Archived from groups: alt.games.vga-planets (
More info?)
Hi Thomas,
Op 2004-07-05, Thomas Klebes schreef <paradox78@gmx.net>:
> Maurits van Rees <planets.maurits@xs4all.nl> wrote in
> news:40e5bc61$0$35145$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl:
>>> 000 n70 c70
>> Now you are taxing natives and colonists if there are more than 70
>> million of them. You're playing the SuperBorg? ;-)
>
> I also thought this in the beginning. But i read through Dirk´s article
> und through the docs carefully. Also i tested a littlte bit.
>
> I found out that when the parameter behind n or c is 10 or lower, then
> randmax regard the parameter as minimum population that is needed to
> tax. When the parameter is between 11 and 100, then randmax regard the
> parameter as desired happiness. And it seems that this desired happiness
> relates to the current growth taxing, but also to the safe-taxing that
> happens after population reached maximum.
You are right. Upon better of the original docs, I saw:
########
c adjust taxes for colonists
NNN gives the minimum population in million
(c2 means tax only when #colonists >= 2.000.000)
- method is same as for natives (method "GROWTH")
- Here the tax-always-with-safetax also works on desert
and arctic worlds, because there we haven't any growth
if NNN > 10 then it works as NNN for cth (see code "CTH")
########
This is not mentioned of the safetax method and the methods for taxing
the natives, but it seems logical to assume this is true for those
cases as well.
> So when you want to define a minimum population that is needed to tax it
> then you cannot define a desired happiness.
Seems true.
> Also i found out that at least with colonists when you define a
> minimum population to tax, then it is always safe-taxed (also with c
> as parameter) when the population reaches the critical number.
>
> Do you have different experiences?
It *should* be that you use orders 'a' and 't' for safetaxing the
colonists and natives and 'c' and 'n' to growth tax them. I can't
remember using the 'a' and 't' orders though. After the maximum
population has been reached, safetax automatically kicks in and by
default will keep the happiness at 70 as a minimum. At least that's
the theory...
When growth taxing there is no need to define a desired
happiness. That should always be 70. Well, you may want 80 or
something, but then it means more taxing and less growth, which is not
what you want.
The global orders nth and cth for defining the desired happiness level
are then only useful when safetaxing. (That includes safetaxing after
the maximum population has been reached.) In the explanation in the
docs about nth and cth only safetax is mentioned, not growth tax.
>> Try the following:
>> 000 n c1
>> That's probably your main problem.
>
> Yes, this is the default settings.
>
> It should mean in an other expression:
> 000 n70 c1
>
> So it should mean growht-tax natives always with desired happiness 70
> and safe-tax colonists when they reach the critical number of 1 million.
>
> One problem here: i cannot define a minimum population for n (for
> examploe n1 or n5), because natives are afterwards safe-taxed (in the
> case taxation occurs in the same way as with the colonists).
>
> Do you or someone has other information here?
Like I said above, defining a desired happiness for the growth method
is useless. My theory now is that such a line would cause randmax to
use safetax instead. So stick to the "000 n c1". Or use n1 to n9 as
you see fit.
Also, this can/should be done with the global parameter mnn:
mnn min natives (clans) before we tax natives (default=1 clan)
The desired happiness - only useful for safetax - can still be
handled with the nth and cth parameters.
>>> ntx 0
>> You can try just "ntx". Not sure if that makes a difference.
>
> AFAIK it does not matter.
>
> But one problem is that i did not find any parameter that worked with
> ntx. I could not define a minimum population (for example ntx 4) and
> also could not define a desired happiness (for example ntx 80).
>
> Should this be possible by the tool?
Not in this way. This should again be handled by the mnn parameter.
>>> ctx 1
>
> This has the same function as c1. So you can either control the taxation
> within the "000" line or within section 3.
>
> So i do not know what the real purpose of ntx, ctx is when there is the
> parameter "000 n c" in section2?
I would put it the other way around: why have a "000 n c" when you
have more control in the global section? There is randgen to
automatically generate a line for all your planets, so a 000 line
should not be necessary.
Let's look at the docs.
########
* 2.3 Working Order at ALL:
===========================
1. The main order is allways the special planet-order
Only if this didn't work
2. The 000-order.
Only if this didn't work
3. Global orders from command-line or from the 3rd section.
!!! commands from the 3rd section OVERWRITES command-line-orders !!!
########
Hm, this could be said a bit clearer. I have always understood it to
mean that randmax first checks if a planet has special orders, that
is: a line specifically for that planet. If not, then the orders from
the 000 line are applied to that planet. If such a line is not found,
then the global orders will be used, which means: some taxing
according to the general tax method and probably the friendly code
gets randomized.
The unclear part is, that the global orders are always taken into
account. If planet 123 has a line "123 f n", then some factories will
be built and the natives will be growth taxed. For the exact way to
tax them, randmax still looks at the global parameters.
The idea is: you set a default tax program with the parameters. Let's
make it a growth tax program by default. Most relevant options:
ntx # Growth tax the natives
cth 70 # Safetax happiness target for colonists
nth 40 # Safetax happiness target for natives (you may want 70)
ctx 1 # Growth tax the colonists if there are more than 1 million of them
mnn 3000 # Only tax natives when there are more than 3000 clans of them.
Note: the comments should *not* be placed in your randmax.ini file.
Then when you don't have any section two lines, all your planets will
be taxed according to this regime.
You can add a line for planets for which you have special
plans. Building factories and mines would be nice of course, but let's
forget about them now.
001 n7 # This is a nice Bovinoid planet, which you decide not to tax
until there are more than 7 million of them.
002 t # Tax the natives with safetax.
003 t30 # The enemy is coming: safetax the natives to a happiness of 30.
000 n c # If you don't want a special line for each planet, you can
define a standard here. As you already have defined ntx and ctx, this
should not be necessary.
>>> nth 40
>>> cth 70
>> This brings the happinesses down to 40 and 70 after maximum population
>> has been reached. Should be fine.
>
> Interesting is that nth is overwritten when you set up in section2 "000
> n70 c70". Then all natives are safe-taxed with happiness of 70 after
> reaching maximum population.
And that's how it _should_ be and how it is documented.
> Does anyone know of a randmax alternative that works within dos and is
> executed by command-line? Is the randmax code free to work on this tool?
See a thread of one or two months ago. The randmax code is
free. Dacian is working on a new version.
I hope this message shed some more light on it and that I didn't tell
any lies. ;-)
--
Maurits van Rees | planets.maurits@xs4all.nl
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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