Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Mines settings?
| Mines settings? |
Sat, 28 May 2011 17:43  |
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| Eagle of Fire | 
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 809
Registered: December 2008
Location: GMT -5 | |
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I'd like to ask a specialized question to the most STARS! savvy players. I don't have neither the time nor the mathematical knowledge to pull this off on my own in a timely manner, so it is why I am asking. Hopefully this knowledge will also be useful for new players as well.
I have been experimenting with the race creator, as everybody else, and have been wondering if it would be wise to consider boosting mine efficiency for mine numbers. Basically, the idea is to have to build less mines which in return would be more efficient than normal, offsetting the fact that you do not have much of them.
The advantage of this tactic would obviously be time and resources required to build a maximum number of mines on a given planet. For breeders for example, if you stay at 25% for a while you never need to build more than 25% of your total mines... But if that number is considerably reduced then you gain resources and possibly years into building all those mines and then you have the possibility to push those saved resources to research or building more ships. Would probably be great for a -F.
Of course, mining efficiency cost way more points in the race builder than mines numbers... So there would be several questions to be answered here:
1) In comparison to the default settings (which are 10/5/10), up to what efficiency would need to be boosted to have something similar (x?/5/5).
2) In comparison to the "normal" settings (which are probably around 12/3/14?), would it make sense to sacrifice race points to gain on speed?
3) Same exercise, but without building factories. To see if it is more interesting for -F races.
4) Does this have a different effect on concentration rates depletion? And how?
Thank you in advance for anybody who wish to step in on this. 
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| Re: Mines settings? |
Sat, 28 May 2011 20:53  |
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 m.a@stars |
 | Commander |
Messages: 2768
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| Eagle of Fire wrote on Sat, 28 May 2011 23:43 |
I have been experimenting with the race creator, as everybody else, and have been wondering if it would be wise to consider boosting mine efficiency for mine numbers. Basically, the idea is to have to build less mines which in return would be more efficient than normal, offsetting the fact that you do not have much of them.
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A very good question, and one without a clear-cut answer. 
You seem to be concerned with time-to-build. In that case, having a large number operated that you'll never have time to actually build would be a waste of RW points. Better efficiency will get you faster to significant shipbuilding. 
But, for all the less-than-perfect planets those extra mines can turn them into very usable shipyards, particularly after the high-resource worlds deplete their stockpiles. When minconcs go low, only a large number of mines operated will get you any decent minerals.
On the other hand, efficiency gets you more minerals up front, in the initial years where every kT counts and you haven't yet built that many mines. Fewer but more efficient mines should get you the same minerals faster but take longer to deplete, which is great until depletion sets in.
So it all depends on the kind of game you'll play. Planets per player, possibility of early conflict, of late game scarcity, of using remote miners, style of race (QS, HG, HP), even play style and the kinds of ships you'll build...
Now regarding the math of mining, mineral output per year depends on Efficiency * concentration * number of mines, so to get the same minerals at the same concentration you'll need to have the same "Efficiency * number" factor. Thus, 10/x/10 giving 100 means you'll need 20/x/5 to get the same 100, assuming the RW allows you to buy that.
For Iztok's races, 11*10 = 110 is a lot less than 150 = 10*15 for about the same RW cost, but those 5 extra mines are going to cost game turns and resources to build, and they'll be less efficient up-front, even if they give more minerals in the late game.
Mine settings, as most everything else in Stars!, imply a bunch of trade-offs. Gain some, lose some, and all that. 
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| Re: Mines settings? |
Tue, 31 May 2011 06:46 |
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| iztok |
| Commander |
Messages: 1219
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
This is an interesting question I already have an answer in my "book". But let's start with simple things first.
The default mine settings aren't "12/3/14" (no RW points for that  ), but 10/3/X, where
- for +f races X is usually very close to the number of factories operated, and
- for -f races it's 11-13 mines per 10k pop. More mines usually isn't needed, because -fs will likely not be able to use all that mined stuff because of their low resource output.
