What exactly is an energy park?

[Xian]

Like one square with 8+ energy being harvested by a supply crawler of something?

[lethe]

No, it's a way to collect alot of energy for one city, usually with the purpose of making it produce a tech a round.

You raise a big chunk of land to 3000m, and then place echelon mirrors and solar collectors in alternating rows:

OXOXO
OXOXO
OXOXO
OXOXO
OXOXO
OXOXO

O being solar collector and X being echelon mirrors.

Another version is building alot of trawlers (boat with crawler unit) and placing em on tidal harnesses in some nice part of the ocean.

This is good if you want to keep your number of cities low, and have the land to spare. However an energy park is a real juicy target in multiplayer, and a chopper that slips by your defenses will wreak havoc in it.

[Maniac]

What exactly is an energy park?

It's something that crashes my game.

[Lazerus]

Its only worth thinking about if you play someone like morgan or the pirates, other factions don't benefit from it as much.

[Xian]

wow, thanks, i didnt know ocean crawlers could be used!

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Xian
wow, thanks, i didnt know ocean crawlers could be used!

Armored they make fairly good coastal sensors/defenders as well.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Static Universe


Armored they make fairly good coastal sensors/defenders as well.

I never found that the added cost of armour was worth it as it really doesn't add much survivability against either sea or airpower. I do like to add deep radar to increase the sensor net. You can have the trawlers gathering resources and if you are willing to micromanage you can have the trawler do a short patrol out and back, ending the turn on the resource.

I consider them to be an expendable early warning system

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Flubber


I never found that the added cost of armour was worth it as it really doesn't add much survivability against either sea or airpower. I do like to add deep radar to increase the sensor net. You can have the trawlers gathering resources and if you are willing to micromanage you can have the trawler do a short patrol out and back, ending the turn on the resource.

I consider them to be an expendable early warning system

I think armor is worth it once it's free! It gives you some protection against (low tech) enemy depredation, but more often the higher morale the unit gets makes it more likely to survive a worm attack.

Any faction can benefit from this strategy, though some more than others. The large energy parks seem to be best suited for games on extremely large maps, one city challenges etc. I will often beef up the capitol with a few energy crawlers or trawlers placed on tiles of opportunity, such as areas where forest has spread outside of base radii, energy specials, or choke points where I want to keep an eye peeled for enemy infiltration and don't mind making a profit while I do so. The trawler with deep radar is great for this.

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Sikander


I think armor is worth it once it's free! It gives you some protection against (low tech) enemy depredation, but more often the higher morale the unit gets makes it more likely to survive a worm attack.

I notice this a lot in many PBEM games. Once you reach the higher reactor/weapon/armour levels, much of that lower grade stuff suddenly becomes free, yet so few people exploit that, and so we still see things like the crawlers/trawlers you've mentioned, and 1-4t-1*2 garrisons even when a 2-4t+-1*2 costs exactly the same.

[lethe]

When I feel like a 60 hour micromanagement marathon I play on a huge map, and build several energy parks. A city can only construct a single tech in a round, so you need several "super science cities" to get several techs a round, and then smaller bases circling them to provide crawlers, defenses etc etc.

In truth a second super science city isn't really worth it. It's not much more efficient than just tossing up more cities. It's the secret projects that really make a SSC.

Other good things to do for late mid-game to end game maximizing:

Crawler in food, keep workes on two boreholes, and make the rest into engineers, or later into transcendi. A fully developed city with 30 transcendi throw out alot of science each round. (If you have the cloning vats you can work sea squares with kelp+harness on em, as each worker means 3 extra transcendi (food from satellites))

Read the threads on how eco damage really work, so that you can have mineral multiplicators and nessus mining stations that in total means 100's of eco damage free minerals each turn.

[Flare]

If you are going to make an energy park, make sure that the energy input is made use of properly. Try crawering it into a Super Science City (SSC for short). Put the Merchant Exchange, the Longevity Vac., The Supercollider, The Theory of Everything, the Network Backbone, & the Space Elevator in that city. Also, don't forget the basics, like Network node, Research Hospital, Energy Bank, Tree Farm, Hybrid forest, Fusion Lab, Quantum Lab, & NanoHospital. Combined, these bring in a tremendous amount of both research & Credits. Just remember, that city then becomes a *very* juicy target, so protect it and the surronding area. A marine strike, Planet Buster attack, of a frontal assault can bring tears to your eyes, seeing your lovely handywork go down the drain!

Good Luck

[Bkeela]

Originally posted by lethe
No, it's a way to collect alot of energy for one city, usually with the purpose of making it produce a tech a round.

You raise a big chunk of land to 3000m, and then place echelon mirrors and solar collectors in alternating rows:

OXOXO
OXOXO
OXOXO
OXOXO
OXOXO
OXOXO

O being solar collector and X being echelon mirrors.

Is this the most efficient set-out for the energy park? I usually use this set-out:

OOOOOO
OXOOXO
OOOOOO
OXOOXO
OOOOOO

That way I don't have to spend as much time building as many Echelon mirrors, and technically it should be just as effective. [Echelon mirrors only need to be adjacent to Solar Collectors for them to work, right?]

Is there any greater advantage in more Echelon Mirrors as set-out in the pattern presented by lethe?

Bkeela.

[Maniac]

In your plan most solar collectors only gets one extra energy due to echelon mirrors. In Lethe's plan most solar collectors gets +6 energy.

[Mongoose]

To elaborate on what Maniac said - the energy output for a solar collector is increased by one for EACH adjacent Echelon Mirror, provided the Echelon Mirror is in your territory.

[Lazerus]

So if my Maths is correct it works out something like this ? (assumed all at +3000feet)

oxoxox 22 for solar collectors + 12 for echelons
oxoxox 27 + 12
oxoxox "
oxoxox "
oxoxox 22 + 12

grand total of 185 energy

OOOOOO 30 for solar collectors
OXOOXO 20 for sc and 8 for echelons
OOOOOO 36 for sc
OXOOXO 20 +8
OOOOOO 30

Grand total of 152

Guess its upto you how quickly you need the park built but in the long run seems top method is far better.