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I've expanded the base guide. It actually contains some useful information now  (I figured out how to fix the Antigrav Struts bug (BugID: #0061, Antigrav), and commented on custom units found in the Unity Wreckage --- among other things).
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Heah Rubin,
finally got a chance to look thru your updated work, and I'd say that you are probably a little ahead of me as far as this work is concerned: I was just playing around with the 8th icon (chemical missile icon) the other nite.
I do believe that developing an article or document that breaks down each section of the alpha(x).txt document, and how to succesfully edit it, is an important work, as, to take the analogy of "if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day: if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime". There are only a few of us currently with the desire to delve into teaching ourselves how to succesfully edit the alpha(x).txt document, and then we either produce Scenarios/ PBEM's with little nuggets/ twists that we find which are unique, or we personally have not experienced before, or we discard them thinking personally they aren't important, whenin fact someone welsemight say, "heah, I've got a really neat idea that'd be perfect for that!".
But if there is a document readily available which bypasses or accelerates peoples' learning curves in regards to editing the alpha(x).txt, then who knows what new avenues might be discovered in regards to the game itself!
I also noticed, thru Googlie's timely bumping of some old threads in this forum (I think this is his way of saying "Heah Darsnan, stop bugging me and go do your own research!
), that knowledge once gained and shared can drift away and not be readily available. Thats why I really like the SMAC Academy over @ CGN, as its in a static format that won't drift slowly away into oblivion (like the pages Googlie bumped here ).
One area I haven't seen discussed very much is that when you create new units in the #UNITS section, that when you then enter the Datalinks (F1 button) and look at the available units and their little description blurbs, that there is no associated blurb for each of the new units you've created. I have taught myself how to edit in little customized blurbs using the Helpx.txt file. The following is the sample I developed for the Unity Submersible I added to my July CGN Challenge:
#UNITDESC26
Realizing that deep sea exploration would prove an invaluable scientific boon,
the {Unity Submersible} was stored in the U.N.S. Unity's Hold.
Unfortunately (a) the CMN's helpx.txt file is not imprinted on the game (as the alpha.txt file is), and (b) I didn't think people would be into downloading an edited helpx.txt file to overwrite their own files, so I didn't bring this up for the scenario. However, I do feel I am a little ahead in this area, so if I were to focus on documenting how to edit the appropriate areas in the helpx.txt file, and you continue to focus on fleshing out your alpha(x).txt document, then we can hopefully put together something very useful
and beneficial to the SMAC(X) community, which I think would be a great addition to the SMAC Academy, unless you have a better place for it?
I'm going to PM you my E-Mail address, and if you want we can discuss more in-depth a better strategy as to how to accomplish all this much more quickly than I had originally envisioned doing it by myself (several months to "get it right").
D
I'm actually in the process of creating a section which I plan on submitting to the 
