The help Uno not totally suck thread.

[Unorthodox]

So, let me know a good starting point to get into this game.

Areas I tend to struggle with:

I really dislike this unit supply system.  The global supply of the later civ games has spoiled me, and makes this annoying.
I usually play with blind research (as it was the default), but perhaps that is not best?  If not, I don't know what to beeline nor do I have a good working knowledge of the tech tree.
I don't understand the best way to utilize formers at all.  Civ, I can look at a tile and tell you what it needs.  This, not so much.  And it's complicated by there being more options.  Why is that farm giving me 4 and that one giving me 3 when they otherwise look same?  Stuff like that.  Doesn't help that I have a long standing hatred of workers no matter the game.  Especially at this damn unit supply scheme. 

I don't get the morale combat at ALL.  FAR too often does one of my units that appear superior on paper get mopped by a lesser mindworm or something.  Seems to happen far more regularly with the Morale combat than with the actual combat.  (to the point I took to being the treehugger chick to overrun the world with mindworms at one point, and it works surprisingly well.)

 

[Buster's Uncle]

A lot of this, you just need to play more to get a better handle on - much of it is too complex to wrap your head around very well before you get more familiar.  A decent beginners' primer from Firaxis can be found here, though: http://alphacentauri2.info/official/Sid%20Meier%27s%20Alpha%20Centauri%20Strategy_cfm.htm  The other pages are full of useful information, too, though the Tech and Links pages have yet to be whipped into usefullness.

As for terraforming, the first thing I always do at each base is plant a forest on the driest, flattest square adjacent to the base - forests slowly spread on their own, and this will save you terraforming time later.  If you look closely enough, there IS a visual different between dry, moist, and rainy squares, as well as between flat, rolling and rocky ones.

When you say unit supply, you mean support?  If it bugs you enough, you might try playing as the Spartans for the higher unit support.

The morale becomes less of a problem as you work up the tech tree and build units with better reactors (more HP).

sisko or anyone who's played a lot of MP can tell you more about directed research - I've almost never touched it, and can't really help - but that is another one of those play more deals, as without a chart in front of you, it's too much to learn in a hury and keep in your head.

[Unorthodox]

As for terraforming, the first thing I always do at each base is plant a forest on the driest, flattest square adjacent to the base - forests slowly spread on their own, and this will save you terraforming time later.  If you look closely enough, there IS a visual different between dry, moist, and rainy squares, as well as between flat, rolling and rocky ones.

I'm colorblind.   

When you say unit supply, you mean support?  If it bugs you enough, you might try playing as the Spartans for the higher unit support.

The morale becomes less of a problem as you work up the tech tree and build units with better reactors (more HP).

sisko or anyone who's played a lot of MP can tell you more about directed research - I've almost never touched it, and can't really help - but that is another one of those play more deals, as without a chart in front of you, it's too much to learn in a hury and keep in your head.

[Buster's Uncle]

Try the colorblind patch - it's in Downloads...

[Buster's Uncle]

It's for red-green colorblindness, mind you.

More specific/focused questions one at a time would be a lot easier to answer, btw, and for that matter, easier for you to assimilate...

[Buster's Uncle]

Check this: I rushed it into readiness just for you;

http://alphacentauri2.info/official/terrnum=1.htm

the hyperlinks aren't hooked into anything yet, but the basic pages work and scroll okay...

[Unorthodox]

Ok, how do we fix the ugly screens. 

[Buster's Uncle]

This is kind've deja vu... is that with the colorblind patch?  Would your whole computer happen to be on any special color settings? 

This is not the usual sort of screeny problem I see - the speeder unit looks normal, and the interface at the bottom looks almost normal.  The terrain looks really strange, of course. 

What more can you tell me?  I don't think I've ever been beaten by a user screenshot tech problem...

[Unorthodox]

Game looks fine, but that's what I get when I paste the screen.   

[sisko]

are you playing in a window or you just alt-tab out of the game?

[Unorthodox]

I haven't figured out the secret of playing in a window yet. 

[Buster's Uncle]

What are you pasting into?  MSPaint?

