SMAC vs SMAX: what's different?

[Trifna]

I played SMAC, but not SMAX. What's different in SMAX?

Thanks for your answers

[Chaos Theory]

More factions
More faction abilities
Additional native life types
More techs
More secret projects
More facilities
More weapons/armor/unit special abilities
Different bugs

[Lord Nword]

More moddable too

All in all it is a very good expansion.

Too bad nothing is perfect.

[Major Guz]

Extra Native Life:
Sealurk (Isle of the Deep with Submarine ability)
Spore Launcher (Psi Artillery)
Fungal Tower (Non-movable fungal Tower, which spawns extra fungus patches and mindworms in its vicinity)

Extra Pod-pop activities:
Battle Ogre Mk1: "6r-3r-1 Police" unit
Battle Ogre Mk2: "12r-8r-1*2 Police Diss" Unit
Battle Ogre Mk3: "30-12-1 *3 Police Diss" Unit
(Not sure about the Dissociative Wave and the Reactor types though).

New Weapons and Armor having to do with the new Resonance thingy:
Res weapons and Armor give +25% Psi Attack and Defense respectively.

Facilities:
Aquafarm (+1 kelp farm food)
Subsea Trunkline (+1 ocean mine minerals)
Thermocline Transducer (+1 tidal harness energy)
Brood Pit (+2 police, lifecycle bonus)
Covert Ops Center (+2 Probe Team Morale, +2 probe city).
Flechette defense system (+25% defense vs missile units, 50% chance to stop PB attack)
Geosynchronous Survey Pod (+1 sensor range city, +25% bonus to defense added to sensor bonus)

And some more, but these are the most important I guess

Special Projects:
Planetary Energy Grid (Free Energy Bank in All Cities, stockpile energy gives 25% more yield)
Cloudbase Academy (Free Aerospace Complex and Free fuel nanocells)
Nethack Terminus (Free Algorithmich Enhancement)
Manifold Harmonics (extra fungus Resources)

Special Abilities:
Fuel Nanocells (Extra aircraft range)
Algorithmic Enhancement (extra probe team chance of succes)
Marine Detachment (chance to capture enemy ships in combat)
Soporific Gas pods (-2 enemy morale vs non native)


Edit: Applied Changes in facilities as correctly pointed out by WotanAnubis. Added more new special abilities, added more facilities.

[WotanAnubis]

Originally posted by Major Guz
Brood Pit (+2 police)
Covert Ops Center (+2 Probe Team Morale)

The Brood Pit also grants a lifecycle bonus to native life built there and the Covert Ops Center gives the base a higher PROBE rating (which isn't much fun if you're playing the Angels).

[Major Guz]

Also one victory condition is added. The usurpers and caretakers (new alien Factions) can win by summoning their fleet from their homeworld (very cool ending movie by the way).

I think adding the alien factions to the game was a good thing (of course the aliens should not be played by human players, it gets too easy then).
Because of their ideology the caretakers cannot win by transcendence.

The new factions and their new abilities makes the game refreshing and a very good expansion pack.

I love the new "receive facility when appropriate tech is discovered" faction property. Makes much fun in custom factions.

[Solver]

And yes SMAX is better... and yes, the Cloudbase Academy is insanely powerful. Even in SMAC, you can kill the world by using almost nothing but gas choppers, but now even more so.

[Googlie]

Here's the Alien Crossfire manual (in pdf format, zipped) so that you can see the additions for yourself

SMAX Manual

[Trifna]

Thanks for all your answers

I guess it says me what it's a about.

[Alex]

i don't have SMAX, but i don't think i would like it anyway... it seems to me that the fine balance of the original is somehow lost in the exp pack...

[Senethro]

Has the original smac manual been uploaded? All I have is the original CD in a plastic cover. I hope it didn't have as many errors as the SMAX manual.

[Kaptain Ken]

Alex,

I thought the same thing and didn't buy SMAX for a long time, but I finnally did and I love it. I even bought the laptop collection just to have a backup copy. It is more customizable and you can mix and match the factions you use as well as edit them.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Senethro
Has the original smac manual been uploaded?

here it is

[Senethro]

thanks once again Googlie!

[Dis]

Originally posted by Alex
i don't have SMAX, but i don't think i would like it anyway... it seems to me that the fine balance of the original is somehow lost in the exp pack...

I bought SMAX, and I don't regret it. The Aliens do add a new element of strategy into the game.

But somehow I find the original better balanced and it had a better feel to it. And the plot seems better, because you don't have to explain the other factions or aliens. It seems simpler with 7 faction leaders from the original ship. And the 7 faction leaders just seemed to fit with one another. It's hard to explain.

Perhaps I feel that way because I played the original first, and for so many games. I just can't get into the new factions. The originals are still the best.