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BACKDROP: In MY 2433 several factions discovered the wreckage of a Progenitor interstellar spaceship on the farside of Nessus. After much investigation it was determined that the ships star charts were intact, and that the hyperdrive engine could be cloned.
By MY 2452 the first fleet of scoutships had been built and sent out with a mandate to investigate all of the habitable planets catalogued in the ancient Progenitor ships start charts. The results were mixed: some scoutships return with exciting news of “Eden-class” planets, while other scouts tell tales of planets which had degraded over the eons. Still other scouts fail to return at all….
By MY2475 all of the ideal “Eden-class” worlds have been either colonized, or claimed by the various Factions of Man. This had then led to what was called “The Great Planet Rush” where over the next 25 years everyone who had a spaceship or could afford transit on one rushed to colonize the “moderately habitable” worlds before someone else did. Great fleets of colony ships moved from solar system to solar system via the transit points, or “wormholes”, documented in the Progenitor star charts. For those interested in commerce, the web of transit points whose nexus would be heavily traveled were ideal locations to set up businesses. For those whose endeavors fell outside of the law, wormholes made it very easy for them to target their prey: all they had to do was wait at the outskirts of a wormhole, and sooner or later a ship would fall unsuspecting out of the wormhole and into their grasp…..
PREMISE: The pirate captain leaned back in his command chair, disappointed. Today’s catch had been less than stellar: the Peace Keeper ship Wanderlust had turned out to be little more than a tramp steamer full of refugees bound for relocation settlements on the fringes of human space. Having experienced that life first-hand he knew the peoples in that ship would be living in cramped squalor, and would only have enough supplies to establish a rudimentary existence on their new homeworlds. Now the pirate was faced with what to do with the Wanderlust. He couldn’t just let them go, as they’d immediately report his activities to the authorities. He also wasn’t a bloodthirsty pirate, so blasting the ship out of space wasn’t an option, either. But there were a multitude of “marginally habitable” planets only a few jumps away, places where the environments probably wouldn’t be that much worse off than the resettlement worlds these people were originally destined for. He could simply dump them onto one of these worlds and walk away with a clean conscience, knowing these peoples wouldn’t be found immediately, if anyone bothered to look for them at all….
Sister Prudence looked up into the alien sky as the pirate ship departed orbit. This was a turn of events which had not been anticipated: out on her first foray as a Mission Lead, her directive had been to sheppard a cargo of Progenitor artifacts back to her covenant in order that they could be studied further. That these artifacts were considered contraband by the authorities was beside the point: God had placed them in this universe, so it was deemed by her Mother Superior that no mortal law applied to them. It was simply Sister Prudence’s job to find a way of getting these artifacts back home under the noses of the authorities, and so she had chosen an unassuming Peace Keeper resettlement ship as a means of circumnavigating the authorities. And by relabeling the artifact containers as “religious materials”, she had probably saved them not only from the authorities, but from the clutches of the pirate captain as well. Now it was in these artifacts that she and her Mission may find salvation on this inhospitable world called "Eye of the Beholder".
Sister Prudence’s first scouts had returned earlier, with mixed news: some scouts had reported that there was an enhanced Progenitor Upgrade Station nearby, which would undoubtedly come in handy. However, there were also disturbing reports from other scouts that there were traces of Planet Fungus here. And where there was fungus, there were worms…..
Directions:
1) In your Scenarios subdirectory create a folder called "EotB_2009", and download and unzip the attached files into it.
4/13/09 update: Buster's Uncle updated Datalinks and factional files for me (thanx Buster's Uncle!). Also made the opening game a little easier (hint: review your initial build options for details).
2) Start up SMAX, then select "Scenario", "Play Scenario", and then select the attached EotB file. You will be prompted to choose the difficulty level. Once chosen, the game will automatically load up with Sister Prudence and the Believers.
3) In the Data Links I recommend looking at the basic units types, so you can plan your strategies accordingly.
Alternate Graphics
Buster's Uncle has done some very good work with some new Faction pics. The attached faction_1 thru faction_3 files contain the updated faction graphics. If you would like to use them, then do the following:
1) In your "Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri" directory back up the following files: believe.pcx, caretake.pcx, cyborg.pcx, hive.pcx, morgan.pcx, univ.pcx, and drone.pcx
2) download and unzip the faction_1 thru faction_3 files into your "Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri" directory. Note that these will now be your default factional graphics for the above named faction until you replace them again. Well worth it though, IMO.
