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Re: AR design Wed, 28 June 2006 03:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XyliGUN is currently offline XyliGUN

 
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Kotk wrote on Wed, 28 June 2006 05:29

You mean these were not prearranged teams?

Yes, we had no idea about our place in universe before game starts, and we can't say exactly who will our friends and who will our enemys.
Kotk wrote on Wed, 28 June 2006 05:29

Based on what the teams were formed?

It depends. Mostly team were formed based on location, but also reasons like relation in real life (friendship, brothers) were important.
Kotk wrote on Wed, 28 June 2006 05:29

How big that game was?

Well, it was large universe with 12 players. And I guess size is the biggest problem it's not played till the end (I mean till destroying one all except one alliance).

Kotk wrote on Wed, 28 June 2006 05:29

What were the player ranks?

Mostly beginners, but about half of players played several games againist people before. Check this for details.
Kotk wrote on Wed, 28 June 2006 05:29

Somewhat difficult to believe that such a AR was the game leader at 2430 ... it seems quite mediocre performer in a testbed at least?

Well, I mean AR was game leader by score and rank, not by resources as PPS were not available, so I can't know resource balance exactly, but will check soon.
Kotk wrote on Wed, 28 June 2006 05:29

Some IT HGs i have tried have ~2 times more resources at 2430 played alone nothing to talk of team. Confused


Of cause I can't say that this race will on the first place in any game, but I like it. Smile
...




"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

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Re: AR design Mon, 03 July 2006 10:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Dogthinkers wrote on Fri, 05 September 2003 02:17

freakyboy wrote on Thu, 04 September 2003 16:39

Immunities for AR are wonderful. The biggest factor in the resource formula is the planetary value.
....
the sqrt of 10 and the sqrt of 25 don't have such a massive difference between the 2. You start with low resources but the growth rate combined with the immunity counter-act this very quickly.


Welll... Sqrt(10)=3.162 and Sqrt(25)=5... IMHO thats a fairly substantial difference. Rolling Eyes

A world with value 90% at eff 25 will produce the same resources as a world with value 57% at eff 10.

At first glance that suggests similar resources available to 3widehab vs immunity. BUT widehab gets you *more* worlds (not forgetting AR population is more efficient the more worlds it is divided amongst Cool,) which could well offset the growth rate disadvantage of living in 40%-70% compared to 70% to 100% and provide more resources. Very Happy

Have I lost the plot? I'm probably just a silly noob going against the theory... Embarassed

I reckon I got some serious test bedding to do... If only I had the time.... Sad


Sqrt(10)=3.162 and Sqrt(25)=5 - IS a big difference if you accont cumulative effect of it. Early in the game first thing you do is research Energy. And if you late with that, you late a lot - by 5 turn minimum when you choose /25.

Secondly, minerals. Early and mid game minerals source is gathering minerals from all planets around to some one planet with high concentration just to build these mining robots (which are not cheap, require minerals and still weak at that stage of game). The action "Gather minerals" is troublesome by itself - you need freighters for it, which cost minerals and resources.

And, well, AR colonizer is not cheap - go figure. More planets - more colonizers.

Finally, more planets - weaker defences. You would not be able to build strong defences enough on each planet if you have really a lot of them. If you have fewer planets - fewer need defences - less resources are spent.

From all AR
...



[Updated on: Mon, 03 July 2006 11:15]




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Mon, 03 July 2006 22:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
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Yup, I agree with most of that.

Here's my personal opinions:

Less than 16% PGR is a worry.

Take LSP to buy an extra point of PGR if you can, the sqrt formula makes LSP less of a hinderance to AR.

I love ARM for the cheap early miners, but having played an AR with ARM but without ISB, I suspect that ISB would've proved far more usefull of the two (and I have trouble justifing spending the points on both.) Space docks are *really* nice for AR in first 20-30 years, when minerals and resources are still tight.

/10 divisor makes more sense to me than /25, because it get me my resources earlier and lets me get more resources out of less worlds (important for diplomacy and not appearing too strong.)

I'd consider one immunity almost essential for AR. It makes your terraforming so much more effective. Two immunities just don't seem worth it to me (remember I like good growth and I've given up on /25)

You NEED at least 2.5 cheap. AR without weapons is dead meat in early game without some excellent diplomacy. Without con cheap you won't get ultras / death stars anywhere near early enough, unless your PGR is appalling. Energy should be at least normal, personally I'd always take it cheap - it's a ramp up tech...

I wish I could find the points for IFE, building all those boosters makes that early mineral crunch all the worse...

I wish I could find the points to buy TT for the cheap terra...


I must say that /25 does have a few things going for it - you can probably afford TT or two immunities. The wider hab means more worlds. More worlds means more minerals without having to build miners. In early game more worlds (if you can afford all the colonisers) might actually prove to be enough to catch the /10 races.


[Updated on: Mon, 03 July 2006 22:35]

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Re: AR design Tue, 04 July 2006 06:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Dogthinkers wrote on Tue, 04 July 2006 05:32

Less than 16% PGR is a worry.



