System statistics

[Wildeblood]

Can anyone share any insight regarding upper and lower bounds of system.population and system.productivity?
Are there planets with ten gazillion inhabitants and only 28 credits annual GDP?

[Cholmondely]

Are there not these: https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolit ... t/Galaxy_1, the vanilla game Planetinfo.plist and Phkb's Galaxy Maps (https://app.box.com/s/bz2x62qfo6pbaz6se2ef9wbf7fgjksmt)

Someone with the skills should be able to extract the data to do what you wish.

[user2357]

This spreadsheet might be useful, specifically columns AH and AI on the Galaxy Data worksheet.
https://www.pcooper.net/oolite/Oolite_galaxies.zip
The Stats worksheet might also be of interest, but I have yet to figure out exactly how it was intended to be used.

(Available from https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolit ... _recipe.29, first bullet point.)

I get the following results.

Population:
Max: 6.4 billion
Min: 0.8 billion

Productivity:
Max: 56,320Mcr
Min: 768MCr

For both population and productivity, the minima seem to be the same across all eight long-range charts; but the maxima seem to vary from one chart to the next.

As to whether an overpopulated planet cannot produce sufficient for its needs (or whether another planet might be drowning in all the money), I'll leave that research in your capable hands.

I would be very much interested in your final conclusions, please, Wildeblood.

[Wildeblood]

I get the following results.

Population:
Max: 6.4 billion
Min: 0.8 billion

Productivity:
Max: 56,320Mcr
Min: 768MCr

For both population and productivity, the minima seem to be the same across all eight long-range charts; but the maxima seem to vary from one chart to the next.

I will confirm those numbers; these are the results I got this morning, and included into Dynooverse:

const POPULATION_MAX = 67; // Starting populations range from 8 to 64.
const PRODUCTIVITY_MAX = 100000; // Highest starting productivity is 56320.

This: "The minima seem to be the same across all eight long-range charts," is new information, at least to me. I wonder if there's a reason for it (i.e. a need for it to be true, to avoid breaking something), or it's just, "Because Elite". I set the minimum for population at 0, and productivity at 1 (because the robots can go on churning out stuff after all the people are dead).

As to whether an overpopulated planet cannot produce sufficient for its needs (or whether another planet might be drowning in all the money), I'll leave that research in your capable hands.

It's worth noting that the extremes of both population and productivity (and also technology) occur on chart 1, specifically on Ceesxe, which is in the top-right corner, in the Tianve nebula. Basically, once you've reached Ceesxe, it's all downhill from there. That's a disincentive to explore the other seven charts, so we probably shouldn't mention it too often.

#151. Ceesxe (147,16), {81,92,97} within 7.0 LY. Radius 4243 km.
Corporate State, Rich Ind. Pop. 6.4 B, Prod. 56320 MCr. HC: 3, TL: 15, Fierce Bony Birds.
The world Ceesxe is most well known for its vast rain forests.

And, they manage to achieve all that industry without trashing the rain forests, because they're parrots and corvids, not humans. (Or, maybe they're raptors - it does say fierce.) Sigh.

I would be very much interested in your final conclusions, please, Wildeblood.

My conclusion is that everyone should immediately begin using Dynooverse, and let me know whether they actually even notice the changes.

[Cholmondely]

My presumption would be that most of these statistics (Population, production) do not affect the game: Classic Elite took up only 26,138 bytes and there is a limit as to how sophisticated things can get.

I presume that they are all derived from the galaxy seed via the Goat Soup recipe, with some vague correlation built-in.

Again, the only OXP I can think of off the top of my head which changes this is SWEconomy.
Production affects quantities for sale. TL affects which commodities are for sale. Planet Radius & TL jointly determine whether a Poor Agricultural is really a mining world which totally changes its market.

Your new OXP's effects will be most noticeable with regards to medicine which is only produced in Agricultural Worlds with a TL of 8+. Hardly any worlds sell it (in G1, just 31 out of 256), and so changes to this will be rather impactful (the only low-weight agricultural product - all others impact on cargo space).

One would also expect these changes in availability to impact on prices - and thus the spread of plagues in the galaxy! And population levels - not to mention TL/GDP etc.

[Wildeblood]

My presumption would be that most of these statistics (Population, production) do not affect the game: Classic Elite took up only 26,138 bytes and there is a limit as to how sophisticated things can get.

What started me wondering was the planetinfo page on the wiki, which says population has a max value of 67. That's such an oddball number; in computer world things generally stop at 64.

1. It's wrong: Oolite will allow much larger numbers to be set.
2. It's doubly suspicious, because as already mentioned, in a vanilla game the highest value which occurs is in fact 64.

I suspect the 67 misinformation is based on Elite having a +3 offset to prevent 0 ever appearing. Or, something. In any case, the wiki page is unhelpful in this regard.

