ACDG6: Operations

[Mart]

Having fusion reactor, the cheap crawler design is on rover chassis, also 3 rows, the same as infantry. It's better compared to infantry though having 2 move points.

[Hydro]

Or if you want an expensive rover put it on a hover tank chassis. Then it gets 3 moves.

[Mart]

we have quite close to vertical power graph. I wonder will any AI surprise us yet?

[Hydro]

Our power graph is spiking - leaving the others in the dust.

I noted that the Cult is getting 1-5-2 from fungus. Why? That is more than a tad strange.

Also, it looks like the Ghosts are landing troops by the Templar, and the Templar are getting their units damaged. The Ghosts may beat us to them if we're not careful.

If we can upgrade the elite rover now that we've got fusion that would be helpful. 1-2+-1*2 with defense needs a bit of firepower. Of course, now that we're working on A10 that shouldn't be a problem.

And I see we got yet another Super Supply from a Unity resupply. Yikes - it is almost like an instant SP, and with a bit of luck we've managed to get almost all of them.

[vyeh]

Thanks for the info about rover supplies.

With infiltration, we shouldn't be surprised from any AI. The biggest threats are the Atlanteans and the Ghost. The Atlanteans have tech breakthroughs every 2 years. We got qasers and hovertanks from them for centauri genetics and know-how: sea power. I find it funny that we couldn't get applied plasma physics from them, but we can get the military tech that will allow us to clobber the cult, the templar and the ghost.

The Ghost have breakthoughs every 7 years. And they have a lot of production capabilities.

The question is whether we should stay in our current SE and enjoy +3 industry and a decent income and breakthroughs every 8 years, which puts us only ahead of the Templar and the Consciousness, both of whom have breakthroughs every 12 years, or if we should switch to private/protectionist and have our industry go down to +1, but get a huge income and breakthroughs every 6 years. We'd gain roughly 62 credits, but lose about 80 minerals per year.

Our next research goal is probability mechanics. Besides the Hunter Seeker Algorithm, this gives us probability sheath armor (D8). With (10)-8-7*2 cruisers, we can take out the Ghost quickly.

Remember the cult is a super AI. Maniac gave the cult extra minerals and energy from fungus.

My heart bleeds for the Templar.

We destroyed 2 Cult AI probes.

As Hydro noted, GPS Lucky found another materials pod. Late in the ACDG5 game, we were getting a lot of materials pods (our tech was sufficiently advanced that we were completing crawlers that could build a secret project by themselves).

With the Consciousness and the Angels 13 and 16 turns away from completing the supercollider, we should have no problem building both the virtual world and the supercollider.

With graviton theory and applied quantum mechanics, we built a scout hovertank (well it has radar even if it is a little overpowered -- qaser) , a battle hovertank (like the scout but no radar), an assault squad (best armor and best weapons) and an armored hovertank transport.

As soon as the new units can reach the front lines, we'll be able to finish the Cult.

I'm thinking we should send an amphibious qaser tank in an armored cruiser transport to pay a visit on the Templar.

We're building 3 cruiser probes to steal tech from the Templar and the small Cult bases on the coast.

We will use the transport foil, the scout qaser hovertank, the Mutatio scout and the colony pod at Mutatio to establish a scouting base at Mt. Planet.

There are several pods visible on the coast.

[Hydro]

Also, if we plan on building more bases (perhaps in the Uranium Flats) we can consider a rover colony pod. The cost goes from 21 mins to 28 mins, which is minor compared to doubling the speed. The Uranium Flats is very nice territory as most is rainy - lots of energy and good growth! A quick inspection didn't notice if we have CPs on the way or not (although I thought we had a few CPs built before PTS).

The quasar fusion hover tanks should make short work of the Cult, who's best defense is 1-2+-1*2. Let's be sure to capture MCC at their capital before we let them surrender. Then on to the nasty Templar.

BTW, a number of our bases have no defenders. That makes me nervous since they are adjacent to fungus and an Elite fungal tower, which spawns MWs.

NOTE - now that we are no longer Anthro, how about building an empath rover (1e-1-2*1) or two to take out the fungal tower in the Jungle and some fungicidal formers to rip out the fungus? We may need 2 rovers to take out the tower, but they are very cheap to build (no fusion needed) and we'll get lots of energy from killing the tower. Any empath rover survivors can repair and be put on transports to get pods, rove fungus for MW kills, or take out more towers. I've found empath rovers pay for themselves many times over.

Lastly, if we stay out of Anthro we may get more resources from Fungus (2-2-1), meaning we PLANT fungus as our Planet tech improves. This is a tough call since switching to Anthro (-3 Planet) then means you get no or reduced resources from fungus, negating a possible pop boom without conventional terraforming or food crawling. Considerations: empath (+2 Planet) helps negate the -3 Planet from Anthro, and if we're lucky enough to get the Manifold (+1 Planet) then we can do both - bonus!

