The Trance Skirmisher

[Drago Sinio]

One of the most useful units to build for your early game defense is the Trance Skirmisher. This is a Scout Rover with Synthmetal Armor and Trance Special Ability.

Their mobility and anti native abilities make them great to pop pods with, and to protect your formers and outlying bases from attack by worms after you have popped the nearby pods.

They are a cheap unit, and very effective. Its one of those cases where it is cheaper to build with trance, than without. Later in the game I design a similar unit with a clean reactor and best armor to upgrade them to. Their power against native life makes them useful throughout the game even witout an upgrade.

I place them between a fungus area and my formers or crawlers, so that if they are suddenly attacked they can withdraw. This is better than stacking them with the unit you are protecting because stacked rovers cannot withdraw when attacked by a slower unit.

[Fitz]

Re: The Trance Skirmisher

Originally posted by Drago Sinio
They are a cheap unit, and very effective. Its one of those cases where it is cheaper to build with trance, than without.

Cheaper in mins? Literally? I find that amazing. If you mean the same cost, you may be right. For example, a syth infantry and a synth rover are the same price, although I don't typically build synth rover garrisons instead or infantry in the early stages to avoid upgrade costs later.

I place them between a fungus area and my formers or crawlers, so that if they are suddenly attacked they can withdraw. This is better than stacking them with the unit you are protecting because stacked rovers cannot withdraw when attacked by a slower unit.

Good there. Suddenly I'm itching to play my next LAN game of SMAX. I never noticed the retreat didn't affect stacked rovers before. *Fitz smacks himslef upside the head for lack of attention* Also, kudos on paying attention to the little details of defense, such as placing a defender near your formers instead of killing the mindworm retroactively and building a new former. It took me a long time to learn that such details make the diference between playing a decent game and playing a good game.

[Drago Sinio]

Yikes. I just checked, and you are correct. The trance is cost zero, but does not make it cheaper. Miriam made me say that to confuse everyone. (It cost 18 minerals either way, same as an infantry unit by the way, so you may as well make it a rover if you are going to add armor. )

As I understand the "Rules of Disengagement" for rovers are that it can only disengage against a slower unit, and it cannot do that if stacked, zone of control hampered, or if its attacker has the special ability of "comm jammer" or is that "ecm", I forget which.

[Fitz]

The cost for Synth without trance is the same for infantry & rover too I think, but I don't follow the "might as well" rule for creating them. A standard garrison, of which I will eventually have many, cost less to upgrade to heavier armor if it is infantry. Since many garrisons will rarely if every be moving, I tend to make them infantry for the cheaper upgrading in the future. However, it is good planning to have a few roving defenders in your empire (I would say 1 per 2-3 bases) that are armored on a rover chassis, so they can get to the point of an attack quickly and help defend.

If I spend a lot of time (and tech stag blind might give it to me, especially with Domai) in the synthmetal armor period, I might end up having 1 infantry defender/base and 1 extra defender per base, half infantry and half rovers. Later on I will build off of this base of units, ending up with 2-3 infantry and one defending rover per base in middlingly defended areas of the empire. Alternately I might upgrade the extra infantry into best/best config as attackers and send them trundling to a war front while keeping the rovers as defenders. It depends on the flow of the game.

I used to only build best/best units (or no weapon/best armor on garrisons), on the best chassis available, which is the worst extreme of the "might as well" philosophy. If you're not careful, you give up flexiblity for later upgrading and force composition, plus require more energy/minerals to upgrade, hurry production, or build the composition you need. Now if you are talking throwaway defenders/attackers to accomplish a specific goal, it's a different matter (thus my comments in your other thread).

[Drago Sinio]

Well, I dont know, Fitz. It seems to me that the extra move for the same cost is too good to pass up, even if upgrading is more expensive. I find that by the time I want to upgrade I have so much energy that the cost is not much of an issue. To me the home territory garrisons are most often used early game, pre air power. After I get air units, the enemy is not likely to get close enough for the garrison to matter, really, unless I am really in trouble. The only place I use infantry garrisons is a conquest mode, when I will often rush build a basic scout infantry, and upgrade him to a best armor police guy.

Also I get some wierd satisfaction out of having my original troops around through the whole game, carefully upgraded, they usually end up being Elite by the end of the game. And an Elite Trance rover is great to fend off mindworm attacks, because they can both get to the attack faster, and also will almost certainly survive all the but the fiercest native attacks.

[knowhow2]

Originally posted by Drago Sinio
Also I get some wierd satisfaction out of having my original troops around through the whole game, carefully upgraded, they usually end up being Elite by the end of the game.

I also have that habit of keeping them. My units often starts out as green and sometimes 100 or so turns later they're Elite. Kinda get the feeling that the're "My Boys".