Scenario Name: Children of the Sun
SMAC/ SMAX: SMAX
Author: Darsnan
Date of original posting: 7/27/09
Original host site: WePlayCiv
Children of the Sun
The huntership pursued its prey towards the ancient stargate, steadily
gaining on its wounded quarry. From his bridge Hunter Klesske viewed the
fleeing starship: it looked vaguely familiar, like some of the ancient
relics he and his people had come across from time to time, only this
one was different, somehow morphed, as if different hands had been at
work on it. And the ship was alive! Klesske’s spaceship continued its
pursuit much the same way his ancestors had hounded wounded prey through
the shallow waters of their homeworld eons ago: the scent of blood was
in the water, and the primal instincts which ran so deep in his species
had taken hold of Klesske, driving him relentlessly after his prey.
The huntership’s computer spat out the intercept coordinates, and
Klesske cursed: the preyship would make it to the nearby stargate before
he could intercept it. However that would be little consolation for
them, as Klesske’s ship was more powerful and better armed: the pursuit
would simply continue on the other side of the stargate, and he had no
doubt how it would end there.
Klesske continued to watch the preyship until it entered the stargate
nexus, and then disappeared. His ship corrected its vector so that it
would come out of the stargate on the same trajectory as its prey. While
he had a moment Klesske gave the command to prepare his boarding crews:
it wouldn’t be long now.
Klesske’s ship closed with the stargate, falling towards its center.
Being a veteran of many transits through stargates, Klesske knew what to
expect: a blinding flash of light, then a few moments of disorientation
before reappearing elsewhere in the galaxy. Klesske’s ship was close
enough to the stargate now that he could make out the ancient
hieroglyphs which pockmarked the surface of the stargate itself. What
they meant was anyone’s guess: they could be anything from a ceremonial
blessing to travelers, to a warning about the dangers of transit, to
simple graffiti. Klesske was still studying them when his ship made
transit: one moment he was studying the inner ring of the stargate, and
the next chaos! Immediately in front of his ship now lay a debris field.
Klesske’s ship, still accelerating, plowed directly into the field.
Klaxons immediately began blaring, signaling critical damage to the ship
even as it collided with more objects. And in the distance Klesske
could see the fleeing preyship: they had done this! They had counted on
Klesske plotting an intercept course upon transiting the stargate, and
had jettisoned their cargo directly into the path his ship would take.
Klesske gave the command to take evasive maneuvers, but he already knew
it was too late: there were too many objects, and his ship was
travelling way too fast to avoid them all. Klesske’s reptilian eyes
narrowed as he focused on the distant preyship: too late he realized
this was a quarry who had teeth and could fight back! And now that his
ship was mortally wounded they might now turn from the Prey into the
Hunter! Well, Klesske wasn’t finished yet: “Arm missiles”, he commanded,
even as another object struck a critical blow to his ship.
Commander Jophesus watched as the alien spaceship appeared out of the
mouth of the stargate and immediately began colliding with the debris
field he had purposely strewn for them. At the relativistic speeds the
ship was travelling compared to the debris field, each object was
imparting the force of a multi-megaton warhead: the cumulative effect it
was having on the alien ship was most gratifying to Commander Jophesus.
He continued to watch the fireballs blossom on the alien ship’s hull
until his Tactical Officer interjected himself, “Sir, multiple incoming
tracks!”
Jophesus grimaced: from his first encounter with this strange alien ship
it had been apparent the aliens had superior technology to his own
exploration vessel, and the only reason they hadn’t destroyed his ship
at the outset was that they had wanted to board his ship, for purposes
unknown. Jophesus had used this to his advantage at first, trading
damaging blows to his ship for the opportunity to flee. But the aliens
had shown uncharacteristic abilities to pursue, and with his options
narrowed Jophesus had fled through the local stargate, not knowing where
he would re-appear. Now though was the end gambit: after the ambush at
the gate, the aliens realized the tables had been turned, and were now
ensuring that neither side would survive this encounter. Jophesus
thought furiously: he had always had a knack for finding ways out of
hopeless situations, but as he eyed the multiple incoming tracks he
realized there would be no rescue from this situation. But if he
couldn’t survive, then at least maybe some of his passengers might, “Are
there any habitable worlds in this solar system?”, Jophesus asked his
science officer.
