how much better is SMAX over SMAC ?

sevencubed · July 20, 2002, 18:12

I've been playing SMAC for the last 2 years. I never had the chance to get my hands on SMAX though, since it was never distributed in my country (at least I couldn't find it).

From the known additions that i read on this forums, there are some things that i didn't manage to clarify so here are the questions:
1) after installing the expansion, do u still have a choice to play only with the original factions, or the original settings anyway?
2) apart from the additions of new techs, projects, units are there other changes regarding the interface (screens, menus etc)?
3) changes on diplomacy, and AI-human interaction ?
4) other things i might be missing?

once, i read a review (can't remember where though) stating that SMAX was really a step back for AC, ruining much of the good things the original had. Has there been a relative thread discussing this?

Pandemoniak · July 20, 2002, 18:34

1. You can play the original factions, the new faction or both of them mixed. You can always play SMAC instead of SMAC-X when SMAC-X is installed.

2. No, i dont think so, but there is some techs / Sp / units that really makes new strategies.

3. Some new diplomatic propositions and some new coucil propositions...

4. Many.

5. Just get it and make your mind, SMAC-X is far better than SMAC. And not only because there's the Free Drones in SMAC-X.

6. And if you can send me a copy of SMAC-X as well, thatll be welcome. (see Thread : Another favor is asked to you)

Method · July 20, 2002, 19:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Pandemoniak
3. Some new diplomatic propositions and some new coucil propositions...

There are?

1)as pandemoniak said, you can mix and match your factions. if you want to play a builder game you can choose only builder factions and you wont have as much war (with gaiains morgan UoP PKs angels and drones i got the first battle victory in 2240 IIRC)

3)the aliens are always at war with each other, with you if they get their way, and if you play the aliens, the humans wont really like you that much.

4)new landmarks, new SPs new facilities, new native life, new techs, new weapons armour and special abilites, and a different graphic for mining platforms

it absolutely isnt a step back.

ooo don't they look scary!

Pandemoniak · July 21, 2002, 05:13

There's as well a different graphic for Alien Artifact, I forgot

spartak · July 21, 2002, 10:13

SMAX is better fr SP but I have seen several dioscussions where dedicated MP players prefer to play SMAC.

Ogie Oglethorpe · July 21, 2002, 13:54

Aside from previously mentioned differences one of the big differences is the fix made with a SMAX patch that finally fixed golden ages. A golden age resulting in +6 growth in bases will allow pop booms, thus evening the score for pop boom hindered factions like Morgan.

Andemagne · July 21, 2002, 14:09

some land marks are added also. Manifold Nexus, Unity Crash Site, that Fossil thingy in sea, .....

Method · July 21, 2002, 14:36

Manifold nexus and borehole cluster were added in SMAC v4.0 IIRC

Maniac · July 21, 2002, 15:38

And the Fossil Field Ridge is useless, which leaves...

Mongoose · July 21, 2002, 16:26

The maintence cost bug on Thinker and Transcend levels is fixed in SMAX.

The Hunter is no longer a game breaker.

Those two items, along with the Golden Age fix, make it worth getting, even if you never use the new factions.

Part of my preference for SMAX is because of the facilities that make sea (or port) bases potentially much stronger than they are in SMAC. There is a facility to increase the yield from sea squares for each of the three factors of production for sea or port bases.

In my opinion, where the original SMAC factions were rather well balanced, both within themselves and vis. each other, the SMAX factions are more extreme. Both the bonuses and the penalties are larger. Mixing new and old factions can result in unbalanced situations, particulalry in MP.

Having said that, I find some of the SMAX factions fun to play.

RedFred · July 21, 2002, 16:32

Just a few fill-ins:

SMAX has a couple new natives, the sealurk, the spore launcher and the fungal tower.

Another key fix in SMAX is the energy bug fix. At least for Transcend level you get undercharged for infrastructure in vanilla SMAC.

Unfortunately a couple new bugs were also introduced. Many of us now suffer from the interceptor crash bug or the edge of the world crash. There are work arounds though and the best fix seems to be a lot more computer power.

