Supply Pods - how to use?

[Grail Quest]

I've got some old bases that are big in population and have good production ability. I've got a mess of smaller bases on the frontier that could use a lot of catching up.

If I use a supply chopper (for example), I can:

(a) get the full mineral value for a secret project or a prototype, but the little bases aren't building any of those

(b) get half the mineral value by disbanding it, so that seems like a waste

(c) move *1* unit of only *1* of Nutrients, Minerals, or Energy, from one base to another, so that seems pretty dumb, considering I blew maybe 40 Mineral on the one stupid supply chopper

(d) assign the chopper to a mineral-producing square that I can't use because I'd get eco-damage. But the younger bases might get an eco-damage rating, too.

Is there a better way of somehow getting more established bases to help out younger bases? Is there a trick to getting more productivity out of a supply chopper?

[bondetamp]

supply chopper?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

GQ,

A supply chopper is not a good chassis to have a supply module loaded on hence the quizical note by Bondetampe.

Choppers remain in the field every turn by landing and taking 30% damage. what this means is a supply chopper (which also is going to be rahter expensive in terms of mins) will be toast in 4 turns.

Stick with the more conventional chassis such as infantry or rover (upon discovery of fusion power) or foil for sea harvesting.

As for your general question what to do. Normally a front line base is well served with more mins as you are looking to have fresh troops to the front lines.

But as is the case with any SMAC answer its all situational and it depends. (You'll find that is our favorite answer 'round here)

Og

[Adalbertus]

First, you probably don't want to talk about supply choppers or (Colony) supply pods, (which are the black thingies which give mindworms exactly in the situation you want it least), but about supply crawlers, a supply transport on a land- or water-based chassis.
Their use is terrific in the game, and totally unbalancing against the AI if used correctly (= build tons of them). They are usually used to harvest squares you don't have the workers for. There is a wealth of different strategies that relate to crawlers, please look here on the forum, it's simply too much to write. Or try to find your own strategy, which might be a fun for you.
Only one note on eco-damage: It isn't bad at all, you have to control it. Each fungal bloom increases the count of minerals which do not create eco-damage (free minerals) by one per base. Only after the first fungal bloom, building Tree Farm, Hybrid forest, Centauri Preserve or Temple of Planet also increases free minerals by 1 per base.

[Grail Quest]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
Only one note on eco-damage: It isn't bad at all, you have to control it. Each fungal bloom increases the count of minerals which do not create eco-damage (free minerals) by one per base. Only after the first fungal bloom, building Tree Farm, Hybrid forest, Centauri Preserve or Temple of Planet also increases free minerals by 1 per base.

Eh?

I know that Tree Farm, Hybrid Forest, Centauri Preserve, and Temple of Planet all allow me to have more Mineral production without Eco-Damage. However, during that game at Librarian level (?) I haven't had a base that tipped production of 20 without Eco-Damage.

And whenever I didn't set all my bases to Eco-Damage 0, about half the time it seemed like a volcano appeared on Planet.

[Grail Quest]

Originally posted by bondetamp
supply chopper?

I had some bases that were 4-5 squares away by air. There was forest all over the place and not enough roads, so ground movement would have been hurt.

I was building them as choppers to hurry Secret Projects, and because choppers could move ~10 with the Fission engine (the red one), I crunched them out and flew them over the same Turn they were completed, instead of taking the ground route.

When it came to thinking about convoying resources on an ongoing basis, I had considered that because the bases were close by, maybe a supply chopper could do the there-and-back from one base to another without actually landing in between, hence completing a supply run every Turn without damage, and ignoring terrain altogether.

No, I didn't have skybases yet.

No, I didn't actually get to try convoying resources, as the bases building the Secret Projects and gates for Progenitor Victory (i.e., the bases that I really wanted to rush) were already at maximum Mineral production without eco-damage. I surfed the last few turns using Energy to Hurry production and won with Progenitor Victory.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Grail Quest
I know that Tree Farm, Hybrid Forest, Centauri Preserve, and Temple of Planet all allow me to have more Mineral production without Eco-Damage. However, during that game at Librarian level (?) I haven't had a base that tipped production of 20 without Eco-Damage.

