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icon5.gif  Is this still the right formula? Sun, 22 December 2002 15:28 Go to next message
jeffimix is currently offline jeffimix

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 218
Registered: November 2002
Location: EGR, MI, USA

I saw some post about how their is a certain amount of minerals you can get from each concentration level on a planet. My Stars! book says very much the opposite

Quote:

CALCULATING THE RATE OF DECREASE IN MINERAL CONCENTRATION
The decrease in mineral concentration is related solely to the number of mines operating on a planet and the number of years them mines have been in operation. For two players with the same number of mines operating over the same number of years, the decrease in concentration will be the same for each.

think about it in terms of Mine years: One Mine years means the operation of one mine on a planet in a year. If you are operating 50 mines per year on a planet, that equates to 50 Mine years.

to calculate approximately how many Mine years must pass to reduce a minerals concentration by one, divide 12,500 by the current mineral concentration.


It goes on to say that decreases in concentration are entirely unaffected by efficiency of mines and that while at 1% a person with more, less efficient mines can produce as many minerals.

However, this means that less but more efficient mines produce at higher concentrations for longer periods of time. It makes me wonder that if you figure out how low you can pull mine numbers for efficiency, then you can make your mineral supply last longer, like how many mines do I need to produce one battleship a year at 80%(average concentrations). It makes me wonder if 16 mines operated is really the best number, since I really only want to pull out what I need and make it last as long as possible. Such as making fewer more expensive, but more efficient mines. If I can put the numbers in the right place for a 1/2 full (or there abouts?) planet to make a battleship a year, but since I have less mines the planet can produce for a longer duration of time.

I've just been wondering why about 16 mines setting in the race wizard is so highly regarded as the optimum number.

Tangent off've more slowly growing races...


[Updated on: Sun, 12 January 2003 09:31]




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Re: Is this still the right formula? Mon, 23 December 2002 12:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Apelord is currently offline Apelord

 
Master Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 99
Registered: November 2002
The mineral formula in the book and help sections is correct. Mines produce diminishing returns. What you have to do is to look at your total mineral need to feed your factories and then figure out how to get them. The amount of germanium you produce gates your growth if you are running a factory race. Longer term minerals determine what you can build. The HG type designs (1000-12-9-16 in resource settings) do extremely well with 12-3-12 mine settings and OBRM. HP types (2500-15-7-18+) typically need more minerals to build those extra factories hence build more mines. The mine settings allow you to buy three things: Rate of extraction, cost of mines, and total capacity. First and last setting both adjust rate and capacity while the cost is obvious. Early ramp races need low cost efficient mines while lower ramp but higher overall production races can utilize more mines to get greater capacity.


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icon1.gif  Re: Is this still the right formula? Mon, 23 December 2002 13:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jeffimix is currently offline jeffimix

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 218
Registered: November 2002
Location: EGR, MI, USA


Did my crazy use of bolds help in any way?[ 8 votes ]
1. Yes 6 / 75%
2. no Sad 2 / 25%

ZZZy, that helps. I've been wondering why 16, I guess its since you can build the more numerous amount, and its cheaper than efficiency.

However

I figured that on a planet you have lets say a mineral concentration of 60%. To go from 60%->56% takes (in order) 208.3My, 211.9My, 215.5My, 219.3My, 223.2My where My are Mining years. Now if you had mines of 10/X/16, and 16/X/10 and five hundred thousand people with all the mines built, you'd support 800 and 500 mines respectively. If mining is all done based on the beginning percent of every turn (which it may or may not be but that doesn't really change the general idea) you'd get 480Kt of minerals from both settings. However, the next year the percentages would be 57% and 58% respectively. So next turn the efficient mines would produce 464Kt, while the more numerous mines would produce 456Kt.

Also

So I figured if a race grows more slowly, they might be able to afford slower ramp up(to make back points) for the more efficient mines(that become better).


[Updated on: Tue, 18 February 2003 10:06] by Moderator





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Re: Is this still the right formula? Mon, 23 December 2002 14:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
freakyboy is currently offline freakyboy

 
Lieutenant

Messages: 583
Registered: November 2002
Location: Where the clowns can't re...

So basically more efficient mines = more minerals from a planet.

