Yitzi's unofficial SMAX patch 1.3

[Yitzi]

Yitzi's unofficial SMAX patch 1.3

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=129

This will be the last version before 2.0, which might take a while as I rework the alphax variables so the new ones can be used with old maps.

[Earthmichael]

Yitzi,

Does your patch have a way of removing rising water?  I had heard that it did, but on reading the ReadMe file, I do not see any flag for this.

Or is there another way for removing rising water?

I am totally sick of playing with rising water.  It causes too much micromanagement to be needed.  So I would really like a way to turn off rising water in my current games, or at least in new games preventing rising water from occuring.

Thanks!

[Tecpatl]

So as I understand there's no faction-specific AI yet as it was in SMAC?

[ete]

Yitzi,

Does your patch have a way of removing rising water?  I had heard that it did, but on reading the ReadMe file, I do not see any flag for this.

Or is there another way for removing rising water?

I am totally sick of playing with rising water.  It causes too much micromanagement to be needed.  So I would really like a way to turn off rising water in my current games, or at least in new games preventing rising water from occuring.

Thanks!

The default alphax has:
8,   ; Global Warming   (Latitude DIVISOR for global warming)   Smaller # increases effect of warming
5,   ; Sea Level Rises  (Magnitude of sea level changes from ice cap melting/freezing)
1, 1 ; Numerator/Denominator for frequency of global warming (1,2 would be "half" normal warming).

Which you should be able to use to effectively turn off rising water (I imagine setting the second to zero would make water rise by 0 meters, though have not tested. And likewise, setting the third to 0, 1 should make it never happen). Yitzi's patch provides much more fine-tuned control over the eco damage formula, but if you want a flat off switch the vanilla should be able to do it.


And Tecpatl, SMAX has always had the same variability in faction leader personality SMAC had. That's set via variables in the faction text files.

[Earthmichael]

ete,

Can these changes in the alphax be made to affect a game already in progress?

[ete]

I do not know, some alphax changes are baked into the save file, but I believe some are not. I'm not sure if any of those fall into the not baked into save file category or whether there has been much research done on what things are editable midgame.

If it is baked in, then it should be possible to do some hex editing of the save file to change values, but someone would have to figure out exactly where these are stored.

[Yitzi]

The new variables cannot be changed in an existing savegame via alphax; this will be one of the main things to be changed in version 2.0.
It is possible to change them with hex editing, using the method described in section IV, part 2 of the patch readme.  Usually this won't cause issues, though changing the flag that affects whether ecodamage is based on planet busters or major atrocities will mess up the count.

[Earthmichael]

Yitzi, does your patch fix the bug of facilities built and destroyed still having an effect on clean minerals?

[Yitzi]

Yitzi, does your patch fix the bug of facilities built and destroyed still having an effect on clean minerals?

No, the current version does not, as when I made it I didn't realize that it was considered a bug.  (It is, however, possible to negate the effects of the facilities entirely.)  In version 2.0 (which I'm making good progress on), that will be fixed, however.

[Earthmichael]

Great to hear that!

I don't want to negate the effect of the facilities.  I think it is reasonable to pay the build cost AND pay maintenance every turn for the effect.  But I don't think it is reasonable to build and destroy the cheapest facility over and over for increased effect with no maintenance cost.

[Yitzi]

ete,

Can these changes in the alphax be made to affect a game already in progress?

I realized I misunderstood your question before; the variables I added in the patch cannot be changed, but the RULES variables that were originally there (such as the global warming rate) can.  I'm not sure about the "global warming amount", though.