Echelon Mirror Placement?

[bluetemplar]

Damn, when will you realise that soylent green is the future... (of the people).

Aside that, I think solar collectors ARE useful in the early game (especially for the Hive I think since they lack energy and get lots of terraformers):
The ideal tile would be (aside energy specials):
Rainy Rolling +1000m tile:
for only 6 turns of terraforming you get a 2-1-2 tile!

You can also do a farm+solar on a moist rolling +1000m tile for 10 turns if you don't happen to get a monolith/nutrient bonus in your base radius...

Otherwise I think you would have a pretty unique conditions to get an echelon mirror useful pre energy restriction lifting...

Remember that a 2+ nutrient tile is crucial in a base radius to get some decent base growth... might as well use it to produce energy!

I've just tested, and forests don't get a +1 energy bonus under an Echelon Mirror.

EDIT: I wouldn't make a solar collector on a rocky square since it would cost 8 turns IIRC, you would anyway soon replace it by a mine for a new base to crawl and there is plenty of ways you could use terraformer time more efficienly... even cutting trees with formers for minerals should be more useful...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Am I the only one who thinks that solars are a waste of terraformer time outside of an energy park? I mean, sure, as an intellectual exercise, sure, but for actual gameplay, stick with forests, boreholes and condensor farms.

True Dat.

[Leon Trotsky]

I once played an OCC with my base atop Mount Planet (I luckily got it rolling) and placed condensors and echelon mirrors more or less this way:

EsCsE
sssss
CsBsC
sssss
EsCsE

(solar included farms, of course). Did that suck that much?

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by Kirov


Am I the only one who thinks that energy park are a waste of terraformer time? I can hardly imagine a PBEM so relaxed that you have time to build it and benefit from it, while in SPs, sure it can be fun, but then again, in SPs you can write your name with magtubes throughout the whole map and keep conquering AIs in the meantime.

Kirov, you and I are in full and harmonious agreement.

[Sikander]

I typically rarely build solars, but I have done so in the early game when my faction was really starved for energy. Food and minerals seem to be better investments most of the time once you have a few crucial technologies in hand.