What is the scenery bonus of ruins?

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: Emperor0Akim

Well I started the Science.

I allready wrote a page, then I clicked wrong and it all went away again

I write again later.

happened also to me millions of time.. [:@]

[Emperor0Akim]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

As an old AAR writer, I would just say: If you are to write a longer essay, write it somewhere else, then paste it to the forum. Notepad works just fine (notepad++ works better).

Thanks

Yeah Notepad++ is the best

If I want to write something larger, I write it outside the normal Reply Window.
What happened was I wanted to write something short and it got out of hand

Happens to the best of us, and to me

--- Edit ---

Also the phenomena when you push the send button and notice you forgot something ..

The research is doing great so far. Three years in, and there may actually be an answer

[Emperor0Akim]

ORIGINAL: Aeson

But you are right about the testing. I have pondered the whole morning how to come up with the !!SCIENCE!! to solve this riddle and came up with nothing. There is just to much financial moving and I am to impatient for trial and wait and wait and error.

A quick test using the in-game editor suggests that resorts generate ~3k credits per batch of 20k tourists delivered to the resort, regardless of the scenery bonus. The test was conducted by spawning in a moon with a ruin, building a resort base over the moon, and watching income generation for a while, then using the editor to remove the ruin and set a scenery bonus for the moon (first 25%, then 100%), scrap and rebuild the existing resort base, and watching the income generation for a while to see if income generated per visit changed. It would therefore appear as though the scenery bonus is an 'attractiveness' modifier for the resort base rather than a direct income modifier, and presumably affects the volume of tourist traffic that the resort base receives. As far as I know, tourists never leave a resort base, either, so you can determine the total income generated by a given resort base since it began operation by looking at the number of tourists currently on board the resort base.

One potential test would be to generate a game and, using the editor, spawn in two resort locations and accompanying bases, one of which is over something with a scenery bonus and one of which is over something with a ruin. I would suggest that you put both resort locations in the same system, preferably somewhat close to one another (e.g. two moons of the same gas giant), over the same type of object, and sufficiently far from any populated location that the distance between one resort base and the point(s) of origin of any tourists who come visit it is negligibly different from the distance between the other resort base and the point(s) of origin of any tourists who com visit it, as this should help isolate the scenery bonus as the primary variable affecting tourist traffic at the two resort bases. Whichever resort gets more business over the course of, say, an in-game year is the more 'attractive' resort. This would allow you to experimentally establish an upper or lower bound for the effective scenery bonus of a ruin (e.g. if the ruin gets less business than a 25% scenery moon, the upper bound on the effective scenery bonus of that ruin is 25%); a sequence of such tests could be used to progressively refine the bounds on the effective scenery bonus.

Aeson, Please don't laugh or cry. I really did not see nor read your post until today .. somehow I must have skipped it .. but alas ..
thats what I did.

FOR SCIENCE ! ( brought to you by Notepad++ )



I started the experiment with two allready existing Resortbases in my current game.
All the resortbases are of the same Design and Version.
The Maximum Capacity is 36000k ( 30x 1200 normal Passenger Compartment. )
The Passenger Transports have a capacity of 12000k ( 10 Compartments ) which was never used for Tourism,
but for Migrants, so size still matters. Just not for the experiment

In the end I had four Bases :

Resort1 : Placed in my starting System on a Ancient Ruin with 15% Development Bonus.
Resort2 : Placed in my starting System on a Ancient Ruin with 21% Development Bonus.
Resort3 : Placed in my starting System on a Scenic Location with 29% Scenery Bonus.

Resort4 : Placed on a nearby Black Hole with 68% Scenery Bonus.


To be honest, this game runs under the A.I. Improvement Mod, but that should not matter for this particular experiment.
I checked every half year the number of tourists on the station, the number of passenger ships and the populations growth.
It seems, that Distance does not matter, because I have seen a Passenger Ship Transporting a Group of Mortalen Tourists across
5 Sectors to a Wekkaru Ocean Planet with no Tourism Bonus whatsoever ( no scenic, no ruin, no wonder )


Stardate 2120.08 -

Number of Colonies 9
Population 25 Bil.
24 Passenger Ships

Ruin1 (15%) - 140k Tourists
Ruin2 (21%) - under Construction
Ruin3 (27%) - not started
Scenic(68%) - 380k Tourists


Stardate 2121.02 -

Number of Colonies 11
Population 28.2 Bil.
30 Passenger Ships

Ruin1 (15%) - 160k Tourists ( +20k )
Ruin2 (21%) - under Construction
Ruin3 (27%) - not started
Scenic(68%) - 460k Tourists ( +80k)


Stardate 2121.08 -

Number of Colonies 11
Population 28.8 Bil.
30 Passenger Ships

Ruin1 (15%) - 160k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin2 (21%) - Completed 2121.06
Ruin3 (27%) - not started
Scenic(68%) - 500k Tourists ( +40k)


