The Economic Planning Agency

[Maniac]

IIRC yes. I'll do a quick test soon.

[Googlie]

My understanding is that the biolab +2 labs bonus gets multiplied by all the research multiplying facilities

[Googlie]

Open with "Scenario" then "Edit Scenario" and look at the bases (named appropriately)

you can see what effect the multipliers have with a biolab - play around with the populations and the sliders for greater effect

[Maniac]

Just thought I'd have a look at the advantages of Police State/Green, now we're about to get Centauri Empathy.

We currently are able to use 267 minerals.
108 minerals are used for support.
So all together 375 minerals production.

We could reduce our support costs by 81 (3 extra support slots in each of our 27 bases) by running Police State/Green. Drawbacks of course the inability to popboom and the loss of +1 Industry (which would more or less translate in a loss of 35 minerals again, so only 81-35=46 minerals profit).

Other possibilities are upgrading all of our 50 CDFs to clean if we get Bio-engineering. This option requires 1000 credits though.

[wuy3]

although the game mechanics show a clear advantage for police/green. I just can't see spartans as a tree hugging dictatorship :-p

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Maniac
Other possibilities are upgrading all of our 50 CDFs to clean if we get Bio-engineering. This option requires 1000 credits though.

As if getting up to 1000 credits is difficult in any way.
(Though I would prefer to just upgrade them one by one. No point risking the loss of that kind of money.)

[Zeiter]

(Copied from MY 2187 thread)

Economic Statistics for MY 2187:

Spartans:
Minerals/turn: 312
Industry Rating: 12
Mineral Rows: 26
Energy Credits/turn: 29
Labs/turn: 169

University:
Minerals/turn: 21
Industry Rating: 6
Mineral Rows: 3.5
Energy Credits/turn: 9
Labs/turn: 63

Morganites:
Minerals/turn: 225
Industry Rating: 9
Mineral Rows: 25
Energy Credits/turn: 230
Labs/turn: 167

Data Angels:
Minerals/turn: 169
Industry Rating: 8
Mineral Rows: 21.125
Energy Credits/turn: 86
Labs/turn: 119

Hive:
Minerals/turn: 199
Industry Rating: 5
Mineral Rows: 39.8
Energy Credits/turn: -6
Labs/turn: 101

[Maniac]

W00t!

[Zeiter]

So, when are we going to relocate our headquarters to Fort Superiority (or Arcadia University, although I actually think Fort Soup would be the better choice, even after the haze ends at AU). That would take, what, one or two turns? And it would save us how much energy?

[Maniac]

I guess the simulator would have to be updated to know for sure.

[vishniac]

Hey!
It's my last post for at least 3 weeks. No more Internet connection at home so I'll use it at school beginning Oct 24...if I find the time.

In the meantime, the recommendations of the Ministry of Infrastructure:
-- Keep on following the guidelines of the Decennal Plan 2183-93!
-- Scientific emergency adressed! We are now at 8 turn/tech (even with the haze at AU) and we've got the 2 SPs deemed vital in the plan! Great job!
-- Bio-lab at AU, then crawlers to boost the other bases in the area.
-- Next targets for popboom: Argos, Kel Harbor and Hero's Waypoint. Creche + T-farm
-- Stop building condensers, for crying out loud! We've got orbital farms coming!
-- Snod was right: those copter-pods are hideously expensive!
-- Time to expand: why not drop a pod at 76,64 (facing the Gaians and allowing access to the 2 goodies)? Also, we could also send normal pods to 83,57 (also on freshwater sea) since it was decided so (though monolith and nuts would be better for ARC) and on the mineral bonus above Assassin's Redoubt.
Also, preparing sea-pods to send to the nut bonus at the Fossil Field Ridge and to Geothermal Shallows

Plan Rectangle Song: I would vote to keep on against the Angels instead.
- We are already at vendetta with them, we get money from Morgan and Gaians.
- We've got them infiltrated. Even if they're tough, we know what to do. Gaians are unknown. Better finish the Angels!
- We can drop colony-pods at the late MartPact and also on their northern peninsula where there is the sensor. Then, disembark troops and hurry a plasma-AAA CDF and an interceptor. Not having to worry about probes is refreshing.

