View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0015085 | The Last Federation | Suggestion | May 9, 2014 12:58 pm | May 13, 2014 10:12 pm | |
| Reporter | ptarth | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 1.016 (Finish Him!) | ||||
| Fixed in Version | 1.018 (Treasure Trove) | ||||
| Summary | 0015085: Planetary populations are low | ||||
| Description | Earth has ~ 148m km^2 land surface and 361m km^2 ocean surface. Apparently about 75m km^2 is habitable. The Earth has around 7 billion humans on it. Comparing this to the planets in the Last Federation system, we get a very different sort of ratios. In one sample game, the planet usable space ranges from 7m km^2 to 227 km^2 and unusable space ranges from 2m km^2 to 7077m km^2. At a bare minimum only a few planets are not in the ballpark of usable Earth sized. The populations though, don't even come close. We have stable populations of a few million, which is significantly less than 7 billion. The largest population I think I've seen in last game gas giants who've held a few billion people. Now, it may be that our races don't like to be cramped in as much as humans or that they are bigger. Even then, the numbers seem much too low. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | New | ||||
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We did a lot of math with it, and I'm fairly sure it is right. It was based off of the numbers you quote for earth. A few things to bear in mind: - Usable land area would be the equivalent of our total land area on earth. Unusable land area is stuff that isn't terraformed at all, so there's no equivalent for us on earth. Basically, you can think of unusable land area as the entire surface of mars for us at the moment. - Different races have different tolerances for population density. The skylaxians have about the same tolerance as us, but the Boarines have an incredible aversion to being near one another at all. Some of the other races can stand being quite packed in like sardines. - I think you may be misinterpreting the populations somewhere, because it's quite often that those can get into the billions or trillions if you let the game run long enough. Either that or there is a display issue somewhere. But the gas giants, if terraformed enough and let run long enough, can get into the quadrillions easily (it takes a super long time, though). |
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Low populations (with high usable land) are usually the result of poor medical RCI, wars, or diseases/events in my experience. What are the low pop planets Medical RCIs. Take a look at the birth/death rates too, if they're the same then it doesn't matter how much land you have, there's just not enough population growth to fill it all. :) |
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Pedantic side point: Wouldn't unusable (but eventually terraformable) land be things like: the ocean, high mountains, most deserts, Antarctica, etc? Terrains not suitable for reasonable habitation, but could be done under extreme costs. As your suggest, Mars would fall under this category, we could probably do it now, it would just be expensive (also we'd need to get there with sufficient infrastructure or speed). As a base, take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density , which is as good as blatant selection of loosely guide numbers as any. We can choose a couple of different numbers. 1. density across all planet area: 13.7 per km^2 2. density across all land area: 47 per km^2 3. density across land and not Antarctica: 50+ per km^2 4. density across land and livable: 100+ per km^2 Given that you say that Skylaxians are roughly Human in their density preference, this puts the estimate at v2 or v3 around 50m people per km^2, or density across all land area or land areas not including antarctica. (Just accept the equivalence for now, I'll show later how it comes up). This is based upon current technology and growth levels. It is suggested that the UN population estimate for Earth will stabilize around 10 billion (http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/), which is 43% higher than current density. This also handwaves how much is due to increases in density and how much is due to increases in available land due to increases in terraforming technology. By starting a game and looking at equilibrium population densities (this is stable or at least stable for the years I sampled), we can get racial prefered population density. This number is not affected by RCI or compatibility. This number was not affected by any of the technologies that were obtained, although I did not run the game out to very many years. However, we can safely assume they have surpassed human technology in every area. They are as follows (reported in terms of people per km^2). Acutian 80 Burlust 50 Skylaxian 40 Evux 35 Peltian 20 Andorian 10 Thoraxian 2 Boarine 1 (This is how I found the projected Earth useable land. The 40 people/km^2 value of the Skylaxians is closest to those projections. Although the Burlust actually fit the "human profile" better under these assumptions. Regardless, it doesn't matter because we are multiplying by such values, as long as we know that Skylaxians are roughly human, the exact values of the rest should also be equivalent.) Okay, that doesn't look too bad, does it? So let's try to put this into context. Let's put each of these races on Earth and see what their equilibrium populations are assuming useable land of 150m km^2. Acutian 12b Humans 10b (projected) Burlust 7.5b Humans 7b (current) Skylaxian 6b Evux 5.25b Peltian 3b Andorian 1.5b Thoraxian 300m Boarine 150m So after that, what's my problem? The current representation lacks face validity. In other words, it seems weird. I think the low end of the distribution of prefered densities is a bit too low. It doesn't actually make a difference in gameplay, because these are the population numbers that are used in balancing. I don't think anything important besides Ground Combat strength changes due to population. What would make me happier? 1. A scale centered on the Skylaxians around 56 (based upon human projected density equilibrium) and the majority of other races rescaled around it. (Keeping the Boarines at one is reasonable.) 