posted 12-24-98 05:11 PM ET            

/What is the efeect of the bulk matter transmitter?
Plus 2 mineral to all bases.

>of the space elevator?
Plus 100% energy to base and half the cost of orbitals built at base. (ie city is now a space launch center)

posted 12-28-98 01:49 AM ET            

countdown to transcendence, exactly what is necessary and what it's effects are.

posted 12-29-98 05:05 PM ET            

It is pretty easy. Just make a .txt file based off of the faction template at the end of alpha.txt and then replace one of the factions in alpha.txt with your new faction.

You can do just about anything. Socio/Econ benefits, free techs, base facilities, units, abilities...

posted 01-09-99 12:08 PM ET            

Most anything you might want to change in the game is kept in common formats (*.txt, *.bmp, *.wav, etc.). Players can therefore customize to their heart�s content! There will be a full map\scenario editor, an AI editor, and customizable victory scenarios.

posted 01-12-99 10:02 PM ET            

How do they keep you from making a race of Green Spartan Supermen from the University? Do you have a certain number of points you can spend or something?

posted 01-16-99 05:02 AM ET            

I mean, if you're going to allow a tech to be researched, IMAO it's extremely rude to say you can have this tech but you can't use it.

I also think it is stupid the way the tech tree is broken off like that... I don't have a problem with limitations. After all you have got to have them in a demo or you're giving away a free copy of the game. What I have a problem with are schizophrenic limitations where the line between what you can and can't do is not exactly, clearly defined. Unless I just remember wrong, the game says you can only research up to tech level 5, build up to ten bases, and have a limited number of units. The other limitations are fairly well implemented, but the Tech tree is screwed up. I distinctly remember researching a couple of level 6 techs! If you're gonna say no level 6 techs, MEAN IT! Otherwise, you get people's hopes up to get that new weapon (or in my case power source) and then you really annoy your potential customers when they find they can't get what they want.

Before this completely turns into a pointless tirade, I also wanted to make one suggestion. One of the biggest things topping my wish list for things I'd wanted to be able to do with Civ 2 was to actually create your own city improvements, and to actually modify what they do (rather than just rename existing improvements and change the description). For example, I've often wished I could create a "second harbor" in Civ2, which I would probably have called "Fish Farms" or something dumb like that, which increased the food output of sea squares by an additional two food. Some of the other buildings I thought had too much (or not enough) effect, and I would have liked to be able to change those, plus create my own new buildings. I've also wanted to create a new Wonder called "The Internet" which would be a pseudo-Great Library for the computer age, but with different triggers. While some of this is a moot point with SMAC, (especially the lack of food in sea squares--I really like those sea formers) I still think this would be a really neat option to have. Does anybody know if anything even midly resembling this will be available with the scenario editing capabilities of SMAC? If not, could anybody from Firaxis say if there's any chance an editor with similar abilites might ever be released? As a CompSci major, I realize this is not an easy prospect, especially if the affected data is hardcoded into the game rather than in DLLs or other external files. However, I really think that this could further tap the inventiveness of game fans to help make SMAC an even better game than it already is.