Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Drake:
Aren't those costs the same? I thought all upgrade costs were 50% of the cost to build the new facility from scratch.

-Drake<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You may be right about that; however, the comment is still mostly valid - why pay the same cost twice if you only have to pay it once?

raynor - it shouldn't take 25 turns to upgrade 25 Miner II's to Miner III's; it takes (25*0.5*[cost of Miner III])/build rate. Obviously, I'm using drake's formula for cost. But you're still probably paying more overall, since you've essentially payed for the entire Miner II, plus half of a Miner III, and only have a Miner III at the end. Which probably negates mining 100 extra minerals for a few extra turns (even when you assume multiple facilities, if you have a net loss per facility, multiple facilities just compound the problem).

EDIT:
I did some checking; a MMF II costs 2000 minerals, while a MMF III costs 2500 minerals. Using drake's formula, it would cost 1250 minerals to upgrade a MMF II (or even a MMF I) to a MMF III. Therefore, if you build a MMF II first, and then upgrade to a MMF III, you'll spend 3250 minerals total for that MMF III. Whereas if you build the MMF III in the first place, you'll only spend 2500 minerals. Which means the upgrade route cost an extra 750 minerals. Now, a MMF II mines 900 minerals per turn; the MMF III mines 1000 minerals per turn. So two turns' worth of production out of the MMF II generates 1800 minerals; the MMF III only got one turn's worth of production (because it took an extra turn to build), and therefore only generates 1000 minerals. In which case, you got a net gain of 50 minerals by using the "build fast, then upgrade" idea. If we extend this idea, taking longer to get around to upgrading, we use the following equations:

(Build fast, then upgrade [BFTU]):
(N * 900) - 750 minerals
(Build best facility slower [BBFS]):
(N-1) * 1000 minerals

For N = 3 (i.e., it takes an extra turn to get around to upgrading), BFTU yields 1950 minerals and BBFS yields 2000 minerals. So it was better to build the MMF III first, even though it took an extra turn.

This gets much more complicated when one considers building 15 MMF II's, then upgrading all of them, rather than building the MMF III's initially. But my instinct is that it's better to build the better facility, even if it takes a little longer. Or, better yet, put a space yard on your planet first and build faster (at least for PSY II's and above).

[This message has been edited by DirectorTsaarx (edited 08 February 2001).]

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
But you're still probably paying more overall, since you've essentially payed for the entire Miner II, plus half of a Miner III, and only have a Miner III at the end. Which probably negates mining 100 extra minerals for a few extra turns (even when you assume multiple facilities, if you have a net loss per facility, multiple facilities just compound the problem).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you build the Miner II one turn before you build the Miner III, doesn't that mean you get 900 extra minerals precisely one turn early? Intuitively, that seems like enough minerals to offset the upgrade cost but I'd have to sit down and do that math.

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

DirectorTsaarx:

If the Miner doesn't get any resource production until the next turn after it finishes building, then I show these numbers:

At the end of the second turn, the Miner II upgraded to a Miner III generates this many resources:

900-3250 = -2350

At the end of the second turn, the Miner III generates this many:

-2500

Thus, you are better off building the Miner II and then upgrading.

EDIT:

This math follows from your earlier statement that you are paying 750 more to build the Miner III. But since you are getting 900 minerals a turn earlier, you actually come out ahead by 900-750 = 150 (which is the difference between -2350 and -2500)

So, the real cost of a miner II upgraded to a Miner III is not 750 more, it is actually 150 less. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 08 February 2001).]

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 08 February 2001).]

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

Actually, if your planet has a Planetary Space Yard II or better, it will build lvl III facilities in one turn.

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

I usually just build the most expensive facility I can that only takes one turn. The difference between the individual resource facilities isn't that much, and I try to fill a planet as fast as I can, and upgrade later.

Since your upgrades are grouped together, you lose MUCH less building time by upgrading many facilities than if you wait an extra turn to get each of the more expensive ones up and running.

Although I must admit I rarely upgrade the individual resource facilities. If I'm being pressed I build quick and cheap and use construction time for ships. If things are quiet, I switch to monolith IIIs as soon as possible...

Does anyone else find the individual resource techs a little expensive for their value?

-Drake

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

Drake I did it the way you said for the tournament but normally I don't bother with monilith facilities because I don't usually use an organic race so my consumption of anything other than minerals is very low. It gets me more minerals to build mineral miner III's so I go that way until I can research the resource converter at least. I very rarely run out of minerals before I have conquered the galaxy. But after the patch I might have a few longer games and need the extra minerals.

