How Many Formers?

[Santiago_Claus]

A nuts-and-bolts question: how many formers do you build?

The strategy consensus seems to be aggressive ICS coupled with extensive use of supply crawlers ... that requires a lot of improved territory, which means a lot of formers.

Particularly if you beeline to IA you're going to have bases and a rapidly-expanding army of supply crawlers competing for a very tiny pool of improved terrain. Forest doesn't grow nearly fast enough to accomodate both. Add to this the need to expand the borders and build those turn-eating "advanced improvements" and it seems as though one resource, former-time, is gatekeeper to all other progress.

Everyone talks about supply crawlers ... what about the humble terraformer? Do you build a couple or a couple hundred?

[GeoModder]

Two a base in general. From the early midgame on this is sufficient to keep terraformed terrain up-to-date. This said, I rarely can manage to produce two a base before I need to construct a military force in defense for those pesky AI-neighbours... Drawback from playing on small map (32x64).

[CEO Aaron]

For Morgan: 1 per base until I have IA. Once I'm crawling a few mins to offset the support hit, 2 per base. Once I get clean reactors, I really go to town, building as many as 6-8 per core base. The periphery bases will have less, as I'm more preoccupied with building their infrastructure than fielding more formers.

For Zak, Dee and Cult: Always 2 formers for your first 2 bases, then 1 per additional base, again, with a second former once IA is in effect.

For Spartans, Hive, Believers, 2-3 per base, as soon as I can build them. (Yes, I play Spartans in a police state)

The important thing is to have sufficient formers to achieve your terraforming goals. Formers are the key to building a monster economy. In addition, once you've completed improvements to your core territory, you can use formers to raise land bridges, build energy parks, whatever you like.

Formers pay for themselves with alarming speed, and more than worth a little upkeep. If you played Civ or Civ 2 before this game, you know that they used to require food upkeep in addition to any other support requirements, so in that light, SMAX formers are an incredible deal.

[Googlie]

While still getting ther free row of minerals, a former, rushed if the ec's are there, befoe even a defensive scout unit

By the time I get to Ind Auto I'll have between 8 and 15 formers working.

But there's another claim on their time too (at least the way I play) and that's roads to future base sites and sensor arrays at those sites. (And if you have the PTS, sites need to be primed for nutrients as well before plonking a Colony Pod down)

A typical game (my own "Horns of a Dilemma" scenario) by 2265 I had 14 fungiformers and 3 fungiseaformers, and 16 fusion rover supply crawlers and 3 trawlers. But I was forever in getting to Ind Auto in that game.

From another game save (Miriam, 2274) I had 22 formers and 4 seaformers, with 23 crawlers and 3 trawlers.

So I guesss that evidence points to almost a 1:1 ratio for the first 150 years or so

By 2300, though the ratio is different (as is the faction - Morgan this time) - 15 formers and 2 seaformers working for 29 crawlers and 3 trawlers - about a 1:2 ratio

Same faction, now 2400, though, the ratio again is different . 13 assorted formers and 9 seaformers, with 66 crawlers and 16 trawlers. About a 1:4 ratio

My most prolific crawler game - Hive, the move before Transcendance (so no crawlers cashed in yet) - 47 fusion fungi super formers and 9 sea formers, 288 assorted crawlers and 44 trawlers - about a 1:6 ratio

But a lot depends on what you want the formers for. I've cited before a classic PBEM game where big_canuck, as the Hive, had over 300 formers and constructed a fifteen or sixteen tile land bridge to an enemy's continent, complete with roads and magtubes running from his closest base right to the enemy's HQ - all in 1 turn!!!

A follow-up question would be, as reactors get more advanced and special abilities can be added on, how many get upgrades to fusion or better, and get fitted with armor, fungitanks and super status? And with that much invested in them, do players then support them with a best armor trance AAA scout wherever they go?

G.

[CEO Aaron]

I never indulge in fungicide tanks or rover chassis for my formers. My view is that 2 slow formers is better than 1 fast one. I also think fungicide tanks are a frivolity. The 2 upgrades my formers always get when they're available are clean reactor and super former.

[GeoModder]

And fusion? Do you upgrade them to a fusion reactor?
Fungicide tanks seem indeed excessive once you have superformer ability.

[Jamski]

I find hundreds of normal formers, upgrading to clean fusion superformers is the way to go. I always end up with about 2-3 formers per base.

If I want a b-hole, I want it now, not in 24 turns time...

-Jam

[Enigma_Nova]

Rover formers are good for one thing.
Making roads appear out of nowhere.

If you have the WP and Super Formers,
Here's the time taken for ROLLING and FLAT tiles:
Road: 1 turn
Mag tube: 1 turn flat, 3 turns rolling
Raise terrain: 4 turns
So on average, it's 7 former turns per raised square.

With 1 rover former to make the initial road, the rest can be done by normal formers.
So, with (say) 210 formers you should be able to make a 30-square landbridge (provided you have the ECs to raise the bloody thing).

[GeoModder]

Perhaps founding bases on the way to minite the costs of the landraise?

[johndmuller]

When I play the Hive, which is often, I usually start out with an average of 2 formers and 2 drone-control units per base, as soon as I can scrape up the ec's to run Police. I don't necessarily build them all at once, there are some CP's mixed in there for expansion too - maybe Former, Scout, CP. It more or less stays like that, plus or minus a few extra units for exploration and/or hunting native life (the bounty is an important suource of income) until IA comes along. At that point, the inner bases might get another former or two (especially if their own have migrated out toward the frontier), and maybe another drone-control unit, unless NonLethal has arrived (I try not to use more than 2 units per base as police until the mid-game).

