Newb question regarding "Special Workers"

[miltonic]

I'm still learning the subtleties of the game, and have never explored the benefits of "Special workers". In actuality I'm afraid to waste a worker harvesting a resource to turn them into a special worker where I can't see any tangible benefit occurring.

I think I've heard that Empaths or Scientist increase Tech, but is there a measurable result to see this? For example, if I have a worker working a +6 energy square, would it be worth it to change them into an Empath and boost science? As you can see I'm probably confusing you because I just 'don't get' the special workers

I've got the rush to IA and supply crawler strategy down, and it rocks. I'm assuming I eventually have the supply crawlers take control of the squares and turn the workers into special workers but it boils down to this:

Let's say I have a +6 min +6 energy square. If I have a crawler work that square, I only get +6 min OR +6 energy. The rest is wasted. A worker could take advantage of both. So, by changing the worker to an Empath for example, is the benefit of an Empath worth more tha +6 min OR + 6 energy a turn? This must be a no brainer, but without visible proof the the benefit, what can I weigh it's worth against? Obvisouly I need help. Serious help.

[Petek]

I'll try to answer your question, even though other members on this forum probably can explain better.

First, in your example of a +6 min +6 energy square (borehole), most everyone would agree that it's preferable to have a worker on that square for the reasons you give.

Specialists provide energy (economy, labs and psych). The key idea is that the energy is not subject to inefficiency. That is, a specialist that provides 3 labs (for example) does so regardless of how far the base is from your headquarters or your efficiency rating.

Suppose that you have a nut special within your base radius and that you've farmed/condensored it. If you place a worker on that square, you're getting 7 or so nuts, plus possibly some mins and energy. Consider what happens if you crawl that square for its nuts and then convert the worker to a specialist. Now you're getting all the nuts that you had before, plus some labs and/or economy. In fact, that one crawler provides enough nuts to let you convert several workers to specialists.

Try this for yourself and watch what happens to the economy and/or lab output in your base readout screen when you convert the worker to a specialist.

Some other tips: You may have planted forests on those nut specials. When you start converting your workers to specialists, that's the time to convert those forests to farms/condensors (to maximize the nut production). Also, since specialists don't produce minerals, you may also want to crawl some minerals to make up for the loss.

Any corrections or additions to the above are welcome.

[miltonic]

I think I'm starting to see the bigger picture. Basically you can have a near limitless amount of crawlers to support your mineral/nut/ energy intake, yet a limited poulation size. Since you can crawl from outside of the base and rake in as much FOP's as desired, your workers could do a lot more for the cause by having them help out labs and psych. Is this the thinking of the veteran players?

[Commy]

Also, very important here, specialists, or "special workers", can add to psych, one thing that is really critical to avoid inefficiency (since not much energy is converted to psych in the first place), and, workers can't add to pysch, only specialists. Not to mention, without some specialists and some psych from doctors and empaths and stuff, you'll probably run into drones riots very easily and very quickly. AND, while some players may disagree with me, energy is much more important than minerals, so having specialists add to labs and economy is very good, even when you can't get as many minerals from workers, because energy has more uses and can hurry things much faster.

[Sikander]

Specialists rock when you get the hang of them. But they require a lot of preperation to make the most of them beyond the odd Doctor to keep a base from rioting.

The easy way to get specialists is simply to terraform with an eye to creating a lot of tiles that produce 3+ Nutrients, which will give you a food surplus. Then as your base fills in (pop-booming really kicks this up a notch) simply make some of your workers (preferably guys working tiles that haven't been terraformed yet) into specialists. Two immediate advantages accrue. First, specialists never turn into drones, which means that you don't have to use psych, police, SPs or facilities to quell them. Second, specialists produce a decent amount of energy equivalents and lose none of that to inefficieny, while they do have their outputs multiplied by base facillities.

An even more efficient approach is to modify your game to embrace specialists whole-heartedly. This almost always means that your terraforming will tend to become focused on producing one type of FOP on a tile to the exclusion of others in order to facilitate the use of crawlers. Thus most ( or at least many) of my tiles will be condensor / farmed and crawled in order for them to support two specialists. Even in the early game before nutrient restrictions are lifted all you need is the Weather Paradigm to build condensors, and condensors lift nutrient restrictions in the tile they are built in, allowing typically 4 nutrients to be produced there. That's enough to support two specialists, which (when crawled) will produce six energy equivalents (eg two Librarians produce 3 Labs apiece). In the early game (pre-restrictions) there is no more productive tile in the game unless it is a terraformed special of some kind. Even later on you would be hard pressed to get six energy from a tile after restrictions are lifted, not to mention one which doesn't require a potential drone to work it and doesn't suffer from inefficiency losses.

So specialists produce good results fairly early in the game. Keep in mind however that until your base reaches a population of 5+, you won't be able to assign any specialists except the ones which boost psych. Thus it will take a while to get the ball rolling through natural growth.

Enter the pop-boom. Every faction (in patched SMACX anyway) can pop-boom, but for some it is difficult indeed. Pop booming requires a growth rating of 6+ and at least a two nutrient surplus. When you meet these requirements your population will grow one per turn until you reach your hab limits or the requirements are no longer met. With this tool you can usually get a decent pop boom somewhere in the middle of your first century for factions which can pop boom easily, and somewhat later for factions that can't.

Specialists are the gift that keeps on giving though, and as the game progresses they become more and more productive. Engineers (available at Fusion) produce 5 energy equivalents while Transcends (Secrets of AC) produce 8 (six non-psych). Also advanced terraforming options like Soil Enrichers increase the nutrient output of tiles by +2, while nutrient satellites effectively double the nutrient output of bases which have aerospace complexes. You will pull away from the pack completely at this point in the game, as even boreholes can't begin to match the productivity of a tile producing six (effectively 12 with satellites) nutrients.

