how do you control drones?

[Basil]

I find that my methods of quelling drones depend on the faction I am playing. If I am playing a faction which does not use free market, such as the Gaians or the Hive, I will make extensive use of facilities such as rec commons and holo theatres as well as specialized police units. With the Gaians in particular I very rarely allocate precious energy to psych - allocating 20% of energy to psych is not likely to get you a Golden Age as Yang or Deirdre! With the Gaians at least I never use punishment spheres; I haven't played the Hive enough to say.

On the other hand, if I am playing Morgan I'll be living by the Free Market. Police units are useless. Again I'll use rec commons and holo theatres as my drone controls of preference, but this time energy is abundant, and I'll allocate it to psych if needed.

But Morgan has an additional problem: air units. When you are running free market, air units create drones at the bases they are supported by. Lots of drones. Now, in single-player, or against human opponents who are merely trying to outbuild you and not to destroy your faction, and at lower difficulty levels, you don't need lots of planes and you probably have lots of secret projects which improve your population's happiness. In these conditions you can generate enough talents to offset the planes' drones reasonably easily.

On the other hand, if you are playing transcend against someone playing Marr or Santiago, and they have a fleet of aircraft with nerve gas pods heading your way, you need a large standing airforce. My preferred method of handling the associated drones is by building Morgan Punishment Spheres (TM) in a few of my bases and basing all the planes at those bases.

Which makes me really wonder about the morale of my air crews - here we have a faction which is generally devoted to energy credits, energy credits, and the pursuit of energy credits, except if you've been drafted into the air force, in which case your family is moved to a special base which is a mini-police state and threatened with torture if you don't behave . But that has nothing to do with playing the game.

WhiteElephants, remember Hydra is playing in the early-mid game as the Gaians. They're normally in demo/planned in the early game so their population normally booms almost incidently. They're not like Morgan where you have distinct phases of pop boom/slow growth.

[This message has been edited by Basil (edited November 01, 2000).]

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Weighing in briefly on the plethora of benefits of specialization.

Kirnwaffen et. al.

Regarding the thought process that says taking a worker from the field and turning him into a specialist leaves resources on the table. This can be overcome by the "having your cake and eating it too" approach if you plan your terraforming to specialize towards specific high retruns of a given resource type and crawlering it back to the base. Take as an example a condensor farm or roaded rocky mine each yields 4 resource points of either nuts or mins and is ripe for crawlering rather than working. What this means is that one square that otherwise would have been worked say as a forest by a worker (say Hybrid farm level) yields an excess nutrient point (as 2 are required to support the worker, 2 mins and 2 energy) contrast that to a crawler and a specialist you've got 2 excess nuts (assuming condensor farm - 2 to support the specialist) and either 3,5, or 6 efficiency free energy points (depending on whether the specialist is a technician/librarian, engineer, or transcendi) in the short term is equivalent to hybrid foresting and in the long run specilization outperforms foresting for factions not depending heavily on trade energy income(say Yang or Cha Dawn).

Taken to the extreme a complete specialized base allows benefits of immunity to drone rioting as no population can be a drone etc.

On the subject of converting 2 citizens to specialist (librarians) vs. 1 as a doctor and the others working. As an example say at a size 7 base you have holo theatre, a police unit and rec commons. The above facilities and police allow 5 pop points drone free at transcend. In this case by reducing the effective workers to 5 by taking 2 pop points to specilization the drones are eliminated by the above effects. Likewise 1 doctor will eliminate one drone allowing the base to operate at size 6 workers. All in all unless you have a hab complex and are looking to further your base size most times I would recommend the 5 +2 librarian scenario (unless your in desperate need of mins) at least until such time as you are in postion for second round of base growth that is or have a really juicy square (say borehole ) that otherwise wouldn't be worked.

Onthe topic of psych allocation. In most cases I find it wasteful. There are times such as running FM that it almost becomes a necessity. Anything over 20% tho' is a big no no in my book. I've used the approach with other economies to get base into +2 (ie. +1 energy per square) and then back the psych down and still remain GA, which can be effective when running Demo/Green/Wealth as it allows paradigm eff and allocation of energy slammed all into research or econ. but for the most part I try desparately to keep psych at 0% whenever possible else the global waste of energy into psych where it isn't needed seems too excessive to me.

Jus my thoughts'

Og
[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited November 01, 2000).]

[Misotu]

quote: Originally posted by mark13 on 10-29-2000 07:02 PM 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).

You're wrong. Consider yourself corrected

So I followed this psych strategy thingy as the PKs in one of my current PBEMs, and I have to say that the immediate benefits made it very worthwhile, despite the fact that I lost my pop boom. Then I started to wonder about the growth rate since demo + creche + GA = +6 pop growth. I've compared my last few turns and my bases definitely aren't booming, although I have all the latest patches installed. I *am* seeing the +2 growth displayed correctly in the food box however.

Having said that, I've certainly had instances where game patches haven't installed correctly, so if anyone else has seen a GA-generated pop boom with the latest patches, it'd be interesting to know this.

[mark13]

Mis, strange, as I was about to deliver evidence to the contrary as you spoke. I was running Demo/FM/Knowledge, playing the PKs at 40/20/40, and, yes, the bases with creches and GAs promptly pop boomed. I got up to size 18 with Ascetic Virtues by the turn of the century, with +2 economy, +2 efficiency and +2 research, pop booming all the while. Very strange.

Was this a SMAC game or a SMACX game? Maybe it differs between the two, Firaxis couldn't be bothered to change it? Very, very strange.

[Fitz]

Mis, did you have +2 nuts in the bases that weren't booming. If you have only +1 nut, you don't get a boom on the next turn.

