Making shell units with clean reactor...

[Commy]

Many players, it appears, prefer using energy over minerals...after all, energy is more flexible and does allow faster production.

Somewhere the idea of shell units came about, where you make a cheap unit (1-1-1) in one turn (with two boreholes, this is easy) and then use energy to upgrade it to a superior unit.

When I first saw this idea, I thougt it was pretty cool, so I tried it out...It worked pretty good, but I soon got tired of supporting all these shell units.

So, I starting building all my shell units with clean reactor. They were more expensive, but they didn't require any support, so I could build 10 of them in a city, and have them hang around for 40 turns until I needed to actually upgrade them.

I found many advantages, but the biggest was the flexibility. Since you could wait until the opponent was about to attack you, you could see what units he had, and upgrade your shell units to counter the attack...the advantage is the fact that you don't have to support a well balanced army with many units...

I was just wondering if others thought there might be some value to this strategy, or if the cost of clean reactors or other things makes it too innefficient or unneccesary...

[BlackCat]

You know that you are spekaing herecy ? Next time you even will put armour on your air units !!!

Actually, it sounds sensible if you are in a waiting posititon. You build without loss, and can be naughty in short time.

Will probably even reduce your overall power since 1-1-1 clean probably doesn't count as high as anything higher.

[Kataphraktoi]

I found many advantages, but the biggest was the flexibility. Since you could wait until the opponent was about to attack you, you could see what units he had, and upgrade your shell units to counter the attack...the advantage is the fact that you don't have to support a well balanced army with many units...

Assuming you see the enemy. Your force of units could be swiftly destroyed on the ground. 2-3 choppers could take out that stack of ten, or they could be probed even, and upgraded to defend his new base.

Also consider 1-1-1 can only be upgraded to defensive roles, due to their poor speed. Even with dense base placement, they can only attack at least 1\3 or 2\3 of their strength. This still leaves you with no offense(if thats what your depending on) to deal with the invaders,who have presumably taken a city and filled it with choppers,etc. so when he takes your bases,just what is your stack of ten shells going to do to reverse it?

Why would you spend 2 mineral rows on a unit that just sits there? you could make some choppers, boats, former, etc etc. assuming your enemy has done so, he may be able to build an even bigger force in comparison, by way of investing that time\effort in econ. or, you could invest that time into making radar trawlers and detecting enemy attacks. i would say it is easier to fight the enemy on the aproaches then in your core bases.

i can see making 1-1-1 shell units, but not clean, and certainly not to just stockpile around the place-UNLESS i had enough bases and industry to crank out some. i think that would be the last thing i would make if i knew an enemy was attacking

[#endgame]

Suppose you have a base set up to crank out your 2 row shells: 20 mins/turn. If you can get that up to 30 minerals (Since you have clean reactors, you have 1 of the prerequisites for genejacks, for example), you can produce 3 row (give or take industry SE bonus) 1-1-2 trained shell rovers and upgrade them to 1e-1-2 empath/clean for 50 credits, to take them worming rather than leave them idle.

Also, while that flexibility is attractive, and while these units can be upgraded offensively, if they attack and fill up your base with choppers/rovers/what have you, and you spend a turn upgrading your units offensively, then they will be in range to take them out with their attack force before you can use them. I personally see shells as more of a way to make low mineral bases produce something useful in a reasonable amount of time. If you had excellent early warning, they'd be pretty good to tailor to your opponents attack force.

Just my 2e.c.

[Commy]

This is why not all your units are shell units...in theory, you could have the same size military you normally do, with extra "clean shell units"...

For example, when I play with this, I have many speeders with high weapon values, as well as units with AAA tracking...I also tend to have lots of interceptors, and depending on SE, a few bombers as well...

These clean shell units are more or less an addition to your army...they don't replace any of your units, rather, they are a very flexible reserve...

Of course there are weaknesses of stockpiling shell units, but that's why you maintain your original (or slightly smaller military)...the advantage of clean shell units is that it allows you to mount a secondary defense very, very quickly...there have been games where I've had 2-3 times more of these shell units than actual military units...theoretically speaking, I could order my entire standing to attack an enemy, and upgrade half my shell units (as offensive units are depleted or conquer new bases to support from) to retain the same defense I originally had...

[Kirov]

I wouldn't call this strategy flexible, as infantry units are never flexible. They have very specific applications, like garrison, marine attacks, drop units... I'd rather have one jet with weapon 2 or 4 for scouting purposes, than 3 clean shells. Even clean rovers would be better.

Flexibility means above all mobility and information. Patrol your borders with fast units, that can often buy you enough time to prepare yourself.

[Flubber]

I don't usually like the idea of building military to sit around. Instead of 10 of these I would build 5 more formers and 5 more crawlers. I'd rather increase my industrial capacity than to have idle military.

But I suspect I use "clean" less than many people. I usually end up with it on all my formers in safer places and maybe of a clean garrison. Most of my front-line military will not be clean since I generally expect them to die before I could recoup the additional cost of clean

[Kataphraktoi]

I wouldn't call this strategy flexible, as infantry units are never flexible. They have very specific applications, like garrison, marine attacks, drop units... I'd rather have one jet with weapon 2 or 4 for scouting purposes, than 3 clean shells. Even clean rovers would be better.

