psych allocation

[Stormwatcher]

Hi everybody!
What exactly happens if you allocate your energy to psych? Is the number of drones reduced or are more talents created? Does anyone know the exact formula, i.e. what do you get for lets say 10 energy units allocated?
Is allocating energy to psych in any way useful in the beginning of the game, when a base is producing very little energy or would it be better to use that for tech/industry?
Thanks for your answers!

[binTravkin]

2 psych for drone->worker
2 psych for worker->talent

if you have 4 drones and allocate 8 psych you won't have 4 workers, you will have 2 talents and 2 drones, in other words psych tends to upgrade to max at first and then take next drone

also - if you have b-drones or any additional psych-reducing things, psych won't help.

If you see a drone on your 50th base it may mean that that drone represents not -2 psych but -8psych (4 times the bureaucracy limit).
If you have such drone, you'll have to waste 8 energy it.

so the best way to quell drones is police + facilities which actually give "-x drones", because if they say they will give you "-2 drones" they WILL not taking in count is that drone -2 or -12 psych

you should also take in count that police unit at +3 POLICE doesn't mean you have 1*2*2 = 4 drones policed. You will have 3 policed drones instead.

The difference is the "hard quelling" and "soft quelling"

hard quelling means you will always get the number of drones converted to workers

hard quelling means are:
1.facilities
2.police
3.PTS, LV (with Planned, Green, Simple economy)

Soft quelling means you will NOT always get the number of drones reduced. For example you can pay 4 to psych, but still have that drone.

Soft quelling means are:

1.psych allocation
2.faction bonuses (for PKs, Drones)
3.HGP and Clinical Immortality project


Best use of psych is when you:
1.have NO drones
2.have at least +50% psych at most bases (from facilities)

Psych is mostly used only for getting Golden Age:
a state when
Talentcount >= Workercount + Specialistcount
and which gives +2 growth and +1 economy

For some factions it's the only way to either get +6 growth (growth each turn) or +2econ (which is many times more than +1 econ)

At the early stages of game it's best to NOT use any psych allocation and to increase labs allocation as far as it doesn't make you lose energy to penalty ("-x%econ, -y%labs").

Techs sooner are more profitable than a few ecs at the moment..

[dacole]

Good response but I have to disagree a little bit. Early psych can be nessecary when it is the only way you have of quelling drones since you haven't built or perhaps researched facilites yet. Usually I end up researching and switching to free market wealth before I have any drone facilites researched by this time also some of my bases are up to three in population so a psych allocation of as much as 30% is nessecary now this has the added benfit of putting for one turn any size two bases into a golden age so they immediatly grow into size three if other things are built. This enhances the benefit of going to free market early.

[binTravkin]

Well, I never have size 3 bases prior to claiming PTS or prior to someone else claims it (then I start building Creches in all cities) if I have a FM able faction..

I think one should never let grow your bases over 2 (and stay at 2 only for a few turns while you rush a CP) till facilities or happiness SPs are in place, at least I've never had the problem you describe with an FM able faction.

The reason of this is that at the start of the game you need to expand as fast as you can. And when you stuck on first b-drones, use an SP or facilites.

SocPsy should be the first tech you research when you see that you're not going to take HGP (which is the best early project for drone quelling)


Take in mind that everything said above is valid when talking about FM able factions which exclude Gaia, Hive, Sparta (FM quite useless) and Cult.
Situation for factions using Police for drone control is quite different (and much easier to understand for an unexpierenced player).

Just have one more garrison unit and voila!
If that doesn't help, get Intellectual Integrity and upgrade to Police garrisons.
OR get Ascetic Virtues SP (which is the hardest of the mentioned)

[Stormwatcher]

Thanks for your answers!
So without knowing it I was right in preferring faculties to psych.
Perhaps I misunderstood you, but what are b-drones?
When I started playing SMAC I used many specialists, mostly docs, to keep the drones in check, but of course you slow your pop-growth down that way. I tried some games with Miriam right now and since she is no great researcher I swapped to 60% industry and 40% psych, to control the drones until punishment spheres (?; german --> english) were possible. Why research if you have probe teams?

[binTravkin]

punishment spheres are a very bad facility and Im not talking about ethics.
It's very expensive and halves your research..

b-drones are bureaucracy drones which are caused by going over your bureaucracy.
Construct >10 bases and you will have a pop up which says you'll soon be over your bureaucracy limit..

[Stormwatcher]

Aah, so the b-drones can't be quelled with psych allocations have I got you right on this point?

Considering the punishment spheres, I'm a builder at heart so normally they are of no use for me ethics or not. But when I think about what factions have the personality to use them, the Believers and the Hive are the first that come to my mind. Do you think different?
Once Miriam can afford them, she gets her knowledge by probes or conquered bases anyway. And the energy neither allocated to labs nor to psych give you a real hard-working industry!

[Blake]

What I sometimes do when running FM hardcore (ie not intending to switch for *anything*) is have about 10% pysch (+ a little from thinkers), this is enough to keep drones quelled with a holo theatre, research hospital, treefarm, hybrid forest, creche (less energy lost) - the works. However when I capture an AI base or found a new base there will be a twofold problem:
A) It has no (or pathetic) pysch multiplier.
B) It is far, far away and thus inefficiency eats away at the already miserable energy output.

