the Trance Drop Scout

[bvanevery]

Soon as I get Secrets of the Human Brain, making Trance Scouts as my 1st / initial base garrison is standard drill.  One usually only has to worry about indigenous life forms at the beginning, knock on wood.  That's the strongest untrained unit one can have against them at the beginning, for the money.  Later I typically build The Command Nexus and then build "serious" garrison forces, against the various enemies I've probably acquired.

I recently have been playing on Huge maps again, and I've allowed the default of supply pods everywhere.  So it's a big game of Pac-Man.  It isn't so hard to clean out the nearby continents, but sometimes enemies are in the way and it's simply not safe to get to other parts of the map.  It's possible to have some large continents of untouched supply pods fairly late in the game, depending on one's play style, because the AI isn't especially good at going out to collect pods.

Due to the overwhelming number of alien artifacts I acquired by playing Pac-Man, I got up to Habitation Domes and The Space Elevator after "not so long as you might think".  Maybe I should have just smashed enemies out of my way, or transcended, or used ships, I dunno.  But I was pursuing a "build every Secret Project" strategy so really not spending time, resources, or units on anything else.  Soon I realized gee, I can drop anywhere on the planet, but I'm not doing anything with it.

Enter the Trance Drop Scout!  With a fission reactor, it's damn cheap.  Since I was a Usurper Police State with the Ascetic Virtues, I had "base size" support for my gigantic cities.  So no need to bother with a clean reactor, although for all I know Clean Drop Scouts might not cost much either.  Clean Police Scouts are something I've also done, because they're cheap to build and don't impose a support cost.  But anyways, I built some TDS and dropped 'em various places, popping pods.

Weeeel one of 'em got an artifact like I wanted, and then the Caretakers dropped a Conventional Missile on it, destroying it.  Cheeky.  I'm not sure if dropping more cheap units in 1 spot would prevent that.  I tried dropping an expensive AAA unit on top of it for protection, but I don't quite know if that works against a CM.  Maybe sometimes I got away with stuff just because I was sitting in fungus and wasn't seen.  I think the time I got missiled, I was in plain sight.  Whatever, not terribly experienced at this.

The main trick of planetary drop mechanics, is how do you get back up into orbit?  Well, you have to build an airbase.  That means you have to drop formers there somehow.  They either be some kind of Drop Former, which comes at different price points depending on what engines and wheels you put on them.  Or you can build Drop Transports and load them with ordinary Formers.  I haven't settled on an ideal method, as this tends to be a late game mechanic and I've probably got 5 other ways I could win the game by then.  Just food for your thought.

I've actually yet to play a game where I intentionally planned to use Trance Drop Scouts from the get-go.  I'll see what happens.  Of course the old school way is just Maritime Control Center and sending ships wherever.  I was really cheap last game, I only sent ships I'd already built.  Really fixated on Secret Projects to the exclusion of almost everything else.

[Geo]

Been a while since I built an airbase improvement. Are units with the drop pod ability on them capable of dropping home?

[bvanevery]

If you've built The Space Elevator.  Which admittedly is quite a bit later in the game.

Played a new game as the Caretakers where I was far more intentional about getting all the supply pods.  In the era when I got MMI and thus Trance Drop Scouts, I already had The Maritime Control Center and was doing a bangup job of grabbing all the supply pods on the board.  Additionally I had a Planet rating of +4, due to inherent faction power, going Green, and holding The Manifold Nexus at a small distance across the board.  So I was capturing Isles of the Deep fairly regularly, sometimes with Mindworms on them, and these would go out and scout yet more stuff.  I can see why it took me this many years to even think about a Trance Drop Scout.  Various other factions with different play styles, would never need them.

Understanding this, I quit the terribly easy game and tried again with the wimpiest opening game faction I could think of, the Morganites.  I added sugar to the sauce by getting 1 of my 2 starting colony pods killed.  Previous experience has been that a pod at the very beginning of the game can take a larval mindworm attack and survive, but this one sure didn't.  Additionally I triggered a fungal bloom that kept me isolated to only 2 cities on a small island.  And I got my slow transport killed, again because I thought it would hold up to a wimpy Isle of the Deep attack and it didn't.

