Aplha Centauri 2 Wishlist

[Urban Ranger]

Less bloody combats. Make it possible to retreat unless attacked by a faster ground unit, and aerial attacks always non-lethal. That is, an air wing may damage a ground unit but cannot destroy it. Tie all these in with experience.

[dojoboy]

I've not pilfered through all these pages yet, so this may have already been mentioned.

(1) AI - Would go without saying since SMAC/x is an older game, but it shouldn't surrender to easily in war. Nor should it stop wars for simply asking it. Also, I think some consideration should be given to the AI building more specific units for whoever may be their enemy at the moment. It would also be nice to select one of three edicts for factions in the start-up menu. These would be builder, hybrid, and conqueror, as identified in Vel's SMAX Guide, version 4.0. This could also be set to random.

(2) An RPG element would also be nice. One thing I love about this series is the storyline.

(3) Aliens? I didn't really care for them in Alien Crossfire, but I suppose they need to be written in somewhere. Or, maybe not.

[Petek]

Here're some ideas to change crawlers, one minor and one major. The basic idea behind these suggestions is to make crawler less powerful.

If a square that's being crawled isn't connected by a road to the crawler's home base, it gets -1 nut, -1 min or -1 energy (depending on which FOP is being crawled). If the square is connected by a road, production is normal. If the square is connected to the base by a mag tube, you would get +1 FOP. (The last part is optional, since it might be too unbalancing.)

I can't think of any way to change trawlers (sea crawlers) along these lines. Any ideas? Perhaps a new terraforming option for sea formers to connect the trawler to the base? Also not sure how to treat crawlers that are on a continent different than the home base (rare, to be sure).

This idea sort of makes sense, since the existence of a road/mag tube would facilitate the harvesting of a resource. It also would require more effort to ramp up crawler production, making crawlers weaker in the early game. Roads/mag tubes also would become a strategic target when in vendetta. However, this suggestion wouldn't eliminate mass production of crawlers. Hence, my other suggestion is:

Building a crawler/trawler would cost the base one point of population. This idea would make it more difficult to crank out tons of crawlers/trawlers. The rationale is that each crawler/trawler requires a small part of the base's population for support and maintenance. Perhaps, in the case in which the crawler is cashed in to rush a SP, the population could then be restored.

[zsozso]

Originally posted by Petek
If a square that's being crawled isn't connected by a road to the crawler's home base, it gets -1 nut, -1 min or -1 energy (depending on which FOP is being crawled). If the square is connected by a road, production is normal. If the square is connected to the base by a mag tube, you would get +1 FOP. (The last part is optional, since it might be too unbalancing.)

I can't think of any way to change trawlers (sea crawlers) along these lines. Any ideas?

I like this idea, but would extend it further to use distance based decay: i.e. you would lose as many FOP points as the distance from the base. Of course, distance would count considering roads/mag-tubes just as for movement, thus without roads crawlers become useless in just a few squares away, with roads you can send them 3 times as far. With magtubes the loss is gone completely. E.g. if you have a mineral resource + mine square (7 mins) at 6 squares away without road connection, it gives you only 1 mineral, when connected with road, your loss is only 2 mins, so it brings in 5.

This model would also work proportionally if you have partly completed roads between the tile and home base. Same thing also works for sea crawlers and fungus/rocky terrain can further decay the FOP income just like the movement.

The other idea (to lose a population) I dont like because that would completely destroy the value of the cralwers. I see no point using them except from very large cities that can't work more tiles.

[Petek]

Originally posted by zsozso


The other idea (to lose a population) I dont like because that would completely destroy the value of the cralwers. I see no point using them except from very large cities that can't work more tiles.

Agreed, the penalty in the initial proposal is too severe. What about losing a point of population for every X number of crawlers built? "X" would be some value not so small that it would destroy the value of crawlers, but would still inhibit mass production of the units.

BTW, nice to see you drop by. Do you still play?

[Senethro]

Didn't someone once suggest that you could need a specialist to work crawlers? Perhaps the first two crawlers are free but above 2 crawlers a base, you need one "crawler specialist" for every 4 crawlers otherwise the resource is not gathered.

[GeoModder]

Now that's an idea! I think a Technician would be perfect for the job.

