Re: Building

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

I will finish testing the wake behavior patch tomorrow evening. I really
must get to bed, but here's a quick reply to your inquiries:

On Tue, 2004-05-11 at 21:53, mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:

>  Is there an example of a file out there where this
> behaviour is used and works?

Hans' Advances game uses materials-limited, ACP-independent
creation/building. This might be worth looking at.

> Issues I'd like to know about include:
> 
> * does the "shop" need ACP?  does it need to have acp-independent turned on?
> * can I allow it to build in nonadjacent hexes by turning up the
>   build-range and undocumented create-range values?
> * should I be setting the "creation" values or the "build" values, or both?
> * can I make this work with take-from-treasury?
> * how do I get it to only build one unit instead of "as many as possible"?
> * how do I get it to build them immediately instead of waiting for next turn?
> * there are probably bugs in the code, but at this point I'm pretty sure
>   I don't even have the GDL correct, so it's hard to say which of my
>   problems come from bugs and which are from bad GDL.

Some notes:
* ACP-independent creation/building works with advanced units.
* A unit must be created before it can be built.
* Creation-related and building-related tables apply to their respective
actions only, and not to each other's actions. 
* Creation and building using materials from the treasury works. If the
storage capacity for the material is set to 0, it will be taken directly
from the treasury. If the storage capacity is >0, then only the amount
that fills up the storage capacity will be taken from the treasury as
part of the creation/building preparation.
* 'create-range' should be documented. I thought it was, but if it
isn't, I will address it.
* If a unit is waiting until the next turn, then that sometimes an
indicator that it does not have enough ACP or materials to perform your
request immediately. Look for the "SupplyLow" indicator in the unit
info.
* If more than one unit is being built and you only requested one, then
there is likely another create/build bug that needs to be squashed. I
recently made some fixes to the sort of bug you are seeing, but several
other bugs popped up as a result. Hans and I squashed those too, but
maybe something is still lurking. If you can give me precise info on
reproducing it, I will look into it.

Eric