High maintainess facilities

[Snowflake]

After reading some discussions I started to wonder a question regarding facilities such as tree farms and research hospitals. They have relatively high maintainess cost. My question is do you build them often? When do you think it is cost effective to build them? Tree farms for example, if you are using the specialist approach, you won't be working to many forest squares. Does that mean it is never optimal to build tree farms then? I understand that tree farm has the effect of increasing clean minerals, but again if you do specialists you won't have much ecodamage any way.

[Jamski]

Read my (still unfinished) fac guide. It has the maths.

[/self promotion]

In general I said it depends on base size.

Tree Farms give +50% Econ, so they kinda pay for themselves if you had at least 6 Econ after inefficency...

What I wrote about Research Hospitals :

• Notes : This facility is always a problem. It comes with Gene Splicing and heralds the end or the true "Early Game" with the lifting of the restriction on nutrient production. Those size 3-4 bases start growing a bit, you have a decent infrastructure and now you're faced with the choices offered by the first of the "second tier" facilities* Here is the moment when you really have to decide what direction you want to build in. Do you want to go upwards, or outwards?
  
  
• If you want to go outwards, then leave the Research Hospitals for now, apart from those bases you may have identified as science bases. Crawling farms/condensors now the restrictions are lifted can really give you the nutrients needed for a very rapid expansion horizontally. Research Hospitals are expensive to build and maintain, and you want to preserve outward momentum at this point, not shut up shop and enter "turtle mode" The 12 rows of minerals needed means you can't simply rush one at every base and then continue expanding, as you can with Nodes and Energy Banks. You'll have to sit and build for 4-5 turns even with a great cash supply. If you want to build vertically though, this is generally a good time to take your foot off the "colony pod/former/scout patrol" pedal and start to really develop your bases.
  
  
• I have to say this again. They're not cheap. And they keep costing you 3 ec/turn too, so don't build them unless you can afford them. They do boost production in 3 different ways though, so in a large enough base (never build in a small base) they more than pay for themselves.
  
  
• Firstly the +50% Labs. Let's assume a nice size 4 base with the basic facilities already in place, with 2 energy from each population, and say 4 from the base (a moderate estimate) for 12 base energy. Then let's take again the default 50/50 Econ/Labs distribution. In this case, the Research Hospital is going to give you 3 Labs/turn at a cost of 3 ec/turn. No loss, no gain either.
  
  
• However, when that size 4 base grows to size 5, let's imagine that it develops another Drone, which is then quelled by the Research Hospital. We now have to include the added productivity of an extra worker (let's put him on a forest for 1-2-2) which (ignoring the nutrients) is worth 6 ec/turn. This defrays the upkeep cost of the Hospital, returns 3 ec/turn to our pockets, and gives us an extra 0.5 Labs/turn (a whole +1 Labs/turn, with the Node that the base should already have) As the base grows past size 5, you may have to spend on Psych to keep them happy in there, so the 3rd bonus comes into play, of +25% Psych.
  
  
• So, the timing of Research Hospitals is pretty simple. You should aim to have them built the turn before reaching size 5 if running an FM using faction, and any time between sizes 5 and 7 if using Police under Planned or Green and planning on "turtling" for a bit, or if you are planning on spreading like xenofungus before simply crushing everyone, its best not to build them at all. Do one thing, and do it well, its better than messing them both up.
  
  
• One final thing to note - A Research Hospital stops outbreaks of Prometheous Viruses and Planet Blight at that base.
  
  
• *Assuming a normal tech progression to IA, then restriction lifting, then D:AP

What I wrote about Treefarms :

• Notes : Coming two techs after Gene Splicing and the Research Hospital comes the Tree Farm, and the lifting of the energy restrictions. Just one tech before, your mineral restriction was removed, and all your 2-mineral crawlers moved off the forests and onto the mine/road/rocky tiles you cunningly had just prepared with this tech in mind, and doubled their production to 4 mins/turn. As a result you suddenly hear*pop* and you know its time to start with the Tree Farms. For my mind, this marks the end of the true "Early Game" and the beginning of the "Mid Game", where all tiles can now be used to their full effects, and all terraforming enhancements are possible except magtubes.
  
  
• Ok, first of all the main reason to build these facilities is not for the extra Econ or Psych. What we are after is the extra nutrient from our forests, (they should be everywhere by now) which will give us the +2 nuts/turn we need for a popboom. If we're playing a faction that needs a Golden Age to popboom, then view the +50% Psych as the game telling you to get into the SE screen and push that central slider to the right.
  
