What's your "favorite" exploit.

[Natalinasmpf]

The drop pods thing....is it an exploit? Never thought it was....although what I think should be corrected is that unless infantry (where the first time no turns are subtracted) turns should be taken away, and one cannot drop when turns are all used up. Or I don't know....aerospace complexes kind of limit the thing as well.

I remember one recent game, where I air dropped onto an uninhabited continent full of fungus and....unity pods. With free market. I didn't know why I didn't think of it earlier. So I dropped onto every available pod on the continent, (incurred 95% damage with Fusion Power, but I didn't die afterwards) and ended causing a string of fungal towers, blooms, earthquakes, some credits, and a string of mindworms heading towards my new founded base on that continent (so okay, it wasn't THAT uninhabited). But what I did find were seven alien artifacts, but they were in danger of being retaken.

Now, then I came up with the idea of using my new found drop transports to "beam me out of here, Scotty!" - never mind the 1 cargo limit, just leave at base, begin next set of drops...within the same turn.

Only drawback - base ended up starving two citizens due to the spore launchers, however, the 350 minerals to my SP's were a great help. Is that an exploit, or what?

About the Spore Launchers on IoD's...I don't think thats a bug...I think thats a marvelous foresight on the Planet AI's part. After all...we do tend to bomb coastal bases and improvements with our own ships and laugh as the enemy cannot do anything back save for their own land guns...so why can't Planet do the same?

[johndmuller]

I think this whole thread is an exploit .

[Natalinasmpf]

Hypocrisy or a decay of principles doesn't have to be an exploit.

[aaglo]

I'm not sure if it's a exploit, but I sometimes use this:

I create a probe with best armor. They cost the same as the normal defender, altough they can't be added with some good bonuses (like AAA, if I recall correctly). But they have one bonus for free - they don't eat away your mineral support.

Also, another "exploit" I like is using sea probes - they are fast, and the AI doesn't build probe teams to defend it's sea bases

[Qwerty88]

Probe Defenders don't work well because if any other unit in that square is destroyed it will be two so you can't use two probe defenders to protect a base, on the same note though native defenders can work well and be free in a base square one of two ways: (1) use the free scout you got at the beginning of the game to capture mindworms, unity vehicles, and Battle Orges so they'll have the same base support: independent; (2) this is rare but sometimes a fungal pop under your unit will give you a fungal tower and a unit in the same square, this gives you great opportunity. As long as you have a unit in that square you can move your units in and out of that square, thus with a former and a colony pod you can build a base in that square, but fungus blooms under the tower the turn you finish terraforming so you must build the colony that turn. Once complete you will have a base in a fungus square making your native units clean and native life should be able to enter and exit your base without attacking, the downside is that the tower will cause fungal blooms around your base.

[Dry]

Originally posted by Qwerty88
(1) use the free scout you got at the beginning of the game to capture mindworms, unity vehicles, and Battle Orges so they'll have the same base support: independent;

I'm not a so hard core SMAC player and there's long time I haven't play it, but AFAIK, the 'independent' status is not linked to the base support of the capturer, but to the Green level of your faction.
It is something like maximum 6 independent units per Green level.
I have captured independent worms - a lot - with 'based' units.
When I go Green (+2), the first 12 (not sure of the number) units I captured have a probability to be independent, after that NO chance (0%). Except of course if some of the 12 die/disband.

[johndmuller]

There's several interesting theories of capturing independent native life units that I hadnt' heard before and the notion that a base in fungus is a free harbor for non-indie NL is another thing I had never thought about (but which I could easily believe to be true)! BTW, an existing base can become fungal sometimes, like if there is a fungal tower next to it, for example).

As to the capturing thing, I really don't know for sure what the mechanism is, but I thought that if you were sufficiently far away from your homeland (like maybe just outside your borders like the test for pacifist drones perhaps, or x tiles away from the nearest base), that any captured NL units would always be support free.

[Natalinasmpf]

Say, supply crawlers only incur collateral damage (and none at base, right)...? So since they don't have upkeep, and they can have armour....they can replace the probe team suggestion?

And the rover chassis on crawlers with fusion or better reactor is free right, except when you have stuff like ECM...?

[Chaos Theory]

Supply crawlers suffer from stack destruction the same way probe teams do.

