The Disappearing Colony Ship

[Prospective]

WKE,

 

Thanks for the post. One thing about the ANZ for ICE. The sixth sentence (or thereabouts) states: "Sometimes a new material is formed, while other times a perfectly good vein of precious metals or other yield is ruined."

 

Doesn't this mean that sometimes a resource with a yield of zero will suddenly sprout forth? And something that is there might turn to zero? Or am I misunderstanding the text of the ANZ?

 

If the ANZ is true, then really what limits are there? I mean, if each time you drop a certain amount of ICE, you get a random chance of a resource sprouting up (or disappearing), then couldn't you just keep deploying ICE until you get a result that you want? Then, start concentrating on creating a fleet of DSC's and poof, you are gold... The only apparent penalty would be the loss of the planet in case of a catastrophic event...

 

And really if you think of it, wouldn't this be an ideal tactic for new players? Start a new setup, work your way to ICE and as soon as you get it, build and drop a whole bunch.... if you get bad results, drop the position and start over... Granted it will take a while to get to ICE, but with SRP's I'm guessing it won't take that long...

[Lord Deependra]

So, to summarise, the Drakan Republic's colony ship was not built this turn because the workers couldn't get to the shipyard because of a massive traffic jam caused by Deep Core Surveyors that were looking for ICE for the emperor's drink. Or have I misunderstood?

[WKE235]

WKE,

 

Thanks for the post.  One thing about the ANZ for ICE.  The sixth sentence (or thereabouts) states:  "Sometimes a new material is formed, while other times a perfectly good vein of precious metals or other yield is ruined."

 

Doesn't this mean that sometimes a resource with a yield of zero will suddenly sprout forth?  And something that is there might turn to zero?  Or am I misunderstanding the text of the ANZ?

 

If the ANZ is true, then really what limits are there?  I mean, if each time you drop a certain amount of ICE, you get a random chance of a resource sprouting up (or disappearing), then couldn't you just keep deploying ICE until you get a result that you want?  Then, start concentrating on creating a fleet of DSC's and poof, you are gold...  The only apparent penalty would be the loss of the planet in case of a catastrophic event...

 

And really if you think of it, wouldn't this be an ideal tactic for new players?  Start a new setup, work your way to ICE and as soon as you get it, build and drop a whole bunch.... if you get bad results, drop the position and start over...  Granted it will take a while to get to ICE, but with SRP's I'm guessing it won't take that long...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yep. You could use saved SRP to get the items required for ICE-1, take a big gamble, and it if works .... your set. If it fails, drop the world and try, try again. Of course this would take about 10 turns to accomplish, depending on how you assign the other research slots. And playing for up to 10 turns to try and fail seems not worth it.

 

As for creating new resources, the previous messages from Pete and Russ insist resources will not be created. The "Sometimes a new material is formed" merely refers to getting an increased yield .. that the ICE transmutted useless ground and dirt into some new usable (already in existance) resource.

 

The "perfectly good vein of precious metals or other yield is ruined" means you can get a decrease in a resource level. Each ton of ICE has a chance to increase or decrese a yield (with the chances for increases being higher). So you could ICE out a resource all the way to 0 yield and have it disappear from the planet for good.

 

Note: ICE-2 and ICE-3 do exist .. simply increase the required techs by one level for each. The big difference (besides being Fair and Adequate for Special Weapons use) is "ICE-2 is functionally identical to ICE-1 but seems to have a slightly smaller chance of creating a catastrophic devastating chain reaction on the planet in question". IE, better ICE = Lower chances of the planet going *BOOM*, though perhaps not by much. Also, it may (just may, hard to tell) produce slightly better increases (or maybe have a better chance to increase).

[WKE235]

So, to summarise, the Drakan Republic's colony ship was not built this turn because the workers couldn't get to the shipyard because of a massive traffic jam caused by Deep Core Surveyors that were looking for ICE for the emperor's drink.  Or have I misunderstood? 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Just look at the mess your yard workers started. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[Laserwolf]

Yep WKE, this is completely unacceptable. The game has been ruined. You should just quit right now.

[Paradigm]

Good point WKE.

 

Some sort of reassurance from the GM's that you are totally wrong would be nice to see here. Anything that can have a dramatic effect on production should be very closely evaluated and monitored by the GM's. That someone apparently has > 10,000 Hydro means to me that the same is potentially possible with Iron, Lumber, etc. And as someone pointed out, 10,000 potential yields 250,000,000 production of that resource (with 50,000 mines which are trivial to convert/build). 20,000 potential = 1 Billion. While some homeworlds are already producing those numbers from Raw due to heavy investment in advanced industries, that is still a game killer IMO since achieving the "ICE/DCS effect" is apparently mostly based on luck, not investment. Do you want to play a game for 4 years just to have your success or failure come down to one roll of the dice?

 

Those that have already gambled and "won" will probably belittle the problem.

