Bit the Bullet - Plantary Pack

[MidKnight Lament]

Well, I finally forgoed by thrifty ways and bit the Alpha Centauri bullet; helped in no small portion by getting the Planetary Pack for $45 Australian. Bargain. Played it for one night and I'm pretty happy with it so far. Got to work pretty tired this morning. It's starting agaaaain!

...lots of different people in this forum...

I just wanted to ask if anyone knows what sort of patches have already been applied to the Planetary Pack. Is there any others I should get that weren't in the Pack?

Thanks, all.

- MKL

[RedFred]

Welcome aboard! And good name by the way. Seems like all of us have had a few midnight moments with the game - in my case it was 2AM on a couple of occasions when I was finally able to drag myself away from the PC.

I got SMACX as soon as it came out instead of the planetary pack, so I can't say for certain which patches have been applied. I am sure someone else will hop in with the required info though.

[MidKnight Lament]

Thanks for that.

How many patches are there so far - four of five? Did SMACX come with any of these? I see there's one in the works at the moment. Please excuse me for asking the obvious questions for a while.

Does anyone with SMACX ever bother playing without it now? When I open the game it gives me the choice b/w SMAC or SMACX. I started my game last night with just SMAC, and seem to be doing it pretty easy so far. On Citizen, mind you. Nothing to be cocky about yet

To be honest, I'm really looking forward to immersing myself in a new game. It's a bit hard at the moment trying to get my head around all these weird advances and improvements, but I'm sure that'll come with time. Hopefully in a month or two I might be able to provide some useful input to some topics here. Until then, consider me the ignoramus!

- MKL

[Adm.Naismith]

Hi MidKnight,
we meet here too!
I was wandering here after a long time only spent on CIV III / Dino because I become tired of Alpha Centauri, when I saw your need for info post.

AFAIK the pathes level is: SMAC v.4 (already included into your combo pack) SMACX v.2 (also already included).

It may be Firaxis will finish a v.5 patch for original SMAC to resolve same problem that v.2 of SMACX addressed.

The two games share almost the same code, so they share bugs too but v.2 SMACX is not applicable on original SMAC. At the moment Firaxis prefer to support only the more recent expansion, I wonder why

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[RedFred]

To answer your question about SMAC vs. SMACX, I have never gone back to play SMAC after installing SMACX.

To me it seems that SMACX is more interesting and a bit more challenging on account of the aliens. As well, getting a fast transcend time is harder on account of the additional tech.

One thing I did find after a few games is that I missed the old factions. So now I play random faction games all the time. I never know which of the 14 factions I'll play in advance or who I will be up against.

[SixArmedMan]

Well... I've thought about it and well, I don't think Smacx was really as great as I thought it would be. Seven new factions sounds great and all but the new factions seem more one dimensional then they should be. New graphics are nice too but I wanted more than that and that's what I think I got in the end. Just new graphics to go with new factions that anyone could've made. The new techs are nothing to scream about nor are the new abilities for the units which are too few in my opinion. So much more could've been done. *sigh* It wasn't worth $45 Canadian, that's for sure. Maybe $20 or so.

[MidKnight Lament]

Thanks for the info, Admiral. So it sounds like I don't have to go updating anything just yet.

Didn't get much of a chance to play it last night, but my flatmate and girlfriend both did, so SMAC has been going on my computer almost non-stop. I think I'll get my money's worth

Has anyone got a nice, simple tech tree or quick-reference chart or something? The chart that came with the Pack (which I assume is the SMACX one) is really big, with lines going everywhere. For the moment I'm just meandering along getting whatever advances come to me...just changing the priorities every now and then.

RedFred - I didn't realise you lost the old factions in SMACX. I guess I just assumed that the new ones were in addition to the old ones. Excuse my ignorance if I'm getting this all wrong.

Thanks for everyone's help too. I appreciate it.

- MKL

[Basil]

To answer one implied question, the new factions are in addition to the old ones. However, it is very easy to set the game to use all of the new factions, and if you've been playing SMAC for a long time and you just got SMACX...

I still played SMAC even with SMACX installed, but I won't anymore (since I discovered that a serious bug on Thinker and Transcend levels still exists on SMAC but has been fixed in SMACX). I'm tweaking the game settings to make SMACX play more like SMAC, though. I personally feel uneasy with several of the new base improvements because they improve the value of sea squares without improving land, and I thought the two were balanced and sea productive enough already, and they give you new facilities to control drones, but I didn't see any need for new facilities to control drones. On the other hand, I've *never* seen anyone else complain about these things, so if they're valid at all they can't hurt the game too much . I guess this is just me being nostalgic.

I understand you can download a Word version of the tech tree from this site (Apolyton); I've never looked at it.

[This message has been edited by Basil (edited May 04, 2000).]

[RedFred]

Just to clarify a bit. When you fire up a new game you will get to a screen which asks you which faction you wish to play. At the top of this screen you will see three space panoramas. I think it is the right one that brings up the random faction game (7 in total of the 7 new and 7 old factions).

Odd that the design team kind of hid that option. Not sure why they didn't just have a button that said "random faction game".

As far as the tech tree goes, if you fold it right you get the bottom half in three side by side almost standard pages. Flip over for the top half. Or use the datalinks.

[MidKnight Lament]

I downloaded a couple of advance chart thingimijigies (as well as a whole bunch of other stuff). Does anyone here use them, or do you know the tech tree enough already not to bother?

I guess the question I'm trying to ask is 'do you prefer the Word one or the Access one?".

- MKL
[This message has been edited by MidKnight Lament (edited May 04, 2000).]

[Sikander]

I too found the SMACX tech chart to be too busy and large to be very useful. I suggest using the datalinks to get a narrower view of the tech tree while you are learning it.

I am another of those who installed SMACX and never looked back. Aside from several important bug fixes, the game seems fuller than SMAC, and in some ways more balanced. The new factions are interesting, and I like many of the new facilities, especially missle defenses. You can still play the origional 7 factions in SMACX, and take advantage of what is a somewhat better game (IMHO).

[MidKnight Lament]

I've only been playing the one game so far, and I thought playing SMAC first might be easier - perhaps less complicated than going straight into SMACX. Judging by the comments so far though, I might play my next game in SMACX.

- MKL