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Blind colonisation Sun, 01 March 2020 20:02 Go to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
As everyone knows, you need to find greens in order to expand your empire. There are two ways of doing this:

1) Send out a bunch of scouts to scan worlds
2) Colonise everything you can and note whether or not it's green

Now, normally #1 is the preferred option, because every non-HE race has at least four turns (even with AccBBS on) before they hit 25% and have to input a destination for pop transports, so they want to save resources and popgrowth rather than waste a bunch of colonisers on reds. But AR doesn't want to wait for 25% on the homeworld before they start colonisation, because of the square root effect on spreading. They also have a motive to colonise everything (even reds) early on, because hitting a red with a Pinta is actually a cheaper way to buy mines than the first few remote miners. And lastly, scouts in the numbers non-JoaTs tend to use (10+, often 15+) are a big chunk out of an AR's early-game iron reserve (whereas Pintas, as noted, actually increase it).

So... what are your thoughts on strategy #2 for ARs?

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Re: Blind colonisation Fri, 25 December 2020 10:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ccmaster is currently offline ccmaster

 
Lt. Commander
Dueling Club Administrator

Messages: 985
Registered: November 2002
Location: Germany

Hi,

kolonizing everything by start is much to expensive on Ironium. AR has the problem to build all the kolonizing ships by start.

Maybe if you have good surface minerals and the game alloweds to build kolonizing ships without a kolonizer modul.

Ccmaster

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Re: Blind colonisation Sat, 26 December 2020 03:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
ccmaster wrote on Sat, 26 December 2020 02:11
Hi,

kolonizing everything by start is much to expensive on Ironium. AR has the problem to build all the kolonizing ships by start.

Maybe if you have good surface minerals and the game alloweds to build kolonizing ships without a kolonizer modul.

Ccmaster


Okay, seriously. It would be really nice if you actually read my posts before replying to them.

This method doesn't cost minerals - colonising reds is literally the most efficient way for AR to buy mines before good remote miners appear, and it saves minerals for scouts. It costs pop via later knowledge of where greens are and via a decent chunk of pop being on reds.

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Re: Blind colonisation Sat, 26 December 2020 09:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ccmaster is currently offline ccmaster

 
Lt. Commander
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Registered: November 2002
Location: Germany


1. You should think about what you post.

2. I have read you post

3. You asked for feedback

Feedback what is not supporting you genial new ideas has not to be wrong.

AR has Mineral Problems by start we all know this, and you have to make a good MM with the minerals to get out there.
Best way is at least in my meaning that you make a good MM and get good Tech in Kon fast you need it for Docks and Remote Miner. The 4 Mines for a Red world real don't help a lot and to scan you have to do anyway as colonizing them blind only cost minerals.

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Re: Blind colonisation Tue, 29 December 2020 00:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
ccmaster wrote on Sun, 27 December 2020 01:59
Feedback what is not supporting you genial new ideas has not to be wrong.

There are holes in and costs of the idea. It's not a perfect strategy.

I get frustrated because your "criticism" is a non sequitur.

See:
Quote:
AR has Mineral Problems by start we all know this, and you have to make a good MM with the minerals to get out there.
Best way is at least in my meaning that you make a good MM and get good Tech in Kon fast you need it for Docks and Remote Miner. The 4 Mines for a Red world real don't help a lot and to scan you have to do anyway as colonizing them blind only cost minerals.

A Pinta costs 33/15/31/43. You recover 24/11/23, so the "real" cost is only 9/4/8/43. 4 mines on a 50 conc planet repays that mineral investment in 5 turns, and the resources are repaid ~instantly because artifacts (average artifact resources per planet are 83.333).

A Mini-Miner with two Robo-Maxi-Miners (first decent miner without ARM) costs 88/0/21/253. 36 mines on a 50 conc planet repays that mineral investment in 5 turns, but the resources are a total loss.

AR is in mineral crunch until Con 12. I know this. However, that doesn't make this strategy less desirable, because colonising reds does not throw away minerals. In fact, it makes it more desirable, because colonising reds is an excellent way of improving your mining prior to Con 12 (a way that didn't require an iron outlay would be better, but AR has no such way). You are effectively saying "you don't have enough iron to spend pop getting more iron", which does not make sense.

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Re: Blind colonisation Tue, 29 December 2020 01:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Braindead is currently offline Braindead

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

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Registered: April 2005
Location: Ohio
magic9mushroom wrote
so the "real" cost is only 9/4/8/43. 4 mines on a 50 conc planet repays that mineral investment in 5 turns

Magic, you are making a purely theoretical argument disconnected from everything else. ccmaster is simply saying that your theory doesn't work even in a controlled practical experiment. While you might "recover" some minerals, these minerals are on your 10 resource world and they need to be shuffled to a planet that can actually build ships. In order to do this, you'll need to build a freighter and most likely more than one. So now you need to also account for the cost of these freighters. On top of that this recovery is not instantaneous and will take way more than 5 turns. And early on, you just can't spare these minerals.

What ccmaster said comes after he ran hundreds of AR-specific test beds. I personally have no idea why one would run that many AR tests, but that's what he does. So, when he says that something doesn't work in practice, he usually has a very good reason for that. Instead of getting frustrated, try to understand his points. If you disagree with him, run a few tests of your own, make it work and prove him wrong.

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Re: Blind colonisation Tue, 29 December 2020 08:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Robert is currently offline Robert

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 393
Registered: November 2002
Location: Dortmund, Germany
Hmm.... I used to testbed AR a lot 13 years ago...

I think I will pick the answer, which is usually correct in 99% of all things: "it depends".

So... IMO there are some pros:
- you get more resources early (as AR works this way), you benefit twice, because if you invest them into en-research you gain more ressources again.
- you dont need to scout as much (as mentioned above)
- if you get the planet before your neighbour is there, it might be an advantage (if he does want to avoid early wars), because FCFS often works
- ...

Cons:
- you grow much slower than you could, so mid-term you pay for in it terms of total pop.
- you might not be able to build as many remote miners on the HW as you might otherwise

Two things have an impact:
- what is the probability that the worlds you colonze blindly are green? (yellows soon)
- what is your growth rate

AR usually has great growth "later". On Ultrastations the rate effectively doubles, on a deathstar it triples. So... thinking about "much later" this strategy does not hurt as much as it would for "normel" races.

It also depends on the universe. If you can build docks on these planets early and use them to refuel, you might not need IFE because you can do lots of 1-year hops between your docks.
So if the density of the stars allows for it, you save a lot of points in the race wizard. It just depends on the universe settings.

Also in slow start games it might be much better than in AccBBs-games, because the early ressource-gain is much higher for a longer time.

And... if you have wide habs, and if you can live "anywhere" later, then it is not so bad, you can just start terraforming earlier.

So... I would not say that it is total nonsense. I would say that it really depends.






[Updated on: Tue, 29 December 2020 08:29]




2b v !2b -> ?

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Re: Blind colonisation Wed, 30 December 2020 06:38 Go to previous message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
Robert wrote on Wed, 30 December 2020 00:28
- if you get the planet before your neighbour is there, it might be an advantage (if he does want to avoid early wars), because FCFS often works

This is as likely to harm as to help, really. I've had someone start a war with me because he thought the mini-colony fuelers I'd attached to my scouts were attempts to seize his territory, and I've had someone declare war on me and pitchfork me (unsuccessfully, though correctly) because I'd grabbed too much territory. I've also declared war on someone because he flagposted a planet I wanted.

And all of that was with normal races on both sides! Razz

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