When is the best time to use emergency build?

[CW]

This is a rather little talked about topic, so I would like to start a discussion and hear what you guys think. In the 0.99 demo with the 200% emergency build rate and 50% slow rate I tended to use emergency build a lot, but in my opinion the 150%/25% rates in 1.41 made emergency build not as worth while. I can think of only 3 cases where EB is useful:

SITUATION 1) I love to play games with max tech starts, since I'm too lazy to learn about the tech trees. So, at the start of a game I would design a space station with 1 bridge, 2 life supports, 2 crew quarters, 1 space yard III, and 1 cargo bay III. This would cost 7200 minerals, exactly 150% of the normal build rate for a 4000M homeworld. I would kick the planetary spaceyard into emergency mode and start pumping out space yard stations, by the end of the year when it goes into slow mode I would have 10 extra space yards ready to crank out more ships.

SITUATION 2) Do exactly as above, but design a colony ship with 1 bridge, 1 life support, 1 crew quarter, 1 quantum engine III, 1 solar sail III, 1 solar collector III, 1 cargo bay III and the colony unit. Cost: 5110 minerals.

SITUATION 3) You have got a true-and-honest emergency, when you are really in deep sh*t and you want more ships NOW!

Can you think of any other uses for emergency build? I'd love to hear about it!


[This message has been edited by CW (edited 03 August 2001).]

[Atrocities]

To be honest with you, I would not use the EBF (Emergency Build Feature) I did one time, and it cost me big. I needed a ship done like NOW, and clicked on the EBF. For three or so turns it helped, then it went on 25% build. So my build time went from 15 turns to 45. Not good when you have an enemy dreadnought baring down on your home world.

[CW]

I don't get it, EB can be sustained for 1 year, how come it went into slow build after only 3 or so turns? Did you accidentally deactivated it?

I think there is a case here for a UI improvement: Currently when you click on the EB button to deactivate it it will go into slow build immediately, bad luck if you clicked on it accidentally. I think that nothing should take effect until the "close" button is pressed, so that you can undo the deactivation if you really pressed on the button by accident (it happened to me quite a few times before too, but I saved so often that I didn't lose any work.)

[geoschmo]

About the only time I use EB since it was made more expensive is on planets with no space yards where I ma jsut trying to crank out mines or weap plats to hold off an enemy until my fleet arrives. I agree using it at a space yard is almost never an option anymore with the recent changes.

I have noticed it's so bad that in many cases it doesn't even help very much on emergency, and makes the yard almost useless on slow build.

Geo

[Q]

I use it only in the construction of very expensive ships (e.g. stellar manipulation ships/ ring-/spherworld components). Once the remaining time is 1.5 years or less, I switch to emergency build for the rest of the time and the construction time is reduced by 1/3. In this circumstances the following slow build time is usually not important.
The other situation is the urgent need for a base with a space yard component. The slow build time of the colony is then compensated by the new space yard in the base.

[Nitram Draw]

I use it when I am building facilities that take more than one turn on a planet that only holds 1-5 facilities. Usually these planets do't build much later so the slower production time does't matter much.