Comprehensive SMAC->SMAX changelist

[gwillybj]

Question: In SMAX, does the major fungal bloom catastrophe still occur after a faction finishes building the Voice of Planet secret project, but before a faction builds the Ascent to Transcendence?

I'm not sure what you mean by "major".  Fungal blooms can still happen post-VoP, and actually are twice as likely to happen, but do not contain worms once the VoP has been built.

It's the global bloom that happens upon completion of the Voice, and it ruins all the nice, neat terraforming you've done. Yes, it still happens, but if you have the Progenitors in the game, you have to get the Voice and Transcend before they build the right number of Subspace Generators to phone home - if that happens, all humans are toast (or served on toast).

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm pretty sure Progs are herbivores.

[Yitzi]

It's the global bloom that happens upon completion of the Voice, and it ruins all the nice, neat terraforming you've done. Yes, it still happens, but if you have the Progenitors in the game, you have to get the Voice and Transcend before they build the right number of Subspace Generators to phone home - if that happens, all humans are toast (or served on toast).

I think it's just a single bloom in SMAX; is it substantially more in SMAC?

[Buster's Uncle]

I only upgraded to X a little over five years ago, and I don't remember noticing a difference in the VoP bloom effects.

[Geo]

I think it's just a single bloom in SMAX; is it substantially more in SMAC?

It's a continuous map-wide fungal bloom, adding new tiles every lapsed turn.
At least if the effect isn't different in scenarios. I saw it last in action on my Mars scenario.

[Buster's Uncle]

That doesn't sound like anything I've ever seen.

[Yitzi]

I think it's just a single bloom in SMAX; is it substantially more in SMAC?

It's a continuous map-wide fungal bloom, adding new tiles every lapsed turn.
At least if the effect isn't different in scenarios. I saw it last in action on my Mars scenario.

I never investigated to see if that happens in SMAX too; if not, something of that sort (with moddable associated variables) is already on my to-do list, as I think it will help give that "Planet rising" feel (especially if the VoP is moved down the tech tree somewhat so that there's a nice period in there.)

[Nexii]

I always thought it was a single bloom too, on every tile that had fungus to start the game.  Would have to test this...

[Geo]

I never investigated to see if that happens in SMAX too; if not, something of that sort (with moddable associated variables) is already on my to-do list, as I think it will help give that "Planet rising" feel (especially if the VoP is moved down the tech tree somewhat so that there's a nice period in there.)

The scenario is SMACX-based.
IIRC, finishing the VoP enables the construction of the Ascend SP for every faction in the unmodded game. Never came far enough with one of your mods to see if you changed that trigger somehow?

[Yitzi]

I never investigated to see if that happens in SMAX too; if not, something of that sort (with moddable associated variables) is already on my to-do list, as I think it will help give that "Planet rising" feel (especially if the VoP is moved down the tech tree somewhat so that there's a nice period in there.)

The scenario is SMACX-based.
IIRC, finishing the VoP enables the construction of the Ascend SP for every faction in the unmodded game. Never came far enough with one of your mods to see if you changed that trigger somehow?

Somewhat; now it enables it for every faction other than the Caretakers which knows the required tech.

[kyrub]

Changes between versions which SMACers are okay with (kyrub you can veto these, just let me know)
Freeing captured faction leaders probe op (?)
New landmarks (?)
-Borehole Cluster, Unity Wreckage, the Manifold Nexus, Fossil Ridge
Hotseat/PBEM support

As I have said, my stance on "changes" is really conservative. From my experience from working patches for old games, I find it important to be able to show the new hybrid game and say: truly, you may play your old SMAC, if you wish (there is a good number of players, who want their "retro" experience.) No hidden surprise, and you may share our goods (patches/mods/experience) with the community. - For optional content, there's always room.

Landmarks: Borehold cluster and Manifold Nexus is in SMAC v.4. For me, that means that it automatically goes in our hybrid. The other two, I don't know. I really like Fossil Ridge as a landmark, but I have many doubts about Unity Wreckage from the description. Can anybody explain more? -- Do I want to know where other factions are? Nah, that's game changer, we old gamers like our slow uncovering of the shrowd.  And what is Mining Laser, please? Engine Core, huh? (And if we don't admit Unity wreckage, then we should make Fossil Ridge optional as well, to be consistent...).

What does freeing of faction leaders do, exactly?

Hotseat / PBEM, that goes obviously in. Nice.

[ete]

Changes between versions which SMACers are okay with (kyrub you can veto these, just let me know)
Freeing captured faction leaders probe op (?)
New landmarks (?)
-Borehole Cluster, Unity Wreckage, the Manifold Nexus, Fossil Ridge
Hotseat/PBEM support

As I have said, my stance on "changes" is really conservative. From my experience from working patches for old games, I find it important to be able to show the new hybrid game and say: truly, you may play your old SMAC, if you wish (there is a good number of players, who want their "retro" experience.) No hidden surprise, and you may share our goods (patches/mods/experience) with the community. - For optional content, there's always room.

Landmarks: Borehold cluster and Manifold Nexus is in SMAC v.4. For me, that means that it automatically goes in our hybrid. The other two, I don't know. I really like Fossil Ridge as a landmark, but I have many doubts about Unity Wreckage from the description. Can anybody explain more? -- Do I want to know where other factions are? Nah, that's game changer, we old gamers like our slow uncovering of the shrowd.  And what is Mining Laser, please? Engine Core, huh? (And if we don't admit Unity wreckage, then we should make Fossil Ridge optional as well, to be consistent...).

What does freeing of faction leaders do, exactly?

Hotseat / PBEM, that goes obviously in. Nice.

I'm happy with keeping the BC and MN. A variable to make the other two optional seems reasonable. The Unity Wreckage's Mining Laser is a no armor laser infantry with a special name, and the Engine Core gives a chunk of credits (iirc it's around 100-150, can't test from here). I've never found the wreakage to be particularly great, but it's a fun thing to come across with four minor one-off bonuses. It's nice if you get to it really early, and pretty much pointless if you get it late.

Freeing captured faction leaders is a probe operation with really low chance of success which can only be performed at the HQ of a faction which captured the last base of another faction. If it works it restarts the faction who was captured on a random unoccupied part of the map giving them all the units they had in play at the time they lost their last base (maybe plus a colony pod or two), and makes the newly freed faction love you/pact with you for rescuing them. It's pretty fun imo for flavor and roleplay, but basically never is going to make a major difference to the outcome of the game. If you want to be super purist then it should be optional, but imo it's a minor/fun/flavourful addition to the game. Your call entirely though, glad to have you moving to the SMAX engine

[ete]

How would the SMACers feel about, rather than removing the second seven menu, replacing the factions on it with Dio's alternate original seven? No SMAX factions intruding on the flavor, more options to play with, gets more publicity for Dio's cool project, and much less hard to code because no need to edit actual menus (should be mostly straightforward text changes?).

[Buster's Uncle]

That's an interesting idea.  It's not inappropriate, given Dio's retro inspiration.

[Lord Avalon]

Re: Unity Wreckage - IIRC if you're first to the bridge, you get the location of everyone's landing site (well, humans - aliens haven't landed when that info was recorded). One of the pods provides the Unity Scout Chopper, 1-1-8 SAM, which might not make it back to one of your bases if you're playing on a large/huge map. Energy credits could come in handy if you're short.

If the units are far enough away, they're independent, which might be useful if you can later upgrade them. If they're attached to a home base and being outside your borders causes unhappiness, that's a penalty.


Is the land where the wreckage is always arid?