New Construction Options

"New Construction Options", the sound generated by C&C if there are new construction options available, is usually only mentioned because it doesn't work as intended.

The sound gained sad fame by the fact that there's a bug resulting in this sound being repeated everytime there is a creation (or similar action) performed, e.g.

Unit created.
New construction options.
Unit created.
New construction options.
Unit created.
New construction options.
New construction options.
New construction options.
Technology stolen.
New construction options.
New construction options.
Unit created.
New construction options.

...etc.

Yet, that is not the only problem with this bug: Appearently, when the "New Construction Options"-event is triggered, the sidebar tries to jump to the new construction option, i.e. if you were on the infantry tab, and spied a tech lab, the sidebar would jump to your newly gained Psi Commando (or whatever you got). Given that the there are no new construction options, this of course does not work, but the sidebar still jumps – which is pretty unnerving when you have many units queued up and are trying to build more. Usually, the tab only jumps to the first position, but at least one user reported random jumping (i.e. not only up, to the top, but also downwards).

In Detail / Reasons and Solutions

Many modders have experienced the "New Construction Options" or NCO bug. Symptoms: EVA repeatedly saying "NCO" after any vehicle/infantry/structure is built. The cause of this bug is indirectly the WW's decision to keep navy a part of the VehicleTypes list, rather than creating a separate one. Ergo, shipyards are classed as Factory=VehicleType, just like the War Factories are. This results in the game thinking that you can build the ground vehicles when you only have the shipyard, and vice versa. So, unless you set all ground vehicles to have at least Prerequisite=one of war factories, and all Naval=yes units Prerequisite=one of shipyards, you'll get the bug when you own one of the factories, but not the other. You can add other Prerequisites if you like, but a factory of the appropriate kind must be present in the Prerequisite= entry. PrerequisiteOverride= is another problem. Since it ignores the Prerequisite= and only needs one of the buildings from the list, you can restore the bug easily, if you aren't careful. If you set the PrerequisiteOverride= to something else than the appropriate factory, you'll get the bug. So it's best to stay away from this tag in this case... InfantryTypes don't suffer from this, as there is only one kind of Barracks. BuildingTypes seem to be bug-free (in this aspect) too.

In addition, the bug is also caused by being able to build a building (any object?) your house doesn't own. For example, if you have a building with

Prerequisite=BARRACKS
Owner=British,French,Germans,Americans,Alliance

you will get an NCO as soon as you build your barracks – if you're Soviet (or Yuri). As an Ally, it'll be fine. The reason for this is that, like described above, you do satisfy the prerequisites, but technically shouldn't be able to build the structure. It does, however, mean that a greater part, if not the whole ownership-logic of the game is flawed this way, and not just the part relating to VehicleTypes.
The obvious solution to this is to make sure all countries are listed as owners of a structure (object?).

Comments

CannisRabidus: Check for typos. You might just think you have all countries listed...
ArgCmdr: Owner parameters on side-buildings should contain all playable houses, else that sound is played.
Renegade: Well, from my rich funds of experience with this god-damned bug, I can only give one advice: Just disable that freakin' sound...you won't hunt it down...and even if you did, it will come again...and again...it's everywhere......you can't escape from it...disabling it makes modding much more funny, since you don't need to fuckin' care about it...

eva(md).ini, [EVA_NewConstructionOptions], make it look like this:

[EVA_NewConstructionOptions]
Text=New construction options.
Russian= ;csof049
Allied=; ceva049
Yuri= ;cyur049
Type= QUEUE
Priority= LOW

From Renegade: This comment is several years old. Today, much more is known about the NCO, and at least when you're starting a new project, hunting down is better than turning off.
Reportedly, TechLevel= typos generate the bug as well.

This bug is usually referred to as the "NCO-Bug".
Contributors: Martyr, CannisRabidus, Blade, DCoder, Renegade