OCC complete - the diary of a newbie

[Googlie]

Sorry to keep harping on about the OCC energy loss myth (maybe this needs its own thread)

Have just extensively scenario tested the OCC and confirm my earlier statement - regardless of the stated (red) labs/efficiency percent losses appearing in the screen, for the HQ there is no effect.

My tests were Sparta running Dem/Planned/Power (thus 0 efficiency and 0 research) and the University running Dem/FM/Wealth (+2 efficiency and +2 research)

The amount of energy does depend on the SE settings, base facilities and SPs (these are the 'bonus' amounts that are described under the energy allocation table in the city screen) as well as the "raw" energy derived from worked squares.

When you remove the HQ from the base, running at other than 50/0/50, inefficiency penalties kick in (you actually see it as red blocks in the enrgy bar in the city screen). Restore the HQ, and the inefficiency penalty disappears.

What does happen, though (and this may be what causes the confusion) is that when you increase the allocation to research, the balance allocated to the economy is commensurately smaller - and this is the amount that drives the energy enhancing base facilities. So you would see a distinct drop in energy as a result - not of the penalty - but of the smaller amount being multiplied by base facilities. Drop all the base facilites, and there is no difference (in utilized energy) between 100/0/0 and 0/0/100

Of course, for non-HQ bases, the absolute amount is reduced by the application of the inefficiency formula.

It might be interesting to test more fully with a variety of scoietal choices and a mix of factions and base facilities. But that sounds like a full weekend's work.

Googlie

[freshman]

I still believe you are incorrect Googlie. As I mentioned before, if you crank up the labs, without any base enhancing facilities, you'll see a NEGATIVE "bonus" being applied. Tell me where a NEGATIVE number comes from, if it isn't from inefficiency. Boost your efficiency, and the negative number goes away. Explain how that phenomena could happen. I do have a Macintosh version. I will post a game save proving this point tomorrow, perhaps, if you are interested. In fact you'll often see the number of turns to get to the next tech not go monotonically down as you increase the lab allocation - but it'll go up in one spot occassionally. That happens when inefficiency kicks in. Explain that if you only have the one city headquarters.

[freshman]

Here's the nail in the coffin, so to speak - directly from the manual see page 118. I did a search across anything talking about inefficiency. Indeed there are two types of inneficiency. The one type is combated by being a headquarters. The other type isn't:

p65
This build order (see , p. 67) causes a new headquarters to be
constructed in this base. You can only have one headquarters for you entire
faction. When the new headquarters is completed, your previous one is dis-banded.
Headquarters provide essential coordination among the bases of your
faction, which keeps inefficiency low. Inefficiency results from increasing dis-tance
from your headquarters, so it’s usually good to maintain your head-quarters
near the center of your empire.

p72
• Red blocks are resources lost to inefficiency (see , p. 118).

p118
As your faction expands to new bases, the bure a u c racy re q u i red to adminis t e r
it gro ws more unwieldy. The net result of this inevitable process is inefficiency
— a certain amount of re s o u rces that a base collects are never available for
actual use. The efficiency of any given base is directly related to both its size
and its distance from your faction HQ. Larg e r, more remote bases are most
p rone to inefficiency.
The primary way to combat inefficiency is through Social Engineering (see
, p. 136), but inefficiency can also be curtailed via certain
facilities, such as the Children’s Creche. Relocating your headquarters to a cen-tral
location can also help control inefficiency.
You create a different kind of inefficiency when you adjust your energy alloca-t
i o ns in extreme ways (see , p. 117). This inefficiency re f l e c t s
the principle of diminishing re t u r ns—past a certain point, the more effort yo u
put towards a particular priority, the less the effect of the increased effort.

[Googlie]

Hmmm - some inexplicable and screwy stuff happens in the Scenario Editor

We're both right on some things - as you (and I) pointed out, there are two components to energy - and efficency.

The "raw energy" (the third bar under the base screen - nutrients/minerals/energy) is where the beaurocracy hits, in the form of the red inefficiency boxes. They never appear in the HQ base. In fact, for that base, the equation below the three bars has the "+ infficiency" (in red) blanked out. The result of that equation equals the Surplus, which is then available for distribution as per the allocation set in the Social Engineering screen.

