Base location and special resources

[Sikander]

Ogie,

You are correct about psych multiplying facilities. I run my psych at 0%, so the energy + lab enhancing facilities are my favorites. The extra drone reduced by the hospital makes it my favorite of the psych + labs or econ facilities. Having no forest squares, as Vi Vicdi points out, reduces the utility of the tree facilities further, and places them late on my build list.

Typically, I don't need the pollution reduction properties of the tree stuff either. I've been building occaisional planet parks to reduce the gross effect of my production. With only about 15 raw minerals per base (before parks are added) most of my bases don't need any local pollution alleviation. Captured bases on the other hand will sometimes need it immediately.

[Vi Vicdi]

Ogie:

Exactly. The tree stuff is both indispensible and can be put off until much later in a base's life cycle.

[Enigma]

Hmm I have never tried that approach...

Still the borehole/trawlered kelp approach can take a much bigger investment than the tree farms. Do not let the pure mineral costs decieve you, although you can buy 12 formers for the cost of a Hybrid forest that does not include the support cost and the fact that it is very difficult to rush buy units.

My most productive bases are those that use the kelp/solar borehole approach. I do not use trawlers and specialists as much as I should though, when I first started playing I thought that the energy from specialists did not go through the enhancments of facilities and that is still lurking in the back of my mind preventing me from using specialists as much as I should..

Still thought at 90% labs the 5 energy from a tidal harness is better than a thinker or engineer. Utilizing both tidal harnesses and specialists can benefit you a lot.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Nigma,

Re: Mineral costs of alternate approach esp for formers. Yeah that is really the achilles heel. In fact finding the delicate balance between expansion paradigms (i.e. pod building)to former building is my biggest problem. In actuality though the problem kind of solves itself in relatively short order. My Tech beelines are normally to Industrial Auto (which is normal for any builder) then up to Eco Enginerring (for mineral restriction lifting) then onto fusion ( at some point I'll detour and pick up Tree farms to lift the energy restrictions as well). But during the beeline to fusion I'll be in a position to detour and pick up clean and then upgrade the formers. At that point it is once again clean sailing w/o support costs. Typically I don't want more than one or two formers (ie. normal units from a given city are 2-3 formers and one garrison unit)/per city draining off minerals in the form of support in the pre clean era.

On the 90% lab allocation thing. Right you are 5 energy allocated that way beats the one specialist. But more to the point if you harvest kelp you can make out better by getting 2 specialists supported by those 4 nuts. For me at least once I can get the spacialists in place then the tidal harvesting starts to be the priority and starts to kick in. So again your on the money that both are vital. To me though max out the specialists first, then go about tidal harvesting. Once you get fusion go strictly engineers and upgrade to fusion labs. You'll have more energy than you know what to do with (yeah right ) and still have decent labs. Then play the efficiency/allocation game for the rest of your tidal harnessed energy to up your lab output.

Finally as for the lab and/or econ from specialists going through and being modified by the facilities, you are thinking about it today the correct way in that yes the multiplicative effects do apply. So by all means, if there is one take away from this no matter what you do otherwise (i.e. if you still choose to be a traditional forestor etc) don't feel that energy gained from these guys is a one shot boost instead feel free to make full use of the your specialist buddies (other than doctors and less so empaths) whenever possible, you'll find them invaluable. By the by, there still seems to be an upper limit on the amount of non psych enhancing specialists you can employ (about 16-18 engineers, librarians, and/or thinkers) but this seems to be a non-issue in prehab dome days anyway.


[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited April 17, 2000).]

[Vi Vicdi]

As a dyed-in-he-wool efficiency hawk I've avoided Specialists as a rule, but playing as the Usurpers with their awful inefficiency I'll never build the fleet beacon if I don't expand & specialize.

First time for everything, eh, Og?

[Enigma]

Blah I also never use specialists because I never ever have enough people! In the post hab dome days I would use many more specialists but in the pre dome days...

Maybe I will go back to playing Lal. I used to play Lal Demo/planned almost the entire game and I had no idea what I was doing but I still did decent, Lal is a great intermediate/newbie faction. Having size 18 bases in the pre hab dome days is great!! I am comparing Lal to Morgan more and more and Morgan seems to have much less overall than Lal, especially since Lal has no penalties.

[Sikander]

One of the benefits of using specialists is that you get another means of tweaking your energy allocations. I've been running labs at 10% and still getting one tech a turn just from my engineers and thinkers. If you were running a sub paradigm economy, this could be a very useful tool for managing your economy.

As for the former-support issue, I solve that by building with Borg spacing along the coasts. Each city only has ten squares allotted to it. One square is the center square, another a bore hole, an average of 4 shelf squares, and an average of 3 condensor-farms and 1 mine. Thus my former time per city is not as high as it could be, and my fairly numerous cities can support a former each at no cost. When I get clean reactors, I update all of my existing formers and build a wave (or more) of new clean formers to finish up base terraforming, create new base areas, and terraform my parks.

[Sikander]

Enigma,

You don't need any hab complexes to use specialists unless you are playing Morgan. Just crawlers. Crawl your food and minerals in, and set your people free (to specialize).

I have never played Lal, but I've been tempted by the easy diplomatic victory potential, especially with the SPs that multiply your vote total. I wonder what the record for the fastest diplomatic victory is?

[Googlie]

^

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Bump. Discussion on specialsits above.