how do you control drones?

[hydra628]

i usually play the gaians, and after about 10 population, my bases are all taken over by drone riots.

some bases riot even i build both hologram theatre and recreational commons, the other facilities weren't available because of my technology. and i can't use nerve stapling, because of my -1 police rating.

oh, questions, if you have your talents control the drones, do the drones work on the surrounding squares?

okay, back to the drone control thing, what does the game mean when it says like +50% psych? and what does contributing energy to psych on the social screen do?

oh, do talents have any other benefits besides drone control?

oh can someone give me a list of facilities or secret projects that reduce drones(not including those that give more talents)? i know of recreational commons, hologram theatre and punishment sphere.

about punishment sphere, it seems to me that at higher difficulties, you have to have this on all your bases to even remain control, is that true?

some more random questions, this is game is complicated!

i saw on another post, someone mentioned "releasing mind worms near someone else's base?" is that a special command, or did he just mean attacking enemies cities with captured or trained mind worms?



why is it that sometimes after i capture a city, it just disappears? no, i didn't order the unit to destroy it.

can you get more than 8 units of the same kind of resource from one square? because on some of my boreholes, it just says 8+.

[mark13]

OK, let's deal with all of your questions one by one....

A size 10 base, when left unmodified, will generally create a large number of drones on higher diffculty levels, it is part of how the game works. However, measures can be taken to ensure that any drone problems that may occur don't get out of hand:

- Build drone control facilities, such as Rec Commons and Hologram Theatres. These reduce the number of drones in your base by two.

- Assign police to the city. These help control drones, and under normal circumstances reduce the number of drones in your base by one each. However, there is a special ability, Non-Lethal Methods, that double the police effect of that particular unit.

- Create specialists, such as Doctors, Empaths and Transcendii. These increase the psych output of your base, therefore helping to alleviate drones. However, in order to do this, you must sacrifice a normal worker, and the resources he brings in. This is often the easiest way to alleviate riots in the early game, before special SPs become available.

- Increase psych allocation on your social engineering screen. A certain amount of your energy production will go to psych. 2 units of psych means one drone turned into a worker, or one worker into a talent.

- You can nerve staple, although this is officially an atrocity, and will result in 10 years of economic sanctions being imposed upon you. Not recommended if a lot of your energy production comes from commerce.

OK, if your talents control the drones, yes, the drones do work the surrounding squares.

Talents do have benefits beside drone control:

If the number of talents in any given base exceeds or matches the number of workers, and there are no drones, that base enters a Golden Age. During a golden age, a base will benefit from +2 Growth and +1 Economy on the SE table.

Secret projects, there aren't that many, the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Virtual World, in which all Net Nodes count as Hologram Theatres in addition to their usual function, a necessity for the University....

Ascetic Virtues, gives you a +1 police rating.....

The Longevity Vaccine, if you run a certain type of government (can't remember which one)

And, later in the game, The Telepathic Matrix, in which drones will never riot at any of your bases. This generally comes too late to make a difference.

Funny, I was sure there were more.....apparently not.

Increasing psych by 50% - for this you must have a certain percentage of your allocation to psych. For instance - if you have 10% allocation, a base producing 20 energy will give 2 psych. Any facility that says so will give a +50% boost to this, the 2 thus becoming 3.

I have never built a punishment sphere and I wouldn't recommend it, because it basically halves lab production from that base. All you need to do is reserve a little energy allocation for psych, maybe 20%, and that should do the trick.

Releasing mind worms into the wild - LOL....
This is a very nasty tactic in which any captured mind worms you have can be turned back into the wild. The benefit of this is that it will usually go to the nearest base, and attack it, effectively letting you attack an enemy base without diplomatic penalty.

When you capture a city, the population decreases by one. The same happens when the last defender in a city falls, unless it has a Perimeter Defense. If a base's population was originally 1, and you walk in, that base's population will become zero, and cease to exist. You will still be able to steal a tech, though, if you have spoils of war on.

Any square that produces more than eight of a given resource is given the 8+ symbol. The only reason for this is because the game simply doesn't have a symbol for 9, 10, 11 etc. The actual taking of the resource is not affected at all.

Put simply though, controlling drone riots in the later game is all about psych allocation. True, some players get by without it (*ahem* Misotu ) but they have a difficult time of it. Come on Mis, prove me wrong....

Hope that helps....

Mark13

[MariOne]

You forgot the Human Gnome!

[Kirnwaffen]

For the Longevity Vaccine, you get -2 drones for planned, and -1 drone for green. Human Genome adds 1 talent to every base.

Edit: Self Aware colony adds a police unit at all bases, and Clinical Immortality adds 1 talent per base as well.
[This message has been edited by Kirnwaffen (edited October 28, 2000).]

[Misotu]

quote: Originally posted by mark13 on 10-28-2000 07:12 PM Put simply though, controlling drone riots in the later game is all about psych allocation. True, some players get by without it (*ahem* Misotu ) but they have a difficult time of it. Come on Mis, prove me wrong....

