ICS and all that Jazz

[CEO Aaron]

The upshot being that if you want to use ICS, plan on having a lot of small bases with rec-commons and police units keeping everyone in line. By a lot I mean any base you can build anywhere.

Being unable to actually tell whether your bases will be in revolt without looking in the base screen means that there's a bunch more micromanagement than building to somewhere between 1 and 2 times your bureaucracy limits, not to mention commensurately larger build orders. This is what keeps me from playing ICS style, more than anything else.

My latest game has been a foray into the land of momentum and ICS, I'm playing Spartans in Police, using my resulting Police rating of 3 to quell any and all drones, and the support lets me field a modest army while having an extra former at home. So far only middling success, as usual, my tech rate is lagging, and DeeDee is stealing all my SPs. I may need to restart, and start probing more aggressively.

[Chaos Theory]

When I ICS, I manage most of my bases exclusively from the F4 screen by the time bureaucracy is a problem, so I don't worry too much about the drone display bug. It also means I don't have to hunt down each base that needs new orders; I can just find them on the F4 screen.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Jamski
Kody

-Jam

Agreed

Kudos

Kody

[johndmuller]

Excellent post Kody!!

Regarding the total amount of psych, I thought I read somewhere that there was an absolute limit on psych/base - somewhere in the low 20's to low 30's IIRC - irregardless of whether the base was way large or not. Kody's analysis seems to suggest a very in depth investigation, so I would be inclined to believe his theory instead of my vague recollection, but just in case . . .

I suppose it is implicit in Kody's calculations, but I find that I am often unpleasantly surprised with riots when a base (which seemed to have sufficient drone control to accomodate an extra worker) grows. I believe it is related to the HGP (and/or perhaps just plain psych allocation and/or PK's factional drone control). For example, a base of size 1 showing a talent would seemingly be able to handle a 2nd worker without riots, but that is not always the case - sometimes the initial status line of the psych display will show worker-drone rather than talent-drone after the growth; I suppose it is really talent-superdrone, but it still seems inappropriate.

From a strictly practical standpoint, until such time as Doctors are no longer the only specialists allowed for small bases, a RecComm and either 2 police units or a Holo (or perhaps 1 cop and some Psych) will get your first 4 drones under control, allowing you to add productive specialists instead of Doctors. Whether or not this is worth it is another question, but it does work if your goal is not to have ineffecient doctors.

[Minute Mirage]

Originally posted by johndmuller

From a strictly practical standpoint, until such time as Doctors are no longer the only specialists allowed for small bases, a RecComm and either 2 police units or a Holo (or perhaps 1 cop and some Psych) will get your first 4 drones under control, allowing you to add productive specialists instead of Doctors. Whether or not this is worth it is another question, but it does work if your goal is not to have ineffecient doctors.

Or you could skip the holo theater, pop boom to size five, and get two or three librarians/technicians. This assumes of course that you can get the 10 nutrients for booming. After you have boomed, you can let the base starve for a while, if you have surplus nutrients, while building the holo theater.

[Hercules]

I recall in one game, where the position of the citizen/worker within the base area effected the psych: ie if the worker was placed towards the edge it led to a drone but placed closer to the city square it changed to a worker. Or maybe the effect was related to what was being produced or whether it was a farm or forest being worked.

The game stage for me was also near the first bureaucracy limit and I don't think I had a facility. My feeling was it was related to distance from the base centre but it could also be related to the distance the worker was from faction HQ.

[Enigma_Nova]

Energy comes from squares you work (And Sats and Crawlers etc.) so by putting your worker on an Energy square, you get more energy.

This means more energy goes to psych and your drone becomes a worker.

[Kody]

I suppose it is implicit in Kody's calculations, but I find that I am often unpleasantly surprised with riots when a base (which seemed to have sufficient drone control to accomodate an extra worker) grows. I believe it is related to the HGP (and/or perhaps just plain psych allocation and/or PK's factional drone control). For example, a base of size 1 showing a talent would seemingly be able to handle a 2nd worker without riots, but that is not always the case - sometimes the initial status line of the psych display will show worker-drone rather than talent-drone after the growth; I suppose it is really talent-superdrone, but it still seems inappropriate.

Well that's actually indirectly addressed, although you would need to think really hard to realise it.

For example a police unit and the HGP in a size 1 base with a super drone. Basically the police unit anulls the super drone, and the HGP converts it to a talent.

You would think that having size 2 would be fine as one drone would be canceled by the police unit and one drone by the HGP. That's wrong. Because facilities and police cancel the normal drones first before addressing the super drones.

That means with size 2, 1 drone and 1 super drone. The police unit cancels the normal drone to a worker, the HGP converts the worker to a talent. However, the 2nd citizen is a super drone. Super drone cancels the talent and becomes a drone.

So starting with a drone and a super drone. When you have a police unit and the HGP, you end up with a worker and a drone.

I think the best way to think about it. Each super drone will cause one pysch/talent effect to overlap with one facilities/police effect.

It basically means that pysch and talent effects in combination with facility and police effects aren't as useful.