more newbie questions

[hydra628]

first, i would like to thank all of you for being so helpful, this forum is great.

now my questions:

1. i noticed that gaians can move through a fungus square in one turn, opposing to the three turns for other factions. i am pretty that it is not because of some tech or secret project, because this is true even at the very beginning of the game. is this like a hidden bonus?

2. is it true that when fully upgraded fungus squares give 3 nutri 2 minerals 2 energy for gaians?

what does a forest give when fully upgraded?

3. does road increase borehole's production as well?

4. a network question, i tried to play the game with a friend the other day via ip. the game kept telling both of us that it couldn't send data, but we were able to chat in the pre-game stage, but when we tried to launch the game, the connection was lost. has this happened to anyone else?? btw, he has a dsl without firewall and i have dial-up.

[mark13]

Hi, no problem at all, always happy to help!

1. An interesting question. I had noticed this also, but have never confirmed it. I think it is some sort of hidden bonus, as I have not been able to get any of my custom factions to do this.

2. The amount you take from fungus depends on your tech level. Certain techs give you certain bonuses. Full fungus production, I think, is 3-2-2, w/o the Harmonics (a SMACX enhancement) - not sure about this though. That is, of course, taking the extra nut the Gaians get into account.

Forests from bases with a Tree Farm and Hybrid Forest produce 3 nuts, 2 mins and 2 energy.

3. No, a road does not increase a borehole's production. Note: Neither does a farm.

4. IP games are a common SMAC bugbear - they are unreliable. I have often found the best thing to do is persevere - I play IP games regularly, and often have problems.


[This message has been edited by mark13 (edited October 29, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by mark13 (edited October 29, 2000).]

[Simpson II]

hydra628,

The fungus movement difficulty is related to your planet rating. The Believers, with -1 planet, have an awful time getting up any momentum on a fungusy planet. But even the Gaians will occasionally be unable to move through a fungus square.
On an interesting related point, I realized recently that Elite units always get a chance at making their extra move, even in fungus squares. Potentially very useful for attacking unexpectedly!

I was under the impression that fully-upgraded fungus squares gave 3 minerals - resulting in the famous ecological death spiral, where your forests turn to fungus, producing more minerals, producing more fungus. I could be wrong.

You want increased productivity from boreholes? You greedy person. I have enough trouble dealing with planet's reaction to the ones they generate normally!

[Kirnwaffen]

Fungus production is dependent on tech level. Each "Centauri" technology (i.e. Centaurin ecology) increases fungus production in a particular area. Question: Do bonuses increase production of a borehole? I know that terrain doesn't affect it, but I think I've seen bonuses increase it.

[Misotu]

On the IP game question ... I had exactly the same experience. My friend was using dial-up, I was using a cable modem. The problem was solved when I connected using dial-up rather than the cable modem. I realise your situation involves DSL rather than cable, but we speculated that it might be to do with the routers involved. Certain ports in certain routers are blocked, which means that you can't necessarily send the type of data required to play the game itself.

Like you, we were able to exchange messages in the set up screen but when we tried to enter the game, the host just got repeated "cannot send data" messages.

It might be worth trying a game where DSL is replaced by dial-up, as an experiment.

[VoodooChild]

Krin, yes bonuses from special resource squares, rivers, or geological formations (Mount Planet) increase the productivity of boreholes or any other exclusive terrian enhancement.