Is the game bugged with minimum and maximum quality ranges?

[OloroMemez]

In both the Galactopedia and code (OrbTypes.xml) each planet has a specific quality range that's given.
But I first noticed how off this seemed when I bought the information of 5 independent worlds. Almost all of them were below the minimum quality suggested by both these sources.

Because of the fact that continental, grassland, and forest planets generate at a lower number than other types (spawn rates are given in OrbTypes.xml), I have to question whether planets spawning outside of the quality range is intended behaviour.


Minimum quality of continentals is meant to be 60, according to following code.

<OrbTypeId>7</OrbTypeId>
<Category>Planet</Category>
<Name>Continental</Name>
.....
<QualityRangeMinimum>0.6</QualityRangeMinimum>
<QualityRangeMaximum>0.9</QualityRangeMaximum>


As for Ocean, minimum is meant to be 50.

<QualityRangeMinimum>0.5</QualityRangeMinimum>
<QualityRangeMaximum>0.7</QualityRangeMaximum>


Below 50% quality.

I've attached a newly made save from 1.0.2.8 generated using normal colony abundance settings, and can clearly see two planets in home system with below minimum quality.

[zgrssd]

I am pretty sure Pyrrho is some quest related thing. Like Greer, Mikal, Ekranos and Former Slave Colony.

If that is not the case, it could be the good old "off by one" error.
But it is also possible that this is not actually a minimum, but "just" a lower bound.

Also, on what number of colonizeable planets and independants was this figure gathered? It might affect numbers.

[OloroMemez]

I am pretty sure Pyrrho is some quest related thing. Like Greer, Mikal, Ekranos and Former Slave Colony.

If that is not the case, it could be the good old "off by one" error.
But it is also possible that this is not actually a minimum, but "just" a lower bound.

Also, on what number of colonizeable planets and independants was this figure gathered? It might affect numbers.

These are just an example, there's plenty more planets below minimum quality.

This is all based upon normal colony prevalence and normal number of independent colonies.

"Off by one" becomes problematic when you consider that while quality 60 with a +10 bonus gets you at least 20 suitability, if it's any lower than that, all these planets require more colonization tech and terraforming to be good candidates. Planets like ice, ice tundra, and frozen ice - any one of those types is far more common than all three of grassland, forest, and continental put together.

So if those are all relatively rare planet types, having a minimum quality is pretty important. Even with Ice Tundra tending to be lower quality, there's so many of them you get plenty of planets above 20 suitability with Zenox than those three others combined in a random sample of 193 planets.



But poor planets like Ice, none of them are really ever going to reach 20 suitability. Out of 18 ice worlds, none of them would even be 20 suitability.

[arvcran2]

Am curious as to how you tallied the orb type counts?

Again very interesting investigative and analytical work OloroMemez!

[Erik Rutins]

Orb quality is distributed unevenly throughout the quality range (more or less a bell curve). In addition, the difficult setting includes a multiplier to the quality range. At Normal difficulty, this is .85, so a planet that would have a range between 50 - 70% base would be 42.5% - 59.5% at Normal difficulty.

[OloroMemez]

Orb quality is distributed unevenly throughout the quality range (more or less a bell curve). In addition, the difficult setting includes a multiplier to the quality range. At Normal difficulty, this is .85, so a planet that would have a range between 50 - 70% base would be 42.5% - 59.5% at Normal difficulty.

Thanks a lot for letting me know
I expected the quality to vary and form a bell curve, but the last thing I expected was difficulty setting to affect the quality range. The in-game tooltip doesn't say anything about difficulty affecting the quality, and I reasonably assumed only the colony prevalence would touch that. Rolling quality range into difficulty also sounds like it's taking away player choice, as if they wanted lower quality planets, they would be fiddling with the colony prevalence setting.

[OloroMemez]

Am curious as to how you tallied the orb type counts?

Again very interesting investigative and analytical work OloroMemez!

I did it manually :') just took a relatively small sample in my galaxy as I thought I was going crazy with how few continental planets I was finding.

I retrieved all the spawn rates from the code, so I'll be making a Drake equation next to map out the expected number of planets of any type

[zgrssd]

Orb quality is distributed unevenly throughout the quality range (more or less a bell curve). In addition, the difficult setting includes a multiplier to the quality range. At Normal difficulty, this is .85, so a planet that would have a range between 50 - 70% base would be 42.5% - 59.5% at Normal difficulty.

Wait, is this variance only for the palyer? Or for player and AI?

Because if it affects AI, it is not realy a difficulty thing. But it would also be confusing as heck if the values changed on conquest.

[arvcran2]

Orb quality is distributed unevenly throughout the quality range (more or less a bell curve). In addition, the difficult setting includes a multiplier to the quality range. At Normal difficulty, this is .85, so a planet that would have a range between 50 - 70% base would be 42.5% - 59.5% at Normal difficulty.

Wait, is this variance only for the palyer? Or for player and AI?

Because if it affects AI, it is not realy a difficulty thing. But it would also be confusing as heck if the values changed on conquest.

Bang on, and good question.

[Erik Rutins]

That difficulty multiplier affects everyone as it's factored in when the galaxy is generated. I thought we had documented that somewhere, but I'll take your word for the fact that that we did not. We certainly should mention it!

