Units SMAC

Basic Units are pre-designed units in Firaxis' TBS Game of 1999, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC). Basic Units are land-, sea- and air-based units that are pre-prototyped, but even some basic units need to be unlocked by faction advancement in technology.

Alien Artifact (sometimes found in Unity Pods)
Colony Pod (base-building)
Formers (terraforming)
Isle of the Deep (indigenous lifeform)
Locusts of Chiron (indigenous LF)
Mind Worms (indigenous LF)
Probe Team (sabotage, espionage)
Scout Patrol (early scouting)
Supply Crawler (resource crawling or trawling)
Transport Foil (troop transport)
Unity Foil (cannot be built, only found in Unity Pods)
Unity Rover (cannot be built, only found in Unity Pods)
Unity Scout Chopper (cannot be built, only found in Unity Pods)

SMAC Units are deployed for military conquest, base defense, base-building, troop transport, scouting, sabotage, espionage, terraforming and resource-gathering purposes. Units are constituted by up to five combat stats:

SMAC Movement Points (the no. of tiles a unit can move across per turn, modified by terrain flags)
SMAC Attack Strength
SMAC Defense Strength
SMAC Reactor ("hit points": 10x Reactor value)
SMAC Morale for conventional units and lifecycle for indigenous units (range: 1-7)

Morale is the aforementioned tier of the unit, with each morale point granting +12.5% to both offense and defense. Being a mental attack, Psi combat ignores conventional defense. Thus is Morale the only innate defense possessed by units versus Psi attacks, which are innately employed by aliens.

Unit Chassis

Chassis type governs unit movement rate as well as mode of movement (land, sea, air or amphibious).

Which unit special abilities are available depends on chassis type.

Copter Chassis (air)
Cruiser Chassis (naval)
Foil Chassis (naval)
Gravship Chassis (air)
Hovertank Chassis (land)
Infantry Chassis (land)
Missile Chassis (air)
Needlejet Chassis (air)
Speeder Chassis (land)

Unit Reactors

Reactor type governs the "hitpoints" of units (10x Reactor value); that is, how much damage units can sustain before being destroyed. More advanced reactors also increase unit efficiency and reduce unit cost. In addition, reactors govern the blast radius of Planet Busters, the movement rate of antigrav air units as well as the carrying capacity of sea units.

Fission Plant
Fusion Reactor
Quantum Chamber
Singularity Engine

A unit's reactor determines its power, the amount of damage the unit can absorb in combat before it is eliminated. A unit can absorb 10 points of damage for each power level of reactor. More advanced reactor technology also tends to make complex units cheaper to build.

Unit Armor

Armor type governs the defense strength of units; that is, how effective units are in avoiding damage from incoming attacks.

Antimatter Plate (binary)
Neutronium Armor (energy)
No Armor SMAC (projectile)
Photon Wall SMAC (energy)
Plasma Steel Armor (binary)
Probability Sheath (binary)
Psi Defense Armor (binary)
Silksteel Armor (energy)
Stasis Generator (binary)
Synthmetal Armor (projectile)

Unit Armor Groupings

The armor groupings are Projectile, Energy and Binary.

Projectile Weapons receive a bonus against Energy Armor.
Energy Weapons receive a bonus against Projectile Armor.
No Weapon receives a bonus against Binary Armor.
Missile Weapons never receive a bonus.

Unit Weapons

Weapon type governs the offensive firepower of units; that is, how much damage combat units inflict with each successful hit.

Conventional Payload
Chaos Gun (projectile)
Fusion Laser (energy)
Gatling Laser (energy)
Graviton Gun (projectile)
Hand Weapons (projectile)
Laser SMAC (projectile)
Missile Launcher (missile)
Particle Impactor (projectile)
Planet Buster (projectile)
Plasma Shard (missile)
Psi Attack (missile)
Singularity Laser (energy)
Quantum Laser (energy)
Tachyon Bolt (energy)

Weapon Groupings

The weapon groupings are Projectile, Energy and Missile.

Projectile Weapons receive a bonus against Energy Armor.
Energy Weapons receive a bonus against Projectile Armor.
No Weapon receives a bonus against Binary Armor.
Missile Weapons never receive a bonus.

Unit Special Abilities

Once Neural Grafting is acquired, a second Unit Special Ability may be applied to units. Chassis type determines which USAs are available.

AAA Tracking
Air Superiority
Amphibious Pods
Antigrav Struts
Blink Displacer
Carrier Deck
Clean Reactor
Cloaking Device
Comm Jammer
Deep Pressure Hull
Deep Radar
Drop Pods
Empath Song
Fungicide Tanks
Heavy Artillery
High Morale
Hypnotic Trance
Nerve Gas Pods
Non-Lethal Methods
Polymorphic Encryption
Repair Bay
Super Former

Unit Modules

Modules grant units utility capabilities. For example, our default Formers move too slowly while terraforming. Therefore, we apply the Terraforming Unit to the Speeder chassis, thereby prototyping Rover Formers.

Example 2: Supply Transport module is by default only available on the land-based Supply Crawler unit, which is not capable of crawling resources at sea. But we want to crawl at-sea resources. Therefore, we apply the Supply Transport module to a naval chassis (such as a Cruiser), thereby prototyping Destroyer Supply.

