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Some questions about the maths of resources generation
Hi all, first post in this forum. I like this game! I used to like playing city building games, and started playing incremental games these days (due to lack of long gaming sessions and mostly play on mobile). I saw My Colony mentioned in an old thread on reddit , and I tried it on Android. It's not really an incremental game by definition, but I like it nonetheless.
One thing I love about incremental game is working out the maths behind all the resource production and find the most efficient way to progress.
So, on my quest to work on the maths in this game, I have several questions:
1. Is it possible to find out the actual tick/second? In the my-colony.com/reference it mentions that the game should be approx 20-25ticks/second, but I found my game (large map, 20k colonists, Pixel2XL) is closer to 13ticks/second. I'm not complaining about the slowness - I just wonder if there is a quick way to find out the tick/second as it heavily affect all the calculations involved.
2. In Statistics, there is a handy summary of the resources generation/consumption. What is the time frame for that? It's definitely longer than a minute. Also, the figures on the overview (i.e. the page with all the resources listed) is different from the detail page of each resources.
3. I see that there is difference between "generate", "fuel" and "smelt". For building that "generate" and "require workers", does the workers increase the generation rate? Or does it differ by buildings? I ask this because I notice some discrepancy in the maths. For medium recycling plant, the aluminum generation speed is definitely increased by the amount of workers (1 al per 50000 ticks / workers). For Regolith Extraction Inc., it seems to be closer to 50 reg per 1500 ticks (i.e. not increased by workers), and similarly for Vertical Warehouse Farm as well.
4. What is the benefit of having multiple workers in a building that doesn't required workers? e.g. ore refinery, tree farm and hydrogen reactor.
5. This is no stats on the colonist generation rate for landing pad and cloning facilities, but I found that in game.js "colGenRate". Is it correct to assume that a colGenRate of 3000 for landing pad means one colonist arrive per 3000 ticks? Also, is generation speed increased by the number of on duty workers, say for cloning facility with colGenRate of 15000 and max 40 on duty workers, the max speed is one colonist per 375 ticks?
6. Should I actually ask here or should I ask in discord? I'd prefer here as the questions seem too length for discord discussion in general.
btw I'm just up to building ultra deep dig site. Slowly grinding alien artifacts...
One thing I love about incremental game is working out the maths behind all the resource production and find the most efficient way to progress.
So, on my quest to work on the maths in this game, I have several questions:
1. Is it possible to find out the actual tick/second? In the my-colony.com/reference it mentions that the game should be approx 20-25ticks/second, but I found my game (large map, 20k colonists, Pixel2XL) is closer to 13ticks/second. I'm not complaining about the slowness - I just wonder if there is a quick way to find out the tick/second as it heavily affect all the calculations involved.
2. In Statistics, there is a handy summary of the resources generation/consumption. What is the time frame for that? It's definitely longer than a minute. Also, the figures on the overview (i.e. the page with all the resources listed) is different from the detail page of each resources.
3. I see that there is difference between "generate", "fuel" and "smelt". For building that "generate" and "require workers", does the workers increase the generation rate? Or does it differ by buildings? I ask this because I notice some discrepancy in the maths. For medium recycling plant, the aluminum generation speed is definitely increased by the amount of workers (1 al per 50000 ticks / workers). For Regolith Extraction Inc., it seems to be closer to 50 reg per 1500 ticks (i.e. not increased by workers), and similarly for Vertical Warehouse Farm as well.
4. What is the benefit of having multiple workers in a building that doesn't required workers? e.g. ore refinery, tree farm and hydrogen reactor.
5. This is no stats on the colonist generation rate for landing pad and cloning facilities, but I found that in game.js "colGenRate". Is it correct to assume that a colGenRate of 3000 for landing pad means one colonist arrive per 3000 ticks? Also, is generation speed increased by the number of on duty workers, say for cloning facility with colGenRate of 15000 and max 40 on duty workers, the max speed is one colonist per 375 ticks?
