ACDG6: Operations

[vyeh]

We deliberately allowed Mendel Institute to go into riots, so we would have two workers on monoliths. If we had turned one of the workers into a doctor at the end of last year, the base wouldn't grow.

Now that it has grown, we will turn the third citizen into a doctor.

Illuminatus is building a colony pod. We plan to establish a base on the river four squares north of Illuminatus and plant a forest on the nearby nutrient bonus. This base will increase our territory.

[Hydro]

Your order looks good to me. If we can grab the SPs without cashing the artifact all the better. If we can utilize crawlers in the SP race then that is better.

Doesn't rushing SPs cost 4 energy per mineral? Unless we have very expensive facilities (reserach hospitals, for instance) we can't really use the facility-rush-for-2-mins rush trick to reduce energy cost.

[vyeh]

We do have research hospital!

This is my suggestion:

(1) We build supply crawlers and use them to crawl minerals until we are ready to cash them in (we can even move them and harvest minerals at the end of a move, so a crawler can get close to the target city while still harvesting minerals).

(2) We buy minerals after we cash in one crawler (so we are over 10 minerals). The sequence would be: switch to secret project, cash in one crawler, switch to research hospital, buy some minerals, cash in the other crawlers.

Another way (probably slightly better):

(3) Hurry crawlers (switch to facility, buy minerals, switch to crawler). Then the crawlers have some extra turns to produce minerals and to get to the target base.

Crawlers are also useful for prototyping and because of SMAniaC, they could be used to help build facilities and expensive units (more expensive than the crawler) by switching the base to a secret project, cashing in a crawler and then switching the base to a facility.

[Mart]

(1) We build supply crawlers and use them to crawl minerals until we are ready to cash them in (we can even move them and harvest minerals at the end of a move, so a crawler can get close to the target city while still harvesting minerals).
...

That is best use of crawlers that are planned for SP. The minerals used to get them can bring more resources and not be "frozen" in accumulating expensive SP for many turns.

The second trick with switching to facility and getting a mineral for 2 EC is a great idea, if we can do it within our rule set, that's the way to go. The benefit over crawlers would be that crawlers might be exposed to mindworm attacks while traveling to SP base, and we would loose these 3 rows of minerals.

And while we are at buying minerals, I do not want to be obtrusive, but that's a matter of of our faction. Please consider again changing society options:
- We now trade technologies quite often, so we acquire more techs not through our own research. We might afford slowing down research to rip benefits of increased industry.
- We are at +1 industry, going to +2 industry will give us lowering mineral row from 9 to 8. This is 11.1% difference. This applies both to accumulated minerals and to cost of hurrying. So if for example our total minerals in all bases are 45, that is 45/9 = 5 full rows per turn. Going to +2 industry, 45/8 = 5.625 rows of minerals. For row 8 in length, 0.625 is 10EC (8*2EC*0.625). And let us say we also spend 50 EC for rushing, so we get 25 minerals.
25/9 = 2.78
25/8 = 3.125
Difference 0.345, (*8*2EC) = 5.52 EC gain.
I'm not sure we can hurry each turn for 50EC, bu with a lot of trades recently we may be close to it. Also 45 minerals is something maybe in near turns, but that's a guess for average in turns to come.
Total gain, I estimate maybe 12 to 15.52 EC per turn.

Consider, if diverting temporarily some research points and some income due to switching to plutocrat alone without private/protect, would be worth this additional 12 to 15 EC per turn in production.
We might get more SPs sooner out of these 6 available.

This society setting would be for some time only, as long as we would consider increased industry beneficial. Then we would go for +2 economy and industry 0. Building at 0 industry is quite expensive.

[Mart]

Okay. Rejuvenation tanks first.

...

rejuvenation tanks (HGP)
weather paradigm
command nexus
planetary energy grid
vitro fertilization center (PTS)
polymorphic def system (CDF)
echelon mirror park (ME)

This looks good. Weather Paradigm looks very beneficial at this moment, as we can pop boom and there can be a lot of new workers requiring terraformed terrain.

