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MariOne
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Erewhon in Neverland
May 1999
time: 06:22
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More on topic, Dilithium Dad informed me in the ForumWars6 team game we're playing together (or rather *against*, as I'm representing ACOL or what remains of it, albeit we're temporarily allied against CGN team superpower...) of s "school of thought" I was not aware of, namely that some think it's more convenient to DELAY the popping of pods till the mid-late game.
Allegedly, Artifacts would be more likely to occur later in the game.
I cannot confirm this from my personal experience and observations, although I never kept a "scientific approach" record about it.
It's true that with the progress of the game some outcome become impossible (techs, commlinks) thus leaving in theory more room for other outcomes.
But the most frequent contents of pods are anyway resources and worms, and any eventual increase due to the fading of a couple categories is not significant imho.
If I should say offhand, I think that eventually useless cartographic and displacement pods show a sensible increase in the later game.
That said, I believe that dealying a pod pop is a "waste of opportunity".
I would only delay it in case:
- I don't have a transport nearby to a seapod, but I can provide it in not too long time
- I'm not prepared to face and/or bear with the eventual worms (say, an unguarded base nearbay, but not near enough to prevent worms, or a lush base site which I don't want to ruin with fungalbloom right before my CPod founds the base)
- the nearest base is about to complete a production, and I could profit of a Material Pod as soon as it begins an expensive facility or unit.
Shold you argue that later in the game Materials Pods will help you gain much more minerals from completion of more expensive facilities, I say you that pop-completing a Creche or Commons or Node in the early game when every tiny resource is valuable is at least as much important (if not more) as an Hybrid Forest when you are producing already 20 minerals per turn, 300 energy anf 500 labs anyway...
So, if there is actually someone around here who keeps his pods for later as a strategy, it would be interesting to hear him explain his motives...
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Tommara
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I tend to dilly-dally around with pod popping, especially when mind worms are a serious threat. Very early in the game, they are weak, so no sweat, and the rewards are valuable compared to what you have. Late in the game, they're no threat either, but the rewards are no big deal either. Just need to clean the trash off my nice clean green carpet.
About the time I get Industrial Automation, I tread more warily around them. My green/very green units are toast to a mind worm at that point. Like Vitamin J, I tend to feel that the chance of a mind worm pop is less likely if the pod is in a settled area.
Don't really know if that's true or not, though. Good idea to use a mind worm as a pod popper, I'll try that.
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Adalbertus
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Cologne, Germany
Feb 2001
time: 06:22
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quote:
Quite different matter would be if she had to compare her Single Player scores or achievements in a Scenario game, or if she even boasted her reloadless score when actually behaving otherwise... |
I played multiplayer once with my brother ... both of us avid reloaders (now, that I know how to play SMAX, I do it rarely, but hey, when the AI is cheating (and I don't mean production bonus and so, but things like "AI knows the position of every of your units" or "AI missiles strike anywhere") - why not?) - that's why I don't post scores here  . Anyway, we informed each other about reloading. And we had a "never attack" pact. So nothing serious. In Civ2, I believe to have noticed that the probability of barbarians in a hut is significantly reduced if you had movement points left; but this doesn't seem to apply to SMAC/X. For sea pod popping, I normally try (in SMAX) to get a 3-resonance armour trance transport, but indeed, there should be an empath (resonance) attacker around if you somehow manage to get a positive planet rating. IoD are the best maritime pod poppers, because they have both, attack/defense and transport capability.
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MariOne
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Erewhon in Neverland
May 1999
time: 06:22
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Justa as VitJ pointed out:
Worms *never* pop if the pod is *inside* a basezone (thin red line), and neither are blooms IIRC.
They are also less likely to come out if the pod is "near" a colonised area, but in theory you could get one even in the diagonal corner cropped out of a 2-tiles radius basezone, albeit very rarely.
Also, there is a "school of thought", not documented, but which I'd be more inclined to accept, that pods inside fungus usually have the highest chance of yielding something bad.
Although it's not clear wheter this is merely because your colonised areas usually steer clear of heavy fungal zones...
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Prima Guide reports that you can only get level 1 & 2 techs out of pods. I don't know how much Prima can be actually considered "official". It does reports this and very few other bits of info documented nowhere else.
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VitJ, whether linking AAs or keeping them is a parallel issue to pod-popping, but quite individual and distinct. You might for instance believe the necessity to pop pods ASAP while at the same time prefer to link AAs ALAP....
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Re: How to deal with popped worms and native... (under negative Planet SE)
The income from planetpearls can partially compensate you for not having popped something useful from the pod. In that sens a fungal bloom can be worse that a couple of worms.
But the other consideration is that you don't want your units to get killed by the spawned worms, or your facilities in base destroyed (if not a base altogether), or your terraforming undone.