  
• Like Research Hospitals, they boost income by 50%, in this case for Psych and Econ, the other two of the three energy catagories, and in the same way they cover their own costs, as long as the base is producing a base 12 energy after ineffieciency, with anything else being profit. Tree Farms, however, are the one facility where I'm inclined to ignore the maths. The extra nutrients translate into extra growth, which is always good - see my comments on Children's Creches. If you want to count every last ec though, then I'd say that the only bases that are really too small to build a Tree Farm are any bases under size 4 which are not directly working either at least 2 forested rivers, or at least two forests under FM.
  
  
• The "hidden" effects of Tree Farms are also worth considering. Each Tree Farm built increases the number of "clean minerals" for all your bases by one, as long as it was built after the first fungal *pop* and also reduces the Ecodamage at that base caused by terraforming within the base radius.
  
  
• There's only two instances where I would consider not building Tree Farms as soon as they became available. Either if I was still pumping units for an expansion or a war, or if I was running towards a future "All Specialists" strategy, which was using only advanced terraforming instead of any forests.

-Jam

[Snowflake]

Thanks Jamski. Now on you last paragraph on tree farms, suppose my bases are over size 5 and I am running all specialists, are you saying then no need for tree farms then? I do understand that they boost economy. Say if you have two options, to build a tree farm or a reseach hospital. And all of your specialists are librarains. Would it mean that it's better to build a reseach hospital than a tree farm to get multiple effects on research?

[GeoModder]

I have an additional question regarding that clean mineral effect from Tree Farms.

Does that effect only applies to your own faction, or to all bases on Planet?

Sorry if this sounds like hijacking your thread, HongHu. It seems in accordance with the topic to me.

[Jamski]

If all 5 of the pop are Librarians, thats 15 labs. Say the base square gives you another 3 labs (pretty good/average) for 18 labs total.

The +50% from the Research hospital will give you 9 more labs/turn at the cost of 3 ec/turn. On the face of it, that's a good deal - a profit of 6 ec/turn.

However the hospital costs 12 rows ~ 240ec. That will mean it takes upto 40 turns to pay for itself. Of course each time the base grows a size and you can add another Librarian, the hospital increases its profit by 1.5 ec/turn. In this way a size 14 base will only take 12 turns to pay back the construction costs.

Like I said though - for the time in the game that they come they are very expensive. If you put mins and cash into hospitals you are really switching from horizontal expansion to vertical expansion. They represent a BIG strategy choice.

-Jam

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by GeoModder
I have an additional question regarding that clean mineral effect from Tree Farms.

Does that effect only applies to your own faction, or to all bases on Planet?

Sorry if this sounds like hijacking your thread, HongHu. It seems in accordance with the topic to me.

I think it only applies to your own faction. But I'm not an expert.

And thanks Jameski, that makes great sense.

[Lazerus]

99.9% certain it only applies to your own ...
(i've been producing 130+minerals clean and then the AI causes global warming with its 30)

<- dreading somebody saying it doesn't

[Hydro]

Related strategy question: as the Hive I am running out of things to build (almost all my bases are harvesting ~16 min/turn in 2208). I don’t have EE for TFs yet (just got Ecological Engineering, though), but am starting to build research hospitals and holo generators where needed to control drones (some of my non-pop boom Hive bases are up to size 8). As you might guess, I’m running a nasty energy deficit. But, I really need the research, which the energy starved pre-energy restriction lifted and economically challenged Hive has an problem with. I’m keeping my head above water due to commerce from my pacts with Dee (!) and the PKs (!!!!) and treaty with the Angels (!), and mindworm Chiron pearls. The RH drone control is nice (1 drone plus 25% psych bonus) since I’ve maxed out my police (2+nonlethal methods for 3 drone control/base).

With that in mind:

* Are research hospitals a good idea with a maintenance of 3/turn? Or should I just switch to CRUSH AND KILL mode, make a huge military, and smash someone like a bug?

* My energy allocation is 60% lab and 40% economy (with a penalty, of course, at 0 efficiency). I could switch to 50-50, but hate to have breakthroughs of more than 10 turns.

* Or, keep my hybrid strategy and grow like mad, develop my infrastructure to the max, keep bribing my Pact brother/sister, and keep my Evil Enemies the Pirates and Spartans off balance with nettling attacks

As any other faction I’d build them an not worry about the maintenence cost. If available I’d build tree farms first – they cost the same, and TFs have much in the way of advantages. The Hive and Cult, being economically challenged, are a different story.

Hydro

[Snowflake]

If I am you, I would switch back to 50-50 allocation, and produce a lot of formers and crawler. Make farm/condensers and boreholes. Use specialists to rake the reseach points up.

[Jamski]

SWITCH TO CRUSH AND KILL MODE.

