Inspired by your success, I decided to start an OCC of my own, on Specialist level. The first time I played it I got a particularly evil starting place, and promptly got my ass whooped by the Hive. Lesson learned, I thought. I decided to adopt a rigid strategy for this (playing as the Gaians):
First off, beeline to IndAuto. This will let me build crawlers, and increase mineral production. Due to the good old artificial ignorance coming up trumps again, I managed to get four of the first five secret projects (VW belonged to Believers). I had the borehole cluster in my territory and managed to get a couple of crawlers to get a load of energy (techs was the priority).
On the diplomacy front, the world was not so rosy. The Believers decided that my puny empire was worth conquering after all, and promptly attack with their oh-so-terrifying Recon Rovers (up against my Supply-3-1 unit). A couple of Missile Rovers dispatched these pests. The only problem was, they now had the Borehole Cluster, and were getting decidedly cheesed off at my frequent incursions into the cluster.
By this time, I had got techs down from every 16 turns to every 9, and then came the advent of clean reactors. I then proceeded to churn out the clean formers (I had about 20 in the end). So I thought, why not et some boreholes of my own up? So I did. And they prospered. The echelon mirrors were coming in thick and fast by this time, and labs research was prospering as a result.
By the time I had build the Supercollider and Theory of Everything labs research was at every two turns. Research was coming thick and fast, and before I knew it, I had cornered the SP market (so to speak) and was no longer being troubled by any enemies (anyone who dared to get close were snuffed out by my needlejets). The Ascent was only years away, and the labs went to every turn. I finally transcended in M.Y. 2403 (not great, I know), and ended up with 176%.
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