What the heck IS this thing?

[BFG]

I decided to set up a scenario tonight where the faction I was playing had every tech from the beginning.  Interestingly, because of some tweaks I've made to alphax.txt, it had the side effect of causing over 3000 ecodamage per turn.  It didn't take long for the Mindworms and Xenofungus to register their displeasure.

But then, after 30k+ damage had been done...THIS thing appeared, assigned to the Planet faction.  It had stats of 3-1-1 and 10 HP, and was listed as a "Pre-Boil".  But no name was given for it - not Mind Worms, not Fungal Tower, nothing.  Manually upgrading it (via Scenario Editor) to a Demon Boil didn't change the pic.  Shortly after I engaged it, SMAX crashed...so I had to grab a screenshot from Units.PCX instead of the game itself.

What the heck IS this thing?

[JarlWolf]

It almost looks like some bugged Progenitor colony pod.

[Flygon]

Close, it's a Colony Pod sprite from before the game was using 3D models. I am 97% certain.

I lack evidence to back my claims, but I am darn sure of it. That, and I've looked into it in the past.

[BFG]

Close, it's a Colony Pod sprite from before the game was using 3D models. I am 97% certain.
I lack evidence to back my claims, but I am darn sure of it. That, and I've looked into it in the past.

If that's the case, then how in the world did it end up in my game?  Maybe I've made some bad edits to alphax.txt?
(Keep in mind the game wasn't just using the wrong sprite...otherwise, it would have identified the unit as a "mindworm", etc.)

[Flygon]

I don't know. Something overflowed?

Also, I ended up trying to dig for evidence...



It's not much, but it is SOMETHING. I wish we had more materials of SMAC's early development. This folder has some more screenies, as well as this one. I know there's more, though. Including completely 2D mapped ones (or: Really REALLY showing your Civilization II engine roots here).

[gwillybj]

Those pictures are used for the #UNITS.

The top row is 0, the Progenitor Colony Pod.
1, the Fungal Tower.
2, the Alien Artifact.
3, the Mind Worms.
4, the Sealurk.
5, the Spore Launcher.
6, the Battle Ogres.
7, the Conventional Missile.
8, the Planet Buster.

You choose one of these for the number between the Prerequisite and the Abilities String, thus:
Sealurk, Foil, Psi, Psi, 6, 6, 0, CentPsi, 4, 00000000000000000001000000

So if it's in your game, one of the #UNITS is using the Unit 0 picture and has a 0 in that spot.

[BFG]

So if it's in your game, one of the #UNITS is using the Unit 0 picture and has a 0 in that spot.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I double checked, and no units are assigned 0.  I haven't altered any of the stock units' numbers, and all of the units I added have a -1 assignment except for one, which has a 7 assignment.

[Droom]

excuse a noob,  but Darsnan uses this in his scenario that I'm currently on

[gwillybj]

So if it's in your game, one of the #UNITS is using the Unit 0 picture and has a 0 in that spot.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I double checked, and no units are assigned 0.  I haven't altered any of the stock units' numbers, and all of the units I added have a -1 assignment except for one, which has a 7 assignment.

curiouser and curiouser... You said the Planet faction: Did you have a Planet faction in the game? Or is it a ghost?

... Darsnan uses this in his scenario that I'm currently on

would you mind looking at the #UNITS section of the alpha.txt and see if any of them have 0 in that spot?

... over 3000 ecodamage per turn.

That's a lot of ecodamage.

[BFG]

... over 3000 ecodamage per turn.

That's a lot of ecodamage.

Yeah, I have to believe that's a bug in Yitzi's new 1.2 SMAX patch.  I mean, I only had one base with a population of 3.  I only had 4-6 minerals coming into that base.

[ete]

You need Yitzi's alphax.txt otherwise the eco damage formula goes nuts.

[BFG]

You need Yitzi's alphax.txt otherwise the eco damage formula goes nuts.

I'm using it...

[gwillybj]

A thought: If you added predefined units, did you change the number directly following the #UNITS header? It needs to match the total number of predefined units. (In unedited alpha.txt this is 14. In unedited alphax.txt this is 23.) If it doesn't match, when you play strange things will happen with mismatched sprites.

[BFG]

Good thinking!  But yep, I checked that too.  I even checked for extra carriage returns (versus the original file) and missing/extra commas.

[Kirov]

I've seen that unit a lot in Darsnan scenarios, maybe his scenario-specific alphax.txt would shed some light.