Captain_Shiny: Now I always hear that in terms of 4x games this game is the best thing since sliced bread and I remember giving it a shot some time after it came out but it didn't captivate me at the time - I think I found something about managing custom build units to be pretty tedious but that was a long time ago.
Btw, I like the Civilization series - I played them all except for the latest and I adore Master of Orion 2 but I think that's it in terms of 4x games.
So, what's so great about it and why should I give it a shot?
As with most things in SMAC/X, unit customization is something that you can leave to the computer, if you like. There are all sorts of automation features in SMAC/X, such as Base Governors, automated units, automated terraformers, etc. As with these things, you can leave the unit customization process in the hands of the computer and it will do it for you.
Now that being said, as with all of the other sorts of automated features, the computer will NOT make as good decisions as a human would. That's the down-side to using automation features, they never handle things as well as a player can, *IF* the player knows what they are doing. This is why, of course, that a good player can always beat the computer, even when the computer "cheats" and is given as much help as possible, as on Transcend level play.
So really, if you want to leave unit customization in the hands of your computer "assistant", you are free to do so. No, your units won't be as specially tailored to the job you might want them to do as if you had designed them yourself, but they will be adequate for a number of roles and you never have to open the unit design screen at all if you don't want.
It's much like Social Engineering choices and Energy allocation - depending upon difficulty level you never have to mess with these things - not adjusting them will hurt you, since there are good things that can come from SE choices and Energy allocation changes, BUT you don't HAVE to employ such things if they turn you off or if the learning curve associated with them seems to steep.
Personally I think the best way to approach unit design is to just spend some time with it. Look at the various special abilities - do you have Drone problems? Well maybe some base defence units with Non-Lethal Methods would make sense, their ability to quell two Drones rather than one is well worth the investment as long as your SE Police rating allows you to use Police to suppress Drones.
Are you fighting off a Rover Rush? Well, equipping your Base defenders [at least] with ECM, which gives you a defensive bonus vs "Fast" units may well even up the odds. Getting pounded by native life forms, whether Planet's, or those from another faction? Then having defenders with the Trance special ability makes sense, and having offensive units with the Empath ability also makes sense.
You don`t have to worry about the more esoteric design choices (submarine movement, repair bays, etc), but a little time spent researching the more basic offensive and defensive abilities will certainly help you tailor your army to deal with the sorts of threats you are actually facing in game. Us the F1 key and examine the Data Links - there is a section which details all of the special abilities ever available through Tech advances that can be applied to you custom units. To begin with, I would suggest only looking at Trance, Empath and Police abilities for your combat units, and Fungicidal Tanks abilities for your Terraformers.
These are the most basic and generally most useful abilities you have to deal with relatively early on. Later you can look into Clean Reactors and Polymorphic Encryption and all of the other more specialized abilities which might be only important in specific instances or more or less important depending upon the particular faction you prefer to use, i.e. The Morganites *need* Clean Reactor equipped unit because of their inherent, factional based penalty to the Support rating - the Hive needs Clean Reactors much less since they can make SE choices which beef up their Support rating at minimal cost to themselves.
As I said, you can get a lot of enjoyment out of SMAC without ever delving into the world of Unit Design, however taking the time, once you are ready, to explore this aspect of the game is well worth it. You don`t have to memorize every possible special ability, what it does and which Tech advance opens it up, but learning more about the game, in manageable small bites, is definitely worth it, IMHO.
Using the various Governors and other automated features is one way to learn the game that appeals to a lot of people - hopefully most of those people move past the limitations inherent in those systems and make more and more of the decisions about how to run their faction, themselves. But you don`t *HAVE* to use any of them, or NOT use any of them, based solely on what it is you want to get out of the game.
If Unit Design seems boring, too complicated or just outside of your areas of interest, then let the game run things for you - it will always present you with new units as you progress up the Tech Tree and open up new weapons and armor. It will create serviceable units for you - it won`t customize units to the extent that many human players do, but it will create up to date units with regards to weapons and armor (and some special abilities; the computer `designer`will create artillery, amphibious, paradrop and other advanced units which will show up in your base`s production screen - i just won`t make what some players would consider to be the *exact* unit that the player wants or needs.)
All of the above is one of the things that makes SMAC such a great game - all of the tools needed to create your own customized units exists in the game... but you don`t have to mess with it if don`t want to. It`s a case of more freedom of choice for the player, which is certainly a feature most gamers seem to enjoy. I was intimidated by Unit Design and the SE screen for quite awhile when I first played SMAC - they were aspects of the game I had to do more research on and figure out to my satisfaction, my way. However, I was still able to enjoy many aspects of the game and get a lot out of the game even before I looked into those particular areas more deeply.
Play your way, using the level of assistance that you want from the computer and I would almost guarantee that in a short time you will be thinking about `How can I get a good unit for attacking Mind Worms`and ``How can I adjust my SE choices to get the highest unit Morale rating, or the best Economy adjustments for my bases.... etc. Another great thing about this game is that there is virtually a never ending supply of opportunities to learn new things and try out new ideas with each of the playable Factions - this keeps the re playability quotient very high.
Bottom line is, if you don`t want to bother with Unit design, then don`t bother with it and just play the game and have fun! :)