Some solution to prevent another faction to grab WP is to build Rej.Tanks and WP at the same time. We would need appropriate number of crawlers gathered in vicinity of 2 bases. Can we do it within 10 turns? I believe so. Both SP need 20 rows. 6 crawlers give 18, plus some mineral overflow from previous build (like crawler hurried to full), and present mineral accumulation, plus remaining minerals purchased maybe, we would get remaining 2 rows. So 12 crawlers would be sufficient. We have now 6 bases making crawlers. Genesis is kinda poor on that, but while building the second crawler they would have like +2 minerals/turn from the first crawler. We would need to hurry appropriately. Possible, cause we have over 200 EC now.
I would propose Mutatio and Cytosino for building these 2 SPs.

[Mart]

Also, maybe Phenotypi and the new soon to be established base on SE coast could get 2 more crawlers, for safety, Genesis may have a problem to get 2 crawlers in 10 turns, or actually 9. And this is if Cycon does not hurry...

[vyeh]

We currently have 227 credits.

I think the only tech left to sell or trade is military doctrine to the Ghost. I have been reluctant to give the Ghost perimeter defense.

We've gone to everyone except the Cult, with whom we are at vendetta.

We've stolen every tech the Templar had. The last contact we had with them they threatened us and hung up.

We've gone back to the Angels, Consciousness, Atlanteans and Ghost several times in the past few years.

If you'd like, we could try the Cult again; however, we should decide what techs we're willing to sell or trade.

Because we've done a lot of trading recently, the opportunity to sell tech or trade tech is minimal until we acquire more tech either through research or stealing. Even then, we'd have to get a tech that some faction doesn't have and wants.

I suppose we could put together a strong raiding force and go after the Cult (we'd need some units to escort the probe teams and several probe teams on the assumption that the Cult might have probe defenders).

Until we acquire more tech, the most we can spend is the sum of 187 (what we have), 25 (what Delan will probably pay for military doctrine) and our income.

This is what our income and tech rate look under different combinations of technocrat v. plutocrat and planned v. private/protectionist.

We're running unitary democracy/anthropocentric

Currently technocrat/planned:

5 credits net income
14 turns tech breakthrough

If we switch to plutocrat/planned

1 credits net income
18 turns breakthrough

If we switch to technocrat/private/protectionist

16 credits net income
10 turns breakthrough

If we switch to plutocrat/private/protectionist (preferably over 2 turns to save 135 - 2 * 40 = 55 credits)

19 credits net income
11 turns breakthrough

So the difference between plutocrat/planned and plutocrat/private/protectionist is

18 credits net income
7 turns breakthrough

The extra 21 credits can buy 10.25 minerals, which is more than 20% of the 45 minerals per year. This balances out the loss of the 20% reduction in industry.

And the almost 50% gain in research rate definitely makes plutocrat/private/protectionist superior to plutocrat/planned.

Note that only units and facilities completed under plutocrat/planned take advantage of the +2. For instance, suppose you have a supply crawler begun under plutocrat/planned and the base is producing 3 minerals per year. Under +2, supply crawler cost 24 minerals. If after 7 turns (21 minerals), we switch to plutocrat/private/protectionist, then the supply crawler will cost 30 minerals and will require another 3 turns to complete.

So if we're going to have to leave plutocrat/planned for plutocrat/private/protectionist because we no longer can sell tech, then we can't count rows accumulated under plutocrat/planned unless the unit or facility was actually produced before we left plutocrat/planned.

I don't see us as temporarily diverting some research points. These research points are permanently lost. We are currently losing energy because of the energy restriction.

Although we can pop boom, we can't do so without building hologram theatres we can't afford to maintain or making a psych allocation that will reduce our net income below zero.

Both rejuvenation tanks and weather paradigm are 20 rows. It will take Consciousness 10 turns to accumulate the 20 rows. There is no need to delay building rejuvenation tanks as long as we can build the weather paradigm within 10 turns.

We have enough to build two secret projects within 10 years. All our bases together are producing 45 minerals per year. We have the ogre and alien artifact that would contribute 100 minerals. Once we switch to plutocrat/private/protectionist, we can hurry 10 minerals per turn.

Consciousness only has 26 credits and a net income of 9 credits per year. Their ability to hurry is very limited.

In 2144, we can establish 2 bases. We have enough credits to build recreation commons for them and to shift to plutocrat/private/protectionist over two turns.

I think it would be better that the 2 bases grow to size 2 before we leave the pop boom, so going to private/protectionist from planned would occur in 2145.

