Review new economy

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ThePhantom032
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Post by ThePhantom032 »

Okay so we have the change that every miner has 1.0 capacity, to prevent the gamecom from stacking the settings in favor for his faction.

Now that led to mining speed and yield changes, and I wish to present everyone the actual changes (including preview CC16 numbers)
IMHO this has nerfed pretty much all the affected factions, ranging from making them unplayably bad to just slightly worse but acceptable.

Cap: Capacity; Spd: Speed; Yld: Yield
CODE
Belters Cap Spd Yld
CC14: 0.8 0.6 1.25
CC15: 1.0 0.5 1.1
CC16: no change planned
Mine: 1.0 0.57 1.25
This means: Belters take 50% longer to gain a full miner load (0.8/0.6= 1.33, 1/0.5= 2), but only gain 10% more
money per full load (0.8*1.25=1; 1*1.1=1.1). So not only is Belters total money gain nerfed by ~10% but their
effective money speed is nerfed by ~30% (0.6*1.25=0.75; 0.5*1.1= 0.55). There is no reason for a nerf this
strong just because you can get a bit more he3 into 1 load. I prefer leaving some he3 and scraping the whole
sector once later on to get it all.

Bios - no change at all, pure 1.0 econ.

Dreg: Cap Spd Yld
CC14: 0.75 0.65 1.25
CC15: 1.0 0.5 1.1
CC16: 1.0 0.75 1.1
Mine: 1.0 0.61 1.25

Lets see... Dreg got completely wasted (just compare with belts numbers). CC16 promises a 50% mining speed
increase, will that be enough? A full load takes 16% longer (0.75/0.65= 1.15, 1/0.75= 1.33), while yielding 17%
(0.75*1.25=0.94; 1*1.1=1.1) more money. Looks ok so far, BUT the total money gained is still reduced by ~10%
which is a serious hit for the expensive faction, not to mention that its fragile miners are exposed on the rock
for longer. Again, I prefer mining the rocks leaving some he3 that i scrape later to the new concept.

GT: no change aside from a 12s research bug ^^

Giga: Cap Spd Yld
CC14: 1.25 1.0 1.0
CC15: 1.25 1.1 1.0
CC16: no change planned
Mine: 1.25 1.0 1.0

Other factions get nerfed and giga gets a perk out of the blue. Not necessary since their capacity wasnt changed.

IC: Cap Spd Yld
CC14: 0.75 0.85 1.0
CC15: 1.0 0.65 0.85
CC16: no change planned
Mine: 1.0 0.8 1.0

Wait what? IC lost (in total values) even more than dreg. Effectively for a full load they take 75% longer
(0.75/0.85= 0.88, 1/0.65= 1.54), while yielding 13% (0.75*1.0=0.75; 1*0.85=0.85) more money. Also they lose
15% money total. The only reason people still play IC is that miners can rip which is OP in small games and
generally too high money settings. What. A. Bad. Joke.

OH: Cap Spd Yld
CC14: 0.85 1.1 1.0
CC15: 1.0 0.7 0.95
CC16: no change planned
Mine: 1.0 0.85 1.0

Since the numbers are just as ridiculous changes as for the other nerfed factions, I wont repeat them. BUT here
OH econ needed a nerf to be more like IC. They are cheaper than IC after all.

Rix: good old unchanged 1/1 econ with 12s research..
only reason that doesnt get nerfed is that the miners are weak like paper.

TF: Cap Spd Yld
CC14: 0.55 2.0 1.0
CC15: 1.0 1.1 0.7
CC16: 1.0 1.25 0.75

Ahh yes TF our biggest problem child, since changing its econ means changing how the faction works. A quick run
of the numbers shows that while getting a full load takes 2.8 times as long (+180%) (0.55/2= 0.28, 1/1.25= 0.8),
while yielding 36% (0.55*1.0=0.55; 1*0.75=0.75) more money. Of course, here the travel actually makes a
difference, since the miners are slow and its 2 runs/rock instead of 1 run/rock + 1 scrape run/sector.