Stardate 2122.02 -

Number of Colonies 12
Population 29.7 Bil.
30 Passenger Ships

Ruin1 (15%) - 160k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin2 (21%) - 000k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin3 (27%) - 8under Construction
Scenic(68%) - 520k Tourists ( +20k)


Stardate 2122.08 -

Number of Colonies 12
Population 30.8 Bil.
30 Passenger Ships

Ruin1 (15%) - 160k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin2 (21%) - 020k Tourists ( +20k )
Ruin3 (27%) - completet 2122.09
Scenic(68%) - 700k Tourists ( +180k)


Stardate 2123.02 -

Number of Colonies 13
Population 30.8 Bil. ( I actually forgot to write down the pop-change here )
30 Passenger Ships

Ruin1 (15%) - 160k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin2 (21%) - 040k Tourists ( +20k )
Ruin3 (27%) - 020k Tourists ( +20k )
Scenic(68%) - 720k Tourists ( +20k )


Stardate 2123.08 -

Number of Colonies 14
Population 33.3 Bil.
30 Passenger Ships

Ruin1 (15%) - 160k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin2 (21%) - 040k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin3 (27%) - 020k Tourists ( +0k )
Scenic(68%) - 720k Tourists ( +0k )


Stardate 2124.02 -

Number of Colonies 14
Population 34.8 Bil.
30 Passenger Ships

Ruin1 (15%) - 160k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin2 (21%) - 040k Tourists ( +0k )
Ruin3 (27%) - 040k Tourists ( +20k )
Scenic(68%) - 760k Tourists ( +40k )



Of the 30 Passenger Ships about half where engaged in transporting Tourists, while the other half was tansporting Migrants. This alternated a bit with sometimes more Migrant Ships and sometimes more Tourist Ships, but about half for either job kept true.
The Number of Passenger Ships changed in the beginning after I aquired a large independet Colony with about 3000M inhabitants.
While raising the Number of Colonies through empty planets the Number staid the same. I will watch this further

Now the Resort Bases where all actually used. That proves that Ancient Ruins are Scenic locations.
By the rise and stagnation of the Visitor Numbers I conclude that the Development Bonus of the Ancient Ruins is used as Scenic Bonus.
Also that distance is not important to the attraction of tourist through your empire, but this might also just be the lack of other
Options and the size of the bonus seems to be the biggest modifier.

Income was generated whenever a Passenger Ship arrived at a location. Which then was displayd for a month in the Empire Overview.
My guesstimate here is, that a constant value is used that gets multiplied by the number of tourists arriving and then ( hopefully ) modified by the commerce center and
leader skill.

Then there are also Colony Govenors. A particular Skill I once had made me wonder if those Guys may work their mojo systemwide.
The Skill was called "Civilian Base Maintenance Reduction" .. and since the only civilian Bases are Mines, which can not be build on colonies,
the skill is either the most useless skill ever .. or an indicator that colony govenors have a system wide radius. But that has nothing to do
other that a govenor could be a nice asset to a system full of Resort Bases.


So Conclusions

1.) Passenger Ships are dependent on the Population Size, not the Number of Colonies.
2.) Ancient Ruins are Scenic Locations. The Development Bonus counts as Scenic Bonus
3.) Wonders are Scenic Locations. The Development Bonus counts as Scenic Bonus.


Theories

1.) The Size of the Scenic Bonus may be more important than Distance or it is a Balancing Formula like Planetsize/Quality
2.) The Resort/Tourism income is fixed value Multiplied By Number of Tourist and Modified by Empire Bonuses. Not Scenery Bonus.
3.) The Scenery Bonus effects the Number of Tourists attracted per Ship and may effect Distance.

Questions

1.) Does Tourism income on Colonies count as Spaceport income ?
2.) What if there is no Spaceport ?
3.) How much is the Base Income Variable ?*
4.) Which role does Distance play in Tourism ? It obviously is a factor in Migration.
5.) What are the triggers for Passenger Ships ?
6.) Does the Number of Resorts effect the Number of Passenger Ships ?
7.) Does the Number of Resorts effect the Number of Tourist Dedicated Ships, and therefor slow down Migration ?

Questions Raised By Aeson
6.) Is there Really a Hotel California Situation ?
7.) What happens when the Passenger Limit is reached ?


I will try to answer and verify my findings by further watching the Passenger Transports.
In the next Test I have to Track their exact movement and the rise Income whenever they arrive at a location.
Which also means I have to analyze Private Sector Ship construction to counter-calculate the income.
Well. There are only 360 Private Ships in my Empire at the moment.


*As seen in the Quote Aeson answered Question 3. eight Days ago : 3k for 20M.

[Emperor0Akim]

Wow. Thats a lot of ships.
I prepared the excel file for the next test.
Detailed every location of my empire and what every of my passenger ships is doing.
also checked out what my freighters are doing. I think my economy is recovering quite well from the BS I tried while overequipping my private fleet. It seems the A.I. Improvement Mod is a little less forgiving on this front. On the other hand, this is one of the first games I overreached myself and have now quite the yarrringitis infection.

