infantry chassis formers into free-upgraded hovertank formers.  Controlling the timing of triggering the once-a-game bug is important to make it a + exploit.)

I'd turned off auto design years before that anyway, because a million useless units clogging the workshop and I don't really like any of the anti-micromanagement options the game has that inherently remove my command of details.

[bvanevery]

Noted.  I have found that turning the auto-designer OFF creates different mouseclicking burdens though.  Well, maybe I should try it OFF again, since it really has been a PITA lately.  Biggest one is the game forgetting that I know how to make nukes already.  Although I never make more than 1, so I don't even know why I bother.  Except this game I'm playing, I have the avowed intent to actually nuke the world.  I'm the Pirates, working on how to drown everybody.

Actually I took a compromise position.  Don't design units automatically, but do auto-prune obsolete units.

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't like that one for the same non-exploit reasons.  Turned off; I'd rather bother to control what designs are plonked.

[bvanevery]

Hmm I'm remembering that the auto-pruning is troublesome when designing similar units with different expense levels.  Like an infantry mounted colonist vs. a speeder mounted colonist.  The workaround is to design the different unit in a 2nd city and select "No" when it asks if you want to "upgrade" to your 2nd unit design.

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh yes oh yes.