[vyeh]

About rover colony pods. Because of PTS, we have to make sure we have enough nutrients before we establish them. So we have to send formers out and they might as well build roads.

I kind of dislike spending the extra row on a unit that will disappear. It might make more sense to build a hovertank transport for 4 rows and then the hovertank transport can be used to move formes.

Those bases are building scouts, which will be completed at the beginning of next year. There defenders were needed to either free up military units that were garrisoning Psi Consensus and Creatior or to free up escorts for colony pods.

Since we are no longer in Anthropocentric, as you noted we are now getting 2-2-1 from fungus (better than forests until we build tree farms and hybrid forests)! I moved a lot of workers onto fungus to prevent starvation and increase minerals. I find it hard to build special formers to rip out fungus so i can replace it with a forest!

Some comments on an empath rover (1e-1-2*1):

(1) an empath hovertank (1e-1-3*1) costs the same and I believe hovertanks don't have problems entering fungus.

(2) we could pay and additional 14 minerals (for a total of 35) and get 6r, which gives us a +25% bonus in psi combat and could be useful in a conventional attack.

[Hydro]

Speed is all about turn advantage, which is magnified if the target area for a colony pod (CP) is far from the base that is constructing the CP. I’d gladly trade 7 minerals (or 14 energy) for a few turns of extra production at a base – and the bonus to claim territory. In effect you’re trading 7 mins in spd 2 CP (vs spd 1 on an infantry) for more turns of production at the base since you get there faster – and in some cases, much faster. I consider that as an investment with a big payoff. In other games I’ve seen the advantage of putting a CP on an air frame (needle) or hovertank – it all depends on where the CP needs to go.

I’m not sure I see the value in a land transport, which cost minerals/production time and spends its time wandering back and forth. Plus there is the coordination issue (they both need to be at the same place at the same time), and the capacity of the land crawler is kind of wasted since at most you’ll need the CP and maybe a defender – and if you’re really focused a terraformer. Land transports are great when you’re at war since you want concentration of forces. When spamming CPs you don’t want or need the density.

Good idea on the hovertank and 6r.

The Uranium Flats is rainy so it shouldn’t be a problem to keep the base at size 3.

[vyeh]

Suppose we have three fungus squares. That is a total of 6-6-3 plus 2-1-2 for the base square. So we have 8-7-5. So 7 minerals and 5 energy.

It makes sense for a rover CP if it saves a turn.

[vyeh]

We have our new qaser hovertank, qaser infantry and hovertank transport.

Current (2162) power graph:

[vyeh]

We destroyed 2 Cult AI probes.

We stole know-how: air power from Mindworm Passages.

[vyeh]

Current (2163) power graph:

[vyeh]

I've been looking into how to organize an attack against the Ghost based primarily on amphibious qaser hovertanks. A hovertank on an armored transport has the following advantage over a quaser armored cruiser: it can attack up to three times. Furthermore, if the armored transport is carrying multiple hovertanks (the fusion cruiser version can carry 10 of them), we could have the transport move to several enemy bases and attack and occupy them all.

For the Ghost bases adjacent to land, we wouldn't even need the transports as the hovertanks could attack from adjacent land squares.

Currently the Ghost long-range missiles are in two bases, so those bases need to be knocked out immediately.

If we can knock out all but one base in the year the vendetta starts and threaten the last base, none of the Ghost combat ships will come into play.

An examination of the Ghost datalinks shows that there is a base on top of Mt. Planet. A look at the base screen allows us to see the terrain that is currently hidden from us.

[Hydro]

You're proposing the equivalent of a blitzkrieg. Fine with me.

Even if you take out the missiles the AI will build more. Be sure to set designated defenders in the sea bases, even if they are lowly scouts. The <3> transport will likely die when hit by a fusion conventional missile (defense 12 plus base defense bonus vs attack 24) when defending bases. Taking a few defenders on the transport may be a good idea, too. If we can get some 1-<3>-1*2 defenders all the better.

The only advantage of the attack cruiser is as an escort to the cruiser transport. The AI loves to whack transports in transit with missiles, or at least the SMAniaC AI does. Let the AA cruiser take the hit, which is very cost effective in saving an entire army. The cruiser can also attack, or if needed bombard a heavily defended base.

Speaking of heavily defended bases, a cheap (10)-1-1*2 artillery is nice to have on the transport. They can severely damage enemy ships, and bombard bases. Not that the amphib quasar hover tanks will have much difficulty taking out level 3 defenses.

[vyeh]

The missiles that the Ghost are building have psi attack. Where did you get attack 24? Conventional payload is supposed to be 6 according to the datalinks. For that matter, where did you get 12. If there is a designated defender on a transport, does that unit defend?

Currently, Ghost maximum defense is 2r.

If we can take out the Ghost in 1 turn, we don't have to worry about counterattacks by conventional missiles or by the Ghost naval units. In any event, we would knock out the missiles in the first strike. This would limit the damage caused by retaliation.