Alpha Centauri Mod Discussion Thread

[Chronon]

Over in the Verduran Cooperative thread Oleg was musing about what would have happened in the Alpha Centauri (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - game by Firaxis) universe if the factions had gone to different planets instead of just one. I thought that sounded like a good idea for a mod, and input from Hugh Manatee and TerranC suggested that there might (maybe) be some interest in such a project. I have some ideas and concerns about it, so I thought I would open a new thread to discuss the possibility.

First the concerns:

1. I am greatly concerned about the copyright problem (especially after skimming the thread on the subject). I imagine that we would need explicit permission from Firaxis to do this, and I wonder if we could get it.

2. I have zero experience with modding. So, we'll need alot of expert help to pull this off.

Now the ideas:

1. The Alpha Centauri theme would hold everything together; Progenitors leaving advanced technology around (ruins) and perhaps arriving at inopportune moments to attempt recapture (not sure how to mod this, or even if it is possible). Human factions spread around the quadrant: Cyborgs (AST, good research, low growth), Believers (Religious, slow research), Spartans (low construction, good space combats), Gaians (Organic), Hive (good construction and growth, slow research), and Drones (hearty industrialists). All of these would be rock oxygen in SEIV terms.

2. To spice things up I thought we could add some neutrals and the Pirates who would be ice oxygen.

3. The tech tree and components could be modified to reflect some of the names from SMAC, like N-Space Compression, Planet Buster, Shard Cannon, etc. Costs for the weapons, shields, and components could be balanced so there are a number of equal choices at any point in the game.

4. QNP and leaky shields would also be nice, so the mod can take advantage of the latest thinking in SEIV.

So, if this is actually going to happen, we'll need a lot of help. Hugh Manatee has volunteered to do a shipset for the Progenitors. I can do one for the Pirates. We'll need more volunteers for shipset design, AI design, and (most importantly) a lot of help with the tech trees, components, and QNP.

Would anyone be interested in working on a mod like this?

[ July 09, 2003, 03:50: Message edited by: Chronon ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Try my Tech Gridder (link)

It'll help you pump out hundreds of components and facilities in seconds to fill out your tech trees.

Also, If you have any questions, just ask.
I believe the local policy is still "30 minutes or its free"

[Chronon]

Thanks SJ, the Tech Gridder looks like a great tool. I'll experiment with it a little and let you know if I have any questions.

That's a good point Oleg. I guess we can just put in some sort of disclaimer like Atrocities has in his Star Trek ship set "read me" files, and hope we don't get a nasty letter from Firaxis' lawyers. It's not like we're selling anything. And, I'm sure they are not making any more money from SMAC, so we're not cutting into their profit, either.

Do we have any more volunteers for ship sets?

[Taera]

my, chronon thats a great idea there! plus you can easily extract images from the game...

Pirates, well, remember for one the Native life - using rollo's monsters as a base we can make them pretty nasty... they'll have null-space type weapons (SKIP ALL)
Now there are some factions there that could be piratized.

We even have naming files! (the city names in the game). Speech shouldnt be a problem, either way its all too similar in the game

GOod idea. For what i can, i will help you.

[Fyron]

"1. I am greatly concerned about the copyright problem (especially after skimming the thread on the subject). I imagine that we would need explicit permission from Firaxis to do this, and I wonder if we could get it."

Do not worry about it.

"2. I have zero experience with modding. So, we'll need alot of expert help to pull this off."

Check out SE4 Modding 101 Tutorial, linked in my sig. It is a great way to get a start in modding SE4.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Chronon:
1. I am greatly concerned about the copyright problem (especially after skimming the thread on the subject). I imagine that we would need explicit permission from Firaxis to do this, and I wonder if we could get it.

Haaa ? How do you think we have StarTrek and Babylon5 mods If we bothered Paramount for StarTrek license... Oh, dear !

[Hugh Manatee]

Ok technically Planet was an all Nitrogen and CO2 and fungus. I think we should reflect this in the game. They should be able to colonize as many worlds as they want and it should all be the same but should be more comfortable on Oxegen. IRL there are very litle life supporting oxegen planets.

I think instead of mineral plants and organics farms and radioactives facilities and research centers we should have it set up so you have to build new "Bases" on your planets. These different bases produce a little of all of the resouses and a lot of one specific resouce(eg. a headquarters base produces like 500 of each resourse and has the ability to build space ships{you only get one per planet}, a research base produces 100 of all the other resourses and 1000 reaserch points, a miner base produces 1000 minerals and 100 of the others, and a Covert Ops center produces 2000 intel point, 500 reaserch and 50 of the others, you get the Idea).

You can them build other terain enhacements that give the other bases a certain %bonus(mines and boreholes increase mineral production, boreholes more than mines, solar panels and echelon mirrors increase radiation and reaserch, echelons more so than solar panels, and farms and condensers do the same for organics production.) Also bunkers, perimiter defense and tachyons fields increase troop defense.

Is there some way to mod the planets so you can build lots of stuff on them without increasing the population?

Secret prodjects are like the system wide bonus buildings, likr the temporal vacation thing and the events predicter.

[EDIT] Also there should be no specific shield tech or laser tech or facility tech, we should mod it so that each tech you research unlocks a new one, just like in the game. I have the tech tree poster all mapped out if you need it.

[ July 04, 2003, 02:35: Message edited by: Hugh Manatee ]

[Taera]

true! Planet was nitrogen place, and unfriendly at that... perharps a modded CO2 planet with, like, HARSH environment? or a carefully placed sphereworld... should do it, even if domed

[Chronon]

Thanks Fyron, for pointing me in the direction of your mod tutorial. It looks extremely helpful. Aside from that and SJ's tech gridder, are there any other "must have" modding tools, or "must see" sites?

Welcome aboard Taera! It's great to have you. I like your idea about fungus monsters. Perhaps we could change the Psychic weapons a bit and make them Psionic weapons. They wouldn't capture ships, but they would wipe out the crew (very nasty).

Hugh, those are some great ideas about the facilities and the tech tree. I'm sure we could mod them as you described.

I think we might be able to arrange something about the number of facilities as well. What if we modified the Advanced Storage Techniques trait to 100% instead of 20%, and then made its cost 0 and gave it to all the factions? Then every colony would have twice as many facility slots. I wonder if that would work?

I think at this point we need to figure out how we want to organize ourselves. Do we discuss all of our general ideas first, then work on specifics later? Or, do we jump right in and start modding now, and work out the details as we go along? Do we want a communal style where we all keep our hands in everything, or should we work individually on our specific tasks and report here as needed?

Unless someone else would like to do it, I am willing to act as general coordinator. I will also be able to do a ship set (it took me a year to do my first one - even if it takes me a quarter of the time for set number two, that's still three months), and work on some of the text files to.

Hugh, you wanted to do the Progenitors, which is great. Is there anything else you're interested in (perhaps facilities and research)?

Taera, what would you like to do? I'd love to see what kinds of ship sets you could do for the different factions, but I know you prefer to focus your efforts on the Taera.

Oleg, are you interested in working on the mod as well?

[Taera]

Adv. Storage techniques would make oxygen planets give you way too much dont you think?

Perharps an e-mail would do us good. How about everyone post their addy and we use that? we can of course use the forum but i find e-mail more.. useful? then again, here we can get instant comments.

WHat will i be doing, hmm. Graphics - im not sure about that one (i'd try the Gaians and perharps University/Consciousness -- which one will we be using? i say Counsciousness, i love those guys ). For now, however, i cant work on images because my PC is dead. I will let you know when that changes, untill then typing and thinking are all i can do