VIRTUAL WORLD

• Reduce number of drones by two at base
• Increase Psych output of base by 50%

    This is perhaps the single most important project to have in any development-based game. What it does is take an improvement that you'll want to have anyway (Network Nodes) and give them the power of a second extremely useful improvement as well. The result is that each time a base builds a Network Node, it receives an impressive boost to both research and stability - the two foundations that all development-based factions are built on. As a plus, all this comes at a crucially early point in the game, and carries an extremely reasonable price tag. Grab both the Virtual World and the Human Genome Project, combine them with any reasonably non-repressive society, and you can expect to put off those drone troubles for decades.

    Of course, the project will do you no good whatsoever if you don't build Network Nodes early in each of your bases. With this project, Network Nodes should become the first or second (with Children's Creche) improvement built in every base. The other obvious corollary is that if you plan or hope to build the Virtual World, don't spend any time building holographic theaters in your bases.

    As useful as it is to any faction, this project becomes 100% more essential if you're playing the University. First because you need all the help you can get supressing drone production, and second because your bases already come with Network Nodes installed, making this a significantly better value for you than for any of the other facttions.