What's your "favorite" exploit.

[smacksim]

I remember when we thought we'd found an expoit in the 'On Alert' combat ability of ground units. Seemed they fought better from On Alert than from Hold.

The only expoit I didn't see mentioned was the 'Automate Probe Team to locate enemy HQ' trick. That's one I found for myself just by a rare experiment into automating units. I'm not sure if it works in patched versions.

-Smack

[Snowflake]

I do use stockpile, and move and form sometimes. But that one is too time consuming. I wouldn't recommend anybody use it.

[Snowflake]

Dp, sorry.

[#endgame]

I like the former-on-turn-one bug

1. Play with "Do or Die" off.
2. Start game
3. Disband everything

You should respawn with 2 Colony Pods, 1 Former, 1 Scout Patrol (or Synth Sentinels if Morgan)

[Commy]

Now that I have heard of, and sometimes it can be very useful...but I've never done it for real...

[gwillybj]

I selected Move & Form, but I don't.

[MatthewH86]

SE Quickie! I found that out all by my lonesome!

Go me.

[Straybow]

SE Quickie? I don't know that one. Is it SMAX only?

Problem with Ugpgrade'n'move is it cannot really be avoided except by avoiding the workshop mass upgrade altogether... I actually think it's the intended behaivour, to justify spending the enourmous lump-sum on upgrading say all formers.

The obvious way to avoid it is to do the workshop upgrade at the end of a turn. But I do use the exploit sometimes anyway, muahahahaha!

[Blake]

Move'n'Upgrade is also an exploit, especially when going to a higher reactor, units can gain new moves, and can allow noodles to attack twice in one turn.

The most exploitive SE quickie is for example:
Your running Planned/Wealth
You switch to Freemarket/Power, and cash in a bunch of crawlers at 13 minerals per row.
You switch back to Planned/Wealth, getting the refund.
The SP builds at 8 minerals per row.

The net effect is +60% (or more) value for your crawlers, disbanded units and AA's - it works even better for factions with starting positive industry.

[Enigma_Nova]

AFAIK Power is only -20% Industry,
and Wealth/Planned is +20% Industry.

You get 12minerals/row for a crawler in Power/FM and 8minerals/row in Wealth/Planned.

[Skanky Burns]

So can you start your turn with some crawlers next to a secret project building base, change your social engineering from +20% industry to -20% industry, cash your crawlers in and then change back to +20% industry? If so, you could get effectively +50% minerals for each crawler.

[smacksim]

That's the idea.

SE-Quickies are a gross exploit. All the cash-in bonus, and the ability to manipulate the AI with diplomacy. I think the latter is the bigger exploit, potentially.

-Smack

[Snowflake]

I know that the SE quickes like Skanky described is an exploit that are always prohibited in pbems. But I was wondering if you cash in your crawlers so that the SP is say 2 turns from completion, then you swithch SE to -10% or -20% industry, will it then tell you the SP is going to complete the next turn?

[Santiago_Claus]

Yes, HH, if you switch SE to an improved industry rating, SP's in progress are reduced in cost accordingly, increasing their relative progress to completion.

The consensus has been that if you pay for an SE change to gain its benefit, you haven't cheated. It's not an entirely comfortable state of affairs, though:

Say you're on Planned / Wealth, pop out a few crawlers, and want to cash them in at higher value than you paid. You switch to "Power" and pay your 40 ec's.

If you then cash in your crawler, or comm Santiago for that matter, you are not allowed to switch out of "Power" until next turn. If you switched back, you'd be refunded your money, meaning you both got something for nothing and never suffered the SE penalty. That's cheating.

If you wait until next turn, you will have paid for the diplomatic or manufacturing advantages received as well as suffered the SE penalty that turn, so having "paid the price" for changing SE you haven't cheated.

Next turn you switch back to Wealth, and the SP you were working on suddenly becomes cheaper and will be completed next turn. You paid your 40 ec's, though, so again you haven't cheated.

This isn't really an SE "quickie" -- it's more of an SE "shorty" -- but it still multiplies the value of crawlers, and I've seen a few games which had additional turn restrictions between SE changes.

[Commy]

Explain this crawler trick, I still don't understand it, upgrading them and all...