Cloaked Formers, changing terrain, starve an enemy

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Author Topic:   Cloaked Formers, changing terrain, starve an enemy

rem63 posted 05-17-99 04:06 PM ET
Hi, I was experimenting with formers, and seeing the effects the altered terrain levels had on soil. Then an idea hit. Cloak a Former or better yet, a drop-former, land it near an enemy dominated area, and start raising, or lowering the terrain to shift the rainfall pattern & make the city areas rocky or arrid? Starve the buggers out! Has anyone tried this? Talk about sneaky.
Plato90s posted 05-17-99 04:23 PM ET
A non-combat drop unit can't move in the turn immediately after it drops. That means you can't drop in and do the terraforming in the same turn. It's often easier to just use transports. But it is fun to create a large patch of fungus in the enemy's territory.
WyldKarde posted 05-17-99 07:34 PM ET
Adding armour makes a non-combat unit into a combat unit, and it's probably a good idea for *anything* that's being inserted into hostile territory.
eNo posted 05-17-99 08:10 PM ET
Cloaked (sea) formers are also good to lower enemy cities into water!
googlie posted 05-17-99 08:15 PM ET
I thought that fitting antigrav struts removed the wait-one-turn penalty. I'm sure I've done that with drop formers to construct an air base on an enemy's doorstep.
Mcerion posted 05-17-99 08:16 PM ET
How are you cloaking formers? I'm playing ver 3.0 and that option isn't available as far as I can tell.
Plato90s posted 05-17-99 09:25 PM ET
First, adding armor to an non-combat unit will not change it to a combat unit. A heavily armored former or supply crawler still received the 50% non-combat unit penalty. The determination is based solely on the weapon choice, and terraforming equipment doesn't count.
Second, I've experimented with drop formers. Adding armor won't help. Adding Anti-Grav struts won't help. Dropping into a city you already own won't help either. The act of a drop, be it airdrop or orbital insertion, counts as the end of the movement turn.
BTW, to clear up another myth I've seen posted on this forum. A drop unit can only make one drop each turn. I've seen someone claim to be able to make an unit drop from city to city in a single turn, moving it to the frontier by leapfrogging. Not true.
Cloaking Device is an option which you can add to a former. I'm not sure how well the cloaking device works against the AI's omniscient vision.
rem63 posted 05-17-99 11:26 PM ET
I'm playing a game now as UofP, and am at war with Miriam (surprise). I haven't got drop tech yet, so I'm using a former and a couple of mindworms and a chaos rover to protect it. I sent them over to a tiny island to the west of Miriam and have started to raise a mountain. Her weather seems to be drying up nicely.
P.S. a protected former is fun to use to drag sea colonies out of the water, then you can whack 'em with land units nearby. And yes I have sunk one of Yang's cities in a previous game with a former. Its expensive though, and you better hope the can't get a pressure dome in time.
Beta1 posted 05-18-99 07:24 AM ET
Plato90, Much as I hate disagreeing with anyone multiple drops were possible, at least in the original release version (I havn't tied this yet in V3.0). I often used it to move units rapidly before orbital insertion or my magtube network was complete. It seemed that if you brought up the right click menu and chose airdrop this worked whereas the keyboard shortcut applied the "proper" rule.