Elite morale infantry are quite flexable, if you are blessed enough to have them. Likewise with orbital drop or on the first turn of a drop attack,when they can be deployed against bases. Also, drop-AAA are quite usefull i have noticed. they are buggers to go up against,esspecially when the other guy has CBA,takes a base, and moves some in. practicly impossible to easily root out if not prepared

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi


Elite morale infantry are quite flexable, if you are blessed enough to have them. Likewise with orbital drop or on the first turn of a drop attack,when they can be deployed against bases. Also, drop-AAA are quite usefull i have noticed. they are buggers to go up against,esspecially when the other guy has CBA,takes a base, and moves some in. practicly impossible to easily root out if not prepared

yup and thats the favorite strat of a chop-drop attack.

I still don't like the clean shell idea since that AA dropper can't be clean when you upgrade him.

I have never been in a position where there wasn't something else I could build that I would find more useful than clean infantry.

[Leon Trotsky]

Originally posted by Flubber
I have never been in a position where there wasn't something else I could build that I would find more useful than clean infantry.

I'd rather build crawlers and have them gather resources at the Great Dunes.

[Commy]

Originally posted by Kirov
I wouldn't call this strategy flexible, as infantry units are never flexible. They have very specific applications, like garrison, marine attacks, drop units... I'd rather have one jet with weapon 2 or 4 for scouting purposes, than 3 clean shells. Even clean rovers would be better.

Flexibility means above all mobility and information. Patrol your borders with fast units, that can often buy you enough time to prepare yourself.

You are assuming that I only build clean 1-1-1 units...this is not true...

If I were using crawlers (and I don't) and were doing 1 square base spacing, most of my bases would be producing around 20 minerals (two boreholes, base square, and perhaps a few crawlers working forests if there were any)...with 20 minerals you can very easily create a shell unit of just about any sort with fusion reactors in 2 turns or less...copters, speeders, cruisers, it could be any chassis...you don't ALWAYS have to have clean reactors, but a good number of them is the main idea...

If an opponent of mine had 100 military units, and 300 clean shell units in reserve, and the opponent had an average income ranging in the thousands of energy credits, I'd be a fool to attack with even a 400 or 500 unit military (this probably could apply up to 800, given the advantage a defender has), reason being that my opponent really has 400 units...however, he never actually had to build 400 authentic military units...

I think a lot of people look at the cost of clean reactors and say they aren't worth it because the unit doesn't last long enough to make up for the cost...IIRC it costs 20 extra minerals to build the unit with clean reactor...if the unit lasts 50 turns, and you have one base supporting 20 of these units, that's a pretty good bargain...it must be taken into consideration that a clean shell military can be 3-4 times larger than another "normal" military but with the same support...peace through strength applies here real nicely...

[Commy]

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky


I'd rather build crawlers and have them gather resources at the Great Dunes.

You can only have one crawler per square...on the other hand, there is absolutely no limit to your military capacity except the amount of time you have to build your military...as much as I hear about how successful everyone is with crawlers, I can't imagine that by the late game (or rather, mid-game), every square isn't being worked by a crawler...eventually crawlers become pointless because you have used all your terrain (unless you are doing upgrade tricks, and even then)...this is when a military is needed to expand your horrizons...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Commy


You can only have one crawler per square

True but you can always start expanding your crawler field outward

Originally posted by Commy


on the other hand, there is absolutely no limit to your military capacity except the amount of time you have to build your military...as much as I hear about how successful everyone is with crawlers, I can't imagine that by the late game (or rather, mid-game), every square isn't being worked by a crawler...eventually crawlers become pointless because you have used all your terrain (unless you are doing upgrade tricks, and even then)...this is when a military is needed to expand your horrizons...

Actually in a PBEM I find that you never get to that point where you have a crawler on every available tile. Even before you got anywhere near that level, you would have switched to infrastructure and military.

I'm not saying always build a crawler . . . What I am saying is that I would likely prefer a crawler over building a large group of clean scouts that I did not have a plan for.

If I am at the point where I have excess industrial capacity, well its clobbering time.Resources to burn mean its time to start hurting an opponent. But I'll be building/ upgrading to the weapons I want now and I'm not going to worry to much about clean. Quite frankly, the mineral to support a unit is usually a small price to pay to be able to place two abilities on the unit (Drop/AA is most popular , but drop, AA, SAM, radar, ECM, trance, empath and arty might find itself on a unit here and there)

Depending on the morale situation , my shells are most likely going to be trained but not clean

[CEO Aaron]

Meh, I make the units that I know are going to be there a long time clean: Formers and Garrisons. My I prefer to build up my active duty military when I know I'm going to use it and leave them with normal reactors. I used to be a clean fanatic, being a Morgan Player, but nowadays I'm pretty much in agreement with Flubber: Just go crawl some more minerals, and use my second enhancement slot for more military features.

What's more is that when in the midgame, my military buildup will wind up being scrapped for minerals somewhere down the road. I'll retain the units that have reached commando or higher, but everyone else goes toward newer better stuff, often infrastructure improvements in my conquered bases.

[Commy]

Originally posted by Flubber


Quite frankly, the mineral to support a unit is usually a small price to pay to be able to place two abilities on the unit (Drop/AA is most popular , but drop, AA, SAM, radar, ECM, trance, empath and arty might find itself on a unit here and there)

I think there is a misunderstanding...you don't build these clean shell units when you are at war...you build them BEFORE you go to war, and before you are ready to go clobber somebody...

When you upgrade this clean shell unit, you'd be a fool to keep the clean special ability for the reasons that you mentioned...my point is that you don't build clean shell units during war time, you prepare for war by building them so that the clean reactor becomes useful...1 mineral in support isn't that much when you are at war and units are being destroyed, obliterated, and the what not...but when you are storing as many as 10 shell units at a base during peace time, for a small base in 1 square ICS, this is a huge hit to industry...