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[Sowelu]

Nice to see others who hate the expansion.

Yes, this is the best 4X game ever, and it's so /flavorful/!

[freeformschooler]

Okay, how come it seems like certain factions can sometimes control mindworms? I was about to attack one but then it said that would be breaking a peace treaty.

I wanna be able to do that.

Also good advice, Glyph. I'll keep that in mind.

[Myroc]

If you have a Planet Rating greater than 0, you have a 25% chance of capturing a mind worm upon attacking it for each point above 0. The Gaian faction starts with a +2 planet rating, so they're most likely going to accumulate one or two mind worms of their own in the beginning of the game.

[Vattic]

I decided that for £3.75 it was worth the risk and bought the game. I've got to say I'm more than a little confused by the interface. So many buttons/options it reminds me of certain 3D modelling software.

There are three things I'd like to know about:
1) In my current game I'm trapped on a peninsula by a friendly neighbour so to expand I need to be able to transport by boat or air or alternatively attack this guy. Any tips to achieving those goals?
2) I've been planting forests around my first base but when I open my base's screen they don't have resource numbers by them and don't seem to contribute at all. Do I need to do something else to harvest the resources?
3) When I move certain units beyond their single turn range it seems to end the current turn even if there are still other units to move. Can I force it to let me click a "End Turn" button or similar?

[Niveras]

1) I'd say the best goal is to simply conquer them if you can. I tend to ignore water strategies in my Civ games because they require branching off the usual tech tree to get into it, and it can be quite an investment in the early game. That said, Alpha Centauri's oceans are more valuable than in other Civs, mainly because you can eventually settle ocean cities, build improvements in them, and even terraform them.

2) Colony tiles have to be worked by citizens. You can only work as many tiles as the colony has citizens (less one, I think, which is always working the central tile, but I forget if that's true in AC or just other Civs), less whatever specialists and drones the colony has. So if you have a size 3 colony, one is working the central colony tile, and the other two are working two other tiles. Terraforming or improving other tiles won't affect the colony's output until a citizen starts working that tile. Left to itself, the colony will usually manage the tiles on its own (choosing to work the most productive tiles in terms of nutrition, then minerals/energy) and also manage drones/specialists, but you can force it to work a specific tile by clicking a tile in the colony map-screen-interface-thing (I forget the exact place).

3) There should be an option somewhere for that, but I have not played AC in a couple years.

[beorn080]

A tip the verges on abuse. Get secret project the weather control project asap, and then research supply crawlers. Send a couple of formers to dig thermal boreholes and send supply crawlers from one specific base to them. Have them convoy minerals back to the base, then have that base spam every other project. Just don't dig too many like I did one game, cause it causes massive global warming, which can work if you make sure all your bases have pressure domes.

[GlyphGryph]

Expanding to boats is actually pretty quick and easy, and see travel is actually more efficient than land travel most of the time (and the oceans can be pretty abundant) so sea strategies can end up pretty good, you might want to consider going that route. To get boats, you need Doctrine: Mobility -> Doctrine: Flexibility.

2) Forests aren't actually that great to start out, until you have the tech to take advantage of them. You are probably better off building farms and solar collectors for now, but remember that until you research certain techs there a max limit to the amount of any given resource you can get from a square.

3) I've never experienced this, actually, auto-end only triggers when you have no more units left with actions, it should just set the unit to move on its next turn (and you can even turn off that in setting, which I usually do)

[ZebioLizard2]

But the expansion is terrible and you really should only consider it if you've exhausted the real game and want a bit more.

Why's the expansion so bad? I found it helped increase the difficulty a bit due to the new mindworm units.

[Christes]

I also like the expansion because the Hunter-Seeker algorithm is no longer overpowered.  The alien factions feel kindastrange though.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

It would be the new factions. They don't really add much.
The Free Drones are interesting and quite good to play. The Pirates and the Alien factors are all horribly broken though.

The storyline doesn't really hold a candle to the orginal which I can kinda understand, the orginal was brillant!
The added xenofungus units just piss me off though.
Get distracted from an area for too long and you'll see a spore lunacher bastard has destroyed all your roads/mines/units without you even noticing.

