how is score calculated?

[fluffy]

I couldn't see this anywhere....

[Spaced Cowboy]

It is the square root of your total net worth (cash, ship, planets, etc.)

[fluffy]

I got about 85000pts in 7300 turns
Sharpblue got 655000pts in 10200 turns

What should I do to close the gap a bit?

[Spaced Cowboy]

You have to take his mojo, baby!

[Xentropy]

Originally posted by fluffy
I got about 85000pts in 7300 turns
Sharpblue got 655000pts in 10200 turns

What should I do to close the gap a bit?

You have to be the lucky one to run across a moron with 100B undefended credits on a planet.

Sharp has won this game; no one will ever catch up at this point. Best we can hope for is to turn it into a stalemate by putting 100M fighters on each planet and only 3B creds on each to make none of them worth taking. :P

The exponential nature of the game means that whoever takes the lead will just extend it. Rich get richer, poor get poorer. Increasing costs fail to really curb this effect. Game balance is mediocre at best. >shrugs<

Kinda fun for a diversion, though. Only takes 10 or 15 minutes to play out all your turns using the automated trade routes and the like.

[Lemmy]

The exponential nature of the game means that whoever takes the lead will just extend it.

Actually it's the other way around.
Hull upgrades for example, they increase your cargo cap by 1.5, but their cost is doubled at each level.
So at higher levels it will take longer to upgrade, and then when you get a decent hull lvl, you can't trade at the same route for too long.
And i don't think SharpBlue has such a strong ship, but just has a lot of credits, e.g his ship could be a lot stronger if he spent his credits on it.

[Xentropy]

Originally posted by Lemmy

The exponential nature of the game means that whoever takes the lead will just extend it.

Actually it's the other way around.
Hull upgrades for example, they increase your cargo cap by 1.5, but their cost is doubled at each level.

The problem is you get more than double the advantage out of the level. The amount of credits you make per turn gets rediculous, especially with planetary interest. In about 3000 turns you quadruple any investment in tech you made 3000 turns ago.

It's hard to explain exactly without pulling out my calculator and making some formulas to prove my case, but while the raw numbers look like you get vastly diminishing returns, the returns are actually higher. I mean, look at how quickly Sharp is advancing, and *increasing* his lead over everyone else, and remember that the score is itself a square root and he therefore has a net worth of 483B to the second place player's 131B. Almost four times as much "stuff".

It may not be the INTENTION of the design, but it's the result of the design, that the returns don't diminish quickly enough to keep this effect from occuring.

Rich get richer.......

[Lemmy]

I mean, look at how quickly Sharp is advancing, and *increasing* his lead over everyone else,

That's not done by simple managing his assets, he conquers, and it's not because of the exponential gains, but because of mistakes of others (including myself).
The reason his scoring rising so fast now is, i think, because of the sheer amount of planets he has conquered.
With more equal players, the game would've been totally different, just look at the places 3-10, no huge gaps in there. And then there is Tam i think he took over some of Oswelds planets, while his score was a lot lower.

Actually i think it's the planets that mostly unbalance things, since planets are at one point as good as unbeatable, that leaves you with a 100m colonist generating credits, allowing you to colonize even more...so the trick would be to stop players from building planets, or just build them faster....i guess is see what you mean... :/