Easy way to always win.

[Pipewrench]

Harrs,

I would love to see you throw out an AAR sometime. For events.. they seem slightly scripted to progress with certain levels of development and mystery. Some statements above are right and some are a ruse. I will leave it at that. [;)]

[Harrs]

ORIGINAL: Gareth_Bryne

S******* require just one more tiny thing[:D]. I do believe it was noted somewhere in the older threads...

S******* require just one more tiny thing. I do believe it was noted somewhere in the older threads...

Yes than please tell me..
Everything is explored all science is done.. And I gave all the scientific to all my enemies..

[Gareth_Bryne]

All science to everyone? That was, probably, very, very, wrong...[:D]
See, that point is an excellent roleplay moment, one of the best in script settings of any game...

[Fishers of Men]

Hey JosEPh, glad to hear from you.

I am using Arcatus Actual Resources mod which uses more realistic elements found in the universe. Its not perfect(I would like to see oil instead of polymer), but its much better. And, it works with DW and all it's expansions.

[boxleitnerb]

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller

Just a little clarification - research bonuses* are empire wide and not just for the labs at that location.  That said stripping all of the research labs out of spaceports and putting them elsewhere is something I always do too.  The important thing is to have your best scientist in that discipline at the best bonus location.

Why is it useful to strip the starbases of the research labs, then? And why have the best scientists (I thought there were only scientists in general, is there a distinction in the game?) at a particular location when - as you say - the bonus is empire wide?

I would reckon that it is best to spread your labs out over several bonus locations - that way you multiply many bonuses empire wide.

[Bingeling]

As far as I know, character bonuses are location wide. So it is better to have lots of labs in one spot. Also, characters can have negative bonuses to research fields, and that makes single target stations better. Others may be great in all respects, which would make the "ultimate space port with 20 of each lab" the best.

[feelotraveller]

Only the best bonus you have in the galaxy is applied empire wide for each field (weapons/energy/hi tech).  You can get the location bonus with a single lab in a research facility.  You can get the scientist bonus by having them stationed at a single lab in the appropriate field.  If you want one scientist to provide bonuses on more than one field they need a lab for each of those fields.
 
Best bonus is made of scientist + location by discipline.
 
Example: 
- I have a scientist who has weapons +14%, energy +21%, hi tech +37% (Kiadian starter scientist).  Initially my scientist is at a hi tech research facility with only hi tech labs, at a +28% location.  No other scientist or location bonuses.  So I get +65% for hi tech research empire wide and no bonus for other fields.
 
- I find another hi tech location with a +28% bonus but build a research lab there with one weapons lab, one energy lab and one hi tech lab and transfer my scientist there.  Now I get +14% weapons research, +21% energy research and +65% hi tech research empire wide.
 
- Next I build another research facility at a +28% energy location including at least one energy lab.  I don't transfer my scientist.  Now I get +14% weapons, +28% energy and +65% hi tech.
 
- If I have at least one lab of each type and I transfer my scientist to the new energy location I will get +14 weapons (0+14), +49 energy (28+21) and only +37 hi tech (0+37).
 
If you have more than one scientist you want to pair best scientific skill with best location bonus for a particular field if you are going merely by the numbers (rather than perhaps settling for a smaller bonus but in the field of your choice).
 
Generally I put a lab of each type in all my research facilities for the flexibility.
 
Now you could keep most of your labs in a starbase.  They will get your empire wide bonus and probably be safe and sound.  I don't but that's because I like to make the private sector carry most of the research cost.  You know you can put labs in mining stations, don't you?  [:)]  There is a definite downside... they get gobbled by pirates at times, and by enemies at other times.  But when you are struggling for state income...  They will not get your research bonuses though.  [:(] 

[ehsumrell1]

Also, concerning scientist characters, note the following:

When more than one character is assigned to the same location, there can be synergistic effects.

Scientists are assigned to a research location. They give the research at that location a bonus that should be cumulative with the existing bonuses.

Each scientist at a research station provides research bonuses to the specific research area of the station (Weapons, Energy, HighTech). Additional scientists at the same research station provide half their skills on top of the first scientist, progressively halving with each additional scientist. Thus: Scientist 1 gives full 12% energy research bonus, Scientist 2 gives half of their 10% energy research bonus (5%), Scientist 3 gives one quarter of their 8% energy research bonus (2%), for a total of 19% energy research bonus (12 + 5 + 2).