Yes, 13% is a margin. However, I have had quite successful games with AR with 14% in the past, and currently playing 15% PGR in one of the games. (Well, paying currently 14% too - really successful, but that was a special game rules so I do not count it here).

Quote:


Take LSP to buy an extra point of PGR if you can, the sqrt formula makes LSP less of a hinderance to AR.



That's not true. I tried LSP in tests really a lot of times in the past and discovered that the same cumulative effect of early Energy research makes this option really bad for AR - such AR is behind of AR without LSP by 2-4 turns despite better growth rate.

Quote:


I love ARM for the cheap early miners, but having played an AR with ARM but without ISB, I suspect that ISB would've proved far more usefull of the two (and I have trouble justifing spending the points on both.) Space docks are *really* nice for AR in first 20-30 years, when minerals and resources are still tight.



You barely can win with AR without ISB, maybe in special game setups, but in general - not. This is because ultra stations which are really important for mid-game AR economy growth. Without ultra stations your economy would not be able to reach Death Stars in time, and so your AR economy would be far behind by 10 years after the moment you reach Death Stars and build them, maybe even more. Again, cumulative effect comes to play here: Ultra station gives better growth - more resources, more people to colonize new worlds etc. Earlier you have ultra stations - earlier you have more resources, and they would count in your totla research helping you to reach Death Stars earlier.

So if talk about choosing ARM vs ISB, I always use ISB for AR, and rarely ARM, that gives the best results for mid game wich you need survive.

Quote:


You NEED at least 2.5 cheap. AR without weapons is dead meat in early game without some excellent diplomacy. Without con cheap you won't get ultras /
...




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Tue, 04 July 2006 13:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
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Deal Base design:
Generally i have experienced that AR must have ISB, 15% growth, one immunity with narrow temperature band, at least 1 in 5 hab, construction cheap to research and energy at least normal to research. Also ... i take always RS with any race and usually i view weapons cheap as normal thing. Some of these things are not so essential for prearranged team game, but all alone AR seems to be hard to play without. So lets try and design AR like that:
ISB, RS;
0.60 to 4.64/24 to 144/immune; 15%
divisor 10
energy standard, construction and weapons -50%, rest +75%
Base design is there, there are still 33 points to spend, all essential strengths present and no weaknesses taken. I would spend the 33 points into near 1 in 4 hab and its actually playable AR race more or less. Cool

Deal Other items of interest:
IFE is desirable, somewhat wider hab is always better, cheaper energy is desirable. Having these things usually FEEL good in testbed results.

Deal Liveable weaknesses. There are not so lot of weaknesses among what i would try some:
NRSE ... gives heavy (you lose more when gating) and expensive IS-10 engine that costs significant iron (AR biggest deficite is iron for long time). TGMS (prop 16 scoop) is 3 times better engine in all aspects and makes your fleet significally cheaper. Because NRSE is very popular trait i anyway take it unless i also have propulsion technology normal. Otherwise it is impossible to buy prop 16 from NRSE races (read "all of them").
NAS ... takes away the nice feature of having all territory and borders covered within free planetary penscanning of Ultras from 2435 or so. That feature has actually quite vital strategy value that people often underestimate. NAS is popular, It is possible that your alliance has no penscanners at all if you take NAS these days and so you cant have cloaked spies all over the place from 2450 or so (it also hurts).
LSP ... you lose about 2 years of development speed early with it, however lack of IFE for example may slow you down LOT mor
...

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Re: AR design Tue, 04 July 2006 14:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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You seems sum up what was discussed Smile

I have few notes though:

Kotk wrote on Tue, 04 July 2006 20:27


Deal Other items of interest:
IFE is desirable, somewhat wider hab is always better, cheaper energy is desirable. Having these things usually FEEL good in testbed results.



Well, some of above things only FEEL good, that's right Wink Some are REALLY good Razz

IFE - costs a lot, so if you have special game setup where cheap prop tech is really good, use it instead of IFE, have Energy normal and no IFE (and gravity narrow instead of temperature). Otherwise, ALWAYS take IFE if universe size is not too small. Without it, you would not be able to carry people effectively. Every extra turn of pop movement would kill some of pop on transport. And also IFE helps a lot to spread out people and build less transport (which you usually have no minerals for). So my opinion is that IFE is almost essential for AR, except few special cases.

Wider hab - there is a point when teraforming becomes ineffective (200 points spending for 1% teraform is not worth of improvement because you get only 8-20 resources improvement, that pays off in 10 years only), so do not take too wide, or if take, consider calculations and micro-menagement to account wide hab range efficiency of teraforming. Also, too wide hab would cause more spread out of planet habitability % (which you can barely improve), and most of planets you would not be able to use effectively. (See discussion about "more planets" for 2-immune AR - the same applies here Wink ).

Cheaper energy - yes and no - depends on the game. STA game probably worth normal Energy. Game where opponents are far from also worth it (enough time to compensate early loses on normal Energy and it's cumulative effect).

