Economics 101

[TomHughes]

I am going to start writing a series of posts on economics and solar system/planet creation. I have decided to do this for two reasons. First, several reviewers and beta testers have had a problem fully understanding the economic system because of its depth and the UI not giving enough information/control yet. And, second, because this is a rather complex economic system, many of you are going analyze it. I know its going to happen and by giving out a lot of information I hope that this analysis will tell me something I don’t know/didn’t think of, instead of just telling me something I already know.

I also wanted to talk about micro vs macro management in MOO3. When it was decided to move MOO3 in the direction of macro management early on in the design process, I knew that any player that micro manages(and that’s me) would hate to be forced to macro manage. For my part, I decided the best way to ease the micro manager into macro management as the game progressed would be to create a planet development/economic system so vast…so intricate… that the micro manager would THANK GOD he could delegate some of those tasks to the AI as the number of planets he controls reached into the hundreds. In other words I’ve tried to kill them with kindness. At least this was my goal.

OK, now for some meat.
Below I have created a table that interconnects the relationship between food, minerals, industry, test tubes, production points(PPs), research points(RPs), and, of course, AUs. Briefly:

Food and Minerals - are the basic commodity needed to nourish the population and fuel the economy.

Industry and Test tubes – are used as governors for the final price (in AUs) of production points and research points respectively

Production Points and Research Points – are used as the cost for any construction and research respectively(I.e. a ship that costs 1000 means it costs 1000 PPs – the number of AUs needed depends on the Industry base of the planet and your Industry overdriving efficiency)

And AUs make the worlds go around (pun intended)

Oops….looks like I can’t quite create a 2D table in this forum so bear with me as I post this info in more linear form

COMMODITY
Bioharvest(food)

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Bioharvest DEA
2 regional blds (Hydroponic Farms and Subterranean Farms)

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Population (except Geodic)…....=>….life, Industry, and AUs
Industrial DEA (/w bio blds)…...=>….Industry, and AUs
excess food sold off…………….....=>….AUs


COMMODITY
Minerals

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Mining DEA

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Population (only Geodic & Cybernetiks)…=>…life, Industry and AUs
Industrial DEA……………………………..............=>…Industry and AU’s
excess minerals sold off………………….........=>…AU’s


COMMODITY
Industry

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population
Industrial DEA

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
AUs (Industry determines cost of PPs)…=>..Production Points(PPs), Pollution


COMMODITY
Test Tubes

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population
Research DEA

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
AUs (Test Tubes determines cost of RPs)…=>..Research Points(RPs)


COMMODITY
Production Points

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Industry + AUs

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Building anything(the cost is in PPs)….=>…construction of building, troop, or ship


COMMODITY
Research Points

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Test Tubes + AUs

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
R&D of tech.(the cost is in RPs)….=>…any tech discoveries


COMMODITY
AUs

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population
Bioharvest DEA
Mining DEA
Industrial DEA
Spaceport DEA
Recreation DEA(with game patch)

WHAT USES IT
maintenance
pollution cleanup
Production Points
Research Points
terraforming

In the table above there is no connection horizontally between “what produces it” and “what consumes it” (other than dealing with the same commodity). How a commodity is produced has no effect on what can consume it. BUT there is a direct connection between “what consumes it” and “what is created by that consumption” (hence, the use of “=>”). So “life, industry and AUs” is only created by “population” consuming food, not by “excess food sold off”(which only produces AUs)


Next I’ll talk about the basic four DEAs – Bioharvest, Mining, Industrial, and Research DEAs

Tom Hughes, designer, MOO3

[Tyrsis]

Posts like this should be put in the Gameplay forum. The general forum is pretty much the place for constant battling between people who hate the game or like the game. So posts that are actually informative are just going to get buried.

Btw for your future posts, do you mind posting some indepth stuff, especially on bioharvesting. IE: Actual numbers. Most of us are at a loss as to how the final bioharvest numbers are reached. While there is a general understanding, the numbers available to us just don't add up (ie giving examples would be great in helping us figure this out).

Tyrsis

[kziti kat]

Originally posted by TomHughes
I am going to start writing a series of posts on economics and solar system/planet creation. I have decided to do this for two reasons. First, several reviewers and beta testers have had a problem fully understanding the economic system because of its depth and the UI not giving enough information/control yet.

Let me get this straight: Even the beta testers didn't know what the game was supposed to do? Oh, brother!!

[arcite]

Thanks but WHY OH WHY isn't this info in that 120+ page manual?

[warden]

Originally posted by TomHughes
Recreation DEA(with game patch)
...
Next I’ll talk about the basic four DEAs – Bioharvest, Mining, Industrial, and Research DEAs

What does that reference to the game patch mean, please?

The discussion of the economic model didn't do much for me. What you really ought to be discussing is what makes the military AI tick. Get talking to the modders about what they're doing to make the AI players fight. And what's going on with the point defense when it doesn't shoot down incoming missiles. These should be the top priority issues.

[Hari]

Thanks! This will be helpfull.

BTW,I have to warn you, since you're one of the devs, you are likely to get attacked by certain induhviduals around here. For your own safwety, I suggest that this is moved to the strategy/gameplay forum.

[arcite]

....is that fresh blood I smell?

[elmo3]

Thanks Tom! Keep it coming. It's great to see someone from QS posting. Good luck getting a moderator to move this to the Strategy forum though. It appears the inmates are running the asylum here.

[Mixalot]

Thanks,

Just keep em coming. Both needed and appreciated.

Mixing Worlds

[Kralizec!]

TomHughes wrote:
Bioharvest(food)
excess food sold off…………….....=>….AUs

Minerals
excess minerals sold off………………….........=>…AU’s

At last! Confirmation that excess bioharvest/minerals are turned into AU's! :up: :) :up:

Thanks for the great info!

[Kralizec!]

TomHughes wrote:
Below I have created a table that interconnects the relationship between food, minerals, industry, test tubes, production points(PPs), research points(RPs), and, of course, AUs.

Oops….looks like I can’t quite create a 2D table in this forum so bear with me as I post this info in more linear form

In the table above there is no connection horizontally between “what produces it” and “what consumes it” (other than dealing with the same commodity). How a commodity is produced has no effect on what can consume it. BUT there is a direct connection between “what consumes it” and “what is created by that consumption” (hence, the use of “=>”). So “life, industry and AUs” is only created by “population” consuming food, not by “excess food sold off”(which only produces AUs)

So what are the chances we could see all of your explanation posts combined and put into HTML or PDF format (basically some format that would allow you to do the tables you had wanted to do)? Perhaps some nifty on-line expansion to the manual?

[arcite]

:bump:!

[ElPape]

Youhou! Sticky this plz!

Thanks

ElPape

[ScreamingDoom]

WHAT PRODUCES IT

...

Recreation DEA(with game patch)

Interesting. So Recreation DEAs are supposed to make money for a planet? I always wondered what their purpose was, considering that Military DEAs seemed to reduce Unrest by a lot more. Is this a bug, do you know?

Regarding the selling of basic commodities: to whom are they sold? Do planets sell them to other planets with needs, or are they sold to 'private industry' in Abstraction Land? What prices do you get for them? Are they different; ie do you get more for minerals than bio or vice-versa? Does this selling price change? If so, how? Is there anywhere in the damn interface where you can SEE this info?

This also brings up the freighters. We know that they are considered always available and in Abstraction Land. But do they _cost_ money to ship things? Is there some hidden fee taken from your economy when you have specialized planets due to shipping minerals and bio around?

Thanks for the insight! I, for one, appreciate it. :)

[LittleFuzzy]

Originally posted by warden
What does that reference to the game patch mean, please?

The discussion of the economic model didn't do much for me. What you really ought to be discussing is what makes the military AI tick. Get talking to the modders about what they're doing to make the AI players fight. And what's going on with the point defense when it doesn't shoot down incoming missiles. These should be the top priority issues.

Except I don't think Tom prepared the military AI design, Warden. Different designers handled different sections of the game. Also, just because YOU don't care about the economic model doesn't mean OTHER's don't *people like ME* Warden, this does not look like an official contact. Tom never makes those. He's just trying to explain how something works, something people are having difficulty figuring out. Let him alone.

[Bolted]

Tom :

I read a description somewhere about 2 days ago regarding the econ model. At the time, I thought that it seemed to me the econ system, along with the viceroy AI econ management, was generally good. It was clear to me at the time that this aspect of the game had depth, and worked as designed (WAD). Since you are the primary designer here, let me hand you belated cudos from someone who has been critical of other aspects of the game.

I won't get into those other aspects here, except to say that my primary beef with the game, aside from the onion layer interface which nearly everyone agrees is a terrible click fest with key information scattered and deep instead of concentrated and easily visible, is the way the viceroy AI decides to build with the military build queues. To give you an example, in my current game I have around 40 systems and I'm real careful about what I allow to be a non-obsolete ship design. What do the viceroys try to produce? System colony ships in systems that are already fully populated, and with a system colony ship design that's been obsolete for 50 turns. I can't stop them from producing these system colony ships, yet if I turn off the planetary AI I have to engage in a micromanagement nightmare in a world of sliding blue block panels with dozens of mouse clicks per system. So, I use the planetary screen each turn and dutifully go into the queues and delete the system colony ships. So, to sum up, your beautifully constructed econ system is being wasted by the crappy and totally idiotic build queue decisions. Now, if you guys could fix this decision algorithim, we might have an actual game.

[Bolted]

And, really, we ought to do something with these posts if the devs are going to make a habit of explaining things as Tom has so marvellously done. Maybe a special dev only forum / library where these things get collected. Call it the Developer's Game Mechanics Library forum or something.

Mods ?

[Hari]

It would be a good idea, but I am affraid it will turn into a Troll's shooting range in no time. A sticky in the gameplay section would be better. Perhaps some modder could include this in the encyclopedia.

[Alexfrog]

Originally posted by TomHughes
For my part, I decided the best way to ease the micro manager into macro management as the game progressed would be to create a planet development/economic system so vast…so intricate… that the micro manager would THANK GOD he could delegate some of those tasks to the AI as the number of planets he controls reached into the hundreds. In other words I’ve tried to kill them with kindness. At least this was my goal.


I think that instead of achieving this goal, this merely put unnecessary complexity into the game.
There is no need to have all these layers of stuff in the economic model when in reality you just make the AI deal with it. All it did was confuse and irritate people, I think.
If there wasnt all this complexity and people were simply forced to macro, they would either just decide "I dont want to macro, I dont like the game becasue I cant" or "I guess I'll do it this way, then".

The way it is, thye try to micro everything, get pissed at the game because they cant make sense of it, and then go and bash it....

But anyways.....

Hopefully your continued explanations will fill in for all the stuff that should have been in the manual but wasnt.

I cant help that think that if this game had had very good documentation, and didnt have the "pathetic agressiveness AI bug", then it would have been well received by most people, instead of attacked from all sides.

[Eidalac]

Originally posted by TomHughes
Bioharvest(food)
excess food sold off…………….....=>….AUs

Minerals
excess minerals sold off………………….........=>…AU’s[/B]

That explains so much of the income weirdness in some of my games.

I guess having 3x the mineral production as I needed isn't as bad a thing as I feared. ;)

Now if only those numbers would be displayed so I didn't have to blindly adjust my buget to make use of that exess, I'd be all kinds of happy.

[mentarman]

Enjoying the game, and thanks for the post.
I do want to agree with Alexfrog above, however, that I am left with the feeling that there's a lot of stuff visible that should either be moved "under the hood" (fine with me) or be easier to control (also fine with me) (at least this is what I take from Alexfrog's post, apologies if I'm reading it wrong). But maybe your posts will make it easier to control, so I'll be reading them.
Thanks again.

[Hachiman Taro]

Thanks for taking the time Tom, I really appreciate it.

[Tsinn]

Thank you for the informative post. I'm looking forward to future explainations of various aspects of the economics in Moo3.

Also I would like to mention, I love the way industry works in Moo3, with the ramp up in costs for building things beyond a planets basic industry capacity.

[sL|De]

check your pms tom :)

[Alexfrog]

Yes, I also like how production capacity is turned into production points....thats really cool.


and yes Mentarman, you understood what I meant ;)

There is too much unnecessary detail that needs to either be abstracted away, or have us given full access to. Since giving us full access wouldcreate insane micromanagement hell, it needs to be abstracted away....

Too much detail is not a good thing if that detail doesnt actually contribute to the game because the AI just deals with it all....

[InfiniteJest]

This is great. It'd be especially nice if this information were consolidated (with the forthcoming posts) into something like a manual or an encyclopedia update in the patch.

Keep em coming.

[Czaroc]

Originally posted by Bolted
And, really, we ought to do something with these posts if the devs are going to make a habit of explaining things as Tom has so marvellously done. Maybe a special dev only forum / library where these things get collected. Call it the Developer's Game Mechanics Library forum or something.

Mods ?

Originally posted by Hari
It would be a good idea, but I am affraid it will turn into a Troll's shooting range in no time. A sticky in the gameplay section would be better. Perhaps some modder could include this in the encyclopedia.

How about putting DEV responses and info in a folder where only DEV's can post. Instead of putting the response to the question here, it is posted in the DEV advise forum and a link to that is placed in the original post or even a copy. Either way, we would start geting an instruction manual started in the forum instead of having 12 useful DEV postings buried in 1000 useless bashing posts.

My 2 cents

[Sidheham Sidhe]

I just want to say that the complexity of the economic model is one of the things that makes me like the game (to the extent that I do.. which will no doubt be going up after patch). I'm no micromanager, but all that "stuff" going on that I can't ever hope to understand makes me believe that there is a living breathing empire there.

I'd also say that I love the diplomacy model, with all its flaws, so tell that guy good job too. I love the fact that each message I get from the AIs is unique, even if they are kinda kooky from time to time. But they do have to fix the thing where the AI threatens you and then doesn't tell you what his beef is about..

These two parts of the game help to create a richness that I really admire. if you could just pass that along..

And lastly, is it possible to reinstate the Imperial Focus Points as a mod?

Thanks for going to the trouble..

[Ragnoff]

Alex - though I often find myself agreeing with some of your assesments and love the stuff you have contributed to the strategy I disagree here.

The complexity is what makes the modle rich, simple models rarely make believable environments... and even if there are parts of it I cannot touch, nowing how it works will allow me to make better decisions about what I can touch!!

SO far i really like theis model, and am willing to take on faith that there is a logic to the parts I do not understad, a logic that I hope Tom keeps revealing!!!


Thanks for the time Tom!


Ragnoff

[elmo3]

I like the current economic model and would really like to see the whole picture from Tom before I help him redesign it. :)

[wakko1999]

Roughly how often are you going to post the nuggets of info?? Asking because I already have a pretty good understanding of the Econ system from the manual-- believe it or not --(except the excess Bio and mineral turned into AU's !!! explained a lot of mytstery numbers for me), but I would be very interested in the DEA description you indicated are next.

I also want to give you props for having the courage and responsibility to come and put some sort of explanation to the game.

[Psychlone]

Hey Tom, thanks for doing this. I look forward to more.

Bolted...What do the viceroys try to produce? System colony ships in systems that are already fully populated, and with a system colony ship design that's been obsolete for 50 turns. I can't stop them from producing these system colony ships

Personally I feel a system colony never gets obsolete. You build it and plop it down. But to stop the viceroy from building them, go to shipyards menu and mark them obsolete. I mark almost all ship designs obsolete on the first turn. Then when you want one it only takes a moment to redesign it, give build order and tag it obsolete again.

[tommh]

Another factor to consider when evaluating the Economics system is that it's complexity is used by many other systems.
Numerous planetary specials, racial traits, and tech advances are hooked into the economics system. If you simplify the system or hide the detail under the hood then these becom trivialized.

I do agree that it's important that players have a clear idea of how the system works so they cna make judgments concering relative merit. You need to know if it's better to colonize the planer with the magnate civ that gives a BIo production bonus or understand how to maximize their racial traits. The decision to leave stats off of a lot of in-game info screens was a bad one in this regard, although it has been rectified by some of the very cool modders around here.

[Raion]

Well, I reallly do not think that one has to get into the numbers to play the game.

Basically, you start on a Planet. It is a Sweetspot Planet. Meaning that say you are playing human (who is the hardest at least in the old games to win with).

You produce probably more food than you need to.
You have a average supply of minerals to run industry.

If you go to another Star System, and sort the Planets from the Planets Tab, then you will see planets of one that you can send a Colony Ship too.

A Green 1 Planet is the best, Green 2 second best, Yellow 1 third best, Yellow 2 fouth best, Red 1, you don't really want unless you have technology to be there, also with Red 2 type Planets.

If moderate gravity, some Planets may have lower or higher gravity, can exist there, with reduction in output and things like less population growth, unless again some technology in the game helps you out.

If in a Star System, and the Planet in that Star System is Barren, or Hostile, there will be less regions to grow food (using the human as an example). Less food means it has to come from somewhere else (another Planet like your home Planet -- SweetSpot with excess food for the total population).

So, when at the new Star System, the food has to come from somewhere. (in MOO II, one used a food transport -- or set it up in the game to transfer food to that new Planet that can not exist or grow population without help.) In MOO III, that is automatic.

On the Planets Tab, you will see your home Planet food icon (the first icon with the numbers underneath), and it will turn green.

That means that the second Planet (the new Planet) will be using food from your Home Planet (that icon for the new Planet will show the number as yellow). If enough food can be grown on the new Planet then it will go back to being white (light blue - whatever), but if the Planet can never grow enough food, then it always has to get food from somewhere.

If the new Planet's food icon number goes red, (a starship from another species may enter into the Star System, or Prirates maybe, the number will be red.

If you have a starship there (since you claim the Star System by occupying one Planet in the System at least), then a fight will occur. If you do not win the battle, then your new Planet will still be starving and the population will be going down.

If you win the battle then the food icon for the new Planet will turn back into yellow (the number at the bottom of the icon).

Anytime, anything turns red, that is bad. Whether it is lack of minerals for the output of the Industry you have on the Planet, or whatever.

That is the way the entire game works.

That applys to other things as well.

Once you get use to looking at the color of the numbers, then you can tell if something has to be done about it.

If another species claims a Planet in the same Star System, and you do not have a non-agression Pact (or even if you do) since, they might be interested in other Planets in the same Star System, they might decide to take over that Star System some day (in the future.)

They might battle you for that only Planet that you may be on (colonized) there. If you lose, they can make slaves out of you,and have you work for the other species.

If you win, (and battle to win) then you keep the entire Star System, and Wars can be started (without any formal declaration) in the game at any time.

The usual stance is you are at War until proven otherwise.

I know on the Victory Tab, that it does not report it usually that way, but entire battles have been fought (before in MOO) because some species think that you (as the player of any species) do not belong --- out in Space --- or are a sentient species recognized as being something other than cannon fodder from the other species.

In MOO, there are species that will seem to get along with you, and (may not), and there are other species that will tell you outright.

This is because, as the player, you do not belong out in Space, unless the other species controls you.

[Chinese Tourist]

Ya there are workarounds for obsolete ships. And system colony are never obsolete unless you managed to fit it into a smaller ship (by late game I have crazy production, so never tried redesigning) or they are doubling as system defense ships :eek: :confused:

Maybe you actually meant system defense ships?

Anyhow for these economics posts..

I'd like an explanation for how the tax system works.

I'd like an explanation for just wtf the military DEAs do
:D

Thanks a bunch.

[JimHet]

Thank you Tom for these informations! I'm sure it'll help lots of players. Okay - "cracks" may already know, but others don't.

For me it would be interesting to know the "numbers" (and maybe algorithms) like one said a few posts before. That would help making decisions like "should I bioharvest in barren hills or arable mountains (if there are only hills and mountains left, of course)?!

I know that you don't want the player to make such decisions and the AI is great and normally does it's job very well (the "viceroy", not the opponents "global strategy" AI), but I and surely others DO want to micromanage in the early game! For me the start is very important and I want to manage my first colonies on my own. In the later game all my viceroys do that job, but not in the beginning.

By the way...it would be nice to have a button that only turns off the building queue's AI (the military one) and not the econ AI.

That's it... :)

[JimHet]

Originally posted by Raion
Well, I reallly do not think that one has to get into the numbers to play the game.

...

Anytime, anything turns red, that is bad. Whether it is lack of minerals for the output of the Industry you have on the Planet, or whatever.

That is the way the entire game works.

That applys to other things as well.

...



Don't know everything "behind" yet, but some things I do know. And if you play like you said, I'd beat you and others would as well, because you're just reacting, not acting!

[Sorceresse]

:confused: All this macho, planet-of-the-apes, testosterone-hyped posturing about "beating" up other players! :eek:

For me, MOO 3 is more about Space-Empire building, about the experience of encountering other sentient species in a 256-stars sector of the Universe.

I'm currently playing in a huge spiral with 16 comps. I'm having a lot of fun in the Senate. I have no intention of proving that I'm the meanest ape on the hill by defeating them one by one. I've already done that to death, in MOO 2.

I'm not going to play at MP/MOO with sadists who want to "beat" me up. There's WarCraft 3 (and Homeworld) for that.

You can play as you wish (for your 50 bucks). I hope that the Alien Civilizations that Humanity will one day encounter shall not think and act as some of you :o boys :o do. :rolleyes:

PS. Thanks to Tom Hughes for launching this thread with a lot of useful info. I am confident that the Quicksilver devs are working hard to further enrich the MOO 3 experiment. It's not their fault if real-world financial imperatives applied tremendous pressure for them to expedite the beta-testing and to release the game somewhat unfinished. I don't mind being a paying open-beta tester as long as it contributes to one day creating a much better MOO 3. And by the way: Stardock did ask its cutomers to pre-pay Galactic Civilizations if they wanted to participate in its own extended beta. Quicksilver and Stardock simply do not have the titanic financial ressources of Blizzard or Microsoft. :eek:

[JimHet]

@Sorceresse

Calm down... "Beat" doesn't always mean "beat up".

I only meant, that if you know the details, your empire runs much better. You can feed more people, research faster and develop faster. Surely I want the other empires (the AI) to do the same. So it's really a fast race to get all Antaran X's. That's what makes such a game real fun in my opinion.

If you're playing like "oh, there's a red number - I've got to do something" you're just too late. The leader of an empire should see something bad coming and do something against it before it happens.

At this point some things in the game are just luck, because we don't know the details. Try to answer my question: Food is running low and my people will be starving, if I don't do anything against it. There are two regions for the Bioharvest DEAs left - barren (or maybe worse) hills and arable mountains. What should I do? That's just luck. I like to "control" everything (I'm a fanatic ;) ) and not just hoping to be lucky. Otherwise I'd go into a casino :)

[Sorceresse]

:cool: I'm cool with that. I was just using your verb "beat" as a fuzzy pretext to make a fussy point about differences in gameplay styles. I was not really attacking your point of view.

Thanks for the peaceful clarification: it's fun to communicate with sophisticated alien Men who know how to regulate their inner biochemical valves. :eek:

Concerning your food problem, besides building new bioharvest DEAs on regions that are rather weak for that purpose (they won't yield much food), I would destroy one (or a few) structures that have been built on those DEA regions (such as the fertile ones) of certain planets where the AI has built structures you don't really require in the short term (such as research or mining structures if you're comfortable in those domains). What will then happen is that the removed DEA structure shall become red (to let you change your mind before the end of the turn) and when the next turn starts, you will notice that the AI has started to build a new structure in its place: if it is not a bioharvest structure, you select the one the AI has chosen, you then choose the "Bioharvest" item in the "add to region" menu and click the button, so the AI's structure will be immediately replaced by the bioharvest DEA you need. If it would take too many turns to construct it, you would have to increase the funding on the planet (at Economics/Funding levels/Normal Economic Development). You could also increase the Finance/Budget/Grants to Planets slider to stimulate the construction of the new bioharvest DEAs on the planets that you have elected for that purpose.

That's what I would do...but other players might have other kinds of solutions to your food-shortage situation. You have to know the comparative values of the different types of soil to evaluate which types are better for bioharvesting. I don't have them in my head at the moment [snip]. :weird:

[ScreamingDoom]

I don't have them in my head at the moment, but "arable" is better than "barren".

Yes, but he was wondering if an arable Mountain would be better for bioharvesting than a barren Plains. Since Moutains have the lowest bioharvesting production (unless you're silicoids), is it still better to put a bioharvesting DEA in that region because the fertility is arable? We don't know because we have the raw data on how fertility bonuses work for bioharvesting DEAs.

[Sorceresse]

:eek: Humm...I hadn't thought about that! :confused:

What a complicated software! Pardon me, I meant: What a sophisticated game! :rolleyes:

[Raion]

I think Plains are always better than Mountains, according I think to the readme.txt.

Yellow Planets need 2 colony ships to fully establish a colony, or you can wait till it grows to 1k population. (50% reduction for type of yellow planet).

Red Planets need 4 colony ships to fully establish a colony, or you can wait till it grows to 1k population.

Until that time, the planet will need food from one of your othe planets that have food to spare.

Then work can be done to have labor to build the Planet up.

As a human, I found a Magnate Civilization in a Star System.
It is the Elerians, and before I can fully use their population of 5000 out of a whatever total population, I would have to have a fully establish colony first. Then they will work at 100% efficiency, while humans may not. And they will be glad I did, and they will love me as Emperor, and I will guard the lovely Elerian ladies.
Also I get bonuses for being there and doing that in ground combat.

In the readme.txt

Ah, to be a slave of the Elerian Woman Caste System of the old race.

Ah, but yes, those ladies know what they are doing subjugating us moral human men.

[Sorceresse]

:cool: As a witch, I know very well why you "moral men" are such easy prey. :rolleyes:

[Raion]

Yes, I look at the numbers, but if a spaceship from another species comes to your Star System, there is nothing you can do about the red food supply problem, unless you have a spaceship, and can do battle and beat it first. There will be a red number food supply for at least one turn until you win the battle or send a spaceship or have defenses that defeat or defend that Planet.

If you have an alliance with another species, you both can end up having a colony on one Planet, according to the readme.txt.

That ought to be interesting, until one takes it over by growing it faster, I think I read that.

Military DEA's help with unrest, and also help ground forces for the Planet it is on.

In fact, it may help with unrest more than a Recreation DEA.

Reserves ground troop, set up in an Army, will have more command structure (or something similiar to that) with a Military DEA on the Planet.

It's a Command Structure that takes a lot of population to run, and will help defend the Planet in Ground Combats.

