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Viable AR designs: what are the options? Mon, 16 June 2014 14:19 Go to next message
mrvan is currently offline mrvan

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 220
Registered: May 2014
Since the current proposed game is all-AR, it might be fun to have some discussion on viable AR designs.

Observations
----

Since some people have professed unfamiliarity with AR design, some basic observations:
- AR cannot have HP planets, absolute max is [sqrt(26*3M/8)]~3k, but for most races, most of the time it is more around 1.4-1.8k [sqrt(10*2M/10) - sqrt(16*2M/10)]
- The only production factors outside the sqrt are number of planets and planet value
- This means that end-game habitability needs to be reasonable to get enough planets, preferably 1 in 3 or better
- This also means that immunity plus narrow ranges is much better than wide ranges (immunity: much better value; narrow range: much better terraforming)
- Terraforming is a direct investment in economy, since production scales linearly with planet value
- Innate mining sucks, so remote mining is the only way to get enough minerals.
- AR requires a lot of research. Everyone needs W, AR also needs Energy for resources (up to 10 or 16, after that it might not be worth it) and Con for star bases (12=ultra, 17=death star).
- Early game, AR has decent resources but needs to spend a lot of them researching
- Early/middle game, AR has severe iron shortage as it needs to spend iron buying remote miners to get iron.
- Late game, AR is resource limited rather than mineral limited as remote mining of home world gives ~infinite minerals.

Design options
----

In my opinion, AR design allows for a quite limited number of variations since the econ page consist of only a single number. Also, because planet value is so important immunities are a very important determiner in the hab page, as wide ranges are not very desirable. Thus, the basic design templates of AI are 1i, 2i, and 3i. In my experience, both 0i and 3i are not very competitive, but 3i is listed here for completeness:

Design templates:

* 1i: prop immune, one narrow, one wide; growth 15% or better, econ 1:10. Probably the easiest to play as you have enough pop to permit s
...



[Updated on: Mon, 16 June 2014 17:18]

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Tue, 17 June 2014 16:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XAPBob is currently offline XAPBob

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 957
Registered: August 2012
temp immunity might be interesting in an all AR game

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Tue, 17 June 2014 16:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mrvan is currently offline mrvan

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 220
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Good point, especially since the sparse density will make "+RSE" and prop research more interesting...

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Wed, 18 June 2014 02:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XAPBob is currently offline XAPBob

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 957
Registered: August 2012
And finding that everyone has the same (ish) hab isn't going to be pleasant...

Hence going for an unusual immunity

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Wed, 18 June 2014 03:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mrvan is currently offline mrvan

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 220
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OTOH, in a no-comms game I expect there to be less intersettling going on than in alliance games, so it might not be as important...

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Wed, 25 May 2016 03:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
mrvan wrote on Tue, 17 June 2014 04:19
- The only production factors outside the sqrt are number of planets and planet value

#planets is effectively inside the square root for equal pop. 1 million on 1 world produces (with energy = divisor) 1000 resources. If you spread that out into 250,000 on 4 worlds it produces 2000 resources.

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Wed, 11 January 2017 09:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Entropicurity is currently offline Entropicurity

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 62
Registered: November 2007
Location: Northern Indiana, USA

I just wanted to toss out there that I found this particularly helpful. I've been trying to read up on AR Races for some time and I did find that the different "ecos" for this race are really impressive.

The one that caught my eye was the 3 Immune HE/Mimic Build, reminds me of what a -f HE would look like to some degree, though the Growth Rate does seem to hurt. The only mitigator looks to be ISB providing x2 and x3 the planet size to "mimic" the increase in GR. Furthermore with the idea of everything being 100% you can pick and chose which planets to focus on as you expand with immediate gains early.

When I get more time I may try this out and see how far I can take it. I would like to mention that I have seen Low Starting Population used in some builds. Given that the race itself acts as the truest form of -f (with an amazing twist on mid/late game eco) I'm not sure. Though if the game is sparse enough, with enough time to grow it may be a worthwhile LRT to toss into the mix.



--
"A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man perfected without trials." - Chinese Proverb

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Wed, 11 January 2017 19:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

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Hi!
Entropicurity wrote on Wed, 11 January 2017 15:19
The only mitigator looks to be ISB providing x2 and x3 the planet size to "mimic" the increase in GR.

