Hydroponic farms vs. Biospheres

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lord_azmodan
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Hydroponic farms vs. Biospheres

Postby lord_azmodan » Thu Jun 29, 2006 10:15 am

Also, Subs never need biospheres, and so they will be able to use hydrofarms, which are sweet tools in the early game, even if biospheres are more important later. This helps speed your growth by freeing up a farmer per world, at a negligible research cost..
Your proposed hydros are junk. Almost noone considers them. 2BC maintenance simply hurts - even for sub. There is only one race where I would take them. Thats Demo Sub art hw.
Well that makes me think a lot about it. Maybe you can help me to find my mistakes....

Biosphere => 80 research, 60 build, 1 maintenance
Hydroponic => 80 research, 60 build, 2 maintenance

Now, let's take a closer look.

Biosphere allows you to have two more colonists per planet. Without any bonuses for farming, this means that 1 of these colonists have to be a farmer (terran = 2 food). The other one can be used as a worker or a scientist. After all this building gives you +3 PP or +3 RP... as you wish.

Hydroponic farms on the other hand, gives you +2 food, so you can change a farmer into a worker / scientist, giving you the same profits.

For that, it seems quite the same result!
____________________

But let's assume you have 3 planets ... 1 terran (12 pop) and 2 barren (4 pop). Normally you can't build farmers on barren enviroment. To save you from starvation, you have build freighters to send food to the barren homeworld. So I also assume, that you built the new tech on any planet.

With Biosphere, you can have a population of 14 + 6 + 6, so you need 13 farmers to keep them well-fed. So you have 13 colonists for your disposal.

With Hydroponic farms, you still are at the original population maximum. Therefore you have 20 colonists. Since you get 6 food due the farms, you only need 7 farmers. So you can use 13 colonists too.

Still sounds quite the same? Let's get to the maintenance cost:
____________________

Each Biosphere cost 1 BC of your income, it results in 3 BC for our example. Hydroponic farms however have a 2 BC per turn maintenance cost, so as a result you have to spend 6 BC per turn. BUT!!! Let's take a look at the freighter cost you have. Each freighter needs 0.5 BC, if used.

So the Biosphere strategy has to spend 6 BC to fed the 12 colonists on the barren colonies. The hydroponic farm player spends only 2 BC per turn, because he only has to fed 4 colonists via freighters. (per barren: 4 pop - 2 due farms = 2 colonists to fed)

So the player with biospheres has to spend 9 BC per turn and the player with hydroponic farms only has to spend 8 BC. To progress with it, ny player with biosheres hast to spend 4 BC per barren planet (3 BC for freighter + 1 BC for biosphere). The player with hydroponic farms only has to spend 3 BC per barren (1 BC for freighter and 2 BC for farms)
____________________

To get to the differences:

With Biospheres, you can handle more population, so more population, results in more taxes. So in the end, you will have more money. If you have a farming edge or get the right tech, biospheres are better too.

But on the other hand, hydroponic farms gives you an instanteous effect. You don't have to wait until you get the pop up to the planetary maximum. If your star system is blockaded, you might not need to worry, because starvation isn't as high as with biospheres. And you have more colonists free on your terran world (1 terran + 1 barren). So it's the best choice, if you have a farming disadvantage.

If you reduce the maintenance cost to 1 BC (like the DifficultChoice mod does), it get's even better for the hydroponic farm. Alternatively, you could increase the maintenance cost for biospheres (my favorite) OR double the cost for freighter use to totally negate any advantage for biospheres. An other side-effect would be, that it get's more expensive to send colonists around the galaxy, so the 1 pop housing strategy would cost you 5 BC per colonist per turn of travel, instead of 2.5 BC.

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Re: Hydroponic farms vs. Biospheres

Postby siron » Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:09 pm

The race I have quoted above is just a fun race. I dont take it seriously. When you want to survive in MP games you have to take one of the following races:

a) Unification (has already a food bonus of 50%)
b) Unificaiton Aqua (has even more food)
c) If you are not Uni you should take Lithovore.
(terran = 2 food)
Case c) doesnt have to care about the problem and case a) has already 3 food per farmer on its terran and Uni Aqua has even 4.5 food per farmer.
But on the other hand, hydroponic farms gives you an instanteous effect. You don't have to wait until you get the pop up to the planetary maximum.
Keep in mind that there are opportunity costs of building hydros. The far better choice is to produce a pop unit via housing (which also costs round about 60PP), so I actually don't have to wait for pop...building hydros cost me that pop. And keep in mind that 1 pop unit produces at least 3 food. I don't need any further calculus to see that hydros suck therefore.

