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WhiteMage · February 7th, 2014, 13:10

Does anyone know exactly how infusion of reserve to planet works?
My observations show this:
1. Any amount can be infused into any planet from the empire's reserve. (subject to discrete allocation)
2. Planet can up to double its production for the upcoming turn due to the infusion.
3. The amount that was infused into a planet, but not applied to increase production is carried to the next turn and applied automatically to increase production again. This is iterative and can take any number of turns without loss.
4. There is an observed 0%-13.2% bonus (probably even more). This is applied in the very last turn the planet benefits from the infusion, it benefits more than what was infused from the reserve. Even if infusion less than doubles the production, the next turn the planet gets the bonus.

The larger the infusion, the higher the bonus percentage. What is the formula to determine the bonus?

I tested Sakkra with 100% spending on ship and 0% on everything else, "none" Eco spending and maxed out in everything on normal planet Sssla, except bases. Planetology is level 68.

Catwalk · February 7th, 2014, 14:13

I haven't observed any bonus. Can you provide an example of it, with all the numbers?

Zygot · February 7th, 2014, 18:49

Interesting. I've not seen this bonus either, but then again I haven't gone looking for it. Two thoughts:

1) In your test, are you sure the planet's economy is what you expect? What do the planet's production numbers show, just above the shipbuilding slider, for gross and net production, over all the turns? Are all the potential economic modifiers, like ship/base maintenance, spying/security costs, and trade income/empire production non-varying? What I'm getting at is it's difficult to isolate a planet's economy from the rest of your activities over time, and thus production can vary over time even if things seem to be on autopilot.

2) A little-known feature is that when contributing reserve income to a planet, if you press "=" it will automatically allocate what's needed to double production this turn, within the rounding limits of the slider bar.

WhiteMage

Test Case:
MOO 1.40m
Normal planet Sssla
Max pop = 270
Current pop = 270
Max factory = 1890
Current factory = 1890
Current production in Sssla with applying upkeeps = 2240
Current production in Sssla without applying upkeeps = 2575 (number shown in parentheses)
Current empire's total production shown as "Planets" = 61429

Example 1:
Infuse 0 from reserve to Sssla. (do nothing)
"Updated" current production in Sssla with applying upkeeps = 2240
"Updated" current production in Sssla without applying upkeeps = 2575
"Updated" empire's total production = 61429

Next turn's production in Sssla with applying upkeeps=2240
Next turn's production in Sssla without applying upkeeps = 2575
Bonus=N/A, since there was no infusion
Next turn's empire's total production = 64144 (due to growth on other planets)

Example 2:
Infuse 212 from reserve to Sssla.
"Updated" current production in Sssla with applying upkeeps = 2424
"Updated" current production in Sssla without applying upkeeps = 2787
"Updated" empire's total production = 61641

Next turn's production in Sssla with applying upkeeps=2240
Next turn's production in Sssla without applying upkeeps=2575
Bonus = 0, which is 0%. 212 was applied. 212 was earned in Sssla.
Next turn's empire's total production = 64144

Example 3:
Infuse 2545 from reserve to Sssla.
"Updated" current production in Sssla with applying upkeeps = 4505
"Updated" current production in Sssla without applying upkeeps = 5120
"Updated" empire's total production = 63974

Next turn's production in Sssla with applying upkeeps = 2495
Next turn's production in Sssla without applying upkeeps = 2868
Bonus = 293, which is 11.5%. 2545 was infused. 2838 was earned in Sssla in 2 turns.
Next turn's empire's total production = 64462

Then I looked at increase in production in Sssla with applying upkeeps. In Example 3, it is 4505+2495-2*2240=2520, which is close to the infused 2545. Here is the catch: when I infused 2545 into Sssla, all other planets significantly increased their current production with applying upkeeps. Together, far more than 2545-2520=25.

To make matters worse, I found additional bugs, which I will report in the Master of Orion 1 unofficial patch now.

I did many additional tests, which I do not report here.

See attached save game to replicate my observation.

Can someone please try to reproduce it with a different game to confirm that it is not game, not computer, and not installation specific?

RefSteel · February 8th, 2014, 02:55

Well spotted! I just tested it out, and it also exists in the unmodified 1.3 game ... and believe it or not, it might even be intentional!

I tried to playtest this in such a way as to minimize or eliminate all possible extraneous factors and get a repeatable result. In the course of doing so, I ... found a different (very, very small) bug.

Methodology in excruciating detail:

Conclusion: It turns out that so long as you put ANY production into shipbuilding at a planet, you get 1 bonus BC per year put into your ships there. Weird, but mostly not importat. (1BC is often lost to rounding at any given planet anyway.) Back to the reserves bugcheck.

Excruciatingly detailed methodology for the control case:

So with 0 maintenance costs, given the minor bug described above, production appears to behave normally. Now we introduce maintenance.

Still more excruciatingly detailed methodology:

Eureka! I don't mean I duplicated the bug you described; I was expecting that. I mean I think I figured out why it's doing what it does!

The game seems to want the maintenance/taxation/spying costs to be calculated independent of reserve spending so that reserves will be able to double a planet's real (post-maintenance) production without affecting or being affected by maintenance at all. But this doesn't happen! Instead, reserves are added to the planets base (pre-maintenance) production numbers, and maintenance is recalculated on the basis of the new (higher) production and applied accordingly.