[Misotu]

Fitz, I don't claim to be an expert, but I do know you have to have two nuts

Mark, it was a SMAC game. And I am definitely not booming, in GA for three turns now in some bases (with 2+ spare food, Fitz ) and no growth.

Huh. Was your game SMAX or SMAC Mark?
[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited November 01, 2000).]

[Deimos]

Mis,

That's the reason you're not booming: you're in a SMAC game. I saw a similar discussion around here somewhere, where it was discussed that the GA does not produce the boom in SMAC, but it does in SMACX. I'll see if I can find that thread.

Here it is.

Your even in it, Mis
[This message has been edited by Deimos (edited November 01, 2000).]

[Misotu]

It was my thread.



LOL. Oh well. It *was* back in April :shuffles around on chair: and I guess I discarded the idea of mucking around with psych when I found that the GA didn't produce the pop boom. :more shuffling:

So I just ... er ... forgot.

Well, that's it then. No pop boom with GA in SMAC. Still ... I'm in a SMAX game as the PKs now

[mark13]

quote: You're wrong. Consider yourself corrected

*second smug look of the thread*

But, yeah, it is a fairly major disadvantage not being able to pop boom in classic SMAC - it makes you wonder whether it is worth it or not. But still, I think it probably is, if you are running Wealth, to take you from +1 to the holy grail of +2 economy. Any other thoughts on this?

[Misotu]

Well, you can look smug all you like, but you *don't* get a GA pop boom in SMAC, so the patch didn't correct the problem.

Actually, I think we had crossed wires (so to speak) - you were talking xfire only I assume, I was talking both.

I'm still running FM/Wealth with 20% psych in one SMAC game, because it is still delivering more benefit in research/income terms than any other setting. I'll switch back to planned for a few turns to boom when it makes sense. I am curious though about the boost to commerce. FM/Wealth alone in this game gives me +3 economy overall. With a GA, that should move to +4? But I see no difference in trade income between 2 bases, one in GA/one not, where the latter is generating less energy. They're generating the same from commerce.

How does the commerce thing work? Theoretically, my GA base should be at +2 commerce, the non-GA base should be at +1. I'm governor, so maybe that complicates it?

[Fitz]

Notice under the formula portion it says 'plus commerce and faction bonuses'. That's where the commerce bonus from a GA comes in, as well as the Morgan bonus. If you looks at the economy tidbit that displays info (at the center bottom) there is a commerece rating #, that includes the morgan bonus, ECON bonus (assuming +3 Econ or higher), and GA bonus. Technically, you could think of the CommerceTech as being your commerce rating + 1 for each commerce enhancing tech you have discovered.

Sorry Mis, but you never know what people will overlook in this came. Nothing personal.

[mark13]

Oh, of course, I should have realised really - just me being thick as usual

Anyone noticed how this thread has gotten prograssively further and further away from 'how do you control drones?' Just a thought...

[Misotu]

Sorry ... probably my fault as usual. I have a habit of doing this, but it's mostly because I don't really like starting threads

Um ... Fitz, I probably have overlooked something here but I'd be really grateful if you could tell me explicitly what it is (preferably with pictures and *very* simple numbers, not formulae) because I am not following this at all.

Seriously, I'm still confused as hell. Why doesn't +1 commerce make *any* difference???? Or does it effectively depend on base size/energy? In the sense that, if the numbers are really quite small (say 40-50 energy income in the base) then a +1 commerce bonus might not change your commerce income?

Help.

Please.

[mark13]

Misotu,

I have not even tried to sort out the ins-and-outs of the commerce thing, but I gather it goes something like this:

When two factions are in a treaty or a pact, that arrangement produces commerce. The bases of the two factions are then paired off, the highest energy producing base of yours with the highest energy producing base of theirs etc.

Through some ridiculously complex forumla (which I think is in the datalinks under advanced settings) the two bases are assigned a commerce 'value' (for want of a better word) which takes into account the commerce rating, SE economy rating, commercial techs discovered etc.

Oh, what the hell, I'll delve into the datalinks and copy it out, I've nothing better to do.....

1) First, all bases are ranked from top to bottom by energy output.
2) Bases are paired off rom top to bottom. If one faction has extra bases, these are ignored.
3) For each pair of bases, sum the combined economic output and divide by 8, rounding up.
4) Double if Global Trade Pact.
5) Now, for each individual base, the commerce formula is as follows:

(Value from step4) * (CommerceTech+1)/(Total CommerceTech+1)

6) Commerce Tech is the number of commerce technologies discovered (I think it means by your faction), plus commerce and faction bonuses.
7) Total Commerce Tech is the number of total economic technologies in the game.
8) Using the value from step 5, divide by 2 if no Pact (only a Treaty).
9) Add 1 if you are planetary governor.
10) Reduce to zero if economic sanctions are in effect against either faction (Really? )

Now, am I the only one that finds that description slightly vague? It doesn't say anything about GAs increasing commerce, I would think that is yet another feature Firaxis overlooked.

[Gregurabi]

Misotu:

Just because 2 of your bases have the same energy and commerce rating, doesn't mean they'll get the same amount of commerce from your treaty/pactmates.

Each of your bases is paired with a base from the other faction. (Unfortunately, you aren't told which one.) Suppose your Base A is paired with Lal's Base X; and your Base B with Lal's Base Y. If Bases A and B both have the same energy output, but Base Y has much less than Base X, then the amount of commerce you get in Base B is going to be less than what you get in Base A, simply because Lal's Base Y isn't as energy-rich.


Likewise, if your Base C and Base D have the same energy output, but Base D has a higher commerce rating; and they're paired with two of Lal's bases; then Base D may not necessarily produce more commerce income, because the PK base that it's paired with may be producing much less than the PK base that Base C is paired with.

(Hmm, that probably just confused you even more... if so, I'm sorry. )