Awesome project. I would love to know if the guys from MAX Reloaded would give approval for the merging of Netplay-Multiplayer code into this project. Well maybe that won't even be necessary in the future. Multiplayer would be a dream come true... but even then I remember playing Reloaded multiplayer with some people and there were so many "cheesing" techniques, it definitely took away from the immersion of the game, things like being able to buy upgrades before landing, endless research... I feel like Gold upgrades are broken... I also feel like units should never be able to "buy" an additional shot per turn, maybe fine in XCOM game but not this one here...

As for now I'm trying to decipher why the music in MAX 2 doesn't work properly, the GOG version loops the same track and the loop is broken...
I wonder if will be possible to look through MAX 2 executable in some kind of decompiler and find what parts of the code are handling the music player.

In other Interplay games of the time, like Fallout 2, the ACM music files were ordered by a MUS playlist file. In the case of MAX 2 there's no MUS file in the game files, so it must be baked in the executable itself somehow.

I can decode the ACM music files with ffmpeg, no worries there, the music files all seem to be there (some I don't ever remember hearing before, I don't remember MAX 2 music very well but definitely does not play in GOG version...) The files are there, but for whatever reason the game never triggers them playing.

M.A.X. 2 implements adaptive music. Segments play depending on actions you do in-game. E.g. big fight means intense music segment (tensionXYZ.acm). Boring exploration calm segment (usually menu.acm).

Yes I loaded up 0.6.0 loaded up the first training mission and then just left it sitting for a couple of minutes and the game froze, the command prompt window for maxport was blank.

I assume you mean go to control panel > Administrative Tools > event viewer and then select the application / system tabs well did this and it didn’t show anything related to maxport.

Well I’m not sure what they are called in max2 I don't remember but I know that one of the playable teams was the same race that owns the alien units that you find scatters round the map when playing a custom game in max 1

copyright issues aside I though it might be nice if the aliens where a playable team in max 1 when playing a custom game, I suppose another option if that would be to difficult / time consuming and or have copyright issues would be to make the excising alien structure in max 1 functional so that if you connect them to your base they would afford you the ability to build alien units.

If you have ever played command and conquer red alert 2 there where various neutral structure that you could capture and they would give you some additional capabilities that you normally wouldn't have access to like the hospital would cause all your infantry to auto heal when damaged, and I though it might add an interesting dimension to add something like that to max port when playing a custom game maybe add an additional option to the set-up screen so that player can select wither they want to turn this on or not same way you can select whether to add alien units or not.

I see.

Ok so just switched over my monitor since the one that I was using is kaput and upon loading maxport I’m noticing an odd graphical glitch which probably shouldn’t be happening.

Here is a screen shot: https://i.ibb.co/7QDKzxW/screen-shot.png

Now evidently this is down to the way the interface is designed but given that I have the game set to its default resolution of 640 x 480 I wouldn’t expect to see such graphical glitches, so looks like this will need adjusting, and its not just the allocation screen where I'm seeing this I'm seeing it on pretty much every screen, oddly this doesn't seem to happen when i change my desktop resolution from 1280x720 to 1024x768

what i find even stranger is that when i load up 1.04 in vdm sound i don't see any graphical glitches everything just stretches to fit the 1280 x 720 screen which i wouldn't of expected given that apparently the interface cant do that due to the the fact 1280 x 720 is not a multiple of 64.

question is there a way to force max port to display in 4:3 format to prevent such graphical issues till such a time that the interfaces can be fixed to allow things to scale properly.

It is not a glitch. The game runs in widescreen mode matching your monitor's aspect ratio unless you change relevant settings in settings.ini.

disable_ar_correction
0: automatically match aspect ratio of monitor/desktop
1: use aspect ratio resulting from window_width and window_height options. E.g. 640x480 = 4:3.

dialog_center_mode
0: center popup dialog windows onto tactical map.
1: center popup dialog windows to center of monitor.

Stretching base 640x480 4:3 ar base game window to match arbitrary widescreen monitor/desktop is not supported by current implementation.

Ok so to avoid the issues with the sound manger till it gets fixed I turned off the music and started a new game and I’m noticing another issue with the allocation system.

Presently I produce 20 fuel and I have 1 power plant and 1 generator which require a total of 8 fuel to operate however when I go in to the allocation screen and turn fuel down to 8 for some reason the allocation screen is incorrectly telling me I’m negative 12 fuel as you can see in this screen shot

https://i.ibb.co/xhPyF1g/screen-shot.png

another issue I'm noticing on this new monitor is that the text is blurry and hard to read if to look at the red text where it says cargo and total you will notice that its hard to tell what it says

ah i see in that case you might want to update https://klei1984.github.io/max/2023/03/13/Full-hd-game-play.html

as it fails to explain what disable_ar_correction actually does.