“Affirmative”, the Cyborg officer responded, “but our records indicate this system is quarantined”.
Jophesus managed a tight-lipped smile, “Do the datalinks give a reason for the quarantine?”
“Negative”, the officer responded. Jophesus had an idea why that might
be, but it was moot at this point. “Then man the escape pods, and give
the command to utilize evasive maneuvers”.
Jophesus took personal control of the ship, vectoring towards the one
habitable planet in-system. He punched up the sparse information on the
planet from the one and only reference in the datalinks:
Planet: Sunburst (so named by exploration crew who visited the solar system in MY 2445)
Primary: Class M (currently unnamed)
Population: uninhabited
Climate: temperate
Gravity: 1.3 standard
Class: habitable
Note: this solar system has been placed on quarrantine by the UN
Exploration and Colonization Commission. No, repeat no contact with this
solar system is authorized under any circumstances!
Well, it was habitable, Jophesus thought charitably, and at least it
offered a chance of survival for those who made planetfall. He returned
his attention to the present situation: the alien ship was now an orange
glowing mass, even as more fireballs erupted on its hull. The ship had
taken tremendous punishment, and yet had still seemingly retained its
integrity! However as Jophesus watched several specks departed the ship,
only these were moving much more slowly than the incoming missiles:
they were the aliens’ equivalent of escape pods. Jophesus watched as the
specks aligned themselves, then began homing on the same planet as his
own escape pods were headed. Unfortunately Jophesus thought there was
nothing he could do about this to assist those who survived planetfall.
And because of the quarantine of this solar system, then what happened
on this planet, stayed on this planet….
The first of the alien missiles reached his ship….
The first humans who survived re-entry on the planet Sunburst were
treated to the rare spectacle of watching a myriad display of
pyrotechnics in and above the atmosphere of their world: first were the
re-entry pods streaking through the upper atmosphere as other humans
made their first steps towards planetfall. Next came the random debris
which had accompanied the emergency evacuation of the escape pods.
Finally they witnessed the destruction of their mothership as it was
overwhelmed by the incoming volley of alien missiles.
And then after a brief pause the aliens began to arrive….
Directions
1) In your Scenarios subdirectory create a folder called "CotS", and download and unzip the “CotS” files into it.
2) Start up SMAX, then select "Scenario", "Play Scenario", and then go
to the subdirectory "CotS" and choose the scenario. You will be given
the option on which faction to play, and you may choose any of the
following:
Research Institute
Cyborg Intellect
Fleet (modified Pirates)
Emptathi (aquatized Cult)
Note that if you want to utilize the modified faction graphics, then you
will need to back up your Caretaker, Usurper, Cyborg, and Cult pcx
files, then download and unzip the CotS_factions zip into your main
Alpha Centauri subdirectory.
Special thanks to skreeblios and the Network Node for the faction.pcx files I used in this scenario!
Changelog
The alphax.txt file for this game has been heavily modified, with some of the more notable modifications as follows:
#RULES
- Artillery Numerator/ Denominator is at 15/7: with arty, it is much better to give than receive!
- Max artillery range is set to 3. Note that if you aren’t using
scient’s patch, that only the AI will be able to bombard from 3 tiles
away).
- Max airdrop = 6 tiles.
- Base defense has been increased to 40%: since the AI is typically on the defensive, then this will assist the AI moreso.
- 10% penalty for attacking from a lower elevation.
- Max arty damage inflicted on units in base/ bunker: 60
- Global Warming has been changed from 1,1 to 1,2: this effectively
halves global warming, the reason for this is that the AIs typically do
poorly in response to the effects of global warming.
- Size of base for Subspace Generator: 8. This, combined with several
other changes, should hopefully bring this facet of the game into play.
