Base Spacing discussion

[Chaunk]

It should be 7 - Googlie set it up for us and Googlie likes his large a little larger than normal... It may be that he's changed it though...

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by Chaunk
jt, you make some good points re: Boreholes against condesor+farms. My take on it is that a crawlered con+farm = 2 pop, which can be two libararians for 6 research. A borehole requires 2 nuts from someplace else, so we need to add another librarian. Therefore, con+farm is roughly equal to 9 labs points, pre multiplying by facilities.
A bore hole is 7 eneregy, hence, (probably) 4 labs points, 3 e.c.s. Slightly loses out to the con+farm.

If your only goal is the conduct of research, specialists outperform a borehole, however, the total FOP of a 'hole under FM is 13, as opposed to the 9 you offer for a librarian. The other drawback with specialists is that with Morgan's hab limits, you only get so many non-doctor specialists.

Originally posted by Chaunk
A crawler on top of a forest+sensor square will stop it being destroyed by any remote bombardment. But yeah, the 2 nut square is way more important, especially since we won't be able to get rec tanks early...

Why are we not getting Biogenics first? I missed any discussion we had about beelines.

[AndiD]

In the scenario set-up the tech trade flag was set and unfortunately this meant either Doc:Mob, InfNet or SocPsych for us.

[CEO Aaron]

Super-Weak. I gotta say, that's a HUGE disadvantage for us. We can only hope we get a crack at it after our first tech.

[Chaunk]

We can, but only at the expense of pushing IndAuto back by at least one tech, and I think more like 2, and also not having either formers or FM for a long time.

[Mead]

Originally posted by jtsisyoda
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Not planting a base in another base's radius is IMO an aesthetic concern, one I don't spend too much energy satisfying. The real issue for me is how many squares each base will have available, including workers and crawlers.

True. Not buillding within another bases radius may look nice, but it is better if we get our bases and running quicker rather than prettier.

Regarding maximum borehole density, the last boreholes you put down don't provide that many minerals in the grand scheme of things, because the game usually ends soon after they are put down. I usually focus on the low-lying fruit-- putting boreholes in places where no preparation is required (no removing fungus, or raising or lowering land). I do try to place this low-lying fruit in such a way that it doesn't wreck completely the idea of getting a near-max density configuration later. But I'd rather build six BH's in say, 2150, than five in 2160 followed by two in 2170.

I agree. What Jtsisyoda is saying is turn-advantage.

Another benefit to close spacing for Morgan is that you don't lose as much of that beautiful base-square energy to inefficiency.
***

Although the game might be decided before efficiency becomes much of an issue, close basing does limit inefficeny loses should we get there.


Mead

[CEO Aaron]

Well, I'm not sure where MOD3 is going to put us, but I frequently play large maps, and the beeline I use is typically:

Biogenics
Industrial Economics
Information Networks
Centauri Ecology
Planetary Networks
Industrial Automation
Social Psych

Given our relatively promising starting location (plentiful nuts and a river), we should have little difficulty reaching all of these techs by the time we've planted 6-8 bases.

IMO: R-tanks > Market > Formers. Tanks allow the best way to convert the 110 starting EC's into persistent growth and production advantages.

[Chaunk]

Yet it loses effectiveness if the surrounding squares lack nuts for the bases to grow. Thats not a problem with our initial territory, but it may become a problem.

It also loses effectiveness if bases run out of squares to work and crawl - again, not unheard of. I like to ensure each base has at least 7 squares to work, and I'm gonna keep trying to push that. I can't see a way to build both bases next turn without putting them in each others radii though, so that'll probably have to do.

[Chaunk]

That'd be lovely if we could Aaron, but we cannot. This scenario has started with the tech traded flag already activated. That means we are effectily one (two? Not quite sure) space up in the options list already and so our beelines are massivly restricted.

[#endgame]

I would suggest we carve out a decent sized ring of bases for our empire so we will either be abble to fill the middle with an E-park if we wish, or more bases. I personally put my bases such that 2 road linked bases are 1 move apart.

[Archaic]

Chaunk's suggestions seem good enough for me. I'd advocate a little more looseness with placement when we've got rocky or fungus tiles in the way of a placement, though given the borehole method I think is being suggested (Which fits 6 holes in a normal base radius, even though they're not all being used, rather than the 4 you'd usually get if you boreholed the black squares between bases), that could kill a borehole spot on occasion. Really depends if the boreholes are being made in / parallel lines or \ parallel lines.

[AndiD]

*bump* after copying over lots of threads from our off-site forum