Vanilla or Rover Former in early game?

[lbores]

I'm sold on the value of a Rover Former (kinda like the Engineer in CivII). But in early game - they take a long time to build. So - plain vanilla or wait?

Some here have said that terraforming tiles is not a priority in the very early game. If that's the case - what's the break-point wherein T-forming makes a difference?

[KMadeleine]

I don't make rover formers until I get fusion power, but I do make a beeline for fusion power ASAP.

I do think terraforming is a priority in the early game. Forest on a nutrient resource will get you three food prior to gene splicing, and that can help a lot. In rainy territory I can get 2 food and one min from a lot of squares, but no energy until I t-form solar collectors.

The other day I made a rover colony pod before I had fusion power. It took five more turns to build that way, but then I escorted it with a rover and got it to its destination [far away] much quicker, saving more than five turns. Usually I don't make rover colony pods until fusion, either.

Have you ever made gravship formers? I love them because they can do both land and sea duty.

[Garth Vader]

I make 2 regular formers from each of my early bases, maybe the first 4. On bases after that I make 1 regular and 1 rover or sea former. By that time I often have crawlers so the base is doing pretty good industry wise.

[Myronides]

Naaa, rover formers are too expencive. You can practicaly build a vanila one and a rec tanks for the prise of one rover former, if I 'm not mistaken. So I leave them for mid-game, unless I play afaction with an industry bonus like the Drones (I hate the Hive).

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Lbores,

Definitely a vanilla for first generation of formers. Consider the cost in terms of time wasted building them vs. getting t-forming done ASAP.

Infantry former at 20 mins. vs. Speeder at 40 mins. (not too mention requires Mobility tech which unless your going to be doing a rover run you may want to pass on for awhile).

That means you can rush build your infantry former at cost of 25 energy or take about 5 turns w/o rushing. That means it can start t-forming in either turn 2 or 6. Granted it will lose some effectiveness as the game goes on w/o ability tomove a square and t-form but thats why you keep building them until fusion and THEN put them on a speeder chassis when the cost drops in half and hence same price as Infantry formers.

You'll get a lot more all important t-forming done sticking with the slow infantry models until discovery of fusion.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I build crawlie formers until I have fusion power.

[Blake]

I like infantry formers because they are so much cheaper to ugrade to clean, and later super.