Hive's immunity to inefficiency

Snowflake · July 2, 2003, 14:46

Supposely the Hive has immunity to inefficiency and their efficiency rating is never less than 0. However, in the games I play (I just started to try the Hive) it is never true. After I switch to polic state and planned, all the energy in my bases are lost due to inefficiency. Is this a bug of the SMAC?

CEO Aaron · July 2, 2003, 16:05

Download the 4.0 patch, that should fix it.

Snowflake · July 2, 2003, 16:16

Thanks Aaron!

CEO Aaron · July 2, 2003, 22:09

Did it work?

Rubin · July 2, 2003, 22:18

HongHu, you might want to upgrade to patch 5 --- it seems to fix the maintenance bug; patch 4 doesn't!

Snowflake · July 2, 2003, 23:43

yes it worked. Rubin, where is patch 5? I went to Fraxis site and only found patch 4.

Rubin · July 3, 2003, 01:01

It's really a win2000/XP patch, but it works fine on win98 too!

You can find it at their download site (http://www.firaxis.com/downloads_allfiles.cfm). Look for Alpha Centauri Win 2000/XP Compatibility Update

That's the one I got anyway! Check the version number (in the in-game help menu) when you've installed the patch --- it should say version 5.

Good luck!

Snowflake · July 3, 2003, 09:51

Ok, I'll try this tonight. Thanks!

Googlie · July 5, 2003, 21:11

Note, though, that it only patches SMAC - it does nothing for SMAX

Snowflake · July 5, 2003, 23:49

Oh it just gets more and more complicated.

Alinestra Covelia · July 6, 2003, 11:33

To be honest, the efficiency immunity doesn't make that much of a difference once you get specialists. The Hive's natural corruption/inefficiency can be easily sidestepped by assigning crawlers for your nutrients and then going all-out on lab and econ specialists. I think that idea is very cool because that's precisely what a top-down social government would do: assign jobs for its citizens.

Suoyi, wei renmin fuwu!

CEO Aaron · July 6, 2003, 13:28

My apologies, HongHu, try the Alien Crossfire 2.0 update here:

http://www.firaxis.com/downloads_detail.cfm?file_id=19

Snowflake · July 6, 2003, 23:10

No problem, since my SMAX still has not worked. So the patch you previously gave me was exactly the one I need right now.

Snowflake · July 6, 2003, 23:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
To be honest, the efficiency immunity doesn't make that much of a difference once you get specialists. The Hive's natural corruption/inefficiency can be easily sidestepped by assigning crawlers for your nutrients and then going all-out on lab and econ specialists. I think that idea is very cool because that's precisely what a top-down social government would do: assign jobs for its citizens.

Suoyi, wei renmin fuwu!

That's true although I was in the very early stage so all my specialists were doctors who can only watch helpelessly when all the energies I produced went down the drain.

Later I'll be using the specialist strategy for sure.

TongZhiMen XinKuLe!

ps. Ali, have you thought of joining the ACDG? People in the Hive were truly looking forward to your participation there.

Vev · July 8, 2003, 22:40

The more the merrier in the Hive.

Ogie Oglethorpe · July 8, 2003, 23:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
To be honest, the efficiency immunity doesn't make that much of a difference once you get specialists. The Hive's natural corruption/inefficiency can be easily sidestepped by assigning crawlers for your nutrients and then going all-out on lab and econ specialists. I think that idea is very cool because that's precisely what a top-down social government would do: assign jobs for its citizens.

Suoyi, wei renmin fuwu!

This is a good point but there is one extra that folks need be aware of. If you are a player who likes to skew your energy allocation heavy to lab or econ, the inefficiency hit you take still applies.

So for example a society running a paradigm efficiency can go 100% labs with no hit. While a -3 efficiency trying to go 100% labs will get soemthing like a 34% or greater hit to efficiency EVEN IF THEY COME FROM SPECIALISTS.

Running high inneficiency is fine and without issue if you are mostly specialists and are OK with energy allocations at or near 50% lab 50% econ.

Alinestra Covelia · July 11, 2003, 02:07

Good point Ogie. Generally I have never had a high enough Efficiency rating as the Hive to warrant ever leaving the 50% mark for both Sci and Econ.

Ogie Oglethorpe · July 11, 2003, 07:58

Usually this doesn not cause a problem as you manually adjust specialists from librarian or technologist (or thinker/engineer respectively) to achieve the same effect. But it is worth noting.

Lazerus · July 11, 2003, 10:43

Early in the game i tend to go 80% lab/ 20% econ since for the sake of losing your 0-8ec income you can increase your tech rate rather significantly, i've went from 15 turns to tech every 8 turns, gets me running wealth then onto eco engineering alot quicker even if im alone. Once i start building the base facs i do switch back to 50/50 slowing down my tech rate by a few turns but increasing cash by about 50 per turn.
With the tight packing ICS strategy i play then i normally get alot of specialists without even trying, i dont normally switch workers away from my boreholes or forests since there will only be 4 squares max worked and the rest crawlered anyways. I tend to go for more thinkers aswell, cash isn't really needed as its flowing easy enough with all planetary energy grid and tree farms.

Ogie Oglethorpe · July 11, 2003, 11:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Lazerus
Early in the game i tend to go 80% lab/ 20% econ since for the sake of losing your 0-8ec income you can increase your tech rate rather significantly, i've went from 15 turns to tech every 8 turns, gets me running wealth then onto eco engineering alot quicker even if im alone. Once i start building the base facs i do switch back to 50/50 slowing down my tech rate by a few turns but increasing cash by about 50 per turn.
With the tight packing ICS strategy i play then i normally get alot of specialists without even trying, i dont normally switch workers away from my boreholes or forests since there will only be 4 squares max worked and the rest crawlered anyways. I tend to go for more thinkers aswell, cash isn't really needed as its flowing easy enough with all planetary energy grid and tree farms.

Me too Laz. I usually rely on scaring up some worms for the pearl energy to allow me the 40 ec's for the first SE change.