really really weird

[Method]

after pounding the crap out of santiago until she surrendered i was taking all my units out of santiago-land to go kill morgan. every unit i had including garrison were go-toing to this one bas so i could transport them away. i had about 3 boats full of garrisons(1-4-1(*2)) which i upgraded to tachyon shock troops to go and kill morgan so i have about 6 boats full of units ready to take out morgan's 5-8 bases. anyway once i get there i ended up with one boat. 5 whole boats full of tachyon shock troops which i spent about 5000 energy on were just poof gone! not attacked by iod's (they had trance anyway) not attacked by morgan or anyone else just poof! where did the go? not that i needed them but still.

[Earwicker]

Sounds like one to add to the bug/ AI cheat list:

The Bermuda Triangle!

[Method]

wait no! after carefull consideration, i have concluded that it's because all those transports were from the same base, except the one, and when i gave the base back to santiago, they disappeared. but if that's not the case then i can always blame it on the bermuda triangle like ear said. or some unexplained supernatural force of evil such as a vampire and what-not(whistles the theme from X-Files)

EDIT: Uh....question? Why is this post before john's?? Damn! the bermuda triangle strikes again!

[knowhow2]

TKG,

Maybe this happened. You gave that base fulll of your units to Santiago and I recall that when that happens all your troops either reappear back to one of your own base or they're being turned over to Santiago and all "homed" at that one base. And That one base can hardly support all of them so they are disbanded! Maybe there's some small traces left to investigate.

[johndmuller]

I've had units disappear and I think once or twice mysteriously change into something else; sometimes I've found that there were "lost" PBs in my unit list even though I never built them. Most of these I've attributed to unknown problems with the handling of the units database, particularly when all the slots have been used. Funny things sometimes happen when a new reactor is discovered and many new designs are created.

If the missing transports were all of the same design and the remaining one(s) was(were) different, then maybe that unit slot was mismanaged by the imfamous Production Chief in his zeal to roll out more advanced models.

Since I've been conscientious about mininizing my slot use, especially just before reactor upgrade times, I haven't noticed this problem (of course, there might have been something else different too or it might be just a coincidence). I definitely don't use the auto-designer, but I think I use the auto-prune thing (although I think that all it does is "obsolete" units, not free up slots - perhaps the bug lies in some programming slipup whereby obsolete unit slots are recycled when there are still units of that design around). I think the Production Chief is not optional.

[Method]

Originally posted by knowhow2
TKG,

Maybe this happened. You gave that base fulll of your units to Santiago and I recall that when that happens all your troops either reappear back to one of your own base or they're being turned over to Santiago and all "homed" at that one base. And That one base can hardly support all of them so they are disbanded! Maybe there's some small traces left to investigate.

i could support them if they went to one of my bases(+4 support) but if santiago got them alll there would be no traces left to investigate and even i there were it doesn't matter, because i already finished the game. DIPLOMATIC VICTORY YANG! yay for me!

[Ned]

I think I might have a clue. I believe that naval units do not rehome as do air and ground. Giving the AI the home base supporting the transports may have left the game no choice but to eliminate the transports.

[Q_tip1976]

I have had units mysteriously dissapear or change for no apparent reason as well. One time it was a couple of rovers that dissapeared off a transport. In another instance a garison unit in a sea base changed into a fungal tower! If the base with the tower was attacked the game would crash. Sometimes wonky things just happen with this game.

[Cybergod]

I had an oppossite happen to me - 2 Alien Artifacts appeared near my SP building base ( ). Although I never seem to have lost a unit in your ways.

[Cybergod]

I think I know why this is all happening:

the saved game files are not encrypted, and this is also why they take up so much memory. I mean, if you open one with a notepad, and scroll down, you will actually see things like names of units, bases, landmarks, etc.

[Ned]

This disappearing unit problem has never been fully explained. I think I know why the transports disappeared here. See above. However, I am constantly having units disappear, especially units I just captured.

What I think is happening is that the unit disappears when the AI (or your own auto design manager) "prunes" the unit from its own queue. If you prune, rather than upgrade, a design, all units of that design disappear from the game. This apparently works on all factions - at least to the extent that you remove a basic design such as scout. So when you capture the last AI unit of a particular design, the AI may then prune it in favor of an updated design. When it does this, that unit disappears even though it is your possession.

[The Mad Monk]

I like to build up bases before returning them to my loyal submissives; last night, when I returned a 'built' base to Morgan, I noticed that two former units I had built there abruptly disappeared. They were working on terrain improvments, not on board a ship, and as far as I know, they did not reappear anywhere else. I had several other cities on his continent, all being 'built', and the formers should have gone to one of them, it anywhere. I did not think to check my military nexus, so I can't be sure.

Anyway, I have a somewhat more disturbing 'vanishing unit' issue--vanishing designs!