2. The Thoraxians seem really low, because they are modelled after an ant hive (unless density is referring to queen density or something, in which case it is strange comparing it against other races that way). I think they should be around the 150 or more mark. 3. The Peltians also seem underpopulated based on their size, but not based on their society organization. I could see this going either way. 4. Andorians could be higher (or not). I have no idea how much room a robot "living" in Eden needs/wants/deserves? 5. Burlust, given their culture, could be justified to have lower populations to represent their need for space or bloodshed. 6. A reasonable rank ordering of densities: 1. Thoraxian (ants in an ant hive) 2. Acutians (capitalistic robots strip mining the universe) 3. Peltians (little fur balls come in packs) 5. Skylaxian (everyone loves a good committee) 4 Andorians (Robots in Eden) 6. Burlust (clans need space) 7. Evux (paranoia breeds distance) 8. Boarines (I like being alone). (As a literary reference, Asimov wrote of the fictional world, Aurora with approximately that of the Boarines.) Mind you, this is all a pipe dream, is nonessential, and only impacts face validity, and probably no one else cares. |
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Brief notes: The population densities that are equilibrium per race (per square km): Acutians: 80 Andor: 10 Boarine: 1 Burlust: 50 Evuck: 35 Peltian: 20 Thoraxian: 2 Skylaxian: 40 Unusable land area does not include oceans, it is unusable _land area_. It's basically hostile things that don't have breathable air, or ingestable plants, or protection from high winds, or protection from cosmic rays, or whatever various other problems depending on the planet type. The starting populations have nothing to do with anything in terms of densities. Those are just the starting populations of each race, which are not related to their overall end densities at all. You can see the equilibrium population density under the planet details, I believe. It's vastly more than what the race starts at. When a race hits population density, then something happens, often something bad (internal war, impetus for external war, or just stagnation). It takes a long time for races to hit density, if they ever do. These are not mature civilizations at the start in terms of their population densities. That said... |
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Thanks! * The equilibrium population density for Thoraxians has been changed from 2 to 120. ** For Burlusts, the density has dropped from 50 to 20. ** For Peltians, the density has increased from 20 to 60. ** For Skylaxians, the density has increased from 40 to 52. ** For Acutians, the density has increased from 80 to 90. ** For Andors, the density has increased from 10 to 40. * The birth rate min/max for Andors has increased from 35-44 to 55-64. ** The death rate for Evucks has dropped from 20-25 to 5-10, and their birth rate has dropped from 30-35 to 20-25. ** The Peltian birth rate has increased from 10-15 to 80-100, and their death rate has increase from 1-2 to 30-50. ** The Thoraxian birth rate has increased from 5-7 to 15-25, and their death rate has increased from 0-2 to 5-10. ** The Skylaxian birth rate has increased from 10-20 to 10-28. ** The Burlust birth rate has increased from 15-25 to 45-75, and their death rate has increased from 6-8 to 20-60. |
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1. Changes make sense to me (although I'm not sure how medical RCI affects things and old age death rate should probably be relabelled to just deathrate by any cause. It eliminates the need to keep track of age. Everyone is immortal until they die of accident or invasion. Except in the case of Burlusts who mostly die of stabbings.) 2. I have to say, though, that the response makes me laugh. It starts off reading as if I was completely wrong and then shows the correct values and methodology (which match my conclusions exactly). Then it is followed up by agreeing with me and rescaling the values in a quite reasonable fashion. I'm guessing its been a long day at Arcen. Cheers guys! |
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More importantly, ground combat strength (based on population) probably will need to be rescaled too! |
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"For Burlusts, the density has dropped from 50 to 20." That'll probably help the Ground Power in the Trillion, and "Burlust won't succumb to a sustained onslaught from the entire system for another century" issue a bit, too. :) All in all, I like this change on the face of it! |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 9, 2014 12:58 pm | ptarth | New Issue | |
| May 9, 2014 1:13 pm | timfortress | Severity | minor => trivial |
| May 13, 2014 11:48 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Internal Weight | => New |
| May 13, 2014 11:48 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0037986 | |
| May 13, 2014 11:48 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => closed |
| May 13, 2014 11:48 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| May 13, 2014 11:48 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => no change required |
| May 13, 2014 1:02 pm | Drak | Note Added: 0037999 | |
| May 13, 2014 6:54 pm | ptarth | Note Added: 0038018 | |
| May 13, 2014 7:42 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0038020 | |
| May 13, 2014 7:42 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0038021 | |
| May 13, 2014 7:42 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | closed => resolved |
| May 13, 2014 7:42 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | no change required => fixed |
| May 13, 2014 7:42 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Fixed in Version | => 1.018 (Treasure Trove) |
| May 13, 2014 7:48 pm | ptarth | Note Edited: 0038018 | |
| May 13, 2014 8:03 pm | ptarth | Note Added: 0038022 | |
| May 13, 2014 8:04 pm | ptarth | Note Added: 0038023 | |
| May 13, 2014 10:12 pm | Drak | Note Added: 0038024 | |
| May 13, 2014 10:12 pm | Drak | Note Edited: 0038024 |