I ended up playing tf to test them - just once. Actualy money/time isnt as much as it used to be, but the cc16
changes may make that difference. However, the total money is (and will still be) so much lower that your supply
just wont last till endgame, especially if you buy refs (3 refs = 9k which is more than htt research for TF). so you
do end up mining a bit slower. TF needs the money since their research is so slow and their miners are expensive.
With the new econ, losing a miner early as tf is doom. If anyone pulls a fufi after that I can certainly understand.
The CC16 change looks more to appease the complainers instead of solving the issue, which is simply:
THERE ISNT ENOUGH MONEY WITH 0.75 YIELD.

I have two proposals:
TF: Cap Spd Yld
1: 0.55 2.0 1.0 - keep TF special characteristic
2: 1.0 0.85 1.0 - make TF like the other factions (leaning on OH 5 min research here)

A combination of the 2 could only work with drastically decreasing yield, which cannot work ever. EVER.



My Opinion is to either implement the proposed values or to forget the economy change altogether because honestly if commanders have problems with miners running to near empty rocks because they are neither watching them or assigning someone to do it they deserve to lose. A change to economy effects every techpath of the faction and is difficult to balance. I think we were fine before, but if we do have to change it, please take something along the proposed values.

If you spot a factual mistake I made please tell me so I can fix it. If it is a grammatical one? Lucky you, you may keep it!


TL:DR:
New Econ doesnt work, revert to old or improve nerfed factions.
Still ready to teach anyone who asks nicely whatever they want to know about playing alleg. Contrary to popular opinion I do not eat newbies. Voobs taste much better.
Spunkmeyer
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Post by Spunkmeyer »

Eh, LOL?

Your analysis starts off on the wrong foot by assuming miner speed = econ speed, ignoring the bigger component in mining rate which is miner travel time. This invalidates much of your analysis, because you compare gains from capacity directly with the mining speed. Even though miner speed doesn't change, it's still part of the calculations - if you ignore it altogether, you'll get bogus numbers and invent huge nerfs that simply don't exist.

Income = (Miner capacity * yield) / (travel time + mining speed).
That's why there are big changes in mining speed, to offset the big gains in capacity. Redo your analysis by incorporating travel time, dock time for when refs are not available, and you'll get numbers closer to truth.

As for TF, I tend to agree, since the dynamic is different and very ref dependent it got broken. Your #2 would result in an OP TF, so it'd better to go back to the original design in this case.

Anyway, nobody is married to NE. If you don't like it, play OE, we'll then kill it altogether. It's an experiment to see if we can get a better econ balance across factions.
Last edited by Spunkmeyer on Sat Aug 18, 2012 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.


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raumvogel
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Post by raumvogel »

Yes, and you forgot to factor in Obamacare™
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Mastametz
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Post by Mastametz »

stop trying to change elements that have been part of the game since the beginning
if we have to dumb the game down, there's no point in playing it anymore
I can play infinitely many dumbed down NEW games if I want to
Last edited by Mastametz on Sat Aug 18, 2012 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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lexaal
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Post by lexaal »

Efficient Mining has gotten so much easier with the he3 indicator so the capacity change isn't needed. And all the further actions to mitigate the effects of changing cap for all miners to 1.0 (All miners???) are damaging more than the original benefit of keeping it easy.

NE-Changes on tf made me cry.. the proposed changes by phantom to repair what is broken will make things worse(maybe more balanced but worse.). I was crying inside when e.g. i was reading about the tf speed nerf.
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raumvogel
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Post by raumvogel »

Metz is correct.
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JimmyNighthawk
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Post by JimmyNighthawk »

Make a new miner, a cap-ship miner ... let one miner mine the whole sector!
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und die Armen schlagt ans Kreuz!

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ThePhantom032
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Post by ThePhantom032 »

Spunkmeyer wrote:QUOTE (Spunkmeyer @ Aug 18 2012, 03:37 AM) Eh, LOL?

