How to build free base defense units!

[knowhow2]

This threa is either starting to get real fun or is about to die out, anyway I have a slight remark. It was mentioned somewhere above that armoured probes don't have any advantages against worms, but IIRC there are such a thing as Resonance armour with trance ability, that's another +50%(?) or x2 +25% against worms. With elite morale your bases are unrapeable!

,,,,,,,,,

[Fitz]

Any idiot who runs FM during wartime is just asking for his butt to be kicked to the other side of the galaxy.

Keep dreaming boyo. Anyone who knows how to play Free Market starts in FM ASAP and never leaves it, even while they are smearing your poor little citizens across the fungus. Specialist bases or one or two punishment spheres obsolete the primary difficulty of FM, and empath takes out a psi heavy opponent. Meanwhile, you're hauling in way more money to upgrade shells and getting new tech faster than the man who isn't using FM.

[johndmuller]

Fitz, what happens if/when someone PBs your punishment or specialist base(s) where many of your troops are homed - do they get rehomed to whichever base is closest to them?

[Fitz]

Of course. But letting someone PB your base at any point is a sign of poor planning.

[NorthSwordsman]

Originally posted by Fitz


Keep dreaming boyo. Anyone who knows how to play Free Market starts in FM ASAP and never leaves it, even while they are smearing your poor little citizens across the fungus. Specialist bases or one or two punishment spheres obsolete the primary difficulty of FM, and empath takes out a psi heavy opponent. Meanwhile, you're hauling in way more money to upgrade shells and getting new tech faster than the man who isn't using FM.

(removing foot from mouth). Ok, so I'm wrong.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Given the cost diiference between, say, a 1-3r-1 tr (1) and a fission probe with 3r armor & Trance, 30 min vs 90 min, I would not think of using probe for garrison before I had fusion. I cannot remeber offhad the cost for a fission synthmetal trance probe, but it is some 40 to 50 above a trance scout or trance synthmetal. Beside the difference in cost, there is the time value of the nuber of turns to recover it at 1 min oer turn, and the risk of going without the unit during the longer build time.

[Tenchusatsu]

Originally posted by Fitz
Keep dreaming boyo. Anyone who knows how to play Free Market starts in FM ASAP and never leaves it, even while they are smearing your poor little citizens across the fungus. Specialist bases or one or two punishment spheres obsolete the primary difficulty of FM, and empath takes out a psi heavy opponent. Meanwhile, you're hauling in way more money to upgrade shells and getting new tech faster than the man who isn't using FM.

I disagree. Sometimes it's better to fight using a Green economy than FM. With a large empire, the efficiency boost of Green can make up for the lack of +1 energy/square. And you won't have pacifist drones to worry about, either. In fact, you'll even be allowed to use one police unit per base to help control drones better (i.e. less Psych energy needed).

Fighting wars under FM is possible and effective, but it's difficult. And sometimes the extra effort might not be worth it.

[Ned]

In a recent game I put armor on a tank chasis with a singularity reactor. I walked that baby up to a base defended by a conventional (fission) rover probe. Combat ensued. Each of the units were elite. The attacking tank probe lost perhaps 5 hit points, leaving 35. The defender started with 10 and was eliminated.

This "reactor" effect surprised the hell out of me because it was just like conventional combat.

Next! I noticed that I could attack again! I still had movement points! I had never seen this before. In all other probe team combat, the unit could only attack once.

So I probed the base in the same turn.

It seemed to me that this unit could have, it it wanted to, clear out 3 defender probes and still have enough movement points left to probe. I don't know if the phenomenon was the caused by the reactor, the chasis or the armor.

Also, FYI, a simple way to clear out a base of garrison units is to park an high-armored probe team next to it. All of the garrison units will attack the probe team thinking that it is just like a conventional unarmored probe team.

This of course is a cheat.

Ned

[knowhow2]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
Given the cost diiference between, say, a 1-3r-1 tr (1) and a fission probe with 3r armor & Trance, 30 min vs 90 min, I would not think of using probe for garrison before I had fusion. I cannot remeber offhad the cost for a fission synthmetal trance probe, but it is some 40 to 50 above a trance scout or trance synthmetal. Beside the difference in cost, there is the time value of the nuber of turns to recover it at 1 min oer turn, and the risk of going without the unit during the longer build time.

IIRC each upgrade from unarmoured speeder probe to 2-3r-1tr costs exactly 100 creds.