How would you improve SMAC or SMACX

[James Adams]

I do not have SMACX, but got SMAC.

I would improve SMAC, by have more factions and at the end a victory where you colonise another planet!

[Jac de Molay]

I have only Smac too. I would improve quite a few little things and not so many big things.

Off the top of my head..
Slightly better looking terrain (pink fungus? bleh)
More diverse looking terraforming ( everything seems to look the same)
Alphabetized city status screen.
Slightly more powerful naval units, they seem underpowered.
Some slightly less powerful air units ( choppers)
Better AI use of tougher factions like Morgan or Lal
Tweak the ecodamage formula. I build completely clean (all forest, Green se, lots of Planet friendly facs,), but seem to take far too much ecodamage. What gives?

If i think of any more I'll repost


Dave

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by DetroitDave
Tweak the ecodamage formula. I build completely clean (all forest, Green se, lots of Planet friendly facs,), but seem to take far too much ecodamage. What gives?

Read one of the eco damage formula treads here.
Basic non-intutive trick to it is that you have to sort of "vacinate" planet. You NEED to get ONE ecodamage fugus pop as early as possible (build up one base for minerals & eco damage terraforming until you get the pop) THEREAFTER each eco facility you build (treefarm, hybrid forest, centauti preserve, temple of planet) raise your eco imunity level or mineral procution by one for all bases.

As for improvements
Better terrain graphic definately,... and a more maked women.

[The diplomat]

One important change I would make is to make the council votes a secret ballot. In SMAC/X, the Council votes are always predictable because the human player always votes last. You always know the outcome before you cast your vote.

So, I would have a secret ballot system where the outcome is only revealed AFTER the human player votes!

[Jac de Molay]

One important change I would make is to make the council votes a secret ballot. In SMAC/X, the

Good One keep em comin. Im at work now so I'm supposed to be concentrating on other things .

I was also thinking of a more diverse ecosystem on Planets. The number of critters seems fairly limited.

[Shai-Hulud]

ICBMs, I mean real ICBMs

Better and more complex trading system. I'd like to see a possibility to focus on trading or non-trading society. The latter would be immune to many effects politics have on economy but would have less resources to use. And, by emphatizing trade you could gain a lot from other factions but you're economy would come dependent from international commerce.

Lesser the effects of the Secret Projects. Some of them feel little overpowered, especially when you're reaching the end of the game where usually one or two factions completely dominate SPs. Some projects should be available to everyone, some only for particular faction. Some projects could be built by everyone, some only by one.

Fungus should be more viable resource in the mid-game.

More complex diplomacy and options. The role of Planetary Council should be more like what we saw in Ely's books. At least, in the early game.

More tech, more improvements, more projects, more everything!

[spartak]

less bugs

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Gasmaske
less bugs

"Bugs! Mr Rico! Zillions of them!"

[Hydro]

Smarter automation features (base governors, terraforming, etc) that actually work, like what were advertised in BHG's upcoming Civ-like game (which sounds GREAT, btw). This, more than anything else, would reduce the tedium of mid and late game by speeding up the turns. Tedium is the bane of turn based games.

One thing a new SMAC game should NOT do is neuter its personality, which is by far its strongest point (IMHO). That is the reason I still play after 2.5 years, and why the other Civ games are on the shelf.

Hydro

[Pandir]

I wouldnt mind having a city view like in Civ.
Also faction based buildings one per faction sort of like a small secret project. Like say for example Gians get "Earth Memorial park" Ecology bonus,2 less drones ect.

[spartak]

I must confess I get fed up micromanaging my cities but its still the bugs that have to go first.

[Admiral]

I second the ICBMs. If you have a nessus mining station, you should at least be able to dispatch a ICBM. Also considering that the AI has an unlimited missile range.
Better AI usage of the Unit workshop. Never have i seen an AI naval probe. Also, the AI has never used crawlers to my knowledge. Finally, the AIs insistance on not using nerve gas on the aliens means that the Aliens are unstoppable when played by a human in a single player game.