[zgrssd]

That difficulty multiplier affects everyone as it's factored in when the galaxy is generated. I thought we had documented that somewhere, but I'll take your word for the fact that that we did not. We certainly should mention it!

Wait, which difficulty setting are you refering to?

The one in Galaxy Settings is explicitly only agaisnt the Player.
Galaxy Agression should only be AI agressiveness
Space Creatures and Pirate Number/Strenght?

Do you mean "Colony Prevelance"? It would be the only that fits. But I would not consider that a difficulty setting. And no explicit values are given.

[Erik Rutins]

I mean the .85 to the quality range that is applied by the Difficulty setting (Normal in this case).

[zgrssd]

I mean the .85 to the quality range that is applied by the Difficulty setting (Normal in this case).

That is not realy answering my question and makes me only more confused.

You are telling me:
1. The Difficulty Setting in the Galax Settings - which is supposed to be AI bonuses - affects the Quality
2. The Setting for Colony Prevelance - the thing where it makes the most sense and is even mentioned in the text - does not affect the Quality
3. The normal values is 0.85. Not 1.0
4. This is a percentile multiplier, meaning planets with naturally higher quality loose more then low quality ones (whose species get way more bonus and a lower treshold).

Because that are 3 things that make no sense, and one that is at least odd.

[SgtBootStrap]

2. The Setting for Colony Prevelance - the thing where it makes the most sense and is even mentioned in the text - does not affect the Quality

Can you provide any (one would be fine) example where the definition of "Prevalence" has any bearing, whatsoever, on "Quality"?

[OloroMemez]

Erik keeps saying difficulty, but I think he means colony prevalence setting.

I just launched up a new game with normal colony prevalence, and easy difficulty. The quality range of planets looked to be the same. So seems to me that it's normal setting on colony prevalence that modifies quality range by 0.85.

I'm with zgrssd that having normal setting (and therefore default) at a value that immediately makes the Galactopedia incorrect, is a bit of a strange decision. A default setting should have default quality range values, not multiplied by 0.85 to lower it.

Abundant colony prevalence looks like it keeps quality range at what the Galactopedia and code says it should be, i.e. multiplier of 1.

[zgrssd]

2. The Setting for Colony Prevelance - the thing where it makes the most sense and is even mentioned in the text - does not affect the Quality

Can you provide any (one would be fine) example where the definition of "Prevalence" has any bearing, whatsoever, on "Quality"?

How about RTFTT? Read the Flipping Tool Tip.

RTFTT.JPG (37.5 KiB) Viewed 1436 times

The defeinition of Colonizeable is
Quality + Species Bonus + Technology - 50 = Suitability
Suitability > 0 = Colonizeable
Suitability >= 20 = Good Colonizeable

Gas Giants are Uncolonizeable because the Quality is like 0-1% on average. Which results in -50 to -49 Suitability for all. With 0 techs to boost it. Or did you think for one second DW2 uses a hard lockout like in Stellaris?

So how can you change colonizeables, without changing quality?

[OloroMemez]

Hey Erik, I also need to ask you - in the planet generation, certain planet types do not spawn around particular stars.
But gas giants can spawn there, and those gas giants can have moons. If a planet type like Continental does not normally spawn around white dwarfs, can you confirm whether it can still spawn as a moon of a gas giant in the white dwarf system?

[negativity]

This is not the problem. The problem is that none of those options give the quality ranges listed in the manual. They ALL modify the qualities listed by some way. "normal" is lower qualities than listed, and "abundant" is higher. Why is there no option to have the ranges as listed in the manual? its ridiculous.

2. The Setting for Colony Prevelance - the thing where it makes the most sense and is even mentioned in the text - does not affect the Quality

Can you provide any (one would be fine) example where the definition of "Prevalence" has any bearing, whatsoever, on "Quality"?

How about RTFTT? Read the Flipping Tool Tip.
RTFTT.JPG

The defeinition of Colonizeable is
Quality + Species Bonus + Technology - 50 = Suitability
Suitability > 0 = Colonizeable
Suitability >= 20 = Good Colonizeable

Gas Giants are Uncolonizeable because the Quality is like 0-1% on average. Which results in -50 to -49 Suitability for all. With 0 techs to boost it. Or did you think for one second DW2 uses a hard lockout like in Stellaris?

So how can you change colonizeables, without changing quality?

[OloroMemez]

This is not the problem. The problem is that none of those options give the quality ranges listed in the manual. They ALL modify the qualities listed by some way. "normal" is lower qualities than listed, and "abundant" is higher. Why is there no option to have the ranges as listed in the manual? its ridiculous.

From some quick testing, these multipliers seem to be at play -

Normal 0.85
Abundant 1
Very Abundant 1.15

[negativity]

This is not the problem. The problem is that none of those options give the quality ranges listed in the manual. They ALL modify the qualities listed by some way. "normal" is lower qualities than listed, and "abundant" is higher. Why is there no option to have the ranges as listed in the manual? its ridiculous.

From some quick testing, these multipliers seem to be at play -

Normal 0.85
Abundant 1
Very Abundant 1.15

I had a grasslands planet at 89% in an abundant game.