To clean or not to clean...

[CEO Aaron]

Okay, as you may have figured out, I'm a unrepentant Morganite. As such, I've gotten into the habit of making virtually ALL my units clean, once such technology is available to me. My logic has been that it's better to have 2 cheap units than 1 expensive one, especially when you use the unit designer to make the most out of your cheapo units.

To be sure, some combinations can be very effective, such as Blink with Drop, but for the vast majority of the game, I'd still rather have 1 clean silksteel garrison with trance and 1 clean silksteel garrison with ECM than one clean silksteel garrison with both.

Does everyone else use clean everywhere, or is it just me? If you do build non-clean units, which ones do you pay to support and why?

[Frankychan]

As a follower of Chairman Yang, I also use clean almost exclusively. I tend to field large armies and need all the help I can get. Clean, paired with something else.

But if there is a situation where I need a specialist unit, I'll usually drop 'Clean' and tailor a new unit to solve my "problem".

(Whomever hasn't figured that you are a Morganite.....well, that's not very observant... )

[Darsnan]

Re: To clean or not to clean...

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Okay, as you may have figured out, I'm a unrepentant Morganite.

Darsnan automatically hits the "put on ignore list button" at this point.....

Actually, Clean is the way to go, especially if your a Momentum player. One mineral a turn for support may not seem like much, but it adds up, and in the long run any extra minerals spent for building CLean units will pay for themselves!

Units I build that I then have to support: Locusts. 'nuff said.



D

[Maniac]

I first check what the extra cost of a clean reactor would be to the unit, and then I check what else I could do with those minerals. If I find an investment that can give me a bigger return, I forget about the clean reactor and build eg an extra crawler instead.

[CEO Aaron]

Interesting take on the issue. So how many extra minerals before you decide that you'd rather crawl minerals than make a clean unit?

[TimeTraveler]

I'm also a big fan of clean reactors and usually put them in as many units as I can, including all new units. My major reasons for them are that I like to run Democratic a lot, and I don't like when my hordes of terraformers run my bases into diminished or even halted production.

The clean reactors also come in handy when someone declares war on me, because I can then have my bases churn out a lot of units with which to attack the enemy's heavily guarded bases, or if I'm running FM, defend against any invasion for a while.

[GeoModder]

Hmmm, it's on and off. I prefer to have versatile military units, but formers I would give the clean ability. I'm a recent convert for producing crawlers/trawlers if possible, and just pay off the mineral cost of having 1-2 versatile defenders in my bases.

[Illuminatus]

... question is now. (to finish the title )

[Chaunk]

I generally make a clean force for outside my bases but leave the garrisons as not clean (AAA, trance usually). Usually one or two units supported is no big deal. I often forget to upgrade my formers too, but again, thats only 2 or 3 more minerals a base.

Logically though, if you can crawl two minerals into a base, then thats usually better than 2 clean units (only 3 rows instead of 2.) By the time that clean comes along though, theres not a huge amount of space left for a crawler to get more mins into the base, so I usually use clean instead.

[Kody]

Just my observations, and I've been known to ramble some.

The main thing about clean is it generally saves minerals in the long run allowing you to spend less in support (this has been clearly stated by those earlier). This ofcourse leads to the question of how long you will be able to keep the unit in question. How long you intend to keep the unit is then further balanced by the additional unit cost and by the support rating you have.

Front line military units during a war are probably the worst units to make clean. Use up your free support units with these units. While garrisons in the middle of your empire when nobody is going to attack you should probably be made clean as they’re likely to just sit there for several decades.

I would go as far to say the terraformers, police and garrisons the units least likely to see action should be clean. Then garrisons near the edge of your empire and border patrol units should probably be clean. Then depending on whether you are at war or not and how much support, you need to consider whether it’s actually worth making your attack force clean when a large portion of them may get destroyed.

During a transition stage to clean and when you feel you have enough support I would say build clean garrisons and rehome them to your central bases and move the old garrisons out to the exterior bases. Possibly even upgrading the unclean garrisons to attack units as they reach the very front line.

For example if you had 10 bases and had 0 support (able to support 2 units), and you’re planning to go to war soon. Then I personally would go for first homing 2 unclean attack units per base. If the war goes well perhaps make clean attack units while making sure to put the unclean units at the forefront of the war when you have a choice.

