Unit (SMAC)

Units are mobile teams created for military, engineering, trade, exploration or diplomatic purposes. There are land, sea and air units, many with special abilities. There are a multitude of different units that your faction can build as its technological abilities grow.
There are five vital statistics that determine how a unit rates in movement and combat:
* Movement Points. The number of squares the unit can enter each turn, assuming no external penalties or bonuses.
* Attack Strength. A measure of the unit's ability to overcome a defender.
* Defense Strength. A measure of the unit's ability to resist an attacker.
* Reactor. How much damage the unit can take before destruction. The reactor also affects the cost of a unit.
* . A measure of the unit's discipline and experience. There are seven levels of Morale, and it is the most important factor in .
==Basic unit types==
Certain unit types begin the game already designed and prototyped:
* 
* s and s (Super Formers can be modified)
* 
* and 
* 
* Native life forms: s, , 
* (cannot be built, must be found)
* Unity units: , , (cannot be built, must be found)
As your technology advances you may want to design newer, more powerful units to fulfill these roles.
==Design workshop==
All units can be customized in the design workshop of the base that is producing them.
* (walking unit, land vehicle with two movement points, small ship, large ship, helicopter, jet aircraft, hovertank, gravship)
* - determines cost
*Armament:
** - determines offensive power
** - determines additional, non-combat functions
Additional, optional elements:
* (shielding) - unit protection
*Special abilities (one until Neural Grafting is discovered, then you can have two)
Terraformers and transports (air, land, or sea) can not have weapons added to them, but can have armor. Probe teams have only their own unique abilities to attack with. Native lifeforms you create can not have anything added to them.
==Prototype==
Any time you order construction of a unit with untried components, that unit is a prototype. If you have already built a laser crawler and an impact rover, your first laser rover (which consists entirely of components found in the previous units) would not require a prototype. But if you discovered the missile launcher and decided to build a missile rover, the new missile launcher component would make your first missile rover a prototype.
Prototypes require a great deal of research and development. Therefore, a prototype costs 50% more minerals to complete than subsequent units of this type will. On the upside, all prototype units get a +1 to morale, since new technologies are usually put in the care of elite forces. Note that the do not have to prototype new units due to their expertise with military hardware.
==Obsolete units==
As new versions of components are researched, old ones become obsolete. Units with obsolete components disappear from your Production Readout and are replaced by the newer models. You can also declare units of a given kind obsolete from the .
==Upgrading units==
When an old unit becomes obsolete, you don't have to junk it or let it wheeze around. When you discover a new version of a component, you are given the option of upgrading all the units that discovery has made obsolete. You must pay an energy charge for each obsolete unit in your possession in order to upgrade them. If you don't want to spend the energy to upgrade all your units of a given sort at once, you can also upgrade one at a time, using the Upgrade command on the Action menu. (Note that you can also disband a unit at a base, and receive half its original cost in minerals.)
The upgrade cost of a unit is 10 credits for each difference in weapon and armor level, and 10 credits for each mineral row the final unit costs (the cost in rows of the original unit is not a factor).
For example upgrading Formers to Clean Formers (3 rows) would simply cost 30 credits: the "weapon" level hasn't changed, and the unit costs 3 rows. For that matter, upgrading Clean Formers (3 rows) to Super Formers (3 rows) would also simply cost 30 credits.
Upgrading a Scout Patrol (1-1-1) to Synth Impact Infantry (4-2-1) would cost 70 credit - 30 credits to upgrade the weapons, 10 credits to upgrade the armor and 30 credits because the final unit costs 3 rows.
==== Upgrading Vs Buying ====
A popular strategy is to build "shell units" (such as Trained Scout Infantry) or a unit with the most powerful weapon which can be had for cheap, for example Missile Infantry (6-1-1) only cost 2 rows, and then upgrade it to a unit with stronger weapon, armor or special abilities.
Since rush buying units is quite expensive it is often cheaper to upgrade shell units than rush buying whole units, though this depends significantly on the industry bonus or penalty, for example Doami running Planned and Wealth pays only 6 minerals per row, while Santiago running Green and Power pays 13 minerals per row, more than twice as much. Yet both pay exactly the same to upgrade units.
Trained Shell Units
The "High Morale" special ability works in an unexpected way, in that the presence of the ability on the unit does not grant any extra morale. Instead, the unit gets the extra morale when it is initially constructed. The extra morale is retained when upgrading a Trained unit to a unit which isn't Trained, while there is no point giving units High Morale if they are only going to be upgraded to.
==Unit cost==
When designing new units, bear in mind that units strong in three areas (, , ) 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 1/2 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 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.
==Home base==
The base that builds a unit is that unit's home base. Units taken over by probe teams, or wild mind worms "tamed" by your faction, become the responsibility of the base geographically closest to the spot where the unit was acquired by your faction. A few units, such as those acquired far away from any base, do not require a home base at all.
You may change a unit's home base by moving that unit to a new base and selecting Set Home Base from the Action menu. That base now supports the unit. The home base must pay the unit's support cost, if any.
A support cost represents the cost of keeping a unit equipped and staffed. The cost for a given unit may be zero or one mineral per turn (as determined by your faction's rating). It is subtracted from minerals collected at the home base. If you find that a base cannot build new orders as quickly as it used to, it's often the result of too many minerals used for support of existing units. In this case, try disbanding old or obsolete units so more minerals can go towards new production.
If your faction has a Police rating less than 2, it is considered to be Pacifist. When a pacifist faction creates a unit and stations it anywhere outside its own territory, additional s are created at the unit's home base (representing social discord). On the base screen, the Forces Supported Readout shows the effects of pacifism as a peace symbol, one for each Worker that has become a Drone because of a unit outside its territory.
Category:Game concepts (SMAC)