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

Altering Unit Building Blocks
Beginning with the section labeled #CHASSIS and concluding with the section labeled #ABILITIES, alpha.txt includes all the necessary figures to adjust each building block of a basic unit, including reactors, weapons, defenses, and special abilities.

By altering chassis elements, you can change how far a unit can move per turn; whether it's a land, sea, or air chassis; how much cargo the chassis can carry; the cost of the particular chassis; and the technology prerequisites required in building the chassis.

The reactor elements include the name, the power produced, and the technology required to construct the reactor. The higher the power number here, the cheaper the overall unit is to produce.

Most players will probably gravitate toward the weapons section while examining the unit building blocks. Let's take a look at a sample line from the weapons section:

Quantum Laser, Quantum, 16, 1,16, -1, QuanMac,

The first two values indicate the full name of the weapon, in this case "Quantum Laser," and the short name, in this case "Quantum." The first numerical value indicates the offensive attack rating (change this value to -1 if you wish the weapon to have psionic abilities). The next value is the offensive mode; in this case, the "1" indicates that this is an energy weapon (the beginning of the weapons section lists what the various numbers mean). The next value, here "16," is the cost of the weapon. The final number, here "-1," is the same for all weapons and should remain unchanged. The last value is the prerequisite required to build the weapon.

NOTE
Altering the weapon statistics could be most useful in a scenario geared toward war and combat. Making the weapons more powerful or requiring fewer prerequisites would make it possible to create much more powerful units earlier in the game.