Does anyone know the formula SEIV uses to calculate score?

raynor · #1 January 26th, 2001, 01:49 AM

I said:

I'm guessing that if an empty Star Base contributes more to your score than a fully loaded cruiser, then this also means that a fully loaded cruiser which took 20 turns to build contributes the same score as one which took only 2 turns to build.

Then, Nyx said:

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As well it should. Score is *supposed* to represent your power in the game. How long that cruiser took to build shouldn't impact that, IMO (though I think total shipyard capacity would be an interesting value to add to score). By your premise, anything built at a shipyard 2 should only provide 2/3 the score points of the exact same ship built at the lower tech shipyard. And anyone with temporal tech and their 4xs speed shipyards would be realy screwed.
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What I meant was that a ship that takes ten times as long to build costs ten times as many minerals. Sorry for not being more clear!

I think the cost of a ship in minerals should significantly impact the score. For example:

Empire 1 has maxed out his tech and is pulling in an impressive 2,000,000 minerals each turn. Let's say that they build a cruiser loaded up with the latest high tech gadgets so that their ships are KT for KT the baddest thing in space. Let's say that a single 300KT ship costs a ridiculous 50,000 minerals to build.

Now, Empire 2 is stuck in the stone age. They're still building 150KT ships which cost 5,000 minerals to build.

So, Empire 1 has 20 300KT ships patrolling its borders. These ships cost an even million minerals to build *and* 250,000 minerals per turn in maintenance.

Empire 2 also has 20 300KT ships patrolling its borders. These ships cost a total of 100,000 minerals to build and 25,000 minerals per turn for maintenance.

Clearly, Empire 1 is going to have the larger score because they will have more systems, planets, population, tech level, resource production, intel production, etcetera.

But both empires are going to have IDENTICAL scores for their ships.

Does the number and type of ships from contribute equally to each empire's power?

If you can convince me they do, I'm going to consider you one heck of a salesman. :-)

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 25 January 2001).]

Nyx · #2 February 5th, 2001, 10:30 PM

One problem complicating that scenario is that many advanced Versions of technologies cost exactly the same as the simpler ones, sometimes they cost less. For example, angine III costs less than engine I, shouldn't it give you a higher score representing your higher tech ship? Same with the guns, a wavemotion III costs the same as wavemotion I, shouldn't you get a higher score for the more advanced gun? If you go by the resource cost (and I assume that you were only using minerals as an example, not claiming that only minerals should be counted) then the advanced ships will often cost the same as a basic ship.

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

raynor · #3 February 6th, 2001, 07:43 PM

There are so many flaws in how the score is calculated, it really isn't worth arguing any more. If the method used to calculate the score were an indicator of the quality of the game, I would say that SEIV is the worst game ever made.

Right about now, I'm just glad TwinGalaxies is supporting SEIV by hosting the tournament.

And, whether or not the score calculation is flawed or not, I'm willing to concede that the folks who achieve the highest scores are better players than me.

Drake · #4 February 7th, 2001, 01:15 AM

Well, at least the issue with how ships affect score isn't really going to matter for the contest. Without a doubt, resource generation is what you are going to need to win.

raynor · #5 February 7th, 2001, 07:49 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Drake:
Well, at least the issue with how ships affect score isn't really going to matter for the contest. Without a doubt, resource generation is what you are going to need to win.

I know hardly anything about how the score is calculated except what I've heard from pros like you. Isn't your resource production just added straight into the score?

I recall having a score of 1.0M with resource production of less than 300K. So, it seemed that resources were much less an issue than other components of the score.

What would prevent someone from simultaneously building up a huge armada of bases/ships while also storing a modest amount of resources. Then, on turn 150, they cold unmothball all their bases/ships? Wouldn't it be possible to have a base/ship count well in excess of what you could afford to maintain?

Once again, I know almost nothing about how the score is calculated except that I've heard folks say that empty hulls count lots, and from my experience, fighters don't count at all.

Thanks.

geoschmo · #6 February 7th, 2001, 08:13 PM

quote:
Isn't your resource production just added straight into the score?

That is correct.

quote:
So, it seemed that resources were much less an issue than other components of the score.

That is also correct, however what I got from Drake's comment was that the top scorers in the contest are all going to have close to the 2000 limit on ships/bases, so the difference is going to be who can get the most resource points out of your colonies.

quote:
What would prevent someone from simultaneously building up a huge armada of bases/ships while also storing a modest amount of resources. Then, on turn 150, they cold unmothball all their bases/ships? Wouldn't it be possible to have a base/ship count well in excess of what you could afford to maintain?

Two things should prevent that. One, you have to turn in a savegame file for every five turns. You want to unmothball all your ships every five turns before you save the game and then turn around and mothball them again? Yuck!

Secondly, I think it would take more than a "modest amount" of resource storage to acomplish this. Keep in mind you have to pay to unmothball a ship. It would take a LOT to unmothball 2000 ships/bases in one turn. Plus all those storage facilities are taking up spaces on you colonies that could be generating resources, and so you are going to be behind someone who whas the same number of ships, but fewer storage fac's.

Also remember that stored resources count nothing towards score, only resources generated in the current turn.

IMHO, the best plan is to generate enough points to maintain your 2K ship/base navy. Takes a lot of colonies, but can be done, even in a small quadrant.

Drake · #7 February 7th, 2001, 09:22 PM

quote:
That is also correct, however what I got from Drake's comment was that the top scorers in the contest are all going to have close to the 2000 limit on ships/bases, so the difference is going to be who can get the most resource points out of your colonies.

Absolutely correct. Also, mothballing and unmothballing at the end is a bad idea for the contest, even if it were legal (which it isn't, BTW). You need resources ON HAND to unmothball, which as geoschmo pointed out aren't added to your score. This takes storage facilities which use up room for resource producing facilities. By doing this, you're just hurting yourself.

I only use storage to keep current resource holding up for retrofitting. I plan on scrapping all my storage facilities after I am done building ringworlds, since I won't need to retrofit anything after that. I build one extra component two years ahead of the other 10, and take a two step retrofit to the core piece (costs a cpl hundred K, but years faster).

-Drake