vyeh
Emperor
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 1,204
Petek recently posted in another thread in this forum:
I was tempted to post a fuller explanation of how ecodamage works, but the thread is devoted to GooglyBoogly's Comprehensive Datalinks Update, so I think a new thread is best.
And I hope some intermediate players will ask questions!
Managing ecodamage is necessary for players at all levels. Global warming is no fun, unless you are Lefty Scaevola, who deliberately instigated rounds of global warming until all that was left were sea bases, ocean and ocean trench squares. (This is not advisable until you have plenty of satellites to provide nutrients, minerals and energy, since you can only terraform ocean shelf squares unless you are an aquatic faction, e.g. the Pirates. Of course, the AI built pressure domes, but, absent satellites, they would have only size three bases after starvation had run its course and virtually no mineral or energy production.)
For beginning players, the advice is pretty simple. Keep an eye on the ecological damage in your bases and avoid having too much ecological damage. (If you have more bases, the level of acceptable damage is less. I have played a game where three fungal pops in a single turn was enough to trigger global warming.)
For intermediate players, there is another way to manage ecodamage, which is to deliberately trigger an incident of ecological damage and then engage in a program of building certain base facilities. Those base facilities counteract the pollution (much as companies planting trees to counteract carbon dioxide emissions).
The definitive article is SMACX ECO-DAMAGE FORMULA REVISED!. This article is accurate, except that Petek has found that in some cases you can get more than two fungal pops without mindworms.
Before I lay out the formula, here is some background:
(1) Ecodamage comes from two sources: terraforming and mineral production.
(2) Advanced terraforming (boreholes, condensors and echelon mirrors) cause more damage than basic terraforming (farms, mines, solar panels, roads, mag tubes).
(3) Forests repair damage from terraforming (a forest cancels out one mine, farm, solar panel, road or mag tube).
(4) Terraformed squares with workers are doubled (this is a good reason to use crawlers when you can).
(5) The terraformed squares within a base's radius count (crawled squares outside the base radius do not count and squares within the base radius that are being worked by another base also count, although they are not doubled -- maybe you should rethink the strategy of having a single borehole shared by three bases!)
(6) A tree farm or a hybrid forest at the base reduces ecological damage caused by terraforming by half. Together they eliminate ecological damage caused by terraforming.
(7) Mineral production can also cause ecological damage.
(8) Once the combined ecological damage from terraforming and mineral production passes a certain threshold (known as the clean mineral limit), you get a red number in the base screen. This is the percentage chance of a fungal pop occurring within the base radius in the next turn.
(9) A fungal pop involves fungus overwhelming a square (the square may not have terraforming on it, but it will previously have had no fungus). Certain terraforming is destroyed, e.g. farms, mines and solar collectors. Other terraforming continue to work, e.g. roads (roads covered by fungus are a great place to [I was going to use a five letter word beginning with 't', but a four letter word beginning with 'f' is actually better
] farm for mindworms and get planetpearls), monoliths, and boreholes.
(10) The red number can be reduced by a centauri preserve, temple of planet or nanoreplicator at the base or the Pholus Mutagen or Singularity Inductor at any of your bases.
(11) Major atrocities (i.e. planetbusters and tectonic missiles - note that Planet naturally does not consider fungal missiles to be an atrocity for purposes of calculating ecological damage!) are the equivalent of 5 minerals of extra production at all of your bases.
(12) The red number is doubled at perihelion. Difficulty, the number of technologies, planet rating and the native life level chosen at custom start all affect the red number.
(13) This is the key point: The clean mineral limit starts at 16. Each fungal pop increases the clean mineral limit by one. Each tree farm, hybrid forest, centauri preserve or temple of planet constructed by you anywhere after the first fungal pop also increases the clean mineral limit by one.
(14) Minerals from orbit do not count against the clean mineral limit, but minerals produced by mineral multiplying facilities, e.g. the robotic assembly plant, acting on minerals from orbit do count against the clean mineral limit.
Below is the formula from the article:
Two important points from the article (I already covered them, but the article's formulation may be easier to understand):
I believe this knowledge is one of the key pieces of knowledge separating the intermediate player from the expert player.
Do not be embarrassed to ask questions. In addition to myself, Petek and GooglyBoogly will be happy to answer your questions.
I will end this post by saying it is a gift to Petek, who has been helping me examine some issues involving ecodamage (see my signature), and I thought this thread might enhance this forum.
