The best pod-popping

[reverend]

Hi.

I've recently taken up SMAC-ing after a couple of years. Now I have a question for you guys:

Which is the better foil to use when pod-popping? The transport or the standard foil? As we all know, the transport can find and haul alien artifacts. But the regular foil is faster and cheaper, and it can still find tech from time to time.

The regular foil also has the opportunity for higher morale, since you can use it to attack any mind worms you encounter. You can equip it with hypnotic trance cheaper. And, since you don't have to haul artifacts all the way back to your bases, you can cover larger areas.

So, which one do you use? And what equipment (armor, weapons, special abilities) do you use on it?

[Lefty Scaevola]

Early on it is a real choice. But the best unit when you get it in the Ilse of the deep. It can get atifacts and units at sea, transport, fight, capture wild IoDs, and heal itself far from home by sitting in sea fungus.

[Method]

in free market, i'd use a probe foil. doesn't cost support, doesn't cause pacifist drones, and it can infiltrate any rivals you may find.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

IIRC correctly free techs are limitted to the basic first level techs. So the window of opportunity to expect a tech from a pod pop is rather small for conventional foil unit. I would agree best overall unit is Isle of Deep.

[Barinthus]

I've not tried this - I didn't realize you could get alien artificats from a sea pod so I mostly used regular foils . Anyway I've read about some people prefer to use transport foil to pop with an accompanying regular foil to act as an armed escort. But I'd suppose once you can get your hands on an Isle O'Deep, that'd be ideal.

[Oncle Boris]

Thanks dude, the isle of the deep idea is excellent

[reverend]

Thanks for all the good ideas!

However, the Isle of the Deep needs a level 5 tech to build. By that time, all pods will be gone if I do my thing right.

Also, green economics is not an option for me (playing mostly Morgan or Yang), so I wont be capturing any either.

I guess I'll have to stick to my old rackety transports...

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by reverend
Thanks for all the good ideas!

However, the Isle of the Deep needs a level 5 tech to build. By that time, all pods will be gone if I do my thing right.

Also, green economics is not an option for me (playing mostly Morgan or Yang), so I wont be capturing any either.

I guess I'll have to stick to my old rackety transports...

I also recall that a wild worm/spore launcher/IoD never attacks native life forms controlled by you, which adds more value to a captured IoD (correct me if I'm wrong on this ).

Also, a wild IoD emerging from a popped pod also comes with a mindworm or two loaded. So if you capture one such IoD, you also get the mind worms, which then give you the ability to explore land pods on uncharted islands, multiplying your exploration capabilities

Even one IoD can have such a dramatic impact on your exploration effort that I sometimes consider switching to green (even for a short time) in the hope of catching an IoD, if this is not too painful for the faction I'm playing.

Speaking so much on IoDs, there's also another theoretical way you can catch them, although it's really up to chance: If you land on or near Manifold Nexus (in SMAX, that is), you get +1 enviroment and that's good enough to catch native lifeforms without going green!

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Method
in free market, i'd use a probe foil. doesn't cost support, doesn't cause pacifist drones, and it can infiltrate any rivals you may find.

I also use a lot of probe foils for exploration. I even sometimes upgrade them to have resonance armour (and with it comes the free-of-cost hypnotic trance) to increase their suvivability, if I have the money around.

But overall, maybe it's a better idea to up-armour a foil transport in this fashion, in terms of cost and utility.

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by reverend
However, the Isle of the Deep needs a level 5 tech to build. By that time, all pods will be gone if I do my thing right.

What kind of a furious explorer are you? And wouldn't it be better to wait, since the AI just doesn't seem to take the pods anyway?

[reverend]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris What kind of a furious explorer are you? And wouldn't it be better to wait, since the AI just doesn't seem to take the pods anyway?

Well, I guess I am pretty furious when it comes to exploring

As soon as I have the foil tech and seaside towns I just pump out transports until the whole map is explored. It's not just pods I'm after, I like to colonize as much as possible early on.

In SMAC you can never grow too large like you can in Civ 3 (which is one reason I don't play that game anymore).

If I play Yang, I also use what I call the "bee-hive strategy"´. I build my bases in a rigid pattern, each one having only three terain squares of forest to exploit. I switch to police state as soon as possible, and build recycling tanks in each base. That way, I get 8 minerals from each base, and the police state gives 4 free supports

The growth rate early on is horrendous, and the sheer momentum of it is more than enough to crush any resistance utterly. But you need to be aggressive, because in the end you'll probably lag behind in the tech race.

But before that happens you have ample time to swarm the planet!

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by reverend
Also, green economics is not an option for me (playing mostly Morgan or Yang), so I wont be capturing any either.

Green works fine for Morgan combined with wealth. He get the magic +2 economony (+1 faction characteristic and =1 from welath) and the planet and efficiancy modifier from green.

[reverend]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
Green works fine for Morgan combined with wealth. He get the magic +2 economony (+1 faction characteristic and =1 from welath) and the planet and efficiancy modifier from green.