6. Should I actually ask here or should I ask in discord? I'd prefer here as the questions seem too length for discord discussion in general.
btw I'm just up to building ultra deep dig site. Slowly grinding alien artifacts...
For the Reference Table, I suggest you to use the Coloniae Reference Table : https://coloniae.space/reference/general , instead of https://www.my-colony.com/reference/general.html, as the latter is not updated anymore by the contributor.
1. The tick/second is dependent on the interaction between the game engine and your device or computer system speed. As such, it is not possible to pinpoint exactly what your tick/second is going to be, just a range. In general, slower device/computer will have lower ticks/second, and vice versa.
In general, it should not heavily affect all calculations involved as you mentioned. The device tick will affect all production and consumption equally, so the ratio will stay constant no matter what the device tick count is. For example, 1 Aluminum Generator will supply x amount of Robot Factories, with x staying constant regardless of the device tick.
In addition, how did you determine 13 ticks/second above? If it was from actual production from Statistics, it should be noted that the numbers in Reference refer to production when all workers are fully on duty, while the actual production in game is affected by reduction due to off-duty or protesting workers.
2. The Overview shows the simulated net production/consumption at that very moment, while the individual resource Statistics page shows the general total production and consumption over a period. As different buildings have different production and consumption round length, it is possible to have one single moment where resource generation is net negative as the consuming buildings use up the resources while the producing buildings have not finished their production, but in total over a time period it will be net positive, and vice versa.
3. Resource production for all buildings requiring workers mostly increases in proportion with the amount of on-duty worker present, while "Fuel" generally does not. To use your examples, these are the calculation which match the numbers in the Reference :
a. Medium Recycling Plant =
- Aluminum = (1 Al/round) x (65 workers) / 50000 ticks per round = 0.0013 Al/tick
- Plastic = (1 Pl/round) x (65 workers) / 6000 ticks per round = 0.01083 Pl/tick
- Fuel though is not calculated by workers, so Trash = (1 Tr/round) / 2 ticks per round = 0.5 Tr/tick
b. Regolith Extraction Inc =
- Regolith = (50 Re/round) x (26 workers) / 1500 ticks per round = 0.8667 Re/tick
c. Vertical Warehouse Farm =
- Food = (500 Food/round) x (35 workers) / 2500 ticks per round = 7 Food/tick
- Fuel though is not calculated by workers, so Water = (1 Wa/round) / 2000 ticks per round = 0.0005 Water/tick
4. Buildings that don't require workers which don't produce resources based on worker generation either, such as Hydrogen Reactor (as well as other power plants and storage buildings), there is no difference between having 1 worker inside or full 30 workers. A Hydrogen Reactor will provide a full 5500 power and consume the same amount of Water as fuel (remember Fuel is not affected by workers).
For the rest which don't require workers, but generate resources such as Tree Farms, some say that having workers inside increase the resource generation. But so far I haven't read any specific testing (with numbers) between the numbers generated without any workers inside, and if there are workers inside. Most of these buildings (except maybe 3 specific buildings) are early game buildings anyways.
As for Ore Refinery specifically, you will grow out of it very fast to Advanced Ore Refinery anyways, which needs workers.
As for Alien Artifacts, bear with the UDD spam for a while. Eventually you will be able to build Relic Studies which generates Alien Artifacts equal to more than 400 UDDs per Relic Studies, which will literally generate more Artifacts than you can possibly use (due to presence of other rare bottleneck materials).
Edited for grammar.
1. The tick/second is dependent on the interaction between the game engine and your device or computer system speed. As such, it is not possible to pinpoint exactly what your tick/second is going to be, just a range. In general, slower device/computer will have lower ticks/second, and vice versa.
In general, it should not heavily affect all calculations involved as you mentioned. The device tick will affect all production and consumption equally, so the ratio will stay constant no matter what the device tick count is. For example, 1 Aluminum Generator will supply x amount of Robot Factories, with x staying constant regardless of the device tick.
