In 3D I find FREEDOM!

[Vi Vicdi]

CBA turns every base into an aircraft repair depot. For that alone it is priceless.

[Sikander]

Vi Vicdi,

I agree completely that the value of the CBA (as well as the other two) rests in large part in the value of the repair capability. Even newly conquered bases can heal your forces. I also like the flexibility given to your military production, which doesn't have to rely on a West Point type city once these SPs are built.

All of the free facility projects are pretty darn good, especially if you build more than a few cities.

[Helium Pond]

I always thought is was extremely wise of them to leave a "free Airbase" project out of SMAC. They'd made a free Command Center project, and a free Naval Yard project, and it would be obvious to include an Airbase project, but there wasn't one... so it looked to me like they did it on purpose. Seems like the Cloudbase Academy is one of those game-wreckers. Because, how can you have it and *not* win? Especially against the AI, but even in a multiplayer game, as soon as one faction builds this, they have an incredible advantage, for all the reasons given above. Sounds like a game-wrecker to me.

[Mongoose]

I have verified this phenomenon using the scenario editor. For both the factions I tested, the Cyborgs and the Drones, building the CBA immediately increased the movement allowance of all existing and new built aircraft by 2.

I don't know if this is intended (one of the Easter Eggs the Firaxians spoke of when the patch was released, perhaps) or not.

Pending revision in a further patch, we must consider that there is an undocumented feature for CBA. That feature is that, like the Maritime Control Center does for ships, it increases movement by two for aircraft.

I did not try locusts, to see if the effect extends to them. (Just thought of it now.)

For the record, test was done with Crossfire V 2.0.

[Mongoose]

Further tests:

Also increased movement points for Miriam's jets.

Had no effect on movement for Locusts.

[Adam_Smith]

I also noticed that it doesn't effect fighters. Only bombers and choppers are affected.

[Sikander]

Well, that is interesting. Yet another bonus for the chopper.

[Tau Ceti]

From what I can see, it does affect fighters - but they only get one extra movement point.

In the manual, the Cloudbase Academy is listed as giving Fuel Nanocells to all your aircraft. In the game and the datalinks, that text has been removed, but it looks like the effect has not. The CBA's movement effect is exactly the same as you get by equipping your aircraft with Nanocells - but it is also cumulative with them (giving +4 movement, or +3 for Air Superiority units then).

[Adam_Smith]

Sure enough tau ceti. It says that on page 34 of the smacx manual. I still don't see that it says you can get a maximum of 17 moves though. Can you add nanocells to your planes even though you have CBA and get 17 moves? Has anybody done this?

[lemur866]

The Cloudbase Academy definately adds 2 move to your aircraft, even non-elite.

The biggest advantage is that it allows tiny or newly conquered cities to get food from hydro sats. And it allows you to repair your choppers at newly conquered bases.

Worrying about SP's being game-wreckers: The trouble is that there are lots of factors that slow the game toward the end...research slows down, drone riots are up, etc. So then they throw in these "you're going to win anyway, so let's speed things up" SPs. Like the Telepathic Matrix...all it does is give you a dozen or so turns of peace and quiet from those sniveling drones at the end of the game. That alone makes it my favorite.

And then there's the nethack terminus, the SP for probes, so all unit types have SPs. What I want is an SP that will upgrade the morale of my formers or crawlers. No, not the Weather Paradigm, that speeds em up. Just the morale. Sure, you'd get killed anyway if anyone attacked you...but you'd die *bravely*. Wait, I can't remember...does the command matrix make your formers braver?

[lemur866]

The Cloudbase Academy definately adds 2 move to your aircraft, even non-elite.

The biggest advantage is that it allows tiny or newly conquered cities to get food from hydro sats. And it allows you to repair your choppers at newly conquered bases.

Worrying about SP's being game-wreckers: The trouble is that there are lots of factors that slow the game toward the end...research slows down, drone riots are up, etc. So then they throw in these "you're going to win anyway, so let's speed things up" SPs. Like the Telepathic Matrix...all it does is give you a dozen or so turns of peace and quiet from those sniveling drones at the end of the game. That alone makes it my favorite.

And then there's the nethack terminus, the SP for probes, so all unit types have SPs. What I want is an SP that will upgrade the morale of my formers or crawlers. No, not the Weather Paradigm, that speeds em up. Just the morale. Sure, you'd get killed anyway if anyone attacked you...but you'd die *bravely*. Wait, I can't remember...does the command matrix make your formers braver?

[gnome]

There are a few SP's which in late game seem like "Sure-winners"... like Cloning Vats, or Nanotech... what's interesting is in a real cutthroat game when they're divided up among the remaining factions.

[Helium Pond]

The game slows down at the end? Well, it does *literally* slow down, at least on my machine, and it's true that the foliage gets ornery, but I've never had a game where tech slows down. By game end I'm always getting a tech per turn. I always thought they should make tech advancement slower...

[Adam_Smith]

At my best I discover one tech per turn and build one project per turn in the final turns.

[Vi Vicdi]

Actually this is a relativistic effect caused by increased micromanagement. Time dialates as the number of build queues and units you must manage increases exponentially.