If you're trying to conduct war in freemarket people will often suggest rehoming many units to a base with punishment spheres or to an all (or almost all) specialist base. This would usually mean you can't afford to have a large unclean military a single base can't support it and hence you probably need to make all but the kamikaze units clean.

Ofcourse the longevity of the unit is tempered by your own need for turn advantage. I can easily imagine the case where you would upgrade police garrisons to clean before upgrading terraformers. Simply because you can’t afford to upgrade all the terraformers at once and individually upgrading police garrisons means you don’t lose a turn of terraforming for each upgrade. I feel that people incorrectly decide they need to upgrade terraformers first and lose turn advantage when they could have gotten the same effect from upgrading the backline garrisons. In fact the garrisons in your central bases will probably last longer than your terraformers as your terraformers will probably be at the edges of your empire at the start of the attack.

Another example of turn advantage being more important than making units clean is if you're under attack and losing some ground. That would be a bad time to be fussy about clean garrisions. Build unclean units because if you lose the base it just won't matter how clean your units are.

Then again if your bases are producing more minerals than the cost of unclean unit you want. Obviously making the units clean is better since there’s no real cost difference.

[Jamski]

My clean units either die before they have recovered the extra mineral cost, or succeed and capture a new base, where they can be rehomed, getting free support.

Having 20% MORE units is better than building clean ones.

Unless you want to stockpile units for some reason.

-Jam

[Maniac]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Interesting take on the issue. So how many extra minerals before you decide that you'd rather crawl minerals than make a clean unit?

Clean reactors usually add one or two mineral rows to the unit cost, so having them means a yearly return of 0.5 or 1 minerals per mineral row invested. I then just check if there are projects available that give a higher return per mineral row invested. It's impossible though to say that this or that project will always be better - it all depends on the circumstances.

[Zeiter]

I used to be a big fan of the clean reactor, but lately I've not used it as much. The only units I'll make clean now are core garrisons and occasionally some formers. And all of those I upgrade to clean. I almost never build clean units. It just seems to take too long. I guess if I have no wars going on (which is rare, it seems) but I want to increase my military, I'll put clean reactors on cheapo units like Best-1-6 cruisers (which I often use as my naval blitzkrieg force) or Best-1-2 rovers or especially Best-1-1 hopefully elite infantry. But that is rare. Usually I find that my $$$ can be better spent. I mean, you can have 2 clean military units, or 3 regular military units.

Actually, I do like to put clean reactor on my needlejets and choppers. Often I'll find a few of my highest mineral bases, put an aerospace complex in them, and wholly devote them to just choppers. With they start producing a chopper every turn or two, the support costs can start to get high, so I'll put clean reactor on those.

I guess one reason that I don't use clean reactors much lately is because lately I've been using a lot of throwaway units (like Best-1-1 infantry-super cheap!! or Best-1-1 artillery-also super cheap!! or, like I mentioned before, Best-1-6 cruisers. These units' life expectancy is usually less than ten years, but in huge groups, they really get the job done fast! To compensate for the lack of armor, I'll throw in some AAA and ECM garrison units to go along with the invading force. After I empty the bases with my cheapo units, I hold the bases with the garrison units (and probes, of course). I figure that having a 6-1-1 and a 1-3-1 ECM unit is much more useful and versatile than having just one 6-3-1 unit.)

So that's my stance on the clean reactor. It is useful in some circumstances, but it is in no way a "holy grail" ability of sorts like drop pods, AAA, or ECM, IMO.

BTW, ECM is so good, it almost seems to render rovers and hovertanks obsolete. It costs nothing to put on garrison units, and it renders an attack by a rover or hovertank drastically less effective. After the enemy has ECM units, I drastically cut down on my production of rovers and instead direct my efforts towards building elite infantry. I bet Nanominiaturization (the hovertank tech) would be much more appealing if the ECM ability didn't exist.

[Enigma_Nova]

Re: To clean or not to clean...

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
I'd still rather have 1 clean silksteel garrison with trance and 1 clean silksteel garrison with ECM than one clean silksteel garrison with both.

How did you get 3 modifiers?
Did it neurally graft ECM on its ass or something?

[Santiago_Claus]

In theory I follow the 30-turn-lifespan rule, but when it comes down to real designs the only place "clean" is really practical is on formers and some garrisons and transports.

Notice the fission *-1-1 former gets "Clean" at a 50% discount?