In addition, how did you determine 13 ticks/second above? If it was from actual production from Statistics, it should be noted that the numbers in Reference refer to production when all workers are fully on duty, while the actual production in game is affected by reduction due to off-duty or protesting workers.
2. The Overview shows the simulated net production/consumption at that very moment, while the individual resource Statistics page shows the general total production and consumption over a period. As different buildings have different production and consumption round length, it is possible to have one single moment where resource generation is net negative as the consuming buildings use up the resources while the producing buildings have not finished their production, but in total over a time period it will be net positive, and vice versa.
3. Resource production for all buildings requiring workers mostly increases in proportion with the amount of on-duty worker present, while "Fuel" generally does not. To use your examples, these are the calculation which match the numbers in the Reference :
a. Medium Recycling Plant =
- Aluminum = (1 Al/round) x (65 workers) / 50000 ticks per round = 0.0013 Al/tick
- Plastic = (1 Pl/round) x (65 workers) / 6000 ticks per round = 0.01083 Pl/tick
- Fuel though is not calculated by workers, so Trash = (1 Tr/round) / 2 ticks per round = 0.5 Tr/tick
b. Regolith Extraction Inc =
- Regolith = (50 Re/round) x (26 workers) / 1500 ticks per round = 0.8667 Re/tick
c. Vertical Warehouse Farm =
- Food = (500 Food/round) x (35 workers) / 2500 ticks per round = 7 Food/tick
- Fuel though is not calculated by workers, so Water = (1 Wa/round) / 2000 ticks per round = 0.0005 Water/tick
4. Buildings that don't require workers which don't produce resources based on worker generation either, such as Hydrogen Reactor (as well as other power plants and storage buildings), there is no difference between having 1 worker inside or full 30 workers. A Hydrogen Reactor will provide a full 5500 power and consume the same amount of Water as fuel (remember Fuel is not affected by workers).
For the rest which don't require workers, but generate resources such as Tree Farms, some say that having workers inside increase the resource generation. But so far I haven't read any specific testing (with numbers) between the numbers generated without any workers inside, and if there are workers inside. Most of these buildings (except maybe 3 specific buildings) are early game buildings anyways.
As for Ore Refinery specifically, you will grow out of it very fast to Advanced Ore Refinery anyways, which needs workers.
As for Alien Artifacts, bear with the UDD spam for a while. Eventually you will be able to build Relic Studies which generates Alien Artifacts equal to more than 400 UDDs per Relic Studies, which will literally generate more Artifacts than you can possibly use (due to presence of other rare bottleneck materials).
Edited for grammar.
Thanks for the detailed reply!
1. Tick/s: I estimated the tick/s based on buildings that don't need workers and have a constant production rate. The game was slow at that point. I am on abandoned world and there was a huge expanding forest of sugarcane. I tried to contain them with roads. I did a Fire Drill as well. Whichever the reason, the game was improved. Based on my new Triantanium refinery, it's about 22tick/s (based on 0.65ta/min). It still goes down to below 0.4ta/min from time to time, but it's okay. I should do a smaller map on mobile next time. Anyway, I should have mentioned that I know it is slim chance I can find out the tick/s easily, as it is of no interest for normal gaming purpose.
2. So I presume the overview is the production rate *per minute* at the moment I open the menu?
3. For Regolith Extraction Inc., 0.8667 Re/tick equate to 1040re/min. Based on my observation it was closer to 20-40re/min. My vertical warehouse farming also gave a figure way lower than 7f/tick.
For vertical warehouse farming, I hope it's a bug, as the cost of it should justify 7f/tick. As for Regolith Extraction Inc., the current rate (20-40) seems right. Ore Zapper, being more advanced, gives 720re/min, so no way should the REI gives 1040re/min.
Also, for Alien Plastic Factory, while the code/reference say it does not require worker, the actual production rate is definitely boosted by the number of workers based on observation. Otherwise the plastic production rate is even lower than Plastic Factory!
