Reducing your ecodamage

[Blake]

More test's

Major weirdness, if you are using only forest building a tree farm can INCREASE ecodamage. Whoa. Weird. If you have negative ecodamage from forest outnumbering other terraforming then this negative terraforming ecodamage lets you have more clean minerals. Building a tree farm cuts the negative ecodamage in half, meaning it INCREASES your ecodamage. Real weird. Ofcourse usually negative ecodamage is next to impossible, because you need sensors and roads at a minimum, which would pretty much cancel the forest.

Other players fungal blooms do NOT reduce your ecodamage. You need to create the ecodamage to benefit.

Transcend AI's suffer 1/3 the ecodamage as human players, but have the same clean mineral limit. Other AI difficulties NOT tested.

The Pholus Mutagen SP and Singularity Inductor both act as a free GOODFAC in every base (so add 1 to GOODFAC if your faction controls the Mutagen or Inductor, add 2 if your faction controls both)

The Nanoreplicator works as advertised, but usually the +50% minerals increases the ecodamage much more than the "preserve" effect reduces it, especially if you already have a Cent preserve and ToP in the base. So don't build a nanoreplicator to reduce ecodamage.

Fitz:
Actually, it seems atrocity damage is reduced by the Cent Preserve, only terraforming would seem not to be.

Atrocity damage is definetely reduced by previous attacks, planet attacks you for a while, then calms down. So effectivly for every planet buster you launch planet attacks you 5 times for punishment.

[MariOne]

Fitz:
"Why do you want to complicate it by dividing out GOODFACS?
Just leave it in, it looks simplest to me:"

I said: "If YOU want"!
It looks simpler to me too, but in my intention dividing out helped to compare it with Blakes' posted formula

Blake: *supposedly* GoodFacs do not apply to Atrocities. Adding a CP should only halve the MP, so if in a base with LOTS of atrocities you can halve the *overall* ED with a CP, then you proved that something's wrong with the formula...

Instead in a base iwth lots of TF ED, there is still a contribution to the ED from TF, as the Bonus can't quell it. So it's normal that a CP doesn't halve the overall base ED.

Fitz & Blake:
if you read carefully my shorthand formula, the use of max(0;...) function was a synthetic form to avoid the use of a sysetm like "IF TF greater than Bonus apply first form, if Bonus greater than TF apply second form".

When you say
[ENHANCEMENTS/8 - (16+PREVIOUS to a max = ENHANCEMENTS/8)]
it's the same as
max(0;TF-Bonus)
indeed, if Bonus is greater than TF, (TF-Bonus) is negative, thus 0 is greater than (TF-Bonus), and 0 is the value to be used.
How can you then determine your
(remaining 16+PREVIOUS)?
Using
max(0;Bonus-TF)
Indeed, we said above that Bonus is greater than TF. So we'd use part of the Bonus to completely match TF. What's left of the Bonus is thus (Bonus-TF)

So:

max(0;TF-Bonus) + [MP-max(0;Bonus-TF)]/GF + 5*MA

1. If TF > Bonus, all the Bonus gets used for TF, and there's still some TF, while the MP term has 0 Bonus left
2. If TF < Bonus, all eventual TF is cleared, that is the first term counts as 0, and the remaining amount (Bonus-TF) is positive and is to be reduced from MP.


Blake again:
"But anyway looks like we pretty much have the correct formula for ecodamage when terraforming is not considered"
If you reread my long post after you got some sleep, you'll notice that I clearly stated the two cases in which you had to apply one formula or the other.
Indeed, if final TF is lower than 16+# the first term for TF vanishes. When you have to write in maths the remanining amount, how can you do? You have to write
(16+PREVIOUS) - ENHANCEMENTS/8 and subtract it from minerals.
That's what I did, *under its field of applicability*.
Perhaps you actually got confused when I added the alternate formula dividing GoodFacs out...

[This message has been edited by MariOne (edited February 22, 2001).]

[big_canuk]

Something else must be going on as well, unless I am missing something.

Total minerals produced by your faction, or possibly total on planet must be a factor in the first part of the equation. It could also be tech level, but I suspect the former.

I have noticed many times that ecodamage starts at 16 mins. ie: 16 mins no ecodamage, 17 mins some ecodamage. This base level slowly rises, usually starting as I progress through restriction lifting, D:AP and MMI, continuing throughout the game.

It seems to rise faster, if I concentrate on making sure almost all bases are at their maximum mineral production without ecodamage.

If I have a small number of bases, then the rise does not occur or occurs more slowly.

I scrupulusly avoid ecodamage, even to the point of changing a worker to a specialist on growth, to avoid ecodamage on growth. I am not 100% successful, but in a current game, I have had only 1 fungus pop, yet my base min allowed without ecodamage has risen to 20 mins. I have no global ecodamage reducing facilities and only 5 tree farms for local reductions.

