Starting Planet Type question.
 

Hi all,

I'm still chugging through the game and making my own heavily modified dataset...enjoying this game very much!

Ok, another question for the masses: What advantages do 'Rock' or 'Ice' have over 'Gas Giant'? It seems that nearly every Gas Giant planet found is Large or Huge. Not so for the other two. And Gas Giants dont seem especially rare either.

Sooo, it seems that starting on a Gas Giant is the way to go. It gives you a massive jumpstart in the early game if when you can put 20+ facilities on nearly every world you can breathe on.

True the Rock and Ice have the moons, but this is small beans and requires far more up-front cost to realize a benefit.

Anyone find a good reason to be on Rock or Ice compared to Gas?

Side note...Most of the current AI races are Rock or Ice, so that just means even more competition for your planet type.

Thanx,
Talenn

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

The only reasons I have found for Rock or Ice planet colonization is that you can pick "none" as your atmosphere type. For some reason Gas Giants can't be without an atmosphere http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif. And to get bases in almost every system since they almost all have at least a moon of rock or ice.

But I usually pick Gas Giant myself because the headstart on a huge world or 3 is ... well its huge.

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

The gas giant "head start" is a bit unfair to the computer ... even with the opening homeworld, the player can lead in population (and all of its production bonuses) over all rock/ice cpu-controlled empires for a healthy chunk of time.

Does it seem unreasonable to start each empire off with the same population and facility counts? Although gas giant homeworlds would permit for future growth beyond that available to rock/ice homeworlds, it would blunt the huge headstart already present in the game.

Or, perhaps, start every empire off on the same *size* homeworld?

I know that part of any game in this genre is luck (some spacefaring races are more fortunate than others in terms of locale), and that is acceptable, but the current set-up for gas giant races is a bit much in the early game and not discounted greatly by the distribution of gas giants throughout the play sector.

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

I have always wanted an option at game setup where you choose the size of your homeworld(s). From tiny to huge. All players get the same. I also want the option to give some players more homeworlds than other players to give the AI or newbies advantages.

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

I have been picking Gas Giants lately myself. It is an advantage early, but certainly not a game breaker in a game against other people whether they also pick Gas Giants or not.

However on a related note, why does your homeworld always have "Unpleasant" conditions to start? Presumably this is the world on which your species evolved. Seems like your species ought to be pretty compatible with the conditions by the time you are evolved enough for exploring the galaxy. Admittedly we only have one example to go on, but I'd say Man is pretty compatible with conditions here on Earth. The conditions aren't perfect, but I wouldn't say they are "Unpleasant" either.

Elmo

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

One bit -- you may need to claim more systems to have an equal number of Gas Giants as another player has rock planets, which gives you a much larger border to defend.

If you don't have the same number of planets, you have fewer colonies on which to build, meaning fewer facilities/ships being built at one time. Hrm.

I'd still pick Gas Giant, but it might be more feasible to pull off a really, really hyper-growth start with Rock or Ice.

Seconded that luck plays a HUGE part of the early game -- started up a 3-planet medium-tech high-race-pts game in a Large galaxy, something like 11-12 AIs allegedly evenly distributed... and within 10 turns (literally) I'd conquered two neutrals [one of whom started in one of my systems], one of whom had Rock and the other Ice. Getting all three colonization techs that fast, plus the extra pop, basically provided a most likely insurmountable head start (well, except by even more outrageous luck, or sudden attack by cloaked fleets with Tectonic Bombs who bypass the minefields...).

And in a mid-tech game, you can reach Mines pretty quickly -- and if you're in a "dead-end" system near a fellow with mines, he can cut you off from the rest of the galaxy ASAP. Done that to AIs, heh...

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

Elmo: Perhaps the 'Unpleasant' status is due to pollution and such from the heavy industrialization?

But seriously, I think the empires should start with at least one 'Good' or even 'Optimal' homeworld.

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

great.throwdini! et al:

YES! I agree %110!!! I cant believe that there is no option for a 'balanced' start. At the VERY least the Homeworlds should be identical. This is a HUGE gamebreaker if one player starts on a 'Tiny' world while others are on even Medium+.

