Subject - Moo1: What techs are you guaranteed to get?

[Factoid]

Hi all,

In Moo1 you are always guaranteed to get some techs - Class II deflector shield, High energy focus, Complete terraforming (+120) and Neutronium armor are the only techs available in those rungs.

Silicoids have no interest in waste reduction, eco restoration or controlled environment techs, so they are sure to get IIT 9, terraforming+10 and some others. I don't think Silicoids ever get offered soil enrichment or atmospheric terraforming techs - do Silicoids grow more slowly on hostile worlds?


Sirian says in his tutorial (http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo1/tutorial/tut-7.html)

The game does a good job of balancing the removal of techs. You will always be able to get either Controlled Toxic Environment or Controlled Radiated Environment, for instance. You may get both, but you are guaranteed one of them.

Here is a save game from last night where I have neither Toxic nor Radiated. It is Klackon/Hard/Huge/5, for what it's worth. I promise I am not yanking your chains, I have not edited the save game or anything like that. I don't find it terribly funny to waste your time (and good will), and it isn't April 1st.

So what techs are you really guaranteed - only the listed ones above?

Are any of the save game editors (Oreo?) able to inspect the tech trees for all races in a game? If so, I will generate a heap (100?) of small galaxy games and inspect them, and report back to you on findings. If I can cut-and-paste the tech trees I can collate some statistical data, though 100 games probably wouldn't be enough. I don't remember as Psilons seeing Anti-Missile Rockets very often, for example.

In terms of tech tree generation do you think it would matter which race I use? Psilons and Silicoids will be special cases, but are all the others the same? Does it matter if a race is a player race or a non-player race? Difficulty level shouldn't matter, but I will do games on Hard or Impossible level.

Here are some screen shots (but they obviously can't prove I didn't hack the game). I started this game after RBO Imperium 3 (RBO Imperium 3 thread), I took loads of screenies to see if I could reconstruct a game (and thus write a report) without having to ALT-TAB in and out all the time to write report notes. The answer is "probably not." I need to write down my intentions because I can't later on reconstruct what I had been thinking at that time. Broadbrush yeah, "Imperium 3 - OMG Rigel rules! Block those guys down south!" but not details.

Cheers,
Factoid.



(2313) This is good, I'll take both terra+10 and improved eco before moving up, thank you...



(2343) Uh, I better take Tundra.



(2370) Missing Toxic, so I'll get Radiated next. Enhanced eco it is.



(2400) No Radiated. I better take the best I have, Inferno.



(2400-learnt) The techs I have learnt, with Inferno being researched.

 

[Zed-F]

As far as I know the only techs you are guaranteed to get are the ones that are the only options in their groupings. As far as what Sirian says in his tutorial, I don't know on what basis he is making that statement, so I can't evaluate its accuracy, other than to say that certainly your example is a point against the claim. I have also had games where neither Toxic nor Radiated was present in the tree.

As far as the Silicoids go, I believe you are correct in that they don't normally get access to Atmospheric Terraforming, Soil Enrichment, or Advanced Soild Enrichment. Note that the Silicoids can capture/steal waste reduction techs or Atmos/Soil techs, however, though I don't think they can use them. Silicoids don't suffer any additional growth penalty on hostile worlds; the game treats their growth rate as if all planets were hostile. Similarly, the game treats the Sakkra as if all habitable planets were fertile. I think this means they effectively lose their growth rate bonus once they discover Soil Enrichment, but I am not certain about that.

 

[Factoid]

Hi Zed-F,

Ah excellent, you come to my rescue again. You have given me a handle on how underlaying things work.

I note also that population increase for Silicoids initially costs 30 BC per +1 pop, and after cloning costs 15 BC. The cloning tech still says "lowers costs to 10 BC" but I can live with that. I didn't expect the tech summary screen to change, rather I didn't know whether cloning Silicoids would really cost 10 BC or (as I expected) 15 BC.

Sakkra getting implicit fertile would imply they are 3/2 times as fertile as "normal", rather than 2/1 times as the manual says.

I have wondered about issues where the manual doesn't seem to fit what happens (or nothing is said at all) and can now go away and dig. I came late to Moo1 so don't know what conclusions were reached by people investigating the hidden mechanics in 1993/1994. I'm very happy to dig things out myself knowing it is very old ground.

I just had this sinking "Am I a stupid n00b or what?" feeling when what I heard (received wisdom) and what I saw conflicted. The answer to the n00b question is of course "Yes!"

Cheers,
Factoid.

 

[Zed-F]

Sakkra getting implicit fertile would imply they are 3/2 times as fertile as "normal", rather than 2/1 times as the manual says.

Well I could easily be wrong, this was just a guess based on how they seem to have handled the Silicoids. Test it out for yourself if you are interested!

 

[bahman]

>In Moo1 you are always guaranteed to get some techs - Class II deflector >shield, High energy focus, Complete terraforming (+120) and Neutronium >armor are the only techs available in those rungs.

Yes they are selected randomly when you start a game.

>Silicoids have no interest in waste reduction, eco restoration or controlled >environment techs, so they are sure to get IIT 9, terraforming+10 and some >others. I don't think Silicoids ever get offered soil enrichment or >atmospheric terraforming techs - do Silicoids grow more slowly on hostile >worlds?

That is not correct. Even Sil needs waste reduction and eco restoration but not environment controle. Sile needs them to increase the pop growth and invest less money for all sort of planet upgrate.



>In terms of tech tree generation do you think it would matter which race I >use? Psilons and Silicoids will be special cases, but are all the others the >same? Does it matter if a race is a player race or a non-player race? >Difficulty level shouldn't matter, but I will do games on Hard or Impossible >
>level.

Tech tree???