They should of tried to flesh the new factions out a bit more instead of retreading old ground.
Just some poorly thought up ideas off the top of my head:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A "two leader" faction that could switch between a war time/peace time government at will with no civil war.

An anarchist/punk/Madmax inspired bandit faction. Attacking enemy units allow you to "chop shop" them giving you bonus energy. Capture enemy vehicles at higher tech levels. Slavery, lawless, slow science etc.

Nomadic Mongol/Golden Horde inspired faction. Always moving to confuse the enemy (and allies!). Cheap overwhelming units, slow science.

See how these would be slightly more interesting than another planet loving faction?

[Myroc]

Cheap overwhelming units, slow science.

You mean Human Hive?

>_>

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Human Hive weren't nomadic though. The whole nomadic thing would be their gimmick.
Started in a crappy spot? Rock on.
Started next to the Spartians? Rock on.
Pirates taking over your territory with their sea base exploit? Rock on.

It could be kinda neat really. Have the coloney pods able to "mine" resources like cities do (on a much more smaller scale) and you could have these big long caravans rollin' through the xenofungus looking for a place to build or just finding a weak spot in your defenses.

They would dominate starting game but would fall behind later due to the expansion of the other civs  (gimmick gets neutralised) and their slow rate of science.

Of course it was a 10 second idea which chances are, would not translate well into the game.

[Vattic]

Thanks for the advice. I had to stop playing but I'll be at it again in a bit.

Apparently the GoG version has all the official patches installed but there is an unofficial one. Does anyone know if it's worth installing?

[Catastrophic lolcats]

I believed you're talking about scient's fanpatch? I think there was more than one but he's is the most complete. 
It's mostly bug and exploit fixes which are always good to have patched up.

The readme and features

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Introduction

This is a comprehensive set of fixes to bugs, crashes, and exploits found in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) and Alien Crossfire (SMAX). The primary goal of this project is to try and fix all the bugs left after the official patches. Also, a secondary objective is to expand the games features without modifying the existing mechanics to give modders more freedom.

Feel free to share this with your friends. I only ask that this readme is included. Currently the unofficial patch is only hosted on CGN forums and WPC forums. If you're interested in hosting it somewhere else I'd appreciate it if you contacted me first.

I juggle working on this unofficial patch project along with another one for the classic isometric RPG Planescape: Torment (shameless plug). So while I may not release any updates for periods of time this project is not dead. I'm just very busy with multiple commitments. If you're interested in helping out in any capacity such as testing or bug fixing please contact me. Also, I'm looking for anyone who can put me in touch with people who have worked on the development of either SMAC or SMAX.

I would like to state that I have no problem with other modders building off of my work under two conditions. If you'd like to use this patch as a starting point for your own project then contact me first as well as give credit to me and those credited below.

I encourage you to report any bugs/crashes/exploits or just ideas on CGN forums which has become the primary home of this project. You can also contact me on WPC, Apolyton, CFC or SHS forums.

Installation

    Install the game.
    Next install official patches:

            [If you own the Planetary pack or Laptop pack] Install the SMAC Win 2000/XP Update.
            [If you own SMAX] Install, in this order, the Alien Crossfire v2.0 update then the SMAC Win 2000/XP Update.
            [If you don't own SMAX] Install, in this order, the SMAC v4.0 Update then the SMAC Win 2000/XP Update.

    Next install unofficial patch: Back up the original .exe files from your installation directory then copy over ones from unofficial patch archive. Note, the steps below are written as if you have both SMAC and SMAX installed. If you only have one game installed, you would only follow steps for that games .exe. For example, you don't need the SMAX exe if you only have SMAC installed.
        Download the unofficial patch .7z file and extract the contents to a new folder. You can do this using 7-Zip or WinRAR.
        Find the original .exe files from your installation directory. You can check where these are located by right clicking your shortcuts to the game and viewing properties.
        Browse MY COMPUTER or COMPUTER to the path shown in the shortcuts.
        Find the 2 following .exe files named: terran.exe (SMAC) and terranx.exe (SMAX).
        With each of these .exe files right click and rename them by adding ORIGINAL after the .exe. Your 2 .exe files should say: terran.exeORIGINAL and terranx.exeORIGINAL when step #5 is completed.
        Browse to the folder you created in step #1 and right click both files and CUT.
        Return to the path or folder/file location you used in step #5. Right click anywhere in the unused white space of the window where other files are located and PASTE.
        Done!
    Optional modifications:

