Obtaining Our Next Secret Project

[Impaler[WrG]]

The purpose of this thread is obvious so lets get going

Our next project will likly be the Planetary Energy Grid, Citizens Defence Force, Cloud Base Acadamy or Cyborg Factory. All of these cost the same (30 rows of mins) except for CBF which is 40. We need to start planning how we are going one of these in then next 8-10 turns as the Hive has expressed interest in a trade for Adaptive Econ before the year 2160 and we cant be shure they will honor an agreement NOT to build the PEG.


My initial recomendation is to build 8-10 Crawlers in our Core Bases and converge them all on a Central Base and cash them all for the Project along with some Energy to Hurry it (and hurry the crawlers too).

To help achive this we may wish to alocate 10-20% Pych before we take FM. I know I have spoken out against Pych alocation in the past but I noticed that it will alow us to delay the production of HoloGram Theathers in PiSquare, Apolyton Prime and Logic Loop with a coresponding incresse in mineral colection for all the reduced Doctors, Each Holo Theather we put off will be the equivilent of 2 Crawlers. These Bases along with Portal and Zetaris could then move directly into Crawler Production and each could turn out on average 3 Crawlers in the required span of time. All together this should be more then sufficient to produce a Secret Project of our choice in 8-10 turns.

If anyone knows other clever ways to build the projects faster please speak up so we may begin planning.

[Drogue]

Simple. Trade with Hive not to build PEG as long as we don't build Ascetic Virtues. I'd go for the crawlers, but with upgrade. Build one trance/synth crawler, and upgrade all before cashing. Job done

And go for PEG, but if we get CBA first, change to that (especially with non-build pledge). Then go fro PEG, then CF and then CDF. CDF would be nice, but is of little use to the Hive. If the Drones get it, be worried, but air units bypass it, and with the CBA we will use air units a lot, along with drop units, IMHO.

[Maniac]

I checked out the options we have with upgrading crawlers:
A normal crawler is three mineral rows.
A 0-3-1 crawler is six mineral rows and costs 80 credits to upgrade.
A 0-3t-1 crawler is nine mineral rows and costs 110 credits to upgrade.
This indicates the importance of the trance ability if we want to use upgraded crawlers to hurry SPs. For 30 credits we get 3 mineral rows more than a normal 0-3-1, which isn't worth the upgrade cost IMHO. But for a 0-3t-1 we'd get 6 mineral rows more than a normal crawler for 110 credits. Depending on our SE Industry rating, that's about one mineral for every 2 credits. That's half the price we would pay if we hurried the SP directly with credits.

I also agree with Drogue our priority should be: 1> CBA 2> PEG 3> CF 4> CDF.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Maniac
I checked out the options we have with upgrading crawlers:
A normal crawler is three mineral rows.
A 0-3-1 crawler is six mineral rows and costs 80 credits to upgrade.
A 0-3t-1 crawler is nine mineral rows and costs 110 credits to upgrade.
This indicates the importance of the trance ability if we want to use upgraded crawlers to hurry SPs. For 30 credits we get 3 mineral rows more than a normal 0-3-1, which isn't worth the upgrade cost IMHO. But for a 0-3t-1 we'd get 6 mineral rows more than a normal crawler for 110 credits. Depending on our SE Industry rating, that's about one mineral for every 2 credits. That's half the price we would pay if we hurried the SP directly with credits.

Actually, it's a lot less than half the costs, IIRC. I usually find it costs about 300ec of crawler upgrades plus one turn of build to build a 30 row SP. That's a lot less than the ~1500ec cost of building it after one turn. Even just upgrading to a 0-3-1 is a good idea IMHO, but trance is by far the best to do it with.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Drogue
Even just upgrading to a 0-3-1 is a good idea IMHO

Really? Assuming we are under +2 Industry, we would only gain 24 extra minerals for 80 credits upgrading cost. Rather expensive IMO.

