I'm open to suggestions on these. Right now they are basically vanilla and make little or no sense.

Let's switch the labels of the specialists (where applyable) to more down-to-earth labels. It is only logical that for instance the support people would stay in the bases to do the dirtier work. It makes sense in a way since this kind of people enable the real great people to be more profitable and come up with shiny new stuff.

So:
Engineer -> Mechanic +2 :hammers:, +2 :gp:, -1 :gold:
Artist -> Medic +2 :health:, +2 :gp:, -1 :gold:
Merchant -> Programmer +1 :yuck:, +2 :gold:, +2 :gp:
Prophet -> Militant +2 :), -1 :food: +2 :gp:
Scientist -> Lector +2 :science: -1 :hammers: +2 :gp:

And for the Great Ones:


Great Engineer -> Engineer (Can finish production in a city in one sweep when burning up. Upon settling, grants +2 :hammers: and +2 :gp: )
Great Artist -> Surgeon (+3 :health: and +1 :) in the city the unit settles in + permanent double healing rate for infantry units inthere. Can also found a Research Hospital-type facility increasing :science: output by 50%)
Great Merchant -> Hacker (Invisible unit. Can steal a tech in every foreign base with a Network Core/Junction when burned up in this city. Second ability might be to infiltrate a faction's network on a permanent basis. No settling, too destructive a "profession". ;) )
Great Prophet -> Celebrity (Can convert whatever (foreign or intern) city to its "state" ideology when burned up in this city, so essentially a missionary. And can found a globe theatre-type facility. No settling, Celebrities are too often short-lived. ;) )
Great Scientist -> Genius (founds a university-type facility (+50% :science: output) or discovers a tech. Perhaps +2 :gp: and +2 :science: output when settling in a city)
Since there is a simple "worker" class in the GP table, I suggest to make this a "Shrubber" or "Cleaner" and give it +1 :health: and +1 :mad: properties. Also, if we give this specialist class the ability to gain :gp:, we could have Demagogues with the ability to change ideology of all bases of its home-faction in one sweep (without revolution?), regardless of the civics. :mischief:
This last ability is in the assumption there won't be buildable missionary-style units, or only so with one specific civic.

A good starting point Geo. Thanks.

I'll code those up and see what happens.

Perhaps the + benefit should be increased by one for the specialists to make it more worthwhile. OTOH, the resulting Great Ones are so much stronger when burned that it could be worth it.

We'll see what happens in testing. It's a great starting point for debate later on.

:bump: for Garret's sake.

No, no, no, no, no .... !

What? This isn't the smac mod, you know. :p

Yes, but you said you want some specialist from me previously. I can see the moment you beg a different color or something from the SMAC specialists.

IIRC, I refered to possible leftover specialist-icons from the smac mod? Not units?
I think in general icons in this mod can be more modern-like then really futuristic, and this for the simple reason the mod starts much closer to our present age.

You know, Garret made a worker unit with a great person "burned up" animation. I reckon we could use this unit, properly equipped with a spacesuit and a unique color to show gp's ingame.