Wierd units

[Psycho146]

If you're like me, and i know you are, then I kno you've played around and made some freaky units. I was wondering what the weirdest unit you've made AND found a use for was. Mine has to be, I made a trance super singularity rover former with stasis generator armor and drop pods. I needed to make air bases FAST, that is how I found this thing useful. haha, let's see what you guys made.

[ProvostB]

a unit that cost 12,400 to produce.

[FreeChina]

What did it do? And how did you ever find a practical use for something that cost 12,400?

[Psycho146]

WHat was it though? I never said it had to be practical. Mine sure wasn't. It did tend to come in handy although expensive.

[ProvostB]

i forget, but it had a gravship chassis with heavy artillery, and other things...

[AlexanderIII]

Mine was a cruiser Superformer with Deep Pressure Hull and Neutronium Armor. I would invisibly sneak up to an enemy's base and plant fungus all over, choking him in it so my other units could sneak up real close camouflaged in the fungus and beat the hell out of the enemy... although, it turned out somewhat impracticle as most bases I attacked were captured way before the fungus planting was finished. Oh well.

[zsozso]

That might be a neat tactic in a multi-player game, but I very strong suspect, that the AI cheats, and uses its inherent extra knowledge of your unit locations regardless of deep pressure hull, cloacking or fungus.

I've seen many times AI taking out my units from fungus without any scouting or browsing (and there was no sensor around).

zsozso

[Urban Ranger]

With few exceptions, such as Warlords II, Computer players definitely cheat. That really irritates me. Anybody remember how a computer player in Civ can switch production during your turn? I don't doubt SMAC CP's have extra knowledge, such as location of your units, your number of credits, and what techs do you know. How else would some faction demand a tech from you when you know with absolute certainty that there is no way for her to know?

[Getting off topic again]

[CBH]

Unfortunately with AI at its current level, its essential to give the computer these advantages, otherwise it would be even less of a challenge than it is now.

Increasing difficulty level doesnt make the AI smarter, merely stacks the unfair advantages against you.

[zsozso]

I understand that the AI needs some extra push to balance its weak strategy, and I have nothing against things like having industry, growth, research advantages (in percentage - aka SE bonus) as it is in higher difficulty levels.

Steering back this off-topic discussion to the weird units: But I do object using location knowledge of units with cloacking ability (or deep pressure hull, or in fungus) because this simply renders those game features useless in single player mode. Why go into all the trouble implementing them in the first place if they are rendered useless by the AI advantage (read cheating) ?

zsozso

[The Profit]

Back on topic....

I've made some strange creations in my time. Visually, I think when changing a Colony Pod to a Rover Pod is a radical sift in design. Add to it drop struts, and it looks absolutely ridiculous.

In recent games I have been using Inf. chassis for probe teams stationed for base defense. I put armor 2 on them, and the costs come out the same. I don't know if the armor helps in a probe battle, or if combat is just based on moral, but I feel better about this unit guarding the safety of my bases instead of a regular probe team.

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Mine is not to wonder why, mine is just to fluff and dry.

[Darkstar]

The AI is all knowing in SMAC. It knows EXACTLY where all your units are, for instance. So fungus, deep hull, etc are a waste against it.

It's not to make the Computer a better opponent. It's an appendix from when there wasn't enough RAM to spare giving it it's own set of maps and what not. Instead, it just uses the Master map. The fact that it gives the computer a bonus is just that, a unintended bonus. These days, it's hard to justify NOT giving each computer side it's own maps and whatnot, except laziness and speed. (It's a LOT easier to program an Artificial Idiot by making use of the current state of things, and not what it THINKS is the current state.)

Putting armor on a probe team is about useless. There is a bug in SMAC so that if it's stacked with a combat unit, it's removed when the combat unit dies. This also shows up when you have multiple armored probe teams stacked together... if one dies, they all die. So armored probe teams are only useful in a base as garrison if they are the SOLO defender. (Armor is SUPPOSE to help them against non-probes, but it's been so long since I did it that I don't remember if it DOES). Transports, on the other hand, even unarmored, do NOT get wasted as non-combat units when the last defender gets wiped out.

I used to think my Jet Colonizers were odd, until I read that a few other people use them pretty regularly as well.

Why bother armoring sea formers? Give them a real combat naval unit for protection. If you don't have a reactor lead, it's not like the armor is going to help much... but a couple of naval fighters to attack anything sea threatening would be more useful. And you can stick AAA on one of the naval fighting vessels to help against air attacks...

The freakest unit I can recall are drop scout artillery. Used by a player to keep a stack pinned while their planes repaired enough to make another attack...

-Darkstarr

[hroman21]

uhhh...how about trance armored crawling units? or trance armored sea crawl units? oh...oh...how about air crawlers! now that's got to be cool!

hroman21

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"Laughter is the most powerful weapon ever created. Against laughter, nothing stands!"

[waynehead]

I'm really boring, I guess. The oddest unit I make are drop probe teams (which are really useful, btw).

[Ned]

I just tried a fusion probe team with PSI defense. One such unit probed a city defended by a probe team. It won, taking 70% damage. It then withstood two counterattacks by 12-4-1-2 units, and lost to a third such attack. Impressive.

I now intend to have pairs of these really tough hombre's walk in broad daylight down the enemy's main street. This should be fun.

Details: The probe was elite. I had the Nural Amplifier. The attacker was in Free Market.