SMAC Fac Pack

[Friendly Sven]

Finally, I had a feeling that this would be alive somewhere. I had seen fragments such as that cartel logo being posted on some other forum years ago.

I stumbled across an old .zip of this pack about a month ago. Since then, I've been bodging it together for my own amusement. The tribals seemed like an interesting way to play --that's what got me invested. I wanted the factions to have unique art, so I took best-fists from buster's website.

Those original best-fits were as follows: (Again, all from buster's website)
Anarchists - "New Spartans" --way too communist/statist looking
Cartel - "Morgan Franchise" --it mostly works but I think it needs to feel more libertarian
Catholics - "Male Believer" --A bit too protestant looking, good otherwise. The bishop is from the congo, so the leader pic is somewhat inappropriate
Loyalists - "United nations"/"Alternate peacekeepers" --Fitting enough, but du lac is supposedly female. Minor coloring issues.
Preservers - "Academy" -- Good enough.
Tribals - "Chr'cht" -- Bases were a good start, but too same-y. Obviously the whole insectoid thing isn't appropriate.
Unicorp - "United Workers" -- Fitting, but the leader doesn't look very Korean.

This, particularly the tribals, was distracting to me. So I set about doing my own work to mix and match with what was available. Luckily I knew enough gimp that I could easily work off of buster's tutorials to work around the major pitfalls. That said, I'm no artist --I have basically zero experience producing sprites of this quality. However, I am skilled in the art of bodging and kitbashing.

My goal is to make all the factions visually unique unique from those of the original and the expansion. I've been toying with ideas, but only the tribals are anywhere near complete. I've also worked on the anarchists (Whose bases are a visual hodge-podge of other factions) and the preservers (Combining the high technology of the university with the civility of the peacekeepers --literally).

I also grabbed a few leader profiles from the internet and processed them (paletteswap and scanlines by buster's methods) for the Catholics and the loyalists.

I'll attach some screenshots to do it justice. Remember that these are all WIP.

[nweismuller]

The Catholic leader is actually Italian, despite having been Archbishop of the Congo- he was involved in missionary work to Africa during his earlier career.  I almost have the new backstory file ready- I have one sentence about the Preservers that Adam wants to be tinkered with, and I need further feedback from him- and am going to do a pass on blurbs.txt, some of the faction files, and techlongs.txt.  Friendly Sven, as you make progress, I'd certainly appreciate what you're able to do for faction art files.  Please note palette.pcx in the current download for SMACFacPack in this thread- you can see the faction colors there (in order- mindworm red, Unicorp gold, Preserver cyan, Tribal drab green, Cartel slate blue, Loyalist white, Catholic deep red, Anarchist dark purple).

Edit: if you saw the Cartel logo on another forum years ago, I'm guessing that means you read my SMAC Let's Play on Something Awful.  That was a very enjoyable project, heh.  And one where I got very used to perpetual golden ages in my settlements.

[Friendly Sven]

D'aww, I really liked that picture. Maybe a recoloring could save it.

I'll look into the faction colors you have set up. I was experimenting with them myself but it was starting to get tedious.
I'll upload faction files as they are completed. Layering can really save time but I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Any stylistic ideas/concerns are welcome of course. I'll be certain to dig into the lore once it's ready.

My first and only play-through with the mod is in SMACX, but I'll provide my own two cents once I get to experiment with these new technologies and civics.

if you saw the Cartel logo on another forum years ago, I'm guessing that means you read my SMAC Let's Play on Something Awful.  That was a very enjoyable project, heh.  And one where I got very used to perpetual golden ages in my settlements.

Yeah, I think that was it! I actually bookmarked it because i was so desperate to get in touch:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3695372&pagenumber=19
Truthfully, I was mostly skimming to find who posted that logo. Perhaps this could overshadow another thread god-knows-where in which the posters made propaganda for their factions as they played against each other. Probably the highest-effort SMAC I've ever seen.

[nweismuller]

You should have reached out to me when you found I posted that, if you were interested.  I don't recall hearing from you then and certainly would have been glad to hear there was still interest.  Still, very glad to hear you're working on this, and, depending on how what you do turns out, I might end up incorporating your work formally into the mod and crediting you.  How do you mean 'perhaps this could overshadow' that thread?

Edit: Oh, looking at what you have so far, bear in mind the Anarchist leader is a woman and the Tribal leader is a man.  If there's a picture where the leader is actually wearing a pressure mask, that might be ideal for the Tribals, given their lifestyle.

[Friendly Sven]

To be honest, I'm a chronic lurker and have little experience with forums like this. I wasn't going to pay for an account to contact you and I was too stupid to consider an attached email address. Either way, that hurdle has been overcome, so there's no need to fuss about it.

I'd be happy for my work to be used in the mod. Proper credit/thanks should also be given to Buster's Uncle since I'm cannibalizing his work and utilizing his tutorials.
I'm going to try working on this every few days, but school could interrupt that. 

How do you mean 'perhaps this could overshadow' that thread?

