Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Resource storage
| Resource storage |
Mon, 07 November 2005 07:46  |
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 PricklyPea |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 534
Registered: February 2005 | |
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Has anyone done any research into this area?
SCENARIO
A race with UR wants to build ships to store resources until it reaches a certain tech level so that it scraps all such ships and builds the higher level tech ships.
QUESTION
What is the best way to store resources such that the resource loss is minimal?
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| Re: Resource storage |
Mon, 07 November 2005 10:44  |
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| Robert |
 | Lt. Junior Grade |
Messages: 393
Registered: November 2002
Location: Dortmund, Germany | |
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The question is not how to "store" resources, the problem is spending them later.
You can maximally double the resource output in a single turn, so if you store "very much" this is the max you can gain.
You do gain 50% in a turn if you scrap the same amount you alread got on a planet. Basically the less you scrap, the higher the %ige is you gain "or the more yuo dont lose".
One scenario is:
You spend 100% of your resources in building ships for x turns, after that for again x turns you scrap everything and gain a 50% boost each of those x turns, or on the other hand lose 50% of what you invested first. Scrap less and you gain a higher % back but it takes longer, scrap more and you gain a higher % quicker.
Maybe you are also fooled by the false formula in the stars help file, the correct foruma of resource gain by UR is:
(resource the ship costs * resources on the planet)/(resources the ship cost + resources on the planet)
Basically Micha is right (as usual):
There is _always_ something to build even with the bad tech (chaff, minelayers, ...)
Another reason for not "storing" is that with better tech your ships will automatically be worth less once you got that tech (maybe some MT comes, gives you some const levels and bumm: your ships are worth 10% less than before).
Whatever, dont do that if you are not 100% sure you need to.
Robert
2b v !2b -> ?Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Resource storage |
Tue, 08 November 2005 10:41 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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I can think of a case where it could be a good idea: When you have an ally who is giving you tech (say weapons 16) and you already have other techs high enough to make some good jugg BBs. And you need to build them fast once you get the tech. Might also be useful if one race is trying to transfer resources to another, say for building PRT specific parts - the receiving race needs UR then. However, it's probably a better idea to build support ships that you can now, and just build the BBs later, things like chaff, freighters, and SFX, they'll all be useful in a war. If you overbuild chaff (highly unlikely, I find you can always use more chaff) you could scrap that for resources.
The best item depends a lot on what techs you have and what you'll be getting, but in general you probably want to minimize (iron+germ+bora/10)/resources (btw, the 10 is arbitrary, and so are the 1's for iron and germ) - best is to find something that requires few minerals and lots of resources - even with UR you do lose some minerals. One of the best items is the RNA scanner, note that the DNA scanner isn't as good. They're also good because they use bio, unlikely to be a tech you'll be getting better in.
Note: I've done the opposite thing to ship minerals, build a ship with mineral expensive parts (and resource cheap) and gated it somewhere, scrapped it. This was without UR. I knew I needed a bunch of minerals at a far planet (germanium to build an armed dock on a g poor world), but there was no way to ship them there in time. IIRC I needed it in 4 turns, and it was over 500ly from the closest source of germ. In that case, for germ, computers were the best option, so I built frigates with 3 computers... (btw, this was against the AI, so I probably could have done fine without doing that... and probably should have just built ships and gated them there)
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Resource storage |
Tue, 08 November 2005 11:30 |
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| mlaub |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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| LEit wrote on Tue, 08 November 2005 09:41 |
However, it's probably a better idea to build support ships that you can now, and just build the BBs later, things like chaff, freighters, and SFX, they'll all be useful in a war. If you overbuild chaff (highly unlikely, I find you can always use more chaff) you could scrap that for resources.
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Naked frigates/scouts are handy too. For example, most people don't expect collision sweeping with an attack in the same turn. Means you need less ships for a attack.
I'd rather spend the resources on "something", even oneshot collision sweepers, rather then losing a significant % to scraping with potentially no gain.
| Quote: |
Note: I've done the opposite thing to ship minerals, build a ship with mineral expensive parts (and resource cheap) and gated it somewhere, scrapped it. This was without UR.
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I do this, but with obsolete ship designs. A orbital fort is considered a SB for scraping, IIRC, and that is easy enough to put up with a gate if you tote along some extra mins with the colonizer.