 

Lets be serious.  Someone takes a gamble with ICE and gets a huge increase in Iron with no serious consequences, and now has Iron in the 10,000 range.  Even if they build no more iron mines, their total Iron output will have increased by 20 to 30 times their previous level.  Being able to produce 25,000,000 Iron per turn with no need for Raw use frees up huge amounts of industrial capacity for use on other elements.  An alliance cannot compete with that level of production.

 

Am I the only one here who feels like a major random chance item has been tossed into what was a game of strategy and planning (with a little random stuff here and there for excitement)?  Basically we all know now that some people have gambled big on ICE, and won really big.  They have advantages over all of us that now requires we take the same gamble to have a reasonable chance to compete.  And if we gamble and fail (or the planet implodes), it's tough luck, care to try another empire.  Four+ years of play to get to the point that you have to risk it all on a couple of production orders.  Not cool at all.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[rotor911]

Uses 250,000 Advanced Construction Materials to construct

Extraordinary! I just wasted my last SRPs on "nice to have for blowing things" stuff. I thought vaguely of rather going on the "advanced materials" path but decided that it was nor fun nor vital. At least I can commit seppuku in style with those shiny xray lasers.

Thanks for the info btw, WKE.

[RTGPete]

There seems to be a misconception that using ICE is based entirely on luck, requires no significant research or production requirements, and can somehow generate yield numbers like 10,000 over night without much of any investment or intelligent thought whatsoever. Some of the numbers being thrown around in this thread (10,000 Iron by pure luck, for instance) are entirely fabricated -- you might consider gaining some experience with how ICE actually works before jumping to wild conclusions.

 

If you wanted to get a 10,000 Iron yield out of ICE, it would take a very serious investment in the stuff. The "random" factor in ICE is not what it can add, but what it can take away. The addition is very closely tied to the amount of it that you use. The risk is that every time you use it, at least one resource yield can take a potentially significant hit and the entire world can take a devastating catastrophic hit. One can use it on a homeworld or offworld, depending on your risk assessment and how rapidly you want to ramp up. The more times you use ICE, the more chances you have of the dreaded catastrophic event. Using a lot at once minimizes this chance (potentially making it possible to use on a homeworld, if you want to throw the Catastrophic Event Dice <grin>), but increases the individual yield hit, which could be a problem early on. Using more ICE at once is slightly less efficient than using smaller amounts over time, but the big catastrophic event is generally what you're trying to avoid....so using a lot of probably recommended for that reason.

 

ICE is a way for small guys to catch up to more powerful empires in the resource yield end of the game. Slow, steady growth from Deep Core Surveyors can take much longer, and has a bootstrapping delay because of their initial high cost. Eventually, DCS's can really crank up yields, but it does take a while. ICE, if built in quantity, can suddenly generate a lot of yield, but has a catastrophic event issue and has a very high initial cost (that is lost forever as ICE is used up when it operates). It's probably also better to use a very large amount of ICE all at once rather than using small amounts over time, making the production effort involved in ICE totally useless for a while, until the ICE itself is finally produced and used. 500 or 5,000 ICE is not a large amount by any stretch of the imagination.

 

There are also other methods of increasing resource production that I won't reveal because they are clearly not common knowledge or they would have been already been brought up in this thread. I will say that at least one of them involves colonization in a very big way.

 

For general colonization, we have a few ideas that we've been bouncing around for a while, and might introduce them to encourage colonization, as that can be a fun part of the game.

 

Finally, total population is a very real issue even for yield-rich empires. Alliances can come up with WAY more population than individual empires, even very powerful individual empires, and can use that advantage in a number of clever ways. In one of the messages in this thread someone said that producing 50,000 Mines was trivial to produce. Production of 250 million Iron would make such construction a very worthwhile project, to be sure, but 50,000 population is far from trivial. Sure, dismantling regular Industrial Complexes would free up that population, but there are only so many 50,000's to do that with before you run out.

 

Combining research efforts and cross-producing items for one another is another area where alliances hold a huge and even potentially decisive edge that simply cannot be matched by any amount of production advantage.

 

It's not so much about "rolling the dice", because in the end luck is washed out by intelligent play, but more about deciding when to work alone and when to work together. Even small alliances of a few players hold a lot of cards

[WKE235]

Some of the numbers being thrown around in this thread (10,000 Iron by pure luck, for instance) are entirely fabricated

 

The Keeper of the Galaxy is saying, quite clearly, that all of those players going around claiming huge resource increases from dropping large amounts of ICE are liars. Either that or the Keeper does not know what is really going on with player turns.

