Base Size and Pollution

[Fitz]

I would like to put in the formula as an addendum. You should also include the fact that the Singularity Inductor and Pholtus Mutagen reduce by a fraction positive ecodamage above the clean mineral limit in the same fasion that a CP, TP & NR do. So how is this for setting out the formula:


Eco-Damage = (DamageFactor * Techs * Life * Difficulty * Planet) / 300

Planet = PLANET Social Engineering -3, to a minimum of 1.
Difficulty = 3 on Librarin and lower, 5 on Thinker and Transcend
Life = 1 for Rare native life, 2 for Normal native life, 3 for Abundant native life
Techs = # of techs discovered by your faction

DamageFactor = (Terraforming - Cleanmins1) + (Minerals - Cleanmins2)/(1+Goodfacs) + 5*Atrocities

Terraforming = [(2*# worked improvements)+(# of unworked improvements) + 8*Boreholes + 6*Echelon Mirrors + 4*Condensors - Forests]/8.
Divide by 2 for presence of a Tree Farm and reduce to 0 for presence of a Hybrid Forest.
Improvements include Roads, Mag Tubes, Farms, Mines, Solar Collectors, Soil Enrichers, Boreholes, Echelon Mirrors and Condensors.

Cleanmins = 16 + # Fungal Blooms + # Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests, Centauri Preserves and Temples of Planet constructed by your faction since the first Fungal Bloom.
Cleanmins1 = Cleanmins or Terraforming, whichever is less. If Terraforming is negative, Cleanmins1 = 0.
Cleanmins2 = Cleanmins - Cleanmins1.

Minerals = Total minerals produced by this base after multiplying by facilities - total minerals recieved by this base from orbit.

Goodfacs = 1 each for the presence of Centauri Preserve, Temples of Planet and Nanoreplicator in this base, + 1 each for possessing the Pholtus Mutagen and Singularity Inductor.

Atrocities = Number of Major Atrocities committed by you faction.


A final note. I will edit this to move the 5*Atrocities factor under goodfacs if you can double check the following for me. Set a base at the cleanmins limit, with a hybrid forest. Drop two PBs. Add (don't build) a CP and see if the resulting eco-damage is divided by two (indicates Atrocities divided by Goodfacs). Then get rid of the CP, and remove ten minerals from those being worked (alternately, build 10 TF/HF). If the eco-damage goes to zero, then the Atrocities are also negated by cleanmins.

[Ned]

Fitz, The formula looks right, except that working kelp does not add +1. Also, a sea base also counts as 1, reflecting, I suppose, the presence of kelp.

As to the PB division by GoodFACs, I suggest we go with the Datalinks formula since it has been right in large measure.

Blake - any comments?

Ned

[johndmuller]

Guys: You seem to be coming to a resolution; Congrats

I've been playing a new game with my eye on the ED and related stuff and while I haven't been closely checking the exact calculations yet, I have confirmed the part about not getting any of these ED benefits before the first "pop". I've been able to see the ED increase with the number of techs (at least that's what I think is doing it). You seem to have concluded that the ameliorating facilities built before the first "pop" will have no effect; I'll soon be able to (presumably) confirm that whenever I get my first "pop". I've been leaving it up to chance so far, but not letting the ED get very high; I guess I'll have to max one out and get a "pop" before I've built HFs in all my bases so I won't have to sell one and build it again to get the benefit.

I wonder why they require a "pop" before they start counting the ameliorating facilities. Obviously it would have to be intentional - perhaps they are trying to give people a break who are starting to get hammered by worms and haven't done an eco-good thing in their lives. It seems a little unfair to prople who keep the ED down while they are building HFs, etc.; they may never get to raise their min production until the "pops" become fiercer. BTW, does anyone know what triggers the tougher worm outbreaks - is it your reactor level, game year or something else?

I trust that you all have been abstaining from the Scenario Editor as much as possible in order to keep the results "pure"??? As you may recall, it was the SE that got everyone convinced that there were no faction wide benefits from HFs etc. in the first place; one can hope, but never be completely sure whether there are any other calculations that operate in such a way as to foil the SE.

Edit: Why doesn't it let us use the less-than and greater-than signs around the "pop"?

[Fitz]

The scenario editor is perfect, if you are trying to limit outside circumstances. The problem before was that no one took the conclusions, and then carefully tracked what was happening in a real game to see if it coincided.

In regard to the pops & ameliorating (nice word btw) factors, I have no clue if they count the ones built before the pop or not, once the pop occurs. Hopefully, you will be able to confirm this one way or the other.

