🚀 go-pugleaf

On the 26 Nov 2005, "Ceowulf" <ceo@NOSPAMii.ATALLnet> wrote:

<snip>

> I've got to say here though, that once you've got your tremendous amount of 
> big ships and several fleets patroling your space, you've got to ask... 
> whats left? I find myself thinking about that a bit, because there doesn't 
> seem to be a reason for that huge fleet and trading empire.

Well, one thing I always fancied trying was a scheme I call Operation
Sunset on that old classic X-Tension. I worked out that it was possible
to totally cripple the economy based on three simple facts about the
trading engine - /everything/ in the game requires resources to run,
factories can be destroyed, and the AI is unable to buy replacement
factories (I'm fairly sure they can't).

Pretty much all of the structures in the first two X games (can't
comment on X2 or X3 as I haven't played them) need energy cells in
order to run. Without them, everything grinds to a halt. In the
original X, the energy cells magically appeared from the AI factories,
needing no resources - although the player needed to buy crystals. On
the other hand, X-Tension levels the playing field by making the AI
need them as well.

This reliance on crystals, then, creates the opportunity for the less
scrupulous player to throw a spanner in the works by restricting their
supply. The thing with Crystal Fabs is that there are only two per
race, so eliminating the universe's supply of new crystals can be quite
quickly accomplished by blatting all of the fabs with very big missiles.

At first, nothing much will seem to happen (apart from the AI being a
bit miffed) because the power plants don't use the crystals up all that
quickly. Eventually, all of the crystals have gone, and the power plants
will come to a juddering halt. Once all of the energy cells have all been
used up, then it's total economic meltdown as nobody can make anything
any more!

If you're not sadistic enough to permanently kill the economy, Operation
Sunset can be tweaked so that the only remaining source of crystals are
your own fabs - thus giving you the easiest and most complete monopoly
in the game. For best results, it will probably help if you own a number
of power plants too, so you can maximise your profit.

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