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smacksim
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Deputy Chairman of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Feb 2004
time: 00:37
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I'll try to explain a bit more. I'm trying to get the simplest and clearest explanation for the installer, so bear with me while I think out loud here....
ZIP -> Aldebaran2.exe which is an installer in Pascal/C++
Aldebaran2.exe -> Aldebaran2 Folder , which should be placed in your install of Smax, not in a new folder. It will also make 2 very handy shortcuts for your desktop (see below) Note:Choose the Folder that Contains your copy of Terranx.exe, wherever that may be. The installer does the rest.
Aldeb2 Folder: Contains several .bat files, and two Folders: 'modswaps' and 'modinstalls', each of which contain the native Smax type files for the game.
The Batch Files:
Installmod,bat: Does the initial install, IE, makes new folders: Data, Uninstalled, Preserved. Makes new files: most important of which are the swaplist.txt, installlist.txt, and wholelist.txt, which keep track of all the files. These exist in the Data folder.
Launchmod.bat: Launches Terranx.exe after checking to see if the mod is installed and in place. If it isn't, it swaps the mod files in, and then launches terranx.exe
Launchorig.bat: Launches Terranx.exe after checking to see if the relevant files need to be swapped back in (just like the above), then launches terranx.exe
Uninstallmod.bat: Should be run before removing Aldebaran, if you've run any of the .bat files. It 'knows' what files need to be pulled and or swapped back into place, and does so. After this, you can either run the uninstaller from the original compressed download (IE, the pascal/C++ based thing), or you can just delete the whole folder.
Other batch files: Listmaker.bat,
Ack, storm!
-back in awhile..
O.k., the storm is passed. And Darsnan is up and running with Aldebaran. I think I'll have a Gaian tonic, after I finish describing the batch files....always better to talk DOS beforehand.
So those 4 batch files above control all the other batch files via 'call otherbatchfile'. I'll call these other files the workers and the others the Big-4. The worker-bee batch files are:
listmaker.bat: Generates a list of all the files in each of the two mod folders: modswaps, and modinstalls. Concatenates that list into 'wholelist.txt', which is used for uninstall, and of course, the initial install.
swapmotor.bat: does the heavy lifting. Takes input in terms of what file to read from (swaps.txt is the usual), and then swaps the files, one at a time via....
fileswapper.bat , which does a little DOS trick with the linestub from 'keepme.txt' in order to process lists of files.
launchit.bat: is just a connector to the shortcut 'apptarget', which is created by the pascalesque installer.
apptarget: the shortcut to terran.exe. Gets created on install so that it properly points to the application. This was the trickiest step because SMAX will not run apparently if the 'Start In' field is not exactly correct. Anyways, it is just a shortcut to the app. It's just hard to make 
forceuninstall: If you fuddle things up, this will read from the preserved files, attempting to remove all the modded files in the game directory and replace with the preserved files. It tears the house down too. But it works.
desktop shortcuts The initial instller can place two shortcuts on your desktop. One goes to modlauncher.bat. The other to origlauncher.bat. Double clicking on the modlaucher one, which should say 'Aldebaran' will check to see if mod is in place. If so, launches mod. If not, swaps the files and then launches. The opposite works for the other shortcut, which should say 'VanillaSmax'. This will always launch plain old Smax, by checking for the mod and moving it out if needed. Hope that makes sense. It's the whole point!
Last edited by smacksim on 06-07-2004 at 08:01
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Darsnan
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New Syracuse, Beta Prime
Dec 2001
time: 00:37
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OK, I completely stripped out my subdirectory housing SMAC(X), reloaded SMAC and SMAX, but did not load in the No CD Cracks (just to eliminate this as a possible issue with what I was experiencing last night).
The installer works (and it may have last night as well), however archiving tool is continually looping as I commented last night, but it appears to be from not finding a specific file when archiving. I'll see about providing a screen shot later of the issue.
I started setting up an SP game, and was able to load the 7 new Factions, however all of them have the picture of Lady Dierdre. I tried loading a couple of Factions, and they all have their own unique initial social settings, so other than the graphics, why no issues so far.
I am playing Lindley in my first game (being a Gaian how could I not?  ). I am picking up considerable amounts of NL's. Sorta wish I'd researched Industrial Transports first so I could pick up some IoD's!. The aliens landed 4 years after I did, right on queue, so no problem there. Thats about it for now.
As far as starting a new thread and documenting my observations, why I will probably start one later tonight, and I plan on keeping my posted observations to a Players perspective (although I will be making notes from a CMN's and Creators perspective as well). FYI.
D
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smacksim
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Deputy Chairman of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Feb 2004
time: 00:37
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I look forward to reports Darsnan, on the game or installer. I hope you downloaded version 2.0.3, after I took the 2.0.1 offline. It fixed some Dos problems that Endgame let me know about.
A couple weird things that have been bugging me. If you'll notice, the zipped download of the Smax files, without the installer, is like 4 megs or something, while the installer version is 1.x megs. I can't figure out why the installer is able to compress the files so much better than a zip. It makes me worry that it's not picking up some files and that I'm not able to see this because it's referring to files that I have. It's just one of those annoying things about trying to deploy something and only having one install of Windows to test it on.
And a reminder to people that download: Please let me know:
- What OS you are using
- If the Dos files worked for you
- Any details if things don't work for ya.
Don't be bashful. I'd like to get it working for everyone!
And in other news:
I think that the files will soon be up for anyone running just SMAC. The installer does point to terranx .exe, so I'll have to make a Smac-only version of that. But the files include alpha.txt and the factions are mostly unchanged. But they are a bit changed. I took advantage of the Smax faction abilities, like freeproto, etc., so I'll have to re-bundle the original Aldebaran factions for the SMAC version. I have all the files, so expect a zip of them sooner than the full installer for Smac.