As far as the reason it might happen, I would say that the ameliorating factors were unintentional additions to the clean minerals limit. They were probably an oversight in the coding of the eco-damage formula and the updating of it when a facility is built. If this is true, one can easily understand that the part of the formula that deals with fungal blooms is where the error is, and that is why you see no benefit until after a fungal bloom has occurred.

If it turns out that TF/HF etc constructed before a fungal bloom occurs do not add to the clean minerals, I imagine it is an error in the fungal bloom counter. The code for clean minerals was probably written as (16 + fungal bloom counter) and the fungal bloom counter ended up increasing by one every time a HF/TF/CP/ToP was built due to miscoding.

As far as the tough fungal blooms go, personal experience indicates that MY is involved. However, I wouldn't rule out severity of ED in the base causing the bloom from being related to the severity of the bloom.

Edit: beause the forum interprets < and > as html code when it encounters them I think. But it doesn't recognize the pop command.

[Ned]

Fitz, In absence of a reply by Blake, I will attempt to confirm whether MA's are divided by 1 + GoodFACs this weekend. I suspect we can submit our final conclusions early next week.

Johnd, Like you, I now try to force early pops, not only that all TF's, etc., built thereafter count against clean minerals, but also because each pop adds one to clean minerals. I usually play blind. Therefore, I sometimes do not get the necessary techs to build either CPs or TFs until long after I can boost mineral production into the 20's. Forcing pops in a "controlled" manner allows as overall increase mineral production during this "waiting" period.

Ned

[Ned]

Well Fitz, Apparently the damage caused by MA's is also scaled by the 1+GoodFACs factor. I created a test base with 3 boreholes, 3 condensors, 4 forests and six workers. I then measured ED, with and without a CP at various mineral levels, again with and without a CP after two PBs, again after both a TF and HF were added with a CP, then finally without a CP.

The PB's moved the ED limit by 10, as expected. As well, the ED scaled by a factor of 1/2 when adding a CP.

I further test Techtonic and Fungal Missles. Techtonic cause the same ED shift as PB's. Fungal Missiles have no discernible effect on the ED limit.

Can you adjust your formula to accommodate the above?

Ned

[Ned]

Fitz and Blake, I took the liberty of revisng Fitz's formula and added a few words to discuss all the new information we have discovered. Note the placement of the "Int" function to account for the rounding error we have seen.

Eco-Damage Formula Revised - Have you ever wondered why the number of minerals a base could produce seemed to rise as the game went on or was greater the more bases you had? There is a good reason for this, but it is not explained in either the Datalinks or the manuals. Ned, Blake and Fitz have discovered that the number of "clean minerals" the game allows rises from an initial 16, as set forth in the Datalinks formula, each time you "build" a Tree Farm, a Hybrid Forest, a Centauri Preserve or a Temple of the Planet. This increase in base "clean minerals" only seems to begin after the first fungal bloom, otherwise known as a “pop.” (Pops also increase "clean minerals," but this information is already set forth in the Datalinks formula.) So each time you build one of these facilities after a pop anywhere in your faction, you increase your faction's "clean mineral" limit and thereby the number of minerals you could produce without eco-damage.

(From a strategy point of view, it is important that you force a pop before you begin construction any of these clean mineral enhancing facilities.)

Ned, Blake and Fitz also report that acquiring bases with these facilities does not affect the number of "clean minerals." Neither does losing a base or selling the facilities. It is building them that is important.

Ned, Blake and Fitz also confirm that possessing the Pholus Mutagen or Singularity Inductor for a faction is equivalent to having a Centauri Preserve, Temple of the Planet or Nanoreplicator in a base. It reduces eco-damage by the factor 1 + the number of these facilities and the two special projects.
They confirm that this reduction factor also operates on the eco-damage caused by major atrocities, contrary to the suggestion otherwise in the Datalinks formula.

Another undocumented features is that working kelp does not add to terraforming damage, but that a seabase, as opposed to a land base, adds one.

Finally, the use of the SMACX tectonic missile, but not the fungal missile, causes major atrocity eco-damage, equivalent to the use of a planetbuster.

