Using captured races for population
 

Heres my question...

Say I've captured a smaill transport of another race. They can breathe a new atmosphere. So excitedly I decide to exploit this advantage.

But...

It seems to me that it would take forever for this small group to grow enough to be of use colonizing more that perhaps 1 or two planets? Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Ken

Re: Using captured races for population
 

It depends how long your games Last, figure that on a goog conditions planet... the population will increase 10 fold in 10 years, 100x in 20 years, 1000x in 30 years (WAY to fast if you ask me).... and you only need to use 1M population per colony to change it from a "domed" to a normal one, and since the bonuses for population size are rather minimal, the 5x facilites will give a deffinate jump to your production capability. So in short, find a planet that they can breathe on with good/optimal conditions and let 'em breed.... ship off 1-5M for each colony you want to open up (and if it was a colony you already had, take the old population to max out where all your shipyards are located).

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 06 May 2001).]

Re: Using captured races for population
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Say I've captured a smaill transport of another race. They can breathe a new atmosphere. So excitedly I decide to exploit this advantage.

But...

It seems to me that it would take forever for this small group to grow enough to be of use colonizing more that perhaps 1 or two planets? Am I missing something?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you have 4M colonists, then you can potentially exploit an additional 80 facilities if you can move each of these four colonist Groups onto four huge previously domed colonies. Even if those four huge worlds never grow beyound the original 1M, that seems like a pretty good increase in production, doesn't it?


[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 06 May 2001).]

Re: Using captured races for population
 

I think that you could move those 4m around indefinately.
Once you get a majority of the correct breathers on a planet you can queue the maximum facilities and replace them with any other type of pop. I don't think you lose the buildings.
It works this way if you capture a palnet from a race that has advanced storage, once the facilities are built they stay unless you try to scrap and replace them, then your current limits come into effect.

Re: Using captured races for population
 

Marty Ward nice strategy do you mind if you send it in to Hyperion Base?

Re: Using captured races for population
 

NP

Re: Using captured races for population
 

It does pay to convert domed colonies to full scale production centers.

Put most of the captured population onto a benign environment world so they can breed more rapidly. Use a single population on the Harsh or unpleasant planets. Within about 10 to 20 turns, you'll have a fairly large workforce ready to occupy any new colonies of that atmosphere.

Re: Using captured races for population
 

...and if your race is organic, let 'em build a Replicant Center III first (+40M per turn)

Re: Using captured races for population
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Trachmyr:
the population will increase 10 fold in 10 years, 100x in 20 years, 1000x in 30 years (WAY to fast if you ask me)....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you do the math for it, you would see that those numbers are way off. If you use the compound interest formula, I=P*e^(rt), and use, say, 100M starting population, 30% reproduction/year, over 10 years (100 turns), you get a total of 210M. A far cry from a ten-fold increase over 10 years. 20 years gets you 280M, not quite reaching 100x (which would be 10B). Population growth is not as fast as you think.

As for the original question, follow the advice given here. Don't worry about maxing any populations (at first http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ), just get the extra facilities to boost production. Plus the more worlds you colonize with the captured population the better, since if each one has a pop. growth rate of only 1%, you will grow by 1M each turn with a 1M starting population. 100M over 100 colonies will give you 200M in 0.1 years (now that is a bit fast), if you can get them all there http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Marty Ward:
Once you get a majority of the correct breathers on a planet you can queue the maximum facilities and replace them with any other type of pop. I don't think you lose the buildings. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, if you have only 1M of a species that cannot breathe the planetary atmosphere, the entire colony is domed (even if you have a huge world with 7999M breathers and 1M non-breathers). I believe the rest of that is correct (might have to keep the breathers there until all facilities are finished).

Re: Using captured races for population
 

uhhh....

okay, let's say you've got 10M pop.,
after 1 year: 10 x 1.3 = 13 (and that's not counting the compound intrest that adds per turn)

2 years: 13 x 1.3 = 16.9
3 years: 16.9 x 1.3 = 21.97
4 years: 21.97 x 1.3 = 28.561
5 years: 37.1293
6 years: 48.26809
7 years: 62.748517
8 years: 81.573072
9 years: 106.04499
10 years: 137.85849 (almost by a factor of 14 with 30% reproduction!)

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from (if you got 100M people increasing by 30% per year (30M), over 10 years without compound intrest, you still get 400M ((30M x 10) + 100)... but here's mine, rember that's 30% increase a year (actually 3% a "month") and intrest compounds.

AND if you count all compound intrest, then the formula is Final Population=Starting Population x 1.03^number of turns passed... for 10M pop and 100 turns (10 years) that equals 192.18632M, that an increase of over 19 fold!



[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 08 May 2001).]

Re: Using captured races for population
 

One of these days MM will fix up that "required Pop per facilty" and this will totally screw up all those plans like moving the pop around.
Hope he does not do it while I am the middle of my multi-player as I am spread very thin on all my worlds.

Re: Using captured races for population
 

Rather than trying to max out populations, I like to push as many planets as I can to the next bonus threshhold. I usually pull people off my most populous world to leave the largest base to replace them from. Once one colony has its first 100M, I start filling the next one. When the 100M colony is closing on 500M, I "top off" that one, etc.

------------------
Cap'n Q

Re: Using captured races for population
 

Another good population increase tactic: Check out any moons around the planet. If they have better conditions that the planet, colonise it (even if it's not native breathing) and use it as a population farm - transferring pop between a planet and its moons is immediate and hassle free.

Of course this has the added advantage of extra cargo space, weapons platform site(s) and unit production - and space for another facility.

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so Brain, but how are we gonna teach a goat to dance with flippers on? "

Re: Using captured races for population
 

Not to mention that I=P*e^(rt) is the "continuous compounding" interest calculation, whereas the population growth is a periodic compounding (i.e., calculated at discrete time intervals).

I also have yet to see a 30% population growth factor on my worlds... highest I've seen so far is 18%... (but then, I don't think I have any Optimal worlds colonized).

Re: Using captured races for population
 

As to population increases and percentages, I always use the 'rule of 72'. IIRC, you take a percentage and divide that whole number into 72. The resulting number will be the number of years it takes for your population to double.

For example; at 30% growth:

72 / 30 = 2.4

..so each 2.4 years the population doubles. ...at least that's pretty close when figuring investments, etc...

EDIT: Of course it does not apply to the low pop levels. It seems that if there is any growth at all, the game gives you at least 1M per turn. So at low pop it increases faster....

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 08 May 2001).]