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Author Topic:   Locust of Chiron?? Whats the deal

revrat posted 04-12-99 09:12 PM ET
I have 5 cities that on each turn no less than 60 of these things appear. the game is not even fun at this point. i have to wait 15 munutes just for them to finish attacking. I have removed fungus. I have put up sensors. the cities are fully developed. It's a boring pain tp play at this point.
Cat posted 04-12-99 11:39 PM ET
You should check out the eco-damage your cities are causing. If you don't have any preseves or temples and big output it will be high and they'll attack you non-stop.
Empath posted 04-25-99 09:46 AM ET
I have also run into this with the space elevator. With the space elevator I was making var orbit items & getting free raging hordes of critters before I figured out what was going on. I was losing so many units to the critters that I could not build an attacking force. Finally, I built a city near my opponent, used it to call up a bunch of critters, & then gave the city away to her. The critters wiped out 1/3 of her empire.
sandworm posted 04-26-99 01:46 PM ET
Version 3.0 is supposed to cut back on runaway planet agression, but I suppose if your ecodamage is high enough, you're still worm food.
Centauri preserves, tree farms, and hybrid forests can all help. There's a planet friendly SP too, I think? (maybe Xenoempathy Dome?)
JT 3 posted 04-26-99 01:54 PM ET
Pholus Mutagen.
jhankla posted 04-26-99 09:43 PM ET
So, Planet is sending her babies to prune your tree? I had this happen enough in the beginning but I got smart later on. Most of my bases have 0 or maybe 2 eco damage...BUT having a TERRIBLE base can be good also! In version 3 you actually can put a city right on top of mount planet's lava hole!!!! Then you drill four boreholes north,south,east and west. Cover the outlying squares with mines and feed them with the Hydroponics Pods you already have in place. The city should be running around 20 eco damage and is pumping more minerals and energy than most other 5 cities. Now...I call it the wormfarm. No matter what damage your doing elsewhere, the Red flags will SWARM to this spot. Your defense is the Tychon field and PSI warriors. PSI armor and PSI guns and run them though a monolith before parking them! By this time you've got grafting, give them TRANCE and EMPATH and now the REST of your cities can ravage in peace as long as it's under 10 eco damage! By the way, keep the formers around cause things will be exploding at regular intervals!!!
ApcJK posted 04-27-99 01:32 PM ET
A helpful tip (I hope): You can speed up computer's turn by holding down shift. I haven't had time to try this but that's what the manual says.
sandworm posted 04-27-99 01:47 PM ET
shift works fine, you can also speed enemy moves through the preferences settings, but sometimes I -want- things slow so I can see what Yang is up to, so I usually hold and release shift when I see something interesting.
Coda posted 04-28-99 06:10 PM ET
I've found the mad flurry of Locusts to be frustrating (boring). Best defense I've found is lots of choppers with psi. One plus is that the worst of it only seems to last about a half dozen turns. The abeyance probably coincides with the discovery of some particular tech(s) I haven't particularly noted. I'm going to try the above described "fly trap." Pretty clever.
It does seem to be a "bug" in the program that a ground unit can kill a whole stack of Mindworms with one blow, but a stack of Locusts can only be killed one at a time (and air units can also only kill one mindworm at a time).
Plato90s posted 04-28-99 08:19 PM ET
The difference between Mindworm and Locusts is not a bug. It's a simple extrapolation of the existing combat model.
1) Why can't I kill a whole stack of Locusts? Locusts are air units, and we all know that air units take no collateral damage from one unit in the stack being destroyed. Mindworms are special in that collateral damage will destroy an entire stack of mindworms, but locusts never take collateral damage.
2) Why can't air units destroy a whole stack of Mindworms? Same reason - no collateral damage. Air units never do collateral damage to units they destroy.
