Are gas giants really an advantage?

[Phoenix-D]

The game generates planets based on the text files.

An example from sectype.txt:
"Physical Type := Planet
Picture Num := 10
Description := Moderate planet with dense cloud cover.
Planet Size := Medium
Planet Physical Type := Rock
Planet Atmosphere := Carbon Dioxide"

That's one possible planet.

From Systemtypes.txt:
"Name := Standard 1
Description := Standard solar system.
System Physical Type := Normal
Background Bitmap := Starmap.bmp
Empires Can Start In := TRUE
Mask Background Objs := FALSE
Non-Tiled Center Pic := FALSE
Number of Abilities := 0
WP Stellar Abil Type := Normal Warp Point
Number of System Objs := 12
Obj 1 Physical Type := Star
Obj 1 Position := Ring 1
Obj 1 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Star
Obj 1 Size := Any
Obj 1 Age := Any
Obj 1 Color := Any
Obj 1 Luminosity := Any
Obj 2 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 2 Position := Ring 2
Obj 2 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 2 Size := Any
Obj 2 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 2 Composition := Any
Obj 3 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 3 Position := Ring 3
Obj 3 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 3 Size := Any
Obj 3 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 3 Composition := Any
Obj 4 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 4 Position := Ring 3
Obj 4 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 4 Size := Any
Obj 4 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 4 Composition := Any
Obj 5 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 5 Position := Ring 4
Obj 5 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 5 Size := Any
Obj 5 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 5 Composition := Any
Obj 6 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 6 Position := Ring 4
Obj 6 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 6 Size := Any
Obj 6 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 6 Composition := Any
Obj 7 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 7 Position := Ring 5
Obj 7 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 7 Size := Any
Obj 7 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 7 Composition := Any
Obj 8 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 8 Position := Ring 5
Obj 8 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 8 Size := Any
Obj 8 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 8 Composition := Any
Obj 9 Physical Type := Storm
Obj 9 Position := Ring 5
Obj 9 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Storm
Obj 9 Size := Any
Obj 10 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 10 Position := Ring 6
Obj 10 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 10 Size := Any
Obj 10 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 10 Composition := Any
Obj 11 Physical Type := Planet
Obj 11 Position := Ring 6
Obj 11 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Planet
Obj 11 Size := Any
Obj 11 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 11 Composition := Any
Obj 12 Physical Type := Asteroids
Obj 12 Position := Ring 6
Obj 12 Stellar Abil Type := Normal Asteroids
Obj 12 Size := Any
Obj 12 Atmosphere := Any
Obj 12 Composition := Any"

That's one possible solar system. Notice that any planet can come up- I think some planet types are more common because they have more entries in the first file.

Phoenix-D

[Andrés]

Count planets of every type atmosphere and size in sectypes.
Count how many are allowes as any and how many are forced to be of a certain size and/or armosphere in every systemtype
Multipliy the resulting value by the times each system appears according to quadranttypes.
Compile everything in to a graphic (so no one understands it).
Post it here.

[Bman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Andrés Lescano:
Count planets of every type atmosphere and size in sectypes.
Count how many are allowes as any and how many are forced to be of a certain size and/or armosphere in every systemtype
Multipliy the resulting value by the times each system appears according to quadranttypes.
Compile everything in to a graphic (so no one understands it).
Post it here.

---

Very nice picture. The only thing I cannot distinquish is rocks vs ice. But I will hazard a guess and say the rocks outnumber the ice so then I can tell which is which.
None has alot less than I thought. Did you include moons? I always liked None because there are always alot of moons littered around the galaxy. But according to your graphic, all the other atmospheres have more tiny planets than None does.

[LGM]

I have a spreadsheet someone put together, I do not remember who did it, but to summarize the results they are as follows: 48% Rock, 24% Gas, 28% Ice. Ice are clearly at a disadvantage because they get small worlds. Gas get half as many as rock, but the worlds are bigger. Rock have more chances at ruins than gas. I favor lots of small worlds over a few big worlds because that gives you more places to build shipyards early on so you can spend those resources building more colonizers. One element that favors Gas Giant races is they get more benefit from Industrial computers than other races because they can get 10 facilities on a planet more often so that a 10% computer is worth building. Another element that favor Gas races is they get more Population bonuses on their worlds. However, that bonus comes no where close to making up for half as many worlds.

[Andrés]

I did count the moons (fored to be non atmosphere - tiny) and did count the "moon hosts" that are forced to be huge.

Yep, ice planets are the ones that look like a diagonal line.
Gas giant frequency of larger sizes compensates their lower number, but nothing compensates lower number of ice planets. Ice dwellers will allways be in dissadvantage.

[Skulky]

If you play with neutrals/comps or dumb humans (neutrals are best cause they are neutral) you can trade them 2 ****ty ships (1 engine meet requirements) for whatever colony tech they have and then go wild.

Also i am leaning more towards rock now. I used to be a gas junkie but i guess that more planets that are smaller mean if you lose one it isn't such a loss. And ruins, ahhhhhhhhhhh.

[Andrés]

Ok I revised again my graphic and realized of the error I had made when counting moons.
Here you have it, more than half of the tiny planets are none atmosphere.

To answer the topic question, I made some calculations by multipliying the number of each size of planet by the number of facilities it gives and adding them.
Here are my conclussions:

Without Domes:
Methane-Ice 477.33 facilities (4.69%)
Oxygen/Hydrogen/C Dioxide-Ice 500.44 facilities (4.92%)
None-Ice 619.11 facilities (6.09%)
Oxygen/Hydrogen/C Dioxide - Rock 800.89 facilities (7.88%)
Methane-Rock 824 facilities (8.10%)
Oxygen/Hydrogen/C Dioxide/Methane - Gas Giant 854.22 facilities (8.40%)
None-Rock 928.67 facilities (9.13%)


Considering domes:
Methane-Ice 901.42 facilities (5.12%)
Oxygen/Hydrogen/C Dioxide-Ice 919.91 (5.22%)
None-Ice 1014.8 facilities (5.76%)
Oxygen/Hydrogen/C Dioxide/Methane - Gas Giant 1366.8 facilities (7.76%)
Oxygen/Hydrogen/C Dioxide - Rock 1471.8 facilities (8.35%)
Methane-Rock 1490.3 facilities (8.46%)
None-Rock 1574 facilities (8.93%)

The difference between Methane and other atmospheres is that they have 1 more small-rock and one less small-ice planet. Maybe a bug in sectorabilities.txt, it gives a slight advantage to methane-rock and a slight dissadvantage to methane-ice.

Advantage of rock-none is compensated by the fact that they'll have less non-domed planets when researching extra colonization techs (no none-gas giants), and that they will not be able to use atmospheric mod plants on gas giants for the same reason.

Note that gas giants are comparatively better if we don't consider domes.
This advantage is compensated by the comparatively lower number of domed facilities in large and huge planets.
Difference between atmospheres and none is also acentuated (still putting rock-none in first place above gas giants), since there will be no domed moons that make up a good part of the domed space.

So in conclusion:
The best combination in the early game is allways rock-none. That advantage goes away once extra colonization techs and atmosphere converters come into play.
Then best ones are rock and then gas if domes are allowed (as usual), if not gas and then rock.
Ice planets are always a large dissadvantage, none-ice is better than other-ice.