[Salvation122]

Originally posted by TomHughes
I also wanted to talk about micro vs macro management in MOO3. When it was decided to move MOO3 in the direction of macro management early on in the design process, I knew that any player that micro manages(and that’s me) would hate to be forced to macro manage. For my part, I decided the best way to ease the micro manager into macro management as the game progressed would be to create a planet development/economic system so vast…so intricate… that the micro manager would THANK GOD he could delegate some of those tasks to the AI as the number of planets he controls reached into the hundreds. In other words I’ve tried to kill them with kindness. At least this was my goal.
Simulation of beauracracy does not a frustration-free game make.

[Raion]

The food supply problem is because the supply transports will not bother to even be in that Star System, and at least I do not have to set them up, as in MOO II.

Yes, but a number of any type Planets, can be set up, in the macro-management, if one wants too, depending on the Individual Planet's Classification.

In other words, how does one make such a complicated game, easier, to be played multiplayer, without making it less graphical, and more number based.

For some with super cable modems, that may not seem to be a problem, but as real Civilization, it just may not work that good across the Internet, anyway, because we do not have or can afford the Technology needed.

So, having a time limited, and setting up macro-management would make a multi-player Internet game possible, at least in theory.

This is a huge game!
As a sentient species, one may have to work, and achieve something to get through this game, in one's own life force time!

[Archangel_Brian]

YOINK!!!


*Runs off*


This is what I post in threads where I am taking something to use in my Encyclopedia Mod, and it is to give a heads up to the thread's creator that I'm gonna be using their info. IT IS NOT SPAM.

[vince904]

Thanks Tom,

I think this will be v. helpful. I look forward to the next instalment

vince

[JimHet]

Originally posted by ScreamingDoom
Yes, but he was wondering if an arable Mountain would be better for bioharvesting than a barren Plains.

Exactly. Maybe I didn't explain very well. Sorceresse wrote what one would normally do. But that wasn't what I mean.

What we know is, that bioharvesting works best in plains and fertility affects bioharvesting efficiency. To me that means there are two parameters and it could be, that there are breakpoints where you can say it's better to bioharvest in plains or in broken regions, because one region is toxic and the other is fertile. But maybe it's always best in plains. Right now we don't know until we test it. And that's a lot of work. QS knows the answer and could tell us.

That's just one example and there are several others in the game where it would be very helpful to know some numbers.

[smellymummy]

threads like these, the mods should just delete all the posts above to let Tom just finish up ..

[StonedGoat]

I would just like to say THANK you for going through the time to clear up issues like this. In an unbelieveably hostile forum climate like this, devs have to be brave to show their faces and try to help out the community that LIKES the game, and try to make the game fun for those that don't like it. Rock on buddy! Can't wait for the next chapter.

--SG

[Rantage]

Yes, thank you Tom -- a lot of us really appreciate it when the QS guys post. This is good stuff.

[Adamant]

Effectively it looks like MOO3 uses a two tier system:
Food, Minerals, Test Tubes
Production Points, Research Points

The second tier takes the raw materials and then government funding turns them into the RPs and PPs that are used to build ships and research techs in the game.

Simple breakdowns such as this, plus the more in-depth description here I think is really needed to add in more feedback in MOO3.

Also, having the option to toggle between numbers and some sort of icon setup that displays at a glance how your resources for a planet are. Are those 500 PPs good for this mineral rich planet? Is my 10 food not enough to feed everyone? Having icons that can show this at a glance I think would really help slim things down.

[ScreamingDoom]

Also, having the option to toggle between numbers and some sort of icon setup that displays at a glance how your resources for a planet are. Are those 500 PPs good for this mineral rich planet? Is my 10 food not enough to feed everyone? Having icons that can show this at a glance I think would really help slim things down.

Why are people so obsessed with icons? I don't get it. Numbers are far, far more informative with much less effort and time. You CAN tell at a glance if that 10 food is enough to feed your population. It's even color coded: red means you can't, yellow means you can, but have to import, white means you can and everything is about equal, and green means you produce enough of a surplus to export.

The question about PPs for a rich planet is rather nonsensical as mineral richness has nothing to do with industrial production. A Poor world can have lots and lots of Industry. In fact, I'd say if it's large it SHOULD have lots of Industry. You're not going to be getting much mining out of it, and you'll be able to pack much more Industry in a large world than a small one.

[Cynicsoul]

The title of the thread was interesting since economy is my biggest problem with the game. I started reading to finally notice you explain alot of thing but the economic system of Moo3.
What about explaining it for real now?

[F.A.D]

why doesn't the extra income from food and minerals show up in the ledger then and is interest really included?

[TomHughes]

Thanks for all the feedback and kind posts. For those of you who have had criticisms, I understand your frustration and desire to make MOO3 as good as it can be. This is certainly my goal. And, believe me, your suggestions will influence us! But I would suggest that these criticisms/suggestions be posted in a constructive manner similar to Bolted’s post. If you want to just “vent”, that’s OK too … but you are less likely to be listened to.

Bolted:
I know that there are problems with the military AI but this is the first I’ve heard of that AI building system colony ships in systems without colonizable planets. I’ve talked to the AI programmer and he didn’t think that was possible. I’ll check into this problem further. In the meantime Psychone suggestion of “obsoleting” the colony system ship should work. I know this is just a Band-Aid but it should work for the short term.

Tom Hughes, designer, MOO3

[TomHughes]

ECONOMICS 101 (part 2.1)

Mining DEAs

Mining DEA’s produce minerals (and the AU’s from using those minerals) and AU’s from rare byproducts.
All DEAs require pop to run. There are three levels of pop requirements, high, med, and low.
There are also three cost basis for DEAs, high med, and low.
Mining DEAs have a LOW pop requirement and a LOW cost basis. Therefore, they are an attractive DEA to build on young colonies.

1) MINERAL OUTPUT

The formula for determining the mineral output of a mining DEA is as follows:
(Base efficiency + Base efficiency mods ) * Efficiency mods * DEA Capacity
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BASE EFFICIENCY – This is the basic mineral output of the mining DEA before any mods affect it. You can think of this as the starting productivity of the DEA. The base efficiency of a mining DEA depends on which region it is placed (only mining and bioharvest DEAs are so effected) and is as follows:

Displayed as mineral richness by terrain type

__________Very Poor______Poor_____Abundent(average)______Rich_______Very Rich
Plain_________1____________1____________2________________3____________5
Broken_______1____________2____________3________________5____________8
Mountain_____2____________3____________5________________8____________12

A mining DEA placed in a region with mountain terrain on a planet with a mineral richness of abundant would have a base efficiency of 5. That mining DEA would produce 5 minerals if no other mods affected it.

BASE EFFICIENCY MODS are mods that directly affect the base efficiency of the DEA and are added to the base efficiency before any other mods take effect. They consist of:
(species mods + race picks + mining DEA buildings + mining DEA planetary builds + mining achievements)

species mods

Elder Civilization (Antarans) EFFICIENCY +2, RARE 1.3
Silicoid_________________EFFICIENCY +4 (This might be a typo….seems pretty high)
Bulrathi_________________EFFICIENCY +1

race picks (Mining)

EFFICIENCY____RARE
Superior (+2)_____1.3
Good (+1)_______1.15
Average (0)______1
Poor (-1)________0.85


Below is a table for the rest of the mods organized by increasing techs. The numbers in () represent the mod to base mining efficiency. Don’t be fooled by the small numbers. These mods can have a MUCH greater impact on the final output of the mine because they are factored in FIRST before any other mods. A +1 could give a net boost of 25 to mining output late in the game.

cost___Tech Lvl___________DEA Bld_________Planetary Bld______Achievement
25___Economy 11____Automated Mine (+1)
60___Economy 21____Robo Mining Plant (+2)
60*__Physics 24_______________________Orbital Lithoscanners (+1)
0____Math Computers 29______________________________Geo Harmonic Principles(+1)
100__Economy 31____Nanotech Extractors (+3)
175*_Physics 40_______________________Mineral Analysis Network (+2)

* the cost is multiplied by the square root of the number of regions on the planet. Therefore the multiplier has a range of 1-3.46. Weigh the benefit/cost before building one of these planetary buildings because the cost is the same regardless of the number of mining DEA present on the planet (I.e. don’t build one if there are no mining DEAs on the planet).

EFFICIENCY MODS are mods that usually affect all DEAs on the planet and are
(Infrastructure*Gravity*Leaders*Government type*Morale*Pollution*Specials*Moon mod*
DEA productivity from population)
I will cover this later since it pertains to all DEAs on the planet.

DEA CAPACITY is from the DEA (always one) and any capacity buildings present. All Capacity buildings require additional population to run and represent the “extensiveness” of the DEA facilities. These buildings generally give a greater boost to mineral production than efficiency buildings but cost more and require population to run.

Cost___Tech Lvl__________Capacity Bld____________________Pop requirements
50_______0_____________Mine DEA----- (1)_________________________0.33
40____Physics 6________Deep Extraction Mining (+0.5 or +50%)______0.33
100___Physics 16_______Full Crust Mining (+1 or +100%)___________0.33
180___Physics 26_______Complete Mantle Mining (+1.5 or +150%)____0.33
300___Physics 36_______Deep Core Mining (+2 or +200%)___________0.33

If you have all 4 capacity buildings present in a mining DEA the total capacity would be 6 and the pop requirements to run at 100% would be 1.65 pop

2) AU’s FROM MINERALS PRODUCED
The amount of money earned from the usage of minerals depends on how they are used.

Consumed as food – 30 AUs/mineral
Consumed by Industrial DEAs to create Industry – 15 AUs/mineral
Any excess sold off – 7.5 AUs/mineral – this is multiplied by (100% - the unemployment rate) to simulate supply and demand for the excess minerals.

Below is the money earned by a mining DEA producing only the minerals from its base efficiency (all other mods having no effect in this example) and having ALL of the minerals produced consumed by Industrial DEAs on the same or shipped any other planet.

__________Very Poor______Poor_____Abundent(average)______Rich_______Very Rich
Plain_________15___________15___________30_______________45___________75
Broken_______15___________30___________45_______________75___________120
Mountain_____30___________45___________75_______________120__________180

DOUBLE these numbers if all the minerals are consumed as food and HALF them if all are sold off as excess.


3) AU’s FROM RARE BYPRODUCTS
This represents any exotic/rare minerals (like gold, gems, etc) found during the mining process and gives a bonus to AU’s produced by the mine without affecting its normal output.

The formula is: AUs = minerals produced * mineral richness factor * 4 * race pick
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This formula is illustrated below assuming a mining DEA with only it’s base efficiency:

__________Very Poor______Poor_____Abundent(average)______Rich_______Very Rich
Plain_________1____________1____________2________________3____________5
Broken_______1____________2____________3________________5____________8
Mountain_____2____________3____________5________________8____________12

times

__________Very Poor______Poor_____Abundent(average)______Rich_______Very Rich
_____________1____________2____________3________________5____________8

times
tuning variable of 4 * race pick
gives a result of

__________Very Poor______Poor_____Abundent(average)______Rich_______Very Rich
Plain_________4___________8____________24_______________60___________160
Broken_______4___________16___________36_______________100__________256
Mountain_____8___________24___________60_______________160__________384

The ratio of (AUs produced from using minerals : AUs from rare byproducts) is determined by the mineral richness of the planet. As you can see the bonus from rare minerals is trivial for Very Poor planets but is very significant for planets that are Very Rich (being equal to the AU’s earned from consuming all the minerals as food – the max price for minerals).

The main purpose of the rare mineral bonus(and a similar bonus to bioharvesting) is to give an incentive to place mining or bioharvesting DEAs on planets with very good regions for these DEAs regardless of the need for the minerals or bioharvest they produce. As the game progresses the need for mineral and bioharvest DEAs will diminish and I don’t want these DEAs to become rather useless like farmers did late game in MOO2. This rare bonus will allow mining DEAs to be viable choices for planets with good mineral richness even late in the game and especially desirable when the need for minerals is significant.

I will try to have bioharvest posted in a few days.

Tom Hughes, designer, MOO3

[smellymummy]

thanks tom :up:

[Patton1942]

[voice=Mr. Burns]Excellent...[/Mr. Burns]

:D Thanks Tom, that was really quite informative. Maybe, if we're really good, we could get this type of info put into an updated Encyclopedia / .PDF manual or something <Wink - Wink, nudge - nudge, know'wa'dya'mean - know'ya'dya'mean, eh - eh> ;)

Seriously tho, thanks a lot for the great post!

[kallisti_dk]

Amazing stuff! Thanks a lot, Tom.

[Tharsonius]

yes, thanks a lot Tom
this will help me to understand a lot of the stuff, the AI is doing on my planets

:up: :up: :up:

[FileZilla]

Thanks for the info Tom. :up:
Another great piece to solve the puzzle called Big Picture ;)

[AbandonAllHope]

Its this kind of Support that has kept me going with this game. I am on these forums everyday and I read almost every post trying to find more information. I think I am past the learning curve but I still crave more knowledge. I truelly appreciate all your help Tom as does the rest of the community.

Although I am frustrated and curious as to why half of my Empire Revolted on me at around 200 when I changed governments LOL. I mean I had to bombard my starting planet to dust because of this ARGH!! hehe (I know why it happened and I fixed it, dang spies!!!):eek:

[RobNelson]

:up:

Keep up the good work. You are appreciated. You are a kind and generous soul who inspires joy-joy feelings in all those around you.
Thanks Tom. :D

[Morgion]

Awsome. I always wondered about the rare thing myself! Thanks alot..

One thing I don't understand though are the sliders in the planetary economy menu thing.. with the starting bank, and the ending bank. and the tradeoff's benefits of not spending 100% into "spending".. it seems weird to me. because it doesn't affect your empire au's in any way. and when it reaches 0.. my planet doesn't seem to have any penalty.. Willl you explain this too later on? or should I look for other sources for this info?

Either way, what you said so far was totally helpful

[Pragmatic]

Well... That is a surprise. :)

Tom, could you include the Antaran techs for comparison purposes? For instance, Molecular Extractors is an Antaran tech for mining that gives an efficiency boost of +4.

Also, just a FYI, but if you use (code) and (/code) (replacing the parantheses with brackets), you'll find that the spacing and tabs will be preserved. It makes nicer tables, IF you can get the formatting right.

[TomHughes]

Thanks, Pragmatic. I figured there was some system to preserving taps....but it needs to work for both this forum and the beta boards (I post there first to give them an advanced look for all their efforts and to allow them to find any boo-boos before posting here).

Tom Hughes

[][nigo]V[ontoya]

Tom, you are the BEST!

Thanks so much for the formula (base efficiency PLUS base efficiency mods) * efficiency mods * DEA capacity.

I was struggling mightily to work this out myself and had base efficiency * efficiency mods * DEA capacity, but the numbers just weren't working. This really clears things up for me!

Your last post saved the game for me! I am overjoyed and so appreciative!

Keep up the great work.

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by TomHughes
ECONOMICS 101 (part 2.1)
The formula for determining the mineral output of a mining DEA is as follows:
(Base efficiency + Base efficiency mods ) * Efficiency mods * DEA Capacity


I'm guessing that the Efficiency mods include the Infrastructure buildings (Power, Sanitation, Communications, and Transportation), all of them region specific, and each of which gives a 25% boost to mining, farming, and I believe manufacturing and research.

One thing that people should notice about the formula you've given, above: All other things being equal, look at just the base efficiency (terrain versus mineral richness) and the racial stats to figure out what race on what planet will do better. A superior race on an average planet with lots of broken terrain will actually perform much worse than an average (or even a poor) race on a rich planet with lots of mountains.

I have done numerous analyses on the DEAs, and I just deleted another complicated analysis I had planned to put in this post (so it doesn't get all cluttered up).

Remember that the racial picks are effective in turning marginal worlds into barely worthwhile worlds. However, the better the terrain vs mineral richness (from 1 to 12) and the more efficiency upgrades you throw in (from +0 to +14), the less crucial the racial pick is going to be (after all, what is so good about a +2 versus a -1 when you're talking about a mineral rich world with lots of mountains and all the efficiency improvements, when those alone give you 26; you're talking about 28 for superior versus 25 for poor, a 12% boost; but on a large mineral poor world with just broken terrain and no improvements yet, that is 4 versus 1, a 300% boost; though it'll grow to be 18 versus 15, only a 20% boost). Of course, this is true for pretty much ALL of the racial picks. But at the start of the game, ahhhhh... And for new planets, or marginal planets, you get a boost.

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by TomHughes
Thanks, Pragmatic.

You're welcome. :) As for working in both the beta boards and here, just do it like you've been doing, over in the beta boards, using the underscore ("_") to set spaces. Then, when you come over here, copy from the beta boards, paste into word, hit CTRL-H (find and replace), and choose to replace all the underscores with spaces. Then paste over here, using the (code) tags.

I'm looking forward to the Military, Recreation, Government, and Spaceport DEAs. I understand most of the others, more or less. Those, however, I don't understand.

Also, where are all the (insert blank) per pop things? For instance, the different Universities give bonuses to TTprpop, Cemperpop, and so on. But I've only seen those two in the racial picks.

[Pragmatic]

By the way, will the developer who did the viceroy AI come in some day soon to explain how the viceroy classifies each planet by development plan, and how it applies each development policy based on its priority? And what development plans are running "in the background"? (For instance, if a planet is size 9, will it be always treated as Large, even if that's not one of the two classifications? If a planet is Yellow Ring, will it always be treated as Yellow Ring, even if they planet has been terraformed to Sweet Spot?) And what are the default development plans, the ones we override with our own development plans? (By this last, I mean that the viceroy must have a set plan for how to deal with Unrest, even if I don't personally specify how to deal with it. So what's the default for this, and all the other, development plans?)

Hopefully we'll have the answer soon. :)

[Tharsonius]

Tom, you didnt list Mining Robots, the description says they increase efficiency, so I guess they are "BASE EFFICIENCY MODS", right?

[jeffh]

I just realized that what Tom posted is, essentially, the old mining data dump! Or part of it, anyway. I suspect the answers to a lot of questions people have been asking about the underlying math can be found in those data dumps. It's been under our noses all this time...

Granted, I'm sure there are things that have been removed from them and things that have been added due to simplifications (moon modifiers now that moons are no longer treated like planets, for example). But even so, I'll bet the fundamentals are largely unchanged.

[Mixalot]

Thanx Tom, much appreciated.

Do you think we can expect a compilation of the data you share with us ?

Believe I recall a mod mentioning them putting a manual extention together in collaboration with developers. pdf ?

Regards.
Mix

[Archamedius]

Thanks a bunch Tom! This has been extremely helpful. I also wanted to second the experience of Bolted where a system that was already fully colonized was still producing system colony ships. I even went to the extreme of clearing all the military queues and checked back the a couple turns later and there was one in the queue again. Wierd. Just thought I'd let you know there was someone else who was experiencing the problem.

Thanks!

Arch

[Varish]

Originally posted by TomHughes

When it was decided to move MOO3 in the direction of macro management early on in the design process, I knew that any player that micro manages(and that’s me) would hate to be forced to macro manage. For my part, I decided the best way to ease the micro manager into macro management as the game progressed would be to create a planet development/economic system so vast…so intricate… that the micro manager would THANK GOD he could delegate some of those tasks to the AI as the number of planets he controls reached into the hundreds.

And that perfectly encapsulates a major part of what is wrong with the game. The entire philosophy behind a major design element has you at odds with what you know many players will want. Rather than finding a way to accomodate this type of player, or leaving some people disappointed in the interest of having a more streamlined game, you decided it would be better to have a complicated design that also alienated people who like to micromanage.

It takes a very special kind of person to arrive at such an idea.

[llaamaboy]

Originally posted by Bolted
And, really, we ought to do something with these posts if the devs are going to make a habit of explaining things as Tom has so marvellously done. Maybe a special dev only forum / library where these things get collected. Call it the Developer's Game Mechanics Library forum or something.

Mods ?

I second that...!! :eek:

[DeckPrism]

Originally posted by Varish
And that perfectly encapsulates a major part of what is wrong with the game. The entire philosophy behind a major design element has you at odds with what you know many players will want. Rather than finding a way to accomodate this type of player, or leaving some people disappointed in the interest of having a more streamlined game, you decided it would be better to have a complicated design that also alienated people who like to micromanage.

It takes a very special kind of person to arrive at such an idea.

You do realize that Tom was an employee don't you? In other words, he had orders, which if he wanted to keep his job, he had to follow. So, far from attributing devilish coniving designed to cause you pain to Tom, perhapse you could realize that these things can come about from everyone individualy trying to do their best under the constraints given to them.

[CorporalX]

Quick question Tom have you seen the data dumps on Orion Sector?, they are in the legacy section under miscellanea. here is the link http://www.orionsector.com/pages/dd/datadumps.shtml

Wondering how accurate this info is? I've read the strategy guide obvioiusly it has erroneous information in it based on the beta?

Could you confirm the accuracy on the information on Orion Sector on Bioharvesting and other related items?

Thanks in advance :)

Having lots of fun with this game oh another thing you might want to post on the official web site that Moo3 needs minimum of 256 megs of ram. I was on turn 288 or so when it just decided to not let me advance any more turns. After I put in another 128 meg RAM chip it works beautifully now :)

[Alexfrog]

Thanks again!

Keep the info coming....

You may save moo3 yet...

I wish this had been in the manual.

[Lt.Machaon]

Some of you were talking about suffering shortages earlier so this may help. Right off the bat I usually try to find 4 planets for specializing. 1 that is basically all bioharvesting, using any mountain terrain for extra research or mining if its also rich, 2 for mining (I have generally played Cynoid) using the plains for again research or bio if fertility also good, and one larger planet with low mineral richness and low fertility for high industry and again occasional research. If the planet is size 6-8 I usually make one government DEA, 9-10 add military or recreational, 11-12 add both. Obviously playing any race that population only consumes bio and not minerals, u may want to consider trying 2 bio planets and 1 mining planet instead or finding a 5th planet to also specialize in bio.

With your first couple colonies set for making a large resource base, I use my homeworld to make colony ships like mad until war breaks out. Then you have your homeworld and your early industry planet for warships. All the extra reseacrh DEAs allow for quick discoveries for improving your mining output, bio output, and ship designs. Once you get established and have several well operating planets and a large resource base with lots of extras, you can go back to the first 4 colony planets and tweak them according to terrain.

Unfortuneately if your playing a small or medium map and cant even find 4-5 planets to do this on, sorry cant help you there your pretty much pooched from the get go.

[Lt.Machaon]

Sorry should mention what you do with your homeworld is a major consideration too.

If you have poor diplo and start on senate, extra mining and industry is a must. If you start alone in the middle of nowhere, extra research helps a great deal. And always plan enough DEAs on your homeworld to support your first colonies for at least the first little while or they wont grow to become your resource base fast enough.

Hope this helps, if someone sees a problem with this plz tell me this is my experience only and has worked for me but I always like to hear what Im doing wrong ;) And Ill stop rambling now lol

[Varish]

Originally posted by DeckPrism
You do realize that Tom was an employee don't you? In other words, he had orders, which if he wanted to keep his job, he had to follow. So, far from attributing devilish coniving designed to cause you pain to Tom, perhapse you could realize that these things can come about from everyone individualy trying to do their best under the constraints given to them.

Well, if you're trying to show me that Tom didn't mean to make things bad, you need not bother. I don't believe that he set out with the goal to make the game as a whole "un-fun."

However, I do think there's a fundamental flaw with the logic that he puts forth to explain the whole "micro-management is painful" design concept.

GOOD game design doesn't try to change what people want to do. It recognizes what people want to do and affords them as many interesting choices as possible. You can't always get everything into a game that everyone could possibly want to do-- if you could, we'd all play one perfect game and there would be no need for any more games except to work with newer technology. However, if you take the stance that a certain mode of play is not realistic, then you should exclude it from the design, rather than including it and then giving people a negative reaction to actually using it. That would be like an RTS game putting in FPS elements, but then deliberately making those elements difficult or unproductive, so that you would just concentrate on the RTS.

In other words, if you don't want people micro managing (presumbly because it conflicts with some other design goal), then you leave out micro-management, and focus more on making the macro management (or whatever the heart of the game is supposed to be) more fun. Don't put all the micro management in, but then make it difficult and boring to use. It's bad enough if it happens unintentionally, but to say that it was one of your goals just blows my mind. "Killing them with kindness" is passive-aggressive nonsense that has no place in a commercial product.

The irony is that the AI is pretty good in most respects, so with a few tweaks here and there and a few more filters and options, you could have given players the best of all worlds, without designing in extra tedium.

All of this assumes of course that Tom is really being honest about his intentions and not saying "I meant to do that" after the fact to cover up for perceived shortcomings of the game. I don't have any reason to think that he's not being perfectly frank, I just throw the possibility out there to pre-empt someone else saying the same thing as some sort of rebuttal.

[Hachiman Taro]

Originally posted by Varish
And that perfectly encapsulates a major part of what is wrong with the game. The entire philosophy behind a major design element has you at odds with what you know many players will want. Rather than finding a way to accomodate this type of player, or leaving some people disappointed in the interest of having a more streamlined game, you decided it would be better to have a complicated design that also alienated people who like to micromanage.

It takes a very special kind of person to arrive at such an idea.

It takes a very special kind of person to winge in a completely unconstructive way at someone who is trying to help them.

The things you complain about aren't going to change at this stage. They were never going to be to everyone's taste.

So why try to antagonise someone who is providing information the rest of us really appreciate? The only thing you could achieve is to spoil things for us by convincing him we aren't worth helping.

I would therefore appreciate it if you expressed your dissapointment somewhere other than this thread, which is otherwise very helpful and constructive.

[][nigo]V[ontoya]

Originally posted by Hachiman Taro
It takes a very special kind of person to winge in a completely unconstructive way at someone who is trying to help them.

The things you complain about aren't going to change at this stage. They were never going to be to everyone's taste.

So why try to antagonise someone who is providing information the rest of us really appreciate? The only thing you could achieve is to spoil things for us by convincing him we aren't worth helping.

I would therefore appreciate it if you expressed your dissapointment somewhere other than this thread, which is otherwise very helpful and constructive. :up:

I agree entirely!!!

[JadeTalon I]

Hi Tom,

First, thanks for the in depth info. Some people like knowing each and every formula, and some just want a general idea of cause and effect. Your posts are great in that we can take as much as we want from them, because it's all there.

Ok, what I really wanted to say is this: For every person who posts here thanking you for the information, there are 20+ people who are just as appreciative who don't post.

Your posts are helping far more than the few responses here would indicate. Please, keep it up.

[karmina]

Ahem...Tom, what is the source of all these infos?