#TERRAIN
- Plant xenoflora has no prerequisite: this change was made specifically for the Autochthone alien faction.
- Raise/ Lower Land changed to 20 turns, and now available at Ecological Engineering 2.
#RESOURCE INFO
- Ocean squares now give a 1,1,1: rationale for this is that the AIs
typically do a poor job of base placement. By having ocean squares
produce a 1/1/1, this then helps compensate the AIs for this. This
change also makes aquatic factions much more viable.
- Bonus squares now give 3/3/3.
- Monoliths give 2/3/2.
- Borehole squares give a -2 nutrients (note that if you are not using
scient’s patch to the terranx.exe file you won’t see this effect).
#WORLDBUILDER
Based on smacksim’s work, the worldbuilder has been modified to produce
long stringy continents with lots of isthmus. These modifications in
general are to the AIs advantage, as it artificially groups the AIs
units together, giving a semblance of a power rush of units.
#TECHNOLOGY
There are several tweaks here to the tech tree. Please consult your datalinks when considering your beeline strategies.
#CHASSIS
- Needlejet and copters now move 6 squares: since the AIs generally
don’t handle units based on these chassis well, then this is to the AIs
advantage.
- Gravships move 5 squares, and are now available with Monopole Magnets.
These changes are twofold: first, by bringing the gravship chassis to a
tech adjacent MMI, this then makes Monopole Magnets more of a viable
research branch (as opposed to the typical beeline for MMI). Second, the
gravship movement has been reduced to 5 squares: this makes the unit
competitively viable at this point in the tech tree (i.e. its not
overpowering).
- Hovertankchassis has been moved to Fusion: here again by bringing the
hovertank chassis to a tech opposite MMI, this then presents another
viable research option.
#WEAPONS
- From Fusion weapons on out, weapon values have been reduced. See the
datalinks for exact values. This idea originated with Maniac, and the
idea is to make the weapons-to-armor ratio more balanced.
#DEFENSES
- beginning with Pulse 3 armor/ Resonance armor, the defensive values
have been increased by one, and some of the costs for specific armor
types have been reduced. See datalinks for specifics. Here again, this
idea originated with Maniac.
#ABILITIES
- Deep Pressure Hull moved to Superconductor: AIs don’t design any units
with this, but they will build pre-designed subs, which are a PIA to
deal with!
- Empath Song replaced by Nannite Accelerant: all facets of Alpha Centauri/ Planet have been removed from this mod.
- Hypnotic Trance replaced by Nannite Shield.
- Heavy Artillery costs zero, and is not allowed on fast moving units.
- Clean Reactors cost zero.
-
#UNITS
- There are 42 units spread throughout the tech tree. For the most part
these units have been vetted. The other reason for so many is that it
pears back the number of poor designs the AI builds (although it still
tries to screw the pooch on occasion with crap units). Some of the units
are as follows:
- Several gravship and hovertank designs: part of this is to act as a
counter to the human's use of AC and choppers. The AI builds aircraft
but doesn't handle them very well (although I have gotten to employ them
slightly better in this scenario), however they do a better job with
gravships and hovertanks.
- Aircraft carriers, Probe ships, and subs.
- You will now have to prototype your first crawler.
- All NL units replaced with Sentinel units.
#FACILITIES
- Headquarters now give +3 EC’s/ turn, Thermocline Transducer gives +1
EC/ turn. This from an idea introduced to me by Impaler [WRG].
- Geosynchronous Survey Pod and Flechette Defense: available with DocAir. Both cost 8 rows.
- Nessus Mining Station available with Doc:Air.
- Empath Guild: moved to Eudomania
- Virtual World: moved to Social Psych. Trying to water down the beeline to Industrial Auto.
- Cloudbase Academy: moved to Monopole Magnets. Because of the CBA's
worth (i.e. free aerospace complex in each city), then this, along with
the gravship chassis at Monopole Magnets, now makes for an interesting
choice: does the player beeline for MMI and choppers, or does the player
now beeline for Monopole Magnets?
- There are other changes to the overall system, but the above are the most notable IMO
Enjoy!
