SMAC Expansion Disk!

[Tim Train FIRAXIS]

Hi all,
I trust everyone is enjoying Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Firaxis is exploring the possibility of a new installment in the world of Alpha Centauri-an expansion disk (SMACX, for lack of a better designation) that adds some new twists and turns to the familiar surface of Planet. I'd love to hear what people want to see in a SMAC expansion disk, so here's your chance to put in your $0.02. A few guidelines:

*We're looking for new faction ideas, base facilities, Secret Projects, unit components, native lifeforms, landmarks, orbital facilities-basically anything.
*Preferably, ideas should fit into the existing parameters of the game. So a base facility that increases nutrient resources collected would be great, but 'add minefields to the game' would be more problematic, since no code currently exists for such a feature.

Feel free to post responses or send them directly to me at ttrain@firaxis.com

Thanks for your input and support!

Tim

Chucking in some ideas.

Factions - One primarly terrorist. One that believes in space. Perhaps even an ancient civilization could carry on into the new age, because of some person who admired them. Like the Italian leader during ww2 who admired the Romans and wanted to build a modern Roman empire.
Native Lifeforms - Maybe a primary 'leader' or specific group of lifeforms that forms the elite of the lifeforms.
LandMarks - The site of a former alien empire that provides certain amount of nutrients, energy and minerals.
The story of an alien empire maybe fighting the Native Lifeforms that lives now makes a nice twist to the fiction, especcially if it lost.
Oribtal - Maybe some unit army for space could attack, defend or take over an enemy orbit.
Units - I like more emphasis on terrosim, although that may be too much like CTP. A terroist could halt production or cause riots by making them panic.
Bunkers - It doesn't look realistic. Maybe a different drawing of it? It looks like a wall.
If minefields can't be made, then how about making traps in certain places for enemy units to stumble on? It could be simple, and probably only take a certain amount of strength from the unit or maybe the unit somehow survives.
Well, that's all I can think of so far.

[Pythagoras]

I've been playing around with the idea of "Super Gaians" for lack of a better term, they would start out with the ability to build the Voice of Planet, and ascent to transcendance, but would otherwise be weak. They would be tall frail ancients, good at psioinic combat but very poor industrially, economically and normal military stuff.

[Fugi the Great]

Anti-satellite weapons - either landbased missles or space based "hunter-killer" satellites like the Russians supposedly have. That way you can destroy the enemies planet buster defense, starve him/her if he uses nutrient producing satellites, hit him/her in the pocket book if using energy producing satellites, and cripple his/her manufacturing ability if using mining satellites.

Jungles - be able to plant them ourselves and maybe even have them expand by themselves like forests do now. I don't know if you would have to limit this to certain latitudes or not.

Orbiting laboratories - I realize we do have enough "labs" already but it may or may not come in handy if you are falling behind scientifically.

Some kind of monolith to upgrade/repair air units. You can upgrade ground units with them, if you sink them they can upgrade ships, but as of yet there is no way to upgrade air units. I just hope it doesn't end up near Yang, man could that get nasty.

Minefields could be used if you could create a unit that cannot move but has to be "transported" to where it is deployed. Of coarse this unit would either have no upkeep or very low upkeep. But who gets to see them and how much damage does it do?

[Fugi the Great]

Minefields could also be made by terraformers like they build bunkers and sensors now. Of course as soon as we get minefields, we'll also ask for automated lazer turrets, flamethrowers, fences, walls... It will almost end up like a turn based Command & Conqueor.

[Fugi the Great]

A secret project "The Return to Earth" which at first does nothing, but after a few years (travel time there and back) you would get a bit of an interlude about what is going on back home. Are they all dead? Did they finally find a cure for the common cold? Could possibly lead to a certain technological advancement that can only be obtained with this secret project. But then is this technology shared with all the children of old earth or only the faction that builds the secret project? Maybe even bring back some new artifact that gives you a certain advantage in building, warfare, terraforming, population growth/control ... that every faction would want desperately to get.

