12-06-2000 12:25									#1
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I would like to know if it is possible to eliminate totaly pollution caused by mineral production.
In the middle of a game I only use few squares in a base to avoid this problem (I usualy plant forests everywhere + hybrid forest).
What's the maximal mineral production you can reach without any pollution. It seems that 45, 50 is a limit.
Where I am wrong? Please help me!!

	12-06-2000 14:54									#2
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I dont know what the limit is, but I don't think you can completely eliminate eco damage. You can increase the number of minerals produced without eco damage by adjusting your SE choices, terraforming decisions, and with facilities. Hybrid forests and Centauri Preserves for example reduce eco damage, as does selecting a faction and SE choice with a high Planet rating. Gaians running green can produce a lot more minerals without any damage than Morgan running Free Market for example. And extreme terraforming, i.e. boreholes, condensers, and the like also cause ecodamage . The most eco-friendly terraforming option is to plant forests everywhere.
[This message has been edited by Drago Sinio (edited June 12, 2000).]

	12-06-2000 15:14									#3
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Playing as gaians, having all eco damage reducing facilities and secret projects, as well as as high a green rating as possible lets you have a mineral production of 110-120 at the time of the first transcendent thought tech. The Cult might be able to push it another 10-20 if you have smac-x.

I rarely get bases past 60-80 when running gaians, and rarely past 40ish with anyone able to run fm. (as it kinda grinds to a halt around there)
Off course, with yang or santiago I often run well into the red, having lot of empath troops to mop up any infestations and get cash from it... (As running fm it pretty pointless as yang, and as santiago you can make more money on green and using your high morale to kill natives...

	12-06-2000 16:00									#4
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Thank you for your help,

A question come to my mind about the waste of productive squares from the middle of a game. As soon I discover hybrid forest I can't use all available squares within city radius without big levels of pollution. So, my question is, should I build my new cities in order to overlap them as much as possible or continue to keep 21 squares for each city?

	12-06-2000 16:42									#5
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Ferdi:

General consensus around here is that there is nothing wrong with city overlap. Many even encourage it. Some have based rather fearsome strategies on pursuing overlap.

Basically, by the time you have bases that can use all 21 of those squares, the game's already been won or lost. Since using time wisely is the key to winning the game, try to get as many squares working for you as quickly as possible. The gains you take now will exceed the limits to city development in the distant future. This applies whether or not you follow an ICS strategy. You can always make a superbase later by giving one base all the squares it can use at the expense of its neighbors and/or heavy crawler usage.

In short, there is nothing sacred about base radii. Feel free to trample on them.

	12-06-2000 19:08									#6
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Ferdi,

Along with what Shimmin decribes, you'll be asking yourself "If I don't allow all those squares to be worked what do I do with the excess population? I can't set them to work so they are wasted right?"

Many times excess population is a great thing as these extra bodies that have no place to work can intead be set to specialist activities and in a sense provide resources in terms of equivalent energy. This equivalent energy may be better in terms of raw resources then actually working a square in many cases. Take for example an engineer that contribute 2 research and 3 econ (equivalent to sourcing 5 raw energy points). Thats a pretty good resource/energy haul for a single population point.

In a nutshell I am simply echoing Shimmin's comments that although you've not worked per city the 21 squares you still are getting great resource returns from even those inactive/non working citizens although at face value it may not appear so. It does require judicious manipulationof your populace tho' in order to establish the kinds of specialsists you wish to use. The default specialists are almost always incorrect and least useful to you as those default specialists are typically doctors then empaths (both of which produce the least meaningful equivalent energy).

	13-06-2000 01:00									#7
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Ogie is right, specialists are incredibly important in changing the energy value of a base. A base that is relatively useless but has a lot of food can be turned into a specialist base and net your empire a ton of cash. Really there is very little reason NOT to ICS unless perhaps you are Lal. Space your cities 3 squares apart. This also allows your infantry to move from city to city, and your rovers to move to cities far away. This allows for more efficient terraforming, faster expansion, is easier to defend, and should help your population. Again if your faction has a big pop boom focus then ICS is not as important, but then again extra population without squares to work on becomes specialists which are very very valuable in the midgame.

