Beeline to Hab Dome: Strategy or Superstition?

[Santiago_Claus]

I just played a "Beeline to Hab Dome" game and complained the entire time, then turned around and broke my Transcend speed record.

I had Hab Domes for maybe 22 turns before transcending ... how big an impact could Hab Domes have had over 22 years? How much longer would it have taken if, after researching the tech, I simply didn't build any, leaving all bases at size 16?

I'm still trying to figure out whether the relentless focus on getting to Hab Domes had anything to do with it or not. For most of the game it "felt" like things were going slowly, which is completely at odds with what was really happening.

Did that "feeling of being behind" cause me to make better decisions? Or was it the Hab Domes themselves, miraculously compressing the rest of the game into 22 years of frenetic growth?

I'm nonplussed, so I thought I'd put the question to the Apolyton SMAC-X Academy. Beeline to Hab Domes: clever strategy or Dumbo's "magic feather"?

(For you non-Americans, Dumbo was a Disney movie in which a flight-capable animal incorrectly attributes its ability to fly to a "magic feather" rather than intrinsic aerodynamic qualities.)

[sammy1339]

How many bases did you have, and how much did you use the hab domes (how much did they grow)? Also, did you build all the SP's on the way? There are good builder techs on the way to hab domes; that might have something to do with it. Can you please give more details about this? In single-player I use hab domes alot, mostly for aesthetic purposes (I like having pop 40 bases as I churn out Transcendent Thought 50) and I would very much like not to feel stupid.

Nice recap of Dumbo, by the way.

[Jamski]

If you got the full use of the 22 extra pop, turning them to tech specialists in every base, I can imagine it certainly made you transcend a few turns faster.

-Jam

[DilithiumDad]

Population is power throughout the game. I always beeline for hab dones. Especially as Morgan!

[Adalbertus]

Beelining for Hab Domes is good if you know you can use them. Which means pop booming. So, if you've lost the race to Cloning Vats as Morgan, it might become difficult. The problem is that specialists don't count as talents. So when your base is more than half full of specialists, there is no Golden Age and therefore no pop boom.

Which reminds me of creating a new thread ...

[CEO Aaron]

If you read through some of Sikander's older posts, you'll see that by late game, nutrients supporting specialists wind up being BY FAR the most effective source of income in the late game. Once you have satellites, a crawler taking in 6 nutrients (standard for a square with a condenser/farm) will support 6 transcends, and also generate 6 energy and minerals.

That winds up adding up to a TON of credits and labs, most of which will be completely unaffected by efficiency (specialist income isn't impacted by low efficiency). Therefore, once you've hit hab domes, you'll be best served by paving over your energy park with a nutrient park.

[Enigma_Nova]

ummm 6 nuts supports 3 pop, Aaron.
/me slaps you around a bit with a large trout
EDIT:
Unless you consider nutrient sattelites...
/me slaps himself around a bit with a large trout

[CEO Aaron]

[Santiago_Claus]

Better question: Vats, Domes or Domes, Vats?

If you're going Domes, your obvious second priority is Vats. The reverse would seem to hold as well.

I'm thinking Vats then Domes, because of the Clean Reactors you get on the way to Vats, but Domes has Fusion in its line. Fusion's pretty nice.

Opinions?

[Jamski]

Vats then Domes. You don't want someone else to grab the Vats.

And the Longevity Vaccine is beautiful if you're running Planned.

-Jam

[CEO Aaron]

Longevity Vaccine just quells drones. By the time I'm considering Hab domes, I'm well into an all-specialist plan, working only a handful of tiles, and crawling nuts for the majority of my population.

[Enigma_Nova]

A base with 5 specialists, 5 workers and 1 drone still riots.

[Whoha]

There is one reason to run FM, the Longevity Vaccine profit bonus to your SSC.

[Jamski]

Longevity Vaccine allows turbo ICS with the PTS, VW and HGP in Planned/Demo. Just plonk down bases and rush a node then a creche.