Quote:


NAS ... takes away the nice feature of having all territory and borders covered within free planetary penscanning of Ultras from 2435 or so. That feature has actually quite vital strategy value that people often underestimate. NAS is popular, It is possi
...




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Tue, 04 July 2006 15:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
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Tomasoid wrote on Tue, 04 July 2006 21:13

So my opinion is that IFE is almost essential for AR, except few special cases.
Yep. My testbeds show that points of IFE may be better spent on other things in packed universes.
Quote:

Wider hab - there is a point when teraforming becomes ineffective.
Wider hab simply means more greens. More greens means free to pick better ones early or closer ones early. Before any terraforming done they are better. After some done they are anyway better. So wide hab is always good, there are no cases opposite. AR has factoryless-like low resources per planet early. It simply needs more planets to stay competive but has no way to just stomp his neighbours and take what it wants like factoryless race early. So ... wider hab gives better options.
Quote:

Cheaper energy - yes and no - depends on the game.

Effect of normal energy versus cheap energy is comparable to having LSP LRT versus not having it. While LSP gives less points than going from cheap to normal energy (so i would take normal energy above LSP) the effects are quite comparable in testbeds.
Quote:

Not much of trouble with NAS, just a lot of MM to put a chaff on every uninhabited planet slightly forward off from border.
Yes i have heard it tons of times, in practice however i see directly the opposite, pen scanner races got better intel and are generally more trouble to fight with. Wink
Quote:

Tried trading for weapons in the Infight game (even though weapons tech was cheap for me). It is really bad. The problem is that it is hard to exchange techs early in the game even in a crowded place.

Why? usually you take W5 or W6 on your own anyway, and getting it to W12 means you got to import about 7 sets of scrappers in 2425-2435 timeframe. Not hard, given you have excellent energy and construction to export.
Quote:


Cheaper techs:
AR aready usually selects cheap for construction and weapons. Some more cheaper techs is problematic for AR - more cheap techs cost much more RW points. If select something, choose Electronics normal, no
...

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Re: AR design Wed, 05 July 2006 04:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Quote:

Quote:

Wider hab - there is a point when teraforming becomes ineffective.
Wider hab simply means more greens. More greens means free to pick better ones early or closer ones early. Before any terraforming done they are better. After some done they are anyway better. So wide hab is always good, there are no cases opposite. AR has factoryless-like low resources per planet early. It simply needs more planets to stay competive but has no way to just stomp his neighbours and take what it wants like factoryless race early. So ... wider hab gives better options.



Once again - there is always a dark side of the moon... (unless you have 2 suns Smile )

You cannot utilize more planets than a certain limit. Limit is dictated by minerals and resources. You cannot build too much colonizers and cannot build too much transport to spread out people. AR just have no minerals for that, and also AR should save minerals for mining robot building and mid game survival, that is much more important. So, with wide hab you have the only one option early in the game - colonize only worlds that are really good and leave planets with less than 70% after teraforming for later. Now look: wide hab gives MUCH more spread of hab % for planets. This is because teraforming that is essential for AR. Early in the game, with wide hab, ~50% of green planet would not be good for you at all because no way to teraform to 70%. With narrower hab (I assume equal bands for one-immune), only ~30% or so of green planets you would not be able to teraform to 70%. Wide band is SLOW for teraforming and that is a stopper for taking it too wide - teraforming is what is really essential for AR to improve planet economy.

So, there is a margin after which it is not beneficial to enhance the band - after that, you start to lose RW points for almost nothing useful for mid-game survival.

For the later game, I agree, wider band gives more planets and thus better final economy. But would you be able to survive till that time when you spent RW points for wider band that you cannot use for mid-game?

Quote:


Quote:

Not much of trouble with NAS, just a lot of MM to put a chaff on every uninhabited planet slightly forward off from border.
Yes i have heard it tons of times, in practice however i see directly the opposite, pen scanner races got better intel and are generally more trouble to fight with. Wink



Later in the game, player barely can do in time strategy analysis for attacks or defenses. Not tell about micro-management of all the flies all over the planets.

Quote:


Quote:

Tried trading for weapons in the Infight game (even though weapons tech was cheap for me). It is really bad. The problem is that it is hard to exchange techs early in the game even in a crowded place.

Why? usually you take W5 or W6 on your own anyway, and getting it to W12 means you got to import about 7 sets of scrappers in 2425-2435 timeframe. Not hard, given you have excellent energy and construction to export.



Tech exchange tends to fail sometimes Wink That's what happened to me.

Quote:


Quote:


Cheaper techs:
AR aready usually selects cheap for construction and weapons. Some more cheaper techs is problematic for AR - more cheap techs cost much more RW points. If select something, choose Electronics normal, no more.

I have experience that up to 3.5 cheap tech is without additional penalty. I do not say you got to get 4 cheap technologies, just that my example race had 2.5 tech cheap so can go cheaper easily if points available.



Exactly - if only points available.