Extensive tests of the release version (how it works), the sourcecode (how it might work), the latest design documents (how it should work) or even outdated design documents (data dumps at orionsector.com: how the producers obviously didn't want the game to work)?

I'm not trying to say that the infos you are giving to us are wrong (they are highly appreciated indeed!), I just want to clarify on which level we are discussing the formulae.

I'm asking this because I've been running some tests and building up some theory on my own:

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=277509

And an extremely important factor determining actual DEA output, the "Production from Population" (PfP), the planetary average of which is shown at the middle right of the planet screen, you have not (yet?) mentioned at all.

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by karmina
Ahem...Tom, what is the source of all these infos?

:rolleyes:

I'm guessing the fact that Tom was the programmer who built this portion of the game, that might mean he has some inside knowledge.

[M. MacMorrigan]

Originally posted by Pragmatic
I'm guessing the fact that Tom was the programmer who built this portion of the game, that might mean he has some inside knowledge.

Nah, I have it on good authority that the Econ model was authored by Elvis, Tony Blair, and a sentient potato from Epsilon Eradni V. This Tom feller don't know what he's talking about.

Now MY studies show that the whole economic system runs on burritos. Lots of burritos. Except for your starter world; that has more of a chalupa-based trading model.

-Michael MacMorrigan
Chalupa King of the Galaxy

[Edgewise]

Originally posted by Varish
Snip

You do know you can turn off the AI on one, many, or all of your planets and micromanage to your hearts content, right? There is nothing that forces you to leave it to the AI... Although Micromanaging can have the same exact effect once you learn how Developement plans work, and how to use them... you just Micromanage for a huge group of planets at a time instead of one by one...

I'm a Micro-manage freak myself, but I find playing in Multiplayer games with 2 min turns, setting up the dev plans correctly will have the AI see to it that -all- my planets build exactly what I want them to, and in the order I want as well. Very helpful once you've got 100+ colonies, and you've barely got time to design a couple of ships in your two mins, let alone micro each planet.

[Hachiman Taro]

Edgewise,

If you can do that, would you mind posting your strategies with dev plans? Or if you don't want to give away secrets, at least some general advice?. Dev plans mystify me, and I don't really have time for extensive testing!

I'm sure lots of people would appreciate it!

[][nigo]V[ontoya]

Edgewise, I have to disagree. You might consider yourself a micromanager, but if you really did try to micromanage, I think you would find there are a number of sticking points. For a quick example, you cannot force the production of hydroponic farms. Multiple people have noticed that sometimes if you monkey with planning out the development of particular DEA's, further infrastructure developments mysteriously grind to a halt. Although development plans guide projected buildings there are still AI planning routines which are out of our control to alter as far as what DEA's will be built where.

From my perspective, you are a Macromanager who is able to do the little bit of micromanagement to YOUR heart's content, but many of us aren't able to micromanage to OUR heart's content.


:D

[Varish]

Originally posted by Hachiman Taro

<snip>
The things you complain about aren't going to change at this stage.
<snip>


Ah, but that's just the thing. The complaint is not about the game per se but about the attitudes and expertise of game design. Do you think that Tom's next project is going to be in burger restaurant management, or do you suppose that he might be in the position similar to Moo3?

The thing that I disagree with and hope to point out is in fact very changeable, and if it were to change, we might all benefit (including Tom). I'm not antagonizing Tom-- I'm replying directly to something he said which struck me as extremely odd.

[Hachiman Taro]

Originally posted by Varish
Ah, but that's just the thing. The complaint is not about the game per se but about the attitudes and expertise of game design. Do you think that Tom's next project is going to be in burger restaurant management, or do you suppose that he might be in the position similar to Moo3?

The thing that I disagree with and hope to point out is in fact very changeable, and if it were to change, we might all benefit (including Tom). I'm not antagonizing Tom-- I'm replying directly to something he said which struck me as extremely odd.

Oh, my bad. Thank you very much for lending us Tom the weight of your infinitely superior game design expertise and intellect then. As a 'very special person' he obviously needs it badly.

The sure result is that his next project will be far more in line with your personal tastes. I look forward to seeing it!

[cpbeller]

2 questions....haven't really been able to find the answers anywhere else...

1. What happens if my need for food/minerals is more than what i am producing? ex. I am producing 58 minerals, BUT, i need 70....what happens in my empire when that happens? same for food? actually, i know food causes starvation....but what about minerals? production is slowed down?

2. If my end of cycle balance is -292 AU. What happens? I know that the next turn that -292 comes right off the top of my taxes and all...but still, i don't see really anything "bad" happening....I am still trying to figure out why I need to balance my ledger....

Is it that the more money i have at the end of the cycle, the more money my planets, research, and military, and unrest funding I will have?

[vmxa]

Originally posted by cpbeller
2 questions....haven't really been able to find the answers anywhere else...

2. If my end of cycle balance is -292 AU. What happens? I know that the next turn that -292 comes right off the top of my taxes and all...but still, i don't see really anything "bad" happening....I am still trying to figure out why I need to balance my ledger....



Like like Moo2, structures can be sold off to pay for on going expenses.

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by cpbeller
2. If my end of cycle balance is -292 AU. What happens? I know that the next turn that -292 comes right off the top of my taxes and all...but still, i don't see really anything "bad" happening....I am still trying to figure out why I need to balance my ledger....

One thing to realize about the ledger is, it's the empire ledger. You could have a cumulative deficit of -20,000 AU, but all of your planets combined could have a cumulative surplus of 100,000 AU.

I'm not sure how to get that money from the planets. But it DOES keep the more developed planets from having to start selling off buildings.

[Mithyk]

Originally posted by cpbeller
1. What happens if my need for food/minerals is more than what i am producing? ex. I am producing 58 minerals, BUT, i need 70....what happens in my empire when that happens? same for food? actually, i know food causes starvation....but what about minerals? production is slowed down?

Minerals: If it's just a local deficit (the number is in yellow) then the difference is being made up in internal trade within your empire. If the deficit is empire wide - production slows down with a mineral shortage as the available mineral are dolled out,

Food: Same trade situation if the deficit is local. When they can't import sufficient food supplies, population growth declines until food reaches the 50% mark, where it stops completely. Population starts dropping if supply is less than 50% of need. Your problem during an empire-wide shortage is that the food producing planets will keep their food supplies at 100% or as close as they can and refuse to ship anything at all to your less agriculturally developed colonies - so an empire-level deficit of 10% could actually mean lots of starving colonies.

Originally posted by cpbeller
2. If my end of cycle balance is -292 AU. What happens? I know that the next turn that -292 comes right off the top of my taxes and all...but still, i don't see really anything "bad" happening....I am still trying to figure out why I need to balance my ledger....

Is it that the more money i have at the end of the cycle, the more money my planets, research, and military, and unrest funding I will have?

You pay interest on money you have to borrow from your population (government bonds, etc). The bigger your deficit, the more cash you lose the next turn to interest payments. And no, you don't HAVE to balance the budget - a lot of governments work in teh red for centuries.

[Psilon Paladin]

I think the more I play and the more I understand and figure out about MOO3, the more I realize there's a lot more for me to understand.


One thing before I get to my questions, as far as DEV plans go, according the master notes, they are just suggestions and the viceroy goes and build what he wants to anyway. This leads to undesired building. Prime example, building mining DEA's on very poor worlds.

I'll just say midgame say around LVL 20-24 in most techs, I notice my planets are developing nicely. Most basic DEA's have capacity increases, have a few infrastructure additions, spaceports making me some more AUs=$$$. A quick glance at the top, my bioharvest is like 6.3k/3.1k which means I have tons of food and thanks to an earlier post we know the excess surplus is being sold for more AU's. How much excess is too much? Should I convert some farms into factories?

Minerals are the same way, I produce 2x as much as I use.
So basically its more Factory time?

Speaking of more factories, and thus more PPs, is it ever a WASTE of time to build more? Pollution wise? Sometimes on a couple planets, I seen where the industry points (light blue/cyan) generated is a larger number than the production points (dark blue) so at some point I was no longer getting a 1 to 1.

I guess my real mid-game problems stem from understanding the economics of the game, I have researched far enough to make dreadnoughts already, but most planets I have do not have the PPs to build them, its still taking 6-8 turns for cruisers. Any thoughts, ideas how to have at least one planet that can make them in a reasonable amount of time? Empire wide, I have like 60k PPs (playing a large 2-arm galaxy) looks like my best planets are producing at max 4k PPs. 4 times less than needed.


Does being monetarists and investors have a direct impact into production or is it just accumulating extra interest ?

[Mithyk]

Originally posted by Psilon Paladin
One thing before I get to my questions, as far as DEV plans go, according the master notes, they are just suggestions and the viceroy goes and build what he wants to anyway. This leads to undesired building. Prime example, building mining DEA's on very poor worlds.
That really depends on your imperial zoning policy. If you set Specialized and establish a DEV plan, your Vic's likely to stick pretty close to it except where local demand draws him away. If you've set your policy to Natural (build what you and the empire need at that moment based on your estimate of the planets best use) or balanced (make a self-sufficient colony) then your Vic is going to use your plan as a very general guide.

[msgBoardFlamer]

...but I have a hard time finding your posts in this thread. Do you think it would be possible to make a new thread with your posts in it, ONLY (closed thread).

Since it's kind of official and all.

I mean, this thread could still be open, for feedback and such and I dearly appriciate that effort ( :up: open thread) - it's not that. But if I want to go back and see what it was you wrote again, I hafta scroll though infinite lines of text just to find your posts. :cry:

Thanks for posting Tom - the reason why I still play this game. (:eek: That was somewhat heavy on your shoulders, eh?:eek: )

[markmccoin]

I've read the manuals and understand the idea of "spaceports" to increase economic output, but cannot figure out how to build them. They are not in the DEA que. The AI builds them for me, but not where I want them, ie. in regions of rare metals,gems, ect.
Please tell me how to control this function. thanks

[msgBoardFlamer]

Originally posted by markmccoin
The AI builds them for me, but not where I want them, ie. in regions of rare metals,gems,

Pssst... :weird: he builds them everywhere. And they doesn't take one of those precious DEA slots either. Isn't that great? :weird:

[AndersSchm]

You can't build spaceports yourself. Specifying trade via your economic plans should make them more of a priority for the Viceroys.

[pete112]

<snip: Hello Mary, guhbye Mary. -S>

[markmccoin]

Is there someway to see what planets are freighting supplies and to where they are shipping them to. I try to specialize when possible, but not sure from where my planet inefficiencies are being taken care of. Also I would like to know which planets are most prone to blockades,ie. which ones are supplying the bulk of my empire with necessary goods, which need more protection.

[Krallus]

Originally posted by markmccoin
Is there someway to see what planets are freighting supplies and to where they are shipping them to. I try to specialize when possible, but not sure from where my planet inefficiencies are being taken care of. Also I would like to know which planets are most prone to blockades,ie. which ones are supplying the bulk of my empire with necessary goods, which need more protection.

Which planets supply to what other planets is mostly irrelevant. Think of resources being redistributed as going into/coming from a pool, instead. All excess minerals (and food) go into a "pool" for redistribution to the planets that need them. If, on the planet view, the number beside the minerals is coloured yellow, then it is being subsidized by the pool. If it is red, there is not enough coming from the pool to meet the needs of that planet (or the planet is blockaded -- in which case nothing comes from the pool). If it is white, there is sufficient supply on this planet to meet the needs. If it is green, some excess is being exported to the pool (and to the planets with need). You can have excess and the colour still be white, not green, if the planet is blockaded (and cannot export to the pool) or if there is no "draw" from the pool by planets with need (at least not enough to justify an export from this planet). It doesn't really matter which planets are doing the export (and have coloured green numbers), because if those planets get blockaded, other planets that are producing excess will automatically pick up the slack. What's important is that you have sufficient supply to the pool to meet all the draw from the pool. The planets you really do not want blockaded, therefore, are the ones with the most excess. Generally, these will be the ones producing the most (but not necessarily because they may also be consuming the most). As a start, look in the planets view and sort by minerals (or food). Looking for green numbers here also helps. But the only way to know for sure what planets are producing the most *excess* is to go to each planet screen, one by one.

[msgBoardFlamer]

Originally posted by Krallus
Which planets supply to what other planets is mostly irrelevant.

I beg to differ. If I'm low on food and have just conqured a planet, I'd rather ship all the food from that planet to my own... FOR EXAMPLE.

I'd also like to make priorities on planets in regard to low resources, grants etc.

But it's just a dream that I have - I know. :bulb:

[Groom-Falconer]

Originally posted by Pragmatic
One thing to realize about the ledger is, it's the empire ledger. You could have a cumulative deficit of -20,000 AU, but all of your planets combined could have a cumulative surplus of 100,000 AU.


?

Granted, I can't balance my check book-- but this makes no sense? A CUMATATIVE deficit and a CUMULATIVE surplus are mutualy exclusive, right.? I mean, my check book can't have a negative balance and a positve balance at the same time. . .



:bulb:

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by Groom-Falconer
Granted, I can't balance my check book-- but this makes no sense? A CUMATATIVE deficit and a CUMULATIVE surplus are mutualy exclusive, right.? I mean, my check book can't have a negative balance and a positve balance at the same time. . .


You've got to realize, there's a difference between the imperial treasury and the amount available to any individual planet.

You see, there's three levels to taxation. The empire-level, the system-level, and the planet-level. The empire tax goes to pay upkeep on troops and ships, grants to the bottom 10 planets, additional amounts spent towards research, and so on.

I have no idea what the system tax is for. :(

Planet-level tax is for paying for the planetary and military build queue, as well as paying upkeep on all those buildings. Ever had a huge budget surplus (empire-level), only to be told that a DEA on a new planet has been disbanded due to lack of maintenance? (Generally happens to me when an outpost grows to be a colony, and the resultant military DEA is too expensive for the new colony to maintain.)

So, in one game, I was losing about 1,000 a turn and had a nice deficit at empire level, and still not managing to get rid of unrest or get much of a dent on research. However, my best planets had surpluses of as much as 10,000 each. I'd have liked to raid those treasuries, get rid of my accumulated deficit, and get on with the game.

It's annoying. I think you can change your empire spending policies to "Spending" instead of "Balanced," and your viceroys will spend from their treasuries instead of waiting for planetary grants...

[][nigo]V[ontoya]

Originally posted by Pragmatic

I have no idea what the system tax is for. :(


The system tax collects a set percentage from each planet in the system and then provides those AU's to the planet in that system with the system seat of government.

Thus, you can build up your industry on the best planet in the system and use taxes from the other planets in the system to drive production at that planet.

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by Pragmatic
It's annoying. I think you can change your empire spending policies to "Spending" instead of "Balanced," and your viceroys will spend from their treasuries instead of waiting for planetary grants...

Yup, that's the way. Whenever i get in the beginning of a war i set it to spending and total war to crank out the first ships as fast as possible. Then i gradually slow down back to balanced and peace through strength. This has been a very succesfull thing for me, it allows you to pump out an amazing war fleet in no-time, since your viceroys will really start spending if they have enough balance :D

[jeffh]

Originally posted by ][nigo]V[ontoya
The system tax collects a set percentage from each planet in the system and then provides those AU's to the planet in that system with the system seat of government.

Thus, you can build up your industry on the best planet in the system and use taxes from the other planets in the system to drive production at that planet.

Is there some sort of confirmation from QSI or someone like that regarding this? This is at least the third distinct answer I have heard to this question, and they all conflict :( . No disrespect intended but has anyone who knows for sure weighed in on this, and if so, what did they say?

[Relax]

Dear Mr. Developper,

I hope to make myself useful in this costumer-sponsored extended beta. I really really really wished there was a thread for each developper, and basic rules to post (such as "Don't ask me about military AI", "No artwork changes in the patch", etc). This would help us both...

-Since you do economics, be reminded that the economic race pick is next to useless (interest rates cut, HFOG easily controlled by a government switch every 20 turns). Something should be done about that. Something like a AU$ bonus per pop of the race with the pick (weak in start game because overdrive is expensive, as good as a manufacturing pick mid-game, and quite powerful end-game). And it would finally make the custom Ithkul not have EVERY production pick with some points left...

-Environnemental is also a laugable pick. Something should be done about it, such as changing the size of the habitability rings. Pollution should be *somewhat* something to think about, not just a tiny expense (I never-ever get pollution damage to my worlds???).

-Does tolerant still give a small maxpop bonus??

-Explain how government DEA work. I'm told the unrest reduction reaches other planet in the system, but what about other government DEA abilities??? Bottom line, we want to know if it's cost-efficient to build a government DEA per system, or per planet, or according to some formula.

-Explain HFOG. It's 99.9% missing from manual! And why do we see only "1.0, 1.1, 1.2" and don't get to see "1.07, 1.22, 1.31" which we'd like?

-Read the dev. plan thread, make corrections as necessary, and anwser some questions (how many plans are active at once? Does the AI change the plan sometimes? When? Why? Can I apply a plan twice?)

-Explain all economic MODable files. 2/3 of my fun is MODing!!

-The new encyclopedia MOD really needs the eye of a developper to clean up the obsolete stuff, to correct the numerous mistakes, and so on... please correct its economics after you made all relevant bug fixes.

-What the heck is biodiversity for??? Does it affect food? If I terraform a world, does it always/never/sometimes become easier to grow food on it? Why do I get a green leaf on a toxic mountain, when green is for fertile(maybe lack of terraform)??

-Klackons, with their citizenship: loyalty and the insectoid hive mind that give an advantage in unrest, keep being under revolt. If only I understood unrest formulas, maybe I wouldn't say the BUGS have a BUG!

-Is the AI efficient at taxing people just a few % under what would cause unrest, or do I have to learn the formulas and micromanage by hand? What about telling those formulas? Does having Citizenship: loyalty allow me to tax some more without unrest (seems to have no effect on unrest)??

-A spying automation switch. Whenever a spy is build, queue another of the same spy circle that was just produced. That's what we do by hand every 4 or 5 turns for 80% of the game...

-What does the economic spy do???

-If I don't add farming to a dev plan, will hydroponic farms be skipped by the AI (alternative; put farming and have farming marginally farmable planets - yuck)? It should be made part of "infrastructure". I wish I knew what is under infrastructure, official info on DEV plans is near zero and the player-written ones leave many questions unanwsered...

-There is a very large race picks of difference between Evon and Humans(and they have the same racial hardwiring)... I'm sure there is a hardcoded racial advantage for humans somewhere, and I'd like all non-documented racial advantages to show up in MOD files. Or at least be documented somewhere... even the Ithkul hardwired racial advantage, [censored], is not explained anywhere!!

-What about spy special abilities(paranoid, charming, etc)? Are they obsolete? If not, why can't we see them on each spy?

-Some people claim we can control immigration/emigration. How??? It's a major issue with Ithkul.

-When I find slave labor of my own race, why is it not a splinter colony??

-How can I control single special buildings in dev. plans, such that factories that consume food?? I really hate them in some games, love them in others!

-As for micro/macromanagement, you're definitively in the right track!!! We players want the *possibility* of micromanaging everything in the game, understanding every formula to the point of knowing how to play the whole game on paper all the way from galaxy generation to the 5X victory, yet powerful macromanagement tools that allows us to know 95% of what we don't micromanage turns out how we like, and the 5% that doesn't will not have a long-term hidden problem!!
(I keep having trouble like 3 government zones on big planets when I'd like exactly one per planet for a certain plan and I get none for a smaller world with the same plan...)

-Does the "mining" plan is auto-set by the AI on existing mine-covered worlds(which makes little sense), or is it just a plan to put mines in(which makes a duplicate of mineral rich plan)?

-The system colony ship (SCS) problem is a plague! If two planets make a SCS and there is only a green planet left, one ship will be scrapped. And sometimes new colonies on size 2 worlds make colony bases as an early building, and finish so late that I manually make a colony base on another world... unlike MOO2, I am allowed to make too many colony bases DOH!

-When I give a build order for 10 colony ships, I get my first ship only when the 10th is done... I don't think that's good!!

-Does military DEA help with ground troop experience??

-The race pick for aptitude at gaining experience, is it still active under the hood?

-Ground combat plans don't make sense. What is "echelon"? We'd like a short text that explain each...

-I feel you're probably the wrong developper to anwser that, but here it goes... are the ground combat race picks exact equivalent of each other, or are they part of some complex system we'd like to know the rules of?

-Some players really really really hate when the AI makes a system colony ship to complete the pop on a red planet. They feel it is almost completely wasted. Other players badly want the AI to make it, and make it by hand just to make sure it is done. Some of my friends have been talking about this issue 3 times a day for a weeks... some kind of government policy switch should be made. Or at least the queue algorithm known...

-Colony ships that check for colony beacons should check if any other colony ship goes to that beacon too; the more ships go to a beacon already the less desirable the colonisation... (I often have 5 ships going halfway across the galaxy for the very same beacon - annoying)

-When a new colony is ready to receive orders, there is zero production on the previous turn so nothing can be adjusted economy-wise... maybe allow first-turn worlds to adjust economy percentages anyway? That would help A LOT. I keep having to write down the name of the planet so I come to each next turn, just like the "Sitrep don't save" nightmares except it's 3 times each turn...

-When the "join" button is pressed, there is a lack of a message to say "please wait patiently as the host uploads the game to your local computer". Many people believed multiplayer was broken because the computer does nothing for over a minute, so they simply bought other games (DOH!)

-We really really really want to lock economic % of planets like we lock tech choices. This is the most uselessly micromanagey element of the game, going back to each planet and microing so no planet wastes all its test tubes with research % at zero!!!

The only condition for ignoring the lock would be empty queue, but would reactive the lock if something gets in the queue...

(and by the way, the planet screen has enough space to show the economy, or the production/research. Not just test tubes/industry that we don't know if used or not at this screen)

-We'd like to know if putting a very large amount of research points in the same branch of technology can lose some research points, such as the inability to rise more than one/two tech levels per turn??? (we do ADORE the fact that we don't have to micromanage every tech level MOO2 style)

-What does some tech do??? I'm quite clueless about the early tech with the drill in the icon... +2 to GDP said the encyclopedia MOD, I'm still clueless... in fact a full 20% of the tech leaves me clueless!!!

-I'm extremely curious about what race picks are fixed in stone all game, and which one depend on what races you manage to get control on. Can Klackon conquer a lot of Psilons and become somewhat creative??? Is environnementalism race-specific, or player-specific??? How can I get a Darlok spy??? This is a red hot strategy must-know to beat people in multiplayer...

-Why has the Psilon much less tech in the tech tree than say a creative human or even Sakkra?? Uncreative-like Psilons doesn't sound MOOish...

-One of the tables (can't remember which one) has 0.5 for Silicoid and other races have numbers in the hundreds. Since it wasn't a food-as-priority table, I figure it is a bug.

-Shouldn't meklar, "entirely mechanical", NOT need food??? Perhaps you should precise "expect the brain" or something.

-I do repeat again: if there was a cheat code to see how every number of the game gets calculated, and I'd have to win with all 16 races one by one to discover that cheat code, it would be worth it. The eldorado. The saint Graal. We nerds do like to imagine complete games in our heads, and how to MOD everything!!!

-Some economic diplomacy things don't have numbers next to it like it did in MOO2. So we're clueless that surrender is about money until we try it and such, and clueless on how much trade with a certain empire is worth...

-Diplomacy is multibroken on multiple levels in many ways. Too many to count. Eye candy can't save ya there. *it just doesn't make sense even after 15 games*

-When a ship becomes obsolete, we'd like it to be erased from ALL buildqueues that haven't started building it yet. On slow production planets (i.e. tiny farm worlds in times of starvation) ships come out of the production lines 50 turns late and are badly obsolete, slowing down lane movement of an entire task force to a crawl...

-In MOO2, drive upgrades were automatic. That was an awesome feature! If not implementing this, allow the conversion of starships to system ship (just discard/ignore stardrive, temporary or permanent). That way we can park obsolete ships in "anti-pirate" duty for the rest of the game instead of mistaking them for mighty up-to-date ships and underdefending badly a system...

-When I draft people, do I lose some pop? Does it help unrest? I need unrest/pop formulas... if only not to draft my last Gargantua and be without them for the rest of the game...

-AI players with same flag, of same color than me = restart game because it's too damn confusing!!! (and BTW I want to choose my color, I get confused when I don't have the same one every game)

-We'd like to decide what race goes on colony ships, and sometimes decide for a minority race!

-I never saw ultra-poor or ultra-rich, were they removed or is there just too many planets with moons so it adjusts it?

-Can we terraform moons along with the planet? (This has a HUGE impact if it's done, we want to know if it is done or not)

-Some very specific message types in the SITREP I'd like to killfile, but unfortunately all I get is to remove a large category at a time... DOH

-Sometimes a DEA gets stuck at -1 turns left and never builds. Some people claim to have a bug involving 3 DEA in a region or vanishing spaceports...

-The outreach of the various buildings that have that(government, recreation, military)... everybody is dying to learn those formulas!!!

-Some specials should have the * removed after they no longer have any effect (i.e. rescued leader and many others that just run out). This would make a hell of a lot of difference when trying to locate enemy-controlled magnate races in the mid-game...

-Some planet/region specials have such a tiny effect, for such a short period, that they are worth boosting or making them permanent. Some specials have code that doesn't match their descriptions, or are have totally counterintuitive names.

-We want an official statistic of what % of the galaxy is habitability ring such-and-such, for each race/specie. Some players keep saying they all get red2/red1 everywhere and others say the opposite all the time... this is a major factor, as big as a 100 race picks advantage!!!

BOTTOM LINE:
I rate the economic system of MOO3, as it exists now in its state of non-formula documentation and bugs and useless picks as 3 stars out of 5, and by fixing it you can get to 5 stars!!!

[][nigo]V[ontoya]

Dear Relax,

I think your post did more harm than good. It looks like you spent a considerable amount of time on it. I believe that time was wasted. QI is unlikely to respond to such a lengthy post. In fact, the more you go on and on, the more likely people will skip what you have written. One "life lesson" you need to learn is how to prioritize. I urge you go to through and attempt to delete 50% of your post. Get pithy and winnow out the points that are the least important in your opinion.

The only reason I'm writing this to you is because you seem to be brilliant from your analysis. You are bright, but unwise. You explain yourself well, but you will be ignored when you go on and on and on and on.

With Great Respect,

Inigo

[][nigo]V[ontoya]

Originally posted by jeffh
Is there some sort of confirmation from QSI or someone like that regarding this? This is at least the third distinct answer I have heard to this question, and they all conflict :( . No disrespect intended but has anyone who knows for sure weighed in on this, and if so, what did they say?

