Looking for PBEM players for custom SMAC mod

[fluxionman]

Okay - the files will be made available later today.

So far, we have:

Paradigm: fluxionman
Institute: tmelnick
Totality: AI
Proteans: Hardcore SMAX
Disciples: mart7x5
Covenant: Dubhghlas
Syndicate: open

Firstblood: if you want to play, there's one faction left.

[fluxionman]

Because I'm such a nice guy, and because this mod is somewhat different from SMAC's default gameplay, I thought I'd take a minute to write up a few pointers for the new players:

Gameplay - General

• Because each population requires 3 nutrients, good initial base site selection is essential. The base growth requirement has been reduced from 10 to 7 per (population+1), so bases will grow fairly quickly if they have enough excess nutrients. The key to steady growth is to watch your resource production carefully and to make sure that you have enough nutrients for a population increase before it happens. Losing a population increase do to starvation is frustrating. Terraforming in advance is always a good idea.
• The number of turns between Councils has been reduced to 8. Bear this in mind as you push for the governorship or for your favorite UN measures.
• Altitude is a factor in combat. Artillery gains a bonus while bombarding from a higher altitude, and unit suffer a penalty attacking from lower ground.
• Forests provide fewer resources than before, both from base production and harvesting.
• Bases are harder to capture, but the infantry vs. base bonus has also been increased. Troops are still the best unit vs. bases.
• With blind research, check the new tech tree to make sure you're focused on the right areas.

Gameplay - Factions

Here are a few quick hints for each faction:

• Proteans: Growth is your strongest attribute. You start with the ability to build farms, so expand early and quickly, and use your Research advantage to gain a technological edge. Your foils can help you explore quickly. Be careful in direct conflicts, however - your Morale penalty can be crippling, especially in struggles with native life forms.
• Covenant: Your biggest problem is a poor Economy. Initial research into Conquer techs should net you Applied Physics, which will give you the solar collectors you need to generate energy; until then, be careful not to run your treasury down to nothing. Once you're generating income, you'll be able to concentrate on building the military that is your biggest strength.
• Syndicate: Forget research - you'll gain techs as soon as three other players discover them. The best early tech for you to get is Ethical Calculus, because the Children's Creche improves your lousy Efficiency. Build your energy reserves - you'll need money to put those precious probe teams to good use. And watch out for drones; build Rec Commons as quickly as possibel to keep them happy.
• Disciples: Your industrial and research are dismal, so in order to get ahead early, use your ability to capture mind worms. Focus on growth and conquest early while you have the advantage - before other factions with better technology can equal you on the battlefield. Remember - Planet is your best friend.
• Paradigm: This faction loves income and hates to fight. Their cash reserves and good Probe rating mean they prefer to mind control enemies rather than confront them with force.
• Institute: A researching machine. The Institute can make a lot of friends by trading technologies, but can be slow to field units due to their Support penalty.
• Totality: Totality does one thing well - pump out a steady stream of units. Watch for them to climb the power graph early and make life difficult for any nearby factions. The best strategy against them is to hold them at bay until enough force can be built up to deal with them.

[DilithiumDad]

This mod seems to be based on SNAC. Is that true? Does anyone still play SNAC?

[fluxionman]

Originally posted by DilithiumDad
This mod seems to be based on SNAC. Is that true? Does anyone still play SNAC?

This is based on SMAC, so apparently someone does.

In truth, while Alien Crossfire made welcome additions to AC, it did not radically alter gameplay in any way. I built this mod in SMAC because I was playing with someone who doesn't have the expansion.

[Hardcore SMAX]

My biggest threat is becoming worm food.

I notice no mention of other bugs that I read about at the SMAC academy.
I take it that these (e.g. F4 screen manipulation, stockpile bug) are all banned?

Still awaiting those files, dude.

[fluxionman]

I notice no mention of other bugs that I read about at the SMAC academy.
I take it that these (e.g. F4 screen manipulation, stockpile bug) are all banned?

You are better versed in SMAC's loopholes than I am, señor. I assume you are referring to this list. 90% of the tricks described here violate SMAC's rules as defined in the manual, so, yes, they are considered cheating. We want to win through strategic superiority rather than exploiting bugs, don't we?

Since Firstblood has agreed to be the Syndicate, it would appear we have our requisite six humans and one AI. i will be forwarding a message to each of you shortly with the new files and instructions for installing them. Please check them out, give them a practice run, and let me know if anything does not work as advertised.

