The Shofixti - a monster race |
Wed, 15 June 2016 00:42 |
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magic9mushroom | | Commander | Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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Now that Lowtek's dead, I can post the full design of the Shofixti race.
HE
ISB, NRSE, OBRM, NAS, RS
Gravity immune, Temperature -120 - 120 (60 wide, centred), Radiation 25-89 (64 wide, right-shifted) - total "1 in 2", 44% initially habitable
13% (26% with HE bonus)
1/1000
15/9/10/4g
10/3/16
All expensive, start at 3
3 points left over to mineral concentrations
I took this race into Lowtek (a slow-tech, non-AccBBS game with Weapons required expensive) to prove a point. I was irritated that everyone persisted in describing what I call "supergrowth HE" - HE using their doubled growth to grow at over 20%, rather than trading it in for points - as "-f HE", and moreover had fixated on bi-immunity as the hab scheme. So I brought out what I believed to be in fact the superior version for a PBEM (particularly without AccBBS) - a +f with 1-immune 2-wide hab. This race maintains superb growth thanks to its 26% effective growth rate and great hab, but actually gets decent capacity as well (a 100% world produces 1375 resources, compared to a -f HE's 550, and the race can eventually inhabit 88% of planets with 1i planet values; the capacity per space isn't far off most 1-immune 2-narrow non-HE HGs) and thus isn't doomed to fade away the way a -f HE is by running out of space. My intention was to steamroller everyone with this race and thus prove the point. I ended up having to drop out, but I think the point was made nonetheless (it was a 2-winner game; the Shofixti and their ally did indeed triumph).
The factories look like a QS, but the race plays closer to a sped-up HG. The defining difference, to me, between a QS and an HG is the ratio between "factory time" and "population time" - a QS's "factory time" is shorter than an HG's while the "population time" remains similar, allowing the QS to greenline queues faster and have a larger proportion of its resources "free" at any given time (for early techs and warships). However, w
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Mon, 27 June 2016 10:15 |
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Hi ,
it is a good race but only for a team game or a game where you hope for a good ally.
The race has a lot of weak spots and is not playable in a normal game or an all enemy game.
ccmaster
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Mon, 27 June 2016 21:11 |
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magic9mushroom | | Commander | Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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XAPBob wrote on Tue, 28 June 2016 02:00What weak spots?
Remember that it was designed for a game in which W was forced expensive, and there was no AccBBS.
Genuine question, since I don't recall it running out of minerals, or anything obvious like that. And as the person commonly held responsibly for the -fHE ban I suspect ccmaster may well have some good insight...
Well, NAS is one. I'm also curious as to what the others are.
[Updated on: Mon, 27 June 2016 21:11] Report message to a moderator
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Mon, 04 July 2016 21:05 |
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magic9mushroom | | Commander | Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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I have discussed bi-immunity before. You are mistaken. The bi-immune hab that pulls even with the Shofixti hab solely on over-50% greens costs 250 points more. That's just to pull even; to do better you need even more. The only advantage of throwing those 250 points down the drain is that you get half-price terra; it's as if you'd bought Total Terraforming twice, except that you didn't get the higher terraforming levels and also all your bad greens turned into reds.
2i 1narrow does not get better greens than 1i 2wide in exchange for the bad greens, the way 1i 2narrow does compared to 3wide. 2i 1narrow just has the same or even slightly smaller number of good greens, and reds where the 1i 2wide had bad greens. To start making 2i a better hab than 1i 2wide, you have to actually dump hundreds more points into it than the 1i 2wide costs and take ~40 wide in the last field; at cost parity, 1i blows 2i out of the water.
Factories give +150% capacity over factoryless for HE or non-HE. And going from 5/25/5 to 15/9/10 costs 615 points for the Shofixti; the Feds (as a well-known non-HE benchmark race) actually have a 616-point gap between the cost of those settings, one point more. The "higher factory cost for HE" thing only kicks in when you take more than 10 factory number; guess what the Shofixti don't have?
10/3/8 or 10/3/7 mines work for a factoryless HE, but this has 2.5x the resources per planet! You need a few more mines for a +f than a -f.
The rest - well, yeah, a +f is going to be slower than a -f but grow bigger, that's the whole point. This is still a fast race, though, thanks to the fast factories and 26% growth + 12% of planets being 75%+ breeders.
[Updated on: Mon, 04 July 2016 22:18] Report message to a moderator
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Tue, 05 July 2016 01:17 |
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Hi ,
1.
you have discussed bi-immunity before fine, but not with me. And I say you are wrong. Not with your math but with your at all view.
2.
2I 1 narrow gets better greens.
3.
Sure has a Race with Factories more capacity then one without it.
And the higher Factory cost for HE also takes place with 15/9/10 as your planet works only half the Factories. So where other Races can still build hundreds of Factories with massive Resources on the planet ( what will ramp up real fast ) you have to start on a new planet by 0.
