Seeding options - best spacecraft

[Ryika]

Scanner is probably the best one, I still prefer Continental Surveyor though. Gives me a general idea where I've landed and what direction I need to expand to on turn 1. Also shows islands that might have additional pots and expansion spots that I would probably have missed if I didn't know there was an island at all - on top of that I can send see trade routes all around the continent without having to expose the whole coastline. but the most important thing: It allows me to reseed immediately when the game once again decides that it wants to give me a "pangea" map that looks more like a snake than a landmass.

 

[weregamer]

I haven't tried Tectonic Scanner yet, because I find the Continental Surveyor because on it helps optimize your search for pods and artifacts (though not as much on a pangaea as on other maps). If you get the tile bonuses from the resources the TS shows you that might be as good of an advantage

The Fusion Reactor is totally useless by comparison; +100 energy might let you buy a building early, but one pod can give you 50 energy and a solar array can get you 100 in only a couple dozen turns, with more until it falls.

Q: Does the lifeform sensor continue to work through the game, or only nests at the start?

 

[kirbdog]

From (admittedly) a very weird place -- where you can restart and replay as much as you want, hoping to get lucky with your choices -- I'm picking Fusion Reactor.

All the other choices are risk reduction.

Theoretically it might buy a colonist or convoy 5 turns sooner.. or something.

Under normal constraints, of course, it's weak.

 

[tommynt]

tectonic scanner gives such a huge boost to early eco that the energy isnt even worth a discussion.

Till u manually Research all the tech needed to see the resources the game is halfway over and the shields u have gotten for free are proly 200+ and we all know how much better shields are as energy.

Just seeing titanium allone d outshine everything else.
And even if titanium wasnt totally op but d just give +2 shields as it should it d still be best eco choise.

 

[Bandobras Took]

tectonic scanner gives such a huge boost to early eco that the energy isnt even worth a discussion.

Er . . . what boost? The only strategic resource that changes tile yield is Geothermal, and that only by a paltry +2 Energy. Otherwise, you need to research the tech before being able to improve the tile anyway. All the scanner allows you to do is place your cities in better spots, increasing your chances of being able to work the tiles a bit earlier. Not much of an eco boost, and definitely not early.

 

[bhavv]

Tectonic scanner for me so I can place my cities perfectly from the start and nit accidentally settle on hidden resources.

Would be useless if Geothermal didn't need a leaf tech to reveal unlike the other two, but I can never get the geothermal tech researched before starting my expansion phase, and its a really expensive tech that early in the game.

 

[tommynt]

Er . . . what boost? The only strategic resource that changes tile yield is Geothermal, and that only by a paltry +2 Energy. Otherwise, you need to research the tech before being able to improve the tile anyway. All the scanner allows you to do is place your cities in better spots, increasing your chances of being able to work the tiles a bit earlier. Not much of an eco boost, and definitely not early.

dont spread nonsense and wrong informations pls
Scaner allows work titanium and have a 5+ Production tile in turn 7 or so.

Bonus from other strat res is offered also right away (I think 1 Bonus shields for oil tile for example)

 

[Bandobras Took]

dont spread nonsense and wrong informations pls
Scaner allows work titanium and have a 5+ Production tile in turn 7 or so.

Bonus from other strat res is offered also right away (I think 1 Bonus shields for oil tile for example)

Interesting. I think that's an unintended bug, since Titanium is the only Strategic Resource that does not have a specific tile improvement. Thank you for pointing that out.

Oh, and please look at the attached screenshot regarding the Petroleum tile. I will then borrow your own phrase and ask you to stop spreading nonsense and incorrect information. Please.

 

[Kaigen]

Hooking up Titanium early is a nice boost, but you're still rolling the dice on whether or not there will actually be any Titanium around to use. Unless I'm playing with resources set to Strategic Balance, I find that my capital sites almost never have Titanium.

 

[ZHONN]

Everytime I pick tectonic scanner and find titanium right away, I consider it the best option. It is also nice to be able to plot city locations correctly.

Continental surveyor also has a chance to be very good, if you happen to have capitals on the same landmass and on the coast. It is good otherwise as well, it just takes plenty of extra turns to have the explorer find a route to different landmasses and find the new cities by the coast.

 

[kirbdog]

dont spread nonsense and wrong informations pls
Scaner allows work titanium and have a 5+ Production tile in turn 7 or so.

Well then I change my answer. Tectonic Scanner.

 

[NukeAJS]

This is where the only real difficult decision comes into play during the seeding.

Unless you are playing Archipelago. To me, that's an easy choice.

 

[Mercade]

So far I've been using retrograde thrusters in most of my game, except for the coastal view in a map with many islands / continents. I'll have to give the tectonic scanner some more attention to see if that gives a good benefit. Always figured that seeing the resources wasn't all that useful since you need the tech anyway, but indeed for Titanium that's different.

 

[chazzycat]

Hooking up Titanium early is a nice boost, but you're still rolling the dice on whether or not there will actually be any Titanium around to use. Unless I'm playing with resources set to Strategic Balance, I find that my capital sites almost never have Titanium.

even if you don't have it your capital, its still super strong. you can get a settler out pretty early with prosperity, and having a +5 production tile on turn 20 is still really good. last game my 2nd city was right between 2 titanium deposits, which was just ridiculous.

 

[Xenotitan]

tectonic scanner gives such a huge boost to early eco that the energy isnt even worth a discussion.

Till u manually Research all the tech needed to see the resources the game is halfway over and the shields u have gotten for free are proly 200+ and we all know how much better shields are as energy.

Just seeing titanium allone d outshine everything else.
And even if titanium wasnt totally op but d just give +2 shields as it should it d still be best eco choise.

What do you mean by shields?

 

[Browd]

Hammers. Production.

 

[Xenotitan]

Oh, I never played any Civs before V. Was production represented by shields in one of those games?

 

[Acken]

Tectonic scanner and continental surveyor are by far the best ones.

Scanner can boost your start immensely if you land near some titanium.
Continental surveyor is excellent on continental/archipelago maps allowing you to set trade vessels to the AI right away. Particularly strong with Hutama.
It makes exploration very easy too and I guarantee you'll get more artifacts with it.

Both require some amount of luck. You will have to hope for titanium with the scanner and you will have to hope for some AI to have coastal cities with the surveyor (and a coast for you too).

 

[Strategist83]

This poll is overrating the Tectonic Scanner. The only reason this is valuable is a chance to discover Titanium in range of your capital, and that chance is rather slim. Otherwise, you gain access to spotting Titanium with the very inexpensive Engineering tech, which should be one of the first techs you research anyway.

The Continental Surveyor tends to be awesome in general on most maps. The amount of map information you get is significant and provides so many advantages: You get a better idea of what virtues to pick, you can send your Explorers in the right directions immediately, you can reveal relevant tiles to create intercontinental trade access etc.

Fusion Reactor appears uninteresting but it does allow you purchase an additional Worker or something else significantly faster than usual. Finding a few energy pods will be enough to provide an extra Worker many turns earlier than anybody else, giving a significant terraforming advantage.

Lifeform Sensor is perhaps the one I think needs a boost. It helps your Explorers avoid running into nests and lets you plan out out a route for an aggressive approach towards the aliens with the Might virtue, but that seems to be about it. This benefit really pales compared to something like knowing almost exactly what the map looks like and will play like on turn 1.

 

[Mutineer]

Oh, I never played any Civs before V. Was production represented by shields in one of those games?

yes, I think it was civ 1-3.