Thus the reserves, for which you already paid double specifically so that you could use funds from (elsewhere in or) all of the empire to support a single colony of your choice, are in part being spent instead for empire-wide maintenance, taxes, and/or spying. The game recognizes this is happening though, and attempts to correct it in a circuitous manner: Reserve spending "lost" to maintenance (or other empire-wide stuff) is added to the planet again on the following turn as though it were coming from the reserve! Of course, before it can do that, it has to recalculate how much was "lost" to maintenance, which introduces yet more rounding errors and the like.

If this analysis is correct (and it might not be) it almost has to be intentional ... but it'll require further testing. Right now, it's mostly just a guess based on the (rough) similarities between numbers and the odd behavior of the "=" key for different levels of maintenance/taxes/etc. I'll see if I can find time for some further tests....

Catwalk · February 8th, 2014, 10:40

Looks interesting RefSteel, and I have no idea what you just said smile

Can you dumb down the conclusion for us? Do you get extra BC from this?

WhiteMage

(February 8th, 2014, 02:55)RefSteel Wrote: In the course of doing so, I ... found a different (very, very small) bug.

I don't see how this is related to my question. I recommend you start a new thread for this observation and discussion or add to Master of Orion 1 unofficial patch thread if you consider it a bug and not a feature. Yet, similar observation: when I put items on a ship during design, the costs of the weapons are shown as integers and inaccurate. I suspect that the ships' final costs are also displayed inaccurately. This may be one more reason why the prediction on number of turns to finish ship (and number of ships) is incorrect. There are many kinds of roundings, but not clear to me exactly how it is done. This also affects base construction, spying, ship/base maintenance, security, etc. The effects of rounding are quite severe and I can't nail down the many formulas experimentally.

RefSteel

(February 8th, 2014, 10:40)Catwalk Wrote: Looks interesting RefSteel, and I have no idea what you just said Can you dumb down the conclusion for us? Do you get extra BC from this?

I apologize for being confusing; I think the problem is that I still don't really understand it myself. Most of my what I wrote specifically about WhiteMage's bug was really speculation, so let me make clear what I'm sure of:

- Yes, the effect WhiteMage noticed is repeatable, not only in other games, other computers, and other installations of kyrub's patch, but also in the unpatched 1.3 game.

- It appears to happen only when net maintenance (including taxes, trade agreements etc.) is greater than 0. In other words, if a planet's production is listed (from the command screen) as (say) "66 (83)" as opposed to "83 (83)" or "90 (83)"

- In those circumstances, if you transfer enough reserve BC to the planet (from the Planets screen) you will get "bonus" (or "overflow") BC added to the same planet on the following turn - even though "enough" is in this case less than the planet's pre- or post-maintenace production. Thus, in one of my tests, transferring 69BC of reserves to a "66 (83)" planet not only (correctly) boosted its production on that turn, it also had an effect on the following turn equivalent to transferring 6BC of reserves to the planet on that (following) turn.

- More testing might determine: 1) What the minimum cut-off is for "enough" reserve BC to trigger this effect (further experimentation already suggests it's related to the planet's production numbers; there's no absolute minimum). 2) The amount of the bonus (presumably also related to something about the planet's production numbers and the amount of reserve transferred ... but I don't know how it's related).

My speculation above that this "bug" might be an intentional design decision might very well be wrong. Thinking about it further, it may be a bug related to the implementation of reserve spending carry-over (the way the excess carries over to the next turn when you transfer more reserves to a planet than it can "use" on the same turn). Further experimentation (or code checking by someone like kyrub who knows how) would be needed to figure this out for sure.

I hope I didn't just confuse things even more!

Catwalk

So let's say I have a 100(200) planet, which also happens to be my only planet. I boost it with 200, making it 300(400) for a turn. What happens next turn? I guess I can test that for myself, though smile

It looks very much like a bug either way, if this is something you can take advantage of.

EDIT: Did my own quick test. This may not be completely accurate, but the trend is very clear.

1) My planet started at 214(306)
2) Adding at least 306 credits boosts my planet to 520(612) as expected
3) Adding 313 credits => 520(612) + 265(359) = +359 BC for 313 BC invested = bonus of 46, or 14.7%
4) Adding 608 credits => 520(612) + 520(612) + 299(394) = +700 BC for 608 BC invested = bonus of 92, or 15.1%
5) Adding 424 credits => 520(612) + 376(470) = +470 BC for 424 BC invested = bonus of 46, or 10.8%

RefSteel · February 10th, 2014, 02:47

Definitely buggy then, but ... wait a minute, Catwalk, that can't be a coincidence, can it? Let's play a numbers game:

Original gross production = 306
Original net production = 214
Original production lost to maintenance etc. = 306 - 214 = 92
Boosted gross = 612
Boosted net = 520
Boosted production lost to maintenance etc. = 612 - 520 = 92
(This is expected since maintenance costs should be static as long as taxes and spying don't get involved.)
"Bonus" production for adding 608BC = ... 92!
"Bonus" production for adding 313BC OR 424BC = 46 = ... 92/2!

This is suggestive, but doesn't address all cases obviously, and still needs more testing. The examples upthread aren't too helpful because mine involves taxation (costs that increase with reserve spending) and WhiteMage's involve an enormous, growing empire, such that maintenance costs end up spread around in unpredictable ways. (Either or both may be useful for understanding more complex cases once we figure out the simple ones though....)

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