[ChaotikVisions]

How about an Education stat(could replace research) that determines the number of specialists per number of total pop in a factions city. Like 1 Education=1 specialist allowed every 4 pop, 2=3, and 3=2, and just go the opposite way with minus Education(research). Its ridiculous to think a city could be populated solely by a specialist of some kind.

Put it like this Education would represent generally how well educated your citizens are and it'd mostly fit the social engineering pre-dispositions and such as well. There would only be one specialist exempt from this rule, the generic make-the-drones happy one, Doctor I think? But perhaps that should be changed to something else like Entertainer(taken from Civ3, i'll admit, but it does make sense).

[Straybow]

Originally posted by zsozso

Originally posted by Petek
If a square that's being crawled isn't connected by a road to the crawler's home base, it gets -1 nut, -1 min or -1 energy (depending on which FOP is being crawled). If the square is connected by a road, production is normal. If the square is connected to the base by a mag tube, you would get +1 FOP. (The last part is optional, since it might be too unbalancing.)

I can't think of any way to change trawlers (sea crawlers) along these lines. Any ideas?

I like this idea, but would extend it further to use distance based decay: i.e. you would lose as many FOP points as the distance from the base. Of course, distance would count considering roads/mag-tubes just as for movement, thus without roads crawlers become useless in just a few squares away, with roads you can send them 3 times as far. With magtubes the loss is gone completely. E.g. if you have a mineral resource + mine square (7 mins) at 6 squares away without road connection, it gives you only 1 mineral, when connected with road, your loss is only 2 mins, so it brings in 5.

This model would also work proportionally if you have partly completed roads between the tile and home base. Same thing also works for sea crawlers and fungus/rocky terrain can further decay the FOP income just like the movement.

The other idea (to lose a population) I dont like because that would completely destroy the value of the cralwers. I see no point using them except from very large cities that can't work more tiles.

Degrading of performance by distance is one way. I don't think getting the AI to recognize it would be easy. Population for crawlers doesn't work well either. Why not just put a cap on resources gathered by crawler?

Base can draw maximum 5 or [Size + #crawlers] resources, maximum of 5 or [Size] for any one resource.

[Chaos Theory]

Perhaps crawlers are unbalancing as-is, but I can imagine futuristic cities with robotic workers (crawlers) providing for most of their needs, with the citizens either providing creative insight (labs specialists), manipulating money or tweaking economic gains out of the city (econ specialists), entertaining each other (psych specialists), or being idle and causing trouble (drones).

Without brutally efficient eugenics or Telepathic Matrix-calibur cooperation, unproductive, parasitic, violent, useless citizens are inevitable, which leads to the idea of preventing specialist-only cities under most circumstances. Perhaps workers are intrinsically happier than specialists, and each specialist has a negative psych effect unless it produces its own psych, since gathering the best and brightest into a scientist specialist leaves the rest of the population worse off. In any case, converting every citizen to a (productive) specialist is a cheesy way to dodge several sources of drones. Without this ability, workers become more appealing (by necessity) and crawlers become less important, though still very useful.

[Daddy-O]

Hi. I'm basically an outsider. I bought SMAC because I loved Civ2. I didn't play too much SMAC. There were some things that I could not get past.

The wierd graphics. I know it's an alien world but nothing was recognizable. The vehicles, the units, I couldn't connect to any of it.

The tech tree. This is where they really lost me. I know it's the future but I should feel like I know something about what is being researched. We are humans from earth, right? Maybe the Tech tree should start in our current 21st century techs. I'm sure that if I crash landed on an island never mind an alien planet, we'd have to re-discover how to do some things that we took for granted. Like I know what a radio is and how to use it, but how do I build one? Some stuff like that before the tech tree goes into a complete fantasy world.

Same thing with the factions. I would guess that even though we traveled through space away from Earth we keep some of the terms. Religions and gov't type wouldn't change that much, new terms might develop but everything wouldn't get scraped.

I liked the story line. I liked the borders. I liked the ability to design my own units. These were all great things that made SMAC something like Civ2.5. Playing Civ3 you can see how some of these ideas were tested in SMAC.

Hope this helps.

