Announcement

**Tau Ceti** · November 28, 2000, 17:46

Algorithm to calculate talents:

First, all male drones are converted to female drones at a cost of 2 psych each.

Second, if there are any ordinary workers, they are converted to talents at a cost of 2 each.

Third, drones are converted to talents at a cost of 4 psych each. If there are 2 leftover psych points, those convert one drone to a worker.

The total amount of psych spent never exceeds 2 * base size. Thus, your size 23 city only gets to use 46 of its 150 psych energy to create talents/workers.

[This message has been edited by Tau Ceti (edited November 28, 2000).]

**Googlie** · November 28, 2000, 18:02

Prima gives the drone formula on p25 of their Strategy Guide.

The basic unmodified # drones per base is contingent on base size and diff level. Where transcend = 5, with a base size 23 the unmodified # drones will be:

D = (Pop + Diff -6), or in your case, 23 + 5 - 6, or 22.

Bureaucracy Drones ( total for your faction) are a function of your # bases, difficulty rating, efficiency rating and worldsize you are playing on (where tiny is .6, small is .8, standard is 1.0, large is 1.1 and huge is 1.6)

formula is thus:

BD = (# bases x 2)/(8 - diff) x (4 + effic) x worldsize

so if you were playing on a standard size planet, you have:

(30 x 2)/ (8 - 5) x (4 + 7) x 1.0, or 220 drones

For each base, the beuracracy drones will then be somewhere between 0 and that base size (randomly determined by the computer, until all 220 have been allocated.

Now for each base, basic drones and Bureaucracy Drones are added, but never to exceed the population for that base.

If this results in an excess # drones, in total, every new citizen will be a drone, or psych points will be allocated to remove that drone "surplus"

So your total psych for that science base might not in fact be available to reduce the inherent drone problem in that base let alone turn pops into talents (obviously it does, or you would have none)

it should be possible to verify the number of overall drones, and the "surplus" that is draining your aggregate psych points, but the unknown part of it is the random element in how the computer allocates the total bureaucracy drones among the various bases.

Any psych points left over are then the basis for the conversion to talents. If there is an unwieldy drone "surplus" then you will need to manually convert pops to psych generating talents to reduce the imbalance.

That's how I read the Prima formulae anyway.

Googlie

**hellrazor** · November 28, 2000, 18:18

Thanks everyone. Now I can spend hours going through every city and calculating drones and talents .

BTW, is the Prima strategy guide any good? I've read Vel's guide...anything important in the Prima guide that might be useful?

**Googlie** · November 28, 2000, 18:57

prolly not. Precious little by way of strategy in it.

9/10ths of it is a regurgitation of the techs, SP's base facilities, units and factions, a page to each.

the remainder is the 20 or so formulae that Firaxis released. Ask any question on these forums and the one of the 2 dozen or so Prima Guide possessors will reply with the formula.

So, IMHO, not worth the outlay

G.

[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited November 28, 2000).]

**Chowlett** · November 28, 2000, 19:47

quote:

BD = (# bases x 2)/(8 - diff) x (4 + effic) x worldsize

That can't be right, or at least your interpretation can't. You say increasing efficiency increases beuracracy drones - surely not? would it not be more sensible to read it as:

BD = (# bases x 2)/[(8 - diff) x (4 + effic) x worldsize]

?

------------------
The best way to avoid errors is not to do anything - Dr Beardon (Maths)

("Something is worth doing"=>"It is worth doing properly")<=>("Something is not worth doing properly"=>"It is not worth doing") - A truth first expounded by Murgatroyd

**Fitz** · November 28, 2000, 20:01

That's not how beaucracy drones work at all. You get one in every base in excess of the warning/limit, in the extra bases (determined by founding order). If you exceed the limit by twice as much, you get two in those excess bases, etc.

The limit of bases is

BL = (8-dif.)*(4+eff.)*(worldsize/2)

or, for transcend normal eff, and huge world, 3*4*1.6/2 = 9.

Assuming he was on a standard planet:
(8-5)*(4+7)*1/2 = 16. So every base after the first sixteen, up to 32, gets one extra drone, based on faoundation date. If you had more than 32, those bases would get two extra drones, etc.

Remember, counguered cities can screw up which bases get the drones, since their foundation dates may fit into your original bases in wierd places.

As a side note, the f4 command lists bases in foundation order. That's why, if you conguer HQs, they appear at the top of the list right below your original HQ.

**Hawkeye_td** · November 28, 2000, 22:10

Wait, you're trying to tell me that there is a difference between the male and female icons for drones, workers, and talents?

Is this true!?

**Googlie** · November 28, 2000, 22:30

yup - look at the drones in a city when you put a psych increasing facility in the build queue.

Surly drones (males) become smiling drones (but still red faced drones) - sullen workers become smiling workers and straight faced talents become ear-splitting grinning talents.

(of course the reverse happens when you take out of the queue that hab complex in a size seven base...

**Googlie** · November 28, 2000, 22:36

and Chowlett - you are correct - I inadvertently left out the [ and ] wqhen copying the formula - it does make a huge difference.

