Darn, well, if they don't have cash, why not ask them to give something else, like starships or technology(or maybe even... planets)? 3 economic starbases ought to be worth at least SOME ships/tech. I plan to build 4 ESBs per trade-route sector, selling 3 and keeping 1, except for the sector containing my planet, in which case I'll mass the SBs at my planet and add some production modules as well.

i thought you were going to play with tech trading off    they don't give up techs easily. by the time you had enough SBs to be worth a tech, you'd either likely have aquired it elsewhere else (and need more SBs to equal a better tech), or you'd have suffered from not having it all that time.

i really think the only way to make a trade array useful in a real game is to build it on a very short set of routes and saturate them as much as possible. otherwise it'll simply take too long to develop. having built from scratch arrays that span an entire gigantic map, i can say from expereince that it's only possible to do once you've already pretty much secured your victory. by that time, even the numbers i was producing wouldn't be a major addition to the economy - though it is a nice perk that trade doesn't seem to be cut by 20% when your treasure exceeds 20K.

i personally feel AI ships are worthless, though i don't mind selling my out-dated ships to the AI (often a lot easier than waiting around to upgrade them). the only ones i ever buy are their default mining ships, and usually that's only because i flip a planet while they're creating a asteroid base, and buying the miner is the only way the game realizes the miner needs to be moved (a real pain the rear).

favors wouldn't be a bad thing. "hey, freaky alien, i'll give you a bunch of starbases if you attack this other jerk i don't particularly like." it's also a good idea to keep the AIs at each other's throats, especially in a diplomatically oriented game.

as for planets, that's indeed a viable option - under the right circumstances. the AI seems loathe to trade away its well developed and high-quality planets. as a neutral, what you'll want to do is conive them out of their low-quality, unterraformed planets (PQ4 and under). they'll give them up as worthless, most likley, because even when they've researched up to terraforming they just let the terraforming tiles accululate and don't accelorate the development of their lower-quality planets. just be careful not to grab planets that will merely flip back.

however, if you do find a useful way to implement some of your ideas, please do share! i'm always interested in trying new things and hearing about things i've never tried myself.

cheers

What... miners flipping planets? What's this about? I didn't know that miners have influence like starbases do. I only knew that they can be flipped by influence like planets get flipped. Can you elaborate? And does the Space Miner ship, like Constructors, self-destruct upon construction of an asteroid mine, or does it build it and move on?

Yes, I would already have got techs that I actually need through other methods rather than suffer the wait for those damn ugly Constructors to build 3 maximized economic SBs.

If the AI has no good planets(as in, planets that won't flip off), not enough cash, and no influencer SBs that will flip one of their own planets to me, then I'll get them to give me some useless techs which I'll then sell off to other races.

yes, but first-



build (or upgrade) and move on.

to elaborate, the auto-mine option will direct miner ships to asteroid belts in your own or unoccupied space. sometimes it occurs that i colonize a planet near an asteroid field while an AI miner ship is building a mine. when that happens an error seems to occur - the miner should abandon the asteroid field, but instead get 'stuck', and there doesn't seem to be a way to order the miner to stop. when it happens to an AI space miner, i can get around it by purchasing the miner from them; when it happens to one of mine, i have to give it away or scrap it.



lol you can design your own.

also, 3 maximized econ SBs? if you're including weapons and defenses, that's going to take a long, long time. even in cheat mode, i only built the SB and the trade modules. but if it suits your fancy, go for it. i think it'd be much more practical to just leave a small defense fleet to protect the bases (and cost effective, considering you'll need to build 40~50 'structors per base to max out their weapons and stuff). well, if you go for it, all i can suggest is making liberal use of rally points.

^No, no, by maximized, I mean that I'll add every trade module possible and leave the SB completely unarmed. I won't be arming any non-military SB. Starbases can't defend themselves in the long run. I don't plan on ever building Galactic Privateer either, so both the trade ships and the starbases will be targets.

Instead, I plan on prioritizing propulsion technologies over defense systems in order to build fast offensive warships and keep a fleet to patrol the trade line during wars and pirate attacks.

I'll build 8 econ SBs in the sector containing my end of the trade line, sell 4 of them to the other race as usual and keep 4 of them close to my planet, and over-maximize these with both trade modules and production modules.



