The Unity Project: SMAC Factions by lilgamefreek

[lilgamefreek]

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback and I'm glad to hear the extra files have helped with some of the problems.

I don't have any plans to make this into a total conversion. It's outside of my abilities as an individual. A large challenge of this mod has been to keep the scope of its design within my own personal limits. I am, ultimately, more interested in the socio-political side of SMAC, so if I had another project in the pipeline, it would most likely be some implementation of SMAC's social engineering.

 

[zerokarma]

Thanks for all your work with this.

I understand where you are coming from, that said I still hope for some sort of full Alpha Centauri conversion mod like with the all the factions, quotes, techweb changes, wonder changes, etc....

 

[lilgamefreek]

I just released the Nautilus Pirates today along with small updates and tweaks to the Human Hive, Cybernetic Consciousness, and Lord's Believers. As always, the Unity Faction is synchronized with the latest updates as well and anyone subscribed to that mod can get the new faction through updating it from their mod-configuration menu or redownloading from OP at civfanatics.

The Nautilus Pirates were tricky because the lack of a strong naval game in Beyond Earth. They've probably taken the most radical change from their original interpretation and have a focus on early game scouting and exploration. I took particular inspiration from this passage in the GURPS Alpha Centauri supplement:

Among themselves, the Nautilus Pirates admire adventurism. The ideal Pirate sets high goals for himself, pursues them by any means necessary, and attains them with style and panache. The tales of such accomplishments play an important role in faction society. The Pirates' preferred art form is the story, either set down in print or told over beer in a public place. They hold most other forms of art in contempt, but their narrative literature is the best on Planet.

I ran with that and rather than focusing on the Pirate's original naval superiority, I decided to make them rowdy adventurers. They field upgraded explorers who are better in nearly every way and additionally can enter territory without open borders, pillage with no movement costs, and capture enemy units. To keep the relevant mid-game, these adventurers can receive permanent upgrades through accomplishments from easy things such as embarking out onto the open sea or difficult things like capturing an enemy city. These accomplishments are flavored with randomly chosen shorts to laud your brave adventurers.

There is more to the trait than what I've just described, though I would say they aren't the main selling point of playing the pirates. At this point I've got only one more faction to go. No idea how long it will take considering the gap between these guys and my last mod. However, I hope everyone enjoys my latest release and looks forward to the last Alpha Centauri faction left on the list, The Cult of Planet.

 

[lilgamefreek]

IT'S DONE!

All human SMAC and SMAX factions in one mod. Boom Boom Boom. Here's the last one, The Cult of Planet led by Cha Dawn!

 

[lilgamefreek]

Just updated to v7, which includes support for the new Social Engineering mod, a rebalanced Data Angels, and a couple of minor optimization tweaks. I hope everyone enjoys. Individual factions have been updated as well to the latest changes.

 

[edingess]

Yay! One day tho you should do the Smaniac factions too

 

[lilgamefreek]

I'm actually not familiar with the Smaniac factions. Is there anything particularly interesting with regards to them?

 

[edingess]

I'm actually not familiar with the Smaniac factions. Is there anything particularly interesting with regards to them?

Atlantis is basically Gaians aqua style. Same allegory goes for the Ghosts (aquatic Data Angels basically). Bree are basically Cult of Planet with even more Zergishness (they are literal human/mindworm hybrids and always OP in SMAX games). Genesis is a more powerful kind of University while the Republic is more benevolent allegory of MorgInc. Finally the Empath are kind of like human Caretakers whilst the Templars combine aspects of both the Spartans and the Usurpers.

You can DL them here.
http://alphacentauri2.info/My Custom Factions/Custom Factions.htm#SMAniaC Factions

If you do decide to go ahead, its probably best to talk to Buster's Uncle or Petek at the AC board to see if you can get permission from SManiac (I don't think he's been here for a while ) before actually incorporating it into Unity project. Speaking of which the leaders do have Unity officer positions so that's not an issue.

 

[MasterEcabob]

Looking forward to your Rising Tide update! Here are a few ideas for new sponsor bonuses. Peacekeepers should get 50-75 diplo capital for discovering other sponsors, since they are no longer automatically revealed at planetfall. This way they can get a free trait early, or use that capital to buy a colonist right off the bat.