Prima does record the formula as:

BD = (# bases x 2)/[(8 - diff) x (4 + effic) x worldsize]

And Prima does give the variations for conquered bases, but it just cluttered the post and hellrazor only said he has slave factions, not conquered bases, so in the interests of a shorter reply I omitted the details

(and most of the formulae that prima print out can be found in the datalinks "concepts" and "advanced concepts" anyway - but haven't looked for this one, though, I admit.

Googlie

**Googlie** · November 28, 2000, 22:40

One more

Fitz - here's the formula directly from conceptsx.txt:

#ADVCONCEPT13
{Bureaucracy} is the addition of extra Drones because a faction has
exceeded a certain number of bases. The bureaucracy formula works
as follows:
^
^^BaseLimit = (8 - Difficulty) * (4 + Efficiency) * MapRoot / 2
^
^Where:
^Difficulty = Player's difficulty level (0 - 5)
^Efficiency = Social Engineering $LINK rating.
^MapRoot = Sq. Root of # Map Squares / Sq. Root of 3200.
^
For each base a faction builds in excess of this number, one additional
drone will appear at some base somewhere in the colony

The formula seems to be the same as Prima (expressed differently) and you have, but I'd be interested to see from where you deduce that the bases are "droned" in order of founding - conceptsx.txt seems to say "some base" which would seem to corroborate prima's random comments

Googlie

[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited November 28, 2000).]

**Fitz** · November 28, 2000, 22:54

That corroborates mine. Maproot = 1.6 for Huge, 1.0 for standard. My formulate is every thing in the [] of your Base Drones formula. That means that Prima is saying the formula for number of Base Drones is equal to the number of bases divided by the base limit on the beauracracy warning(the 2 on the bottom of the BL formula has been transfered to the top in the BD formula).

This means that you get 2 drones when you are at twice the Base limit, and 1/2 when you are at one half. This is obviously not quite accurate, but close to what I am saying, for a specific base. After you pass the Base Limit, you get one extra drone, after you pass twice the limit, you get two extra drones, in each base past that limit. The Prima guys obviously didn't understand quite what was happening.

The reason conquered bases clutters things is exactly as I specified earlier. Since these extra beuacracy drones only appear in bases past the limit, and the order of bases are counted in is year they were founded, when you conquer a base that was founded earlier than some of yours, beauracracy drones may appear in bases that were yours when they wearn't in those bases previously.

And I don't think female/male drones make a difference. Every time I make a change to my citizens that affects the the number of talents/workers/drones (ie psych) they appear to be randomly generated as male/female icons of workers/talents/drones. That appears to be a PC thing, not an actual game mechanics thing. Superdrones are another matter (the ones with bright red, as opposed to dark red, backrounds).

Try substituting the superdrones converted to regular drones, instead of male to female, into Tau Ceti's explanation, and he probably has it right.
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited November 28, 2000).]

**Enigma** · November 29, 2000, 01:55

When playing the Morgan 2000 challenge I was quite annoyed by the way that psych is allocated. It seems that all of my psych is wasted on converting drones straight to workers, where it would be better used after the facility bonus is factored in so it converts workers to talents instead, normally the facility bonus is more than enough to eliminate drones from the final base population.

Even with 100% psych allocation and all sorts of nice facilities (treefarm/hybrid/research hospital/ rec com) I was having an impossible time getting a few of my odd bases into golden age even when converting 1/2 of the population into empaths. The HGP is really essential for that...

The cap on psych spending(per base) is quite detrimental to the effects of an empire wide psych allocation: even your high energy captiol bases will have to work to get the golden ages, despite their extra energy...

**Tau Ceti** · November 29, 2000, 12:07

quote:

Originally posted by Fitz on 11-28-2000 09:54 PM
And I don't think female/male drones make a difference. Every time I make a change to my citizens that affects the the number of talents/workers/drones (ie psych) they appear to be randomly generated as male/female icons of workers/talents/drones. That appears to be a PC thing, not an actual game mechanics thing. Superdrones are another matter (the ones with bright red, as opposed to dark red, backrounds).

Try substituting the superdrones converted to regular drones, instead of male to female, into Tau Ceti's explanation, and he probably has it right.

This is a very common mistake I have seen. The background color of the drones is completely irrelevant: superdrones are male and normal drones are female. However, this only applies in the psych listing you get when you click on the rightmost tab (I forget its name) in the city display window. In the standard listing at the bottom of the city display, males and females are random (in SMACX - they are always female in SMAC). However, it is fruitless to use that one to check the effects of psych because of the fake drones bug.

Hawkeye_td: There is only a difference between male and female drones (not workers or talents), and only in the psych listing as I said above, and only for the purposes of psych energy allocation. Police and drone-reducing facilities are just as effective against male drones as against female drones.

**cbn** · June 23, 2001, 07:40

Bump for Ned and WE to see if this stuff corroborates the theories they are discussing

Announcement

Talent creation

Talent creation

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment