Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: BFG on March 05, 2019, 04:06:50 AM

Title: The Cutting Room Floor
Post by: BFG on March 05, 2019, 04:06:50 AM

Or tcrf.net.  Anybody spent much time on this site?  It's basically a Wikipedia for things that got left out of games.  It has a page for SMAC but that page is pretty sad...it lists Nessus Canyon, and that's about it.

We should beef it up :)  I can think of at least a couple things off the top of my head, and I'm sure there's more:
--XX Missile
--Heavy Transport
--Inertial Damping and Global Energy Theory
--Sid faction (not sure this would qualify)
--Triad combat

Title: Re: The Cutting Room Floor
Post by: bvanevery on March 05, 2019, 03:05:07 PM

Quote from: BFG on March 05, 2019, 04:06:50 AM

--XX Missile

I've seen the 2D icon for that.  Pretty clear why they didn't include it from an art assets standpoint.  From a game mechanics standpoint, I could definitely make a Nerve Gas Missile predefined unit type.  My question has been, should I?

There's also a little space dog with an astronaut bubble on its head.  Cute easter egg, but not game material.

There are some weird faction icons and names that didn't get used.  Precursors to the Believers I think.

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--Heavy Transport
--Inertial Damping and Global Energy Theory

They're in my mod.  The 2 extra tech slots are mildly useful for my redesigned tech tree.  In my mod, Global Energy Theory is how you get Orbital Power Transmitters.  And you get that wimpy, underwhelming quote from Morgan about it.  For Inertial Damping, you get my strength 30 Inertial Damper, and a much better quote from Santiago about it.  I reused the Stasis Generator artwork for that, as the top of my recalibrated armor range.

HT is not that useful for sea units, but it's there if you want it.  The AI really doesn't need the extra seagoing capacity, it often makes too many Transports as it is.  So I removed the predefined unit I had for it.

HT can be somewhat useful for land units, i.e. designing a "truck".  However the AI doesn't know how to make effective use of those, so I don't provide a predefined unit for it.  It's an exploit for human players, one that I just don't bother with, because I typically use rails and lots of Formers. 

Quote

--Sid faction (not sure this would qualify)

You could run it, it's not really "left out".  It's definitely not available from regular game menus though.  It's like, if you got into the faction editor, you could make use of this somehow.

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--Triad combat

You mean like Projectile vs. Energy vs. Missile offensive modes?  I've heard there's code for that in the binary, but I can't remember if someone tried to activate it or not.

Title: Re: The Cutting Room Floor
Post by: BFG on March 06, 2019, 04:00:27 AM

Yep on the triad combat. Don’t know the binary status but there are of course leftover hints in alpha/x and other asset files.

I would stay away from the XX missile btw.  Not only does it mean no prototype penalty for any missile, but it’s not possible to change the reactor type.  I plan to take it out of my game for those reasons.

Title: Re: The Cutting Room Floor
Post by: bvanevery on March 06, 2019, 04:43:38 AM

I deal with the prototype penalty problem quite a bit in my mod.  My general policy has been, give the prototype 1 tech later than when the tech appears.  Lore-wise that's dodgy in this case.  You need Advanced Spaceflight for a chemical tipped missile, but only Orbital Spaceflight for a conventional tipped one?  Well, I could live with that if it's game mechanically a good enough idea, but I'm not sure this is worthy.

I don't think providing a missile chassis prototype matters to anything.  You still have to prototype the warheads.  Just because I finish a Conventional Missile, for instance, doesn't make me capable of Planet Busters.  Or Fungal Payloads.  Or Tectonic paylods.  It's really just a matter of giving away the Conventional Payload, or a cheap substitution if that's possible.  Not sure if I can, say, put a Missile Launcher on a missile, give it Nerve Gas Pods, and call it good.  I'm not going to give away a strength 12 or 18 prototype to fake a different warhead than Conventional.