Can't you just de-activate auto-mine and move the Space Miner away? Or rather, not use auto-mine at all and move the Space Miner around manually(yeah, that would be kind of boring)? Also, do you start out with Space Mining technology, or is the default Space Miner an ahead-of-it's-time exception like the Flagship is?

I'm somewhat amazed that the Space Miner doesn't self-destruct like Constructors do. According to Frogboy/Draginol, Constructor Modules are devices that use nanotechnology to convert the mass from the Constructor ship into the mass of the Starbase. I'd expect Space Miners to do much the same, but instead they seem to use resources from the asteroid itself... clever.

the ship's UI controls disappear when it begins mining; that might be the reason it gets 'stuck', but no, i haven't figured out how to stop it without scrapping it or selling/buying it.



bingo.

^Weird bug. Do you get your money back through the sale of scrap metal, or do you just lose it?



I shall. The Terran Constructor is the ugliest ship design the Terran Alliance has. Especially since they made it stubbier and fatter in DA.

i let the test bed run for another several years and managed a new high in trade.



a few turns after this, the trade income dropped to just over 5,000 because they were all restarting the cycle.

i realized that the way the trade routes are described is misleading. in the game text it says they earn more BC the farther away they are - but they go to the destination planet and back, and they're actually at their highest value just before returning to their home planet. so really, they gain value the longer they've been away from home.

^That would make sense. Realistically, the trade ships would take goods from home, sell them at econ SBs and at the target planet, and come back towards home selling their remaining stocks, and thus be loaded with money by that time. Which is what actually happens in-game. Since supply for each freighter would be constant, and demand would be directly proportional to how long they're away from home, it makes sense that the traders can sell at higher prices the farther they, meaning more income, which is again simulated in the game mechanics.

unfortunately i can't really give you an estiamte on how much of my income this represented. in a real game i can gain a great deal more than 66K in taxes. i'd say look at what you make in an average game, and compare that to what i made in trade in this testbed.

update: after futher testing, i realized i was wrong. your SBs only affect your own trade routes. i thought otherwise because of the fact that i gifted all the first-round SBs on the same turn that i built all the second-round ones, but upon trying this on a small scale in a game without cheating, i realized my error.

Nah. I like the game mechanic, whatever the "realism factor" might be. There are not a lot of asteroids in the game so the effect is not pronounced, but what's cool about Miners is they have an O(N^3) payout, as opposed to Constructors which have an O(N^2) payout. Let me explain:

If you built, say, a ship, and you sold it to another race for 750bc, that would be an O(n) payout, where n=750bc.

But a constructor's different. A constructor you would turn into an economic starbase, which gives you a production boost every turn thereafter--which, in turn, you can build more constructors, which in turn give you more production boost, ad infinitum. It's the gift that keeps on giving. That would be an O(n^2) boost. You can really put your economy in overdrive by getting a large value of N.

A miner goes one step beyond that. A miner lets you more and more mines forever, which all give you bonus production every turn, which all let you build more miners. That's an O(n^3) payout, because it can keep building and building mines, ad infinitum. It's the gift that keeps on giving...that keeps on giving.... This is made possible by the fact that the miner does not self-destruct upon the first mine--otherwise it would only be O(n^2). That adds a really nice, unique strategic element to the game. Not a very pronounced one, mind you, because there are not that many asteroids, but cool nonetheless. There is a certain DA Campaign scenario (the one where you have to research Extreme Colonization before you can colonize anything) that has a lot of asteroids, where you can really feel the effect of this.

^Umm, yeah, as for Constructors, the cost of starbases rises and rises the more you build, so it will them take a very long time to break even. And you can only build 4 per sector. Also, they may end up going towards building of Military Starbases, which are a pure deficit since, unlike warships, they don't win new planets/asteroids for you to tax/mine.

As for Space Miners, it is nice that the miner doesn't self-destruct. Of course, you can only build as many mining bases as there are asteroids, but with all upgrades and lots of asteroids, these things can bring you good cash as well as metal - if your not building anything on the target planet, those manufacturing points, AFAIK, go into your treasury! The mining system is one of the things that swayed me over to DA and convinced me to get Gold Edition instead of just Dread Lords. Too bad they don't boost research.

What about Freighters? I guess they also give an O(n^2) payback. They self-destruct upon establishment of a trade route but the tiny trade ships keep giving you income over time.

