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Several years ago, I picked up SMAC. Actually, I bought it at about the same time I bought Civ III Complete and GalCiv. I played SMAC for a while, and (IIRC) even beat it at Transcend once. (Truth be told, I probably only beat it because I played as Yang and got a starting position on a river in the middle of the Monsoon Jungle.) I drifted off into C3C for a couple or three years, but decided to dust off my SMAC disc a couple of weeks ago. Man, oh man! I'd forgotten just how deep this rabbit hole goes. 
Having not played for several years, and never having been all that good with any faction but Yang, I decided to start at the lower levels again. I want to re-learn this game, so that I can play it competently with factions other than Yang. Somewhere along the way, I picked up Velociryx's strategy guide as a .txt file, (and I'm busy reformatting it for easier reading as I go), but I've still got some questions, and I'm hoping to get some answers here, while I work my way through Vel’s guide.
Let me also add that my playstyle (regardless of the game) has always been simple: I’m a warmonger. To paraphrase a post from another site, for which I would dearly love to be able to claim credit:
I’m a builder at heart.
I build bases, so that I can build units.
I build Network Nodes, so that I can learn to build better units.
I build Energy Banks, so that I can build units faster.
I build formers, so that I can build roads.
I build roads, so that I can move troops faster.
I build colony pods, so that I can build more troops.
I know that SMAC isn’t really a war game, and I’m trying to get in touch with my builder side, but it’s tough. Bear with me.
Early game/sliders/research – In the early game, Centauri Ecology seems very important. I seem to recall learning that beelining Industrial Automation is a good thing, for the crawlers. As I’ve been looking at it lately, I feel like I really need to get CE early so that I can build formers and unlock the Weather Paradigm. Do you guys just trade for CE? It seems to me that the return on investment in the Weather Paradigm is enormous!
Also, what do you do with the Economy/Psych/Labs sliders in the early game. I don’t like leaving them at 50-0-50 (perhaps a holdover from C3C), but I don’t really know what else to do with them. Do you adjust them early on?
Screenshots – How do you get a decent screenshot? I’ve tried time and again to get a screenshot by just hitting PrntScrn and pasting into MS-Paint, but the colors are funky.
Minerals and energy – I seem to recall someone (CEO Aaron, I think) telling me that I needed to spend more time farming energy, and less time focusing on minerals. But I also recall that I need to get some certain amount of eco-damage to get the first fungal pop to eliminate mineral (?) restrictions. Am I remembering this right?
The Pod Factory – This one may also be a holdover from C3C, but I have this urge to build a “colony pod factory.” That is a city, or perhaps more than one, that does nothing but grow, build a colony pod, and repeat. (By the way, how many colonists does a base lose when a pod is produced?) I know that if I succeed in building one of those, I will hit that efficiency limit very quickly, but does the benefit of having lots of bases outweigh the efficiency hit?
Crawlers – I know that using crawlers (both for speeding up Secret Projects and crawling nuts/mins/energy) is a very powerful tactic. Now I’m wondering: Does anyone use the “crawl nutrients from A to B” setting? It seems to me that this could be quite useful in building up a specialist city, but I never see it mentioned.
Thanks in advance for any help I can get here. I know that these are your basic, garden variety newbie questions, and I’m sure they’ve been asked before, perhaps even by myself.
Cordially,
Aabraxan
Having not played for several years, and never having been all that good with any faction but Yang, I decided to start at the lower levels again. I want to re-learn this game, so that I can play it competently with factions other than Yang. Somewhere along the way, I picked up Velociryx's strategy guide as a .txt file, (and I'm busy reformatting it for easier reading as I go), but I've still got some questions, and I'm hoping to get some answers here, while I work my way through Vel’s guide.
Let me also add that my playstyle (regardless of the game) has always been simple: I’m a warmonger. To paraphrase a post from another site, for which I would dearly love to be able to claim credit:
I’m a builder at heart.
I build bases, so that I can build units.
I build Network Nodes, so that I can learn to build better units.
I build Energy Banks, so that I can build units faster.
I build formers, so that I can build roads.
I build roads, so that I can move troops faster.
I build colony pods, so that I can build more troops.
I know that SMAC isn’t really a war game, and I’m trying to get in touch with my builder side, but it’s tough. Bear with me.
Early game/sliders/research – In the early game, Centauri Ecology seems very important. I seem to recall learning that beelining Industrial Automation is a good thing, for the crawlers. As I’ve been looking at it lately, I feel like I really need to get CE early so that I can build formers and unlock the Weather Paradigm. Do you guys just trade for CE? It seems to me that the return on investment in the Weather Paradigm is enormous!
Also, what do you do with the Economy/Psych/Labs sliders in the early game. I don’t like leaving them at 50-0-50 (perhaps a holdover from C3C), but I don’t really know what else to do with them. Do you adjust them early on?
Screenshots – How do you get a decent screenshot? I’ve tried time and again to get a screenshot by just hitting PrntScrn and pasting into MS-Paint, but the colors are funky.
Minerals and energy – I seem to recall someone (CEO Aaron, I think) telling me that I needed to spend more time farming energy, and less time focusing on minerals. But I also recall that I need to get some certain amount of eco-damage to get the first fungal pop to eliminate mineral (?) restrictions. Am I remembering this right?
The Pod Factory – This one may also be a holdover from C3C, but I have this urge to build a “colony pod factory.” That is a city, or perhaps more than one, that does nothing but grow, build a colony pod, and repeat. (By the way, how many colonists does a base lose when a pod is produced?) I know that if I succeed in building one of those, I will hit that efficiency limit very quickly, but does the benefit of having lots of bases outweigh the efficiency hit?
Crawlers – I know that using crawlers (both for speeding up Secret Projects and crawling nuts/mins/energy) is a very powerful tactic. Now I’m wondering: Does anyone use the “crawl nutrients from A to B” setting? It seems to me that this could be quite useful in building up a specialist city, but I never see it mentioned.
Thanks in advance for any help I can get here. I know that these are your basic, garden variety newbie questions, and I’m sure they’ve been asked before, perhaps even by myself.
Cordially,
Aabraxan
The first many turns you can't really collect enough energy that can be used for something sensible, so it's better to put it into research - you can cut several turns off the early techs by keeping your income at zero. Note that for some factions it's worth to try reduce research spending - depending on SE/buildings that can actually reduce research time. Another note, unlike C3C there are no waste when a project is finished - surplus are put into the next. Even if a AA cashed in at a network node that gives you what you are currently researching gives loss - all are transferred to the next.
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