SMAC Expansion Disk!

[AlexanderIII]

Hey, is this forum still active? I'd like to throw in my two cents. Here's my wish list:

1. Make AI factions recognise sea borders as they do land borders so I can kick them out of my territory without having to declare vendetta (via the "You have violated my territory! Leave at once!" diplomacy option). That one is really annoying, seriously affects sea battles & strategy!

2. Make the terriforming automations at least SEMI intelligent! As they are thay are totally or next to useless. The BEST would be to allow for scripts or macros for terraformers, although I recognise this could require major coding. If not macros then allow for more menu control over terraforming options, like "Terraformers may build mines, ...may build farms, ...may build solar collectors, etc., so you can be alot more Specific with terraforming automation, so I can set a terraformer just for farms, another just for Forests. Also what would be great short of scripts would be an added menu designating the conditions for building each of the above allowances, like forets select "if arid or moist", or for solar collectors, "if altitude>2 or river". That would make the game, in my view. Micromanaging terraforming is one of the biggest pains late in the game with so many terraformers about, and you'd have to pay me to trust my empire to the AI to automate my terraformers, and one of the biggest things that slows down play time, once the game gets majorly under way, say by 2300.

3. Teach the faction AIs to terraform a little more, without my having to cheat in the editor and select "build terraformers" from the faction strategy menu. By the time it is 2300, I've terraformed almost every square of every one of my bases while all the other factions are barely half the way there. It makes for very boring opponents who don't terraform very much and recoup much resources. Some games maybe one faction will keep up in terraforming, but will chose things like building a forest on a minerals bonus square, which a horrible waste of such a delicious square. The AIs need more terraforming smarts.

4. And teach the AIs to fight wars not just battles.
- Like designing innovative units like needlejet colony pods or rover formers, stuff like that should the situation demand it.
- And have the AI analyse alpha.txt, so if there are modifications in the combat bonuses to compensate their strategies accordingly. For example, I like to put 5&7% respective bonus/penalties in the alpha.txt file for attacking from higher/lower terrain; then I play in a world of very low erosion, and suddenly the high ground becomes very strategic. Have the AIs adapt to this.
- Have them focus on destroying enemy boreholes and condensors to stifle production in enemy bases.
- Or use seige tactics and surround an enemy base it is attacking so no reinforcement units can move into the base.
- Or use probe teams to specifically sabotage a defending base's defense grid to pave the way for the other units.

Things like that. Of course all of these advanced strategies would need to be AI-implemented in Transcend or the player might not stand a chance.

5. And what is it with the base swapping? Cheech, THAT is a major bug. Have the faction AI's have the intelligence to evaluate the relative worth of the base they are giving away/swapping, and NEVER give away a base with a Secret Project in it!

6. I'd also like the ability to determine the exact year for the Advanced Start option in the custom rules, so I can start a game with an empire already built if I wish, say 110 years down the line. Computing demands and predictability factors and all would mean you might have to place a cap of max start date of say 2300 or so, but it's definitely a real nifty custom rule addition. One real handy for use in creating scenarios, without having to play the game for a month before saving it as a scenario or placing every base, unit, facility, terraforming and secret project by hand piece by piece which is a REAL pain. Would definitely increase the playability of the game, as players could now start the game at practically whatever stage they wished, with out always being limited to the first 30, 60 or 80 years or so.

7. And a more user-friendly map editing GUI would be a definitive asset.

8. Other minor cosmetological changes would be to redesign the look of those choppers and the bunkers.

9. Have a vertical versus a horizontal scrollable menu in the unit design workshop interface -- that wraparound list at the bottom is just impossible to work with. I usually design my units by right-clicking help in the production queue of a unit in the base screen, then changing it/designing a new unit when the workshop pops up from that. At least in the prduction queue I have a fair idea of what units I have designed, unlike the horizontal wraparound scrolling menu in the design workshop -- yeech!

10. Make the user-designed technology capability a bit more user-friendly. Trying to figure out how to reorient the tech grid to incorporate a new tech requires a PhD! One thing that would defenitly help along those lines would be to allow multiple requisites for Facilities and Secret Projects to be built, so that new tech could incorporate, and not substitute for facilities available from other tech. So that a Facility and/or a Secret Project could be available from more than one tech. Either that or EVEN BETTER -- create a Facility Design Studio much like ACEdit, complete with places to insert dialogue, help text and capabilities. And I understand THAT would require some major coding, so I'll be content to wait till SMAC III for that one. That would make SMAC totally customizable.

11. Allow the building of roads as bridges across the coastal waters. Have them require a manitenance cost like a facility, assigned to a particular base no matter where on Planet they are. And, being terraforming, they would be vulnerable to enemy attack. Rules like if a ground unit is on a bridge when it is detroyed, the unit is also destroyed.

12. Allow the building of bunkers, called minefields. You can already do this by altering the alpha.txt file, but make it standard, and maybe present a marker on the board only when you enter an enemy minefield, like uncovering a unit in fungus. Make the placement of Sensor Arrays and Kelp Enrichers (soil enrichers) standard, and show a marker for the Kelp Enrichers -- both of which are also now possible by altering alpha.txt.
- Allow the production of the sea equivalent of Echelon Mirrors, called Tidal Condensors, and have them have a large negative ecological impact, or impede movement in surrounding squares by sea units (stirring up the seas does not make for good passge -- higher energy comes at a price)

13. Have the AI respect the hiding in fugus rather than acting as if it had omniscient view.

14. Xenofungus Missiles which create Xenofungus Blooms is such a cool idea, you just gotta incorporate this one! maybe in conjunction with a new tech, which would go great with the new Native Alien factions to come!!

15. Have the capability to erect Monoliths with terrformers!! Make it very late in the game, maybe through the dev. of a new tech requiring Secrets of Alpha Centauri and Matter Editation, called say, Biometallurgy. And make it take a long time to build, like 36 turns or so, so that multiple terraformers would need to be used.

16. And I like the idea of a new secret project like the one I heard about in the SMACx preview, called the Singularity Beacon, a call home for support. That's a way cool idea.