[Fugi the Great]

A type of natural lifeform that has a true lifecycle. It would start out very weak (baby) and get stronger as it ages, and of course years later dies when it get old. Certain improvements or technologies could determine how old it can become or how strong it gets. This would a living weapon that would attack on sight, where the attack (psi?) is not considered an act of war - sort of like guarddogs, could be used for border guards to make the other factions think twice before entering your land without permission. This creature would actually be useless in a war right away if you would need units in a hurry, but would probably be produced during peacetime so they have enough time to develop before the next war. Of course for those at a constant state of war will just have to put the creature out to pasture (forests, jungle, fungus?) for a while. Maybe one for land, one for sea, one for air? This may end up being kind of nasty when you think you have a very large fighting force, and all of a sudden a large percentage starts dieing off due to some plague or old age.

[jojo]

Now I know you can't build mines, but why not add a function to a former to make it lay a trap which, once a unit lands on the square, forces a xenofungal bloom?

How about a funky pice of artillery which, when fired, has the same effect as a fungal growth-- i.e., it chucks out mindworms, converts a square to fungus, and destroys the improvements on the tile....

How about a blob-like creature-- if it wins a battle, it absorbs the decaying flesh of its enemies and grows stronger? If it gets strong enough, it decides to undergo meiosis, splitting into two weaker creatures...

How about a medic unit, that when stacked with other infantry units, doubles their recuperative abilities and/or makes them take less damage during battle? Rovers, of course, would need a mechanic type unit.

Would a time warp project be too unbalancing? It might allow you to freeze other players for maybe 10 turns, during which time combat would take place as normal, but your opponents would not be produing (or consuming) anything and would be defenseless against probe teams....

I haven't played enough, but is there a unit which can cross both land and sea like a hovercraft? If not, why not?

How about a solar collector super project that harnesses the suns' energy from orbit, doubling your energy production-- too unbalancing?




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Your mileage may vary.

[Almighty]

I really feel that the graphics should be updated considerably, especially the too colorful military units who are dressed like clowns. Also, at the beginning of the game, when you've conquered a city, make it so that you get a picture of say, rovers storming and when you've got hovertanks, show that. Better still, have cut scenes for the Interludes from the book of planet. Use the original interface design (the brownish metal one) that one looks more original and therefore better. Sub units should be shown submerged and air units should not have to follow the terrain. A field mechanic will be excellent. The copter looks more like a toy (do something!) Try to have bombs as well for air units. Also, if possible, have military readiness like CTP and stacked combat which you can command (perhaps for a SMAC sequel). I'll post more ideas later.

[sdanic]

For the expansion I'd like to see planet expressed as a playable faction. It would be nice to play an entire scenario with interludes and everything strictly from planet's perspective.

I'd also like to see something comparible to the hooded dashers and hylighters from "The Jesus Incident". Hooded dashers would be fast attack units. Hylighters would be flying units similar to the overlords in Starcraft.

[RINCEWIND_HAS_RETURNED]

Surely wouldn`t a planet like Chiron have Polar Ice-caps.
All there is in SMAC is arid terrain with rocky land.

1, SCENARIOS, about a dozen or more

2, Special units, it was really cool to have
generals and such expressed as special units in civ2

3, the terrain, sometimes 10 m is higher up then 753 m, fix it please.

4, More about the Monolith, Ruins, boreholecluster-building aliens, who where they where did they come from where are they now, also: Add more interludes, maybe fimls, they really add to the game, an customizable interlude editor for scenarios would be nice.

5, More space, building farms and mines and solar panels is kinda boring, why can´t we build the ship from the bulkmatter-transmitter?

I´ll try coming up with more.

"Whatever else, Protect the borders!"
--Lord Deira, last instructions before his death by an assasins knife.

[Aztlan]

1. New directions for technology:

Humans are already trying to improve themselves by combining themselves with machinery and native lifeforms. How about adding plant and animal traits to the mix.

There is current research into the use of plant proteins as switches. Make computers organic.

Superconductor research has gone ceramic. Materials can be switched from metallic to silicate.

With Temporal Mechanics and Singularity Mechanics, they're almost able to control wormholes. Make interstellar spaceflight a possible research victory, because I think Planet is lying. Humans are the fuel for its Transcendence. Would you even find out before it was too late? That's what you get for listening to fungus.

Also:

an amphibious chassis

Be in motion,

Aztlan

[Akron]

2 things.

