I've seen what you people do with your supply crawlers...

[miltonic]

And your FREAKING INSANE!! Someone had posted a pic of 15 bases on what looked like an island, with probably another 40+ formers and SUpply crawlers.

I came to this forum looking for a little advice on how to use Supply crawlers as I've never really explored them in the past, only to see the fullest extent at which the Pro's here use them. If I'm not Grasshopper....

I'm taking a break from SMAC atm, I have a current game in where I have about 5 Supply crawlers amongst my 18 total bases. I can see that this is grossly insufficient after seeing their usage on these forums.

Are there any limits to how many supply crawlers you can use? I mean, could I conceivably have 100 supply crawlers all over the world map all convoying resource to a single base? If so, would I wan't to? It would appear that if that is the case, once you get SC's, would you not endlessy crank them out? I'm a newb, but I'm trying to understand..I really am.

[Googlie]

Read this (http://www.civgaming.net/smac/acad_crawlers.shtml) for one of the best written treatises on crawler use

And while you might not want 100 or so per base (especially crawling minerals - the ecology damage would submerge you in globally warmed floodwaters pretty soon thereafter) a specialist research base supported by an energy park (20 or 30 solar panels on elevated land interspersed with echelon mirrors for maximum multiplier effect) would call for an equivalent number of crawlers crawling energy to that base (no ecol damage for energy crawling)

Or terraformed nutrient squares (specials, farms and condensors) with a crawler pulling in nuts can free up many citizens to act as specialists (engineers, librarians, and later on thinkers and empaths, etc)

G.

[Dis]

I had the same reaction. I had no idea people used crawlers that much.

I still don't use them that much. I still don't, even though I know it's the way to win on transcend. I just can't bring myself to build that many.

[Enigma_Nova]

I used to be a 8-1-2 Rover Rusher before I came to 'poly.
Seeing the use of formers, I tried them.
Needless to say...
O_O
I managed to get my 8-1-2s at least 20 turns quicker, and I could pump them endlessly.

Nowadays I use Missile Rovers or Fusion Shard Copters. :)

[miltonic]

I've just tried implementing the rush to IA and mass crawler strategy for the first time. Holy crap, all of a sudden I think my game has increased 10 fold. I've got 10 + bases nearly all outputting 12+ minerals and I'm just 60 years in. It's going to be ridiculous in the next hundred years, I won't be able to find my units behind the crawler horde :P It's all good though, I think I'll need to start playing a t a tougher difficulty with this strategy.

[Jamski]

Or against humans that know these tricks too :evil:

-Jam

[Enigma_Nova]

And get PWND1eleven.
...
Or, you could watch people play. I've set up an Open-Information PBEM as a turorial.

[SynthetGod8]

Yes, I often use my crawlers on those Nut specials (with Consender, Farm, etc) so that I can harvest forests instead. Same goes with mines.

I've never truly gone nuts with crawlers. I've never been able to build a really good enery park either. There never seems to be enough room. I'm content to build a water energy park and do it that way. In some ways, it's easier to defend.

[Mead]

Originally posted by SynthetGod8
Yes, I often use my crawlers on those Nut specials (with Consender, Farm, etc) so that I can harvest forests instead. Same goes with mines.

I've never truly gone nuts with crawlers. I've never been able to build a really good enery park either. There never seems to be enough room. I'm content to build a water energy park and do it that way. In some ways, it's easier to defend.

Make room.

Raise your land to get extra land, and much more importantly for an energy park, all your solar and mirror towers above 3K elevation for max energy output.

A large, well protected, energy park feeding a well developed Super Science Center is a game winner.

The biggest trick your hear about in destroying these parks is exploding (self destructing) fusion powered or better choppers. They tend to destroy those crawlers working those tiles. Choppers being what they are, can travel a long ways over the course of 3 turns and still arrive in your energy, badly damaged, but ready to self destruct.


Mead

[Googlie]

But ........ choppers can be attacked by ground forces, so put an AAA good weapon good armor unit on top of those crawlers (they don't even need SAM capability against choppers) - they'll absorb the first hit and then fight back

G.

[Frankychan]

I think it was Lazerus, Jamski or someone else who posted a pic where every single square had a crawler on it.