Despite all that, and being a hop, skip, and a jump from both the Caretakers and Usurpers by water, I was doing ok last I checked.  I think the C and U are close enough that a lot of their energies are directed at each other.  Otherwise I'd be toast, or begging for mercy with bribes, which I really hate to do.  As it stands, I'm gradually stealing all their tech, while growing a Fundamentalist Free Market Wealthy society.  I've gotten a bit distracted from the game so not totally sure I'll keep going.

Well, I did resume, but I find that game is making me itch.  Due to Morgan's lack of Support, it takes a long time for me to build anything.  I don't enjoy having my Skimship Probe Teams sunk when trying to faff them around.  I haven't managed to get any Alien Artifacts from exploration at all.  I've got a backlog of Secret Projects that I could have built, but haven't, due to too much production stress trying to make myself viable against the Caretakers.  It's all symptomatic of too many mistakes made in the opening game.  I did want more of a challenge but this is a bit much.  So I quit.  Next time I won't assume my colonies and slow ships are initially invulnerable to mindworm attacks.

Started a new game with the Morganites.  Did a much better job of initial expansion.  Built most of the Secret Projects.  Was passive for awhile, but eventually my next door neighbor Santiago got sick of my Wealth and attacked.  So I went Powerful, made a land bridge, and invaded.  She still had a fair number of sea bases after that, and I only researched Build, so I didn't have Marines for a long time.  Eventually I stole them from Cha Dawn and built The Maritime Control Center, pretty much instantly the same turn, as my energy output is so high.

Unlike some previous games, I've had no time to sail ships around popping supply pods, and now it's too dangerous to do so.  My main priority has been Hybrid Forests, followed by labs, followed by mag tubes which I've barely started on.  After that, there are Spartans nearby to vanquish, and Caretakers, and Cultists just over a pond.  So possibly in this game, maybe I will in fact make it to The Space Elevator and actually have a purpose for the Trance Drop Scouts. 

Well I finally knocked off the Spartans.  Those miserable sods didn't surrender until they were down to one sea base!  I get hating that I'm Wealthy but c'mon.  Not like I ever committed atrocities against them.  Meanwhile I've built Flechette Defense Systems everywhere.  Nobody's got Conventional Missiles yet, but I hate having those things lobbed at me when they do get them.  I'm building Geosynchronous Survey Pods, and Tachyon Defenses, because I can.  I'd like to be able to build Habitation Domes by now but I still haven't got them.  I did just get Advanced Space Flight so maybe they're coming soon.

I've now got enough breathing room to send a few Transport ships out and see if they survive.  I'm realizing that I can't air drop anything on water, so the oceans still have to be cleared the old fashioned way, with fast ships.  There aren't piles of supply pods out on the map anymore, but there are enough to spend my time on it, before bothering to invade anyone else.  For all I know, I might have the job done before I ever get The Space Elevator.

Sometime later... research just doesn't want to give up the Habitation Domes / Space Elevator, despite total Build focus.  I'm slowly eating away at the Caretakers to the west.  Usurpers and Believers both made Truces with me, opening the oceans to risk free exploration.  I'm cleaning out supply pods with merely 2 ships and 4 probe teams.  They typically move fast enough to get out of the way of Mindworms that pop, as I have the Xenoempathy Dome.  Haven't gotten surrounded and they're only old probe teams anyways.


Habitation Domes just aren't happening.  Maybe if I looked at the tech prereqs, it would become obvious why.  I've now kicked the Caretakers off the western land mass.  In a few turns I'll make a Tectonic Missile bridge to the Hive land mass, to the west yet again.  He also has a lot of sea bases to clean up.  He lobs Conventional Missiles at me and that's annoying.  He can't or doesn't harm my older bases with Flechette Defense Systems on them, but all those Caretaker bases I took over are defenseless.

