Hologram Theatre (SMAC)

Hologram Theatre
Requires	Planetary Networks
Cost	6 rows
Maintenance cost	3
Effects	+50% Psych, -2 Drones

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"Richard Baxton piloted his Recon Rover into a fungal vortex and held off four waves of mind worms, saving an entire colony. We immediately purchased his identity manifests and repackaged him into the Recon Rover Rick character with a multi-tiered media campaign: televids, touchbooks, holos, psi-tours— the works. People need heroes. They don't need to know how he died clawing his eyes out, screaming for mercy. The real story would just hurt sales, and dampen the spirits of our customers."
– Morgan Stellartots Keynote Speech, "Mythology for Profit"

Hologram Theatre is a base facility in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. A Hologram Theatre adds +50% to Psych, and quells 2 Drones.

Strategy

If you didn't get the Virtual World, you're going to need deep pockets here. Unless you're playing on one of the easier levels, you will need to suppress your Drones somehow. You may think the Virtual World is expensive for a Secret Project you can build very early, but those 300 Minerals = only 5 Hologram Theatres, and you don't have to pay the upkeep (although you will have to build some Network Nodes, which you were planning on doing anyway, right?

Hologram Theatres are expensive, and before you blindly build them, its always worth considering if there's another way of dealing with your Drones. First alternative are Recreation Commons - they cost less to build, they only cost 1 energy/turn but they don't give extra Psych. Second alternative is to use more Police, either more units, or a different Social Engineering setting. Third alternative is to increase Psych spending on the Social Engineering screen, and the fourth easy option for those early game Drones is to use specialists.

There's a fifth option, which is to play as Lal and build or seize the Human Genome Project; the project in combination with Lal's extra talent per four citizens may make Drones a non-issue even on Transcend difficulty. In this case Hologram Theatres may not be necessary.

In most situations you might be better advised to crawl 2 extra nutrients and make someone a doctor than to spend 6 rows of minerals up front (roughly = 120 ec) and then another 3 energy/turn. There's only a short window in which Holo Theaters are worth it, but when Tree Farms (also +50% Psych) and Research Hospitals (+25% Psych and -1 Drone) come along then I'd build them instead. You'll end up having to shove some energy into Psych at some point in most games anyway, there's no need to be ashamed of it.

Anyway this is about facilities, not Drone control, and of all the facilities in this category, Hologram Theatres are the worst value. They do a good job, but not at those prices, and not in my early game build queues. There's plenty of reasons to get them free with the Virtual World, though.