I, too, wasn't really a crawler person. I tended to use them half-a**ed with only a few here and there until I realized just how valuable they are. Now, I use them a lot more, but not as much as having one in every single square....that's just friggin' ridiculous. :dizzy:

[Commy]

Normally, I crawl landmarks, like the top of Mount Planet, where energy is easy to get (elevation and energy bonus from landmark), or bonus resources. everything else is hybrid forests. And I also crawl all of the minerals to one base, so that it can build secret projects, though it would suck if I lost that one base

[Jamski]

Don't you get just a bit of ecodamage in that base?

-Jam

[Enigma_Nova]

Not as much as the one and only green god, Jamski!

I can tolerate Ecodamage in one base. Just as long as I have empath ships, empath rovers, and enough formers to clear the fungus in one turn.
The XED helps for stuff like this. :b:

[anarchie]

I suddenly feel like proving that ecodamage is the one true way to cornering the energy market in an OCC.

[Snowflake]

The thing with crawler is, whenever you are out of things to build, you can crank one out. I have learnt to be slower in building infrastructures, after hearing much about high costs and long payback times etc. So I got many opportunities that I don't have things to build other than crawlers and later clean formers perhasp.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by anarchie
cornering the energy market in an OCC.
W T F ?
You'd need a mega big ass energy park to do something like that.
I wouldn't try to go Energy Market - I'd probably just Nervegas everyone to death. :D:b:

[Livid_Imp]

Originally posted by anarchie
I suddenly feel like proving that ecodamage is the one true way to cornering the energy market in an OCC.

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
W T F ?
You'd need a mega big ass energy park to do something like that.


Sounds like a challenge to me.... ;)

Once you get your eco damage into the 100's-200's, worms start popping in stacks of 10+. It is fairly common to get stacks worth 350+ ECs per round. That is as much as you can earn from a mid-sized, mid game empire. Sounds like it is worth a shot.

[Chaunk]

I think a much harder challenge would be to do a no eco damage OCC.

[Enigma_Nova]

I haven't OCCed before. My Ecodamage doesn't tend to spike like that until Sats.

[Livid_Imp]

Originally posted by Chaunk
I think a much harder challenge would be to do a no eco damage OCC.

Done it, wasn't hard at all actually. Just keep your neighbors happy with tech gifts and tactical SE changes while you build an energy park.

Edit: Throughout the early/mid part of the OCC game you are so weak that the AI doesn't consider you a threat. I am rarely at war with more than one faction, and usually not at all.

[Frankychan]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova

I wouldn't try to go Energy Market - <b>I'd probably just Nervegas everyone to death.</b> :D:b:


:b: Or Sin Buster them all. :evilgrin::b:

[Enigma_Nova]

:D:b:

Though it would be more like Fusebustering them, as by the time I get Sins I'm almost transcending.

[Mead]

Originally posted by Googlie
But ........ choppers can be attacked by ground forces, so put an AAA good weapon good armor unit on top of those crawlers (they don't even need SAM capability against choppers) - they'll absorb the first hit and then fight back

G.

Googlie as always (OK, almost always) is right.

As I stated earlier: 'a large, well protected, energy park feeding a well developed Super Science Center is a game winner.'
Large and well protected (being over 3K elevation plus hooked up to a very well developed base with good research and energy bonusing facilites and SPs) is good.

There are a number of good ways to enhance the defensibilty of the energy park. These include:

1. Location, Location, Location - put your park in a site that is far away from any potential enemy. I usually like a site that is between my homeland and one of the poles so that any aggressors would have to go through or around my bases. With good patrolling, I should be able detect and destroy any intrusion before it can do damage.
- you've got to detect those 'choppers' and destroy them before they get near your energy park.
[this is the method I like]



2. Protect those crawlers from the choppers by placing armoured units on top of them. I have heard that some people build bunkers one every tile of thier energy park. I am not sure how well that works. [I use method No. 1 so I don't know how well this works]


3. You could preemptively push back the sources threat (using diplomacy and miltary efforts) to ensure that no one gets close. [this does sound kinda close to No. 1 listed above]

I like detecting the intruding choppers, and then destroying them while they are on the ground, before they make their final leg on their trip aginst my energy park.


Mead