[Darsnan]

Here's some things that I wish I had in one game or another:

1. Minefields. Every hostile border on Earth has them - I can't imagine we wouldn't have exported this technology to Planet. Make triggering the minefield (i.e. "explosion") equivalent to one or two arty bombardments.

2. Missiles with chemical weapons capability (i.e. the "poor man's nuke"). Equivalent to a Prometheus Virus outbreak, radius dependent upon reactor level. Don't ask me what I want them for, just give them to me!

3. More alien factions. Although in reality a lot of people have already generated their own alien/ additional human factions using the Custome Editor, it would still be nice if it could be incorporated into the storyline proper. Its kind of a lonely universe with just us and the Progenitors. I know that someone had sent me some customized maps once which had the remnants of a different civilization on Planet, which the factions upon landing would then discover (there were some roads, some terrain improvements, sensors, etc.): the way I took it was that after the Progenitors had left but before the humans arrived, some other alien civilization had attempted to colonize Planet, but had succumbed to the Blooming. Opens the door right up for the rest of these different aliens to find out what happened to their colony on Planet, and then you take it from there.

4. The ability to colonize the moons and other "hospitible" planets in the Alpha Centauri system: just imagine being on a moon and popping a pod (because some of the pods must have landed on these bodies as well, as well as the Progenitors having been there in the past and leaving goodies scattered about) that triggers an earthquake/ upsurge: the speeder or scout patrol would probably be sent into orbit!!! Combat modifiers would have to favor lasers/ reactionless weapons as well in low grav einvironments ( shades of the "Chirping Cricket" from M.I.B.). Conversely, if it were a high grav environment, movement modifiers would have a negative attached to them (i.e. speeders reduced to 1 square/ turn, green scouts would be 2 turns to move one square, etc.).

[Sandman]

A ton of ideas:

A nicer terrain map, which doesn't look like a pile of dog food. Rivers should be animated.

Each faction should have birth rate and a death rate. Increase the birth rate with social engineering and improvements. The death rate comes from things like warfare, radiation, diseases, old age, suicide. You have to counter these, with various different measures, for example, hospitals reduce the rate of disease.

Two new resources: Water and organic materials. Get water from rivers, rainfall, desalination plants etc. Water is used in maintaining the population and certain improvements. If you want to irrigate a square, it will cost you 'water points'. Organic materials come from forests, fungus, farms etc. Its basically stuff like wood, cotton and polymers. Use them for construction and upkeep.

A more interesting pollution model. Build storage facilities, pump it into the sea or just let it accumulate beside your base. Just watch out for mutated fungus and mindworms! Atmospheric pollution should accumulate globally.

Each faction should produce it's own luxuries to trade with the other factions. The Gaians produce wooden carvings, the PKs produce traditional books and the Spartans produce violent video games, for example. Each luxury should also have a small propaganda effect.

A revised combat system. It doesn't make much sense that strong armour equals strong defense.

A flexible base radius. The fat 21-square cross is far too restrictive on the spacing of your bases. It would be better if the bases radii could expnad in different directions based on the available space.

At the start of the game you can decide what to take with you in the limited space of your escape pod. Should I take a pre-fab recycling centre or a scout buggy?

Couldn't we have airships in the game?

Establish archeological sites on ruins and monoliths to discover hidden bonus techs and to advance the story.

Instead of building a road on a square, you have to build it between two squares, so that you can't easily cover the world with roads.

Phew, that's everything, I think.

[Xian]

Ummm, the whole "it takes one year to move one square" The games sense of time is so mesed up its funny

MORE THAN 7 FACTIONS AT ONCE!!!! duhh

other planets

a generally LONGER game, with more focus on the latter technologies (just as you discover sattelites, the game ends)

better Ai of course

an anarchist faction