Soporific gas pods?

[Clear Skies]

Anyone use them? I do occasionally - mostly on assault aircraft.
Any special uses or anything like that?

[Ned]

Yeah, I typically equip my copters with gas pods + a morale upgrade. Later, I have a mixture of GAS, WAVE and Empath, WAVE copters.

I don't know the precise odds, but it seems that GAS is equivalent to a +25% attack bonus. It is good against everything except native life. Viewed this way, it is better than blink or a morale upgrade.

For infrantry, I typically use drop, cloak or drop, AAA.

For speeders I typically use empath and air superiority, although I have used WAVE to get past ECM units.

For naval, I use empath or marine in combo with deep radar.

For artillery, I just use empath. Might try gas.


Ned

[Solver]

Well, gas equals +50%. High morale is +2 morale, meaning +25%. Sophorific gas pods are -2 morale for enemy, meaning +25% to attack. Gas and WAVE seem to be the best combination.

[Ned]

High morale +2? I have not check the Datalinks, but from my observation, it seems that I get only +1. Is this true?

[Skanderbeg]

I like it very much and use it regularly for unarmored attacking unites (armored get amphibious + AAA).

[Earwicker]

I frequently equip assault jets/choppers and rovers/tanks with gas. Build the unit as best-1-move with high morale, then upgrade to gas (or gas/clean if Morgan or FM, Gas/Wave once the AI catches on and builds lots of AAA or ECM units).

[Iskandar Reza]

if you think this gas is good.... you haven't had much fun yet. try out the other gas. i can assure you it's more joyous than NO2

[WhiteElephants]

Careful when you assume that sporific gas gives you +25% on attack. To be correct it means the defender loses -2 morale, which differs quite a bit from +25% on attack. For example, +25% to attack (incorrect) means a heck of a lot more for my elite missle rover (1.5 x 1.25 x 6 = 11.25, which is actually only 1.5 x 6 = 9) than -2 morale for a hardned synthmetal defender (normally 1.25 x 2 = 2.5 / sporific 1.0 x 2 = 2).

I think those numbers on defense are correct -- a hardened unit would become a very green which has no modifier on defense, and a -12.5% on offense, if I remember correctly.

[Ned]

I checked the manual. High Morale gives on a +1. This is +12.5%, not 25%.

As to the difference in "thinking" between a 25% adder to offense vs. a 25% reduction to the defender - aren't we trying to be too cute? They are the same thing, net net, are they not?

But most would agree, I presume, that Gas is more effective than a morale upgrade overall, unless you are trying to get that extra +1 movement point for elite.

But is it better than Blink? I think it is because Blink seems to elminate the 25% defense bonus for a base, while Gas has the same power for units in or out of a base, except for native life.

Ned

[WhiteElephants]

No, I'm not being cute, and their not the same. Reread my post paying closer attention to the values I've given. One is dependent upon the attack value of the offensive unit (the incorrect assumption that sporific gas gives you a +25% on attack) and the other is dependent upon the defensive value of the defensive unit. Therefore they're not the same. The only instance they'd be the same was if both that attack value and defense value were the same. When does that ever happen? Hopefully never if your attacking.

Example -- Missle rover (6 x 1.25(+25%) = 7.5) vs. synthmetal infantry (=2) -- or in other words 7.5/2 = 3.75:1 odds.

Missle rover (=6) vs. synthmetal infantry (2 - (25%) or 0.5) = 1.5 -- or in other words 6/1.5 = 4:1 odds.

If we raise the attack value it still holds true and is even more evident.

Shard rover (12 x 1.25(+25%) = 15) vs. synthmetal infantry (=2) -- or 15/2 = 7.5:1 odds.

Shard rover (=12) vs. synthmetal infantry (=2 - (25%) or 0.5 = 1.5) -- or 15/1.5 = 10:1 odds.

Contrary to what I believed before I went through these numbers, you're better off with a negative modifier to the unit you're attacking than a positive modifier to your attacking unit.

So, I tend to agree with you that sporific gas is better than high morale.

Now, if I remember correctly sporific gas doesn't work on defense, right?

[Solver]

Whatever manual says. Someone wrote it's 2 morale levels. But I don't use it, anyway - expensive, for the little boon. And, I'm a builder by nature.