Fusion rover supply crawlers (0-1-2*2) cost 3 rows, just like the ordinary type (0-1-1), so it's a good idea to build them, unless you're bent on loading them with armor, in which case the rover component will increase the cost. They're also great for upgrading to fission clean drop neutronium rover crawlers, since you pay about 10 ECs per gained mineral row, rather than the ~20 ECs when upgrading infantry crawlers.

[Natalinasmpf]

Ah, but when my former got brutally attacked by a mind worm, the crawler underneath it only incurred 50% damage.....I was assuming none at base, as well.

[Chaos Theory]

Odd. Collateral damage is always 30%, when it happens. Maybe native life acts differently, but supply crawlers usually all pop when the last defender does. Maybe they only all pop at a base? Someone can test this, of course.

[Natalinasmpf]

Oh sorry, it was 30%, just estimation since it suddenly went from green to yellow, it looked like 50%.

[Darrell01]

Natalinasmpf - Airdrop Land Transports... Wow...

I never knew mass upgrading at the workshop was some sort of exploit. I've always used it.

I used to use the SE Crawler trick, but I've got something better that I'll tell you about.

I always change my SE if I can before I chat with someone. Keeps treaties going usually one or 2 more times when they want to talk with me.

Never knew about the re-Home to Pactmates till today.
BTW, if you end up taking that base, does your unit then have support costs?

These are the three I use that I have have yet to see on Apolyton and that other place. Civgaming or something like that.

1) Someone eluded to it earlier. Hurrying a up to 10 minerals and then hurrying again to completion. I'm not sure I can do this with the patched version I have. What I do is really evil and three cheats (exploits? ) involve the saved build lists. The first is hurrying a SP (Secret Project) or Units at normal facility prices. First you save a list with, say "The Weather Paradigm" and while its there, you see how many minerals it will cost. Lets say it costs 200 because you are right in the beginning of the game and you are the Gaians. Now you save the list, then switch back your original production. This will restore any lost minerals. Now you have 15 minerals in the base and you are producing 11. If you were producing a Unit, you load up a list with some facility as whatever was on the original production. Pay 2*{200-[15+(11-10)]}, so in this case it would be 368. Then you'll see that the network node has a ton of extra red production that you'll be losing *if* you leave it there. No problem, load the build list, "Weather Paradigm" and you'll find you can build it in one turn. This is much less energy than the 1300 or so it'll cost normally. You can do this with Units too. The basic formula is 2 * { Total_Minerals - [ Current_Minerals + (Mineral_Production - Ten_Carry_Over_Minerals ) ] }.

2) The other can be really exciting. If you finish a game and retire, or go through one turn after saving one build list, I'm not sure which, the very next new game you create will have the building in production on the build list if you load the empty list. So lets say I end a game where I had 5 build lists. One was a Fusion Rover Super Former in the 54th slot in the design Workshop, another was a full list of Sky Hydroponics Farms, a full list of Orbital Power Satallites, the Cloudbase Academy, and the Space Elevator. If I load up the build lists in my new game directly after I've quitting the old one, I can load up and unnamed fusion rover super former that will turn into whatever unit fills up the 54th slot, one Sky Hydroponics Farm and an empty build queue, one Orbital Power Satallite and an empty build queue, the Cloudbase Academy and an empty build queue, and Space Elevator and an empty build queue. Combining these cheats will double your mineral production and quadruple your home base's energy output if you build the Merchant Exchange with the Space Elevator.

3) Number three is fooling with only Pact-Mate's current build. If you are Pacted with someone, you can load an empty list, to make them start building a colony pod or save a list from another city building a Recreation Commons and change their annoying ICS Sea Base strategy, planet buster or secret project into a building. Beware, the compluter does not lose the saved up minerals. It just uses what it has, and even has more minerals being harvested.

There they are. Very tempting...

[CEO Aaron]

I don't think that just because the AI doesn't use a particular technique to its advantage that it is an exploit. I mean, the AI doesn't use tactics or strategy to its advantage, and players don't enjoy the huge production and growth bonuses the AI enjoys at the higher levels of difficulty. I do have sort of a problem with many of the 'blood from a rock' tricks you can do in this game, but the blame lays on the developers for not patching the loopholes, not the players for finding them. And even then, most of them are not without some cost. Mass upgrades still require enough cash stockpiles to pull them off. And everyone knows that cash spent is more valuable than cash saved in a turn-based game. Harvest on the run tricks don't take up movement, but they do require that the square be unworked.

[Kataphraktoi]

I dont see mass upgrading as an exploit anyway, it is working as the game describes it. Its overpowered, thats all.