known bugs for trascendi level ?

[johndmuller]

Lazerus, I think the 2 on the diagonal means a base every other tile along the diagonals - like this (B=Base, N=NotBase:

N B N B N B N
 N N N N N N
B N B N B N B
 N N N N N N
N B N B N B N
 N N N N N N

That looks like it is also every other tile horizontally and vertically - I'm not sure that the map is being rendered properly proportionate, perspectivewise, here in lines and columns, but insofar as it is, there is also an arrangement like this which is not quite as extreme.

N B N N N B N
 N N B N N N B
B N N N B N N
 N B N N N B N
N N N B N N N
 B N N N B N N

In any case, the point is that you don't need maximum space for most games since they are over before you can max out the bases (unless you make that your goal). Given that, then you might as well be close for protection and efficiency.

Personally, I am currently going with bases approximately 3 tiles away from each other, not necessarily in any rigid pattern, just in whatever spots work best - sometimes going with 4 if there aren't any good 3's and occasionally with just 2 if there are good resources and I like the specific spots for some reason. I don't seem to have any problems with that spacing, so I guess I may be headed for even denser spacing in the future.

I also like to go out and "claim" good territory (like landmarks, specials and nice borders) while they are available, rather than have to fight for them later, so I guess that works against the close spacing. OTOH, There's no getting around the fact that taking a CP on a long journey before you put down roots is giving up the famous "turn advantage" compared to someone who plants them near to where they were born. I did like the possibility in CIV of popping a city, which doesn't seem to happen with SMAC pods; I guess someone else didn't like it that way, perhaps a realism freak, or else they just thought it didn't apply to the way the narative unfolds - like exactly where did this base come from?

[Adalbertus]

Close spacing has several advantages for the core empire in the middle game:
- Get bases a few turns earlier, because you don't have to go so far (turn advantage, sums up to be HUGE!)
- Lots of ZOC blocks already given through the bases
- No squares left for enemy drop units
- less mag tubes to be built
- I've not yet verified it, but according to the handbook and in SMAX, protection of your bases through multiple Flechette defenses (up to five, giving 6.125% chance for a missile to hit).

About AV: It gives +1 Police SE setting and allows to exceed base size limit by 2. What the police change means, depends on the rest of the game. Running FM, it means 1 instead of 2 drones for each military unit away from your territory, if you are running PS (or not FM/Cyber, and have a Brood Pit), you'll get double efficiency from police units, if you're Santiago and running PS, you'll get nothing.

[big_canuk]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
About AV: It gives +1 Police SE setting and allows to exceed base size limit by 2. What the police change means, depends on the rest of the game. Running FM, it means 1 instead of 2 drones for each military unit away from your territory, if you are running PS (or not FM/Cyber, and have a Brood Pit), you'll get double efficiency from police units, if you're Santiago and running PS, you'll get nothing.

My bold.

Yes, I agree about the +1 police. However, contrary to the documentation it does *not* double the effect of police(nonlethal methods) units. At the +3 police level (I think that is the level), regular units are doubled. They go from 1 drone quelled to 2 drones quelled each. However police units just go from 2 to 3, not from 2 to 4, as is suggested by the documentation, and the SE screen.

bc

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Lazerus
Could you explain this Hive strategy of having bases 2 on the diagonal and loads of specialists abit more clearly to me please ?

I normally play with Hive and like to have my bases as close to each other but not overlapping more then 2 squares at the most. 2 defense units and 3 formers per base, a few outer bases with just 1 former but high mineral for creating impact or chaos rovers to quickly kill any enemies.
which secret project gives u free bases ?
Also won't it slow down your base and military building spending so many turns building crawlers early in the game ??

I'm so glad you asked! It's not really a Hive strategy per se, but it works well with the Hive because it relies on specialists to produce the labs and ecs that the Hive has a hard time getting through raw energy due to their low efficiency and economy ratings. The Hive's support bonus from Police State plays into this strategy very nicely by allowing the Hive player to put out a very respectable number of support free formers, and the Hives crazily high industry rating (with Planned and Wealth) means that the somewhat limited (to some players at least) numbers of minerals available before Genejacks are much less of a burden.