I like ICS a lot partially because I play Morgan a lot and can't pop boom, but it works well for any faction.

	13-06-2000 11:04									#8
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Thanks a lot! ICS (I don't like the principle but...) seems to be a very good solution to solve my problem (and many others).
I am going to try that...

	13-06-2000 18:42									#9
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Ferdi, More than anything else, I find that building farms and solar collectors rather than forests causes ecodamage. The ecodamage formula adds farms and collectors but subtracts forests.

What I do is build farms and solars collectors ONLY on rainy rolling scquares. If there are a lot of these squares in the local area, I build no more than two farms. Everthing else is a forest or a mine. Later, after Hybrid Forests, I redo the farms to forests.

I also try to build my cities with as little overlap as possible. I sometimes build them farther apart than that. Why? This leads to fewer, but more powerful cities. When one gets Industrial Automation, start building nothing but crawlers to work the terrain. You can easily adjust what they transport to base to control ecodamage. Transport minerals originally, but when you begin to get ecodamage, set the crawlers to transport energy or food.

Put the cities own workers at the perimeter and keep the crawler's close to base or on roads. This is important for another strategy - the crawler upgrade "cheat" that permits one to build an SP in one turn.

Let's say for example that you know that in the next turn you will get the tech to build an SP. In this turn you pick a base - rotate them to avoid buildup of SP's in one city - and upgrade two or three crawlers to a very expensive configuration. In the turn you get the SP, move them into the city to build the SP by using the crawler's minerals. Then set that city to rebuilding the crawlers you just used.

Later in the game, after you have Habitation Domes, your cities will grow to occupy all squares in the base area. This is when you need to move the crawlers to those open spaces between the cities to obtain additional resources. Alternatively, move them inside the next base you intend for the next SP and wait to upgrade them.

In general, crawlers are essential to maximizing production and controlling ecodamage. They are also critical for building SP's.

Also, I have been able to run FM an produce 100+ minerals per base without ecodamage. The trick seems to be building eco-reduction facilities and not building factories. I find that factories, more than anything else, cause the ecodamage. Avoid them.

	03-08-2000 14:53									#10
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As I was reading this I was sure I had MANY more minerals than what was mentioned here so I looked up some old saves. I didn't do an exaustive search of my old games, but I t least found a "Pirates" save where I had 564 minerals in one city without pollution (many cities are over 500 and most are over 200). I can still get eco damage so it has not become "unlimited", but almost.

I put the save online at http://web.raex.com/~wneubert. Please note that this is an early game for me, and the first time I ever played the Pirates. Keep that in mind if you want to critique my play decisions.

[This message has been edited by wneubert (edited August 03, 2000).]

	04-08-2000 09:53									#11
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564 minerals with no ecodamage!!! I don't think you need to worry about people critizing your gameplay wneubert.

Seems like both the pro-ICS and the anti-ICS camps hae spoken. I am somewhere inbetween. I just slap cities down where there is a good spot. Sometimes that will mean a lot of overlap and sometimes none at all. For example, I'll just ignore fungal bloom areas in the early game and go around them. If I have a big uncontested area to expand to I'll space wider and prioritise the coastal cities. If I am cramped and prefer not to attack my neighbours I'll space the cities much more tightly.

Back to topic, one thing that was implied, but not explicitly stated, is that eco-damage is also tech-tree related. The further along you are, the less damage you will experience. Lord Maxwell has stated that he is able to achieve 120 minerals prior to transcendant thought #1; that to me seems like an excellent target to aim for.

	04-08-2000 09:50									#12
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546!!! Was that transcend, you said it was early?!?

Also, does anyone know if discovering technologies like Centauri Empathy effects ecodamage? I wasn't able to get more than 16 minerals per base w/out eco damage, but gradually it changed. The limit went up for all bases, but the only things I remember happening were discovering Cent. E., tree farms (which I know help eco, but I didn't think it effected mineral count directly, and most of my bases were almost all forest anyways), and base growth, which did not happen at all bases. One of my best mineral bases for awhile was size 3 (tech race so pressing I couldn't even pause to pop boom).

	04-08-2000 14:43									#13
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When I said it was early, I meant it was on of my first SMACX games (I had played SMAC before when it first came out). I checked and due to the fact it was one of my first tries, the game was "thinker" (normally I only play "transcend").