Greetings, JeffH!

Check out this excellent thread:
http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=277370

Pay particular notice to the testing of Certa. I have replicated his tests and they are accurate.

:)

[Mixalot]

Hey Tom, My man

What's happening to those columns of your's ?

If you'd like, I voluntarily would assist expanding on your economic breakdowns. Prob wouldn't be able to retain your degree of accuracy though :)

Well, I'm Psilon. I prefer wisdom before knowledge and I have it for breakfast everyday........I'm starviiiiing !!!!

Thanks for your efforts.
Mix

[TomHughes]

Hi Folks:
I should have bioharvest up in about 24 hours. I'm in the process of posting it up on the beta board to allow them a first look and hope they find any errors (especially the embarrassing ones). Sorry for the delay but this post required about twice as much work as mining DEAs because, among other additions, I had to touch on several planet development areas that affect bioharvest. And well…..I have been watching the war.

One quick note on system tax. CERTA observations are correct and I post them here (with the hope he gives me belated permission :)

Summary:
* System tax works
* It is calculated of GDP and trade just like planetary tax but for all planets in the system.
* The planet with the system government always gets the money.
* The system tax income is not specified but is added to the planets balance each turn.

To this summery I add that the system tax is not shown on the planetary ledger (I have reported this to Tim Hume and Steve Roney awhile ago). This causes some confusion because, without being reported in the planetary ledger of the system seat, the ending bank amount on one turn doesn’t match the starting bank amount on the next turn. The difference being the AUs gained from the system tax. Also, each government type has a max system tax level above which will increase unrest.

Thanks ][nigo]V[ontoya and CERTA for reminding me of the system tax omission.

Tom Hughes

[Dagda]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Relax

-Explain how government DEA work. I'm told the unrest reduction reaches other planet in the system, but what about other government DEA abilities??? Bottom line, we want to know if it's cost-efficient to build a government DEA per system, or per planet, or according to some formula.

Keep in mind that even if the DEA isn't as "efficient" for reducing Unrest or similar activities, there are improvements that can only be built there. And those normally have either a planetary or system-wide benefit.

-Read the dev. plan thread, make corrections as necessary, and anwser some questions (how many plans are active at once? Does the AI change the plan sometimes? When? Why? Can I apply a plan twice?)

I'd say that being able to see which dev plans are actually in effect has become my #1 wish for the game on any planet. If I turn a Core planet into a Player Defined, does Core still apply, or did it drop off the Viceroy's list of things to use? While I don't mind experimenting, this area could/should be much more transparent.

Klackons, with their citizenship: loyalty and the insectoid hive mind that give an advantage in unrest, keep being under revolt. If only I understood unrest formulas, maybe I wouldn't say the BUGS have a BUG!

Have you checked the cause of the unrest on the planet? Under the Demographics tab, you can look and see why they're feeling their Oats. Piracy is a fairly common on that I've encountered.

Is the AI efficient at taxing people just a few % under what would cause unrest, or do I have to learn the formulas and micromanage by hand? What about telling those formulas? Does having Citizenship: loyalty allow me to tax some more without unrest (seems to have no effect on unrest)??

I've yet to have a Viceroy put my systems into Unrest all on his own. Note that you can adjust the taxes for your Empire as a whole to help here.

-A spying automation switch. Whenever a spy is build, queue another of the same spy circle that was just produced. That's what we do by hand every 4 or 5 turns for 80% of the game...

It'd be better just to make espionage less of the "Weapon of Mass Destruction" that it currently is. It's much, much too powerful now.

-What does the economic spy do???

Blows up economic buildings. If your Stock Market just vaporized, there's an Econ spy in the neighberhood.

-If I don't add farming to a dev plan, will hydroponic farms be skipped by the AI (alternative; put farming and have farming marginally farmable planets - yuck)? It should be made part of "infrastructure". I wish I knew what is under infrastructure, official info on DEV plans is near zero and the player-written ones leave many questions unanwsered...

I don't have Farming in any of my Dev Plans (the AI really wants to keep me from starving, after all) and I've got hydroponic farms everywhere.

(I keep having trouble like 3 government zones on big planets when I'd like exactly one per planet for a certain plan and I get none for a smaller world with the same plan...)

If I'm remembering correctly, you want two Govt DEAs on planets you'd like to keep that are close to an enemy. They fall after the last one is taken in combat if my memory is serving me correctly.

-Does the "mining" plan is auto-set by the AI on existing mine-covered worlds(which makes little sense), or is it just a plan to put mines in(which makes a duplicate of mineral rich plan)?[B]

No - it's a plan you can use to override Mineral Rich or another plan that's out there. So maybe your Min Rich is "Mine - Infrastructure - Recreation" or something (to get the system rolling). 20 turns later you visit the system, see the initial DEAs you want are built out, and kick to Mining, which you've set to "Mine - Mine - Infrastructure" to really crank out the rocks.

[B]-The system colony ship (SCS) problem is a plague! If two planets make a SCS and there is only a green planet left, one ship will be scrapped. And sometimes new colonies on size 2 worlds make colony bases as an early building, and finish so late that I manually make a colony base on another world... unlike MOO2, I am allowed to make too many colony bases DOH!

#1 - Don't let the AI control your colonization and you avoid the problem.

#2 - Obsolete the hull and you avoid the problem.

But yeah, the AI is good at getting my systems ready to fill build queues, and absolutely awful at actually filling them.

-When I give a build order for 10 colony ships, I get my first ship only when the 10th is done... I don't think that's good!!

True, but this can be damned handy for combat ships when you're looking to get a TF up and running at roughly the same time. Since the cost of building the "x5" and "x10" ships is an exact multiple (no "volume" discount), I only build colonies one at a time and use the multiples when it's time to invade.

-Ground combat plans don't make sense. What is "echelon"? We'd like a short text that explain each...

Heh. I found 'em clear as a bell, but then I'm a big military history buff.

FWIW - An Echelon is a general advance along your lines, starting at one end and moving towards the other with formations departing at relatively regular intervals. The goal is to get your enemy to throw troops at one side of the formation, then continuously rachet up the pressure across the front as a whole.

-I feel you're probably the wrong developper to anwser that, but here it goes... are the ground combat race picks exact equivalent of each other, or are they part of some complex system we'd like to know the rules of?

Another developer already answered this. They sound identical, and their effects might be, but what they actually do isn't. One reflects physical strength, one quickness and agility, one toughness.

-We really really really want to lock economic % of planets like we lock tech choices. This is the most uselessly micromanagey element of the game, going back to each planet and microing so no planet wastes all its test tubes with research % at zero!!!

Ummmm, you're wasting your time.

The sliders aren't necessary to get your base amounts - if you're going to get 19 test tubes, then you'll never get less. What they are is how hard you're investing in pushing beyond that basic amount by investing in additional effort. It's not "are you paying your scientists" but "are you paying your scientists overtime?"

-I'm extremely curious about what race picks are fixed in stone all game, and which one depend on what races you manage to get control on. Can Klackon conquer a lot of Psilons and become somewhat creative??? Is environnementalism race-specific, or player-specific??? How can I get a Darlok spy??? This is a red hot strategy must-know to beat people in multiplayer...

The Klackons will never be creative themselves, but they can certainly benefit from those Psilons they've conquered...

[B]-Why has the Psilon much less tech in the tech tree than say a creative human or even Sakkra?? Uncreative-like Psilons doesn't sound MOOish...[B]

The changes in the tech tree really changed the Psilons when compared to MOO 1 & 2. But having just about every advance (and getting them *fast*) is still a big bonus.

[Krallus]

Originally posted by Dagda
The sliders aren't necessary to get your base amounts - if you're going to get 19 test tubes, then you'll never get less. What they are is how hard you're investing in pushing beyond that basic amount by investing in additional effort. It's not "are you paying your scientists" but "are you paying your scientists overtime?"

I don't think that's right.

If you have 20 Test Tubes and 0% AUs being put into Research, you get 0 Research Points. What 20 Test Tubes does mean is that the first 20 RPs cost 1 AU per RP. The next 20 cost 2 AU/RP and the next 20 cost 3 AU/RP... etc.. to a maximum of 5 AU/RP. But you don't get RPs for free (unless you have some special tech, maybe). That being said, the planetary viceroys will almost ALWAYS put just enough AUs into Research to match the number of Test Tubes (which is the most efficient use of AUs) or slightly more (rounded up to the nearest percent). It will *occasionally* be less (even zero percent) if the planet has other pressing needs such as starvation or perhaps an over-emphasized Development Policy. If a planet is not making full use of its Test Tubes.. give it time (and maybe take out some of those primary Dev plans) .. once some immediate need the VR sees is taken care of, the research funding should crank back up naturally.

[markmccoin]

Can you buy anything outright, like missle bases-fighter bases on a planet, especially the newly colonized ones,(like in MoO2) I would like to give these planets an initial boost.

[DeckPrism]

Originally posted by markmccoin
Can you buy anything outright, like missle bases-fighter bases on a planet, especially the newly colonized ones,(like in MoO2) I would like to give these planets an initial boost.

Many things have a minimum build time of 1 turn, some have an even longer minimum. So, if you have the money/production, you can build them as fast as the minimum. On a new world though you might not have enough production to overdrive with your money though.

[Relax]

First I'd like to wink to the person who thought I'd be ignored. (-; as a programmer, I find very convenient to get long lists of non-duplicate bugs & suggestions(who, for convenience, don't duplicate stuff elsewhere too much). So much easier to enter into bridgetrack and other bug-tracking software...

...and my prediction is that some of those things that will never-ever make it to the patch may get into the priority list for the expansion. (-;

*Keep in mind that even if the DEA isn't as "efficient" for reducing Unrest or similar activities, there are improvements that can only be built there. And those normally have either a planetary or system-wide benefit.

I want to know numbers, here, for maxing research... yes, there are improvements only for government zones. But where is the cost/benefit ratio, say, on the 20 first turns? From multiplayer games I know I'm definitvely not as efficient as others for that...

*I'd say that being able to see which dev plans are actually in effect has become my #1 wish for the game on any planet. If I turn a Core planet into a Player Defined, does Core still apply, or did it drop off the Viceroy's list of things to use? While I don't mind experimenting, this area could/should be much more transparent.

Yeah, I dream of a game where dev. plans are actually raw code and you can compile your own, and look at every number. Dream on. (-;

*Have you checked the cause of the unrest on the planet? Under the Demographics tab, you can look and see why they're feeling their Oats. Piracy is a fairly common on that I've encountered.

Tax was fairly low. Nothing was listed under unrest, except when I had piracy just one turn and it was showing *second*. There was a blank cause of unrest stealing a line...
(oppresometer was down, no enemy spying because no enemy contact, etc)

*I've yet to have a Viceroy put my systems into Unrest all on his own. Note that you can adjust the taxes for your Empire as a whole to help here.

I can't let the ViceRoy handle my Klackon empire, too much unrest in mid-game.

**A spying automation switch. Whenever a spy is build, queue another of the same spy circle that was just produced. That's what we do by hand every 4 or 5 turns for 80% of the game...

*It'd be better just to make espionage less of the "Weapon of Mass Destruction" that it currently is. It's much, much too powerful now.

I mean the single build queue under "personel". I don't want more spies, just less clicking every 4 turns!!

*[economic spies] Blows up economic buildings. If your Stock Market just vaporized, there's an Econ spy in the neighberhood.

Thanks. (-;

*I don't have Farming in any of my Dev Plans (the AI really wants to keep me from starving, after all) and I've got hydroponic farms everywhere.

[Rocky voice on]
I now had that - when my geodic conquered one of those weird alien races that don't eat delicious, somptuous, crunchy ROCKS. I find them *repulsive* for eating those ugly bags of mostly water called food!
[Rocky voice off]

I wish the AI would build those hydroponic farms for income when no food is needed though...

*If I'm remembering correctly, you want two Govt DEAs on planets you'd like to keep that are close to an enemy. They fall after the last one is taken in combat if my memory is serving me correctly.

Correct, but I'm not playing for conquer and reconquer; my friends play "bomb/destroy planets". My point was I'd like to set the number of government DEA on planets, not the percentage of government DEA...

**Does the "mining" plan is auto-set by the AI on existing mine-covered worlds(which makes little sense), or is it just a plan to put mines in(which makes a duplicate of mineral rich plan)?

*No - it's a plan you can use to override Mineral Rich or another plan that's out there. So maybe your Min Rich is "Mine - Infrastructure - Recreation" or something (to get the system rolling). 20 turns later you visit the system, see the initial DEAs you want are built out, and kick to Mining, which you've set to "Mine - Mine - Infrastructure" to really crank out the rocks.

I'm still wondering if the AI sets it to planets in my back, and if so which ones and why... that's like the point or something.


*#1 - Don't let the AI control your colonization and you avoid the problem.

Yeah, I wish I wasn't forced to do that...

*#2 - Obsolete the hull and you avoid the problem.

yeah, obsolete and un-obsolete. I wish for a "Don't AI-build this ship" button or smarter colonisation code...

*But yeah, the AI is good at getting my systems ready to fill build queues, and absolutely awful at actually filling them.

absolute AI awfuls absolutely? (-;

-When I give a build order for 10 colony ships, I get my first ship only when the 10th is done... I don't think that's good!!

**-I feel you're probably the wrong developper to anwser that, but here it goes... are the ground combat race picks exact equivalent of each other, or are they part of some complex system we'd like to know the rules of?

*Another developer already answered this. They sound identical, and their effects might be, but what they actually do isn't. One reflects physical strength, one quickness and agility, one toughness.

Where did another dev. anwser? (I wish there was an unique place to get all dev. names & specialities so I could search for their posts)

-We really really really want to lock economic % of planets like we lock tech choices. This is the most uselessly micromanagey element of the game, going back to each planet and microing so no planet wastes all its test tubes with research % at zero!!!

*Ummmm, you're wasting your time.
The sliders aren't necessary to get your base amounts - if you're going to get 19 test tubes, then you'll never get less.

I never get less(or more) than say 19 test tubes multiplied by zero research, for a total of zero...

*The Klackons will never be creative themselves, but they can certainly benefit from those Psilons they've conquered...

Yeah, but is creativity part of the benefit? Probably not. I wish I knew for each race start for sure...

*The changes in the tech tree really changed the Psilons when compared to MOO 1 & 2. But having just about every advance
(and getting them *fast*) is still a big bonus.

Creative Psilons = 43.5% hardwired + 22.5% from creative = 66%
Imitative Klackons = 66% hardwired + 0% from imitative = 66%

So Psilons have 66% of the tech tree like the Klackons, except the Psilons paid 60 picks for it... creative = imitative???

If the Klackon takes the superior research pick, they have 66% of the tech tree (same as creative Psilon) with near-equivalent of Psilon research speed(psilons get a hardwired +3 resEff bonus), a cost of 90 picks instead of 120 picks for Psilon with superior research & creative???

(not to mention the pop growth bonus and extra maxpop makes Klackon with superior research pick have more research points than Psilon very very quick...)

Surely this is counter-intuitive, the Klackon as a research race... and of course Tachidi have similar stats but regular costs for creativity/research...

This is as odd as the Evon/Human apparent imbalance. Only MOO2 players have a small chance of guessing what the hidden human advantages can be (famous = attracting more leaders) if it's not listed anywhere?

[Unger]

All races have a base 66% of having any given tech, plus 7.5% for each level of creativity purchased. This has been tested and confirmed. So original creativity gives 88.5% of all techs, imitative gives 66%. The tech value in the race mod table does not affect the number of techs. Some speculate tha value isn’t used, I speculate it is something where a small number is good, perhaps related to applications or overruns (although it still might be unsed). Here are test results from Alexfrog:

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=274247&highlight=creative+evon

[smellymummy]

Originally posted by TomHughes
Sorry for the delay but this post required about twice as much work as mining DEAs because, among other additions, I had to touch on several planet development areas that affect bioharvest. And well…..I have been watching the war.

The war??!?! Thats real interesting, but only half as much as moo3!

And btw, are all the people in the beta boards just as busy watching the war? Maybe it's not been 24 hours yet, but come on!! I am (and everyone else too I guess) really looking forward to see the bio dea info :D

[Buggerthis]

Originally posted by Dagda
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Relax

[B]-When I give a build order for 10 colony ships, I get my first ship only when the 10th is done... I don't think that's good!!

True, but this can be damned handy for combat ships when you're looking to get a TF up and running at roughly the same time. Since the cost of building the "x5" and "x10" ships is an exact multiple (no "volume" discount), I only build colonies one at a time and use the multiples when it's time to invade.

-Ground combat plans don't make sense. What is "echelon"? We'd like a short text that explain each...

Heh. I found 'em clear as a bell, but then I'm a big military history buff.

FWIW - An Echelon is a general advance along your lines, starting at one end and moving towards the other with formations departing at relatively regular intervals. The goal is to get your enemy to throw troops at one side of the formation, then continuously rachet up the pressure across the front as a whole.

-We really really really want to lock economic % of planets like we lock tech choices. This is the most uselessly micromanagey element of the game, going back to each planet and microing so no planet wastes all its test tubes with research % at zero!!!

Ummmm, you're wasting your time.

The sliders aren't necessary to get your base amounts - if you're going to get 19 test tubes, then you'll never get less. What they are is how hard you're investing in pushing beyond that basic amount by investing in additional effort. It's not "are you paying your scientists" but "are you paying your scientists overtime?"

-I'm extremely curious about what race picks are fixed in stone all game, and which one depend on what races you manage to get control on. Can Klackon conquer a lot of Psilons and become somewhat creative??? Is environnementalism race-specific, or player-specific??? How can I get a Darlok spy??? This is a red hot strategy must-know to beat people in multiplayer...

The Klackons will never be creative themselves, but they can certainly benefit from those Psilons they've conquered...



1. I have an issue with this one, but I suggest you look again, I just started up a saved game to check. One Colony Ship costs 1919, so five would cost 9595, oops, nope five costs 9116. Ten should cost 19190, nope they cost 17271. There is a volume discount, which makes me less upset about the need to wait for all five or ten to roll off the line. What we really need is a 'Produce this until I say otherwise' button.

2. 'Formations' are useless in the ground combat game we have, it is a puffed up way to allow players some 'control' over the situation when really it is a massive blind man's bluff version of paper/scissors/rock. The only value of it is when someone figures out how race X will tend to pick and the best countermove to those picks. I've played games with this kind of 'tactical' feature before, you do just as well picking blindly out of a cup, especially since it also avoids you setting up a pattern of behavior your opponent can key into......

3. Zero in research equals zero RPs, so you don't 'pay your scientists' unless you allocate money. I have a problem with the Viceroy massively overdriving research on planets with military builds and infrastructure than needs researching. I'd have to check to be real sure, but it seems to happen mostly on planets with no research facilities. I'm seeming to have less problems with it in my current game, but then I made darn sure I put one research DEA on almost every planet. When I do notice it happening, it has seemed to be the planet with no research DEA yet that is pumping out all that waste money. Which is why my sig. :D

4. How do you benefit? I think I'm seeing the habitability ratings change when I have a colony ship of a magnate race trying to select a target (mainly for system colonies), but I'm not 100% sure on that. Anyway, when you start getting several magnate races and/or conquered populations in your empire, you should simply see more and more of the habitablity zones going green, since you will start covering many of the possiblilities. A new colony or outpost simply doesn't take all that many people and as your empire starts getting more diverse, you should have some population everywhere for emigration duty.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Krallus
I don't think that's right.

If you have 20 Test Tubes and 0% AUs being put into Research, you get 0 Research Points.

You're absolutely correct. My error (see - I'm really not micro-managing. :)

[TomHughes]

ECONOMICS 101 (part 2.2)

Note: I'm still having trouble with formatting so please bare with the "_" as spacers in the data tables.

Bioharvest DEAs

Bioharvest DEAs produce bioharvest(food) (and the AU’s from using that food) and AUs from rare byproducts.
All DEAs require pop to run. There are three levels of pop requirements, high, med, and low.
There are also three cost basis for DEAs, high, med, and low.
Bioharvest DEAs have a MED pop requirement and a LOW cost basis. Therefore, they are not quite as attractive as mining DEAs (but could be more necessary to avoid starvation) to build on young colonies because of the higher population requirements.

1) BIOHARVEST OUTPUT

The formula for determining the bioharvest output of a bioharvest DEA is as follows:
(Base efficiency + Base efficiency mods ) * Efficiency mods * DEA Capacity
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BASE EFFICIENCY – This is the basic bioharvest output of the bioharvest DEA before any mods affect it. You can think of this as the starting productivity of the DEA. The base efficiency of a bioharvest DEA depends on which region it is placed (only mining and bioharvest DEAs are so effected) and is as follows:

First, bioharvest base efficiency is affected by the fertility and terrain of the region it is placed in. To get a better picture of just what exactly determines the fertility of a region I have included a table below.

Displayed as ecosystem density on top by habitability ring along the side

Maple leaf color_grass-green__green-brown__brown______red-brown_______red
_______________Very Dense__Dense______Average_____Sparse_____Very Sparse

Paradise_______Lush_______Alluvial______Fertile_______Arable______Hardscrable
Homeworld_____Alluvial______Fertile______Arable_______Hardscrable_Subsistence
Green 1________Fertile ______Arable______Hardscrabble_Subsistence___Barren
Green 2________Arable______Hardscrabble_Subsistence___Barren_______Hostile
Yellow 1_______Hardscrabble_Subsistence__Barren_______Hostile_______Toxic
Yellow 2_______Subsistence__Barren______Hostile_______Toxic________Toxic
Red 1__________Barren______Hostile _____Toxic________Toxic________Toxic
Red 2__________Hostile _____ Toxic ______Toxic________Toxic________Toxic


Fertility is a measure of how favorable the region is for supporting life compatible to a particular species. Fertility affects the base efficiency of a bioharvest DEA placed in and the maximum population growth rate of that region.
Ecosystem Density is the measure of the biomass of the region. It has a range from very dense (dense tropical forest) to very sparse (desert). And is shown by the color of the maple leaf on each region of the planetary infrastructure display. The ecosystem density of a region doesn’t change with respect to species(I.e. it is the same no matter who is looking at the planet). The region with the best ecosystem density has the best fertility. Also, if a region has a grass-green maple leaf (very dense ecosystem density) it has the best fertility allowed for a planet of that habitability ring.
A quick rational for regions having the same fertility but different habitability/ecosystem density levels. A Green 2 planet with Very sparse region is able to support about the same amount of compatible life as a Red 2 planet with very dense region hence they both have the same fertility (hostile). The second planet region can support more total biomass but only a small percentage of that biomass would be compatible.

The habitability ring is determined by the location of the planet on the habitability display (temperature and atmospheric density) and the distance of that planet to the ideal habitability of a particular species.
Each horizontal row represents a planet habitability ring with the full range of fertility allowed for that habitability ring. Ecosystem density is the only factor that gives a variance to the fertility of the regions on a planet in a particular habitability ring.

If a planet is terraformed one level, all regions will improve one fertility level (except some toxic regions – I don’t distinguish between toxic levels of a region; if exposure to a region that is toxic harms in 5 minutes or 60 minutes, it matters very little as in either case you’re hurt )

If a region is regionally terraformed one level (one ecological infrastructure building added improving the ecosystem density of that region one level) its fertility will also improve one level (again, except some toxic regions).

Now, lets talk about biodiversity. Biodiversity is kind of the bioharvest counterpart of mineral richness. But you tend to find higher biodiversity with older solar systems (the opposite of mineral richness) Biodiversity has two effects in the game. 1) Affects starting ecosystem density of the planet. Each region has the same chance of starting with any ecosystem density on a planet with a biodiversity of Heterogeneous. Higher biodiversity increases the chance of each region starting with a higher ecosystem density. 2) Affects the amount of AUs generated by rare byproducts from bioharvest DEAs on that planet.


OK, now that I have given you a glimmer of how planet development works (I’ll explain more when I cover solar system creation), here’s bioharvest base efficiency:

Geodic Species Table
____________Regional Dominant
Regional_____Terrain Type
Fertility____Mountain__Broken__Plain
Lush_________14_______12_____10
Alluvial_______10________8______6
Fertile ________6________5______4
Arable ________4________3______2
Hardscrabble___3________2______1
Subsistence____2________1______0
Barren ________1______0.5______0
Hostile________0________0______0
Toxic_________0________0______0

Cybernetik Species Table
____________Regional Dominant
Regional____Terrain Type
Fertility____Mountain__Broken__Plain
Lush_________12______12______12
Alluvial________8_______8_______8
Fertile ________5_______5_______5
Arable ________3_______3_______3
Hardscrabble___2_______2_______2
Subsistence____1_______1_______1
Barren________0.5______0.5_____0.5
Hostile________0_______0_______0
Toxic_________0_______0_______0

All Other Species Table
____________Regional Dominant
Regional____Terrain Type
Fertility____Mountain__Broken__Plain
Lush _________10______12______14
Alluvial ________6_______8______10
Fertile_________4_______5_______6
Arable_________2_______3_______4
Hardscrabble ___1_______2_______3
Subsistence ____0_______1_______2
Barren_________0______0.5______1
Hostile_________0_______0 ______0
Toxic__________0_______0_______0

Note: Remember, this is base bioharvest efficiency. Having a "0" only means that building a bioharvest DEA on that region needs a building or achievement to raise the bioharvest efficiency above zero.

A bioharvest DEA placed in a region with plains terrain and alluvial fertility (the first region on all homeworld planets) would have a base efficiency of 10 for most species except for cybernetik (8) or geodic (6). That bioharvest DEA would produce 10,8,or 6 bioharvest (depending on which species occupies that region) if no other mods affected it.

BASE EFFICIENCY MODS are mods that directly affect the base efficiency of the DEA and are added to the base efficiency before any other mods take effect. They consist of:
(species mods + race picks + bioharvest DEA buildings + bioharvest DEA planetary builds + bioharvest achievements)

species mods

Elder Civilization (Antarans) EFFICIENCY +2, RARE 1.3

race picks (Bioharvest)

EFFICIENCY____RARE
Superior (+2)_____1.3
Good (+1)_______1.15
Average (0)______1
Poor (-1)________0.85


Below is a table for the rest of the mods organized by increasing techs. The numbers in () represent the mod to base bioharvest efficiency. Don’t be fooled by the small numbers. These mods can have a MUCH greater impact on the final output of the farm because they are factored in FIRST before any other mods. A +1 could give a net boost of 25 to bioharvest output late in the game.

cost___Tech Lvl___________DEA Bld_________Planetary Bld______Achievement
25___Bio Sc 10_______Automated Biocare (+1)
60___Bio Sc 20_____Byproduct Reprocessing (+2)
60*__ Bio Sc 23_______________________Orbital Biomonitoring (+1)
0____ Bio Sc 28 (+Phys 25)_____________________________Biomorphic Fungi(+1)
100__Bio Sc 30_______Genetic Engineering (+3)
175*_Phys 39 (+MC 36)__________________Helio Regulator (+2)
0____Bio Sc 45 (+Phys 42)________________________Mineralmorphic Bacteria(+2)
150__Antaran_______Dyno Mutant Victuals (+4)

Any secondary tech requirement is shown as “(+tech lvl)”. That secondary tech lvl, if present, must also be satisfied before you can develop that tech.

