My Detailed Analysis of the SMAC Factions

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Natalinasmpf
I don't get how one can "waste money" on Psych. Its often a good investment.

Psych is good for GA pop booming only, if you have to take 10% or 20% of your economy and devote it to drone control for any individual city, you will be behind those that do not. Facilities and specialists do quite well for drone control for any individual city, but the slider is a global effect deally. Now if it were setable on a per city basis it would be worth while, but some cities won't need the allocation of psych and it is wasted entirely when it could have contributed towards technology or cash.

Also, very early game when you have cities that can't get +2 nut squares you have to crank up psych to get out a cpod on some maps(arid worlds).

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Dry


For what use if they have already +2ECO, +4EFFIC? Growth? At what cost?
(These are real questions, I'm not teasing!!!! Please enlight me!)

Well

1.Growth-- always needed by the morganites given that Planned is unavailible
2. Higher econ levels can lead to massive increases in the base tile or in the commerce income

Generally I don't GA often with the morganites since the incremental benefits often don't seem to be there. But when you wish to GA their energy levels usually mean they are the easist faction in which to perform it

Personally, My morganites will be in Demo/FM/Wealth or demo/Green/wealth. The first is the obvious premier economic setting-- Just go +4 econ sometime and see how the cash rolls in. . . as bases develop, efficiency becomes more important and worms get tougher-- i really like the green option since you can raise a worm army and explore the world without drone issues. The downside is the growth hit

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Natalinasmpf
I don't get how one can "waste money" on Psych. Its often a good investment.

I rarely like a psych allocation as anything other than a temporary fix. I can always use 20% more of my energy going into science or generating cash.

I generally find that using specialists is less wasteful for drone control and in fact, many times, the specialists are a good option, even if you have to use doctors, if you consider what you give up in resources to have a doctor versus what you give up by seeing 20% of your energ go poof.

Other players like using psych allocations more than me. I don't say they are wrong . .. I just say its not my playstyle-- I will allocate to psych only for a specific purpose (usually only for a GA), very grudgingly and with the view of ending it as soon as possible.

[Chaos Theory]

Every point of psych that doesn't prevent a drone riot or cause a golden age is wasted entirely. It is near-impossible to prevent many points of psych from being wasted in this way, if you allocate any at all. Furthermore, psych allocation and bureaucracy have negative synergy, so psych and ICS together don't work at all.

Sometimes I will set my psych allocation to 10%, to get an extra talent or two in cities, if I'm not ICSing and want drone control past facilities, and don't want to be perpetually twiddling specialists.

[Commy]

I am going to make a guess, based on other threads I have read at apolyton, that this is going to turn into a big debate about the UoP and the PKs and about drones and such and blah blah blah.

First, before we go into any calculations, let's assume that you are NOT doing ICSing. Let's assume that your bases are 2-3 squares away, depending on the resources. Basically, each base is probably going to be able to work 13-15 squares.

Okay, so we have the University vs. the Peacekeepers, particularly in drone control. And just for fun, we'll include a faction without any advantages or disadvantages, called the xenobananas. Since this is apolyton we are on, let us also assume we are on Transcend level, at that every citizen after the first is a drone. Let us also assume that each faction has +0 police, and can use one police unit.

Pop 1--University, and the xenobananas, have a normal citizen, Peacekeepers a talent.

Pop 2--Assuming there is a police unit, the University and the xenobananas have two normal citizens and the Peacekeepers with one citizen and one talent.

Pop 3--The University and xenobananas now have two citizens, and one drone, which means drone riots. There are a number of ways this problem could be solved. One worker could be converted to a doctor, a load of energy would be converted to pysch on SE, or the University has the Human Genome Project. Just to narrow the gap, let's give the University the Human Genome. Now the University has one talent, one drone, and one worker. Mean while, without the Human Genome, the Peacekeepers have the same standings, one drone, one worker, one talent.

Pop 4--This is where the University runs into a problem. Normally, a faction, like the xenobananas, with a police unit, would have two workers and two drones, but because the university has a drone every four citizens, now they have three drones, and one citizen. But because they have the Human Genome, this makes it a Talent and still three drones. Big whoop. Okay, so let's help them some more and give them the Virtual World. This brings it up to one talent, two citizens, and one drone. As for the peacekeepers, they have one talent, one worker, and two drones. Not bad considering they don't have any SPs.

