Home » Primary Racial Traits » AR » The ARvids and you :)
| The ARvids and you :) |
Wed, 25 June 2008 16:36  |
|
 ForceUser |
 | |
Messages: 383
Registered: January 2004
Location: South Africa | |
|
http://groups.google.de/group/rec.games.computer.stars/brows e_frm/thread/38c19fb5c5b16654/c76d9b20517c76e2?tvc=1&hl= de#c76d9b20517c76e2
The ARvids. I've heard of the race before but this was the first time I actually saw it. Granted is was made back in 1997 but it is stil considered a monster and a good starting point. I decided I could do better  (I did kinda) But what i found was something even more interesting. I modified the race and did an exact same testbed....
Now this is the ARvids:
PRT = AR
LRT = IFE, NRSE, ARM, ISB, LSP
Grav immune, Temp 4c to 84c, Rad 66 to 86 ( 1 in 21 hab )
Growth rate 19%
Coefficient of 10
Energy, Const, and Weaps all -50%
Elect, Prop, and Bio all +75%
+75% start at level 3
zero points left over
And this is my modified one, with changes in bold (Nethers):
PRT = AR
LRT = IFE, NRSE, ARM, ISB, LSP, NAS
Grav immune, Temp 28c to 140c, Rad 41 to 85 ( 1 in 7 hab )
Growth rate 17%
Coefficient of 10
Energy and Const -50%
Weap Normal
Elect, Prop, and Bio all +75%
+75% NOT start at level 3
5 points left over
First I'll start by explaying the differences and the reasons behind them.
- NAS: Pen scanners. On the one hand you as AR need them for advanced warning of plannet hopping fleets and needs something to trade, on the other hand larger scan radius is good to see incoming ships, esp. cloaked, and as a primarily "ally" type race you can get pen scans from an ally. Also nice point mine 
- Habs: an AR is NOT an HP, it can't get a ton of resources from a few large greens, it needs more planets, not as much as a -f perhaps but it is after all a -f race AND there's the "Spreading pop = more res" AR thing. The habs are still narrow so you get good planets, most/all will be really good greens/yellows and 90%+, nice big fat green/yellow planets. I can also lose more planets and it'll have a smaller impact in my economy but I'll have more planets to defend.
- 17% Growth: It's a bit low but we all know ARs are strapped for points and my testbed showed that it didn't have that big of an impact.
- Weapons normal: The one thing I'm not 100% happy about, but it helped buy the extra habs and the extra resources. Again, as an ally race, it is possible to get weapons to trade as you'll have lots of En and Con. The testbed showed I can get the same W Tech with the extra resources.
Prop, Elec, Bio Not start at Tech 3 - The most important thing is the fact that your Energy tech Lvl 2 (and 3 and 4 etc) is a whopping 45 (9 tech levels, cheap field) Res more! what this means is that on the first turn I can build 2 scouts AND get En2 and the next turn more scouts and En3. Not having feul miser is a tiny hit but it's only 1 prop level away. Again helped buy the habs and I could easily squeez in those 9 tech levels in the testbed.
Ok now the testbed: I set the original ARvids testbeds' tech levels as my targets since on closer inspection its actually really smart tech levels. Here is a direct quote from the ARvids post
| Quote: |
I performed a reasonable (but not excessive) level of MM for the first
35 years, and then just let it sit-and-spin from there, doing nothing
more than researching, upgrading the orbital hulls, and building
remote miners. I was quite happy with the results. I'm sure better
results could be had by 2450 if I was willing to go back and continue
the MM, but I was interested in the general concept, rather than
devoting a bunch of time to the test.
The resource results:
2331 in year 2420 Tech 10-5-4-5-3-3 (the first good sign)
3949 in year 2425 Tech 10-10-4-7-3-3
5527 in year 2430 Tech 10-10-4-12-3-3 (Ultra-stations)
10k in year 2435 Tech 14-10-4-12-3-4
16k in year 2440
22k in year 2445 (Death Stars in 2444 IIRC)
31k in year 2450 Tech 18-16-5-17-8-4
53k in year 2460 Tech 22-24-17-11-4 (Armageddons in 2457)
68k in year 2469 Tech 26-26-12-26-12-11 (Omega Nubians!)
|
I also stopped doing MM at 2435 and stopped colonising etc. (would be intersting to see it MMed up to 2450) and just upgraded starbase hulls. My results were scarily close to his. The resource difference for example was less than 1k every time! I was either exactly on his tech levels or only 1 or 2 tech levels behind him, non critical tech (owing to the 8 tech levels I did not have at the start AND the weap normal) and I got Ultra-stations and Deathstars on exactly the same years. My ending tech and resources at 2450 was exactly the same.
In Conclution (The revelation ): There is always more than one way to monster a PRT. But there is actually more to it than that. What this means is that you can grab your local monster race and you can modify it to your personal play style (NAS, lower growth, more planets, etc. for me) and you'll still have a monster, but better as it's now suited to your play style and will perform better in your hands than the original! This will probably not be such a big revelation to most experienced players but might be of some relief to newer players.
I hope that this was somwhat informative and please do discuss or if you have a suggestion for the Nethers ;D
Ps. I found this link in the "so if you go 1/25 instead of 1/10" thread
"There are two types of people in the world. AR players and non-AR players" Nick Fraser
Working on some new stuff: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/stars-nova/index.php?t itle=Graphics
And the Mentor Database www.groep7.co.za/Mentor/ ZOMGWTFBBQ!! it still works lol!
Check out my old site with old pics at www.groep7.co.za/Stars/
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
| |
| Re: The ARvids and you :) |
Sat, 12 July 2008 01:24  |
|
|
|
ARvids are not a good race  Your modification is a massive improvement.
Regarding your improvements... I'd steer away from weap normal for AR - too dangerous, as you really *have* to be able to keep pace with your opponents weapons tech. Basically, you should assume you're starting next to a -f or risk a very fast and early death. If you spot a -f close by, show him some advanced weapons tech nice and early so he goes to chew on someone else, or you will die.
I'd also avoid LSP, but people love to debate that one for AR... ARvids original race got away with it because it had a too-high growth rate. 17% is still a tad high IMO, for a 1/10, so maybe you can afford it.
Regarding the habs... Try to keep one hab at 30 wide maximum, preferably narrower. The points you get by narrowing that, put into the other hab. This will give you faster results from your first few clicks of terraforming - this has a huge impact on AR performance.
[Updated on: Sat, 12 July 2008 01:25] Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
Goto Forum:
Current Time: Sat Apr 20 08:28:27 EDT 2024
|
Members
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
