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| SS race design critique |
Tue, 08 September 2009 20:41  |
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 pydna |
 | Warrant Officer |
Messages: 131
Registered: April 2009
Location: Melbourne, Australia | |
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hi guys
I've been playing JOAT in the multiplayer game I've been in previously and whilst it has been fun and have learnt a lot in the last game I built a monster which had taken 2 HW by turn 2450 and was eyeing of a 3rd. So this time around I would like to have try my hand at SS.
The race design I tested last night seemed to work well, I tested the race against 10 Expert AI in a Medium Dense universe with Clumping and slow tech and Acc BBS Start. These are the game settings for the upcoming multiplayer game I'll be involved in. Also Weapons must be set to expensive.
Hit 2400 (approx) at turn 20
Hit 18,500 (approx) at turn 50
My race design is as follows
SS
LRTs - IFE, NRSE, OBRM, NAS
Hab - Grav = 0.31g - 3.210g Temp = -124C - 124C Rad = 59mR - 99mR
Growth 17% 1 in 5 hab range
Pop resources 1/1000
Factories - 14/9/18
Mines - 10/3/18
Tech is all 75% starting at Level 3 except Electronics Normal.
My tactic is get the privateer once my pop hits around the 330,000 mark. This was achieved last night in my latest test that way I can still ship pop and without eating my G too much. Especially if I'm in a low G startup position.
I guess what I'm looking for is any comments and or suggestions on any ways I can improve my start. Or is 2000+ resources at turn 20 acceptable? Tech started increasing very quickly from around turn 25 onwards had Robber Baron on turn 2448.
There will be 10 players in the game setup above, if there are more than 10 the game universe could be changed to a Large sparse or Large Normal (with clumping on).
Thanks
Pydna
[Updated on: Tue, 08 September 2009 21:15] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS race design critique |
Tue, 08 September 2009 21:00  |
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| mlaub |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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I would consider dropping the factory count, and increasing the growth and hab rates, so you can live on more planets. What are your other techs set to?
When I play HG races, I like the high eff, but choose 10-16 factories depending on race, and 18-19% growth. It is better to live on more planets than have higher res per planet. Why? minerals and growth of population.
2400@Y2420 --> Good
18500@Y2450 ---> Not so good, but not bad, either.
If the 18,500 was alone in a test bed, then maybe tweak some more.
-Matt
Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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| Re: SS race design critique |
Tue, 08 September 2009 21:04 |
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| pydna wrote on Wed, 09 September 2009 10:41 |
I guess what I'm looking for is any comments and or suggestions on any ways I can improve my start. Or is 2000+ resources at turn 20 acceptable? Tech started increasing very quickly from around turn 25 onwards had Robber Baron on turn 2448.
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To improve the start, hold your HW at 25% (275000 with OBRM)
Eat a little g in MFs, or pause building factories a little earlier to get privs in time if you need to.
The race description was incomplete, you didn't mention your tech settings or factory g cost. I'm guessing it's 4g factories, con cheap rest expensive.
Are these numbers with ACCBBS or not? With ACCBBS on, it's a poor result for a testbed, especially with expensive tech settings. With ACCBBS on, it's closer to playable. Admittedly, SS is not a testbed terror race 
Some small changes, not changing things up too much... Shift grav and temp 10 clicks right each. Shift rad 3 clicks back left. Reduce factory count to 16. Reduce mine count to 14. Improve tech settings to 1-cheap 2-normal. Take the RS LRT.
Alternatively, worsen tech to all-expensive and use the extra 200 points to beef up the econ. 14/8/21/3g facs and 11/3/17 mines with habs as above and RS. Econ will ramp faster and higher, but you'll have to build some MFs before you get to privs (not a big deal, really, so long as you keep that 25% hold)
SS is a tough race to make... It's an expensive PRT, so it's tough to get a nice econ without screwing over tech... But really, it's crying out for nice tech settings, to make that spying bonus really hit home.
EDIT: really, your main challenge with that design, is the no-immunity. You need to work really hard to optimise your pop growth. Which means 25% hold, and getting your terraforming in early on the best greens. Use your excess pop to fill up the really low-hab worlds, and let the mid-sized worlds hit 33% before you let the really nice ones go past 25%
EDIT2: Also... Better to remove the AI from your testbed, they make it *easier* not ha
...
[Updated on: Tue, 08 September 2009 21:14] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS race design critique |
Tue, 08 September 2009 22:45 |
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| pydna |
| Warrant Officer |
Messages: 131
Registered: April 2009
Location: Melbourne, Australia | |
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Thanks Dogthinkers
I've tweaked the race as was suggested using option 2 (everything set to expensive) and improved factory settings.