* the cost is multiplied by the square root of the number of regions on the planet. Therefore the multiplier has a range of 1-3.46. Weigh the benefit/cost before building one of these planetary buildings because the cost is the same regardless of the number of bioharvest DEAs present on the planet (I.e. don’t build one if there are no bioharvest DEAs on the planet).

Note: both bioharvest achievements (Biomorphic Fungi and Mineralmorphic Bacteria) do more than just add to the base efficiency of bioharvest DEAs. They also expand the range of habitability rings that will allow bioharvest DEAs to be built. Normally, you can’t build a bioharvest DEA on a planet with a Yellow 2, Red 1or Red 2 habitability ring. But one or both achievements will reduce or eliminate this restriction.

Biomorphic Fungi__________expands bioharvesting 2 rings
Mineralmorphic Bacteria_____expands bioharvesting 1 ring


EFFICIENCY MODS are mods that usually affect all DEAs on the planet and are
(Infrastructure*Gravity*Leaders*Government type*Morale*Pollution*Specials*Moon mod*
DEA productivity from population)
I will cover this later since it pertains to all DEAs on the planet.
I will partially explain two of these mods now because of player requests and the fact that they influence the output of DEAs on your homeworld from the beginning of the game.
DEA productivity from population – that number is shown on the planet screen and represents the multiplier used to increase the efficiency of all DEAs on the planet.

Government type –

Gov series____________Gov type______Bioharvest__Mineral__Industrial__Research
ABSOLUTIST_________ Despotism_________0.8______1.0______1.2_______0.95
___________________ Monarchy__________0.8______1.0______1.3_______0.9
___________________ Oligarchy__________0.9______0.9______1.0_______1.2
___________________ Const.Monarchy____1.0______1.0______1.0_______1.0

REPRESENTATIVE_____ Corporate_________1.2______1.2______1.1_______1.05
___________________ Democracy________1.15_____1.1______1.1_______1.05
___________________ Parliamentary______1.0______1.2______1.3_______1.05
___________________ Republicanism_____1.0______1.2______1.2_______1.05

COLLECTIVIST_______ Hive____________1.15______1.2______1.1_______1.05
____________________Unification_______1.1_______1.15_____1.05______1.2

There are additional areas that Gov mods affect but because of format restrictions I will post the rest later.

DEA CAPACITY is from the DEA (always one) and any capacity buildings present AND any FLUs present( I forgot to include FLUs in mining capacity – it is the same as presented here). All Capacity buildings require additional population to run and represent the “extensiveness” of the DEA facilities. These buildings generally give a greater boost to bioharvest production than efficiency buildings but cost more to build/maintain and require population to run.

Cost___Tech Lvl__________Capacity Bld____________________Pop requirements
50_________0___________Bioharvest DEA--- (1)_______________________0.67
40_____Bio Science 5____ Soil Enrichment (+0.5 or +50%)_______________0.67
100___ Bio Science 15___ Controlled Environment Farming(+1 or +100%)___0.67
180___ Bio Science 25___ Soil Rejuvenators (+1.5 or +150%)_____________0.67
300___ Bio Science 35___ Ecosystem Controller (+2 or +200%)___________0.67

If you have all 4 capacity buildings present in a bioharvest DEA the total capacity would be 6 and the pop requirements to run at 100% would be 3.35 pop. Up to 6 organtic FLUs could also employed.

Organic FLUs – the capacity of DEAs can also be increased by employing organic FLUs. For each full integer capacity a DEA has one FLU can be employed (I.e. a DEA with a capacity of 6 could employ a maximum of 6 organic FLUs). The benefit to the DEA employing FLUs depends on the number employed and the FLU Oppressometer setting. Each organtic FLU employed at a DEA increases the capacity of said DEA by 0.1 times the Oppressometer setting (0-10) giving a net benefit of 0.0 – 1.0 capacity increase for each FLU employed. Theoretically, assuming maximum FLUs employed and maximum oppressometerare setting, organic FLUs could double the capacity (and hence the production) of most DEAs.

Robotic FLUs – I will talk about this later.

2) AU’s FROM BIOHARVEST PRODUCED
The amount of money earned from the usage of bioharvest depends on how they are used.

Consumed as food – 20 AUs/bioharvest
Consumed by Industrial DEAs to create Industry – 10 AUs/bioharvest
Any excess sold off – 5 AUs/bioharvest – this is multiplied by (100% - the unemployment rate) to simulate supply and demand for the excess minerals.

Note that the prices for bioharvest are lower than minerals. I did this for two reasons. 1) Most species consume bioharvset as food (getting the better price). 2) Regional fertility can be improved by techs, allowing the eventual possibility for all regions to be terraformed to the best fertility (lush). Mining has no such benefit.

Below is the money earned by a bioharvest DEA producing only the bioharvest from its base efficiency (all other mods having no effect in this example) and having ALL of the bioharvest produced consumed by Industrial DEAs on the same or shipped any other planet.


Regional Dominant
Terrain Type Ordered
By Species Preference

Geodic_____Mountain___Broken_____Plain
Cybernetic_____________ALL
All Other______Plain____Broken __Mountain

Regional___ Favorable__Neutral__Unfavorable
Fertility
Lush_________140______120______100
Alluvial_______100_______80_______60
Fertile ________60_______50_______40
Arable________40_______30 _______20
Hardscrabble __30_______20 _______10
Subsistence ___20_______10________0
Barren________10________5________0
Hostile_________0________0________0
Toxic__________0________0________0



DOUBLE these numbers if all the minerals are consumed as food and HALF them if all are sold off as excess.


3) AU’s FROM RARE BIOHARVEST BYPRODUCTS
This represents any exotic/rare compounds from life forms found during the bioharvesting process and gives a bonus to AU’s produced by the farm without affecting its normal output.

The formula is: AUs = Bioharvest produced * biodiversity factor * 2.5 * race pick
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This formula is illustrated below assuming a bioharvest DEA with only it’s base efficiency:

Regional____Terrain Preference of Species
Fertility____Favorable_Neutral_Unfavorable
Lush__________14______12_______10
Alluvial________10_______8________6
Fertile _________6_______5________4
Arable_________4_______3________2
Hardscrabble ___3_______2________1
Subsistence ____2_______1________0
Barren_________1______0.5_______0
Hostile_________0_______0________0
Toxic__________0_______0________0


Times biodivestity factor

______Very Similar_____Simular____ Heterogeneous____Diverse_____Very Diverse
___________1___________2___________3_____________5____________8

times
tuning variable of 2.5* race pick
gives a result of
Regional
Fertility
Lush___35_30_25____70_60_50___105_90_75___175_150_125____280_240_200
Alluvial_25_20_15____50_40_30____75_60_45___125_100__75____200_160_120
Fertile__15_13_10____30_25_20____45_38_30____75__63__50____120_100_80
Arable__10__8_ 5____20_15_10____30_23_15____50__38__25_____80__60_40
Hardsc__8__5__3____15_10__5____23_15__8____38__25__13_____60__40_20
Subsist__5__3__0____10__5__0____15__8__0____25__13___0_____40__20__0
Barren __3__1__0_____5__3__0_____8__4__0____13___6___0_____20__10__0
Hostile __0__0__0_____0__0__0_____0__0__0____0____0___0______0___0__0
Toxic____0__0__0_____0__0__0_____0__0__0____0____0___0______0___0__0

Note: the table above lists the AUs from rare bioharvest for each biodiversity level and each terrain preference (favorable, neutral, unfavorable) of the species.


The ratio of (AUs produced from using bioharvest : AUs from rare byproducts) is determined by the biodiversity of the planet. As you can see the bonus from rare bioharvest is trivial for Very Sparse planets but is very significant for planets that are Very Dense (being equal to the AU’s earned from consuming all the bioharvest as food – the max price for bioharvest).

The main purpose of the rare bioharvest bonus (and a similar bonus to mining) is to give an incentive to place bioharvesting or mining DEAs on planets with very good regions for these DEAs regardless of the need for the bioharvest or minerals they produce. As the game progresses the need for bioharvest and mineral DEAs will diminish and I don’t want these DEAs to become rather useless like farmers did late game in MOO2. This rare bonus will allow bioharvest DEAs to be viable choices for planets with good biodiversity even late in the game and especially desirable when the need for bioharvest is significant.

Regional bioharvest buildings.

There two buildings that produce bioharvest (but no rare bioharvest) at the regional level without the need for a bioharvest DEA in that region. They are:

cost___Tech Lvl____________________Regional Bld________Bioharvest produced
15___Bio Science 02________________ Hydroponic Farms__________0.5
45___Physics 18 (+Bio Science 15)____ Subterranean Farms________1.0

These buildings allow planets to produce a nominal amount of bioharvest without needing to devote a DEA slot to bioharvesting. This benefit is significant on planets that are unable to place bioharvest DEAs because of poor habitability. A little food is a LOT better than no food when it comes to starvation.

Tom Hughes, designer, MOO3

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Buggerthis
2. 'Formations' are useless in the ground combat game we have, it is a puffed up way to allow players some 'control' over the situation when really it is a massive blind man's bluff version of paper/scissors/rock. The only value of it is when someone figures out how race X will tend to pick and the best countermove to those picks. I've played games with this kind of 'tactical' feature before, you do just as well picking blindly out of a cup, especially since it also avoids you setting up a pattern of behavior your opponent can key into......

I'm still working on this one (not enough time to play to have reached a conclusion yet), but I'm not sure this is true. In most games where this type of tactical system has been implemented, the tactic corresponds to a particular "style" of combat. For example, an Echelon corresponds to a "scare 'em off the field" approach to combat, with the goal of overwhelming the enemy with your apparent numbers without risking the casualties of an all-out assault. Out-flank relies on speed, with a similar shock value designed to make 'em run and kill 'em when they do.

If that's the case, then the picks aren't necessarily a "rock/paper/scissors" since you'll want to select a pick that reflects your force composition and ground combat advantages. I'll have to play more (and admittedly, get better at ship design - I always have the steepest learning curve in this area) to see if that turns out to be true.

3. Zero in research equals zero RPs, so you don't 'pay your scientists' unless you allocate money. I have a problem with the Viceroy massively overdriving research on planets with military builds and infrastructure than needs researching. I'd have to check to be real sure, but it seems to happen mostly on planets with no research facilities. I'm seeming to have less problems with it in my current game, but then I made darn sure I put one research DEA on almost every planet. When I do notice it happening, it has seemed to be the planet with no research DEA yet that is pumping out all that waste money. Which is why my sig. :D

Yeah, I messed up that answer. I suspect your research issue relates to your Empire's setting for "Guns or Butter." Up the amount the Viceroy can spend on military, and it very well might solve itself.

4. How do you benefit? I think I'm seeing the habitability ratings change when I have a colony ship of a magnate race trying to select a target (mainly for system colonies), but I'm not 100% sure on that. Anyway, when you start getting several magnate races and/or conquered populations in your empire, you should simply see more and more of the habitablity zones going green, since you will start covering many of the possiblilities. A new colony or outpost simply doesn't take all that many people and as your empire starts getting more diverse, you should have some population everywhere for emigration duty.

I have had magnates "go forth and multiply," and they do go after different systems based on (what appears to be) their preference for systems. The problem? The AI really blows chunks at colonization in my view, and it's too damned hard for me to figure out whether Colony Ship X has race Y on it and send it to the right spot. The MOB Centers are the issue here - since the ship doesn't "show up" at the system that produced it a la MOO 1 & 2 and instead goes into the reserve, I can't be sure that it's the race I want unless I watch the Sitrep very, very carefully and dispatch the ship before I get multiples in the reserve. And lord help me if 2 get completed on the same turn.

[Roack]

Originally posted by TomHughes

There two buildings that produce bioharvest (but no rare bioharvest) at the regional level without the need for a bioharvest DEA in that region. They are:

cost___Tech Lvl____________________Regional Bld________Bioharvest produced
15___Bio Science 02________________ Hydroponic Farms__________0.5
45___Physics 18 (+Bio Science 15)____ Subterranean Farms________1.0

These buildings allow planets to produce a nominal amount of bioharvest without needing to devote a DEA slot to bioharvesting. This benefit is significant on planets that are unable to place bioharvest DEAs because of poor habitability. A little food is a LOT better than no food when it comes to starvation.

Tom Hughes, designer, MOO3

First, thanks for all the info!

Secondly, on hydro farms etc, from my experience these only build on worlds that have at least 1 bioharvest DEA.

Quick questions: a) is this true, and b) what can i do about it ;)

[TomHughes]

Originally posted by Roack
First, thanks for all the info!

Secondly, on hydro farms etc, from my experience these only build on worlds that have at least 1 bioharvest DEA.

Quick questions: a) is this true, and b) what can i do about it ;)

No it is not true. Those regional bioharvest buildings are indepentant of bioharvest DEAs.

Tom Hughes

[Roack]

Originally posted by TomHughes
No it is not true. Those regional bioharvest buildings are indepentant of bioharvest DEAs.

Tom Hughes

Hate to harp on a subject, but I went and checked a save game (turn 200 or so), and I had exactly 3 planets that had hydros but no bioharvest (all planets with bioharvest had hydros).

The 3 were my home planet (which I had ripped them down), and two captured planets that I had ripped them down (food surplus heh).

So either I am bugged or doing something wrong, I'll go check the bug board.

Cheers for all the info anyway, much appreciated.

[furryeifle]

perhaps since (as i've come to understand) hydrofarms etc. are built by the same push that drives the viceroy to construct bioharvest DEA's, and no such push exsists in systems where no bio deas are built that is why you have no hydros there? Not because it's forbidden, but because they haven't been told to construct them? just a thought.

@Tom
While i'm here i thought i'd ask a pretty quick question. When you were discussing system tax you referred to it being equal to the systax%*(GDP+Trade). Did i read you wrong or is that where all of my seemingly unused trade from spaceport dollars are going? (similar effects for empire tax and planetary tax i assume, taken as fractions of the sum GDP+trade...)

That's been buggin' me for a good long while now :).

[msgBoardFlamer]

Originally posted by TomHughes
No it is not true. Those regional bioharvest buildings are indepentant of bioharvest DEAs.

Tom Hughes

Actually, it is true. Maybe it isn't true that it is intended to be true. But it is true.

I promise.

I think the game has huge problems (bugs) with the DEA:s in general, but I don't know if that (the bugs) is your department.

[saetrum]

Geodic______Plain____Broken___Mountain
Cybernetic_____________ALL
All Other___Mountain__Broken __Plain

Regional___ Favorable__Neutral__Unfavorable
Fertility
Lush_________140______120______100
Alluvial_______100_______80_______60
Fertile ________60_______50_______40
Arable________40_______30 _______20
Hardscrabble __30_______20 _______10
Subsistence ___20_______10________0
Barren________10________5________0
Hostile_________0________0________0
Toxic__________0________0________0


I believe the above is backwards for Geodic and Other species...i.e. mountain should be favaorable for geodic and plain favorable for others...is that correct?

[Caesar MMII]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by TomHughes
No it is not true. Those regional bioharvest buildings are indepentant of bioharvest DEAs.

Tom Hughes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by msgBoardFlamer
Actually, it is true. Maybe it isn't true that it is intended to be true. But it is true.

I promise.

I think the game has huge problems (bugs) with the DEA:s in general, but I don't know if that (the bugs) is your department.

Hydrofarms do build quite nicely for me on planets with no Bioharvest DEAs.

This is on a large world; Frontier/Large; no dev plan for Frontier;
Mfg,Gov,Mil dev plan for Large; Red terraform ring.

Bioharvest has no chance. Hydroponics farms in every region.

Empire development policy is Natural.

The results may be true for you, but they are not universally true.

[Dagda]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Roack
Hate to harp on a subject, but I went and checked a save game (turn 200 or so), and I had exactly 3 planets that had hydros but no bioharvest (all planets with bioharvest had hydros).

But was your empire in a state where the additional food would have been necessary? I look at the Viceroy as taking a very pragmatic approach to construction (build what I need most for colony survival, then roll into the "niceties"), which would preclude investing money & resources in a building that the planet doesn't have a demand for. Now perhaps how the demand is defined could be improved (if food needed=90% of food supplied, up the probability of building hydros or other buildings), but if that's the approach that the Viceroy uses, then so long as the food is coming from somewhere and your DP for the system doesn't include "Farm," then I wouldn't expect the construction of food producing buildings. In fact, I might even be disappointed if the Viceroy chose to "burden" me with additional expenses for buildings I didn't need in the first place.

[saetrum]

I am a little bit of an organization freak, which means you can all benefit if you would like.:D :D

If anyone wants the mining and bioharvest info in an easy to read MS Word Doc with some color coded tables (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dsaetrum4/econ_basics.doc),
here it is (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dsaetrum4/econ_basics.doc).

:eek:

edit: Tom, if you find any mistakes or for some reason do not want me to make this available in this format, let me know.

Anyone else, if you find mistakes let me know...

[msgBoardFlamer]

Originally posted by Caesar MMII
quote:

Hydrofarms do build quite nicely for me on planets with no Bioharvest DEAs.

This is on a large world; Frontier/Large; no dev plan for Frontier;
Mfg,Gov,Mil dev plan for Large; Red terraform ring.

Bioharvest has no chance. Hydroponics farms in every region.

Empire development policy is Natural.

The results may be true for you, but they are not universally true.

I've just recently heard others say that as well, and I checked one of my later game files and it is true that it is not generally true, even though it seems to be somewhat true as some planets in that very save file had planets w/o bioharvesting that had no hydroponic farms either (one had though).

But the fact is, that it is a bug that happens to many people, and this bug must be fixed. Sorry if I seem to be ranting the NED bugs, but I think it is important!

It also seems that there is one DEA or DEA addon that seems to lock the whole NED area up. If you find and delete this DEA the NED production continiues on that planet. But that could take time and effort to find that single (if there is only one) DEA that locks it up, to say the least.


EDIT:

Originally posted by saetrum
I am a little bit of an organization freak, which means you can all benefit if you would like.

Very nice :) :up:

They should let you write the manual and even pay you for it.

Good work!

I'm gonna save this on my harddrive before they decide to charge you for breaking the copyright law. :D

[Daveybaby]

Originally posted by saetrum
If anyone wants the mining and bioharvest info in an easy to read MS Word Doc with some color coded tables (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dsaetrum4/Econ%20Basics.doc),
here it is (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dsaetrum4/Econ%20Basics.doc).
No, it isnt.

Cant see that file nowhere. Its gone.

[RobNelson]

Funny, when I click on the underlined text, I'm immediately asked if I want to open or save the document. It's there for me.

Edit: It seems to be just a doc, not a page (the page itself is blank). So if you checked the box to always save the file, you may already have it.

[Hari]

Originally posted by Daveybaby
No, it isnt.

Cant see that file nowhere. Its gone.

The link works for me. I got the file on my harddrive right.....now.
If you need it, I could mail it to you. If you like.

BTW saetrum, great job.

[TomHughes]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TomHughes
[B]ECONOMICS 101 (part 2.2)

Regional Dominant
Terrain Type Ordered
By Species Preference

Geodic_____Mountain___Broken_____Plain
Cybernetic_____________ALL
All Other______Plain____Broken __Mountain

Regional___ Favorable__Neutral__Unfavorable
Fertility
Lush_________140______120______100
Alluvial_______100_______80_______60
Fertile ________60_______50_______40
Arable________40_______30 _______20
Hardscrabble __30_______20 _______10
Subsistence ___20_______10________0
Barren________10________5________0
Hostile_________0________0________0
Toxic__________0________0________0



Fixed...thanks for spotting this saetrum.
And I don't mind at all if you want set my post to a word doc. I primarily work in Excel for tables, not Word, so I'm a little clumsy with tables in Word. Eventually, all of my posts will be put in a pdf or Word doc.

Tom Hughes

[Mixalot]

Tom. You are the man. No doubt.

Best post so far. Much appreciated.

Mixing Worlds

Ohh. And BTW. Very nice works SAETRUM. It'll go straight onto my blackbord. Very good of you to share your work with us!

[visage]

Two things I expect someone's mentioned by now, but....

a) Those comments about "these per-planet improvements can be really expensive, so think carefully about whether you'll benefit from them before you build them." The AI's gonna build them for us, right? Is there any way to tell the AI "Bad AI! No Biscuit! No build the Orbital Lithoscanners!" apart from turning it off?

b) The way I've done tables on these boards is to use the

foo bar baz
A 13 42
B 17 289

markup

[Dagda]

Originally posted by visage
Two things I expect someone's mentioned by now, but....

a) Those comments about "these per-planet improvements can be really expensive, so think carefully about whether you'll benefit from them before you build them." The AI's gonna build them for us, right? Is there any way to tell the AI "Bad AI! No Biscuit! No build the Orbital Lithoscanners!" apart from turning it off?


I think Tom's recognizing the existence of the various mods that allow the player to build the structures directly rather than letting the Viceroy do so.

And the degree of control we can excercise to guide the Viceroy is already quite the hot topic in other threads. :)

[saetrum]

Daveybaby -
I'm happy to e-mail to you if you want it and still can't get it. As was mentioned, the link goes directly to a MS Word doc. You might have to right click and save as... to get it.

I'm glad people are finding it useful. I'll try to keep it updated with the latest stuff...unless QS comes out with its own version.

Let me know if you find mistakes or need the tables clarified.

[JimHet]

Hey Tom - GREAT WORK!! :up: :up:

Your posts are really what the included manual, master's notes and readme are missing.
Originally posted by TomHughes
Eventually, all of my posts will be put in a pdf or Word doc.
That would be very nice.

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by visage
a) Those comments about "these per-planet improvements can be really expensive, so think carefully about whether you'll benefit from them before you build them." The AI's gonna build them for us, right? Is there any way to tell the AI "Bad AI! No Biscuit! No build the Orbital Lithoscanners!" apart from turning it off?

These buildings fall under PlanPlan classification. PlanPlan are buildings that get built through the Planetary Build Queue. (PlanSecu get built under the Military Build Queue. PlanEcon are built in the background by the viceroy.)

I think that if you turn of the EconAI, it won't touch your planetary or military build queues.

Of course, I've had the idea that structures like these (as well as shipyard upgrades) should be built by the viceroy based on some so-obvious-it'd-be-stupid-not-to-build criteria. For instance, if a world has 1/2 of available slots occupied by that type of DEA, would that be enough? Or would you prefer 2/3? There has to be a point at which it's so obvious that it should be built that you'd never scream at the viceroy for building it.

I know that, for instance, if a viceroy built one of these planetary structures on a size 9 planet, when I only have one DEA of that type, I'd scream my head off at the viceroy. But if that planet had a dozen of those DEAs and the viceroy STILL wouldn't build that structure, I'd be screaming again at the viceroy.

[Roack]

Originally posted by Pragmatic

I know that, for instance, if a viceroy built one of these planetary structures on a size 9 planet, when I only have one DEA of that type, I'd scream my head off at the viceroy. But if that planet had a dozen of those DEAs and the viceroy STILL wouldn't build that structure, I'd be screaming again at the viceroy.

I hate viceroys. In my current game it is building structures to make the ecosystem density of already maxed out regions higher, while still refusing to build automated factories when i have a huge mineral surplus and a crapload of population.

[mindlar]

Originally posted by Daveybaby
No, it isnt.

Cant see that file nowhere. Its gone.

Davey-
The problem isn't on your end. Documents that are being posted on the web shouldn't have names that have any whitespace in them.

Saetrum-

Try renaming the file to Econ_Basics.doc. That will make it available to people that aren't using the latest version of IE on a windows machine.

[saetrum]

Originally posted by mindlar
Davey-
The problem isn't on your end. Documents that are being posted on the web shouldn't have names that have any whitespace in them.

Saetrum-

Try renaming the file to Econ_Basics.doc. That will make it available to people that aren't using the latest version of IE on a windows machine.

You're absolutely right Mindlar...I had renamed the file, but I put the wrong version up on the web. The problem should be resolved...both in my signature and my original post.

I've fixed a few typos and changed the formatting (tables are no longer split by pages).

Tom-
I notice that the bioharvest info takes into account the differences in species (Geodic farm in the mountains, etc.), but the mining information you gave us doesn't show any differences. (In fact the spreadsheets seem to reflect this...geodic mine better in mountains still, etc.) Have those differences been removed from the game (geodic mine better in the plains, etc.) or did you just not add them to the post?

[Shuma]

Geodics don't mine better in plains, they still like mountains like everyone else.

[Shuma]

Tom, one thing you've mentioned so far in both your Econ posts is the moon modifier. How do moons affect your planet's production? There's no information in game about this, all you see is the number and size of the moons.

Also, could you elaborate on FLUs? It's great to see information about them, but things are still fuzzy. All the player gets to see is the total number of FLUs on a planet. How can you tell which ones go to which DEAs? Also, why would you ever disable FLUs? Do you get any benefit besides being able to say that your race is culturally advanced enough to not support slavery?

It would be nice if you hovered over the DEA production numbers, you could get a tooltip that explains where that number comes from. Super wishful thinking, I realize. Remembering MOO2, you could hover over your production numbers and see EXACTLY where they came from. A player could realize that the leader they were using wasn't really effective, or they could see how morale really upped your production by a ton, etc.

[smellymummy]

Originally posted by Shuma
Also, why would you ever disable FLUs? Do you get any benefit besides being able to say that your race is culturally advanced enough to not support slavery? I think it's an unrest related thing. At least thats what the master notes seem to hint at when you're at that screen.

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by Shuma
Tom, one thing you've mentioned so far in both your Econ posts is the moon modifier. How do moons affect your planet's production? There's no information in game about this, all you see is the number and size of the moons.

There are four types of mines.

Mineral rich mines are averaged with your planet's mineral richness. If it's higher, you get a boost to mineral richness. If it's lower, you end up with a drop to mineral richness (as I found out the hard way, when playing with racemodifiers.txt :) ).

