is supply crawler usage a cheat?

[Pocus]

As the AI never use supply crawlers to funnels resources to his bases, I feel its a bit cheating to do that. On the other side not doing that when you play on transcend is quite a challenge...

[Chaos Theory]

It's not a cheat, it's what crawlers do. The AI isn't good at a lot of things besides crawlers, too. Not using them to make the game harder is fine, but that's not the same as avoiding a cheat.

[Blake]

IMO Crawler Usage IS a cheat, pretty much. Balance wise they are out of whack - basically the developers never took the time to properly balance them.

What I do is restrict my supply crawler usage to a bit above AI usage level, I'll build them haphazardly, crawl a little, rush a little, but not plaster the map with them. I've actually posted screenshots of my games, where you can see the odd crawler sitting around on "L" , because sometimes I play the self imposed No Crawling, but Rushing Okay rule.

I happen to find restricted crawler use more fun, but each to their own.

[Dis]

that would make it an exploit, not a cheat.

there's a difference

[Dis]

Originally posted by Blake
IMO Crawler Usage IS a cheat, pretty much. Balance wise they are out of whack - basically the developers never took the time to properly balance them.

What I do is restrict my supply crawler usage to a bit above AI usage level, I'll build them haphazardly, crawl a little, rush a little, but not plaster the map with them. I've actually posted screenshots of my games, where you can see the odd crawler sitting around on "L" , because sometimes I play the self imposed No Crawling, but Rushing Okay rule.

I happen to find restricted crawler use more fun, but each to their own.

I just don't like the micromanagement of handling hundreds of crawlers. I'll build only around 10 a game. Yes I know it hurts my game, which is why I don't play multiplayer. I'd get my ass handed to me. I just don't like micromanagement heavy games.

[Blake]

The line between exploit and cheat is pretty fussy, especially in SMAC.

Generally I'd define exploiting as using something that it is too good at what it does, like in a RTS game using only one type of unit (and it being a good strategy) would mean that unit is exploitive. In SMAC, crawlers are always a very good build, because barring destruction they give a guaranteed return (because of 100% value back when cashing in, plus resource gathering), sure a rec tank also gives a guaranteed return, but you can only build 1 per base.

A cheat is getting something for nothing, when players discover how to get free builds or resources in a RTS thats generally considered cheating (ie a couple of years after Warcraft 3 came out, some smart cookie discovered how to get refunded twice for building something where the builder could not quite get to - that was considered cheating). Thus I think using crawlers to buy SP's cheaper than they should be is cheating - the three ways of doing this in order from least to most exploitive is buying crawlers (usually 2-3ec per mineral), upgrading crawlers (1-3ec per mineral) and SE quickies (1-1.6x mineral multiplier), if the game was designed properly it'd be impossible to get another mineral worth of crawler for less than 4ec.

[Commy]

I have personally banned myself from using crawlers. I allow myself to use only one for my HQ, and that's pretty rare. For the same reason I always play regent on civ, I like keeping the game realistic. True, against other human players that ICS and play on Sid, I'd get slaughtered, but I have more enjoyment beating the AI strategically with things that they use. Believe it or not, I use the AI to form my strategies. It hinders my skills, but it also humbles you and prevents you from saying, "Oh, this game sucks, I can beat it blindfolded with one hand on the hardest level..."

Personally, I think there should be a limit of one crawler per base that could be set in the game. Additionally, a crawler could only be active if a specialist was devoted to man and control it...

[Chaos Theory]

The last suggestion would make crawling resources almost pointless. You'd only benefit if you crawled a lucrative tile outside of every city's borders, or used the crawler-specialist as part of drone control, and I view using specialists as drone control (not through producing psych, through being automatically content) as an exploit itself. Automation is *supposed* to increase productivity...

[Blake]

I've actually thought long and hard about how to balance crawlers. Theres no real easy way. The first step ofcourse would be to ensure you can't get a mineral of crawler for less than 4ec - this would also make rushing them more expensive, a generally good thing for balance.

Next would be to make them in some way less attractive than working the single-output tiles, by crawling these tiles you effectively get all the output, and a whole specialists worth of energy & drone control - not cool. So what would need to be done is to make them ineffecient gatherers, collecting only say 55% of the single resource (rounded up, so forest is still 2). This reduces the value of a condensor+enricher to 4 food - you lose 2 food, this is exactly the same as what it takes to support a specialist, you also lose the other bonuses (usually only +1's, but every bit counts). There could also be a SP to increase the effectiveness of crawlers, to say 80% - the enricher combo then returns 5 - with nut orbitals you still miss out on the free specialist.

Crawlers would still be a good build, because of the 100% cash in feature, it's just that the decision on whether or not to plaster the world with them would be far more balanced in favor of workers, or a mix of workers and crawlers (ie at your SSC you would want to work as many good tiles as possible, and crawl that which you can't work)

[Commy]

Perhaps if crawlers had a limit of one per city, and could crawl the entire square, meaning all three resources, then I think, as far as ICSing, they would be balanced. As far as the upgrading trick, I don't know or want to know enough about it, so I can't say anything about that...

[Blake]

Limiting crawlers to 1 per base, or 1 per 4 population, or no more crawled resources than worked resources or anything like that doesn't solve the issue. You would still want to maximize the number of crawlers you build - making it not much of a strategic choice. I feel making them ineffecient workers would leave the most strategic choice, as there still would be situations where they would be useful (ie, bootstraping, crawling to SSC where large multiplier dwarves the penalty, crawling mines). The only real relevance of this is working out some balanced way crawler type units could be included in Civ4 or another civ style game.

[Pocus]

but as of now we cant do much. I'm considering doubling the cost of the crawler's pod, so that its less of interest to crawl anything but a bonus square or a borehole. But a house rule must be used anyway, like max 1 crawler for each city you have.

To nerf ICS, I reduced drastically the output of the square base: in fact it grants now 1/1/1.

[Commy]

Wow...slow start there, eh?