Prototype morale bonus

[Lefty Scaevola]

I have not seen a thread on this, so i wondered if many players had noticed.
My first prototype of each new combat unit has a 1 level morale bonus over subsequent units.

[Flubber]

I believed that it is a documented feature . Thanks for the reminder though.

[Deimos]

Not only have I noticed this, I count on it! Especially in the early game.

I strive to prototype new weapons and armor on a rover chassis and use these "higher-than-average-for-my-empire morale" units to combat the native units that show up around the fringes of my empire.

If I can get away with it, I'll sometimes wait until I can put up a CC before I build most of my prototypes. Also, post D:AP or MMI, I will stop prototyping weapons on rover chassis' and begin using airframes, esp. at a base with an AC.

Also, IIRC, the first time you build a particular chassis type (land-sea-air), that is also considered a prototype and results in the morale increase. This feature dissapears when certain techs are discovered, e.g. the tech discovery "auto-prototypes" a particular chassis. I don't know for sure which techs do this for each chassis type. I believe that PlaNets does this for the rover chassis.

Another thing is that prototyping both a weapon and an armor on the same unit only results in 1 morale level increase. This is fine if you need to prototype stuff quickly, but you loose out on haveing the morale increased on more than one unit.

[Fitz]

I'm playing a doctrine:defense game (ala Vel style) and every rover I have is a prototype. Missed Gatling only so far, as it was auto-protyped by Missles.

1 each of Laser, Impact, Missile, Chaos, Synthmetal, Plasma, Silksteel.

All 7 are now clean Chaos Silksteel.

Unfortunately, IIRC prototyping Plasma also get the Res & Pulse versions, so you can't get another two out of those armors, and missile protypes Res-lasers.

[Blake]

Chassis are prototyped automatically when a pre-designed unit with the chassis is researched.
Infantry - No pre-req(Scout Patrol, CP)
Rover - Plan.Nets (probe team, which uses Rover)
Foil - Doc.Flex (Transport Foil, which uses Foil)

Prehaps Locusts prototype air chassis? I know you only need to prototype one air chassis to prototype them all.

However, I have noticed an anomoly where in the later game new weapons get prototyped automatically, and I can swear I havn't mind controlled any units which use said weapon.

[CoffeeBreath]

yeah, this makes sense because prototype, or experimental units or weapons are only given to elite units.