Anyway, to have a decent shot at the PEG, we soon need:

• the trance ability
• four crawlers in the immediate vicinity of a base
• 330 credits

Can this be achieved anytime soon? If not, selling AdapEcon to the Hive (and possibly the Drones) seems best.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Time for a stupid question: why is the CBA so good? I understand the power of Air units and giving them +2 morale in all bases, but is this really all that awesome? PEG and CDF I understand, but what does the CF do again?

[Drogue]

MWIA: Aerospace complexs do other things too. They allow the building of Orbital enhancements and they give quick upgrade of air units. With where we are on Planet, air and sea units will be what we have to fight with.

The CF gives a Bioenhancement Centre in each base. It also costs 40 rows, rather than 30 like the CBA.

[Maniac]

Plus they give +100% defense against air units, and prevent units from dropping within two squares of the base with the aerospace complex. Very important to counter the powerful chop&drop strategy!

[Drogue]

A very nice SP

[Maniac]

Indeed.

I had a look at the save file. Now the maximum amount of crawlers we can reasonably gather together around one base is two. So to fulfill the condition "four crawlers in the immediate vicinity of a base", may I suggest we start production on a supply crawler in Logic Loop, Zetaris, Boolean Bay and switch production in Aurora and Apolyton Prime to a supply crawler?

[Impaler[WrG]]

That can be done, I was hoping we could build more crawlers in the near future. If you want to get these Crawlers built asap then we should consider using the 20% Pych I discussed earlier. It will imediatly boost our mineral production and alow us to put off Drone Control facilities for that much longer which will translate to extra Crawlers.

Also I belive Portal could start on a Crawler too once it gets done with its Scout. We could likly converge all the Crawlers on Apolyton Prime as its most Central. Crawlers already in existence to the South of Bolean could be sent nothward and the new crawlers built in Bolean and Aurora would replace them as these bases are a bit far away to reach AP in time.

As we scrap additional PEACE navel yards we can likly generate the required Energy if their are no additional expenses for the war or for trading. I will try to produce a more detailed plan and pull out all the stopes and see what the maximum speed we can obtain is.

[Drogue]

I have another idea too. If we build many crawlers, send them to LL or AP, and use them to crawl. We end up with many mins (especially with Eco Eng, when we get boreholes ). Then when we're within 2 turns of completion (including rushing) we upgrade all the crawlers and cash them. We can do this many times and it works like a charm

Also: we need more formers. When we get Eco Eng, we need boreholes and condensers. Crawl the condensers and work the boreholes, and our tech and production goes through the roof. Our mins should be high enough for serious growth too

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
If you want to get these Crawlers built asap then we should consider using the 20% Pych I discussed earlier. It will imediatly boost our mineral production and alow us to put off Drone Control facilities for that much longer which will translate to extra Crawlers.

Have you seen my post in the Psych allocation thread? The mineral gain at the moment would be minimal (3 mins or so), while we would lose lots of credits. At the moment, doctors are still more lucrative as far as I can see.

[Drogue]

Yes, with extra credits we can rush crawlers and upgrade them

[Impaler[WrG]]

Ok I have atenative plan that could get us the PEG in 2156. The main limitation is obtaining 330 Credits with witch to upgrade 3 Crawlers to Plasma/Trance at 110 Each. We will need to perform these upgrades in 2155 and have all the Crawlers end their turns within range of Zetaris on 2154 so they can be upgraded in 55 then cashed in 56.

One Crawler will be the new Crawler from Zetaris which will crawl the new forest untill its cashed.

The second Crawler will be the One Logic Loop is currently making which will move northward rather then colect nuts (we can replace it rather quickly so not a big delay).

The Third will come from Apolyton Prime which will likly need to be hurried, estimates are 22 credits so that it can first move in 55 and be upgraded imediatly.

Then these 3 Crawlers converge on Zetaris and Zetaris switches from the inocent little facility its building to the PEG and cashes all the Crawlers to build the project in 1 turn.

Even if someone notices that we have the Crawlers upgraded in 55 they will likly not be able to react before we have the project in hand due to the delay of actualy upgrading the Crawlers.

