Proportions and Facilities

[oleg]

About upgrade cost: there is a an entry in settings.txt like "upgrade cost = 50". Does it affect ships upgrades only or applies to planets as well ? If later, may be we can vary it a little.

[Jmenschenfresser]

"Upgrade Facility Cost Percent := 50"

Aub or PvK,

Change that to 100 and you are good to go. The upgrade system will still be lame, but you won't have to worry about being ripped off, and you can scrap and build to your hearts desire.

[Mylon]

Is what would be nice is if upgrades, instead of currently modifying the cost of the new facility, applied a percentage of the old facility towards the new one. This way the strategy of building a 15kT minor city and upgrading to a 100kT metropolis would cost something on the order of 92.5KT (15 + (100 - 15*50%)) rather than the current system of 65kT (15 + 100*.5%).

But of course, something hardcoded and requires us to bother Aaron, not PVK.

[Aub]

Originally posted by Jmenschenfresser:
"Upgrade Facility Cost Percent := 50"

Aub or PvK,

Change that to 100 and you are good to go. The upgrade system will still be lame, but you won't have to worry about being ripped off, and you can scrap and build to your hearts desire.

Well, yes, that makes sense. You still get a significant benefit when you upgrade - the original facility keeps working and producing all that time it takes to upgrade it (and the time can be long!).

But this way upgrading feels more like a bonus feature, not something essential for survival of your species. You see, the way it is now, *everything* needs to be done through upgrades. If you plan to build a Metropolis, building a Minor City and then upgrading it wins hands down - it cuts the cost of the Metropolis in half!

Simply changing this line in settings may however destroy game balance. If this change is to be done in Proportions, higher level facility costs need to be reduced, as now there will be no way to get them at half-cost by playing the upgrade game.

PvK, what do you think of this?

[PvK]

Originally posted by Aub:
...
But this way upgrading feels more like a bonus feature, not something essential for survival of your species. You see, the way it is now, *everything* needs to be done through upgrades. If you plan to build a Metropolis, building a Minor City and then upgrading it wins hands down - it cuts the cost of the Metropolis in half!

Simply changing this line in settings may however destroy game balance. If this change is to be done in Proportions, higher level facility costs need to be reduced, as now there will be no way to get them at half-cost by playing the upgrade game.

PvK, what do you think of this?

I think I still support my original math when designing the facilities to balance against the problem you are describing, which I don't think exists, even though it might appear to, without benefit of spreadsheet.

Let's take the example you list above. Yes, Minor City means you can upgrade to Metropolis for half of the cost of building a new Metropolis. But that does not mean doing so is more efficient than not using upgrades (unless the victory condition of your game is "the one with the biggest city, wins" ).

So, say you have a planet with a constant construction rate of 2000x3, and you want to do intensive development that will maximize production over the next 30 or so turns. Plan A is to build a Minor City and upgrade to Metropolis. Plan B is to build two Minor Cities and then a City.

Plan A spends 15,000x3 resources over 8 turns building a minor city, and then 50,000x3 over 25 turns upgrading it to a metropolis. The result after 35 turns is 65,000x3 spent, with 8,525 produced while the Minor City was there, and 2,300 produced by the Metropolis, with 1,150 production/turn attained.

Plan A TOTAL: 184,175 in the hole, which will be paid off by itself in 160 turns (after turn 35).

Plan B spends 15,000x3 resources over 8 turns twice in a row, and then 25,000x3 over 13 turns building a City. This takes 29 turns (4 less than Plan A). After 35 turns, the result is 30,000x3 spent on the two minor cities, the first of which has produced 9,315, the second has produced 6,555. The City cost 25,000 x 3 and has produced 2550. Total production/turn attained is 1,115 (only 35 less than the Metropolis).

Plan B TOTAL: 146,580 in the hole, which will be paid off by itself in 132 turns (after turn 35).

Both plans suffer in efficiency comparison to just building ordinary industrial facilities as in the standard game. The only exceptions (I think) are if you are trying to compress as much into as little space as possible. That only pays off in the very long-term, as in, hundreds and hundreds of turns, assuming you are going to sit and develop your own local systems, instead of spreading and colonizing and conquering the quadrant.

So, the standard set tactic of sprawl and conquer still pays off, but the rate of payoff is a couple of orders of magnitude (or more) slower, and there are less efficient alternatives in intensive development, so a small isolationist or neutral can continue to develop as well. Also, of course, a larger empire is more difficult to protect, etc.

PvK

[oleg]

Originally posted by PvK:
So, the standard set tactic of sprawl and conquer still pays off, but the rate of payoff is a couple of orders of magnitude (or more) slower, and there are less efficient alternatives in intensive development, so a small isolationist or neutral can continue to develop as well. Also, of course, a larger empire is more difficult to protect, etc.

PvK

Yes, indeed. In Last game I over expanded myself and got into war with two AIs on medium bonus. Both fronts were 2-3 systems away from homeworld and I simply could not pay maintanance for two big fleets. Fortunately (well, unfortunately in fact) AI can not defend effectively against swarms of fighters or I would have to abandom few planets.

[Aub]

Originally posted by PvK:
...So, say you have a planet with a constant construction rate of 2000x3, and you want to do intensive development that will maximize production over the next 30 or so turns. Plan A is to build a Minor City and upgrade to Metropolis. Plan B is to build two Minor Cities and then a City...

Indeed, if you have enough facility slots on each planet, the problem of upgrades does not present itself. That's why I posposed to have more facility slots in the first place.

But you will have a bunch of non-breathable worlds, with just a couple of facility slots on each, and you need to devise a development plan for those. What, do I just forget them? Then why have upgrades at all? obviously one does not need them for breathable planets, not for a very very long time!

...So, the standard set tactic of sprawl and conquer still pays off, but the rate of payoff is a couple of orders of magnitude (or more) slower, and there are less efficient alternatives in intensive development, so a small isolationist or neutral can continue to develop as well. Also, of course, a larger empire is more difficult to protect, etc....

I am not trying to get rid of those less efficient ways of development. I'm simply saying they need not be done through upgrades.

If the facility upgrade cost is 100% (that is, you don't win anything by upgrading), and the Metropolis costs 65,000x3, your math still holds.

But now the plan C - "build a Metropolis right away" - will have comparable results, so I *don't have to upgrade if I decide to build a Metropolis*.

As things currently stand, *if* I want to go for a Metropolis, I *have to* upgrade. Your point that building a Metropolis may not be that efficient a strategy is true, but irrelevant

Thanks! -- Aub