Option for Disabling Aircraft or Turrets entirely

[DwarfFighterCleric]

I would love if there was an option to disable Aircraft entirely, I feel like they disrupt the balance of gameplay a lot. For Land Units combat only, invading continents with Bridges... awesome awesome... not even ships if you ask me LOL

Secondary feature I would love if there was a way to completely disable Turrets building for all players. I find that the enemy AI relies too much on Turrets and this would perhaps force the AI to play more aggressively and shorter turns. (maybe)

[klei1984]

I would love if there was an option to disable Aircraft entirely, I feel like they disrupt the balance of gameplay a lot. For Land Units combat only, invading continents with Bridges... awesome awesome... not even ships if you ask me LOL

This will become possible when the in-game map editor is finished. Not any time soon, sorry. In the mean time, if you are willing to build the game yourself from source code, I can tell you where exactly you need to change a couple lookup tables to disable any given unit you want in custom games.

Secondary feature I would love if there was a way to completely disable Turrets building for all players. I find that the enemy AI relies too much on Turrets and this would perhaps force the AI to play more aggressively and shorter turns. (maybe).

Same as previous point. With the built-in map or more precisely scenario editor, you will be able to disable turrets for a particular scenario, in which case computers will base their defenses on mobile units. But in that case the narrow corridors that computers leave within their bases to travel will become a huge bottleneck and will backfire big time. In general computer players plan their defenses to be able to protect themselves against their arch enemies which will be you, the human player, in most cases. If you have strong attack power, and tons of "idle" defender units doing nothing around your base, enemy will build strong defense reserves themselves. Certain computer players prefer short range defense turrets, others long range ones. Computers do not build bridges as soon as they have air transport available (I hate this behavior, but there is good reasoning behind). Engineers and cargo in them are precious resources, yet extremely vulnerable on water. Without air units or ships you cannot move engineers fast on water to escape enemy long range units... water and air transport are simply superior to bridges especially considering that it is enough to destroy one single bridge unit in the middle to make the entire bridge path useless... Any ways, the AI is stupid in M.A.X. and intention is to make it much more clever which is a very difficult and time consuming endeavor. Currently one of the biggest weakness of computers is that they cannot use air and sea transport to efficiently transport attack groups. Attack groups are units selected by the AI to perform a coordinated attack on a target considering defenses and risks protecting that target unit. This cripples the computers big time on maps with many islands.

[DwarfFighterCleric]

Is it possible to disable certain units on the original MSDOS game through Hex Editing or any other method?
I was thinking about that yesterday,
and that was the moment I visited MAX Port website again and found about the updates 😄

Or use Hex Editor to make Airplanes attack 1 for example. What would be the address I must look up?
Would I need to do it on the individual Save File or the Game Files themselves? (backup copies of course)

[klei1984]

Hex editing could work too...

The below lookup table encodes the builder capabilities. DW stands for 16 bit word. First entry is the builder, then second entry is count list items for given builder and then count unit types follow.

DSEG stands for data segment in executable. Memory map is here for reference: https://klei1984.github.io/max/devenv/

E.g. if you change 4th line from POWERSTN to MININGST as in 0x0001 to 0x0028, then constructors will not be able to build power stations...

Good luck hacking away!