Again, mid-game survival. What techs, to your opinion, other than Energy, Construction and Weapons, can help a lot for mid-game survival? IMO, only Electronics - you would need it for mining robots, and you would need it for better comps to get earlier advantage for your attacking fleets (AR attacks more than defends). Prop? No need much if you choose IFE, unless you fight laser wars which you need overthruster for (and no need for it for mid-game survival anyway). AR usuall trades for prop. Bio - you need only level 4 for mid-game survival for minefields. Well, Bio is needed for TT LRT, but you would be able to fully use TT only MUCH later, and TT already costs too much to select Bio cheaper on top of it.

I just do not really see any strategic advantages for takin any other tech cheaper other than Electronics.

So, if take 3.5 cheaper as you pointed, I would stop only on cheap W, C and En, and Electronics normal.


[Updated on: Wed, 05 July 2006 04:37]




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Wed, 05 July 2006 21:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
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Tomasoid wrote on Wed, 05 July 2006 18:34

Now look: wide hab gives MUCH more spread of hab % for planets. This is because teraforming that is essential for AR. Early in the game, with wide hab, ~50% of green planet would not be good for you at all because no way to teraform to 70%. With narrower hab (I assume equal bands for one-immune), only ~30% or so of green planets you would not be able to teraform to 70%. Wide band is SLOW for teraforming and that is a stopper for taking it too wide - teraforming is what is really essential for AR to improve planet economy.


Comparing worlds for wide hab against the same worlds with narrow habs on the same center point, the wide hab is ALWAYS at a better hab% than the narrow hab (except when perfect hab already.)

Sure the terraforming gives less % per click, but that's less % within a value that is already higher and will always be higher with equal amounts of terra.

Talking about ~50% of green planets being not much good then comparing against ~70% of greens with narrow hab and a little terra, is not much use. That's 70% of much less worlds (and after terra...) All those same worlds will be available to the wide hab race, with BETTER values, and then some more worlds too...

Wide hab is without a doubt better from teh moment you leave your HW to the end of the game. You can colonise the same worlds you would've done with narrow, but they will all be better. And you'll have more room to expand later. The only argument against wide hab is the *cost*. The planets themselves WILL be better.


[Updated on: Wed, 05 July 2006 21:51]

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Re: AR design Thu, 06 July 2006 02:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
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Tomasoid wrote on Wed, 05 July 2006 10:34

You cannot utilize more planets than a certain limit. Limit is dictated by minerals and resources. You cannot build too much colonizers and cannot build too much transport to spread out people. AR just have no minerals for that, and also AR should save minerals for mining robot building and mid game survival, that is much more important.

You speak like new planets (despite yellow or red) don't contribute to the whole empire. After pop on most greens starts crowding I usually colonize everything in my space just for free minerals. At the beginning I dump there one or two MFs to get pop mining equivalent of 15-20 mines, when pop from ultras is abundant, with 1-2 LFs (35-50 mines). One outdated MF can easily circle among 3-5 of them collecting minerals for building needed stuff. I noticed in my testbeds if I don't do that, is my mineral crunch much more severe. Those red planets usually don't build anything (if I'm hard pressed with orbital designs I even convert them to Starter colony forts), but contribute 50-150 resources to research and serve also as watching outposts. I'd say and excellent ROI for mere 200k pop. Wink

BR, Iztok

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Re: AR design Thu, 06 July 2006 04:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Hi!

iztok wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 09:34

Hi!
Tomasoid wrote on Wed, 05 July 2006 10:34

You cannot utilize more planets than a certain limit. Limit is dictated by minerals and resources. You cannot build too much colonizers and cannot build too much transport to spread out people. AR just have no minerals for that, and also AR should save minerals for mining robot building and mid game survival, that is much more important.

You speak like new planets (despite yellow or red) don't contribute to the whole empire. After pop on most greens starts crowding I usually colonize everything in my space just for free minerals. At the beginning I dump there one or two MFs to get pop mining equivalent of 15-20 mines, when pop from ultras is abundant, with 1-2 LFs (35-50 mines). One outdated MF can easily circle among 3-5 of them collecting minerals for building needed stuff. I noticed in my testbeds if I don't do that, is my mineral crunch much more severe. Those red planets usually don't build anything (if I'm hard pressed with orbital designs I even convert them to Starter colony forts), but contribute 50-150 resources to research and serve also as watching outposts. I'd say and excellent ROI for mere 200k pop. Wink



You speak as if you make AR solo testbed with no enemies around. There is one issue - survive mid game.

The point here is that when you build small green planets that way before and during mid game, you would have them developed only after the mid game anyway, that would not help you much for mid game survival. You can do this only if you have too much pop that you do not have where to put. In such case, this strategy may slightly improve your economy. However, in most cases, you _lose_ minerals that way, or at least have them the same. Why?

Look: to colonize all small greens and reds you need build colonizers that are expensive for AR, so by building them it would mean 4-5 years delay for mining robot building and minerals shipping to planets that require them for Ultra Station building. (That's real
...