Pop 5--Univeristy, with their two SPs, now have one talent, two citizens, and two drones. Xenobananas have two citizens and three drones, and the lucky Peacekeepers have the same, WITHOUT any SPs.

Pop 6--University has

As you can see from here, even with two SPs, the amount of drones the University will get will only increase, and the amount of talents the PKs will get will only increase. So let's skip pops 6-13 and go to 14, the normal population limit for factions in the mid-game, except the Peacekeepers, but to keep it even let's just say that the University and the Peacekeepers, and the Xenobananas all are at pop 14.

The University will have one talent, two citizens, and 11 drones. Can you say 'Drone Riots'?

The Xenobananas will have two citizens, and 12 drones.

And the Peacekeepers will have two talents, two citizens, and 10 drones.

While there is not much of a difference, keep in mind that the University has the advantage of two SPs, essentially three less drones. Without these SPs, the University would have only one citizen and 13 drones, three more than the PKs. Let's assume that those 3 drones are taken out by three doctors. Estimating that each square produces 3 energy, that is nine less energy per base that the University is getting. Five less for labs, and four less for economy.

Assuming that there is a rec commons, hologram theatre, and a research hospital at the base, there will be two talents, 7 citizens, two drones, and three doctors, just to make ends meet. That is a total maintenance of 7. Not to mention the 4 less energy for economy from the doctors.

The Peackeepers, on the other hand, can go up to population 16, and with only three doctors and the same facilities, and have no drone riots. That is two more workers, for the same costs, an additional 6 energy, if each square produces three. To make the University go that high in population, a total of five doctors would be needed.

If a University Base and Peacekeeper base were compared, at pop 16, and each with one police unit, this is what you would find.

To ensure no drone riots, the University base would have to have five doctors, a rec commons, a hologram theatre, a research hospital, and a hab dome to get to 16 pop. If each square produced 3 energy, and there were no other specialists except the 5 doctors, that would be 33 energy, 17 towards labs, and 16 towards economy. With the research lab and FREE network node, the total lab output would be 29. After maintenance, the total economic output would be 1, if you include the maintanence from the hab dome and hab complex.

With a peacekeeper base at pop 16, THREE doctors, a rec commons, a hologram threatre, and a research hospital would be needed to maintain no drone riots. Assuming the other 13 citizens are workers, that is a total economic output of 39, 20 directed to labs and 19 directed to economy. With the research lab, there would be a total economic output of 25. If a network node were built, such as in a University base, that total would increase to 35. The total economic output, if you calculate with the maintenance of the hab complex (but not the hab dome this time) and the network node, and the three other facilities, the output comes out to 9.

The peacekeepers, in essence are getting 6 more energy to labs and 8 more to economy. While as the base grew to a population such as 20 or higher, the drone problem of the University would become irrellevant, but until then, the maintenance costs and/or energy lost to doctors and specialists lowers the lab output, and ulitmately the flexibility of the University. Of course, this data is assuming that the specialists the University uses are only doctors, not empaths or transcendi, which would actually increase the lab or energy output. Ultimately, the drones are a huge disadvantage. Can they be fixed? Yes, very easily, but at the cost of maintenance and other things. Chances are these costs won't affect the game to much. And chances are, either way, the University will always have a good tech lead against all the other factions, but if nothing else convinces you, consider this. While the drones can be fixed, just imagine the economic potential, particularly later in the game, of a faction other than the University, say such as the PEACEKEEPERS, had built the Human Genome and the VW. A lot of energy would be saved. True, in the beginning of the game, the University may have twice as many techs as everyone else, but once other factions build network nodes, and do knowledge and cybernetic, those advantages to fade away, and the disadvantages are all that are left, in which case, a faction like the Peacekeepers is much more practical. Everything comes at a cost. The bigger the thing, the bigger the cost. Small advantages, while small, have one distinct advantage, small disadvantages, an advantage in itself that is much greater than any advantage ever will be...

