Conquest Vistory MY2100 !!! (Spoiler Bug)

John Paul Jones · May 23, 2001, 17:54

Just finished a game playing as the Gaians @ MY2100, Conquest Victory ,
Score: 250% !

How ? Well I've found yet another nasty bug in the game (SMAC Ver.4) that allows you to eliminate all 'basic' enemy units. If you enter the Design Workshop and retire any of the basic units ie. Scout Patrols/Terraformers/Colony Pods etc., it will effectively wipe all units of that type (including your own) off the map. So starting a game with the "Do or Die" and "Look First" options guaranteed my win.

Sorry if I've opened Pandora's box for anyone,but i thought i'd better mention this before it pops up in a multiplayer game...

Misotu · May 23, 2001, 18:38

I don't know if this is a new problem, but it's new to me. I tested it in both SMAC & SMAX with the latest patches, and it is true for both. I think it's unlikely to be an issue in MP - you may not see other players destroy your units but you are certainly notified via a message that this has happened. I, for one, would be extremely suspicious if a bunch of my units suddenly disappeared without any obvious explanation

JAMiAM · May 23, 2001, 19:46

JPJ,

Thanks for reviving this subject. This is actually really old news which means, of course, that there are a lot of people unaware of it.

The Commodore · May 23, 2001, 23:03

Bah! Who needs that? With the Spartans, Borgs, Pirates, or Belivers on a small map, you can win in 100 turns honestly.

JAMiAM · May 23, 2001, 23:16

BTW Misotu, you are not notified of the disappearance of your units, when they are "cancelled".

Misotu · May 23, 2001, 23:21

Quote:

Originally posted by JAMiAM
BTW Misotu, you are not notified of the disappearance of your units, when they are "cancelled".

Quite. Whereas when my units are destroyed by hostile military action in an MP game, I am notified. So it would be somewhat mysterious, then, if I were to lose a dozen formers or crawlers all at once, with no notification. I don't know whether I would get a notification if they were all, simultaneously, subverted by probes but somehow I just don't think this would present itself as a likely explanation

John Paul Jones · May 23, 2001, 23:56

Quote:

Originally posted by The Commodore
Bah! Who needs that? With the Spartans, Borgs, Pirates, or Belivers on a small map, you can win in 100 turns honestly.

Ok , but I'm not talking 100 turns - it didn't even take 1 turn:
Build Base,Retire Colony Pod,End Turn=Instant Victory in 2100

Not that i'd ever stoop to this level in PBEM

, but if it were done - even with "do or die" on - you'd receive the message on your first turn that your faction has been eliminated , but you'd get re-started, albeit minus one of your original two colony pods. (or +100 energy credits if you happen to be Morgan

)

JAMiAM · May 24, 2001, 00:54

Misotu,

AFAIK, the first time that this was reported, was about two years ago, when the very same thing happened to me, in a pbem between cousLee, Aredhran, Goob, and myself. The CMN was MeisterFlo.

In one of my turns, I opened the turn to find that over half of my garrisons (at the time, basic scout patrols) had "disappeared". No attack messages...nothing at all to explain their absence. I sent an email out to all players, and both the previous year and the current years save files to Flo for verification.

IIRC, it turned out that Aredhran had removed the basic scout units from his DW, so that he would have trance scouts as the default unit built for new bases, as opposed to manually changing the production.

A further note...

You are not always notified when your units are destroyed, by enemy action. The damage to, or destruction of, your units caused by activation of the self-destruct sequence of enemy units adjacent to you, is not reported in pbem combat reports.

Method · May 24, 2001, 17:09

not to brag, but i got a conquest once(or actually many times) in the demo of smac and smax

Misotu · May 24, 2001, 18:44

Quote:

Originally posted by JAMiAM
You are not always notified when your units are destroyed, by enemy action. The damage to, or destruction of, your units caused by activation of the self-destruct sequence of enemy units adjacent to you, is not reported in pbem combat reports.

Yeah, that I can believe. So I can't be absolutely sure ... but I'm pretty sure it hasn't happened to me yet. Interesting that the bug was first found in an MP game. Must have been quite a shock to open the game and find that situation !

Iskandar Reza · May 25, 2001, 14:23

will someone kill this thread before everyone else knows it and uses it in pbem?

Net Maverick · May 26, 2001, 13:34

Would this work only for vanilla scout patrols, colony pods, and formers? Or would eliminating any unit in the workshop effectively wipe out all units of that type? I'm assuming, and hoping, that it's the former, not the latter...

MariOne · May 26, 2001, 15:23

Jam, I was curious to see your avatar....

I confirm that Mongoose protested about his basic transport disappearing in Odysseus game (against Pagan & me), in summer '99, and we got confirmation of the bug by Jam, Red & the others, can't even recall whether it was on ACOL or OWO...

Jam, I HOPE that you're not thinking that exploiting this bug in the Forum Wars would be "toughmanly".

Mis, your units are NOT destroyed by hostile military action in this case: they just disappear because of a bug in the game code. When you open your turn - it's just as they never existed.

NetMav, this bug only affects the game's default designs, that is the designs you find before slot.1, those with an '*'.
BTW, recalling my tests made 2 years ago, it's useless to retire a default design, you CANNOT take it out of the DW anyway. Just making it "Obsolete" will do, and won't trigger the bug.

Of course in pbems information is the better support for trust

.
So, good to have this thread around. Only the unaware could be hit by this without noticing.

magnwa · May 26, 2001, 15:57

Oh.. this is NASTY.. it works in Linux too :P

*sighs* Another thing to watch out for in MP games. :P

Magnwa

Aredhran · May 28, 2001, 04:50

It's exactly as JAM and MoSe described above. In the Weizen challenge, I hit the "Retire" button on the 1-1-1 and that killed ALL these units in the game. Boy, that WAS a long time ago

Wonder if Flo's still around, haven't seen him for ages.

Anyway, while it's a potentially nasty bug, but it's so obvious when you open your turn and your units are gone, that it shouldn't be a problem in a PBEM. If it happens by accident, well the turn will have to be replayed, but that's not such a big deal.

Aredhran

Flo · May 28, 2001, 12:02

yes Red, still lurking the fora (especially the carefully tended PlanetACOL

) I have very fond memories of Weizen, too. One interesting game, it was.

the bug here looks like a non-issue. Its wayyyy to obvious to create a headache in MP - as long as everyone is aware of it and won't dismiss the unit disappearance as some random glitch.

As usual with these matters, its a good idea to remind the tourny participants from time to time. To avoid later misunderstandings (

ing at Mose here)

Aredhran · May 28, 2001, 18:54

Nice to see you around my friend

Misotu · May 29, 2001, 20:32

Quote:

Originally posted by MariOne
Mis, your units are NOT destroyed by hostile military action in this case: they just disappear because of a bug in the game code. When you open your turn - it's just as they never existed.

Uh ... yeah. I know that. I was responding to Jam's comments regarding other circumstances under which units may disappear without notification ...