Its insane.

-Jam

[Adalbertus]

Enigma,
In a really heavy specialist approach, you'll never get as much as 6 worked tiles
You'll work three boreholes, that's all. As soon as you've got a sensible number of facilities/SPs, such as VW, HGP, and nodes, you simply don't have two workers and one drone.

Btw. Do you prefer Thinkers over Engineers, or vice versa? Much more money or a little more labs and psych?

[Jamski]

Take an approach with both. Give some bases Energy Banks, Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests and Engineers only. Give other bases Nodes, Research Hospitals, Nanohospitals etc.

-Jam

[CEO Aaron]

Personally, I'm much more fond of engineers. Tech is nice, but it's not too hard to stay in the driver's seat, techwise, once your empire's functioning smoothly. Cash is much more flexible, imo.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Nice stuff guys, I will mess around with Hab Domes in my next game

Oh and by the way.... CEO Aaron have you goten any of the PM's I sent you conserning the next ACDG for SMACX and the Morgan Faction?

[CEO Aaron]

Whoops. I'm bad about checking my PMs.



There, I've signed up.

[jtsisyoda]

Originally posted by Jamski
Longevity Vaccine allows turbo ICS with the PTS, VW and HGP in Planned/Demo. Just plonk down bases and rush a node then a creche.

Its insane.

-Jam

That's a good idea, Jamski, but PTS wouldn't be essential, would it? At size one, rush the creche, then the node. You'd only be one turn behind.

[johndmuller]

I think that you need to get the population up to 2 or 3 the old fashioned way before the boom effect kicks in.

[Kody]

Golden age booms require size 3, since golden age needs size 3 or more to happen. Normal booming can happen at size 1.

However I think the real reason Jamski mentions the PTS is because when the base is planted you get far more production than a size 1 base. That assists in building the creche and node faster. With the 10 mineral additional rush buy expense even if you're rolling in money you probably want to wait until you have 10 minerals before rushing.

If you're struggling to expand in the midgame, you probably won't have excess money to spend on rushing everything. So having the extra 2 workers bringing in production helps building inital formers/facilities/military.

[Santiago_Claus]

Beeline to Vats, or first to Env. Econ.?

Eco Eng and Env Econ are 2 techs off the path of both Vats and Domes.

And yet ... surely the added time & tech cost of those 2 techs pay for themselves many times over before you'd ever have made it to Biomachinery without 'em?

[Jamski]

For SURE. You'd have to lift those restrictions - or face a very slow beeline.

-Jam

[CEO Aaron]

You need Tree Farms, not for the tree farms themselves, but the lifting of mineral and energy income restrictions. Besides, pop booming is SO much easier with tree farms.

[Santiago_Claus]

I sat down and constructed "the perfect tech tree". Here are the tech milestones. Number of prerequisites are in ().

Cent Eco --> Formers
IA (4) --> Supply
Env Eco (5) --> Full Production
Bioeng (3) --> Clean Reactors
Retroviral Eng (6) --> Factories
D:AP (2) --> Air
Biomach (1) --> Vats
PlaEco (1) --> AV
Fusion (3) --> Fusion Reactors
Mono Magnet (4) --> Monorails
Ind Nano (2) --> The Nano Factory
Tensile (8) --> Domes

There is a 2-tech detour for lifting restrictions plus a 1-tech detour on that same path that allows both Ascetic Virtues & Hybrid Forests.

I guess that means "Beeline to Habdome" in the strictest sense is folly. Getting it all down on paper it's nice to see the AV is very close to the Vats.

[Commy]

I have a rule about techs. You can't go two levels above the lowest tech you don't have. For example, I won't research a level three tech until I have all the level ones, and I won't research a level 15 tech until I have all the level 13s, and I also make sure that I get the weapons techs in order, so I don't have to research nonlinear mathematics while I'm using fusion lasers. This makes for a balanced tech game, and works pretty well. THis way you won't be forced to trade level 5 techs for level two techs.