Trinity Drone

 is an economic unit  which mainly helps your economy survive breaches.

Strategy
Since a produces  per turn but consumes 2 Drones, buying a one is similar to buying a Drone when it comes to expanding one's economy, with a few differences. While slightly more expensive (as is generally more valuable than, it needs to take 5 damage before gold production is reduced, unlike regular Drones that are destroyed upon taking even 1 damage. This makes Trinity Drone a good enabler of breach-proof strategies.

Trinity Drone can also be considered a counter to Deadeye Operatives, since it cannot be sniped by them unlike regular Drones.

Note that regular Drones can have other uses than merely gold production (such as blocking or being consumed as part of certain costs) which does not. As such, if you are confident that breaching will not be a large factor in the foreseeable future, buying a Drone is typically better than buying a should both be options. This is especially important in sets containing units such as Plasmafier, Plexo Cell or Resophore.

Openings
In these openings, 1 represents. (This makes sense if you assume is the first unit in the random tab.)

Player 2
Player 2 usually opens with a natural Conduit (DD/DDC), with tons of great follow-ups. Some possibilities are:


 * DD/DDC/D1CE/11D for high economy
 * DD/DDC/1DA for a natural Animus without cutting economy - you now have the flexibility to either spend green or convert it to gold through the Trinity's click ability. This gives a free Gold compared to the floating 2G of the base line.

Player 1
Player 1 has way more options on how to play, similarly to how player 2 has more options in Vivid Drone sets. This gives player 1 a considerable amount of control over the direction that the game ultimately takes, but ample opportunity to make bad decisions that can be brutally punished. Assuming there are no other economic units and player 1 wants at least one, player 1 will usually open with one of:


 * DD/DD
 * DD/DDE
 * DD/DC
 * DD/CC

Of these, DD/DC is the best in many sets because of how flexible it is. Possible follow-ups to this line include:


 * DD/DC/DG for early Gauss Cannon pressure
 * DD/DC/D1B, largely equivalent to DD/DD/DCB
 * DD/DC/D1C, largely equivalent to DD/DD/DCC
 * DD/DC/1A, largely equivalent to DD/DD/CA

The Trinity Transposition
Turn 2 DC is very flexible for player 1 because of a specific transposition that often occurs in openings. Here a transposition means a reordering of the choices made during a build order such that a similar or identical final position is reached. In chess, a transposition might simply be choosing the move order [Nf3, Bc4] instead of the move order [Bc4, Nf3]. In Prismata, transpositions are more subtle (since you don’t just make a single move during a turn), but have similar strategic and tactical importance.

The most important transposition that comes up in openings is the following, which which is referred to here as “The Trinity Transposition“:

Buying [C, followed by on the subsequent turn] is substantially identical to buying [D, followed by C on the subsequent turn].

As an example, buying [DD/DC/1DB] results in a very similar position to that of buying [DD/DD/DCB]. The only difference is that the second option leaves you with 3 Drones instead of a, and a difference in the remaining supply of the relevant units.

An important thing to realize with this and other transpositions is that there is tremendous tactical and strategic relevance to which move order you choose. Here’s a list of why the choice might matter:

Why [D, followed by C] can be better:


 * C, followed by may not be possible if you don’t have enough gold for the initial Conduit.
 * D, followed by C gives you the option of skipping the Conduit altogether if your opponent responds to the first move in a way that makes you not want to go green.
 * D, followed by C allows you to keep more Drones alive if you might want to later use them via Tia Thurnax, Plasmafier, Savior, Venge Cannon, Plexo Cell, or other Drone-saccing units.

Why [C, followed by ] can be better:


 * D, followed by C may not be possible if you don’t have enough energy for the first Drone.
 * C, followed by allows you the option of spending the green on something other than a Trinity Drone if, for example, your opponent left themselves vulnerable to an early Gauss Cannon, Fission Turret, or Kinetic Driver.
 * Results in more of your Drones being converted into s, which may facilitate a breach-proof strategy later in the game.
 * Allows you the option of not buying any Drones on the second turn, if your opponent’s response makes you decide that a lower-econ strategy is better.
 * Sometimes enables the option of getting a Drone instead of a on the second turn (spending 1E instead of G), enabling you to bank an extra green, perhaps for an early GG unit like Tesla Coil or Tantalum Ray, or to accelerate your way to a GGG or GGGG unit more quickly.

As a rule of thumb, going [C, followed by Trinity Drone] is often better, especially if a breach-proof strategy is even remotely a possibility. The Drone-first option is only worth considering if you’re also considering skipping green (or s) altogether. But if you definitely want s, then you usually should be going for the Conduit early.

In particular, this means that DD/DD/DDC, DD/DD/DCC, DD/DD/DBC, and DD/DD/CA are often suboptimal openings for player 1 in sets. Instead, consider opening DD/DC during the first two turns for greater option value on turn 3—you can threaten a Gauss Cannon, go breach-proof more easily, and choose to save the green, all while leaving the option open for a super low-econ 9-Drone rush. In many cases, you also get to choose whether you’d like to have an extra gold or an extra green on turn 4.

Chaining the Transposition
An additional note: you can apply the Trinity Transposition multiple times to drastically alter openings.