You have reached the goal of the Hive player. Now you go Fundy-Planned-Power and crush everyone under waves of units. And I mean HUGE WAVES.

Or.

BUILD MORE BASES.

The Hive should expand till it fills the map. And I mean THE WHOLE MAP!

Sorry to capitalise like an insane freak, but this is where the Hive needs to use its advantages - Growth, Industry and Support to either crush or spread like a virus.

I'd like to send you a save from this point as an example, but I can't seem to find the ones I want. I need to clean up my saves folder big time.

-Jam

[Hydro]

Jam – There is probably too much limp wristed Gaian in my Yang, perhaps?

The only problem with Crush and Kill is that I’m a long way from anyone. I’ll have to build fleets of transports (I have three or four on each coast now), and really crank up the volume on military production. Building more crawlers won’t do me much more good until energy restrictions are lifted since I’ve maxed out most mineral harvesting.

But, I see your point. I do have a base on the Spartan’s continent (the other human in the MP) with 10+ defensive and offensive units and a passel of probes. More could be shunted over the modest distance between The Hive and his continent. Perhaps then they can take off in endless waves, and who cares if they die? After all, I can build an impact rover in one or at max 2 turns, and defensive plasma rovers in two or maybe three. Throw in some artillery rovers for sniping and probes and I should be ready to go.

As to bases, I have 17 right now, and building more causes drone issues at my core bases. With PTS new bases they are simply support and production centers, but I don’t want to build them willy nilly in the middle of nowhere (where they’ll just starve down to size 1 anyway). Perhaps building three or four more on the Spartan mainland would be a good idea, though. That would REALLY irritate him, and divert his attention from attacking the soft PKs (my AI ally).

Fundi/Planned/Power – why fundi? Police seems much more useful to control bases, and I dislike the 20% research hit. Plus, Fundi just isn’t Yang in role playing. Plus, the extra support with Fundi is rather irrelevant since I’m producing so many minerals at any give base, and I don't have any extra $$ to be doing lots of base mind control with the fundi probe bonus. If I need more minerals I’ll just guild another crawler, and who cares about fungal blooms. That’s what formers are for (and I might capture some MWs since I control the Manifold Nexus! Hehe – a Planet friendly Yang. It staggers the imagination). I can’t do Power yet, although it would fit perfectly (I’m doing Wealth now).

Send a save if you’ve got it. If you’re interested, my MP game save and password is posted in the Fiction section. Look for 2200. I’d be interested in any comments.

HongHu – I’m about maxed out on crawlers for mineral harvesting (bases at ~16, with a few in eco damage territory), although my newer and smaller bases could use a few. I have an average of 1.5 formers per base, so there are lots of formers roaming around. WP make them much more efficient, effectively increasing the # of formers by 33%.

Hydro

[Jamski]

Well, the main reason for suggesting Fundy was not only the morale boost, but also stopping a cash rich opponent probing your units away so easily

If you have the WP, try making heaps of formers and making roaded land routes to your enemies. This is evil but fun

Go for crush and kill. Enjoy being the big bully. If its a PBEM demand masses of ecs not to go to war. Scare people ****less

Its fun being the big kid in the playground.

-Jam

[Hydro]

A land bridge! And EXCELLENT idea! hehe

I'll start immediately!

[CEO Aaron]

Definitely switch back to 50/50 allocation. Yang needs to control his tech outflow with specialists, because energy just isn't forthcoming, especially before you raise the energy cap. Sure, your tech rate will drop, but that's just more turns you can use to go beat up your enemies.

The land bridge is a good idea, but do remember that raising terrain costs cash, albeit not much.

I wouldn't go with fundy for Yang either, the drone-control and support advantages for Planned/Police are too useful to give up. Instead, Planned/Police/Knowledge is a fine SE setting for Hive aggression. If you're worried about probes, stack your units 3 deep.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Hydro
A land bridge! An EXCELLENT idea! hehe

Ah, well I remember a famous partnergame - big_canuck and me against Tau Ceti and Misotu.

b_c was the Hive (I was Morgan) versus TC's PKs and M's Gaians. It was 2300 or thereabouts and tau's continetn was some 18 spaces away - just far enough to render any noodle forays inoperable, and choppers were damaged by the time they reached a target. Also clearly outside any drop range.

But in 1 turn b_c built a land bridge to TC's continent, roaded it and magtubed it, and then funnelled in 100 or so troops - took 14 of TC's 17 size sixteen bases. Took b_c 2 days to play the turn (I think he had over 300 formers as the Hive)

I'd have loved to have seen tau ceti's face when he opened that turn (Nato Unravelled, I think the PBEM was called)

So, yes, a landbridge can pay dividends