What we could do is go to plutocrat in 2144 and then to private/protectionist in 2145.

This would result in saving 8 minerals in hurrying the recreation commons and 3 minerals in hurrying 2 formers for a savings of 22 credits.

However we would lose 4 credits in income and 6 labs.

So the net would be trading 6 labs for 18 credits.

We have the credits in our treasury and once we go to private/protectionist in 2145, we would have around 19 credits income.

Please note that because we would have minimal income under plutocracy, once we go to plutocracy, we have to make sure we have 40 credits to switch to private/protectionist or else we could be stuck in plutocracy/planned for awhile.

Hydro, do you want to give up 6 labs for 18 credits?

[Hydro]

I don't have a strong opinion. That said, I think there is Planet-wide tech parity and it will take any faction quite a while to pull ahead. If that is true then we have some time to get our own development in order, and to me that means snagging SPs. HGP is good, and WP would be great. Mini pop booms are good, so long as we husband our resources appropriately.

Note that because we've sold most of our tech that the other factions will then move to other SPs we like, such as CN or Energy Grid. So unless the AIs use their mins for building other stuff we're sure to lose other SPs. I'd guess CN will go to the AI, but we might have a shot at Energy Grid.

[vyeh]

We established Ribisomi and Darwin.

Current (2144) power graph:


If you take a look at the Delan, he has three techs we don't and we have one tech he doesn't. The key is research rates.

We now have breakthroughs every 12 years. He has breakthroughs every 8 years.

The key is that Delan will have zero point energy in 2 years. At that point, the tidal harnesses that have only been producing 2 energy will produce 3.

He will get another 11 energy. Under his present social model and allocation, that is another 4 labs, which will boost his current rate by 20%.

We can snag secret projects without getting further behind in the tech race.

Because of that, I don't think we should risk losing more ground tech wise for 20 or so credits. If the credits are so important, we should sell military doctrine (perimeter defense) to the Ghost (who are building a laser squad at Virtual Ocean).

At this point, I think we have to get secret projects.

I'm pretty sure we can beat the Consciousness to rejuvenation tanks and weather paradigm.

If we get the planetary energy grid with the free energy banks, that's good.

However, the vitro fertilization center (PTS), which gives one less drone for bases under 3 is almost as good (if a doctor becomes a worker and generates nutrients, minerals and energy, that is better than simply increasing base economy by 50%). The only reason not to prefer vitro fertilization center in the long run is that it only suppresses the drone for bases under 3.

[vyeh]

Roze started the planetary energy grid. We've got 27 years to beat her.

Current (2145) power graph:


This year we switch to private/protectionist; the following year to plutocrat.

[vyeh]

We started a thermal borehole on the bonus energy river south east of Darwin. It is the only energy bonus that does not have any lower elevation squares next to it and hence the only energy bonus on which we can contruct a thermal borehole. Eventually, we'll have 3 other formers (Darwin, Cytosino and Faralia) assisting.

GPS Lucky has done it again. We will have a radar rover supply worth 143 minerals (if we cash it in before switching to plutocracy). Add 55 minerals from the ogre and we would be only 2 minerals short of the 200 minerals we need at private/protectionist/plutocrat for the rejuvenation tanks.

We went ahead and purchased enough minerals to complete the supply crawler at Cytosino, so we minimize the waste in minerals.

[Hydro]

Totally cool! Lucky is certainly an earned moniker!

Good job micro-managing the pod pops.

[vyeh]

Current (2146) power graph:

[Mart]

Good thing with radar rover supply. With Rejuvenation tanks the additional doctor in many bases will be able to become a worker.

I wonder if going ahead and pop booming to size 5 with some psych allocation for time of growth would be worth doing. If there is enough food, bases could start having specialists.

[Hydro]

If we allocate psych to drive growth then we'll be locked into that, won't we? If we watched down psych then there may be riots and starvation. But I do think it is worth looking in to.

HGP will allow us to grow or change doctors to workers, which is always a good thing.

I'd suggest getting HGP built now so we can get the turn advantage ASAP. The Cyborgs could change to ME (Echelon Mirror), and if so that's OK. Or they could cash out some mins for other military units or facilities - and that's OK too. In any case it is a no lose for us since we can cash the ogre and allocate crawlers and beat them to WP.