They provide a revised formula as follows:

Eco-Damage = (DamageFactor * Perihelion * Techs * Life * Difficulty * Planet) / 300

Planet = PLANET Social Engineering -3, to a minimum of 1
Difficulty = 3 on Librarian and lower, 5 on Thinker and Transcend
Life = 1, 2 or 3 for Rare, Normal or Abundant native life
Techs = # of techs discovered by your faction

DamageFactor = Int((Terraforming - Cleanmins1) + (Minerals - Cleanmins2) + 5*Atrocities)/(1+Goodfacs))

Terraforming = [(2*# worked improvements other than kelp farms)+(# of unworked improvements) + 8*Boreholes + 6*Echelon Mirrors + 4*Condensors - Forests]/8.
Divide by 2 for presence of a Tree Farm and reduce to 0 for presence of a Hybrid Forest. Add one for a seabase.
Improvements include Roads, Mag Tubes, Farms, Mines, Solar Collectors, Soil Enrichers, Boreholes, Echelon Mirrors, Kelp Farms, Tidal Harnesses, Offshore Platforms and Condensors.

Cleanmins = 16 + # Fungal Blooms + # Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests, Centauri Preserves and Temples of Planet constructed by your faction since the first Fungal Bloom.
Cleanmins1 = Cleanmins or Terraforming, whichever is less. If Terraforming is negative, Cleanmins1 = 0.
Cleanmins2 = Cleanmins - Cleanmins1.

Minerals = Total minerals produced by this base after multiplying by facilities - total minerals received by this base from orbit.

Goodfacs = 1 each for the presence of Centauri Preserve, Temples of Planet and Nanoreplicator in this base, + 1 each for possessing the Pholus Mutagen and Singularity Inductor.

Atrocities = Number of Major Atrocities committed by your faction. These include the use of planetbusters or techtonic missiles, but do not include the use of fungal missiles.

[Misotu]

This is amazing stuff - I'm totally in awe of the work you've done. Thanks

Would it be possible to translate this formula into practical instructions? Along the lines of: build the majority of your "good" facilities after the first fungal pop, etc?

I only ask this because I'm sure that I'm not the only one here who is neither a mathematician nor a programmer. So I have real problems translating the formula you've documented into practical, real game tactics/strategy.

If you could do something along these lines, it would be a big help. Thanks (hopefully!)

[Ned]

M, I think the most critical new information here is that building these facilities, CPs, TF, HFs and ToPs,. actually raises the number of minerals one can produce before ED begins at all. This means that one can run, for example, FM with no ED while producing a significant number of minerals per base. In fact, anyone can push clean minerals into the 200+ range if they chose to. If you really don't need all this "capacity," you could instead use it to launch numbers of planetbuster and techtonic missiles without causing ED.

As you said, the key is to have a pop before you build any of these facilities. Otherwise, you don't get the benefit.

The AI does not understand the above and rarely builds CPs and TF, let alone HFs and ToPs. As a result, their mineral production seems capped around 16. In any future edition of SMACX, the designers should fix this.

A few pointers: Since building the facilities is the key, selling and rebuilding continues to increase the limit. Because TF's and HF's have benefits other than reducing ED, it might be best to sell and rebuild your CP's.

You might also consider building one or more of these facilities in captured bases before giving them to a submissive. Giving them away does not reduce the number of clean minerals.

Ned

[Blake]

(long)

I also agree that it would be best to also have a "short version" of how to reduce your ED / increase your clean mineral threshold.

I'm a mathematician and a programmer but I still don't like reading lots of highly technical text, and in a game I'm certinately not fussed over minor details when knowing the "big picture" helps your game just as much.

Ofcourse the revised Ecodamage formula does have to be put somewhere, but the majority of players aren't really going to care at all, being content to know just what improves there play.

So, I've said this before but I'll repeat it. The things which I feel every player should know is :


Each Tree farm, Hybrid Forest, Centurai Preserve, Temple of Planet built after the first fungal bloom increases the clean mineral threshold accross your entire faction (both existing and future bases) by 1.

Also every fungal bloom increases the clean mineral threshold in all your bases by +1.

Note the importance that atleast one pop must occur for you to benfit from building TF's etc. Also note that these facilities must be built rather than otherwise aquired. Also the loss of these facilities does not lower the clean mineral threshold.

Effect of Major Atrocities on ecodamage:
Major Atrocities have the effect of increasing the ED in all your bases, equivilant to each base producing 5 more minerals. This also means that building 5 new TF's, CP's etc will completey nullify the ED effects of 1 MA.

Identified Major Atrocities are the use of Planet Busters and Tectonic Missiles.

Planet Rating and technology have nothing to do with the clean mineral threshold.

The clean mineral threshold is the same accross your entire faction, with local variations caused by terraforming ED.


Then could also have a "discussion", less facts but more pratical applications / exploitations. (also a longer read, but less technical details so not as tedious to read)

Discussion (Long)

As soon as practically possible force a fungal bloom in one of your bases. This means that once you start building Tree Farms and/or CP's they will increase your clean mineral threshold.

