Gas planets vs rock planets???

[Smolf]

What is your preference for starting planet? Gas or rock? (Ice is few in number and therefore out of question... at least, that's my opinion) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I have been discussing this for a while with a friend of mine, and we can't agree on this dilemma. I prefer gas planets because they are largest and therefore offer more room for your different facilities in fewer starsystems.

My friend always chooses rock planets, because they are more numerous and that gives a larger probability for a breathably atmosphere.

Ofcourse later in the game you can terraform your planets to fit your populations requirements, but thats not an option in the beginning of the game, where expansion is vital for your future.

So what do you do? Let my "hear" your opinions on this and your reasons.

(Sorry if my english isn't perfect, but I live in Denmark, so it's not my native language http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif )

[Ruatha]

Ice isn't sucha waste as you might think.

In PBW games Ice can be a valuable commodity for trade, enabling you to get all three colony techs. Whereas if you start with rock you might trade and get gas colony tech if you're lucky but you'll have to stand in line to trade with the ice colony dudes.

Having said that I prefer rock, nothing beats solid ground underneath your feets. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Good to have one more scandinavian here.

[ May 08, 2003, 15:04: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[FadingSuns]

I have to admit that I like Rock planets with no atmosphere. Almost every moon is prime even with limited cargo space. Once I get Ice tech it usually gives me the rest of the moons as well as larger planets to easily colinize.

[DavidG]

I pick Rock or Gas. I like Gas because the planets are always medium or larger. Thus less micromanagement. I think Rock are more numerous but lots of small planets (I believe in terms of Facility space things are pretty much equal)

What I like about Rock is that it is easier to find a sector with a rock planet and a rock moon. Very usefull for training ships.

[Gryphin]

I like the Gas Giant / Storage.
Things like Robotoid Factory have more of an impact.

I never thought about that, but yes, less micro managment.
Thanks David.

[Grandpa Kim]

The Iceman cometh!

Yes, I take ice! Contrary to popular opinion, they are as numerous as rock. And having it makes me a valuable commodity. You will pay big time for my ice tech!

[Cyrien]

I also prefer ice. It is slightly less common than rock but when you take that in with the fact that everyone knows that and then takes rock you actually wind up with far less competition and more space to grow. And of course everyone wants what you have and so few others have!

I ussually take none as well and live off of the moons mostly.

One weakness to this strategy is of course in order to get the same level as others you have to produce more colony ships since each small planet has less space.

One advantage however is that you finish building all your facilities on them and if you work like me and on anything with 6 or more facility slots (Oh how I love you Advanced Storage Techniques) you build a space yard... well you get some massive ship output capacity really fast as well.

Really I think they are all just about ballanced in the early game. Late game anything/none may be at a slight disadvantage being unable to terraform gas giants but this is easily countered by simply gaining another races population. Or worse case scenario having to blow up all the Gas Giants and remake them over and over till you get what you want(flash backs to SE3 anyone?)

[Aloofi]

I always take rock, cause there are greater chances of getting a breathable planet per system, thus allowing for stronger and more defensible Capital System Colonies.

[Dingocat85]

At least from what I've noticed:

There are more Ice planets than all others, but the planets tend to be pretty small. I loaded a Large map, and only counted 7 different types of Huge Ice planets.

Gas planets are obviously the biggest, none being smaller than Medium. However, there are fewer Gas planets than all others, and no moons are ever Gas planets.

Rock planets are an average - Average amount of them, average size.
-----
In Single-player SE4 (and I imagine in PBW aswell), Rock-planet Empires are the most common choice - so competition for planets can get rather fierce.

Because there are so few Gas planets, you could probably have just as fierce competition for them, if only half as many players started on Gas planets.

With Ice planets, not only are they the least favorite of the 3 (meaning more planets for you), but they're the most numerous. More planets also means greater chance a planet will have your atmosphere - with an Average Environmental Resistance, A Tiny planet with a breathable atmosphere is exactly as good as a Huge planet that's not breathable. Since there are more Ice planets (or so I think), there's a greater chance that one will be strategically placed within a Galaxy (i.e, right next to a Warp Point). Lastly, more planets means more Space Yards - No matter how advanced or fast your Space Yard is, the cheapest ships will never be built in faster than 0.1 years. But if you have, say, 6 Spaceyards in a system, you could build 6 ultra-cheap ships in that system in 0.1 years!
-----

And there's my completely unbiased comparison of the three planet types http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ May 08, 2003, 17:25: Message edited by: Dingocat85 ]

[bearclaw]

My preferance is for Rock planets for no other reason than Role-Playing aspects. I've got 2 empires that I play mainly. Both of them live on Rock worlds. No other reason.

