Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Weapon

Weapons determine a unit's attack strength. Higher attack strengths give a unit better chances in battle. Missile payloads may only be equipped on the Missile chassis. Units with equipment cannot attack - instead they are granted a number of special actions.

Hand Weapons

• Strength: 1

Psi Attack

• Prerequisite: Centauri Psi
• Strength: uses psi combat; depends on morale or lifecycle
• Cost: 10

Units with the Psi Attack ability attack with psi instead of weapons. The most common and basic example of such an attacker is a Mind Worm boil.

Laser

• Prerequisite: Applied Physics
• Strength: 2

Particle Impactor

• Prerequisite: Nonlinear Mathematics
• Strength: 4

Editorial: One of the early "advanced" weaponry. Useful for rover blitz.

Gatling Laser

• Prerequisite: Superconductor
• Strength: 5

Sort of an oddball in that you usually will have missiles before this tech. However, in some cases you may prefer this over missiles if it results in a reduction in production cost.

Missile Launcher

• Prerequisite: Synthetic Fossil Fuels
• Strength: 6

Resonance Laser

• Prerequisite: Bioadaptive Resonance
• Strength: 6
• Cost: 8
• Alien Crossfire Only

Provides a 25% bonus against units with Psi Defense. The most common such defender is a native unit.

Chaos Gun

• Prerequisite: Superstring Theory
• Strength: 8

Fusion Laser

• Prerequisite: Organic Superlubricant
• Strength: 10

Tachyon Bolt

• Prerequisite: Unified Field Theory
• Strength: 12
• Cost:

Resonance Bolt

• Prerequisite: Sentient Resonance
• Strength: 12
• Cost: 16
• Alien Crossfire Only

Provides a 25% bonus against units with Psi Defense. The most common such defender is a native unit.

Plasma Shard

• Prerequisite: Advanced Spaceflight
• Strength: 13

Quantum Laser

• Prerequisite: Quantum Machinery
• Strength: 16

Graviton Gun

• Prerequisite: Applied Gravitonics
• Strength: 20

Singularity Laser

• Prerequisite: Controlled Singularity
• Strength: 24

String Disruptor

• Prerequisite: String Resonance
• Strength: 30
• Cost: 40
• Alien Crossfire Only

Conventional Payload

• Prerequisite: Orbital Spaceflight
• Strength: 12

Fungal Payload

• Prerequisite: N-Space Compression
• Strength: N/A
• Alien Crossfire Only

Fungal Missiles target a land square without a base or unit. Depending on reactor this plants an additional 1 - 4 squares of fungus, destroys most improvements and generates mindworms and a fungal tower in the detonation square. It leaves boreholes, bunkers, condensers, and solar mirrors. It destroys roads, forests, farms, soil enrichers, mines, and sensors.

Planet Buster

• Prerequisite: Orbital Spaceflight
• Strength: 99
• Cost: 32

Tectonic Payload

• Prerequisite: N-Space Compression
• Strength: N/A
• Alien Crossfire Only

Tectonic Missiles target a land square without a base or unit. Depending on reactor level the land will be raised 1 - 4 levels, up to the maximum of 3500m. This does not destroy improvements.

Colony Module

• Prerequisite: none
• Equipment cost: 10

A unit with a Colony Module can build a new base. Producing a unit with a colony module consumes one population. When deployed in a base, it will add one population to that base's total population.

Probe Team

• Prerequisite: Planetary Networks
• Equipment cost: 4

Units with probe equipment can perform a number of covert actions.

Terraforming Unit

• Prerequisite: Centauri Ecology
• Equipment cost: 6

Terraforming units can create all manner of terrain improvements. The Terraforming Unit can be later enhanced with the special abilities

Terraformers are the single most important unit in the game. The AI's poor use of them contributes greatly to its poor performance. Formers are the primary way to make your cities more productive, and are the only way to make tiles more productive (except fungus, which improves with the Centauri techs). Centauri Ecology should always be one of your first techs, or a competent opponent will defeat you.

For comparison, a good unterraformed tile yields 2-1-1 (rolling and rainy, on a river), before nutrient/mineral/energy bonuses are considered. A good terraformed tile yields 0-6-6 (borehole) or 4-1-1 (condenser-farm). A fair unterraformed tile yields 1-1-0 (moist and rolling). A fair terraformed tile yields 1-2-1 (forest).

Supply Transport

• Prerequisite: Industrial Automation
• Equipment cost: 8

Supply units can extract one type of resource (either energy,mineral, or nutrient) from any non-cultivated square and convey it to its home base, and can also be brought to a base to apply its full production cost toward the production of a unit prototype or Secret Project.

Supply crawlers are the second most important unit in the game (second to Terraformers). Since they allow you to harvest more tiles, they act like extra population units, but without the drone problems or the nutrient requirements. In effect, supply crawlers are constructed population points, and at 30 minerals are a bargain.

Troop Transport

• Prerequisite: Doctrine: Flexibility
• Equipment cost: 4

A Troop Transport, as the name implies, can transport land troops from one place to the other. In combination with the Carrier Deck ability, can also transport air units. The number of transported units depends on the chassis and reactor: Foils can transport twice the reactor strength, Cruisers can transport four times the reactor strength, all other units can only transport one unit at a time. Transport slows the unit by 1 except infantry transport.

Having a transport in a sea base along the coast allows units to freely enter and leave the base from the coast.