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Thu, 06 July 2006 08:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
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Tomasoid wrote on Wed, 05 July 2006 11:34

Once again - there is always a dark side of the moon... (unless you have 2 suns Smile )

You cannot utilize more planets than a certain limit. Limit is dictated by minerals and resources. You cannot build too much colonizers and cannot build too much transport to spread out people.

How so Shocked Completely new theory to me. Surprised
Sure, every needed transport and colonizer cant be built with one year, but no need. Transports AR should build as lot needed and colonizers as lot possible.

First the Transports ...any race builds them as lot as needed to avoid breeder planets overgrowding. It has no relation with how many planets one got to send to! It only depends on how lot of population he has breeded, unless he has ran out of places to breed to. Nod

Now lets see what really happens with Colonizer. Poor AR is "depressed by minerals and resources dictatorship"? All famous Fuel Mizer Pinta:
Minerals:
it costs 38/15/30 minerals,
it leaves 28/11/22 salvage,
unrecoverable cost = 10/4/8. <= That cost affects your ability to build Ultras? Surprised Shocked What a shame.
What AR gets:
Pop (22kT that fits into Pinta and does not die OTW) mines as 5 mines, and works for 20 resources or better on early green (for 10 on early red). With "early" i mean energy 7. That pop did work for 2 resources and 1/4 of a mine on HW ground.
Conclusion:
Pinta is wonder device that pays itself back with 3 years no way drain on economy. Running out of places what to Pinta is tragedy.
Cool
Quote:

With narrower hab (I assume equal bands for one-immune), only ~30% or so of green planets you would not be able to teraform to 70%.

The small green planet of wide hab guy is yellow or even red for narrower hab guy, so how it is better? If something is good for narrow hab, its even better for wide.
A race with wider hab has more planets that can be terraformed to 70% or better on same sized territory, these got better value to boot with and so he has eventually more pop to fill all thinkable and
...



[Updated on: Thu, 06 July 2006 08:39]

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Re: AR design Thu, 06 July 2006 10:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Hi!

Kotk wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 15:08

Tomasoid wrote on Wed, 05 July 2006 11:34

Once again - there is always a dark side of the moon... (unless you have 2 suns Smile )

You cannot utilize more planets than a certain limit. Limit is dictated by minerals and resources. You cannot build too much colonizers and cannot build too much transport to spread out people.

How so Shocked Completely new theory to me. Surprised
Sure, every needed transport and colonizer cant be built with one year, but no need. Transports AR should build as lot needed and colonizers as lot possible.

First the Transports ...any race builds them as lot as needed to avoid breeder planets overgrowding. It has no relation with how many planets one got to send to! It only depends on how lot of population he has breeded, unless he has ran out of places to breed to. Nod



What to say... just try it out. I tried it few times and given up - too much of trouble and lack of transport (or minierals for building it). You would get almost nothing in return compare to the same AR with a bit narrower hab (and RW points spent elsewhere).

Quote:


Now lets see what really happens with Colonizer. Poor AR is "depressed by minerals and resources dictatorship"? All famous Fuel Mizer Pinta:
Minerals:
it costs 38/15/30 minerals,
it leaves 28/11/22 salvage,
unrecoverable cost = 10/4/8. <= That cost affects your ability to build Ultras? Surprised Shocked What a shame.



Remember that you need to bring minerals back (see above about freighters). Also, look how it goes over time:
turn 1 - build 10 colonizers and spend minerals
turn 2-3 - fly and colonize
turn 3-5 - return back with minerals (using 10 different freighters, if use less freighters, then returning minerals arrive few turns later).

Instead of that you can:
turn 1 - build mining robot
turn 2-3 - mine minerals
turn 4... - still mine minerals

No trouble with transporting. And you have minerals 2 or more turns earlier. With good concentration, it might be even more than you would get from colo
...




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Thu, 06 July 2006 12:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
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Tomasoid wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 17:47

What to say... just try it out.

Okay PM me a zip with tiny/packed/solo AR testbed with 1 in 5 hab and 35K resources at 2450 (start of midgame) or ... try that PRT out yourself first. Wink
Quote:

Remember that you need to bring minerals back (see above about freighters).
Whatever. Does not take rocket science to find other options to freightering. Wink All i can add that I usually have 30+ colonies at 2420 so its possible.
Quote:

At the later game when you can drop tons of pop onto planet from neighbour Death Star and quickly get its hab 50% or even more, I agree, this pays off a lot.

Yep but i did not talk about reds. With wide hab these all are greens i take plus some casual well-placed yellows for fuel docks.
Quote:

Quote:

I am not saying that "pump everything into wider hab", that this is golden rule. Just ... in my testbeds wider hab seems sometimes better investment than IFE or cheap energy. It seems always better investment than growth rate, ARM, TT.
We seems talk about different things here. Wider hab costs more RW points for any race. AR gets from too wide hab range much less, compare to RW points spent. Also, re-read again - I'm talking about benefit for mid-game survival, not a general (final) economy effect. Deal Wink
What else you do with raw RW points but buy other things? I got also feeling that you talk about something else ... collect these RW points for mystery that you pluck out of pocket midgame. Very Happy What is annoying you lack any direct suggestions what is better? I already said: IFE and/or energy tech are sometimes better especially in tight and not packed density environments, growth rate, ARM and/or TT are always worse. Either stop arguing or say where you disagree so i can correct your impression with ... lets say a duel?
Quote:

AR should never be late in Weapons, specially with W10 if you got IT planet close.
Right, i am no way advocating being weaponless. Sure, research it or buy asap. My point was that it does not take diplomacy genius to buy weapons in univ
...