(I'm confused though - since the game is run based on the code, how could it behave differently from the code? for clarity, I know very little about coding and I read js more as a database than code)
4. Cool. I could have fire people from hydrogen reactors if I need people working elsewhere, but as you predicted, they are obsoleted in my current game now (by alien power tower and diamond crystal reactor). I'll try it when I have arcology soon.
**
new question:
5. Are colonists' home and work place fixed once they got a job, or are they changing dynamically as new house/work are built? Should I be worried that creating houses and jobs at different ends of the colony at the same time would lead new colonists having a very long commute distance?
***
I got Center for Relics Studies! Now grind triantanium, looking forward to Star Gate. I was quite disappointed in UDD tbh, the boost from dig site is so small. The upgrade is more like for the automatic clay production.
I really like the game so far. I have been playing Kittens Game, and there is slightly (very slight) similarity in progression, in terms of solving one bottleneck lead to another bottleneck, and most building has its varying importance at different stages of game. Of course, Kittens Game is an incremental games with reset/prestige and this is a city building game, so the gameplay is very different.
I feel that the game need work on game balance on at least 2 buildings: (1) food processing sweatshop is crazy (385k food/min?!) (at least on Abandoned World where sugar is abundant) (2) Alien Enrichment Facility is disappointing (huge fuel increase but with only x5 production increase and space-saving). but these are minor to the overall gameplay and maybe it's just specific to the type of colony I'm playing in.
1. Tick/s: I estimated the tick/s based on buildings that don't need workers and have a constant production rate. The game was slow at that point. I am on abandoned world and there was a huge expanding forest of sugarcane. I tried to contain them with roads. I did a Fire Drill as well. Whichever the reason, the game was improved. Based on my new Triantanium refinery, it's about 22tick/s (based on 0.65ta/min). It still goes down to below 0.4ta/min from time to time, but it's okay. I should do a smaller map on mobile next time. Anyway, I should have mentioned that I know it is slim chance I can find out the tick/s easily, as it is of no interest for normal gaming purpose.
2. So I presume the overview is the production rate *per minute* at the moment I open the menu?
3. For Regolith Extraction Inc., 0.8667 Re/tick equate to 1040re/min. Based on my observation it was closer to 20-40re/min. My vertical warehouse farming also gave a figure way lower than 7f/tick.
For vertical warehouse farming, I hope it's a bug, as the cost of it should justify 7f/tick. As for Regolith Extraction Inc., the current rate (20-40) seems right. Ore Zapper, being more advanced, gives 720re/min, so no way should the REI gives 1040re/min.
Also, for Alien Plastic Factory, while the code/reference say it does not require worker, the actual production rate is definitely boosted by the number of workers based on observation. Otherwise the plastic production rate is even lower than Plastic Factory!
(I'm confused though - since the game is run based on the code, how could it behave differently from the code? for clarity, I know very little about coding and I read js more as a database than code)
4. Cool. I could have fire people from hydrogen reactors if I need people working elsewhere, but as you predicted, they are obsoleted in my current game now (by alien power tower and diamond crystal reactor). I'll try it when I have arcology soon.
**
new question:
5. Are colonists' home and work place fixed once they got a job, or are they changing dynamically as new house/work are built? Should I be worried that creating houses and jobs at different ends of the colony at the same time would lead new colonists having a very long commute distance?
***
I got Center for Relics Studies! Now grind triantanium, looking forward to Star Gate. I was quite disappointed in UDD tbh, the boost from dig site is so small. The upgrade is more like for the automatic clay production.
I really like the game so far. I have been playing Kittens Game, and there is slightly (very slight) similarity in progression, in terms of solving one bottleneck lead to another bottleneck, and most building has its varying importance at different stages of game. Of course, Kittens Game is an incremental games with reset/prestige and this is a city building game, so the gameplay is very different.
