| Hab and QS races |
Tue, 20 April 2004 09:20  |
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 mazda |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 655
Registered: April 2003
Location: Reading, UK | |
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Assertion :- For QS designs you should widen and left or right shift your hab bands into the tapered edges, especially if it gains you RW points in the process.
I've been investigating some minor effects of starting hab bands.
In general, the average starting hab of a green planet is constant regardless of the width of a hab band.
On r.g.c.s I found some figures quoted by Loren Pechtel (that I can confirm with a C program).
Non-immune - average green starting hab is 37%
one-immune - average green starting hab is 56%
for a bi-immune it is 75%, and tri-immune is 100% (obviously)
There are two minor sub-effects in this.
i) a wider band will have a slightly higher average hab.
ii) moving a band into the tapered edges of the T and G also raises the average starting hab.
To see i) consider a hab band.
It has 2 end points where the hab_value is at it's lowest, 1 middle point where it is perfect, and the rest of the points in between.
Now if we widen the hab band the the start and mid points remain exactly the same (borderline and perfect) but there is an increase in the number of other points.
Because the average value of an other-point is higher than the average of the (middle + 2 ends), the more other-points we have then the higher the average of the whole band becomes.
i.e. the lowest average would be a band of width 2, becaue you would have 3 points, 2 of which would be ends.
This is not a descriptive trick. It can be shown mathematically.
It works because the hab band is made of discrete values.
If the hab band was a continuous set of values then effectively the number of other-points would be infinite and this would completely drown out the 2 end and 1 middle points.
Effect ii), moving a hab band into the tapered edge is more obvious, I hope.
If you move a grav hab band from starting at 10 clicks out to starting at 9 clicks out then the point at the left edge is now less likely.
You will now get slightly less planets, however the planets that you have lost are the ones with the lowest hab, so the average hab must go up.
So we now have 2 effects, both of which slightly increase the average starting hab.
i.e. if we widen a hab band and then move it into a tapered edge we will increase the average starting hab of our green planets.
Consider a temp band.
i) -160 to 0 - 40 clicks wide
ii) -184 to -16 - 42 clicks wide
Both of these have the same number of planets available.
To get from i) to ii) you widen by 1 click and then move it 5 clicks left. This should improve the average starting hab, as described above.
I have a C program that does in fact confirm this.
Average green hab goes up by about 2%.
(in fact I wrote the program and then noticed the effect, so tried to explain it)
Why QS races I hear you ask ?
Well, the idea with QS races is to use effects that improve starting speed.
It would seem to me that improving the average value of your starting green planets would fall into this category.
Hence my suggestion that for QS designs you should widen and left or right shift your hab bands into the tapered edges.
The downside effect is that you lose out considerably when you come to start terraforming deep yellow planets, as there won't be as many yellows to terraform.
However, at what stage of the game does a QS start using deep yellows ?
I suppose a 1-imm 2 narrow (1 in 15) might start early, but a non-immune QS wouldn't, would it ?
Hope this is interesting and not blindingly obvious.
M
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Tue, 20 April 2004 09:36  |
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The conventional wisdom for AR also seems to work well for QS... that an immune+wide hab+narrow hab=rapid initial growth.
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Tue, 20 April 2004 10:30 |
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Generally, as long as green planets are numerous enough and at least 30% you can QS most any race with 18% hab. An IT can easily afford no immunities and be a major monster quite quickly. My favorite IT uses left shifted grav, left shifted temp and right shifted Rad and is 1 in 3 available planets.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Tue, 20 April 2004 10:54 |
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IT and IS are a bit of special cases IMO, as they pay less growth loss when transporting pop. This allows them to choose further but better greens.
The One Immune IT:
My initial experimentation suggests an IT may manage with an immunity. You pay with fewer initial greens and lower growth rate (plus other sacrifices). As an IT will focus on const and has something PRT to trade, there is a temptation to not have weapons cheap.
You may end up with lower HW growth with an immunity but greater growth in the stage of beyond HW. Your second planet is likely stronger.
