Next Patch Suggestion

Baron Munchausen · #1 February 8th, 2001, 09:18 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Kimball:
Another thing that would be nice is an empire wide "update facilities." I just spent 20 minutes going to several planets so that I could update storage facilities. Would be nice.

There IS one. Go to the construction queues window (the 'wrench' button on the main menu at the left). One of the buttons on the lower right in that window is the global "Upgrade facilities" button, though I forget the exact text on the button right now.

Kimball · #2 February 8th, 2001, 10:53 PM

Excellent! I had no idea. Would probably pay to read the Online manual, eh? Thank you.

DirectorTsaarx · #3 February 9th, 2001, 12:21 AM

There's only one problem with the "universal upgrade" button. The best way to explain is by example:

I always use Temporal race tech, which eventually grants "Temporal Space Yards." HOWEVER, you can't just upgrade a normal space yard to a temporal yard, you have to scrap the old yard and build the new one (since they both build ships, you have to scrap one before building the other, even if there's space available on the planet). IN ADDITION, if you continue researching ship sizes and get the upgraded regular space yard, and then use the universal update, any old yards you haven't converted to temporal yards also get upgraded. If you're not paying attention, the system could end up spending your resources (and build time) on upgrading facilities that you're just going to scrap and replace.

The GOOD thing about the universal upgrade is that it also updates all the pending queues (i.e., if you have 15 Research Facility I's in a queue, and use the universal upgrade function, that queue is changed to read 15 Research Facility II's (or III's, if you researched that fast). Which brings up another issue - on long build queues, sometimes you'll research multiple upgrades before finishing a queue; you'll want to delete old upgrade orders when you issue the new upgrade order, especially since the new upgrade order cost was calculated based on the existing facility costs, not the "post-upgrade" cost. In other words, you can have "Upgrade to Research Facility II (x5)" followed by "Upgrade to Research Facility III (x5)" in the queue. The cost associated with the upgrade to RF III is based on upgrading RF I's to RF III's, not RF II's to RF III's. So that intermediate order (upgrading to RF II) is not only useless, it's a waste of time and resources.

Hope this all made sense - I'm just passing on the things I've noticed while playing, and it's much easier to understand when looking at the queues themselves...

Drake · #4 February 9th, 2001, 12:30 AM

quote:
Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
The cost associated with the upgrade to RF III is based on upgrading RF I's to RF III's, not RF II's to RF III's.

Aren't those costs the same? I thought all upgrade costs were 50% of the cost to build the new facility from scratch.

-Drake

raynor · #5 February 9th, 2001, 12:41 AM

I'm curious.

Even after I get Mineral Miner III's, I prefer to continue building Mineral Miner II's because they finish building in a single turn. Thus, I get the added production immediately instead of getting just 100 more per turn two turns later. Later, after I've maxed out my facilities, I'll upgrade them all en masse. It doesn't seem that I lose any production while I'm upgrading.

Does anyone else keep building Miner II's after they've researched Miner III's?

Because I do things this way, I really hate it when I tell it to 'Upgrade Facilities', and it changes all my Miner II's in production to Miner III's. The same goes for farms and research labs.

Edit->

Hmm... I really, really wonder now. It *always* seemed I was getting a better deal by building 25 Miner II's and then spending 25 turns probably upgrading them all to Miner III's. It just didn't seem worth it to wait an extra turn for each facility just for 100 more minerals per turn. But if it turns out that I'm spending 2000 resources per turn for 25 turns to upgrade it to a Miner III, then maybe I'm not coming out ahead after all.

Where is mathematically minded Zanthis?

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

Nyx · #6 February 9th, 2001, 12:50 AM

quote:
Does anyone else keep building Miner II's after they've researched Miner III's?

Nope. Though I'll be interested to see the numbers if anyone calculates them as requested, if it is better to build the #2 and then upgrade to #3.

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

DirectorTsaarx · #7 February 9th, 2001, 12:54 AM

quote:
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

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).]