1) Sound and graphics MUST be improved. The graphics aren't bad once you get in the game, but look bad to outsiders. Also, music and better sound effects would add greatly to the game.

2) Expand space a lot. One idea is too have space transports that can either start new settlements on other planets or that carry units that can be dropped anywhere on planet with advanced spaceflight, the number of units depending upon the space transports reactor. Of course, spaceflight should be very expensive an undertaking, especially traveling to new planets. Also, new space labs, something for direct energy reserves, and even for psych, but these should be limited.

[Akron]

2 more things

Alpha Centauri's gameplay is better than Civ2's, yet there are a few things to be worked out. In most games, the computer, even though it has 300+ units and a transport, will not make an assult on you unless they are in first place on the power graph. This gets very annoying because it makes the game VERY easy for some factions. The AI needs more strategy, not just quicker production. It needs to know how to launch a successful attack on you, collect information and plan out an assult. It also needs better planning out of its own empire. Some factions, such as the Morgans and Believers are unbalenced in the game. Improving this will greatly add to the game.

Secondly, I feel that different factions should have slightly different tech trees. For example, there should be a "Morgan" tech strand that can only be researched by Morgan, but can be stolen by any facrtion. These advances will have one mainstream prerequisite and one "Morgan" prerequisite. Of course, the advances should be faction specific.

[Jythexinvok]

Ok... jythe's nice long list of suggestions.

Base Facilities:
-Needle/Linear Acclerator: Acts like Space Elevator in a single city: 1/2 to place satalites & allow orbitial insertian.
-Ultrasonic Generator: +2 drones -1 growth, no alien lifeforms can come within 3 squares of city.
-anti-missle installation: impoves chaces of units surviving missle attacks (maybe +100% defence vs missles only?)
-Gravity Lens. This is more of a satalite type, but would be VERY expensive per satalite (mabye 1000-5000 minerals). But each one can do several things at any given time:
Shade areas of the planet. Helps rainfall
Brigten areas of the planet (bonus to solar collectors), but causes a dougnut of shade proportional to just how strong you want the bonus.
Darkness: kill all sunlight for a region, kills off EVERYTHING in that area. Causes terrain type ICE.
Slag: brings a region to maybe a thousand degrees kelvin, causes terrain type SLAG.
Zap. Pinpoint attacks in individual squares or units.

Secret Project:
-nano virus: allows two new victory types, Kill Planet and Kill Terrans.

Chassis:
-true infantray (vs self-propelled weapons)
-25% attack, but ALWAYS takes damange as if hit by artillery
-native lifeforms as chassis types: would allow some modification to native lifeforms.
-fixed. Good for more complex sensors, fortress defence, ect. Cheaper then infantry but requires a transport to move.

Packages/Special abbilities.
-cyberworms: allows native chassis types to mount 'standard' equipment in addition to thier native attack. Attack type is chosen in same manor as nerve gass pods.
-nano-infiltration. One shot probe teams with less sucess but zero action cost. stopped by any nano-unit protecting the area.
-non terriformer fungacidal tanks: when time to remove fungus drops to 1 turn this would allow needlejets, artillery, and other such units to go around removing fungus.
-wormnets. Allows players with poor plant ratings to still have a chance of capturing mindworms.

Missle Packages.
-cruise missle. Ultra cheap to produce, but only acts as an artillery hit. Good for knocking out terrian improvments and such.
-fungus/anti-fungus warhead. Burst area of a PB but either places or removes fungus. Probably not all that healthy to forests and such either :>
-TAK-NUKE. Destroys all units at a location. Scorches the area, destroying all improvements.
-Starburst. Similiar to tak-nuke only in addition it converts the target tile into terrian type SLAG.
-THOR. missles with drop pods, only usefull if orbitial insertian is an option.

Aliens:
-planetformers. non-combat mindworm variant that goes around planting fungus. When in fungus it has a 25/75 chance of either breeding (becomes two) or moving. If in a non-fungus square it plants fungus.
-netted mindworms. Instead of destoying units, it takes them over. Then the unit goes around destroying things. Other factions have a % chance to tell if it's under mindworm control.

