Embarrassing Question

[Hydro]

I'm a little embarrassed to ask, but what does "+2 lab" for a biology lab do? Is that +2 research points? Or a modifier on your lab output for the base?

[Googlie]

H:

It gives 2 extra lab points to that base (i.e. if your base is producing 7 lab points, with a biolab it will now produce 9. If you set your research to zero, it will produce 2 lab points)

G.

[mark13]

Yeah, I can see how you got confused. Just to add to Googlie's explanation, the +2 is affected by base multipliers/improvements - so a base with a net node will increase it 50% to +3.

[Hydro]

Mark 13, you're generous. I've only had a bloody year and a half to figure it out.

Thanks to both of you!

Playing double blind means bio labs come a little late to make +2 research points very impressive. Not getting whacked by Planetblight is the prime reason I build them since I don't build much native life. They're always after nodes and sometimes after banks (if my income is poor).

Hydro

[mark13]

To be honest, I rarely build biolabs ever. They cost 1 energy/turn as upkeep, which, for the sake of 2 labs/turn, and 60-odd minerals, just isn't worth it, IMO....
[This message has been edited by mark13 (edited December 10, 2000).]

[Googlie]

Mark13 is right, and the effect on a small base is awesome.

I nearly always build them, especially when they come before NN's (as can happen with blind research, or as Dee)

Take a basic small base (nonHQ) with a 50/0/50 allocation, and you have 1 lab point. Add the NN and you have 2 (rounds up). Take away the NN and add a BL, and you have 3. Now add the NN and you have 5 (rounds up again)

Research Hospital sends the lab points to 6 - the +50% isn't based on the current 5, but on the underlying 3

Add a fusion lab. Now goes to 8. Take out the Biolab and it drops to 3. Add all the facilities, and the lab points go to 11. Drop biolabs, and it falls to 4.

Morale of this test? - the 50% research bonuses for NNs, Research Hospitals, Fusion labs, Quantum labs and Nano Hospitals are all applied to the underlying base's lab points without research bonuses (additive, not cumulative), and a BioLab becomes part of that base's underlying lab points (ie the 1 lab point start becomes 3)

Now it's not so dramatic in humungus bases where a 50% energy allocation to labs with 20 or 30 energy being produced by that base would yield 10 to 15 underlying lab points, but on a base with up to, say a 5 population each producing 2 energy (generous estimation), a 50/50 allocation would give 5 lab points - or 7 with a BioLab. A 40% increase

Not bad for a cost of 60

(The effect diminishes when energy starts being crawled, but for the first 100 years or so they can make a sizeable difference)

Googlie

[Gothar]

When i used to play the cyborgs alot I used to build all the above mentioned facilities and the effect was awesome on my research. But the maintinance is a bit of a problem. However if put your labs down to about 20% and your ecconomy on 80, you can still get a tech every 2 or 3 turns and the extra ecconmy makes up for most of the maintance cost. Structures like the nanohospital and research hospital help combat drones as well, allthough it would probalby be cheaper just to assign workers as empaths/doctors etc.

[Sikander]

Or you could take those 60 minerals and build two supply crawlers. Put them on rainy squares, or moist farmed squares (or fungus if you are Dee) and they will support two librarians, which will produce 6 labs without any efficiency loss, and no per turn cost in energy. If you built the Weather Paradigm you can even build condensor / farms and support 4 librarians this way. Later on, your librarians can become engineers or thinkers, and your squares can produce 6 nutrients each, for a total of 6 specialists supported for those 60 minerals invested.

Not that I disagree with what Googlie and Mark are saying, there is a time and a place for the Biology Lab, but if you are in position to do other things, then they aren't all that great in comparison.

[Zonk]

Another selling point for the B-labs is the dreaded Random Events. Lately I've been playing with it turned off, and as a result haven't been building the biolabs as much. Mark and Googlie make some good points, though, and I'll have to reconsider the labs.

[Kinjiru]

If you are going with an ICS approach, building biolabs can certainly boost your science a bunch. +2labs times 50 bases is 100 extra science every turn. 100 times 50 turns is an extra 5000 science. That's one extra advance every 50 turns. Hmmm... come to think of it, perhaps they are not that great after all...

[Googlie]

I agree that their usefulness diminishes once you can crank out librarians/empaths/transcendii in your bases.

But the big selling point with biolabs is their early game functionality. If your bases never exceed size 4 for 100 - 150 years you can't turn any pops into librarians - and if you are ICSing they are a boon to the smaller bases

(And if you are running a native military, with Bioenhancement Centers and Temples in addition to a Biolab you get a +3 morale on your native troops. Build the Pholus Mutagen and the Xenoempathy Dome SP's and you breed instant Great Boils (you'll get instant Demons with the Voice of Planet, but that's too late to mean much

IMHO it's a useful base facility.

G.

