User Guide

SPECIAL ABILITIES

You can also endow your units with special abilities to fulfill specific tactical

needs. Some are geared towards attack, some to defense, and some are more

esoteric. If, for example, the Gaians are attacking your faction with an inva-

sion force of mind worms, you might want to counter with a force of units

equipped with the Hypnotic Trance special ability, which gives the units a

+50% defensive bonus against psi attacks. In the early stages of the game you

can have no more than one special ability per unit type, but you acquire the

ability to mount two special abilities on the same unit with the discovery of

Neural Grafting.

A complete list of special abilities, with descriptions, can be found on the

Special Abilities Table, p. 183.

CUSTOM UNITS

If you decide to build your own units to use in addition to the pre-designed

units, you should know that the cost factors (given in Appendix 2) are not

simply additive. The cost for a custom unit with many advanced features is far

above the sum of its component prices. In fact, often if you take a “super unit”

and tone down just one or two components a notch or two, you will find that

you can now afford two or more of the slightly more modest units for the

same price you’d have paid for a single super unit. Consider designing two dif-

ferent types of units which complement each others’ weaknesses rather than

trying for one unit with no weaknesses. Advanced reactors make the unit more

efficient and actually reduce its cost, so an advanced reactor can make more

sophisticated units more affordable.

Many special abilities are, for obvious reasons, unavailable on units of a cer-

tain type. Aircraft, for example, cannot mount heavy artillery, while combat

units cannot mount a heavy transport module.

COLONIZING PLANET

CHAPTER 4