Cryonic Colony Pod vs Colony Pod

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unjashfan
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Cryonic Colony Pod vs Colony Pod

#1 Post by unjashfan »

Ever since I got into FO, I've never used the cryonic colony pod (let's call it CCP for short). Now that it's worth 300 RP to unlock, it feels that this part isn't useful at all. Unlocking Xenological Genetics is actually cheaper now and is also the superior option. It improves adequate planets and makes poor planets accessible. For anything in FO, not only planets, quantity is generally better than quality. It's not difficult to improve planet quality anyway. There's hardly any difference between colonizing a planet with 1 population and 3 population, especially when GGGs and Nacent AI are likely active. Said flat rate boosts (+10 PP and +2 RP, respectively) essentially negate any population difference on a new colony, so the payoff for using the CCP is essentially negative (i.e.: not worth it). If more population is desired, terraforming becomes a better choice, or even simply researching a population boost tech. The only one use I can find for the CCP is when there's a system with a lot of planets to colonize, I could send just one CCP ship there, then instantly build colony bases when a planet is colonized. But then again, I could just wait ~10-ish turns for the population to reach 3 (lower population is easier to evac in case something goes wrong). Any comments for the CCP?

On a side note, Lifecycle Manipulation is a key prerequisite for the xeno organic hull line. I believe there's some effort going on to balance those hulls a bit, and I plan on looking into that as well. Changes to this tech, especially a drop in RP cost, will knock the hulls out of balance, and the xeno organic hulls are quite OP already. If changes are going to be made here, it's probably wise to keep this in mind.

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MatGB
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Re: Cryonic Colony Pod vs Colony Pod

#2 Post by MatGB »

Any comments for the CCP?
It's undercosted, overpowered and somethign I rush to ASAP ;-)

Seriously, do yourself a test, find an unpopulated system with two planets of the same type in, or two the same distance away from your colonising planet.

Make one normal colony ship, one cryo pod. The normal ship will complete two turns early, naturally. That means it would arrive two turns early.

Track population growth on the medium+ planets over time, 5, 10, 15 turns later, see which one completes first.
There's hardly any difference between colonizing a planet with 1 population and 3 population
Yeah, there is. Population growth per turn is variable and factors in both total possible population and current actual population, the higher either is the faster you get growth.

Combine that witht eh ability to instantly colonise the rest of the system on medium/high planet layouts and it's really good. Personally I'd like to see it decreased in time to 8 turns to equal the existing pod but increased in price a bit, the time constraint is an annoyance but not a major impediment, the vastly improved population growth it results in is very important.
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Kassiopeija
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Re: Cryonic Colony Pod vs Colony Pod

#3 Post by Kassiopeija »

Population growth at the same planet during the same turns (via reload) for a target pop of 13,8 (which wouldbe good/mediocre/bad in an early/mid/late game):

Turn: Pop1: Pop2:
1. 1,0 3,0
2. 1,13 3,35
3. 1,29 3,75
4. 1,46 4,15
5. 1,66 4,59
6. 1,88 5,06
7. 2,12 5,56
8. 2,39 6,07
9. 2,69 6,60
10. 3,02 7,15
11. 3,38 7,70
12. 3,76 8,24
13. 4,18 8,79
14. 4,62 9,32
15. 5,10 9,83
16. 5,59 10,3
17. 6,11 10,7
18. 6,64 11,2
19. 7,18 11,6
20. 7,73 12,0
21. 8,28 12,3
22. 8,82 12,6
23. 9,35 12,9
24. 9,86 13,1
25. 10,3 13,3
26. 10,8 13,5
27. 11,2 13,7
28. 11,6 13,8
29. 12,0
30. 12,3
31. 12,6
32. 12,9
33. 13,1
34. 13,4
35. 13,5
36. 13,7
37. 13,8

As you can see the growth of the 1,0 colony pod reaches the 3,02 mark at turn 10, the rest of both growth meters are equally. Considering the first colony can be established 2 turns sooner the cryonic colony reaches maximum population 8 turns sooner.
The 1,0 colony will initially net 2 turns of PP/RP whereas the 3,0 colony will contribute with an increased PP/RP over 35 turns -depending on the focus setting- which will greatly mitigate the loss of the first 2 turns, and maybe even contribute with extra production with which other colonyships could be established sooner - which would generally speed up things.
What's also interesting to note is that the growth seems to slowly declining once the population nears the target population.

So unless you have a target pop of only 1,0 or a planet that will be taken during these 2 extra turns the crypod is superior in every regard, although this example can not speak for other target populations.

The main issue here is if can spare the 300 RP which is needed to research it.... in the early stages of the game this is a boatload of RP which could be used for quite other stuff, for example weapons so you could take colonies instead of colonizing (which is more easy anyway), or maybe some techs which would enable you to have more planets suitable for colonization, and which naturally would increase the target pop of your already occupied planets also.....
It really depends on the game setup and the map imo.

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Dilvish
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Re: Cryonic Colony Pod vs Colony Pod

#4 Post by Dilvish »

Kassiopeija wrote:What's also interesting to note is that the growth seems to slowly declining once the population nears the target population.
Population growth is basically proportional to the product of current_pop times the difference between max pop and current pop, which is why you see the effect you noted. Also then, for anything other than a planet with a low max population, the cryo pod gives a starting growth rate nearly three times that of a regular colony pod. Because the growth starts out essentially exponential, triple the initial growth rate can make a very big difference; the larger the max pop the more noticeable will be the diff between starting with a cryo pod versus a regular pod.
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MatGB
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Re: Cryonic Colony Pod vs Colony Pod

#5 Post by MatGB »

Kassiopeija wrote: The main issue here is if can spare the 300 RP which is needed to research it.... in the early stages of the game this is a boatload of RP which could be used for quite other stuff,
It's a prerequisite for Endomorphic, Ravenous and Endosymbiotic hulls. These are my three favourite hull choices. Even when not using them I still try to take it fairly early, it's just better overall.

I wouldn't, however, take it too early, and would want Quantum Netowrking or Distributed Thought before even considering it.
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Kassiopeija
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Re: Cryonic Colony Pod vs Colony Pod

#6 Post by Kassiopeija »

MatGB wrote: It's a prerequisite for Endomorphic, Ravenous and Endosymbiotic hulls. These are my three favourite hull choices.
I'm near the end of a 200 system map and still don't have anything else than Robotic Hulls for Fighters and Symbiotic Hulls for Invaders (later Protoplasmic). I've been given that some thought on getting other hulls in order to make big/huge warships.
But I wonder how efficient that would battle-wise; as the combat system seems to give a great advantage to fleets who simply have more ships present.

However, I lack basic knowledge of how those calculations are done, is there any thread here where this is outlayed?
MatGB wrote: Even when not using them I still try to take it fairly early, it's just better overall.

I wouldn't, however, take it too early, and would want Quantum Netowrking or Distributed Thought before even considering it.
I aggree. Those techs that give added baseline PP/RP are also quite up on my list.

What I forgot to mention above was that the CryoPod also enables you immediately to build a ColonyBase (if other planets are present)

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