Reviewing the current Imperial Stockpile mechanics
Posted: Sat May 26, 2018 12:34 pm
Reviewing the current Imperial Stockpile (IS) mechanics. Very related to this thread on Stockpile Techs, but it already has several open discussion going on so I thought it is better to post this on its own thread.
Generals:
Each colony has MaxStockpile and (Current)Stockpile meters, which contribute to the total Empire's Stockpile and MaxStockpile.
The Empire's Stockpile refers to the PPs the Empire can draw from the PPs stored in the IS each turn.
The PPs stored are simply any non-consumed PP (what in older FO was wasted here is stored).
Each conoly's MaxStockpile depends on the focus of the colony, its population, and the presence of certain techs and buildings (each giving fixed and pop-based bonuses).
Caveats:
There is a suggestion to make the Stockpile value only relative to the Empire (removing that meter from the colonies), so that each colony's MaxStockpile contributes/determines the Empires MaxSotckpile but the current value only depends on Empire-wide conditions (total population or total number of colonies). All this as a patch against the focus dance (micromanagement), that does not fully fix the problem and that is not liked by some of the devs.
There is another solution (not a patch) that seems very good (to some people) requiring influence for focus switching. However, until some alpha version of influence is finished and merged to master, we can either ignore the focus dance problem or patch it somehow. Certainly, more elegant alternatives than the mentioned above are welcome.
Meanwhile, I still have to check some more FOCS code to find out if (some new form of) the penalisation mechanic for industry and research foci can be used to tackle this focus-dancing issue.
SPECIES TRAITS:
In species/common/stockpile.macros:
[[STOCKPILE_PER_POP]] is 0.02
[[STANDARD_STOCKPILE]] increases or decreases planetary stockpile towards MaxStockpile, at a fixed rate of 1 per turn. Every species execute this (I think every turn), except those with the [[NO_STOCKPILE]] trait.
[[{BAD,AVERAGE,GOOD,GREAT,ULTIMATE}_STOCKPILE]] sets the MaxStockpile. Effect is value = value + {0.5,1,3,10,15}*Population*[[STOCKPILE_PER_POP]]. What is MaxStockpile "value" at start? I assume 0. BAD stockpile species colony begins with a MaxStockpile = pop*0.5*0.02 = 0.01*pop, AVERAGE is 0.02*pop, GOOD 0.06*pop, GREAT 0.2*pop, and ULTIMATE 0.3*pop.
Sidenote: wouldn't it be better to remove that "value +" from the effect?.
TECHNOLOGIES:
techs/production/PREDICTIVE_STOCKPILING.focs.txt
- Unlocked at start.
- Gives a fixed +1 to MaxStockpile of every colony with the stockpile or growth planetary focus.
techs/production/GENERIC_SUPPLIES.focs.txt
- Gives a fixed +2 to MaxStockpile of capital. Small effect but handy.
- Gives a +0.01*pop to MaxStockpile of every colony, effectively doubling the pop-based stockpile of a BAD species, or a +50% for average, but it's only a +20% for Laenfa or +10% for Sly. So stockpiling species doesn't need it, and since base stockpiling output of the non-stockpiling species is very small from start, the +100% or +50% is of not much help and should invest on this only when then have spare RPs.
- Gives a fixed +3 to MaxStockpile of every colony with the stockpile or growth planetary focus.
When stockpiling-focus only possible on capital or homeworlds, this value is too small for stockpiling empires to consider it useful, since they already have considerable stockpiling output thanks to their pop-based bonus. And for non-stockpiling empires, although the proportional effect is noticeable (without stockpiling focus they have very small stockpiling output, so this +3 has a considerable weight in the final value), it is also too small to allow for interesting IS uses and is not worth the sacrifice (better focus on industry/research).
Bottom line: This tech is only interesting (thanks to the two first effects, the focus one is always worthless) for non-stockpiling species that are attempting some small IS projects, like speeding up a bit distributed, stealth expansion.
techs/production/INTERSTELLAR_ENTANG_FACTORY.focs.txt
- Gives a +0.02*pop to MaxStockpile of every colony.
- Gives a fixed +6 to MaxStockpile of every colony with the stockpile focus.
- Unlocks the construction of the Stockpiling Center.
techs/production/VOID_PREDICTION.focs.txt
- Gives a +0.2*pop to MaxStockpile of every colony with the stockpile focus. That +0.2 (compared with the +0.01 and +0.02 of previous techs) is huge, but it only applies to planets with the stockpile focus, so it will affect only a percentage of your empire's population.
