Balanced Systems for KOTH games and other

geoschmo · #1 February 10th, 2004, 03:59 PM

Okey Dokey. I have thrown together something like what we talked about in the Koth thread. I call it the "Balanced System Mod v1.0". I posted it to the PBW file library so anyone can get it that wants it. I won't put a link to dl it in the thread here because until the DNS problem is straigtened out it wouldn't work anyway.

What I found was I could produce a perfectly balanced quadrant, from a number of facilities perspective, by restricting players form choosing the none atmosphere. Actually there is nothing preventing them from choosing none atmosphere, but doing so will put them at a significant disadvantage in the game.

What this doesn't balance is the planetary values. Ooo, maybe I should have tweaked the ranges in the settings.txt to take care of that as well. Version 1.1 on the way.

Here's the modinfo text:

Quote:

Produces random, balanced systems for use in competative games such as KOTH.
This is a "host only" mod. Files are only used when first turn is created. Games started using this mod are perfectly compatible with stock Se4.

*PLAYERS SHOULD NOT CHOOSE THE NONE ATMOSPHERE TYPE WHEN USING THE BALANCED QUADRANT TYPE* (MORE)

There are 12 planets in each system. One for each combination of physical type and atmosphere.
There are no none atmosphere planets.
There are no moons.
There are no nebulae, asteroid or black hole systems.
All random planets are medium.
Games setup with medium homeworld type will result in one of the twelve planets being used as the homeworld.
Games setup with good or poor starting planets will create a new planet in addition to the twelve random planets.

What this doesn't balance is the planetary values. Ooo, maybe I should have tweaked the ranges in the settings.txt to take care of that as well. Version 1.1 on the way.

geoschmo · #2 February 10th, 2004, 04:18 PM

Ok, Version 1.1 is up. This has got to be some sort of record for time between posted Versions.

Changes:

Quote:

Version 1.1 Changes-
All random planets values are now 100% in all three resources.
Homeworld planets will still have some minor variation due to hard code randomness that cannot be modded out, but they will be closer to 100% then before. (+/- 5% I believe)
Each system has a single asteroid with 300% values in all three resources.

In case anyone does not wish to incorporate these changes to the balanced systems I have included the stock settings.txt in the data folder. Simply rename and enjoy.

Fyron · #3 February 10th, 2004, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Ok, Version 1.1 is up. This has got to be some sort of record for time between posted Versions.

Hardly! Well, unless you are not counting fixed copies of a mod...

tesco samoa · #4 February 10th, 2004, 04:21 PM

ahh so that is how you overcame the none gas problem with balance.

Removed it.

geoschmo · #5 February 10th, 2004, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
ahh so that is how you overcame the none gas problem with balance.

Removed it.

Actually in the previous form of this idea I didn't do that. The none type was a valid choice. This idea was something I came up with this morning actually. It's quite a bit simpiler to execute then the previous. And it has the advantage of having the systems be completely balanced. Before the quadrant was balanced on avarage, but there were small differences between systems.

To allow for all atmosphere types and still have every system be balanced would require a lot more planets per system. Like two or three times as many. 12 is a lot already I think.

tesco samoa · #6 February 10th, 2004, 05:16 PM

I was setting up a balance as well..

Ring 1 had all the different combo for rock planets ( huge ) then as moons the ice and gas combo's

Then Ring 2 had large planets

Ring 3 had med planets

Ring 4 had small

Ring 5 had small

Cause Tiny sucks

And this was the only system available.

Repeated over and over.

Thus equal systems.

The only problem was the Gas and None question.

How to equalize that.

I would like to resolve that.
question

tesco samoa · #7 February 10th, 2004, 05:17 PM

oh yea i also set the planet value to max 200 and increased the cargo space by 2x for all planet sizes...

DavidG · #8 February 10th, 2004, 05:23 PM

Sounds like a pretty boring map. How sad that people are so insanely competitive that they must have whined so much about unbalanced maps that they prompted you to make this.

Edit: Whats next? A grid map with nothing but medium Oxygen planets with 100%/100%/100% values?

[ February 10, 2004, 15:25: Message edited by: DavidG ]

tesco samoa · #9 February 10th, 2004, 05:52 PM

gee david... i do not think most people care about what the maps looks like when their looking for a competely balanced game.

As it is balanced game play is the goal here.

geoschmo · #10 February 10th, 2004, 06:04 PM

Well boring is subjective. And saying someone is insanely competative isn't really waranted. If the idea is for a competative game there is nothing wrong with wanting a balanced start for all players. It's not like anyone is suggestion you have to play your games this way. There is room for many different styles.

As "boring" as this map would be, it's got a lot more going on then a chess board, and that's been played for centuries and many people find it quite stimulating.