Centaurion posted 04-29-99 03:39 AM ET
On of my cities have two borehole and 4-5 mines with a 80 in eco damage! Those boreholes produce more ecodamage than they are worth in minerals
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Author	Topic: Locust of Chiron?? Whats the deal
revrat	posted 04-12-99 09:12 PM ET I have 5 cities that on each turn no less than 60 of these things appear. the game is not even fun at this point. i have to wait 15 munutes just for them to finish attacking. I have removed fungus. I have put up sensors. the cities are fully developed. It's a boring pain tp play at this point.
Cat	posted 04-12-99 11:39 PM ET You should check out the eco-damage your cities are causing. If you don't have any preseves or temples and big output it will be high and they'll attack you non-stop.
Empath	posted 04-25-99 09:46 AM ET I have also run into this with the space elevator. With the space elevator I was making var orbit items & getting free raging hordes of critters before I figured out what was going on. I was losing so many units to the critters that I could not build an attacking force. Finally, I built a city near my opponent, used it to call up a bunch of critters, & then gave the city away to her. The critters wiped out 1/3 of her empire.
sandworm	posted 04-26-99 01:46 PM ET Version 3.0 is supposed to cut back on runaway planet agression, but I suppose if your ecodamage is high enough, you're still worm food. Centauri preserves, tree farms, and hybrid forests can all help. There's a planet friendly SP too, I think? (maybe Xenoempathy Dome?)
JT 3	posted 04-26-99 01:54 PM ET Pholus Mutagen.
jhankla	posted 04-26-99 09:43 PM ET So, Planet is sending her babies to prune your tree? I had this happen enough in the beginning but I got smart later on. Most of my bases have 0 or maybe 2 eco damage...BUT having a TERRIBLE base can be good also! In version 3 you actually can put a city right on top of mount planet's lava hole!!!! Then you drill four boreholes north,south,east and west. Cover the outlying squares with mines and feed them with the Hydroponics Pods you already have in place. The city should be running around 20 eco damage and is pumping more minerals and energy than most other 5 cities. Now...I call it the wormfarm. No matter what damage your doing elsewhere, the Red flags will SWARM to this spot. Your defense is the Tychon field and PSI warriors. PSI armor and PSI guns and run them though a monolith before parking them! By this time you've got grafting, give them TRANCE and EMPATH and now the REST of your cities can ravage in peace as long as it's under 10 eco damage! By the way, keep the formers around cause things will be exploding at regular intervals!!!
ApcJK	posted 04-27-99 01:32 PM ET A helpful tip (I hope): You can speed up computer's turn by holding down shift. I haven't had time to try this but that's what the manual says.
sandworm	posted 04-27-99 01:47 PM ET shift works fine, you can also speed enemy moves through the preferences settings, but sometimes I -want- things slow so I can see what Yang is up to, so I usually hold and release shift when I see something interesting.
Coda	posted 04-28-99 06:10 PM ET I've found the mad flurry of Locusts to be frustrating (boring). Best defense I've found is lots of choppers with psi. One plus is that the worst of it only seems to last about a half dozen turns. The abeyance probably coincides with the discovery of some particular tech(s) I haven't particularly noted. I'm going to try the above described "fly trap." Pretty clever. It does seem to be a "bug" in the program that a ground unit can kill a whole stack of Mindworms with one blow, but a stack of Locusts can only be killed one at a time (and air units can also only kill one mindworm at a time).
Plato90s	posted 04-28-99 08:19 PM ET The difference between Mindworm and Locusts is not a bug. It's a simple extrapolation of the existing combat model. 1) Why can't I kill a whole stack of Locusts? Locusts are air units, and we all know that air units take no collateral damage from one unit in the stack being destroyed. Mindworms are special in that collateral damage will destroy an entire stack of mindworms, but locusts never take collateral damage. 2) Why can't air units destroy a whole stack of Mindworms? Same reason - no collateral damage. Air units never do collateral damage to units they destroy.
Centaurion	posted 04-29-99 03:39 AM ET On of my cities have two borehole and 4-5 mines with a 80 in eco damage! Those boreholes produce more ecodamage than they are worth in minerals