07-06-2004 03:48									#31
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I remember when we thought we'd found an expoit in the 'On Alert' combat ability of ground units. Seemed they fought better from On Alert than from Hold.

The only expoit I didn't see mentioned was the 'Automate Probe Team to locate enemy HQ' trick. That's one I found for myself just by a rare experiment into automating units. I'm not sure if it works in patched versions.

-Smack

	08-06-2004 00:12									#32
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I do use stockpile, and move and form sometimes. But that one is too time consuming. I wouldn't recommend anybody use it.

	08-06-2004 00:12									#33
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Dp, sorry.

	08-06-2004 16:03									#34
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I like the former-on-turn-one bug

1. Play with "Do or Die" off.
2. Start game
3. Disband everything

You should respawn with 2 Colony Pods, 1 Former, 1 Scout Patrol (or Synth Sentinels if Morgan)

	08-06-2004 21:08									#35
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Now that I have heard of, and sometimes it can be very useful...but I've never done it for real...

	13-06-2004 11:35									#36
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I selected Move & Form, but I don't.

	17-06-2004 01:50									#37
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SE Quickie! I found that out all by my lonesome!

Go me.

	18-06-2004 09:31									#38
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SE Quickie? I don't know that one. Is it SMAX only?

quote: Problem with Ugpgrade'n'move is it cannot really be avoided except by avoiding the workshop mass upgrade altogether... I actually think it's the intended behaivour, to justify spending the enourmous lump-sum on upgrading say all formers.

The obvious way to avoid it is to do the workshop upgrade at the end of a turn. But I do use the exploit sometimes anyway, muahahahaha!

	18-06-2004 09:48									#39
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Move'n'Upgrade is also an exploit, especially when going to a higher reactor, units can gain new moves, and can allow noodles to attack twice in one turn.

The most exploitive SE quickie is for example:
Your running Planned/Wealth
You switch to Freemarket/Power, and cash in a bunch of crawlers at 13 minerals per row.
You switch back to Planned/Wealth, getting the refund.
The SP builds at 8 minerals per row.

The net effect is +60% (or more) value for your crawlers, disbanded units and AA's - it works even better for factions with starting positive industry.

	18-06-2004 10:35									#40
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AFAIK Power is only -20% Industry,
and Wealth/Planned is +20% Industry.

You get 12minerals/row for a crawler in Power/FM and 8minerals/row in Wealth/Planned.

	18-06-2004 10:55									#41
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So can you start your turn with some crawlers next to a secret project building base, change your social engineering from +20% industry to -20% industry, cash your crawlers in and then change back to +20% industry? If so, you could get effectively +50% minerals for each crawler.

	18-06-2004 20:04									#42
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That's the idea.

SE-Quickies are a gross exploit. All the cash-in bonus, and the ability to manipulate the AI with diplomacy. I think the latter is the bigger exploit, potentially.

-Smack

	19-06-2004 00:47									#43
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I know that the SE quickes like Skanky described is an exploit that are always prohibited in pbems. But I was wondering if you cash in your crawlers so that the SP is say 2 turns from completion, then you swithch SE to -10% or -20% industry, will it then tell you the SP is going to complete the next turn?

	19-06-2004 01:24									#44
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Yes, HH, if you switch SE to an improved industry rating, SP's in progress are reduced in cost accordingly, increasing their relative progress to completion.

The consensus has been that if you pay for an SE change to gain its benefit, you haven't cheated. It's not an entirely comfortable state of affairs, though:

Say you're on Planned / Wealth, pop out a few crawlers, and want to cash them in at higher value than you paid. You switch to "Power" and pay your 40 ec's.

If you then cash in your crawler, or comm Santiago for that matter, you are not allowed to switch out of "Power" until next turn. If you switched back, you'd be refunded your money, meaning you both got something for nothing and never suffered the SE penalty. That's cheating.

If you wait until next turn, you will have paid for the diplomatic or manufacturing advantages received as well as suffered the SE penalty that turn, so having "paid the price" for changing SE you haven't cheated.

Next turn you switch back to Wealth, and the SP you were working on suddenly becomes cheaper and will be completed next turn. You paid your 40 ec's, though, so again you haven't cheated.

This isn't really an SE "quickie" -- it's more of an SE "shorty" -- but it still multiplies the value of crawlers, and I've seen a few games which had additional turn restrictions between SE changes.

	19-06-2004 22:27									#45
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Explain this crawler trick, I still don't understand it, upgrading them and all...

