Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » How do you like your Germanium? (A discussion of Stars! Race Economy)
| Re: How do you like your Germanium? |
Tue, 14 February 2017 02:50   |
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 magic9mushroom |
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Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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Quote:Are the above settings typically what others have played with? Do you feel that I'm off point on some of the mentioned Economy Styles? Discuss!
I'll take this point-by-point; this'll be a horrible spaghetti post but I don't really see an alternative.
Entropicurity wrote on Sat, 11 February 2017 02:48With all the race design I've been fidgeting with I wanted to discuss what I have found and what may or may not be considered current with regards to race design.
From what I have read I have come to the following conclusions for each PRT:
ECONOMIC PRTs
CA - Often Banned or with heavy handicaps, FREE Terraforming!
It's not just the free terra. They get a very good tech base at the start (1/1/1/2/0/6), giving them a lot of the benefits of start@3 (Mizer at the start, reduced cost of researching Privateers) without actually having to spend the points and giving 7-point terra in all fields from 2400 if you take Total Terraforming. They can see other races' habitability settings. They can deterraform others' planets with Orbital Adjusters, deactivating planetary defences and rendering the planet useless for many years.
The terra is the main thing, certainly (and even there there's also the ~10% chance per year per world per variable to permanently improve by 1 click - that adds up), but they get a bunch of nasty bells and whistles on top of that.
Quote:IS - A lot of defensive tech and "free" growth in transit. Can neutralize negative growth and overpop penalties.
Yup. The econ boost is key, but they also get quite a few nifty toys (especially the Croby Sharmor and Tachyon Detector). Fleet sizes are going to be a bit smaller, though, because of the cost penalty on weapons.
Quote:IT - Can transport cargo through Stargates! May take a while to get to a planet, but an orbital gate provides instant transfer of eco fluidly.
That, and the infinity gates. IT can gate Battleships without loss; no-one else can do that.
Quote:JoAT - Sometimes handicapped, found to be the core PRT for the HG monster and among the most well-rounded and potent PRTs!
Eh. I wouldn't call them "the core PRT for HG". Their only actual econ boost is the +20% capacity on worlds; the rest is cashing in on NAS points and the easy start. They are common among HP races, for obvious reasons.
Quote:WAR PRTs
PP - Rarely see this race mentioned, though I can imagine that such a race can be very devastating throughout the game.
The reason it's rarely mentioned is that outside of one trick (the one-world/two-world wonder PP that nukes other players' homeworlds before they can spread) it's just not a good race. The PRT is very expensive and all of its perks are tied to mineral packets, which aren't all that great even with them (kinda too expensive for terraforming except maybe for boranium, attacking with them against well-defended planets is hard, and they can't transport pop which is the main thing requiring transportation).
Quote:SD - Personally I loved this as an economy race, as it the cheapest of the PRTs with some good defense. But the utility of mobile minefields, moving 2 warp speeds faster in mine fields, and detonated fields can make this a very aggressive PRT.
I will say that they're somewhat undercut as the game goes on by collision sweeping. But with the speed they can re-lay that gets expensive fast.
Quote:SS - Among the most expensive, but gains "free" resources in tech through the game. Can rob people of their transports or even from planets with the right tech.
The Pick Pocket sees very little use, for a relatively basic reason - if you can catch an enemy freighter, you can blow it up and then steal the minerals from the wreckage anyway (while depriving your opponent of the ship and any colonists on board). The Robber Baron is different because orbiting a planet is not sufficient to take minerals from it (it has to either be uninhabited with a remote-miner or inhabited by your own colonists). In practice you will find that upon realising an SS is close to attaining Robber Barons, all enemy planets will suddenly sprout interception ships, forcing you to actually win orbits in order to pillage planets. Still decent, though, and being invisible except to IS certainly keeps opponents on their toes.
Quote:WM - Very aggressive starting/mid game tech and a very potent movement advantage makes this a deadly PRT with or without an allied race provided minelayers.