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Re: AR design Thu, 06 July 2006 13:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Hi!

Kotk wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 19:49

Tomasoid wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 17:47

What to say... just try it out.

Okay PM me a zip with tiny/packed/solo AR testbed with 1 in 5 hab and 35K resources at 2450 (start of midgame) or ... try that PRT out yourself first. Wink



I feel tiny packed is too small for such testing Wink

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Remember that you need to bring minerals back (see above about freighters).
Whatever. Does not take rocket science to find other options to freightering. Wink All i can add that I usually have 30+ colonies at 2420 so its possible.



And 60+ in year 30 or so, right? (To have any reasonable benefit from colonizing a lot of bad green and red planets, you need to colonize a LOT of them.) That's exactly what I tried too and such AR did not do weel afterall because lack of minerals. Or, maybe I did not put enough effort to bring back minerals from bad greens? Anyway I did not like MM of it for seems no much benefit.

Well, you may have your own strategy with really wide hab AR which you know so weel that I might ovelook some details or tricks related with it. I usually just build mining robots because see that this gives minerals a bit earlier than with colonizing bad greens.

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At the later game when you can drop tons of pop onto planet from neighbour Death Star and quickly get its hab 50% or even more, I agree, this pays off a lot.


Yep but I did not talk about reds. With wide hab these all are greens I take plus some casual well-placed yellows for fuel docks.



I also meant by above bad green and yellow planets (with hab% less than 50%-60% after teraforming). Very Happy These are slow for teraforming and barely could be useful for mid-game survival if you select too wide hab - because wide hab teraforiming is too slow.

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I am not saying that "pump everything into wider hab", that this is golden rule. Just ... in my testbeds wider hab seems sometimes better investment than IFE or cheap energy. It seems always better investment than growth rat
...



[Updated on: Fri, 07 July 2006 04:52] by Moderator





WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Thu, 06 July 2006 17:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
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Hi!
Tomasoid wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 19:23

And 60+ in year 30 or so, right?

Oh good dear!? And drop from overwhelming MM in turn 50? If I'd manage to grab 60 planets with AR by turn 30 I'm definitely in the wrong game. Wink

Quote:

(To have any reasonable benefit from colonizing a lot of bad green and red planets, you need to colonize a LOT of them.) That's exactly what I tried too and such AR did not do weel afterall because lack of minerals. Or, maybe I did not put enough effort to bring back minerals from bad greens?

Exactly! Colonizing red planets so early is MAINLY for minerals. Kotk already explained what simple Pinta with 2200 pop gives. After you don't have any good planet to dump excess pop on, you dump them on those reds. A MF of pop gives 10 more mines, and collects minerals left from colonizing at the same time. When returning those minerals to HW that MF visits earlyer-colonized planets in vicinity to collect their mined minerals, and HW gets enough of them to build anther Pinta or three. Rinse, repeat.

This way you get from 10 red planets 150 mines for 100/40/80 minerals, PLUS some tech points from artifacts, that can easily give back MUCH more than Pintas costed. In comparisson a miniMiner with two Maxi robots costs ~80/0/20 for 36 mines. So what's more effective?

Also don't forget: arming those Starter Colonies costs next to nothing, and they start dying only if opponents uses Beta DDs, or fleets of 10+ of shielded yak DDs (BlackJacks on orbitals punch a helluva punch you know Wink )

Lastly, I'd be VERY cautious when arguing with Kotk. He's one of players with the most "mileage" with Stars! and has probably won more games with AR than you've played alltogether. Shocked

BR, Iztok
...



[Updated on: Thu, 06 July 2006 17:38]

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Re: AR design Thu, 06 July 2006 21:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
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Hehe, I seem to remember the last but one 'edition' of this annual debate ended in a 8 sided all-AR match. Laughing

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Re: AR design Fri, 07 July 2006 05:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
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Uh oh... Just experimenting in race wizard and hab calc, applying some concepts I worked through when designing my duelling animal... I think I've created a 1/25 eff race that can outperform my best 1/10. Looks good on paper, at least.

This is distressing as I'm a very vocal 1/10 efficiency fanboy... Vocal enough that I took part in (and dominated) an all-AR game to demonstrate the superiority of 1in10 1imm.

It still has the usual 1/25 crappy start, but on paper it looks like it'll catch my best 1/10 very quickly (and the 1/10 will never catch it again.)

I'll have to testbed to see how quickly it gets over it's 1/25 hobbled start in practice. If it can catch my 'built for speed' 1/10 beast in resources and tech by, say, 2420 I may well have to convert.