I also counted the cities, and there are 17 with over 500 minerals (and 2 with 490). I really can't figure out how there could even be that many (Merchantman Run with 564 minerals has NO mineral Crawlers)

I have all the SP's (some were probably captured by conquest) and 64 "trancendent thought". The minerals started to explode after the Manifold Harmonics SP (plus some mineral satellites).

I checked an earlier save (2370 vs 2388) when I just reached trancendent thought and my cities could have 112 minerals with no eco-damage. I'm not sure whether this is due to tech or that all my cities didn't have Centauri Preserves and Temple of the Planets yet. Later, at 2388, there are a million cities and almost all of them have both. I'm pretty sure that it is how many preserves/temples you have total that determines how many minerals you can get without damage. My planet rating is 5.

	04-08-2000 19:06									#15
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wneubert:

I downloaded your .sav.

Impressive. The 564 minerals base (actually could be 612 if you transferred two transcendii to the two renmaining unworked shelf fungus squares - however that would shoot your eco damage from it's current 0 to 38!!) is producing an orbital, so mineral production is doubled as long as the orbital is in production, so the real total is 282 minerals. Still impressive, though.

The key is being the Pirates (+1 mineral per ocean shelf square) and having the SP Manifold Harmonics with a +1 minerals for planet rating of 2 or better (you are 5).

Then you have 33 nessus mining stations. It's a size 32 base, so the minerals bonus is 32 for that base.

Add in the three cumulative base minerals enhancements (Q Convertor,Robotic Assembly and Genejack Fac) and you have every sea base square at 4 minerals, and your 32 orbitals are worth 108 (x1.5 three times)

Voila.

Impressive

Googlie


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited August 04, 2000).]

	04-08-2000 22:53									#16
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Wait, sorry to continue off topic, but I was just blindsided by this. You are telling me that it is the quantity of preserves/temples effects your entire empire and not building in a city helps that city, like other facilities? It has been awhile since I checked the formula, but I always thought those eco. buildings effected only their city. So building those is basically like paying 2 per turn for +.05 planet rating or something (simplified since there are other planet effects, such as combat, that obviously aren't effected, but lets 'dum' it down )?

	05-08-2000 00:36									#17
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I disagree with AS in theory.

I say in theory because that's not what the literature says happens. I couldn't really say in actuallity because I haven't payed enough attention.

The way they are supposed to work is reduce that bases eco-damage if it is built in that base. And reduce planetary eco-damage (which supposedly only affects things like sea levels, volcanoes etc.) depending on how many you have.

I have heard many times people claim other things affect eco-damage, but usually with little to support it. Things such as damage reducing facilities affect eco-damage everywhere, sea level rises cause a reduction in eco-damage, furthur up the tech tree means less eco damage.

Any one care to use the editor to test it. Plant 50 bases, crank out minerals until eco-damage is at fifty. Then build damage reducing facilities in half and see if it affects the other half (don't let time pass). Start with the same situation and adds techs and see if it affects it. Unfortunately, the sea level stuff requires time to pass, so it could be harder to test.

If no one else has tested it this way by monday night, I can give it a shot then.

	05-08-2000 00:36									#18
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I believe it effects both the base and the global eco damage which is realted to the base. I would have to check the fromula in the data links to be sure. If I remember correcly though, it counts the total number to temples and preserves (globally?) and factors that into the equation. So Adam Smith is right. If you have more bases with preserves and temples you should be able to produce more minerals per base without inflicting eco damage.

	05-08-2000 03:18									#19
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Boy did I mess up on this one. First of all, thanks Googlie for the correction that the 564 minerals was due to orbital production doubling the actual minerals. I have seen that before but forgot about it. That save was old and I only looked at the minerals reported, not what was being produced. I did wonder why so many cities had around 250 minerals, and those 17 had around 500 minerals. Thanks also for the minerals explanation.