Terriforming:
cannals/bridges. Allow sea units to cross land and land units to cross sea. Limited to low level terrain and shelf sea tiles.
ICE. It's cold, it's wet, it's mostly useless, but on cold random maps it might just crop in.
SLAG. Terrian that's been utterly destoyed. This land will NEVER produce nutriants again, though solar pannels are still possible, and thier might be usefull minerials. Rivers, farms, ect NEVER add nutriants.
Nano-Wasteland. Regions where industrial nanos have gotten loose. units that touch the ground in these squares have a high chance of being destoyed. Spreads just like kelp or forest, destorying everythign it crosses. Must be destoryed via artillery or grav-terriformer. First created either through side-effects of a battle or industrial accedent, or maybe even placed purposly. Just to keep balance nano-wasteland can not cross oceans (maybe they don't like salt?)
Active Sensors: Acts as a normal sensor array with the following bonus: nanowasteland can not expand too within 2 squars.
Fortifications: walls and such, enemy units can not cross these tiles on land without destorying them first.


Yah I know it's a long list, but hopefully at least a couple of these sound intersting enough to get used...

[tfs99]

>>>>> jythe

You've some great ideas there. These SMACX threads have been around for a while, but you have a lot of original and interesting ideas.

If you haven't done so yet, try e-mailing them straight to Tim Train, his address is in the top message.

SMAC n ... Ted S.

[Jythexinvok]

Actualy looks like I can't e-mail him. Must have hidden his addy.

I remember seeing in one of the screenshots (and in the alpha.txt [I think] file) a distance from star scale. Bring this back please


------------------
NIL MORTIFI SINE LUCRE-
Ancient Motto of the Thieves Guild

[RINCEWIND_HAS_RETURNED]

I Also thought of a Secret Project that gives all your bases a pressure dome.
It could be called the Waterworld Complex.

[Rigil_Kentaurus]

I don't know if you've read my whining in the official forums, but here's some constructive criticism:

- Add more than one extra faction and make at least one non-human faction. Make some suicidal faction or something just really whacky. Perhaps a faction with random goals or some hard-to-define goals to make them difficult to understand.

- New terrain! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGRKUMPH! You have to make some more colorful/variated additional terrain to liven the game up a little.

- Some editor to edit the unit graphics.

- Make a contest or something to inspire people to make factions, terrain, scenarios, maps, whatever.

- Add more, and more interesting scenarios like in the Civ2 scenario disks.

- Include a view city option. Improve the diplomacy screen (make it seem more "alive", and cover the entire screen).

- Make it fun!

[BigBarbarian]

A Faction like the UED in StarCraft: Brood War. They would have come to Planet from Earth to see what happened to the Unity. They're primary goal is to conquer the Planet and unite the factions. Maybe they have faster research and production. They would have an attack bonus and a - 1 Planet. Another advantage would be the ability to use any social engineering.

Unit upgrades? For planes I would put Multirole ability, it can fight air or ground without penalties. Maybe a cool ability would be medical ability. It would trade 1 HP from the unit with the med abilty and give two to the reciever. Better transport abilites are needed for other units. Unless you use a boat the other chassis hold one unit! A new observation satillite to let you see a certain radius of tiles wherever you point it to.

[Tokek Belerang]

Some kind of ability for native life to capture terran units. Perhaps something like this: larval mass aliens, when up against much stronger units, will revert to a special larval ability, viz. attack by mindnumbing or somesuch. The unit under attack will run the risk of 'losing its mind'. It would then become a zombie, red shield etc., and wander around the fungus aimlessly.
If a normal unit attacks the zombie unit, destroying it would return the unit to its previous state, in the faction of the normal unit, but with added empath abilities and upgraded to Elite. Another reason to go fungus-trawling...

I liked the orbiting lab as well.

And I fully agree that some of the graphics could be improved. The choppers do look like kiddy toys (that silly wheel on the back!) and the bunkers most resemble toppled Greek pillars (and somehow remind me of sushi...)

Cheers,
Tim

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Numquam turbae misceri


[This message has been edited by Tokek Belerang (edited June 25, 1999).]

[Googlie]

B.B.

"For planes I would put Multirole ability, it can fight air or ground without penalties"

You have needlejets that can bomb and interceptors that have air superiority;you can also have Tacticals that both bomb and AA. you just have to workshop them - they do cost more, though, but that's not too onerous a penalty.

