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1

AI War / Resource Galaxy Statistics

« on: March 30, 2012, 09:12:22 PM »

There was some discussion in the 5.031 thread about the average number of resources in a galaxy. I decided to generate a bunch of galaxy and did some statistics about the resources. None of my data includes the 3 homeworlds. Also, these galaxies were generated with no minor factions enabled (didn't look like it changes anything though) and all 3 expansions enabled. I generated 10 galaxies for each number of planets using the grid map type, expect for 25 & 15 planets which used the snake type. Turns out that Grid was a bad choice because of how it is generated, it causes a lot of the different number of planets to spawn the same number of planets (ie, 80 and 70 both generate 80 planets). So, this is currently missing several number of planets(from here on out refereed to as P#).

I tested 120, 100, 80, 60, 40, 30, 25, 20, 15 and 10 P# but the actual number of planets in each P# was: 121, 100, 81, 64, 49, 36, 25, 20, 16 and 10. At the higher P#, the resource statistics are close together between each trial but as the P# decreases things start to break down and the difference between each trial is larger. The statistics for each P# as a whole all tended to be close together though, yay math. Now onto the actual numbers.

Code: [Select]

---120(121) P#---
Average: 4.104237288
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 1.99238985

---100 P#---
Average: 3.958762887
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.012948414

---80(81) P#---
Average: 4.087179487
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.078705468

---60(64) P#---
Average: 3.949180328
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.04683447

---40(49) P#---
Average: 4.136956522
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.029398174

---30(36) P#---
Average: 3.975757576
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.033014786

---25 P#---
Average: 3.922727273
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.073629121

---20 P#---
Average: 3.964705882
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.092234494

---15(16) P#---
Average: 4.238461538
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.145136363

---10 P#---
Average: 4.071428571
Median: 4
Mode: 4
Min: 0
Max: 8
St. Dev: 2.080422397

As you may have noticed, the median, mode, min and max were the same for each P#. The averages all differed but were very close and between all trials I got an average of 4.040939735 resources per planet.

All ten trials in for P# 120, 100 and 80 had a min of 0 and a max of 8. At 60 and below P#, there were several trials who had different mins and maxs. 27 out of 100 trials had a min above 0 while 23 out of 100 had a max below 8.

So it looks like 4 resources per planet is the average for a galaxy of any size.

If anyone wants some other statistics with this data, let me know and I'll try to get it.

2

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / The case for Illari fully healing you

« on: February 01, 2012, 01:11:02 AM »

So I've seen this brought up several times on why the Illari don't fully heal you. Sorry in advanced but I'm going to bring this up once again. I didn't want to post this in a closed mantis issue or a buried forum thread so I'm making a new one. Anyway, here's my argument for the Illari fully healing you.

First off it just kinda seems like a bug, or at least would be confusing for a new player. I think the Illari don't try to heal you (make the sound an effect) when you are above 100% anymore but it still may be confusing to new players when they pass an Illari while injured and it doesn't heal them.

Second, Chris made the argument that players would warp back to town to heal when they are about to lose a vitality stone level.  Can't players already do this though without any vitality stones? I mean if players were going to be this obsessive about not losing a vitality stone level, why would they even use the vitality stones in the first place? The same thing could be accomplished by not using any vitality stones and warping back to town when they are about to die. This is essentially the same thing as warping back to town when you are about to lose a vitality stone level.

A counter point to this could be that the players used the vitality stones because they are headed toward a boss fight and don't want to lose them on the way. But to this I say that isn't really any different than what they can do right now. A player could not use any vitality stones, warp back to town when they are about to die and warp back. Then, once they reach the boss area, warp back to town, use a bunch of vitality stones and then warp back to the boss.

Also, right now I mainly use vitality stones for missions where you can't really warp back to town to heal anyway because that would mean you fail the mission or at least have to start over.

Other place I would really use vitality stones would be in underground caverns, lieutenants and Overlords, but in these cases if I were being 'optimal' I would use the warp back to town before dieing method and just use vitality stone right before fighting a boss.

The only real difference I see between the Illari fully healing you and how it is now is that if a player used a lot of stones before a boss fight and still had several extra hundred percent health left after the fight. Now players can't warp back to town to heal and keep from losing vitality levels between boss fight like they would be able to do if the Illari fully healed them. Maybe this is really a major worry.

Also, right now it kinda seems like you are punishing a majority of players for something a minority of 'optimal' players might do.

Also also, could bosses at least drop health orbs on death?

3

AVWW Mods & Maps / [MAP] Atriums and Fountains, Fountains in Atriums

« on: October 26, 2011, 11:16:29 PM »

I made 3 new room maps, two large atriums and one small room. The first large atrium is a large theater with a box seat. The second large atrium is an atrium with a large fountain in the middle. The small room is a simple room with a fountain in the middle.

4

AVWW Mods & Maps / [MAP] Two rooms, Stage and Pool

« on: October 25, 2011, 02:50:01 PM »

I decided to make two rooms, one of them is an atrium with a stage and the other is a room with a swimming pool. I named them as low atriums because that was a room I found easily but they may be more appropriate elsewhere. The pool map should fit 5 doors while the stage one should fit 10 doors. The stage one probably would be better as a large atrium.

5

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Pylon idea

« on: October 06, 2011, 03:56:36 PM »

So reading the release notes, the pylons seem like a cool new feature, one thing I kind of dislike is the guarding monsters just like the various resource deposits. It seems like this mechanic is getting over used a bit. It makes sense for the resource deposits because I imagine they aren't onside buildings but for pylons, I think it would be could if they had a slightly different mechanic.

I think it would be cool it the pylons were buildings you could enter and they had a number of rooms inside of them that were generator rooms which had generators in them. These rooms would be blocked by bosses, a la switch rooms/gem veins/etc..., and each pylon would have a number of generator rooms. Perhaps for an added challenge, each of these boss rooms could have more than one boss in them or a miniboss and X number of micro bosses.

Yes, perhaps this would be better on mantis, but for some reason it makes sense to me to post here. I'll put it on mantis if it seems like a good idea to people.

6

AI War / Mercenary Ships

« on: March 27, 2011, 03:49:38 PM »

Something I've always wondered about is how are the ship types chosen to be mercenary ships? I get having the 3 triangle ships as mercs but why have say the etherjet tractor or parasite or beam frigate or the Enclave ship? What was the reasoning behind choosing those ships specifically?

7

AI War / Random AI + Defender mode = Bad Idea

« on: January 31, 2011, 01:53:53 AM »

I decided to try out defender mode today choosing to use random easier AI types. Turns out that it gave my Shield Ninny and Support Corps. Defender mode is not fun when you have AI types that don't send waves. I guess I shouldn't use random AI for defender mode.

8

AI War Strategy Discussion / Cloaker Starship Use and Manufactories

« on: January 05, 2011, 10:20:28 PM »

Hi, I want to use a couple of Cloaker Starships to send along with a few Raid starships to take out a key target. The problem is that I can't select them both at the same time, is there a way to be able to select the cloakers and raid ships? Also, I disabled the automatic control over my manufactories because I needed more crystal but what I wanted to know if there was an easy way to turn on/off all of the manufactories across the galaxy?

Thanks!