Finite Resource Games

[Suicide Junkie]

The very best thing to do it preserve a few high-value planets.

Build value improvement plants, and balance out the harvest with the regrowth.

[mottlee]

IF you build the Facilitys to help the planet, will that work in this sort of game or are they useless?

[Marvin Kosh]

As far as I can see, the Improvement plants do nothing. Come to think on it, if you add in the setting of Only Colonise breathable worlds, that pretty much makes the Planet Utilisation Tech a waste of space http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Oh yeah, the AI is hopeless with this type of game. It sits there with its mineral facilities going full crank, and then doesn't scrap them when they start producing 0 minerals. I was playing a no warp points game and was getting a whole bunch of systems hooked up, had my resources budgeted out real good.... had a look at the AI empires and said, damn if only I could charge them to use the warp points I created http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Even one of the neutral powers (that don't leave their home system) did better, they got a whole two warp points opened.

If I see a Finite Resources game on PBW, I'll go for it, like. It pushes you to really expand, and combined with settings like Only Colonise Home Planet Type and Breathable Atmosphere, it makes the remote mining a lot more useful, especially if you're having to pay maintenance on a warp-point opener and want to spread it around a bit.

[Taera]

Hmm, i was thinking of suggesting a finite resources game on PBW.
Im not that much of a great player, still i would be interested in playing that game. Medium galaxy and NotAllConnected would be fun.

[Marvin Kosh]

Yeah, it could be interesting. I'm just wondering how many players you could fit into that.... If you have a Clusters galaxy, 12 players easy, each with yer own little star cluster http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

The other settings only make three to four separate groupings, and that's usually after hitting Generate six or seven times....

[Suicide Junkie]

Value improvement adds x percent of the current value every year (10 turns).

So, on a homeworld with 2000 kt or resources, one VI3 will generate 6kt per turn. That's enough to support over ten monoliths indefinitely...

If a planet ever falls to zero resources, the value improvement facilities will do nothing.
(3% times zero is zero)

[Marvin Kosh]

Ah, I getcha now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

That'll come in handy. There's nothing worse than having all those resources and being feared of exhausting them....

[Taera]

12 players? thats a little too much.
May i suggest 6 players each with their own star cluster where the map and player placement will be created by a non-player moderator?

[Suicide Junkie]

That'll come in handy. There's nothing worse than having all those resources and being feared of exhausting them....<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Religious tech can help a lot there. With a nature shrine, you don't have to waste time and facility spaces by building VI's on your outPosts. I like to start the colonies out as research, and then convert one facility at a time to resources, once the shrine effect is more than enough to support it.

Basically, I play finite resources as if it were an infinite resources game, except with a little bit of pre-extraction terraforming.

The calculation for how much you can safely extract goes like this:

Current Value * (Sum of VI effects) / 10 turns / extration rate of facility = # of facilities the planet can support
Always round down, and you will have a bountiful harvest of resources for ever.

[ June 21, 2002, 19:46: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Wardad]

Nature Shrine is system level. VI is planet level. So they should stack, right?

[Marvin Kosh]

Hey guys,

I remember someone commenting about whether anyone used the Finite Resource setting for games. Well, I had a go of it just with a few AIs, and that. I actually messed it up because I selected the setting after generating the map, so my HW (and those of the AI) had 2MT of Min, Org, Rad, while all the other planets had like 1KT and that was it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But I fixed that.

What I did realise was that this would maybe make you re-think setting up a whole bunch of mineral miners on a loaded planet, because naturally enough it'll run out faster, though in a time of crisis you can up the number to support increased production.

One trick I realised would be handy would be to set up a lot of storage, and when you've exhausted a planet's resources you can scrap the facilities into your fund of resources, and then set up even more storage tanks (or research/intel, whatever you prefer).

It might also be an idea to build an ultra-recycler III on each decent-sized planet, so that when you recycle you get the maximum amount back out.

[CW]

When was the Last time I scrapped something? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Marvin Kosh]

Originally posted by Taera:
12 players? thats a little too much.
May i suggest 6 players each with their own star cluster where the map and player placement will be created by a non-player moderator?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, I was just saying that as a for-instance http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Anyone wanna go to PBW and set this up? I would myself except I'm new to the whole SE4 on-line thing and I'm ignorant to some of the things players like or don't like in their settings. Something original, surely, but how am I supposed to know what hasn't been tried a thousand times already? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

So do you guys think Religious has an advantage on a finite Resources map? It's a whole lot of points, worth it though from what I'm reading here and other places.

[Taera]

2Marvin: no idea, new too. hehe.

shrines and VI do stack. thats for those realy big mining planets. Religious is quite the powerful when used on finite resources maps, but then again there is the Solar Generator from Crystallurgy that generates resources for free...

[Suicide Junkie]

VIs stack with other VIs as well.
If you felt like it, you could fill up a huge planet with VI3's and get 75% more resources (almost double!) your resource value every ten turns.

At one point, solar generators were depleting the planet's resources, but it was fixed in v1.59

[PvK]

Finite resources on PBW can be pretty interesting. There are meaningful trade-offs between the time and investment needed to get sustainable production, and just draining a planet dry. Trade income and storage become more important. I would say that Religious should probably cost a little more in a finite resources game, and would tend to recommend High or at least Medium research costs. Maintenance reduction ability is also massively important.

PvK