[Hydro]

Some things I’d like to see:

Terraforming: More realistic terraforming – trees, farms, river, solar collectors are all fine. BUT, drilling to an aquifer to make a river makes no sense at all (this is a pet peeve – I’m a hydrogeologist, after all). Likewise, raise and lower terrain violates the conservation of matter – no small thing to consider. Where does all the extra soil/rock come from or go? And consider the scale! A sector is something like 10,000 kms square. Raising a tile 500 m over that area is a stupendous amount of material! Now, if these types of terraforming were available as uber high tech that would be OK.

Movement: More realistic representation of distances wrt unit movement, and tile utilization (already well discussed by others).

Support: Better representation of support (well discussed by others).

Eco damage: IMPORTANT – keep the concept of ecological damage, BUT make those that violate Planet pay through the nose. Right now eco pollution makes it possible to pollute more. Surely a programmer made an equation error since, in my mind at least, any ‘white blood cell’ reaction to pollution by Planet would make Planet more sensitive, not less, to future pollution. So, pollution without mitigation will not pay.

Tech rate/ability: Make technology available based on what you do, and maybe your SE or faction agenda. For instance, an industry and pollution heavy faction should have a very difficult time getting Planet friendly techs. This might be done by giving certain factions a bonus toward some types of techs (eg – Gaians to Explore, and Morgan to Build), but negatives toward others.

Tech function: Another possibility is that a tech may simply not work at all or very well if your actions (eg – ecopollution) or faction disposition is wrong. So the Gaians might steal Morgan’s industry tech, but have a bit of a struggle getting it to work. Likewise, the Morgans might really struggle to get farms, forests, etc to work well on Planet since they just don’t get it.

Hydro

[#endgame]

(this is a pet peeve – I’m a hydrogeologist, after all).

Is that why you call yourself Hydro?

Tech function: Another possibility is that a tech may simply not work at all or very well if your actions (eg – ecopollution) or faction disposition is wrong. So the Gaians might steal Morgan’s industry tech, but have a bit of a struggle getting it to work. Likewise, the Morgans might really struggle to get farms, forests, etc to work well on Planet since they just don’t get it.

I like that one.

[Phenix]

I don't know if this has been mentioned already, but I'd definitely like the option to tone down the micromanagement.

I know a lot of players really enjoy taking care of every little detail, and sometimes I like that playing style too. But there are times you just want to play a quick game that doesn't cost you a week to finish, or you want to test out a new big strategy but leave the small things to the computer...

So let's give some concrete examples:

-automated formers (and crawlers perhaps...) who do horrible things.

-governors who make intelligent decisions... maybe a bit more customizable still... like governors who learn from the choices you made earlier in the game (or even from the choices in previous games?). Maybe kind of a system like in MoO3 to give some global guidelines for your empire?

-like mentioned by other people: globalized support costs. That would make things *a lot* easier

[girlfight_club]

I had a dream earlier this year.

I had just been awakened from my cryocell-- but the colony had been in operation for some time! I was being walked around our "base" on Chiron-- most of the structures were very simplistic-- almost like game symbols themselves-- but each represented a specific facility. I saw shelters, farms, and a few other buildings-- not a lot of military development, but the dream didn't address that.

I remember our being fortunate enough to build near a river. The others discussed their plans to build a hydroelectric plant, mostly on the opposite bank. Apparently my expertise was very much needed, and they were glad to have been able to revive me-- being born on Earth made me a kind of instant celebrity, even though barely a generation had passed.

It felt very challenging and exciting, seeing everything from ground level, and having tasks to perform, and a little bit of authority.

...

Now, I've liked the Sims and SimCity, but they're nothing compared to my passion for SMAC. Turn-based god games rule. But I wonder if there couldn't be a kind of scalability brought to SMAC. Work your way up to be a base governor, or even the faction leader. More authority as you go. Less RPG than the Sims or WoW, but slightly more than SimCity-- political intrigue, but your orders to build and attack still get carried out.

At its top level (which should always be an option, at least with a cheat code) you're playing a perfected old-school SMAC with extra 2.0 jinglies: Faction leader, conquering Planet.

This way, you could have political parties inside of factions. At what point do they rebel to become their own faction, join another, or find themselves without resources and die? What kind of compromises would you be willing or able to make to hold your colonies together?

SMAC deserves the vertical expansion WarCraft and SimCity have received-- because a political intrigue game is half the reason I prefer it over the rest-- and that with only a handful of original characters!

GFC