[Chaos Theory]

Why did you stop comparing the Uni to the xenobananas? Of course the PKs have it good for drone control. The Uni, however, is just 1 drone behind the xenobananas, a minor penalty that becomes trivial with ICS.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Every point of psych that doesn't prevent a drone riot or cause a golden age is wasted entirely. It is near-impossible to prevent many points of psych from being wasted in this way, if you allocate any at all. Furthermore, psych allocation and bureaucracy have negative synergy, so psych and ICS together don't work at all.

Sometimes I will set my psych allocation to 10%, to get an extra talent or two in cities, if I'm not ICSing and want drone control past facilities, and don't want to be perpetually twiddling specialists.

Oh yea thats another use, right after you build the cloning vats, jacking up the psych allocation will save you atleast 30 minutes per turn going through all the damned rioting from growth.

[Commy]

Very true Chaos Theory, but keep in mind that the arguement was more in comparing the flexibility of the PKs to the University. Compared to a control, no, the University isn't that bad off, considering that every citizen after the first is a drone, it's kind of hard to get worse. Mind you, the test that I did wasn't really fair, but it was to justify the advantages of the PKs, that was all...

[Flubber]

Nice analysis commy that totally ignores the effects of faster research getting to crawlers, gene splicing, eco eng etc.

If the uni doesn't get some advantage from its research speed, of course they will lag-- The thing is the uni will get some research advantage

[Quezacotl06]

Univ gets more drones. They always cost them. You need to give % to psych, draining ur labs and econ. OR you could build facilities to reduce drones (costing your econ). Or you could use police SE, reducing ur efficiency (which further affects your labs and eco). Or u can us specialists. Which take food and minerals and generaly slows the effectiveness of the base just trying to keep it from revolting. Supply Crawlers are an artificial solution, because all factions can have crawlers, PLUS HAVING WORKERS TO PRODUCE BACK AT HOME.

Drones always cost them. Even one drone costs 2 per turn (at least) just to keep it from starting a riot.

[Chaos Theory]

Don't you realize you can prevent drones with productive specialists?

Size 14 base - 3 workers and 11 specialists. That leaves only 3 possible drones. Assume they're all superdrones.

A rec commons is enough to handle two of them. One superdrone left.

Here are the options for taking care of it:
4 psych from specialists (maybe thinkers or empaths), and probably boosted by a tree farm or the like
Research hospital
Police (if you can use them)
VW/holo theater
LV if not running FM, but then you can use police, too

Guess how many drones a non-uni faction would have in a base with 3 workers and 11 specialists? Still 3. Depending on the level of bureaucracy, a non-uni might have one fewer superdrone, but facilities and police are blind to that.

The Uni's extra drone really doesn't hurt very much at all, because it only arrives at size 4 (that is, not in the early game), and because allocating specialists steps on drones.

Specialists, though they don't produce food or minerals, are nonetheless an excellent option, as they produce significant amounts of energy, without efficiency losses.

The extra drones do not always cost the University.

[binTravkin]

Probe-rapping is a snap

It's like when probes start singing/talking rap?

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Quezacotl06
Univ gets more drones. They always cost them. You need to give % to psych, draining ur labs and econ. OR you could build facilities to reduce drones (costing your econ). Or you could use police SE, reducing ur efficiency (which further affects your labs and eco). Or u can us specialists. Which take food and minerals and generaly slows the effectiveness of the base just trying to keep it from revolting. Supply Crawlers are an artificial solution, because all factions can have crawlers, PLUS HAVING WORKERS TO PRODUCE BACK AT HOME.

Drones always cost them. Even one drone costs 2 per turn (at least) just to keep it from starting a riot.

specialists tend to be highly productive. one engineer gives about 5 energy worth of production, thats a sea square that has a tidal harness and FM running AND zero efficiency loss. every specialist except doctors provide excellent energy energy, doctors merely provide decent energy and then its only directed towards psych.

[Flubber]

chaos

I don't think he's going to understand your point and would probably be shocked to see my bases where I have specialists in use far beyond what I need for drone control for the simple reason that its the best use of a citizen.

he also doesn't seem to want to understand that with any pop boomable faction, its pretty much senseless to grow vertically when horizontal growth is available.

Bottom line for me is that "extra drone" is pretty much irrelevant. It exists and the university would be slightly stronger if it did not but I have no problem handling them--

[Chaos Theory]

Well, I'm not going to settle for condoning ignorance, so I'll continue to argue with him. I suppose I could show him some examples, though.