Planet Busters

[lbores]

How exactly are these babies deployed? I have 3 and am considering dropping all 3 on Santiago because she's pissing me off (arrogant *****). But what does it take to get them into orbit? Can I choose my target? I want to go for 3 of S's largest cities. I have troops mustered at the borders.

Has anyone used more than 1? I have no problem with lakes - BTW.

What happens to your Planet rating if you use these things? I would think it would increase.

[The diplomat]

Just move them like you would a normal unit. Move the PB to its target, it will detonate when you try to move it in the same tile as the enemy base. Make sure that there are no obstacles in the way, otherwise you might accidently detonate the PB prematurely.

Also, remember that the consequences for using the PB are severe. Planet will be really pissed. And if you don't repeal the charter, you will have huge problems with the other factions.

Using PB's is extremelly risky. But I have to admit the destruction level and the explosion animations are really cool!!

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[cbn]

They are used the same as conventional missles-- fly them to the target (must be in range -- 16 squares I think) and then kaboom-- They will create a crater the size of which will be determined by reactor level-- everything destroyed. You can even take out multiple cities with one PB if they are in the crater zone (ie hit a unit between 2 cities)

I am assuming here that the opponent does not have flechette systems or ODPs (either of which may shoot down a PB).

Since it is an atrocity the other factions will hate you and as well Planet may hate you and there have been many comments that other AI factions may lob some at you. Someone else will know the specifics better but my understanding is that using a PB counts the same as a ton of ecodamage but does not change your Planet rating (a green faction suffers less damage perhaps -- not sure as i never attempted to measure it). Typical responses from Planet might be faster sea level rises and swarms of worms/locusts attempting to pillage your bases. So you better have empath weapons and trance armour units ready (if prepared this can be a cash bonanza but at the expense of a lot of lost terraforming to fungal blooms) as well as a reasonable ability to raise land or build pressure domes. Using 3 PBs is almost certain to see some effects I would think.

If a faction P*** me off I usually just go for choppers and drop units. It doesn't have the emotional satisfaction of vaporizing his cities but it has less negative impacts on the remainder of the empire and there is a different satisfaction in seeing all those bases that used to p*** you off humbly producing units to serve you and further your empire.

cbn

[Lord Maxwell]

In my first game of smac my first planet buster ran into a probe team belonging to Santiago one tile outside my HQ. My singularity buster took out four cities, and six wonders. (All my own.) In response to this atrocity the rest of the world declared a nuclear holocaust. Everyone shot at me. Yang got so trigger happy he shot at everyone in range. We got alot of new beach property ten years later.

Be careful with the busters.

[mark13]

LOL, Lord Maxwell - I have had various nightmares about something similar happening, but I tend to meticulously plan the route of my PBs to avoid anything getting in the way....I don't trust myself....

But yeah, PBs are a real menace, probably more so than in Civ2. Not only doe Planet not like it, but everyone else will be rather pissed off at you. Aside from waving commerce income out of the window (although the worms more than make up for this cash-wise ) you can expect a few more PBs come raining on your biggest bases, which can really mess things up. Speaking from experience, that is....

[uptons]

The Planet Busters are quite dangerous. Plan their use beforehand by counting the squares to the target (there's nothing as stupid as letting your grand weapon run out of fuel and fall harmlessly to the ground).
As for the aftermath of PB combat, just make sure to have already repealed the UN Charter. Then, while disgusted, your allies won't outright go to war with you.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Planet buster baaaad! Short sword gooood. Stick short sword in enemy's belly and twist. Out gush blood and guts and little bits of liver. Goooodd! Very gooood!

[Wiglaf]

Exactly.

[MariOne]

quote: Originally posted by lbores on 02-16-2001 01:22 PM... Has anyone used more than 1? I have no problem with lakes - BTW. ...

Weeeeelll, y'all know about that game of mine, don't you?
Oh, please, then Jam would accuse me of gloating again!

OK, if you really insist...
YES, I used 9 at once!
As cbn pointed out, I could kill 10 bases thanks to a crawler in the middle of 2 of them.
It was a particular game, a team 2 vs. 2 pbem.
We had a continent each, and Fusion reactors added the 2 more range tiles which put 10 out of 13 enemy bases in reach.
I was the Hive, and the continent setting allowed me to have a huge lot of crawlers available. When I got Orbital, I cashed in the crawlers into the protptypes, and I had also Skunkworks in the HQ for an extra spare.
Jam could do nothing to stop that hard rain, the turn after he was left with 3 bases.
Besides, I didn't even lose commerce with my pacted teammate, as the launch occurred during SunSpots!

Of course, I had to face 3 years of EcoDamage swarming, lost lots of land and terraforming, but not the bases. Earned about 1k-2k ec each of those turns from pearlhunting.
A volcano erupted. IIRC ~1000m of searising over 20 years.
There I first saw monoliths at sea. And some of the craters made lakes with shores so steep, that the sides of two adjacent tiles were not in contact, letting us see a gap of black nothingness!!

[Muzta]

A singlarty planet buster can go 22 tiles I think.

And the expolsion is enough to take out 3-4 bases