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Author Topic:   Labs Bonus?

Koo posted 02-27-99 11:15 AM ET
I don't understand how city-specific labs bonuses helps your research. It seems that research advance is set faction-wide, not city-by-city -- or am I wrong? Or does the labs bonus help your secret projects? So far it seems that only minerals determine the speed of secret projects?
So what do lab bonuses do? Do they only contribute to your overall lab advance rate; if so, when you build new cities without these lab bonuses do you effectively slow down because the bonuses get diluted?
The Thomas A Stobie posted 02-27-99 11:21 AM ET
Each base contributes to the overall research rate. So adding a new base, adds its research points, speeding up research slighty even without any labs.
Kedryn posted 02-27-99 11:54 AM ET
Energy mechanics:
Energy collected by your bases is split into 3 areas depending on your social engineering settings. In the beginning of your game, it is automatically set at 50% economy and 50% labs. What this means is that a base that collects four energy/turn will give your faction 2 energy credits and 2 research points/turn. Add a network node to that base (which increases labs at a base by 50%) and that base now contributes 2 credits and 3 research points/turn. Barring inefficiency, of course.
Koo posted 02-27-99 07:27 PM ET
So I guess that means you should put all your lab bonus facilities at high-energy bases to get maximum benefits, while you should devote minerals bases to secret project research (which, intuitively, feels like a "research" thing but isn't at all - U.of P. doesn't get secret projects faster than Believers, do they?).
A slightly off-topic question, then: what do you do with low-mineral, high-energy bases? Does it make sense to "specialize" each base to producing minerals vs. energy, or is it better that every base balance these out?
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Author	Topic: Labs Bonus?
Koo	posted 02-27-99 11:15 AM ET I don't understand how city-specific labs bonuses helps your research. It seems that research advance is set faction-wide, not city-by-city -- or am I wrong? Or does the labs bonus help your secret projects? So far it seems that only minerals determine the speed of secret projects? So what do lab bonuses do? Do they only contribute to your overall lab advance rate; if so, when you build new cities without these lab bonuses do you effectively slow down because the bonuses get diluted?
The Thomas A Stobie	posted 02-27-99 11:21 AM ET Each base contributes to the overall research rate. So adding a new base, adds its research points, speeding up research slighty even without any labs.
Kedryn	posted 02-27-99 11:54 AM ET Energy mechanics: Energy collected by your bases is split into 3 areas depending on your social engineering settings. In the beginning of your game, it is automatically set at 50% economy and 50% labs. What this means is that a base that collects four energy/turn will give your faction 2 energy credits and 2 research points/turn. Add a network node to that base (which increases labs at a base by 50%) and that base now contributes 2 credits and 3 research points/turn. Barring inefficiency, of course.
Koo	posted 02-27-99 07:27 PM ET So I guess that means you should put all your lab bonus facilities at high-energy bases to get maximum benefits, while you should devote minerals bases to secret project research (which, intuitively, feels like a "research" thing but isn't at all - U.of P. doesn't get secret projects faster than Believers, do they?). A slightly off-topic question, then: what do you do with low-mineral, high-energy bases? Does it make sense to "specialize" each base to producing minerals vs. energy, or is it better that every base balance these out?