A 14.95 quality planet is still just 14 quality?

from Stardock Forums
Been messing with planet improvement starting abilities and am wondering if planet quality is being handled as whole numbers or not internal within the game. Starting with the +15% planet quality (expensive but interesting) seems that it should be helping out the 13 quality ones (13*.15 = 1.95) a bit more than just the one point (class 14) that it displays.

So obviously the quality isn't being rounded to the nearest whole number, so is it at least calculating it as a 14.95 class internally? Otherwise there's very little reason to take +15% quality over +10% quality as it'll always be the same for any planet in the 10-19 range.

Would love an answer if anyone happens to know!

~SDC~
507 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Sorry, math goof there. Meant to say that 10%/15% bonus would be the same for 10-13 quality planets. 14 is the cusp where 15% would give you a +2 quality bonus.

But this would also be applicable to techs like soil improvement and such. Does soil improvement (+10%) make a 19 class planet a 20.9 or just a 20?

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
The game rounds all numbers down ... no matter how close you are to the next higher number. The only real option that I know of is going into the English file, scrolling to the bottom of it, and changing the PQ percentages you get. And, yes, it doesn't make much sense optioning for 15% over 10% as it is currently set up.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, 15% does make sense in some cases, as it boosts the Soil Enrichment farther, since you have some leftover. For example, a Class 12 planet with a 10% bonus and soil enrichment results in a Class 14 planet, whereas with a 15% bonus and soil enrichment you reach Class 15 (exactly, in fact).

A Class 14 planet with a 15% bonus goes straight to Class 16 even without Soil Enrichment.

The biggest benefit of the 15% bonus is that it makes planets that the AI won't use close enough to productive that you won't have to put major amounts of work into it to bring it up to speed. Sure, having the Class 26 you just found turn into a 29, and then 32 as soon as you're done with soil enrichment is nice, but it's nicer scooping up all of these Class 12-14 planets that the AI has ignored for the most part. Makes for one heck of a culture push when you're grabbing planets in almost every sector.

Oh, and then there's what happens if an AI manages to take a planet from you. Can you say "Instant Angry Face"?
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
True and it's easy enough to plop down on a 13 which immediately becomes 14, buy soil enrichment instantly and wind up with a 15 class planet that no one would have touched.

But in these days of new-fangled computing devices, I'd think that we could have the hidden "actual" values calculated at least to one decimal place. No need to tell me that a planet is a 14.9 as I can always go figure out the precise math myself if I want and displaying it as 14 is just fine for convenience, but it seems that the game could take the actual figure into account when doing its calculations.



~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
BiffMan,

I think you might be missing part of Popup Target's point.
The game does calculate that your planet is REALLY a 14.95 planet even though the game just displays 14.
So even though your planet behaives just like a Class 14 Planet, the game remembers that it's really a class 14.95 planet and as soon as you build Soil Enrichment, , you get a class 16 planet (instead of a class 15 planet which is what you'd expect when you add Soil Enrichment to a regular class 15 planet).

So to reiterate, the game DOES remember that you have an extra .95 sitting around, it's just that the .95 doesn't do you any good until you get some other Planet Class improvement.

- Matt Lepinski :->

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Class 13 + Soil Enhancement is still an area where 15% beats 10%, getting a Class 16 instead of a Class 15. I don't know how much benefit there is of a 16 over a 15, it certainly isn't as much as between 14 and 15.

On the other hand, yes, it would be nice if a 14.95 planet were almost as good as a 15 planet, rather than a 14 plus some unused potential that will make upgrading easier and/or more effective.

Also, BiffMan, your math is a little off. a 10% bonus will add one to the PQ of any planet 10-19, true, but a 15% bonus adds two to the PQ starting at 14. Hmmm... Think I'll bang out a quick program to create an HTML page on my site to demonstrate this.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Oops, sorry, had forgotten that you had corrected yourself, my mistake.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
O.K., here's the HTML page. I only listed planets from 12 to 20, and only for the first two social projects, since the others come late enough in the game that they're not a make-or-break deal.

http://geekzilla.org/galciv/pq.html

Basically, except for the following exceptions, 15% always gets you one level of PQ over 10%:

An unimproved Class 12 becomes a Class 13 for both.
An unimproved Class 13 becomes a Class 14 for both.
A Class 15 with either SE or HI becomes a Class 18 for both.
A Class 17 with both SE and HI becomes a Class 22 for both.

The first two don't bother me at all, since if I'm settling a Class 12 or 13 I'll outright buy SE.


Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
mlepenski - That's precisely what I'm wondering, but it doesn't seem to be calculating with the percentages and according to Scott Jensen's post a couple above yours in this thread, the game rounds down (truncates) all decimals. I'd just like to hear back from someone on the design team how the game handles it and whether that was by design for play-balance reasons that escape me.



~SDC~