            [If you use scenario editor (ie. cheat mode)] Apply fix in non-engine patches section. The reason the files aren't included prepatched is because many people have modified versions of them. This fix is primarily geared toward modders.
            [If you've set ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm entry in "Alpha Centauri.ini" to 1] Either delete the entire entry or set it back to 0. The unofficial patch should fix the crash associated with it being set to 0. This is recommended because it should give you a performance boost, see fixes section for more details. However, if you still experience the crash then set it back to 1.
            [If you own Planetary/Laptop pack or SMAX] GooglyBoogly has done a great job revising and updating SMAX's Datalinks. See link for more details.


Engine Fixes

    [CRASH][SMAX] If you open up Design Workshop as Caretakers/Usurpers and switching back and forth between colony pod and other "equipment" you can cause text in "special ability" to become overwritten and crash once you exit Design Workshop. Patch increases memory allocation used to manipulate the caviar animation files (cvr) and may fix other buffer related problems other than the one noted. (credit to WBird784 for original patch)
    [CRASH] It is possible usually on larger maps that scrambling air interceptors would cause the game to crash. Even when the game didn't crash incorrect altitude values were being used in checks. Both of these have been fixed.
    [CRASH] When moving units near or at the poles, it is possible for y coord to exceed the map bounds and crash the game. Patch adds handling to prevent y coord from going over min/max.
    [CRASH/MISC] Removed and optimized out a number of CPU checks which serve no purpose unless you're using a 15 year old computer. In some cases, these checks actually prevent the game from starting on newer CPU's causing them to exit out or crash. Because of these changes, you now shouldn't need to set ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm to 1. It is recommend that if you've already set it to 1 to either change it back to 0 or delete the entry entirely causing the game to automatically reset it to 0 on launch. Doing so may improve performance since setting ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm to 0 enables SMAC/SMAX to use your CPU's MMX capabilities for voxel algorithm.
    [BUG][SMAX] Transport unit's special ability "Repair Bay" is rendered useless due to an incorrect check that would only give the healing bonus to ground transports. Now, it will give bonus to all ground units except ground transports.
    [BUG][SMAX] Enhanced probes (Algorithmic Enhancement) are now able to mind control bases/units normally immune due to high SE morale as stated in SMAX manual. For units it's purely the morale SE value so >=3 acts as if it were 2 (cost doubled). For bases, the value is calculated from morale SE and any base facility modifiers (Covert Ops: +2, Genejack: -1). If final value is >=3, it acts as if it were 2.
    [BUG][SMAX] While loading the ambient sound file for game, there is a mistake in faction id check for Believers causing it to use SMAX default of "aset1.amb". Patch fixes check so Believers will now use their correct ambient sound file "bset1.amb".
    [BUG][SMAX] Enhanced probes don't receive a penalty to survival probability when target faction has built Hunter-Seeker Algorithm. Instead, the success probability is erroneously given the penalty for a second time after it has already been displayed in UI. This could cause diminished success rate when it should have been higher. Patch corrects check so survival rather than success probability is modified.
    [BUG][SMAX] Sealurk units now do not get a penalty when moving onto Sea Fungus like Isle of Deep.
    [BUG] If a faction's cumulative PROBE value is greater than 3 (SE morale, covert ops center) it is possible to "mind control" their bases when they should be immune. If the University uses SE Knowledge putting PROBE value down to -4, it would act as if it were 0 erroneously increasing "mind control" costs. After patch, PROBE values greater than 3 will always be immune to regular probes and values less than -2 will be treated as if they were -2.
    [BUG] Fixed a check that was ending the turn for certain air units (choppers/missiles/grav) when entering a base which had no adjacent enemy units. There is still a check which will end the unit's turn if when entering a base it has less then one turn remaining unless an enemy is adjacent to base.
    [BUG] Using "Go to home base" (shift-g) command sends the unit to closest base rather than it's actual home. Patch retrieves unit's home base and sets a "go to" waypoint similar to how a unit is recalled from within base UI. If a home base cannot be found (independent) the unit will go to the nearest base.
    [BUG/EXPLOIT] Setting more than one patrol waypoint with spacebar causes the values to be stored incorrectly. If only two waypoints are set then it is just a display issue showing an incorrect amount of waypoints when clicking on unit. If three waypoints are set, it causes the unit's morale to be set as one of coordinates usually boosting it to demon boil / elite status. Also, with three waypoints the final waypoint gets set to some far off random location usually (0,0) breaking three point patrol completely.
    [EXPLOIT] Using the right click menu to airdrop calls the "move to" code directly and bypasses all the checks such as if unit is in airbase/base or has already moved. Since the airdrop hotkey "i" correctly checks these restrictions, the patch makes the right click menu use the hotkey checks before directly moving the unit.
    [EXPLOIT] Inside base UI, after opening up the production queue window it is possible to then open the hurry command window, switch between bases and complete projects for less then their actual value. Patch fixes a clean up issue with queue panel preventing certain parts of UI from becoming clickable when they shouldn't.
    [EXPLOIT] When clicking on an unexplored tile, the map recenters on that square. However, if the tile contains a base the map doesn't recenter. Patch fixes it so when an unexplored tile with a base is clicked, the game will recenter like the rest of the tiles.
    [EXPLOIT] It is possible to change another faction's workers via Base Ops (F4) if you have that faction infiltrated. Patch fixes it so clicking citizens of another faction in Base Ops has no effect similar to garrisoned units.
    [EXPLOIT] It is possible to give airdrop or artillery ability to an unit who didn't have it. This is done by using hotkey (I or F) on an unit that has the ability then switching units in bottom center window. The mouse cursor would still have airdrop/artillery up and it is then possible to use it with the new unit bypassing all the checks if unit can use ability. Patch resets the cursor when clicking unit selection window.
    [MOD] Squares with both a borehole and nutrient bonus don't receive the nutrient bonus. If the "Borehole Square" nutrient value defined in #RESOURCEINFO (alphax.txt) is set to non-zero, a square with borehole will erroneously act as if it has a nutrient bonus. The patch fixes a check whether or not to give a borehole square a nutrient bonus from checking if borehole nutrient value is non-zero to checking if nutrient bonus is actually present in square.
    [MOD] Fixed an unit check to use the "Max artillery range" value defined in #Rules (alphax.txt) rather than a hardcoded value of 2. This fix is geared toward modders so players who use an unmodified version of alphax.txt will see no change.
    [MOD] Increasing maximum number of all units on a map from 2048 to over 2 billion (2147483647). Also, increasing value when native life stops spawning due to number of units on map from 1792 to 2147483391 (same difference of 256 between orginal values).
    [UI] Removed a check that would while displaying probe success/survival probabilities drop one if they're both the same. For example, (50%, 50%) would just be (50%). This change makes interface a little less confusing.