[Clear Skies]

I rarely if ever use Nerve Gas pods. I dislike committing atrocities - after all, it makes it so much harder to get factions to submit I sometimes equip needlejets and choppers with them in MP (and other units too) but usually solely as a deterrent.
I am not an atrocities person. I have only ever used a PB once, in single player, against Yang - he was the last remaining faction besides myself. He had beaten me to the Cloudbase Academy by one turn and had equipped all his Sentinels with Tracking. Given that nearly all my units were airborne, this put a severe crimp on my plans! Eventually I got so incredibly frustrated that I PB'ed him.
That's one of the few atrocities I've ever committed. I nerve staple very very occasionally, but only to remove those really irritating 'drone riots' popups.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Solver
Whatever manual says. Someone wrote it's 2 morale levels. But I don't use it, anyway - expensive, for the little boon. And, I'm a builder by nature.

Are you speaking of the high morale special ability here? If so, it has one very excellent use, which is that it gives the unit a permanent morale boost,even if you upgrade it later. I build almost all military units as 1-1-move Trained shells, and then upgrade them. Most types are easily finished in a turn, upgraded, and ready for action the next. This is truly devestating, one good unit per base per turn as long as your money holds out.

[Solver]

Surely a bug. If you upgrade the unit, it loses the High Morale ability, and therefore should lose the morale boost.

[Ned]

No, actually if you individually upgrade the unit, it retains its morale upgrade. Start with a 1-1- trained scout, speeder, tank, jet, copter or sphere. Upgrade it to the unit you want, perhaps with two special abilities, one of which is not high morale. The result is a trained unit, with the two special abilities you really want.

The beauty of this approach is that it takes very little to produce the "shell." Captured cities can usually do it in one turn with a small rush. Upgrade, and presto, you have a trained unit of your choice in the captured city.

(Just as an asside, I now carry out the majority of my assauts on land using a combination of wave copters and AAA or ECM, police, best armor garrisons. The latter are upgraded from trained scouts, and are elite, assuming the command nexus and the cyborg factory are yours. The copters clears out a base, and the garrison move in. The AAA or ECM, best armor garrison holds the city quite well against counter attacks. Next turn, the captured base produces a trained scout, and the assault continues apace.)

[The Commodore]

Um...I always thought it was a +2 morale in the unit's SE rating. Thus, the attack would be +1 morale, yet the defense would be +2.

As for soporific gas pods, I'll use them as long as there are artrosity resctictions on. Otherwise, use Nerve gas.

[DrFaustus]

I make use of several Trained Gas Rovers/Hovertanks in any assault. Kicks the stuffing out of most of the AI's city defense units. I first developed them when fighting Santiago (for obvious reasons) and soon grew to relish the savory flavor the gas gives to enemy flesh.

[Ned]

Dr. F, At some point you will have to add WAVE to your copters and tanks to overcome AAA and ECM. So the question is, do you keep trained or gas. From the above analysis, gas appears to be the better choice. Ned

[Clear Skies]

Especially if you have the Command Nexus & Cyborg Factory. Usually I manage those two, which normally bumps my units up to Elite. You can't go above Elite, so Training them doesn't give you anything extra. Therefore, use soporific gas pods!

[big_canuk]

Two things about trained:

On a scout its a free special ability: it doesn't increase the cost. 1 row for a scout or trained scout, 2 rows for a clean scout, or a clean-trained scout. So for upgradeable shell production, go for it.

Secondly, obviously, you don't need trained to go above elite, though it may keep those units elite if you switch back to wealth. And if training just makes a unit elite, then it is very worth it, cause of the extra movement point.

[DrFaustus]

Ned -

Instead of adding wave, I usually add blink, because that late in the game, enemy bases can have tachyon defenses. I'd rather bypass the +200% defense thing.

Of course, the best way to do all this would be to send in enough probes to disable the tachyon and perimeter defenses, and then go in. I do that whenever possible.

But it is often my experience that I end up attacking my largest rival late in the game. And my intent is usually to disable their offensive (the AI makes war on you when you're ahead, right?) by bringing the problem to their part of the planet. But, of course, their bases start folding quickly, one after another, and I find myself hyperextended all over a continent, taking out base after base. So eventually my assault vehicles are far away from their probe team support. And I'd rather make a bunch of drop tanks than drop probes... So, I often end up slugging it out with some pretty heavily defended bases.

In that case, I've found blink is a beautiful thing. The defenses just *aren't there*.

Nice thing about soporific gas is that it occurs so much earlier in the game. And if my nice little builder-world is being harrassed by some amphetamine-charged enemy like Santiago, it's a relief to bring them down several notches with gas.

And they die with such beautiful smiles....

[Ned]

Interesting.

I have never run up against Tackyon. If I did, I would add Blink to WAVE and discard GAS.

Even so, when the enemy has any kind of defender above 4, you really have to do something to reduce their added defensive abilities. In these circumstances, I also spend a lot of time destroying sensors first before a direct assault. Here, interceptos are invaluable.

Ned