[Cholmondely]

The information first appears on the oldest version of the Planetinfo.plist wiki-page (Galileo, 9 January 2006‎)

planetinfo.plist in 'AddOns/Config' contains a dictionary of planets for which you wish to set custom data, each keyed by a string consisting the galaxy number (0..7) followed by a space and then the planet number (0..255).

Each of the following properties can be set (but, notably, not the location, which is hard coded into the system seed value):

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>0..7 0..255</key>
<dict>
<key>government</key>
<integer>0..7</integer>
<key>economy</key>
<integer>0..7</integer>
<key>techlevel</key>
<integer>0..13</integer>
<key>population</key>
<integer>0..67 </integer>
<key>productivity</key>
<integer>1000 </integer>
<key>radius</key>
<integer>3000..7000 </integer>
<key>name</key>
<string>The planet's name</string>
<key>inhabitants</key>
<string>Small Blue Frogs .. Human Colonials</string>
<key>description</key>
<string>Really, anything you want to say about the place!</string>
<key>percent_land</key>
<integer>0..100</integer>
<key>land_hsb_color</key>
<string>0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0</string>
<key>sea_hsb_color</key>
<string>0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0</string>
<key>sky_rgb_colors</key>
<string>0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0 0.0..1.0</string>
<key>station</key>
<string>coriolis..dodec..special</string>
<key>sky_blur_cluster_chance</key>
<real>0.0 .. 1.0</real>
<key>sky_blur_alpha</key>
<real>0.0 .. 1.0</real>
<key>sky_blur_scale</key>
<real>0.0 .. 128.0 or more</real>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

[Wildeblood]

The information first appears on the oldest version of the Planetinfo.plist wiki-page (Galileo, 9 January 2006‎)

Yes, it has always said that, for as long as I can remember. But it's wrong. Perhaps it was right then, but it's wrong now. I entered 100 and then 1000, and the correct "10 billion" and "100 billion" were displayed in game on F7.

Hey look!
That also says techlevel 0-13, which ain't right.

[Cholmondely]

I seem to recall reading somewhere (Stranger's Essay? Cim's musings?) that the GDP per inhabitant varies by not very much (Maesin<>Ceesxe) compared to what we see in the world around us today.

Maesin & Qudira: (TL1) Productivity 768 M₢, Population 0.8 billion = 0.96 ₢/person
Ceesxe: (TL15) Productivity 56320 M₢, Population 6.4 billion = 8.8 ₢/person

The mere ten-fold increase might be an argument for Disembodied's thesis that the computers are really disembodied organic brainlets which need constant replenishment. Ceesxe would then export only a tiny fraction of the computers it produces.

Monaco = $256,581/person
Luxembourg = $128,678/person
Burundi = $200/person

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita

[user2357]

<key>population</key>
<integer>0..67 </integer>

I call "typo".

On a numpad, "7" is just above "4", and easy to mistype. Have done it myself maaany times.

[user2357]

As to whether an overpopulated planet cannot produce sufficient for its needs (or whether another planet might be drowning in all the money), I'll leave that research in your capable hands.

It's worth noting that the extremes of both population and productivity (and also technology) occur on chart 1, specifically on Ceesxe, which is in the top-right corner, in the Tianve nebula. Basically, once you've reached Ceesxe, it's all downhill from there. That's a disincentive to explore the other seven charts, so we probably shouldn't mention it too often.

#151. Ceesxe (147,16), {81,92,97} within 7.0 LY. Radius 4243 km.
Corporate State, Rich Ind. Pop. 6.4 B, Prod. 56320 MCr. HC: 3, TL: 15, Fierce Bony Birds.
The world Ceesxe is most well known for its vast rain forests.

In this vein, I've recently come across Edzaar in Chart 8. I haven't checked yet for any others like it, but it does seem to be at least one of the lowest of the low, at the back-end of GalCop Space: poor-agricultural TL 1 anarchy with lowest population and lowest productivity, and not a very pleasant Hitchhiker's Guide description either. It might actually be worth a visit, just to see how horrible things can really get.

#240. Edzaar (172,63), {34,56,62,91,149,186,194} within 7.0 LY. Radius 5036 km.
Anarchy, Poor Agric. Pop. 0.8 B, Prod. 768 MCr. HC: 7, TL: 1, Blue Bony Lobsters.
Edzaar is a revolting little planet. Indeed!

[Cholmondely]

So can you tell us anything about it? Why is it so poor? Are the local lobsters all witchspace lobster fanatics - or not? What is there to see? Why is it revolting? And is it revolting for other lobsters? And do the Edzaarians think it is revolting?

[Cholmondely]

High Tech Corporate States being high detection rate, Low Tech Anarchies low detection rate. <..snip..>

I would like a variable detection chance too. But why not base it only on tech level? So much other stuff is based on government type, it would be a nice change.

Pluisje, Have you found any newer OXPs which vary things based on other stats than just the government type?