Favorite Units

[Mr. President]

I gave up using the auto-design feature a while ago because the workshop would always give me seventeen different variations on the Chaos Squad. For assault I like speed and power that punches holes in enemy lines (Moshe Dayan was a genius ) so I go for rovers early and hovertanks later. Defensively I prefer to sit back and let the tide of attacks break on my perimeter defenses, so I stack infantry units with armor, trance, and sometimes AAA.

At any given time I'll only have about five or six units in my workshop: garrison, assault, a needlejet design or two, helicopters, and sometimes destroyers.

What units do you like?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I have a unit that I call the Fungul DeTowerator, the sole purpose of which is to pummel the native life forms that hang around my bases.

For this, you'll need an air unit - it's okay if it's a needlejet and not a chopper, because the native units can rarely attack air units.

Put a nice strong reactor on it, and equip it with hand weapons. No armor is needed. Then give it both high morale and empath song, to jack up its psi combat as much as you can.

Voila - a nice cheap unit for smashing those pesky fungal towers, at a fraction of the cost of a real militarily viable unit!

[Kassiopeia]

Trained Chaos Rovers. Usually by the time I first go to war, these are the bulk of my forces. The enemy usually has only Plasmasteel units at defence, so taking over bases is simple. Interceptors of any kind come a close second.

[Method]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
I have a unit that I call the Fungul DeTowerator, the sole purpose of which is to pummel the native life forms that hang around my bases.

For this, you'll need an air unit - it's okay if it's a needlejet and not a chopper, because the native units can rarely attack air units.

Put a nice strong reactor on it, and equip it with hand weapons. No armor is needed. Then give it both high morale and empath song, to jack up its psi combat as much as you can.

Voila - a nice cheap unit for smashing those pesky fungal towers, at a fraction of the cost of a real militarily viable unit!

when i make anti-native units, i like to put R-laser on them. sure its a bit more expensive, but not much at fusion or better.

my favourite unit would have to be either a WAVE PSI chopper, (especially with a high planet rating or dream twister) or a nice elite shard tank.

of course i wouldn't pass up a Blink WAVE string deathsphere or two...

[Vlad Antlerkov]

-- (Heavily) armored drop formers with cloaking devices. Great for wreaking all sorts of havoc behind enemy lines.

-- Tectonic missiles. Against Pirate bases.

-- Fungal missiles. Against the Believers and Morganites.

[Method]

Originally posted by Vlad Antlerkov
-- Fungal missiles. Against the Believers and Morganites.

and Drones!

[Velociryx]

The Peace Frog: Heavily armored (often with Trance ability) former - good in a pinch on defense (either defensive terraforming if a base is under attack), or on the offense (travelling with troops to make a land bridge, or do other sorts of nastiness in general).



-=Vel=-

[Blake]

Oh yes, the humble former. Where would we be without it.
I use formers offensively a lot, like raising land bridges and laying magtubes up to enemy cities.
As far as favourite military units go (based mostly on effeciency)
Elite Infantry 8-1-1 or 13-1-1*2
"Freedom Fighter" 4-1-10, sutible for all forms of harrassment like plinking formers, bombing sensors, ZoC blocking, and costs just 2 rows. Mmmmmm.
And lets not forget the 1-1-1, Police, Clean which keeps captured cities under control, and the 1-1-1, trained, drop which can be dropped then upgraded in the same turn to minimise drop damage (if upgrading to something with a better reactor).
So all my favourite units cost either 2 or 3 rows

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Foil Probe Teams.

[spartak]

Foil Probe teams are great fun.

Sea Formers with really good armour plating are enormously entertaining. If you have a lot of cash and an enemy to drown they can't be beat.

[Clear Skies]

Another one for Foil Probe Teams here. Very useful for subverting those sea bases that pop up everywhere - especially Sven's. Gah...

[Sikander]

I guess I'll vote for probe teams, as these guys often can defend my empire throughout the 1st century almost singlehandedly. The only thing that I need regular military units for is the native life.

[The Bloody Baro]

1. Cloaked String Drop Shock Troops.
2. Drop Probe Teams
3. Gravship Formers
4. AAA Stassis String Battleship
5. X Death Sphere with Empath Song [ULTIMATE WORM KILLER]

Note: Order does not show preferance

[Lefty Scaevola]

I like the IOD as being the only unit to combine transport and offensive combat capabilities.

[The Bloody Baro]

Well The IOD [isle of deep for our less SMAC lingo literit friends] is good for that role, however I'd rather take the time to build an AAA string battleship and transport.

[Clear Skies]

Ugh. By the time you get to string weaponry if the game isn't won you're either on a damn big map or you ain't been playing SMAC that long. By the time I get Shard the game's usually in the bag.

IoDs are most useful. Locusts have some nice abilities too - being able to capture bases is probably one of the most useful.

[Main_Brain]

Death Sphere? Whew not even i in my Long Games get to get those Beasties :=)
Bestweapon Bestarmor Inantry Drop Clean does teh Job If he didnt get CA

[Spacecow]

I played the Spartans a couple of times, and was quite impressed when my morale got so high that I had elite formers with two movement points (I am SUCH a builder!). Aside from that, I love spending a decade or two telling every base in my empire to crank out nothing but a horde of Clean Rover Formers.

Also give another vote for probe foil teams, police infantry, and Isles of the Deep.

Another fun one when the game's already won is to build a horde of fungicidal gravship formers, setting them on auto-remove fungus, and watching them try to completely lobotomize Planet.

