Logic Loop situation

[Corellion]

First of all, can somebody help me with this dilemma...

Logic Loop indicates 8 turns to the completion of the Virtual World, however my manual counts indicate that we have 81 minerals left, at 12 minerals a turn. This indicates only 7 turns left. Does anybody know what's going on?

In any case, going by my manual counts, we will have 44 minerals left to complete on the project by the time we are able to switch to the Maritime Control Centre. We have a number of options here.

Let it complete construction natually:
This will take 4 turns, and will cost us nothing.
Sacrifice a crawler, and then let construction finish naturally:
This will take 2 turns, but will require the disbanding of one crawler.
Sacrifice a crawler, and pay enough energy to complete seven additional mineral:
This will take 1 turn, but will require the disbanding of one crawler, plus 28 EC.

Note that, unless significant opposition is expressed, the crawler I was intending to use was the one that will be completed in Aurora next turn.

Vote now.

[Corellion]

Oops... miscalculation. Crawlers will only give us 24, not 30 minerals. Change my vote to option 2

[Drogue]

I think do nothing. We won't have a ship before we finish this, and no-one else is building it IIRC. Maybe use some Ec, but a crawler is worth way more than 28 ec personally, so I think it is a waste of a crawler not to use money. I would say 4 turns, maybe pay 28 ec and then skip a turn or something. But I think using crawlers is a waste.

Corellion: What was your vote, and what do you wish to change it to?

[Corellion]

My vote was for expend crawler and pay 4EC, but I then realised my miscalculation, and changed my vote to expend crawler and wait 2 turns.

[Chaunk]

No! If we build it, we build it in one turn! There really is no other way to do this at this stage when everyone else has crawlers and could very well build it just because they've seen we're building it!

Surely that alone should make a 28ec payout seem like nothing! Even up to 50ecs for my money.

C

[Corellion]

They haven't seen we're building it.
We're not even building it yet. The only people who could have any idea of whether or not we're even GOING to build it would be PEACE, and they don't have enough crawlers to make a credible threat.

[Phenix]

Yea, just let it finish naturally.

The 3 turns time advantage won at LL are not worth that crawler and EC's, and there's nobody who's going to get to the MCC before us.

[Maniac]

If we can believe Flubber in his PM, we will be able to get Doc:Ini next year, and thus already switch to the MCC. This creates the new possibility of using two instead of one crawler to rush the MCC, finishing it two years earlier. The drawback is of course we then can't use that crawler anymore to rush eg a Impact Cruiser or eg Cruiser Transport...
Any thoughts?

[Corellion]

See the new thread, "Strategic and Tactical Planning" for discussion regarding the upcoming war.