I feel that the game need work on game balance on at least 2 buildings: (1) food processing sweatshop is crazy (385k food/min?!) (at least on Abandoned World where sugar is abundant) (2) Alien Enrichment Facility is disappointing (huge fuel increase but with only x5 production increase and space-saving). but these are minor to the overall gameplay and maybe it's just specific to the type of colony I'm playing in.
3. I am not sure how you are getting such a low production number (i.e. 20-40 regolith / min from a Regolith Extraction Inc.). Are you sure it isn't maybe staffed on-duty by 1-2 person only at the time of observation?
In any case, I monitored all my production buildings from time to time and compared them with the values in the Reference Table, and so far my various production buildings are always higher by the same constant (about 30-40%) when compared to the values in the Table which assumes 20 ticks/second. This is as expected, meaning that my ticks/second on the computer I play on is also faster by the same ratio. In any case, sorry I am not sure what is causing the resource yield in your game to be much lower than theoretical 20 ticks/second if fully staffed.
Discussing specific buildings you mentioned :
- Vertical Warehouse Farm is not bugged. Mine shows 8000 Food/min when staffed by 24 people on-duty out of total 35 slots, so that is as expected (again, my computer tick is higher than the assumed 20 ticks/second used in the table).
- Ore Zapper vs Regolith Extraction Inc gives the correct number. Remember Ore Zapper is only 1x1 in size and doesn't require workers, wile REI takes 9x the space while only having a bit higher yield, so Ore Zapper has much higher yield/tile. In endgame when all resources are produced in humongous quantity per second, yield/tile is the most important parameter for a production building as space is of paramount commodity. So what is the use for REI? It provides a midgame way to automate regolith production for colonies in asteroid/abandoned/lunar base instead of having to build Regolith mines over and over manually. In those worlds, you can't get Ore directly unlike in Red planets. You have to convert it from Regolith instead.
- As I mentioned before, there are at least 3 mid- and end-game buildings which has discrepancy between Reference data and in-game actual production, them being : Alien Plastic which you noticed as well, Tech Office, and Obsidian Furnace. The actual in-game production of these 3 buildings are multiplied by the worker quantity just like any other buildings requiring workers. This makes Alien Plastic being much better than Advanced Plastic Factory as it should be, Tech Office being second best money production building after endgame Star Port, and Obsidian Furnace being higher than listed. This has been discussed by the awesome owner of the Coloniae Reference (and Coloniae itself) Sobe and the developer Bast, and so far there is no clear solution why the database the Table pulls from is different from the actual in-game stat. In the grand scheme of things, this is very minor and there are much much more pressing bugs and issues to fix by the developer though. Unfortunately I have barely any knowledge about database and coding to try to analyze the issue, and Sobe has done a lot to make a new Reference which can automatically updates itself, after the old Reference had been abandoned by the previous contributor.
4. Just a tip, I personally don't think Arcology is a useful building to have, as 7000 of the colonists are tied in useless job slot which doesn't yield anything much. Fantasy Land Arcology is a different story though. If you have an abundance of resources to be used for testing and such, please feel free to proceed however, but not if you are still strapped on midgame resources.
5. In short yes, a colonist will have fixed workplace and residential place once it arrives and gets assigned a job. In reality, there are more complex dynamics involved which I don't fully understand especially when residential buildings are sold or destroyed, or the current workplace is sold or destroyed.
We are all thankful for Relic Studies, especially it is chilling to know that for the first year and more of the game, there was no Relic Studies and every endgame player was stuck on spamming UDDs and Alum generators till the end of the map.
About your balance concerns :
- Yes, Food Processing Sweatshop pretty much produces that much and will blow all other Food production buildings out of the water, because planets other than Sugar World have ways to produce Sugar as well.
- Maybe you have not seen the Research Converter, but it pretty much is the endgame production building you need to spam for 20 or so different resources.