Just another way to keep your research level high (and safe if in a Starbase as Feelotraveller stated). Hope this helps! [:)]

[Apheirox]

Interesting thread - I think it raises some questions about just how much one can customize before it essentially becomes 'putting more queens in the field'. I don't play 'to win' like this, but I nonetheless do customize certain things: It's just annoying not being able to build a troop transport early and it seems too stupid and boring to settle for the default tax rates (which all the AIs are forced to use and thus suffer, making you gain the upper hand!).

The real issue, of course, is that things are done non-optimally in the first place - it's just weird that things get designed wrong by default. The underlying issue, however, is that a rebalancing is needed in many fields. This would also let the player just play the game without having to worry about nonsensical and tedious 'optimization' - and it would make the AI a lot more competitive, too! What's needed is things like:

1) Setting tax rate to just a few percent shouldn't completely destroy population growth compared to running 0% tax, it makes no sense at all. Honestly, the way it works is just bad; completely unintutive. I also doubt anybody truly enjoys managing tax rates but the game essentially forces you to because the penalty for not running 0% is so blatantly unbalanced.

2) Research model needs to change, it doesn't make sense that the optimal is having just three massive research stations. Of course one can conduct better research by performing it across many different locations and investigating different neutron stars/black holes/etc.

3) Place some limits on the amount of extractors, cargo bays, docking bays and more on a design by limiting their efficiency past a certain amount. Optimal play should be using designs as they are now so that one can't simply build ultimate editions of anything.

4) No re-designing of private ships to outfit them with sensors or other nonsense exploits (I actually thought this was no longer possible).

Basically, instead of making it optimal for the player to abuse the game rules, change the rules so that there's no benefit to be had from exploits. (Not to hammer on your post, Harrs, rather the game )

[Bingeling]

I agree that the benefit of 0 tax is a borderline game bug. There should of course be a difference between 0 and 2% tax, but not a more significant difference than the difference between 38% and 40%. Or at least not much, the link should probably not be linear.

I notice that I have to limit myself from even abusing offers thrown to me by the AI. In my current (and maybe soon previous game, it is growing scale), I started my Zenox on a harsh home world, very hard settings, and very high corruption (I think the corruption was at max at least, it could be one step lower).

I used 0 tax to build population, got a good set of colonies, and a regional capital on a 99% colony with nice colonies nearby. With this I can have a comfortable economy not building money running a good military strength. To the degree that I have many times looked to increase taxes a bit to not lose money. It has all been fine taxing every world with more than 80k revenue.

But then the AI starts sending the odd offer "Initiate trade sanctions against XXX for all our money". 400k here, 800k there, 2.4 million maybe? For initiating trade sanctions you can drop right after? Taking those trades removes the penalty on the economy set in the start conditions... Of course, the AI don't have harsh homeworld, don't have corruption, and has bonus income from the Very Hard setting.

[Apheirox]

Yes, some of this stuff is a bit weird. It's also clear there's something fishy with the whole 'negotiate a trade proposal' thing: You aren't really supposed to be using it, apparently, because the AI will accept virtually any trade under this negotiation whereas if you simply ask for a galaxy map swap it will decline. That leaves the question, 'why then present it to the player?'. I think doing so simply detracts from the overall presentation. DW is a little weak in this regard. Part of the enjoyment of playing a 4x is the illusion that you're accomplishing something, you're beating the opponents. A 4x is a competitive game. If it is made too obvious to the player that there is no such cometition going on, this illusion breaks (as you provide an example of above). Yes, we can handicap ourselves by not accepting beneficial trades, by allowing auto-managed tax rates that cripple our population growth and by building badly designed ships, but... see where this is going? That simply isn't fun. But it really is how the game currently works. I think DW would feel much more 'pro' if these things were cleaned up. Having a functional metagame is important.

I'm also simply unwilling to let the tax rate float regardless. Part of the fun is seeing your tiny little dot on the map sprawl out and become a mighty empire. The absurdly high growth rates are fun, I like them - so much I want the AI to have them, as well! If one doesn't run 0% taxes, however, it will take unreasonably long to have happen. I really hope the developer[s?] decide to address this.

[Bingeling]

I think the problem with the offers, is about inflation both in amount of money and in values. You can see crazy trade values on some bases and actions like trade sanctions and war declarations. If some AI got some credits, it does not value them much. Gas mines on fuel sources can run in 10s of millions, while you got spare sources sitting around that you could build on at "any time".

One main problem is that the AI does not know how to spend to the limit. The real income of the empire is hidden to both yourself and the AI, as it is a sum of steady taxes and more random bonus income. At some point (probably in an early Legends beta patch), it was changed so the AI runs some checks where it spends a part of cash on hand on ships and bases. This helps a bit on the "no build" AI.