Non-Engine Fixes

    [BUG] Needlejet "DATA" edit window via scenario editor doesn't render properly making stats uneditable. Fixed by adding "#itemlist" to "#EDITVEH2A" inside scripts.txt/xscripts.txt.

[Sowelu]

Reasons why I don't like the expansion:
1) Pirates.  Fuck them.  Fine, so the rules let you build a sea base right near someone's coastal land base and steal all their water territory... that's lame but it never happens, except with the pirates, who do that constantly.  It's annoying.
2) What is up with all these goddamn resonance versions of armor and stuff.  It clutters up the tech tree.
3) Fungus kid plays like a bad Deirdre knockoff.  Hacker girl's bonuses were bugged (apparently that got patched), and she's super bland.  Prime Function Aki-Zeta 5 is balanced weird (she feels overpowered, unless you want to lean on democracy+planned+creche for pop boom).  Pirates, as previously stated, make the game unplayable if you don't want to put a fist through your monitor.  Free Drones are gimmicky, and when their gimmick goes off it's infuriating.  If I have drone riots, that's MY problem, okay?  It means I didn't micromanage enough because I don't care.  Having Free Drones in your game means you have to spend twice as long each turn to make sure you don't set off any riots or you might lose a city.

Yeah, I don't feel like the new techs add much (especially when the flavor text refers to progenitors that aren't in my game).  And I don't like ANY of the added factions...unless I feel like curbstomping people (playing as an alien), or maybe being Aki Zeta-5.