Without said minelayers you'll find it very difficult. Opponents who deny battle while ravaging your space can ruin you pretty easily. Packets are also pretty nasty.
Quote:SPECIAL PRTs
AR - Basically 3 different styles of play, and only one of them I've ever seen or read as effective. Extremely vulnerable, and a bit outside the scope of this.
Not sure what the three styles of play are. There's normal, there's the half-baked tri-immune, what else?
The thing about AR is that they're factoryless (and thus punch above their total resources) and that there's very little they have that cannot be moved (the mineral fountain is basically it). They aren't top-tier, though, unless it's a multi-winner game.
Quote:HE - Would like to cover this but they are so unique with their half pop/double growth that it falls outside the scope (for the moment) of what I hope to discuss here.
The race design is quite different, but the play is fairly similar apart from having a lot more hab and usually abusing the hell out of the Mini-Colony Ship hull.
Quote:Economies I have found fall into the following types:
Hyper Growth/HG (AKA "Monsters" if they can break the 25k resources by 2450 year mark):
Only Basic Remote Mining/OBRM LRT
Wide Hab (1 in 4-6) with 18-19% Growth Rate
1/1000-1200 Colonists
(11-13)/(9-8 Cost)/(14-16 Operated), 3g Checked if you can afford it
Cheap Weapons/Rest Expensive Tech (start @ 3 typically checked)
a) Your description of hab schemes is kinda borked because you're forgetting the choice of whether to take an immunity. There are two sorts of hab schemes for HG - one is a 3-wide with 1 in 3 or so, and the other is a one-immune two-narrow (usually grav to go with NRSE) with more like 1 in 6 or 1 in 7, maybe even a bit narrower. The former has fewer breeders and as such has a slower curve, but it gets about 50% more capacity out of a given territory.
b) 25k was a benchmark for top HGs when HGs were new. It's now considered close to the minimum testbed performance of an HG, and can be attained by many non-HG races. 50k by 2450 is about what I'd call a real "economy monster" (CA can get about 100k and still be playable, which is basically why it's banned); I'd expect 25k+ in a testbed out of anything HG and close to it out of anything at all.
c) 19% growth is basically invariant. Ditto for 1/1000; the points from 1/1200 aren't worth it. 13 factory efficiency costs too much for a pure HG - 12/9 is about as far as you want to go. Start@3 actually depends; a lot of PRTs (JoaT, CA, IT, even to some extent WM and SD) start with enough built-in to be able to get away without it in most cases.
Quote:Hyper Producer/HP:
Narrow Hab (1 in 6-10) with 15-17% Growth Rate
1/2500 Colonists
15/(9-8 Cost)/(20-25 Operated), 3g Checked
Cheap Weapons/Rest Expensive Tech (start @ 3 typically checked)
Up to 50 Leftover points invested in Min Concentration
a) HP also have two substantially different hab schemes: one is at the 1 in 3/1 in 4 mark, while the other has a similar amount to what you propose but has Total Terraforming. Capacity is essential for an HP, which means wide hab or TT to fake wide hab. This generally implies that OBRM is, paradoxically, worth using.
b) The second breakpoint for factories operated is at 21; HP always want at least that many. 8 cost is generally worthwhile and some even use 7 to clear queues faster. Start@3 is generally considered antithetical to HP strategy and rarely taken.
c) I wouldn't deliberately put points into mineral concentrations. It only helps the homeworld, which is going to floor out anyway. If I wanted more minerals, I'd get better mine efficiency or Mineral Alchemy.
Quote:Factoryless/-f:
Only Basic Remote Mining/OBRM LRT
Wide Hab (1 in 4-6) with 18-19% Growth Rate
1/1000 Colonists
5/25/5, 3g NOT Checked (Worse possible settings!)
