Two techs per round?

[livid imp]

Originally posted by Blake
Bear in mind it is far, far easier to get several techs per turn on smaller maps. It's rather hard on a huge map.

Ahhhh. Now you tell me. I play huge maps 95% of the time. I just started a huge map trying to ICS in order to build up to two techs a round.

On that note: ICS is almost a fool-proof strategy for beating the AI in Transcend and has many obvious advantages in MP, but damn, it is boring as hell. It is like building the suburbs....yeck! The borg would be proud.

[Enigma_Nova]

Flubber: The best defence is a good offence.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Flubber: The best defence is a good offence.

I understand that point and it is doubly true in Smax-- I have posted countless times on the fact that in a war you want that to be an attacker. If you were referring to my Drone game, I was the attacker and about half my bases are captured ones. There was heavy cost to do this though

[Enigma_Nova]

Cost like what?
The units you're supporting, or preventing the bases rioting into the ground?

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by Flubber
I have posted countless times on the fact that in a war you want that to be an attacker.

This is true in SMAX and true in life.

[Dis]

I think it would depend on the difficulty level. I've done 4 techs per turn on librarian level. Fairly easy. Although this isn't until the end when you build those really cool secret projects. Like the one's that put you in a continous pop boom and eleminate city rioting all toegether.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Cost like what?
The units you're supporting, or preventing the bases rioting into the ground?

Mineral costs-- I am fighting humans so Shard wave choppers are a necessity and even they die against the 8 armour of the defenders inside an aerocomplex. That plus the cost of rushing defenders and probe defenses plus the cost of the reactor 4 Planet Buster-- Oh ya and the 20+ ODPs I have up and the dozen or so energy satellites I have lost to opposing ODPs

Support is irrelevant in the clean era ( or at least nothing to get worried about) and I have the SP that prevents bases from rioting so I am quite content to let a base have 5 drones while working tiles OR conversely , convert them all to transcendii and allow my food sats to keep the base from starving

[Flubber]

To be clear, the cost manifests iteself in tiles not terraformed and crawlers not built as I was building the other stuff

Also I only got the TOE and did not get the Supercollider. With both, I thing 3 techs a turn would be achievable in short order

[Commy]

Attacking is always the best, especially in early game. Since weapons are much, much higher than armor, unless you're in a base with a perimeter defense, most units in the field will get picked of pretty easily...

[Sikander]

I got three techs last turn in my Pirate / huge game with 100% labs and an SSC. It's right near the end of the game now, and I should finish the tech tree this coming turn. I have 28 bases, only 18 of which I built. Most have populations in the low to mid 20s, except for my original two sea bases which I pop boomed up a bit after I got the Cloning Vats. They are both in the mid 40s in population. The game seems to really accelerate toward the end.

I never ran FM btw, though I did run Demo / Green / Wealth (GA) for a good deal of time, switching to Demo / Planned / Wealth (GA) to pop boom once. At this point I have the last of the Lab boosting facilities and am just marking time until the end of the game.

[Enigma_Nova]

It always speeds up near the end. Then again, the turns will take longer, and as such
the faster the pace of the game, the slower the turns come around.
Ironic.

[livid imp]

Does the SE screen actually list 2 techs, 3 techs, etc. ?

[Enigma_Nova]

Not at all, l_i.

[livid imp]

Hmm....that could be my problem then. I keep readjusting my labs to get more cash at 1 tech per round.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by livid imp
Hmm....that could be my problem then. I keep readjusting my labs to get more cash at 1 tech per round.

That would be a problem. The F3 screen does not show how many techs per round you get but it does show

1. accumulated lab points
2. lab points earned on the turn
3. tech cost


In the later game the tech costs do not rise so dramatically so if you can earn double the tech cost plus perhaps 10-15% more to compensate for wasted labs and the increase, you should be fine.

Just be careful to assess where your better science bases fall in the order of bases to be counted since all labs beyond those necessary to make the discovery are wasted for the base that contributes those final lab points.