A challenge, if ever I heard one.

Well, I have been experimenting with psych recently along the lines you've been describing and, although it pains me to say it, you have a point. Most interesting ...

I think I disagree with you absolutely though about the later game. The later game is when you definitely do *not* need psych allocation to control drone riots - you have so many other options available to you.

With the approach I tend to take most of the time, controlling drone riots in the later game is all about food production. The more food you have, the more specialists you have, the fewer drones you have. Simple. Your mineral production is all about crawlers, you are feeding food into your cities with either crawlers (earlier) or orbital improvements.

I hate to admit this, but I so much hate spending energy on drones that I actually avoid building holograms most of the time ...

(Hides behind monitor as posters gasp and mutter insults about Misotu's playing ability)

This is probably not sensible, but I can assure you that it's more than doable And holograms are 3 energy credits a turn - worth their weight in gold, no doubt, when you have energy allocated to psych. But otherwise - you're really not talking much benefit. By the time I get to hab dome limits, I usually don't need a hologram. If I must, I build them, keep them for 3 or 4 turns and then disband. Prior to this, I have controlled it using a combo of rec commons/research hospital/specialists. The exceptions to this are the factions that can't boom easily, eg CyC and Pirates.

It's all possible. But I am by no means saying that this is the ultimate strategy. It's just a product of my personal antipathies

[RedFred]

As always, everyone's playing style is a little different.

First a word on P-spheres, I never build 'em unless running FM for extended periods. Even then I try to build as few as possible and produce or reassign home city to the p-sphere city.

My personal preference is 0% psych, but I'm not afraid to go 10%, and for extremely short periods crank it way up if I am doing a GA pop boom.

I totally agree with everyone else that the VW is huge. I'd much rather build net nodes than holo theatres.

There are several base psych enhancing improvements that have not yet been mentioned. I'll just say that tree farms and hybrid forests are two of my favourite and refer you to p.163 of the manual for the rest. Brood Pit in SMACX is the only one not included.

Maximizing your energy production is very important for other reasons, but if you are running 10% or more in psych it will directly help your drone problem. Even if you run 0% psych it can indirectly help to have lots of energy coming in.

[mark13]

MariOne:

The reason I didn't include the Human Genome:

quote: oh can someone give me a list of facilities or secret projects that reduce drones(not including those that give more talents)?

*smug look*

Mis, I often use psych in the late game - as it is the one thing guaranteed to put all your bases in a GA - when your energy productin is high enough. Soooo useful in making the leap form +1 to +2 economy....

Thankyou, Kirnwaffen, I forgot about the Self-Aware Colony (hey, I was tired )

I'll second the maintenance of Hologram Theatres. They can be a real pain in the proverbial, early to mid game, and the VW is a massive project to get, doubly so if you are the University, of course.

[MariOne]

point taken, mark13, I was paying more atention to your answers than to the questions.
But above all, I couldn't let the occasion to say "Human Gnome!".

In my *superficial* tests, when faced with the option whether spend in psych to keep a base GA or spend the same directly into econ & labs, I came to the personal conclusion that is *generally* more effective not going for GAs.
Maybe you have a more in-depth analysis of it.

for the rest... I like Misotu (I second what she wrote, I mean!)

[mark13]

MariOne, sorry, there was supposed to be a smiley face in there, I just forgot - it wasn't a snipe at you!

But.....

You have a size 14 base - pop boomed a few turns earlier. You are running at +1 economy - Wealth only, at this stage - as you can't go FM (you are at war). OK, big dilemma - do I:

- Increase psych to 20%, enough for a Golden Age, and watch the extra energy come pouring in, or.....

- Increase labs/econ to 50/50 (or whatever) and stay with the +1 economy?

OK - let us say that the base is producing 34 energy ordinarily. Now, normally, 17 of that would go to labs, and 17 to econ.

You switch to 40/20/40, and a GA surfaces. Now, that base is now producing 14 extra energy (+1 energy/sq), and the base is producing 48 energy (more if you have crawlers out). 40% of this is going to labs - 19. This effect is multiplied if you have crawlers i the field - and increases with more energy (less allocation needed to get to a GA). That described is worst-case scenario. A nice side-effect of this is the extra +2 growth - which may allow you to pop boom to an even bigger base, depending on circumstances.

I would be interested to hear any other thoughts - something I have not considered (there must be something!)

[Kirnwaffen]

Oops!

My bad. I too wasn't paying to close attention to the original question. But anyways, self aware colony is another one of those later projects that is a bit late to help. It does halve base maintenance too though, so it's worthwhile, especially with the added police.

My 2 cents on energy allocation:

I almost always find myself allocating at least 10% to psych after the first 150 turns or so. Otherwise, I find my drone control problems getting out of hand. Personally, I have a hard time using specialists unless it's an emergency, because I know that as a worker or talent, they could bring in those four extra resource points of any kind. Punishment spheres: out of the question. I won't sacrifice research for workers. I usually also allocate more to psych later, and try to get a few ga's in for the extra energy.

