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The viability of biimmunity... Fri, 01 August 2008 02:25 Go to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

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Registered: May 2008
Grav and rad would seem the obvious choice.

Is a 1/25 biimmune with 13-14% GR viable? What about a 1/10 with 8-9% GR? Is IFE a good idea or a waste of points? Prop expensive or normal? RS? ISB? NAS? ARM?

Let the debate begin!

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Fri, 01 August 2008 05:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

Messages: 1202
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe
Hi!
magic9mushroom wrote on Fri, 01 August 2008 08:25

Is a 1/25 biimmune with 13-14% GR viable?

When preparing for a slow-tech sparse-uni all-AR game I've checked several race designs, and 've found that in such conditions the bi-immune should do quite good.
Advantages over 1-immune:
On average 15% better hab as the 1-immune. This is VERY important for several reasons:
- the hab is outside the SQRT resource formula, and translates directly to more resources and better pop growth. If 1/25 divisor takes away ~36% resources, better hab gives almost a half of them back.
- better achieved pop growth. IIRC my 14% bi-immune had at 2450 ~5% more pop than a 15% 1-immune. This added pop also produces some more resources, or minerals if put on rich reds.
- more planets: 1-in-3 from the start vs. 1-in-6. At temp terra-15 62% planets livable vs. 52%.
- significantly more breeders. Almost everything that starts green will be a breeder with temp terra-11. At temp terra-15 3/4 of all green planets breeders and 2/3 of greens at 100%.

Disadvantages:
- still quite slow because of low average resource output.
- moving lots of low-efficiency pop will feel like "moving empty wind" (IIRC a quote from Leit).
- usual early-game mineral problems all ARs have.

Quote:

Is IFE a good idea or a waste of points?

IMO a good idea. You'll be moving quite a lot of pop around (but short distances mostly), and researching En and con. You'll not want to deteriorate much into other fields, at least until you'll have Ultras, good remotes (super miner) and temp terra-11/15. Prop cheap and using RADRAM is another option (slightly more expensive), but it goes against the grav immunity. I'd chose it only if I'd have a non-grav immune race.

Quote:

What about a 1/10 with 8-9% GR?

Too slow IMO.

BR, Iztok

EDIT: had to correct some numbers to have comparable races regarding spent RW points.
...



[Updated on: Fri, 01 August 2008 08:51]

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Fri, 01 August 2008 08:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

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Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe
Hi!
Looking again at those numbers I wonder why the 2-immune AR is such a rare bird? Why did old gurus dicouraged the use if it? To me it looks superior to a "standard" one-immune 15% PGR AR. Clue anyone?

BR, Iztok

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Fri, 01 August 2008 10:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
LEit is currently offline LEit

 
Lt. Commander

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Cause they didn't fare very well in games...
Search on Oberlander in rec.games.computer.stars.

He argued very hard for 2 immune ARs, but as far as I know never did well with them in a game.



- LEit

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Sat, 02 August 2008 04:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Soobie

 
Officer Cadet 3rd Year

Messages: 270
Registered: May 2007
Location: Australia
In the Divisor Settings thread, the AR races I wrote about were all 2i. I know it's not recommended to have anything other than 1/10 or 1/25 divisor, but 2i with odd divisor settings can get over 25K by 2450 in tiny *packed* very consistently. I recall there was an issue with resource peaking because of the narrow, and somewhat edged, non-immune limiting the absolute number of planets available and performance was really bad with an unkind planet draw - but that could be a reflection of my play style at the time. Never did get around to running one in a game. Maybe one day ... Wink

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Mon, 04 August 2008 02:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

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Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe
Hi!
LEit wrote on Fri, 01 August 2008 16:56

Cause they didn't fare very well in games...

I did just a short testbed (first 20 or so turns) to refresh my memory. Yes, they start slowly. 36% less resources and 1% less pop make quite an impact on early expansion when only the HW is producing everything.

Quote:

Search on Oberlander in rec.games.computer.stars.

Ah, that Joseph... Had at least twice quite an argue with him there...

Quote:

He argued very hard for 2 immune ARs, but as far as I know never did well with them in a game.

Ummm, might be Joseph was the reason. IIRC he had some quite "unusual" ideas on how to properly play the game.

