Energy Parks

[Slimehorse]

Combing Vel's guide one sees the term "Energy Park" come up quite a bit... but would one of you experts please explain how to build one? I'm lost without a map. Specifically- 1) what do they look like and how do you put one together; 2) patterning/ratio of collectors to Echelons; 3a) do bases or crawlers work them; 3b) and therefore should they be in the center of your empire or out in some lightly colonized hinterland; 4) sea parks vs. land parks. From what I've gathered, parks are the key to winning on Transcend, which is something I have yet to do. By far. Wow, didn't want to confess that.

[Slimehorse]

Kinjiru: thanks a lot. One other thing- at what part of the game should you begin building them? It seems to take a lot of effort- when is it worth it to pull all those formers off your city squares to start on a remote energy park? Oh- and also, does the energy park serve one city only (i.e. all the crawlers come from your Headquarters) or do you share the wealth?

Also, has anyone had the pleasure of seeing the real-life energy park out in the Mojave desert? It's somewhere between Mojave, CA and Barstow, CA, on the way to Las Vegas. Very very cool.

[LoD]

Adding to Kinjiru's post: the most efficient way to build crawler parks AFAIR is like this:

SSSSS
EEEEE
SSSSS
EEEEE
SSSSS

S - Solar Collectors
E - Echelon Mirrors

Also, you have to remember to place a base somewhere nearby the energy park - the whole bussiness has to be inside your territory to generate any real revenue.

------------------


LoD - Owner/Webmaster of

THE CHIRONIAN GUILD SMAC Site

[Slimehorse]

Wonderful. Beautiful. Thanks very much for the info. I'll name bases after you in my next game

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Slimehorse,

A couple of variants on the layouts for an energy park. One I usually prescribe to is as follows:

Make rows of squares alternating between echelons and solar collectors at least 5 squares if not longer in length

ex.

EEEE....
SSSS....
EEEE....
SSSS....
EEEE....

etc.

Resulting energy (w/o specials or +2 econ or Merchant Xchange) at 3000 ft is as follows:
4 4 4 4 ....
8 10 10 8 ....
4 4 4 4 ....
8 10 10 8 ....
4 4 4 4 ....

etc.

Resulting energy from the 5 X 5 plot of land is: 132 energy or 5.28/square (6.28 if +2 econ, 7.28 if +2 econ and Merchant X-change). Obviously the longer the array the better as you get more 10 energy squares and hence the average energy per square goes up. Also if not obvious you'll want to harvest energy from the solars before harvesting the mere 4 energy echelons.

E-parks are almost always best suited for for development after energy restriction are lifted (obviously) also they are better developed when superformers are inplay as the t-forming can be fairly extensive and to t-form ahead of the crawlers coming out fromthe target base site(s).

Inlight of the heavy t-forming required many folks simply prefer sea t-forming with fusion trawlers. Altho' energy output is not as great the resources to develop the energy are much less.

Compare the results of tidals being 4 energy (w/ thermocline) per square but only the need for a simple tidal harness.

Usually onelooks to crawl resources back to but one or two bases those that have preferably Science enhancing Sps and the full complement of econ and science enhancing facilites. Normally if only one exists it should be the headquarters to prevent efficiency losses.

Og

One last point to add to Kinji's point 'bout saving energy for land lifting. You still are capable of prebuilding an echelon mirror under a base site and it will still give its benefit to surrounding solar collectors. So build the base site on an echelon and proceed as he described. One other point if you do not build a base and your echelons extend outside your boundaries, the echelon contribution to the solars for those echelons outside the boundaries are NOT considered. Yet another reason to build a base to extend your boundaries. Nothing irks you more than having the AI plop a base down and have your energy park output cut nearly inhalf b/c all of a sudden your echelons fall within the bounds of an opposing AI.


Dang... LOD beat me to the punch. Grumble server down grumble.
[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited February 22, 2001).]

[Slimehorse]

This thread has been printed out and will be studied most intensely. Ask a simple question, get a bunch of great answers. Much appreciated, Mssrs. K., LoD, and O.O.

[Kinjiru]

Energy parks are not necessary to win on transcend, but they sure do make things easier!

The best place to build one is in a remote region that no one is likely to investigate. The reason you want it remote is that your usuage of the park will wholly depend on crawlers. And as I am sure you know, a couple of arty units or a squadron of bombers can utterly destroy a collection of crawlers in no time.

As to how to build one, simply raise all the land you are going to use. You want every square above 3000 meters to gain the maximium benefit. It will get very very expensive to raise all this land, so first of all, look for spots that are already up high. Second, plop a colony pod down in the middle of the to-be-raised land. If you have a base there, your terraforming costs will drop tremendously. Once you have the land raised, you can starve the base down to size one and then disband it by building another colony pod there.

As for layout, I will leave that to you to find the old threads that talk about it. There is a layout that provided maximum benefit for least cost. The thread was originated maybe 14 months ago or so. Look for ones with the term 'energy park' in the subject.

How to utilize a park? Once you have your mirrors and collectors set up, just plop crawlers down on every square. If you are using the most efficient layout, you will be pulling in 10 or 12 energy per square every turn ( I forget which, the screen would just show '8+').

