Get all tech on Trans?

[dnzrx]

I recently won a game on Transcendent Level (FINALLY!)

But I did not get all of the techs before the end of the game (I only have like 7 turns before game over due to time limit when I won that game through Transcendence.)

Did anyone did managed to get all of the techs before game ends?

[GooglyBoogly]

Yes, it isn't all that difficult if you are power playing especially via the creation of a super science city. However the game is usually effectively 'won' long before anyone gets close to completing all the techs.

[dnzrx]

Yes, it isn't all that difficult if you are power playing especially via the creation of a super science city. However the game is usually effectively 'won' long before anyone gets close to completing all the techs.

Super Science City?

How is that created?

[Petek]

Super Science City?

How is that created?

In one base, build all the lab-increasing facilities, such as Network Node, Research Hospital, and so on. In the same base, also build both the Supercollider and Theory of Everything. Finally, create an "energy park" (see below for a description) and crawl energy using crawlers that are homed to the base in question. A "Super Science City" (SSC, for short) can dramatically decrease your research time.

To create an energy park, build alternating rows of Solar Collectors and Echelon Mirrors in some location within your territory. Raise the land as high as possible and Drill to Aquifer to create rivers in the park.

That the basic idea. I'm sure that others will fill in the details of how this works.

HTH

Petek

[CEO Aaron]

There's one caveat if you're planning on building a SCC: It's possible to wind up wasting a lot of the labs you're generating if you're not careful. To see how this can happen, simply understand what happens to your research totals at the beginning of your turn:

Each base contributes its lab output to your research queue. When the queue is filled, all leftover research is discarded and your next base's labs are placed in the new, empty queue. So, using a simplified example, if your research queue requires 200 labs and your SCC is contributing 180 labs, your SCC can provide 90% of your research in a single turn. But suppose that all your other bases are processed first, and the research queue is filled to 150/200 labs before your SCC adds it contribution? The result is that only 50 of your 180 labs are put to use, and the others simply disappear.

So far as I know, the bases are parsed in a random order, so you can't really control when a particular base will be 'putting the capstone' on a particular research goal.

There's some other problems with the SCC+ energy park strategy, as well. In the post Planet Buster era, such a base has to be in the heart of your control area, or your energy park or the base it supports are liable to being uncerimoniously turned into a radioactive lake. Granted, in single player the AI is unlikely to be so discerning, but in multiplayer, you need to sacrifice a big chunk of land in what is likely to be the center of your empire. That's area that could instead support numerous bases, which provide not only energy but also unit production.

So what is the alternative if you want to crank your lab income into the stratosphere without building a wasteful and vulnerable super science city? The answer can be summed up in three words: 'Specialists and Satellites'.

Focus on nutrient production on the ground, have a LOT of high population bases, and launch tons of mineral, energy and nutrient satellites. Use crawlers to collect the nutrients, and put your citizens to work as science-focused specialists. Your tech rate will be just as dominating as with the energy park strategy, but your investment is more diffuse, and therefore harder to destroy. Your resources go into more base facilities and less crawler production and terraforming, but base facilities are cheaper to rush than crawlers, and terraforming cannot be rushed, you can only make (and support) more crawlers.

[dnzrx]

I did build every lab facility at all of the bases (and I do have the maximum amount of cities under the bureaucracy limit)

But even with that, I won't make it in time!

[CEO Aaron]

I do have the maximum amount of cities under the bureaucracy limit

THAT is your problem. SCREW the bureaucracy limit. Go to double the bureaucracy limit, triple the limit, or MORE. Use police, rec commons and holo theaters (or preferrably, the virtual world) to keep your working drones from rioting, and all your specialists don't matter, because they can never be drones.

There is literally no problem in SMAX that can't bn solved by founding more bases.

[BlackCat]

Check energy settings and go for max lab output just keeping your energy on plus.

Yeah, energy is good for hurrying, but if you don't have anything that needs hurrying, you should use it on research. Honestly, all you need is some 20 and not loosing any.

That said, when the two forest techs are available (and you have the a fungus pop or two (two is best)), it makes sense to stockpile energy to hurry those facilities - after that, return to maximize research.


After being able to get all techs, your next challenge should be to get all secret projects - that's way more fun and yes, i'm talking trancend level

[Ell_man]

So far as I know, the bases are parsed in a random order, so you can't really control when a particular base will be 'putting the capstone' on a particular research goal.

I believe the bases are processed in reverse order of their founding date. For example, the base you have founded most recently is processed first. This is the same as in civ2, since much of SMAC was programmed the same as civ2. To see the order of the bases you've founded simply look at the f4 screen. The first bases you have founded are at the top, the most recent bases are at the bottom.

