SMACX Thinker Mod

[dino]

Initial 2sq spread hurts early, for benefits later, so I thought getting rid of it completely requires no work and is a slight improvement overall imo.

>Probably this is not even a big issue, but the initial placement could maybe follow 3 tile spread and later (after more bases are built) it could fill the gaps using the 2 tile spread.

That would optimal, but I thought a bit much work just for monsoon.

> I've been thinking about implementing project rushing but it might result in run away AIs accelerating even faster, and maybe it is also annoying for the players to see the projects snatched away with little warning.

Or, eventuall thinker will reach a point at witch you can play on lower difficulty, or less cost_factor cheat and it still will be competitive.
At wich point it will become even more enjoyable and you'll be able to win a race for a SP despite such features, if you sacrifice enough for it.
You can also make an ini switch for it and disable by default, if you are concerned that some gamers would not enjoy that.

[Induktio]

> Seems like it would be more rational not to recommend Thinker mod to anybody.  At least, not without huge caveats about what kind of game a particular kind of player is expecting.

Recommend it or don't, it's not really my problem. But if people do mention it, one could link to the earlier screenshot with the Data Angels terraforming efforts. Then the players will know what they're signing up to, at least on the highest difficulty.

[Induktio]

When one thinks about the game design, the main problem in SMAC balancing might be the lack of any effective mechanic to stop one faction from running away with the game. For example Civ 3 introduced an important change and made corruption affect the mineral production too. In SMAC, basically only the bureaucracy drone mechanic attempts to limit expansion, but the limit scales with the map size and efficiency, so the empires can grow pretty huge. Some factions can get really high efficiency bonuses too. Late-game features produce so much psych that even the drones can be taken out of the picture really easily.

Another compounding factor is that the tech costs scale only linearly (probably) while the production keeps increasing exponentially. Might be something to think about although stuff like that is pretty much out of the scope for the next release. I'm pretty much doing only bug fixes/some tweaks instead of new features now. At least one of the changes could be to remove Trance ability from the design_units created prototypes. Probe teams are already overpowered enough so no need to stack it further. I think the unit planner should only attempt to add Algorithmic ability on probes, but they can still keep the armor they were using.

[dino]

I think it's a problem mostly on big maps, on standard map factions will fill the land around 2200, end exponential growth ends there.

I think tech cost grows exponentially, but exponent is much smaller then exponential growth of competent player, or thinker.
I'm not sure, but I vaguely remember Ytzii posting tech cost formula somewhere, it was pretty complex. I think it wasmore  linear at the beginning and turned more exponential later.
I also remember year having an impact on the cost, the earlier year the higher cost. Thinker could definitely use rebalance of variables in tech cost formula.

[Induktio]

Looks like I've found a solution for the colony pod pathing issue. It seems the original movement logic was still somehow interfering with Thinker's commands but it should be dealt with now. The fix should basically eliminate early AI settlement issues but it might still take a little more testing. It really does seem to have a significant effect on the early game. Anyway, the state of the code is looking pretty good now.

[Induktio]

Thinker mod version 0.9 is now available from the project homepage.

A lot of effort and testing went into this version and the changelog reflects it too. Changes are listed relative to version 0.8 obviously.

* Thinker now supports formers based on all triads: design_units will also create gravship formers when the techs are available
* AI formers build less roads and other smaller tweaks to former priorities
* AI sometimes nerve staples bases after UN charter has been repealed
* Military unit production priority is notably increased from previous amounts
* Whenever AI loses bases to conquest, this also triggers an extra priority to devote more resources to building new units
* Tech balance prioritizes more early economic techs to ensure important items are not skipped
* Rebalancing of social_ai logic to match faction priorities more closely
* Alphax.txt included in releases to provide optional changes
* Trance ability removed from design_units created probe teams
* Major adjustments to faction placement to improve starting locations
* Possibility to select custom factions in smac_only mod
* Added command line parameter "-smac" to start smac_only mod
* New option: nutrient_bonus for use with faction placement
* New option: hurry_items allows AI to use energy reserves to hurry production (excluding secret projects)
* New option: cost_factor allows one to change AI production bonuses
* New option: max_satellites specifies how many of them AI will build normally
* Fix spawning issues on Map of Planet
* Fix sea bases sometimes not building enough transports
* Fix colony pods freezing in place or being unable to reach their destinations
* Fix stuff being built on volcanoes
* Fix smac_only showing the expansion opening movie
* Fix custom prototypes having incomplete names