Also I have shipyards on 99% of my planets in a normal game so mineral miners III only take one turn to build normally. Once I research level III facilities a shipyard is the first thing I build on the planet. The 5 turns it takes to build are paid for after building the first 5 facilities then no upgrades are needed.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 09 February 2001).]

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

Good point. I've always taken organic, and I often get temporal too, so my resource need is a little more balanced. Mineral usage is still predominate, just not as much perhaps.

-Drake

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tomgs:
Also I have shipyards on 99% of my planets in a normal game so mineral miners III only take one turn to build normally. Once I research level III facilities a shipyard is the first thing I build on the planet. The 5 turns it takes to build are paid for after building the first 5 facilities then no upgrades are needed.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you are going to leave the space yard on the planet, you *almost* break even by building the space yard first. But if you plan on scrapping it after you've built most of your mining facilities, then you will definitely lose resources along the way.

You just don't get enough resources from the Miner III vs. the Miner II facility.

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

I always leave the space yards on the planets. What use is a planet with nothing to build? Why not use those planets to pump out ships to use. Producing a lot of resources is useless if it just gets wasted (except in the tournament http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif ).

And on a large or huge world you will definately more than break even. You get 100 per facility then when you add up the population and happiness bonus and any facility bonuses you come out a lot ahead.

Another point if you have minerals going into storage, or even worse being wasted, every turn anyway the expense of what you are building really "costs" you nothing.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 09 February 2001).]

Re: Next Patch Suggestion
 

Warning: you asked for a numerical analysis, so here it is...

First, the assumptions:
2000/2000/2000 Min/Org/Rad build rate
No population bonuses
No happiness bonuses
Upgrade costs 50% of new facility

Next, the simple part of the analysis: building the Mineral Miner Facility III's (MMF3's) directly, without mucking around in building lower-tech facilities first (and faster) and upgrading later.

We build N MMF3's, at two turns per facility (cost=2500 minerals, just a bit higher than the build rate), we get:

1000*[(2N-1)+(2N-3)+(2N-5)+...+5 + 3 + 1] minerals produced, from the time building starts until the turn the Last facility starts producing. This simplifies to:

1000*N*N

(standard mathematical formula: the sum of a series of numbers is equal to (n/2)(a+m), where n is the number of elements in the series, a is the value of the first element and m is the value of the Last element).

We then subtract the cost of the facilities (2500*N) to get the net gain. Pretty straightforward; net gain from beginning of build cycle through the end of the first turn all facilities can produce is:

N*N*1000 - N*2500.

Now, if we instead build N Mineral Miner Facility II's (MMF2's), at one turn per facility (cost=2000 minerals, exactly the build rate), we get (N-1)*900 + (N-2)*900 +... + 1*900 minerals produced, from the time building starts until the Last building turn; note that at this point, the Last facility has not started producing. I'll explain why in a moment. This simplifies to:

900*N*(N-1)/2

We then subtract the cost of the facilities (2000*N) to get the net gain so far. Now, if we upgrade those facilities (to MMF3's), it costs (1250*N) for the upgrade. Everyone still with me?

Obviously, we still produce minerals during the upgrade cycle; this amounts to:

1250*N/2000 [cost divided by build rate]

Technically, that number should be rounded up to the nearest integer to get actual number of turns, but we'll ignore that for a moment. In addition, this figure includes that first turn of production for the Last facility; that's why I didn't include it in the previous formula.

Now that the upgrade is finished, we can produce at MMF3 rates. In order to compare the "upgrade" strategy to the "build once" strategy, we include enough turns of production to equal the amount of time it takes to finish building the MMF3s from scratch. This amounts to:

[(2*N)+1] - N - (1250/2000)*N

Obviously, (2*N)+1 is the number of turns required to build the MMF3's; N is the number of turns required to build the MMF2's; and (1250/2000)*N is the number of turns required to upgrade MMF2's to MMF3's. Again, that Last number should be rounded up; however, in the interest of simplifying the algebra, I've avoiding the rounding. Which really gives a slight overestimate in the amount of minerals produced in the "upgrade" strategy, since we're now calculating mineral production as 900/turn for part of a turn, and 1000/turn for the rest of that turn. After combining the above formulas and doing some algebra, we come up with the following calculation for the upgrade strategy:

450*N*N - 2762.5*N + 1000

for net gain. In the same amount of time, the "build once" strategy gets:

N*N*1000 - N*2500

for net gain.

If we set the two formulas equal to each other, N comes out to slightly more than 1. Solving both equations for values of N ranging from 1 to 25 shows that the upgrade strategy is better if we build 1 facility and upgrade it. The "build once" strategy is better if we build more than 1 facility. The attached spreadsheet shows the calculations (if anyone's interested).

Comments are welcome - especially if someone finds an error in the math...