Two on the diagonal spacing means that your bases are placed two squares away from one another along the diagonal axis of the grid, which in SMAC means in each of the four cardinal directions (NSEW). I came up with this placement after much gameplay experimenting with two and three square base patterns. This one seems the most efficient. It allows maximum borehole density for instance (one every four squares). Although it may seem a bit sparse in production at first, it is an absolute powerhouse.

If you count the number of tiles each base receives with this pattern, you will see that there are 8. One of course is the base square itself. The other 7 squares vary somewhat in their terraforming depending on your tech level. Early on they are forested (with one a farm), and any squares not worked are crawled (the bootstrap industrial explosion). Once I get the Weather Paradigm (a very good SP to get for this strategy) I can start putting in Condensor / Farms. These babies produce 4 nutrients even if you haven't got the nutrient restrictions lifted yet. Each base has room for 5 of these tiles, and they are placed on all of the "flat" sides of the base (NW, NE, SW, SE) as well as in all of the squares which are not adjacent to any base (there is one available for each base). Once I get mineral restrictions lifted I start building boreholes on the corners of each base (ie N,S,E,W). Each base should have at least two of these in the interior area, though along the periphery of your empire they will have three.

Thus the minimal base in the interior of your empire should produce (after restrictions are lifted, with no specials, but with a recycling tank) 23 Nuts (3 from the base square and 20 from the 5 condensor farm tiles), 14 raw minerals (2 from the base square and 6 each from the boreholes), and 14 raw energy (2 from the base square and 6 each from the boreholes). I only use two workers here (on the boreholes), with the condensor farms being worked by supply crawlers. The base supports 11-12 citizens, so this leaves me 9-10 to use as specialists, each of which produces at least 3 energy equivalents. Thus the grand total for energy production will be 41-44 at this stage of the game, which works out to about 5 energy per square.

Once I get Fusion and Soil enrichers my production takes another leap. Each base can now support 16 citizens with it's 33 Nuts. And each specialist (engineers) now earns me 5 FOP, 3 Ecs and 2 Labs. The total production leaps to 33 Nuts, 14 raw Mins, 14 raw Energy + another (14 * 5) = 70 energy equivalents from specialists (Engineers). Each base takes up only 8 tiles, and produces 84 total energy, which is more than 10 per tile without consideration of any extra energy one might receive from SE choices. This competes very favorably with any energy park strategy.

So two-on the diagonal spacing along with high level terraforming is very efficient in terms of space. Space is however one thing that is rarely in short supply in most planets size categories. So what are it's other advantages?

1) As Adalbertus says above, turn advantage up the wazoo. This is bigger than it seems at the time, as turn advantage has a compounding effect.

2) Specialists. These guys work very hard for you, but never threaten to unionize (ie turn Red). They just plug away at their career, which happens to be putting a set amount of energy in your pocket, regardless of how bad your efficiency rating is or how far from your HQ they are. Another staggering advantage is that so many specialists means that there are correspondingly fewer workers to get upset by the fact that you are building so many damn bases (for example). I can get away with building very little in the way of drone reduction facilities. Drones which don't react to my happiness SPs or police can be dealt with very handily with a doctor / empath / transcend in a completely local and flexible fashion.

3) Defense. It's really easy to defend yourself with this sort of placement for a large number of reasons. Firstly, your bases are close together and better able to support one another with reinforcements etc. Secondly, there are bloody few squares in your area that are not occupied, and none that aren't in the ZOC of at least one unit, and probably several. This means that an attacker is not likely to get past the edge of your territory before being bogged down. I like to use Vel's tactic of building a sensor on the squares which are going to be occupied by a base soon. This gives every part of the empire overlapping unsnipable sensor coverage. As the game progresses these advantages keep piling up. Fighters intercept if an enemy plane attacks a unit within 2 squares of a based fighter. This means that every base is potentially backed up by any fighters based in from two to four bases in range. The same goes for flechette defenses. As I grow larger it becomes impossible for my enemy to even get to my interior bases at all, which frees up units defending the heartland for duty at the periphery.