I don't build fusion infantry formers (except by mistake), cause they cost more than fission ones, but a fusion rover former would be OK (Someone was lobbying recently on behalf of rover formers - and I have used them some more to reevaluate them - and it seems that they do save you a lot of turns, particularlly when you are doing the initial terraforming of an area, but otherwise too. I set it as a build when I was popping a pod in the very early game - where I didn't really want anything else i could have gotten for free - and when I got the free build, I found that the rover former was really quite nice to have at that stage of the game; still doesn't seem worth building though, even if it might actually be worth it.), and I am more than happy to save the money by building fusion seaformers.

I don' t generally upgrade plain vanilla formers for fungicide, but instead I would more likely build a few new ones where there was a need for that feature in particular spots. Later in the game, I might upgrade some formers to clean, when that becomes available, but mostlly to reduce the support cost at particularly min-strapped bases. I definitely build a lot of new formers when clean is available, primarily for BH's and the like. I would be much more likely to do an upgrade to super-clean, when that is available, as the double upgrade seems more worth it to me than would just the clean by itself.

Drop formers are useful to prepare an offshore island colony site and I really like Gravship formers' ability to terraform land or sea, but playing mostly PBEMs, I hardly ever get to that stage of the game...

I almost never armor my formers or use the trance ability, there're plenty more where they came from; if it were really necessary, I might send a guard detachment along with them for protection.

In general, I try not to fill up my design workshop slots with too many variations of formers and crawlers, but I sometimes start using Synth-Fusion Infantry crawlers since IIRC they don't cost any more than unarmored fusion ones but have a 4 times better defense. I try not to use up the slot with fusion rover crawlers, but sometimes it really has to get there overnight, and that opens the floodgates. OTOH, I usually ante up the extra DW slot to add the (free) Deep Radar to a Trawler design (I lie to myself that 'I'll upgrade those existing trawlers and get the slot back'). Drop crawlers are sometimes useful too, but I mostly use that to get crawlers to an SP-producing-base quicker.

[Livid_Imp]

At least 2 formers per base for me, and don't shy away from former variants. Rover formers are worth it if you dedicate them to road construction. Two rover formers can move in, build a road on a rolling tile in one turn....or two flat tiles in the same time. This of course makes all of your formers and crawlers more efficient. I like to make a couple fungi formers also for pre-clearing large fungus patches for future city sites.
By the time fusion comes around, most of my core bases are pulling in enough mins that building fusion rover formers is no more time to build than equivient infantry formers. Building fission infantry formers is a waste of mins at that point.

[Commy]

Okay, I build like one former per base at the most. First off, I play the Morgans, so with the population drawbacks there's no need to rush any terraforming, and I'm lazy, so I like doing as little as possible. I don't build sensors or bunkers or boreholes or condensors or any of that crap. I build my bases in really good spots, terraform a few forests, let them grow, hurry hybrid forests, and then all I have to do is build magtubes and monitor fungus pops. Very simple, just two improvements, mags and forests in each square. Usually, I just use the good old original formers until I get all the techs and if I'm in a good mood, I just might go to the workshop to build a gravship former with clean reactor and superformer abilities. It's magic,

[Velociryx]

SMAC is still on my hard drive...

I play with the Aldeberan mod, so no clean reactors or any of the other goodies that human players love...a much slower game with REALLY 'spensive SP's and stuff.

Early game mineral count per base, I like to target four, rush one former, a token scout to guard the base, and then however many formers I can squeeze out and still keep four mins for early infrastructure.

Two project bases (a min res on a rocky tile is ideal for this) that get to keep 100% of their industrial capacity.

Formers operate in teams...two are on new base site detail (see Googlie's post), the rest gang-forming a better road network, planting forests, making farms, or doing solar panels to eek out as much energy as possible in the early game. Reach nine bases pronto then stop expanding til I get the HGP done. Nine more bases right after it completes, cos the extra talent offsets the b-drones. Former guards are the free, no-support troops (scout and any rovers found in pods). Eventually, a random base near a min res starts churning out scouts to guard the formers and such, but it's not a priority, and the "GDI's" (my indie units) get upgraded to combat configurations and usually go off looking for trouble.

Aldeberan mod pushes the WP back to a midgame project, so there's no early game boreholing going on, and all basic terraforming is usually done on the continent pretty quickly....fine by me, and the formers are sacrified afterwardss to help speed build projects (aldeberan mod, blind research, can take 150+ years to get IA, so you gotta do what you gotta do). 'sides, I can rebuild the formers later when the advanced terraforming options become available.

Round three of expansion occurs after the VW completes, and again, b-drones are countered by free base facilities...at that point, it's getting close to time to rebuild the former fleet, and generally each base will get two, to speed thru borehole and condenser construction.

Because the flow of an Aldeberan mod game is so different, I never have much need for formers with specials, tho I still like canaries with teeth, so most of mine get rebuilt with armor and other defensive niceties (count as combat units, get morale upgrades...very handy, since I like to use formers offensively).

-=Vel=-

[Snowflake]

In the beginning I usually build 2 formers or one former and one scout so that they don't eat any support. As young after Police I at least build 2 formers per base. When the game progress I often build more formers/crawlers when I have spare building time.

[Chaos Theory]

Early on, ~2 per base. Once I plonk down a few boreholes (or rocky-mineral special-mines), as many as 10 per base, before I even get clean reactors. After that, as many as I need.