Now to the mine settings. Going from 12 to 17 mines gives you 41% more mines, with corresponding faster mining rate and resulting more minerals. Going from mine eff 10 to 11 gives you ~10% more minerals. Even when going from 20 to 25 mines it's still a 25% increase, which results in more minerals mined out of the rock in first 100 turns. So the real question is how much resources one saves, when he doesn't need to build so many mines. The easy answer is 1500 resources on a 100% planet, that could go into research, or ship production.
But my spreadsheet calculator, which is accurate within 0.5%, didn't confirm that. Planets of mine eff. 11 and +f races "matured" more slowly. When I checked why, I saw it was the germ shortage. Their low amount of mines simply didn't mine enough germ. The end result was the "17 mines" planet had all factories built faster, and started producing free resources earlier.
How about -f races? I checked two sttings: 10/3/14 and 11/3/9. The simple answer is "Suicide". The first race had at turn 50 17Mt minerals, the second 12 Mt.
So what remains? I'd say nothing - you'd fare better if you'd use RW points for cheaper tech, better hab, beter factories... But if you're already at your target values (as a 3-imm HE or a 1WW), spend RW points in mine eff.
BR, Iztok
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| Re: Mines settings? |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:41 |
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| neilhoward | 
| Commander |
Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023 | |
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| Eagle of Fire wrote on Sat, 28 May 2011 14:43 |
1) In comparison to the default settings (which are 10/5/10), up to what efficiency would need to be boosted to have something similar (x?/5/5).
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Gible's spread sheet is pretty cool.
EFF Cost Number RW kT/cost kT/pop
10 5 10 450 2.0000 100
20 5 5 946 4.0000 100
That gets you twice the minerals for cost, and same minerals per pop, at over twice the race point cost.
It would be better to go with:
12 3 9 591 4.0000 108
The first consideration should be to how you grow pop. PRT (JOAT, HE, other), LRT (OBRM), will affect the number you can operate. Number of Habitable Planets and MPGR determine your margins. The universe size and factors of how long the game will run will determine your time frame for depletion.
BlueTurbit rocks!
http://blueturbit.com/BTBlog/obrm-strategies.html
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 02:41] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Mines settings? |
Mon, 11 July 2011 17:47 |
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| m.a@stars |
| Commander |
Messages: 2768
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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Costly mines (4,5,6, and beyond) are a royal PITA, but can be made to work. The main point, I guess, is what you buy with the points, IOW, what the race can do to offset that drawback. And of course, races with costlier mines will need more time to build them.
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| Re: Mines settings? |
Mon, 25 July 2011 18:10 |
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| Void |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 369
Registered: January 2011
Location: California, GMT -7 | |
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| BlueTurbit wrote on Mon, 25 July 2011 14:58 |
If you think setting mines cost higher, to 4 or 5, is a bad idea, then check this video out... (16 Meg video)
mining-costs-3-4-5
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Were they all from the same game? If everybody is building mines slowly, then sure, it's not a bad idea.
I agree with the position that you can be successful with mines at cost 4 or 5. Absolutely.
The pertinent question in my mind is would same race be more effective taking mines cost at 3 and giving up a little of something else? I saw one of those races have 15/5/25 mine settings. My gut tells me (and it's been wrong before, so any available empirical data is welcome) that going 14/3/25 would result in better results. Mines would be built faster, as would the subsequent factories, which would increase the rate minerals would be extracted. Or perhaps 15/3/22 if you were worried about the total sum of minerals to be extracted. Making up the numbers since I don't have a RW handy, but you take the point.
So I'm not surprised a mines-cost-5 race could do well. I just think the same mines-cost-3 that scales back a wee bit on something else would do better.
Thanks for posting. Quite enlightening, despite my lack of total agreement.
Cheers,
Void
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Players #4 and #5 used cost 3 mines. Me too. Don't know about the others. Some didn't release their files for public viewing at the game end.