There is a counter intuitive trick, only those of the four facilities above built AFTER the first time your get and eco damage fungal bloom add to mineral immunity. To build up your mineral immunity, therefore, you most first built up ONE base (one to limit the overall sum of eco damage) for high eco damage until it gets its first econ damage fungal bloom, there after each of TF,HF, CP, & ToP built adds 1 to the mineral immunity of every base.
One other thing above in the first post a supply unit working a square (and even if they have exhausted their movement you can right click ativate them and set them to working) take ALL of one of the types resource production on the square. All the minerals, all the nutrient, or all the energy. Thus they are most effective on squares that emphasie one tyo of resource[say a mine on a rocky tile -4 minerals or a condenser,fram, soil enricher 6 nutrients], including one inside the base grid but not worked by a worker. Supply units do not go back and forth in the game when working a tile, they just sit there. They represent the workforce with the transport function being an implied auxililery. Yhey movement points are just to get them to the tile to be worked.

[Lefty Scaevola]

If you are a real real micromanager you can work them all the way to their target tile. Each turn after they move, right click ativate them an work the tile. Next turn activate them again, move them, right click activate them and work the tile, etc. The only tile on the way you will not be thus able to work and thoses beng worked by a base or another supply unit.

[Chowlett]

Another somewhat counter-intuitive thing that was discovered a while ago here is that each fungal pop actually increases your eco-damage limit by one mineral.

For example, say you produce 20 minerals and you are just producing eco-damage. Then the fungus blooms, and your 20 minerals are fine, 21 is the new threshold.

Weird, but I believe correct. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.

[Adalbertus]

Another somewhat counter-intuitive thing that was discovered a while ago here is that each fungal pop actually increases your eco-damage limit by one mineral.

It's actually written in the datalinks.

(5) Divide this value by 8, and reduce by up to 16 plus # of previous damages. Set this number aside.

But it's so counter-intuitive that nobody believed it ...

[Sikander]

Grail Quest,

It appears to me that you don't know how to use the supply crawler's most powerful function, which is to harvest resources from any square not being worked by a worker or harvested by another crawler. It's actually pretty simple.

When you discover Industrial Automation start building a supply crawler in one of your bases. The design will appear automatically. When the crawler is finished send it to a square which is not being worked by the workers of one of your bases. For this example let's assume that there is a forest square just outside the base radius of the base that built the crawler. You move the crawler to that square, and when it arrives and is active you hit the 'o' key. A screen will pop up asking whether you want to crawl nuts, mins or energy back to the home base of the crawler, and it will also list how much of each commodity the square will produce with it's current terraforming and your econ and planet settings. Select the 2 minerals.

From now on until either your crawler is destroyed or the square in question is altered your base will receive 2 more minerals. There is no need to move the crawler ever again, and if you do it will not produce anything while in transit. You can see how powerful this technique is. Your base now produces two more minerals. If you built another crawler you might do so faster. You can build a bunch of crawlers until you hit the ecodamage threshold, and then keep building crawlers to harvest energy or food, giving your small base the raw production of a much larger one.

[Darius]

Originally posted by Grail Quest
maybe a supply chopper could do the there-and-back from one base to another without actually landing in between,

Just to reinforce what Sikander said, (and this is a critical point which I misunderstood when I started), you don't move the crawler back and forth. You just leave it there forever. So building one on a chopper (or needlejet) chassis does not make sense, because the chopper needs to return to a base every few turns.

[Grail Quest]

Originally posted by Sikander
Grail Quest,

It appears to me that you don't know how to use the supply crawler's most powerful function, which is to harvest resources from any square not being worked by a worker or harvested by another crawler. It's actually pretty simple.

No game with the computer has ever gone that long or been that desperate that I needed super-sharp strategies or a lot of the higher techs. For example, I've never built a combat NeedleJet, Chopper, or Skybase. I've never completed a monorail.
I haven't played through at higher than Librarian yet, though.

I'm at a point where I want to try a non-Research Faction and see how quickly I can build build build. I'm definitely going to try crawlers and see what happens. So far I've only used them for SPs in the "late game".

All too often, I get caught up in building Formers, Children's Creche, Recycling Tanks, Colony Pods, blah blah blah and neglect longer-term build strategies.

In general, I find that the tech research rate progresses at what *feels* like a fairly slow pace because of Blind Research.

No, I don't want to waste away my beauty sleep on MP.