- As for the Alien Enrichment Facility, it was a pretty decent upgrade when considering what players had for Alien Artifacts and Aluminum back then before the introduction of Relic Studies. It made Uranium much easier to get than the other 2. We wish all Alien Tech is such a big upgrade like it is for Steel, Gold, and Microchip, but alas it is not so. Now with powercreep, you have Research Converter which blows Alien Enrichment out of the water for Uranium and many other resources.
In any case, I monitored all my production buildings from time to time and compared them with the values in the Reference Table, and so far my various production buildings are always higher by the same constant (about 30-40%) when compared to the values in the Table which assumes 20 ticks/second. This is as expected, meaning that my ticks/second on the computer I play on is also faster by the same ratio. In any case, sorry I am not sure what is causing the resource yield in your game to be much lower than theoretical 20 ticks/second if fully staffed.
Discussing specific buildings you mentioned :
- Vertical Warehouse Farm is not bugged. Mine shows 8000 Food/min when staffed by 24 people on-duty out of total 35 slots, so that is as expected (again, my computer tick is higher than the assumed 20 ticks/second used in the table).
- Ore Zapper vs Regolith Extraction Inc gives the correct number. Remember Ore Zapper is only 1x1 in size and doesn't require workers, wile REI takes 9x the space while only having a bit higher yield, so Ore Zapper has much higher yield/tile. In endgame when all resources are produced in humongous quantity per second, yield/tile is the most important parameter for a production building as space is of paramount commodity. So what is the use for REI? It provides a midgame way to automate regolith production for colonies in asteroid/abandoned/lunar base instead of having to build Regolith mines over and over manually. In those worlds, you can't get Ore directly unlike in Red planets. You have to convert it from Regolith instead.
- As I mentioned before, there are at least 3 mid- and end-game buildings which has discrepancy between Reference data and in-game actual production, them being : Alien Plastic which you noticed as well, Tech Office, and Obsidian Furnace. The actual in-game production of these 3 buildings are multiplied by the worker quantity just like any other buildings requiring workers. This makes Alien Plastic being much better than Advanced Plastic Factory as it should be, Tech Office being second best money production building after endgame Star Port, and Obsidian Furnace being higher than listed. This has been discussed by the awesome owner of the Coloniae Reference (and Coloniae itself) Sobe and the developer Bast, and so far there is no clear solution why the database the Table pulls from is different from the actual in-game stat. In the grand scheme of things, this is very minor and there are much much more pressing bugs and issues to fix by the developer though. Unfortunately I have barely any knowledge about database and coding to try to analyze the issue, and Sobe has done a lot to make a new Reference which can automatically updates itself, after the old Reference had been abandoned by the previous contributor.
4. Just a tip, I personally don't think Arcology is a useful building to have, as 7000 of the colonists are tied in useless job slot which doesn't yield anything much. Fantasy Land Arcology is a different story though. If you have an abundance of resources to be used for testing and such, please feel free to proceed however, but not if you are still strapped on midgame resources.
5. In short yes, a colonist will have fixed workplace and residential place once it arrives and gets assigned a job. In reality, there are more complex dynamics involved which I don't fully understand especially when residential buildings are sold or destroyed, or the current workplace is sold or destroyed.
We are all thankful for Relic Studies, especially it is chilling to know that for the first year and more of the game, there was no Relic Studies and every endgame player was stuck on spamming UDDs and Alum generators till the end of the map.
About your balance concerns :
- Yes, Food Processing Sweatshop pretty much produces that much and will blow all other Food production buildings out of the water, because planets other than Sugar World have ways to produce Sugar as well.
- Maybe you have not seen the Research Converter, but it pretty much is the endgame production building you need to spam for 20 or so different resources.
- As for the Alien Enrichment Facility, it was a pretty decent upgrade when considering what players had for Alien Artifacts and Aluminum back then before the introduction of Relic Studies. It made Uranium much easier to get than the other 2. We wish all Alien Tech is such a big upgrade like it is for Steel, Gold, and Microchip, but alas it is not so. Now with powercreep, you have Research Converter which blows Alien Enrichment out of the water for Uranium and many other resources.
