Research Hospital (SMAC)

Research Hospital
Requires	Gene Splicing
Cost	12 rows
Maintenance cost	3
Effects	+50% Labs, +25% Psych, -1 Drone.

Back to list of base facilities

"Some civilian workers got in among the research patients today and became so hysterical I felt compelled to have them nerve stapled. The consequence, of course, will be another public relations nightmare, but I was severely shaken by the extent of their revulsion towards a project so vital to our survival."
– CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Personal Diaries"

Research Hospital is a base facility in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

Strategy

This facility is always a problem. It comes with Gene Splicing and heralds the end or the true "Early Game" with the lifting of the restriction on nutrient production. Those size 3-4 bases start growing a bit, you have a decent infrastructure and now you're faced with the choices offered by the first of the "second tier" facilities1. Here is the moment when you really have to decide what direction you want to build in. Do you want to go upwards, or outwards?

If you want to go outwards, then leave the Research Hospitals for now, apart from those bases you may have identified as science bases. Crawling farms/condensers now that the restrictions are lifted can really give you the nutrients needed for a very rapid expansion horizontally. Research Hospitals are expensive to build and maintain, and you want to preserve outward momentum at this point, not shut up shop and enter "turtle mode" The 12 rows of minerals needed means you can't simply rush one at every base and then continue expanding, as you can with Nodes and Energy Banks. You'll have to sit and build for 4-5 turns even with a great cash supply. If you want to build vertically though, this is generally a good time to take your foot off the "colony pod/former/scout patrol" pedal and start to really develop your bases.

This bears repeating: They're not cheap. And they keep costing you 3 ec/turn too, so don't build them unless you can afford them. They do boost production in 3 different ways though, so in a large enough base (never build in a small base) they more than pay for themselves.

Firstly the +50% Labs. Let's assume a nice size 4 base with the basic facilities already in place, with 2 energy from each population, and say 4 from the base (a moderate estimate) for 12 base energy. Then let's take again the default 50/50 Econ/Labs distribution. In this case, the Research Hospital is going to give you 3 Labs/turn at a cost of 3 ec/turn. No loss, no gain either.

However, when that size 4 base grows to size 5, let's imagine that it develops another Drone, which is then quelled by the Research Hospital. We now have to include the added productivity of an extra worker (let's put him on a forest for 1-2-2) which (ignoring the nutrients) is worth 6 ec/turn. This defrays the upkeep cost of the Hospital, returns 3 ec/turn to our pockets, and gives us an extra 0.5 Labs/turn (a whole +1 Labs/turn, with the Node that the base should already have) As the base grows past size 5, you may have to spend on Psych to keep them happy in there, so the 3rd bonus comes into play, of +25% Psych.

So, the timing of Research Hospitals is pretty simple. You should aim to have them built the turn before reaching size 5 if running an FM using faction, and any time between sizes 5 and 7 if using Police under Planned or Green and planning on "turtling" for a bit, or if you are planning on spreading like xenofungus before simply crushing everyone, its best not to build them at all. Do one thing, and do it well, its better than messing them both up.

One final thing to note - A Research Hospital stops outbreaks of Prometheus Viruses and Planet Blight at that base.

[1]Assuming a normal tech progression to Industrial Automation, then restriction lifting, then Doctrine: Air Power