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Re: AR design Fri, 07 July 2006 09:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
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Tomasoid wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 20:23

I feel tiny packed is too small for such testing Wink
Why? Not at all ... there are 60 planets and if AR gets to colonize on bigger territory than 60 planets before midgame then it is way too large game to play in it. In such a game divisor 25 starts to be interesting, but i wont enter it anyway. I have had multiple testbeds of AR with 35K resources at 2450 in tiny packed.
Quote:

Well, you may have your own strategy with really wide hab AR which you know so weel that I might ovelook some details or tricks related with it.
Nope, i find no points for a "really wide hab AR". Maximum i can find points for is ~30% habitable and usually i stick with ~25% habitable.

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I just wanted to explain in details WHY too wide hab for AR is not good ...

... But you select really wide hab range, say 1 in 2. Agree?

Bah? Surprised Where should i take points for 1 in 2 hab? Rolling Eyes You have forgot against what you argue at first place i see? Laughing I repeat what I posted then?
A base design: ISB, RS; 1 in 5 hab with wide gravity/narrow temp/rad immune; 15%; divisor 10; N standard, C and W -50%, rest +75%;
Most Desirable upgrades (to above design): IFE, cheap energy, hab range.
Weaknesses among what i would pick (to pay for above strengths): NRSE, NAS, LSP, Weapons not cheap.
Strengths that are less interesting: growth rate, ARM, some P or L tech, leftover points to something, TT.
Weaknesses that i would avoid: habitable<20%, growth<15%, divisor>10, CE.
Somewhere in middle of it you started rant that having wider hab is nothing good, it only maybe looks good? Confused Seems you did not read it as whole before pressing reply button, otherwise from where you read that i dream of 50% habitable or other nonsense? Laughing

Additionally about weaknesses ... if i take NRSE i usually take IFE too, without rad rams it is real bad to move pop early and also i need a light engine for cheap skirmishers/minelayers. If i dont take NRSE i often take propulsion normal to have rad rams sooner and finally ...
...

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Re: AR design Fri, 07 July 2006 10:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
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Dogthinkers wrote on Fri, 07 July 2006 12:08

Uh oh... Just experimenting in race wizard and hab calc, applying some concepts I worked through when designing my duelling animal... I think I've created a 1/25 eff race that can outperform my best 1/10. Looks good on paper, at least.

Not only paper. Divisor 25 AR usually outperforms divisor 10 AR with enough room to take. Why i continue being big fan of divisor 10 AR-s is just because divisor 25 AR needs ~30% more planets to compete. In real game and under competent competition planets are hard to get.

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Re: AR design Mon, 10 July 2006 07:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Hi!

Kotk wrote on Fri, 07 July 2006 16:28

Tomasoid wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 20:23

I feel tiny packed is too small for such testing Wink
Why? Not at all ... there are 60 planets and if AR gets to colonize on bigger territory than 60 planets before midgame then it is way too large game to play in it. In such a game divisor 25 starts to be interesting, but i wont enter it anyway. I have had multiple testbeds of AR with 35K resources at 2450 in tiny packed.



If talk about wider hab (>40%) vs normal (25-30% as you pointed), wider hab really needs more planets for testing.

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Well, you may have your own strategy with really wide hab AR which you know so well that I might ovelook some details or tricks related with it.
Nope, i find no points for a "really wide hab AR". Maximum i can find points for is ~30% habitable and usually i stick with ~25% habitable.



Yep. Me too. That is why I said that there is a certain margin after which AR gets no any benefit from taking wider hab. And not only because too much planets for playing, but also it gives little for RW points spent. You agree with me here, but did not agree with details that I tried to exaplain WHY there are no points to take really wide hab. Can I know WHY???

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I just wanted to explain in details WHY too wide hab for AR is not good ...

... But you select really wide hab range, say 1 in 2. Agree?

Bah? Surprised Where should i take points for 1 in 2 hab? Rolling Eyes You have forgot against what you argue at first place i see? Laughing I repeat what I posted then?



Huh? PLEASE, do not blame me that I read somethign inaccurately. And I re-read multiple times what I am posting before submit. Razz I clearly understand WHAT I am talking about Wink Here is what I said:

Tomasoid wrote on Wed, 05 July 2006 11:34

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Wider hab - there is a point when teraforming becomes ineffective.
Wider hab simply means more greens. More greens means free to pick better ones early or closer ones early. Before any terraforming done they are better. After som
...




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Mon, 10 July 2006 07:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Hi!

iztok wrote on Fri, 07 July 2006 00:30

Hi!
Tomasoid wrote on Thu, 06 July 2006 19:23

And 60+ in year 30 or so, right?

Oh good dear!? And drop from overwhelming MM in turn 50? If I'd manage to grab 60 planets with AR by turn 30 I'm definitely in the wrong game. Wink



Right, that's another point why wide hab is bad, include AR Wink

Quote:


Quote:

(To have any reasonable benefit from colonizing a lot of bad green and red planets, you need to colonize a LOT of them.) That's exactly what I tried too and such AR did not do weel afterall because lack of minerals. Or, maybe I did not put enough effort to bring back minerals from bad greens?