I was basically hinting that I'd read it in hopes that I'd enjoy it as much as that other thread I mentioned.

[nweismuller]

Well, please let me know what you think once you've gotten a chance to read more of the LP, and feel free to ask me any questions about the mod you might find useful.  I'll endeavor to answer as best I may, although my full memory of decisions that were made is no longer intact.

[Friendly Sven]

Edit: Oh, looking at what you have so far, bear in mind the Anarchist leader is a woman and the Tribal leader is a man.  If there's a picture where the leader is actually wearing a pressure mask, that might be ideal for the Tribals, given their lifestyle.

Oh, Interesting. The Anarchists have a masculine faction gender and a feminine leader gender. I didn't even realize that distinction existed. 

Yeah I was pretty certain that Joseph is a male, the pic was the closest thing I could find when I was working on the tribals. I can't exactly kitbash a leader profile, so those are towards the bottom of my priority list unless I can find a good picture to port over. The lack of a face mask is a good catch though. Perhaps the tribals are so backwards that they don't send a video feed, and you just get an old file photo recovered from the Unity?

Also I read some of the tech quotes. I like that you've actually developed the assistant characters (i.e. Crazy Zack of the Anarchists) by giving them a chance to speak, definitely a missed opportunity in the base game.

[nweismuller]

Yeah, part of what I wanted to do was to provide multiple perspectives on each faction.  Zack Hoffman and Father Jeromy Aquinas both get prominent places, Mikaela Ellton exposes a bit about both the Tribals and the Preservers by her existence, Argyle Media interviewing multiple people implicitly indicates the position of Argyle Media in the Cartel in the setting, there's a number of internal reports not directly from factional leaders, and so on.

There's also a few other interesting things amidst the blurbs- larger patterns over multiple blurbs.  f you read closely, there's multiple quotes that imply the 'canon' story of SMACFacPack involved repeated efforts by Unicorp and the Mission Loyalists to steal Cartel technology.  There's the implicit story of Cardinal Julius growing increasingly cranky with developments on Chiron over time, as you see the trajectory from "Stellae Cognitae" to "De Homis Naturalis" to "Dies Irae".  Likewise you can deduce that Director Weismuller first did "Address to the First Investors", then "Self-Order on Chiron" relatively early in the game, but after things are slightly more established, and wrote "New Technologies and New Horizons" in the late game.  Other patterns can be deduced.

[Friendly Sven]

Here's a few attempts at anarchist seabases. All very rough. I particularly like the whole "submersible colony pod" thing. Most seabase designs seem to forget that they are at sea.

Also, I attempted some unlicensed skin therapy to save my favorite bishop. Judge the results for yourself.

[MysticWind]

D'aww, I really liked that picture. Maybe a recoloring could save it.

If I ever get my Second Ship concept faction set off the ground, I think that'd be a great pic for Fra. Pierre Mputu Kasala of the Parish of Planet. They're a more moderate, Global South-focused Catholic faction.

[nweismuller]

All right, the new backstory file is complete.  I'd appreciate people taking a look and commenting.  MysticWind, it's the same as the last version I showed you, save for one sentence in the paragraph focusing on the Preservers.  This should help provide some context for the factions, at least, and be more reliable than the old 'raw backstory'.

[nweismuller]

Any comments on that background file?  And how's that image editing coming along?

[Friendly Sven]

Any comments on that background file?  And how's that image editing coming along?

I read it the day you uploaded it and forgot to say anything. It's a decent read;  the way you pivoted from the situation on the unity to the early years was very smooth.

I've been moving along bit by bit. Every faction has a fresh file with at least some elements filled in to some capacity. I'm slowly getting better at recoloring which has been useful in making the preserver bases look less cheap.

I've also started work on new faction emblems. I've spent some time trying to do the original cartel logo justice, but black text doesn't look very nice on black screens. I've also been toying with ideas for the UN and the Holy See. Any logo ideas would be appreciated.

Finally, to everyone who reads this: do your sea mines look different from those of the GOG version? (NOT a tower with a purple-ish roof?) If so, I'd like to have a copy of your "ter1.pcx" file for kit-bashing. I've found images of it online but they're a tad noisy and I'd like to use the best I can find.

[nweismuller]

Sorry it took me a bit to respond, was out of town and away from computer.  So, I like the sword over the Peacekeeper logo for the Loyalists, that works nicely.  For the Anarchists, let me upload a concept image, not well-executed but enough to communicate the basic idea.  Stick an upraised fist in the middle of those four purple slices of a circle on a black field, and that's what I'm thinking of.  Catholics, some sort of cross imagery on a red field; all of these logos should probably incorporate the factional colors.  Preservers, I'm thinking of an open book with the abstract globe image on the two facing pages- preserving information, that is Terra.  Tribals and Unicorp I'm still thinking about; anybody have any ideas?

Changing the black text to be the blue on black for that image would be fine, I think, for the Cartel.

[DrazharLn]

Maybe it's intended and you're riffing off "anarchist" anarchist groups, but I think it's quite strange that their leader uses an aristocratic title.