4.
I dont say that you can play a +f with the same settings then a -f. I only say that the 10/3/16 is to high.
And I still think you have had a lot of minerals in your game. If you have not had enough minerals in your game I am wrong.
5.
I never told that the race is bad. I played races like this in the past before I tried the 2I -f version.
I only say it is no Monster. And you get trouble in the early game against a -F or QS who wants your space.
Ccmaster
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Tue, 05 July 2016 02:12 |
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magic9mushroom | | Commander | Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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No, 2i1narrow does not get better greens than 1i2wide.
Let us compare two races. The first is a bi-immune: it takes grav and temp immune and rad 66-86 (20 wide). The second is a single-immune; it takes grav immune, temp -128-128 (64 wide) and rad 16-84 (68 wide). The single-immune hab I just described costs 9 points less than the bi-immune hab I just described, so I'm actually being kind to the bi-immune.
The bi-immune will have the following proportions of planets:
13.13% 75% green or better
4.04% 50-75% green
4.04% 25-50% green
28.28% eventually yellow
50.51% permanently red.
The single-immune will have the following proportions of planets (according to Christian Raebild's handy hab calculator):
13.3% 76% green or better
15.8% 51-75% green
18.3% 26-50% green
2.9% 0-25% green
49.0% eventually yellow
0.7% permanently red.
Taking 2i has not traded more greens for better greens. Taking 2i has merely gotten the same amount of good greens and converted most of the decent greens and bad greens into reds. It is strictly a downgrade.
For comparison, I'll show the much more balanced trade-off between 1i and 0i. The 0i takes grav 0.27-3.68 (64 wide), temp -128-128 (64 wide) and rad 16-84 (68 wide). The 1i takes, for the same price, grav immune, temp -104-88 (48 wide) and rad 55-85 (30 wide).
(I'll use the hab calculator for both, this time.)
The non-immune will have the following proportions of planets:
2.6% 76% green or better
7.8% 51-75% green
15.0% 26-50% green
11.0% 0-25% green
62.3% eventually yellow
1.3% permanently red.
The single-immune will have the following proportions of planets:
4.4% 76% green or better
5.2% 51-75% green
6.3% 26-50% green
1.1% 0-25% green
36.1% eventually yellow
46.9% permanently red.
Here, you can see that the single immunity did increase the number of initial 75%+ greens by 70%, at the cost of 0-75% greens. This is an interesting balance. Single immunity vs. bi-immunity is not; wide single-immune habs have more of every kind of green tha
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Tue, 05 July 2016 03:07 |
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Hi ,
yes I told you the math is not bad but you only look what is in the endgame. Not looking at the way kills races. But now I show the Important differents.
I want 100% breeders.
Mostly all the starting green planets of the 2I gets 100% with Terraforming 7%.
So the 2I will have 4 times the Breeders of the 1I with easy and mostly no cost in resources.
And this is the reason the 2I is woth the points at least for HE and AR race, all other has to cripple the race to much for it.
Also for your calculation 3I HE would be the best and for sure it is the best HE for endgame if you make it to the late middle game or endgame.
You are always calculating for the endgame but you can not skip early and middle game.
You calculation is made for the Endgame and you are right the 1Imune will get with all the terraforming he has to do more Planets then the 2Immune, but this isn't my point.
The weakness of the race you creat is the start and the early middle game. You can easy make it pass with some diplomatic but could go wrong.
ccmaster
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Tue, 05 July 2016 03:36 |
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Hi ,
If it is without Terraforming ? What means eventually yellow ?
Also the bi immune has not real 25-50% greens as around 44% is the lowest working.
Also the 85%+ or even 90%+ are missing, where the 2 Immune is leading.
But you want Breeder with 100% or at least close to it. So you have to go with 2I no better way.
The starting time you need for the Terraforming with the 1I cost to much speed.
ccmaster
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Tue, 05 July 2016 04:06 |
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XAPBob | | Lt. Commander | Messages: 957
Registered: August 2012 | |
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Having watched the Shofixti in action I respectfully disagree with the proposition that they are weak in the early game.
The game they were designed for is without Acc BBS - and that makes a significant difference.
As stated the factories don't lag the pop by much, and in the initial push they have fractionally more very good greens than the 2i (though my intuition tells me that the distribution in that top few % will be skewed in the same way as the overall distribution), as well a plethora of medium greens available as staging posts/mining colonies.
The 2i version has to narrow that third hab by quite some margin - and that really cuts into the actual hab received. Yes, TF costs something, but initially you can just sit on the same number of 75%+ worlds and outgrow the universe handily - The initial TF push will favour the 2i a bit (because the third has is narrow), but not for long - the 1i will ramp past the 2i since they have far more capacity to make a difference to their planets (and the factories to make it work).