[Hardcore SMAX]

I believe the play order goes:
Totality
-player-
-player-
-player-
-player-
-player-
-player-
Aliens

One of us plays at 22:00 GMT, 6:00 GMT and 12:00 GMT (me).
If we have the players' times we can organise the fastest game, but who plays first?

Paradigm: fluxionman
Institute: tmelnick
Totality: AI
Proteans: Hardcore SMAX
Disciples: mart7x5
Covenant: Dubhghlas
Syndicate: Firstblood

Is that the turn order, or can we change it?
I don't even know the playing times!

[Mart]

I have never tried it, but factions are declared in alpha.txt
If we all make the same order of factions - some optimized one, we would be maybe ok. there is a fragment with heading:
#FACTIONS
somewhere at the end of alpha.txt
What do you think?

[Mart]

Some problems with graphics. All seven files, each one for a single faction:

covenant.pcx
totality.pcx
....

are not recognised by my system. I have tried to open them in several graphics apps, like MS Photo editor, GIMP, Irfanview. None is able to do it.
Maybe you have those files in another format. or you can use other graphics software to save it in pcx format. The format currently they are in must have some small detail making it somehow different.

[Hardcore SMAX]

Yes, your .pcx are corrupt. Game runs fine, though.
Off to own the AI.

[Hardcore SMAX]

HEY!
I don't have a free bio lab as indicated!

After removing some other abilities from the protean ability list, I got my free facility as indicated.
The problem is, you've assigned TOO MANY ABILITIES to the proteans - hence they do not get them all.

I'm editing their faction file, removing the fungus energy and the excess population.
It seems that the maximum abilities that you can give a faction is limited to 8.

All of your factions have more than this number of attributes.
You badly need to rework these factions.
Until this is done, I'm out of the loop.
ALSO
fix the .pcx files, and ffs edit your text files - newlines are represented as boxes, so alpha.txt is VERY unreadable.

I hand you your n00b hat, and leave this team.
Good day to you.

[Hardcore SMAX]

Unrelated Strategic note:
FM is ++ECON, ---PLANET, -----POLICE, ++INDUSTRY
Wealth is +ECON, --MORALE, ++INDUSTRY
Everyone's going to be running FM/Wealth.

Paradigm Omnimedia runs away with the game, and here's why:
Their +ECON is a boon to base spamming, with -POLICE ineffective.
With free holos and talents*, they can spam bases and ICS the crap out of stuff.
Given their now insane income, 5% per turn* doubles their cash every 14 turns.

Note that the *s don't come into play due to the limit to 8 faction modifiers.

[Chaos Theory]

Reference the attached page. Each faction can have up to 8 "faction options". Extra are ignored. I have seen no limit on "rule options".

[Mart]

Originally posted by Hardcore SMAX
I hand you your n00b hat, and leave this team.
Good day to you.

Problems can be worked out. Give it some time. There is already so much good work done in this mod.

Fluxionman, I have a good SMAC/X faction editor. It is for download somewhere, but I can send it to you. Maybe you already have it. It is ACEdit 2.0. It is quite user friendly and takes into account game limitation like max 8 abilities.
Disciples behave strange too. E.g. cannot accumulate research for like 10 years (believing ability) It was probably not intended.

[Hardcore SMAX]

The n00b hat is a (seemingly inside) joke.
At my LANs, the dude at the ass end of the killcount has to wear a traffic cone with 'n00b' written on it.

Idk how you'd redesign the factions,
but you seem to have given them loads of extras.

SE settings: 3 mods are all you need to define a faction.
Here's your settings:
Industry: Pumps facilities
Econ: Pumps cash
Support: Pumps units
Research: Pumps tech
Planet: Pumps worms
Police: Pumps drone control
Growth: Pumps growth
Probe: Pumps security
Efficiency: Pumps expansion
Morale: Pumps morale

Say you want some player types:
1. Secret Weapons (Conquer / Discover)
2. The War machine (Conquer / Build)
3. Expansionists (Conquer / Explore)
4. Tech powerhouse (Build / Discover)
5. Pop powerhouse (Build / Explore)
6. Planet hunters (Discover / Explore)
7. MEGA KICK ASS AI (E/B/D/C)

You can take it from there.