Umm, no. 3i 7% AR will have enough pop on DSs to "mimic" 14% PGR on core planets somewhere around turn 90. Shocked

Quote:
Given that the race itself acts as the truest form of -f (with an amazing twist on mid/late game eco)

Well, it is an amazing twist, but just for THIS race. Other players would've started pumping out 50k pop per turn per planet some 60 turns ago, Wink

Quote:
When I get more time I may try this out and see how far I can take it.

It's quite interesting experience. I didn ran some such games vs. the AI. Just don't forget making notes about econ, minerals and tech, and then compare these results with what wou can achieve with Feds. Shocked

BR, Iztok

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Wed, 11 January 2017 19:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Entropicurity is currently offline Entropicurity

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 62
Registered: November 2007
Location: Northern Indiana, USA

Yeah I've been fiddling with it already... and I feel the sluggishness of it. It requires substantially more MM than the other races, though the "instant" 32 resources from a simple 2500 colonizer early on is great.

From what I've noticed, the ramp-up and start of each planet doesn't take much, and capping them out isn't all that much. Alternatively, one only needs less-than 1x Medium Freighter for 4 years to get a small orbital fort running with enough resources to be independent. Problem is it takes a substantial longer amount of time to get to that hold %.

It is a risky move to take, as EVERYTHING is available at 100%, no resources to factories OR terraforming which frees up tech research and construction from the very start. Is it a worth while trade off? It is hard to tell, and I have not the experience to really know. Diplomacy would be almost mandatory to prevent early aggression, though the tech advantage could detur this somehwat by having a political "token" to work with.

Looks good on paper, but hard to really justify in a game. Anybody try this out at all?



--
"A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man perfected without trials." - Chinese Proverb

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Thu, 12 January 2017 05:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
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3i AR looks attractive, but having tested both it and -f HE the latter outperforms the former in almost every respect. 3i AR tests seem to top out at about 2.8k @ 2420 and colloidal cruisers at 2421; my first-look -f HE had 5k @ 2420 and colloidal cruisers at 2418.

[Updated on: Thu, 12 January 2017 05:25]

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Thu, 12 January 2017 09:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Entropicurity is currently offline Entropicurity

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 62
Registered: November 2007
Location: Northern Indiana, USA

This seems to be a bit of a shame, the more I look at the AR the more it seems like the "variables" come down to a few fun (albeit underperforming) builds and one effective build (the 1 Immune/2 narrow 15%, 1/10 eco w/cheap tech).

Is that the case typically for the AR then?



--
"A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man perfected without trials." - Chinese Proverb

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Fri, 28 July 2017 05:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
Entropicurity wrote on Fri, 13 January 2017 01:21
This seems to be a bit of a shame, the more I look at the AR the more it seems like the "variables" come down to a few fun (albeit underperforming) builds and one effective build (the 1 Immune/2 narrow 15%, 1/10 eco w/cheap tech).

Is that the case typically for the AR then?

I think the 2 immune 1 narrow with 1/25 pop efficiency and ~14% growth does fairly well too. But that's about it.

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Re: Viable AR designs: what are the options? Thu, 06 June 2019 00:26 Go to previous message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
mrvan wrote on Tue, 17 June 2014 04:19
ISB for early expansion and for cheap docks (500k pop instead of 250, 1 turn build even for most new colonies with minerals from pinta)

[...]

En or Con can be taken normal since only level 16/17 is really needed and 10/12 is good enough for a long while, but En normal hurts ramp up.

Veeeeery late on this one, but I missed it at the time.

ISB isn't for Docks, although they're nice. AR wouldn't take ISB just for Docks (they already get the -20% to cost, which doesn't stack; between that and AR's tendency to flagpost early, Space Stations are fairly affordable). ISB is for Ultra Stations, because it costs 70k+ to get Death Stars and you'll be getting rather crowded by then; you need the increased capacity quickly to maintain your pop growth.

Con cheap is basically invariant (even more so than Energy, because AR get a 33-point penalty for taking cheap Energy). Con 12 basically defines the end of the early game for AR for two reasons:

1) Ultra Stations. See above.
2) Robo-Super-Miners. These are the first (and only, for non-ARM) miners that don't suck. Maxi-Miner + 10 Robo-Super-Miners is about "mines cost 4.3", whereas Mini-Miner + 2 Robo-Maxi-Miners is about "mines cost 7"; colonising a red with a Pinta, for reference, is about "mines cost 8.5". The advent of these is the point at which your mineral woes end and you cease to be a pushover.

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