From Solo's Early Landing Guide: chapter 2.1.5

"at the beginning of each turn when the game processes cities, it does so in order from last to first"
~~~

To the original poster, can you post some of your save games so we can see how you play? I think we would be able to give you the best advice then

[vyeh]

Bases are processed in the same order as they appear in the base operations screen. You can see this if you are watching all builds (units and facilities).

[MariOne]

in F2 screen, bottomleft corner, you see the bases list with their actual tech pts contribution, both nominal and (all bonuses applied) in parentheses (...or viceversa...)

the list is in the same order as the default order in F4
as vyeh pointed out, during the upkeep all builds proceed in that order, and we can reckon that also the techpoints from each base go into the heap in the same order

I didn't delve into that, but when I tried to foresee the potential waste of points remainder for a base, it more or less went as I had predicted, with the new tech splash screen appearing after the expected base
As my SSC is usually the HQ, I sometimes happened to "reduce" the lab rate in one turn to avoid wasting a few hundred points albeit sacrificing the total (i.e. the carryover going into the new tech in that turn)

RE what the wise CEO advised:
despite every player will tell you that you'd better use a colony pod for a new base, you'll eventually:

- run out of land, and raising new land will take you long time
- realise that seabases cost more to produce and develop
- have existing bases so packed up and developed, that cramming new ones in between is not practical
- reach the Hab Dome limit, and SuperTensileSolids are dozens of turns away

so that you might consider to add a pod to a base in order to increase its population, instead of using it to found a new one

if you keep a base in Booming and with a +2 nuts, you can make it crank a pod per turn, at constant population
you can use some bases as pod farms, or you can spend a few turns, say 10 or 12, to accumulate the needed pods in each base ofr its own use

you can then easily grow your bases beyond 16 (it take as granted you built Ascetic Virtues)
Even considering a single base on its own, I think it's worht to invest 30 rows minerals in 10 turns to jump it up from 16 to 26, rather than to send your pods at the far fringes of your territory to start 10 new bases from scratch.
Of course in the long run 10 new bases would develop to a much bigger population.
But the existing base would have all the facilities already in place and effective, and the 10 pods would become all new high-yielding specialists from their get-go.
Usually at that stage you should have no problems to provide the nutrients needed for a 25+ pop base, with a few condensers and enrichers to complement your Hybrid Forests (...but don't forego for that Boreholes wherever applicable)

Most dramatic would be to put your SSC-HQ neighbours in a joint effort to boost it first, up to 20 or 30 pop or more, as soon as you can support it.

Beware:
it's years I haven't played a PBEM here, but IIRC they have agreed to set rules that forbid adding pods to bases beyond hab limits.
But it's just a self-imposed limitation someone agreed upon, it's not against the rules of the game

so, spread horizontally, but don't forget to raise vertically too, for maximum growth

[CEO Aaron]

RE what the wise CEO advised:
despite every player will tell you that you'd better use a colony pod for a new base, you'll eventually:

- run out of land, and raising new land will take you long time
- realise that seabases cost more to produce and develop
- have existing bases so packed up and developed, that cramming new ones in between is not practical
- reach the Hab Dome limit, and SuperTensileSolids are dozens of turns away

I realize these are personal decisions, but I view pod booming past hab limits as an exploit, and in any case, my point about your SCC being vulnerable to planetbuster antics applies just as much to a high population base as it does to one fed by an energy park.

Yes, land use will constrain your base construction, but so will building an energy park. Parks are a single player artifice used against the feeble AI for producing absurdly fast transcend times, nothing more. Try them in multiplayer and your opponents will point out their shortcomings very quickly.

[BlackCat]

Hrmpf, SSC's, energy parks, cranking up a gazillion power/energy/min sattelites is quite interesting points, but the real problem is to get to the techs that allow that. To do that, only expansion helps aided by reasonable terraforming.

[MariOne]

I realize these are personal decisions, but I view pod booming past hab limits as an exploit.

of course, I just wanted to offer dnzrx a possible option, I correctly reported that different views existed

IIRC I discussed here pod booming past hab limits with Misotu a few years ago

As you said, it's a matter of personal decisions.
"bug vs. feature", as usual

to summarize it very briefly (NOT to rekindle the discussion), the "pro" argument was that the game DOES allow you to have a base beyond your hab limits
(and I'm not talking about scrapping a hab facility you can build, I really mean a population beyond the limit allowed by your current tech)
- thanks to a Creche Event
- should you receive or conquer a base from a faction having higher limits than yours

so, the fact that you can't grow via nutrients or pop booming a base past hab limits, but you can *have* a base past those limits, made us infer that if we could find out a working alternate method to get what we can have anyway, that was not an exploit of the rules ot the spirit of the game

at least, I succeeded in convincing Misotu to change her mind and accept it, at the time

[vyeh]

I have no difficulty getting all techs before the time limit. Generally, all I do is continue to expand (after awhile, it doesn't matter how many bases you have -- once every citizen is a drone on the unmodified line you can't get any more drones) and use garrisons and drone control facilities. Besides facilities that enhance research like network nodes, advanced specialists can really boost research rates If you can get paradigm efficiency, you can move the social engineering slider to crank up research.

I also save alien artifacts that I recover early in the game to cash in for techs later. Don't overlook getting techs by trade and by theft.