Starting Planet Type question. - Page 2

Arralen · #11 November 20th, 2000, 11:40 PM

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

Tomgs · #12 November 21st, 2000, 02:39 AM

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.

Seawolf · #13 November 21st, 2000, 05:13 PM

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!

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Seawolf on the prowl

Lupusman · #14 November 21st, 2000, 06:05 PM

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.

Arralen · #15 November 22nd, 2000, 03:28 PM

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

Psitticine · #16 November 22nd, 2000, 08:50 PM

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.

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