Week 2 - Supplementary - How miners work

Portions of the ACS curriculum for public consumption.
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Clay_Pigeon
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How miners work

A great commander understands the mechanics of how money is distributed and collected in the game. By understanding mining, you can make better decisions about sufficient expansion, timing tech purchases, and balancing defense with offense. This brief article should illuminate some of the finer points of Allegiance economics to you.

Overview of the game start
When the game starts, the total money setting determines how many units of He3 are initially placed on the map. That quantity of He3 is divided evenly amongst all of the Helium rocks on the map. Each unit of Helium is worth a certain amount of money. By knowing how much helium is on the map and how many He rocks are present, you can know the maximum amount of cash that 1 sector can provide. This will help you estimate how much of the map you must secure to get advanced tech.

The example to consider
Many of these settings are core and map dependent, so lets look at an example: a Commuity Core HiHigher game with High total money and Normal resources. The rest of this article is written with this example in mind. Change the settings or the map, and the numbers change. The math behind the example is given in parenthesis, so you can adapt this to any map/settings combination.

Initial Helium distribution
Most cores (including CC) default to distributing 3000 units of Helium on the map. With a High (1.25) setting, that value increases to 3750 units (3000*1.25). The settings will put a total of 48 Helium rocks on the map, resulting in each rock having 78.125 units of He3 on it (3750/48). This means that home sectors will provide a maximum of 156.25 units (2 He rocks), while regular sectors will provide 312.5 units (4 He rocks). Each unit of He3 is worth 80 credits, though this value is impacted by both the faction's yield and any purchased yield GAs. Most factions have a yield of 1.0, so their miners could provide a maximum of $12500 (156.25*$80) by mining out their home (for normal sectors, it is $25000 or 312.5*$80). Expansion's He Yield 1 GA will improve the yield to 1.1 or $88/unit for these factions, but some factions naturally have a higher yield. Belters start with a yield of 1.25, meaning each He3 unit is worth $100 ($80*1.25). Belter miners could provide a maximum of $15625 just by mining out their home.

Of course, I say maximum, because this assumes that every miner strips every single unit of He from a sector. From our economy article, we all know that this doesn't always happen on its own. To get a better picture of what your miners really bring in, you need to understand mining capacities.

Mining in game
On DN (and most cores), miners can suck down 90 units of He before needing to unload. This is a base number, and faction multipliers apply. For factions with a capacity multiplier of 1.0 or better (Bios, Giga, GT, Phoenix and Rix), your miners will be able to completely drain each sector on this map before moving on. TF miners will also be able to drain a sector; this is a special case and a product of miner AI. TF's .55 capacity will cause the AI to drain a rock in 2 trips instead of 1.

The story is different for a faction like Dreg (also Belters and IC). Dreg's capacity modifier is 0.75, meaning that miners can only hold 67.5 units of He3. In our above example, each He3 rock has 78.125 units of He. This means that Dreg miners will leave behind 10.625 units of He on each rock. Left to their own devices, Dreg miners will leave 42.5 units of He3 untapped and move on to the next sector. Given Dreg's faction modifiers (1.35 yield), this adds up to $4590 of He3! Without management, Dreg miners pull in $29160 per normal sector (instead of the maximum of $33750). Multiply this by the three or four sectors, and you are missing out an enough cash to buy a 2nd techbase.

NakPPI has a recommendation for getting the most from each sector. He writes:
QUOTE
If you want a slightly more advanced micro-management tip - learn how much your miners can hold. You want a nearly full load every time, if possible, but you also don't really want to leave He3 in a sector if you can avoid it. Say you have Normal resources (4 He3 rocks) and a total He3 count of, oh, 400 (100 per rock). Your miners collect, say, 80 units per trip. Don't let all four go back to the rock they were working before. Send 3 to the next sector. Specifically order the fourth to mine out each rock and hit the ref. He brings in almost a full load (thanks to He3 regen). Your other three are bringing in full loads in the next sector. You'll need to play with your miners a bunch now that they aren't quite together to keep them mining efficiently and fairly close together for defense purposes, but it is possible to do. Once you learn how, you'll be a much better commander and you'll rake in money faster than your opponent.

Make money faster, keep miners alive. Do it for the puppies.[/quote]
The bottom line
Suppose you are Rix, playing on the settings outlined above (with starting money at 1.25). You've decided to go exp, avoid bombers, and do some basic expansion. You open with a miner, outpost, enh cons, home rip and ref. You keep expanding with a 2nd op, get enh miners (pumping out 2 more miners), and buy your expansion. You buy interceptors, mini 2, and yield/dmg upgrades. You then advance your expansion, get the 2nd yield/dmg ups, buy heavy ints and htts. You then buy adv cons and another op for a good push-and-whore. You don't save $5000 by finding mini 2, but you also don't lose cash to dead miners/cons (an assumption in your favor).

Your final bill will be $134500. With starting money at 1.0, you'll begin with $20000, meaning you need to come up with $114500. Yield GAs and paydays will help (estimate $20000 in paydays and extra yield over 20 minutes). This still leaves you with $94500 of He3 to mine. The good news is that your miners will suck every rock dry in one pass, so you'll get the most from each sector without too much fuss. Even with that bonus, you'll have to mine out your home and three additional sectors just to cover most of these costs. Even then, you're still several thousand short and need to empty 1 or 2 rocks in a 4th sector. Since your miners can't die, let's assume that most of these are safe mining sectors. Can you secure three safe mining sectors on a map like HiHigher?

While intermediate commanders understand the strategic importance of expansion, many neglect its economic dimension and never secure sectors for mining. Adequate expansion for safe mining is absolutely vital, because money is really scarce in Allegiance. You need to secure as much of it as you can to win. Knowing that the enemy commander is trying to do exactly what you are doing, do you think you can pull this off? Next week, we'll discuss openings and early expansion, and you'll get some ideas for how to make this happen.

A ninja command tip
All researched GAs take effect the instant they finish. If your "HE Yield 1" GA about to finish, try to keep your miners from offloading. Send them to random waypoints in a sector. Once the GA completes, the value of each He unit will instantly increase. Your miners will now unload at the higher per-unit rate, and you'll get more benefit from the GA. Of course, if your miners are in danger, ignore this tip and make them offload ASAP.

Automate This
PKK developed a little calculator that not only shows you how Helium is distributed on the map, but also how each faction's miners will fare. Try it out: http://www.german-borg.de/stuff/he3.php

Credits: Clay, Jell, Spunkmeyer, BlackViper, NakPPI
Last edited by Clay_Pigeon on Mon Jan 19, 2009 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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