I hope I can steamroller him fast enough that I don't have to deal with his crap.  Many of my bases are now producing Clean 8-Res Trance garrisons to hold ground with.  They're a bit slow to produce as I've been very cautious about building factories.  Don't want Global Warming to undo all my hard work manually terraforming everything.  I've probably got more potential production capacity than I'm exploiting, as I did put a Robotic Assembly Plant in 1 city with a Skunkworks and I didn't get any eco damage from it.  I think it produces 32 minerals or so.  My Planet rating is -1, as I'm Cybernetic but also Free Market.  Perhaps The Pholus Mutagen has given me a license to pollute.

I started building Robotic Assembly Plants in appropriate cities.  I got the Artifact home and was waiting for my next research breakthrough, to play it afterwards and thereby gain the maximum amount of additional scientific benefit, I think.  I was about to take Yang's 1st coastal city hanging off of my continent.  And then... I found I really didn't care about the game anymore.  Too much time spent building, not enough conquering!  I was under the mistaken belief that I'd get Habitation Domes and The Space Elevator "any turn now" and clearly that's now how the tech tree is laid out.

So I will start over.  Lessons learned:

• The Cloning Vats make the Power social choice have no negative consequences, i.e. industry proceeds normally instead of getting the -2 penalty.  I could have taken advantage of this, but I wanted my Wealth.
  
• The Pholus Mutagen allows a huge increase in the amount of eco damage one may do.  That's the time to build the Robotic Assembly Plants.
  
• Ships should clear the board of pods way, way before Orbital Insertions are the way to do it.  If it doesn't happen, then one wasn't making enough units or sending them out.
  
  

[bvanevery]

Per the above, I started a new game as the Morganites again.  I did ok, building many of the early Secret Projects despite my fairly small size.  I was on a remote island.  The Caretakers and the Usurpers both got pretty big and crushed the Peacekeepers and Dawn of Planet.  I spent time stealing tech from them and trying to get out to the oceans to get Alien Artifacts.  I found that the aliens had a nasty tendency to patrol with ships and sink my Artifact laden transports just as I had acquired them.  It's not really all that safe out there.  Makes me think it's not worth trying to pick up supply pods unless I can provide some military cover.  For Morgan doing a Free Market, that's a lot to ask.

So I quit.  Not sure what I'll do next time.  The quitting was partly triggered by the lateness of the hour, and the fact that I'd spent much of the previous day on the previous game.

I may have done a suboptimal job of spreading at the very beginning.

[Geo]

You know, you can save a game before quitting it...

[bvanevery]

Quitting means I have no intention of ever pursuing that particular game again.  Rage quitting means deleting SMAC from my hard drive yet again.  Of course it'll only be a matter of time before I download it from the internet again.  But that could be days, or months.  I've paid for SMAC twice in the past, so I just treat the internet as my backup CD.

I started a new game with the Morganites.  All other factions are random humans.  My initial spreading was far more effective, and I completed most of the early Secret Projects before others could.  The Pirates are right next to my island, and so is the Monsoon Jungle.  I have colonized part of the Jungle and will shortly complete a land bridge to it.  In so doing, I have deprived Svensgaard of those land resoruces.  He sits in the water without any real benefit now.  He doesn't like me, so I've refrained from going Wealthy, as that will trigger war.  I need a few things before I'm ready to stomp his ass.  Nobody else seems to be near me at all.   I've got Transports out looking for stuff, and they're starting to carry Probe Teams instead of Rovers, so that I'll be ready to go Free Market sometime.  However I've got 3 Laser Skimships out and about, so it may be awhile yet.

Much later... got in a war with Svensgaard.  Mostly a matter of me building up defenses, then wiping him out with Impact Marines.  Eventually achieved tech parity with everyone else and cashed in a huge pile of Artifacts all at once.  Then spent a long time building all the Secret Projects that brought me.  Then sort of deciding "what next?" and realizing I really hadn't developed my land all that much.  Then had 3 people declare war on me in 1 turn, nothing I did.  Then realized it was 4 AM and I didn't care anymore, so I quit the game.

I did things right, but the game takes too long.  Might be time to uninstall.