By turn 2420 I have 2800 or there abouts so roughly a 15% improvement. I haven't micromanaged my second breeder colony but am expecting good things if I did.
I don't have time to delve further into testing at the moment but I'm guessing if this holds up I should be able to pull somewhere between 21k and 22k by 2450. I'm guessing with some tweaking and g running it would even by slightly higher
Thanks once again.
[Updated on: Tue, 08 September 2009 23:02] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS race design critique |
Tue, 08 September 2009 22:50 |
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| pydna wrote on Wed, 09 September 2009 11:21 |
thanks, add the changes you've suggested.
Yeah the JOAT I was running last game ended up with 19,500 by turn 50 but that was in a real game situation, plus it had stomped two HWs. So as it currently stands this race probably would be only around 16,000 in a real game situation.
I run some numbers and let you know how I get on.
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Well, a 16k SS vs a 19.5k JOAT... I'd be backing the SS in that fight, all else being equal. It'd have much stronger research, and the advantage of stealth.
[Updated on: Tue, 08 September 2009 22:51] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS race design critique |
Thu, 10 September 2009 02:30 |
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| Micha wrote on Wed, 09 September 2009 21:38 |
Rule of thumb: same number of mines operated as factories operated if you keep efficiency at 10.
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Your rule of thumb. Mine is different, I've found myself building well under the maximum I had available too many times, following guides like that one 
As for all-expensive... Depends on your econ and playstyle. In this case, weapons is forced expensive... So the most important field is already slow-tech-expensive.
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No econ setting can make up for the huge extra cost.
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Strongly disagree I've been a tech leader with all-expensive, facing races which didn't. (In a game with weap forced expensive, like in the OP's game.) Didn't win that game in the end, but tech wasn't the problem.
Still, you certainly have to be getting a lot for your points to make it worthwhile. I wouldn't take it with the race described above, but it's one avenue that could be explored if the player favoured raw econ over tech.
[Updated on: Thu, 10 September 2009 02:57] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS race design critique |
Thu, 10 September 2009 22:40 |
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Of yes, I agree entirely Matt. And there was a reason I suggested getting *more* cheap techs to the OP too. I think 1-cheap is a very dangerous place to be, a 'worst of all worlds' sort of tech setting, given such a big chunk of the points comes from making that last field expensive too.
It was just the suggestion it could never be a good choice 
I think SS is generally better off with tech cheap - leverages that tech bonus. But tech exp *is* a playable option.
Usually I play with 3.5 cheap, but not always.
[Updated on: Thu, 10 September 2009 22:41] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS race design critique |
Fri, 11 September 2009 10:02 |
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| pydna wrote on Fri, 11 September 2009 17:14 |
I finally did it!! 25,000k by turn 50 with SS and I managed to take one field as standard, rest expensive.
I'll post the race design once I get home (am at work).
Most importantly I had 3100 resources by turn 20.
Will post details later tonight. Thanks to everyone who commented you gave me lots of good ideas even though I didn't end up using them all at the end.
Regards
Pydna
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Good improvement over your starting design, although with only 1 tech normal you're really looking for quite a bit lot more res than that.
If you haven't already, try to push up the growth rate or get an immunity (less factories in exchange for more growth rate is a good nice trade off, especially for 1/1000 pop efficiency races.) With no immunities, you really want 19% PGR if you can get it.
Another way to boost speed is to shrink one hab and grow another - you'll get about the same count of worlds, but your first few clicks of terraforming will do more of the work (as they'll probably go in the narrow field.)
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| Re: SS race design critique |
Sun, 13 September 2009 21:19 |
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| pydna |
| Warrant Officer |
Messages: 131
Registered: April 2009
Location: Melbourne, Australia | |
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I actually increased the growth rate slightly (18%) toned down the factories.
More importantly I had a look at my approach to micromanagement. I streamlined this a bit on friday night (yep I lead an exciting life!!!) and managed to improve the result even further around 27k.
The game is almost about to start and I really don't have anymore time to playtest. Whilst this race may not be a match winner (then again, you never know) I am confident it will be very competitive.
Next time I will playtest a race with one immunity but will leave it alone for the moment.
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Micha is right: in a slow-tech game crunching even normal-priced tech levels with a comparable speed as the player with that tech cheap, requires double the econ of that player. If you have double the econ, you've already won the game. 