To Planet Bust or not to Planet Bust

[D4everman]

Finishing my game which inspired the message "Santiago is as dumb as a post", I wondered about Planet Busters.

It turned out that only myself, the UoP and Cha Dawn were left to battle the aliens. H'Minee went down quick. It was more of a pain in the ass to kill her than it was a challenge. But Marr....

He was chucking missiles at me left and right. I could only land a token force on his territory as he blew away most of my transports before the arrived. But then I got the Space Elevator. I had already prototyped and built a bunch of Shard Drop Tanks and X Shard Drop guys. Let the raping and pillaging begin! It took a loooong time...Marr had a lot of territory, plus all of the bases he took from Santiago, Aki and Morgan....but I dropped guys in three different points and kept pumping them in as I rolled through his bases, either dwindling them down to nothing with gas or taking them and then obliterating the base. Now, I know Marr had at least two planet busters...why didn't he use them? When I began crushing him in earnest I had yet to launch an ODP.

When does the AI feel its time to use its ultimate weapon? (I think his imminent destruction would have been a good time) This game was at Talent level, but I've had PB's launched at me before on lower levels with foes in less trouble. Yang once blew away most of my best cities! I was kicking his can at the time, but he wasn't in that much trouble, he could have held me off longer, yet he blasted me with a PB. I would have thought Marr would have used his PB's considering I was gassing his cities and executing his populace. Anyone know what rules the AI uses in order to launch a PB?

D4

[Wiglaf]

I think the AI waits until it is hit by one to respond in kind. Or, if you get a faction really mad (atrocity), you can look forward to a launch, too.

IIRC this has been brought up before, so I might be wrong. Just my thoughts.

[mrdynamic]

Ive had the Pirate ues a PB against my base once. Im not sure why other than taht was the one that the marine secret project was in maybe.

[Ned]

In my experience, no one but Yang and Miriam have ever launched PB's at me, and only once since the infinite missile problem was fixed. That is quite a few games. I think the AI is smart enough to know the consequences of using a PB and won't use them unless all else is lost and a juicy target is available. But since the infinite missile range problem is fixed, the AI has no really good targets to hit.

So now, I simply ignore the problem - but I do build ODPs when available, just in case.

[death_head]

The Pirates are annoying when they have a PB cause they can launch them from offshore, and because of all the bases, you'll never find it in time...

[Lefty Scaevola]

The pirates should be the easiest to infiltrate with a foil probe team (assuming you do not already have them infiltrated with the governorship of empath guild. When anyone gets the technology, you scan their production (F4) once a turn and swarm any base building or storing PBs with probe teams.

[Clear Skies]

I have never been PB'ed by anyone... in fact I've only ever seen the AI build one twice. First was Morgan, which I quickly sabotaged and framed Lal for, and the second was Dee, but she was a submissive so I left it alone - she never moved it outside the base where it was built!

[Vytae]

..

Ive had The comp use PB's on me on talent. I was playing Morgan and i was pacted with Lal and he started being a ***** (he was getting pretty powerful) and right after he broke pact with me a few turns later i took over a few of his cities. So how does he retaliate? throws no less that 3 PB's at me i didnt have any ODP deployed but i had a few and the first two were stopped,but not the 3rd......BOOOM goes my Hq (and about 1/2 of the SP in the game)

The computer wont use PB's unless its either 1) he/she is king**** of turd isle (twice as big as 2nd place on might chart) 2) you have seriously pissed him off (atrocities,massive probing) or 3) he attack one of his/her pactmates (which could prolly fit under seiously pissing him/her off) and you have a truce or vendetta with him/her.

This isnt set in stone just what ive seen

SmacFanatic,you HAVE to PB someone,nothing else in the game can put an evil gleam in your eye the way a transport full of PBs can. And NOTHING compares to turning a midsized continent into a deepsea crater (been there,done that,pissed everyone off)

[death_head]

I wanna be emporer of Pakistan...

..then I'd show the world how much fun SMAC can be

[Kassiopeia]

Once I had three submissive and very able pact brothers/sisters, and there was a lone Miriam, in war with everyone else. She had a stunning amount of PB's but she didn't bother using them. I was scared s**t until I could build ODPs.

[Kirnwaffen]

The only faction I've ever seen use a PB is the Cult. They used it against a sea base that the Angels had built near their coast. Their were three really stupid things about it:

1. They took out a totally worthless base

2. They were hopelessly overmatched by the Angels.

3. They brought me down on them.

Never seen it happen again.

[death_head]

Cha Dawn is an idiot. I'm surprised they didn't program him to hang himself by 2100, because by then he's toast...

[corb01772]

The only faction that has used a Planet Buster against me is The Hive. I was fully kicking Yang's ass, and after recapturing 2 of my bases that he earlier stole, and then conquering several of his, he PB'd my first (and largest, population and facility wise) base!

I continued to pummel him after that, and then he had the gall to repeatedly ask for Blood Truce after I took each of his bases. I sure enjoyed watching the Punishment Sphere video clip after I took his last base.

Although she never completed them, Lady Dierdre had several bases constructing PB's (I had infiltrators) when it was clear that she was going to lose. That is very ironic; the same person who pressed Vendetta on me for not respecting Planet's ecology is now trying to blow up large pieces of it in order to get rid of me. She ended up going insane, after I took each base from her, she would send me messages saying how she would derive great pleasure from having me executed. After every base. I enjoyed that Punishment Sphere clip as well.

[death_head]

I've always been under the impression that SMAC could benefit from a couple more pictures of Lady Deidre...

[Ned]

As I said before, don't worry about PB's. I have conquered hundreds of factions that have them and have only once been hit with a PB since the infinite missile range bug was fixed. Ned