Balance, Heliosheath vs Chtonian Planet
Chriz
RemcoSwenker
Mercury
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Balance, Heliosheath vs Chtonian Planet
Praetorian Empire » Sat Jun 04, 2011 12:43 pm
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Praetorian Empire - Faction
In my oppinion the Heliosheath is way too powerful. First of all when you compare it with the chtonian planet using a brown dwarf in hot orbit (the +100 bonus). This Brown dwarf will cost you 6 gass-mass. To get the same result with the Heliosheath for gasses it will cost you 5 gass-mass. This is already one gass-mass cheaper. I can understand this since you have astroid belts and rings for cheap metal and gass giants for cheap gass.
On top of this the extended Heliosheath is not limited to 7 zones. Because of this you could take for example a Binary Star Red, Orange 32 gass-mass cost. This will leave you with 18 spare gass-mass to get 20 gasses zones with a 210 production. You could see this as a bonus of 1000 at gamestart. This is way more then you could dream of with any other special point bonus. Compared to the +200 that you get on average from other specials.
If you compare the Heliosheath of 18 zones with a medium planet in the cold orbit.
The Heliosheath will give 210 * 18 zones.
The medium planet will give 220 * 16 zones. (100 + 50 upgrade + 10 orbit + 45 tertiary+15 focused = 220.
The medium planet will cost 3 more rock. This is compensated by the 2-3 power stations that you will need in another orbit to power your gass extraction from the Heliosheath. The difference is that the medium planet will be way more expensive since you need to buy 16 upgrades and 3 tertiary zones, combined with the focused planet bonus that you will only get when the planet is full.
I suggest that the Extended Heliosheath should be limited to a maximum of 10 zones.
On top of this the extended Heliosheath is not limited to 7 zones. Because of this you could take for example a Binary Star Red, Orange 32 gass-mass cost. This will leave you with 18 spare gass-mass to get 20 gasses zones with a 210 production. You could see this as a bonus of 1000 at gamestart. This is way more then you could dream of with any other special point bonus. Compared to the +200 that you get on average from other specials.
If you compare the Heliosheath of 18 zones with a medium planet in the cold orbit.
The Heliosheath will give 210 * 18 zones.
The medium planet will give 220 * 16 zones. (100 + 50 upgrade + 10 orbit + 45 tertiary+15 focused = 220.
The medium planet will cost 3 more rock. This is compensated by the 2-3 power stations that you will need in another orbit to power your gass extraction from the Heliosheath. The difference is that the medium planet will be way more expensive since you need to buy 16 upgrades and 3 tertiary zones, combined with the focused planet bonus that you will only get when the planet is full.
I suggest that the Extended Heliosheath should be limited to a maximum of 10 zones.
Last edited by Praetorian Empire on Sat Jun 04, 2011 2:57 pm, edited 5 times in total.
RemcoSwenker » Sat Jun 04, 2011 12:46 pm
I must agree with Chriz the extended Heliosheath is very very good and out of balance compared to the Chtonian brown dwarf.
Mercury » Sun Jun 05, 2011 3:57 pm
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Mercury - Storyteller
I have taken note of your observations regarding the balance of the Extended Heliosheath. Please allow me to share some of the reasoning behind the current balance. If this does not address your concerns, I shall look into rebalancing.
I'll compare the Brown Dwarf Chtonian to the Extended Heliosheath since this is the easiest comparison, ignoring the
gas vs 
metal difference (these are mostly equivalent).
A Brown Dwarf Chtonian costs 6 gas-mass and 1 special point and produces 1470 metals. An Extended Heliosheath of 6 gas-mass and 1 special point produces 1680 gasses. This is 210 production more.
However, a Brown Dwarf Chtonian has 9 (!) lunar orbits, whereas an Extended Heliosheath has none. Considering additionally that the Extended Heliosheath requires the construction of 8 zones, whereas the Brown Dwarf Chtonian requires only 7.
