Are Needlejets worthless or neccessary...

[Ka Plewy]

I'll take a whack at it. I just finished a refresher course in calculus and statistics.

[Commy]

Okay, I'll try to display the results as nice as I can...

I lost the paper that had the actual number, but I did graph it by rounding the value to the nearest ten, and then dividing by ten...

So for example, a distance of 1 (which is impossible, because it the square directly by the HQ) has a base cost of about 240 (I think 242)...at 2 square away, the price drops down to 200 (I think it was 201)...3 squares away, about 170...4 squares, 150.

Remember, these are all approximates...I do remember for a fact that at distance 12, the cost is exactly 75...

These values are the base costs...population becomes a multiplier, so if it costs 200 at population one, it will cost 400 at pop 2 and 600 at pop 3...children creches half the distance used the equation, and genejack's double it...

As you can tell if you graph these values, the equation certainly isn't linear...

Here's the problem I have...if the X axis represents distance, and the Y axis represents cost...instead of sloping up as X increases, it slopes down...

I have only three guesses for the equation...eiter A) the opposite of the X values is used (basically, a distance of 6 would make x=-6) which seems the most likely, or B) the equation is part of an oval, which have very little experience with...the third guess would be that it is none of these and that some much better math person can solve this, as it is annoying me...everything else in probe cost can be determined by trial and error...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Flubber
Why build them??

I have just noticed the aliens (progenitors or however you call them) love worms - they build lots of them. Other computer factions don't do this, at least in the games I could remember.

[Ka Plewy]

Originally posted by Commy
Okay, I'll try to display the results as nice as I can...

I lost the paper that had the actual number, but I did graph it by rounding the value to the nearest ten, and then dividing by ten...

So for example, a distance of 1 (which is impossible, because it the square directly by the HQ) has a base cost of about 240 (I think 242)...at 2 square away, the price drops down to 200 (I think it was 201)...3 squares away, about 170...4 squares, 150.

Remember, these are all approximates...I do remember for a fact that at distance 12, the cost is exactly 75...

These values are the base costs...population becomes a multiplier, so if it costs 200 at population one, it will cost 400 at pop 2 and 600 at pop 3...children creches half the distance used the equation, and genejack's double it...

As you can tell if you graph these values, the equation certainly isn't linear...

Here's the problem I have...if the X axis represents distance, and the Y axis represents cost...instead of sloping up as X increases, it slopes down...

I have only three guesses for the equation...eiter A) the opposite of the X values is used (basically, a distance of 6 would make x=-6) which seems the most likely, or B) the equation is part of an oval, which have very little experience with...the third guess would be that it is none of these and that some much better math person can solve this, as it is annoying me...everything else in probe cost can be determined by trial and error...

I guess I was under the impression I'd get a set of raw data to work with. Unfortunately, what's presented isn't enough raw data, and has too many I think's in it to make a reliable model. I'm still interested if you find that sheet of raw data.