We have fired up quite a few MP games and had to restart time and time again as 1 or more players is just in a hopeless start position. So much of the game depends on your early buildup that it really should have at least SOME form of rudimentary balancing.

Has anyone found a way to 'edit' the starts yet? I have been unable to find anything in the data or start conditions to provide mirrored starts for all players.

MM? Any chance on a modification?

Thanx,
Talenn

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

Re: "I have been picking Gas Giants lately myself. It is an advantage early, but certainly not a game breaker in a game against other people whether they also pick Gas Giants or not."

and re: "If you don't have the same number of planets, you have fewer colonies on which to build, meaning fewer facilities/ships being built at one time."

see my comments in the "some questions/comments" thread wrt how larger planets offer unbalanced production output with the current production model in SEIV. I can perhaps buy the "fewer ships being built at one time" argument, but I seem to be able to find enough gas giants (and build enough off-planet shipyards) to get around this limitation.

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

Talenn and rest,
Gas giants are usually the "best", however that depends on the quadrant type. Check out a few games with Ancient quad, and you'll see rock/ice far out number gas giants. I had a game with 1 gas gaint per 3 systems, while rock and ice numbered 3-4 per system. That really stretched the border patrol thin.

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

Started two games (demo) lately - found "Hydrogen breather/Gas Giants/Biotech" a truely devastating combination.

While there are shurely more rock/ice planets, you shouldn't forget one thing - you must look at "rock" resp. "ice" seperatly .. and than odds aren't that much in favour of them.
And if you count the "facility slots" available in one system, it would most likely come out as a draw at best.

But don't forget - "robo factory" and similar buildings favour the "big ones" ... and you can always put up some Starbases with spaceyards in it to get the same "ship output per time".

Only drawback I found so far is that most "ancient ruins" are on rock/ice planets, but this may be too random to be shure about from 2 or 3 games - any comments?

Arralen

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

A nice thing would be to have an option to have the starting type and atmosphere of your race random as it was in SEIII. Being able to pick the type and atmosphere adds to roleplaying so it should still be possible to pick it also. But sometimes I would like to be surprised and not have to pick it. I do agree that most times that the gas giants gives you an advantage but I have gotten huge rock no atmosphere planets and I have gotten medium gas giant planets. The gas giants do tend to be bigger and I don't think they can be below small, the rock and ice range from tiny to huge.

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

Just an FYI,

There will be an option to have all the players start with the same planets. Also weighing in on the Gas Gaint issue, I find that it balances out since you have to stop building facilities to build ships. Also if there is a player who uses gas giants well you just have to go take them out! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

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Seawolf on the prowl

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

I once tried to figure out which would be best. So I started a few games with ancient race to see the entire map, and counted the frequency of every type of planet, and atmosphere in a mid-life system. Then I figured in the number of facilities that each would accomodate. I don't have the numbers in front of me right now, but what I got was that rock/none or gas/hydrogen are the best combo's. There are a few other close ones, but those are the highest.
Of course this doesn't figure in gameplay factors such as the ability to concentrate on large gas planets. With rock/none, you can spread out much more, but need to spend more on colony ships, and loose defensive capabilities due to the spreading out.
You can also figure in that later on with gas, research and intel centers can be helped with their percentage increasing counterparts (moreso than rock or ice), but usually by that time I already have the other types of colonies.

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

What I guessed from the demo... rock/none works best with "natural merchants", so you can get along without space ports, otherwise you'll have trouble collecting your ressources ...

Arralen

Re: Starting Planet Type question.
 

One thing that's pleased me no end is the fact that there is enough randomness that you can never be 100% sure which combo would be best for any given game. Some pairs, like gas/hydrogen, have a strong tendency to be better than others, but nothing is guaranteed! The Last game I played as gas/hydrogen, all I seemed to be finding were gas/methane. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...s/rolleyes.gif

That makes sure the other options remain valid, and that's the key to a long life for a game!