Another large advantage is that this dense pack scheme is that every eighth square is a base, which has a garrison, improved defenses and a production queue. Not only aren't you a pushover on initial contact, but an attacker is looking at dealing with a sea of reinforcements from your numerous local bases in numbers his supply pipeline cannot possibly match. The large numbers of bases possible (see specialists above) also tend to assure a certain advantage in numbers of troops as each base has it's individual support limit quota which you can fill with troops if you want.

By the time you get satelites the game should be about over. All those bases (I go up to the second bureaucracy warning, perfect my terraforming and then send my formers out to expand, so there are many by the middle of the second century) each of which has 16 population are now about to hit the big time. I build energy sats first, then mineral sats, and then nutrient sats since it still takes some time to get those hab domes. With Yang and no pop boom I will build the food sats right away, as he must grow the old fashioned way until he can build the Cloning Vats.

This raises total energy production to 100 per base (before Transcendi become available), which works out to about 12 per tile. It also raises raw minerals to 30. Once you get Transcendi and hab domes you have hit the ceiling production wise. Build 33 nutrient sats, and 17 more energy and mineral sats, hab domes and be sure to pop boom all the time (it should be easy now with either SE settings or the Cloning Vats). The final tally for an interior base with no specials:

66 nuts

47 raw mins (which can be boosted to 140+ with all the factory facilities for the mineral hungry)

47 raw energy

198 specialist energy (with Transcendi, not including the 2 psych they also contribute)

Total energy = 245, or over 30 per square!

All that in just eight squares!

[Archaic]

Question. Instead of building the boreholes on the cardinal points, why not build them either NE & SW or NW & SE of each base. You'd have to make sure you kept to the same pattern with all of your bases, but it'd result in 6 boreholes per base radius (2 useable by the base, 2 being to the NE of 2 other bases, 2 to the SE of 2 other bases.). Yes, you'll end up with less population in the short term, and it'll require more former time, but you'll have a much greater production level overall once you've set yourself up, wouldn't you?

[MariOne]

Excellent observation Archaic, but wrong conclusions!
I attach here the pattern you describe.
To see it like in SMAC, just..
... nod your head, like this!
(tilt 45° left )

Indeed, putting the BH on the cardinal points (the tiles connecting two bases) has the downside that with regular tiling (i.e. you apply the same pattern to the whole plane) even the interior bases will end to have 3 BH and 4 N (coNdensor like the TF command shortcut, but also N=Nutrients) in half of them and 1BH & 6 N in others.
Straying from the easiest "chevron" basezoning in order to grant 2 BHs per base with Sikander's placement, would lead to adopt a less intuitive shape for basezones (a cross with one fat arm).
Attempting to adjust it case by case, you might become crazy figuring how to give every base its 2 BHs, as every tile you give to a base you take away from another....

To be continued, as I figure I can attach only 1 file per post...

[MariOne]

Here's at the bottom the alternate basezone tiling for keeping Sik's BH pattern while equally distributing them.

Why did I say that your conclusions are wrong, Archaic?
Because regardless of basezoning chosen, that base spacing pattern leads to allot 8 tile to each base (basetile included). And either of your BH spacing packs anyway 1 BH every 4 tiles (2x2 sqaure).
This means that in the 8 tiles alloted to a base, TWO and only two BHs can fit. Regardless of how you dispose them.
You can't obtain more BHs per base. The different disposition only influences the equal distribution between bases, that is 2 for everyone and not 3-1.

[Archaic]

My conclusions aren't essentially wrong. Yes, you won't actually have more boreholes *under normal usage*, but by taking the BH's out of use at one base, another base can borrow it for a short time, giving a very nice mineral boost. Under the standard placement, you can only do that and give up to 4 boreholes to a base. Under Sikander's, you can get up to 6, though it'll require more micromanagement. I need every advantage I can get, so I'm more than willing to do some extra micromanagement for that extra little tactical advantage when it comes to building those Projects.