Anyways, just my two cents.

[MariOne]

mark13: I also forgot a smiley!

As for psych/GA.
When I have 14sized bases, I seldom get up to put 10 workers on the field.
That is, generally I have at least 4 specialists.
So
- the extra energy (1 per *worked* square) is 10 or less
- that *raw* energy stil has to be cut by inefficiency

As I said *generally*, *at first glance*, the kind of bases I tend to produce won't significantly benefit of getting in GA, if not even lose something.
As for +2growth, I only recently got SMAX (and I'm not planning to begin new pbems for the next months), so I tend to reason in terms of SMACv4, where a GA's growth does NOT work towards booming.
OTOH if I build too much bases and/or I can't sustain food enough to mak'em grow all the way w/out serious drone problems, that is if I switch to SE Green before completing the booming in some bases, the GA +2GROWTH can be useful. You know of course that nutriens don't get wasted, so you don't need to keep GA all the time when not booming, you only need it around growth time, to lower the tanks threshold, that's what makes it useful.

[mark13]

MariOne, specialists do somewhat level the playing field, as you won't get as much (if any) of an advantage.

However, I am a player who likes to use a lot of crawlers, and although it is often advantageous to use specialists, I generally don't bother, except, of course, for newly captured bases. But consider this, it is not only your citizens themselves who bring in extra energy, it is the crawlers that city is supporting as well. This can be up to 20 extra energy which goes into the kitty.

If you run demo/green, efficiency is somewhat of a non-issue in your main bases (usually only about 1-2%). Of course, GA's +2 growth not helping pop boom is somewhat of a disadvantage, but I think the problem is fixed with the xfire patches (correct me if I'm wrong).

Another advantage with the GA strategy, of course - you don't have to worry about drones!!

Kirnwaffen:

Specialists, as MariOne has mentioned, can often be of great use. Consider this - you have a choice of:

- 2 energy, with a nut and a min thrown in, from the field (say)

- A librarian, giving +3 labs before all the boosts from the facilities that base has.

Now, normally, wih 2 energy, 1 would go to labs and 1 to econ. Therefore, you are getting three times the labs advantage you would from the extra energy. In an SSC, a librarian would be expected to net you up to 9 extra research points. This, multiplied by, say, one in each base, at 5 extra points......? That's a fair bonus.

I agree totally with you on punishment spheres. The only exception may be if you are running FM, and having a hard time with all the pacifism. You could build a punishment sphere, transfer support to that base, and not suffer any effects. I have never actually tried this, but there are several documented uses of it as a worthy tactic.

Ohh...dear, have I written that much? There are probably numerous fatal flaws in my comments, it's midnight, I'm tired....

[WhiteElephants]

There are points in the game that I have noticed when you can either change a worker to a doctor to quell drones or change two workers to librarians (or whatever) to eliminate the drone. Now I know librarians/engineers don't add to psych, but if you have enough of them you are effectivly changing a drone to a librarian rather than using a doctor to create a talent to balance the drones. I often find myself in the late game with cities that are over half specialists. The reason being that specialist benefits (energy/labs) are uneffected by inefficency and when your bringing in a lot of energy you will inevitably lose some to ineffiecency unless it's your capital we're talking about. So, rather than fight an uphill battle with a ton of crawlers which takes time to build (too much in my opinion) I prefer to switch workers to specialists and generate energy and labs that way.

As far as psych allocation goes, I never touch it. Nor do I build police units. I just stick with facilities and specialists.

Hydra, I think what you might be doing wrong is that you are trying to maintain growth through the accumulation of nutrients when your bases are that large. After size five (or maybe ever before) forget about trying to amass enough nutrients to fill up the nutrient tank (thing-a-ma-bobber) and drop your nutrients down to zero until you are ready for a pop boom. It takes way too long to move from size 5 to 6 that way when you can just have +2 nutrients and pop boom in one turn. Take those workers out of the field and change them to specialist to quell the drones and specialiast to add to energy and labs. You don't need to work every square in the bases radius to have a solid energy and labs producing base. The only problem you might have is coming up short in the mineral department, but that's where mines and crawlers or boreholes come into the picture.

[Fitz]

quote: Originally posted by WhiteElephants on 10-29-2000 07:49 PM As far as psych allocation goes, I never touch it. Nor do I build police units. I just stick with facilities and specialists.

I usually go with psych at 10% for one reason. many of those facilities give a % bonus to psych. You do not get that % bonus if you have 0% in psych.

Hologram Theatre +50%, Research hospital +25% (IIRC), Tree Farms/Hybrid Forest +25% each, etc.

Makes sense to put in 10% to me.

[WhiteElephants]

You do get the % bonus if you have specialists that generate psych allocations such as a doctor's +2 would turn to +3 if you had a facility that adds +50%. Though you make a good point Fitz.