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Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Fri, 15 March 2019 01:59 Go to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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A good early strategy is sending out colonist ships to form small colonies, if only to find those strange artifacts that boost your research in a particular tech.

But it's been a long time since I used that strategy. Is there any way to affect that outcome? Are more colonists more likely to discover something, or discover more? Or will a single colony of only 100 colonists produce the same result at 100,000?



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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Sun, 24 March 2019 09:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Altruist is currently offline Altruist

 
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ricks03 wrote on Fri, 15 March 2019 06:59
A good early strategy is sending out colonist ships to form small colonies, if only to find those strange artifacts that boost your research in a particular tech.

But it's been a long time since I used that strategy. Is there any way to affect that outcome? Are more colonists more likely to discover something, or discover more? Or will a single colony of only 100 colonists produce the same result at 100,000?


Well, what are your findings so far?
As a start you could post how much research you have gotten with how many colonists and perhaps also the year of colonisation.

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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Tue, 16 April 2019 18:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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At least some basic testing is it doesn't see to matter.

So an early investment in colony ships seems to pay out. Just remember to pick them all up so they're not vulnerable to pop drop. (OR, I usually just drop 100, so they die off on their own!)



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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Thu, 18 April 2019 17:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mrvan is currently offline mrvan

 
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Is it really worth the iron and resource investment just for the chance on an artefact? Any idea what the expected value of the research is?

As AR or IS I generally end up colonizing everything anyway, but it is still quite an investment to colonize just to abandon later (unless as HE maybe)

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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Thu, 18 April 2019 23:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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In short, yes, I think it really is. Each colony ship is ~ 30 resources. Each artifact found is ~ 200 resources. Yes, there's also a compounding effect on resources. But early tech means it's useable.


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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Wed, 15 May 2019 03:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
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ricks03 wrote on Fri, 19 April 2019 13:39
Each artifact found is ~ 200 resources.


This is a bit odd, because when I just booted up the Feds and colonised a planet at 2401 I got results of more like 10-35 resources per artifact.

A colony ship with QJ5 and four levels of miniaturisation costs 21/8/22/28. You'll recover 15/6/16 (75%, rounded down) for a total expenditure of 6/2/6/28 plus some shipping overhead. That seems too much to pay for the artifacts I'm seeing. With Spore Clouds (13/8/11/13 -> 4/2/3/13) or glitch coloships (11/0/14/20 -> 3/0/4/20) it's more plausible, though still pretty tight. Glitch minicols are obviously a complete steal (3/0/3/5 -> 1/0/1/5), since you can do the shipping back with another ship of the same design and still be under cost. Meanwhile, Pintas are a pretty raw deal (28/13/27/37 -> 7/4/7/37) for the artifact alone, although ARs have other (and much better) reasons to flagpost everything (the extra mining and resources more than pay for it without even needing the artifact).

(Of course, most people play with the colonisation glitch banned, so those are mostly of theoretical interest.)


EDIT: The above was with 100 pop. With a full colony ship I'm getting numbers more similar to ricks03's. There seems to be a cap of 275 resources per artifact. So it matters how much you use, but only up to a fairly-low point.


[Updated on: Wed, 15 May 2019 04:04]

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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Wed, 15 May 2019 09:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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4 levels of miniaturization means all tech 4. I was using as my basis a race with mostly 0 tech, so I'll bet it's based on current tech. For me it's paid out enough that I wish I'd done it more.


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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Wed, 15 May 2019 11:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
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ricks03 wrote on Wed, 15 May 2019 23:30
4 levels of miniaturization means all tech 4. I was using as my basis a race with mostly 0 tech, so I'll bet it's based on current tech. For me it's paid out enough that I wish I'd done it more.


Not sure what you're getting at. I edited to note that I got similar results to you when using a full load of colonists (variable with a minimum of 100 or so, capping out at 275 fairly frequently). That was with the Feds, which start with 4/3/5/4/4/4.

Four levels of miniaturisation is just a decent baseline for later on in the game since you'll often stop at Bio 4 and therefore have four levels of miniaturisation for zero-tech components.

EDIT: News!

- I was wrong about a cap at 275. Will investigate further.
- Whether there is an artifact to find on a planet is not rolled upon colonisation (presumably being determined at 2400), so regenning a turn won't change whether an artifact is found; however, what you get out of the artifact is rolled upon colonisation and will change on regen. Of course, without cheating or regenning there is no way to know whether a planet has an artifact apart from by colonising it.

EDIT 2 EDIT HARDER:

Upon testing 200 planet colonisations, I got 66 artifacts. That could mean 30%, 1/3 or 35%; not enough resolution to say for certain. Resources gained varied between 103 and 395, averaging a bit over 262 (not sure yet whether there's a bias or just relatively high rolls from an even spread). Will do more testing.

This is with 1000 colonists (spore cloud).


[Updated on: Thu, 16 May 2019 08:15]

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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Mon, 20 May 2019 02:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
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Okay, so after a couple of thousand trial colonisations, I feel confident in saying the following.

1) Probability of an artifact is 1/3. 30% and 35% both have p < 0.05 for my observed 388 artifacts from 1200 colonisations (note: these had to be redone from scratch, as artifacts are generated at 2400).

2) Resources from an artifact go from 100 to 400 resources, and the mean appears to be 250 or thereabouts*. This is with 1000+ colonists; the numbers I gave earlier for 100 suggest that it's reduced proportionally if less than 1000 are used.

*There seems to be some nonuniformity in the distribution - the specific numbers 399 and 400 are really rare - but the mean doesn't seem to be affected significantly.

As such, the expected value of resources from artifacts on colonisation is 83.33 (250/3). This is enough to pay for a colony ship, but a privateer's probably a bit too much to justify on the basis of artifacts alone. Also, you should always colonise with 1000+, as colonising with 100 is effectively pouring 75 resources down the drain (83.33 - 8.33).

Obviously, none of this applies to a no-random-events game, as that setting removes artifacts.

m9m out.

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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Sun, 24 November 2019 00:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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Awesome research - thanks!


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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Sun, 24 May 2020 15:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ludi Magister is currently offline Ludi Magister

 
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magic9mushroom wrote on Mon, 20 May 2019 02:59

...
2) Resources from an artifact go from 100 to 400 resources, and the mean appears to be 250 or thereabouts*. This is with 1000+ colonists; the numbers I gave earlier for 100 suggest that it's reduced proportionally if less than 1000 are used.
...


Does the number of settlers affect the resources once it goes beyond 1000? In other words: Do 2500 settlers have a better chance of getting more resources than 1000?

Cheer,

Matt

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Re: Your colonists have discovered a strange artifact ... how many of them? Tue, 26 May 2020 04:42 Go to previous message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
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Ludi Magister wrote on Mon, 25 May 2020 05:38
Does the number of settlers affect the resources once it goes beyond 1000? In other words: Do 2500 settlers have a better chance of getting more resources than 1000?

Cheer,

Matt

No.

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