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ComradeRob · 8 Mar 2007, 11:06

There are too few roids. This has numerous negative consequences; it encourages short-termist play (XP-whoring, not bothering to defend roids). It forces shorter rounds to avoid late-round stagnation. And, quite simply, big numbers are more fun.

My proposal is for random roid discovery; that is, that your fleet will automatically discover new roids in the local area around your planet.

How might this work? My initial idea is that it should be based on value/roid ratio; if you have, say, 50 roids and 1mil value in fleet (an admittedly extreme example), your ratio is 1:20000. Divide this by 500 (a constant value; I'm hoping that someone can think of a better one, or a formula for a dynamic value) and we get 1:40; based on this number, I think that the planet should find 40% of its initial roid count over the course of a day. In other words, that 50 roid planet would gain approximately 20 roids for free. Bear in mind that this is a very extreme and over-simplified example.

Let's take my current planet as a test case: I have (for the next 5 minutes, at least) 198 roids and 489k value. My ratio is 1:2469. Therefore I can expect to gain around 5% of my roid count for free - about 10 roids over the course of the day. I leave the precise mechanics of the calculations as an exercise for the later posters in this thread

This is really just an illustrative example of how something like this might work. I'm open to fairly radical revision of the idea if anyone can improve on it.

Key features:

1) Planets with very little value relative to their roid count (such as every planet at the start of the round) should gain few or no roids. This prevents any complication of the protection phase (although a simpler option might be to disable free roids for planets in protection!). It also reflects the intuitive basis of the idea: if you have fewer ships, they're statistically less likely to encounter free-floating roids on their travels.

2) Planets with bigger fleets and few roids should find more free roids. This is the counterpart to point #1. It also has the effect of ameliorating the worst effects of multi-wave 'bashing'; if you're left on 50 roids, you do at least know that you'll start getting some back for free. Also, it reduces the number of truly awful targets. Even if a person never attacks, over time they will acquire enough free roids to become a useful target for someone. More targets is a good thing.

3) I haven't given it enough thought yet, but I think this could be tied to the universe average roid/value ratio somehow. Stagnation is, mathematically, what happens when the roid/value ratio goes below a certain point (the point at which everyone has big fleets, no roids, and there's no profit in attacking). If we have an end date for the round, we might be able to create a formula which ensures that the universe average roid/value ratio does not fall below a certain level before that date. If the ratio gets bad, the rate of free roid discovery increases.

So, what do you think?

8 Mar 2007, 11:06	#1
ComradeRob wasted Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Under the floorboards Posts: 1,240	Random roid discovery There are too few roids. This has numerous negative consequences; it encourages short-termist play (XP-whoring, not bothering to defend roids). It forces shorter rounds to avoid late-round stagnation. And, quite simply, big numbers are more fun. My proposal is for random roid discovery; that is, that your fleet will automatically discover new roids in the local area around your planet. How might this work? My initial idea is that it should be based on value/roid ratio; if you have, say, 50 roids and 1mil value in fleet (an admittedly extreme example), your ratio is 1:20000. Divide this by 500 (a constant value; I'm hoping that someone can think of a better one, or a formula for a dynamic value) and we get 1:40; based on this number, I think that the planet should find 40% of its initial roid count over the course of a day. In other words, that 50 roid planet would gain approximately 20 roids for free. Bear in mind that this is a very extreme and over-simplified example. Let's take my current planet as a test case: I have (for the next 5 minutes, at least) 198 roids and 489k value. My ratio is 1:2469. Therefore I can expect to gain around 5% of my roid count for free - about 10 roids over the course of the day. I leave the precise mechanics of the calculations as an exercise for the later posters in this thread This is really just an illustrative example of how something like this might work. I'm open to fairly radical revision of the idea if anyone can improve on it. Key features: 1) Planets with very little value relative to their roid count (such as every planet at the start of the round) should gain few or no roids. This prevents any complication of the protection phase (although a simpler option might be to disable free roids for planets in protection!). It also reflects the intuitive basis of the idea: if you have fewer ships, they're statistically less likely to encounter free-floating roids on their travels. 2) Planets with bigger fleets and few roids should find more free roids. This is the counterpart to point #1. It also has the effect of ameliorating the worst effects of multi-wave 'bashing'; if you're left on 50 roids, you do at least know that you'll start getting some back for free. Also, it reduces the number of truly awful targets. Even if a person never attacks, over time they will acquire enough free roids to become a useful target for someone. More targets is a good thing. 3) I haven't given it enough thought yet, but I think this could be tied to the universe average roid/value ratio somehow. Stagnation is, mathematically, what happens when the roid/value ratio goes below a certain point (the point at which everyone has big fleets, no roids, and there's no profit in attacking). If we have an end date for the round, we might be able to create a formula which ensures that the universe average roid/value ratio does not fall below a certain level before that date. If the ratio gets bad, the rate of free roid discovery increases. So, what do you think? __________________ “They were totally confused,” said the birdman, whose flying suit gives him a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. “The authorities said that I was an unregistered aircraft and to fly, you need a licence. I told them, ‘No. To fly, you need wings’.”