Sky Hydroponics Lab

[Paul]

That was fixed in one of the patches. Download the latest patch and satellites will cost half minerals with the Space Elevator. This will take care of some pollution problems.

[Chowlett]

quote: Originally posted by Paul on 05-05-2001 03:25 AM That was fixed in one of the patches. Download the latest patch and satellites will cost half minerals with the Space Elevator. This will take care of some pollution problems.

Shows how much attention I pay to the game then!

[Googlie]

Paul:

The fix actually went the other way:

· The Space Elevator now correctly doubles mineral production when building satellites.

(extracted from the readme file)

so with the SE, a base with 30 mins normally will now have 60 when producing sats.

G.

[Misotu]

Yes, that's right Googlie. Interestingly, though, I *don't* get the ecodamage I should when building sats. It's as if the extra minerals are nessus minerals. No ecodamage problems at all.

[Misotu]

Fitz: Yeah, I often play the PKs - I'm talking MP here, not SP And in MP, you don't tend to end up with loads of bases, so I would definitely go rush aero complex rather than loads of sats.

[Paul]

I haven't played SP for a long time and I don't think I ever got the Space Elevator in any of my PBEM games, so I may very well have been wrong. The only thing I remembered was that the ecodamage problem of the Elevator was fixed in one of the patches.

[Misotu]

That's definitely correct Paul - got the Space Elevator in a recent MP game, and I was running ridiculous minerals with no ecodamage when building sats.

[johndmuller]

I seem to recall having difficulty figuring out how many to buy in order to end up with the +10 remainder going for you the next turn. IIRC, I concluded that you had to buy 20 extra to get the 10 carryforward, but that it frequently didn't work out right anyhow - probably due to bad math - but seemingly more of that than usual, coupled with a lot of other coincidences like surprise drone riots and enemy units or whatever disrupting the base production leaving me short of the +10 - made me wonder if it was playing with my head.

[Misotu]

If you're asking how to ensure that +10 mins go forward with the space elevator, it's straightforward:

You look at the number of mins the base is producing when it is building a satellite. Subtract 10, double the remainder and subtract *that* number from the build cost.

So if a base produces 30 mins (with the elevator) and the rush cost of the sat is 120, you pay 80 energy to rush the sat and have 10 mins in the build queue next turn. It's absolutely consistent. Units are slightly trickier to calculate

[johndmuller]

Misotu,

I agree with your analysis, I must have been having a bad math day.

Sadly, the benefits of the elevator are diluted by rush buying; if you rush buy to the max, you are essentially only getting 1 free round of base production. Ben Franklin would be in a quandry.

As to the units, they definitely have that more complicated cost structure, but IIRC, the elevator only affects orbital improvements. BTW, would it make any difference to the rush buy calculation if another orbital improvement were in the dreaded queue?

John

[Misotu]

No, no difference in the rush-build calculation at all. The only difference is that, if you put anything at all in the build queue, you'll lose the energy bonus provided by a game bug, which only operates if the build queue is empty after a facility is built. Orb improvements are considered to be base facilities by the game.