[miltonic]

Nutrient nirvana

12 nutrients?! That's insane. This is all great info. I think I'm at the point where I need to change my terraform strategy. I have forests all over the place, and the supply crawlers are mining them for minerals, but my nutrient intake is minimal because of my focus on minerals.

I've got 10 bases, all around population 4 but raking in 24+ min and 24+ energy. Growth is stagnant however. I think I need to make changes in terraforming so that my bases can grow to +5 population in order to get the specialists.

I'm not very good at knowing how to effectively terraform a square though. Can I have a farm + condenser + Soil Enricher all on one tile, without wiping out a previous earlier improvements of these types? I thought I remember reading somewhere that the order in which these are built matters, otherwise you could destroy one of the enhancements when adding another. Maybe that is right or wrong, either way, multiple enhancements frighten me lol.



If I can have all these enhancements on one square, then building an areospace complex will double the nutrient out put in those squares? That is a ludicrous amount of nutrients. Ludicrous I say.

[Chaos Theory]

You can have a farm-condensor early on, which will produce 4 food on most tiles. Later, you can add a soil enricher, which will bring the total to 6. You can build them in any order, though of course the farm must precede the soil enricher.

Aerospace complexes do not directly double food output. Food satellites can contribute one food each, limited by your bases population, so if you have enough you can just think of them as adding one food per population unit. In bases without aerospace complexes, each satellite counts for one-half food.

If you want a ludricrous nutrient output, try a nutrient special on a rainy tile in the monsoon jungle, with a farm-condensor-soil enricher, then multiplied by satellites.
2 (rainy) + 2 (nut special) + 1 (monsoon jungle) = 5
Add a farm-condensor to bring that to 9, then a soil enricher for 13. Double for satellites to get 26 food from a single tile. Then discover a beneficial bacterium.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Sikander
In the early game (pre-restrictions) there is no more productive tile in the game unless it is a terraformed special of some kind.

After you get Engineers, Soil Enrichers and Sky Hydroponics Labs, I certainly agree a specialist approach is best, but before that, isn't a simple forest a better investment? A forest requires 4 former turns to get 1-2-1 in return, while a farm condenser square requires 16 former turns and a 3-row crawler to get 6 credits or labs in return.

[Santiago_Claus]

Condensors are your friend. Here's why:

Specialists subtract from the "worker pool" from which drones arise, and you can use this by itself to reduce unrest without having to waste people on becoming doctors.

Say you have a size 9 base, all drones, with facilities to reduce 5 drones. Let's say it takes 2 doctors to pacify the remaining 2 drones. That makes 7 workers and 2 doctors.

Let's say instead you choose to have 5 workers and 4 librarians. Your facilities pacify the 5 workers, and the 4 librarians meanwhile contribute to your research. That means that ALL 9 of the base's population are producing something useful!

In that way you get a kind of "something for nothing" here: as long as you bring in enough food, you need never spend on psych, no matter how large a base grows. Once you get "Thinkers", who add 1 psych to the Librarian's 3 research, you can fine-tune things even more.

The only way you can pull it off, though, is by crawlering nutrients. The best way to crawler nutrients is on a condensor + farm + (late game) enricher, preferably on a nutrient special or jungle.

(Incidentally if you WANT to spend on psych to get a "Golden Age" food remains just as important, as the most popular use of this tactic is to grow the base!)

[Enigma_Nova]

The Specialists and the Pop Boom are tied close together.

You need to crawl nuts for both (sans tree farms for the boom, of course).
Until your base gets to size 5, specialists don't do much.

To boom, you need +6 Growth.
DEM: +2 Growth
PLANNED: +2 Growth
CRECHE: +2 Growth
GA: +2 Growth
(Aki, Sven: -1 Growth)

To get a GA, the HGP is pretty essential.
Make one-half (rounded down) of your workers doctors. One citizen is a Talent (HGP). You need Psych energy to make the other workers into Talents.
This will fail if you have more than 1 b-drone in your base, so watch yourself on those b-limits.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Maniac


After you get Engineers, Soil Enrichers and Sky Hydroponics Labs, I certainly agree a specialist approach is best, but before that, isn't a simple forest a better investment? A forest requires 4 former turns to get 1-2-1 in return, while a farm condenser square requires 16 former turns and a 3-row crawler to get 6 credits or labs in return.

I always start out with lots of forests (though I'll always have at least one tile that produces two nutrients as well in the early game) as they are faster and produce minerals and energy which help put me into position. I beeline for crawlers and then bootstrap my industry by crawling forests for minerals.

Depending on game and faction I tend to next begin to add condensor / farms to the mix, paving over forest if necessary in order to get my nutrients up for a pop boom. If I'm going with a highly specialized tight spacing approach all forests are paved over with maximum boreholes density and condensor farms. Then I work the boreholes for my mineral and raw energy, crawl the condensor farms, and use my librarians to kick my tech rate up.

Games of course vary quite a bit. I've been playing a game recently as Yang on a 256 x 256 map, which really slows down the tech rate as well as the likelihood of meeting the AI in the early game. Due to an early pod my beeline to AI was disrupted, and I didn't get crawlers until almost the turn of the 1st century. I thankfully did get the WP and was able to create several bases to serve as mini-science centers by building 4 condensor farms at each and using three military units at each to quell the drones. This gave them the capability to support 5 librarians apiece, and as I had no real way to pop boom without much infrastructure (including no hab facilities) I simply teamed each mini-science base with a feeder base and pod boomed my way there.

This worked out thankfully, and I'm in the driver's seat now though the AI is ahead in some techs still.