Morganite Insight

[Senethro]

Confirm/deny: I thought mind worms didn't attack bases at full strength until 2180?

Is it difficulty level dependant?

[Chaos Theory]

On transcend, mind worms start attacking bases at full strength on 2150. It might be dependent on the difficulty, but I wouldn't know.

[Commy]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Any unit with armor greater than 1, or a weapon is considered a combat unit. Synthmetal probe teams combined with sensors and inherent +25% base defense are good defense against lasers (which are the same tech level), and marginal defense against impact weapons (which are the same tech level as plasma steel).

So then, does that mean formers with armor are considered combat units? Then why can't they use monoliths?

[Chaos Theory]

Well, they defend as combat units. They still can't attack or do other things units with weapons can, such as take bases or (except for formers) destroy terrain improvements.

[Commy]

The message below was posted in a different thread, I think Vel made a mistake of which thread, and I think Velocyrix intended it to be put here...so this was written by Vel, as I don't have such wisdom...


"Claims that an armoured probe gets an upper hand in a probe duel can sometimes turn up false in a very painful way...

It's been a LONG time since I ran any experiments along those lines, BUT....the line of thinking is still with me and goes like this:

Armored units, if they survive combat, get morale upgrades. All other factors being equal (ie., two probes duking it out), the one with the higher morale will typically carry the day, thus: An armored probe who has a few victories under his belt will be of higher morale, and thus, more capable in a probe v probe duel than an un-armored, and thus, un-morale-upgraded version.

Take it with a grain of salt....like I said, it's been so long that I couldn't swear to it, but the above, or something very like it, was almost surely my line of thought.

-=Vel=-
(now back to your regularly scheduled programming)"

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Cataphract887




dosnt that last statement basicly say ''armoured probes are not needed at my bases because no units can approach

No need to be confused. I don't assume that my detection will be perfect and I would hate for a rover to get offloaded from a ship or something, move up a river and take my empty base with only 1/3 of a movement point. So I tend to put stuff in my bases.

The question is what. Since I like to defend against probe attacks and nothing else can do that, you almost need a probe in many bases anyway. Now if I am ICSing with Morgan, I probably won't put a probe in every base but most need something.

The question then is what do you have for "defense". My answer is a few attack rovers. If you can get their morale up, they can do a pretty good job of killing worms even under FM and there is the energy benefit of winning as an attacker rather than a defender.

The other thing I do is upgrade SOME of my probes with armour when a base is threatened. Note that these are likely 2 row infantry probes to start. I never saw the sense of putting a sentinal in there. The armoured probe will defend just as well and cost less support. I only upgrade where I see the need since why build or upgrade when it makes no sense .The main units I want to be supporting are attack rovers and maybe a ship or two. The probes might even steal a key unit from the enemy and use it against them

the exception is a key base undergoing heavy attack. The "one dies and the whole stack dies" effect means you NEED adequate conventional units and the probes are there for probe defense only and armouring them has no benefit

[Commy]

Which brings me to ask a question...do damaged units cost less when mind-controlled?

I don't think they do...but if they do, perhaps you could do a self-destruct, then cheapily mind-control units...

Also remember, there is one advantage to unit stacks...no mind-controlling...

[dacole]

Nice! Are you planning to do this with the other factions and then decide which one of the factions is most powerful (I expect it will be one of the smacx factions...)?

[binTravkin]

I expect it will be one of the smacx factions

Actually I've always thought that Uni is definitely the most powerful and since I first played SMACX I've never had an event which would change my thoughts.
And Im not so stubborn as you think..

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Commy

So then, does that mean formers with armor are considered combat units? Then why can't they use monoliths?

Armored units do not suffer the "non-combat penalty". Only units which have a weapon can upgrade at monoliths, and only those which have certain chassis types.

[dacole]

Really? I've found that played by people of equal skill the hive always wins out against the university, and the consciousness as a souped up university has always seemed way more powerful to me, and who ever said you were stubborn?

[binTravkin]

I've found that played by people of equal skill the hive always wins out against the university

Well, probably the Uni player was not at that "equal skill"..

And consciouness is actually one of the worst factions IMO.
They are unable to both popboom and ICS, their only viable strategy is +4 EFFIC and pouring everything in Econ (which makes their RES bonus irrelevant) and stealing things away by probes or conquering bases (TECHSTEAL).

And I admitted stubbornity because I said I've never changed my thoughts about Uni.

Hive is powerful, yes I know some people who'd beat the heck out of Uni or any other faction while running Hive, but that's because of their superior knowledge of Hive strengths/weaknesses and strategies not because Uni is weaker.

If Uni manages to get the early VW+PTS combo, it's almost unstoppable on equal skill levels.
It also requires ICSing.

IMHO if Uni player is unable to grab them both he's either weak in Uni himself or there's someone out there who's significantly better in skill with his faction.
And IMHO if the Uni player after getting that huge combo does not go away ICSing, he has wasted some 600 minerals and doomed himself (if there's equal skill Hive player around).

It's simply too easy to win if you can double your base count each 3-5turns (which is the case when you have 2-3 citizens at each base) and each base has 3 pop and never has any drones (unless pacifism).

You can easily cath up with Hive's numerous bases that way with the "little" difference that your bases have 3 times more pop, 2 times faster production, 5-8times better research output and econ is also incomparable.