Fwurg

[Elmer]

For most purposes in the game, the population bonus is rounded down to whole billions. However, some explanations of the racial characteristics do no support this in their text. For example: he militaristic characteristic. It is written as: '...benefit per billion population...'.

In my system I have in total 3 , two times 1.5 . (actually 1.6, but lets keep it simple.) Both my races have the militaristic characteristic.

Do I first have to round down the population and then apply the racial characteristic bonus, or can I sum up my population in my system with the same characteristic and then round down the population? So: do I have to count two times 1 or can I count my 3 for benefits from militaristic and coordinated?

I prefer to be able to first sum up your population and then round down. First of course because this gives me more benefits, but this also feels more right. Otherwise I have 1 which aren't really doing anything which feels wonky to me.

[Gerben]

The '...benefit per billion population...'. benefit is the result of the fact that all benefits of population are first counted per race and the subsequently applied to your economy. However you raise an interesting point and I believe that in this case, and I'm sure we can think of several others, it is reasonable to consider the full 3 when applying this racial.

This would require us to change the rules slightly, but since everyone should benefit from this in general, I believe it shouldn't be much a problem.

[Brend]

As Gerben said: right now you 'round first, add later' (i.e. round(0.6 ) + round(0.6 ) = 0). This ties in with the Population Growth Cost that is paid per full billion, as this is the compensation for the 'free boost' from having more population.


However, it seems to me that the benefits are not linked to the race, but to the racial characteristic. Right now you are penalized for having multiple races on your world: If you have two populations of 0.6 on your world that both have the characteristic, you get no benefits... So I think a good case can be made for using the 'add first, round later' scheme (i.e. round(0.6 + 0.6 ) = 1).

The change in rules would be to put the rounding at the 'population boundary': every racial characteristic has a specific boundary for which the amount of population is determined. Normal raw material characteristics have a planet boundary, and some others have a system boundary.


However, there are some considerations: Population Growth Cost is set per billion per population group, because at that moment all your economic benefits from that population group inrease. With this change in rules it becomes possible to have 0.9 of different races that each feature the same racial characteristic, so you can have the benefits of multiple billions of characteristic without paying any PGC (which is bad, as 'there is no free lunch').

This might be remedied by having PGC be paid over all population on the same planet. However, it is unclear how this should work with PGC-lowering characteristics such as High Fecundity. Paying PGC per population volume on the planet also penalizes players with small groups of races without overlapping racial characteristics, as they suddenly have to pay PGC without getting extra economic benefits.

I think the rules can be changed, but you need to come up with a viable proposal for changing PGC (and possibly some other things) with it.

[Mercury]

Some racial characteristics provide a bonus on specific planets. In these cases you always round down per planet.

Some racial characteristics provide a bonus for the whole system. In these cases, you add the population together and round down at the end.

Racial characteristics explicitly state this if they are not for specific planets:

The total amount of Military Fleet upkeep is reduced with with 10 per turn per full billion inhabitants on the system of the Home Port to a minimum of half the regular upkeep cost. This is on the total expense, not per fleet.

This is over the TOTAL population in the system. So you add all population in the system together and THEN round down (thus you get a 30 reduction in case of 2 planets with 1.5 ).


In the case of Militaristic, the production bonus of +10 is ONLY on the planet they are on. Thus, both planets produce +10 (not +30 on both). This should be obvious.

The reduced cost of military fleets applies only when upgrading or constructing a fleet with a home port in the system on which the race is settled, not in other systems.

This is less clear, but the implication is that it adds the rounded totals of each planet. That's how racial characteristics work and there is no explicit note saying the population of all planets in the system is added together. Regardless, the wording is very unfortunate. This is also how Analytical (which is more clear on this) is worded, and I believe how it is intended.

So 1.5 + 1.5 = 20 , as written.