Finally, the available power in a Hot orbit is always 40 higher than in a cold orbit. Even in the best case (binary star), a Heliosheath of 8 zones is going to need a power transfer from the next-to-outermost orbit, whereas the Chtonian Brown Dwarf will never need a power transfer, even in the worst case (giant star). The bigger the Heliosheath, the bigger this problem becomes.
I do not agree that the Heliosheath offers a potential +1000 bonus. Its zones are not equatable with regular, all purpose upgradable zones, since the zones cannot be improved upon.
They are (for both Chtonian Planets and Extended Heliosheaths, btw) much better equivalents to Asteroid Belt or Ring system, where 1 rock-mass pays for 2 zones. Total production of 1 stone-mass in rings or asteroid belts is 220 whereas in a Brown Dwarf Chtonian planet or Extended Heliosheath it is actually only 210, which is actually less.
The real limiting factor on production when starting out is not so much the bonuses of zones, but rather the number of production facilities available. At most, 12 zones could be devoted to mining gas. Whether this is done in the Heliosheath or on a Type I atmosphere planet is mostly irrelevant to determine starting income.
Even if this is done, the 12 zones will have a combined gas production of 2520 gasses. Base raw material production of the three approved starting players are:
Sundarian Federation: 2520 (+400 from 2 specials)
Praetorian Empire: 2030 (+700 from 3 specials)
Veolian Commonwealth: 2430 (+300 from 1 special)
Calculating the average over the best special, total raw material production of these worlds averages to 2593, which is actually more than the 2520 gasses including 1 special from maximizing the starting Heliosheath bonus. For this reason I am not too worried about starting power and Extended Heliosheaths.
I'll compare the Brown Dwarf Chtonian to the Extended Heliosheath since this is the easiest comparison, ignoring the
gas vs metal difference (these are mostly equivalent).A Brown Dwarf Chtonian costs 6 gas-mass and 1 special point and produces 1470
metals. An Extended Heliosheath of 6 gas-mass and 1 special point produces 1680 gasses. This is 210 production more.However, a Brown Dwarf Chtonian has 9 (!) lunar orbits, whereas an Extended Heliosheath has none. Considering additionally that the Extended Heliosheath requires the construction of 8 zones, whereas the Brown Dwarf Chtonian requires only 7.
Finally, the available power in a Hot orbit is always 40 higher than in a cold orbit. Even in the best case (binary star), a Heliosheath of 8 zones is going to need a power transfer from the next-to-outermost orbit, whereas the Chtonian Brown Dwarf will never need a power transfer, even in the worst case (giant star). The bigger the Heliosheath, the bigger this problem becomes.
I do not agree that the Heliosheath offers a potential +1000 bonus. Its zones are not equatable with regular, all purpose upgradable zones, since the zones cannot be improved upon.
They are (for both Chtonian Planets and Extended Heliosheaths, btw) much better equivalents to Asteroid Belt or Ring system, where 1 rock-mass pays for 2 zones. Total production of 1 stone-mass in rings or asteroid belts is 220 whereas in a Brown Dwarf Chtonian planet or Extended Heliosheath it is actually only 210, which is actually less.
The real limiting factor on production when starting out is not so much the bonuses of zones, but rather the number of production facilities available. At most, 12 zones could be devoted to mining gas. Whether this is done in the Heliosheath or on a Type I atmosphere planet is mostly irrelevant to determine starting income.
Even if this is done, the 12 zones will have a combined gas production of 2520 gasses. Base raw material production of the three approved starting players are:
Sundarian Federation: 2520 (+400 from 2 specials)
Praetorian Empire: 2030 (+700 from 3 specials)
Veolian Commonwealth: 2430 (+300 from 1 special)
Calculating the average over the best special, total raw material production of these worlds averages to 2593, which is actually more than the 2520 gasses including 1 special from maximizing the starting Heliosheath bonus. For this reason I am not too worried about starting power and Extended Heliosheaths.
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