D
SMAC/ SMAX: SMAX
Author: Darsnan
Date of original posting: 7/27/09
Original host site: WePlayCiv
Children of the Sun
The huntership pursued its prey towards the ancient stargate, steadily
gaining on its wounded quarry. From his bridge Hunter Klesske viewed the
fleeing starship: it looked vaguely familiar, like some of the ancient
relics he and his people had come across from time to time, only this
one was different, somehow morphed, as if different hands had been at
work on it. And the ship was alive! Klesske’s spaceship continued its
pursuit much the same way his ancestors had hounded wounded prey through
the shallow waters of their homeworld eons ago: the scent of blood was
in the water, and the primal instincts which ran so deep in his species
had taken hold of Klesske, driving him relentlessly after his prey.
The huntership’s computer spat out the intercept coordinates, and
Klesske cursed: the preyship would make it to the nearby stargate before
he could intercept it. However that would be little consolation for
them, as Klesske’s ship was more powerful and better armed: the pursuit
would simply continue on the other side of the stargate, and he had no
doubt how it would end there.
Klesske continued to watch the preyship until it entered the stargate
nexus, and then disappeared. His ship corrected its vector so that it
would come out of the stargate on the same trajectory as its prey. While
he had a moment Klesske gave the command to prepare his boarding crews:
it wouldn’t be long now.
Klesske’s ship closed with the stargate, falling towards its center.
Being a veteran of many transits through stargates, Klesske knew what to
expect: a blinding flash of light, then a few moments of disorientation
before reappearing elsewhere in the galaxy. Klesske’s ship was close
enough to the stargate now that he could make out the ancient
hieroglyphs which pockmarked the surface of the stargate itself. What
they meant was anyone’s guess: they could be anything from a ceremonial
blessing to travelers, to a warning about the dangers of transit, to
simple graffiti. Klesske was still studying them when his ship made
transit: one moment he was studying the inner ring of the stargate, and
the next chaos! Immediately in front of his ship now lay a debris field.
Klesske’s ship, still accelerating, plowed directly into the field.
Klaxons immediately began blaring, signaling critical damage to the ship
even as it collided with more objects. And in the distance Klesske
could see the fleeing preyship: they had done this! They had counted on
Klesske plotting an intercept course upon transiting the stargate, and
had jettisoned their cargo directly into the path his ship would take.
Klesske gave the command to take evasive maneuvers, but he already knew
it was too late: there were too many objects, and his ship was
travelling way too fast to avoid them all. Klesske’s reptilian eyes
narrowed as he focused on the distant preyship: too late he realized
this was a quarry who had teeth and could fight back! And now that his
ship was mortally wounded they might now turn from the Prey into the
Hunter! Well, Klesske wasn’t finished yet: “Arm missiles”, he commanded,
even as another object struck a critical blow to his ship.
Commander Jophesus watched as the alien spaceship appeared out of the
mouth of the stargate and immediately began colliding with the debris
field he had purposely strewn for them. At the relativistic speeds the
ship was travelling compared to the debris field, each object was
imparting the force of a multi-megaton warhead: the cumulative effect it
was having on the alien ship was most gratifying to Commander Jophesus.
He continued to watch the fireballs blossom on the alien ship’s hull
until his Tactical Officer interjected himself, “Sir, multiple incoming
tracks!”
Jophesus grimaced: from his first encounter with this strange alien ship
it had been apparent the aliens had superior technology to his own
exploration vessel, and the only reason they hadn’t destroyed his ship
at the outset was that they had wanted to board his ship, for purposes
unknown. Jophesus had used this to his advantage at first, trading
damaging blows to his ship for the opportunity to flee. But the aliens
had shown uncharacteristic abilities to pursue, and with his options
narrowed Jophesus had fled through the local stargate, not knowing where
he would re-appear. Now though was the end gambit: after the ambush at
the gate, the aliens realized the tables had been turned, and were now
ensuring that neither side would survive this encounter. Jophesus
thought furiously: he had always had a knack for finding ways out of
hopeless situations, but as he eyed the multiple incoming tracks he
realized there would be no rescue from this situation. But if he
couldn’t survive, then at least maybe some of his passengers might, “Are
there any habitable worlds in this solar system?”, Jophesus asked his
science officer.