Exactly! Colonizing red planets so early is MAINLY for minerals. Kotk already explained what simple Pinta with 2200 pop gives. After you don't have any good planet to dump excess pop on, you dump them on those reds. A MF of pop gives 10 more mines, and collects minerals left from colonizing at the same time. When returning those minerals to HW that MF visits earlyer-colonized planets in vicinity to collect their mined minerals, and HW gets enough of them to build anther Pinta or three. Rinse, repeat.

This way you get from 10 red planets 150 mines for 100/40/80 minerals, PLUS some tech points from artifacts, that can easily give back MUCH more than Pintas costed. In comparisson a miniMiner with two Maxi robots costs ~80/0/20 for 36 mines. So what's more effective?

Also don't forget: arming those Starter Colonies costs next to nothing, and they start dying only if opponents uses Beta DDs, or fleets of 10+ of shielded yak DDs (BlackJacks on orbitals punch a helluva punch you know Wink )



I AGREE with above. The point was that it is not benefitical for wide-hab AR because colonizing TOO MUCH planets. I always use tactic like you described. But not with 60+ planets which you would not have transports for to return minerals.

Also, I still have no answer for what is better - build mining robot 2-4 turns earlier and mine minerals (have them earlier), or build multiple colniz
...



[Updated on: Mon, 10 July 2006 08:27]




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Mon, 10 July 2006 09:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
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You agree with me here, but did not agree with details that I tried to exaplain WHY there are no points to take really wide hab. Can I know WHY???

Because i posted AR design concepts to what you replied. There were no race wizard points for 1 in 2 hab AR-s in my post at first place. Even if you take all weaknesses that i said are liveable there, and only make hab wider with gained points, you still turn 20% hab original race into only about 30% hab race. Rolling Eyes I was telling in my original post ... that this is good and mostly more desirable investment to AR design than say cheap energy. Also i explained what is bad about the weaknesses. Nod

As reply to that post you continue telling us how that wider hab itself may be bad, ... terraforming is innefficent and ... too lot of planets and ... lot of MM and ...no minerals and so on. You even quote your own words and reread them about it. But only recently i understand that you mean 40%+ hab with it. Laughing
Where from my post of AR design concept to what you replied you squeezed out that 1 in 2 hab at first place? 1 immune 1 in 2 race deviates from sane race design concepts with any PRT. For HE it is at edge bad hab for others unreachably good hab. I am sorry for wasting room discussing such nonsense with you. Crying or Very Sad


[Updated on: Mon, 10 July 2006 09:56]

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Re: AR design Mon, 10 July 2006 10:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Tomasoid is currently offline Tomasoid

 
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Hi!

Kotk wrote on Mon, 10 July 2006 16:42

Quote:

You agree with me here, but did not agree with details that I tried to exaplain WHY there are no points to take really wide hab. Can I know WHY???

Because i posted AR design concepts to what you replied. There were no race wizard points for 1 in 2 hab AR-s in my post at first place. Even if you take all weaknesses that i said are liveable there, and only make hab wider with gained points, you still turn 20% hab original race into only about 30% hab race. Rolling Eyes I was telling in my original post ... that this is good and mostly more desirable investment to AR design than say cheap energy. Also i explained what is bad about the weaknesses. Nod

As reply to that post you continue telling us how that wider hab itself may be bad, ... terraforming is innefficent and ... too lot of planets and ... lot of MM and ...no minerals and so on. You even quote your own words and reread them about it. But only recently i understand that you mean 40%+ hab with it. Laughing
Where from my post of AR design concept to what you replied you squeezed out that 1 in 2 hab at first place? 1 immune 1 in 2 race deviates from sane race design concepts with any PRT. For HE it is at edge bad hab for others unreachably good hab. I am sorry for wasting room discussing such nonsense with you. Crying or Very Sad




I said to you post:
"Wider hab - there is a point when teraforming becomes ineffective...."

You answered:
"Wider hab simply means more greens. More greens means free to pick better ones early or closer ones early. Before any terraforming done they are better. After some done they are anyway better. So wide hab is always good, there are no cases opposite. AR has factoryless-like low resources per planet early. It simply needs more planets to stay competive but has no way to just stomp his neighbours and take what it wants like factoryless race early. So ... wider hab gives better options."

I talked about the margin after which wider hab is not good. Either you misunderstood, or I wr
...




WBR, Vlad

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Re: AR design Mon, 10 July 2006 14:03 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Kotk

 
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Tomasoid wrote on Mon, 10 July 2006 17:25

I talked about the margin after which wider hab is not good. Either you misunderstood, or I wrote badly.

Yes i misunderstood that you didnt read the post you replied to. Where had i to know that you started to argue with me "no, kotk, things what you never sell for hab are way better than hab." Laughing

For fine example what i mean ... the races what you posted to duel me had divisor 13. I dislike increased divisor lot more than want to have wider hab. Probably i would take it back to 10 and pay with tech and/or hab not in the other direction.

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