PM Alpha Testing: Phase 2

[Cossid]

Thank you to all of those who helped in the earlier testing portion.

Tomorrow evening (Friday Sept 25th) I will be taking the currently active galaxies (only two currently remain) down and will be replacing them with galaxies intended to run their full course. Phase 2 will begin at 9:30 PM EDT and will, for now, continue the random 90-100 hab/met settings. The galaxies should be visible before then, which will allow you to apply PM settings earlier (I should have galaxies setup by at least 8:30 PM EDT).

Phase 2 will start with 3 galaxies:
Andromeda - Standard 4 week war @ 200x multiplier. Will run Fri Sept 25th 9:30 PM EDT through Thur Oct 22nd 11:59 PM EDT
Milky Way - Accelerated 2 week war @ 400x multiplier. Will run Fri Sept 25th 9:30 PM EDT through Thur Oct 8th 11:59 PM EDT
Gaea - Accelerated 1 week war @ 800x multiplier. Will run Fri Sept 25th 9:30 PM EDT through Thur Oct 1st 11:59 PM EDT

There will be at least one additional Gaea war before the completion of the Andromeda war. A second Milky Way war will be dependent on user input.

All this EDT talk reminds me I still need to make my code properly handle the actual event of the daylight savings time changes


While there is no attacking or even utilizing any of the goods one the planet, I still encourage users to actually build items to see how the timing feels (everything seems slower when there is no ship action, I know). And of course, please try to break anything you can, I want to make sure everything is applying the checks it should be.

Once again, report any bugs or thoughts to this thread or forum.

Thanks for your input, and enjoy!
--Willis aka Caleb

[Hellfire]

It's looking good Caleb. (I was just now able to get on and register) looks like I made it just in time for round 2 of the testing. It's awesome to see progress, I should be pretty active in the second round of testing (As active as possible with only PM =P)

[beaker]

Currently am not selling off my excess metal ore that i have, (ran lower than wanted on, had to rescue) and have 5 stocks on ore in some planets... mining is of course over cap now, but it's not dropping, just FYI

[Cossid]

It looks like it is functioning correctly to me.

If you hold a stock, it will sell everything over that stock. Once beyond your limit, it will sell the ore, but ore has 1/10th the value of refined metal.

From everything I could tell in SE, ore stocks were a left-over useless thing. There was only 1 thing you could do with ore: set your limit to 0 and sell excess. From the description of what Mining does, it is impossible to refine ore at a later date, only sell it at reduced value, which is returned in refined metal.

[beaker]

Probably true... just for some reason thought it would eventually mine it back off... not that it matters much it's only 5 but hey, I wanted to see what would happen

[Cossid]

I've read and re-read the MW3 manual for better clarification of this, but from everything I've seen, there should be no possible way to remove Ore other than setting your limit low and selling it off.

In MW3, you could barter with different commodities and even sell them to the imp from what I can tell, which is why you could stockpile them. In SE, they were was nearly no point in having a stockpile of it.

[Spectrum]

It refines it when it has space.

Miners put ore into ore stockpiles.

Refineries refine all it can from the stockpiles

If there is excess ore it builds up in the pile if not the pile = 0.

very simple eh?

[Cossid]

Actually, not quite that simple.

Mining is both "mining raw ore" and "refining ore" rolled into one.
Refining, however, is always limited to your capacity, and you can never run "Refining Only" so any time you have employees Refining Ore, they're also mining the same percentage of new raw ore.

This means anytime you mine more raw ore than you can refine at that given time, it can never be refined in the future because of the "two-in-one" nature of mining.

Hence, actually having a stockpile of ore is completely pointless. In MW3, I'm guessing it could have been manually hauled to the imps and sold perhaps? (This wasn't the case in SE).

[Spectrum]

Sorry your incorrect on this one (as far as the MW3 manual).

Miners Mine Ore and need workers they mine 30 units times the Metal rating of the planet.

Refineries run at 40 units of ore per year and need NO workers.

