Official: Base Near the Hive

[Method]

apparently, yes.

i'm sure once we get a 1-bestAAA-4 *2 or 2 in there, the hive's jet's won't be a match.

[GeneralTacticus]

Yup, especially once our interceptors start coming online with Fusion Lasers.

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
Yup, especially once our interceptors start coming online with Fusion Lasers.

Should we start emphasizing needle production so that we have enough "hulls" around when we get FLs that we can upgrade our way to an overwhelming airforce?

[GeneralTacticus]

Well, I intend to, as much as possible. I'm already planning on prototyping our first needljet at NA.

[Drogue]

I agree that needlejets are important, however I don't think we ned hundreds. 5 or 6 best-best-12 needlejets, and the same of interceptors, will be plenty to stop any hive onslaught, protect or bases, and make strategic strikes at Yangs key bases. I would say keep building infrastructure, interspersed with military units, but not to flood them. Our people want to be safe, and I think we can transcend quicker with infrastructure than with military units. I'm all for building some, but let us not completely militarise. Make our bases better places to live

[GeneralTacticus]

Why bother armouring the needlejets? It's just an unnecessary extravagance, and if we do this right, we won't need it.

And a dozen or so needljets isn't going to cut it. We need enough to take and maintain control over their skies, and destroy any Hive units we can see.

As to the last point - we won't need total militarisation to build an overwhelming air force, not witht he amount of production we have. It should only take 2-3 turns per jet, interspersed with facilities.

[Method]

Originally posted by Drogue
best-best-12 needlejets

you havn't by chance been playing unpatched, have you? i know unpatched armour on air units doesn't cost. however with patch, it's quite expensive

[Drogue]

Which patch are yoy talking about? I have installed a couple, but obviously not that one, as in my version it does not cost extra. A dozen jets will cut it. Why do we need more? If we wanted to conquer all then maybe we would need a few more, but I have never needed more than 5 or 6 needlejets for any purpose, even on transcend. Used wisely, they are enough to take and hold a few bases. I generally use 3 needlejets/copters and a couple of rovers/hovertanks to take a continent. Moreover, I think we can leach tech and energy of yang for a bit, before we engage in an invasion. We can take one or two bases, and have enough to hold them, while letting probes get to work stealing and buying bases.

[Method]

Originally posted by Drogue
Which patch are yoy talking about? I have installed a couple, but obviously not that one, as in my version it does not cost extra.

V4.0 for SMAC, V2.0 for SMAX. www.firaxis.com

[Drogue]

I dont have SMAX, could that be the difference? I think i have 4.0 for SMAC.

[Method]

well check and make sure, because i know armour not costing for air units was one of the bugs they fixed. did you reinstall perhaps? i know that happened to me once: i reinstalled and forgot to put the patch back in, and was playing unpatched for some time

[Cedayon]

Just loaded the '35 save with my version of original SMAC (it came with the Planetary Pack), went to the design shop and checked: Armor adds significantly to the cost of Needles with weapons.

[Drogue]

I think it's that I've been running it without the CD, and it's copied from another HD, so I can't install SMAX, and probably the patches haven't installed properly. Never mind, just scrap the comment about best-best-12, best-1-12 would do fine. However I still think we have no need of them in large numbers.

[GeneralTacticus]

Why not? Yang's army isn't exactly small. We want to get the war over with ASAP, do we not?

[Drogue]

Because we need to use the minerals and energy for something else, more important IMHO. Well, at the moment Yang isn't attacking us, so I don't see any reason to launch a strike yet. I think a few needlejets and a few interceptors for defense, and annoyance would do us fine for quite a while. Yes we're at war, but we've no need to fight it yet.