Gaians should start with a free alien artifact, and building alien preserves should have a chance at giving alien artifacts. Meanwhile, the Cult of Planet should start with alien leashing ability, and gain some bonus when they successfully leash aliens.

Morgan you could probably keep as is, but should start at a lower pop cap, with the option to increase the cap through upgrading his main trait. Would still need to research tech to get rid of the cap, but enacting policy to increase population growth fits thematically.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

I love your mod but I think Sister Miriam Godswin should only get extra affinity in Purity. She is Purity Personified! I believe that Purity Affinity in CivBE was based off her ideals in SMAC. I don't know how that would work, unless you limit her free affinity levels to Purity and remove the bonus to Affinity Progression. I learned that (sponsor-specific) unique buildings are possible. If it isn't possible to change the free affinity levels to be limited to Purity, give her NO extra affinity progression but give her churches, unlocked at Purity 4, that yield +1 culture and +1 purity per turn (-5 energy) with a building quest to give +2 culture or remove maintenance. Then she could get cathedrals unlocked at Purity 8, with 2x in every stat and a 500% hurry cost.

I don't know what the best leader trait (for Rising Tide) would be but I suggest that she starts with a bigger science penalty (and extra city/worked affinity yield, which would make it compatible with other mods, or otherwise only help purity) and her upgrades reduce her science penalty. Leader traits can get respect modifiers so you might want to give all faction leader traits hatred of higher scores than their own (to make them competitive) and Miriam's leader trait would like small armies (so she doesn't destroy week factions who behave like her intended AI).

 

[GenEngineer]

@Azem.Ocram - I would suggest against giving any sponsor a bonus that ties them solely to one affinity; that removes part of the choice in affinity that the player gets when their developing a civ. While I do see your point about Purity being a perfect fit for the Lord's Believers, it would be weird if Purity was the only affinity that had a civ dedicated to it. Giving them a generic affinity buff just seems like a better fit to me.

 

[lilgamefreek]

Since I am just finishing up Social Engineering for RT and planning to release today, I figured I would put a post here letting people know what's been going on with The Unity Project.

Updating the Unity Project will be pretty colossal. Several of the factions will need to have their traits redone to separate them better from the new/updated sponsors. Along with that, the new traits system means that there will be a lot more design, coding, and art work that needs to be done compared to the original mod. Considering the original mod took about 6 months to be fully completed, that should give some sense of time/scale to how long it might potentially take.

I'm planning to do what I originally did, which was to release each faction one at a time until I feel it is ready to bundle them into a cohesive mod. I think that's the best way for me to learn the nuances that RT introduces as well as evolve the mod with continuous feedback. Master Ecabob probably pointed out some of the factions most in need of a redesign and I already have ideas fleshed out for many of them, but they will require testing and may not be possible to implement. I very happy with my updates to Social Engineering and I hope to replicate it's quality as I revisit all the SMAC factions. Thank you all for your patience and I hope to have something to release in the near future.

 

[poom3619]

I am pretty positive you want someone to write communiques or loading text for you, I would gladly do some. Who else don't want to tweet like a SMAC leader?

 

[Llednar Twem]

Has this project been abandoned? I hope asking that doesn't come across as rude or demanding, because I do very much appreciate all that you've done already in making these sponsors for vanilla Beyond Earth. It's just that it's been almost three months since you mentioned beginning the process of updating them for Rising Tide, so I'm wondering if that's still something you intend to do.

 

[TerranSons]

Likewise, I would be happy to write communiques or loading text

 

[lilgamefreek]

Sorry everyone. It's been a tough 6 months for me with a lot of big changes in my life. It's been pretty impossible for me to get much modding done.

Sadly, I don't see this changing much in the future. I've been slowly revisiting some design docs and fleshing out the ideas, but I haven't had the energy to sit down and do concrete work. The project is indefinitely on hold for now. If people are interested, I can go into releasing some of the documents for others to brainstorm or enjoy or apply to their own work.

 

[insert username]

I would certainly like to see the design documents. I love your mods, by the way !

 

[Dark-Corners]

Hi all, seems like this may be a dead thread, but thought it would be worth a try. Late to the game, but I just installed this mod and I am having the same missing production menu problem that others have reported. I have tried it with both the original .lua files as well as the alternates included with the mod. I am running the game on a windows 8.1 machine. Any help would be appreciated.