I think the AI has a threshold for accepting a trade. And it is possible that this threshold is influenced by factors like relations and empire needs to some degree. In some instances the AI really wants the result to happen (for some reason) it will accept lower options.

Not having studied this too much, I seem to be able to trade at even values with some empires, have to go some 10% above with other empires, and when some empire suggest the trade the offer could even be a bit below the value (seen from my point). I also believe that if you reject the offer and try to recreate it, the AI will not accept.

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: Apheirox

Interesting thread - I think it raises some questions about just how much one can customize before it essentially becomes 'putting more queens in the field'. I don't play 'to win' like this, but I nonetheless do customize certain things: It's just annoying not being able to build a troop transport early and it seems too stupid and boring to settle for the default tax rates (which all the AIs are forced to use and thus suffer, making you gain the upper hand!).

The real issue, of course, is that things are done non-optimally in the first place - it's just weird that things get designed wrong by default. The underlying issue, however, is that a rebalancing is needed in many fields. This would also let the player just play the game without having to worry about nonsensical and tedious 'optimization' - and it would make the AI a lot more competitive, too! What's needed is things like:

1) Setting tax rate to just a few percent shouldn't completely destroy population growth compared to running 0% tax, it makes no sense at all. Honestly, the way it works is just bad; completely unintutive. I also doubt anybody truly enjoys managing tax rates but the game essentially forces you to because the penalty for not running 0% is so blatantly unbalanced.

2) Research model needs to change, it doesn't make sense that the optimal is having just three massive research stations. Of course one can conduct better research by performing it across many different locations and investigating different neutron stars/black holes/etc.

3) Place some limits on the amount of extractors, cargo bays, docking bays and more on a design by limiting their efficiency past a certain amount. Optimal play should be using designs as they are now so that one can't simply build ultimate editions of anything.

4) No re-designing of private ships to outfit them with sensors or other nonsense exploits (I actually thought this was no longer possible).

Basically, instead of making it optimal for the player to abuse the game rules, change the rules so that there's no benefit to be had from exploits. (Not to hammer on your post, Harrs, rather the game )

Good points Apheirox.

However 2) is plainly wrong from a strategic point of view. You get no better research values from going this route, as compared with having minimal research bases at those three locations and the rest of your research labs in a massive spaceport. There is a distinct advantage in the latter method as you can refit the spaceport as you get better weapons/defenses or your need for labs change. Also with the three massive research labs what are you to do if you discover a better bonus location? So do not regard 3 massive research labs as optimal, far from it!

And 3) already exists to a large degree as the maxiumum extraction rate is capped in Legends at 10 for mines and 40 for gas mines. Hence there is never any point going beyond 3 gas extractors or 4 mining engines and this number drops as your tech improves. The number of cargo bays and docks although handy in some circumstances cannot lift the maxiumum throughput of resources which is limited by the extraction rate. (Note that even putting extractors on bases to reach the cap is not 'optimal' in all circumstances. With the intial mining tech that fourth mining engine only extracts at one third efficiency. Once you have the first mining tech one engine of the four is entirely useless for extracting resources and a second engine only extracts at 50% ability and yet you cannot remove them from the bases and will continue to pay maintenance for them. With the second mining tech 2 engines are entirely useless.

Unfortunately the extra maintenance costs are entirely disregardable with the current state of the economic side of the game. If the lack of challenge from the cpu empires is the players first extra queen, the ease of money-making beyond the early game is definitely the second. Personally I would have them the other way around though. The galactic economy needs an overhaul and part of the benefit of doing so would be to enable playing with scarcer resources something which was held out as one of the big selling points of Legends which quickly went by the wayside, without it may be noted comment from the developers or indeed much from the player base.

[Bingeling]

You can't really have too scarce resources. There is a lot of resources needed to build ships, and if these are scarce, some empires will be screwed from the start. Keep in mind that implementing a nice challenge for the human, could leave the AI completely stranded.

The 3 rare luxuries are nice items that there is competition about.

The area that could be developed as a resource competition is luxuries. I have never noticed much problems with getting enough of them.

[feelotraveller]

It does not have to be resource locations which are reduced (although I think that some of this could be also done).  It is true that, as you suggest, this can not be taken too far or it will cause problems for the cpu algorithm (and maybe even for the player?).
 
It can be reducing the quality of the yields of resources.
 
And it can be reducing the extraction rate of the resources.
 