The primary dificulty will be obtaining 240 additional Energy Credits by 2155. We need to avearage 80 Credits a turn to do that. If we keep our enoc ware it is (seems likly as no one was realy hot to the 20% Pych idea) and we capture and Scrap a PEACE Navel Yard each turn for the next 3 turns then we can make it. If we get the odd duplication effect or perhaps some bonus energy out of the Pod that rover will pop then all the better.

And ofcorse we need to obtain Trance from University some how. We need to have a trance unit turned over or SotHB sent to us by 2155 for this to work.

It would also be nice if we were trading Adaptive Econ with the Hive just late enough for them NOT to be able to build the Project would be excelent so lets look into how that will shape up and see if we can delay trading untill that point.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Sounds like an excellent plan Now I see why getting 150 Credits from that pod is such a wonderful dream of yours, Impaler. We may not get a Naval Base every turn, as PEACE may be disbanding themif they have given up hope of defense.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Imposible for them to do, its a free facility they recive in all bases when they discovered Doc:Init. Just as we could not scrap our Navel Yards because of the MCC neither can they. Their are several other facilites though that they might scrap such as Energy banks, Rec Commons or Comand Centers.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Imposible for them to do, its a free facility they recive in all bases when they discovered Doc:Init. Just as we could not scrap our Navel Yards because of the MCC neither can they.

The following is in the turn report for 2151.

Order's executed, with the exceptions of:
The scrapping of naval yards in Triplex, since there isn't one (did they destroy it?).

Can anyone explain this? AFAIK no PEACE bases were landlocked, and thus every base should get a Naval Yard, right? So what happened to this one?

Oddly, we sold TWO Naval Yards in a base the turn before - could this have been a bug that relocated Triplex' Naval Yard somehow?

[Impaler[WrG]]

PEACE gets a navey Yard even in a land locked base (observe Little Accident).

Their is some kind of Bug thats duplicating a "real", scrapable, apears with an asterick next to it Navel yard in one of our bases when we take a Navel Yard.

But last turn we still had such a yard in Athena which may have prevented the Bug from functioning. Now we are free of real yards again and we will likly recive the duplicate and scrap both for a total of 80 Credits. Atleast this is my current theory. If it holds true then we want to make shure that we always end the turn with NO scrapable yards.

If we infact get the extra 40 Credits on each of our next 2 turns we could likly move up the Secret Project an additional turn as we will be bringing in more then 120 Credits a turn

[Maniac]

If we capture 2 bases next turn, who knows we might get 160 credits! Like this:
Capture Casablanca. Scrap its naval yard and also the possible extra naval yard that appears, hopefully resulting in 80 credits.
As no naval yard is in existence anymore, the bug could perhaps function again.
Thus capture Sealurk Channel and scrap the one or two naval yards again that could appear, for another 80 credits.

Can anyone explain this? AFAIK no PEACE bases were landlocked, and thus every base should get a Naval Yard, right? So what happened to this one?

If a base is captured, sadly enough about half of its facilities are destroyed every time. And the rec commons is always destroyed so it seems. (Similar to civ2 I guess, where the temple and cathedral was also always destroyed).

[Drogue]

I've never seen that? I've captured bases with Rec Commons in on SP before. Is that true?

[Maniac]

Plan's looking good. Though I mentioned a fear about the AP crawler in the chat. I had a further look at it:

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
The Third will come from Apolyton Prime which will likly need to be hurried, estimates are 22 credits so that it can first move in 55 and be upgraded imediatly.

Five more minerals will be added to Apolyton Prime's mineral box before it riots, bringing the total to 7. Due to the very unfortunate riot, no minerals will be accumulated in the production phase between MY 2153 and 2154. As a consequence the mineral amount accumulated MY 2154 will still be less than 10, meaning the hurry cost would be a small 100 credits...