	19-06-2004 22:53									#46
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There are a lot of crawler 'tricks', but the upgrade to cash in one is what I think you mean. Simply, crawlers can be upgraded with armor/abilities, which increases their mineral value. Since it's generally always cheaper to upgrade a unit than it is to rush-buy something, especially a SP, one can simply upgrade a regular crawler to armored and then cash it in for the new improved mineral value. This is certainly an exploit, though it's not really a problem of game mechanics. It's perfectly legitimate to upgrade units, and it's legitimate to cash in crawlers (which is what the AI uses them for, mostly). However, I don't think the game designers intended this work around for cheapening the price of rush-building.

-Smack

	20-06-2004 06:57									#47
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I said instant elites, but I don't realy use any exploits, maybe reverse engineering probe teams into rovers when I start as the Jazz, but rarely even that.

	20-06-2004 10:07									#48
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I see why this thread was started by telling all posters to not ask about exploits they don't know. I suppose to some it is tempting, but I don't do exploits or cheat. I'm to lazy, to stupid, and don't need handicaps to beat the AI. I'm not saying that I too good for exploits. It's just that, if they're not necessary, I don't waste my time and limited thinking skills doing them...

But thanks for the crawler trick. I probably won't use it, but I always wanted to know what it was...

	21-06-2004 08:44									#49
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Doublepost. >_<''

	21-06-2004 08:45									#50
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quote: Originally posted by Commy I'm to lazy, to stupid, and don't need handicaps to beat the AI.

Contradiction.

	21-06-2004 21:07									#51
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smacksim, I'm not referring to the crawler upgrade trick but the SE change trick.

You can build crawlers at a low industry cost rating and dismantle them at a high-cost rating by manipulating your SE settings. One method of doing this is considered cheating, the other is not.

	22-06-2004 00:26									#52
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Santiago_Claus, Yes you are right. I was only replying to Commie's post without re-reading yours. Sorry to confuse anyone. Both exploits work for cheating your way to cheap mineral production.

-Smack

	22-06-2004 02:34									#53
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Ok let me see if I understand the SE crawler SP scenario. Say if you just have enough money to switch to wealth when you get your IA, but you wouldn't be able to hurry your crawlers. And you don't want to cheat so won't be able to take advantage of the SE change for SP.

Now would this work better? Say you don't switch to wealth. You hurry your crawlers so you get them quicker. And at the same time you got more money in these few turns so you are able to switch to wealth. Now you start a SP, cash in the crawlers till 2 turns complete. Then you switch to wealth and you get your SP next turn. Will it gain you any advantages?

	22-06-2004 05:21									#54
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Yep. I often do this with AAs - delay Wealth for a bit so I can get the extra 10 minerals.

	22-06-2004 16:42									#55
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Experiment with this. No matter what the Datalinks say, my experience with artifacts is that they provide 50 mins regardless of SE settings.

	22-06-2004 16:51									#56
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quote: Experiment with this. No matter what the Datalinks say, my experience with artifacts is that they provide 50 mins regardless of SE settings.

If someone tries to prove different-> this is SMAC/X forum!
SMAC/X allows to cash 50 mins for an AA and this doesn't change under any circumstances!

	22-06-2004 16:52									#57
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quote: Automated Interceptors

Could someone explain this exploit?

	22-06-2004 16:54									#58
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Automated units, whether the AI's or your own, have full knowledge of the map and will zip out to kill units out of your sight.

	22-06-2004 17:01									#59
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Good one!

	23-06-2004 01:20									#60
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HH:
Ahh, I see what you're saying: we've been working under the assumption that we all want to run Wealth all the time, and just change SE to get more value from crawlers.

You're suggesting instead the opposite: a temporary switch to Wealth to grab an SP.

Your question, as I understand it, is whether the equivalent cash spent switching to Wealth could be spent hurrying crawlers just as efficiently.

If you don't run Wealth as a matter of course then you'll also have to pay to switch back after the SP is completed, so the cost for a "Wealth hop" is 80 ec's (120 for Progenitor).

That means, assuming you finagle 2.5 ec's per mineral from crawler rush-buys and upgrades, the SP would need to cost 32 rows for you to break even. 32 * 2.5 = 80. If you're paying retail (4 ec's / mineral for an SP) you break even at 20 rows.

(For my calculations let's define a "row" as a block of 10 minerals at industry rating 0. Some SP's show multiple "rows" on a single line, so I want to avoid confusion there.)

I haven't mentioned the other effects of Wealth SE because of the presumption you'd rather be running something else and have already weighed the consequences; however, I should mention that if you're running Power then by all means switch to Wealth: you make a profit at a mere 11 rows.

To really make a short Wealth run profitable you'd want to complete as many other builds as possible while Wealth was in effect, preferably expensive stuff like Tree Farms.

The one thing you wouldn't want to do is switch to Wealth before cashing in your crawlers.