Legends intially had one mining engine/gas extractor on the starting bases.  That meant that resources were only accumulated half as fast at the start of the game as they are now.  I believe that they also increased the quality of the yields of locations but I could be wrong on that.  Certainly if your average steel source was 30% with occasional good locations of 50% rather than the 40-50% and 70-80% that they currently are then resources would not be as common.
 
As far as I can tell they wacked a second extractor on starting bases and increased the yield percentages because the galactic economy was too fragile.  Yep, when resources are scarce they go up in price.  [:)]

[jpwrunyan]

ORIGINAL: Nedrear

Just consider the "Iron" mine to have a processing manufactory at the same time. They smelt the ore right there and refine the iron to simple nonalloyed steel and deliver it for further refining to alloys in other manufactories.

Except that steel requires carbon and is commonly made into pig iron first. So the steel resource must be located somewhere with both iron and carbon for that logic to work. I can't remember the exact process. It's complex.

<pedantic>
Also, there is no such thing as "non-alloyed" steel. Steel is an alloy.
</pedantic>

[Nedrear]

ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan

Except that steel requires carbon and is commonly made into pig iron first. So the steel resource must be located somewhere with both iron and carbon for that logic to work. I can't remember the exact process. It's complex.

<pedantic>
Also, there is no such thing as "non-alloyed" steel. Steel is an alloy.
</pedantic>

Maybe I should have put the 'non alloyed' into marks like now. I meant pure stell of less carbon than 5% to seperate it from useless cast iron in the metallurgy and without other dopants. Actually I stated all this in my resource mod which you obviously did not read. Further todays processing does not "store" pig iron but processes it directly as hot metal:

Quote Wikipedia

Today, pig iron is typically poured directly out of the bottom of the blast furnace through a trough into a ladle car for transfer to the steel mill in mostly liquid form; in this state, the pig iron is referred to as hot metal. The hot metal is then charged into a steelmaking vessel to produce steel, typically with an electric arc furnace, induction furnace or basic oxygen furnace, by burning off the excess carbon in a controlled fashion and adjusting the alloy composition.

Quote End

And to think a future iron mine on a planets surface with an orbital spaceport to distribute it is unable to buy of carbon which weights a fifth of iron and thereby makes 1% of the whole production weight while still maintaining profit is absurd! The most consuming part is energy and the station buys a lot of it if they do not use solar collectors. Carbon as one of the most abundant resources in the galaxy is not a question to transport there or to pay for. It does not even need these amounts of coal anymore anyway. That is a bad joke. We got Carbonyl Steel powder with a purity of 99,5% since 1924 the German BASF created it. And making a unicrystal like silicium in this future shoudl further be possible. I see no reason to doubt a steel mine in space at all. Rather the opposite seems short sighted.

[Bingeling]

The resources make little sense when you think of it.

Carbon - life as we know it, and as described by the alien races. They live on all kinds of planets. Carbon fiber? Carbon. Polymer? Carbon chains, related to oil that is... former life...

[Nedrear]

Indeed you could have combined these in two giant entities: Oil and Coal. The names could be changed... the sense not. Those would exist on ocean, continental and marshy swamp worlds and would be there on nearly every planet of these types (acidic oceans excluded and tectonical inactive planets) resulting in a more common resource. Actually they are common though and split in these entities in the game but they are not common in general but common on their planet types. If Elliot would increase the planet span of these resources to all live inhabiting planets - oceans too - there would be less problems. Their names are a little vague though and specific.
You can NOT use every of these resources for the same purpose in the same efficiency. You would need to enhance coal to be used in petrochemic processes which consumes very much energy. Like that the use as a energy carrier is doomed and breaking oil down to carbon is a waste. Oils only use in medicine and plastics of high prices is considerable. That is why many argue NOT to burn our precious oil! We need it for future petrochemics not as a gas in the atmoshphere.
Coal can field a huge industry and be transferred into nano string to create next gen carbon fiber. Though other uses apply too that WILL be coals future main role. Therefore calling it carbon fiber ingame is correct.

I see nothing wrong with the resources... only their names.

[Harrs]

here the benefits of 0% tax.. some planets habe a growth ratio of over 120%

To finance the wars I traded research for money..
The boskara had more planets than me till I had the first capital ships.
I started with harsh condition. All enemies with excelent conditions..

After the planets reached max population I switched to 50% tax.. but beware that you could loose all your population on a big planet too.. If there are nice quality planets with 0% tax in the near and this planet has 50% tax they will leave it..
One of my planets had reached 16billion population.. and lost 12 billion after 50% tax...
Then you need to switch back to 0%.. you dont loose the population.. its just on another planets.. now I have 10 planets with max pop and good tax revenue..