I was tempted to post a fuller explanation of how ecodamage works, but the thread is devoted to GooglyBoogly's Comprehensive Datalinks Update, so I think a new thread is best.
And I hope some intermediate players will ask questions!
Managing ecodamage is necessary for players at all levels. Global warming is no fun, unless you are Lefty Scaevola, who deliberately instigated rounds of global warming until all that was left were sea bases, ocean and ocean trench squares. (This is not advisable until you have plenty of satellites to provide nutrients, minerals and energy, since you can only terraform ocean shelf squares unless you are an aquatic faction, e.g. the Pirates. Of course, the AI built pressure domes, but, absent satellites, they would have only size three bases after starvation had run its course and virtually no mineral or energy production.)
For beginning players, the advice is pretty simple. Keep an eye on the ecological damage in your bases and avoid having too much ecological damage. (If you have more bases, the level of acceptable damage is less. I have played a game where three fungal pops in a single turn was enough to trigger global warming.)
For intermediate players, there is another way to manage ecodamage, which is to deliberately trigger an incident of ecological damage and then engage in a program of building certain base facilities. Those base facilities counteract the pollution (much as companies planting trees to counteract carbon dioxide emissions).
The definitive article is SMACX ECO-DAMAGE FORMULA REVISED!. This article is accurate, except that Petek has found that in some cases you can get more than two fungal pops without mindworms.
Before I lay out the formula, here is some background:
(1) Ecodamage comes from two sources: terraforming and mineral production.
(2) Advanced terraforming (boreholes, condensors and echelon mirrors) cause more damage than basic terraforming (farms, mines, solar panels, roads, mag tubes).
(3) Forests repair damage from terraforming (a forest cancels out one mine, farm, solar panel, road or mag tube).
(4) Terraformed squares with workers are doubled (this is a good reason to use crawlers when you can).
(5) The terraformed squares within a base's radius count (crawled squares outside the base radius do not count and squares within the base radius that are being worked by another base also count, although they are not doubled -- maybe you should rethink the strategy of having a single borehole shared by three bases!)
(6) A tree farm or a hybrid forest at the base reduces ecological damage caused by terraforming by half. Together they eliminate ecological damage caused by terraforming.
(7) Mineral production can also cause ecological damage.
(8) Once the combined ecological damage from terraforming and mineral production passes a certain threshold (known as the clean mineral limit), you get a red number in the base screen. This is the percentage chance of a fungal pop occurring within the base radius in the next turn.
(9) A fungal pop involves fungus overwhelming a square (the square may not have terraforming on it, but it will previously have had no fungus). Certain terraforming is destroyed, e.g. farms, mines and solar collectors. Other terraforming continue to work, e.g. roads (roads covered by fungus are a great place to [I was going to use a five letter word beginning with 't', but a four letter word beginning with 'f' is actually better
] farm for mindworms and get planetpearls), monoliths, and boreholes.(10) The red number can be reduced by a centauri preserve, temple of planet or nanoreplicator at the base or the Pholus Mutagen or Singularity Inductor at any of your bases.
(11) Major atrocities (i.e. planetbusters and tectonic missiles - note that Planet naturally does not consider fungal missiles to be an atrocity for purposes of calculating ecological damage!) are the equivalent of 5 minerals of extra production at all of your bases.
(12) The red number is doubled at perihelion. Difficulty, the number of technologies, planet rating and the native life level chosen at custom start all affect the red number.
(13) This is the key point: The clean mineral limit starts at 16. Each fungal pop increases the clean mineral limit by one. Each tree farm, hybrid forest, centauri preserve or temple of planet constructed by you anywhere after the first fungal pop also increases the clean mineral limit by one.
(14) Minerals from orbit do not count against the clean mineral limit, but minerals produced by mineral multiplying facilities, e.g. the robotic assembly plant, acting on minerals from orbit do count against the clean mineral limit.
Below is the formula from the article:
Two important points from the article (I already covered them, but the article's formulation may be easier to understand):
I believe this knowledge is one of the key pieces of knowledge separating the intermediate player from the expert player.
Do not be embarrassed to ask questions. In addition to myself, Petek and GooglyBoogly will be happy to answer your questions.
I will end this post by saying it is a gift to Petek, who has been helping me examine some issues involving ecodamage (see my signature), and I thought this thread might enhance this forum.
