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Yitzi's unofficial SMAX patch 2.0

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=132

Detailed information can now be found in the wiki as well as the attached readme.

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Imperialism and Imperialsm 2 are on sale (I think for the first time ever) at gog.com.

They each are $2.99.

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Neocentauri mod (working title)

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=131

Included are my seven factions (reletively finish, some grammer and things are not in order. And my semi-changed alpha file.

The factions include:

The church of technology (Believers + Cybercon)

The Shadow Order (The illuminate - the religion= this faction)

Augeston Empire(An old earth imperial faction, was the empire santiago wanted to be)

The Enlightenment (a bunch of arm chair theologians who created eden, non-douchebag believers)

Empath Gathering (Gaians + cult, psi-revelutionaries)

League of refugee's (Lal + free drones, reletive factions, easy to play)

UAS (hive + morgan, these guys are the civvy version of the empire)

Hope you like it!

This is a pre-alpha

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Save 60% on Classic EA Convoy (SMAC/X and many other games) until Tuesday May 7 at 0359 GMT.

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ax20100301 360x180 map

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=130

Not much to say. It's big. But it can be fun!
Done for my solo-play, it's not for an evening game, but because I prefer an epic struggle to a quick firefight.
You will play as much against yourself and your notions as the planet (and Planetmind) and the other factions.
You might want to turn on Tech Stagnation along with changing the Research Rate (in alphax.txt) to 50 so you won't burn through the Tech Tree before any confrontations occur.

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You cannot have failed to notice that we've got some .exe coders running around AC2, and we've given them their own forum.

I should mention that I'm no techie - just been trying to notice quirks in the game while I play, make some screenies, post some saves, and I've managed to report a number of things that are new to scient (and the other two .exe modders we have active, kyrub and Yitzi.)  Yitzi is mostly focused on modding for game balance, BTW, kyrub on improving the AI - scient, as you probably know, on fixing bugs/exploits.  The Bug/Patch Discussion forum is quite active of late, but the dialogue could always use more testers, reporters, and participants in the discussion.

And this from scient:

No coding required. 

If you're interested in testing the patch please let me know. I put any changes I make through heavy testing but there are a few experimental patches that would be nice to test their effects on AI. I prob won't release them as part of patch unless they've been vetted properly. If you're interested, send me a PM on AC2 and I'll share current release class.  Looking for some help updating the French and German files. The installer that I made for patch will be able to handle different languages. It's only English for now until I can get help updating other languages.

The same goes for any language - at a minimum, we'd like to cover all the languages SMAC(X) was released in -French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian, to my knowledge- but any language under the sun would be welcome.  If you know Esperanto and English and want to, we'd like your help; just as well boost AC and build the community by making it accessible to as many people worldwide as possible.

...

Activity is up this month - this is just one of the ways you can contribute to making AC2 fun and interesting.  Get postin' on your area of special interest, whatever it is!

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Since last week, I've only had a few days, but have made good progress and more people are starting to help out. Kilkakon has set up an improved Main Page and started on the Lost Eden section. I've uploaded the following parts of the datalinks: Facilities, Secret Projects, Social choices, Social parameters, Chassis, and Weapons. Me and sisko have got the user bridge working, so now if you're logged into the forum your wiki account is automatically created when you visit the wiki and it'll log you in automatically every time! No need for annoying extra registration, though users with punctuation in their names may have issues (report them and we may be able to fix). BU has used the newly working Mass Upload extension to upload all the large faction graphics, after converting them all into the correct format. Testdummy653‎ has been promoted to the wiki's first moderator to aid him in clearing up the issues with the datalinks import which must be done by hand, and Kilkakon has also been promoted to moderator to allow him full access to the tools needed to set up his Lost Eden section. Oh, and I put up the wiki's first news item on the main page there.

All in all, it's been a constructive week :). Come and play on the wiki and hang out on IRC with us, we're doing cool things.

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Yitzi's unofficial SMAX patch 1.3

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=129

This will be the last version before 2.0, which might take a while as I rework the alphax variables so the new ones can be used with old maps.

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Fixed SMAX 2.0 Sound Files

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=128

Five of the sound files will quit working for players with SMAX 2.0.  That's because Firaxis encoded them as stereo files, and 2.0 will only work properly with mono files.
Placing these reencoded WAV files in the FX folder will fix the problem.