Long term you may have less green planets available, but less conflict/overlap with others and the planets you have will be better greens. Having less but better planets means local mining will suffer mineral depletus sooner.
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Tue, 20 April 2004 23:17 |
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wide hab may have (minutely) higher average hab, but don't forget narrow hab dramatically exagerates the effect of terraforming (each tick has greater impact on hab %)
Hence the AR 1-imm, 1-wide, 1-narrow - imm improves starting habs, 1-wide increases total stars, 1-narrow increases the impact of the early terraforming.
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Wed, 21 April 2004 02:53 |
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| Orca |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 1 |
Messages: 148
Registered: June 2003
Location: Orbiting tower at the L5 ... | |
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| mazda wrote on Tue, 20 April 2004 09:20 |
Assertion :- For QS designs you should widen and left or right shift your hab bands into the tapered edges, especially if it gains you RW points in the process.
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Nice analysis - and it matches my experience. Although, I'll grant you, that's typically because quickstarts are so point starved, there's no way they can afford centered hab...and even 10% terraforming is usually overkill for the yellows.
Jesus saves.
Allah forgives.
Cthulhu thinks you'd make a nice sandwich.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Wed, 21 April 2004 20:49 |
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| The Taubat wrote on Thu, 22 April 2004 02:29 |
Ive been working with AR extesivly, trying to get a good race and took the QS hab designs discussed above to the AR  . a 1 in 6 with TT(helps with AR BIG time, ARM(gonna get rid of that me thinks) and IS, LSP, RS and IFE, NAS 1/1000 pop eff, 15% GR Smallest rad setting and -148c to 156c temp settings. I found that though the the planets are about average quality they later turn to be great, and yellows are easily turned to nice rich worlds. The small rad setting also allows you to use the radiating ram scoop (useful if you have prop expensive and someone else has that).
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15% PGR is going to hurt a lot. Your economy is very dependent on your population total, and don't forget you lose 5% per year in transit, so it's important to take as high a GR as you can afford. I played 17% PGR in my last AR game, the race did very well, but for the whole game I wished I'd had more. I can't imagine how much 15% and LSP is going to slow your start.
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Thu, 22 April 2004 20:25 |
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I beg to differ about the PGR for AR...
In my last game I had a PGR of 17%. My ally had a PGR of 19%. I had around 30-50% more planets in early-mid game, however he still had more resources from me (until we hit death stars.)
The compounded difference between 17% and 19% over 20-30 turns is significant. Between 15% and 19% the difference is far greater. Here's some evidence - a table that displays % difference in pop total, assuming unlimited room to grow (this is not an unrealistic assumption for the first 20-30 years of the game.)
yr\pgr 0.15 0.16 0.17 0.18 0.19 0.20
2400 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
2410 1.00 1.09 1.19 1.29 1.41 1.53
2420 1.00 1.19 1.41 1.67 1.98 2.34
2430 1.00 1.30 1.68 2.17 2.79 3.59
2440 1.00 1.41 1.99 2.80 3.93 5.49
2450 1.00 1.54 2.37 3.62 5.53 8.40
Alos, most people acknowledge that AR's greatest weakness is in the early-mid game, so anything that reduces it's performance in the early game should be considered very important.
Sacrificing RW PGR for TT might balance off in terms of actual PGR, but you should still consider other ways of funding TT...
[Updated on: Thu, 22 April 2004 20:27] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Thu, 22 April 2004 20:29 |
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oh, and here is the sqrt of the pop difference, to show the resource % difference...
yr\pgr 0.15 0.16 0.17 0.18 0.19 0.20
2400 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
2410 1.00 1.04 1.09 1.14 1.19 1.24
2420 1.00 1.09 1.19 1.29 1.41 1.53
2430 1.00 1.14 1.30 1.47 1.67 1.89
2440 1.00 1.19 1.41 1.67 1.98 2.34
2450 1.00 1.24 1.54 1.90 2.35 2.90
[Updated on: Thu, 22 April 2004 20:29] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Hab and QS races |
Thu, 22 April 2004 22:42 |
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well, then I'd consider dumping TT. What PGR can you have with/without TT (changing nothing else)?
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