However Zetaris can take care of the third crawler. Next turn MY 2153 it can start on a new crawler. If we rehome Node Runner to MBV and if we crawl that forest near Zetaris, Zetaris will be producing 10 minerals a year. This means that MY 2154 10 minerals will already be accumulated and for a small hurry cost for 4 minerals, the 24-mins crawler can be ready MY 2155. If MY 2154 we have upgraded the three other crawlers (LL, (72.64), (76.66)) to nine-row crawlers, we have together with this fourth three-row crawler enough to hurry the PEG.
PUT would have to give us trance ability MY 2154 at the latest though in this scenario. Perhaps we could also try to loan some cash from them. Who knows they'll loan it to us if we tell them it is to prevent the Hive from getting the PEG.

Is that my correct understanding of the plan, so we have the PEG MY 2156? Or was the plan to get it MY 2157? I'm not sure.

[MrWhereItsAt]

The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.

And I imagine it's a random number of base facilities that are destroyed by capture. In Civ3 it is all cultural improvements, but I imagine that this is a developed form of the destruction favouring Drone-reducing improvements. I think you can get Rec Commons with bases, but not very commonly.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Using the Zetaris Crawler instead would be a good Idea Maniac, I forgot to factor in the AP drone Riot (poks Drouge and reminds him to double check all the orders in the future).

The plan is to Upgrade crawlers on turn 55, start the project in 56 and cash all the Crawlers their and do any additional Hurry buying to get to 1 turn. Then the Project completes in 57.

We will likly require a bit more energy to hurry the Project though as 3 crawlers as 9 Rows each is 27 Rows leaving 3 more rows to account for, Zetaris will likly be able to provide 2 of thouse leaving about 1 row to hurry with Energy which should be about 30-40 Credits, this shouldn't be to hard to accumulate though and if nessary we can incresse Econ to help rase cash after our current Reserch is completed.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Speed up plan:

ok due to the ability to cash 3 PEACE navel Yards in this turn we can accelerate the PEG an additonal turn.

Now we use the Crawler the is currently working the Zetaris Mineral Bonus rather then the one Zetaris would otherwise build as our 3rd Crawler. It is the only one in position that we can use.

We can incresse Econ to 60% and still get our next tec on time and doing so gives us an output of 65 Credits which should give us more then 330 Credits next turn. We use these credits to upgrade 3 Crawlers to Plasma/Trance in turn 54. Then in 55 we start the Project in Zetaris and throw the 3 crawlers at it and hurry the few remaining credits needed to get completion in 56.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Excellent! And anything from the pod is a bonus.

And just to be sure, ATM we can build the PEG (Planetary Energy Grid) and CDF (Citizen's Defense Force) only, correct?

The CF (Cyborg Factory) and CBA (CloudBase Acaemy) are a few techs off.

If so the PEG still seems the best to get right now.

[Maniac]

We can only build the PEG right now.
If the leapfrog with Archaic is succesful, we should be able to build the Neural Amplifier (we already have the Manifold Nexus, so who knows getting this SP could be a good way towards a psi army with both attack and defence bonuses?), Cloudbase Academy and Cyborg Factory.
The Citizen's Defence Force requires Intellectual Integrity. The Hive will plan to research that, so perhaps we can trade that technology with them.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Just a thought - The Planetary Datalinks - how are they regarded for MP games? If it is like the Great Library in the civs, then the faction that gets it will instantly be the target for every other faction, but how is it seen in SMAC?

[Maniac]

In SMAC a tech has to be owned by not 2 (as in Civ2) but 3 other factions before you get it with the PD. This seriously reduces its value IMHO. In practice this would probably mean that a tech already has to be owned by the Hive, Drones and PUT before we get it. But how often is that going to happen? Probably the pact mates the Hive and Drones will have similar techs, but PUT might decide on another beeline, giving us no techs in return. If we had the opportunity to build it, I'd say go for it, but I wouldn't beeline to Cyberethics especially for this.

[Drogue]

I agree with Maniac, except that I would semi-beeline for Cyberethics for the Knowledge value.