If this allocation is 50:0:50, there is "harmony" and no normal energy bonus will apply - in other words the full surplus will be divided 50:50 between economy and research (apparently regardless of SE choices)

When one deviates from this 50:50 norm, the inefficiency penalties kick in - and yes, the HQ base does suffer from these - modified by the SE choices on economy and efficiency.

This is where it gets interesting.

I set up a scenario with the Peacekeepers (who have a -1 efficiency). Single base, 8 population, a rec commons, holo theater and HQ. At frontier/simple/survival/none settings, happened to produce 8 surplus energy, split 4 and 4 (no red box deductions 'cos it's the HQ). Take out the HQ, and the raw energy drops by 1 (lose the extra energy at the HQ base square) but there immediately kicks in 4 red boxes (not sure why so high - 4 out of 7 energy units lost).

Change to Dem and Green (so move from a -1 eff to a +3 eff)
and the number of red boxes drops to 2. Reinstate the HQ and, of course they disappear altogether.

Now tinker with the allocation (through the Social Engineering window, and check the results in the second set of bars in the base screen window

Back to frontier/simple

change to 0/0/100 (all to research) - the screen shows a -40% labs, and sure enough, in the Base screen enegy allocation section, we see the 8 surplus energy now with a -3 bonus (I guess it rounds)

So I stand corrected - mismatched inefficiency does hit OCC as well

Back to the SE window. Now change to Dem and Green (from -1 eff to +3 eff) - the penalty is now -10% labs - so the diff of +4 efficiency mitigates the mismatch inefficiency (can be tracked through all the stages of 10/0/90 and 20/0/80 etc)

The same thing can be seen in the economy bar, if we move from 50/0/50 to 100/0/0 - at simple/frontier we lose 3 of the 8 economy credits (PKs are a 0 economy faction). Change to FM (+2 econ) and of course the number of energy credits goes up to 14 (all HQ worked tiles produce an extra energy, subject to restrictions) but the inefficiency pena;lty is 6 of the 14 (- 40 %). Change to Dem, for the +1 efficiency, and the penalty drops from 40% to 30% (now you are losing just 4 of the 14)

Still with me?

Change from FM to Green - and economy goes to 0, but efficiency goes to +3 (still at 100/0/0) - penalty drops to -10%, but of course energy falls back to 8 (from FM's 14) - and now we lose 1 of the 8 (the 10%)

Now the screwy part. remove the HQ, and the 8 raw energy drops to 7 (losing the HQ's extra energy), but beaurocratic inefficiency takes 2 of the 7 as before. Except now the "mismatch inefficiency" penalty disappears (even at 100/0/0 for economy or 0/0/100 for research)

So what does it all mean?

At simple/frontier, etc, you get both beaurocacy and mismatch penalties applied if not your HQ, only mismatch if it is your HQ

At others, you won't get a mismatch penalty if not your HQ (but will suffer beaurocracy penalties) - if it is your HQ, the reverse applies.

Of course, adding base facilities mitigates the inefficiencies somewhat.

Just thought you'd like to know the results of my testing



Googlie

[RedFred]

Bump for a new OCC fan. This was a particularly sweet win because it was apparently the first complete game the challenger played.

The rules described in the first post are somewhere inbetween the 'basic' and 'advanced' challenges from Vel's Strat Guide which I would prefer not to plagarize. Give this a try and don't get too hung up on the exact rules until you win. Then we can give you lots of suggestions to make things harder.

[SeferKoheleth]

Exactly how do you use crawlers.... I've been playing SMAC for a long time (never a OCC game though), and never found much use for them.

[MariOne]

search for crawler: you'll probably find hundreds of references (literally) where this has been explained many times, even recently.

Crawlers are mainly an investment. They'll return you in time several times the mineral value you initially invested in them, in terms of factors of production (nutrients, mineral, energy). And you'll be always able to claim the full capital back.
They integrate your workers collection, or even substitute them allowing them to become specialists.
This completely alters the power balance in the game: things that you struggle to achieve because your workers hardly rake in a meager amount of resources, will be easily attained if you have invested in crawlers wisely and timely.

[Sikander]

Googlie,

I wonder if some of the swings in your experiment above could be explained by your base going from being the HQ to being a long distance from the HQ (when you get rid of it for campare purposes), becase at those points there is no HQ?