Well maybe from an enjoyment standpoint, I didn't do things right.  Too much sitting on Alien Artifacts waiting to cash them later, perhaps.  Several important Secret Projects slipped through my fingers due to my preoccupation.  The Planetary Energy Grid, The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, The Planetary Datalinks, The Xenoempathy Dome.  That irritated me.

With as many Artifacts as I obtained, I could have gained needed techs to build certain Secret Projects, and then actually completed them rapidly.  Despite having Industrial Automation, and despite thinking I could just steal techs from others.  In practice, other factions were too far away and at peace with me.

Except the Pirates who were close and dangerous.  I spent a lot of time trying to expand into the Monsoon Jungle, then desperately trying to garrison as the situation with the Pirates deteriorated.  It might have been prudent in that circumstance to go Fundamentalist and steal a lot of stuff from the Pirates.  Or just steal stuff and accept the war, because somehow I didn't manage to get Secrets of the Human Brain for a long time.  Yeah, maybe too much tiptoeing around the inevitable adversary.  I think of Morgan as an early game wuss; Alien Artifacts could remedy that.

I played another game where I fiddled around too much with where to put my 1st city.  I think that ultimately put me behind on tech and building Secret Projects, although I did pull off some cool Artifact project builds anyways.  I was on a tiny island and was given a slow ship as well.  I spent way too long establishing my 2nd city.  Need to remember not to faff around.  I quit that game.

Played another game where I started on top of the Monsoon Jungle!  Midgame in the "Orbital Spaceflight" era I didn't care anymore though.  That 2 AM quitting thing.  I guess my maritime campaign against the Usurpers was half-hearted.  I could have wiped all sorts of people out but just didn't.  I did a lot of probe team sabotage missions since I got the Hunter-Seeker and had so many of them to spare.  After awhile it's like uuuh, why bother though?  The AI is just going to repair everything anyways.  The AI doesn't get bored.

[bvanevery]

I started a new game as Morgan where I decided to be more militant.  Lack of militancy I think leads to a slough of building lots of base improvements for their own sake.  This ultimately gets boring as I've done it god knows how many zillions of times before, with the ultimate result that 2..4 AM rolls around and I'm like, why am I even doing this.  Militancy presumed good for morale!

Except that unit pushing is not good for morale.  Too much of that, often is what triggers the excessive city improvements, because it's easier than pushing too many units.  And the latter leads to quitting games.  So, balancing the militancy is important, maybe.  Hard to say; I don't know the verdict until I actually win or quit a game.  And some games I have quit, when I would clearly win them, because the extra 1..2 hours to "clean up" isn't worth my time.

Anyways, I decided to prioritize BUILD and CONQUER.  My intent was to build the Command Nexus and the Merchant Exchange, in that order of priority.  I got both done, but in the reverse order, as it took quite awhile for me to get Doctrine:Loyalty.  I did get the techs I needed to wipe someone out meanwhile, and that came in handy, as Deirdre started on my continent.  I was peaceful with her at first, but eventually she became an uppity green [complaint or disagreeable woman].  I don't even think I was Free Market, she was just an [jerk, sphincter].

I got an offensive going and started to have victories over her.  I destroyed lots of her units at a choke point city, that I had deliberately set up with a forest and no roads to make it hard for her to get to me.  Then we had sunspots for awhile.  When they lifted, she did something I thought rather strange.  She surrendered to me, even though I didn't actually take any of her cities.   Granted, I was about to roll over her like a 12 ton Impact tank, but shouldn't she have gone through the formality of fighting me?  I guess the AI decided it was totally outclassed and that it didn't stand a chance.  I guess it takes a human to fight a losing rearguard action.

Yang was next to me, with only 1 tile of water between us.  He eventually got pissed at my Democracy.  Deirdre figured out Advanced Military Algorithms for me, so I stopped building improvements, changed all my production to military units, and went Fundamentalist Green Power.  I'm still at it with him, although he's near the end of his rope now.  Eventually I got Doctrine:Initiative and started attacking him with Marines, but I was unable to build The Maritime Control Center.  Eventually I got Environmental Economics and was able to raise a land bridge to his continent; that's when he really started suffering.  Eventually I got R-Lasers and then Missiles.

