-3 Growth: A warning if you're ever tempted

UnityScoutChopper · August 12, 2003, 06:01

I recently discovered an undocumented (I think) "feature" of the Growth setting. When running -3 Growth (i.e. Aki or Sven running Green without Demo), YOUR BASES DO NOT GROW WHEN THEIR FOOD BOXES FILL. The boxes do fill up, albeit slowly, but when full, they just sit there.

I found this out the hard way once when for one reason or another I wanted to run Sven as something better than Simple, but couldn't or didn't want to run FM and needed more tech than I could get while running Planned. I was busy popping out colony pods when all of a sudden, a few turns after switching to Green, one base after another had "population too low" to pop out a pod... after a few turns of this problem growing rather than shrinking, I realized the horrible truth.

The moral of the story is: if you really need to run Green when playing Sven or Aki, balance it with Demo (or I suppose in some extremely exceptional cases with a GA or Creche in **EVERY** base whose food box might fill up before you raise your growth rating above -3). If you can't balance it with Demo, you don't need to run Green as bad as you think you do!

USC

mark13 · August 12, 2003, 07:14

I think it says 'no population growth' in the box at the bottom-right of the SE screen. Either way, it's nasty though...

Jamski · August 12, 2003, 12:05

I'm not even going to try that, no way. Negative growth = very nasty.

-Jam

Method · August 12, 2003, 18:07

i thought -3 was "Near Zero" growth

Maniac · August 12, 2003, 18:21

Well, the excess nutrients are still accumulated in the nutrient box. So there's still some growth. It's just that the base doesn't grow in size when the nutrient box is full.

CEO Aaron · August 12, 2003, 22:36

So your population doesn't increase. Call me crazy, but from over here, that looks like no growth.

Lazerus · August 13, 2003, 15:47

-2 -20% population growth
-3 ZERO POPULATION GROWTH

even the manual tries to persuade people not to do this.

Chaos Theory · August 13, 2003, 17:37

Of course, in vanilla SMAC, it's not possible to reach -3 growth.

UnityScoutChopper · August 14, 2003, 11:18

Quote:

-2 -20% population growth
-3 ZERO POPULATION GROWTH

even the manual tries to persuade people not to do this.

But if like me you're too lazy to pick up the manual and you just read the in-game text....

USC

Jamski · August 14, 2003, 18:21

Of course, as I realised last night, once you get the Kloning Vats, its not really an issue is it?

-Jam

Maniac · August 14, 2003, 20:01

Jamski, do you have a German version of SMAC?

The Mad Monk · August 16, 2003, 04:40

If you have -3 GROWTH and Cloning Vats, which wins?

AMD4EVER · August 16, 2003, 11:29

Cloning Vats

Hercules · August 16, 2003, 13:44

Hmm. think I 'll (as Sven) will avoid Green unless I have demo and something else.

joncnunn · August 16, 2003, 16:32

Even with Vanilla SMAC, you can reach -3 Growth by making a custom fraction that has a -1 growth penalty.

The major conquences of your SE choices are listed on the bottom right of the Social Engerning Screen. If your Growth is -3, on that line you'll see ZERO POPULATION GROWTH in all caps.

UnityScoutChopper · August 18, 2003, 06:10

Quote:

The major conquences of your SE choices are listed on the bottom right of the Social Engerning Screen. If your Growth is -3, on that line you'll see ZERO POPULATION GROWTH in all caps.

Jon, it's been a few weeks since that fateful day, but AFAICR, it unfortunately read "NEAR-ZERO POPULATION GROWTH", which tricked me into thinking the desciption was mere flavor (like "rampant inefficiency") and the effect was just a 30% larger nut box.

Silly me.

USC

Hercules · August 18, 2003, 21:04

Unity, if you want to play with pirates in an MP game, come join us Pirates in tHe Acdg(2) Ac democracy game. eh, leave the -3 behind

Maniac · August 19, 2003, 11:24

Or you could join the Consciousness. They have the ability to get -3 growth as well.

gwillybj · August 24, 2003, 23:16

Quote:

Originally posted by UnityScoutChopper:
Jon, it's been a few weeks since that fateful day, but AFAICR, it unfortunately read "NEAR-ZERO POPULATION GROWTH", which tricked me into thinking the desciption was mere flavor (like "rampant inefficiency") and the effect was just a 30% larger nut box.
Silly me.
USC

This is interesting. I don't have SMAX, but I have the alpha.txt and alphax.txt from the Planetary Pack. Looking at them and comparing them to the alpha.txt on the SMAC-only CD, the -30% Growth text is indeed different:

SMAC-only: "-3, ZERO POPULATION GROWTH"
PP, both files: "-3, NEAR-ZERO POPULATION GROWTH"