Embarrassing Question

[Fitz]

Hydro: LOL, I'm playing a series of SP games right now where I have to use the factions blind research priorities. It gets much worse than just double blind. Right now I'm playing the Spartans (Discover & Conquer).

MY 2350
No Tree Farms (just got the tech for Hybrid though).
Got mineral restrictions lifted within last 10 years.
Still no Cloning Vats (Biomachinery ?).
Helicopters & Drop pods just in last 25 years (MMI).

BUT, I'm running around with 13-6-x units (Shard & Probability) from Advanced Spaceflight and Probablity Mechanics.
And my formers are busy planting Mag Tubes (Monopole Magnets).
My hovertank offensive (most 13-1-4 elites) are starting the final offensives against 5 opposing factions simultaneously (killed Roze already), with helicoter support.

It's kinda fun hitting five opponents at the same time with the hovertanks I build in the intervening years between new techs. Since I don't have tree farms, techs are coming once every 6-8 years, so I build a facility in 2-3 turns, then 1-2 hovertanks/copters.

I'm wondering if I'm even going to get Tree Farms before I win the game.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Hydro, et.al.,

So I thnk I got the jist of what your saying. Given the opportunity to build anything else of value i.e. crawlers, tree frams, creches, SPs, etc. those are the priority builds leaving biology labs as a build once those are built first (assuming they are there to be built in the first place), i.e. Bio Labs are the lowest priority build.

Now assuming that you are not diametrically opposed (i.e. find it a cheat) to pod booming this seems to me to be the better choice as long as nutrients support a population point at a target base rather than a bio lab. A librarian at 3 labs sans no maintenenace cost at 30 minerals (for the colony pod) of cost vs. 60 mins of cost for the bio lab and returning only 2 labs. But I suppose once you've tapped out your ability to support population then a bio lab would make sense again as a last priority item.

Again assuming you want no further horizontal expansion b/c of inability to expand and/or drone management with a sprawling empire the pod booming thing appears to be a better use of your fledgling industrial might vs. Biolab (planet blight aside).

[Basil]

The other thing bio labs do, that noone's mentioned, is that they heal damage to native life units in one round, like command centres heal damage to regular troops. So the uses of bio labs are:

1) +1 life cycle bonus
2) Heal native units
3) Ward off bad random events and give chance for a good random event
4) +2 research points (after efficiency, before multiplier effects of other facilities).

So I would consider them a very low priority in a no-random-events game where I was not expecting to use native units. On the other hand, if I *am* using native units - say I'm expecting an enemy to hit one of my frontier bases with nerve gas, so I've garrisoned the base with one or two mind worm boils, along with the requisite regular defenders - then a bio lab is a very high priority for that base.