Another 2 Questions

[Andemagne]

1) what terrain improvements you usually build on 'Uranium Flats'? farms/solarcollectors/Echelon mirrors or forests or something else?

2) I usually(allways) play as Spartans, and, as everyone knows Spartans have industry -1. does that effect secret project and base improvement costs? (for example weather paradigm 200 minerals => 220minerals.)

[Method]

1)boreholes!!!

2)i'm almost certain it affects everything including SPs

[Flubber]

I agree on the boreholes in the flats, once they are available but if I immediately occupy the flats, I will go for forests.


yes the industry penalty means everything requires 10% more minerals to build and of course, the inability to go wealth means that you are 10% more to the detriment versus most factions. ( It is almost always worthwhile to stockpile cash for the turn when you switch to wealth and rush everything -- including a SP or two)

[knowhow2]

most humans would go for forrest.

AI always goes for farm/solar or farm/mine

[aaglo]

1) I prefer to build forests - they are fast and don't cause pollution. But if it's a rocky tile, then I could think about a borehole

2) The answer is already given (yes, it affects on everything).

[Andemagne]

1) jep, I too think boreholes cause too much ecodamage, so I'll plant forest next time I occupy Uranium flats.

aaglo: rocky tiles can be leveled. boreholes on rocky tiles don't produce more minerals and energy, do they?

2) ok thanks.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Andemagne
1) jep, I too think boreholes cause too much ecodamage, so I'll plant forest next time I occupy Uranium flats.

aaglo: rocky tiles can be leveled. boreholes on rocky tiles don't produce more minerals and energy, do they?

Ecodamage can be controlled or even manipulated. Build a polluter base with a bunch of empath units and reap the harvest of worms. Every pop creates another "clean" mineral of production then build TF and HFs like crazy and never worry much about ecodamage again

Rocky tiles provide no special bonus but I think his implicit point was that clearing a rocky square to then build a forest uses a LOT of former time for the return you get from the square-- Simply building a borehole in the first place gives a lot more production.

[Andemagne]

bonus question: forest don't cause ecodamage, do they?

[Flubber]

no-- except to the extent that they add to the mineral production of a base.-- and tree farms and hybrid forests actually help with ecodamage

[Method]

Originally posted by aaglo
But if it's a rocky tile, then I could think about a borehole

i find it much more productive to mine and crawl all the rocky squares and put the boreholes somewhere else (like on an energy resource), because mines are worthless anywhere but on rocky squares and boreholes make 0-6-6 anywhere. if we're talking about just the flats here, then maybe i'd bore the rocky rather than mine it. still requires another worker though.

in a typical base i'd have 2-4 boreholes (depending on space), crawled mines on all my rockies, 2-3 crawled condensers (especially on nutrient resources) and the rest forest.

[Adalbertus]

[QUOTE]bonus question: forest don't cause ecodamage, do they?(/QUOTE]
Forests actually to reduce ecodamage. There was a recent reference to the famous ecodamage thread or there is even a link in the topped FAQ thread - but the formula given in the Datalinks is quite accurate (except for some round-offs, I think, but nobody cared to read it correctly )
There are two types of eco-damage, your acutal mineral production in a given base, and the terraforming within the base's radius. The latter you get reduced by Tree Farms and eliminated by Tree Farms+Hybrid Forests. IIRC, it is this value which gets reduced by forests (don't bother to look it up). If you have TF and HF, it is only the number of minerals you produce in your base (minerals from space - Nessus Mining Stations - are exempt, but I don't remember how this goes into the equation with mineral-enhancing facilities such as Genejack Factories). There is a base of 16 free minerals, you increase it by 1 with each TF, HF, Centauri Preserve, and Temple of Planet you build after the first fungal bloom, and you decrease it by 5 with each PlanetBuster you use. There is a reduction also for other atrocities, but I don't know them since I usually don't commit atrocities.

TKG, isn't the maximum mineral production of a rocky+mine+road square 4 mins? This wouldn't make it a good argument to deviate from the most dense borehole placement. My current philosophy is that forest+some nutrient-rich squares is the best pre-restriction lifting and after that maximizing the density of boreholes and getting most nuts of the squares in-between, and in the late game (when drones are not so much of an issue) moving the crawlers to an energy park.

[Method]

yeah, but mines take less time to build, and you can crawl them, freeing up a worker for a borehole, or forest. any time i have a tile producing only i FOP like a mine or condensor, i can crawl it. besides, i'd rather mine a rocky rather than specifically alter my boreholing pattern to put it there, or level it, then forest it. i'll only level a rocky if there's a nut resource there.

[spartak]

Er - I understood you couldn't build boreholes on rocky terrain!

[Method]

yes you can, you just can't farm or forest them