“Affirmative”, the Cyborg officer responded, “but our records indicate this system is quarantined”.
Jophesus managed a tight-lipped smile, “Do the datalinks give a reason for the quarantine?”
“Negative”, the officer responded. Jophesus had an idea why that might
be, but it was moot at this point. “Then man the escape pods, and give
the command to utilize evasive maneuvers”.
Jophesus took personal control of the ship, vectoring towards the one
habitable planet in-system. He punched up the sparse information on the
planet from the one and only reference in the datalinks:
Planet: Sunburst (so named by exploration crew who visited the solar system in MY 2445)
Primary: Class M (currently unnamed)
Population: uninhabited
Climate: temperate
Gravity: 1.3 standard
Class: habitable
Note: this solar system has been placed on quarrantine by the UN
Exploration and Colonization Commission. No, repeat no contact with this
solar system is authorized under any circumstances!
Well, it was habitable, Jophesus thought charitably, and at least it
offered a chance of survival for those who made planetfall. He returned
his attention to the present situation: the alien ship was now an orange
glowing mass, even as more fireballs erupted on its hull. The ship had
taken tremendous punishment, and yet had still seemingly retained its
integrity! However as Jophesus watched several specks departed the ship,
only these were moving much more slowly than the incoming missiles:
they were the aliens’ equivalent of escape pods. Jophesus watched as the
specks aligned themselves, then began homing on the same planet as his
own escape pods were headed. Unfortunately Jophesus thought there was
nothing he could do about this to assist those who survived planetfall.
And because of the quarantine of this solar system, then what happened
on this planet, stayed on this planet….
The first of the alien missiles reached his ship….
The first humans who survived re-entry on the planet Sunburst were
treated to the rare spectacle of watching a myriad display of
pyrotechnics in and above the atmosphere of their world: first were the
re-entry pods streaking through the upper atmosphere as other humans
made their first steps towards planetfall. Next came the random debris
which had accompanied the emergency evacuation of the escape pods.
Finally they witnessed the destruction of their mothership as it was
overwhelmed by the incoming volley of alien missiles.
And then after a brief pause the aliens began to arrive….
Directions
1) In your Scenarios subdirectory create a folder called "CotS", and download and unzip the “CotS” files into it.
2) Start up SMAX, then select "Scenario", "Play Scenario", and then go
to the subdirectory "CotS" and choose the scenario. You will be given
the option on which faction to play, and you may choose any of the
following:
Research Institute
Cyborg Intellect
Fleet (modified Pirates)
Emptathi (aquatized Cult)
Note that if you want to utilize the modified faction graphics, then you
will need to back up your Caretaker, Usurper, Cyborg, and Cult pcx
files, then download and unzip the CotS_factions zip into your main
Alpha Centauri subdirectory.
Special thanks to skreeblios and the Network Node for the faction.pcx files I used in this scenario!
Changelog
The alphax.txt file for this game has been heavily modified, with some of the more notable modifications as follows:
#RULES
- Artillery Numerator/ Denominator is at 15/7: with arty, it is much better to give than receive!
- Max artillery range is set to 3. Note that if you aren’t using
scient’s patch, that only the AI will be able to bombard from 3 tiles
away).
- Max airdrop = 6 tiles.
- Base defense has been increased to 40%: since the AI is typically on the defensive, then this will assist the AI moreso.
- 10% penalty for attacking from a lower elevation.
- Max arty damage inflicted on units in base/ bunker: 60
- Global Warming has been changed from 1,1 to 1,2: this effectively
halves global warming, the reason for this is that the AIs typically do
poorly in response to the effects of global warming.
- Size of base for Subspace Generator: 8. This, combined with several
other changes, should hopefully bring this facet of the game into play.
#TERRAIN
- Plant xenoflora has no prerequisite: this change was made specifically for the Autochthone alien faction.