How can this be explained with the above formula/explainations?
[This message has been edited by big_canuk (edited February 22, 2001).]

[Blake]

big_canuk, what terraforming are you using? really clean terraforming (ie only forest) seems to let you exceed the 16 limit. I admit there does seem to be a time factor, but I'm almost convinced it is caused by "pops" which you don't really pay attention to (ie ones which don't come with worms). The datalinks formula seems to be correct when read the right way, basically there is just no mention of time or # bases or total minerals.

[MariOne]

Woha! Negative ecodamage from forests! you X-posted your short post while I was writing my long one...

note for b_c: sensors do NOT count for EcoDamage (nor bunkers)

[Blake]

More controlled tests.

Altered ALPHAX.txt so base square no minerals.

Made base with no terraforming, some distance away a variety of combinations of mineral producing stuff to crawl any desired number of minerals, I reloaded this before each test.

test1) Put boreholes every square, built preserve.
ED - Unchanged!

test1a) Built two boreholes, crawled 16 minerals. ED 17.
Crawled 4 minerals and worked 2 boreholes. ED 17
Conclusion - Working a borehole does not double it's ED! (altough it could still increase it from 8 to 9)

test1b) Plastered base with echlon mirrors. Had to work 4 EM's to get an increase in ED, compared to laying road, had to lay 4 roads. Did more boring tests.
Conclusion: Working a borehole/mirror/condensor adds 1 to it's damage rating, doesn't double it.

test2) Launched 10 planetbusters.
Built preserve
ED - HALVED!!!!!! Proof the formula is wrong. All ecodamage came from atrocities, and the preserve halved it.

test2a) Crawled 16 minerals
Nerve gassed 10 units.
ED unchanged

test2b) Crawled 16 minerals
Nerve gassed 10 units in base (killing pop)
ED unchanged.
Conclusion: effect of nervegas ecodamge is either very small, or only comes into play after other factions have denounced you.

test3) Crawled minerals, could crawl 16, no ED
Plastered base with forest
Could crawl 19 no ED
Built treefarm
Could only crawl 16 again.

Important conclusions:
GOODFACS do NOT effect Terraforming ED, but DO effect both mineral and Atrocity ED

Working a square increases it's ED rating by 1, rather than doubling it. (the datalinks could be interepted either way)

pre tree-farm forest creates a negative ecodamage effect. (which is supported by the formula)

--
Lots of chocolate, mountain dew and Hive units were harmed during these tests.

[Sikander]

Blake, Marione, et al,


Thanks for doing all of this testing and analysis. Finally I will have some rational criterion to work with as I make my plans.

[Lord Maxwell]

Blake: On minor atrocities adding up, it takes a while to get the ball rolling, but once it is rolling it's fast. I generally start to get increased eco damage somewhere around 2000 years of sanctions, and by 2500-2800 years of sanctions the world is almost all ocean. (Top of mount of planet and raised land squares, and the tiles that bounce back to land for the same reason some maps sink...)

[MariOne]

Geeat Work Blake. I'll use it as muster & guideline to replicate it on my own in this weekend.

couple of contributions:

test 1)
from the DataLinks (DL from now on) formula, the extra big TFED points for advanced terrraforming, get added in point 2, AFTER you doubled the worked tiles values in point 1
Thus, it was already there to be read that a Borehole gives 1+8=9 points unworked and 2+8=10 if worked.
So the actual points of the advanced terrafotming are:
Borehole 9 (10 if worked)
Mirror 7 (8)
Condenser 5 (6)

SO (important):
Working a square DOES NOT increase by 1, it REALLY doubles its TF points. Only, the doubling occurs BEFORE the extra points for the Adv triad get added.
And indeed apart those extras, each present item counts 1, regardless (remember tho, sensors and bunkers cause no ED. What about airbases?)
Example: if a square has farm+solar+road, its TFED points are 3. If you work it, it doesn't count as 4, it will count as 6.

I'll have to test:
Does a Mag Tube count as ONE item, or as 2 (road+Mag)?
same for Enricher, 1 item, or 2 (farm+Enricher)?
Offhand I'd say that the second item substitutes his prereq, and you have to count what's *present* in the tile, thus Mags & Enrichers do NOT add ED over the one already there for the road and farm. Just need to verify it.


GoodFacs -
They don't indeed *directly* affect the TFED term.
But they affect the Mineral Production term.
And this is composed using the "remainder of 16+# bonus".
So GoodFacs affect the contribution of that remainder.
And that remainder is calculated starting from TFED.
See the comparison I presented to clarify my correction to Blake's formula.


The main thing here is that they also affect Atrocities, contrary to the formula.