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Author Topic:   Former Rovers -- Rover Formers

iratheous posted 03-01-99 04:05 PM ET
Hi, i have been having a real hard time keeping my formers alive without worms or something destroying them.. I hate taking time to build them so i dropped a former on a rover chassis. But when fighting mind worms for example it doesnt retreat when it reaches 50% like everything else.. Why is this? All of my other rovers do, do I have to give it armour to make it a 'fighting unit' or am I doing something wrong?
TheClockKing posted 03-01-99 05:31 PM ET
I give mine some armor and Hypno. Trance/Clean Reactor and usually do not have a problem with mind worms. I'm not sure if breaking away is allowed in psychic combat, I have never had a unit retreat from psychic combat, so that may be your problem too.
George posted 03-01-99 05:56 PM ET
Rover do disengage from psi combat.
weregamer posted 03-01-99 10:33 PM ET
I think the problem is that, with the "noncombatant" penalty and such, the rover former takes more than 50% damage in the first hit, which reduces its movement to the point where it can't run away any more.
To improve the survivability of your formers, put synthmetal armor on them. Though not directly useful in psionic defense, this will remove the "noncombatant" penalty. Combining that with the rover chassis, and possibly Trance, will give them a much better survival rate.
Also, notice that with power plants above Fission, the rover former unit doesn't cost any more than an infantry former would - which is why the autodesigner starts building rover formers at that point.
A final note - although the morale level of a former isn't displayed, they *do* have morale. With the Command Nexus and Cyborg Factory and at least +2 Morale in social engineering, my synthmetal rover formers do indeed start Elite and get a third movement point. Interestingly, infantry unarmored formers don't get a second point, so I suspect that be noncombatant negates that. I also don't know if merely having a Command Center and Bioenhancement Facility would do the same thing - but it ought to...
henriks posted 03-02-99 07:25 AM ET
Isn't in the manual somewhere that non-combat units do not disengage? Therefore: add armor to your formers.
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Author	Topic: Former Rovers -- Rover Formers
iratheous	posted 03-01-99 04:05 PM ET Hi, i have been having a real hard time keeping my formers alive without worms or something destroying them.. I hate taking time to build them so i dropped a former on a rover chassis. But when fighting mind worms for example it doesnt retreat when it reaches 50% like everything else.. Why is this? All of my other rovers do, do I have to give it armour to make it a 'fighting unit' or am I doing something wrong?
TheClockKing	posted 03-01-99 05:31 PM ET I give mine some armor and Hypno. Trance/Clean Reactor and usually do not have a problem with mind worms. I'm not sure if breaking away is allowed in psychic combat, I have never had a unit retreat from psychic combat, so that may be your problem too.
George	posted 03-01-99 05:56 PM ET Rover do disengage from psi combat.
weregamer	posted 03-01-99 10:33 PM ET I think the problem is that, with the "noncombatant" penalty and such, the rover former takes more than 50% damage in the first hit, which reduces its movement to the point where it can't run away any more. To improve the survivability of your formers, put synthmetal armor on them. Though not directly useful in psionic defense, this will remove the "noncombatant" penalty. Combining that with the rover chassis, and possibly Trance, will give them a much better survival rate. Also, notice that with power plants above Fission, the rover former unit doesn't cost any more than an infantry former would - which is why the autodesigner starts building rover formers at that point. A final note - although the morale level of a former isn't displayed, they do have morale. With the Command Nexus and Cyborg Factory and at least +2 Morale in social engineering, my synthmetal rover formers do indeed start Elite and get a third movement point. Interestingly, infantry unarmored formers don't get a second point, so I suspect that be noncombatant negates that. I also don't know if merely having a Command Center and Bioenhancement Facility would do the same thing - but it ought to...
henriks	posted 03-02-99 07:25 AM ET Isn't in the manual somewhere that non-combat units do not disengage? Therefore: add armor to your formers.