Winter Solstice 2018: The Tenth Manifold

[Buster's Uncle]

By Darsnan


In honor of Chaos Theory: RIP my old friend - you are not forgotten! I hope you look down upon this, and that it makes you smile.



In Defense of All that is Holy!
In response to Devine direction from the Protector High Priest, the Progenitor Faithful activated Manifold Ten, and then awaited word from their brethren across the cosmos and how their corresponding Manifolds had fared in their attempt to contact the Devine Creator. However days then dragged into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, and still no contact from their far-flung Progenitor brethren. Finally the Protector ordered the People into stasis, to await the day of the reawakening of the Progenitor people. The Protector himself would assume the throne of the Manifold Ten and stand guard over the people while they slept the eons away.

Protector Jaa'hroooon settled himself into the Prayer Seat located within the Great Communal Hall and sent a command to Manifold Ten to envelope the throne room in a partial stasis field. Within the bubble of slowed time Jaa'hroooon used the powers of the Manifold to project his senses out amongst the stars, searching for any sign of his People's return. Ages swept by in the blink of an eye, and as the slowed time continued to progress Jaa'hroooon watched branch after branch of the galactic arms slowly march across the sky, while individual stars dramatically flared and died, their lives spent . And still Jaa'hroooon sat upon the throne, communing with the Manifold while he patiently waited for word from his People.

And suddenly it was real-time again! Jaa'hroooon had given the Manifold orders to immediately stop the stasis if it detected an imminent threat, and it appeared that threshold had been met. Jaa'hroooon allowed his senses to be directed by the Manifold to several tiny specks of light descending through the planetoids thin atmosphere. The Manifold began correlating data and projecting images directly into Jaa'hroooon's mind, and from their descent Jaa'hroooon could tell the specks were artificial in nature. Using the Manifold's probing abilities Jaa'hroooon reached within each of the vessels to probe the minds of those that would dare intrude upon the holy ground that was Manifold Ten, and as Jaa'hroooon sifted the uncomplex minds of the heathen aliens he sensed simple, barbaric drives of greed and unfettered hatred towards his species. And Jaa'hroooon realized with a start that they knew of other Progenitors! Jaa'hroooon  looked forward to extracting knowledge from these creatures regarding the fate of his People amongst the stars, and why these primitive creatures hated Progenitor so deeply! Jaa'hroooon had sensed enough and broke contact. It was time to wake the people and prepare them for battle...

 

Objectives: destroy all of the alien (read: Human) invaders of Manifold 10! And extra special bonus points if Manifold 10 is still operational at the end of the game. :-)

 

Many thanx for wgabrie for the artwork!

 

Directions:

1. In your scenarios subdirectory create a new subdirectory called "X", and download and unzip the attached files into it.

Start Alien Crossfire, then select Scenario, Play Scenario, and load "X". The game will then let you choose the difficulty level you wish to play.

Enjoy!

D

https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=372

[Buster's Uncle]

Low-Grav alphax.txt Change Log



The way I've organized this is by the sections of the alphax.txt, so if you open the file (I use Word Pad) you can search on the key word and follow along.

#RULES
- Movement rate along roads changed from 3 to 4. Rationale: lower gravity increases movement. Also this assists the AI in that they can more quickly congregate units at threatened points in their empire.

- Max artillery range changed from 2 to 4. Rationale: lower gravity increases artillery distance. The AI will use this on occasion. Forewarned is forearmed in this case! (Note: you will need Scient's patch or better, as this does not work in the base game).

- Max airdrop decreased from 8 to 6. Rationale: flying around a battlefield is exponentially more dangerous than for planet or sea-bound military units, as drop units are exposed to a larger field of enemy units while airborne. In a low grav environment these dangers are compounded even moreso: from battle damage, malfunction, or just plain inexperience while airborne, a drop trooper can literally reach escape velocity much more easily and be lost forever in the depths of space. Thus the decision has been made to lessen the strength and duration of a drop pod's thrusters in low grav environments.

- Intrinsic base defense increased from 25 to 40. Rationale: benefits the AIs as they are typically on the defensive.

#RESOURCE INFO
- Boreholes changed to have a -2 nutrient intake. Rationale: simulates the horrid conditions workers face while slaving away in the boreholes (i.e. this "fits" with the darker theme present throughout Alpha Centauri).

#CHASSIS
- Infantry movement changed from 1 to 2, Speeder changed from 2 to 3, and Hovertanks changed from 3 to 4. Rationale: lower gravity increases movement.
- Hovertank chassis now available at Monopole Magnets. Rationale: with the decreased gravity hovertanks become available more quickly.

- Needlejets and copter chassis disabled. Rationale: the thin atmosphere of a moon or small planetoid is not dense enough to support roto nor winged aircraft.

- Missile chassis movement decreased to 8. Rationale: similar to drop pods, missiles face a greater visibility and threat matrix while flying through the air, especially with continually being confronted with the dangers that lie just over the near-horizon as the missiles transit towards their targets. Thus the decision has been made to decrease their distance, effectively telling commanders "use missiles wisely".
- Missile chassis is now available at Doctrine: Air Power. Rationale: with the decreased gravity rockets become available more quickly.

#WEAPONS
- Conventional Payload available at DocAir. Rationale: with the decreased gravity rockets become available more quickly.

- Planet Buster has been disabled. Rationale: on smaller moons or planetoids the detonation(s) of planet busters are actually significant enough to change the trajectory/ orbits of these bodies, and so are strictly prohibited from use.

#ABILITIES
- Air Superiority disabled. Rationale: not needed since there are no aircraft in this game.

- AAA Tracking: moved to DocAir. Rationale: need to start building units ASAP that can defend against missiles!

#UNITS
- Crawler has been removed from this section – you will have to prototype your first crawler yourself. Rationale: crawlers are overpowered human exploits, so this is in a small way benefiting the AIs.

- There are several new units available to build. I’d suggest reviewing them to get a feel for what you will be facing in this game. Of note are the following:

A) Missile Frigate available at DocAir

B) Drop Trooper Mk1 available at DocAir

C) Chaos Battletank available at Fusion

D) The Battle Ogre Mk3 has been replaced by a "Drop Re-entry Assault Carrier - armored" (or "DRACa Mk3"), which is a missile troop transport. Still haven't figured out where to place this, but right now I'm thinking it is going to replace the Planet Buster.

E) Seawolf Attack Submarine available at Superconductor

F) Missile Mk1 available at DocAir

G) Resonance Probe available at Field Modulation

#FACILITIES

- Virtual World moved to Social Psycholoy. Rationale: watering down the beeline to Industrial Autmation.

- Cloudbase Academy: moved to Monopole Magnets. Rationale: watering down the beeline to MMI.