- Raise/ Lower Land changed to 20 turns, and now available at Ecological Engineering 2.
#RESOURCE INFO
- Ocean squares now give a 1,1,1: rationale for this is that the AIs
typically do a poor job of base placement. By having ocean squares
produce a 1/1/1, this then helps compensate the AIs for this. This
change also makes aquatic factions much more viable.
- Bonus squares now give 3/3/3.
- Monoliths give 2/3/2.
- Borehole squares give a -2 nutrients (note that if you are not using
scient’s patch to the terranx.exe file you won’t see this effect).
#WORLDBUILDER
Based on smacksim’s work, the worldbuilder has been modified to produce
long stringy continents with lots of isthmus. These modifications in
general are to the AIs advantage, as it artificially groups the AIs
units together, giving a semblance of a power rush of units.
#TECHNOLOGY
There are several tweaks here to the tech tree. Please consult your datalinks when considering your beeline strategies.
#CHASSIS
- Needlejet and copters now move 6 squares: since the AIs generally
don’t handle units based on these chassis well, then this is to the AIs
advantage.
- Gravships move 5 squares, and are now available with Monopole Magnets.
These changes are twofold: first, by bringing the gravship chassis to a
tech adjacent MMI, this then makes Monopole Magnets more of a viable
research branch (as opposed to the typical beeline for MMI). Second, the
gravship movement has been reduced to 5 squares: this makes the unit
competitively viable at this point in the tech tree (i.e. its not
overpowering).
- Hovertankchassis has been moved to Fusion: here again by bringing the
hovertank chassis to a tech opposite MMI, this then presents another
viable research option.
#WEAPONS
- From Fusion weapons on out, weapon values have been reduced. See the
datalinks for exact values. This idea originated with Maniac, and the
idea is to make the weapons-to-armor ratio more balanced.
#DEFENSES
- beginning with Pulse 3 armor/ Resonance armor, the defensive values
have been increased by one, and some of the costs for specific armor
types have been reduced. See datalinks for specifics. Here again, this
idea originated with Maniac.
#ABILITIES
- Deep Pressure Hull moved to Superconductor: AIs don’t design any units
with this, but they will build pre-designed subs, which are a PIA to
deal with!
- Empath Song replaced by Nannite Accelerant: all facets of Alpha Centauri/ Planet have been removed from this mod.
- Hypnotic Trance replaced by Nannite Shield.
- Heavy Artillery costs zero, and is not allowed on fast moving units.
- Clean Reactors cost zero.
-
#UNITS
- There are 42 units spread throughout the tech tree. For the most part
these units have been vetted. The other reason for so many is that it
pears back the number of poor designs the AI builds (although it still
tries to screw the pooch on occasion with crap units). Some of the units
are as follows:
- Several gravship and hovertank designs: part of this is to act as a
counter to the human's use of AC and choppers. The AI builds aircraft
but doesn't handle them very well (although I have gotten to employ them
slightly better in this scenario), however they do a better job with
gravships and hovertanks.
- Aircraft carriers, Probe ships, and subs.
- You will now have to prototype your first crawler.
- All NL units replaced with Sentinel units.
#FACILITIES
- Headquarters now give +3 EC’s/ turn, Thermocline Transducer gives +1
EC/ turn. This from an idea introduced to me by Impaler [WRG].
- Geosynchronous Survey Pod and Flechette Defense: available with DocAir. Both cost 8 rows.
- Nessus Mining Station available with Doc:Air.
- Empath Guild: moved to Eudomania
- Virtual World: moved to Social Psych. Trying to water down the beeline to Industrial Auto.
- Cloudbase Academy: moved to Monopole Magnets. Because of the CBA's
worth (i.e. free aerospace complex in each city), then this, along with
the gravship chassis at Monopole Magnets, now makes for an interesting
choice: does the player beeline for MMI and choppers, or does the player
now beeline for Monopole Magnets?
- There are other changes to the overall system, but the above are the most notable IMO
Enjoy!
D