Thus in some case escaping the spawned worms unscathed, or at least surviving, can be a goal already.
For that purpose, remember that planet rating affects only your *attack* strength in PSI combat.
Then, Empath ability costs you something, and you only build a unit with it purposefully, while Trance (coupled with armor higher than weapon) comes for free and you already use it *by default* on every defensive unit once you discover it. Also, Trance is discovered earlier than Empath Song.
True, when attacking a land native you begin with 3vs2 strength, while you begin at a loss (2vs3) if you let a native attack your land unit.
Under FM, you suffer -30% Planet.
Your basic attack strength sags down to 3*0.7=2.1
With Trance, your defense raises to 2*1.5=3, unaffected by FM.
It still remains an advantage in attacking over defending, but only a *very slight* one (2.1 vs 2 compared with 3 vs 3).
If you then plan to defend in favorable ground (in a base and/or near a sensor), you see that it can be more convenient to forsake the planetpearls and squat, with better chances to survive.
Against *sea* natives, where there is no attack bonus, the situation is totally tilted in favor of defense.
Even with 0 Planet SE, you'd attack at 1 vs1 and defend at 1.5 vs 1.
With FM, and without Empath ability, your attack becomes unthinkable (0.7 vs 1).
Of course morale levels have a great influence on this all.
It's also true that under FM you won't be sending around a combat unt because of pacifism, thus attack would be out of question, except adjacent to ports (in SMAX only). And that you need *armored* tranports (in addition to Trance) to avoid the non-combat defense penalty and survive the IoDs you spawn.
All in all FM makes pop-popping much more tricky. But you can't waive the advantages of FM only because of this, other consideration take priority, you'll just have to make do with popping under FM.
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Mongoose
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Harrisburg,PA USA
Apr 1999
time: 00:22
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quote:
Against *sea* natives, --snip-- Even with 0 Planet SE, you'd attack at 1 vs1 and defend at 1.5 vs 1. |
This is incorrect, I believe, or at least unclear. I think it would be 1:1 either way, before morale/lifecycle considerations. The 1.5 defense level is with trance factored in.
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big_canuk
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Leamington, ON, Canada
Jul 2000
time: 00:22
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Exactly.
The game is *much* more fun with no reloads. You then have to approach potential problems differently.
You have to have some defense just in case..
You have to take along a little insurance on attack, just in case...
Nothing is more fun in SP(MP is way more fun), than being bushwhacked early by say a Hive in the jungle, and just surviving, and still winning (by the skin of your teeth) in the end. Perhaps only a short step behind, is the same scenario, but loosing. Ahh... maybe loosing is more fun.... *not*
Anyway, maybe because of this, I am a wimp when it comes to popping pods. Land pods anywhere close to home, I almost always found a base beside the pod first, then pop it. Far away pods, I usually wait till I can safely pop it. Land pods at least two units, and sea pods either the MCC and XD to be able to run, or a good trance transport preferably 3tr.
I have just started calculating the nearest base to each pop, and putting in a high value crawler, just in case it is a materials pod. Definitely cheating in SP, but it seems that bit of micromanagement is forced on me in MP. I could go for banning it, but you could not police putting in a high value facility, I don't think.
Just a little correction from above. Pod pops in the base radius can still spawn worms (albeit rarely). The only safe way to prevent worms and blooms is to put a base *right* beside the pod.
bc
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MariOne
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Erewhon in Neverland
May 1999
time: 06:22
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quote:
Originally posted by big_canuk I have just started calculating the nearest base to each pop, and putting in a high value crawler, just in case it is a materials pod. Definitely cheating in SP... |
Could you please expound under which elightened shool of thought it should ever be considered as such?????
Even "definitely"?????????????????????????
quote:
I could go for banning it, but you could not police putting in a high value facility, I don't think. |
Now, with all the due respect, this is in my opininon a blatant example ot typical Apolyton puritanism....
This can't even be related to the idiosincracy to perfectly legal game techniques, like armored and specialised crawlers. (mind we'd not be talking of upgrading them, but just about directly producing them, which is quite a different issue).
What if I AM producing a Hybrid Forest, because I need it, without second intentions? Should I be banned from popping pods nearer to that base, till I have completed the HF?
Should I... be forced to switch off the HF before attempting to pop the nearby pod???????????
Do you realise how nonsensical the implications of your statements are?
Why don't you ban Material Pods altogether, then???
Of course it's nice to confront opinions, and you can float whatever you like in your own games for your own amusement.
But if you hope to gain some consensus on your positions, I'd suggest that they make sense in the first place at least at basic level... 
No, wait, rethinking to it...
...making sense is DEFINITELY NOT a requisite to gather consensus, not even in r/l, on the contrary... 
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12-09-2002 16:13
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