This said, while I am not directly against a 30 solution, I do feel the entirety of racial characteristics should be reviewed to list where changes or clarifications are necessary and which ones are explicitly for planets and which ones are explicitly system wide.

My guideline would be: if it increases production in zones, it should always be planet wide. If it does something for a faction as a whole, it should always be system wide, and system wide should always be very explicitly mentioned.

[Elmer]

I think Mercury's explanation of planet and system wide bonuses is sufficient. I will probably review the racial characteristics this weekend to see where clarification is required.

[Brend]

Some racial characteristics provide a bonus for the whole system. In these cases, you add the population together and round down at the end.

I did not know that O_o I thought you add the 'number of full billions' together, so when I wrote that characteristic I intended it as sum(round(population))...

In fact, I'm very surprised by the fact that rounding works differently based on whether the bonus is per system instead of per planet. Out of curiosity: doesn't this give people a free lunch when they have 2 planets with 0.9 for a total of 1.8 which becomes 1 times the benefit without paying PGC?

Also, there are two dimension to Elmer's question: 1) where is the rounding done, 2) what happens with different races? The first one is answered (albeit in a to me completely surprising answer), the second one is still unanswered. Is this only for population segments of the same race, or for any population segments with the characteristic?


Regardless, I am in favour of having a better defined point of rounding, and whether this is 'at the population segment level' or at the 'benefit boundary level' doesn't really matter I think (and we need to define whether this takes into account race boundaries and such).

[Brend]

After some more thinking, I think I disagree with Mercury's interpretation of the 'per system' bonuses. I still think they should be rounded first on the population segment level (i.e. round per race per planet) and then summed up regardless of whether the racial characteristic benefits work per system or per planet (or per whatever else).

If this is not done, you can effectively circumvent the paying of PGC by starting with any 2 races and use the Xeno-obstetrics to shift all population growth into a hybrid race, grow that till .99 and start on the next hybrid race to grow till .99 . This way you get the 'per system' bonus without paying any Population Growth Cost... This works well by combining Coordinated and Analytical -- the only two I could find quickly that give a 'add first round later' effect.

Since Mercury himself said that there should be no free lunches (and I fully agree), I think that the economic benefit from the per-system racials has to be paid for by PGC as well. Therefore, I think that only the full billions per species per planet should be counted, and that no exceptions should be made. Since PGC is only paid when the population segment itself goes over the billion boundary, benefits should only be calculated for population that goes over the billion boundary as well!


This isn't to say that there are no other possibilities for calculation if we change the rules to be more favourable for those with multiple species and inhabited planets; but right now I disagree with Mercury's interpretation of how the current rules work.

[Mercury]

I feel Brend's reasoning is reasonable. I'd like to hear from Elmer on this.

[Elmer]

What I want is to add the populations together, and then calculate the bonuses. I will try to work out this weekend how this would work with population growth costs and benefits from stuff like aquatic and high fecundity.

[Dragonmaster352]

Hey, a quick question relating to this topic.

Upkeep reduction racial characteristics such as Analytical (-10 upkeep per billion for holonet relays) are they calculated over the total population with that characteristic in a system or do there have to be actual 1.0 on a planet to count.

I have two planets with Astrian one with 3,2 (rounded) and one with 0,8 and I wanted to know if I get the upkeep reduction part of my Analytical racial characteristic for 4,0 or not.

[Brend]

That would be the 1.0 on a planet. So in your case you would get the benefits of 3.0 .

[Dragonmaster352]

Very well. And I take it that if the spread is 3,0 and 1,0 I get the benefits of 4,0 ?

[Brend]

Yup. And you get to pay Population Growth Cost :P

[Elmer]

After a discussion with Brend, my conclusion is the following: It is impossible to change the rules in a mathematically correct way without have to change a lot aspects of the system.

Therefore, the way population bonus is calculated now is fine: first rounding down, then adding.

This creates space for a nice population tech to change this, which I will be interested in. I have to think about this more thoroughly though.