Energy doesn't increase with altitude.

[Kadrian]

Hi, all. I'm new to Alpha Centauri and I'm having a problem with it. I'm hoping someone can help.

I just installed Alpha Centauri on a machine running Windows XP. After playing it awhile I noticed that I'm not getting the energy that I should from solar collectors at elevations above 2000 meters. According to the instructions I should get one more energy unit for each 1000 meters of additional altitude. This is what I'm actually getting in the game:

At less than 1000 meters I get 1 energy unit with a solar collector.
At 1000 meters up to 3500 meters I get 2 energy units with a solar collector.

Rivers and energy bonuses add to the amount of energy available from the square, but altitude has no effect beyond 2000 meters. I've checked this not only with the information in the status window but by actually building solar collectors on the elevated sites and seeing the results.

Ideas, anyone?

Thanks.

[Verrucosus]

Did you research Environment Economics yet? Until you get that technology, maximum energy production is 2 for all squares other than those with an energy bonus.

[Kadrian]

Ah, that must be the problem. The instructions weren't very clear on that. Thanks!

[Verrucosus]

The SMAC manual is worth careful reading. It's very good even by 1999 standards and from today's point of view it can almost be described as luxurious, but there are still important rules (like this one) that are dealt with in a single sentence, so it's easy to overlook them at first reading.

In any case, have fun exploring Alpha Centauri and don't hesitate to post questions and comments here! It's always nice to see someone discovering this game. It's not without flaws, but the rich atmosphere more than makes up for that. On that level, I think that there is still no better game around. (If you really want to dive in, take the time to read the background story "Journey to Centauri" and some of the fiction the game has inspired.)

[Hydro]

These little details (lifting energy restrictions) can be very helpful in guiding important concepts such as terraforming. For instance, if you’ve got a river (+1 energy) and are running free market (+1 energy/square) then it is pointless to build a solar collector since you already get your max +2 energy for that tile. This means that you can send your former to work on some other task – ripping out fungus, building farms (getting 2 nutrient/tile is a priority), roads (very important). In the early game solar collectors don’t rate super high on my list except at an early research city – then you get multiplier effects and get much more bang for the buck.

Likewise, building boreholes early can be a waste of time. Yes +6 energy is great, but it takes a bloody long time (24 turns, as I recall) to build a borehole. You can build these right away if you’ve got Weather Paradigm; otherwise you’ll have to wait until energy restrictions are lifted.

As you may guess, getting nutrient/mineral/energy restrictions lifted are key technological benchmarks in the game. There are lots of strategies, of course. One I like is an early minerals strategy to goose infrastructure production. Basically, if you can build stuff faster than your enemy you have a lot more options. A mineral strategy will generally evolve into an energy strategy after your production is largely maxed out without prohibitive amounts of ecological damage.

So, welcome to the game! Those of us who’ve been around since 1999 are generally thrilled to help others out. We may even give you good advice from time to time. Oh, and if you can be sure to get Vel’s SMAX Strategy Guide. It is the tops.

Hydro

[Kadrian]

At over 250 pages the instructions are certainly extensive. I've read it through a couple of times and even had the line regarding energy and Environmental Economics highlighted, but it didn't specify how energy was limited and that's what confused me.

I've also read the 160-page guide at GameSpot but though it has a lot of useful information there are a still a million details left out of it. From what I've seen in this forum I would probably pick up a lot of useful strategies from reading all of the entries from the beginning, but that would take awhile. That's one of the beauties of the game: It starts out with everyone neatly balanced and offers many paths to victory, the spoils going to the most meticulous micromanager.

I actually bought this game back when it was fairly new, though the bottom of the package has a gold and silver "Classics" label on it. For some reason I tucked it away after only a couple of weeks (in favor of "Thief Gold", I think) and I just recently pulled it off the shelf again. I was honestly surprised to find that Forums and other sites still existed for the game.

I haven't looked into SMACX yet. I saw something about Amazon having it for $125 on another post. For the time being I'll just stick to SMAC. I've spent most of the day today just experimenting with the game to see how different squares, bonuses, and other things were affected by putting a base on them, etc.

I did notice the terrain window in the status bar often erroneously shows an additional energy unit than my base is actually producing. Is this a bug?

Thanks for your help!

[Hydro]

SMAX is rather pricy. A number of years ago SMAC and SMAX with a few other games were released as a Planetary Pack, or some such - haven’t seen anything like that in years, though.

Wading through the documentation is a chore. I generally like to read to get the ground rules, experiment, and then read again. When I’ve got some context the second read means quite a bit more. If you’ve already partially digested Gamespot you’re on your way.

If you dig here at the SMAC forum you will certainly find lots of great threads. Perusing can yield pots of gold, or energy if you will. They are likely buried, but perhaps folks might be able to pluck a few if you mention what topics you are interested in.