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The first part of the new Alpha Centauri 2 Wiki ready to be put on show is the custom faction database, which I've been working on for the past week, with some templating and preparation done a while ago. It currently includes all Network Node and Official factions, and is easily browsable by almost every attribute you could want, be it factions who hate Free Market, progenitor factions, or even factions with a Research bonus. You can also use the multi category search to refine things, for example "Progenitor factions" + "Aquatic factions" returns only Bree. There's also a currently incomplete faction index which will give an easy at a glance way to find factions you're interested in.

There's a lot more to come and I'll be working on adding more factions from other sources as I have time, as well as many other improvements with the help of graphics people. I have much more ambitious plans in motion for custom factions which I hope you'll enjoy using as much as I will building. Still, hopefully what's been built so far will be of interest to some of you .

This section (and the wiki as a whole) is very, very far from complete, and we're going to need everyone's help if we're going to make this wiki as useful as it can be. I've written up a to-do list for anyone who would like to contribute, and if you've got any questions or suggestions let me know!

~ete

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...at least on Gamefaqs.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/top10/2553.html

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Slitherine is developing a new space-based 4X game: Pandora: First Contact. Initial impression is that it resembles SMAC (unit workshop, for example). You currently can sign up for an open beta.

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Another report of a high-profile loss for Zynga: This time it is confirming that chief game designer Brian Reynolds has resigned.
In a statement, Zynga’s President of Games Steve Chiang confirmed the departure:
“Brian has a long history in the game industry and has been a great partner to the creative leaders at Zynga. I want to thank him for his leadership of the Zynga Baltimore studio in the design and development of FrontierVille, which brought many innovations to social gaming. We appreciate Brian’s contribution and we’re proud of the deep bench of creative leaders who are leading the next wave of game innovation at Zynga. We wish Brian the best in his next chapter.”
Reynold’s departure, which was first reported by Polygon, is particularly noteworthy since he was one of Zynga’s top gaming veterans.
When Reynolds joined Zynga nearly four years ago, he gave the company credibility in the gaming world — if someone who was known for being the lead designer on the hit Civilization II would join Zynga, then maybe building casual games on Facebook was a legitimate business.
Since joining Zynga, his work has included creating FrontierVille and CityVille 2. He also assisted with the launch of FarmVille 2 and ChefVille.
But the company’s creative team has undergone a lot of changes over the past few months.
When Chief Creative Officer Mike Verdu left in August, Reynolds was one of the game leaders who was expected to step up to fill his shoes, along with Tim LeTourneau and Bill Jackson. In November, Zynga promoted LeTourneau to replace Verdu.
With all the departures, the company is essentially playing a game of musical chairs, plugging each hole with talent from another part of the company when someone leaves. While it has had the depth to do that so far, the worry is that at some point its ranks will wear thin.
Reynolds has not said what he is doing next, but using the Twitter handle @ZyngaGameChief, he confirmed his departure: “Yes I’m officially leaving Zynga after 3 3/4 great years. Back soon… need to think of a new Twitter handle though!”
Shortly after, he updated his Twitter handle to @TheGameChief.
To be sure, the company’s stock price has not helped with retention.
Until recently, shares were trading around $2.40 a share, or about 80 percent below the company’s public offering. On Monday, shares soared 14 percent in anticipation of Facebook’s fourth-quarter earnings this afternoon. Today, shares are trading a little lower at $2.57 a share.

(Source)

I don't think he's taking a sabbatical, so the main question for us is:
What will be his next game?

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Iniswap version 2.2 -beta

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=126

Description: New Iniswap version, 2.2, for testing.
It should work ok, though, I am not sure if in all cases.

INSTALLATION
Unzip the executable: "Iniswap_2-2.exe" to the folder, where you have your SMAX executables (main game folder). Iniswap should create its folder for you automatically during its first execution. Two default sets will be placed, but later you can remove them, if you wish.

It differs from version 2.0, written in code::blocks this time, using win32 API.

When launching, it detects 7 factions currently in ini file, which are displayed on the left.
You can then:
Add set from ini - add these 7 factions to recorded sets, they are listed in listbox on the left.
Remove set - when a set in listbox on the left is selected, it can be removed from the list here
Play Selected Set/exe file - when an exe file is selected in the listbox on the right, it will be launched with a set of factions:
1) existing in ini file, if nothing selected in listbox on the left or,
2) new factions from a set selected on the left, the ini file will be saved with these new factions.

Notes:
- This new Iniswap program replaces only factions declarations in ini file, all other 'lines' of ini file are unchanged
- There is new folder for this version: "Iniswap3" which stores recorded sets in a separate txt file.

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Yitzi's unofficial SMAX patch 1.2

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=124

Now with fewer bugs and more options.