20-04-2005 20:56									#1
	Super Science City...should you allways try to build one? Got spare money?

I just finished a transcend game where I built a Super Science City(SSC) and I was a bit amazed at how much science was comming out of that city!

The city was 26 pop with half of them transcends, 12 crawlers crawling 7 energy each. It had all standard research facilities pluss the SPs: SC, ToE, NetBackbone.

Setting the slider to 100% labs to check out how much research it produced:

211 labs + 3043 bonus = 3254 research

For comparison my next best research city with the same pop and just normal facilities brought in:

88 labs + 350 bonus = 438 research.

Most of my 'normal' bases produced around 300 research under these settings.

Basically, the SSC produced as much research as the rest of my empire of 10 or so cities.

And this city wasn't even optimized for it, it didn't have merchant exchange and could have crawled in a lot more energy.

Seems like a SSC is a pretty good investment to me. Allthough the net effect of SC and ToE should be 4x research, the extra crawled energy makes it way more than 4 bases research output. What do you guys think? Good investment or not?

	20-04-2005 22:38									#2
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Great investment.

Its simple really-- Do you take a bunch of middling numbers and multiply them by 2 or do you use the same resources to create a pretty big number that you can multiply by 4.

The SSC in a pure builder type game would probably fare quite well. The only other style that competes is ICS .

The only problem with the SSC concept is that SMAX is also a wargame and it has elements of "all your eggs in one basket". If your good base is at all vulnerable you have problems. In addition, many smaller maps are not suited to big energy parks since a lot of resources would have to be devoted to protecting those crawlers

	20-04-2005 23:19									#3
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Yes, it's a bit like putting all your eggs in one basket... but there really is no reason why you can't combine one SSC with some other approach like ICS!

You can just leave some room around your SSC and go nuts with CxCxCxC everywhere else it if you feel like it. Then you can get the best of both worlds.

	21-04-2005 00:17									#4
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I always try for it. But sometimes I don't get one of the 2 science SP's, and I never get merchant exchange.

	21-04-2005 00:28									#5
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quote: Originally posted by EscapedGoat Yes, it's a bit like putting all your eggs in one basket... but there really is no reason why you can't combine one SSC with some other approach like ICS! .

I've actually tried that out a little. All of the crappy bases exist only to create more colony pods or to produce crawlers and formers for the energy park. Very effective although I got bored with the micro management required.

	21-04-2005 01:23									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident I always try for it. But sometimes I don't get one of the 2 science SP's, and I never get merchant exchange.

What faction gives you that trouble ? Since I started to have two or three bases pumping formers into my SP builder base I ususally get all SP's as Aki.

	21-04-2005 01:49									#7
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Yeah that's the main reason I don't like to ICS too...you might play less gameturns, BUT the turns take forever, and it's a lot of work! It's just clunky to play with bases that close, and turns take forever.

I am also not sure if CxCxC spacing really is optimal... I have a feeling CxxCxxC is a pretty competitive spacing scheme, and it is very easy if you forest everything, build treefarms and pop boom. You can have the same amount of boreholes anyway, and each citizen will eat 2 nutrients and be a drone regardless of where he lives. The advantage to CxxC is more citizens can use the same facilities, thus it's easier to amplify your basic income from squares. If you have 5 ppl in 2 bases or 10 ppl in 1 base, that's basically a toss up because the small bases get the base square as well, but you need 2x the infrastructure. The advantage to smaller bases is drone control from SPs, police and recreation commons, which are very cheap to run... The point is, no one should feel that they are being terribly inefficient by spacing wider than CxCxC...

	21-04-2005 06:00									#8
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EscapedGoat: unfortunately, the 2 size 5 bases need half the infrastructure in total, because all their citizens are thinkers.

ICS: Good game, thanks for playing.

	21-04-2005 09:23									#9
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I personally tend to avoid creating the energy park when creating any SCC like base, and just stick with the projects, using the space instead to ICS to a moderate level. So long as it's a central base, I tend to find that I don't have any problems with the fact that it's all my eggs in one basket, given that if anyone can manage to get a Planet Buster or invasion force in there, I've probably already lost the game anyway, since there's simply no way to get close enough normally with ICS that dense and that thick.

