Formula for bonus structure calculations

[snakeye]

Hi all,

This is my first post to the forum, so a big hello. May I take this opportunity to say how great game this is.

Anyway, the other day when I was playing, I noticed that my research started discovering structures that give bonuses to Research, Mining, Intelligence, etc. But I thought in order to build them on a planet I have to waste 1 facility. So I was looking to find after what number of those facilities, one can add a bonus facility and get a better output in research, production, intelligence, etc, than if he simply had one of those facilities instead. So i developed a formula ( yes I am that sad, but it was fun):

Lets say you have a planet that has mineral, organics and radioactive production >100%. So you decide to make this a research planet, full with research centres. If the number of available facility slots is N then your research production on the planet BEFORE any racial bonuses would be RESEARCH_POINTS_PER_FACILITY X N. So far so good, right? Lets say you have a facility that gives you a bonus in reseach on the planet, ie 20%. You want to know whether by replacing one reseach station with one of these would give you more, less or the same. Cut long story short, the formula to calculate this is:

N=number of facilities set aside for research
B=number of facilities slots LOST due to building of bonus structures
C=percent of the bonus all bonus facilities give on the planet.

N>(B*(C+1))/C

Can you see something strange on the above? It matters NOT whether your facility gives you 600, 800 or 100000000 points! What matters is how many facility slots you will loose by constructing bonues structures in their place and the TOTAL percentage of the benefit.

For the above example if we assume that we have research centre II (600RPs) and a central computer complex (30% to research on planet)then we will have:
B=1 we loose one facility slot to the central computer complex
C=0.3 (30%)

N>(1*(1+0.3))/0.3 or N>4.33333, ie N>4. We must therefore have atleast 5 research centres in the planet BEFORE we can build a bonus structure and get more than what we would normaly get by just adding another research centre.

As you can see from the above, the formula can be used for anything and not just research. And since the percentage of bonus and number of facilities if seperate, you can use it to calculate the same N for 1,2... bonus facilities and their bonuses.

Hope this wont get me flamed and I dont know if anybody has said/used/posted this before. Hope it helps.

[dogscoff]

Good calculations Snakeye, welcome to the forums.

We do get a few number-crunchers in here who have come up with similar things in the past, but it's always good to be reminded.

Where it gets complicated is with the resource production multipliers, when you factor in the cost of the thing vs the extra resources it produces, and the time spent building it vs the time you could have spent mining if you'd put a producer there instead.

[snakeye]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Good calculations Snakeye, welcome to the forums.

We do get a few number-crunchers in here who have come up with similar things in the past, but it's always good to be reminded.

Where it gets complicated is with the resource production multipliers, when you factor in the cost of the thing vs the extra resources it produces, and the time spent building it vs the time you could have spent mining if you'd put a producer there instead.

AGHHHHHHHHH! DAMN YOU ARE RIGHT! Apologies! The reason for this is because I developed the formula for research and applied to production. For research, maintenance cost doesnt matter since it doesnt affect research points. But if you were to apply this to production, you will have to take into account the maintenance! Well spotted and corrected! BACK TO THE DESIGN BOARD! Thank you! (will still use it for Intelligence and Research since it applies though. Will you think I am ultra sad if I was to say I have a spreadsheet with it already!?)

[Slynky]

Yeah, snakeye, get busy and develop one for remote mining that factors in building costs of the ship, maintenance cost of the ship, supplies (if applicable), and the minimum percentage an asteroid belt has to be before there is any mining advantage/gain.

[FadingSuns]

Slynky, I know you are just pulling his leg, but you know.... a formula like that about mining really would be helpful!

[Slynky]

Originally posted by FadingSuns:
Slynky, I know you are just pulling his leg, but you know.... a formula like that about mining really would be helpful!

Well, kind of...

But, like you said...it would be nice to have. I just thought I would "throw" something complicated at him in case he was a diehard bean-counter. (we have an office of bean-counters and one statistician but, wouldn't you know it, NONE of them play SE4 )