I’m not sure what you mean about the energy bar. Do you mean in the base resource window? That is generally accurate, but the summary of the allocation is a better guide since it shows you how the energy is allocated, multipliers, and waste.

Cheers!
Hydro

[Verrucosus]

250 pages? Now I wonder which important bits I still do not know about SMAC, because my manual has "only" 202. Hmm, maybe it's just printed in a different way.

It's a bit difficult to find older threads, because the archives which contain lots of good threads cannot be searched properly. The closest thing to an index that I have seen is minute mirage's post referred to by Petek in post #3 of the FAQ.

A real gem is this early version of Vel's Strategy Guide:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7944

There is actually a downside to reading this. You will find out about the flaws much earlier than you would otherwise. The guide is so good that it will deprive you of a lot of the fun of learning the game yourself. The game has aged extremely well for me - I still play it every couple of months -, but the magic of discovering things for the first time is something that you can experience only once. When you do read Vel's Guide eventually, you should consider to support the author by purchasing the published final version which is even more comprehensive (see Question 12 in the FAQ).

I'm not sure about the terrain window either - I suspect you are referring to the little display for the selected square on the bottom left of the main screen. If the problem persists, you can post a save and we'll have a look at it.

[BlackCat]

I haven't played for a while so the tactics are a bit rusty, but if you are lazy, then here is a couple of hints I haven't found in the manual :

The popup's about forest spreading, kelp etc can be dragged away with the mouse so you can see what is hidden by the popup.

If you right click the production queue you can save it for later reloading in another colony.

Oh - four new settlers in december - who said SMAC/X was dead

[Aabraxan]

As a newbie to SMAC and, it having been some time since I played, I don't have much to offer in terms of strategy or tactics. However, in addition to Velocyrix's excellent strategy guide, I'd recommend a visit to SMAC Academy at CivGaming.net. There are some good articles there. Congratulations on unearthing SMAC. Enjoy!

[Hydro]

The best advice I have is to submit to Dee and her loving embrace.

GO GREEN! (or red, as it were)

Hydro

[CEO Aaron]

I'm going to go with Verrucosus and recommend that you don't read the guides right off. Play the game all the way through at least once, maybe twice. See what you can figure out for yourself, and give some thought to what playstyle suits you, in terms of your preferred faction, and strats that work with that faction. Once you're at that stage, come back and start digging up Vel's guide, and learn the vicious tricks that can be learned at the hand of the experts.

SMAC is a fine game, and the only true successor to the Civilization throne since Civ 2. There's a reason the game still has adherents after 8 years.

[Kadrian]

Thanks for the leads on Velociryx's guide and the link to SMAC Academy. I found a more recent incarnation of Velociryx's guide on GameFAQs. It made a Word document of about 100 pages so that should keep me busy for awhile. I usually need something to do at work during downtimes so I tend to read (and re-read) this kind of stuff then come back to the game and play a little better than I did the night before.

I don't really mind learning about the flaws in a game before I play it. I tend to treat a game like a toy and do a lot more playing with them than I do actually playing them. SMAC certainly lends itself to being played with since the editors are easily accessed and Firaxis provided information on how to do various modifications. I'm not up to doing much with the editors at this point but they help out a great deal when experimenting with the game.

I did a search on eBay for the Planetary Pack and they're going for $175 and up depending on condition. I'm hoping Firaxis will just re-issue the games or maybe come out with a new version, fully updated for the latest Windows. I'm running SMAC on XP, and though no serious bugs have shown up there are a couple of places where it doesn't show graphics as it should (such as the "book" written about you at the very end).

Verrucosus understood what I was talking about on the energy discrepancy issue. The terrain window where it displays the amount of resources being generated by a certain square doesn't always jibe with the information in the base control window. It's not a major issue, really. It could be just another little rule I haven't learned about (yet).

Yes, the manual I had was about 250 pages long. It came as a PDF file on the disc and the paper size was about 5" x 7", I think. If your copy of the instructions is on larger paper then that would account for the difference.

Kadrian

[Verrucosus]

Hmmm, my edition is about that size as well (a little bit smaller to be exact). Still, the instructions themselves seem pretty much comprehensive. Maybe the electronic editions include more appendices (they start on page 115 in my printed version), the installation instructions (which I have as a seperate booklet) and an index (which is mentioned on page 4, but not included in my manual). It's no big deal, but I should probably be careful about page numbers when referring someone to the manual.

Verrucosus

[Kadrian]

Page 115 is in chapter five of my version. The page begins:

Secret Project Data [F5]
Displays all Secret Projects currently either completed or under construction....

Since it's a PDF file I could try emailing a copy to you if you like. It's 1.891 megs in size, though.

Kadrian