Your analysis starts off on the wrong foot by assuming miner speed = econ speed, ignoring the bigger component in mining rate which is miner travel time. This invalidates much of your analysis, because you compare gains from capacity directly with the mining speed. Even though miner speed doesn't change, it's still part of the calculations - if you ignore it altogether, you'll get bogus numbers and invent huge nerfs that simply don't exist.
Alright, miners travel more than they mine... are we playing the same game? I just did at test to get the correct time, belters sit for exactly 3 minutes on a rock (before it was 2 minutes). That first miner load docked at 4:30, which means there was 1:30 travel time from base->rock->base->dock. Since we have 2 full turn + acceleration cycles in here you can assume that any longer travel is done at 100mps, so 6k/minute. You can calculate for yourself how far away belts have to mine to actually move for longer than they are mining.

For a fast mining faction like rix (mining twice as fast as belts), when you dont have refs, THEN you have more movement time than mining time. The slow mining factions are a completely different story, mining so long that you can nearly completely ignore the travel time because the exposed time on the rock is way too long now.
Spunkmeyer wrote:QUOTE (Spunkmeyer @ Aug 18 2012, 03:37 AM) Income = (Miner capacity * yield) / (travel time + mining speed).
That's why there are big changes in mining speed, to offset the big gains in capacity. Redo your analysis by incorporating travel time, dock time for when refs are not available, and you'll get numbers closer to truth.
But gains in capacity only help in those settings where there actually is more to mine. On most maps with medium money settings, nothing changes aside from a huge mining speed nerf on the affected factions. Assault mining and taking more than 1 rock on low money settings is also not possible (or do you think assault mining for over 3 minutes works?)

And then there is the yield nerfs that absolutely arent justified at all and really, really hurt those factions.

I compare a faction like belters not only to its old values but also to for example the unchanged rix. Relative 25% more capacity with an already slow mining speed isnt much of an income/time increase (most time is spend at the rock like shown above), but your total money gain actually goes down thanks to the yield change. Its no wonder rix and GT have been so successful (GT 12s research may help, but the real reason is their still strong econ).

Anyway I wasnt completely awake when i wrote my first post so dont feel offended if I wrote anything offending, im sure I didnt mean it. I know it was an experiment and noone could know how that with mining speed would work out exactly (and apparently I wasnt around to tell you nerfing yield isnt a good idea), so yeah experiment failed, we can try to fix it or to revert, but if it does stay this way I know which factions to ignore from now on. One never knows what this community decides ^^
Still ready to teach anyone who asks nicely whatever they want to know about playing alleg. Contrary to popular opinion I do not eat newbies. Voobs taste much better.
Spunkmeyer
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Post by Spunkmeyer »

EDIT: To avoid dragging this out, I'm going to trim this (and no, not offended at all, and maybe I was a bit too snappy)

Your point that capacity increases do not help on standard maps and settings and therefore speed and yield nerfs constitute a net nerf is correct. But part of the justification is that the lower capacity factions were overall stronger, precisely because the capacity increase of higher capacity factions has always been mostly worthless. So yes, I would agree it's an overall nerf to TF/Dreg/IC/Belt/OH vs BIOS/Rix/Giga/GT. My take on it is that capacity increases have always been meant as a bonus to higher capacity factions, but one that did not exist in practice.

If you disagree with this premise, then NE is a non-starter anyway.

If you don't necessarily disagree with that, then I submit, while the speed nerfs are nowhere near as effective as you make them to be, their combination with yield changes may have been too much.

I'll re-evaluate all this and post a follow up.
Last edited by Spunkmeyer on Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:19 am, edited 1 time in total.


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Spunkmeyer
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Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2003 7:00 am
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Post by Spunkmeyer »

How is this, with no yield below 1:

Code: Select all

        C     S     Y
Belters 0.8   0.6   1.25
NE      1     0.5   1.25

Dreg    0.75  0.65  1.25
NE      1     0.6   1.15

IC      0.75  0.85  1
NE      1     0.65  1

Omicron 0.85  1     1
NE      1     0.85  1

TF      0.55  2     1
NE      0.55  1.5   1
Last edited by Spunkmeyer on Tue Aug 21, 2012 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.


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