This has happened to me several times, usually after a heavy redisign session, with lots of upgrading and renaming. What usually happens is that a design that I didn't touch during the session would abruptly vanish from its alotted slot, along with all examples. The most glaring example I can think of came after probability sheathand hovertank came up right on top of each other, and I generated a dozen or so new units and upgrades (all land units); after a few turns, I suddenly realized that a few stacks of aircraft I had sent to a concentration point via carrier were 'overdue'. I skimmed over map, and found the stacks where they should have been a few turns earlier, quietly 'sleeping' over the water, minus the carriers

The carriers had completely vanished--no units, no design, not even a 'lost' listed in the nexus for the one carrier I had lost. I backtracked to the last turn before the carriers' disappearance, and discovered it was just before the upgrade binge...

I've seen it happen a few times since then, always after a large redesign session, but since I look for it now, I have been able to recover. The trick to avoiding this seems to be to back out of the design workshop after every design or so--otherwise, it appears liable to 'overwrite' pre-existing designs...

[Ned]

Well we all seem to agree that something about the design workshop and pruning is probably the problem. It can happen both ways, it appears. A unit you capture will disappear if the AI prunes it. As well, you own units are subject to being pruned and disappearing.

I don't fully understand about the formers not relocating.

[Avenoct]

I'll vouch for the sea unit problem. What a pain! I needed several transports to finish off the Spartans ideas of conquest, and I like to give my bases right back to a submissive, but I always take the time to move my units out of the actual city. Usually if they are in the radius of the gifted city they magically jump to my next nearest city, but with sea units built in the city to be gifted, I have to actually move them to my own base and home them manually. So I lost 4 or 5 elite units when I gifted Spartans back their rat-infested bunker because they were on transports nearby (and ok, homed to that base). I nearly always forget that and lose a few units riding transports away from my newly coquered ally. Additionally I'll vouch for the unit design problem. The controls are counterintuitive in a few aspects. 'Apply' is the one to use to change an existing units nature permanently, and unless you exit the workshop every unit or two even that doesn't seem to hold. It's not a hard thing to do, just easily forgettable and a pain.

-Smack

[Fitz]

I never have any problems with the DW or dissapearing units due to pruning. Here's my solution:

1) Turn off autodesign.
2) Turn off autoprune.
3) limit your designs to 1-2 (maybe 3) per chassis.
4) Upgrade frequently.

The disadvantage to this method is that you have a lot of similar units in gameplay.

However, 1-2 Choppers, 1-3 air units, 1-2 rovers/hovetanks, 1-2 boats, 1-2 transports, 3 or so formers, and 1-2 transports, plus a few probe & colony pod designs is all I find I really need. What eats up space is the garrison & attacking infantry designs. Especially garrison (I typically use 3-6 designs).

If you use shells, that adds another 5 or so unit designs.

Thats only 32 designs (including four CP/probes) and the unit workshop can hold 64?, so that leaves space for a few obseletes and one shot deals (just remember to obsolete when finished with them).

A side benefit to this is that your base construction screen is a lot cleaner. I've actually played games where it only shows 4 units + 3 natives (garrison, former, plane, rover) for the majority of the game in land bases, and only 2 extras (ship, sea former) + 2 more natives in sea bases.

[Ned]

Fitz, I hear you on the design workshop. Taking total control has a lot of advantages and actually reduces the PIA micromanagement problem of fight the autodesigner.

I too see a reduced number of unit types. However, in recent games I have created a number of unit configurations of various costs. In this way, I can usually find a unit a particular base can build in just one or two turns without too many wasted minerals. I started doing this with crawlers after I abandoned the crawler upgrade trick, but have generally extended it to include all units.

Ned

[KrazyHorse]

I really don't play very much SMAC. What's the crawler upgrade trick?

[Ned]

KH, A crawler can be cashed for its full mineral value in building an SP or prototype. This is a holdover from CIV and the use of caravans for the same purpose. When building an SP, the AI will commonly have several adjacent bases build standard-configuration crawlers, which despite their reduced mineral costs for the AI, are cashed at around 33 minerals per crawler at the SP. The game designers assumed that the human player would do the same.

Now for the trick.

If you try to rush-build an SP, you will find that it costs 4 ec per mineral, double a normal facility's costs. However, it generally costs less than 2 ec to upgrade a crawler to a more expensive configuration. You may then cash that crawler for its full mineral value.

Effectively, this has lowered your rush build ec costs by 50%. It also permits virtually every SP to be built in the turn after you get the tech by building the SP in a base where you have just upgraded a sufficient number of crawlers to pay for the SP.

The SMAC AI already has been defanged vis-a-vis the CIV AI by a rule that it must wait one turn after it has a sufficient number of minerals to build an SP before it is actually built. During this hiatus, the human player is warned that the AI is close. The human can then rush build the SP.

So, as it is, the AI is severly handicapped in any SP race. But this crawler upgrade trick is the real coup de grace. The AI realy has no chance at all to get SPs if the human player has the necessary tech and at least one turn to build it.

So many SP players have voluntarily abandoned the technique. In MP games, it is one of the things that should be agreed upon before the game starts.

[KrazyHorse]

Ahhh...I'd never thought of using upgrades that way. Very clever.