Formers Question

Dobian02 · January 28, 2004, 14:46

I'm just getting back into this game again after playing Civ 3. I got it to work okay on XP after the patching, but I'm having a problem in the game with formers. I have several formers that stop in the middle of their terraforming (so, for one it wll say there are two turns remaining after every turn). Is this a bug, or is there a reason why this is happening (I don't know - shortage of minerals perhaps). I searched the threads for an answer, but couldn't find any. Once in awhile I fixed the problem by cancelling orders and giving a new order to just build, say a road, but this does not always work.

Cookie Monster · January 28, 2004, 16:45

I've never seen this problem before. Can you explain what you see when the former "stops" in the middle of it's job? I think the only way it can stop on it's own is if it's attacked?

Flubber · January 28, 2004, 16:51

It shouldn't just stop but I have seen instances where my former is undergoing an artillery barrage ( you may or may not see the "attack" flash by). I only figured it was happening when I noted the lack of terraforming progress and discovered the attacker ( I don't remember if it was a spore launcher or AI arty). That my only instance of a former not progressing.

Oh and a shortage of minerals will not affect the progress of a former-- it may cause it to disband if you have indufficient to support it though.

Dobian02 · January 28, 2004, 21:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Cookie Monster
I've never seen this problem before. Can you explain what you see when the former "stops" in the middle of it's job? I think the only way it can stop on it's own is if it's attacked?

There's nothing to see. It just stops, well, forming. "2 turns remaining (to build farm)"- next turn - "2 turns remaining" - next turn - "2 turns remaining".

The Mad Monk · January 28, 2004, 22:14

The only thing I can think of is that maybe the executable got corrupted -- maybe a reinstall would fix it?

Cookie Monster · January 29, 2004, 11:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Dobian02

There's nothing to see. It just stops, well, forming. "2 turns remaining (to build farm)"- next turn - "2 turns remaining" - next turn - "2 turns remaining".

Hmmmm.....

I've definately never seen that happen before. Maybe Mad Monk is right, a reinstall might be in order. I'd try to download the patches again too as they may have gotten corrupted during the transfer. Have you noticed any other strange occurences in your game?

Dobian02 · January 29, 2004, 12:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Cookie Monster

Hmmmm.....

I've definately never seen that happen before. Maybe Mad Monk is right, a reinstall might be in order. I'd try to download the patches again too as they may have gotten corrupted during the transfer. Have you noticed any other strange occurences in your game?

I can do that. Yes, I also noticed that at one base I would get attacked every turn by a spore launcher which remained unseen. Even after moving my units to every square around the base, the spore launcher would not show itself. Finally, it materialized of its own accord. Of course, my former problem wasn't just at this base, but all over the place. I'll reinstall.

Dobian02 · January 29, 2004, 14:07

Could also be that a saved game got corrupted. I wasn't having problems with the formers until over a hundred turns into the game. In that time I had done a lot of terraforming.

Cookie Monster · January 29, 2004, 15:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Dobian02
Could also be that a saved game got corrupted. I wasn't having problems with the formers until over a hundred turns into the game. In that time I had done a lot of terraforming.

Aha, there you go. Try reloading the game from an earlier save and see what happens before you do a complete reinstall. If you still have the problem then I know this will be tough but try starting a new game and see what happens.

RedFred · January 29, 2004, 16:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Dobian02
...Once in awhile I fixed the problem by cancelling orders and giving a new order to just build, say a road, but this does not always work.

Please tell me that you are not using the auto former feature. This feature has never worked well for anyone so, if they aren't already, make sure that all your formers are on manual.

Snowflake · January 30, 2004, 13:11

I haven't seen that problem but I have had a problem in one of my pbems. I had a rainy square where I built a farm and a condensor and I noticed that it only produced 3 food and by closer look I found out that the farm had disappeared. I rebuilt it, it was there the turn when it was finished, and disappeared again the next turn.

I have also an occation where a rainy rolling square with farm and condensors became rocky when I raised territory in another square not too far away.

johndmuller · January 30, 2004, 14:00

I have also occasionally noticed condensors without their farms under them; although I doubt I would have built one without a farm first, I have nevertheless blamed myself for doing that in those instances. Next time I see that, I'll go back into a saved turn and see if there is any evidence of this phantom unterraforming.

Regarding the bombardment thing, one would also expect to see at least a little damage from a constant bombardment over a long time frame.

I think I have seen formers get stuck too (and cancelled/reordered them as RedFred suggested above) although sometimes it just seems like they are taking forever (solar improvements actually do vary from 4 to 8 terraforming turns).

Miscellaneous terrain changes indeed occur from time to time, although I think that distant events generally only affect wetness (seemingly mainly in the dry direction); nearby events, such as raising and lowering adjacent terrain can certainly change the rockiness too, as well as the wetness; ongoing sealevel changes are also capable of changing rockiness (and probably the wetness also) as well as readjusting all the elevations. Sometimes elevation changes activate/deactivate bonus resources also.

Dobian02 · January 30, 2004, 17:41

I experimented a little by going back to an old save from about 100 turns back, and just doing terraform-end turn-terraform-end turn. Problem was already happening at that point. So, I went back to a really old save from about 200 turns back, just terraformed and nothing else (the other factions wouldn't leave me alone after I kept closing transmission on them), and after over a dozen terraforms with a couple of formers there were no problems. So, maybe just a corrupt game save, but can't be certain until I play another game. I'm finishing up this game without doing any more terraforming, but I'm Yang and own about two-thirds of the planet anyway, so it's no big deal.

My install order is:

SMAC
SMACX
SMACX2 patch
SMAC XP update patch
Config file fix (for that processor not supported bug)

Anyone let me know if there is anything wrong with this install script, but I think it's okay.

The Mad Monk · January 30, 2004, 18:39

Have you tried large forger gangs to force what should be single-turn terraforming? If that works, you may find it to be a suitable solution.