To eliminate a couple of possibilities, try opening copies of more than one graphics program and make a new screeny, pasting the same into each - this assumes that the computer was off overnight.  I want to be sure it wasn't a mysterious Windows fluke that went away at the first reboot/reset, and that it's not caused by what you were pasting into.

[Buster's Uncle]

Have you been otherwise engaged or what, Uno?

[Earthmichael]

Here are some of my thoughts on your questions:

I really dislike this unit supply system.  The global supply of the later civ games has spoiled me, and makes this annoying.

Faction and Government pays a huge role in support.  If you want a lot of support, you can pick factions with support bonuses (like Believers) and/or Government with support bonus (like Police State).  However, this is a relatively short term thing.  Once you research Clean Reactors, you can build units at a slightly higher cost with ZERO support cost.  At that point, I will often upgrade many of my support-cost units to the clean version.  At that point, your support concerns are largely over.

I usually play with blind research (as it was the default), but perhaps that is not best?  If not, I don't know what to beeline nor do I have a good working knowledge of the tech tree.

I absolutely HATE blind research.  I will never play a game (other than perhaps some short specialized scenario) that has blind research.  Reseach is the most important (and fun) part of the game, in my opinion.  You must study the tech tree well enough to know what are the most important things to research at various points in your game.  No wonder you don't enjoy the game if you are playing blind research!

I don't understand the best way to utilize formers at all.  Civ, I can look at a tile and tell you what it needs.  This, not so much.  And it's complicated by there being more options.  Why is that farm giving me 4 and that one giving me 3 when they otherwise look same?  Stuff like that.  Doesn't help that I have a long standing hatred of workers no matter the game.  Especially at this damn unit supply scheme. 

The terraforming system in SMAC(X) is incredibly flexible; it is one of the main things that make SMAC so much more enjoyable than the other Civ games.  I remember playing Civ 4, and thinking, after this many versions of Civ, all you can do is roads, farms, forests, and mines???    SMAC had 3 times as many terraforming options.
The SMAC terrain is quite simple.  The basic land has a water content, and mineral content, and possibly fungus.  The water content determines whether the base land produces 0,1,or 2; the mineral content determines how much resources are produced before terraforming.  Rocky ground can be made into less rocky ground by terraforming level.  Fungus changes everything, but can be removed (or planted) if desired.  There are several good worksheets on this topic, if you look a bit, but this covers the basics.
Terraforming allows you to add more food (farms, condensors), more energy (solar collector), more minerals (mines), or a balance of each (forest).  You also can drill boreholes for massive energy and minerals, aquafers to create more rivers, echelon mirrors which empower all adjacent solar collectors with extra energy, raise land to gain more energy from collectors (and create more land from ocean), lower land (mostly to create more sea), and more!

I don't get the morale combat at ALL.  FAR too often does one of my units that appear superior on paper get mopped by a lesser mindworm or something.  Seems to happen far more regularly with the Morale combat than with the actual combat.  (to the point I took to being the treehugger chick to overrun the world with mindworms at one point, and it works surprisingly well.)

Morale combat is very straightforward.  You ignore EVERYTHING except unit morale and morale modifiers.  Attacking land units get +50% bonus, so it is far better to be on the attack on land, in general.  There are a bunch of modifiers to consider, such as the bonus for trance, terrain, etc.  All of those are shown on your combat screen.

I hope these explanations help you enjoy the best civ game ever created!
 

[Davyboy]

Just my two eurocents..

But have you adjusted the Gamma under Menu--> Preferences --> AV Preferences ?

The default setting for the game is ALWAYS too dark for me and the tweak is remembered in your AlphaCentauri file as a preference flag.
If you're having problems in combat situations, try turning on "compute odds" (Menu --> Game --> Advanced Preferences -->). That helps you by throwing up a dialog box which gives you a sanity check.
Since there are two types of combat, conventional and psi; many social values and social models that twist things on half a dozen parameters (which then may or may not affect combat too!) it's no small wonder that you've had some 'interesting' play.

Best oneliner advice I could give would be to play a Green faction, have a positive PLANET rating in SE, look around for wormtroops and don't forget to rest 'em up in fungus to repair and remember, while in fungus - they don't need support.