Bug or feature?

[Nigel]

In a SMACv4.0 game i'm playing, i subverted a unit with armor that required a tech i had not yet obtained. I was offered the option to upgrade production to a unit with this armor even though i didn't have the necessary tech. Is this normally accepted as fair play?
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited September 28, 2000).]</font>

[Simpson II]

mark13,

In fact you can use silksteel arour on other units if you want to. Go into the unit workshop, click on the silksteel sentinels, and change the weapon, chassis etc. I think it is generally agreed that this is perfectly acceptable in MP.

OTOH, you can also re-design a probe team to give yourself weapons on the rover chassis. That certainly is cheating!

[mark13]

SII,
I didn't realise, I've just tested it and yes, you can indeed. I wish you'd have told me that earlier!

The probe team seems bizarre, however. I wonder why that is?

[mark13]

I would have siad so, because by obtaining that unit you have already 'prototyped' that design, and so it would then become available simply by copying the design.

You can also build units you have subverted, but not yet got the tech for, but not design units with that weapon/armor:

e.g. If your standard garrison units were 1-3-1s, and you subverted a 1-4-1 unit adn you did not have Silksteel Alloys, you would then have the option of building that 1-4-1 design, but *not* any other design with that armor (6-4-1, for instance). It was probably put in as a feature rather than a bug, for realism's sake.

It should also be noted that you do not have to pay the extra 50% prototype cost any design you have subverted.

[Dry]

The AI does it also.
I remember that in a game, I was fighting some underdevelopped faction. I had 12-6 units, while they had 6-3 or so. He bribed *one* of my 12-6 rover.
3 turns later I saw *4* of them: same design, SAME CUSTOMIZED NAME !!!!