GameSpot's Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Game Guide

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part 1

Chapter 1: Exploration
    First City
    Scout Patrol
    Exploration Insight
Chapter 2: Infrastructure
Chapter 3: Research and Development
Chapter 4: Military Fundamentals

Chapter 1: Exploration

Unity Supply Pods
While your colony ship plummeted toward Planet, the Unity mothership dropped tons of supply pods across the surface of the planet. These cargo pods can be found on both land and water squares in random locations all over the world. They are important because they house all sorts of benefits - new units, powerups for the discovering unit, enhanced resources - that can give you an early boost. As you move your scout patrol across the landscape, you will see these pods just about everywhere. It is crucial to your future success that you move your patrol over as many supply pods as possible. Don't leave them sitting around uncovered, or a competing faction may come in and claim the pods for itself, potentially gaining new technologies beyond your reach.

Unity supply pods can bequeath you some very useful knowledge or gifts.

For the most part, supply pods are extremely useful. On the other hand, in rare instances, pods can sometimes be infested with mind worms that will attack the closest unit you have. In the early goings of the game, this can be quite risky. Fortunately, your average scout patrol can usually fend off at least a few attacks before being destroyed. The risk of uncovering a few mind worms, though, should not deter you from uncovering all the supply pods you can. More often than not, you'll find free resources and units. In some instances, you might even uncover a more valuable prize: an alien artifact.

Alien Artifacts
Alien artifacts are the most powerful item to be held within a supply pod. Unfortunately, their power can only be tapped by moving the artifact to a base that has a network node constructed. If no network node has been constructed, you can still bring the alien artifact to one of your bases and connect it to a node when you do finally build one.

WARNING
You can only take one alien artifact to a particular base. If you happen to come across a second alien artifact, you must take it to a secondary base outfitted with a network node.

Simply put, an alien artifact contains a free technology that doesn't need to be researched. Once the artifact is connected to a node, the technology immediately becomes available to your faction, opening the gateway to bigger and better technologies, base enhancements, or units. When you consider that researching new technologies takes a considerable amount of time, the value of getting one for free (and immediately) should be obvious. What's more, gaining a technology in this way can quickly put you ahead of the competition. While they're waiting years and year to discover something, you've gained the ability in the blink of an eye.

Next: Monoliths