fine art of refining and alchemy

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i need to produce lots of fuel and minerals in a game with very rare
resources. i have 2 merlins and 2 refinery ships. 1 merlin is parked
above a bovinoid. i have several planets that have 3000- 5000 supplies
and several planets with 100-300 of the minerals. if i would move the
merlins or refinery ships i would tow them with neutronic fuel
carriers.
here comes my question.
What is the most fuel effective way to make minerals and fuel? gather
the supplies and minerals and ferry them to some important top bases
and transmute the supplies there to minerals and then to fuel, or tow
the merlin and refinery from planet to planet and refine the resources
at the planets and send out freighters and NFCs to bring the minerals
to the bases?
my territory is not in immediate danger to be overrun my enemies,
cloackers, surpriseminefields etc..

 

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rgronwald@hotmail.com wrote:
> What is the most fuel effective way to make minerals and fuel? gather
> the supplies and minerals and ferry them to some important top bases
> and transmute the supplies there to minerals and then to fuel, or tow
> the merlin and refinery from planet to planet and refine the resources
> at the planets and send out freighters and NFCs to bring the minerals
> to the bases?

Not entirely sure whether that's what you wanted to know, but since the
alchemy "outputs" are lighter than the "inputs", it obviously makes more
sense to carry those around. I.e., don't carry 2700S - carry the
resulting 300T+300D+300M instead. Since alchemy happens before movement,
you can load heavy stuff onto the Merlin and tow or move it, you'll be
billed only the fuel for carrying the result.

Having said that, it mostly depends on your style / tactic / other
situation whether you carry the Merlin around or have some freighters
fetch the results. The Merlin may be heavier and burn more fuel, but on
the other hand it's faster to have the Merlin with the stuff *here*
*now* instead of having to move stuff onto a freighter first.


Stefan

 

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Thanks that was my question and the answer sounds satisfieing.
Nevertheless i was just wondering whether it is better to tow a merlin
mass 920 and a refinery ship mass 712 around the worlds 2 ships and 2
NFCs or tow some super transport freighters to collect 2600 supp and
bring them to the refinery planets.
and as i am bad in maths and i am sure that i forget some of the
factors that would go into such a calculation and because it is
possible that some1 already was facing the same question i thought,
that i will just post it here. maybe others already simmed it out what
will be better.
factors will be :
-number of NFCs that mus be used to tow merlin/refinery or STF.
-mass of merlin/refinery in contrast to mass of supplies and STF
- sideeffect of having lots of minerals at many planets during the
refinery process. thus possibilty of building starbases at the planets
that still do not have one.

many of the supplies will be needed to be made into minerals and then
into fuel... and the fuel will have to be brought to the frontline.

 

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Op 2005-02-22, rgronwald@hotmail.com schreef <rgronwald@hotmail.com>:
> -mass of merlin/refinery in contrast to mass of supplies and STF

Some general remarks.

In the end game every production starbase should have its own
Merlin. It should usually be at that base or above a good bovinoid
planet.

As a rule of thumb: don't send a Merlin to a planet unless that has at
least one full load of supplies to convert. I can't show you the math
for that rule, but it sounds about right to me.

That rule of thumb would mean that you usually keep the Merlin at one
place and use freighters to ehhhm... supply it with supplies. Large
Freighter is best.

In Plist games the Merlin has a mass of 390 Kton. This makes it a good
option to let it visit planets. With cheap Enerpsi Drives it could
even move around reasonably fast on its own.

I have never built many Neutronic Refineries. But they are great for a
ride along all those little planets that you never visit but that have
been quietly amassing some minerals and supplies. It's also good for
sending to that newly conquered group of planets where the enemy has
beamed up say all molybdenum.

