Terraforming not yielding results

[Clone]

Hi all, I just recently got back into alpha, and previously I had never paid too much attention to terraforming. I play as the peacekeepers, and now that I'm trying my hand at manual terrforming, I'm finding it doesn't yield the results I'm looking for. But it should, according to the datalinks. A rainy square yields 2 nutrients, with a farm should it not yield 3 after terraforming? On my colony screen it still shows it yielding 2, but the food symbol (yellow circle with a 2 inside) has a black outline around it... Is this a faction limitation? It really annoys me. The same thing happens to me with mines. A rocky square, with a mine constructed on it, and a road, still yields only 2 minerals, even though it should yield 3. It has the 2-diamond with a black outline around it. So uh, yea... Anyone know what the heck is going on?

Oh, also I notice in multiplayer the colours are all screwed up for me. This is in 5.0 by the way, with the XP compatability update. The Peacekeepers are now Green like the Gians should be, and Morgan is now black like the spartans should be, all the colours are mixed up. And to boot I can't tell what the population levels are at Morgan's bases, because the black text on the black square doesn't show up, they're exactly the same colour. So I have to estimate how large his bases are based on their graphical size. Anyway, yea, two things I'm having trouble with. Hopefully someone can give me some help. Thanks everyone.

[Major Guz]

First: Welcome back to Alpha Centauri!

As an answer on your resource problem (symbol with black outline):

This is the resource limitation encountered in the early game. You have to discover certain techs to lift the resource limits (energy limits are lifted at invention of Industrial Automation, IIRC Gene Splicing also lifts a resource limitation, I cannot however remember the other, think it was a green tech).
So once you come further up the tech tree eventually all limitations are lifted (basically just keep on playing and the problem will solve itself).

Hope this helps.

[Major Guz]

Oh yeah, forgot to tell about the bonus resources.
(energy, nuts and minerals squares) they are free of resource limitations thus making them very valuable in the early game. Also the base square has no resource limitations.
By the way, the yellow circle in the base screen is energy output, the green "apple" is nutrients and the blue "gems" are minerals.

[Clone]

Thanks, I'm slightly colourblind which is why I guess I thought the nutrients were yellow. Their icon on the terrain map looks yellow to me as well, although my friends refer to them as being green =P. Enery looks orange or some kind of pseudo-orange. Thanks a bunch for help. Now if I can only solve that problem with the colours shifting around, which must be some sort of bug I would assume. In that case though it ought to be plaguing almost everyone. Oh, one more question... Is there an advantage to terraforming a farm on a square before you build a base there? It seems to me that you can do that, but aren't able to put a farm on a square after you've built a base. Do you actually receive benefits from that farm? Can you do this with mines? Manual terraforming really opens up a whole new world. Thanks for the help!

[Major Guz]

I don't know if building a base on a farmed tile gets you more nutrients, I do know, that a base built on a bonus resource give you the resource bonus added to the bases production (but than you cannot improve it further). You absolutely MUST try for yourself building a base on top of a sensor array (keyboard shortcut O, [Oh, not zero]). This provides that base (and the 21 surrounding tiles) with a non-removable defense bonus of 25%.

I will try building bases on farmed, solar celled tiles this evening, just wnt to know for myself now

By the way regarding your color blindness: Did you check the alternate color patch on the firaxis site? (somewhere in the downloads section)?

[Clone]

I haven't tried them before, I never really considered my colourblindness to be that inhibiting before. It's not like I see in black and white or anything . It's just an annoyance and something for my friends to make fun of from time to time: "Hey Mike, what colour is that car!?" 'It's red.' "Hahahaha god so it's true!" And I'll think a shirt I've been wearing for years is grey when infact it's some screwed up shade of green - that is sort of greyish. I might give the alternate art set a shot, I suppose. But thinking the nutrients are yellow isn't exactly going to impede my performance greatly, so it has never been an issue. . And hey, back in the days when Quake ran better in 16 bit colour, the reduced colourdepth didn't bother me as much as it did other people, a boost to my framerate and my fragcount .

