Minstart reconsidered

[siron]

/minstart The unoccupied planet closest to the sun in all home systems will be at least 2 production per worker and its gravity will match that of the homeworld.

AFAIK this switch works like:
If upoor then poor
if gravi nonracegravi then gravi change to racegravi

For example: if the planet is ur huge hg it will be a ur huge ng then. (ng race)

I have just learned today that the gravity is actually a function of size class and minerals (exceptions are monster systems, orion and artificial planets). Trixx has updates his post.
You will find a table with details there.

Additionally, I was interested if this rule also applies to the homeworld and I watched several 1.31 starts. According to the 1.31 rule it seems impossible to have a

Abundant huge ng
Rich large ng
Rich huge ng
Urich medium ng
Urich large ng
Urich huge ng

in hw. All these planets should be hg. I am not sure about an alternative minstart algorithm but I think we should accept this 1.31 rule

1000!!!

[Lord Brazen]

According to the 1.31 rule it seems impossible to have a

Abundant huge ng
Rich large ng
Rich huge ng
Urich medium ng
Urich large ng
Urich huge ng

in hw. All these planets should be hg. I am not sure about an alternative minstart algorithm but I think we should accept this 1.31 rule.

I am fine with what ever rule the community wants for /minstart. The current switch implementation was changed (several times I might add) because a number of people where unhappy with the other algorithms I came up with.

In particular, some people consider large rich hg planets as garbage and want a restart. The problem is this:

- Many people do not like any Heavy planets in their home systems.
- Many people do not like good Normal G planets in their opponents home systems.

Simply eliminating the mentioned planet types from home systems will not make people happy. How do I know? Because one of the older algorithms would only modify the system if it failed to meet the old TSL rules (although I can't find the rule now...seems to be removed now ). So the above planets were not generated and we still had many many restarts.

I am considering a more complex solution to this problem and overall map balance in a future patch. I am in a low productivity mode right now so it may take some time before I make it happen....

[Brent15]

Hi LB,

The community can't express enough thanks for the volunteer work you do for Master of Orion, but your work is very much appreciated. The /minstart switch is one of my favorites and seems to serve the function of reasonably balancing the game well. I would, however, also like to voice interest in including the 1.31 rule mentioned by Siron.

It seems wrong to mess with a good thing, but with the pool of intellect here I am confident a lasting solution will be reached.

[siron]

The current switch implementation was changed (several times I might add) because a number of people where unhappy with the other algorithms I came up with.

I remember some of these discussions on our chatserver. I hope we have here a nice thread where anyone can participate. Actually, I think that almost anyone is unaware how the algorithm works now. You see my guess in the previous post, I have just figured out that it works quite differently. The unoccupied planet closest to the sun is ALWAYS (whether you have min or not) changed by the minstart switch in the following way:

Code: Select all

UP T lg --- P M ng UP S lg --- P M ng UP M lg --- P M ng UP L ng --- P L ng UP H ng --- P H ng P T lg --- A M ng P S lg --- A M ng P M ng --- A M ng P L ng --- A L ng P H ng --- A H ng A T lg --- R M ng A S ng --- R M ng A M ng --- R M ng A L ng --- R L ng A H hg --- R H ng R T ng --- UR M ng R S ng --- UR M ng R M ng --- UR M ng R L hg --- U L ng R H hg --- U H ng UR T ng --- P M ng UR S ng --- P M ng UR M hg --- P M ng UR L hg --- P L ng UR H hg --- P H ng

I was quite surprised to see this result. It was several times mentioned here that UR ngs are a serious problem for many players. In almost any ladder match they are restart (a popular 1v1 (esp. Ladder) restart rule seems to be: 1 urng or 2 rng/urhg) and even in 4ways some players propose a nourng rule (see Steps motd). The drawback of the current algorithm is the huge increase of UR ng or R ng planets. So far I thought this problem was caused by the popular planets=4 switch but now I see it is actually caused by /minstart. I observed a sample of 100 minstarts and received following results:

Without minstart I received (just the unoccupied planet closest to the sun):
10 rich small or medium ng
2 urich small ng

By using the minstart switch we receive (same maps!):
46 rich medium-huge ng
14 urich medium-huge ng

So we have now lots of restarts when we use the above-mentioned rules or we have 4ways where some uni tol has a huge advantage (imho pointless to play such maps). More restarts or imbalance. I really think that the switch causes more problems than it actually solves.

Because one of the older algorithms would only modify the system if it failed to meet the old TSL rules (although I can't find the rule now...seems to be removed now

I still thought that it works this way. And I really would like to see that the switch works again this way...ok...we have a problem that we have to define the rule I propose Step and/or Gusset (if they want) should moderate several rules threads where we discuss extensions (or changes) of the old rules.

Further, when we use the switch then it should IMO work like:

If up then poor med
If poor tiny or small then poor med
If abundant tiny, small or huge then poor med
If rich huge, large, small, tiny then abundant med
If ur then rich med

In detail:

Code: Select all

UP T lg --- P M ng UP S lg --- P M ng UP M lg --- P M ng UP L ng --- P M ng UP H ng --- P M ng P T lg --- P M ng P S lg --- P M ng P M ng --- P M ng P L ng --- P L ng P H ng --- P H ng A T lg --- P M ng A S ng --- P M ng A M ng --- A M ng A L ng --- A L ng A H hg --- P M ng R T ng --- A M ng R S ng --- A M ng R M ng --- R M ng R L hg --- A M ng R H hg --- A M ng UR T ng --- R M ng UR S ng --- R M ng UR M hg --- R M ng UR L hg --- R M ng UR H hg --- R M ng

In combination with planets=4 or planets=5 the minstart switch should fix the map quite rarely.
Using p=4 I had 7/10 TSL minstarts without switch. And with p=5 I had 9/10. And the missing ng planet was compensated by a large urhg. Surely a playable start. So I prefer at moment not to use minstart.

Many people do not like any Heavy planets in their home systems.

In most cases I don't like abundant hg or rich hg either (when I want to play a techrace it is ok for me to have some since I don't settle them early and my prodrace opponent might have some hgs too). But the minstart switch shouldn't fix this problem. And actually it doesn't solve it right now (it just changes one planet). So I would propose a medstart switch where you use the proposed algorithm always for all planets. (Of course different algorithms are also possible....alex will soon propose some further ideas.)

Many people do not like good Normal G planets in their opponents home systems.

Currently, the minstart switch improves uni tol far too much.

So the above planets were not generated and we still had many many restarts

But this was before Cybersaber retired? Right?! When someone complains about a bad start he should use the richstart or goodstart (and hugestart). Richstart, hugestart is Inver’s preference at moment AFAIK. Surely more fair than the usual minstart gambling right now. ( I prefer to play p=5 without further hw switches (4ways). p=4 without minstart should be ok in 1v1s.)

[ALEX|D]

I would like to see that /minstart works like
Example with planets=4

Code: Select all

if 1 med poor (racegravi), 2 tiny upoor. So minstart should have NO effect to HW. if 1 small poor, 2 tiny upoor. Minstart should have effect, changing best planet (small poor) to med poor (incl racegravi). Or if it is too hard to do, changing planet nearst the sun to med poor (incl racegravi).

Further I would like to have a "balanced switch", which should have effect to HW.

Code: Select all

if urich ng, then downgrade to rich ng. if 2 rich ng, then downgrade 1 rich to abd. if 3 rich ng, then downgrade 2 rich to abd. if tiny, then upgrade to small size.

Such switch would save a lot of time, we waste for restarts in 1on1.