--
Maurits van Rees | http://maurits.vanrees.org/ [Dutch/Nederlands]
"The question of whether computers can think is like the question of
whether submarines can swim." - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

 

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rgronwald@hotmail.com wrote:

>Thanks that was my question and the answer sounds satisfieing.
>Nevertheless i was just wondering whether it is better to tow a merlin
>mass 920 and a refinery ship mass 712 around the worlds 2 ships and 2
>NFCs or tow some super transport freighters to collect 2600 supp and
>bring them to the refinery planets.
I have sometimes thought about this matter too. If you want to be *sure*
about having the most efficient way you will have to do the 'math'. The
easiest way to do it is to calculate how much fuel it takes to move the
Merlin to the planet, convert and then either carry the stuff back to
original place or to move to the next planet and send freighters to carry
the stuff back to where it's needed. Also time could be important if you
haven't got enough ships to convert all the supplies you produce.

From my own experience and educated guesses, I would say that specially if
you have two loads of supplies on a planet, it's cheaper to send a Merlin
there, then haul back the minerals closer to base and then convert the fuel
there, as you need so much less supplies for fuel, while it takes lots of
fuel to haul 2700 supplies anywhere. If you have only 2700 supplies I think
it's about the same if you haul supplies to Merlin instead, at least the
extra fuel you need is not much.

In most games however, I've had the need to do things simple way and I've
often had plenty of freighters, so in early game I've had a Merlin at HW
and hauled supplies there from planets within 100-162 LYs and the rest
planets I've left alone, then later on I've moved the Merlins to bovi
planets and hauled additional supplies there from neighbour planets.
Usually I've had only one to three Merlins so it has been enough to just
haul little more additional supplies to the bovi planets or to HW to keep
the Merlin converting

I guess it depends much of your playing style. My playing style means
having lots of resources at HW and I've needed some minerals every turn,
instead of lots of minerals at lesser rate.
--
There are 11 type of people in the world.
Those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who are.
www.akseli.net/~akseli/vgap

 

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> I have never built many Neutronic Refineries. But they are great for a
> ride along all those little planets that you never visit but that have
> been quietly amassing some minerals and supplies. It's also good for
> sending to that newly conquered group of planets where the enemy has
> beamed up say all molybdenum.

Well. In do so in a current game, in wich i controll ~95 Planets. I've 4
neutronics (you need this ships if you play the Rebels) and 6 Merlins. 2 of
my offensive fleets has a Neutronics in the group for create fuel at new
captured planets wich have minerals. Because my main enemie is the Borg,
wich is able to chunnel all minerals away, i've also Merlins in the 2th or
3th row.

I do not think, all bases need a own Merlin... i would need 50 Merlins in
the game then.
I personally do organise my economie the way, that i build some independet
economic zones with bases and own LDSF's. Some extra LDSFs has the job to
feed minerals/mc between this zones. In this game, i had 7 bases, all with
build orders for Rushes as we reach the shiplimit... but only 2 Merlins and
no Neutronic.

After the shiplimit:
a zone has 3-10 planets, -165 ly around, 10-XX turns later, i've a lot
supplys here and for me, it makes sense to bring in a Merlin instead to
bring the Supplys to a Merlin and then the Minerals back.

I do it this way and nearly all Planets from all zones has bases and rush
build orders now.

My fazit: early you have to bring supplys to the Merlins... in the mid/end
game it's some time better to send the Merlin to the Supplys. It also
depends at wich place you need the minerals.

harry

 

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Maurits van Rees wrote:
> Op 2005-02-22, rgronwald@hotmail.com schreef <rgronwald@hotmail.com>:
>>-mass of merlin/refinery in contrast to mass of supplies and STF
>
> Some general remarks.
>
> In the end game every production starbase should have its own
> Merlin. It should usually be at that base or above a good bovinoid
> planet.

I wouldn't say one per starbase. If you cannot keep them busy, save the
ship slots for something better. Since the best Bovi only gives you 1500
Sup/turn but the Merlin processes 3000, I would probably not build so
much

> As a rule of thumb: don't send a Merlin to a planet unless that has at
> least one full load of supplies to convert. I can't show you the math
> for that rule, but it sounds about right to me.

Depends. If you got the time, you'll save fuel by doing that. It all
depends on the situation. The point being that carrying around 3000
supplies simply costs much more fuel than carrying around 1000 minerals.
On the other hand, your freighters probably got better engines than your
Merlins.


