Tips for popping Unity Pods

[MariOne]

now, ironman's all i play

heh, to continute on my "strongly opinionated" vein, and not directly aime adt you TKG, just taking the start from those who mentioned it...

Please endure another post of my crusade against Ironman SMAC setting.

This is the most stupid setting I ever met in a game.
It is a true FARCE.
Its doesn't prevent you to cheat AT ALL, if you want to.
It just shows you are either very weak-willed, or...
...or you want to viciously cheat undercover but you need a patent of public integrity to conceal your cheating.

I'd respect a player who agrees to steer clear of reloads in the appropriate context and keeps by his word, even if all I have to prove his claim is the "honor-system".
I can't grant that same respect to "Ironman" players.

Thanks for your attention we can resume on-topic bantering...

[Adalbertus]

What's bad with Ironman? It doubles your score without any major restriction ...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I'll second the vote against Ironman from purely game play/reliability point of view. I've now installed SMAC and SMAX complete with all patches on my 4 th computer seeing as I've upgraded a few times. When SMAC was orginally released there was a large hubbub regarding the game stability and inordinant amount of crashes. Patches to the game made it supposedly more resistant to the dreaded Terran.exe fault. (that and the learnings regarding wheelmouse drivers etc. ) By the by I think Terran.exe is the game's ultimate way for the AI to cheat. Once the AI realizes the inevitable, the terran.exe fault routine is released.

My experience has been the reverse of course. Each system I have installed upon has become increasingly more instable with respect to the game. I could never envision a Ironman game as a consequence, especially knowing the effect to eliminate reload cheating is not achieved. As for the extra points for win, I haven't kept track of points since the 1st month of ownership (never felt the need).

[big_canuk]

Originally posted by MariOne


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

You have nothing to say MariO!! You never play SP. Hah!

No really, I just think that for *me* it would be a cheat, because it makes the SP game easier again. And though micromanagement is a pleasure when it is needed to win, it is a chore when not.

Now, with all the due respect, this is in my opininon a blatant example ot typical Apolyton puritanism....

As you well know, I do not speak for Apolyton anymore than for ACOL or CGN. If I wanted to be as pointed, I could say your comment is just another piece of ACOL 'Poly bashing(envy).

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).

Good point! The AI doesn't put in high value crawlers but neither do they pop boom or use crawler upgrades. So why ban one without the other. I guess it's because I just learned to do it, and it is yet *more* micromanagement. (Counting tiles or doing the math on tile co-ordinate differences half way accross the map is *definitely* a pain). Note that I did say, "I could ban it." I guess I could also not ban it.

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???????????

That is the point I tried to make. High value facilities would have to be allowed because sometimes one would build them even without the possibility of a materials pod pop.

Do you realise how nonsensical the implications of your statements are?

Obviously not, or I wouldn't have made them! Sorry! It's just passion sometimes gets in the way of logic. Kind of a Human versus Vulcan thing I think.

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...

You are right. No pods at all, or no materials pods would be the way to go, if the micromanagement of popping distant pods is to be avoided.

But..

I can play SP any way I want. (Not that I have anything to say either, because I don't play SP anymore either, except the occasional challenge and to playtest new strategies. Hah!)

bc

[Spacecow]

Here's a blatant bug you can have fun with concerning pod popping... don't know if it's been mentioned (let alone fixed in SMAX) yet... try popping a pod with a mind worm already on it. I've only succeeded in doing this twice, but golly it's fun!

You try to pop the pod and attack the mind worm at the same time by moving onto their square. The computer gives you what you'd get out of the pod, but forgets to make your unit move, and the mind worm is still there! So you still have your unit there with no damage and with his original move left. And you do it again. And once again, you get whatever the pod gives you. And you do it again. And again. And again... This is a particularly fun bug to exploit if you're in enemy territory, because (as we all well know) mind worms like to infest pods... and if you're repeatedly popping the same pod, you'll end up with several outcroppings of mind worm infestations for your enemy to enjoy! And you'll get oodles of money, and you'll end up with a monolith there, and you might get an earthquake there, you'll probably be surrounded by fungus at least once, and eventually, your unit will get zipped through a dimensional gate, out of the way of the mind worm swarm.

And if you're lucky enough to have had a couple of units there, you get to repeat the whole process with the second unit!

[Straybow]

That's bizarre. I've never seen a worm on a pod. I vaguely recall having a pod near me get popped by a worm (the worm was right next to it, then after hitting end-of-turn both the worm and the pod disappeared; no enemy units anywhere nearby). Or maybe my mind is playing tricks on me.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to encourage such a situation to test this…

[big_canuk]

I have a game with a fungal tower growing out of a pod. I think I can recall having had this before. I think I can recall, that first I kill the tower, then I get to pop the pod the turn after. But I have never seen a worm on a pod either.

Spacecow, was it set up that way as a scenario?

bc

[Earwicker]

Despite the possible negative consequences, I always go for pods near my central bases as quickly as I can. I want the specials working ASAP and can benefit from all the boosts (even the 10 energy from killing the worms). Ideally, I'll pair upa scout/ rover or a couple of rovers to clean up the messes. In the very beginning of the game, I rarely (never?) see mulitple worms pop out of pods.

Beside the ones which are very close to heartland, it depends which faction I am. If a greenie, then my worms immediately start scavenging afield and popping whatever they find. If planet-neutral faction, I tend to leave the major effort until I can get a positive planet rating - one of my favorite jackpots is to capture the IoD's that pop out (free transport AND free units, independent or at least clean on fungus). However, my recent forays into FM-friendly factions (esp. Morgan, Drones) have caused me to rethink the timing of the next burst of pods until the units are tougher.

Nothing bothers me like rushing a pod pop and losing my transport or foil, when I know I could have waited a little and killed/ captured the buggers and kept going.

[Spacecow]

No, this wasn't a scenario, just dumb luck. And, mind you, I'm using vanilla SMAC so the bug might have been fixed for anyone who's bothered to get the expansion pack or any kind of upgrade.

As for how to set it up... I guess, if mind worms don't attack captured mind worms much, you could try to corral the free mind worm onto the pod by taking away places for him to move (IE surround him with your mind worms until he's forced to attack, stay put, or move on the pod). The polar caps would be pretty useful for this.

[John Paul Jones]

this was fixed in one of the patches

[tonic]

Originally posted by Straybow
That's bizarre. I've never seen a worm on a pod. I vaguely recall having a pod near me get popped by a worm (the worm was right next to it, then after hitting end-of-turn both the worm and the pod disappeared; no enemy units anywhere nearby)

Now I'm trying to figure out how to encourage such a situation to test this…

This happened in a recent early game when I popped a pod and got the dreaded two MW infestation. One of the worms landed on an adjacent pod (which I think was on a xenofungus square). I never got to find out the mentioned effect because my poor scout got clobbered the next turn

[tonic]

Originally posted by MattyBoy
...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.

True. Basically we're all gamblers at heart . It's a real lottery with the pops and the excitement comes from the suspense and the unknown and unpredictable. No doubt that this is one big element in the success of Civ and related games from the Sid Meier stable.

I get the loading temptation out of my system by trying to make a methodical study of the stats of popping and whether there are any predictable results based on any obvious variables. I think I'm getting somewhere with the first aim but not the second, hence the rationale for starting this thread.

[vitamin j]

Anymore, I play with pods off... The whole earthquakes and alien artifacts thing is just too much.

[Urban Ranger]

Pod popping is great fun.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by vitamin j
Anymore, I play with pods off... The whole earthquakes and alien artifacts thing is just too much.

I do too. I really hate earthquakes and those teleports.