I also was incorrect on the Centauri Preserve thing. I used the saved game to test this. I found I could get 282 minerals without pollution. Sold the Centauri Preserve and it went to 276. Sold all 49 preserves and it was still 276. That proves they don’t affect globally, right? I also checked the data links, and though you could take it either way, it did not specifically say global. It does clearly state that the number of tech is an important factor, so farther up the tech tree will reduce eco-damage. (It also said pollution is the same for thinker and transcend, so at least I didn’t further distort the issue with that.)

You mentioned “global pollution” that affects sea levels. I thought that this was based on eco-damage from all your cities. In other words, no eco-damage, no sea level rises. Is this correct?

PS – Sorry for all the confusion I caused here.

To Ishamael: I don’t think you are “off topic” discussing how pollution controls work in a thread titled “Pollution problems”.

	05-08-2000 05:20									#20
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I remember reading a thread a long way back, probably smac, that listed the formula for ecodamage. I might remember that the formula was a function of total minerals production on planet. I was unsure, at the time, whether that included all factions, or just your own production. I have had experiences in recent games where i was producing say 17 minerals without ecodamage. The next turn, i could only produce 16. Either something happened to planet, or total minerals production decresed. Does anyone know what the formula is?

	05-08-2000 08:22									#21
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The formula is in the datalinks under advanced topics. I was going to post it here, but I sort of changed my mind. It's about two pages of scribble. I may latter if no one else does, but right now I'm going to watch a movie. It's pretty interesting acually. It has been posted here before, but I forget who to give the credit to. I actually learned some things after seing it again that I must have forgot.

The main points are that the total number of Centauri Preserves, Temple of Planets and NANOREPLICATORS effect ecodamage globally. Also the tech level has an effect. Another one that I had forgot is "natife life level" as in the before start option. Appearantly if the native life level is higher your ecodamage level with be higher.

This formula is not cast is stone however as far as I'm concerned. For example, it says that only MAJOR atrocities affect ecodamage, but I know for a fact that minor attrocities (in large number) affect it.

	05-08-2000 10:55									#22
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For those with the Prima Guide, the formula is spelled out on page 24. (If I had a flatbed scanner I'd scan and post the page, but I'm not ripping it out of the book to conventional scan)

But Prima does say that if your planet rating is 3 or better, you are immune from eco damage, and wneubert, yours was a rating of 5, so your sell-off experiment wouldn't make any difference.

Googlie

	05-08-2000 17:16									#23
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Here's the formula from concepts.txt

#ADVCONCEPT2

The ecological damage formula is complex:

(1) For each base total the number of Mines, Solar Collectors, Farms,
Soil Enrichers, Roads, Mag Tubes, Condensers, Mirrors, and Boreholes.

Items in squares which are actually being worked count double.

(2) Add an extra +8 for each Borehole, +6 for each Mirror, and +4 for each Condenser.

(3) Subract 1 for each Forest.

(4) Halve if base has Tree Farm, and Eliminate if also has Hybrid Forest.

(5) Divide this value by 8, and reduce by up to 16 plus # of previous
damages. Set this number aside.

(6) Take the number of minerals produced this turn (but not from Orbit)

(7) If result from 5 was reduced by less than 16+#, reduce result 6
by remaining amount.

(8) Divide minerals by 1 plus # of Centauri Preserve, Temple of Planet,
Nanoreplicator.

(9) Sum the values of (5) and (8), and add +5 for each major atrocity=8>.

(10) If Alpha Prime is at perihelion (20 years out of every 80), double
your value.

Ecology% = (ValueFromStep10) * Difficulty * Technologies * (3-PLANET) * LIFE / 300

Difficulty = Normally 3, but 5 on two highest two difficulty levels.
Technologies = Number of technologies discovered
PLANET = Social Engineering PLANET value
LIFE = Native life level (1-3) from Custom Start

Googlie



[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited August 05, 2000).]

	05-08-2000 17:23									#24
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Here I have gone and found this in the pile of old threads. See I don't just tell people they are wrong. I do stuff for the Apolyton community also.