Thanks for your help, I'll also try out the base building on farms thing, and definately the sensor array trick. Can you combo up sensor arrays? For example having a unit inside a cross of 4 sensor arrays boosting its defence by 100%? Or perhaps building a whole bunch around a base to boost the defence for the base significantly?

[Clone]

I just tested the farm theory, it seems that it doesn't work. At first I thought it had worked, as my first base (with the farm) was pulling more nutrients from the home soil than the second one (on an identical plot of land). But now I realize that it's because the first base comes with recycling tanks free of charge. Once the second base had them installed it matched production. I found the same thing for building on top of solar collectors, I think building a base ontop of an improvement negates the effect of the improvement. Are you sure about building bases atop a sensor array works? If it does indeed, I wonder if that qualifies as a bug, or simply "entrenching" a base due to foresight or something. Anyway, these are just my findings, feel free to experiment yourself, since I just got back to alpha I might be misinterpreting things.

[Major Guz]

Yes, I'm sure the sensor array trick works, but it is not cumulative, which means 4 sensors do not boost defense up 100% (they do provide backup if one sensor gets destroyed though).
The benefit of the base on top of the sensor is that the only way to destroy the sensor would be to destroy the base.
Too bad the base on farm trick does not work (i can't remember if I ever tried it before though).

If you have the Alien Crossfire add-on/expansion there is a city improvement called"Geosynchronous Survey Pod" which provides the base and a 2 tile radius with an EXTRA defense bonus of 25%, which gives 50% bonus in combination with a sensor array (1 sensor array and 1 GSP are cumulative, but more of them in the same radius do not provide extra bonuses).
But the downside of the GSP is its very expensive upkeep (3 energy per turn, i guess it was (or was it 5?)) and its very late appearance in the game.

[Archaic]

Major Guz, a few corrections.

Industrial Automation allows the Wealth SE. It doens't lift restrictions.

The restriction lifting techs for Nutrients, Minerals and Energy respectivly are Gene Splicing, Ecological Engineering and Environmental Economics.

As for building bases on top of improvements, that only works for Sensors and Condensors.


With the second problem, it's just because of the play order. Your MP games will always have the same order for colours and base designs as the faction that was in that slot in your last SP game.

[Clone]

I suppose that makes sense, but it doesn't explain why I can't see the population in Morgans bases, due to his colour being black, and the colour of his text being black. Black numbers on black squares, and all. Seems pretty faulty and a pretty big oversight

[Verrucosus]

I'm curious about your free Recycling Tanks in the first base. I've never seen that, but I always play classic SMAC v4. Is that a feature of SMAX of SMAC v5?

By the way, I can sympathise with the colour blindness. Alpha Centauri is not a problem, but I remember playing the original Railroad Tycoon (also by Sid Meier). In that game, they used colour-coded bars for detailed information about station traffic. Needless to say, I could only hope my trains picked up most of the cargo.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
I'm curious about your free Recycling Tanks in the first base. I've never seen that, but I always play classic SMAC v4. Is that a feature of SMAX of SMAC v5?

By the way, I can sympathise with the colour blindness. Alpha Centauri is not a problem, but I remember playing the original Railroad Tycoon (also by Sid Meier). In that game, they used colour-coded bars for detailed information about station traffic. Needless to say, I could only hope my trains picked up most of the cargo.

I think he built that recycling tank previous to the test.

I loved RR Tycoon, and played it a lot for several years. I even made President of the U.S. in 4 years one time!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Archaic

As for building bases on top of improvements, that only works for Sensors and Condensors.

I remember someone claiming that it worked for echelon mirrors as well, which would help keep energy parks a little safer, but I can't remember if that was later proven to be wrong. I never tried it anyway.

[Clone]

No, in multiplayer, version 5.0 (xp update) it seems to me that the first base you build comes free with a recycling tank.

[Verrucosus]

Hmm, that's interesting. I think I might try the XP-upgrade myself. So far, I had no real problems with WinXP, but I'm curious whether they made any other changes.