Reversing to Orion - project 1oom

[ignatius]

Well, you can debate what the modification should have been, but the original behavior was definitely a bug.  The 'coids can benefit from the extra size of Fertile and Gaia planets, yes, but they can't build Soil Enrichment or Gaia environments in any version of MoO - and in the original behavior, Advanced Soil can show up in their tech tree - and AI Silicoids would trade an arm and a rocky locomotor appendage for it!

I remember having been prompted to adjust slider to build adv. soil once with the Coids with some early kyrub version - but it didn't actually build it. I did a bug report then to kyrub (but I considered the bug then,  that it did not get built). I think the issue is not definitely decidable one way or the other.

For what it's worth, I think it would be a bad idea to let them build Atmo/Soil/Gaia (especially Atmo, which will allow other races to invade a previously-safe Sili world!) as they're expensive projects that benefit future conquerors more than the 'coids themselves, and take precedence over Terra and pop growth in the game interface.  Letting the 'coids pick up the techs via theft or invasion is probably fine too, for the small boost to population productivity and as trade bait.  Letting them trade for the techs would be fine only if AI Silis can be taught not to trade anything of value for techs they can't use.

This should be the status quo, if I'm not mistaken (they cannot build it and also cannot research it). The fix only affects looting and spying - not trade or diplo. If the Coids didn't shop for soil now, they also should not do it afterwards. The might try to trade it away for something else, though - which I would consider a good thing.

@RFS

I would rather tend to leave things with the Coids as they are ATM. It seems that there is no consensus on a binary option.

As for the pbx-thing: I have not problems with options per se and until we have something better, for gameplay variants, the game_nums are the place to put them, to keep all the eggs in one basket.

A worthy short time goal would be to get rid of some of the sillier pbx-patches in fixbugs (i.e. setting them to sane default values), esp. the non scalar pbx-entires (i.e. Guardian stats and Coid tech-tree fixes). Scalar and binary options are much easier to deal with: They can easily be turned into config-file or command line options and be made in-game editable with standard UI-elements.

Maybe, anyone who is reading this could post which pbx-options you are actually using (aside from applying fixbugs.pbx) or considering for variants.

ignatius

[Juffos]

There we go!

I've got a binary that works on my Windows machine, with sound! The important question: does it work on yours? Please test!

To install, unzip the attached archive into your MOO1 folder, and run 1oom_classic_sdl2.exe. It includes the required SDL2 dlls. It also comes with a config file that already has uiextra mode selected. Thanks to Ignatius, you can now select the "fixbugs" mode on the game setup screen. His new UI improvements and the tech looting bugfix are still missing, though.

@Psillicyber: Sorry, I don't understand what you've been trying... or even what OS you're using. You definitely won't need Dosbox to run 1oom. If you're on Windows, please give this binary a try!

error: SDL_mixer gave 8 channels instead of 2

The log for v1.0 gives the same when running with SDL2. SDL1 works fine, though. The zip you gave didn't have SDL1 in it, so I disabled audio for testing purposes, and noticed that your fixbugs option doesn't autodesign the 8bc Scout and 570bc Colony Ship. I don't remember if these were to be included by default, but I believe the people who would prefer having to manually redesign the ships are few in number.

[DaveV]

Bug report:

I downloaded the file and started up my normal game, Klackons/Medium/Impossible. I've done this lots of times, so I know how it works: send off the ships, lock the ECO bar, put all the rest into the ship bar, and I get 5 more scouts on the first turn. Except I only got 4 scouts in 1oom. Maybe the Klackon bonus isn't being calculated properly?

[Juffos]

Or planetary production is applied before population growth.

[DaveV]

Or, on further investigation, the pre-built ship cost bug is back. Scouts cost 10 BC, an identical new design costs 8 BC.

[ignatius]

Or, on further investigation, the pre-built ship cost bug is back. Scouts cost 10 BC, an identical new design costs 8 BC.

Sorry guys, this was my fault. Seem that the fix_bug gets applied too late in game startup for the changes in ship cost to take an effect.

The rules take effect in game_aux_start(), however, tbl_startship is copied to the design table during game_generate_home_etc() which is executed earlier. The culprit was a last minute optimization (never a good idea) to save one call of game_aux_set_rules().

I'll push a fix for this bug ASAP.

ignatius

PS: the fix is up.

@RFS: I pushed it as the latest commit in the uifeatures branch, as this should be the fastest way to get it merged.

[RFS-81]

DaveV, is audio working for you?

[DaveV]

DaveV, is audio working for you?

Yes. I'm running Windows 7, if you need a data point.

Also, I tried another game and the scouts cost 8BC, so now I'm confused. I'm sure I was in "bug fix" mode in the game where the scouts were appropriately priced, and 99% sure I was also in that mode when they weren't.

[Bionic Commando]

Question on the AI -- how was it reverse engineered from the original game? Registry scanning, etc?

[ignatius]

DaveV, is audio working for you?

Yes. I'm running Windows 7, if you need a data point.

Also, I tried another game and the scouts cost 8BC, so now I'm confused. I'm sure I was in "bug fix" mode in the game where the scouts were appropriately priced, and 99% sure I was also in that mode when they weren't.

The patch gets applied at game start (as it turned out, too late to affect the startship costs of the first started game). But the patch remains in effect until overridden, so if you start a second game, start costs should be ok. This can be used as a temporary workaround: Simply start a token game (with "fix bugs") and then another one (also with "fix bugs") and you should get the correct starting prices.

Again, sorry for the inconvenience.

ignatius