[MariOne]

Provided that you're on a continent big enough and with a fairly regular shape (i.e. not too much dented shores), there are still 2 main obstacles to actually implement Sikander's theoretical strict spacing:
- the uneven altitude, very often preventing borehole drilling
- the delay in planting bases in the pre-planned spots, due to "de-fungization and de-rockization"
You could also count as a variant of this the fact that you might end planting your base on the only RollingRainy tile of the neighborhood while all the surrounding ones are flatmoist or rollingarid.

The first one can only be worked around with a further huge teraforming overhead to lower the tiles destined to BHs, and that requires the WP or EnvEcon.

The second obstacle means that you will be DEVELOPING SIGNIFICANTLY SLOWER in the beginning, because you'll refuse to exploit the resources ready at hand having to strictly stick to a theoretical spacing.

True, that will be an investment for your future.
After maybe 100 turns of play, you'll have the best yield you could expect from the territory you were provided.
But in the meanwhile, you'd better hope that you're undisturbed, or you'll have hard time facing opponents not restrained by such dogmatic requirements, and thus developing faster.
You can get away with this easily in SinglePlayer.
I figure that would be far less applicable in PBEMs.

It remains to be seen how much of the optimal yield will you have to lose if you instead go for *fastest initial development*, as should be always advisable.
You'll have to judge it on a game by game basis.

___

Another intersting consideration, regards the choice of the base spacing.
I remember a not very ancient thread, in which I pointed out that the tightest base packing is not necessarily the most effective.
(Imagine to plop a base in the tiles not adjacent to any base in Sik's spacing)
It entails 3+1 tiles per base, with 1 BH and 2 N-tiles.
The fact is that at full capacity the tiles you'll have to exploit will be the same with any spacing you adopted.
Thus, take an 8-tiles zone:
- with tight packing, you place 2 bases in it, [ 3+basetile ] & [ 3+basetile ] tiles exploiting.
- with Sik's spacing you place 1 base in it, [ 7+Basetile ] tiles exploiting.
In both cases you'll work 2 BHs in that are.
In the looser case you'll exploit 1 N-tile instead of a 2nd basetile.
As a basetile (with Tanks) yields 3nuts, 2mins, and 2+ energy depending on SE Economy, you'll have 1 more nut in your combined yield.
Actually, pre-enrichers and satellites you'd have
- 11 nuts = 5 citizens = 1 BH worker and 4 specialists, in each of the 2 bases => 2 basetiles, 2 BH workers & 8 specialists overall
- 23 nuts = 11 citizens = 1 basetile, 2 BH workers & 9 specialists

You'd have 2 minerals less from one basetile, and one more specialist in exchange for 1 basetile energy yield.

You could max yield by evening out those "excess odd nuts", crawlering them from one base to another (heresy!).
Let's double the observation area to 16 tiles.
- tight case:
2 size5 & 2 size6 bases
4 basetiles
4 BH workers
18 specialists
- loose case:
a size11 & a size12 bases
2 basetiles
4 BH workers
19 specialists

You see that now you only gain a specialist against TWO basetiles minerals & energy returns...

The decision is rather close indeed, and it depends from your style and preferences.
This serves to show anyway to all the ICS fans that a half-tight packing (steady state) yield is perfectly comparable to a full-tight ICS one.
Things change after Enrichers and Satellites (in favor of Sik's half-tight spacing IIRC), but you'll have to scoop up the abovementioned thread for that.

There are some discriminating parameters:
- infrastructure
double production & maintenance costs for the tight, but you spare Habs
- drones
double Bureaucracy in the tight, but you also have only 1 worker instead of 2 per base
- growth
faster growth in the tight (you spend time, minerals and popualtion for double the colony pods, but 2 bases grow in parallel twice as faster than one, booming included)

Boss frowning, SMAC-pause over

[MariOne]

Originally posted by Archaic
My conclusions aren't essentially wrong. Yes, you won't actually have more boreholes *under normal usage*, but by taking the BH's out of use at one base, another base can borrow it for a short time, giving a very nice mineral boost. Under the standard placement, you can only do that and give up to 4 boreholes to a base. Under Sikander's, you can get up to 6, though it'll require more micromanagement. I need every advantage I can get, so I'm more than willing to do some extra micromanagement for that extra little tactical advantage when it comes to building those Projects.