OreStock += Miners * 30 * MetalRating * time;

MaxOreProcessed = 40 * time;

OreStock -= MaxOreProcessed;

if (OreStock < 0) OreStock = 0;

Yes it is that simple.

[Spectrum]

From Page 33 -

Mining and Refining Metals
The mining and refining industries take metal ores from the ground and refine them into
pure metals. Since metals are the basis of the Imperial economy, this is literally making money.
Mining is a low-capital endeavor, and everyone assigned to mining grabs a pick and shovel and
goes to work. Refining is fully automated. The refining capacity is a measure of how many
miners' output can be refined on-planet by the equipment; no laborers are assigned to refining.
Excess ore which cannot be refined on-planet may be exported, albeit at a considerably lower price
than its full metal content

[Cossid]

Sorry your incorrect on this one (as far as the MW3 manual).

Miners Mine Ore and need workers they mine 30 units times the Metal rating of the planet.

Refineries run at 40 units of ore per year and need NO workers.

OreStock += Miners * 30 * MetalRating * time;

MaxOreProcessed = 40 * time;

OreStock -= MaxOreProcessed;

if (OreStock < 0) OreStock = 0;

Yes it is that simple.

Where are you getting 30 units from? Everything I've seen is 40% (see below)

A miner will produce 0.4 times the metal value of the planet in a year. The refinery will
refine 40 units of ore per year per refining unit installed, producing 40 units of metal. Thus, on a
50 metal planet, a Mining job with adequate refining capacity will produce 20 units of metal per
year, the same as a Service sector job. On high metal planets, Mining may be more advantageous
than Service sector. Of course, the standard of living is lower for miners.
As mentioned above, the ore stockpile setting does not affect refining. All available ore will
be refined, any left over will be sold up to the stockpile value.

Note that the Ore Stockpile is handled a bit differently from other commodity stockpiles: the
refinery will refine all the ore available, regardless of the stockpile setting, up to its full capacity.
The setting is used to regulate the sale of ore off-planet, but does not represent a desired minimum
stockpile of ore. This is to facilitate the kind of manipulation described above.

You must also keep in mind the MW3 manual gives relative examples. Stating 40 Units refined per year is an example @ 100% Metal, hence they go on to say 50% = 20. Having Refining being a constants would render having a mining capacity at all irrelevant.

From Page 33 -

Mining and Refining Metals
The mining and refining industries take metal ores from the ground and refine them into
pure metals. Since metals are the basis of the Imperial economy, this is literally making money.
Mining is a low-capital endeavor, and everyone assigned to mining grabs a pick and shovel and
goes to work. Refining is fully automated. The refining capacity is a measure of how many
miners' output can be refined on-planet by the equipment; no laborers are assigned to refining.
Excess ore which cannot be refined on-planet may be exported, albeit at a considerably lower price
than its full metal content

While it is true it is automated, stating no laborers are assigned is misleading. A planet with no employees in Mining would not refine ore stockpiles for example, but if it does, I just mis-understood this meaning... I understand 'automated' to mean part of the labor in actually mining, rather than 'machine-driven', and if there are no laborers, who's feeding the machines to make sure this is getting done?
I take it to mean 'you can't separate ore mining and refining'

[Spectrum]

Your thinking too much - its magic.

[Cossid]

I hate magic.
Everything I do is driven by logic

[Spectrum]

I gave you the formula that was tested in a live system back in the 90's.

It is your choice to use it.

Ref cap is totaly logical and is a fixed value - the miners just have a harder time getting the ore out.

[Cossid]

Code: Select all

OreStock += Miners * 30 * MetalRating * time;

MaxOreProcessed = 40 * time;

OreStock -= MaxOreProcessed;

if (OreStock < 0) OreStock = 0;

I've gone over this snipet of code a few times now, and I can't even begin to point out the many flaws I am seeing in your logic. Ranging from Free Metal from using Ore you don't have to Metal Stock (assumed) being increased incorrectly, to potential 100x overproduction depending on how you store MetalRating. And None of your code, at least in that point acknowledges your mining capacity, and if it does at any point later, it's already using potentially incorrect numbers.

I'd say you're relying TOO much on magic.