[spoon]

I tend to choose Rock, since the early game is all about expansion, and having more spaceyards available is helpful. However I'm basing that on the assumption that there are more rock planets than ice planets - which may be wrong...

[Aloofi]

Originally posted by spoon:
However I'm basing that on the assumption that there are more rock planets than ice planets - which may be wrong...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think is right. In the new game I started yesterday my empire knows of 165 planets, of which 102 are rock.

[oleg]

There question of planet abundance has been raised many times before. It was very well documented there are fewer Ice planets than Rock.

[Ruatha]

Check these out:

<a href="http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=005074#000012" target="_blank">http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=005074#000012
</a>


http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=001768;p=1

[ May 08, 2003, 19:23: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Fyron]

That is all one link Ruatha... I think you need more [ url ] and [ /url ] tags in your post.

[Ruatha]

Nope, needed one less space.:
not "/ URL" but "/URL", don't know why the BBS made that.

[ May 08, 2003, 19:25: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[JLS]

GAS versus ROCK ???

Fuel For thought. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

If you start with GAS you have less Planets True, but what you have; is big. How many moons add up to a Huge Gas.

A game with Neutrals, you can always trade techs for their Rock or Ice and you will gain; because they can not leave the System to haunt you.

In NO WARP games, Rock is still the best bet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

FQM: Rock may be best.

[ May 08, 2003, 23:04: Message edited by: JLS ]

[PvK]

They're all good. Lots of good explanations here why.

Gas giants give you bigger planets which is better for defense (more room, fewer to defend), but lots of little planets mean more maintenance-free shipyards (one per planet).

PvK

[JLS]

Good point and Tip. PVK http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ May 09, 2003, 00:09: Message edited by: JLS ]

[Taera]

i personally prefer ice planets. one reason is role-play, another is i just like the idea of ice planets.

i have to say though, ive been playing with ice-methane race (THE rarest combo) and then i went for rock/methane... heh, that was a huge difference

they're all good. each have their pros and cons, just like anything in SE

thats why we play this game eh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Cyrien]

Yes. I have to admit that for all my earlier reasons for ice/none roleplay is probably the biggest. My favorite race is the Alteri/Eltyri/Altyri/etc... and no matter what else I experiment with them they are always ice/none. It's just part of their evolution and the fundamental concept. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Maybe someday I will make an AI for them and see if anyone wants to make a shipset for them. Could be fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

someone should be able to make a little program to count all the planet types. secttype.txt, i think i mean.

[ May 09, 2003, 06:05: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Fyron]

You need to balance that against the entries in SystemType.txt too, or else you will get skewed results.

[Smolf]

Well, it seems like I have underestimated the value of Ice plantes. Maybe I should grab my skies and head for new territory? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

It would be pretty cool if somebody could make a little program which count the number of planettypes. That would answer the (apparently) long standing question whether there are fewer ice than rock planets.

But I still prefer gas planets. They have a huge storage capacity and are perfect for stacking large amounts of troops and mines. But thats just my opinion.

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Andrés Lescano:
Ok I revised again my graphic and realized of the error I had made when counting moons.
Here you have it (http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/temp/wheelofplanets.gif), 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.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't answer everything but this was a darned good post, high quality!

[ May 09, 2003, 07:29: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Taera]

smolf - i say then stick to GG, after all its all playstyle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[rdouglass]

Originally posted by Taera:
i personally prefer ice planets. one reason is role-play, another is i just like the idea of ice planets.

i have to say though, ive been playing with ice-methane race (THE rarest combo) and then i went for rock/methane... heh, that was a huge difference

they're all good. each have their pros and cons, just like anything in SE

thats why we play this game eh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I like the methane/ice combo as well - I like to do everything I can (within reason of course) to give the AI some help. Also, I guess I just have developed a strange attraction to frozen flatulence.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Also cool for RP....

[JLS]

Originally posted by Ruatha:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Andrés Lescano:
[qb]Ok I revised again my graphic and realized of the error I had made when counting moons.
Here you have it (http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/temp/wheelofplanets.gif), 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:

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thank you, Ruatha. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I saved this for my archives.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ May 09, 2003, 19:08: Message edited by: JLS ]