Several new techs, unit options and even SPs were introduced. Key SPs include the Planetary Energy Grid and the Cloudbase Academy. One of the new base improvements makes sea-based energy parks more effective - the Thermocline Transducer.

Sadly I know of no new diplomacy features, but someone with a good sense of humour added text for the aliens. In games with the aliens the human council has only five members.

There is a new victory condition but it only kicks in for one of the two alien factions.

Aliens have a huge edge starting out and it can be hard to win if you encounter them early. Especially if you are inbetween them. My advice, lie low, give them anything they want to avoid war and wait until you have reseached nerve gas. Gassing aliens causes no environmental damage.

The extra stops on the tech tree will not cause the game to take that much longer.

I prefer any game whether it be single player or multiplayer on SMAX. The only reason I occasionally play vanilla SMAC MP games is that not everyone was able to purchase SMAX.

For me the biggest advantage was in having seven more factions to play with. Although the original seven were well done, it is nice to play someone new for a change.

The Bloody Baro · July 22, 2002, 10:25

Does anybody know where I could buy SMAX?

Jac de Molay · July 22, 2002, 10:39

I was about to ask the same thing - I've never played it, though I still get plenty of use out of original SMAC. I did a thread search and found a few links, but am not sure if they're still shipping.

Dave

Maniac · July 22, 2002, 10:52

Look at the bottom of this page.

Lucidor · July 22, 2002, 20:10

Is the "Planetary Pack" SMAC patched to 4.0 as well as the expansion? I found the pack at a bargain rack, and liked the game a lot back then.

I started playing some more again after getting into a discussion about the best quotes.

Anyway - Hi! Nice forum you've got here!

The Vagabond · July 23, 2002, 00:46

Could someone please answer the following question. Is SMAX an independent software or a supplement to SMAC? In other words, is it necessary to have SMAC installed before installing SMAX?

Another question: are SMAX and Allien Crossfire the same thing?

Mr. President · July 23, 2002, 00:48

You need the original game to install SMAX. SMAX is another name for Alien Crossfire. Alien Crossfire sounds cooler so I usually say that.

The Vagabond · July 23, 2002, 00:52

Thanks, Mr. President.

MariOne · July 23, 2002, 04:31

I'd agree with last posts from Mongoose & RedFred.
With the precisation that I'm not at all a fan of SMAX.

True, there are several new items, in terms of

native units
unit components
facilities
projects
techs

1. add some variety in interaction with wild units; not bad, a minor influence on the game
2. overrated
3. interesting the sea-enhancing trio, as said above. Interesting the Covert-ops center, but not that much after all. New buildings for missile defense, but hardly influential against a dumb AI, hardly get there in a PBEM
4. Interesting the new facilities-adding ones, as said above. When I play SMAC tho, I barely miss the use of CBA, the rest of new project are just some flavoring...
5. Interesting only as related to the new items they allow. They also screwed up some hierarchy, in the sense that now is possible to discover Hybrid Forests *before* Tree Farms, and of course you can't build the formers without the latters.

The main thing grounding my opposition to SMAX is this:
they added some bug-fixing code in the SMAX terrax.exe executable.
That should be a good thing.
As the fixed bugs were in the old code (of course SMAC bugs could not be in the sections added for SMAX new features...), the fix could have been equally applied to the old executable, terran.exe. After all, the fixing code had been written, they could have included it in a SMACv5 patch, with almost no additional effort.
But no, they decided to not do it. Why?
Because SMAX was sold at full price, and had they released just the fixing code for the old version, without all the new frills, they thought many customers would have contented to get the bug fixes for free without purchasing the expansion.
Thus, admitting that they considered a bug-fixing patch a decisive item when considering the purchase.
In practice, they counted on *selling* you the latest patch, instead that releasing for free that last piece of code to fix the *defective* items thay had already sold you in the first place.

