Messages

541

AI War / Re: Knowledge Thoughts

« on: January 22, 2012, 09:48:02 PM »

I object to changing the range on a superfortress. The point of it is to avoid the usual drag, divide and conquer. A fortress is in your face and forces you to deal with the positioning. I don't think we should be playing range games beyond what's allowed right now. My $.02.

542

AI War / Re: Economy efficiency report: harvesters vs. command stations

« on: January 22, 2012, 09:40:17 PM »

I'm not sure that harvesters and economy stations need to be balanced as functions of each other. Maybe the whole mistake is viewing them as being related. How about viewing them as separate economic decisions? One is a decision (probably) for the beginning of the game directly related to military trade-off, and the other decision is a late game decision that is a trade off also for military. Rephrased, economy stations and harvesters are not trade-offs for each other.

I would be hesitant about rebalancing economy unless we're doing a new expansion. It's way too integral to the feeling of the game right now. I would like a fast-forward feature that was a little bit nicer, or maybe something to do while I'm waiting (like diplomacy, the ability to interact with structures((think being able to explore the insides of a building and tweak it))).


PS: How cool it be to fly in the cockpit of one of your fleet and do a trench run on the AI. Holy crap awesome fantasy.

543

AI War / Re: Economy efficiency report: harvesters vs. command stations

« on: January 22, 2012, 08:30:29 PM »

 64+(8x)y < 128y

I did the math for you in the 1st post. It's impossible for you to have the amount of harvesters necessary to be remotely equal to economic stations without having multiple home worlds and skipping capturing other worlds.

I think we can all agree that harvesters are something you should do later in the game for a significant boost and that it does not offer any kind of choice at the beginning of the game (unless you are rushing some military technology). The choice involved comes later and whether or not it's worth it versus some other technology.

544

AI War / Re: Economy efficiency report: harvesters vs. command stations

« on: January 22, 2012, 09:53:43 AM »

I would just like to point out that there are at least two other people besides me who say rebuilding a fleet takes a really long time.    eraser says that it takes him an hour. He's right, it does; it takes that long with the gametime speed accelerated! The later in the game you are, the longer it takes.

I have no qualms with punishment for losing a high mark fleet, but taking an hour out of your life to rebuild is rarely fun. You can only hope you have a turret ball to watch while you wait.

545

AI War / Economy efficiency report: harvesters vs. command stations

« on: January 21, 2012, 03:14:51 PM »

I wanted to draw attention to a discussion in the strategy forum about harvester versus economy command station resource efficiency. It's worthy of its own thread as a separate topic.


                                   knowledge                        benefit (+)
Harvester 2                       3250                               8/per resource node
Harvester 3                       4000                               16/per resource node
economy station 1            free                                32 metal and crystal
economy station 2           4000                               80 metal and crystal
economy station 3           5000                              160 metal and crystal

Starting position: 10,000--> 13,000 knowledge available
4 metal and 8 crystal nodes

Taking the Harvester Path
If you research crystal harvester 3 for 7250 knowledge,
16*8 = +128(Crystal) after home planet

And after taking one planet,

one crystal resource node              16
two crystal resource nodes            32
three crystal resource nodes         48
four crystal resource nodes          64

Results:
All things being equal, you could end up with up to 192 bonus crystal resources. Interestingly, if you go this kind of route, it's because you want to rush raid starships, antimatter (also known as the dreadnought, siege starship, piece of shi* starship), or missile frigate (LOL missile frigates  ). 64 + (8x)y adjusted!

If you want to divide by the average bonus in a ideal scenario, you get +96 resources. Conversion penalty is -11 (manufactories), so the adjusted resource bonus is +85 in the scenario where you get four crystal nodes.

Taking the economic command station 3 path

The knowledge cost isn't entirely equal, but let's say that you rushed economic 3.
9000 knowledge
+256 resources

Proportion comparison (knowledge per resource, lower is better):
9000/256 ! = 7250/128
35.15 ! = 56.64 kpr

0 resource bonus after home planet
After taking one planet, 256 resource bonus (128y adjusted!).

Results:
The balanced approach favors enclave, cloak, and Leech starships (yuck). It also favors fighters. There is no manufactory penalty .

Taking the economic command station 2 + harvester 2 path
7250 knowledge
64+96 (economy  2 -  economy 1) = +160 resources

kpr ratio (lower is better):
9000/256 ! = 7250/160
35.15 ! = 45.31

Let's look at this further…
8*8 = +64(Crystal) after home planet

And after taking one planet,

one crystal resource node              8
two crystal resource nodes            16
three crystal resource nodes         24
four crystal resource nodes           32


64 resource bonus after home planet
After taking one planet, 64+96+8x resource bonus, 160+8x. 32+80y+(4x)y adjusted.

Final conclusion:

Economy 3 > Hybrid (Econ 2/harvester 2) > harvester 3

With some exceptions, most notably if you are not going to take the bordering planet of your home planet. In addition, I have not calculated this over time.  The important statistics you should be getting out of this are that certain economic combinations favor different strategies. In addition, you should look at the starting position versus the position after one planet.

