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[Buster's Uncle]

  The Binary Dawn link, or the couple posts in the Star Trek thread this week?

[thedarkestcolors]

alpha centauri labs --> were the search terms for which google first brought me here (checked in browser history ).. but I still don't now why there are labs and research and both are for tech..

[DrazharLn]

Welcome to AC2

If I recall correctly, labs is the term for the slider on the social engineering screen: you can assign your money to econ, labs and psych.

Is it used elsewhere too?

[thedarkestcolors]

I think its just the the Biology Lab that confused me, in the table of buildable objects of a base it sais X turns \n research and PSI, all the other research/labs bonus buildings have written labs there. (but when opening the detailed description it sais +2 labs, so I should have just opened that, to clear things up )
So I assumed maybe one of the terms could be for a % increase and the other an increase by a fixed amount.

[DrazharLn]

Guess I haven't played in too long

[thedarkestcolors]

Supercollider and Theory of Everything probably helped to confuse me as well, one says doubles research the other says doubles labs.

Actually there might even be a minor difference between research and labs, if the following is true:

Supercollider doubles research output, which is post any efficiency penalties

ToE doubles raw lab output, which is pre-efficiency penalties

--> if you don't build both in the same base (which seems better to get multiple techs per turn), ToE should be the better one for the non-capital?

[AJ]

Hi everyone!  Big SMAC fan, decided I wanted to install the game and play again. 

[DrazharLn]

Welcome to AC2

If you're not using them already, I'd strongly encourage you to use the Yitzi patch if you're playing Crossfire or Kyrub's patch otherwise, they fix a lot of bugs and improve the AI a bit.

If you have problems with Yitzi's patch on Win10, you might need to disable PRACX, but if PRACX does work for you, it gives you some great advantages

[Buster's Uncle]

...If you're the AJ I met at WPC, I think the soaring white bird avatar is in the user gallery...

[photalysis]

Well, how did I find this place? Found my way to the wiki through a web search (duckduckgo, to be exact), which has been in my bookmarks for some time now, and I've consulted it regularly.

Just today I tried to register to edit a page, when, lo and behold, I was brought to the forum that shares a user database. I had no idea there was a sister site to the wiki :>

[DrazharLn]

I guess we need to make that link a bit more obvious  You're hardly the first one not to realise there's a forum!

Welcome to AC2!

[Harpalus]

Been years since I played Alpha Centauri regularly. I've been playing Beyond Earth and I was defending it, but it just can't compare to SMAC, in part thanks to the wonderful modding work that's been going on. I've had the graphic novel and the novel trilogy for years as well, but I couldn't find my copy of Vel's SMAX guide, so the PDF version was appreciated.

I found the forum by looking up how to get my CD copy to run in Windows 10, and found the forums from there.

[DrazharLn]

Welcome!

I'll post a reply to you in the PRACX thread momentarily, too.

[mcshame]

Hi, I'm new to PC gaming and have a gap in my PC gaming life since the days of Ultima III picking up at the current gen of consoles.  Yes, you can pity me. I built my first gaming computer because I was looking to play modern games and tap into the mod community.  Started with Fallout 3, Skyrim, the usual suspects but lately it's been the ultima series and old games.  Then I remembered this old game I used to play called MULE, I think it was on the Commodore 64, loved that game of building on a planet, mining for resources, farming, basically the first planet building game that I remember.  I missed the Civ franchise and I'm determined to make up for lost time, this is my mid life crisis!

Alpha Centauri really got my attention as the settling on a planet just sound way to cool, so I thought I would start there.  I picked it up on GOG with the Crossfire expansion.  Since there is so much history on this game and hard to know what is the current best way to mod it for today's 1st time player, I would appreciate your guidance.  Am I correct to install Yitzi's latest patch and then PRACX on top of it? Or does Dio's include Yitzi's patches?  Are there any other's I should consider? Are there any graphics mods available to modernize it to higher resolution?

Sorry if this is not the best place to ask and the newbie questions, but very excited to finally play this game.

Edit: ohh, I found you with a google search, you seemed to be the most active community for AC

Thanks

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh, it totally is.

I understand you are indeed correct to install Yitzi's latest patch and then PRACX on top of it - and that Dio's does include Yitzi's.  PRACX addresses/improves display, but I gather doing something about the actual game art -to use a modern, non-obsolete file format, for example- would require major .exe re-coding, and no one's mentioned any interest in taking on that mountain of work at all.