Tips for popping Unity Pods

[BustaMike]

Scout rovers have nothing on captured mindworms early on. The Gaians and Cult are best for early pod popping IMO.

[Mongoose]

Depends on the terrain, BustaMike. Worms are no quicker than infatry in non-fungus. A combination of a native life unit and a fast empath unit is my preferred task force. Sadly, a luxury I can rarely afford to field.

[Blake]

Actually I will reload if I _really_ dont like a pod outcome especially in scenerios (for example popping a pod which creates an earthquake, linking your land mass to that of an incredibly powerfull AI - this drastically alters the scenerio because the sea gap was supposed to give the time required to get defenses prepared). This includes challenge scenerios where save-reload is generally banned, but Earthquakes can be just TOO game shattering to just ride out....

However I never save-reload - I only reload from the autosave, the price is having to play the turn again (note this works in ironman mode as long as you have autosaves enabled)

[Main_Brain]

Ironman (and praying for no Crashes)
But as i also play with pods only at Landing Sites this whole Discussion is irrelevant to me :P

[Method]

Originally posted by Clear Skies
I was incredibly shocked to find that my best friend, whom I thought was an honourable player, saved every time before she popped a pod in SP and reloaded if she didn't like the contents! Talk about cheating!

i used to do that with goody huts in civ2
now, ironman's all i play

[Clear Skies]

I've challenged her to play Ironman on Thinker level next time she's near a computer. AFAIK Librarian's as high as she's played so far. This should be fun

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MariOne
Prima Guide reports that you can only get level 1 & 2 techs out of pods. I don't know how much Prima can be actually considered "official". It does reports this and very few other bits of info documented nowhere else.

Free teches or from Alien artifacts? Quite false if it's the latter.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kirov
It seems to me that using non-IoDs units to sea exploration spawns IoDs very often, whereas using IoDs usually benefits in finding good things (AA first of all). Did anybody noticed the same? Maybe it's just false impression due to my prejudice against water in SMAC...

Nope. My experience is using IoD's or other units yield approximately the same results, in my completely subjective opinion. That is, wild IoD's most of the time.

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Kirov
It seems to me that using non-IoDs units to sea exploration spawns IoDs very often, whereas using IoDs usually benefits in finding good things (AA first of all). Did anybody noticed the same? Maybe it's just false impression due to my prejudice against water in SMAC...

Maybe it's related to non-transport unit. What happens if you pop a sea pod with a non-transport unit in terms of probabilities? I've never seen an AA appearing and sinking, nor to jump to land, same with unity rovers etc. I have not the least proof, but I guess the probabilities are evenly distributed to the remaining possibilities, thus increasing the probability to get IdD's. I try to use 0-3tr-4 transport ships to pop sea pods if I don't have IdD's myself.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Clear Skies
I've challenged her to play Ironman on Thinker level next time she's near a computer. AFAIK Librarian's as high as she's played so far. This should be fun

Does it bother you that somebody play the game for fun and not *cough* challenge *cough*?

[MattyBoy]

I have a pretty poor record here, but it's actually more fun to play without saving and reloading, as it makes SMAC feel scarier. I was surprised how much difference it makes to the enjoyment.

Just for that, it is definitely worth playing with a blanket rule of no reloading, at least just to try it.

[big_canuk]

Exactly.

The game is *much* more fun with no reloads. You then have to approach potential problems differently.

You have to have some defense just in case..

You have to take along a little insurance on attack, just in case...

Nothing is more fun in SP(MP is way more fun), than being bushwhacked early by say a Hive in the jungle, and just surviving, and still winning (by the skin of your teeth) in the end. Perhaps only a short step behind, is the same scenario, but loosing. Ahh... maybe loosing is more fun.... *not*

Anyway, maybe because of this, I am a wimp when it comes to popping pods. Land pods anywhere close to home, I almost always found a base beside the pod first, then pop it. Far away pods, I usually wait till I can safely pop it. Land pods at least two units, and sea pods either the MCC and XD to be able to run, or a good trance transport preferably 3tr.

I have just started calculating the nearest base to each pop, and putting in a high value crawler, just in case it is a materials pod. Definitely cheating in SP, but it seems that bit of micromanagement is forced on me in MP. I could go for banning it, but you could not police putting in a high value facility, I don't think.

Just a little correction from above. Pod pops in the base radius can still spawn worms (albeit rarely). The only safe way to prevent worms and blooms is to put a base *right* beside the pod.

bc

[MariOne]

Originally posted by Mongoose
The 1.5 defense level is with trance factored in.

I indeed assumed it was a given choice from my previous exposition.
Thanks for pointing out I had left it unclear.

[MariOne]

Originally posted by big_canuk I have just started calculating the nearest base to each pop, and putting in a high value crawler, just in case it is a materials pod. Definitely cheating in SP...

Could you please expound under which elightened shool of thought it should ever be considered as such?????
Even "definitely"?????????????????????????

I could go for banning it, but you could not police putting in a high value facility, I don't think.

Now, with all the due respect, this is in my opininon a blatant example ot typical Apolyton puritanism....
This can't even be related to the idiosincracy to perfectly legal game techniques, like armored and specialised crawlers. (mind we'd not be talking of upgrading them, but just about directly producing them, which is quite a different issue).
What if I AM producing a Hybrid Forest, because I need it, without second intentions? Should I be banned from popping pods nearer to that base, till I have completed the HF?
Should I... be forced to switch off the HF before attempting to pop the nearby pod???????????
Do you realise how nonsensical the implications of your statements are?
Why don't you ban Material Pods altogether, then???

Of course it's nice to confront opinions, and you can float whatever you like in your own games for your own amusement.
But if you hope to gain some consensus on your positions, I'd suggest that they make sense in the first place at least at basic level...

No, wait, rethinking to it...
...making sense is DEFINITELY NOT a requisite to gather consensus, not even in r/l, on the contrary...

[MariOne]

PS: I'm not THAT illiterate too...
I just have clumsy fingers, a less than perfectly functioning keyboard, and too lazy to use the available spell-checker...