The difference between economy command stations and harvesters:
y is the number of additional planets after the home planet
x is the number of resource nodes
Adjustments are to average out resources, without regard to manufactory penalties, although we have mentioned them as -11 per manufactory. You can calculate that if you want.

	Adjustment	(home)	x = 4,y = 1	x =4,y = 2	x =4,y = 3
harvester	64 + (8x)y adjusted	64	96	128	160

Econ cmd station 3

128y adjusted

0

128

256

384

Hybrid (2/2)

32+80y+(4x)y adjusted

32

128

224

320

When you do factor in penalties, the economy command station path looks better and better.  But is it always? No. This is because you need to look at the whole game as occurring over time t. A slow start, deep strike, or rushing a certain ship could change your choice. Going full economy can make you militarily weak in the short term. By choosing the harvester or the hybrid path, it actually helps you in the short term with some knowledge left over for ship upgrades. However, as a general rule, economy command stations are noticeably superior with a 35.15 kpr!

I hope I didn't make any math errors! Feel free to point out any concerns, comments, or questions. I did use the tables feature to try and make this more readable, but it doesn't work at a certain size. 

546

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: When To Upgrade What?

« on: January 21, 2012, 10:37:21 AM »

I go for the harvester upgrades first because you don't actually have a planet to put the economic command station on yet (in the beginning).

547

Off Topic / Re: Steam rant

« on: January 20, 2012, 07:36:15 PM »

I have an interesting DRM story. I own some Hoyle products. I was doing some casino study before a trip (I wanted to check my math), and I do like some of the card games when I'm in a casual mood.

Anyway, the DRM on my activated product blocked me from using it exactly one year after purchase. It told me that I needed some special file to get permission. So I called the company, and I asked them how to get that file if the DRM blocks me from accessing the site that has this magic file!

His reply? What address would you like me to send the 2012 versions to? 

548

Off Topic / Re: Looking for a specific space game

« on: January 19, 2012, 09:32:33 PM »

Ah, Starfarer. [/url]

Ah, Starfarer… Not enough content right now. I played it for about 10 hours and then needed something deeper.

549

AI War / Re: 5.021 criticisms

« on: January 19, 2012, 09:29:49 PM »

Thanks for the update.

550

AI War / Re: 5.021 criticisms

« on: January 17, 2012, 08:19:25 PM »

Yeah, I'm really psyched about this new release. I'm about to start a new game. Is it going to be soon, or should I just go ahead and start?

551

Off Topic / Re: Steam rant

« on: January 17, 2012, 07:12:08 PM »

The days of $60 titles are being replaced by more price conscious consumers. We have more choice now. We don't have to pay $60 to scratch an itch when there are plenty of other titles at better prices. Also, I feel as if technology has taken a break from progress at the moment. The graphics between generations aren't that much better. The gameplay mechanics may add different gimmicks, but the real innovation is in the indie scene.

552

AI War / Re: Knowledge Thoughts

« on: January 16, 2012, 01:03:49 PM »

I object to part D. I don't see how this makes the game more fun or balanced. Differentiating units is meaningless if it doesn't do one of the other; you're just making things different just to make them different choices.

I have no strong feelings about the other choices.

553

AI War / Re: 5.021 criticisms

« on: January 14, 2012, 02:39:07 PM »

On the subject of weak relationships between mechanics, here is a way to describe it.

If after some period of time, the Dyson sphere comes out of nowhere because a hybrid  spawns it, I can imagine players thinking, "WTF, that wasn't there before!" The relationship is weak because it's hard to associate the hybrids and the Dyson sphere. Who is to say the Dyson sphere isn't just a randomly spawning unit? Nobody, unless you read the patch notes which someday will be so old you can only hope they are in the annals of the wiki.

If after some period of time, you scout and notice hybrids constructing a death star, well, that's different. It cool to peek at what hybrids are to, and it feels somewhat fair because you can do something about it. The relationship in this case is strong because you can see them going about their work and making something villainous. Even if you are reusing the Dyson sphere, that's okay, the relationship is still strong.

And okay about the galaxy controls. That all makes sense on why you would want to do that, although I would want some kind of way to protect my galaxy controls screen.

554

AI War / Re: 5.021 criticisms

« on: January 14, 2012, 12:51:11 PM »

"The controls screen will show (and allow manipulation of) the target player's controls. Yes, that's a lot of power, and some additional "permissions" may prove necessary. But in general: please cooperate If it's a problem, just don't use allow-team-control. "

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but this paragraph makes me think that your controls affect somebody else and vice versa. Otherwise, I don't really see the purpose of this functionality. Why would you want to change someone else's controls? The only reason I can think of is that when you are helping somebody else, the controls don't match.

555

Off Topic / Re: Evolve (Games Client)

« on: January 14, 2012, 10:48:33 AM »

"Note that you may only link one Steam account at this time and that once you've linked it, you cannot unlink it. These restrictions may change in the future. "

Bad.