Enjoy!
D
By MY 2452 the first fleet of scoutships had been built and sent out with a mandate to investigate all of the habitable planets catalogued in the ancient Progenitor ships start charts. The results were mixed: some scoutships return with exciting news of “Eden-class” planets, while other scouts tell tales of planets which had degraded over the eons. Still other scouts fail to return at all….
By MY2475 all of the ideal “Eden-class” worlds have been either colonized, or claimed by the various Factions of Man. This had then led to what was called “The Great Planet Rush” where over the next 25 years everyone who had a spaceship or could afford transit on one rushed to colonize the “moderately habitable” worlds before someone else did. Great fleets of colony ships moved from solar system to solar system via the transit points, or “wormholes”, documented in the Progenitor star charts. For those interested in commerce, the web of transit points whose nexus would be heavily traveled were ideal locations to set up businesses. For those whose endeavors fell outside of the law, wormholes made it very easy for them to target their prey: all they had to do was wait at the outskirts of a wormhole, and sooner or later a ship would fall unsuspecting out of the wormhole and into their grasp…..
PREMISE: The pirate captain leaned back in his command chair, disappointed. Today’s catch had been less than stellar: the Peace Keeper ship Wanderlust had turned out to be little more than a tramp steamer full of refugees bound for relocation settlements on the fringes of human space. Having experienced that life first-hand he knew the peoples in that ship would be living in cramped squalor, and would only have enough supplies to establish a rudimentary existence on their new homeworlds. Now the pirate was faced with what to do with the Wanderlust. He couldn’t just let them go, as they’d immediately report his activities to the authorities. He also wasn’t a bloodthirsty pirate, so blasting the ship out of space wasn’t an option, either. But there were a multitude of “marginally habitable” planets only a few jumps away, places where the environments probably wouldn’t be that much worse off than the resettlement worlds these people were originally destined for. He could simply dump them onto one of these worlds and walk away with a clean conscience, knowing these peoples wouldn’t be found immediately, if anyone bothered to look for them at all….
Sister Prudence looked up into the alien sky as the pirate ship departed orbit. This was a turn of events which had not been anticipated: out on her first foray as a Mission Lead, her directive had been to sheppard a cargo of Progenitor artifacts back to her covenant in order that they could be studied further. That these artifacts were considered contraband by the authorities was beside the point: God had placed them in this universe, so it was deemed by her Mother Superior that no mortal law applied to them. It was simply Sister Prudence’s job to find a way of getting these artifacts back home under the noses of the authorities, and so she had chosen an unassuming Peace Keeper resettlement ship as a means of circumnavigating the authorities. And by relabeling the artifact containers as “religious materials”, she had probably saved them not only from the authorities, but from the clutches of the pirate captain as well. Now it was in these artifacts that she and her Mission may find salvation on this inhospitable world called "Eye of the Beholder".
Sister Prudence’s first scouts had returned earlier, with mixed news: some scouts had reported that there was an enhanced Progenitor Upgrade Station nearby, which would undoubtedly come in handy. However, there were also disturbing reports from other scouts that there were traces of Planet Fungus here. And where there was fungus, there were worms…..
Directions:
1) In your Scenarios subdirectory create a folder called "EotB_2009", and download and unzip the attached files into it.
4/13/09 update: Buster's Uncle updated Datalinks and factional files for me (thanx Buster's Uncle!). Also made the opening game a little easier (hint: review your initial build options for details).
2) Start up SMAX, then select "Scenario", "Play Scenario", and then select the attached EotB file. You will be prompted to choose the difficulty level. Once chosen, the game will automatically load up with Sister Prudence and the Believers.
3) In the Data Links I recommend looking at the basic units types, so you can plan your strategies accordingly.
Alternate Graphics
Buster's Uncle has done some very good work with some new Faction pics. The attached faction_1 thru faction_3 files contain the updated faction graphics. If you would like to use them, then do the following:
1) In your "Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri" directory back up the following files: believe.pcx, caretake.pcx, cyborg.pcx, hive.pcx, morgan.pcx, univ.pcx, and drone.pcx
2) download and unzip the faction_1 thru faction_3 files into your "Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri" directory. Note that these will now be your default factional graphics for the above named faction until you replace them again. Well worth it though, IMO.
Enjoy!
D
. I switched to wealth and that knocked it back down to a somewhat acceptable level.
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