And that a-hole rat grabbed four worlds right under my nose .. but only after I started battling the pirates in this region .. well he also got the Trade Network before me .. maybe it's time to remedy that.
At least my Foreign Research Specialist got a few things in return.

Well back to Passenger Transports, the first and funniest thing I learned in my investigation is that my Passenger Ships pick up Migrants and Tourist from Other Empires.

--- Edit ---

The second thing I learned is, I either have enough fuel and gasses, or my Gas Extractor Ships are a bunch of Lazy Labor Unionists

[Damiac]

So... am I reading this right that resort bases can be filled to their capacity, generating 3k per 20k visitors, then once it's full you might as well scrap it, because you'll never get a new visitor as nobody ever leaves?

That can't be intended... but even so, the default design of resort station costs about 8k. So 60k passengers pays back the initial investment. As long as you get enough passengers to offset the maintenance cost, it will make you money, up until it fills up, at which point it will never make you another dime, although it will keep costing you maintenance funds.

Now... what happens when you scrap that base? Are all those people just floating in space? Will I actually hurt my tax base if I have a lot of resort stations? After all, the visitors from my empire going to a resort are people not living on a planet paying taxes! It makes me wonder if it's possible to build resorts which mostly cater to other empire's citizens...

[Aeson]

So... am I reading this right that resort bases can be filled to their capacity, generating 3k per 20k visitors, then once it's full you might as well scrap it, because you'll never get a new visitor as nobody ever leaves?

Theoretically, sure, but even unupgraded Standard Passenger Compartments can hold up to 1.2 million guests, and there's a distinct possibility that you'll have more than one on the station. At 60 tourist groups per unupgraded Standard Passenger Compartment, you can go a long time before a resort base becomes unable to accept more guests, and with upgraded components you'll go even longer.

It makes me wonder if it's possible to build resorts which mostly cater to other empire's citizens...

Yes, in theory. Build a resort base close to a foreign empire's colonies over an attractive location, and you should see passenger ships arriving from those colonies to deliver tourists, and if your own colonies are relatively distant you may see more foreign tourist traffic than native tourist traffic. Of course, the base does need to be sufficiently attractive to draw tourist traffic, and building close to another empire's colonies can be problematic, especially with colony influence turned up.

Even resort bases relatively distant from foreign colonies and close to your own might see some foreign tourism traffic; really depends on luck of the draw and how attractive the resort is relative to the other resorts that the tourists could be going to, and also a bit on whether or not the passenger ships have sufficient range to actually move tourists over the required distances.

what happens when you scrap that base? Are all those people just floating in space?

They vanish from the game. Based on what happens to characters stationed on a ship or station that you scrap, I'd say that they die, though there are no penalties to diplomatic relations or empire happiness for doing this (in fact, if the resort base was in foreign territory, relations may even improve afterwards), so you could argue that they all take off in personal shuttles or something like that.

Will I actually hurt my tax base if I have a lot of resort stations?

Theoretically yes, in practice no. People on resort bases do not count against planetary population caps, and 20,000 people per tourist group is negligible compared to both planetary populations and population growth rates. Consider that newly-founded colonies have a population of at least 30 million, that the lowest population allowed for a colonized planet is 1 million, and that colonies with growth rates under a few percent per year frequently have populations at least in the high hundreds of millions if not billions or tens of billions. A colony of only one billion people that grows at 1% per year could see around 500 tourist groups depart per year without really losing population (depending, a bit, on how the departures are distributed), and I very rarely bother to tax colonies with populations of even a few billion anyways.

More dangerous to your tax base, at least in the short term, is emigration; those passenger ships that can carry off 20,000 tourists to a resort base can (and will, whenever they take a migrate mission rather than a tourism mission) move millions, tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions (if you've really stacked up the passenger modules; requires at least 28 fully-upgraded Massive Passenger Compartments to break 100 million per load, though) of people off of a colony at once, and will usually be delivering those passengers to undeveloped or underdeveloped colonies that either aren't paying taxes or don't pay as much tax per capita as the world(s) from which population is being removed.

Basically, the size of tourist groups is so negligible by comparison to just about anything else population-related in the game (especially compared to populations which are actually worth taxing) that it would take enormous numbers of tourist groups departing in a short period of time to do anything noticable to your tax income.

[Damiac]

Heh, sure, it does all seem rather negligible, but still, I like digging into the minutia of things like that. I tend to just build as many tourist bases are there are locations on the little resort location finder, and they all seem to make some money, I'm just trying to figure out the theoretical optimal way to use them, even if I will never actually do it in practice. There's playing the game, and there's gaming the game, and I like to do both [:D]

[Cauldyth]

ORIGINAL: Damiac
nobody ever leaves?

Time to rename all my resort bases Hotel California.