I know I have reported this one before but it seems the path function is still failing on reload in 0.6.0.

I set an engineer to build a series of connectors via the path function ended turn and initially everything worked as expected but I then had to reload a couple of times and I noticed the engineer who had been instructed to build a series of connectors via the path function had become stuck fortunately I was able recover from this glitch by clicking the engineer selecting stop and then manually moving it over and then telling it to start building a connector again if you want the save where this happened for analysis to try and figure out what failed let me know.

something else i just notice with 0.6.0 is when you select an enemy unit and then use the lock function to keep the enemy units scanning and firing range lines viable while moving your own units the scan and firing range lines vanish momentarily while your units are moving this isn't supposed to happen, when the lock is engaged the enemy units scanning and firing range lines should remain visible even when your units are moving.

I think I also fixed this recently. Yesterday or the day before.

Umm... your screenshot is pixel perfect and sharp actually. If your new monitor is TFT/LCD or similar flat screen, then the monitor has a so called native resolution which will be sharp. Anything else will be blurry. These monitors work like that... On modern Windows operating systems the native resolution is also recommended by the system with special markup. On Windows XP this marking did not exist yet. Try to find the native resolution. E.g. a monitor that is marketed as Full HD probably has a native resolution of 1920x1080, but it could also be 1920x1200 or different.

I personally play with these settings:
display_index=0
screen_mode=2
disable_ar_correction=0
scale_quality=2
window_width=640
window_height=480
dialog_center_mode=0

The information window on the left of the screen is displaying wrong information for research labs and habitats in 0.6.0, when I take my current save from max port and load it in to 1.04 and I click on habitats and research centres the following information is displayed

Habitat: teams 3/3 total 3/3 usage 2/2
Research centre: usage 1/1 total 2/2

However when I load that same save in maxport and I click on habitats and research centres the following incorrect information is displayed

habitat: teams 0/3 total 2/3 usage 2/2
research center: usage 0/1 total 2/2

So in maxport when I click on habitats the values for teams and total are wrong.

I’m also of the opinion that the usage value for habitats is wrong in both 1.04 and in max port and should in fact read 2/3 since I have 3 personnel and I’m currently using 2 of them.

To me it makes more sense if the first digit of the total value displays the number of personnel that are currently in use and the second value denotes the total number of personnel that you can currently produce the way it is now is confusing and misleading

As for research centres again the usage value is wrong it should only display usage 0/1 when the research centre is switched off however in maxport the usage value incorrectly displays 0/1 even when the research centre is switched

Additionally in 1.04 if I have the research centre switched off but the training hall switched on the usage value will display 1 of 2 but in maxport in the same situation the usage value will continue to display 2/2 which is wrong

Most other buildings have the same issue as well so in 1.04 if both the research centre and training hall are switched on the following information is displayed

usage 1/1 total 2/2

However in maxport in the same situation the following incorrect information is displayed

usage 0/1 total 2/2

again usage should only display 0/1 when the building is switched off and like research centres total shouldn’t continue to display 2/2 if one of the buildings is switched off so in this case if the research centre is switched off but the training hall is on the total should display 1/2 but again I’m of the opinion that total is misleading and confusing and should display the number of personnel currently produce and the number of personnel currently being used as apposed to the number of buildings you have that require personnel and the number of those buildings that require personnel that are currently switched on

power plants and generators also have a similar issue with the power value for generators the power value should read 0/1 when switched off and 1/1 when switched on and for power plants the power value should read 0/6 when switched off and 6/6 when switched on but in maxport the values for both always display 0/1 and 0/6 respectively regardless of whither there are switched on or off

Additionally the total display for power plants and generators is wrong in maxport

On my current save I have 2 power plants and a generator making a total of 13 power the 2 power plants are on and the generator is off which means the total value for power plants and generators should display 12/13 bit in maxport it incorrectly display 8/13

Also the usage value is again wrong in maxport and of the 8 factories that I have that need power if I turn one of them off the usage continues to display 8/8 which is incorrect if I have 8 buildings that need power and turn 1 off then the usage value should display 7/8
humm that weird because on my screen the text is kind of blurry currently i have the resolution set to 1280x720 which i believe is equivalent to 720p can't really turn the resolution up any more though because the screen isn't much bigger then my old monitor the one I'm using right now is a 20 inch wide screen where my old one was 16 inch 4:3 i did try turning up the resolution more but it made things to small on screen

what i find strange is the text in the os and in the browser is sharp at 1280x720 its only when i put on max port that i have issues with the blurry text, although maybe this will get sorted out when you get round to switching up the fonts to allow the text to scale