High biodiversity worlds act the same way.

Habitable worlds add room for more population. Whether that population can cross to different regions, I don't know.

And finally, some moons give a boost to your production.

So, it'd be nice to get a little of each, with more to production. :) But just getting several habitable worlds, if you can split the extra population, would go a long way to allowing multiple regions having 2 Industry DEAs.

[Shuma]

Hey Pragmatic, thanks for trying, but you don't really know the information I'm looking for. I think only the developers do. You say moons give a boost to production and/or habitable space, and/or biodiversity, etc. What I want to know is, "How much?"

With the information that Tom has provided, I can actually go through and figure out exactly (mostly) how DEAs work. I can make informed decisions about which DEAs to put where, because concrete numbers are used.

It's a general problem with the game. In so many cases, the player is presented with tons of numbers and you have no idea where they came from. You are barely given a general idea of what affects what. The government descriptors are perfect examples of this.

Corporate - Industry is "extremely efficient"
Hive - Industry is "quite effective"

Both governments give you a 110% bonus to industrial production. I'm looking for hard numbers here.


The worst part about it is I see no information whatsoever on moons. In game, there's no way to tell anything about them, aside from their general size and habitability. Are moons important at all? Or can I just forget em?

Actually I lied, the TRULY worst part about it is even if they are very important, it doesn't matter. Early on, if it's Green 2 or above, I colonize it. And later, I colonize pretty much anything. Moons have nothing to do with it.

Just nice to know, I guess...

[Buggerthis]

Originally posted by Dagda
Originally posted by Buggerthis
2. 'Formations' are useless in the ground combat game we have, it is a puffed up way to allow players some 'control' over the situation when really it is a massive blind man's bluff version of paper/scissors/rock. The only value of it is when someone figures out how race X will tend to pick and the best countermove to those picks. I've played games with this kind of 'tactical' feature before, you do just as well picking blindly out of a cup, especially since it also avoids you setting up a pattern of behavior your opponent can key into......

I'm still working on this one (not enough time to play to have reached a conclusion yet), but I'm not sure this is true. In most games where this type of tactical system has been implemented, the tactic corresponds to a particular "style" of combat. For example, an Echelon corresponds to a "scare 'em off the field" approach to combat, with the goal of overwhelming the enemy with your apparent numbers without risking the casualties of an all-out assault. Out-flank relies on speed, with a similar shock value designed to make 'em run and kill 'em when they do.

If that's the case, then the picks aren't necessarily a "rock/paper/scissors" since you'll want to select a pick that reflects your force composition and ground combat advantages. I'll have to play more (and admittedly, get better at ship design - I always have the steepest learning curve in this area) to see if that turns out to be true.

4. How do you benefit? I think I'm seeing the habitability ratings change when I have a colony ship of a magnate race trying to select a target (mainly for system colonies), but I'm not 100% sure on that. Anyway, when you start getting several magnate races and/or conquered populations in your empire, you should simply see more and more of the habitablity zones going green, since you will start covering many of the possiblilities. A new colony or outpost simply doesn't take all that many people and as your empire starts getting more diverse, you should have some population everywhere for emigration duty.

I have had magnates "go forth and multiply," and they do go after different systems based on (what appears to be) their preference for systems. The problem? The AI really blows chunks at colonization in my view, and it's too damned hard for me to figure out whether Colony Ship X has race Y on it and send it to the right spot. The MOB Centers are the issue here - since the ship doesn't "show up" at the system that produced it a la MOO 1 & 2 and instead goes into the reserve, I can't be sure that it's the race I want unless I watch the Sitrep very, very carefully and dispatch the ship before I get multiples in the reserve. And lord help me if 2 get completed on the same turn.

2. That would be interesting, the only board game I haven't gotten too upset about 'tactical manuver' choices was one with leader units and there was some limits on your choices from the various leadership stats. Putting it off on force composition might make it work. I just haven't gotten a lot into invasions yet, I'm still trying to make things behave on the dev plan level and unfortunately, the best and smoothest way to make things work is to preplan the builds for each new colony as it comes online. :down:

Of course, this means boring games by turn 100-150 since I haven't jacked up the AI with Grey mod yet, but I am getting some handles on empire management efficiency, at least for the Ithkul. When I change species, things get different. ;)

4. I haven't even bothered with it yet. I mark planets for colonies and the next ship on the list gets sent there. IMO, the AI is matching up the race on the ship to the best possible habitability choice, but I'm not sure. Doesn't matter, when the colony ship lands if I don't get a new colony of the same name, I kick over to the planet's tab and set immigration on and let it chug along.

[JimHet]

@Shuma

AFAIK moons are calculated into the numbers we are given belonging to the planets, ie. if the planet has size 5 and the moon gives us another region, we are told the planet has size 6. For biodiversity, mineral richness and so on it should be the same.

So we don't really need to know the numbers moons give us, don't we?

[Daveybaby]

Originally posted by saetrum
Daveybaby -
I'm happy to e-mail to you if you want it and still can't get it. As was mentioned, the link goes directly to a MS Word doc. You might have to right click and save as... to get it.

I'm glad people are finding it useful. I'll try to keep it updated with the latest stuff...unless QS comes out with its own version.

Let me know if you find mistakes or need the tables clarified.
Ah... got it now. Thanks.

Weird - normally my browser takes me straight into word docs.

Edit: oh, of course... it was the whitespace thing.

[Shuma]

Sure, we don't NEED to know the numbers. Heck, we could really do without this whole thread even, or the stuff about racial picks or military strats or government bonuses.

You find interesting things when you look at the numbers though. You may find that some strategies aren't really that effective or don't work as advertised. There are tons of unanswered questions I still have about this game, and the average newbie has hundreds more (and has probably quit by now).

My theory is that moons don't add population space. Some other guy's theory is that they do, and they add other things as well. The only sure thing I know is that they add some sort of production bonus to your DEAs. This is significant, and I want to know how much. What if the best cominbinations of moons gives your planet a 50% production bonus? Or what if it's 2%?

Not knowing this information would be worse than not knowing the effects of the random planet items. They were important enough to at least add to the readme afterwards, and most of their effects are negligible.

[JimHet]

@Shuma

I thought you wanted to know the size, richness, fertility and so on of moons. I meant we don't need to know this extra information, because it is told through planetary info.

But I got you wrong. You wanted the mods of moons. You're right, we need that information. But Tom said, he'll give it to us. So why are you complaining? Patience.

[Roack]

Moon size does not affect the size rating of the planet.

It is easy to add or remove moons from the home planet using the .txt files, and it does not change from size 6.

The max population does change however.

A standard moon for humans on their home world has 3 regions.

[JimHet]

Okay, you're right, Roack. I thougth I've seen same-sized planets with unequal numbers of regions, but that just wasn't true.

[Da_Blade]

Completely OT in this thread, but just replying to some earlier posts.

The ground combat tactics are listed, imo, from most offensive to most defensive from top to bottom in the pull down menu. I usually use a few tactics below the AI "given" one, and have good success doing that. That having said, i still dont have ANY clue to what makes ground combat tick... For one, there's the battleground type, underground, surface or zero-G, who chooses where the battleground will be? The largest force? The defending force? The force with initiative? This seems to be very important, maybe even more so then techs or unit type! I haven't been able to get grips on what EXACTLY determines the battleground type, and what effects more defensive and offensive tactics have on either side? So far you seem to only capture regions based on the number of troops you shoot, not on the tactic used. I actually conquered planets using a spread defense tactic :weird: ... I really wouldn't mind seeing some formulas on ground combat...

If anyone has anything more sensible to say, please start new thread since it seems unfit for this thread :D

I might start some serious testing soon, if i can find the time... ohhh why does there have to be this thing called RL? ;)

[Zhaneel]

Thank you very much for posting this. I have taken the liberty of incorporating them into my FAQ over at GameFAQs.

Credit will be given, of course.

Zhaneel

[Buggerthis]

/hijack on

Originally posted by Daveybaby
Refitting is boring. It results in boring, homogenous fleets and zero strategy. It is yet another BAD idea that Moo2 introduced that people somehow seem to assume is an essential part of the series.

Ever wonder why all soldiers have the same weapon? Why the military would prefer to have squad and personal weapons with the same caliber round? How about everyone using the same radios? The same tanks? In fact, the most serious issues with not refitting are the same ones caused by the transition to the M1 and M2 from the older versions, namely a quantum leap in abilities that had to be held down and hampered by the need to coordinate with the slower and less capable models.

Would a battleship be a 'better' battleship if it was built from the keel up? Absolutely. Would it cost a lot more to build than to refit an older one? Absolutely.

Of course, the ship design/combat side of MOO3 is probably something that should have been abstracted out even heavier than was tried on the strategic side. It really makes little sense the way it is now.

/hijack off

[Da_Blade]

People keep forgetting scrapping brings in quite a bit of cash (you probably sell them to pirates in your enemy's empire ;))

Scrapping ships is no shame. Contrary, its a good way of filling up the empire's treasury, which you can then empty into the military buildqueue to support building new versions. I scrap quite a few bit of ships regularly, i find it much better then sending them off to certain death. I always keep a few to battle pirates in newly conquered systems, or "scout" enemy defenses....

As for your comparison to infantry "refits", giving infantry a new weapon is something a whole lot different then fitting a new cannon on an old tank. Usually new guns come with new armor types, and new engines. If you want new refits, you would have to refit the weapons and engines into the exact same space as the former design. Thus if you had a heavy mount laser taking 7 space, you have to figure out a way to refit it with a new gun that takes the exact amount of space. Armor "refits" should be impossible even. Remember you only give specs for the ship, your empire's ship designer then go round to precisely fine-design the ship given the specs you want. Refitting would have to be restricted this much, and frankly it's not worth it i think.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
As for your comparison to infantry "refits", giving infantry a new weapon is something a whole lot different then fitting a new cannon on an old tank. Usually new guns come with new armor types, and new engines. If you want new refits, you would have to refit the weapons and engines into the exact same space as the former design. Thus if you had a heavy mount laser taking 7 space, you have to figure out a way to refit it with a new gun that takes the exact amount of space. Armor "refits" should be impossible even. Remember you only give specs for the ship, your empire's ship designer then go round to precisely fine-design the ship given the specs you want. Refitting would have to be restricted this much, and frankly it's not worth it i think.

Personally, it doesn't particularly bother me that I can't refit, but it would have been a nice feature.

And re-fitting is very common in the military. The M1A1 Abrams has already had 2 refits from the original version (one improved the gun, one the optics) and there's already another upgrade in the works. The Apache AH-64D is the fourth refit of the basic design. The F/A-18 Hornet has a total of 5 variants (two of which aren't really refits, but larger versions of the original design). Same with the F-14, the E-3, the B-52 (there have been something like 7-10 refits on that plane - it started in the '50s as a prop plane), the F-15, etc. Refitting is a relatively constant thing. And that's just current designs. Go back to the Sherman tank, and you'll find numerous refits there as well.

I don't see it as a required game mechanic, but I can see why folks miss it. I always figured that as long as one wasn't changing the armor (at that point, the work involved would probably be equal to building a new ship), refitting made sense.

[smellymummy]

a refit command would be somewhat simple to implement, by a button in the reserve window, and that would be the only place to be allowed to refit, so that takes care of the command...

but then that would involve redoing a whole lot of rules, such as: where are the PPs coming from to refit the ships, how would the 'refitters' know what to refit the ship too, what is allowed and not allowed in refits, how long would a refit take... the list can go on and on. refitting worked in moo2 because every ship worked on it's own, but to make it work in moo3, I don't know if its really feasible, and even then, by the time you refit a ship, it's going to be time to refit it to a new design, so we'll all end up (not to forget the AI) with ships endlessly being refitted. Sounds fun :p

[Buggerthis]

Actually the way I see refitting working would be to make a link between ship to be refitted (as a class) and the new ship design for the class. Then it would be a military build queue option called <drumroll> Refit. This would take production from the planet(s) assigned to the task and convert ships in reserves from A to B (or A/B/C to D). The emperor orders refitting and the viceroy starts working.

[visage]

Originally posted by Buggerthis
Actually the way I see refitting working would be to make a link between ship to be refitted (as a class) and the new ship design for the class. Then it would be a military build queue option called <drumroll> Refit. This would take production from the planet(s) assigned to the task and convert ships in reserves from A to B (or A/B/C to D). The emperor orders refitting and the viceroy starts working.

The way that would seem to fit with the MoOIII paradigm would be to pull ships from that class from the reserves into the MBQ and spit out the upgraded ship (as distinct from "pulling production from the planet and applying this production from all such planets to the reserves). Basically, update the MoOII paradigm to use MoOIII's concept of reserves and ship classes.

You'd want to make it so that it's expensive to be constantly refitting and refitting a ship; on the other hand, the constant size-class-creep makes it less important.

[Da_Blade]

Also the lack of experience like in MOOII makes refitting unneccessary. As said earlier, scrapping ships and rebuilding new ones is very cost-effective, imo.

[visage]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
Also the lack of experience like in MOOII makes refitting unneccessary. As said earlier, scrapping ships and rebuilding new ones is very cost-effective, imo.

Cost-effective, perhaps, but a real PITA from a UI standpoint.

Now, sure, if they add a way to macromanage your shipbuilding, they don't really need refitting.

[EmperorKosh]

This thing is pretty darn long so I'm not going to read all of it (at least not right now) because my dad wants to get back onto the CPU to play MOO3. I noticed how several people on the first page of this topic were stating their "beefs" with the game. I have a lot of beefs with the game so far but that's mainly due to the fact that I'm a newbie and I don't know half of what the hell I'm doing. But the one beef that I have with this game that even a newbie can comprehend is why you can't see planetary surface animation? I mean c'mon.... it couldn't hurt to see your planet's housing, DEA's, lil interplanetary spaceships flying around with your merry little people going about your daily business. This game isn't "bad" but I don't think the game creators thought all the way through when it comes to planets. No offense intended.

[Buggerthis]

Originally posted by visage
The way that would seem to fit with the MoOIII paradigm would be to pull ships from that class from the reserves into the MBQ and spit out the upgraded ship (as distinct from "pulling production from the planet and applying this production from all such planets to the reserves). Basically, update the MoOII paradigm to use MoOIII's concept of reserves and ship classes.

You'd want to make it so that it's expensive to be constantly refitting and refitting a ship; on the other hand, the constant size-class-creep makes it less important.

Actually, I think the 'Refit' build option would work the best for the MOO3 concept. The player decrees what will be refitted into what at which planets and the AI takes over and starts cranking them out in the reserves. This would fit the macro part on the details by not requiring lots of processing to move items in and out of reserves or detailing specific rebuilds. OTOH, it would be nice if you could set which classes specifically get refitted to fill shortages.

Expense to refitting should have three factors:
1) Loss of production from colonies on refit duty. This is why I oppose just throwing money at the reserves, you still need shipyard 'space' to do refitting.

2) Cost of the new systems to be installed obviously.

3) An overhead cost percentage derived from the 'base' hull cost of required items (Hull, Bridge, Life support, Crew quarters, etc.) OR from the original cost of the ship to be refitted.

[Buggerthis]

Originally posted by visage
Cost-effective, perhaps, but a real PITA from a UI standpoint.

Now, sure, if they add a way to macromanage your shipbuilding, they don't really need refitting.

Heh, if they manage that then they probably can handle macro refitting at the same time. ;)

[dadacp]

People keep forgetting scrapping brings in quite a bit of cashHow much cash does one get for scrapping ships? I don't recall that being told to us anywhere.

TomHughes, Thanks for telling us what you've told us so far. Naturally we want to know more. Personally, I want to know precisely what affects the HFOG. I tried playing a game without using revolutions to reduce HFOG. I kept oppressometer and forced labor to zero. I chose highest economics pick. Still my HFOG was higher than most other empires! Unless I know how to avoid increasing the HFOG, I'm not willing to play with it turned on. I want to either use HFOG fairly or not at all. I get the impression that HFOG is a leftover from Imperial Focus Points that didn't get cut when IFPs got cut.

[smellymummy]

what would be the relation between IFPs and HFOG then?

one was about what the player could do, and the other is about government overhead, right?

[Da_Blade]

I would have loved to have seen a HFoG effect in mobilizing TFs and ground forces. Without the easy HFoG workaround atm of course...

[dadacp]

How much cash does one get for scrapping ships? I tested for the answer to my own question. One gets about 50% of the nominal cost of the ship (shown in design screen).
What would be the relation between IFPs and HFOG then?It used to be the case that every time one used an IFP to give a low-level order, there would be a chance that the HFOG would go up. I have the feeling that that is still true. I had highest economics pick and zero oppressometer and forced labor, and still had a higher HFOG than most of my AI oppenents. That's probably because every turn I was optimizing the planetary spending. I think that every time one micromanages a planet, there's a chance that the HFOG will go up. I wish that I knew for sure, though. A clear word from QS would avoid the need for extensive testing.

BTW, thanks for the EOT mod, smellymummy.

[Phoxtrot]

Removed tupid question...

[markmccoin]

I am in turn 332. Since turn 180ish I have been at war with a race that every 10-15 turns ends his war, only to atart it again within 2-3 turns of peace. This has happened at least 20 0r more times, which I can deal with xcept they never attack me, just in and out of war (medium level). It has become annoying to do this endlessly with no apparent reason. BUG or just a fickle enemy?
They are being pummeled by me ever since turn 250, just to try to get them out of the game.

[Da_Blade]

Yeah i finally figured the reason behind it now. A war ends automatically if there's been no fights and blockades for a couple of turns. If one of the party's in question doesn't agree, they declare it again :)

[smellymummy]

right, that's a "white peace", kinda of like in Europa universalis. War is redeclared as well, based on causus belli (sp?), which is also something you can see in the Europa universalis game

[Goblynlord]

Kinda OT but oh well...

"War is redeclared as well, based on causus belli (sp?), which is also something you can see in the Europa universalis game"


Uhmm... No, its not. Even if you have high positive causus belli (whatever-sp) and high current relations the other empire will still re-declare its war in several turns.

As long as the other empire isn't attacking you - relations can be easily brought up during the peace times (even if its only 3 turns). For that matter I've had both ratings get better WHILE we were at war. I've had times when I got the other empire to agree to a trade treaty the first turn, then a research treaty, then it accepted a non-agression pack on the same turn it re-declared its war. rofl.

By the way, when the war "peaced-out" again the NAP was still in effect. That made getting research and trade treaties even easier. Which the AI threw out the window when it redeclared war again.

Also, I agree it SHOULD be based on the causius whatever just pointing out that its not.

[smellymummy]

don't let limited playing experience tell you exactly how the game works. Yes, yes, it's not always about the just cause factor, and even sometimes it will be high, the AI will declare on you for apparently no reason. Go to the general forum, this is vented on one hundred ways from sunday.

Just cause though will be a factor after a white peace. If the AI always re-declares war, why is it that I've been able to solidify pecae treaties with dangerous enemies, after the white peace, all thanks to a positive just cause. Now, if that just cause was low, a negative number, I'm pretty sure the odds would be completely against me in trying to attain peace.

[Goblynlord]

"don't let limited playing experience tell you exactly how the game works"

Heh... Whatever, it works both ways.

Don't let your limited playing experiance impair your judgement either. Since the manual didn't have much information, and there was largely conflicting information here I tested it as best I could.

Playing huge 3-arm galaxies with 16 players and Senate and X-win off, always have plenty of ai-players to test it out on. In my last 5 games I've seen it at least 30 or so times. High CS, High CR, AI will always re-declares war. Usually the war only started because I grabbed a planet or two to shore-up some defensive front.

As for your situation, maybe it was a fluke. With diplomacy being as buggy as it is (For example: the AI accepting NAP same turn it declares war. Or another one: sending me relations improving message after I sieze a planet. Also: the ai seems to go rabid when its had total-war declared on it in the senate and attack everyone even non-senate members) I doubt much can be "proven" either way.

There are also other factors. The senate for example. Their is a bill or two in the senate that improve all races relations and help end wars.

[smellymummy]

limited was meant as a short amount of time which was spent playing the game. No harm was intended there. I've been playing too much of this game for a few weeks now, and I'm still catching new stuff, including the diplomacy. And it wasn't a one time fluke, and yes, I've seen NAPs accepted at the same time war is declared. Other weird stuff like that.

This is drifting very off topic, I should of just kept my mouth shut :D

but what is next: info on Industry DEA?

[Goblynlord]

You're right. Also, I tend to be overly defensive, sorry about that. :) To many factors to take them all into account anyway (everything from starting races diplomacy, hardcoding, difficulty level, whos-allied-to-who, and no telling what else). And we are very OT so no more from me on this either.

"but what is next: info on Industry DEA?"

Oh... I hope so, that'd be nice. Somehow I think I'll be excited no matter what he puts up though.

[Psilon Paladin]

Subject: Research Power

Necessary DEAs: 1 or more Research DEA, 1 or more Industry DEA
and ???

Result: A highly efficient research planet

It is true that at least one industry DEA is needed to facilitate construction of other DEAs, terraforming, basic planet defense etc.. Also it is true that you want as many Research DEAs you can fit in the planet right? But do you put in a Govt DEA and make it a system seat so its funded on the system's money? Military DEA or Recreation?

How best to build a research/science planet ?

[smellymummy]

an industry DEA gives a planet extra production points, and that speeds up construction of other DEAs, infrastructure (DEA addons), planet defense bases, and anything else you can put in the build queues. Otherwise the only PPs you get is from the population. I don't know if PPs help with terraforming though, AFAIK terraforming is just about how much money is allocated to it via the terraforming slider bar.

[Craig P.]

Remember that the casus belli you normally see in the foreign relations screen is your people's toward them. To see theirs toward you, you have to select them in the center and then click on their relationship towards you.

[Mutineer]

Could it be that you are in war or bad relationship with this race allies? And they are juts honoring there threaty?

[Zhaneel]

When giving out the capacity increases (mining and bioharvesting) Tom said "0.5 or 50%" and/or "1 or 100%"

Does this mean that if I built Deep Extraction Mining AND Full Crust mining that I would have a capacity of 2.5 or of 3 (100% increase of 1.5)?

I'm guessing 2.5 and the percentage is relative to the default of 1, but I just want to be clear.

[edit] Nevermind. He states that the max is 6 capacity. Which is what I thought, but I think that the percentages are confusing. Which is why they won't appear in my FAQ.

Thanks,

Zhaneel

[dadacp]

Also it is true that you want as many Research DEAs you can fit in the planet right? But do you put in a Govt DEA and make it a system seat so its funded on the system's money? Military DEA or Recreation?Remember that research can be funded through empire taxes. A very poor, hostile planet can be stuffed with underfunded research DEAs. The imperial budget money allocated to research will make up the missing funding. (Same goes for Manufacturing DEAs on a planet devoted to military construction.)

[Hachiman Taro]

Tom? Are you still around?

Can we have some more, pretty please? I'd love to see the Industry/ System Creation / Research ones....

Or is it all waiting for an updated pdf manual release?

The ones you've done so far have helped me enjoy the game a lot more.

[TomHughes]

I'm still here. Right now I'm concentrating on game patch stuff; trying to get as much into this patch as I can.

Also, I'm trying to setup a place where I can post these explanations using MS Word. I spent over 3 hours on my last post just trying to align the tables on the beta and main boards. It will be soooooo much easier to use/modify my current Excel tables than playing aligning games.

Tom Hughes

[Hachiman Taro]

Thanks for responding Tom.

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that we would not want to distract you from patch stuff in any way.

Would it help if someone offered to host the documents somewhere that will support excel / word? I'm sure there would be a lot of volunteers (Orion Sector and Apolyton come to mind). I'd be happy to try to find somewhere for you. That is, if they are already written and just need to be posted in that format.

Wouldn't want you spending time writing them up when you could be patching!

[Mithyk]

I've been building an html version of this material. It includes the info Tom has posted and some extra. If you folks want to take a look while Tom's busy, I'd appreciate any expansions or corrections you can provide for the areas that Tom hasn't gone over yet (I've added starter sections covering Efficiency Modifiers and the other DEAs that need a lot of help with critical data).

The page is posted at

http://www.mithyk.com/stationprime/mng_econ.htm

but isn't linked in with the rest of the site, so don't get lost

And Tom, I'd be willing to host the documents, and so would Moo3Mods. I'm sure Outpost Orion and Orion 3 Guardian would also love to mirror them - we all have good docs sections.

[dadacp]

The final cost of creating Production Points (PPs) equals the base cost up to the colony's industry, twice that per PP up to twice the colony's Industry, three times that base per PP up to three times the colony's industry, etc., increasing again at every multiple of that colony's industry. The industry is being overdriven and is therefore less efficient That's the way we are told it is supposed to work, but not the way it actually works. The incremental cost DOUBLES each time the base multiple is reached.

Example: 100 TTs, 1.0 HFOG
100 RPs cost 100 AUs (green changes to yellow)
200 RPs cost 300 AUs (orange changes to brown)
300 RPs cost 700 AUs (well within the dark red)
400 RPs cost 1500 AUs
500 RPs cost 3100 AUs
600 RPs cost 6300 AUs

The same is true for PPs, except that pollution is taken into account, and sometimes one spends more to get less production (e.g., large spending on normal economic development past the "no parking" sign, small spending on military production: increasing military production spending usually changes color abruptly from brown to dark red and produces less military production).

Also the color changes in the spending bar come at the integral multiples of the 1:1 AU spending, not the PP or RP production.

This is why viceroy overspending bothers me so much that I feel the need to micromanage. I don't care to see the viceroy spending 16 or 32 AUs just to produce 1 RP (something that it does very frequently).
Unrest reduction has an outreach effect. Prepatch, unrest reduction doesn't work the way it is supposed to. At least at lower tech levels, there is no outreach effect for unrest reduction. And 2 recreation DEAs reduce unrest less than 1 recreation DEA.

[Mithyk]

Thanks for that, HFofGov effect updated.

I may leave the unrest DEAs alone until after patch and we get some more feedback - obviously a lot we don't understand going on there.

The reduced effect of multiple rec DEAs may be just like the reduced production of of some other DEAs when multiples are built - reduced population reduces the effect until they can be fully staffed...

[Hachiman Taro]

BTW Tom, since one of your stated aims was to gain more in depth feedback, you might want to read the thread: 'Numerical mysteries SOLVED!' in this forum.

I think its got some of what you are looking for... when you have time, of course.

