posted 05-25-99 06:30 AM ET        

GURANTIED:

no drone riots, all colonies allways productive.

sure you never get a golden age, small price to pay.

it seems to me that if you put it into your faction txt that every colony automaticly gets one you would have to be less vigilent with what your colonies were doing, let the govenors run more things with less worry of loosing 2 turns production while you quell drone riots. plus, if you are looking for a couple of minuses to take in a custom faction txt, then -50% labs and NO talents, EVERYWHERE, seems like a good minus to take.

i dont know, would that balance out a custome faction,like this;

#TOLVER
Tolver, The Benifactor, Tolver, M, 1, Tolver, M, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
FACILITY, 4, FACILITY, 23, FACILITY, 27, FACILITY, 28, FACILITY, 29, FACILITY, 30
nil, nil, nil

thats a Perimeter Defense, Punishment Sphere, Command Center, Naval Yard, Aerospace Complex, and a Bioenhancement Center at every base.

i figure that the maintenance costs of that many facilities at each new colony with no talents and -50% of my lab, that should be minuses enough to make a balanced faction.

opinions?

posted 05-26-99 04:49 AM ET            

when you try to sell a facility that a colony starts with you are rewarded with this message;

"You can not sell free facilities recieved as part of your faction power."

however if you do run out of energy early in the game before you build m/any facilities at your colonies, then the free facilities are scrapped one by one, starting with the command centers, and you recieve half the energy that it would have took you to make it.

in that sence i suppose that you could recieve free energy, but it starts with the most usefull of them, the command center, if it started with the naval yard or the aerospace center, then mayby, but to loose the command center first is not worth it.

the way to counter the energy drain is to follow a strict patern with new colonies. first, build 2 defensive units and leave them in the colony to defend, second, make a former, and use the ctrl-shft-s command in all of the squares that touch the colony, this will make a farm, solar collector, and road in each square, solving your energy drain as well as the benifit of the farm and road. after producing the former, go whatever direction you like with the colony.

although you get no talents or golden ages with the punishment sphere, neither do you have to expend anything on psy, you can leave the economy/labs ratio at 50%, or add more to the labs to counter the -50% lab penility fron the punishment sphere.

colonies require more initial attention, but i find that after making the initial round of farms/solar collectors/roads that i can set my formers on ctrl-shft-a so that they continue to develope the remaining colony controlled squares to their best development potential.

even though you would normaly need various techs to build these facilities, you are starting the game without the techs themselvs. so the only real advantage that you get is to have the +4 moral for all your units, while suffering the penility of having to pay to support the facilities. inland colonies start with a naval yard that cant be sold, can derive no advantage from, and have to expend energy to mataine them.

posted 05-27-99 07:16 PM ET            

even with giving myself a SOCIAL, -----ECONOMY, it still does not slow me down. so i decided to scrap this and try another way.