Multi-turn drone riots

[Mr. Harley]

Need a little help. Never run into this before, it's like one of those challenges where you do the start 30 years in the future, and try to fix all the AI's terraforming errors. I've volunteered to take over from a PBEM SMAX player who dropped out, and I've never put myself in this situation I've just inherited.

If a base (without facilities) stays in drone riots (I am looking at three additional turns - four total before I can get a garrison unit produced at an adjacent base and then have it arrive) can it go to another faction if Domai (the Drones) isn't in the game? To stop the drone riots I instead am stuck with starvation at the base. That loses alot of nutriet production, which takes forever at this base (obviously, or they wouldn't be facing these choices).

There is something being produced there that's very worthwhile (game in progress, so I won't tell here), and I could convert it into a garrison unit (but it's almost produced, and I'm going to be spending so much to fix things it's going to be at least 30 years before I get a chance at this unit again). But will the garrison unit (if I switch production) get produced even with an overage of minerals (red boxes) during consecutive drone riot turns?

I've just gotten two contradictory answers from two experienced players. I will be happy for any answers. Thanks.

[Flubber]

My experience has been

1. NOthing gets completed while you are in drone riots-- it makes sense in game terms once you think about it-- I don't believe it matters that you would have far in excess of the needed minerals but have not tested that specific case

2. A base can defect in a PBEM in which the Drones are not present-- I was careless and lost a base when it went into its second turn of riots IIRC.

Personally I would make enough specialists to get the base out of riots even if I had to lose a population point-- Finish the useful thing and then rush a garrison or a rec commons or whatever

[Flubber]

OH and acting as a replacement can be a real learning experience. I have taken over some real pathetic positions . . . Even if the prior player is good, they often have a very different playstyle than you do

[johndmuller]

IIRC, if you are producing a facility, or at least if it is a drone control fac like a RecComm, it will let you add mins to the build (i.e. to rush it some more) despite the riots, which it won't let you do with units (and maybe other facs); I'm less certain, but I think that it will also be completed the next turn if you were able to rush it enough (it may also be necessary to also get the base out of riots at the same time as the rushing if you don't want to get another turn of riots on that following turn). Sorry for being vague, but I try not to get too much experience about having riots.

If you let it starve, doesn't it continue to be on the verge of starvation the next turn too (unless removing 1 pop is enough to get out of negative nut accumulation) - in other words, if you starve for a turn, doesn't the food box continue to be empty for the next turn? If so, then you could starve down a number of pop units rather quickly before you could do anything about it from outside that base (if you were unwilling to switch builds).

There is also nerve stapling as an option - sometimes the negatives aren't relevant to your situation (like if your not friends with anyone anyway).

[anarchie]

As an added bonus, starving the base and removing population reduces the number of drones.

[Mr. Harley]

Actually, I ran some tests using a game I'd completed ages ago. If you change production and it results in all the minerals for the unit/facility being filled (white, not outlined), even after consecutive turns of rioting, it will be completed.

[Kody]

If in the situation of a drone riot, I can think of a few possibilities.

1. Is another base in range with a military unit that could be used? If the base in riots will have trouble finishing some drone control anytime soon, move a military unit in from an adjacent base and build an military unit in the other base.

Note pysch calculations occur last. That means that sometimes you have to ignore what the game currently says and figure out the number of drones you will have after any growth and after production is completed. So for example if during a turn you move a military unit out and the game says it will riot. You can set the production to drone control and if that completes you won't get riots as it builds facilities or unit before it reaches the pysch phase of the game.

2. What you said about changing production. If the minerals for a unit or facility is filled it will still be completed. Facilties can be rushed when in riots, units can not be rushed when in riots.

3. Alternate between setting specialists and unsetting specialists.
Due to the production happening before pysch. You can alternate between using specialists and not using specialists. Also due to the funny way starvation works this method can possibly stop population loss too.

Basically, you can set a base to all specialists. This will stop riots, even if the base has negative food, "population loss+production stopping" won't occur while there is still at least 1 food in the nutrient storage. The lost minerals from using all specialists doesn't matter since when in riots no production is accumulated.

The following turn unset all the specialists, to gather food and minerals. You need to make sure you set enough food that at least one nutrient gets put into the nutrient storage (this will stop starvation next turn). As riots occur after production, you get 1 turn of production getting accumulated before the base enters riots again.

Following turn set all specialists to stop riots again.

Repeat as many times as need be until you get enough drone facilities in place. The base won't be lost to another faction as from what I heard a base never converts unless it riots two turns or more in a row.

[Mr. Harley]

Two problems Kody - and thanks, this will help any of the new laptop people.

First, no nutrient reserves. So if I set even one specialist, I lose a population (and production) the next turn. If I don't set a specialist, I still gain no nuts (I said that I've never done this to myself - only random events have ever caused me equivalent losses).

Second, why it will take four turns. He has two bases on an island type area, and NO military units and no road between them. They are also 6 moves apart, but it's broken up all wrong and unless I'm lucky with the partial moves, it would take a rover four turns to do it. Plus I've got another turn of prodution before I can even consider rushing it. I can get a scout done the next turn, works out to the same length of time.

But I could go 60% psych (I've NEVER done that), losing all my energy (just three), and 40% research, dropping my rate by 40% for a turn. That will work. It's worth it for the unit/facility in production. The hit will be painful on the research, I'll have to take it twice probably, but at least I lose neither the population (16 years to replace) nor the production, which has taken somewhere between 10 and 15 years.

[Kody]

With rushing a scout when you're under the 10 mineral rush limit.

You can set the production to a facility rush it for 4ECs per mineral up to however much it costs to build the scout. Then change production to the scout. Since it's under the 10 mineral limit you won't lose minerals from switching.

This works out far better than rushing the scout directly.

[Mr. Harley]

Kody - thanks for that hint, never caught onto that. I can finish the scout for 9 minerals no rush this turn, but that trick could have saved me a couple of times in past games when running democracy and needing a garrison immediately. Interesting.

[Blake]

another handy tip for rapid rush buys if your SE industry is 0 or worse:
Switch to scout patrol, rushbuy the entire scout patrol (50 credits or less if some minerals have accumulated)
Switch to what you actually want to build and rush at the cheap rate.

For some reason rushing to completition doesn't trigger the "may not rush twice in one turn" thing. This trick can NOT be combined with the facility-scout trick kody mentioned.