Increased Colony costs for "flavor"

[geoschmo]

We kicked around the whole methane ice having one less picture thing a year ago. Yes, they have one less picture so yes, on average the is a sligthly lower chance for methane ice worlds. But it really is meaningless in game terms. The difference isn't significant enough that it shows up noticably in individual games. Probabilities are only useful over a large sample size, and all that matters to us in a game is what's going to happen in this specific game. Even with a huge quadrant with hundreds of systems and thousands of planets, it's not really important the total number of each type. All that matters to you is how many of those planets are near you and that can't be predicted at all. Because of the randomness of placements and whatnot you could easily end up in a start system with a couple ice methane worlds and you'd be kicking youself for not taking it then.

As far as empire setup goes there is really no basis for choosing between rock or ice over other than personal taste or role play or whatever. The choice between Rock/Ice and Gas Giant does make a difference, but that's not to say one is better than the other. They simpley require slightly different strategies as Gas players will tend to have fewer but larger, and presumably better defended planets, while a rock/ice player will have more planets but be more widely dispersed.

[Suicide Junkie]

Actually, there is a huge difference. Fyron; change that screenshot to the "Common Max" setting.

You'll see that ice gets only a fraction of the facilities/population/build rate that rock gets.

[Fyron]

Certainly, when comparing totals of ice and rock planets, ice loses out significantly. However, this was not the point I was contesting. I was refering to the comparison between methane ice and rock planets as opposed to the comparision between oxygen/hydrogen/carbon dioxide ice and rock planets. The bug with methane planets in SectType.txt does not significantly affect the "balance" between ice and rock planets.

[Suicide Junkie]

I know that, and you know that, Fyron.
But Geo just said:

As far as empire setup goes there is really no basis for choosing between rock or ice over other than personal taste or role play or whatever. The choice between Rock/Ice and Gas Giant does make a difference, but that's not to say one is better than the other. They simpley require slightly different strategies as Gas players will tend to have fewer but larger, and presumably better defended planets, while a rock/ice player will have more planets but be more widely dispersed

In fact, Ice worlds have between 35% and 40% LESS of EVERYTHING compared to rock.

Compared to rock, gas gets slightly more population, but fewer facilities and even lower construction rate than ice; half what rock gets.

[geoschmo]

Suicide Junkie said:
In fact, Ice worlds have between 35% and 40% LESS of EVERYTHING compared to rock.

I think hardly the shift of one sector type from methane ice to methane rock would cause that drastic of a change. I'd have to have some more information about how you are calculating your percentages to comment on it. Are there some more factors that aren't generally well known causing such a discrepancy?

[Suicide Junkie]

The rock/ice methane bug in sectortypes.txt does indeed make only a small effect.

The systemtypes.txt is where the huge issues crop up.
Far too many Rock/Any calls, not enough Ice/Any calls.
Rock/None is also far more common than Ice/None in the systemtypes.

The map analyser covers the effects from everything:
- sectortypes.txt
- systemtypes.txt
- quadranttypes.txt (choose one quadrant to analyse)
- settings.txt (the population modifiers to SY rate and resources)
- planetsizes.txt (facilities, population, domed planet modifiers)

[geoschmo]

Suicide Junkie said:
The systemtypes.txt is where the huge issues crop up.
Far too many Rock/Any calls, not enough Ice/Any calls.
Rock/None is also far more common than Ice/None in the systemtypes.

Are we talking about stock SE4 here? I was not aware that there were any system type entries specifying the composition as rock. The only planets specified at all that I am aware of are the tiny/none same as entries for the moons. Those can be any composition, but will always be rock or ice since there are no none/gas giant worlds.

I did a check just now and what I thought was correct. No composition specific entries at all in the system types file. Unless I'm blind SJ? Are you working with something other than stock files there? Maybe that was an anylsis of Fyron's Quadrant mod?