Two square radius

[Vale Lurk]

Perhaps I'm being stupid, but when the rules talk about a "two-square" radius - say for the range of a sensor array - does that mean the coverage is 25 squares (anywhere you can get to in two moves) or 21 squares shaped like the city radius? I recall that Civ2 was a bit vague on this point, describing the city radius as a 2-square radius sometimes, and I was wondering what exactly it means in SMAC.

Also, does anyone else wish that the base areas actually fitted together neatly, or am I being too much of a perfectionist?
I've always thought that a hex-based sytem would be better since distances between tiles would be more consistent.

[Kassiopeia]

I prefer having them neatly in other's lines, because having too much small bases disrupts efficiency = more drones, but if you have ten bases with 20 population there's no drone increase. If your effic is 0, like with the Hive, you'll get increased drone activity if you have over 12 bases!

[Ned]

kassiopeia, Actually b-drones are a little more complicated that what you suggest. For example, the base limit before you get your first warning depends on map size. This limit is then multiplied by a fraction in which efficieny is involved. Finally, the Datalinks is all wrong on how you get b-drones.

All this is covered in a one or more threads on this topic. Run a search on "b-drones."

Ned

[EtheMind]

I like to match my support areas when I play "Build" centered game, or play as Hive(because of mentioned inefficiency). But I found out that in some cases building bases within 3 square radius is more cost-efficient in the overall strategy because you get bases faster, and venturing out to find that perfect spot can be very dangerous.

In my quite recent game as the Miriam, against AI. I built all my cities very close to one another and their support areas overlapped in serious manner. When this started to become a real problem I had already won, in theory. I had Green so Drones associated with inefficiency weren't as serious problem. Though they seemed to be an everlasting issue when playing with Miriam. I didn't confronted such a crisis as with Hive when going Planned.

[WhiteElephants]

Vale -- You're correct about the two square radius for a sensor. It's two tiles in any direction. And just to reiterate what the others have said, you really don't need all 21 squares in your bases radius to max out its size until very late in the game and at that point you have satellites to help you out.