As helpful as all this information is the cost of increasing from 10kt per year to 11kt per year is around 50. increasing from 10 mines to 11 mines per 10k is about 11.

It don't take a genius to figure out which is the option most everyone will take.

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Re: Is this still the right formula? Wed, 25 December 2002 00:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Apelord is currently offline Apelord

 
Master Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 99
Registered: November 2002
Dosn't quite work that way...

Mine efficiency increases/decreases the total amount of minerals you can get from a planet. I.e. go from 10 to 11 produces 10% more minerals from the planet. Mineral concentration reduction is not related to efficiency however a player who is more efficient at mining will not necessarily do as well as a player with more mines.

Mineral concentrations decay like this:

12,500/currentmincon = #ofmineyearstodeplete1%

So it takes more and more mine years to deplete a planet as the mincon drops. A more efficient setting gets more minerals, more mines depletes mincons faster.

You'll need to look at this over time and take the sum total of minerals extracted to really see if the investment in more efficient mines is better than more mines operated. Looking only at a single point in time fails to take into account the shape of the decline...




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the other bastard die for his" -George Patton

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Re: Is this still the right formula? Wed, 25 December 2002 18:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
tech25 is currently offline tech25

 
Petty Officer 3rd Class

Messages: 49
Registered: November 2002
ZZZm
So,
12,500/currentmincon = #ofmineyearstodeplete1%
no mining efficiency factor here. And # mine * year = mine years.
again no efficiency factor here. So, the rate at which the mineral concentration goes down on a planet is the same for all races and settings? So, each mine produces x amount of minerals really determines how much of a mineral you get out of a planet?
tech25



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an excepional individual learns from winning
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icon3.gif  Re: Is this still the right formula? Wed, 25 December 2002 20:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jeffimix is currently offline jeffimix

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 218
Registered: November 2002
Location: EGR, MI, USA

ZZZ. I think its most interesting because it means, if you up the mines per 10,000 people setting, you're actually speeding up the loss of mine concentration, but not total minerals. admittedly with the same efficiency, more mines will still pull the same amount of minerals out amount only varies speed.

Raising efficiency can raise how much you pull from a rock though, thats why it so much more expensive. Its useful really when, instead of 20 mines you take efficiency 11 or 12 even though it costs more. Depends on when you need minerals most.

If you need more overall, up efficiency. If you want them faster, efficiency is too expensive. If you take NAS and OBRM, you get three efficiency points and a little surplus, thats expensive! I'm wondering if thats enough to be game breaking though. Its a lot of minerals overall, but do they come when you need them?

Timing is the most important aspect of race design, in my humble opinion, design your race to bloom at a/() certain period(s). The best race will make everything come together at the same time.



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Re: Is this still the right formula? Thu, 19 June 2003 10:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
Commander

Messages: 1227
Registered: May 2003
The *almost* correct algorithms for how lot the conentration drops is:

1) if conc > 30
then new_conc = conc / exp ((conc*mine_years)/1250000)

2) if conc > 3 and conc <= 30
then new_conc = conc - (conc*mine_years)/45600

3) if conc > 1 and conc <= 3
then new_conc = conc - (conc*mine_years)/91200

4) if conc = 1
then new_conc = 1

Efficiency does not affect it. It can be turned into formula using IF() with ms excel. I have such spreadsheet and compared it with various races and the formula is valid enough to use for modeling.

General experience is that minerals will be not the limiting factor with 10/3/16-17 mines for HG race from the 2430 until about year 2490. HE prt need lot more mines, HP some more and JOAT can do with few less.

My experiments with the 11/3/12 mines (cost about the same as 10/3/17 in wizard) HG show that its teethless (germ trouble) at 2430-2450 so 2450-2460 the HP-s will pass it with econ. It can theoretically catch up at 2500 but isnt it too late then?
Seems that raised efficiency can be useful for narrow hab races but the number of mines operated should not drop below 14.


[Updated on: Thu, 19 June 2003 11:03]

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Re: Is this still the right formula? Thu, 19 June 2003 17:43 Go to previous message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

Messages: 1202
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe
Hi!
I did recently an analysis of that issue and post it at RGCS. You can find it under name "Optimal settings for mines".
BR, Iztok

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