So, IMHO the new items only add for a 10%-15% (at best) to the game experience.
I would NOT have paid a full-game price just for them.
When I play SMAX, I mainly do it because it has the Maintenance Bug and the Golden Age bug fixed. And I curse Firaxis everytime as I had to shell another 50$ to get those fixes (despite I waited almost a year before getting it!).
Now that SMAX hit the bargain bins, I'd say that as expansion it could be interesting to get, at NO MORE than 10$, and that could already be too much. That should have been the retail price for the expansion from its start. To be an actual "bargain", it should be really sold at 5$ rather than 10...

waab · July 23, 2002, 16:19

Actuly I think SMAC-X was something really fun, mostly because my favorit faction is in it, but also because you could make factions with new abilities like pirats starting on see...and so on.

I like the new alien units but the new weapons is totaly pointless.

Some fun new buildings, I think it is a really good idea to buy it.

Alinestra Covelia · July 23, 2002, 17:19

Missiles are no longer the game-decider that they used to be. There are now a wealth of "factional missile defences" available to the player if you play using SMAX rules.

MattyBoy · July 24, 2002, 00:42

I felt that it added 10% to the game and I bought it at great inconvenience from US Ebay. But, if it's your favourite game, it's time and effort well spent.

The main mistake that I made was to get excited about the new factions. Despite having the option of the new factions, I rarely use them now.

Why? because each of them was distorted or overpowered enough that it made for a narrow (linear) game. e.g: Drones are a challenge until you work out they need to be played, then the fun is over.

MattyBoy · July 24, 2002, 00:44

The thing that I liked best about SMAX over SMAC was the rebalancing of artillery, so that they become part of gameplay now.

Mr. President · July 24, 2002, 00:53

I agree that SMAX is quite a decent game, but I sort of lost interest after a while, mainly due to the "Resonance" technologies. (At one point I even made original-game files for the Usurpers and Caretakers so I could put them in non-SMAX games.) That said, I'd definitely recommend it.

MattyBoy · July 24, 2002, 01:54

Yep, those new tech's are just a pain in the ar$e (is that spelt a$$?). As a result the tech race feels less compelling.

Mr. President · July 24, 2002, 02:28

The best part about Adaptive Economics is listening to Judaa Marr's cool-sounding voice.

Adalbertus · July 24, 2002, 03:15

As I've bought both SMAC and SMAX at bin prices (+shipping), I've not paid too much for the both of them. SMAX definitely isn't a totally new game, it feels a bit "strange" as there are two histories (planet+aliens) mixed in one, so far from a purely aesthetical point of view. The new factions all seem a bit overpowered (most so the aliens in human hands ...), perhaps with the exception of Fungboy. But they give really a difference to the game (i usually have random factions for the AI). I could well live without the resonance/pulse weapons. Of the special abilities, I like most the soporific gas (roughly, a weaker version of nerve gas, but no atrocity).
The new SPs are nice, though CBA a bit overpowered. Oh, and there are two new missile types: Tectonic payload to raise land (never really used it), and fungal payload which is too expensive to be really useful, but it can be quite a fun to ruin an empire only by planting fungus when the opponent has no means to counter this (no Green SE choice, -1 Planet)

Phil_de_geezer · July 24, 2002, 06:40

I found SMAX to be much better than SMAC because things seem to work. I remember still having the SMAC AI build tons of artilery units even after installing the patch that claimed to fix it.

Method · July 24, 2002, 09:31

i really like WAVE especially (well actually only) on air units. it counters abilities like trance and AAA so a WAVE chopper can attack without getting killed by AAA defenders. WAVE psi choppers tend to be useful too if you have a high planet rating and the dream twister.

i don't think the new factions are overpowered. you might think the aliens are but all you have to do is nerve gas them

.

Pandemoniak · July 24, 2002, 10:27

There's even simplet than mind nerve then, just send a a couple of probe team in a weak city, and make some drones. Alien will (very often) simply cut nerves of Drones, thus loosing all their "trade-like" energy bonus, which will make them far weaker for about 20 turns.

I dont really think SMAX factions are overpowered, except that whatever the game I played, it always seem that Gaian and Pirates are stronger than the others. Maybe its just the AI which plays better with them, because I dont think they really are more powerful than Free Drones, for example.