Aplha Centauri 2 Wishlist

[Petek]

I've got some suggestions that aren't directly related to game play:

1. Better report screens. Right now, the total number of bases isn't displayed anywhere (AFAIK). That basic piece of information surely needs to be displayed.

2. Ability to export report screens to text files. This would allow players to keep summaries of their games. You could export your basic stats (number of bases, techs, power chart, etc.) to a file for later review. This feature could be automated, so the the export automatically takes place every 10 turns (or whatever other period selected by the player).

3. An in-game text editor. You could use this to make notes on the game, plot strategies, etc. Could be done now by alt-tabbing to Notepad (say), but an in-game editor would be nice.

4. Using the ideas in #2 and 3 above would allow a player to create annotations to a game. Could be posted in the forums for extertainment or instruction. One of the appealing features of other games, such as chess, is the ability to annotate games for later study or appreciation by other players. Exported reports and notes could be used in conjunction with save files to create a similar feature in SMAC.

5. I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned the following wish: Play with more than 7 factions! Since this has already been implemented in Civ3, perhaps it's obvious that a SMAC update will allow this.

[Dis]

better gaphics. We aren't looking for nice pretty little animations like civ3 (though they aren't bad). Just something less drab and brighter. Something that looks like planet does in the wonder movies. Or just give us the ability to mod them.

Sound needs a huge improvement. And it should take advantage of multiple channel sound systems. Perhaps your units battle sounds would come from the direction you are attacking from. And your opponents battle sounds would come from the direction you are attacking to. Or something like that. And it needs better ambiant sound. I kind of like the tweety birds and such in civ3. Surely alien planets have wildlife. I want to hear it. And when you go to a city screen, you should hear city noises. There are a lot of cool things you could do with sound. And the unit attacking sounds need to be robust. Also units should make sounds when moving (with the ability to disable this option for those who grow tired of those sounds).

[sentry33]

1. More options to customize units - more abilities and slots.

examples for rover chassis:
- improved speed,
- difficult terrain crossing,
- troop transport as special ability, not weapon choice (so it can be taken few times, for more capacity)

3. More terraforming options
4. More options for terrain fortifications

[Lord Nword]

Thinking of the post above:

More exact auto terraform commands.

If I could, I would tell my terraformers to build on every square: farm, soil enricher, condenser, road, magtube.

Or automate them to raise land to maximum altitude.

And also an ability to increase the rockiness of terrain (i.e. fuse soil together into rocks).
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Another thing I'd like to see is a removal of the population limits... I'd really like to be able to make a city greater in size than 127...

Doing a 1 base game with a population 500 base (modifying the years the game lasts, of course) sustained by sufficient crawlers...

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Speaking of crawlers, I say keep them, but make an extra easy way to block them (and other various things) from a game (i.e. along with the game rules you set at the start.

[PJayTycy]

C-Evo has a few of these micromanagement relief functions: You can set for each type of terrain what the order of improvements should be and your "formers" do that.
Another (but less usefull) example is you don't have to specify each tech you want to research. Just say what tech you"re aiming for and the game automaticly bee-lines to it.

Ofcourse, both these things are optional (and they are about the only good things I found in C-Evo when I played it).

[Commy]

In my opinion (and I feel many will disagree), crawlers should be either eliminated or seriously improved...having each crawler requiring a specialist would probably work the best...

This would effectively prevent ICSing, something the AI could never understand, and crawlers could really only be used in two fashions...work squares outside of base radius (no more ICS, but still energy parks) or work squares inside base radius, but only because of drones (having a worker causes drones, so having a specialist prevents that)...

Also, I think the power of probe teams needs to be reduced...mind controlling is expensive, but I think it should be even more so...

Infiltrators should only apply to the particular base that is infiltrated...this would make intelligence much more complicated and complex...

Also, I think SE should be changed severly...instead of choosing between police state, democracy, and fundalmentalist, you would either allow citizens to vote or not, allow military police or not...another improvement could be adding more sliders to SE for diverting energy...by diverting more energy for command centers, your land units would be better...this could also be done by changing the maintenance cost for the command center...get good troops, pay high maintenance, get crappy troops, pay low maintenance...

Sliders could also be specific to each individual base...you could set the sliders the same for all the bases, but you could also change the ratio for each individual base...this would help make super science cities, or, by using the above idea for command centers (and other improvements) military factories...

[Fosse]

Little... LITTLE thing.

1 game turn = 1 month.

I just think I'd like it better that way. You can't do it in Civ which spans thousands of years... but why not in SMAC.

Least important wishlist entry EVER.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Fosse
Little... LITTLE thing.

1 game turn = 1 month.

I just think I'd like it better that way. You can't do it in Civ which spans thousands of years... but why not in SMAC.

Least important wishlist entry EVER.

the only problem I see is discovering technologies in 4 months.

[BlackCat]

Since I'm not that fond of meatgrinder tactics I would like some kind of moral penalty when loosing attacking units out of own territory.

It could be something like for each 10 units lost this way a -1 penalty was suffered for 10 rounds for all units wether they are new or old.

Of course, missiles shouldn't be considered in this - they are supposed to be lost when attacking

Likewise attacking invaders on own territory shouldn't count.

It may not improve AI performance, but certainly will stress human players and force them to make more realistic fights.

[Sikander]

One fairly realistic way to limit supply crawlers is to require that you have one of them in every tile between the tile they harvest and the base where they deliver their resources. Limiting the number working for a base to the base population would also be realistic, as at a minimum someone has to repair them and unload / distribute their products.

[Straybow]

Just change everything to the way I like it.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sikander
One fairly realistic way to limit supply crawlers is to require that you have one of them in every tile between the tile they harvest and the base where they deliver their resources.

Another good way is to make crawlers requiring support.

[Dis]

I would make crawlers take 1 mineral and 1 energy support. That woudl help things out.

[Urban Ranger]

This is an old idea, but a good idea nevertheless.

Completely overhaul the population model. Right now a surplus of nutrients is a sufficient condition, which is the old, old Civ model. This needs to be changed.

Population growth should also be a function of quality of life, which translates roughly to base facilies such as Children's Creche, Rec Commons, etc.

Another thing is to make the increments smaller. It doesn't make sense that suddenly 10,000 persons materialise into the base out of thin air. Ideally the increases should be gradual and continual. This have nice effects such as making units are going to reduce the number of persons in the base, while disbanding units inside the base increases the population number.

[GeoModder]

I'm not so sure increasing/decreasing a base population with a few hundred max. with every single unit built/disbanded is much of an improvement.