Hmmm, never thought of that. Thanks! I'll definately try it out!

[RedFred]

The pod outcomes are somewhat different if you use a foil. More cash, more IoDs but no units like an Ogre which can really alter the military balance of the game early on. I don't know if tech discoveries, comm links, rush builds or cloning odds are altered though.

Seeing as I value AAs the most I try to use a transport/IoD whenever possible. I'll send my transports out unescorted unless I have a head start on everyone on building foils (generally when I play Pirates).

To the guy who suggested that probe foils work best under FM, I believe that transports don't cause unrest. You can often capture a unit with a transport not homed to a base which is particularly valuble under FM. Your only worry is capturing a unit that is homed to a base, but I figure in that case you can either hot-foot it home, make a psych adjustment in one base, or even disband an occasional unit and still come out ahead.

[RedFred]

[Double post deleted]

[Mr. Harley]

Early on if you are in a tech race the foil can be best, as it increases your chance substantially of getting tech due to eliminating the Alien Artifact and Ogre/transport options. However, in single player I prefer the transport as I can bank the Alien Artifact for my Fusion push. The AI is weak at popping ocean pods.

However, once I get Free Market/Wealth and I go for Doctrine : Flexibility and Centauri Empathy (getting my Rec Commons on the way). I plan for the turn I gain Centauri Empathy, and make sure I have foils reay to do some pod popping and IOD capture. Once I capture several, I return to free market.

Captured or produced IOD's will be attacked by native IOD's if they come in contact. I just booted up the scenario editor to check.

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Ancyrean
Speaking so much on IoDs, there's also another theoretical way you can catch them, although it's really up to chance: If you land on or near Manifold Nexus (in SMAX, that is), you get +1 enviroment and that's good enough to catch native lifeforms without going green!

The Manifold Nexus also exists in the latest patch (or second-latest, if you count the compatibility patch), 4.2, IIRC. It even has its own interlude which is omitted in SMAX.

[Adalbertus]

I usually build 0-3rt-4 foils for pod popping. Require level 3 techs, produce no drones in FM, and are quite resistant against IoDs.

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Ancyrean
I also recall that a wild worm/spore launcher/IoD never attacks native life forms controlled by you, which adds more value to a captured IoD (correct me if I'm wrong on this ).

Also, a wild IoD emerging from a popped pod also comes with a mindworm or two loaded. So if you capture one such IoD, you also get the mind worms, which then give you the ability to explore land pods on uncharted islands, multiplying your exploration capabilities . . .

The wild worms will definitely not attack your own NL's (as long as they are not stacked with regular units) but I'm not so sure about the other things, particularly w/r IoD's and Sealurks.

There is also some kind of wierd bug with SporeLaunchers - sometimes you will see two wild Launchers fighting each other, but it can happen to you too! - I think maybe that a SporeLauncher will defend against any artie action within its range, no matter the faction (for example, I had a Launcher of mine in a base defend against my own ship which was firing at a seafungal tile in hopes of locating a disappeared IoD).

The number of passengers on wild IoD's seems to start at zero and to increase as the game goes on (as does the morale and capacity of the IoD's). They may be SporeLaunchers as well as Worms (and the SporeLaunchers will bombard your units as well as your terraforming, which is a real PIA early in the game.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

JohnD is correct. Land based worms will not atack another worm.

OTOH Isles, launchers, & locusts most certainly attack anything inlcuding facitional controlled natives.

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Adalbertus


The Manifold Nexus also exists in the latest patch (or second-latest, if you count the compatibility patch), 4.2, IIRC. It even has its own interlude which is omitted in SMAX.

Forgive my threadjacking for a minute here. Is there a way to 'activate' the interlude into the game? Such as inserting a line into the txt file?

[Skanky Burns]

Hard-coded, I would guess.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
Early on it is a real choice. But the best unit when you get it in the Ilse of the deep. It can get atifacts and units at sea, transport, fight, capture wild IoDs, and heal itself far from home by sitting in sea fungus.

IoDs are it. They are also invisible when hiding in sea fungus. Also, IIRC, native lifeforms do not require support when they are in a fungus square.

[Chaunk]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
JohnD is correct. Land based worms will not atack another worm.

OTOH Isles, launchers, & locusts most certainly attack anything inlcuding facitional controlled natives.

I think IoDs will indeed leave faction controlled natives. They will not ignore an IoD loaded with cargo however, including alien artificats, which means that a loaded IoD is actually worse than the 0-3rt-4
Adalbertus mentioned, both in cost terms and in defensive terms once it's loaded up.

With regard to sealurks, spore launchers and locusts however, I'm unsure...

[RedFred]

I hate to directly contradict but... nope. Native IoDs will attack your IoDs even if you don't have any units aboard.

The frequency that this happens is related to your planet rating.

[Chaunk]

Originally posted by RedFred
I hate to directly contradict but... nope. Native IoDs will attack your IoDs even if you don't have any units aboard.

The frequency that this happens is related to your planet rating.

I stand corrected... my bad!

C