[johndmuller]

I'm quite fond of IoD's, and even fonder of Locusts, and I use Foil Probe teams, . . . . . but . . . they are all quite expensive for what you get. When it comes down to getting the job done cheaply and quickly, good old cheap basic transports, perhaps with enough armor to make the trance ability free or else with a cheap defense-only ship as escort seem to do the job better. If you don't build the IoD's or Locusts with the appropriate morale boosting facilities and/or NL combat enhancing SP's, they are extremely weak and have trouble standing up to their native counterparts, not to mention an MP opponent with Empath units or who uses artie on them.

The Foil Probes suffer from the morale problem too, unless you build them at a Navy Yard and/or with a Bioenhancement Center - and if you have those things, you could probably go a step further and make them Cruiser probes, for an extra couple of moves.

Being Sparta and/or having a good Green rating addresses these problems to a great extent, but by the same token, not being Santi and/or running Wealth will make your units into real Walter Mitty types, enough to turn Blakes "freedom fighters" into "freedom flitters", especially if he built them without Aerospace Complexes.

So I guess I have to nominate the old 1-1-3 Foil Transport Armada (with mighty 1-3t-4 escorts) or the all in one combined version 1-3t-3 "freedom flotilla" model.

Another good cheap versitile guy is the 4-1-2 Impact Empath rover, preferably built with a Command center (or better) and upgraded with a monolith. Later on, it could be upgraded fairly cheaply to add effective SAM capability. Its cousins at sea or in the air are also useful for making money off of or impressing/shanghaiing native life, but you might want to add trained or upgrade them from a trained shell to boost their starting morale unless you have NavyYards/AeroSpaceComplexes and BioEnhancement Centers lying all around.

[Blake]

Actually my Freedom Fighters are specifically designed for use under Wealth. It's when you cant be bothered spending on proper military, just build thse crappy very green impact-noodles. They are well suited to knocking out formers, probes, unarmoured rovers/ships etc.

Once they get the 2-3 free morale upgrades they can be used against plasma armored units. The ones which get to hardened may get an upgrade to missile for against harder opponents.

The real good thing is instead of having to build an expensive areospace complex to bring the morale up to green (wow!) you just plink one enemy former to get the same effect. SO the very point of the Freedom Fighter is you dont need an areospace/bio-enhancment center .

They are also still really cheap with a clean upgrade.
I think I call them freedom fighters because they are so cheap, like my faction hardly even has to pay them.

[Method]

Originally posted by The Bloody Baro
5. X Death Sphere with Empath Song [ULTIMATE WORM KILLER]

does nerve gas work on natives?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

No nerve gas is not an option against natives

[Clear Skies]

Although it should be - damn mind worms getting inside my head and controllling my dreams...grrr....growth dream soon...kill them all....
*wanders off, still muttering*

[Main_Brain]

Everytime I read something from Clear Skies I become more afraid...



// ImpactRovers!

[Adalbertus]

- Needlejet Colony Pods.
- Armoured Sea Formers (preferably 4(?) (or 8 w/o WP) Super Sea Formers within 3 (or 5 with MCC) squares away from an enemy costal base).- and of course those 1-1-1 trained,drop (elite) units and an unoccupied bunker in the enemy's territory.
- Clean AAA garrisons in bunkers at the coastline.

I only start to appreciate police units. And I still have to learn how to use diverse transport units...

[Clear Skies]

Originally posted by Main_Brain
Everytime I read something from Clear Skies I become more afraid...

Be afraid, be verrrry afraid....mwahahaaa....

Drop Colony Pods become more and more useful the bigger the planet you play on...anything with Nerve Gas is eternally useful against those damn Progenitors...

(I swear, they're controlling my mind...)

...not to mention drop Probe Teams and drop Police Garrisons...

(All the time. Not just on and off, but all the bloody time, telling me the growth dream will be soon and I must kill everyone...)

...and of course the ever-useful Locusts of Chiron.

(And for some reason writing incredibly bad poetry...)

[gwillybj]

Worm Guards. One per base.
Early-game this is Speeder + Gun + Best Armor + Best Reactor + Empath Song + Non-Lethal Methods.
Garrisoned Police for drones. Armor for non-indigenous defense. Empath to get the worms. Speeder to go out and get them while they're still outside the base's production area. Upgrade the armor and reactor as you go. I tend to wait as long as possible before upgrading from Photon Wall, just because it looks so cool .
Mid-game, with CentPsi, change to Psi Attack. This precludes Empath, so change to Clean Reactor. That helps offset the cost of rebuilding the whole Corps, because you won't be able to upgrade the Empath units to Psi Attack, so you'll have to build new units and disband the old - and deservedly so if they've been busy .
Late-game, with Eudaimonia, change to Psi Defense and upgrade from the other armor.

[Frankychan]

Ack, I thought I voted in this poll!!!!

Mine are-

1. Singularity Buster Subs. Cruiser w/underwater hull and air transports. I use these to carry my nukes to far flung area's on the map. These combined w/the PB's= VERY expensive but these units are soooo much fun!!!

2. Nerve gas rovers w/no armor. Dunno why I like these. Maybe for the kamikaze factor.

3. Drop Shard Tanks. I've surprised Miriam more than once w/these.

4. Rover Probe Teams. Again, I don't know.

I like a lot of impractical units, but they're super fun!

[Main_Brain]

Yesterday I spotted the Most Strange Unit ever:
(Spartan AI): Impact Foil Fungicidal
Hu?

[Mr. President]

I've seen that too. All my attempts to build one of my own have failed miserably.