BUILDINGS:
buildings/STOCKPILING_CENTER.focs.txt
- Gives to the colony in which it is built a +0.1*Empire.PPs (grows slowly as long as the (Current)Stockpile meters are kept at colony level).
buildings/INTERSPECIES_ACADEMY.focs.txt
Location restrictions:
- 3 hops away from other Int.Acad.
- Minimum 15 happines (19 if preferred focus is on) on the planet it is built.
- Maximum 6 per empire.
Effects (please correct me):
- +10 stockpile for this colony if stockpile-focused.
- +5 research for this colony if research-focused.
I don't understand the two consecutive location restrictions that begin with "Number low = 0 high = 0". And I don't know how the destruction effect chooses his targets (superfluous academies).
NUMBER CRUNCHING:
TO BE REDONE
I'll try to make calculations for a somewhat average mid-to-late game situation. I encourage you to correct my estimations or formulae.
Say you have 25 planets, 5 homeworlds + 20 non-homeworlds; homeworlds have on average twice the population of an average non-homeworld (therefore, homeworlds are 1/3 of the total empire's population), and the total population is 300 (so 20 for homeworlds and 10 for non-homeworlds). Minimum stockpile will be the starting bonus from species trait + 2 (Capital) + 0.03*300=9 (pop-dep bonuses from the first two techs). Final values for species: BAD: 11+3, AVERAGE: 11+6, GOOD: 11+18, GREAT: 11+60. If then you set all homeworlds to stockpile focus you get + 9*5=45 (fixed bonuses) + 0.2*0.33*300=20 (void pred.), so final values: BAD: 79, AVERAGE: 82, GOOD: 104, GREAT: 146.
In the end, we have a bad/average species with full commitment has the same stockpiling output than a GREAT species with only research commitment (all techs, no stockpiling focus), and that full commitment (all homeworlds to focus) implies a x5 increase for BAD/AVERAGE empires, x3 for GOOD and x2 for GREAT. And the final values (around 100 PP per turn) are good to do big things like pumping out 5 troopers per turn behind enemy lines to fuel up a blitzkrieg. But only for a sizeable empire, this numbers would be way smaller for smaller empires or for those that has not yet got all the techs.
In following posts I show some numbers for different scenarios (more/less planets/population/homeworlds) and for some suggested changes to the stockpile techs, buildings and species trait.
TODO:
- Present them nicer, in a table shared via Google docs or something (neved used that).
Generals:
Each colony has MaxStockpile and (Current)Stockpile meters, which contribute to the total Empire's Stockpile and MaxStockpile.
The Empire's Stockpile refers to the PPs the Empire can draw from the PPs stored in the IS each turn.
The PPs stored are simply any non-consumed PP (what in older FO was wasted here is stored).
Each conoly's MaxStockpile depends on the focus of the colony, its population, and the presence of certain techs and buildings (each giving fixed and pop-based bonuses).
Caveats:
There is a suggestion to make the Stockpile value only relative to the Empire (removing that meter from the colonies), so that each colony's MaxStockpile contributes/determines the Empires MaxSotckpile but the current value only depends on Empire-wide conditions (total population or total number of colonies). All this as a patch against the focus dance (micromanagement), that does not fully fix the problem and that is not liked by some of the devs.
There is another solution (not a patch) that seems very good (to some people) requiring influence for focus switching. However, until some alpha version of influence is finished and merged to master, we can either ignore the focus dance problem or patch it somehow. Certainly, more elegant alternatives than the mentioned above are welcome.
Meanwhile, I still have to check some more FOCS code to find out if (some new form of) the penalisation mechanic for industry and research foci can be used to tackle this focus-dancing issue.
SPECIES TRAITS:
In species/common/stockpile.macros:
[[STOCKPILE_PER_POP]] is 0.02
[[STANDARD_STOCKPILE]] increases or decreases planetary stockpile towards MaxStockpile, at a fixed rate of 1 per turn. Every species execute this (I think every turn), except those with the [[NO_STOCKPILE]] trait.
[[{BAD,AVERAGE,GOOD,GREAT,ULTIMATE}_STOCKPILE]] sets the MaxStockpile. Effect is value = value + {0.5,1,3,10,15}*Population*[[STOCKPILE_PER_POP]]. What is MaxStockpile "value" at start? I assume 0. BAD stockpile species colony begins with a MaxStockpile = pop*0.5*0.02 = 0.01*pop, AVERAGE is 0.02*pop, GOOD 0.06*pop, GREAT 0.2*pop, and ULTIMATE 0.3*pop.