[dadacp]

The reduced effect of multiple rec DEAs may be just like the reduced production of of some other DEAs when multiples are built - reduced population reduces the effect until they can be fully staffed... It's a bug. I built 3 Rec DEAs on a planet (in different regions), saved the game, then either left the Rec DEAs alone or destroyed them. 2 or 3 Rec DEAs gave much less unrest reduction than only 1. In the same way I saw that other planets recieved no unrest reduction. The anticorruption effect of Gov DEAs was fulfilled with 1 Gov DEA per system with System seat of Government. Extra Gov DEAs just gave unrest reduction. This was all tested with only the first improvement tech and before any patched. Maybe the outreach effects require very high tech, but I think it just doesn't work properly at the moment.

I'm hopefully expecting that unrest reduction will work properly in a future patch.

I'm somewhat surprised that QS/IG tells us that the cost structure is 1,2,3,4,etc. when it's easy to find out that the cost structure is 1,2,4,8,etc. (Personally I think that QS should get rid of the breakpoints and have gradually increasing cost instead. Then players won't complain about the AI and feel the need to micromanage so much.)

[TomHughes]

Thanks Hachiman Taro for the info.

Dadacp - the cost structure for overdriving both Industry and Research starts at 1,2,4,8, ... etc but is lowered by achievements. I will explain this in more detail when I post about Industrial DEA's probably next week. Also, thanks for the feedback about your observed DEA outreach for recreation, etc. I suspect there is problem with unrest on all three types of DEAs that influence this effect. I need to check this out to see if it is a display problem or function problem.

Much of the outreach info is not really shown yet so it is hard to check for correct function.

Tom Hughes

[Xsilon]

Originally posted by dadacp
I'm somewhat surprised that QS/IG tells us that the cost structure is 1,2,3,4,etc. when it's easy to find out that the cost structure is 1,2,4,8,etc. (Personally I think that QS should get rid of the breakpoints and have gradually increasing cost instead. Then players won't complain about the AI and feel the need to micromanage so much.)
I need to partially disagree. Breakpoints should probably make it *easier* to code a competent economic AI. The problem isn't the breakpoints; it is, as you pointed out, the geometric rather than arithemetic progression in the cost of PP's and RP's.


This is why viceroy overspending bothers me so much that I feel the need to micromanage. I don't care to see the viceroy spending 16 or 32 AUs just to produce 1 RP (something that it does very frequently).
I feel the same way. I've read countless complaints about *what the AI builds*, but you are the first person I've read who noticed that the real incompetency is in *how much the AI spends*. It is relatively quick and easy to change the build orders on a third or a quarter of your worlds every turn, overriding the AI's choices. Its quite another thing entirely to adjust 2-3 sliders per planet on every planet in your empire, every turn. And make no mistake, you almost have to do that micromanagement - letting the AI handle it just isnt a real option. On new worlds, I routinely see the AI trying to spend 256 AU's (plus another 150 or so in pollution clean-up costs) to generate *ONE* PP.

What I would *really* like to see is one extra slider/planet (plus maybe one at the empire level that told each new planet what its initial setting should be). This extra slider would be logarithmic and would tell the planet what marginal efficiency level (AU's/PP) to drive its industry at. So, for example, if I set the slider to 1.0, it would generate a total number of PP's equal to the planet's industry rating; if I set the slider to 2.0, it would generate PP's equal to 2 times the planet's industry rating; slider=4.0, PP's=3x industry; slider=8.0, PP's=4x industry, etc (All numbers assuming there is no pollution and you are pre-whatever-these-achievements-are-that-Tom-mentioned).

I am willing to let the AI decide on precisely what percentage of spending should be allocated to each of a planet's queues in a given turn, for the sake of faster gameplay.
I am not willing to let the AI squander all of my financial reserves the very first chance it gets.

For me, AI overspending is the single biggest thing wrong with the original version of MOO3 (yes, its even more significant than the PD bug).

[DavidByron]

One easy fix would be to make the colours be more truthful. There's no difference between the second and third colour (yellow and orange) so why not make them both yellow? Then make the next four colours all orange, the next eight red... no one's going to want to spend past red (16x cost).

Also it would be nice if there was a way to move the slider to "max x2" for example.

[maniakos]

It's been many days (weeks?) since the last article, and we can all get a little impatient sometimes. I understand that QSI is busy making Moo3 playable, but we, the people of the forums, we are hanging on QSI's official posted information :p

So give us some more will ya? :D

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by TomHughes
[QUOTE]Originally posted by TomHughes
[B]And I don't mind at all if you want set my post to a word doc. I primarily work in Excel for tables, not Word, so I'm a little clumsy with tables in Word. Eventually, all of my posts will be put in a pdf or Word doc.

You could use tabs in Word. For instance, hit Alt-O (format)-T (tabs). You could then decide at what point on the ruler you want the tab (for example, 3, 4, and 5"), whether to make them right-aligned, left-aligned, center-aligned, or decimal (I'd recommend either right-aligned or decimal for the numbers, center-aligned or left-aligned for the titles). Then you can decide if you want blanks leading up to data, or dots (...), dashes (---), or underscores (___).

And voila, it all formats correctly!

[Hachiman Taro]

Tom,

Now you guys have sent the patch off, any chance of seeing that industry guide??

[TomHughes]

I'm still working on the patch. I'm trying to get as many fixes/enhancements in as possible while there is still some time.

For example I just discovered on Friday that the slider colors for overdriving industry and research were no longer changing colors at the right places. They worked correctly when originally installed (at least that is what I remember) but somehow started referencing the wrong variable sometime before the product went gold.

I will resume my DEA descriptions when I finish work on the patch (I.e when they wont let me make any more changes).

Tom Hughes

[Hachiman Taro]

Thanks Tom,

Sorry to distract you from patchy goodness. Look forward to hearing from you when you finally get to come up for air!

:)

[Sirian]

For example I just discovered on Friday that the slider colors for overdriving industry and research were no longer changing colors at the right places. - Tom Hughes

Whoa! Not so. They're working correctly. I can bring proof. Give me a few minutes to assemble and upload the screenshots...


- Sirian

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Sirian
[B]Whoa! Not so. They're working correctly. I can bring proof. Give me a few minutes to assemble and upload the screenshots...


It might just be possible that the problem he fixed arose in the process of coding the patch in the first place...

[TomHughes]

Just to clarify, the problem I caught dealt with the slider changing color with each industry multiple of "AUs" spent. The color is supposed to change with each industry multiple of "PPs" created not AUs spent. The same goes for "RPs" created from test tubes.

For example, with a planet having 50 Industry the slider changed color at 50 AUs, 100 AUs, 150 AUs ...etc spent. That slider should change color at 50 PPs, 100 PPs, 150 PPs ... etc. created costing 50 AUs, 150 AUs, 350 AUs, ... etc. respectively assuming the cost/PP is 1,2,4 ... etc. at each overdriving level as it is at the beginning of the game.

As you can see above the color changed from green to yellow at the right place because the cost/PP is 1 before overdriving so 50 PPs cost 50 AUs but the discrepancy started when the cost/PP rose above 1.

This problem is just with the slider changing colors to show the overdriving level. The math to calculate the correct cost for any overdriving level is being done right.

Let me know if any of you see something different.

Thanks

Tom Hughes

[Sirian]

The way to tell that the slider colors are working properly is to first isolate all spending to a single slider. Since it is possible for sliders to be spending "less than 1%", they can read 0% but still be spending something. You MUST switch from % to AU and make sure all sliders are dropped to zero. From there, you can test any individual slider and see that it is working.

I've got two examples.

First I have a mature planet with over 1k industry. I'm going to show the full screen to establish that all the other sliders are actually on zero spending.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo3/forums/slider-colors-test-1a.jpg

The slider says 2kAU, but I am actually spending 2201AU. You can see this in the Expenses portion of the window. The relevant figures are Production and Pollution. These two numbers add up to my total spending.

The pollution is "taken off the top", leaving 1151 AU spent toward industry. Since I have 1153 Industry Points, I can spend up to that many and receive a return of 1 for 1 PP's for AU spent. Since I am still under the Industry Points range, the slider should be green, and you can see that it is in fact green.

Now when I try to increase spending, the ornery MBQ slider will not allow increases of single AU's any longer. Or rather, it will, but it won't apply them until a chunk have been added. I have to click the increase button a couple of dozen times, and finally it registers a new chunk of spending, which you can see below.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo3/forums/slider-colors-test-1b.jpg

Now this is the minimum increase the game would register. It is good enough to check the slider color, though. I am now spending 2250AU, which you can verify by adding the Production and Pollution expenditures. That leaves 1178AU actually going toward industry. That should be 1153 AU at 1 for 1 price. That leaves 25 AU at the 1 for 2 price, which should be 12.5 PP. Add 12.5 PP and 1153 PP to get... yep, 1165.5 PP. That half PP gets truncated, or perhaps it doesn't, but either way it's not shown.

And just as it should have, the slider has changed to yellow.


My second example is even more clear. I pulled up a planet in the early stages of production, so that we back up to where the game allows individual AU to be spent. That will remove the confusion of the slider only registering changes of 50 AU at a time.

Here we have a planet with only 184 Industry Points:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo3/forums/slider-colors-test-2a.jpg

Because I'm playing a race with poor environment (which is a massive production penalty, and one of the reasons why the Gas Gods with their superior environment are so strong) the pollution penalty is staggering. It's eating a whopping 70% of my spending! :eek: Anyway, you can see here that I've dialed the spending up to 614AU, which nets 183AU to industry. That's under the 184 Industry Points, so the slider should be green.

The slider is green.

I add ONE AU to the spending, which increased the Production AU to 184, which matches the Industry Points. The slider turns yellow, as it should.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo3/forums/slider-colors-test-2b.jpg

Now what's double 184? 368. So up to 367 Production AU, the slider should remain yellow, like this:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo3/forums/slider-colors-test-2c.jpg

At 368, it should turn orange, like this:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo3/forums/slider-colors-test-2d.jpg

It should remain orange up to 551, then at 552 it should turn tan, like this:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo3/forums/slider-colors-test-2e.jpg

The slider colors are working properly.

What's NOT working correctly are the Production Points themselves. At 552 AU spent on industry, with 184 Industry Points, the total production should be (184/1) + (184/2) + (184/3). That should be 184 + 92 + 61.3 = 337.3

Instead we have 368? Huh? That's 184 + 92 + 92!

The slider color is working properly. It's the overdrive itself that is broken. (This is news to me as I write this. There's a minor bug here that's having a major effect!)

Let me test this to verify... ah, yup. Yessir. The orange level overdriving is BROKEN. It's providing PP on a 1 for 2 basis, not 1 for 3 as it should be.

See this shot below. I dropped the spending a little at a time. For each 2 AU less in the Production expense category, we see the PP drop by one. Yep, it's broken. I dropped the spending by 8AU from 552 to 544, and the PP dropped by 4. That's 1 for 2.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo3/forums/slider-colors-test-2f.jpg

Wow, this wasn't caught in the Beta?!? LOL! You guys have perhaps discouraged micromanagement a bit toooo much here. This probably accounts for a number of other anomalies I've seen. I'm going to go in and test higher spending levels. BRB...

HAHA! OK, tan spending is producing PP's at 1 for 3, not 1 for 4 as it should. Lessee here... Red is also 1 for 3, not 1 for 5 like it claims it should be. Ha! Even dark brown is returning 1 for 3, instead of the 1 for 6 you guys claimed it ought to be returning.


OK, so the slider colors are not matching the actual return rates, but they ARE matching the spending. When you spend 5x your Industry Points, you go into the dark brown, just like you are supposed to. So I stand by my assessment. The slider colors are working properly. It's the Production Points that are broken. The game is giving us a lot less of a diminishing return on overdriving than it claims.

This also explains why I haven't personally felt the "pain" of going from yellow to orange range, but I sure have when it comes to tan.

...

Ya, OK. I used the research slider to figure out the actual workings, because it's done the same way.

The way the actual overdriving works is this:

Up to 1x your amount of Industry Points or Test Tubes, AU spent earn 1 for 1. Between 1x and 3x, AU spent earn for 1 for 2. Between 3x and 6x, AU spent earn 1 for 3. Above 6x, AU spent earn 1 for 6. Wowee, that's a nasty jump.

So actually, spending a LITTLE BIT into the dark brown range is good, since dark brown begins at 5x. Once you cross that 6x threshold, though, it's all downhill from there.


Here's another convenient way to look at it:

You get 1 for 1 spending up to 1x the Industry or Test Tube value. Then up to 2x (in PP's or RP's) that value, you get 1 for 2, and up to 3x that value you get 1 for 3, then it drops off the charts in full overdrive mode at 1 for 6.

Thus you can go in, compare your PP to your Industry Points, and if the PP is more than triple, you're burning cash. Same with the RP vs the Test Tubes. If the RP is more than triple, you're burning cash. You're over into the insane 1 for 6 range.

Is this how the game should remain? Or should it go back to the way the manual claims it works, with a more diminishing return that matches the slider colors? Because I repeat, the slider colors are working the way the documentation claims they should. It's the conversion of cash to PP/RP that doesn't match.


So now which way should this be fixed? You will either have to acknowledge that the diminishing return on overdriving got nerfed (and how!) in the 3x to 6x Industry Points range, in which case you can change the slider colors to match the actual return values on Production (and keep the PP returns you have in there now). OR you can fix the PP's to be returned at the rate the documentation claims -- 1 for 3 at orange, 1 for 4 at tan, 1 for 5 at red, and 1 for 6 at brown -- and only further cripple the poor viceroys with their mad overdriving and their love for spending into the red and brown range.

Tom Hughes, does this data match your understanding? Or have I brought something to light here?


One more thing: there could be some confusion between the effects of the three-part Industry Slider and the other two sliders (Terraforming/Research). Spending for all three of these is lumped in the expenses column. Pollution applies only to the Industry slider and its three parts, but Production includes spending going to the other two. The sliders all track their proper colors even when spending on all the sliders at once, but you have to swap to the AU tracking mode to see this, and work backward from what is spent on each slider, since the % tracking mode is too imprecise.

Also, Tom, if you didn't follow This Thread (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=291022) you might want to check it out. A number of us batted around a range of economic issues and suggestions there.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

The color is supposed to change with each industry multiple of "PPs" created not AUs spent. The same goes for "RPs" created from test tubes.

This problem is just with the slider changing colors to show the overdriving level. The math to calculate the correct cost for any overdriving level is being done right.

Yeah, that's what I found. Except there's a jump from 1 for 3 straight to 1 for 6.

Does that mean the tan and red colors are doomed? We're going to get a tiny green range, a small yellow range, a wide orange range, and straight to dark brown from there? Doing away with the tan and red ranges?

Or will there be a 1 for 4 and a 1 for 5 range added in there, and not see the 1 for 6 return range until !5 spending, or 15x spending of Industry Points / Test Tubes?


- Sirian

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Sirian
The slider colors are working properly.

No, because you're not testing what broke according to Tom. See his post. The slider is supposed to change color at PP breakpoints, not AU breakpoints based on the industry value.

What's NOT working correctly are the Production Points themselves. At 552 AU spent on industry, with 184 Industry Points, the total production should be (184/1) + (184/2) + (184/3). That should be 184 + 92 + 61.3 = 337.3

Instead we have 368? Huh? That's 184 + 92 + 92!

No, you're applying the ratios incorrectly. AU to industry is 1:1 AU:PP for the actual industry value in PP, 2:1 AU:PP for the next "block" of industry in PP, 3:1 for the third block, etc. So the first 184 PP cost 184 AU. The second 184 PP cost 368 AU. That's 368PP for 552 AU. If you wanted the next block of 184 PP to take you to 552 PP, you'd add another 552AU to bring your total cost to 1104 AU to get that 552 PP.

[Xsilon]

Sirian,

Tom and Dagda are correct that the colors are not working properly.

Also,

... Now when I try to increase spending, the ornery MBQ slider will not allow increases of single AU's any longer. Or rather, it will, but it won't apply them until a chunk have been added. I have to click the increase button a couple of dozen times, and finally it registers a new chunk of spending ...
I'm not sure if this phenomenon has been addressed in another thread or not, but I haven't seen any other mention of it.

What's happening is that all slider info is saved as a number between 0.0 and 100.0, representing the percent of available funds that you want spent (maximum) in a given area (such as military, normal econ develop, etc). I believe it rounds up, but haven't played in a few weeks so my memory on that could be faulty. Anytime your available funds for a given planet in a given turn rise above 1000 AU's then you will have some loss of fine control as to how much you can spend in a given area. For example, if I have 20,000 AU's saved up at a planet, and my income there is 2000 AU's + another 1000 AU's in grant money, then my total available funds are 23,000 AU's and I will only be able to allocate funds to a project in multiples of 23 AU's.

Personally, I have wished many times that the sliders saved at least one more decimal place (adding two additional decimal places might occassionally be useful, but I can't imagine that it would be useful to enough people often enough to be classified as a serious improvement). Over many games, I have managed to spot a small silver lining in this quirky game design, so the highly granular sliders no longer infuriate me. Still, I do have to wonder what the designers were thinking when they decided on this. Any serious planet is eventually going to have at least 5k AU's in available funds every turn (usually about half my empire has 20k+ in the midgame), resulting in some loss of control, and I can't see that the game savefiles will be any smaller at all for having made the sliders so granular.

[Sirian]

No, because you're not testing what broke according to Tom. See his post. - Dagda

Hi Dagda. :)

It took me longer to compile my post than I expected. I got the screenshots quickly enough, assembled them, uploaded them to my MOO3 page (which opens next week) and wrote my analysis. In that time, Tom posted his clarification, but I didn't see that until I finished my post.

I originally wrote that the sliders were working, and so were the PP's. Then I noticed a data discrepancy. The PP's were not coordinated to the spend rate. I experimented to find out why, and came out with the actual performance, but that took a while.


My assumption relied on the game manual. The game manual talks about spending efficiency, connecting the return rate to the slider colors. The slider colors are connected to the spending relative to the Industry Points or Test Tubes, which I've verified before, so everything seemed to be working.

Guess not. If Tom is right and the PPs/RPs are working as intended, then why is there a description in the manual for spending efficiencies of 1 for 4 and 1 for 5? If those spending ratios were never intended to be part of the game, why are there colors for these ratios IN the game? And in the manual?

Somewhere along the line something got changed, and it got changed in only part of the game, or it got changed across the board and then part of it got changed back. All very confusing. :)

This wouldn't be the first thing the manual got wrong. It says that terraforming and research generate pollution, but they don't. Even the readme correcting manual errata is itself wrong on some points, like Silicoids mining better in the plains. They don't.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

I decided the best way to ease the micro manager into macro management as the game progressed would be to create a planet development/economic system so vast…so intricate… that the micro manager would THANK GOD he could delegate some of those tasks to the AI as the number of planets he controls reached into the hundreds. - Tom Hughes

That's laudable, Tom. But why is ceding total control to the automation the only viable option in this game?

We can't assume micro control ourselves, because we can't add items to the RBQ. If the Econ AI is permanently switched off, the planet will never again see another improvement built at the regional level. That's not viable.

If the Econ AI is left on and the player tries to micromanage, the Econ AI will tweak the sliders by 2% per turn until it gets them to where it wants them, so you have to fight its changes each and every single turn, which is crazy-making. An hour of that and the player wants to rip out his own liver and feed it to the vultures.

What choice is left? Only to cede all control of the planets to the viceroys and influence them with the few macro tools we are given, and THAT is no fun either, for reasons I will explain.


Don't get me wrong, Tom. I get a LOT of fun out of your economic design. I love this game, or at least what the game could become if the frustrating aspects were polished up.

I love assigning the DEA's myself. Each planet is like a string, and plucking them in just the right fashion, the right combination of notes, creates a kind of music that I find enjoyable. THAT is macromanagement: to choose the right mix of specializations so that when combined, they weave together to form a coherent big picture.

If I could choose the destiny of each planet, I would be happy. Right now, I can't.

One of the best controls in the game is the Military Economic Policy. We can designate our entire empire to spend large on military, or to spend large on infrastructure. Unfortunately, like everything else about the automation, it's purely on or off. It's all or nothing, with all subtlety mowed under by clumsy imperial settings. What I want is THIS planet to spend at Holy War levels (to crank out those dreadnoughts), THAT one to spend at Peace and Prosperity Levels (dumping spending into research) and THAT ONE OVER THERE to spend at Peace Through Strength levels (building up planetary defenses while upgrading its regional facilities with new technology). I can get one of these things with the macro controls, or I can get all three with PAINFUL levels of micromanagement, fighting the accursed viceroys (I HATE THE VICEROYS) the entire time. Neither option pleases me.

These controls are maddeningly clumsy. They should be planetary, not imperial. None of the settings do the job well, because they are all extreme. I feel like I've been handed a violin that is capable of making sweet music :D but instead of being handed a bow with which to play it :) I've been handed a tree branch, complete with knots and the bark still on it :bulb: and also a guitar pick, with which I can pluck the strings one at a time. :cry: The tree branch can't possibly vibrate the strings in harmony, so when I use it I get only a cacophony. The guitar pluck can play all the right notes if I work hard enough at it, but it can't play them quickly enough for the music to be appreciated in real time, and it can't tickle the strings to create that beautiful fluid sound.

Please! Give me a bow! I can make this violin sing, really I can! It's a marvelous instrument! It can make beautiful music, if only you will give us the right tools to call forth the notes, to command the strings to work in harmony.

Most of all, I want to get out from under these oppressive empire-wide controls and get down to more sophisticated macromanagement, where I don't have to put all my eggs in the same basket. No matter which basket I choose, it's wrong, because no basket is large enough to properly hold all the eggs. We need many baskets. That's what a strategy game is all about: strategy, choices, trade-offs. Flicking the Economic Policy to "Prosperity" when not at war, and to "Limited War" when you need to crank out a navy in a hurry is not what I think of as sophisticated strategy. I expected a LOT more from "the ultimate space strategy game".

We need more subtle macro controls. Please? :confused:


- Sirian

[Xsilon]

AMEN!!!

[Hachiman Taro]

Originally posted by Sirian

My assumption relied on the game manual. The game manual talks about spending efficiency, connecting the return rate to the slider colors. The slider colors are connected to the spending relative to the Industry Points or Test Tubes, which I've verified before, so everything seemed to be working.

Guess not. If Tom is right and the PPs/RPs are working as intended, then why is there a description in the manual for spending efficiencies of 1 for 4 and 1 for 5? If those spending ratios were never intended to be part of the game, why are there colors for these ratios IN the game? And in the manual?


I could be wrong, but I believe the answer to this is that some technology advances change the spending efficiency ratio's. So that at the start of the game 1 to 4 and 1 to 5 are not possible, but later on they are. Very clever design, if you ask me...

Also I think it might be better it re-evaluate some of this stuff post patch. Tom seems to have plenty on his plate to try to get into this one anyway, without being side tracked into long complex discussions on the boards. Since the economic model is one of the best bits of the game, I think he knows what he is doing too :up:

I'm not saying don't bring stuff up, but I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have time to respond in depth to complex 'polishing issues' until after they lock down this patch, especially since some of our concerns might already be addressed. Which is good, since every minute spent coding not talking means more patchy goodness for us!

Hope you're in a mood to chat post patch though Tom! There's plenty of us that would like to know this design inside out...

[Da_Blade]

Yes, Haciman Taro is right.

There are four technology's that make overspending more efficient:
Holistic Planning, Polyfabric Building Materials, Harmonic Construction Techniques, Secreted Resins.

The overdrive table (DEATable.txt) looks like this:


1to1 2to1 3to1 4to1 5to1 6to1 7to1 8to1

Base 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128
1 OverProd Achievement 1 2 3 6 12 24 48 96
2 OverProd Achievement 1 1.5 3 4 8 16 32 64
3 OverProd Achievement 1 1.5 2.5 3.5 5 10 20 40
4 OverProd Achievement 1 1.5 2 3 4.5 6 12 24


So with no overproduction technologies your spending will look like 1 AU for every PP below IP, 2 AU for every IP < PP <2*IP, 4 AU for every 2*IP< PP < 3*IIP, until finally 128 AU for every PP > 7*IP.

Later in game, overproduction is a lot more efficent. Btw, the spending tables for reasearch look exactly the same, also with 4 research overspending productions.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Sirian
If I could choose the destiny of each planet, I would be happy. Right now, I can't.

Perhaps you could explain why DPs don't provide you this control concisely. You're defining "choose the destiny..." as meaning that the Viceroy will build exactly the planet you would have built under identical economic conditions (both imperial and planetary), but find the spending policies to be acceptable. The latter are general guidelines just as DPs are.

Your position really is not one of "give me good macro" but "give me automated methods to produce exactly what I would have if I had 100% control and micro'd everything." These are most certainly not the same thing as a real macro approach assigns some responsibility/authority to someone other than you.

Development Plans with a touch of occasional micro = one killer empire without going nuts on the micro side. If you ask me, the tools you want are not only present, but functioning quite well.

We need more subtle macro controls. Please? :confused:

But this is not what you actually ask for.

[visage]

Originally posted by Sirian
I feel like I've been handed a violin that is capable of making sweet music :D but instead of being handed a bow with which to play it :) I've been handed a tree branch, complete with knots and the bark still on it :bulb: and also a guitar pick, with which I can pluck the strings one at a time.

Practice your pizzicato? :)

(No, I'm not trying to say anything about MoOIII. :) )

[Xsilon]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
There are four technology's that make overspending more efficient:
Holistic Planning, Polyfabric Building Materials, Harmonic Construction Techniques, Secreted Resins.


I could have sworn that Catalyst Design (or whatever its called) was the first of the overdriving efficiency techs. Not so??

[Sirian]

The overdrive table (DEATable.txt) looks like this: - Da_Blade

Thanks, Da_Blade. That cleared up everything. I went into the game to verify, used a new planet with 6 test tubes, and yes, there ARE worse and worse returns on overdriving. I verified up through a return of 1 for 24, that's with one overdriving tech improvement.

WHY ARE THESE CATEGORIES LABELED "4to1" "5to1" "7to1"?

Those are the categories not only in the documentation, but right there in the table headers? :eek: More lies in the documentation. That's a strong word, but applicable here. Not informing us openly that overdriving costs can get much much more wasteful than even 1 for 6 is inexcusable. The more of this kind of gap between what we are told and how the game performs, the more the label "eXperience" warps into a caricature, at least for me.

There's a running joke in the Diablo II community about the "Lying Character Screen", because the numbers the game display puts up are often wrong (to this day), sometimes by wide margins. The community had to get in there and construct (all but reverse engineer) the actual workings of the game in a half-blind sort of way. It's one thing to hide formulas and workings, and something very different to provide misleading or inaccurate information about game functions.

