Load/Unload transports player fatigue

[ReconRoverRush]

I'm playing the pirates, and all I do is load/unload probe teams and scouts. I don't know about you, but for me it gets really repetitive and boring with all the transports. To make things worse, you make one little mistake and all your veteran probe teams sink with the transport. There's a bunch of pods on little islands, but it doesn't seem any fun to load up a scout, drive to the island, unload, pop the pod, and then reload the scout, and finally repeat.

Am I jaded, have I played too many of Sid Mierer's games? I know from Civ 2 -4 its one of the most boring parts. You can easily spend 5+ minutes on a turn and not even do that much. I haven't played this game too long I don't think, yet I've played plenty others. Nothing like using a drop ship to drop a bunch of marines, only to realize you left your troops at home. It doesn't seem like any game can get this mechanic right. Yes, it works, but its a game not a paying job.

[Kahryl]

This is part of the reason I disabled sea bases entirely. The game has quite a bit of micromanagement and sea bases in general just lead to a lot more.

[551262]

Micromanagement is the primary element that drives me nuts about SMAC/SMAC-X.

To handle it, I play as Sparta, which I find easier than the other factions, and I would recommend all beginners to the game start with that faction. (The first ever game I played, which I still have saved, was with SMAC, with MoP as Deidre. What a mess.) Secondly, I play on small maps, standard only if I am looking for a longer game. Huge maps I only do for experiments, and I hate those because it takes me a week to play a single map. Lastly, I play in short sessions, no more than a couple of hours or when I start to get irate at having to tell every former how to do its thing. Combat is where my heart is, not building.

But to answer your question, exploring is something I like to do, and popping pods is a bit of fun for me. First, if I'm playing SMAC-X, which I rarely do, then I wait until I get Empath and Trance abilities along with Neural Grafting (C4). Then I build 1-1-1*2 Empath Trance scout rovers, which if I'm playing Sparta is easy to make Elite. Having the Xenoempathy Dome is awesome too. This is because of Fungal Towers, which I wait to take on once I get empath because they're quite tough and their morale is determined by the number of surrounding fungal squares adjacent to the fungal tower, and they upgrade with time, so it's easy for them to get to Demon Boil.

Then I bring a transport near the little island and move in with the rovers. If it's just one or two squares, I can pop the pod and hop back in the transport if it's spiked with worms. If it's a regular little island with 10-15 pods on it then I'll send in about three rovers. If one pops a pod and it kicks out a worm, the unit has Trance ability, along with a nearby rover with the empath ability to take care of business.

Then there's using captured or bred mindworms. These won't piss off the other native life unless your mindworm is on the same square as a alien artifact. Only problem with these is they are the same as infantry, one move/turn on regular squares but they move through fungus with ease and don't have support costs when they're sitting in fungus (or if they're Independent).

The last option is to use drop troops. This is ideal in the mid-late game, because after a certain time (and I notice this happens more with SMAC-X rather than the regular SMAC) then infected pods will produce 8 mindworms surrounding a pod. This usually means certain death even if your unit has Trance, Empath (for attack), Dream Twister SP (for +50% Psi attack), Neural Amplifier (for +50% Psi defense) and Resonance armor (SMAC-X) or Resonance weaponry (SMAC-X, for attack) because the mindworms at that point are usually Boil or mature boil and are thus quite difficult. (Or use conventional missiles...)

For protecting transports, first of all, armor on naval units is cheap. By the time you get Doctrine: Initiative (cruisers), you should have the industrial capacity to toss on some plasma steel armor (SMAC) or Resonance-3 armor (SMAC-X). Any time a transport does not have armor it is counted as a non-combat unit, which is bad, very bad. Secondly, if you're running around popping pods in the ocean, you'll want to bring a 1-3-4*2 Empath Trance foil (or as best as you can afford, if nothing else at least Trance) to park in the same square as the transport. What I do is get the defense foil next to the sea pod, pop it with the transport, and if it's "hot" then I can either retreat the transport or park the defense foil on the same square so you won't loose the transport. In the early game you can get colossal numbers (on Huge water maps) of alien artifacts (I once got 20+ playing as the Pirates) and send them back to your SP powerhouse base to kick out some SPs.

Or, pop pods with Isle of the Deep units. These are awesome, but they get better when they're boil or better (they can carry more units when they have higher morale, up to 6 or 7 I think).

Also, when you're going to drop off a bunch of probe teams on enemy turf (i.e to steal tech from Zakharov, etc), never send them alone without some sort of defense unit like a simple 1-3-1 plasma garrison, but better is a 1-3-2 plasma defensive rover (so it can keep up with the probes). The reason is if a mind worm pops, and attacks your stack of 8 probe teams unprotected, which you will loose (unless you have armor on your probes, which is a waste of time*) all 8 of them. 1-3r-2 trance is even better.

*: You can put armor on probes if it's like a garrison unit (for instance, if you're working with Free Market and can't use police units), in which case it's fine. The only time I modify probes is in SMAC-X, but I wait for Psi Defense -- 1-?-2*3 Algorithmic probes can be deadly when you have the Neural Amplifier because the attacking force has to use Psi attack against your Psi Defense, which you'd get +50% for being Elite (which they should be at that point) and +50% for Neural Amplifier while the attacker won't likely be as well equipped. The Algorithmic Enhancement ability does wonders for taking out all of Yang's perimeter defenses in the later game. (Conversely, if the enemy has the Citizens Defense Force, just target that base hard and fast, which once he looses that base, will have all the Perimeter Defenses removed from the other bases, but I don't know about perimeter defenses built normally before the SP was finished. Yang's will still remain intact.)