KOTEC Posted February 7, 2004 Report Share Posted February 7, 2004 I have a colony that has the following yields and number of mines (in the areas of resource I am interested in); Resource Iron Yield=87 Mines=0 Gaseous Elements Yield=186 Mines=399 Crystals Yield=350 Mines=1269 Light Metals Yield=75 Mines=0 Precious Metals Yield=74 Mines=0 If I have 100 pop with con mat to place there each turn , how do I work out what combination of mines to build to maximise production (to give the greatest number of any resources each turn). An answer I can use in a spreadsheet would be much appreciated! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WKE235 Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 The maximum amount of mines you want on any resource is 5 times the Yield (and if 5 x Yield ends in 0, add 5 more). You can't get any more of that resource out of the ground than that. As a matter of fact, if you go past that point .. what you mine actually starts to go down. Some folks will set their mines to 5 * (Yield - 20) (round up to end in 5) or some like formla. Those last 100 mines you add add less and less to your overall output. Past the point above, it is more economical for you to stripmine and use Industrial Complexes to create the resource (1 stripmine + 4 IC at game start = 100 of a resource .. and each mine you add past 5 * (yield - 20) gives you less than 20 resources back. Hence 5 mines past that point give back less than the 100 you could get from stripmine and IC. Note: This does change over the course of the game. Better stripmines, better IC, maybe even better mines / refineries (I have yet to see them myself) do come along. So whatever you do now may not be the best to do in the future. In your case: ............yield..........mines.............ore...........Mine less 20..........Ore Iron..........87........... 435........... 19140...............335...............18090 Gas.......186............935............86955...............835...............86 005 Crystal..350..........1755.........307125.............1655............306175 Light........75 ...........375............14250...............275...............13200 Prec ........14..............75................525.................0................. .......0 The formula is ORE = MINES * ROUND((YIELD - MINES / 10),0) where you round up the (Yield - Mines / 10) before doing the overall calc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pandaemonium Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Sorry, I can't help with spreadsheet. The increment for an increase of 10 mines is equal to 10 * ((current yield) - 1) - (current # of mines). For your particular case, the first step is to transfer Gas Refineries to Crystal Mines to max out your mines at 1,655. The next 8 turns would all go to building Gas Refineries, with the next turn building the last 22 Gas Refineries and 75 Iron Mines (97 total, for convenience of illustration). The next 2 turns' builds are 40 Iron and 60 Light Metals; and 20 Iron, 15 Light Metals and 65 Precious Metals. After that, you build 10 mines each Prec. Metals, Iron, Lt. Metals cyclically until you reach 275 Prec. Metals, 335 Iron, and 275 Lt. Metals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laserwolf Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Actually, to MAXIMIZE colony production EFFICIENCY, you should follow the column WKE titled as "Mine less 20" Reorganize your existing workforce to be working mines in that proportion and when you drop new colonists, build new mines in that proportion. In this way you will maximize the resource produced PER POP UNIT, which is the best efficiency metric. So redistributing your existing workforce to 11% Iron (183 mines), 27% Gas (450 mines) , 53% Crystal (882 mines), 9% Light Metal (150 mines) drop new mines in the above proportion will maximize efficiency. You are about halfway there already. If it is within your ability, start a new colony because the productivity curve really begins to change about now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KOTEC Posted February 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Thanks for your thoughts chaps, Laserwolf - you are dead right about the key to efficiency being per Pop unit. Having modelled your suggestion, Laserwolf, resources generated come to 315.9K compared to the 341.4K currently generated - it is still more efficient to invest in Crystals and Gaseous Elements than Light Metals and Iron at the moment. My next Iron mine would generate 80 resources compared to 110 from the next Gas Refinery or 100 from the next Crystal Refinery. Though in the end I would get to the distribution recommended by yourself and WKE235. I am just greedy in the short term. I have set up a spreadsheet and worked out the most efficient build (on return per pop) as around 75 Gas and 25 Crystal. Did this by having 100 rows with the returns each combination of the two mines generated (i.e. 1 Gas, 99 Crystal, next 2 Gas, 98 Crystal and so on). But get to 3 or 4 types of resource and I would be out of rows with this method. I am thinking the only way to solve this is with a macro. Yuk. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laserwolf Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 That's why I prefaced that description with max efficency rather than max output. When a specific resource is needed by the empire, max output of the critical resource is the rate limiting step. During these conditions, one must look at the entire empire's capacity, rather than a specific colony for most desirable output. To solve your two- variable equation, it would be easier to plot both curves on the same chart and look for either the inflection points or the intersection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octus Imperium Posted February 9, 2004 Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 That's why I prefaced that description with max efficency rather than max output. When a specific resource is needed by the empire, max output of the critical resource is the rate limiting step. During these conditions, one must look at the entire empire's capacity, rather than a specific colony for most desirable output. To solve your two- variable equation, it would be easier to plot both curves on the same chart and look for either the inflection points or the intersection. Hmmmm... What was that tool I was exposed to in B-school? Linear Programming? The way airlines maximize profits and schedule pilots/attendants/planes to maximize certain variables? (Based on the airlines results, profit is not one of the variables they maximize!) Perhaps learning how to mix dog food efficiently is a reasonable parallel to colony mining efficiency planning. Doesn't Excel have a primitive LP capability? I better check it out. Octus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laserwolf Posted February 9, 2004 Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 Yes it does, they call it Solver or something. They relegated it to the VB section as I recall. It should do you well. Although mixing dog food is probably easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobknob Posted February 11, 2004 Report Share Posted February 11, 2004 I have a spreadsheet that does this for you. If you want it drop me a line. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octagon999 Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Another approach is just to leave ALL the mines in place up to the max, and if your stripmines and industries become more efficient, then great, just get that much more stuff. The nice thing about mines is that they are fire and forget, production-wise. I don't ever intend to dismantle any mines. I'm sure some economists will disagree, and they are probably right. I'm just not going to listen. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KOTEC Posted February 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2004 Decided to avoid Solver – couldn’t find my copy of Office to install it. I have written a spreadsheet and a simple macro that calculates the best use of population in mines on a colony to generate the most resources. It’s crude but seems to get there. If you would like me to email you the file drop me a note to jeremywasden@DELETETHISblueyonder.co.uk For those nervous about Macro contents happy to send the macro line list as a .txt All the files are unprotected so feel free to look over and play (and improve!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.