Chapter 4: Military
Fundamentals
Reactors
There are four levels of reactors available in Alpha Centauri. Of all
the elements you research within the game, reactors take the longest to
develop. Similar to shields, reactors determine a units power rating,
which, in turn, affect how much damage the unit can absorb in combat before
it is terminated. A general rule of thumb is that a unit can take ten
points of damage for each level of the reactor. Mixing a level 4 reactor
with stasis generator armor represents the best protection a unit can
possibly have.
The four reactor types are:
* Fission plant
* Fusion reactor
* Quantum chamber
* Singularity engine
Special Abilities
All military units can be outfitted with a special ability. Special abilities
are made available through the research of various technologies. (See
Chapter 7 for a complete examination of special abilities.) At the outset
of the game, you can only assign one special ability per unit, though
after neural grafting has been researched, you can assign two. Special
abilities are a powerful tool for refining the role of each unit.
The following is a list of
all of the available special abilities in Alpha Centauri.
* AAA tracking - increases
a unit's defense against air and missile attacks by 100 percent
* Air superiority - Lets air units attack other air units
* Amphibious pods - Lets ground units attack a city square from a naval
transport
* Antigrav struts - Gives one extra move per turn and voids out terrain
penalties
* Blink displacer - Lets a unit to bypass base defenses
* Carrier deck - Lets a naval unit refuel and transport air units
* Clean reactor - Unit has no resource cost attached
* Cloaking device - Unit remains hidden unless an enemy tries to enter
the same terrain tile
* Comm jammer - +50 percent defense bonus against speeders and hovertanks
* Deep pressure hull - Naval unit can submerge like a submarine, making
detection difficult
* Deep radar - Increases visual range by two squares
* Drop pods - Lets a unit make air drops
* Empath song - +50 percent attack bonus against units that have a psi
defense, like mind worms
* Fungicide tanks - Lets a former clear out xenofungus from terrain squares
* Heavy artillery - A unit can bombard squares from two squares away,
attacking every unit within that given square
* High morale - +1 morale upgrade when outfitted unit is constructed
* Hypnotic trance - +50 percent defense bonus against units with psi attack
* Nerve gas pods - +50 percent
attack bonus with the added ability of destroying the majority of the
population; this special ability is an atrocity, so use it with caution
* Nonlethal methods - Lets a unit quell drone riots
* Polymorphic encryption -
Doubles a unit's defense against probe team attack
* Repair bay - Lets a transport unit repair units it carries, even while
moving
* Super former - Doubles the rate of terraforming
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TIP
The computer will automatically assign special abilities
to new units so you needn't worry about these details. Chapter 7
will go into great detail about customizing your military units
for the greatest impact.
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As you can see, there are plenty
of special abilities that lend themselves to some interesting and varied
units as the game progresses. If you're a novice player, you should let
the computer design new units based on your technological breakthroughs.
Next: Chapter 4: Unit Ratings
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