When playing double blind tree farms and Centurai Preserves can take a long time to appear. If you find yourself able to create more than 16 minerals (ie use of crawlers) a usfull strategy to increase your clean mineral threshold is to create fungal pops, as a pop in any base increases clean mineral threshold in all bases by 1. This means you can set up one base as a "polluter base", this base should be geared towards killing the mindworms which appear, so not only does your clean mineral threshold increase but you also get planetpearls. A good ED for a polluter base is ~ 40, this should create a pop almost every other turn, allow some healing time for the worm killers and not cause global warming.

If you are building Centuria Preserves soley for the purpose of increasing the clean mineral threshold you may as well just scrap the CP's as you complete them. You can also then build another CP which increasces clean mineral threshold by another +1. This can be usfull in small empires with well developed bases. Ofcourse you can do the same with TF's, HF's but these tend to be quite expensive and also have other benefits. (in contrast to the CP, which is really just a ongoing energy drain in exchange for +1 lifecycle... hardly a good deal)

Another usfull way to increase clean mineral threshold without requiring more bases is building TF's (and maybe CP's, HF's) in captured bases before given them to submissives. You get the clean mineral benefit, and your submissive benefits from the improved infrastructure in the base.

Before using Planet Busters prepare your faction by building 5 more CP's for every PB you intend to launch. If you have 20 bases and build+scrap a CP in each of them that allows you to launch 4 PB's without requiring you to lower your bases mineral production. You still have to deal with other consequences ofcourse .

No doubt the cleanest SE in the game is Free Market. This is because more cash allows you to rushbuy TF's quicker, if you use crawlers heavily and/or terraform boreholes then very quickly your bases can be producing both extreme amounts of ED-free minerals and cash. This is no doubt better than the much vaunted "energy" strategy, as it also allows you to crank your labs allocation up high because you need less cash for rushbuying stuff. If you cant or wont run FM then building lots of boreholes still nets you massive amounts of minerals and energy. This works particullary well for Gaians and Hive, snag the WP, bee-line to Enviromental Economics or Centurai Empathy then terraform lots of boreholes and build TF's/CP's to nullify the ecodamage.

end discussion.

- - -

An interesting side effect of this ED "research" is the creation of a new strategy (this sort of thing doesn't happen too often).

A well defined Energy/Mineral hybrid strategy, in which you aim to build lots of boreholes, and lots of TF's/CP's to nullify the ED created by the high mineral output. This hybrid has many advantages over pure Energy strategy:

Support costs: By increasing your minerals you can increase the number of units which can be supported. This allows huge armies of formers or military before Clean Reactors. Build 6 TF's (across faction) then a new borehole for every 6 units you want supported. Nice. Also works great in double-blind games.
Reduced rush-buy costs: Obviously having a large mineral output means cheaper rushbuy costs, energy saved can go to research or rushbuying other stuff.
Reduced SP costs: When not using crawler bug/exploit minerals are better than energy for building SP's.
Reduced Unit costs: By building beefier "shell" units with weapon and/or armour already attached unit-upgrade costs are much cheaper. For example upgrading a 6-1-1 to a 6-3+-1, Clean is considerably cheaper than upgrading a 1-1-1 to a 6-3+-1, Clean.
Improved tolerance for use of Planetbusters: If a pure energy strategist uses a planetbuster his faction will drown in worms.

Meanwhile you have ALL the energy of an energy strategy, because your minerals are coming from boreholes which are the highest energy producer in the game. Ofcourse these boreholes take former time, but high minerals = more supported formers.

No offence to the fans and creators of the energy strategy, because the well defined mineral/energy hybrid strategy could only be "discovered" once the practical aspects of the ED formula were known. By well defined I mean that you can say exactly how to play. (ie after every pop go around and optimise your bases mineral output...)

Unfortunately I may never have the pleasure of using said strategy, because I have decided to stop playing SMAX SP (got work to do, other games to play ), PBEM's take wayyyy to long and my friends wont play LAN games with me anymore. (one of my friends claimed he was "good" at SMAX, then automated all his formers.... )

[johndmuller]

I can confirm that in a "normal" game (un edited), the facilities built before the initial "pop" do not provide the ED reduction benefits featured in this thread.

As mentioned above, this suggests an early pollution strategy to make sure that most of your TF's, etc., bear fruit.