No WONDER the viceroys burning off grant money at new planets get NOTHING for it. They really are getting nothing, as the cash burn rolls up into ratios as bad as 128 AU spent for 1 PP. :sour:

This is why I micromanage, Da_Blade. This is why I don't trust the viceroys. This is why I heap wheelbarrowfuls of scorn upon them, and why I want slider locks or something equivalent. The automation is beyond sad in the overdriving department. I've gotten around to where I can spend a short amount of attention at new planets, stop the worst of the waste, force the viceroys to save a few thousand in cash per new planet by shutting down the absolutely insane cash burn in the first couple of turns, then walking away from them after that to let the viceroys have control once the overdrive rate is more efficient. My planets get up and running faster than any devplan running on automatic could ever dream of achieving, because as new population arrive and especially after that first industry DEA is built, then the spending can get something done. By then, the grants have usually moved on to a newer planet, so you've got to save the cash when its coming in, not shovel it into the fire as quickly as possible.


QS gets big kudos for externalizing all these elements. You can put up the table that shows the workings, as you have, Da_Blade, and lead the rest of us to discard the worthless notions the documentation has planted in our minds. If QS was aiming at causing us confusion, they wouldn't expose the game guts to modders and open scrutiny, so there's no intent to deceive. There really is a significant dropping of the ball on the documentation front, though. QS could have saved themselves enormous bad PR and lots of confused and angry customers if they had invested more into providing accurate documentation.


Tom, are we going to get a new downloadable manual file at some point, with accurate information? Will the items in it be tested to make sure they are accurate? I'd really appreciate that, and I know I'm not the only one. The patch list claims that the help file etc has been polished up, but I'm dubious. With all due respect, I'll have to see that before I believe it.


Are there colors for the last two categories "7to1" and "8to1"? Or are those supposed to be lumped in with the dark brown "6to1" slider color?

Also, can we get some kind of control to cap the viceroy with the overdriving, to force it to save money rather than burn it at the pathetic return rates?

That is the worst area of viceroy performance by far, even worse than I suspected, since I had always believed that 1 for 6 was the least efficient return possible. I want the viceroy to STOP spending where the efficiency drops into the drink. I don't ever want it to spend at worse than 1 for 6. Ever. I'd rather it saves up and spends later, after more facilities are built or more population live there, when those AU can bring a worthwhile return. At some point, the huge influx of grant money at a new planet is going to dry up. That money ought to be saved, for later spending, not burnt off to no useful end, leaving the planet broke after the grants move on to another planet.

The gap between viceroy performance and even minimal human intervention is staggering. That's got to improve, and by a lot, if I'm ever going to trust the automation as a reliable aide. No leader worth his salt will knowingly delegate to an incompetent lieutenant. Dagda, and others like him, will defend the status quo no matter how bad it may be, but they aren't the sorts who are going to offer you "tough love" kinds of feedback. I sorely want to be in the THANK GOD category, where I can delegate to the automation and breathe a sigh of relief, but I'm not there. At the point at which I would reach the THANK GOD sensation, and turn things over to the viceroy, I instead reach a point of dread, OH NO, where the fun is over. It's no fun to turn the control over to the automation and it's no longer fun to keep on managing. Then what? Then I've hit that MOO2 "drag" where the game has become too tedious and I just want to quit. Time to start a new game. Time to get out of the nightmare and go back to the fun part. As soon as I hand the keys of the kingdom over to the viceroy, the automation starts shoveling the treasury into the fire. :cry:

Why are those ridiculous overdriving rates even in the game? They act as difficulty reducers and mechanisms to compel players like me to micromanage. That's all they do: they suck up the cash of the AI Empires, slamming their performance curve. I'll go in and manually force an end to that in my empire. I will. It's over the top. I won't accept it. And if I'm not eventually provided a less tedious way of doing that, something other than manually controlling the unlockable sliders and struggling against the spendthrift AI turn after turn, I'm not going to settle for turning over those elements to the AI, not going to settle for letting it manage. I'll conclude the game isn't worth my time, because it doesn't offer me viable management options.

I have the patience of Job on waiting for fixes. I will give QS benefit of the doubt on an heroic scale. But if at the end of the day this issue isn't resolved to some kind of happy conclusion, I will neither forgive nor forget.

All the arguments I've seen against micromanagement in MOO3 rely on the notion that you invest a lot of time and energy for little return. That's flat out wrong. These folks don't have a clue. They don't know what can be achieved with micromanagement, they don't know how sad the automation really is vs what a human being can do, and they don't realize that practice can speed the process to where a player can make these changes quickly, where they do the most good. I invest little time for a lot of return. I can target my micro and fit in plenty enough to make a huge difference, even on a three minute turn timer. The problem with the micromanagement is not that it's time consumining, but that it's BORING. It's repetitive, tedious, and senseless. All the elements you've included to lead me away from micromanagement instead compel me to it, while actually making it deliberately more painful and aggravating.

Management ought to be doable with a lot less hassle. But I can't resist micromanaging when the return is huge. HUGE. The return is enormous, and that performance gap is never going to close with imperial level controls. We need planetary controls -- the more the merrier -- if we are ever going to reach an efficiency level amongst the viceroys sufficient to allow managers like me to delegate to the AI. Contrary to what Dagda claims, I don't require the viceroys to duplicate what I would do. I DO require them to do a good enough job that it stops being worthwhile to get in there and manage it myself.

I'd really appreciate more planetary-level management tools, especially ones that set limits on what the viceroy can do. If I can stop it doing the most stupid things, leaving it a range of options I consider reasonable, I'd be much more willing to turn it loose within that range and focus on other game elements.


- Sirian

[DavidByron]

The gap between viceroy performance and even minimal human intervention is staggering

Good. I would hate to feel my input was redundant :)

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Sirian
WHY ARE THESE CATEGORIES LABELED "4to1" "5to1" "7to1"?

Because that's what they start out as. Externalizing the overdriving obviously made it easier to apply the affects of improvements related to overdriving, so they built that table.

Those are the categories not only in the documentation, but right there in the table headers? :eek: More lies in the documentation.

What in God's name are you talking about? The manual has a table with colors and ratios printed in it for overdrive levels from 1:1 to 6:1. 7:1 and 8:1 aren't possible without improvements if I'm remembering the tech documentation correctly. They aren't available to you at game start, which makes it a potential oversight or a purposeful ommission to keep people from complaining that they can't hit those levels in the first place.

No WONDER the viceroys burning off grant money at new planets get NOTHING for it. They really are getting nothing, as the cash burn rolls up into ratios as bad as 128 AU spent for 1 PP. :sour:

Again, what are you complaining about? Grants are intended to assist planets in need of significant financial assistance. Why on earth would you expect reasonable efficiency from such an arrangement? If you don't want the money "wasted," cut your grants to zero and lower your imperial taxes and keep all the money in system/on planet. A grant is simply a method of taking money from a planet with more of it and getting it to a planet that needs it. It's not supposed to be efficient, but effective in redistributing cash.

This is why I micromanage, Da_Blade. This is why I don't trust the viceroys.

Because your expectations of them are unrealistic in the extreme? You're asking the viceroy to be a virtual you, build things exactly as you would and spending money with the efficiencies you'd select. That's more than a bit unrealistic, I think.

The Viceroy is macro-management - taking your guidance and doing what he can to provide the most effective solution he can. And where you want to micro, you can.

The automation is beyond sad in the overdriving department.

Macromanagement <> automation. Automation=automation. Macromanagement is providing guidance, oversight, and course corrections to something or someone with some authority and responsibility for actually making decisions.

My planets get up and running faster than any devplan running on automatic could ever dream of achieving

I suspect this is nowhere near as true as you suspect and that you actually might be slowing development. I don't care if a new planet saves anything at all - I want them spending everything they can. I want them qualifying for grants every turn they can. The surplus will come once there's a GDP worth worrying about on system. Saving the money provides a minimal boost in development later, with the possibility of degrading development in the process. A dollar saved today is not worth a dollar spent next year, both in RL and MOO3.

and lead the rest of us to discard the worthless notions the documentation has planted in our minds.

How kind of you to assume that I believe the notion is worthless and that I'm dense enough not to have arrived at any conclusions through anything other than reading the documentation. I'm hoping that you write opinion columns for a living, as I can't say I've ever seen you demonstrate objectivity or restraint.

Kindly restrict your comments on the gameplay to your opinions and don't include me in your diatribes by inference.

Also, can we get some kind of control to cap the viceroy with the overdriving, to force it to save money rather than burn it at the pathetic return rates?

The pathetic return rates are infinitely more effective than the 0% interest rate you earn on any money you save. So long as you are still building a surplus (which you will) and the money would otherwise go to waste (which it will), you're ahead of the game. Spending money now in MOO3 has a preferable opportunity cost to saving it under the vast majority of conditions and certainly on new systems.

The gap between viceroy performance and even minimal human intervention is staggering.

Again, kindly restrict your statement of opinion to what it is rather than presenting this as fact.

Why are those ridiculous overdriving rates even in the game?

Because they are useful tools for expediting construction of things you consider to be critical. If you don't like them, don't use them. You won't see Roy doing it much at all.

I have the patience of Job on waiting for fixes. I will give QS benefit of the doubt on an heroic scale. But if at the end of the day this issue isn't resolved to some kind of happy conclusion, I will neither forgive nor forget.

A fate worse than death, I'm sure.

All the arguments I've seen against micromanagement in MOO3 rely on the notion that you invest a lot of time and energy for little return. That's flat out wrong.

No, it's not. You simply haven't figured out how to make it work effectively. That doesn't mean it can't or won't. Just that you haven't figured it out yet. It's actually easier to hurt your economy by microing than macroing, in my opinion. Not that this will matter at all to you.

These folks don't have a clue.

I think they're considerably smarter than you're giving them credit for.

Management ought to be doable with a lot less hassle.

It already is. It just doesn't manage according to the "Sirian Handbook on Management," which I personally don't mind at all.

Contrary to what Dagda claims, I don't require the viceroys to duplicate what I would do. I DO require them to do a good enough job that it stops being worthwhile to get in there and manage it myself.

You've yet to demonstrate this in any way, shape, or form. You complain that the AI doesn't lay out DEAs as you do, that he doesn't build things the way you'd like, that he doesn't spend money as you would. How on earth could I reach the conclusion that I did based on that evidence?

I've read any number of your posts, Sirian, and they're rarely objective or contain very solid backing data for your conclusions. But I'm sure you'll just tell me that I'm wrong, so I'll ask you not to bother.

To Tom and the developers - I know that I'm quite happy with the viceroy in the vast majority of areas. I would prefer to see DEAs given higher priority when compared to regional improvements, particularly when the latter are showing up in regions with no DEAs. I'd also like to see it use the x5 and x10 builds and have some greater visibility into what exactly is in the RBQ. But please don't change the AI spending habits on new systems, as I find them to be more than sufficiently productive and the rapid GDP boost they provide more than accounts for any savings I might see by not driving the economy hard early. The existing Financial Policies are sufficient control over the AI from my experience and in testing.

[sageofwisdom]

Just a note,

If the econ A.I. is turned off, the viceroy will still add items to the RBQ. The viceroy will not, however, be able to spend any money on these items. They will sit there in the queue until you spend money on the normal economic development slider.

I have noticed that if I am not building anything in the queues that I have access to, the viceroy will decide that he has nothing left to build. This clears up when I build anything on the planet.

[Sirian]

Again, kindly restrict your statement of opinion to what it is rather than presenting this as fact.

I've read any number of your posts, Sirian, and they're rarely objective or contain very solid backing data for your conclusions. - Dagda

What an interesting juxtaposition.

Hi Dagda. :)

I suspect this is nowhere near as true as you suspect and that you actually might be slowing development. ... Saving the money provides a minimal boost in development later, with the possibility of degrading development in the process.

Oh yeah. You stepped in it this time. :D

This seems to be chiefly a tutorial thread, so we can take care of business Over Here (http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=293463). I'll be happy to demonstrate human management vs automated management under controlled conditions, then analyze exactly when, where, why and to what extent the automation comes up short.


If the econ A.I. is turned off, the viceroy will still add items to the RBQ. ... I have noticed that if I am not building anything in the queues that I have access to, the viceroy will decide that he has nothing left to build. This clears up when I build anything on the planet. - sageofwisdom

Hmm. I checked. Thanks for the clarification, sage. Items do get added to the RBQ with the Econ AI turned off. In fact, you can't STOP them from being added, it seems, as I tried half a dozen ways.

There are still problems with turning the viceroys all the way off, though, which is why my data sample was small enough to let a misconception like that persist over time. My micromanagement usually comes in the form of overruling the viceroys as much I deem useful, rather than shutting them off and HAVING to micro every last element.

I actually like the viceroys adding items to the queues, because I can let them run on automatic. Worrying about "remembering to come back" is a big issue. I've switched off the viceroy at times because of URGENT strategic needs, then forgotten to turn them back on and come back later to find all the queues empty and a huge treasury because nothing was being spent. Blah, that's always a waste. Few items are so important as to risk "forgetting" and having a planet sit completely idle for a time, but sometimes it's worth it. I wasn't trying to shut off the queue-adding. I needed to lock the sliders in an emergency, and the only way to do that was to shut the whole darn thing off.

There are times I want it to control the money but I wish I could force it to stop adding to the queues, and other times I wish I could keep it as backup on queue additions but deny it any ability to tinker with one or more of the sliders.

At least we'll be able to see into the RBQ after the patch. That should clear up some of the confusion.


- Sirian


PS: Players like visage, Da_Blade, and I have all spent a lot of effort observing, testing, playing, poking at this game, and we have all made an occasional mistake in our conclusions. That only further emphasizes the problems created by insufficient feedback and documentation, both inside and outside the game.

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by Sirian
This seems to be chiefly a tutorial thread, so we can take care of business Over Here (http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=293463). I'll be happy to demonstrate human management vs automated management under controlled conditions, then analyze exactly when, where, why and to what extent the automation comes up short.


Thanx Sirian, i was gonna ask that too :)

I'll clarify my stance in that very same thread ;)

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by Sirian
WHY ARE THESE CATEGORIES LABELED "4to1" "5to1" "7to1"?


Oh yeah i was meaning to answer that. You are requesting 2PPs to 1 industry, 3PPs to one industry, 4PPs to one industry, etc, etc. I can understand the confusion though.

[DavidByron]

Just to repost this comment here...

There appears to be a bug with the imperial over-spending formula... if you put nothing into research (0%) on the planets and use an imperial grant, the grant money will act, for the first N AU's spent, (where N=sum of planetary TTs), exactly as if it had been spent at the individual planets in the most efficient manner -- ie in proportion to their TTs. This pattern also works for the next N AU's spent. Of course these are worth on half as many research points (I have only tested at the first level of over-research so far -- the 1,2,4,8.. one). So far this is the exact best you could hope for and is 100% efficient.

The next N AUs spent show the "bug". The over-power ratio is screwed on exactly this point. It is supposed to not move to a new ratio until N actual production points (cement or research points) have been produced but the colour bar is changing as if the division was on N AUs spent not N production points produced. Tom said he was working on that bug but on the planetary sliders it works as far as the actual money goes. Just the colours are wrong. Well on the imperial grants the money is screwed up that way too.

When the next N AUs are spent the federal grant moves on to the next division. That means that on the third set of N being spent the planets are (correctly) saying research costs 2 AU's per point, and incorrect;y diisplaying orange instead of yellow. But the imperial grant has moved on to thinking each research point costs 4 AU's each.

[DavidByron]

Recap on the way taxable money is made:

Mining DEA:
minerals_eaten x 30
minerals_used_by_industry x 15
spare_minerals x 7.5 x Econ%
all_minerals x mineral_richness x 4 x pic_bonus

mineral_richness (v.poor to v.rich)= 1,2,3,5,8
pic_bonus = .85,1.00,1.15 0r 1.30
Econ% = (1-unemployment)

Bio DEA:
food_eaten x 20
food_used_by_industry x 10
spare_food x 5 x Econ%
all_food x ecology x 2.5 x pic_bonus

ecology(leaf colour)= 1,2,3,4,5
pic_bonus= .8,1.0,1.2,1.4

Food produced at non-Bio DEA buildings contribute using the first 3 formulae, but not the last one.

Industry DEA (this is my opinion):
Industry x 10 x pic_bonus

pic_bonus = .9,1.0,1.1,1.2

Later on you can get technologies like "Broader Usage" that further increase Industry AUs by quite a bit. In fact Industry can produce enough cash to overdrive itself from its own taxes later in the game, especially if your racial pics emphasise industry, as is often the case for custom races.

Income from population:
population x 30

Space Ports:
no idea :)

In the case of the population and industry incomes there's probably a Econ% multiplier. I'm not sure. In addition Gov DEAs and some other effects increase the taxation on the other sources, but the numbers don't show up on the GDP figure.

[Zed-F]

Originally posted by DavidByron
Recap on the way taxable money is made:

<snip>

Income from population:
population x 30

Space Ports:
no idea :)

In the case of the population and industry incomes there's probably a Econ% multiplier. I'm not sure. In addition Gov DEAs and some other effects increase the taxation on the other sources, but the numbers don't show up on the GDP figure.

I was doing some testing to try to determine what the cause of the "mystery income" might be but was not able to make a lot of headway, other than to determine what it was not.

Firstly, and most importantly, it's not space ports. Space ports are pretty straightforward, actually, though the way the info is presented on the screen makes it less than clear. On the display, it lists GDP, then tax income, then trade, then grants, and finally income. The way it's laid out implies that trade is added to tax income and grants to get income, when this is not the case. In fact, what actually happens is that GDP is added to trade (which is derived from space ports) and then taxation is applied against that total to produce your tax income. Tax income is then added to planetary grants to produce the income field. (Of course this neglects further additions due to military and research grants, but I have not looked at those closely yet.)

I've already proven in another thread here (http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=293463&perpage=40&pagenumber=2) that the mystery income is not interest on the planetary bank balance.

In the game I was testing in, the only planet on which I could really see the mystery income coming in was my homeworld; turn over turn, it would consistently have 400-500AU more per turn than the displays suggested it ought to, even when I turned off all possible sources of outside aid (including system tax, empire tax, imperial grants of all types and so forth), and even when I set the local tax rate to zero so I had no money going in or out except for about 1K in maintenance and pollution to deal with. In the latter case, I was expecting my bank balance to decrease by about 1K per turn but it only decreased by 500AU or so. I started off thinking it was maybe due to the space ports but nuking those didn't change anything (which makes sense since my tax rate was 0.) I tried leaving local taxes on and all local spending turned off and my income consistently went up about 500AU per turn more than the predicted next turn bank balance suggested it ought to.

My next thought was that it might possibly be a per-pop modifier since my homeworld had a pop of around 50 (10x pop being a convenient number.) So, I went to another planet in the same system and tried again. Performing the same test there, with all system/imperial influences turned off and local spending turned off, but with local taxes turned on, my bank balance went up by only slightly more than the predicted next turn's bank balance suggested, 100 AU or less, which I consider to be noise. This planet was slightly larger than and as well-developed as my homeworld so if it were purely based on GDP or population or something generic like that I ought to have seen a more noticeable effect.

My next thought was that it might have something to do with having a seat of government. So, I checked out another system and compared the system seat of government for that system to another well-developed planet in that system. In neither case was I able to find more than 100AU of "funny money" coming in, running the same test. I also started a new game with 1 opponent and did nothing but let my homeworld build up its starting infrastructure and grow pop, to see what difference that made. In this case I was also not able to detect any more than 100AU worth of funny money coming in on a per-turn basis.

In none of these cases did I have any extra government DEA improvements in play other than system seat of government and imperial seat of government. So, the mystery income does not (at least always) seem to be coming from:
- Space ports/trade
- Imperial or System tax/grants of any sort
- Generic bonus from population or development level
- Government DEA improvements of any sort

Where to go from here? I'm not sure... perhaps someone else has a bright idea?

[DavidByron]

and even when I set the local tax rate to zero so I had no money going in or out except for about 1K in maintenance and pollution to deal with

I think I just solved your problem in the other thread. The planetary bank balance doesn't pay out for pollution if you don't build anything. The discrepency will match the pollution it claimed to be paying for on the previous turn. It's not mystery income; it's falsified expenses! :D

[Zed-F]

I don't think that's it. I got the same 500AU extra income regardless of whether I set the spending rate to zero or not. After posting the last post, I tried setting my MBQ spending to an arbitrary amount and adjusted my tax rate so that my income matched my spending. I tried spending at equivalent to 8% tax income and at 22% tax income. Guess what -- in each case I still got 500 extra AU the next turn.

Now, when I started blowing away my Mining and Bio DEAs, my extra 500AU income dropped to about an extra 200 AU. This suggests there is some link to income-generating DEAs (mining, bio, industry) but that's a pretty broad brush since almost all of any planet's income is generated from those DEAs (at least in the test game I'm using that's the case.) I'll see if I can do a bit more testing along those lines later...

[Da_Blade]

Euhm, i supposse you already thought about it, but just making sure you didn't forget the obvious. Did you set the system tax to 0%?

[Zed-F]

Yep, in the first post I stipulated that I had set empire tax and system tax to 0 and all imperial grants to 0.

I checked the same game 50 turns later and all 3 of the planets that I had previously checked where the mystery income totalled about 100 AU now had significantly larger mystery incomes -- 500, 300, and 600AU respectively. So, it seems like this is something that any planet can get (and enlarge) over time. Right now my guess is that it's some form of DEA income that is not accounted for in the usual taxation figures. Recall again that these 3 planets are 2 regular planets and 1 system seat. I still don't have any government improvements other than system/imperial seats available to be built at this point in the game.

[Da_Blade]

Ah ok, read over it, sorry. Wasn't meaning to insult you or anything, just making sure you wouldn't go "duh" eventually ;)

Try and see which DEAs influence it exactly. Iaw: build a planet with a DEA of each type, then wait for the mystery incomes to show up, then remove a dea, see affect, load back, remove another, etc. That should enable you to pinpoint the source of the income (if it's a DEA effect at all). My bet's on the industry DEA, maybe they give extra income when making more PPs?

[DavidByron]

Ok, I thought you said you had deleted your Gov DEA. It's probably your Gov DEA. We know it is supposed to increase taxes. Even without extra add ons it will do that presumbaly, just not so much.

Hmm. Come to think of it I would have see that discrepency myself if it was the Gov DEA. I wonder where that tax income does turn up then....

Aha. The table says you don't get bonus tax on a Gov DEA until the first tax-unrest upgrade (Securities Board).

See if the discrepency relates to pollution (which would decrease as you eliminate Mining DEAs but not Bio DEAs).

[Frank Shannon]

Do you think this extra income might relate to the "rare materials" bonus for high bio/mining ability?

[Zed-F]

Re: Gov DEAs -- nope, never touched 'em. Doesn't seem to have anything to do with them, though I would imagine that leaving a system without government would have an effect at least we know it does vis-a-vis grants.) Don't think that's the source, though. To be more precise, all my planets have unimproved government DEAs, with the exception of the system seat and imperial seat improvements, and I never deleted any of those. The mystery funds show up regardless.

Re: Generating DEAs -- right now I think it's any AU-generating DEA (Bio, Mining, or Industry) though I can run a couple more checks to confirm that.

Re: Extra rare materials bonus -- well, I would have thought that that calculation ought to have been part of the basic GDP formula, but anything is possible. We seem to be looking at something that is not being reported correctly so it could be just about anything.


EDIT: Ok, I ran another test to see what the impact of deleting various DEAs was.
-- First test, delete 2 Bio DEAs: In this instance, comparing my home planet's +400-500 AU per turn before deleting the DEAs to what it generated afterwards, I saw that it dropped about 100 AU per turn, though it didn't seem conclusive. I tried again on the save 50 turns later on a bio-DEA-heavy planet that was generating +300AU per turn of mystery income and after deleting 6 bio DEAs saw it drop to +200AU per turn pretty conclusively.
-- Second test, delete 2 mining DEAs: Comparing the hone planet's +400-500 AU per turn with what it generated after deleting 2 mining DEAs, the results are even more pronounced. It dropped from +400-500 mystery income per turn to +200-300 mystery income.
-- Third test, delete 2 manufacturing DEAs: This is the surprising one. Again making the comparison, there was NO DIFFERENCE after deleting 2 manufacturing DEAs as compared with not doing so.

This seems to suggest one of the following two possibilities:
-- Either the GDP displayed at the planet screen is not correctly calculated for resources (food/minerals) used offworld as opposed to sold off as surplus, and there is some after-the-fact adjusting going on,
-- Or else the GDP displayed at the planet screen is not including all of or some portion of the rare byproducts income generated for mineral and bio content.

Given that minerals seemed to make more of an impact than bio did, and that Tachidi are naturally good at mining but lousy at bioharvesting, I'm inclined to think the latter at the moment, but I will see if I can think of some more tests to get a better picture. I'm now thinking pollution has nothing to do with it since I should have seen reduced mystery income when trashing manufacturing and not bio DEAs if that were the case.

[A. Bester]

When a fully-develpoed planet with decent industry-output refuses to build anything, is that somehow economy-related?

[Da_Blade]

Isn't the mystery income simply the income of next turn. There's a good chance that the increased DEA productivity due to pop growth is responsible for bringing in more money. This would explain the fact the bio-heavy world dropped less, since developed worlds have less pop growth.

Try setting percentage mystery income (the amount says nothing in itself, so percentage are more usefull) together with population growth in a table. And you'll have to do a lot of them before you can make a conclusion.

[Zed-F]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
Isn't the mystery income simply the income of next turn. There's a good chance that the increased DEA productivity due to pop growth is responsible for bringing in more money. This would explain the fact the bio-heavy world dropped less, since developed worlds have less pop growth.

Try setting percentage mystery income (the amount says nothing in itself, so percentage are more usefull) together with population growth in a table. And you'll have to do a lot of them before you can make a conclusion.

No chance of pop growth being the explanation, all of these worlds were fully mature as far as pop goes. They each grew by less than 1 pop point over the course of all tests, if at all. The ones with fewer Bio DEAs just happened to be more suitable for other things and less suitable for farming; in fact I got more mystery income out of mining-heavy planets than out of Bio-heavy planets.

EDIT: I should also add that all of these planets were over 140% employment levels at all times during these tests. As per recent posts from Dagda they ought to be substantially into the diminishing returns area for employment, so even if there had been significant growth it probably would not have changed anything.