Stefan

 

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Op 2005-02-23, Stefan Reuther schreef <stefan.news@arcor.de>:
> Maurits van Rees wrote:
>> In the end game every production starbase should have its own
>> Merlin. It should usually be at that base or above a good bovinoid
>> planet.
>
> I wouldn't say one per starbase. If you cannot keep them busy, save the
> ship slots for something better. Since the best Bovi only gives you 1500
> Sup/turn but the Merlin processes 3000, I would probably not build so
> much

I have recently played in a game that had a poor mineral
universe. Then Merlins are the only way to build up a decent
fleet. That may influence my statement above. The plist18 game on
PlanetsServer that you are in (and I were in until I was defeated...)
has no such problem. I didn't produce any Death Stars, but two or
three of them went down while in the build queue. Sigh. 🙁 And Death
Stars are quite the expensive buggers in Plist!

I didn't say one Merlin per starbase though. I said one per
*production* starbase. So you wouldn't assign a Merlin to a starbase
that was only built for the extra defense or for putting small deeps
in the build queue. If a starbase can build a top battleship then it
can usually build a Merlin instead and use the Merlin to build more
top ships.

Ideally you would build only freighters and Merlins (and your special
ships like hyperjumpers) until the ship limit hits and only start
building your top ships then. Of course in real life you have
neighbours...

--
Maurits van Rees | http://maurits.vanrees.org/ [Dutch/Nederlands]
"The question of whether computers can think is like the question of
whether submarines can swim." - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

 

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Maurits van Rees wrote:
> Op 2005-02-23, Stefan Reuther schreef <stefan.news@arcor.de>:
>>Maurits van Rees wrote:
>>>In the end game every production starbase should have its own
>>>Merlin. It should usually be at that base or above a good bovinoid
>>>planet.
>>
>>I wouldn't say one per starbase. If you cannot keep them busy, save the
>>ship slots for something better. Since the best Bovi only gives you 1500
>>Sup/turn but the Merlin processes 3000, I would probably not build so
>>much
[...]
> I didn't say one Merlin per starbase though. I said one per
> *production* starbase.

Okay. But, after the ship limit, most of your bases will sit idle
anyway, waiting until a ship slot gets freed. So you can as well let the
Merlins go around, instead of having one at each of these production bases.

Of course, your mileage will vary. But I'm usually too stingy to spend
my resources on too many Merlins. Or too poor. I'm a lousy economist.

> Ideally you would build only freighters and Merlins (and your special
> ships like hyperjumpers) until the ship limit hits and only start
> building your top ships then. Of course in real life you have
> neighbours...

Yeah right


Stefan

 

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Thank you all for your advice. That in depth discussion was all i hoped
for. All of you surpassed my expectations.

One of my habbits....
i tend do build quite a few neutronic fuel carriers. especially after
shiplimit, when i convert the SDSFs (recycle them -> get 1 PBP -> make
a ship that costs 1PB = dont loose a shipslot)> i have, i build
several NFCs. i then use them for carrying cash around, towing those
merlins and refinery ships, and recycling them at starbases that do not
have enginetech 10. thus i do not have to spend the money for
enginetech at many bases... and can still produce very good ships
there. eg many races have a medium hulltech ship that makes a lot of
sense to be built... eg:
- the resolute for birds (hulltech7/eng1/beams1/torps8), here the base
only costs 4900 in techs, with the 4500 i do not have to spend in
engtech i can nearly build another of those bases and build a second
resolute...
- the firecloud for borgs (hulltech6/eng1/beam1/torp1)
here the base will only be2100MC if used to build pure chunnlers, if
needed with minelaying it will be as expensiveas the resolute.
- evil empire can build some SSDs (6/1/1/1)
same calculation as with the borg here you can build a cool SSD at a
base that costs 2100MC instead of 6700MC, resulting in being able to
build nearly 2,5 SSDs.

Thus i tend to have some NFCs around that can tow the Merlins which is
summing up in fuel as well. as the NFCs has 0 mass and towed mass needs
notably less fuel when being moved.