It's almost like a second set of factories (bit of investment yields longer term gains) - and in a larger universe that is very useful...
As for factory cost - it might cost more RW points per planet, but since you expect to take twice as many planets - does that really make a difference? I'm not convinced it does. You still get to build the same proportion of factories to pop after all - the ratios are identical.
The design is to stop the factories lagging so far behind the pop that they are all you ever do.
Then you take that pop, and those factories, with the mines you have and build large fleets of ships to go and spank your neighbours...
Yes - that 6th expensive field is potentially costly in a game where W aren't forced expensive - but they started next to a WM, and ate it for breakfast (yum, thanks for the tech boost).
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Tue, 05 July 2016 12:45 |
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Hi ,
it could be in this game that the hab draw was even much better that the race has preformed so good.
And to say that the race with 1I is as fast as a race with 2 immune is nonsens make some test games and you will see.
I have played hundreds of real games with HE and mostly 100 duels and belive me that your race is not as strong as you think by start.
ccmaster
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Sat, 09 July 2016 14:12 |
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Hi ,
always depend where the techs are in year 2420 and 2430 and so one.
The race is a Hybrid as you are not as fast as the -f and the QS races by start and not as strong as a HP in the late game.
Also you say 2i is "slightly" faster the first few years.
If this would be right my Monster -f race I played so often of a bad race. As they race has a grow of 13(26)% and 2i one small. So the only advantage of the race is that it has is 2I.
Dont think you have playtested the speed of the race.
ccmaster
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Sat, 09 July 2016 21:37 |
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magic9mushroom | | Commander | Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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ccmaster wrote on Sun, 10 July 2016 04:12Hi ,
always depend where the techs are in year 2420 and 2430 and so one.
The race is a Hybrid as you are not as fast as the -f and the QS races by start and not as strong as a HP in the late game.
Also you say 2i is "slightly" faster the first few years.
If this would be right my Monster -f race I played so often of a bad race. As they race has a grow of 13(26)% and 2i one small. So the only advantage of the race is that it has is 2I.
Dont think you have playtested the speed of the race.
ccmaster
It's not a bad race. I do contend that it's a suboptimal race and would be better as a 1i.
[Updated on: Sat, 09 July 2016 21:39] Report message to a moderator
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Mon, 11 July 2016 06:06 |
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Hi,
both races are not bad. But what you are trying have I already done 5-8 years ago.
You think :
HE Race is so fast with the grow we dont need the 2I and go with 1I for more later punsh.
Then you tried :
Found the 1I what is so much better in the middle and end game and only some % worser by start. So that is the race to play.
You played:
On game you played and it runs like you want maybe even better with a good ally.
I say:
The different in grow beween 1I and 2I is real big ! as the 2I gets much bigger planet in shorter time and even has a chance to find 100% by start.
As I sayed before you race is OK for start speed and moderat for middle till endgame Rescources.
But the problem I also had several years ago is that when you take away speed by start you could get crunshed by start or at least not expand and a HE who not expand is dead(Exept 3I ).
You like Math I think , do the math for the grow of the first 20 years for both races and you see the different.
If you thill think the nummbers of you are fine we could do a duell your race against my -f. You both say I have no chance by nummbers I would say we make 5 games and see who wons most of them.
ccmaster
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Mon, 11 July 2016 19:46 |
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Yes.
but to test early speed it is a goo way to see it. Also it never mind if the 1I is so much stronger.
ccmaster
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Re: The Shofixti - a monster race |
Wed, 13 July 2016 04:56 |
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iztok | | Commander | Messages: 1210
Registered: April 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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magic9mushroom wrote on Wed, 15 June 2016 06:42Shofixti race.
HE
ISB, NRSE, OBRM, NAS, RS
Gravity immune, Temperature -120 - 120 (60 wide, centred), Radiation 25-89 (64 wide, right-shifted) - total "1 in 2", 44% initially habitable
13% (26% with HE bonus)
1/1000
15/9/10/4g
10/3/16
All expensive, start at 3
3 points left over to mineral concentrations
Some comments
- It's good to see experiments with PRT designs.
- I know you wanted ramp-up speed, but factories produce 15 is in my eyes awfully expensive for only 550 max operated factories.
- 16 operating mines: I know where you're coming from. But IMX (factories + 2) mines were enough for my 3-immune designs. Well, since more than a half of your planets will be below 100%, more mines helps, because even 880 mines on a 100% planet looks rather lacking.
- Like you wrote, the rad could be shifted left more, but you obviously did calculation with low weapons tech in mind, so no wory.
- I couldn't find starting parameters for Lowtek game, so I can't comment your other design choices. But was the speed really so important you did invest in factories so many RW points for so small gain?
BR, Iztok
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