Anyway, I decided to do a 100-Arm-BBs testbed in the same small packed uni with 1-immune 1-in-10 and 2-immune 1-in-25 AR. They'll both have the same LRTs (IFE, ISb, NAS, RS) and tech (en, weap, con cheap, rest expensive), grav immunity and narrow temp. The diff will be:

1-immune
temp 0 to 120, rad 16 to 62
15% PGR, 1/10 divisor
12 points to MC.

2-immune
temp 16 to 120, rad immune,
14% PGR, 1/25 divisor
17 points to MC.

I had to gen and check several universes to find one that wasn't too skewed to one of both races. The 1-immune test is almost done, at turn 63 I have all the tech and will be queueing BBs to my Death Stars. I expect to finish the test at 2466.

IMO I did two small mistakes:
1) I researched Death Stars. They were not needed, at 2463 most my "core" breeders are still below 600k pop, the biggest (I've missed it at 2460 when I stopped the pop MM) is at 700k.
2) I've built only 10 robo-super-miners at each UltraStation. These Arm BBs cost 1400+ iron each, so mining 340kT iron each turn is simply not enough for "100-Arm-BBs" test. I'd fare better if I'd invest the resorces for Death Stars into another 10 robots. I could also build 2 Mega Disruptor BBs instead of one Arm BB (thus coming closer to the usuall composition of a warfleet).

Unfortunately I'll need to repeat those "mistakes" in 2-immune te
...



[Updated on: Mon, 04 August 2008 02:44]

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Thu, 07 August 2008 04:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

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Hi!
Damn, that 2-immune testbed surely takes time to complete. Almost 5 hours and still only at turn 54. That huge amount of big greens and yellows makes also a huge amount of MM.

Preliminary results:
- about the same tech and amount of robo-miners as 1-immune,
- about 20% more planets, 10% more resources and 50% more pop.

I've just started collecting remaining techs for Arm BBs. Went from weap-0 to 13 in one turn. Looks like I'll get target BBs ~5 turns earlier than I had them with 1-immune.

BR, Iztok


[Updated on: Thu, 07 August 2008 04:14]

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Fri, 08 August 2008 04:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
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Jeez, that's good. So they really are a decent race then...

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Sun, 10 August 2008 12:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

Messages: 1202
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe
Hi!
I've just completed the 2-immune testbed. It ended at exactly the same turn 66 as the 1-immune, with 151 Arm BBs built and almost exactly the same tech and resources as the 1-immune. Main differences were no Death Stars, 15 robo-miners and all planets settled for 2-immune, while 1-immune had DSs, hasn't colonized 25 small yellows and only 10 robo-miners per Ultra/DS. Thanks to more remote miners the 2-immune could build amost twice as many BBs as 1-immune, but the target 100+ BBs both achieved in 2466.

Conclusion
Vague. 2-immune needs less tech to expand, but it starts slow and needs some 30 turns to just catch the 1-immune. AR being a popular early target really can't afford to start slowly. Not needing research in weapons is quite an advantage in testbeds, but in real game no one can afford that. OTOH after turn 30 2-immune's big and close greens really start to make an impact with resources, minerals and excess pop. If I'd have to say what AR to use I'd say:
- in larger games with some room (conflicts starting somewhat lately) you can safely try 2-immune.
- in crowded games (conficts expected early) don't use AR. If you really want to try, then use 1-immune.

More data

End-game universe
Small packed uni, 240 planets, no reds settled in any game.
1-immune - 25 tiny&small yellows, that popped-up with rad terra-15 not settled - no chance they could be terraformed to greens in expected 12 turns when the test should end. With them the average hab would fall down to 60% (without terra).
2-immune - 1 tiny yellow not settled. I've had enough pop and LFs to get most of them to 200k+ pop. Another 3-7 turns and they'd all be 41-60% green.
Looks like universe was "normal" for the 1-immune, because at the end it had 114 planets red (47.5%, expected 48.6% or two red planets more), and a bit worse than average for 2-immune (94 (39,2%) red planets, expected 35.6% or 8 more habitable planets). A slight bias for 2-immune: those 8 planets could give ~3k more resources to the end result.

Pr
...



[Updated on: Sun, 10 August 2008 13:27]

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Re: The viability of biimmunity... Wed, 13 August 2008 03:50 Go to previous message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
Interesting. So they are useful, it seems.

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