Point taken, but I think you swapped the credits:
under YOUR BH placement you can exceptionally get up to 6 worked BH concentrated in a base (and 0 BH in other 2 bases), while under Sik's placement you can get up at most to 4 BH worked in a single base (and 0 BH in 1 other base).

___
EDIT:
but, rethinking to it, in your previous post you said:

Originally posted by Archaic
Question. Instead of building the boreholes on the cardinal points, why not build them either NE & SW or NW & SE of each base. You'd have to make sure you kept to the same pattern with all of your bases, but it'd result in 6 boreholes per base radius (2 useable by the base, 2 being to the NE of 2 other bases, 2 to the SE of 2 other bases.).

(conclusions)
Yes, you'll end up with less population in the short term, and it'll require more former time, but you'll have a much greater production level overall once you've set yourself up, wouldn't you?

Nitpicking, here's what was wrong in your post:
- the overall number of BHs would be the same, thus the terraforming will be exactly the same with any disposition thereof
- for the same reason, also the overall production level will be exactly the same. It would be much greater locally, in one base, and it will be much lower, by the same amount, in the bases you "borrowed" the BHs from ...
This is what I intended with "your conclusions", and I still think that those are essentially wrong

PS: in this models, you have at least a crawler every other tile. If you suddenly need to go for a project in a short time, the way to go imho is to use your crawlers and then replace them, rather than concentrating all worked BHs in one base

[Archaic]

*Makes a mental note to never post this stuff past midnight local time again* ^^;;;;;

[Lefty Scaevola]

Re: known bugs for trascendi level ?

Originally posted by sevencubed
One more thing: how come the AI builds sea bases in ocean squares, while the player can only build in ocean-shelf squares? Can this be fixed by modifying alpha.txt ?

I can build bases (but not kelp frams, tibal harness, miral platform, uless i am the pirates) in deep water, and sometimes do so, between shalow areas or when drying up planet with orbital solar shields.

[Sikander]

It's always a pleasure to hear Marione's opinion on a technical SMAC matter. He makes some good points about being ruthlessly dogmatic in regard to placing your (especially) early bases according to the pattern shown above. It can and will slow you down, and squander some of that turn advantage. Here are my thoughts on that matter.

1) I don't place every base that I can early on, as it will take a good deal of time to get these bases completely terraformed. When there is enough room, I will skip base sites that are rocky / fungus and simply build all the bases around them first. This allows those other bases more space to use while restrictions are still in place, which is necessary early to get them up to around 16 minerals so that they can crank out those crawlers and SPs. I will of course revisit the area during the later expansion phase and fill it in, but only the really obnoxiously difficult tiles are left alone. With a strict spacing regimen every tile in a base radius except the base tile itself is shared by at least one other base and can be worked or crawlered by that base accordingly.

2) I tend to spread out in such a way as to lay claim to the territory available to me during my initial expansion phase. I actually don't want to densely pack my bases while restrictions are in place, as it is a waste of infrastructure and base bureacracy limits. This of course is influenced by just how much space I have to work with. But I often have bases that are two squares away from only one or two other bases while I am doing my initial expansion. This leaves a ton of room for them to crawl extra FOPs, which increases their production, maximizing the infrastructure I have in place there, as well as getting more out of the bases I have as I pull up short just before the second Bureacracy warning.

Once my bases have completed their first high yield terraforming (5 condensor farms and perhaps a borehole or two per base) and have converted them to specialist bases I can afford to fill in the areas which I have not covered completely with the base pattern (though usually the roads and forests are in place and being exploited by nearby mature bases). Now that the vast majority of my people are specialists I can afford to flout the bureacracy warning and lay bases again. So I'm not completely ignoring a base's production tiles even though I may delay building the base in order to make better use of scarce early game former turns.