Survey Ships, like the Flagships, would give O(n^3) paybacks - the more anomalies they survey, the more money/research/production you get, and they don't self-destruct, so they keep on going and going.

I think Survey ships are somewhere in the middle. Anomalies give a flat 1000bc or 25% research payout, which is O(n), so that would make Survey ships only O(n^2). But if you get an anomaly that's +2 morale or +1 economy, those payout every turn. That's O(n^2), which would make surveyors O(n^3).

Wait... in DA, trade routes get more and more valuable as time passes on, so you get more and more and more as time goes on. Yet the original freighter self-destructs. So, since you get constantly increasing payback, would it be O(n^2) or O(n^3)?

Where did you get the impression that mp's ever become bc's? AFAIK, this NEVER happens.

drrider

AFAIK, if no ship or building is bought or built on a planet, all production points on that planet are returned to the treasury. At least, that's what the wiki said. Although, I'm not sure if it works for asteroids.

Not mp's are bc's. FREE mp's are bc's. Actually, I would readily argue that free mp's are worth more than bc's, because free mp's are a done deal. You've got the mp, it's paid for, factoried, everything.

1 free mp is worth somewhere between 1 and 4 bc. The reason is, it costs >4bc to rush-buy something. You have to build factories to get 1 bc to produce 1 mp. So somewhere in the middle, that's what 1 free mp is worth.

To go a step further, this is how factories' and economy starbases' costs are easily justified: like when you upgrade a factory, you pay 1bc/turn maintenance extra, but you're getting 2 mp extra. That means you're getting 2 mp for 2 bc instead of 2 mp for 8 bc, every turn. Plus, you multiply that extra 2 mp times all your economy starbases, racial bonuses, etc. to get free mp, which means if you have only a mere 25% free mp bonus (easily achievable), that's 2mp*0.25 = 1/2 free mp, which easily justifies the 1 bc/turn maintenance. And then if you get another 1/2 paid mp on top of that, even better, because you're getting the improved 1bc/1mp rate instead of the 4bc/1mp rush-buy rate.

So, do you need the UP law or not to benefit from starbases that have been gifted/sold to your allied trade partner?

if those starbases cover your partner's trade routes, you will benefit from them because you trade partner will benefit from them because they will boost the value of your partner's trade routes. but if they don't cover your partner's routers, you won't get anything from them until you get the UP law.

So without Alliances and the UP law, Economic Starbases only help trade routes established by the race that owns them?

Also, will weapons from the original freighter get carried over to the minifreighter if the UP doesn't pass the armed freighter law?

directly, yes. the partner still benefits indirectly because the value of the route is the same for both sides. but without the UP law, there's not much the partner can do to increase the value of a trade route (other than giving/selling SBs and techs with trade bonuses).



not sure; i never bother arming frieghters. just not worth it IMO (even if you build them on a tougher hull, they can't be ordered to retreat or put in a fleet even).

have you started playing yet, peskyfly?

Nope. My last exam is on the 17th, so I'll be installing Gold Edition and all required updates on the 18th, and beginning my Terran game. After the Terran game has been won, I'll try out Super Annihilator, the Good Alignment, and Iztok's 'Mostly defense' ship design strategy, using a custom race I've planned called the Yor Rebellion.

They're some sort of seriously mis-programmed Yor who began preaching goodness and rebelled, and want to bring 'peace' to the galaxy and unite all the lesser biological races under them, by sporing those who do not come to the 'path of light' or else stay out of the way. Yeah, I know, it's a lousy story. Nut I won't be making story AARs, so no problem.

The stats for it are:

1 pt - Luck
4 pt - Economy
3 pt - Research
1 pt - Pop Growth
1 pt - Morale
Universalist Party

+Inherent:
1 pt - Luck
1 pt - Luck
1 pt - Pop Growth
2 pt - Logistics
Super Annihilator

Thus, if you can repeat bonuses when setting your custom race's inherent bonus, I'll be able to achieve 100% Luck. I don't know how the Logistics bonus applies when you set it for a custom race, but I'm assuming that 1 pt = 3 logistics. The Yor Rebellion will use blue-on-black Korath-style ships.

custom races don't get inherent bonuses, and in the base game you can't buy logistics points. you can mod both of these things, however.

tht is amazing...ive only goten to like 500 per turn....