[Lord Deependra]

Some of the numbers being thrown around in this thread (10,000 Iron by pure luck, for instance) are entirely fabricated

 

The Keeper of the Galaxy is saying, quite clearly, that all of those players going around claiming huge resource increases from dropping large amounts of ICE are liars. Either that or the Keeper does not know what is really going on with player turns.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't think that's quite what Pete said. He said the 10,000 iron was a made up example from this thread (which it was), implying that no-one has gained that much iron from ICE. That's not to say they don't have large numbers of something else (eg Hydro) or that they couldn't get 10000 iron if they spent a huge amount of resources building up a stock of ICE and the random number generator decided not to destroy the planet and then decided to give an increase (rather than a decrease) to an existing resource and then picked iron.

 

As I understand it, the balancing factor is the expense to get a signigficant change (you need X ICE for each point of resource change) and the chance that your planet could be wiped out or that another resource could be decreased instead. Even if you gain a benefit, it might not be in a useful resouce - 10,000 coal anyone?

[Prospective]

Yep, I do not think anyone has claimed any major improvements after using ICE (except for EEOC with his Hydro rising to 19000+ after expending 20k ICE). I believe the 10,000 Iron was use as an example, sort of a "what if" it happened, what ramifications would there be.

 

To me, it sounds like if you plan to try ICE, don't gamble with using it multiple times in small quantities. Each time you use it, you risk a catastrophic event happening. To prevent that, decide ahead of time if you REALLY want to take the risk, then stockpile rare elements and create ICE all at one point.

 

Also, do not expect to gain in Iron. It sounds like there is a chance of ANY resource on your planet increasing or decreasing, but you know for sure that you will not see any increase in non-existant stuff. SO, it's kind of like hitting the lotto... if you have a planet with 15 different resources, you might get one raised high if you use alot of ICE, but it COULD be in Coal or Fertilizer.... Can anyone say 20,000 potential in Fertilizer? A literal Planet of Poop...

 

That being said, I still think I will experiment on planets that are NOT colonized in my home system. If I trash them, o well. If I create a "Planet of Iron" then it would be worth it all...

 

I wonder if someone researched down the ICE line plus the MDD line, would it be possible to create an "ICE-Bomb"? Drop it and induce a major catastrophe on the world, basically destroy all resources... that would be an interesting tactic...

[ali-t-akua]

Yep, I do not think anyone has claimed any major improvements after using ICE (except for EEOC with his Hydro rising to 19000+ after expending 20k ICE).  I believe the 10,000 Iron was use as an example, sort of a "what if" it happened, what ramifications would there be.

 

To me, it sounds like if you plan to try ICE, don't gamble with using it multiple times in small quantities.  Each time you use it, you risk a catastrophic event happening.  To prevent that, decide ahead of time if you REALLY want to take the risk, then stockpile rare elements and create ICE all at one point.

 

Also, do not expect to gain in Iron.  It sounds like there is a chance of ANY resource on your planet increasing or decreasing, but you know for sure that you will not see any increase in non-existant stuff.  SO, it's kind of like hitting the lotto... if you have a planet with 15 different resources, you might get one raised high if you use alot of ICE, but it COULD be in Coal or Fertilizer....  Can anyone say 20,000 potential in Fertilizer?  A literal Planet of Poop...

 

That being said, I still think I will experiment on planets that are NOT colonized in my home system.  If I trash them, o well.  If I create a "Planet of Iron" then it would be worth it all...

 

I wonder if someone researched down the ICE line plus the MDD line, would it be possible to create an "ICE-Bomb"?  Drop it and induce a major catastrophe on the world, basically destroy all resources... that would be an interesting tactic...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I believe that the ANZ states that ICE cannot be transported through a WP as stated below

 

Your scientists have no idea what might happen if ICE-1 is carried through a

Warp Point. There may well be military uses, but your scientists fear what might happen if they experiment too much.

[Breoghan]

OK - time for a bit of ignorance display again...

 

I know SNROTE is a game replete with acronyms, and there are bound to be plenty that I have yet to meet - but would someone please tell me what the "ICE" stands for? It would make this whole thread just a little bit easier to understand.

 

[Prospective]

Breoghan,

 

ICE stands for Instant Coalescing Embrace... look further up in this very thread and you will see the ANZ for ICE-1. I think WKE posted it.

 

Ali-T,

 

The section you quoted states that no one knows what happens if you go thru a WP with ICE... it does not say that you CAN'T do it. I think this needs to be explored, to see what happens. Just load a small amount and do the warp. I'm gonna try it on a small "expendable" ship in case it gets destroyed. If anyone out there has tried to transport ICE through a WP and is willing to talk about the results, it would be appreciated if you would "share it with the class" here.

 

What I meant was that I wonder if there are any MDD's that have ICE as a pre-requisite... It sounds like there is a small chance of destroying a planet with the stuff. Maybe by combining ICE research with MDD research will provide a device that will increase the chances of a "catastrophe" on the target world. That would be a powerful MDD. Or perhaps ICE research plus MDD research will create a device that will scramble the target planet's resources... it would be waging economic war with the target.

[Breoghan]

Thanks - that must have been the only posting that I DIDN'T read on this thread!