3) You are quite correct that there is no critical reason for me to stick to a rigid base spacing. As long as I don't place a base where it interrupts the borehole pattern or is situated next to another base this system will work quite well. With so much overlap in the pattern, bases can lend and borrow boreholes to get things evened back up and the crawled nutrient tiles are even easier to allocate. The only problem is that to perhaps save some time I am deviating from as complete a defensive coverage of my production area as possible. In the vast majority of cases it is far better to just get your bases down more quickly. Playing single player however I like the fact that every base can work every square that it is crawling (which makes crawler sniping much less painful), as well as the overlapping fighter cover, flechette cover, and the difficult ZOC and fortification problem that the evenly spaced bases pose to an attacker. Were I to use this strategy in multiplayer I would probably go for a bit more speed and less rigidity, especially when one realizes that SPs like the Weather Paradigm are anyone's to take.

On the extreme base density paradigm:

I designed this (2 on diags) system to make the most out of my bases for the majority of the game. There are a number of advantages to placing a lot of bases as quickly as possible at maximum density (ie one base per every 4 squares), high early productivity of the base square itself being one, fast growth being another, and maximizing your unit support capabilities being yet another. Two corresponding problems with this are bureacracy drones which can play havoc with your productivity before your bases reach population 5 and can use librarians / technicians, and the need to build twice as much infrastructure in order to get the most out of the FOP that you do produce. This problem in particular can lead to a lull in your productivity as you wait for the higher per square productivity available after restrictions are lifted and soil enrichers and satellites become available to make make maximizing your base facilities truly feasible. Before this I think that many base facilities are of marginal utility, certainly in comparison with the 2 on the diag system where you will be producing more than twice the FOP.

Using 2 on the diag even interior bases that are limited to only 7 workable squares can produce 16 minerals and 17 nuts and at least as many energy while running FM with tree farms (assuming that you have pop boomed up to pop 7). Once they are converted to 2 boreholes and 5 condensor farms they can grow to population 11-12 and easily pay for whatever infrastructure you want. Once you get soil enrichers they produce 33 nuts, enough to go to pop 16 (which is the best that most factions can get with hab complexes and the AV). They produce 16 mins and raw energy as well, and 70 specialist energy. The former to squares worked ratio is pretty good, each base only having to form 7 squares to ascend to max production.

A lot of these advantages are lost to the maximal base density strategy. Early base square energy production is nice to be sure, but as your tech increases base squares become your worst producers, with boreholes becoming marginally second best to condensor / farms / soil enrichers once you get Fusion and becoming very weak once you get satellites. Yet base squares and boreholes will account for half of your terrain if you maximize for both.

It would be very worthwhile to pave over your boreholes for food at this point, which with the appropriate satellites would make your bases capable of supporting 21 pop (you could use pod booming until you get those hab domes). At this point these bases become little dynamos, with 21 engineers or transcendii really putting out an amazing amount of energy. Of course the 8 tile base has two boreholes to pave over itself, which would maintain it's lead in productivity due entirely to the extra base square necessary in the higher density pattern and the fact that it needs half the infrastructure for almost the same effect on FOP (2 recycling tanks still being better than one here).

One advantage for the tighter pattern which I only touched on above is that it's population would grow twice as fast, which would yield a bonus to it's production over a looser system until either hab limits or nut limititations intervened. This can be significant, but I have no way of analyzing it seriously without the intervention of someone who has a lot more math education than I have had. Another advantage to the tighter base pattern is that both the former to squares formed ratio and the free units to squares defended ratios would be twice as good. However the anemic mineral production might make the larger base capable of closing this gap via clean units, though again that is an advantage enjoyed later in the game, yielding some important turn advantage. Perhaps I'll fire up the game and try a compare game between the two systems.

[Pandemoniak]

Some bug happened when I was playing at level Transcend :
The opponent built some planet destroyers and he was trying to send one to my base, but because it was too far it blows right in the middle of his land, destructing several of his own cities. I checked and if he had sent the missile in a pactbrother's city, he could have been able to reach my land.

Anyone else already experienced/noticed that ??

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Pandemoniak
Some bug happened when I was playing at level Transcend :
The opponent built some planet destroyers and he was trying to send one to my base, but because it was too far it blows right in the middle of his land, destructing several of his own cities. I checked and if he had sent the missile in a pactbrother's city, he could have been able to reach my land.

Anyone else already experienced/noticed that ??

Perhaps he ran it through some fungus and scared up a worm.