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Re: Hydroponic farms vs. Biospheres

Postby lord_azmodan » Mon Jul 03, 2006 9:34 pm

When you want to survive in MP games you have to take one of the following races:

a) Unification (has already a food bonus of 50%)
b) Unificaiton Aqua (has even more food)
c) If you are not Uni you should take Lithovore.
That's true. But I thought that this would be changed with the DC mod. But what did I see??? No change to make a difference!!! With Weather Control @ RP 650, this seem to be a advantage for unification gov. because of the extra food bonus (+3 food instead of +2). Quite unfair I think.
Keep in mind that there are opportunity costs of building hydros. The far better choice is to produce a pop unit via housing (which also costs round about 60PP), so I actually don't have to wait for pop...building hydros cost me that pop. And keep in mind that 1 pop unit produces at least 3 food. I don't need any further calculus to see that hydros suck therefore.
You miss a thing. Housing are good on 1 pop colonies. That's true! But if you want to send colonists through the galaxy (from a 1 pop to a 20 pop colony) to get the 3 FPs you mentioned, you will need freighters. Freighters also cost 50 BC and 2.5 BC maintenance when all 5 freighters are used.

So where did you add these costs in your calculation???
___________________________

To give you a short preview how I think about changing the tech tree:

Any tech-RPs are calculated by race points
(I'm not sure yet, so it's still not fixed)
+3 race pick = 250-400 RP (p.e. reseach lab: +1RP/scientist)
+6 race pick = 1150-1500 RP (p.e. robo miners: +2PP/worker)
+9 race pick = 2750-3500 RP (p.e. galactic cybernet: +3RP/scientist)
+10 race pick = 3500-4500 RP (p.e. core waste dumps)

Therefore, research lab, automated factory, etc. would be unavailable so fast. That should prevent straight tech lines (ResL-AutoF-Super-Robo) and decrease the governmental bonus, because they don't get extra PPs or RPs from these techs too fast.

So instead of taking a 6-point unification, you could choose a +1 food, +1 prod. race (I know that this would cost 7 race points, but you still don't have the assimilation disadvantage). So by the time the first player gets the +1 PP (automatic factory) and the +1 food (soil enrichment), the second player could get +30% morale (holo simulator & psionics). So in the end, this should be still about the same effect...

Since automatic points do not fit into this calculation, you could compare them with other techs. So why do robotic factories need more RPs than robo miners??? If you take the average points you get, this will be the same as with robo miners (10). Any bonus you get for a rich or ultra rich enviroment is weaker than a +2 prod. bonus per worker. Therefore it should be researchable earlier. A good side-effect would be, that an morale or governmental bonus don't increase these effects.

Recyclotrons don't fit well into the old tech tree, because they are as good as automatic factories when all colonists are workers. This will be true for any non-farming planet when you do not research.
Since it still does not have the 5 automatic PPs like the factory, it's even weaker. To compensate this, you could either have 5 farmers or 5 scientists on your planet. If you have all your colonists either research or farm, it still doesn't have a greater effect than auto-factories, if your average population of all planets isn't greater than 5.

So there is no need to have Auto Factory @ RP 150 and Recclotron @ RP 1500. A side-effect is, that recyclotrons do not support 1-pop housing strategies or governmental or morale bonuses.

Make morale tech or alternative techs more attractive
If you change morale techs like psionics (+10% to dictatorship goverrnment), holo simulator (+20%), virtual reality network and pleasure dome to a lower RP tech, this could negate the governmental bonus from unification. Let's say, you use holo simulator & psionics with dictatorship:

farming (2): dict. = +0.6 || unif. = +1.0
worker (3): dict. = +0.9 || unif. = +1.5
science (3): dict. = +0.9 || unif. = +0.0
income (1): dict. = +0.3 || unif. = +0.0

total: dict. = 2.7 || unif. = 2.5

So on the other hand, the player with unification government can spend these research points, to negate the bonus you have choesen instead (p.e. research bonus).

Keep it a hard to choose techs
So instead of changing things wildly (like the DC mod,), you should think about good comparisons. What could be a hard choice???