The simple and effective solution is to rush a fun sphere - they are quite cheap to build and run. The base can then grow limitlessly without needing new drone control, and you can home your army at these punishing bases. Once a punished base grows big enough and has enough infrastructure you can scrap the fun sphere and let it join the ranks of your core research bases.


Theres one other trick worth mentioning for running FM "too" early in the game, if you don't care for rep or commerce (or it's sunspots) then nervestaple ALL your bases, then switch to FM and enjoy the drone free period - just make sure to have a more permament solution in place when the stapling runs out.

[Stormwatcher]

And I was told off for unethical methods!
Is there really no drop in rep when sunspots are present?
What about other favourite actions, like treaty-breaking or planetbusters?

[Googlie]

As Morgan. I always build at least one huge minerals base with a punishment sphere - and home all my noodles and/or warships there (In fact I do that with any faction that I end up rinning DEM/FM/WEALTH

And I've found that putting 10% to psych from turn 1 advances the tech rate for everyone but the Hive (and Believers and Drones, obviously), even running negative labs and economy still gets a faster research rate at 30/10/70 than typically 20/0/80 could - or similar combinations (sometimes 40/10/50 produces a better result - but always that 10% psych is needed)

[Chaos Theory]

+3 Police combined with nonlethal methods makes units quell 3 (1 + 1 + 1) drones, rather than 4 (1 * 2 * 2).

Bureaucracy drones can be quelled with psych, it's just expensive and gets more expensive the more bureaucracy you have, in general. The bureaucracy limit is not 10 most of the time. On Transcend, it's floor(1.5 * (Effic + 4) * sqrt(WIDTH*HEIGHT / 3200)), where WIDTH and HEIGHT refer to the size of the map, and Effic is bounded below by 0. This means the limit is 6 on a normal map with 0 effic, or 9 on a huge map (WIDTH * HEIGHT / 3200 = 2.56) with 0 effic.

Punishment spheres have their uses, but quelling drones in every base is not a good use of them. They cost too many minerals and tech points to justify that.

Why research when you have probe teams? To get ahead of your opponents, of course!

The Spartans can use FM reasonably well, especially in a lull between wars.

[Blake]

Punishment spheres have their uses, but quelling drones in every base is not a good use of them. They cost too many minerals and tech points to justify that.

I'd disagree. Obviously you don't quell drones in EVERY base because your core needs to produce labs. But if you're determined to fight under Free Market (and it's fun and profitable) then compare the cost of rushing a rec commons + holo theatre/net node - you will find the fun sphere is about the same or cheaper and is a single rush - allowing you to more quickly move on to rushing defenses and stuff. It also provides extra mind control protection.

Punishment spheres are great for quickly maximizing minerals. They are also the absolutely lazy option, one rush buy and the base never bothers you with drone problems again - great when the game is dragging on and you have more credits than sense (mostly, due to having a great deal of credits )

[smacksim1]

CT and Blake have it right. And binTravkin's comments on keeping a low population initially are a valuable thing to think upon, especially if planning on ICSing to 2x or even 3x+ the b-drone limit early on. Size 1 bases can always survive drones. Usually size 2 as well (one doctor, one worker). For real ICSing with the PTS project, you may want to send along 1 or 2 supply crawlers with the colony pods: Disband the first crawler to rush a rec commons and rehome the second crawler to work minerals while starting another CP.

I always forget Nerve Stapling and Pun Spheres! I'm making a note to use them in my current Believers game.

One question for Googlie: You really allocate 10% psych right from the beginning? 10% doesn't usually do anything for tiny bases sans decent specialists/facilities in my experience. But I do often see players running 10 or 20% in PBems. What am I missing?

[binTravkin]

One question for Googlie: You really allocate 10% psych right from the beginning? 10% doesn't usually do anything for tiny bases sans decent specialists/facilities in my experience. But I do often see players running 10 or 20% in PBems. What am I missing?

That was confusing to me too - up to IA one can't even get to 20 energy per base (10% of which would be 2 which is enough to quell one normal drone or make one worker into a talent)

[Chaunk]

It's to do with inefficiency. For most factions a 30:10:60 split (Econ/psych/tech) will give better tech results than 30:0:70 because of the lower amount lost to inefficiency. Of course, check your lab outputs etc, and it works to a lesser effect with CyCon and Gaia due to their effic advantages, but definatly something worth bearing in mind.

Also, I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that psych is limited to 2*pop USED per base. So although you could set psych to 100% if you wished, much of that would likely be wasted. E.G. A size 7 base can only use 14 points of psych, even if producing 90. The extra 76 points are wasted.

This means that once "Super drones" (double drones, drones that take 4 psych to become citizens) start appearing, it's impossible to achieve a GA without extra facilities/faction bonuses that give talents. Thats why the HGP is so very important for Morgan and the CyCon to achieve GA pop booming.