[Induktio]

Not much has been happening since the last release. There has been some requests in that the smac-in-smacx mod could be bundled with the release for easier installation. Maybe even dino requested it earlier in this thread, and it's also a good idea to include the other fixes in the smac-in-smacx alphax.txt. It's only going to require minor documentation changes anyway.

As far as the code base goes, I don't see it needing any major changes since v0.9 unless somebody reports something unusual. I'm not sure how much I'll be developing new features from scratch anymore but some bugfixes (if any) could be included. Long term I'm kind of wondering how this mod could be included with OpenSMACX. It would basically require OpenSMACX to provide a patched exe which keeps many offsets at their original values so it wouldn't break Thinker's patching method. It might still require some code rewriting but I haven't looked at it in detail. I would like to see OpenSMACX repo to include a clear build script to replicate the exe patching part, but I'm not sure what other plans Scient has here.

[dino]

Inspired by this project, I've returned to learning C++ and will try to implement few ideas I have, sometime next month.
If you are going to put this project on hold, or abandon it, it would be great if you could make your hooks to the exe Scient's way before you let it go.
So even unexperienced coders could continue to develop it and hopefully be able to port thinker to new opensmax releases without touching the exe.

I'm not even sure, if what I wrote makes any sense, I just want as much source code as possible to play with while assembler and RE in IDA is out of my league.

[Induktio]

Inspired by this project, I've returned to learning C++ and will try to implement few ideas I have, sometime next month.
If you are going to put this project on hold, or abandon it, it would be great if you could make your hooks to the exe Scient's way before you let it go.
So even unexperienced coders could continue to develop it and hopefully be able to port thinker to new opensmax releases without touching the exe.

It's good to have others looking at modding as well, but as a word of caution it's not very simple to go on patching binaries without source code. That's why very early on I decided the project must be done in C++ for it to be maintainable except for some bugfixes that were done earlier. The code is still heavily coupled to the way game binary operates. Otherwise it's pretty standard style C code with the more complex C++ features used only sparingly (no heavy templating used here etc).

Now it's possible to override many parts of the game logic without having a deep knowledge of assembly, but if you need to go anywhere beyond the stuff Thinker currently does, then reversing game code with IDA is most certainly needed. There's no formal API when it comes to binary patching so it's hard to say at this point how easily this stuff could be ported to OpenSMACX without significant rewriting efforts. I don't consider this project abandoned or anywhere close to it, but sometimes one just has to do other stuff in the meantime.

[dino]

Good to hear you are going to return to this project at some point in the future.

[PvtHudson]

I don't consider this project abandoned or anywhere close to it

Ooh, a great weight off my mind. You are a real knight of progress, good sir!

[Liebestod]

I made an account here just to comment on this mod.

Especially because there seems to be some negative feedback, I want to express my opinion. This mod is awesome! The AI is so much better!

My game was a normal world size on Thinker level. 70% land and average everything. I played a "balanced" Consciousness (no techsteal, -2 growth instead of -1, +1 research instead of +2).
Using Thinker mod and PRACX mods together. No crashes experienced and secret project videos play.
Usually I crush the ai and their empires are quite sad. Pleasantly, the AI produced empires that had MORE bases than me and even MORE pop than me, EVEN AFTER I POP BOOMED!
The Drones found the monsoon jungle and as of 2200 they STILL have more pop than I do. Zak was able to stay ahead of me in tech much longer than usual.

