Official: Centralis boreholes?

[Cedayon]

From Archaic:
I remember having massive eco-damage, but then, I'd crawled mainly minerals, not energy.

Yea, you'd get massive ED if you had massive surface mineral production (anyway around that other than large numbers of orbital mining stations and large population?)... I've played a few games where my industry got to the point that I was fighting off 40-50+ unit swarms of locusts per turn (sometimes multiple groups of them), ouch. So I adopted the strategy of crawling enough energy that I could research really fast and have enough cash to buy whatever my more moderate industry couldn't produce fast enough.

Anyway, I'm done hijacking the thread

[GeneralTacticus]

The capital (and pretty much all my bases) had essentially everything that current tech permitted, including TFs/HFs and copious amounts of SC's. The borehole field was many, many squares away, though, and probably outside my territory (ie not within 20 squares of any of my bases or whatever the area is). What determines which base gets hit with the eco-damage for a borehole (and thus could alleviate that damage with HFs) if the borehole isn't in the city radii?

No idea. Meybe it doesn't get hit at all, but in any case, if all your bases had Hybrid Forests, the issue it irrelevant - HFs negate the ED effects of terraforming.

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Cedayon
Agreed on the energy park thing, there's one thing that puzzles me though:
Even if they're outside city radii and crawled for energy and not minerals? That would kill the idea pretty quick... but I remember playing a game some time ago (SMAC, not X) where I had some 40-50 boreholes on a large plain (terraformed up from the seabed) all outside my radii (perhaps even outside my territory) crawled for energy sent to my capital. I was getting 1-2 techs a turn, but I don't recall seeing terribly many fungal blooms or worm assaults or the usual effects of massive eco-damage that one would expect from 40-50 boreholes, however.

Was this changed in a patch, or am I just remembering wrong?

Hmmmm....perhaps I'm remembering wrong. I remember having massive eco-damage, but then, I'd crawled mainly minerals, not energy. It was a 1 city challenge I'd done for some reason. I remember counting over 100 Boreholes by the end.

[Cedayon]

The capital (and pretty much all my bases) had essentially everything that current tech permitted, including TFs/HFs and copious amounts of SC's. The borehole field was many, many squares away, though, and probably outside my territory (ie not within 20 squares of any of my bases or whatever the area is). What determines which base gets hit with the eco-damage for a borehole (and thus could alleviate that damage with HFs) if the borehole isn't in the city radii?

[GeneralTacticus]

Even if they're outside city radii and crawled for energy and not minerals? That would kill the idea pretty quick... but I remember playing a game some time ago (SMAC, not X) where I had some 40-50 boreholes on a large plain (terraformed up from the seabed) all outside my radii (perhaps even outside my territory) crawled for energy sent to my capital. I was getting 1-2 techs a turn, but I don't recall seeing terribly many fungal blooms or worm assaults or the usual effects of massive eco-damage that one would expect from 40-50 boreholes, however.

Was this changed in a patch, or am I just remembering wrong?

Did the capital or nearby bases have Hybrid Forests?

[GeneralTacticus]

Unfortunatly not. However, if I remember correctly, they still make 5 energy each or some such. It's been a while since I've bothered to make an energy park in a game. However, the following pattern will generate more energy than any other....

I just ran a test using the Scenario Editor on the map that we're using (not the same game, though), and it seems to won't be very efficient to turn the central area into an energy park - the maximum it will produce per turn is 5 energy, which is less than a single borehole will produce, so it would probably be more efficient to just drill a single boreholes, crawl it, and leave the other two tiles as forest to help contain the ecodamage.

[Cedayon]

Agreed on the energy park thing, there's one thing that puzzles me though:

Originally posted by Archaic
Boreholes crawled contribute to Eco-damage too afterall

Even if they're outside city radii and crawled for energy and not minerals? That would kill the idea pretty quick... but I remember playing a game some time ago (SMAC, not X) where I had some 40-50 boreholes on a large plain (terraformed up from the seabed) all outside my radii (perhaps even outside my territory) crawled for energy sent to my capital. I was getting 1-2 techs a turn, but I don't recall seeing terribly many fungal blooms or worm assaults or the usual effects of massive eco-damage that one would expect from 40-50 boreholes, however.

Was this changed in a patch, or am I just remembering wrong?

[Archaic]

Unfortunatly not. However, if I remember correctly, they still make 5 energy each or some such. It's been a while since I've bothered to make an energy park in a game. However, the following pattern will generate more energy than any other....

ESESE
ESESE
ESESE

That ends up being better than

SESES
SESES
SESES

in the long run simply due to the accumulated Mirror bonuses.

[GeneralTacticus]

Hmmm - do Echelon mirrors recieve energy reflected off each other?

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Cedayon
Ah, right *writes that one down*, good for fairly large areas. What about small areas like that 3 square bit in the screenshot, would a borehole fit in any of those? Or would it still be more efficient to build collectors/mirrors there? I think it would depend on whether or not it's ok to extend the energy park into the surrounding within-radii squares. Then again it could be irrelevant if we have enough large areas available.

It'd probably be better to throw in a Mirror and 2 Solar's there. Boreholes crawled contribute to Eco-damage too afterall, plus we could only fit 1 in there at most anyway. This way, all 3 squares will produce energy.

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Maniac
I voted no on both boreholes, at least for now. GT, several of your bases are already seriously polluting our environment / producing eco-damage. Surely it is folly to build boreholes on top of that before we have developed more eco-friendly production methods?

Question Maniac. What in your book qualifies as "seriously polluting our environment" in the terms of producing eco-damage. How much eco-damage do you find acceptable? And why is it even an issue?

[GeneralTacticus]

Like what? We have Tree Farms under construction in both bases, you realize, and they'll be done long before the boreholes.

[Maniac]

I voted no on both boreholes, at least for now. GT, several of your bases are already seriously polluting our environment / producing eco-damage. Surely it is folly to build boreholes on top of that before we have developed more eco-friendly production methods?

[Cedayon]

Ah, right *writes that one down*, good for fairly large areas. What about small areas like that 3 square bit in the screenshot, would a borehole fit in any of those? Or would it still be more efficient to build collectors/mirrors there? I think it would depend on whether or not it's ok to extend the energy park into the surrounding within-radii squares. Then again it could be irrelevant if we have enough large areas available.

[Archaic]

It would be far more efficient to build an energy park. Less Former time per unit of energy, and more energy in the end (Average SC has 6 Mirrors next to it. Even on low terrain that's then 7 Energy Each.)