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Postby siron » Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:17 pm

First of all, this thread (and strategy/tactics section) is about regular moo (1.31 or 1.4). DC mod is a bit off-topic.
But I thought that this would be changed with the DC mod.
I didn’t have the intention to generate a superstrong 2food/farmer race.
Quite unfair I think.


I don’t think so.
You miss a thing. Housing are good on 1 pop colonies. That's true! But if you want to send colonists through the galaxy (from a 1 pop to a 20 pop colony) to get the 3 FPs you mentioned, you will need freighters. Freighters also cost 50 BC and 2.5 BC maintenance when all 5 freighters are used.

So where did you add these costs in your calculation???
These costs are peanuts. And that is quite easy to see when you consider more than 1 turn. Let us say 100 turns and assume that a pop unit is on average 5 turns transferred between star systems. (That is even a generous guess since some pop units aren’t transferred at all when there is place on the main planet in the system.) Just calculate the output you expect. I am sure that you can figure it out on your own when you don’t forget the taxes produced by the pop unit.
To give you a short preview how I think about changing the tech tree:
That is now completely off-topic. You better make an own thread about your own mod.
So instead of changing things wildly (like the DC mod,), you should think about good comparisons.
Oh wait. I also had some mathematical considerations (besides lots of gameplay against other kali players) when I decided to implement some changes. Unbelievable. But frankly, I don’t take your criticism seriously. It is not that I am stubborn. In fact, I listen often to other players. But these are players I have met at kali. Players who have shown their MP experience.

Actually, there was another German player very similar to you. He wrote me very long mails...and I started a discussion before I played against him. He was even too stubborn to admit things where he was factually wrong. After a dozen of very long mails he finally started to play some MP games with us. He lost all games. Well, and he left kali then. So I wasted several hours of my live. And I don’t wanna waste this amount of time again. That’s my reason why you should show up at kali when you want a detailed discussion. I have time to play a game friday nite.

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Postby StepNRazor » Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:41 am

I like Hydra when I play SubT or Cyvernetic.
For subT early on it is like an Aqua transformation.
For Cybernetic it feeds four pop, get's to be close to lith like early on.

For any race picking I like the houseing colonies use a frieghter for shiping and require none for food but other large colonies can make use of spare frieghters to add top their food. So lets look at 6 cb on 1 pop houseing each requireing no food but produceing an extra food =)
I like em.

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Postby siron » Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:01 pm

I like Hydra when I play SubT or Cyvernetic.
These races Uni Sub (without Aqua) can barely compete and Cybernetic is imo very weak. I have rarely seen that anyone has beaten a strong player with these kind of races (when there were no bans).

Uni Sub should generally tech soil instead of cloners and it has 4.5 food/farmer then. I dont recommend it therefore. The only exception might be to get an arti hw to work (but that race isnt really good) or when you know that soil is no option - early war.
For Cybernetic it feeds four pop, get's to be close to lith like early on.
Thats just a pseudo-reason to take it. Generally there are 2 options to solve the food problem with your race:

a) increase farmer efficiency (food+1,food+2,aqua,uni)
b) decrease the degree of consumption (cyber, lith)

What mainly matters is the farmer efficiency when you decide to build hydros or generate a pop (which requires same PP). And the reason that hydros could be useful for some cyber race is caused by the fact that cyber races take less likely the picks mentioned under a).

For example the dict tol 2prod cyber race. It has a poor farmer efficiency. And when this race would be confronted early on with an aggressive opponent....hydros would be an even better choice in this case (since no soil).

But this race works only in a uni-lith ban game. And even then wormholes (and early contact) are generally excluded. This case therefore never happens.

And I cant remember that anyone has beaten a ladder player by taking hydros. And even the experienced crea players build hydros very, very late in the game (only when there is no other important building in the list).

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Triumph the wonder dog

Postby llylwyyn » Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:17 pm

Hydroponic farms are good...


... FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!
"Beer is the solution to and cause of all my problems. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a solution that needs probleming..."

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Biospheres vs. Hydroponic farms

Postby Time » Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:03 pm

I choose Biospheres over Hydroponic farms.

With usually a Uni/Aqu race like you mentioned 4.5 food/farmer, unless you are surrounded by systems that are empty, have gas giants or asteroids, or non-farmable planets. Even in those bad circumstances, I would tough it out, til Soil Enrichment or Weather Controller tech was reached. WC beats Subt farms too.