Googlie



------------------
Putting a spin on it...

[BigBarbarian]

> You have needlejets that can bomb and
> interceptors that have air superiority;you
> can also have Tacticals that both bomb and
> AA. you just have to workshop them - they
> do cost more, though, but that's not too
> onerous a penalty.

> Googlie


The Tactials have a 50% penalty when attacking ground unuts. With a multirole capability this type of penalty would not exist. I don't think a F-18 has a penalty when hitting ground targets.

[The Rusty Gamer]

How about a sea-based - the Aqua something or others, who start off with the technology for sea colonies and their first base is a sea colony. Maybe when they crashed onto the planet it was into the sea and they quickly developed fins or something. Anyway, they prefer sea to land - glad we got that established. Someone come up with a more detailed history. Ok, so they get resource bonuses for sea colonies but are disadvantaged when it comes to land colonies. Perhaps they're the only faction that can build land-based buildings like recycling tanks for sea colonies. Beyond that I don't know. I haven't thought any further.

[MViertel]

I miss one thing straight away. I'm playing SMAC and CTP right now and any time I switch from CTP to SMAC, I keep forgetting that I cannot built submarine tubes. For a game that is placed far more into the future than most of CTP, this is a bit mediocre.
This advancement should not require that much code change ...

[Blue Devil]

I don't know if anyone's still reading this but I'll throw in my so-called 2 cents, anyway.

This may sound really sick but I'd like to see an expansion to the game contain a more involved result to conquering a civilization. Don't get me wrong, what's there right now is pretty neat, but I can't help but feel as though I didn't get the full benefit of my interrogation. There's got to be some way I can use these characters once they are within my prisons. I don't really have anything in particular in mind since you can find out pretty much anything you want to know with spies and so forth, but I don't know...I just wanted to torture them more. As I said, sick.

I like the idea of having prisoners. Maybe you could be able to ransom them back to their people or make them your personal servants. That would be fun. hehe

[Colon™]

Tim Train, can I ask you something ? I don't ave SMAC but I'm interested in it especially because it would have a good AI. (altough I wasn't impressed by it in the demo)
If this is expansion is released, would there also come a SMAC + SMACX package ? Then I'd really be sure wether to buy the game or not.

PS: altough I don't have the game and don't really know it's AI, I think improving it wouldn't do any harm.
[This message has been edited by Colon (edited July 14, 1999).]

[AlexanderIII]

Hey, is this forum still active? I'd like to throw in my two cents. Here's my wish list:

1. Make AI factions recognise sea borders as they do land borders so I can kick them out of my territory without having to declare vendetta (via the "You have violated my territory! Leave at once!" diplomacy option). That one is really annoying, seriously affects sea battles & strategy!

2. Make the terriforming automations at least SEMI intelligent! As they are thay are totally or next to useless. The BEST would be to allow for scripts or macros for terraformers, although I recognise this could require major coding. If not macros then allow for more menu control over terraforming options, like "Terraformers may build mines, ...may build farms, ...may build solar collectors, etc., so you can be alot more Specific with terraforming automation, so I can set a terraformer just for farms, another just for Forests. Also what would be great short of scripts would be an added menu designating the conditions for building each of the above allowances, like forets select "if arid or moist", or for solar collectors, "if altitude>2 or river". That would make the game, in my view. Micromanaging terraforming is one of the biggest pains late in the game with so many terraformers about, and you'd have to pay me to trust my empire to the AI to automate my terraformers, and one of the biggest things that slows down play time, once the game gets majorly under way, say by 2300.

3. Teach the faction AIs to terraform a little more, without my having to cheat in the editor and select "build terraformers" from the faction strategy menu. By the time it is 2300, I've terraformed almost every square of every one of my bases while all the other factions are barely half the way there. It makes for very boring opponents who don't terraform very much and recoup much resources. Some games maybe one faction will keep up in terraforming, but will chose things like building a forest on a minerals bonus square, which a horrible waste of such a delicious square. The AIs need more terraforming smarts.