to be honest i think its probably just this monitor because on the on my old 16" crt the text was fine and everything looked good at a resolution of 1024x768 but on this lcd display even at 1280x720 the text in in max port looks blurry although i think that has more to do with max its self because even when running 1.04 through vdm sound i have the same issue

having just looked at the graphics settings I'm using more or less the same settings

display_index=0
screen_mode=2
disable_ar_correction=1
scale_quality=2
window_width=640
window_height=480
dialog_center_mode=0

the only difference is that i have disable_ar_correction on so that the game will display in 4:3 to prevent annoying graphical glitches since things aren't scaling properly yet

just noticed another glitch ai turrets seem to be misbehaving, when i try to disable an enemy with a spy and it fails multiple turrets fire on the target even though this is not necessary as a single hit with a missile launcher is more that enough to kill my spy so looks like this is something else that will need looking at.

All the wrong statistics were caused by same issue that made allocation screen statistics wrong. Next version corrects the behavior.

Typical 20" wide screen monitors' native resolution is 1680 x 1050 pixels with 16:10 aspect ratio. Please check the native resolution in the monitor's user manual.

The settings cannot get anything better actually. This way the game is drawn or rendered to a 640x480 pixels window , where text font size is correct, and then that image is scaled up by SDL2 using video card hardware to your desktop resolution of 1280x720 using a scaling technique called anisotropic filtering. scale_quality=0 would use nearest neighbor method, scale_quality=1 would use probably (bi)linear filtering.
There is something similar documented as defect 63. If you have the saved game where this could be observed, please share it.

You need to disable your Num Lock. It is an USB keyboard handling limitation in GNW.

This is original behavior. If unit is disabled, there is no voice feedback for infiltrator actions. Rationale: the infiltrator is not in danger if target is disabled.

Recently a reaction fire related 00:00 end turn timer issue had been solved. It is documented as defect 207 (not public yet). There could be countless other such defects in the game still... Is it reoccurring on load? If so please attach the saved game for analysis, thanks.

I found and corrected the issue, replicated original behavior. But the original behavior is also a bit strange. When said locked enemy units perform certain orders their circles are not drawn either. The rule says that if the enemy performs any order and their order specific operating state is state 1 or state 2, then do not draw the circles. For example if the enemy is attacking and the attack animation is played, then no circles.

Ok so trying out 6.1 and there seems to be an issue with APCs not submerging, when driving from land to water the APC also refuses to submerge when driving across water, thus far the only way I have been able to get the APC to submerge is to save and then reload which is of course really annoying when the computer has long range missile launchers on the coast that keep blasting my APC every time I try to move out into the water

There also seems to be an issue with the scan line partially vanishing upon tapping the remove command for bulldozers as you can see in the screen shot

https://i.postimg.cc/Qt22yM5V/screenshot.png

Target selection seems to be a bit iffy as well when trying to destroy an enemy AWAC that is hovering over a building with an alien plane instead of shooting and destroying the AWAC it keeps shooting the building in this scenario is there maybe a hotkey that you need to press in order to designate the AWAC as the target rather then the building under it? Or is the target selection just a bit glitchy because the original dev’s never considered this possibility?

Cost reduction research isn’t being applied correctly either by default before applying any cost reduction research the values for building a mine are as follows

Speed Turns Cost
x1 12 24
x2 6 48
x4 5 56

In 1.04 after applying 10% cost reduction the values for building a mine are as follows

Speed Turns Cost
x1 11 22
x2 6 42
x4 5 50

However if I load that same save in 0.6.1 the values for building a mine after applying 10% cost reduction are as follows

Speed Turns Cost
x1 11 22
x2 6 42
x4 4 58

So as you can see after researching cost reduction by 10% the cost for building at x4 is incorrect turns is reduced instead of cost, and cost actually increases instead of decreasing so where the cost to build at x4 speed is 56 by default after applying 10% cost reduction the cost to build at x4 has increased from 56 to 58 which is clearly wrong.

So far as I can tell most other structures have the same issue as well for example the hanger, by default before applying any cost reduction the values for building a hanger are as follows

Speed Turns Cost
x1 8 16
x2 4 32
x4 2 48

In 1.04 after applying 10% cost reduction the values are as follows

Speed Turns Cost
x1 7 14
x2 4 26
x4 2 48

However if I load that same save in 0.6.1 the values for building a hanger after applying 10% cost reduction are as follows

Speed Turns Cost
x1 7 14
x2 4 26
x4 3 34

So again the values for x4 speed are wrong however in this case turns has incorrectly increased from 2 to 3 and cost has incorrectly decreased 48 to 34 so clearly something isn’t working correctly.