LoD
Warlord
From: Warsaw, Poland
Registered: Jan 2000

posted April 01, 2000 05:08




The formula is (from the help file):


(1) For each base total the number of Mines, Solar Collectors, Farms, Soil Enrichers, Roads, Mag Tubes,Condensers, Mirrors,and Boreholes. Items in squares which are actually being worked count double.
(2) Add an extra +8 for each Borehole, +6 for each Mirror, and +4 for each Condenser.
(3) Subract 1 for each Forest.
(4) Halve if base has Tree Farm, and Eliminate if also has Hybrid Forest.
(5) Divide this value by 8, and reduce by up to 16 plus # of previous damages. Set this number aside.
(6) Take the number of minerals produced this turn (but not from Orbit)
(7) If result from 5 was reduced by less than 16+#, reduce result 6 by remaining amount.
(8) Divide minerals by 1 plus # of Centauri Preserve,Temple of Planet,Nanoreplicator.
(9) Sum the values of (5) and (8), and add +5 for each major atrocity.
(10) If Alpha Prime is at perihelion (20 years out of every 80), double your value.


Ecology% = (ValueFromStep10) * Difficulty * Technologies * (3-PLANET) * LIFE / 300

Difficulty = Normally 3, but 5 on two highest two difficulty levels.
Technologies = Number of technologies discovered
PLANET = Social Engineering PLANET value
LIFE = Native life level (1-3) from Custom Start


LoD

	05-08-2000 20:47									#25
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thanks!

Am i missing something, or must there be something more to it than this. In wneubert's example he had a planet rating of 5, therefore the formula would evaluate to 0, regardless of the other values. yet from his save, googlie was able to produce ecodamage by moving 2 workers to fungus, raising his mins production (564 to 612). Are my maths that rusty, or am i missing something?

	06-08-2000 09:28									#26
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Like I said... I don't think that formula is exactly right.

BTW, Googlie and I posted the formula simultaniously

	06-08-2000 04:02									#27
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b_c:

Yes, but that was only for that base. The eco damage there might have been mitigated/eliminated by an excess contribution from preserves and temples, tree farms Hybrids, etc from other bases - I didn't look.

But I think A_S is right - the immunity from ecodamage with a planetrating of =/>3 seems to indicate zero ecodamage - but I'm not sure it really works that way (but after all, anything times zero is zero, right?).

Googlie


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited August 05, 2000).]

	06-08-2000 07:47									#28
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Perhaps those perfectionists among us should ask Firaxis that, since they don't seem to intend to release a patch anytime soon (hopefully, they will eventually, but lets be realistic) they could mitigate (but NOT compensate!!!) for the harm done by releasing the real formulas and mechanics instead of the watered down, innaccurate formulas included for this and so many other game mechanics. Some seem to get it right, but this one at least is hopelessly buggy. The planet notation proves it right there, and it also doesn't mention the singularity inductor. I realize it does more eco harm than good, but doesn't it claim to reduce eco damage beyond what would be without it (build all the facilities seperately)? I don't remember mention of it in the formula.

	09-08-2000 12:11									#29
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hi, I got a couple of questions... Fun huh?

So using this formula, it does actually mean that having boreholes outside of a base radius being mined by an crawler does actually create eco-damage? If this is so, does both the minerals coming in (from the ming crawler) AND the prescence of a borehole create eco-damage?

How much eco-damage can be sustained before a Global warming occurs? I know other factions (AI) can cause them, because once the HIve went nuts and created quite a few global warmings.

Also, in the case of atriocties (and I have a feeling this has been answered before), I know that say nerve-gasing a Alien faction will not cause a bad rep, but will still it cause eco-damage? What about with a PB on an alien faction?

Decx

------------------
Chaos, panic, & disorder - my work here is done.

	10-08-2000 19:50									#30
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The first question is will a borehole used outside of the base radius cause ecodamage. The answer is yes, but not as much. Of course, you won't get the energy, and it's better to have them inside of the base radius and build a tree farm.

The next question is how much ecodamage does it take to cause global warning. I don't really know, because this never happens to me anymore. I think if you let it get away from you it will happen pretty soon.

Richard Tator produces so many minerals that he melts the polar ice caps. I don't know how many boreholes he looses. I think he builds many enhancements outside of his bases though. It works good for him. He gets a big lead in production in the mid game, before the invent of tree farms and cetauri preserves. One of the things he does is get a lot of territory especially in high elevation and his bases are pretty spread out.

The last question is can you PB the aliens without ecodamage, and the answer is no. Probably because of the damage that PBs do to the planet