Okay...Font colors!

[Leviticus]

High.
For some reason the font color of the text in some game message boxes is almost the same color as the background. To see them I have to push the Gamma correction almost all the way up in brightness.
How can I change the colors to something more readable?

Thanks.

[Dreifels]

Originally posted by Leviticus
For some reason the font color of the text in some game message boxes is almost the same color as the background. To see them I have to push the Gamma correction almost all the way up in brightness.
How can I change the colors to something more readable?

Did this happen when you took mixed factions of SMAC and SMACX or played such a game just before? That is noted for PBEMs and may also happen with single player games at http://mitglied.lycos.de/smac/pbem.html
[...]
4. If you like to play SMACX with "mixed" factions of SMAC and SMACX, you may have problems with the colors in the chart and the names, if one has installed the "alternate" pcx. A fix is, to download the new alternate pcx.
[...]
8. Furthermore you have to watch at SMACX PBEMs that the Alpha Centauri.ini has listed the valid factions just in that range, as they are in use in that special game. It is useful to prepare a special batch file for each PBEM which copies at first the right ini and after that calls the terranx.exe, i.e.[...]

[johndmuller]

What is the correct order of the factions to make sure that the colors are appropriate (particularly so that you don't get almost-black on black on the unit and base flags or some other virtually illegible combination). Is there in fact a correct arrangement for each faction combination or are there some combinations of factions that won't work no matter what. Is the problem that there are 2 colors, one picked by the position in this list and one determined by the faction choice, or is there a second list somewhere in the .ini file or elsewhere?

[Dreifels]

read here:
http://mitglied.lycos.de/smac/pbem.html

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Dreifels
read here:
http://mitglied.lycos.de/smac/pbem.html

I did; that's what my question was about clarifying.

The list at that reference is mostly the original SMAC group, although not exactly arranged as they are in SMAC. Does this list presuppose that the order of play is as stated in the faction numbers, or is that set up somewhere else?

(SMAC sequence IIRC):[list=1][*]Gaians[*]Hive[*]University[*]Morgan[*]Sparta[*]Bellievers[*]Peacekeepers[/list=1]

Presumably, the colors would work OK if one used this sequence for SMAX with the SMAC factions in play; is that true? I would imagine that there is a similar SMAX arrangement for the SMAX new factions that displays everything OK; does someone know what that is? When mixing and matching, I suppose that some faction colors are inopportune when used in certain slots, leading to the black on black type of bad visual effect.

Basically, it would be nice to avoid the bad color schemes so that one could read the base and unit flags. If tinkering with this list fixes that problem, it would be worth it to me to learn how to do that as the inability to read the flags is often a problem for me. Sometimes it is only a minor PIA, when it affects a marginal faction and other times it is a major PIA, like when it affects your own faction. It would also be nice to have the right graphics, although that is less of a practical problem/annoyance and more of an aesthetic one.

Starting a new SMAX SP game seems to cause a change of these elements in all of my PBEMS, for better or for worse; does anyone know how to do this constructively to get the desired effect. Presumably that would lead to a particular .ini list that could be supstituted for the active one to reset the erstwhile effed up ones.

[Dreifels]

the list in the ini has to be the same as it is concrete in use in that one concrete game that you *load*, so that list a sample is!
Means, if you play an other game with different factions and/or different range of same factions, then you have to make a separate ini for that.
Such always is necessary, if you play SMACX *and* use factions of SMAX, or if you change the orginal range of the SMACX factions.

In a PBEM you *load* your turn, and so you must have the right ini just for that game.

The more, if you played a game or turn of a game and exit, the factions you used are written in the ini in their range.
So you have to secure the original ini right early and copy it over the present one if you like to start a new game withthe original factions.
SMACX reads all color information onyl from factions listed in the ini, and only in that range.
(but that is explained on the page I reffered to)

[johndmuller]

What I am trying to figure out is how to correct the colors in a PBEM which seem to be chronically incorrect - usually featuring mixed up graphics (i.e. Sven shows as the leader of the University and/or Spartan "flags" appear in red and/or base architecture is randomized). I'm used to all this stuff being mixed up in PBEMs, but sometimes it is worse than others, particularly when a significant faction's unit and base flags have foreground/background colors that are the same or so close to the same that it is difficult/impossible to make out the character/number on them, forcing you to click on everything to see what is ordinarily visible on the flag.

This thread is tantalizing me with the possibility of a relatively easy fix, perhaps something so easy as merely replacing the factions in the ac.ini file with the correct ones from the game to be "fixed" before loading the PBEM. I'm trying to understand what drives the choice of colors/graphics in the game, why they seem to come out incorrectly at least in the PBEMs, and whether it is worth trying to tinker with it (and of course whether or not it is safe to tinker with it).

Your web site is definitely a remarkabale tour de force , but it doesn't seem to directly address these matters, although it does point to probable areas of interest.

My guess is that the faction .pcx files contain the color and graphics information and that the faction names in the ac.ini file point to them. I am further supposing that the list of faction names in the ac.ini file are not changed when a PBEM is loaded, and perhaps only when a new SMAX game is started, after a reboot, during solar eclipses, or for some other apparently rare occasions.

This is my current ac.ini list:

Faction 1=PEACE
Faction 2=HIVE
Faction 3=SPARTANS
Faction 4=MORGAN
Faction 5=PIRATES
Faction 6=FUNGBOY
Faction 7=CYBORG

which corresponds to the last new SMAX I started, which happened to be an SP game, but probably could have been either SP or PBEM, so long as it was started on this machine.

In a PBEM, I am Morgan and it now displays with flags of black on black (or close to it). Morgan is the 3rd faction in that game (shows as the third bar chart in the status display) and is seemingly picking up the black from the Spartan .pcx file. It looks like I could probably get some satisfaction in the PBEM if I changed Faction 3 to some other faction in the ac.ini file and I will probably try that just to see what happens. Most likely, if I just switched Morgan and Sparta in the ac.ini, my Morganites would look OK but the PK, who are the next faction in that game, would now have the black on black effect, which would be better (in fact it was that way for a while), but still not perfect. Perhaps if I replaced all the names with all the correct ones everything would be OK (at least for that PBEM - I would probably have to do that ac.ini switching that you talk about for just about every game).

The remaining problem I have with this explanation has to do with the fact that the Spartans don't have any problem with this color scheme when it is used with them, so why do the Morganites? It gets back to the issue I touched on in my first post in this thread - are the two colors picked by different methods - one by the .pcx file referenced in the ac.ini file and the other by some other mechanism, or are the Spartans hardwired to be different, but only if they are actually the Spartans, not some pretender?


(note: I abbreviated alpha centauri.ini as ac.ini above)

[Dreifels]

sorry, I really dont understand your problem.
It is so easy: SMACX takes the information of the colors in that range as the factions are listed in the present ini and all problems are finished if you load a respective sav file *after* you have correct the ini, and, if you like to start a new SP, set first the original factions in it.