All-Specialist Bases

[Mr. President]

I've heard this term batted around once or twice. How does one go about making a base like this? It seems like an intriguing way to avoid pacifism drones.

[Zakharov VII]

Crawlers. Condensor/Farm squares will produce 4 nutrients (assuming the base terrain isn't Arid - then an adjacent Condensor is also needed), even before Gene Splicing, IIRC. Later Soil Enrichers will bring this up to 6 nutrients, IIRC.

The first bunch of crawlers should get minerals (crawling boreholes or rocky mines), and then crawlers have to go out to feed the base. Once some nutrients are crawled, all workers at the base can switch to specialists (Engineers are great!).

Not only do you avoid pacifist drones this way, you also avoid inefficiency. Specialists are immune to inefficiency, and so it is an excellent way to make a productive base halfway across the world from your Headquarters. A base of 14 Engineers produces 42 base Energy and 28 base Research, before Energy Banks/Network Nodes/etc are applied!

Z

[Flubber]

Specialist bases are often the way to go when conquering the poor AI on larger maps. Innefficiency would suck away almost all of the energy and you do not want to waste money on drone control. So my periphery bases will often build nothing but formers and crawlers

If you have built the CBA, these specialist bases become doubly easy in the later game through the use of food satellites. -- often no terraforming is needed at all to get the base up to size 5

[Andemagne]

couldn't those all specialist bases be achieved also thru those orbital thingys (satellites) that produce food?

[Mongoose]

Not entirely, no. That's because each base is limited to one resource unit per unit of population for each type of satellite. A size 5 base can draw only 5 nuts from skyfarms. Assuming a recycling tank provides 3 more, there are still 2 nuts missing from the level required to sustain the population level. The deficit increases by one nut per unit of pop over 5. So, at least one crawler will be required to convoy nuts and employ specialists other than empaths or doctors. (Or, I guess, if it were late enough in the game, you could make transcendii with a base under size 5 and forego crawling nuts.)

[vitamin j]

For more bang per crawler, start by farm/condensing any nutrient bonuses you might have. I think that gives 7 nuts. When you add a soil enricher, it becomes 10. In the Monsoon Jungle, I believe it's 13!

[big_canuk]

Don't forget trawlers for bases with water access. Kelp is former time friendly and spreads like mad. Trawlers cost the same as crawlers post fusion.

bc

[Andemagne]

thanks mongoose, I did not know that.

j vitamin: that can't be 'cos soil enricher and condenser have same effect, so if you have one you don't need the other. I don't know but I think that 7 or 8 is max what you can get from a land tile.

[vitamin j]

Contraire, mon frere,
The condensor and soil enricher do two different things. A farm on a rainy square gives 3 nuts. A condensor makes it 4 (in addition to increasing the raininess of every adjacent square by one level.) Add a soil enricher, it becomes 6. On any kind of nutrient bonus, the condensor multiplies the effect of the bonus. Check it out.

[Adalbertus]

Andemange, vitaminj,
I checked it in the scenario editor. Vitamin j is right, maximum is 13 nuts in the jungle on a nut bonus, with farm+soil enricher+condensor. I'll post the full thing in the FAQ thread.

[MariOne]

Don't forget to search for the several threads in which the issue was covered in detail in the past, even recently.

Contrary to what documented, Condensers and Enrichers DO have the same effect!
It's just that they're cumulative.
They increase the collected Nutrients by 50% (multiply by 1.5) rounded down.
Only Condensers tho *also* increase raininess in their and adjacent tiles.

Condensers allow to bypass restrictions too.
That's why a rainy+farm+condenser can yield 4 nutrients pre-lifting, whence the importance of the WP.
I frankly can't recall about Enrichers, as they "supposedly" come after Gene Splicing. Can't recall whether I ever figured to test the exceptional case should you "receive" AEE before getting GeneSplicing...

continued after a break
to exemplificate the Cond/Enr effects.

rainy+farm = 3 (only 2 pre-lifting)
rainy+farm+Cond = INT(3*1.5) = INT(4.5) = 4 (always)
rainy+farm+Enr = INT(3*1.5) = INT(4.5) = 4 same as above
rainy+farm+Cond+Enr = INT(INT(3*1.5)*1.5) = INT(4*1.5) = 6

WITH a NutSpecial
rainy+farm+Special=5 always
rainy+farm+Special+Cond = INT(5*1.5) = 7
same with Enr
rainy+farm+Special+Cond+Enr = INT(7*1.5) = 10

in case the NutSpecial comes on a "just moist" tile, pre-Cond the tile will only yield 4 with a farm.
The Cond will tho make it rainy bringing it to fit again in the example above.
The *Enr only* will NOT make it rainy, limiting the yield to 6 instead of 7.