dseg03:00167B78                 dw CONSTRCT
dseg03:00167B7A                 dw 15
dseg03:00167B7C                 dw MININGST
dseg03:00167B7E                 dw POWERSTN
dseg03:00167B80                 dw LIGHTPLT
dseg03:00167B82                 dw LANDPLT
dseg03:00167B84                 dw AIRPLT
dseg03:00167B86                 dw SHIPYARD
dseg03:00167B88                 dw COMMTWR
dseg03:00167B8A                 dw DEPOT
dseg03:00167B8C                 dw HANGAR
dseg03:00167B8E                 dw DOCK
dseg03:00167B90                 dw HABITAT
dseg03:00167B92                 dw RESEARCH
dseg03:00167B94                 dw GREENHSE
dseg03:00167B96                 dw TRAINHAL
dseg03:00167B98                 dw BARRACKS
dseg03:00167B9A                 dw LIGHTPLT
dseg03:00167B9C                 dw 11
dseg03:00167B9E                 dw SCOUT
dseg03:00167BA0                 dw SURVEYOR
dseg03:00167BA2                 dw ENGINEER
dseg03:00167BA4                 dw REPAIR
dseg03:00167BA6                 dw SPLYTRCK
dseg03:00167BA8                 dw FUELTRCK
dseg03:00167BAA                 dw GOLDTRCK
dseg03:00167BAC                 dw SP_FLAK
dseg03:00167BAE                 dw MINELAYR
dseg03:00167BB0                 dw BULLDOZR
dseg03:00167BB2                 dw CLNTRANS             ; 30
dseg03:00167BB4                 dw LANDPLT
dseg03:00167BB6                 dw 6
dseg03:00167BB8                 dw CONSTRCT
dseg03:00167BBA                 dw SCANNER
dseg03:00167BBC                 dw TANK
dseg03:00167BBE                 dw ARTILLRY
dseg03:00167BC0                 dw ROCKTLCH
dseg03:00167BC2                 dw MISSLLCH
dseg03:00167BC4                 dw SHIPYARD
dseg03:00167BC6                 dw 8
dseg03:00167BC8                 dw FASTBOAT
dseg03:00167BCA                 dw CORVETTE
dseg03:00167BCC                 dw BATTLSHP
dseg03:00167BCE                 dw SUBMARNE
dseg03:00167BD0                 dw SEATRANS
dseg03:00167BD2                 dw MSSLBOAT
dseg03:00167BD4                 dw SEAMNLYR
dseg03:00167BD6                 dw CARGOSHP
dseg03:00167BD8                 dw AIRPLT
dseg03:00167BDA                 dw 4                    ; 50
dseg03:00167BDC                 dw FIGHTER
dseg03:00167BDE                 dw BOMBER
dseg03:00167BE0                 dw AIRTRANS
dseg03:00167BE2                 dw AWAC
dseg03:00167BE4                 dw ENGINEER
dseg03:00167BE6                 dw 15
dseg03:00167BE8                 dw ADUMP
dseg03:00167BEA                 dw FDUMP
dseg03:00167BEC                 dw GOLDSM
dseg03:00167BEE                 dw POWGEN
dseg03:00167BF0                 dw CNCT_4W
dseg03:00167BF2                 dw RADAR
dseg03:00167BF4                 dw GUNTURRT
dseg03:00167BF6                 dw ANTIAIR
dseg03:00167BF8                 dw ARTYTRRT
dseg03:00167BFA                 dw ANTIMSSL
dseg03:00167BFC                 dw LANDPAD
dseg03:00167BFE                 dw BRIDGE
dseg03:00167C00                 dw WTRPLTFM
dseg03:00167C02                 dw BLOCK
dseg03:00167C04                 dw ROAD
dseg03:00167C06                 dw TRAINHAL
dseg03:00167C08                 dw 2
dseg03:00167C0A                 dw COMMANDO
dseg03:00167C0C                 dw INFANTRY

These are the unit codes:

  COMMTWR = 0x0,
  POWERSTN = 0x1,
  POWGEN = 0x2,
  BARRACKS = 0x3,
  SHIELDGN = 0x4,
  RADAR = 0x5,
  ADUMP = 0x6,
  FDUMP = 0x7,
  GOLDSM = 0x8,
  DEPOT = 0x9,
  HANGAR = 0xA,
  DOCK = 0xB,
  CNCT_4W = 0xC,
  LRGRUBLE = 0xD,
  SMLRUBLE = 0xE,
  LRGTAPE = 0xF,
  SMLTAPE = 0x10,
  LRGSLAB = 0x11,
  SMLSLAB = 0x12,
  LRGCONES = 0x13,
  SMLCONES = 0x14,
  ROAD = 0x15,
  LANDPAD = 0x16,
  SHIPYARD = 0x17,
  LIGHTPLT = 0x18,
  LANDPLT = 0x19,
  SUPRTPLT = 0x1A,
  AIRPLT = 0x1B,
  HABITAT = 0x1C,
  RESEARCH = 0x1D,
  GREENHSE = 0x1E,
  RECCENTR = 0x1F,
  TRAINHAL = 0x20,
  WTRPLTFM = 0x21,
  GUNTURRT = 0x22,
  ANTIAIR = 0x23,
  ARTYTRRT = 0x24,
  ANTIMSSL = 0x25,
  BLOCK = 0x26,
  BRIDGE = 0x27,
  MININGST = 0x28,
  LANDMINE = 0x29,
  SEAMINE = 0x2A,
  LNDEXPLD = 0x2B,
  AIREXPLD = 0x2C,
  SEAEXPLD = 0x2D,
  BLDEXPLD = 0x2E,
  HITEXPLD = 0x2F,
  UNIT_MASTER = 0x30,
  CONSTRCT = 0x31,
  SCOUT = 0x32,
  TANK = 0x33,
  ARTILLRY = 0x34,
  ROCKTLCH = 0x35,
  MISSLLCH = 0x36,
  SP_FLAK = 0x37,
  MINELAYR = 0x38,
  SURVEYOR = 0x39,
  SCANNER = 0x3A,
  SPLYTRCK = 0x3B,
  GOLDTRCK = 0x3C,
  ENGINEER = 0x3D,
  BULLDOZR = 0x3E,
  REPAIR = 0x3F,
  FUELTRCK = 0x40,
  CLNTRANS = 0x41,
  COMMANDO = 0x42,
  INFANTRY = 0x43,
  FASTBOAT = 0x44,
  CORVETTE = 0x45,
  BATTLSHP = 0x46,
  SUBMARNE = 0x47,
  SEATRANS = 0x48,
  MSSLBOAT = 0x49,
  SEAMNLYR = 0x4A,
  CARGOSHP = 0x4B,
  FIGHTER = 0x4C,
  BOMBER = 0x4D,
  AIRTRANS = 0x4E,
  AWAC = 0x4F,
  JUGGRNT = 0x50,
  ALNTANK = 0x51,
  ALNASGUN = 0x52,
  ALNPLANE = 0x53,
  ROCKET = 0x54,
  TORPEDO = 0x55,
  ALNMISSL = 0x56,
  ALNTBALL = 0x57,
  ALNABALL = 0x58,
  RKTSMOKE = 0x59,
  TRPBUBLE = 0x5A,
  HARVSTER = 0x5B,
  WALDO = 0x5C,