The only time I chose Hyd and Subt Farms, was in a single player game, and with a Cyber/trader race. I think I had Uni/Aq too. In that one instance the trader advantage of 1 BC per food pays for the hyd+subt farms, the 6 food created fed 12 pop. (nice). Which did give me some defense against blockades. And yes, was similar to a lithovore race. However, as mentioned previously, no-one uses this type of race in mp games. I don't even use it in LAN games here. It's a just for fun race. To try something different.
Now with the new modifications, and Cyber and Fan trader being cheaper, some players might experiment with other possibilties.
:D
MOO1 Fan, MOO2 Fan, MOO3 needed too many changes = hopeless, getting older waiting for a MOO4 (still).

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Postby Time » Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:40 pm

correction: it was Uni, Prod +2, Cyber, Trader
but, like I said, a just for fun race.
MOO1 Fan, MOO2 Fan, MOO3 needed too many changes = hopeless, getting older waiting for a MOO4 (still).

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Postby lord_azmodan » Mon Jan 08, 2007 11:20 am

Let's make a simple calculation.

A Hydroponic Farm = 50 PP & 2 BC

So if you need to use freighters to keep your population fed, you need 2 freighters and therefore 1 BC maintenance for them. The time you spend to build a freighter (50 PP) or a biospheres (60 PP) are similar to a Hyfroponic farm. Therefore I don't understand, why Hydros should be weaker than Biospheres.

60 PP / 1BC + 1 BC for freighters should be better than 50 PP / 2BC ???

The population transfer doesn't change the calculation, because you can ship them elsewhere, if one of your planet is full. So you don't create less pop with hydros than with Biospheres. As it is the same for biospheres, you don't have to build them anywhere.

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Postby siron » Mon Jan 08, 2007 8:31 pm

Let's make a simple calculation.

A Hydroponic Farm = 50 PP & 2 BC
Also 60PP here.
So if you need to use freighters to keep your population fed, you need 2 freighters and therefore 1 BC maintenance for them.
Is here your misunderstanding? One freighter can of course transport 5 food.

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Postby W4st » Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:53 pm

First off, I admit I'm not a very strong player. But my experience and experiments with Hydros is that they do, indeed, suck.

I've tried a few races where I save the game just before researching Bio/Hydro, then play out the next 20 turns or so with each.

The results are always roughly the same: With Hydros, money is more of a problem and I always lag about 2-3 turns behind the Bios in terms of expansion and population growth. Also, as I play further I fall further behind with Hydros because money shortages mean I can't buy as much production.

One killer for Hydros seems to be that the production you spend building them means you lose a couple of turns of population growth from your housing planets. Bios, by contrast, are only built on planets that are nearly full, and thus not doing critical housing. Furthermore, the extra turn or two of production spent building them seems to be recovered by the production saved by not having as many colonists shipping around.

Now, having said that, one area that the Hydros do seem to beat the Bios is in research. With Hydros, I tend to be able to get 2-3 turns ahead in early research. However, because of money shortages I keep finding my growth slowing to the point that Bios soon overtake Hydros in research as well.

Anyway, that's been my experience. If anybody can show some actual experimental evidence (not just theoretical claims) of a side-by-side advantage of Hydros over Bios, I'd really be interested in seeing it.

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Postby Lord Brazen » Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:05 pm

Let's make a simple calculation.

A Hydroponic Farm = 50 PP & 2 BC

So if you need to use freighters to keep your population fed, you need 2 freighters and therefore 1 BC maintenance for them. The time you spend to build a freighter (50 PP) or a biospheres (60 PP) are similar to a Hydroponic farm. Therefore I don't understand, why Hydros should be weaker than Biospheres.
This is simplified alright...but it is not a real world scenario. Your calculations assume that we need to transport food to every planet we own. Let me simplify it for you.

Typically if your aquatic, your empire can support 100 pop (10-12 planets) with only about 3 freighters. This is because you don't require a freighter if a planet can generate enough food to support itself. Generally, a player would only colonize systems that have some wet worlds.
"Stars are holes in the sky from which the light of the Infinite shine through." - Confucius.

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siron
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Postby siron » Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:13 am

Apparently, Azmodan's thoughts were mainly based on the assumption that you need 5 freighters for 5 food. Since you need just one of them, he overemphasized the freighters issue.

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Postby Brel » Sat Sep 01, 2007 12:55 am

Now I have only just returned to Moo2 after a long layoff, but I thought that it, in fact, is 1 food/ freighter, but that when you purchased a "freighter fleet" it was a group of 5 freighters. Am I missing something?


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