[mark13]

LOL - I suppose in small bases they aren't a bad investment - a base only producing 10 energy, and thus 5 labs, will get a fair boost. However, I don't regard the upkeep cost as being worth it in the late-game, unless you are churn out psi units - bio labs give them a +1 lifecycle bonus. In larger bases, I really can't see how it would provide a useful bonus - 2 labs is nothing when you think that the normal labs production is ~400, even with multipliers.

[Fitz]

Kinjiru: Now multiply that 5000 by the % bonus for facilities. Using Googs 3 to 11 point and 1 to 4, it looks like a x4 multiplier. 1 extra ever 50 turns to one extra every 12.4 turns. Starts to looks a little better that way.

[mark13]

However, it is also -50 energy/turn, and 3000 minerals....do you think it's worth it? I don't, personally...

[Hydro]

50 bases? ACK! Not me. I'll happily stop at about 15 or less (and let the AI take the rest, unless there is something that is just too nifty to give up).

Native life never is much of an issue. Sure, demon locust are fun, but by that time you get and can build them in quantity your enemies are dog meat anyway. Plus, the nasty brutes die way too easily when attacking a resonance/trance/base/sensor anyway. All that for only 100 min/each…

Another consideration (as G mentioned) is that it frequently takes at least 100 and frequently 150 years to lift energy restrictions (Enviro Eco) when playing double blind. And, more often than not, the lovely crawlers (industrial auto) also don't show up for over a hundred years. In this environment bio labs start to sound pretty good all of the sudden, since your energy rate is so low that +2 labs seems like a lot. Unless I have a base near a sea or a nutrient special then the bases don't grow much past 3 or 4 and produces about 5 or 10 minerals a turn. Granted 60 minerals for a bio lab is a lot, and maintenance can also be a lot if restrictions aren't lifted, but after you build tanks, crèche, nodes, and maybe a research hospital (at bases that are in the 5 to 6 range), what else are you going to do? Crank out endless military units? (If you are a war monger your neighbors have long since been subdued and held as chattel)

So, my bio labs are built while I am (impatiently) waiting for tree farms. Sometimes I get lucky in the tech lotto, but most of the time I don't. It is a little ironic to be running around with chaos fusion while my economy is still in the stone age. Double blind just adds to the fun, I guess.

Hydro

[Fitz]

Hydro: LOL, I'm playing a series of SP games right now where I have to use the factions blind research priorities. It gets much worse than just double blind. Right now I'm playing the Spartans (Discover & Conquer).

MY 2350
No Tree Farms (just got the tech for Hybrid though).
Got mineral restrictions lifted within last 10 years.
Still no Cloning Vats (Biomachinery ?).
Helicopters & Drop pods just in last 25 years (MMI).

BUT, I'm running around with 13-6-x units (Shard & Probability) from Advanced Spaceflight and Probablity Mechanics.
And my formers are busy planting Mag Tubes (Monopole Magnets).
My hovertank offensive (most 13-1-4 elites) are starting the final offensives against 5 opposing factions simultaneously (killed Roze already), with helicoter support.

It's kinda fun hitting five opponents at the same time with the hovertanks I build in the intervening years between new techs. Since I don't have tree farms, techs are coming once every 6-8 years, so I build a facility in 2-3 turns, then 1-2 hovertanks/copters.

I'm wondering if I'm even going to get Tree Farms before I win the game.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Hydro, et.al.,

So I thnk I got the jist of what your saying. Given the opportunity to build anything else of value i.e. crawlers, tree frams, creches, SPs, etc. those are the priority builds leaving biology labs as a build once those are built first (assuming they are there to be built in the first place), i.e. Bio Labs are the lowest priority build.

Now assuming that you are not diametrically opposed (i.e. find it a cheat) to pod booming this seems to me to be the better choice as long as nutrients support a population point at a target base rather than a bio lab. A librarian at 3 labs sans no maintenenace cost at 30 minerals (for the colony pod) of cost vs. 60 mins of cost for the bio lab and returning only 2 labs. But I suppose once you've tapped out your ability to support population then a bio lab would make sense again as a last priority item.

Again assuming you want no further horizontal expansion b/c of inability to expand and/or drone management with a sprawling empire the pod booming thing appears to be a better use of your fledgling industrial might vs. Biolab (planet blight aside).

[Basil]

The other thing bio labs do, that noone's mentioned, is that they heal damage to native life units in one round, like command centres heal damage to regular troops. So the uses of bio labs are:

1) +1 life cycle bonus
2) Heal native units
3) Ward off bad random events and give chance for a good random event
4) +2 research points (after efficiency, before multiplier effects of other facilities).

So I would consider them a very low priority in a no-random-events game where I was not expecting to use native units. On the other hand, if I *am* using native units - say I'm expecting an enemy to hit one of my frontier bases with nerve gas, so I've garrisoned the base with one or two mind worm boils, along with the requisite regular defenders - then a bio lab is a very high priority for that base.