Of course it wasn't perfect competition. I was able to get Airpower/MMI before the AI and they can't really stop me now. Morgan never really got off the ground, and Yang is lagging far behind even though he has sizable territory (small pop in bases - never boomed).  The AI also isn't ruthless at acquiring secret projects so it's totally possible to get all the ones you want. I understand there's a pro and con there so it's not really a negative. But it does contribute greatly to my advantage that I can get all the good early secret projects.

I didn't find the AI too hard to beat but it's way better than default and thus for me the "fun" level is much higher. Thank you!

[Induktio]

Especially because there seems to be some negative feedback, I want to express my opinion. This mod is awesome! The AI is so much better!

Well yeah, I think we can call mission accomplished on that one. Though it can be seen that most of the criticism comes from one source, so there's that. Beyond a certain point one just can't be bothered anymore.

My game was a normal world size on Thinker level. 70% land and average everything. I played a "balanced" Consciousness (no techsteal, -2 growth instead of -1, +1 research instead of +2).
Using Thinker mod and PRACX mods together. No crashes experienced and secret project videos play.
Usually I crush the ai and their empires are quite sad. Pleasantly, the AI produced empires that had MORE bases than me and even MORE pop than me, EVEN AFTER I POP BOOMED!

I assume you were using the new worldbuilder settings then. Do you think they made a significant impact on the gameplay overall? The AI is pretty adept now at economy building, so it can be much harder to acquire governorship and so forth. During development the economy building was the main focus in AI improvement, since I figured it was the obstacle that would have crippled AI challenge unless fixed somehow.

Of course it wasn't perfect competition. I was able to get Airpower/MMI before the AI and they can't really stop me now. Morgan never really got off the ground, and Yang is lagging far behind even though he has sizable territory (small pop in bases - never boomed).  The AI also isn't ruthless at acquiring secret projects so it's totally possible to get all the ones you want. I understand there's a pro and con there so it's not really a negative. But it does contribute greatly to my advantage that I can get all the good early secret projects.

On standard map sizes and below, almost always some faction seems to stagnate because of a lack of space, but probably it isn't a big issue if most of the time the factions develop pretty fast. I would call it an issue if it happened on huge maps instead.

What kind of early projects do you consider "good"? I would think it would be pretty hard to get all of the early good ones, since the player shouldn't be able to easily gain a significant advantage over the AIs early-to-mid game. Sure, it was a design choice not to have the AIs rush secret project production and I'll probably keep it that way. It might have a significant gameplay impact if it were changed from the vanilla behaviour.

[Liebestod]

I believe I was using the "new worldbuilder settings". Because the world looks like two giant continents rather than continents and islands of random sizes.

And okay I will try my next game on Large map.

I like the WP, Genome, Virtual World and Empath Guild. Was able to get all of them in my particular game. I don't prioritize Command Nexus, Citizens Defense Force, Planetary Transit System or Planetary Datalinks. (I think Transit System makes more sense for HUGE maps, not normal size). I also don't really start building any wonders until I have 10+ bases, supply crawlers to get 10-16 mineral production at most bases, and a few Rec Commons. So in other words I'm not rushing to get the wonders.

As for planetary council votes, I was able to get the governorship but only because things went my way. Someone voted for me instead of Domai, and then again someone chose me over Lal. I think being second on the power rankings for so long helped.

[Induktio]

By default the mod contains my Worldbuilder improvements in alphax.txt, so it looks like you were using them. With the original map generator archipelagos were pretty annoying from an unit movement point of view, and they also gimped the AI since it didn't understand how to populate islands. Though now it *does* understand how to do land/sea transitions, but it doesn't hurt to have more contiguous landmasses. I've had a kind of interest in procedural content generation algorithms, so tweaking this stuff was something I've done very early in modding this game.

If you come across some interesting gameplay moments, you could post some screenshots/reports of them too. Especially Thinker's endgame ICS builder empires are truly a sight to behold. Yeah, it's a little bit different than with the vanilla AI.