Re: More NRD: Las Planchas

>The Aesop

YAV:

The Tonka Beans
PRT:  Claim Adjuster
0 pts. left over

LRT's:  TT, IS, NRSE, CE, NAS, LSP

Grav     0.62 g to 1.76 g
Temp     -60 C to 76 C
Rad     35 mR to 69 mR

[the hab ranges all match, 30 clicks from the right end]

13% growth rate

[1 in 20 to start (really, with CA terraforming and Total Terraforming LRT, 1
in 7 to start), a few more percentage points than 88.4736% planets habitable by
endgame, I think around 94% as an offhand guess -- the two first hab categories
are on a bell-shaped distribution curve and the third is approximately linear,
so the 4 clicks on the extreme left hand side where a planet would have to have
a hab rating to rule out colonization by the claim adjuster Tonka Beans, that
is, 0 to 4 mR, -200 C to -180 C, and 0.12 g to 0.145 g, are so rarely found as
to put the figure around 1 in 16 planets that are never colonizable to green by
the Tonka Beans, or so I guess, offhandlike, you know how it goes; with
underlying terraforming a red planet eventually becomes green so tetchnikali
all planets are colonizable by any Claim Adjuster PRT design.]

1 resource generated per 1000 colonists

Factories     15/6/25
Factories cost 1kt less of Germanium to build box checked
[or exactly 3kt of Germ, as opposed to 4kt of Germ with this box unchecked]

Mines     5/15/5

Energy expensive [frillery]
Weapons normal [regular]
Propulsion cheap [cheap]
Construction cheap
Electronics expensive [frillery]
Biotechnology cheap
Starting tech = 1-1-2-2-0-6

All 'Costs 75% extra' research fields start at Tech 3 box unchecked

Notes:  This design and the Aesop are similar in that they are "mineless"
designs, or in the newsgroup vernacular, they are -m designs.  I don't think
this area of game participant design has really been explored, but I find the
-m designs very attractive because of all the extra rw points *not* placed into
mine efficiency.  

The baseline mines with a rating of 5/15/5 are actually productive enough and
not too much different in the utilization as say a mine efficiency of 10/5/10,
which is the default setting in the rw.  The founding idea of any -m design is,
with the low hab ranges The Aesop and The Tonka Beans start with, they will
have few colony planets for the first 50 game years and so any rw points sunk
into mine efficiency are so much the less utilized.  Thus, remote mining
becomes that much more important and a combination of effect for *not* choosing
OBRM or even choosing ARM LRT's is attained.  Immediately the concern is
researching to Elec 4 and Const 7 for the Robo-Maxi-Miner mining robot, using
only the minerals at start to launch the Tonka Bean empire.  That is, rapid
compounding of factories leaving about 150 or so kt of Germ for ship building,
then with the home planet at about 400 or 500 resources production per year,
Elec 4 from 0 and Const 7 from 2 are reachable in a handful of years, whereupon
all mineral production for a long while is from mining robots to the home
planet.

That is, the -m design constraints lead the designer to place Elec and Const as
inexpensive to research as possible, as all mineral production in the empire
and thus all empire gains are dependent on the attainment of mining robots.  As
long as either one of these are cheaper than expensive, the design leads the
designer to make many of the other fields "line up" with Const and Elec, and so
inexpensive tech research costs is noticeable in the Tonka Bean and Aesop
designs.

Well, it looks like rapid resource production and compounding and cheap tech
costs plus the potential for mucho mineral production [the mining robots are
more efficient than most planetary mines, depending on mine efficiency] at a
very early year [2430] make for early early aggression, much as has been
discussed on the newsgroup under the "-f" design articles, where colonist
resource production is set at 1 per 1000 or better, even 1 per 700.

This design is a gamekiller for victory, although the Aesop might fare better
with gateable cargo and an extra colony planet to start as an Interstellar
Traveller PRT.  Both should do well if the players at large *aren't* that
skilled in diplomacy and coordinated "pile up on Genius" tactics _very early_
in the game.

One more tidbit on 5/15/5 mine efficiency settings -- don't forget to build
them!  Just because they are inefficient as hell doesn't mean they can't be
built and used at the right time in the right place; one only needs to consider
that they are half as efficient as 10/15/5 mines and so build twice as many. 
That's what the early compounding factory settings are for, for early and
abundant resources with which to build those cost 15 to build shitty mines
which produce enough minerals to easily build Star Docks and orbital gates. 
Star Docks in far away places are great for colonizing even farther away,
although a stargate on an Orbital Fort does almost as well if you can stand
building your colony ships at home [which you can't if you are thirsty for
minerals early, as in these -m designs].

Enjoy!


Mark Tiangco '/~'