Plato90s posted 05-18-99 08:02 AM ET
I stand corrected. That right-click "Air Drop Here" is a really serious bug in the airdrop functionality.
Not only can you make an indefinite number of drops [I hopped an orbital drop unit through 5-6 cities], you can also initiate a drop from the middle of nowhere instead of being forced to use a city or an airbase.
jhankla posted 05-18-99 05:22 PM ET
That "Airdrop" bug is really a device dependant glitch, the same with being able to all Anti-grav stuts and drop pods to the same chassis. Some computers can and some can't.
For instance, it gets down to my logitech mouse not acting the same in the game as my pixel-pad, I gave the bug with the pad, but not with the mouse! SO, those who are saying they can jump more than once per turn probably are not blowing smoke. My system won't allow me to add grav struts and drop pods, but I've fought against units that had them because the other players system did! GO FIGURE!
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Author	Topic: Cloaked Formers, changing terrain, starve an enemy
rem63	posted 05-17-99 04:06 PM ET Hi, I was experimenting with formers, and seeing the effects the altered terrain levels had on soil. Then an idea hit. Cloak a Former or better yet, a drop-former, land it near an enemy dominated area, and start raising, or lowering the terrain to shift the rainfall pattern & make the city areas rocky or arrid? Starve the buggers out! Has anyone tried this? Talk about sneaky.
Plato90s	posted 05-17-99 04:23 PM ET A non-combat drop unit can't move in the turn immediately after it drops. That means you can't drop in and do the terraforming in the same turn. It's often easier to just use transports. But it is fun to create a large patch of fungus in the enemy's territory.
WyldKarde	posted 05-17-99 07:34 PM ET Adding armour makes a non-combat unit into a combat unit, and it's probably a good idea for anything that's being inserted into hostile territory.
eNo	posted 05-17-99 08:10 PM ET Cloaked (sea) formers are also good to lower enemy cities into water!
googlie	posted 05-17-99 08:15 PM ET I thought that fitting antigrav struts removed the wait-one-turn penalty. I'm sure I've done that with drop formers to construct an air base on an enemy's doorstep.
Mcerion	posted 05-17-99 08:16 PM ET How are you cloaking formers? I'm playing ver 3.0 and that option isn't available as far as I can tell.
Plato90s	posted 05-17-99 09:25 PM ET First, adding armor to an non-combat unit will not change it to a combat unit. A heavily armored former or supply crawler still received the 50% non-combat unit penalty. The determination is based solely on the weapon choice, and terraforming equipment doesn't count. Second, I've experimented with drop formers. Adding armor won't help. Adding Anti-Grav struts won't help. Dropping into a city you already own won't help either. The act of a drop, be it airdrop or orbital insertion, counts as the end of the movement turn. BTW, to clear up another myth I've seen posted on this forum. A drop unit can only make one drop each turn. I've seen someone claim to be able to make an unit drop from city to city in a single turn, moving it to the frontier by leapfrogging. Not true. Cloaking Device is an option which you can add to a former. I'm not sure how well the cloaking device works against the AI's omniscient vision.
rem63	posted 05-17-99 11:26 PM ET I'm playing a game now as UofP, and am at war with Miriam (surprise). I haven't got drop tech yet, so I'm using a former and a couple of mindworms and a chaos rover to protect it. I sent them over to a tiny island to the west of Miriam and have started to raise a mountain. Her weather seems to be drying up nicely. P.S. a protected former is fun to use to drag sea colonies out of the water, then you can whack 'em with land units nearby. And yes I have sunk one of Yang's cities in a previous game with a former. Its expensive though, and you better hope the can't get a pressure dome in time.
Beta1	posted 05-18-99 07:24 AM ET Plato90, Much as I hate disagreeing with anyone multiple drops were possible, at least in the original release version (I havn't tied this yet in V3.0). I often used it to move units rapidly before orbital insertion or my magtube network was complete. It seemed that if you brought up the right click menu and chose airdrop this worked whereas the keyboard shortcut applied the "proper" rule.
Plato90s	posted 05-18-99 08:02 AM ET I stand corrected. That right-click "Air Drop Here" is a really serious bug in the airdrop functionality. Not only can you make an indefinite number of drops [I hopped an orbital drop unit through 5-6 cities], you can also initiate a drop from the middle of nowhere instead of being forced to use a city or an airbase.
jhankla	posted 05-18-99 05:22 PM ET That "Airdrop" bug is really a device dependant glitch, the same with being able to all Anti-grav stuts and drop pods to the same chassis. Some computers can and some can't. For instance, it gets down to my logitech mouse not acting the same in the game as my pixel-pad, I gave the bug with the pad, but not with the mouse! SO, those who are saying they can jump more than once per turn probably are not blowing smoke. My system won't allow me to add grav struts and drop pods, but I've fought against units that had them because the other players system did! GO FIGURE!