Consider the following opening line for player 1:

DD/DD/DDB/DSC

With one application of the transposition, this is largely equivalent to:

DD/DD/DCB/DS1

Applying the transposition again gives:

DD/DC/D1B/D1S

[Aside: two openings are called transposition-equivalent if they can be shown to be similar by applying a chain of transpositions. Here DD/DD/DDB/DSC is transposition-equivalent to DD/DC/D1B/D1S for player 1. Note also that the transposition can't be applied again because there isn't enough gold to open DC on turn 1.]

The lesson here is clear: a turn 4 Conduit opening can be converted to a turn 2 Conduit opening while largely leaving the result unchanged. The key difference is that player 1 will have more s, and will be afforded a completely different set of options if they decide to diverge from the plan. In many situations, the availability of those additional options is beneficial to player 1’s overall game plan, and may even force player 2 to play more carefully (for example, to avoid losing to a tech switch or a Tia Thurnax all-in).

Player 1 Opening Advice
This section contains advice about when to use each of the player 1 openings listed above.

DD/DD
This is pretty much only a good opening when you’re not going to get s at all, or when you want to keep your Drones alive for a unit like Resophore or Savior. DD/DC is almost always better. If your plan is to go DD/DD/DDC, then you should probably just open DD/DC as player 1 in Trinity Drone sets unless you have a very specific reason not to. Of course, if you’re planning on playing DDB or DDA on your third turn (or want to leave that option open), then DD/DD is a reasonable option.

DD/DDE
This remains the strongest option for player 1 in most heavy econ sets. Though it’s certainly possible to go for builds like DD/CC/D11/DD11 (Outdated, costs Energy), the result isn’t often any better than a typical DD/DDE opener.

To see why, observe the following: DD/CC/D11/DD11 yields a result that is economically identical to the “impossible” build DD/DD/DDD/DDCC (impossible because you can't build a third Drone on turn 3 without getting an extra Engineer on turn 2). However, you often don’t want a double Conduit in big econ sets, especially if you lack Drones to turn into Forcefields because they’ve all been Trinitied. It’s often preferable to go for DD/DDE/DDD, and then choose a different continuation over a double Conduit. The tradeoff? Fewer Trinity Drones (so a more difficult transition to breach-proof later in the game), plus you’ve got 2 fewer gold to spend on turn 4 (because you’ve already spent it on an extra Engineer). But in situations where you don’t want two Conduits, you’re usually much better off.

Note that you can still incorporate Trinity Drone in your big econ games by going DD/DDE/DDD/DDDC and then mixing in Trinity Drones during the subsequent turns. However, by making some very careful observations, you can see that this is often dominated by other opening choices. Applying the transposition, this is largely equivalent to:

DD/DDE/DDC/DDD1. This is nonsense though, since you can't drone 4 times in Turn 4. Are you seeing a pattern yet? A lot of player 1 Trinity Drone openings are transposition-equivalent to openings that start with DD/DC.
 * Of course, that Engineer isn’t needed on turn 2 if you're not going for 3 Drones on turn 3, so you could instead delay its purchase for a turn by playing the following:
 * DD/DD/DDEC/DDD1
 * You can then apply the transposition again to obtain:
 * DD/DC/DD1E/DDD1

DD/DC
As mentioned above, this line is very common, with possible follow-ups including:


 * DD/DC/DD1E into high econ
 * DD/DC/DG for early Gauss Cannon pressure
 * DD/DC/DD1, largely equivalent to DD/DD/DDC (Outdated after Dec 9, 2015)
 * DD/DC/D1B, largely equivalent to DD/DD/DCB
 * DD/DC/D1C, largely equivalent to DD/DD/DCC
 * DD/DC/1A, largely equivalent to DD/DD/CA

The most important is the third one, DD/DC/DD1, which leads into a 4th turn with 12 Drones worth of income, 2 stored gold, and a single Conduit. There are several excellent follow-ups available, including DD1B, DD1A, and DAB depending on which techs you want to pursue (DAB can also be swapped for 1AB if you need an extra gold on the following turn and are willing to pay a green for it).

The DD1A and DD1B follow-ups (to a turn 3 DD1) are not transposition-equivalent to any build orders available in the base set alone. Their equivalent builds would be the “illegal” builds DD/DD/DDD/DDCB and DD/DD/DDD/DDCA that are impossible due to lacking a third Engineer. They are excellent follow-ups and you should be thinking about them frequently when playing as player 1.

DD/CC
This one should be reserved for special occasions like breach-proof all-ins, Cryo Ray sets, Cluster Bolt sets, or other situations where having tons of green is a good thing and getting a lot of s is very important.. If you want to convert all your Drones to s as fast as possible (perhaps because you plan on skipping defense altogether), then this is the way to go.

Note that DD/CC/D11 is transposition-equivalent to DD/DC/D1, and even the wildly crazy DD/CC/11C has an equivalent build in DD/DC/1CC. Consequently, if you think you might want to get 2 or 3 Conduits but are unsure, you can always open DD/DC and delay the decision until your third turn. However, your opponent’s response may not give you much help in making up your mind (more often than not, they’re just going to open the fairly neutral DD/DDC).

The key lesson is the following: everything DD/CC does, DD/DC also does, except with one less Trinity Drone and three more Drones instead. It’s pretty safe to only consider DD/CC if a core part of your game plan involves converting Drones to Trinity Drones quickly.

Change log

 * December 9th, 2015
 * Cost increased from + consume 2 Drones to  + consume 2 Drones.
 * Added ability, convert  to.
 * August 8th, 2015
 * Cost decreased from + consume 2 Drones to  + consume 2 Drones.