GameSpot's Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Game Guide

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appendices

Appendix A: Modifying Alpha Centauri Rules

Appendix B: Creating Custom Functions

Appendix C: Creating Maps and Scenarios

Technology Tree
Perhaps the most complex section of alpha.txt, the technology tree area (labeled #TECHNOLOGY), controls all the technology advances in the game and includes the values given to such things as military and infrastructure (governing how much other factions value the technology), prerequisites required, and special awards the technology gives to the player.

WARNING
Because it's so complex, tinkering significantly with the technology tree - particularly altering the prerequisites required to achieve a certain technology advance - can have significant gameplay effects. Take special care if you plan to change anything in this section.

Let's take a look at a sample line from the technology section:

Secrets of the Human Brain, Brain, 1, 5, 0, 3, Psych, Biogen, 000000001

Reading from the left, the first value ("Secrets of the Human Brain") is the full name of the technology. The second value, here "Brain," is the abbreviation for the technology that is used in other sections throughout alpha.txt. The next four values indicate how valuable the technology is to certain factions. The first number is the military value; the second is the advance-of-knowledge, or discovery, value; the third is the infrastructure value; and the fourth is the colonization, or exploration, value. The next two values are the prerequisites required for the technology (listed in abbreviated form). In this case, the two prerequisites are social psychology ("Psych") and biogenetics ("Biogen"). The final set of numbers, a series of ones and zeroes, are on/off flags that determine what special awards the technology provides. Included in alpha.txt is a chart listing the various awards; in this case, Secrets of the Human Brain gives the first player who discovers it a free advance.

NOTE
If you don't want a technology to require a prerequisite, just change the two relevant values to "None." If you wish to remove the technology from the game completely, just put "Disable" in those two spots. Be careful when disabling a technology! If it is a prerequisite for other technologies, you could have quite a problem advancing in the game.

If you look down the list of technologies, you'll find a series of advances that look like this:

User Technology 0, User0, 0, 2, 0, 0, Disable, Disable, 000000000

By altering these, you can create your own custom technologies, with their own names, abbreviations, values, prerequisites, and special awards. Note that this "User Technology" is disabled by default.