Colony Module
Probe Team Module
Supply Transport
Terraforming Unit
Troop Transport

Unit Damage

Units which engage in combat may become damaged. Damage is indicated by a colored bar along the left side of a unit's status icon: Green represents light (or no) damage; Yellow and Red show increasing damage.

Damage can be repaired if a unit skips its entire turn (space bar) at a friendly base. A severely damaged unit may have to repeat this operation for several turns. Note that damage will not be repaired on any turn in which the unit is attacked or bombarded.

Units can also conduct "field repair" (i.e. not at a base), but this process is much slower and is only effective if the unit has sustained more than 10% damage.

Unit Disingagement

Fast units, such as Speeders and Hovertanks, can sometimes disengage when surprised by slower enemy units.

A unit disengages when the following conditions are met:

Unit incurs 50% damage, relative to what it started the combat with.
Unit is faster than its attacker, taking damage into account.
Unit is alone in its square.
Unit did not attack on its last turn.
Unit is a combat unit (non-combat units may never disengage).
Neither attacker nor defender is an air unit.
Attacker does not have the Comm Jammer ability.
Unit does not have the Hold order, and is not in a bunker or airbase.
A valid retreat square is available, which is not a fungus square (unless Pholus Mutagen and is not adjacent to an enemy unit.

Unit Zones of Control

Every unit exerts a Zone of Control into every adjacent square (but units in sea squares do not exert zones of control into land squares, nor vice versa).

Land units may not normally move between two squares in an enemy zone of control, with the following exceptions:

Units may freely move into and out of bases.
Units may freely attack any adjacent unit.
Units may freely enter squares already containing friendly units.
Probe teams and units with the Cloaking ability may ignore this rule.

Air and Sea units exert zones of control, but are not affected by them.

Unit Waypoints

Waypoints can be set when giving a unit "go to" orders. One way to give a unit "go to" orders is to click on it to activate it, then hold down the left mouse button and drag a "movement arrow" to where you want the unit to go.

You can set waypoints by pressing the Space bar while the arrow is over a particular square. The unit will move to each of its waypoints on its way to its final destination. You can also set waypoints while giving a unit Patrol orders, in similar fashion.

Unit Bombardment

Naval units, and land units with the Heavy Artillery ability may conduct Bombardment by selecting the Long Range Fire option from the Action menu.

Bombardment has the advantage of potentially damaging every enemy unit in a particular square and the disadvantage that land units can never be reduced below 50% damage by bombardment.

If bombardment is attempted against a square containing an enemy naval or artillery unit, the bombardment is cancelled and an Artillery Duel is initiated, with the attacking and defending artillery (or naval) units fighting attack-vs-attack strength. Armor values are ignored for Artillery Duels.

Unit Prototyping

Faction advancement in Technology unlocks options for prototyping, which is conducted via the 6-slot Design Workshop interface. Preexisting designs can be modified, upgraded or rendered obsolete, and units can be built from scratch as well.

Unit Cost

All units in SMAC have mineral support costs (upkeep). If the Base lacks the minerals to support its units, the units will be immediately scrapped. Unit Cost is governed by the prototype's weapon, armor, chassis, module and special abilities.

When designing new units, bear in mind that units strong in three areas (weapon, armor, chassis) will be vastly more expensive than units strong in only two areas (or one).

The basic cost formula, to which there are several modifiers, is:

Cost = Weapon * (Armor + Speed) * 10 / (2 ^ (Reactor + 1))

Weapon value never less than ½ Armor value.
Non-combat units substitute "Equipment Cost" for Weapon value.
Cost is halved for units with Speed 1.
Cost is halved for sea units, and Armor is discounted 50%.
Cost quartered for combat air units.
Armor cost doubled for air units.
Cost +25% for each unit of Special Ability cost.
Cost +10 minerals if both Weapon and Armor greater than 1.
Cost +10 minerals if Land unit's Weapon, Armor, Speed all greater than 1.
Minimum cost (Reactor*2 - Reactor/2)*10 unless all values are 1.

Unit Morale

Morale reflects the training and experience of your military units. Morale levels range from Very Green to Green to Disciplined to Hardened, Veteran, Commando, and Elite.

A unit receives a +12.5% combat bonus for each morale level.

Morale plays a particularly important role in psi combat, and in combat between probe teams, since no weapon and armor values are considered in those cases.

New units typically begin with Green morale, though this may be higher or lower depending on your social engineering Morale setting. A new unit's morale can also be increased if a base has a Command Center or other related facility.

Alien Units

Alien units such as Mind Worms have life cycles which correspond to morale levels. Alien units are not affected by Command Centers and military facilities, but their life cycle levels can be improved by building Biology Labs and other similar facilities.

The transport capacity of an Isle of the Deep is determined by its life cycle level: one unit for each level. A unit victorious in combat will often receive a morale upgrade (the lower its morale level, the more likely an upgrade). Elite units receive a special bonus -- an additional move each turn.

Some units (usually alien creatures such as Mind Worms can engage in PSI Combat. In Psi Combat, weapon and armor strengths are ignored, and the attacker is given a 3 to 2 advantage on land (1 to 1 for sea combat). Morale level becomes quite important in Psi Combat.

Back to: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Guide.

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