Droids to use or not to use

[vmxa1]

I wonder how others view androids? The people that I have seen mention them seem to use them for food production. I do not use them and was interested in seeing if I am making a mistake.
The one place I see them as useful is on a planet that can not farm. This could be a problem if you are not able to get food to them because of blockade or lack freighters or even food production. Really by the time you get droids the only real issue is likely to be a blockade. Elsewise droids prodcue +3 of any of the three resources, same as a citizen. Then they mention all of the boost that get them to x food per turn. Hum do not those boost apply to citizens as well? If so, then you have less production from a droid as the can not benefit from moral bonuses. They also do not generate any income and citizens do (.5 bc unless Klac then 1 BC, ignoring any pluses picked). The maint is the same as citizens, IIRC. Then you hav the issue of the need to spend money to buy them or industry to create them.
To me it only makes sense in a very narrow set of circumstances. Did I miss any factors (again).

[Spaced Cowboy]

I never use them. If they were useful, by that time they are not. Did I make sense?

[vmxa1]

Well I put my foot in my mouth again, it seems. I have created a test bed to try things and put one pop on food. This yields 3 for pop .6 for moral for total of 4. This planet had no structures. It was a splinter colony with 3 pop. Move all to ind and bought a droid farmer.
Food now with only the droid is 3 for farmer and 3 for droid bonus= 6. So with all structures for food it came to 16. So at the start they are better. Now I went to a planet that had all structures built, including morale ones. With 1 citizen farming it is:

4 farmer--------------- 4 farmer (droid now)
- droid bonus--------- 3
1 astro----------------- 1
2 weather--------------2
4.9 morale--------------0
2 hydro------------------2
4 sub---------------------4
------------------------------------------------------------------
18-------------------------16
So it depends, it seems they are only siuationally valuable.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Don't forget the tax factor!

[vmxa1]

I mentioned that in the originlal post, no income from droids. This is painful if Klacs.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I mentioned that in the originlal post, no income from droids. This is painful if Klacs.

Please explain? Klacs?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by RPMisCOOL


Please explain? Klacs?

Hum did you read my first post ? The Klac have a racial bonus that lets them earn 1 BC per worker, instead .5 BC like others. That is one of the reasons they are more productive than most. That is why some will concentrate on pop building before factories with this race as pop does not pay the .5 bc pollution that factories do, hence they net .5 more than a factory would.
10 fac = 10 bc with no mods - 5 for pollution = 5 net
10 pop = 10 bc no mods - 0 = 10.
This is why in Moo1 if you are the Klacs you can run over the top of the others early on. In Moo2 you can get +P to match up.

[Orcus]

I'm a big fan of android workers. In particular, I use them on the more wretched planets I come across. Folks often forget that they have Tolerance as a trait, which makes them as golden as conquered silicoids. Here's what I do...

1. Found colony on rich/ultrarich toxic crap planet.
2. Buy a missile base/autofactory as usual, then an android worker.
3. Transport the original colonist to a nearby non-toxic world.
4. Set the droids to replicating themselves.

Before long, the whole planet is packed with these guys. They require no food, so can't be starved by blockade, and don't use freighters supporting an entire population. Granted, they don't make any money, but that's not their job, as such no worries about setting up money buildings. They make ships, then more ships, and that's that.

Note that if I've conquered the silicoids, I use them as androids instead

[vmxa1]

Yup you can do that and I have, to see what it was like. I am just too lazy to use that tactic. By the time I have them, if I have them, it does not matter what I do. I will likely not colonize a toxic planet at this point in the game, just destroy everything, even if it is UR. I do not bother to move conquered pop around, except for SubT types and then one per colony is enough.
I am not saying that there is any thing wrong with the tactic, just that any tactic is fine at that stage of the game. I tend to race for Star Gates at around this time so I can defend against massive fleets.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by vmxa1


Hum did you read my first post ? The Klac have a racial bonus that lets them earn 1 BC per worker, instead .5 BC like others. That is one of the reasons they are more productive than most. That is why some will concentrate on pop building before factories with this race as pop does not pay the .5 bc pollution that factories do, hence they net .5 more than a factory would.
10 fac = 10 bc with no mods - 5 for pollution = 5 net
10 pop = 10 bc no mods - 0 = 10.
This is why in Moo1 if you are the Klacs you can run over the top of the others early on. In Moo2 you can get +P to match up.

Sorry Vmxa1,

Sometimes I get confused when you start talking about BCs and production in the same breath. I realize that you can use BCs to buy things early, or am I not understanding a fundamental property of the game here?
R:PM

[vmxa1]

When you use money to subsitute for producton, be aware of the sliding cost. The cost is:
0-10% = 10BC for each unit
11-50% = 5BC
51-100% = 2BC
This is why it pays to wait a turn or two to buy items in production. Once you get past the 10% bar, it is cheaper. You see that all the time when buying a marine barracks on a new colony. It cost 240 bc to buy on turn 1, on turn 2, it can drop to around 176.
So the barracks is 60 unit item
0-10% =6*10 = 60bc
11-50% =24*5 = 120bc
51-100% =30*2 = 60bc
--------------- 60 ------ 240
So if you hold off till the you have at least 11% done, you pay appx 176bc cost to buy. If you get pass 50% it saves a ton of money. In this case you pay no more than 60bc to buy. So I like to hold off buying items unless I have unlimited funds or I am under pressure at that colony. Since I am usually somewhere in between those two conditions, I will often buy the first few items at full cost to get the colony rolling.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Okay, no I understand the cost factor...sort of noticed that naturally.

QUOTE]The Klac have a racial bonus that lets them earn 1 BC per worker, instead .5 BC like others. That is one of the reasons they are more productive than most.[/QUOTE]

So this is due to the extra cash...doesn't seem that it overcomes the sliding costs versus no poduction lost to pollution.

How does extra BC make one more "productive" than most?

[vmxa1]

They have +1 P and +1 F as std picks at impossible they get even more as a rule. It allows them to have fewer workers on food and their workers product more then std workers so they have more resources to use for whatever they choose. They also have a resistance to assimilation, that makes them not so easy to use as slaves.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Okay, that clears it up. I wasn't making the connection between $ and production which is good because there is none. However, I thought I remembered that the Klacks get +1 production.

[vmxa1]

I think they would be very fearsome, but that Uncreative is a killer. After the early game, it will be hard to overcome for the AI, it is hard for real people to overcome it. It may be the worst pick in the game.