Now I've got Chaos weapons on the way.  I stole that from Lal, who is pissed about my Fundamentalism, but pretty far away.  After that I had tech parity with everyone, meaning nobody had a tech I could steal.  So I cashed 5 Artifacts and got new toys, Doctrine:Air Power being a good one.  I've stopped building any more serious military units because Yang will clearly die with the inventory I've got.  Just garrison units.

After I conquer Yang I might go Free Market, since other adversaries are far away.  Cha Dawn also wanted to fight me for awhile, even though she's Green.  She apologized while I was fighting Yang and I accepted her Truce.  She's relatively far away and doesn't have much I would want, maybe The Planetary Transit System or something.  Sister Miriam is also out there, and hates me, but isn't interested in declaring war on another Fundamentalist just yet.  She and Lal spend most of their time bashing each other.  Maybe I'll just sit back and encourage that... except that would lead to the dreaded boring base improvements.  Not sure what I'll do about the long distance struggle.

Aki Zeta is out there as well.  Currently my ally, but I never do anything for her.  We were allied at the beginning and I just blew her off, so she ended it.  Now she's my ally again.  I'm such a great ally.

Eventually conquered Yang.  Went Democratic Green Wealth after that.  Lal is too far away to mount a military campaign easily, and I figured he'd probably get Fusion Power about the time I'd show up, negating my advantage.  I've seen that happen in many Civ-style games, the "crossing the big ocean" problem.  So instead I built a "basic" level of infrastructure everywhere, with fusion powered trance garrisons in case mindworms show up.  Got done with that and now I'm just cranking out Super Formers.

I'm cleaning up all the supply pods between Lal and myself, using my old units and whatever mindworms I pick up.  There are still a fair number of pods out there, and occasionally I get an Artifact.  I've now got Tachyon guns and Photon armor, so I do have an advantage again, if only I could get there without driving myself nuts.  I'm currently connecting my empire with mag tubes, and afterwards I may build a massive land bridge to get to Lal.

I belatedly remembered with all my conquered subjects and growth, I might have the votes for Governor.  Yep, I did.  Then I declared a Global Trade Pact after that, considering that I have 3 Pact members, 2 of which are permanent provided I don't do something to piss them off.  So, uh, yeah, I'm powerful.  How will I win?

Well, I've settled on marine invasion until Lal complies with my authority.  Gonna take The Virtual World away from him, and make a beachhead in case he gives me any more trouble.  After that, since he's Democratic and I'm likely to remain such, I think I'll let him live and go after Miriam.  By then I may have my giant mag tube built.

Later... took a loooong time to launch my naval invasion.  I made a few mistakes.  1) Moved a lot of 1-3-1 units over there, because I had them, and not much else useful to do with them.  Probably disbanding them for production would have been more sensible.  2) I made expensive Tachyon AAA Battleships, which simply become targets for Conventional Missiles.  All I really needed were some heavily armored but lightly armed AAA units, to keep planes from shooting at my transports.

I never got my causeway built, but I came close to finishing it.  It clearly takes way longer than pushing ships, even if I don't have The Maritime Control Center.  By the time my units were in position to invade, I had Quantum engines.  Why bother to produce units at all, for fighting such a long distance?  They'll be obsolescent by the time they get there, although they were plenty good for trashing Lal.

Late game I also started building large numbers of Orbital Power Supply satellites, because I could, and I didn't need more military units.  So when I invaded, I conquered 1 city, but simply bought 1 city next to it.  And I paid for The Cloning Vats, while under a Power goverment I'd just switched to for the invasion.  Why build units when I can just send probe teams and buy cities?

I had misgivings about the time I'd spent on this game, so I quit.  Next time, I'll try to apply any lessons learned.

Oh, and per the thread title, "traditional" exploration by ship to get supply pods, is much faster than waiting around for The Space Elevator.  Pretty well proven that to my satisfaction, even with the "worst" faction, and lacking The Maritime Control Center.