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Fixed Base Placement - main bases and helper bases

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  • #16
    Hive would have had a field day if it was allowed

    I was so disappointed when I found it wasn't allowed. That super early super science city never happened.

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    • #17
      Since it's not allowed in the demo game, you wouldn't be giving away anything by starting a thread to describe it... i'm sure a lot of people would be interested in hearing about it.
      "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's? Pay no attention to Caesar. He doesn't have a clue what's really going on." -Cat's Cradle

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      • #18
        Originally posted by jtsisyoda
        Since it's not allowed in the demo game, you wouldn't be giving away anything by starting a thread to describe it... i'm sure a lot of people would be interested in hearing about it.

        Ok this has been covered any number of times. Take out your note pads, the quiz will follow later.


        1) Pod booming, what is it?

        Pod booming is simply producing colony pods and moving them to another base and adding them by hitting "b". Bingo instant population relocation. Whats more the adds of populationpoints are not in anyway hindered by population limits imposed or otherwise lifted by hab complexes and hab domes. So assuming enough nutrients are available one could in essence build a base up until the game rolls over the population points without ever having to build a complex or dome.

        2) Why would one want to do it?

        Good question student Ogie. In most instances it is merely robbing Peter to pay Paul. But if Paul has every blessed facility under the sun and a couple of nice special projects, Paul may be better off. Point is if you've embarked on a super science city with pod booming may actually pay off. However, there is a downside. All those pods produced could have been put to very good use by building other bases. Whats more is that at some point the population added no longer is of value (in the early game) as the amount of useful squares workable is 20 and the amount of useful specialist caps out at somewhere around 18 or 20. All other specialists added are psych specialists (doctors initially, then empaths, and then finally transcendi). Obviously once transcendi are in play its quite a good deal but prior to that point extra pop points above the 40 ish threshold are merely a waste.

        3) Whats this thing I hear about Planetary Transit Pod Booming?

        Hmmm.......

        Its a way to kinda get something for nothing. Normally in a pod booming situation a faction will be running a pop boom and also pod boom by have feeder base(s) pods going to a super science city. By doing so the feeder bases never actually lose pop points. Some factions are inevitably hindered and are very unlikely to pop boom save for Cloning Vats. Say Yang for instance. While he has great growth and out of the box expansion capability his inability to turn on the pop boom hurts him.

        PTS pod booming allows him to have feeder base(s) that are there simply to produce colony pods.

        PTS pod booming assumes a base and at least two crawlers feeding the bases such that a colony pod can be churned out every 1-2 turns. Every third colony pod produced destroys the base but is used to simply re-establish the base as a size 3 colony. Re-home the cralers to the base repeat and rinse. The other two colony pods simply go to the one mongo super science city the Yanger is looking to create.

        Now the same counter arguements apply. Those colony pods could be used for other base settlements and allow 6 pop points created rather than the mere 2 at a super science city.
        "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

        “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

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        • #19
          PTS booming with dual feeder base and auto crawler rehoming.

          Colony pods would have only cost average of 10.67 minerals per colony pod using the auto rehome trick between the two feeder bases and the 10 free minerals when the bases are refounded. This gives a cost of 16 minerals spent to generate every colony pod that isn't used to refound the feeder base. Two colony pods generated per turn and 100% mineral to energy transfer due to the colony pods always building.

          That will be about 11.5 ECs per turn from the stockpile while usually with optimsed build planning minerals I was only able to get a 75% mineral to energy stockpile transfer rate. So that's roughly an extra 2.9 ECs per turn.

          The mineral losses and the land usage will be recouped by the faster boom rate in the base you're adding to. Also you don't have to pay for the construction and upkeep of the children's creche. The facilities you build in that base have more effect, and you can rush the network node and the research hospital in that base. With the Hive a more spread out setup for the specialists means more difficult juggling of money on where to build the facilities, and building facilities in many bases takes up resources that could have otherwise been spent on more crawlers and formers.

          Overall in the short run, having one or two large specialist base means you'll be able to play with more minerals in your other bases. It reduces the cost of building facilities by large qauntities, the science rate is pushed up far faster, and you will have more crawlers and formers getting built.
          Last edited by Kody; December 2, 2003, 23:53.

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          • #20
            Once again kudos Kody.

            "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

            “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

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            • #21
              update on Helper Bases

              I have played the game (on a Huge Map of Planet) to the late game now.
              Already won by military conquest early on with captured mind worms, so now it's peaceful building.

              *

              In the mid-game, once drop CPs come into play, there seems no need to actually build anything other than main bases. This became very much the case when orbital insertion came into play.

              Pod-booming proved to be a difficult choice, but overall, it was not entirely feasible as bases peaked in their mineral production at around size 10 or so.
              By this, I mean that the clean mineral limit was at the limit and many bases were running at around 10-20 in Eco Damage rating, after accounting for "factories" (genejack, robot assembly, etc...). To have increased them in size prior to building an adequate number of tree farms and the like would have been to risk severe destabilization of planet, and I didn't want to play that type of game where I'm launching solar shades or melting ice caps.
              Many bases have mineral production in excess of 100 now, and much of that is wasted between builds, where I couldn't JIT rush because of cash, and therefore only 10 mins were held over.