[DwarfFighterCleric]

wow awesome

[DwarfFighterCleric]

Another great caution about your port is not changing the Enemy AI dramatically without giving the option to play the original untouched AI. Avoid behavior from other open-source projects such as OpenXcom for example where the AI is radically different and it's enabled by default, so unsuspecting players have no idea they are playing a completely different experience.

If some kind of Enhanced AI is ever to be present, it has to be an Optional choice in settings, and not forced upon the player.
Another example
are the walkers and wolves in Caesar 3 clone project Julius. Making the game play significantly easier than original, that's my impression of it, that's why I still prefer playing the original for the original AI.

edit: OpenXcom gives an option for an AI that is "closer" to original (it's not a source port, it's a recreation from zero) Which is called Sneaky AI in advanced options, but most players won't ever find that option.

[DwarfFighterCleric]

the AI is stupid in M.A.X. and intention is to make it much more clever

That's what scares me, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If ever do that, make it optional please. Even if it means two different executables, I would not mind personally.

[klei1984]

This is a difficult topic. The AI sucks in M.A.X. in many ways. If you check out the list of known defects you will find there many examples for this. E.g. just look at this screenshot. Would you really be happy to see this builder misbehavior also in the future? There are many corner cases that the AI simply cannot handle as original devs did not think about such situations. If you take a look at our discord server, you can also find there dozens of hilarious or more like pathetic examples where the AI simply fails to deliver its most basic function to keep itself alive and or pose any threat to the player or other teams...

I agree with you that the atmosphere of the game should not change. But then again, even the original devs totally ruined many previously working features of the computer AI by releasing v1.04 in a state which basically hacks the game logic so that the computers attack human players more fiercely as the loudest players back in 1997 whined that the computer AI is too passive for their tastes. So when we discuss about keeping the original AI behavior intact, which version do we speak about to begin with? Version 1.03 or 1.04 or maybe 1.00? Difficult topic.

Making things optional, I mean truly configurable and optional, is probably not gonna happen as it is double work and the backlog of issues to work on is so long that I cannot see the end of it even after 4 years of work on this project. All I can promise is that in the coming times (hopefully not years still) AI behavior will not be changed for any other purpose than fixing original game defects found on the defect list on the WEB page.

Hope this is acceptable.

[DwarfFighterCleric]

What I'm really really looking for is not even improved AI, it's the ability for people to make Custom Maps and Custom New Units, that's where this port will shine.

Maybe just MAYBE future support for bigger maps (3x or 4x sizes, imagine that...) Make Turn Based gaming glorious again 🤣

[klei1984]

A scenario/campaign/map editor/generator is on the (not public) roadmap. But this is again a tough topic. Copyright ownership and whatnot aside, dozens of defects are saved game format related. Why is that interesting? Because scenarios, campaigns or in general all missions are basic saved games hacked by hand by the original devs. The game hard codes mission win/loss conditions, hard code mission briefings, campaign mission orders, everything. The entire original game is spaghetti code and totally inflexible to support presentation of any end user created content.

All this means that we have two choices:

1. take the path and keep hacking at the spaghetti code and hack existing maps overwriting existing assets, not supporting multiple languages, keeping all or most limitations of the original game formats and supported features (like map size).
2. change the map format, saved game format, externalize many aspects of the game so that they could be edited, scripted, shared by end users without copyright infringements, etc.. M.A.X. Port cannot provide any of the original assets so all of those need to be converted during installation to the new formats of course. But changing all these things would still not work out as the game GUI is still inflexible for this... length of text fields are fixed, layout is not fit for huge amount of user content or multiple campaigns so as prerequisite we need the GUI overhaul to make it flexible or even end user editable to facilitate custom campaigns.

An awful lot of redesign and work that will only happen after the game defects are fixed and network based multiplayer is back in.