Perversely, I had to jack up the ED a lot more than I would have thought to create the first "pop" - it took several turns with over 20 ED points before I got it. I am *pretty sure* that I've gotten "pops" with less than 5 points in the past, but in this game I went many years with several bases in the 1-5 range without any. Maybe the "pop" determinent operates on an intermediate value in the ED formula, perhaps before it has been factored up by the term containing the Techs et al.

Due to rounding of intermediate results and the late stage calculation factoring up by the techs, etc., the perceived ED effects will seem a little strange sometimes; there may be moments where the damage seems to increase irregularly w/r min production (i.e. to suddenly jump up after remaining the same for a while) or to not decrease enough with construction of goodfacs, but I think that we for sure have the right idea here whether or not some future modifications to the formula pop up.

I agree that the CP's are the way to go if you want to "game" this calculation. HFs are quite expensive and TFs (as well as HF's) confer negative side effects when they are sold, particularly in the form of restoring the basic (50% off) terraforming damage they ameliorate, but also in terms of nuts, psych and econ. I don't know what might happen if you sell a TF out from under an HF - I may try that out and see if anything odd occurs.

[SpacemanSpiff]

I've been following this discussion and had a couple (hopefully inciteful) of questions:

Does the inital pop have to be for your faction to jump-start the clean mineral increase from 'clean' facilities? I don't have any hard evidence, but I don't remember ever getting a pop in my current game, but I have a LOT of clean minerals (but I might have forgotten the pop - the game started before this dicussion)

DilithumDad seamed to indicate the his planet rating (and perhilion) also effected his cleam mineral limit. Has this been tested? Or is it just a miss-intrepretation of the data?

How do workers on terraformed squares with multiple enhancements effect TD? For that matter how are multiple enhancements in the same square handled? Just the most expensive? Or add them all together? I've been assuming you ad them all up, but that's just an assumption...

OK, so that was three questions...

Spaceman Spiff

[johndmuller]

Yes to initial "pop" required before benefits start to accrue. The first (2) pop(s) don't create any native life, just interludes and/or fungus, so you might not have noticed...

The planet rating is part of the formula still deemed to be OK - it is in a part of the formula which multiplies the previously calculated ED, so it would likely just exagerate the ED under unfavorable circumstances; early on, that factor is often below 1.0 (thus reducing ED) primarily due to low # of techs, but the planet rating does its part too.

All the terraforming stuff adds up as in the various references, but TFs and HFs can mitigate (TF=50%) or eliminate (both HF & TF) this element from the calculation.

[Fitz]

Originally posted by Ned
DamageFactor = Int((Terraforming - Cleanmins1) + (Minerals - Cleanmins2) + 5*Atrocities)/(1+Goodfacs))

You might want to use several different kinds of brackets here. i suggest:

DamageFactor = Int{ [Terraforming - Cleanmins1] + [(Minerals - Cleanmins2 + 5*Atrocities) / (1+Goodfacs)] }

That will clarify that the terraforming is not divided by Goodfacs. I believe we also had confirmation previously that the cleanmins negated atrocity damage (as this formula would), in addition to the atrocity damage being divided by goodfacs.

And I like blakes way of dividing it up into the short, long, and possibly a formula addendum. The exact details are only needed for those like me who feel a burning desire to know. Realistically, if it is going to be a closed sticky thread, each version should be one post.

john, thanks for confirming that the facilities don't add to cleanminerals unless they are built after the pop.

[SpacemanSpiff]

Originally posted by johndmuller
Yes to initial "pop" required before benefits start to accrue. The first (2) pop(s) don't create any native life, just interludes and/or fungus, so you might not have noticed...

I have intruludes turned off, so that could have easily, but has anyone tested if - for exapmle - Yang has a pop, but Deirdre hasn't; can Deidre get the cleam minerals bonus from building TFs?

All the terraforming stuff adds up as in the various references, but TFs and HFs can mitigate (TF=50%) or eliminate (both HF & TF) this element from the calculation.

The various references being:

1)For each base total the number of Mines, Solar Collectors, Farms, Soil Enrichers, Roads, Mag Tubes, Condensers, Mirrors and Boreholes.
Items in squares which are actually being worked count double.

2)Add an extra +8 for each Borehole, +6 for each Mirror, and +4 for each Condenser.

3)Subract 1 for each Forest.

Thus a square with a Farm, Solar collector, a road and a mag tube being worked would add 8 to this sum., whereas a Farm/Solar collector (being worked) without the road/magtube would only add 4


Other questions:

Do crawled squares count as worked?

Do squares that are within the radius of multiple bases count for each base, or only one (or none)? What if the square is worked? Crawled?

Spaceman Spiff (I'm a fountian of curiosity today)