              *

              The game is in over the 100th turn. It's interesting to see that the AI, despite me having left them largely alone except for the stealing of energy now and again, has not expanded beyond about 10 bases. Three of them are together and bucking each other for territory, but everyone has some kind of "back door" where they could expand into.
              ( This in turn limits my Commerce income. )

              I wonder if this was how the game was meant to play: that, regardless of map size, the designers did not expect that anyone would expand beyond the first Efficiency Limit.

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              • #22
                Damn I dont want to take my base placement strategy to the grave with me.

                My base placement strategy was designed to be flexible enough to work in real games, while still allowing maximum density of boreholes. The simplest way to describe it is considering the map as a checkers/chess board, build bases on the "black" tiles and drill boreholes on the "white" tiles, that way bases will always be between boreholes.

                But thats not actually how I did it because you'd need to be some sort of computer to figure out which tiles are black and which are white. Instead I used this simple "algorithm" (yes it is simple... I ALWAYS used it, and I still remember it after over a year of not playing SMAC)

                Base placement:
                Starting base can go anywhere.
                For new bases, move the tile cursor to an existing base, now move the cursor using only the "up/down/left/right" directions: ie the 2,4,6,8 keys on numeric keypad. (or move colony pods exclusively using those keys)
                Anywhere the cursor can be moved to, which is outside existing bases radius, is a valid base site. With the 2 tiles N/E/S/W considered a bit too close but still valid if other suitable sites are scarse.

                Borehole placement:
                Drill the first borehole directely adjacant to an existing base tile. (that is the 1,3,7,9 directions)
                Now starting with the cursor on an existing borehole, move the cursor only by tapping any direction key twice. [and anywhere the cursor can be moved to is a valid spot to build a borehole]

                Religiously following those simple rules results in a "ordered yet disordered" empire where no base clashes with a borehole - this looks especiallwy pleasing with the borg because it's ordered yet pratical. The base spacing is almost exactly right to get good sized bases when using crawlerless hybrid forest/borehole terraforming and also being one turns move from neighbour cities via road for infantry. Ultimately once all the boreholes are drilled every base will be sandwiched between two boreholes and have access to 3 to 6 boreholes. Technically vertically/horizontally between two boreholes is also a valid place to build a base, but it's very difficult to get it right when placing bases before boreholes. (as you invariably do)

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                • #23
                  I evaluated your recommendation in our discussions over at CGN Blake and found yourplacements to be sound advice. I applaud your innovation.

                  "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

                  “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
                    PTS pod booming assumes a base and at least two crawlers feeding the bases such that a colony pod can be churned out every 1-2 turns. Every third colony pod produced destroys the base but is used to simply re-establish the base as a size 3 colony.
                    If a base is founded or conquered in SMAC, AFAIK that adds to your basecount used for calculating b-drones based on your bureaucracy limit. However if you lose a base because it's conquered or obliterated, IIRC your basecount doesn't drop: it stays on the same level as before. So for example if you conquer a base, you get extra b-drones. But if you lose that base again later, those b-drones still persist, despite being back at your original number of bases: the game considers your basecount one higher than it really is.
                    I'm wondering, doesn't the same effect occur when repeatedly starving and rebuilding bases? Won't your basecount increase with one and won't you get extra b-drones every time you rebuild the pod donor base?
                    Contraria sunt Complementa. -- Niels Bohr
                    Mods: SMAniaC (SMAC) & Planetfall (Civ4)

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                    • #25
                      I have not observed this effect. IIRC b-drones have disappeared before for me when a new base gets destroyed by free range worms.

                      But I could be imagining things.
                      "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

                      “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

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                      • #26
                        My experiments showed the basecount reduced in all cases expect when I gifted a base to another faction via the scenerio editor.

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                        • #27
                          Ah then I must have read incorrect posts in the past. The time that I noticed b-drones remaining can indeed be explained by the base going to the AI.

                          Thanks for the info.
                          Contraria sunt Complementa. -- Niels Bohr
                          Mods: SMAniaC (SMAC) & Planetfall (Civ4)

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                          • #28
                            Regarding PTS booming, there's something else that's sometimes referred to by the same name, though for some reason, it doesn't seem to be a widely used trick. Where it has been used though (In the original BE PBEM by Flubber for instance), it's quite devestating. Simply put....when you complete the PTS, all your existing bases with less than 3 pop suddenly gain enough pop to bring them up to 3. If you've been concentrating on spreading your empire, such that you have a large number of size 1 & 2 bases concentrating on building CP's....well.....I think you can see where I'm going.

                            Personally, I like to stick to a 2 on the diagonal base spacing, adjusting bases 1 square to the NE,NW,SE or SW when I need to avoid a fungus or rocky, avoiding impacting either on my borehole or base placement. I generally won't send a pod out beyond those two squares in an attempt to maximise "turn advantage", however I won't not do it if there's a good reason for it (Like grabbing territory along a hotly contested border). The tight fit does tend to make building an energy park to feed a SSC later on rather difficult, so I usually try to compensate for that with an ICS.

                            In other words....for all intents and purposes really, identical with Black and Sik's usual methods, though IIRC, I rely slightly more on Condensors than the former, and slightly more on Forests than the latter. Just a matter of personal style.
                            Veni Vidi Castravi Illegitimos

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