-Matt
Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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| Re: Resource storage |
Sat, 12 November 2005 21:59 |
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| Quote: |
A race with UR wants to build ships to store resources until it reaches a certain tech level
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The tactic can be useful and has broader similar applications.
Variation occurs in PRT, BET or not, and what techs are being researched, whether stockpiling minerals is bad or good etc.
Super fuel exports can be nice, relatively few minerals wasted and may not miniturize further as you recieve in trade techs other than con. BUT... when fearing an SS you may want a little mineral intensive storage as robber baron insurance such as missile boats.
Sometimes nice to have short term minelaying / freightering / minesweeping / scout / overcloaking work done before scrapping so ships may reflect the current need.
Components on a starbase cost half of normal, so sometimes UR boost earns profit for a special short term battle. Can be crucial to squeeze out a stargates a turn faster.
Special one-time counterdesign suprises can be powerful... for hulls metamorph, battlecruiser, dreadnaught, nubian especially. UR can give the extra boost needed to pull such off. Killing off all his bombers, sapping his shields first round with suicide sappers (so your missiles do 4x damage... no shields to bring down and armour hurt twice as fast), suicide killing his chaff first round, etc....
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| Re: Resource storage |
Wed, 07 December 2005 11:52 |
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| absimiliard |
 | Crewman 2nd Class |
Messages: 16
Registered: February 2005 | |
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Just as an aside I can think of a reason to do some resource storage.
Say you are a UR race designed to use UR as a startup boost. (by scrapping starting ships over HW and then scrapping ships over colonies to boost their initial production.) This is a reasonable strategy, as several posters proved by working out the math.
Now, say you know a conflict is coming soon, but not quite yet. You know you'll need to build fast when that conflict comes, and possibly need to counter-design as well, but you don't know precisely what you'll need to build yet. Easy enough supposition, counter-design is after all a UR strong-point and what you build should be based on what your soon-to-be opponent is using to fight you.
In that circumstance I can easily see storing some resources with the intention of spreading across all your ship-building planets when it comes time to do your building.
Mind you, I would say you shouldn't build dedicated resource-storing ships. However building say a bucket of minelayers and laying some mines until you plan on scrapping them would accomplish the goals you have and be actually useful in the short-term as well.
So I guess, I can easily how you might want to store resources for later use. I just wouldn't advocate doing it with useless ships, do it something useful but not essential.
-abs
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| Re: Resource storage |
Wed, 07 December 2005 20:42 |
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The largest problems I see with UR are:
1. You always have a resource loss from what you build - i.e. using ships for storage isn't all that useful.
2. The LRT cost - the points used are better spent on econ or habitability range.
The gains - yes, you can get a resource boost from scrapping some ships and you recover more of the minerals from the ships. On the offset of those gains is the fact that, unless you are scrapping useful ships that you use constantly - chaff or sweepers or minelayers - for example, you aren't going to have all that many ships of a given class that you will be scrapping to make a slot for an updated design. This makes the usefulness of the LRT more limited.
Take an example of an IS:
at con 8 the IS race starts building large freighters. Later when the super freighter is available the IS scraps all large freighters over several turns while replacing the entire freighter fleet with super freighters. Even a monster IS at this point isn't likely to have much over 100 large freighters. At 50% of the resource build cost it's only a few k resources at a time when expenisve tech levels are costing in the 10's of k's. Not a great boost.
Overall, I'd rather have a 19 or 20% growth race and move the minerals and pop where I need them to build the resources of a given planet up rather than get a one turn boost of less than what I spent oiginally.
One potential use of UR though would be to get the turn boost on early worlds to get more factories built faster. But, I suggest that it is better to use the points spent on UR to have cheaper factories to begin with.
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Wed, 07 December 2005 20:48]
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Resource storage |
Fri, 09 December 2005 01:29 |
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I don't care about late-game resource storage
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late game it is more about faster counterdesign and extra minerals, and free ship slots.
UR does give a boost to all stages of the game, unlike some stuff like IFE which is mainly beginning boost.
UR works for what friends scrap over your planets, so good team game potential.
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Other thing to think about is that UR gives lower return if you scrap lot at once at one place versus less but constantly over longer period and multiple places. 
My own secret trick is to avoid joining these jump start games in general. 
I built that attitude after being in several boring ones. 
