I’ve spent too much time for it to be forgotten in a unrelated thread, so I am making Terraforming’s own thread.
The Flaw of Terraforming
Terraforming as it is now is, in my opinion, flawed. There is a competition for valuable stars, but higher levels of Terraforming tend to level all stars to a same quality - preventing the competition.
See the prices of Infrastructure for increasing Terraforming.
Notice the superhigh price reductions on early levels of Terraforming.
This says, that there is a huge difference between stars with 10 and 50 resources, but there is close to zero difference between stars with 110 and 150 resources.
Proof of flaw
It’s because the price is calculated as base_price / resources.
The higher the resources are, the lesser the yield.
For cheap economy the base price is 500. Now difference between a Star A with 10 natural resources and a Star B with 50 natural resources is that B is 5x better than A.
First Economy's cost:
A = 500 / 50 = $10
B = 500 / 10 = $50
ratio = B/A = $50/$10 = 5x
Let’s calculate the price for Terraforming 15, which gives 75 resources.
First Economy's cost:
A = 500 / (50+75) = 500/125 = $4
B = 500 / (10+75) = 500/85 = $6
ratio = B/A = $6/$4 = 1.5x
The concept
The thing with ratio is quite simple. To even more simplify it, let’s say there are 6 Classes of Stars.
Class 1 = 10 NR - a shitty star
...
Class 5 = 50 NR - home star
Class 6 = 60 NR - I've heard legends about those..
- Terraforming’s yield would start at 50 and each level would add 5 as it does now.
T1->50, T2->55, T3->60, ...[size=11](orT0->50, T1->55, ...)[/size] - Each star would be assigned a value from
0to1. A coefficient of how good a star is.
A star which formerly had 50 natural resources would have a coefficient 1.0.
Natural resources -> coefficient
60 -> 1.2 -- Class 6 star
50 -> 1.0 -- Class 5 star
20 -> 0.4 -- Class 2 star
10 -> 0.2 -- Class 1 star
How does the ratio translate to actual resources?
Terraforming 1 = 50 Resources
Class 6 : 50 x 1.2 = 60 Resources
Class 5 : 50 x 1.0 = 50 R
Class 2 : 50 x 0.4 = 20 R
Class 1 : 50 x 0.2 = 10 R
Notice that the values are actually the same as with old Terraforming!
Proof of concept
The pictures below show prices and number of economy built using the old terraforming (Additive) and my suggested approach (Multiplicative).
They show values for Terraforming 4 and 20.
To explain the pictures, there are three main columns:
- NR - the natural state of a star, compared
natural_resourcesandcoefficient. - Additive - actual calculated resources using
natural_resources + terraforming(old) - Multiplicative - actual calculated resources using
ratio x terraforming(new)
Prices
These two show how much would the upgrade cost for first and tenth economy on stars with resources from 1 to 50.
Infrastructure density
These show how much economy would have been built on your stars if your cheapest upgrade was priced at $20 or $60.
Resume
A shitty star should stay relatively shitty whole game. A legendary star should be legendary and should be fought over!
[size=20]Moreover, the concept I suggest also deals with the problem of hyperinflation.[/size]
More reading:
How are the prices calculated?