-S
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smacksim
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Deputy Chairman of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Feb 2004
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Darsnan
{...}
The installer works (and it may have last night as well), however archiving tool is continually looping as I commented last night, but it appears to be from not finding a specific file when archiving. I'll see about providing a screen shot later of the issue.
I started setting up an SP game, and was able to load the 7 new Factions, however all of them have the picture of Lady Dierdre. I tried loading a couple of Factions, and they all have their own unique initial social settings, so other than the graphics, why no issues so far.
D |
Ack! So it does seem that the installer is, for some reason, not picking up the graphics. That would cause a bad loop, perhaps, though I do have some bug control. Hmm. I'll get back to you when I solve this disturbing behavior. Also, when you say 'installer' could you be sure to specify either the .exe, or the DOS installer, as it is in two parts. I'm pretty sure you mean this by 'archiving tool', so I think I'll take up calling it something along those lines myself, to distinguish it.
So the 7 custom factions display the proper names (which would indicate that the text files made it), but not the proper graphics? This would make sense to me, as you have already reported that a 'regular' Smax faction worked for you initially. Even the regular ones are customized to make them compatible with Aldebaran, so that's a good sign for the text files. Now to figure out why it's not picking up the graphics.....Ah, I have an idea.
-S
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smacksim
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Deputy Chairman of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Feb 2004
time: 00:37
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I did a test: I added a modified .pcx picture to the installs, compiled the installer, then deleted that file utterly from my system. When I installed Aldebaran the picture was there! So the installer really is just compressing the **** out of the files. Go Inno-Setup. Nice program.
On the other hand, I have more questions than answers, and will have to wait to hear back from users a bit more, and hopefully in some detail.
Here is the step that is crucial to the install, on the users end:
Install Aldebaran to the Smax folder. Do not create a new folder for it. It will create it's own folder This has to do with little Dos tricks in getting the finnicky terran.exe to run from a shortcut.
The following is just my notes on the above. Read for your amusement:
This is for a really weird reason, which I'll try to explain, for those of you that play with these things for fun: The installer program creates a key shortcut to terran.exe. This shortcut is made 'on the fly' so that it can actually pick up the directory of Smax that you've chosen. That's normal installer stuff. On the other hand, I had to get it to point to an application in the directory just above it's directory. This is usually represented by '..' in dos. However, Smax, at least on my machine, will not run from a shortcut without the 'Start In' field of the shortcut being exact. I have no idea why this is. Also, phrases like '..' are not allowed in that field of a shortcut. They work fine in the main shortcut field, but not in the absolute path field. So, I had to 'install' Aldebaran into the Smax directory directly, so that that directory would be easily referenced by the shortcut without using a '..'. Long story! I do think I see a simpler way now. We shall see.
Side Note on the above: Well, firstly, I had to eliminate some 'environment variables' from the Dos programs, because I was running outta memory. Dos has very small default memory for these things. So I couldn't make a nice global variable for the install directory. This prevents me from making a very handy 'config' file from the installer that would feed all this directory info back into the batch files. At least, it would be very very inconvenient as things are now. I do have hope that I can further learn the Pascal scripting used by the installer and maybe make all these issues dissappear.
-Smack
Last edited by smacksim on 07-07-2004 at 05:05
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smacksim
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Deputy Chairman of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Feb 2004
time: 00:37
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Two quick things:
1. The Aldebaran factions that show up in the main menu by default are Super-AI versions. They are to play against, which is why you havn't had drone riots with the Planetlover-AI.  I definately should have made that more clear! You'll notice that the little faction blurbs for these factions all have an (AI) in the text somewhere, letting you know they are the super-charged version.
2. The faction graphics go clear* when there isn't a proper graphics file for the faction. For instance, if you uninstall Aldebaran after having just played with Aldeb factions, they will still be the default factions that show up in the 'Start New Game' menu. But they don't have names or faces. Weird. This is part of the Alpha Centauri.ini file as:
code:
Custom World=3, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1,
Time Controls=1
Faction 1=GAIANS
Faction 2=HIVE
Faction 3=UNIV
Faction 4=MORGAN
Faction 5=SPARTANS
Faction 6=BELIEVE
Faction 7=PEACE
Latest Save=
Latest Scenario=
I've been planning to add lines to the file-swapper that will swap the .ini file along with the rest, so this shouldn't happen after swapping out of Aldebaran when I make this file swap as well.
*Clear: And the text is smudgy.
Darsnan, could you tell me what files you did install? Did you install both the .txt files and the .pcx? To me it sounds like there are no .pcx files.
-Smack
Edit: More notes. The regular Aldeb factions are part of the install, but I believe Smax only likes to add 10 custom factions to that list in-game. With 2 sets of 8 factions in Aldebaran, I decided just to have Alphax.txt load the Super-AI factions in that slot. The other factions have to be added 'by hand'. Though I think I have room for adding 2 or 3 player versions of the factions if the total is 10.
To add them by hand edit the lines in the Alphax.txt near the end that refer to Custom Factions. The player versions have the same name, minus the 'AI' bit. So:
PLANETLOVERAI should be changed to PLANETLOVER for instance.
There are issues with this confusing naming scheme, I realize . They are holdovers from not having even developed the faction names fully in Aldebaran-1. Surely the Super-AI versions should have distinct names to avoid the confusion. Will do something about this pronto.
Last edited by smacksim on 07-07-2004 at 08:32
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06-07-2004 01:50
Regardless, absolutely brilliant approach to "convincing" the AI's to building forests! 
I had forgotten we even had a Creation forum.
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