Weapons & Con Cheap, and some combination of normal/expensive tech with start @ 3 rarely checked.
a) -f should always take Improved Starbases; it's a key component of their strategy. Regenerating Shields is nearly universal as well. This is because -f is trying to decide the game before Battleships, and in the pre-cruiser and cruiser eras those LRTs are fantastic. NAS is often taken, too, because decent penscanners require Elec 10 which is Battleship era.
b) -f hab generally looks like 1 in 5 with an immunity. 19% growth is a minimum, and some use 20%; likewise, some go to 1/900 colonist efficiency. -f has points to spend on those sort of things.
c) Generally, the target for -f is "3.5 tech cheap" - 3 cheap, one normal, 2 expensive, or some other combination with one more tech cheap than expensive and the remainder normal. This is the breakpoint for tech cost - making techs cheaper gets easier the more you have until you have 3.5 cheap (0 to 0.5 cheap costs 110 points, while 2.5 to 3 cheap costs only 50) but starts costing over 100 points again if you attempt to go 4 cheap or more.
Quote:Quickstart/QS:
I've seen a number of such builds using Cheap Engines/CE for early horde cost.
Narrow Hab (1 in 8-12) with 18-19% Growth Rate
1/1000-1200 Colonists
(11-13)/(8-7 Cost)/(14-16 Operated), 3g Checked if you can afford it
Weapons & Con Cheap, and some combination of normal/expensive tech with start @ 3 checked for early starting tech.
QS race design is very quick and dirty, and my only foray into the field was with the Shofixti which are somewhat nonstandard. What I can say is this:
- get 19% or 20% growth rate
- get 1/1000 pop effic
- 7 factory cost is very expensive; extra factory efficiency is preferable all the way up to 15
- start@3 is generally most useful if you have Con expensive (or Prop expensive, unless you get the Mizer anyway).
Quote:One World Wonder/OWW:
In some cases Only Basic Remote Mining/OBRM LRT (for increased hab on the one planet)
I've seen a number of such builds using Cheap Engines/CE for early horde cost.
Worst possible hab range, 15-19% Growth Rate (depending on what you can afford)
1/1000-1200 Colonists
(14-15 Resources)/(8-7 Cost)/(14-16 Operated), 3g Checked if you can afford it
Weapons & Con Cheap, and only what tech left over you can afford to get early advantage.
a) You forgot PRT: Interstellar Traveller or Packet Physics in non-Tiny games. They make the best OWW races because they are in fact a two-world wonder; the second planet is forced to be a green no matter how narrow your hab is. There's also minimum-hab-width CA, but that's a pseudo-OWW (they take Total Terraforming and cheap Biotech and abuse the instant terraforming to get decent effective hab from Bio 13 onward). As with any early-game race, RS, OBRM and NAS are all very attractive, but ISB isn't because you don't have many starbases to build (only one, on your second planet)
b) Growth rate becomes ludicrously cheap with hab that narrow. 20% costs 12 points over 19%; there's basically no reason not to max it out.
c) You can go a ways past 16 factories operated. 15/8/18-21 would be what I'd expect.
Quote:NOTE: For all designs, I've seen 10 Minerals/(3 or 4 cost in rare cases when playing -f)/(13-16 Operated) Mines always being used. Only odd ball options I've seen go up to 12 for some odd-ball Packet Physics races. From what I can tell this is due to the extremely high costs going from 10 to anything else being too expensive to justify.
3 cost is generally the best, yes. 22 points is a bargain for 33% better ramp speed on mining, and the ~150 points to go to 2 is a joke. But you can go a ways past 16 operated, and indeed you need to if you have better factories than a standard HG.
Over 10 mine efficiency is indeed somewhat dubious, as mine efficiency doesn't catch mine number for points spent until after 2525 (how long after varies depending on the fraction of minerals coming from the homeworld, due to the homeworld mineral concentration floor). It is worthwhile if you've maxed out mines operated and you still want more minerals, which is somewhat plausible for an HP.
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