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HURRY SECRET PROJECTS -- THE USE OF UPGRADED CRAWLERS
Let's begin with the simpliest and most commonly known: hurring secret projects! While it is possible to hurry secret projects directly with credits, it is very expensive: four credits per mineral, and only if you have already accumulated four mineral rows. For that reason cashing in crawlers is a more preferred method for hurrying SPs: while units normally only provide half their mineral cost when disbanded, for crawlers their full mineral cost is added when cashing in for a secret project or unit prototype production. As one mineral -> one mineral is considered a better exchange rate than four credits -> one mineral, the choice how to hurry secret projects is quickly made.

But there is a way to hurry secret projects faster than by having to build and cash in a whole bunch of 3-row crawlers. Namely by upgrading your crawlers before cashing them in.

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This method makes use of the very favourable credit->mineral exchange rate you usually get by upgrading units. Consider the example I gave above: a 0-2t-1 crawler. To upgrade the unit from a 3-row to a 8-row model, you have to pay 90 credits. That's 90 credits for an extra 5 mineral rows. Or in other words: 1.8 credits per mineral assuming you're running 0 SE Industry. That's a whole lot less than the 4 credits per min you usually have to pay, and even less than the 2 credits per min you have to pay when hurrying base facilities. This favourable exchange rate even improves as you can (due to special abilities, higher armour etc) design more and more expensive crawler models. As a result, after getting IndAut (crawlers), IndBase (synthmetal armour) and SotHB (hypnotic trance - usually the first ability you can put on crawlers), building secret projects usually merely becomes a function of having enough credits in reserve and getting the required tech first.

HURRYING UNIT PRODUCTION -- THE USE OF SKUNKWORKS
Besides secret projects, there are also methods to get units faster and cheaper than you would get by normal credit hurrying. For example if you need a strong (and thus expensive) military unit very fast, instead of building and hurrying it the normal way, you could build a cheap 1-1-x "unit shell" and then upgrade it to the desired configuration. Many people even make it a standard tactic to just build a whole bunch of high morale and clean 1-1-x unit shells; and when someone declares war on them, they can just upgrade the shells as desired for an instant elite army.

Besides the straightforward method of upgrading unit shells, there is also a way to hurry unit production using crawlers, just like you would use them to hurry secret projects: adding their full mineral cost. This method envolves the Skunkworks base facility. That facility has an undocumented advantage besides cancelling the +50% prototype cost: in the base the skunkworks is built, it allows you to switch production between items of the same kind (unit, facility, project) without the usual mineral penalty.

This feature can be used as follows. Initiate production of a unit prototype. Next cash in a few supply crawlers (upgraded for an even bigger benefit): just like for SPs crawlers add their full cost to prototype hurrying. Thirdly switch production (without any penalty) to the unit you really wanted to build. Now your desired unit is under production, with already lots of the required minerals accumulated. Should be very handy if one wants to build expensive units.

The only catch is that you have to be able to build a unit prototype to use this method. This means denying yourself your best weapon, armour or a chassis type. After researching Orbital Spaceflight (and missiles) this problem is somewhat alleviated though. You could for example always keep the planet buster weapon unprototyped. While an effective weapon against annoying enemies, it has lots of downsides and isn't really crucial to win the game. So after acquiring those you could always use your best convential weapons and armour.

THE "MANIAC MANOEUVRE" -- HURRYING ALL PRODUCTION
The Spartans suffer from a problem though. Probably because they don't have to pay prototype costs, they can't build the Skunkworks facility either. This wouldn't be a problem, if it weren't for the fact that Firaxis (accidentally??) added an undocumented feature to this facility. Because of this the Spartans can't use the method described above and would have an unfair disadvantage towards all the other factions.

There is a way around this though, called the "Maniac Manoeuvre" or simply crawler-hurrying in Spartan ACDG circles. If you are building a unit in a base, but then go into the unit workshop and retire that design, the base production is switched to "stockpile energy". If you then set production to something else in that base, the minerals you had accumulated before the design retirement still fully stay.

This can be used in combination with the method described above. Set production to an unprototyped unit design, cash in a few (upgraded) crawlers, go into the unit workshop to delete the design. and then switch the base production to whatever you originally intended to build. For this method you don't need Skunkworks. And what's more, while with Skunkworks you can only switch to a different unit, with this "retire unit design" method you can switch to anything, including facilities. Taken together, this implies - under the condition that you have a unit you can prototype - you could use crawlers to hurry ALL production, and no longer only secret projects. It also negates the 50% production penalty normally connected to switching production. So in theory you could set production in all bases to a unit prototype - allowing you to switch production whenever you want - and only change to your real intended production item the turn before it would be normally finished.

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About the author: International Politics student in Belgium.

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Originally published in full on October 14, 2004.

The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of Apolyton CS. They are just the personal opinions of the writer.