In case the NutSpecial comes on an arid tile, the best thing you could do initially is to forest it!
When the Cond becomes available, it will only become moist
moist+farm+Special+Cond = INT(4*1.5) = 6, add Enr and get to 9
But a 2nd Cond adjacent (even diagonally) to the 1st one will make all the tiles rainy, fitting back into the 1st example.

JUNGLE, without Special
rainy+Jungle+farm = 4 (only 2 pre-lifting)
rainy+Jungle+farm+Cond = 6 always
rainy+Jungle+farm+Cond+Enr = 9 always

JUNGLE AND Special
rainy+Jungle+Special+farm = 6 always
rainy+Jungle+Special+farm+Cond = 9
rainy+Jungle+Special+farm+Cond+Enr = INT(9*1.5) = INT(13.5) = 13

BTW, if you compare the yield of a rainy+farm+Cond yield, and then rainy+farm+Cond+Enr, on a normal tile with respect to a NutSpecial tile, you see that you can "boost" the value of the special, by one with just Cond and by 2 with Cond+Enr.
That's why plopping a new base on a Nut Special and Cond+Enr a normal tile yields in the end 2 Nuts less than plopping the base on a normal tile and Cond+Enr the NutSpecial.
Problem is, that the Enrichers become available pretty late in the game, and also the Condensers are not immmediately available unless you grab the WP (not guaranteed in multiplaying).
A base on a NutSpecial would allow you to exploit it always regardless to where you place your workers, giving you much more flexibility. If you are in a tight race against human players to get the upperhand in the early game, sparing your NutSpecials for when Condensers and then Enrichers will be available might be a luxury you can't always afford...

[Adalbertus]

MariOne, yesterday I also skipped testing Enricher before restriction lifting, as well as a Enricher without farm, because both seem to arcane, even if the scenario editor allows this. Imagine a scenario with soil enrichers all over the place and the first person who realizes that there are no underlying farms has best chances to win -
I definitely was too lazy to look in old threads when I wrote the FAQ post, but if you know some people to honour on this topic (such as yourself...) you're welcome to post them, I will edit them in. I still feel more newbie than veteran

[MariOne]

Adalbertus,
I didn't realise you had *already* posted in the FAQ when I posted the above.

We did the same work.

You did a very precise job, covering all the cases in a neatly organised way, and presented them in a tidy tabular form, which I much appreciate and had no time to put up above.

I could not have done better.

[MariOne]

Well....
Rethinking to it, there ARE some very minor points I would have added to enhance your FAQ entry and make it perfect!


1. a correction
Offhand I am almost (99.999%) sure that Jungle doesn't lift restrictions per se.
Thus a plain RainyJungle tile should yield only 2nuts pre-lifting, while you listed it as 3/3.

2. complete and extend an explanation
when you precise that Enrichers require Gene Splicing, you could add that Condensers too require it, but you can build them earlier if you grab the WP

3. couple of formatting/presentation suggestions
- for best readability, you might add a line-break every 3rd line, that is to outline the grouping of the arid/moist/rainy cases and better visually separate the Nut / Jungle / NutJungle groups
- in most of the cases where you list 2 values (before and after Gene Splicing) actually show the same number. This happens when you have a NutSpecial on the tile, or when the yield is not greater than 2 in the first place. Formally this is exhaustive and precise, but visually id does not add new information, while making the table a bit more confusing to read.
I suggest that you report the two numbers *only* when they're actually different. This would also clearly highlight the cases where the restrictions do play a role. (also, reporting two numbers in all the Condensers columns is plainly incorrect, because Condensers alone DO lift restrictions even if you get them from WP before Gene Splicing. That's one of the reasons why the WP is so important)

[MariOne]

Here's how I would have formatted it:

            plain  Farm  S.Enr     only  Farm   S.Enr 
                                   Cond  +Cond  +Cond

arid          0     1      1        -      -      - 
moist         1     2      3        1      3      4
rainy         2    2/3     4        3      4      6 

[b]+Nut[/b]
arid          2     3      4        -      -      -
moist         3     4      6        4      6      9
rainy         4     5      7        6      7     10 

[b]+Jungle[/b]
arid          1     2      3        -      -      -
moist         2    2/3     4        3      4      6
rainy        2/3   2/4     6        4      6      9

[b]+Jungle +Nut[/b]
arid          3     4      6        -      -      -
moist         4     5      7        6      7     10 
rainy         5     6      9        7      9     13

If you like it, you can copy/paste directly from here, you'll just have to add back the code and the bold ubb tags.