Sidenote: wouldn't it be better to remove that "value +" from the effect?.
TECHNOLOGIES:
techs/production/PREDICTIVE_STOCKPILING.focs.txt
- Unlocked at start.
- Gives a fixed +1 to MaxStockpile of every colony with the stockpile or growth planetary focus.
techs/production/GENERIC_SUPPLIES.focs.txt
- Gives a fixed +2 to MaxStockpile of capital. Small effect but handy.
- Gives a +0.01*pop to MaxStockpile of every colony, effectively doubling the pop-based stockpile of a BAD species, or a +50% for average, but it's only a +20% for Laenfa or +10% for Sly. So stockpiling species doesn't need it, and since base stockpiling output of the non-stockpiling species is very small from start, the +100% or +50% is of not much help and should invest on this only when then have spare RPs.
- Gives a fixed +3 to MaxStockpile of every colony with the stockpile or growth planetary focus.
When stockpiling-focus only possible on capital or homeworlds, this value is too small for stockpiling empires to consider it useful, since they already have considerable stockpiling output thanks to their pop-based bonus. And for non-stockpiling empires, although the proportional effect is noticeable (without stockpiling focus they have very small stockpiling output, so this +3 has a considerable weight in the final value), it is also too small to allow for interesting IS uses and is not worth the sacrifice (better focus on industry/research).
Bottom line: This tech is only interesting (thanks to the two first effects, the focus one is always worthless) for non-stockpiling species that are attempting some small IS projects, like speeding up a bit distributed, stealth expansion.
techs/production/INTERSTELLAR_ENTANG_FACTORY.focs.txt
- Gives a +0.02*pop to MaxStockpile of every colony.
- Gives a fixed +6 to MaxStockpile of every colony with the stockpile focus.
- Unlocks the construction of the Stockpiling Center.
techs/production/VOID_PREDICTION.focs.txt
- Gives a +0.2*pop to MaxStockpile of every colony with the stockpile focus. That +0.2 (compared with the +0.01 and +0.02 of previous techs) is huge, but it only applies to planets with the stockpile focus, so it will affect only a percentage of your empire's population.
BUILDINGS:
buildings/STOCKPILING_CENTER.focs.txt
- Gives to the colony in which it is built a +0.1*Empire.PPs (grows slowly as long as the (Current)Stockpile meters are kept at colony level).
buildings/INTERSPECIES_ACADEMY.focs.txt
Location restrictions:
- 3 hops away from other Int.Acad.
- Minimum 15 happines (19 if preferred focus is on) on the planet it is built.
- Maximum 6 per empire.
Effects (please correct me):
- +10 stockpile for this colony if stockpile-focused.
- +5 research for this colony if research-focused.
I don't understand the two consecutive location restrictions that begin with "Number low = 0 high = 0". And I don't know how the destruction effect chooses his targets (superfluous academies).
NUMBER CRUNCHING:
TO BE REDONE
I'll try to make calculations for a somewhat average mid-to-late game situation. I encourage you to correct my estimations or formulae.
Say you have 25 planets, 5 homeworlds + 20 non-homeworlds; homeworlds have on average twice the population of an average non-homeworld (therefore, homeworlds are 1/3 of the total empire's population), and the total population is 300 (so 20 for homeworlds and 10 for non-homeworlds). Minimum stockpile will be the starting bonus from species trait + 2 (Capital) + 0.03*300=9 (pop-dep bonuses from the first two techs). Final values for species: BAD: 11+3, AVERAGE: 11+6, GOOD: 11+18, GREAT: 11+60. If then you set all homeworlds to stockpile focus you get + 9*5=45 (fixed bonuses) + 0.2*0.33*300=20 (void pred.), so final values: BAD: 79, AVERAGE: 82, GOOD: 104, GREAT: 146.
In the end, we have a bad/average species with full commitment has the same stockpiling output than a GREAT species with only research commitment (all techs, no stockpiling focus), and that full commitment (all homeworlds to focus) implies a x5 increase for BAD/AVERAGE empires, x3 for GOOD and x2 for GREAT. And the final values (around 100 PP per turn) are good to do big things like pumping out 5 troopers per turn behind enemy lines to fuel up a blitzkrieg. But only for a sizeable empire, this numbers would be way smaller for smaller empires or for those that has not yet got all the techs.
In following posts I show some numbers for different scenarios (more/less planets/population/homeworlds) and for some suggested changes to the stockpile techs, buildings and species trait.
TODO:
- Present them nicer, in a table shared via Google docs or something (neved used that).