You can achieve higher absolute returns with land parks. However, in SMAX, I think sea parks are the better value because you do not have to spend a dime (other than unit costs) to build them.

Have fun!

[Skanderbeg]

Land energy parks:
Don't forget to drill to aquifer at the highest places!
The rivers will ad one more energy to each square they flow through.

Inland seas, if You have one in Your territorry, or if You can terraform one, are a ideal place for a sea energy park. A sea base in an inland sea needs no big defense and can concentrate on science enhancements, and a second base at the coast at the inland sea can build the trawlers.

"Steelborn, Starborn"
[This message has been edited by Skanderbeg (edited February 23, 2001).]

[Aredhran]

Very important thing to remember:

Echelon mirrors only work as advertised when they are inside of your territory (just like sensors)

Therefore, if you decide to build your energy park in a remote location it is a good idea indeed to plop down a base, not only for reducing the terraforming cost, but also to actually receive the full energy input from your terraforming effort.

As far as sea parks go, they are usually cheaper than land ones (ie. less terraforming involved), even if the energy/square ratio is lower than land-based parks.

As said above, try to home all the collecting crawlers in one single base (or maybe two). This base should have: HQ (avoid inefficiency), all lab and econ facilities (to maximize your investment), the Science SP. If you can, try also to have the Merchant Exchange there (do not overlook the benefits of +1 ec/square !), and keep it in Golden Age (shouldn't be too hard with a high energy income, with only 10% psych). For sea parks, you'll need the Thermoclyne Transducer (if you're playing SMAX).

Aredhran

[lbores]

quote: Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe on 02-22-2001 03:48 PM Compare the results of tidals being 4 energy (w/ thermocline) per square but only the need for a simple tidal harness.

Can we assume that the same is true for the Freshwater Sea?


[This message has been edited by lbores (edited February 23, 2001).]

[Slimehorse]

Again, I'll say thank you. One very minor question, perhaps semi-off-topic but I think I can justify it since crawlers and trawlers are an integral part of the overall energy park system (no, I'm not a lawyer). Yes, I know that a "trawler" is a sea crawler, but is that a name built into SMAC or is that just what we've all just decided to call them? When I stick a supply unit on a foil, the workshop automatically calls it something like "fusion supply foil" or something, and I've been renaming that to "trawler," in order to sound more professional, like all you experts. But am I in fact designing it wrong? Is there a better sea crawler design that I'm missing that the game will automatically designate as "trawler?" (In the same way that I was delighted to see my Überdeathgravship get called a "Deathsphere" (or whatever it was) automatically)

And lbores, my assumption is that all of this would hold for the FS also, given all it does is +1 nutrient... which in my opinion makes it maybe slightly less attractive for sea parking, since I like lots of coastal bases along it with workers working the sea squares. Although if you get a nice big FS, like in the huge map of Planet, there's still room in the center for a sea park (which, given what I've been gleaning from the boards is I think probably a better role for the center than what I've previously been doing, which is dumping sea bases in there).

Edited to add a reply to lbores.
[This message has been edited by Slimehorse (edited February 23, 2001).]

[LoD]

Slimehorse: A trawler is just a term for a Sea Crawler coined by the SMAC community. So don't worry, you are not left out on anything here .

LoD

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Lbores,

I'm a bit confused. The t-forming required for a tidal harness is the same regardless of waters t-formed. Geothermal shoals harnessed and trawlered would of course only make the payback better (almost equivalent to average per square output from energy park) at a substantially reduced cost of former time vs. traditional echelon mirror/solar collector raise elevation to 3000+meters t-forming activities.

Og

[Slimehorse]

And I too had completely forgotten about the Geothermals! Of course- that's definitely the place to go about sea energy parking. The downside being that I don't think I've ever encountered an inland geothermal shallows, which means lots of expensive uplifting to turn it into an inland sea, or else defense of all those wimpy trawlers becomes an important consideration. Especially since in the game I'm playing the GS lies directly between me and Miriam...

[Kinjiru]

Regarding the defense of open water sea parks...

In MP, one of the best ways to defend the sea park is to intentionally leave (or plant) sea fungus in one or two squares. Park a loaded up carrier, destroyer and foil probe in that square. The enemy can't see you until too late! Even better when you have the Xenoempathy Dome.

In SP, this doesn't work since the AI can see you in the fungus anyway. But still, parking a carrier with some bombers in the general vicinity is probabaly the best way to protect your investment. Also, putting armor on your crawlers defintely helps. Face it, you are going to lose a bunch of trawlers no matter what you do, if you can damage or destroy the attacker at the same time, then you are going to come out ahead.

Hmmm... defense in depth might work here as well. Build a bunch of foils that are heavily armored, but weaponless (and clean of course). And just park them in a massive line, two or three deep, along the approached to your sea park. Back them up with one or two armorless, but heavily weaponed foil, with the Marine Detachment if playing SMAX. If you have one or two big sea parks this strategy could work, if you have lots of smaller ones then it would probably not be cost-effective.