Go Sparta!
I'll see you in 2193 hopefully!

[Maniac]

I agree with everything you say (though of course we can't do everything at once and would have to set priorities), except for one thing:

Originally posted by vishniac
-- Stop building condensers, for crying out loud! We've got orbital farms coming!

I'd say condenser farms have become more useful again now that we can launch orbital farms!

Over a year ago I was wondering about what's the most profitable strategy: a forest approach or a condenser approach to terraforming? Though it of course depends a lot on what faction you play (Hive or Morgan can’t popboom easily) or what SPs you have (such as the PTS), the main determinant seems to me to be your level of technology. Basically I think the game can be divided into four periods economically speaking.

1) The colonizing age

You have little options yet. The best way of economic expansion is ICSing with colony pods, and placing crawlers all over the place if you have Industrial Automation.

2) The popbooming age

After having Ethical Calculus (creches + demo) and Ecological Engineering (condensers) or Environmental Economics (tree farms) the only limit to population growth and the biggest bottleneck for growth becomes how you can produce the most nutrients the cheapest way. As mentioned above, condensers and tree farms are the best nutrient producers at this phase. You can't clearly say which one is better. It depends.

Condensers are neat, but they require lots of terraformer capacity. So the question if it's good for you to build them partly depends on how many formers you have available when you acquire the necessary popbooming technology, and thus how quickly you can get some condensers running.

Tree farms are very useful when you have lots of forest around (which is usually the case as it's a useful terraformation in the early game as well). The biggest problem though is their high cost. You'll only win back the investment if the bases with tree farms are popboomed as much as possible. So generally speaking I'd say tree farms are good when you can boom the base to size 14 or higher (with Ascetic Virtues), but one or two condensers per base are better if you only want to boom them to the hab complex limit. Note that even with a tree farm approach some condensers sprinkled around the countryside are recommended. As you boom to size 14, some doctors will be necessary to keep the drones happy, so you'll need to work some tiles that are producing more than two nutrients to feed the doctors.

Especially since we have the Ascetic Virtues now, popbooming to size 16 with tree farms became the best method for us.

However...

3) The specialist age

It all changes upon the research of three technologies: Orbital Spaceflight, Fusion Power and Advanced Ecological Engineering. Sky hydroponics labs, soil enrichers and super formers make it very easy to produce nutrients. So that bottleneck is removed and you can get bases to size 14 in no time. The question then becomes how you can make a size 14 base the cheapest way, using the least resources and still have it produce the most.

The answer is most definitely soil enriched condenser farms coupled with sky hydroponics labs. You can support a size 14 base with only two crawlers on two of those superfarms. All the citizens in the base can be engineer specialists or borehole workers.

Compare that to bases depending on a forest economy. Not only do they require a heavy investment in facilities, but they use much more tiles, as the base is worker-oriented instead of specialist-oriented. You can of course increase the # of engineers and reduce the # of tiles a forest base needs to work to feed itself by building a tree farm and a hybrid forest. But the less tiles you work, the less useful the investment in those forest facilities becomes…

4) The sky is the limit

The next breakthrough comes with habitation domes. After those are built, a base can popboom indefinitely (or at least to size 128 or so…) While building lots of bases supported by enriched condensers farms stays a good strategy, forests become good again. A base can in theory work all 20 squares in its base radius, making a tree farm and hybrid forest a good investment once again. This is of course assuming you have plenty of land. Twenty extra forests means twenty less tiles for condenser farms.

***

While we Spartans don’t have the three mentioned techs for the specialist age yet, we do have Orbital Spaceflight already and are aiming for Fusion Power, so soon condenser farms will become useful once again.

Also, preparing sea-pods to send to the nut bonus at the Fossil Field Ridge and to Geothermal Shallows

How about waiting until we have Fusion Power before building sea bases? Then sea colony pods become 2 min rows cheaper.

[vishniac]

A thorough explanation!
Ok then!

I still don't have the Net at home but I can get it at school. I won't come much since I'm taking engineer courses (chemistry)...Argh!
Let me some time to catch up with the events so far, I already saw that we launched our first satellite, yoohoo!