	21-04-2005 12:10									#10
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I tend to do it as an afterthought. I don't typically make a big effort to get the Merchant Exchange for starters. I probably get it less than half to about half of the time (it depends on which faction I play somewhat). If I do get it I'll feed it extra crawlers and have them work those peripheral or otherwise unworked tiles in my ICS network. The two science doubling projects are generally pretty low on my list of priorities as well. I shoot for satellites and fusion first. When they come up I certainly will build them in the same base, but that base never is so impressive as to constitute such a huge percentage of my science production as is often reported for other people's SSCs. My research tend to be powered by lots of tight (but population maximized) bases with lots of specialists.

	21-04-2005 17:09									#11
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Thanks for reminding me Sik. I tend to miss the ME too. Especially in MP, there's just more juicy projects to aim for at that point.

When I do get those science projects though, I always, *always* put them in the HQ. There's no point losing any potential extras to inefficiency.
As for their relative importance....I've generally been able to quicken my research rate by a whole turn with each of the projects, so it's certainly worth it to me, even though the majority of research is powered the same as Sik's, with lots of specialists spread over many tightly placed and highly populated bases. With my slightly non-standard beeline priorities too, I can usually arrange things so I've got the time to get the projects and build them while between major infrastructure development. Thus far, it's worked like a charm.

	22-04-2005 01:27									#12
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my ssc is rarely in my capitol. Ideally I'd like it to be. But often I end up building it in my best production city which is usually not my capitol.

	22-04-2005 03:00									#13
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Instead of building your Super Science city in your capitol, build your capitol in your Super Science City...

	23-04-2005 10:26									#14
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I assume to build a SSC is to build all research improvements along SPs that improve research?

	23-04-2005 12:49									#15
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yep.

Ideally, I'd like to build: Merchant Exchange, Supercollider, Theory of Everything, Network Backbone, and Space Ellevator. I'm not sure about the last one. It says it increase economy 50%- I'm not sure if they improves research at all. And of course, biology lab, network node, energy bank, nanohospital, research hospital, (is that it?).

	23-04-2005 18:20									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident yep. Ideally, I'd like to build: Merchant Exchange, Supercollider, Theory of Everything, Network Backbone, and Space Ellevator. I'm not sure about the last one. It says it increase economy 50%- I'm not sure if they improves research at all. And of course, biology lab, network node, energy bank, nanohospital, research hospital, (is that it?).

Nope, you have forgotten Fusion and Quantum labs.

Further, since you probably want to pump a lot of energy into this base, Tree farm and Hybrid forest should also be build there. They don't add directly to reseach, but together with EB and Space elev it gives + 200 % on ECONOMY, wich again may be reallocated through SE.

If running FM, the Longevity vaccine adds another 50 % to energy.

That should be it (I think )

	23-04-2005 19:12									#17
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Ah so research improvements along with energy improvements and their SPs? To pump out as much energy to be reharvested into the research slider?

	23-04-2005 20:19									#18
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Yes, and I actually forgot something.

The three kind of sattelites should be build so they matches top pop. Especially when Cloning vats are build.

	24-04-2005 14:44									#19
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I try to do a SCC every now and then, but like Flubber said, putting all your eggs into one basket is sort of dangerous. Just the thought of having all my best scientists and talents planetbustered disturbs me.

Instead I try and have 2 or 3 science bases. They might not have the same amount of research points as just one, but in the event that one base gets bustered, at least I have a few other ones to protect my research points.

Although, having 1 base pumping out mad research points is pretty impressive. I'd give that base governor a cookie if I could.

	24-04-2005 15:50									#20
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Just keep your basket out of reach, then PB's isn't a problem.

At the time other factions gets the abillity to build PB's I usually are / has been at war with them, so enemy bases that might have been in firing range are now mine.