4. And teach the AIs to fight wars not just battles.
- Like designing innovative units like needlejet colony pods or rover formers, stuff like that should the situation demand it.
- And have the AI analyse alpha.txt, so if there are modifications in the combat bonuses to compensate their strategies accordingly. For example, I like to put 5&7% respective bonus/penalties in the alpha.txt file for attacking from higher/lower terrain; then I play in a world of very low erosion, and suddenly the high ground becomes very strategic. Have the AIs adapt to this.
- Have them focus on destroying enemy boreholes and condensors to stifle production in enemy bases.
- Or use seige tactics and surround an enemy base it is attacking so no reinforcement units can move into the base.
- Or use probe teams to specifically sabotage a defending base's defense grid to pave the way for the other units.

Things like that. Of course all of these advanced strategies would need to be AI-implemented in Transcend or the player might not stand a chance.

5. And what is it with the base swapping? Cheech, THAT is a major bug. Have the faction AI's have the intelligence to evaluate the relative worth of the base they are giving away/swapping, and NEVER give away a base with a Secret Project in it!

6. I'd also like the ability to determine the exact year for the Advanced Start option in the custom rules, so I can start a game with an empire already built if I wish, say 110 years down the line. Computing demands and predictability factors and all would mean you might have to place a cap of max start date of say 2300 or so, but it's definitely a real nifty custom rule addition. One real handy for use in creating scenarios, without having to play the game for a month before saving it as a scenario or placing every base, unit, facility, terraforming and secret project by hand piece by piece which is a REAL pain. Would definitely increase the playability of the game, as players could now start the game at practically whatever stage they wished, with out always being limited to the first 30, 60 or 80 years or so.

7. And a more user-friendly map editing GUI would be a definitive asset.

8. Other minor cosmetological changes would be to redesign the look of those choppers and the bunkers.

9. Have a vertical versus a horizontal scrollable menu in the unit design workshop interface -- that wraparound list at the bottom is just impossible to work with. I usually design my units by right-clicking help in the production queue of a unit in the base screen, then changing it/designing a new unit when the workshop pops up from that. At least in the prduction queue I have a fair idea of what units I have designed, unlike the horizontal wraparound scrolling menu in the design workshop -- yeech!

10. Make the user-designed technology capability a bit more user-friendly. Trying to figure out how to reorient the tech grid to incorporate a new tech requires a PhD! One thing that would defenitly help along those lines would be to allow multiple requisites for Facilities and Secret Projects to be built, so that new tech could incorporate, and not substitute for facilities available from other tech. So that a Facility and/or a Secret Project could be available from more than one tech. Either that or EVEN BETTER -- create a Facility Design Studio much like ACEdit, complete with places to insert dialogue, help text and capabilities. And I understand THAT would require some major coding, so I'll be content to wait till SMAC III for that one. That would make SMAC totally customizable.

11. Allow the building of roads as bridges across the coastal waters. Have them require a manitenance cost like a facility, assigned to a particular base no matter where on Planet they are. And, being terraforming, they would be vulnerable to enemy attack. Rules like if a ground unit is on a bridge when it is detroyed, the unit is also destroyed.

12. Allow the building of bunkers, called minefields. You can already do this by altering the alpha.txt file, but make it standard, and maybe present a marker on the board only when you enter an enemy minefield, like uncovering a unit in fungus. Make the placement of Sensor Arrays and Kelp Enrichers (soil enrichers) standard, and show a marker for the Kelp Enrichers -- both of which are also now possible by altering alpha.txt.
- Allow the production of the sea equivalent of Echelon Mirrors, called Tidal Condensors, and have them have a large negative ecological impact, or impede movement in surrounding squares by sea units (stirring up the seas does not make for good passge -- higher energy comes at a price)

13. Have the AI respect the hiding in fugus rather than acting as if it had omniscient view.

14. Xenofungus Missiles which create Xenofungus Blooms is such a cool idea, you just gotta incorporate this one! maybe in conjunction with a new tech, which would go great with the new Native Alien factions to come!!

15. Have the capability to erect Monoliths with terrformers!! Make it very late in the game, maybe through the dev. of a new tech requiring Secrets of Alpha Centauri and Matter Editation, called say, Biometallurgy. And make it take a long time to build, like 36 turns or so, so that multiple terraformers would need to be used.

16. And I like the idea of a new secret project like the one I heard about in the SMACx preview, called the Singularity Beacon, a call home for support. That's a way cool idea.