Secondly, I also throw missiles against any base that are building PB's or have them in stock. (Arrgh, antimissile-use posters sighted - must find my tinfoil hat )

	25-04-2005 01:08									#21
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I try not to piss of factions with planetbusters until I get orbital defense pods (or at least flechette defense systems).

	25-04-2005 01:31									#22
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That is why I hit them before they get them. I think I have been hit once by PB's, and since I figured out what had happened, PB builders / owners has been my main target .

	25-04-2005 01:33									#23
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quote: Originally posted by BlackCat That is why I hit them before they get them. I think I have been hit once by PB's, and since I figured out what had happened, PB builders / owners has been my main target .

Edit : Actually, I have never seen a ODP in function - is it worth while to try it ?

	25-04-2005 01:48									#24
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I dunno, usually I'm either building busters or not. This past game, I swear I eliminated all the faction bases close enough to me that could be used as a forward base. I actually measured the tiles and unless the humies established a base that I didn't see, I have no idea how they were launching all those PB's at me.

I figured if I'm the Aliens and everyone hates me, I might as well nuke and obliterate every human base. Yeah, I usually commit at least 1 atrocity per game...

Hey, when sunspots in play launch those PB's away.

	25-04-2005 04:17									#25
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quote: Originally posted by BlackCat Just keep your basket out of reach, then PB's isn't a problem. At the time other factions gets the abillity to build PB's I usually are / has been at war with them, so enemy bases that might have been in firing range are now mine. Secondly, I also throw missiles against any base that are building PB's or have them in stock. (Arrgh, antimissile-use posters sighted - must find my tinfoil hat )

Another way to keep to keep your SSC safe from AI factions is to completely surround your base with other units (crawlers work well). I have yet to be PB'd when the AI could not get a PB through the other units. A human player would just shoot through those other units first to open up a hole in the defenses.


As an aside, I have used ODPs in the past, and got into a couple sattelite wars in the past, but have never seen one of my fletcher defense systems used. I built them but the AI never shot against them.


Mead

	25-04-2005 06:19									#26
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Another way to avoid PBs is to clear all units out of the base...if you have enough infastructure around the base, like other bases, you'll never have to worry about units attacking the city...just watch out for mindworms...

	25-04-2005 21:09									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Commy Another way to avoid PBs is to clear all units out of the base...if you have enough infastructure around the base, like other bases, you'll never have to worry about units attacking the city...just watch out for mindworms...

The empty the base trick-- I have used this as well. The mindworms CAN be maddenning. Foir anyone that didn't understand Commy's reference, one of the most frustrating thing that van happen to you is to clear and area of units so a buster has nothing to hit only to have a mindworm appear and come close to your base. The opponent nukes the worm and you say bye bye base.

Note that generally the emptying the base trick is generally only recommended for "safer" bases. Not much point is having your best base captured after all

	25-04-2005 21:15									#28
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OH and if I am playing SMAX, I am more likely to have a lot of trawlers which makes it more difficult for an AI to PB me anyway. They form a barrier defense. If I see a PB nearby I might also put up a wall of interceptors (plus empty my key base)

These are all last ditch type efforts anyway as my more typical method is to simply kill any enemy base that dares be within range of my best city

	26-04-2005 23:43									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident yep. Ideally, I'd like to build: Merchant Exchange, Supercollider, Theory of Everything, Network Backbone, and Space Ellevator. I'm not sure about the last one. It says it increase economy 50%- I'm not sure if they improves research at all. And of course, biology lab, network node, energy bank, nanohospital, research hospital, (is that it?).

If you build you SSC on the coast, don't forget the Thermocline Transducer. If you are trawling energy off the tidal turbines, it acts like a ME (no maintaince +1energy and a lot cheaper to build)

	26-04-2005 23:56									#30
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quote: Originally posted by livid imp If you build you SSC on the coast, don't forget the Thermocline Transducer. If you are trawling energy off the tidal turbines, it acts like a ME (no maintaince +1energy and a lot cheaper to build)

I don't like coastal placement of core bases so I prefer to terraform up to above 3000 m. That gives +5 energy with ME.