Random Statistics!

Related: Miner

So I am doing some tests to see what upgrades are most useful and what the actual real in-game data looks like. This will be fleshed out with more and more stuff, mostly it is dependant on the limited number of lives that we are given which limit data collection speed. Any admins or anyone else feel free to roll this into a different page or something, whatever fits best, I just decided to put it on here at least until I have enough data to put it in areas that make more sense.

MINER UPGRADES

CONTROLS:

Unless otherwise indicated, Data was collected in single player campaign on level 9 vs an infestation enemy on identical maps (cause that is where I am at the moment). Miner income rate is an average of the production of 4 different miner-fighter bays. All miner bays are created in the same style (a square of 4 bays adjacent to a single small asteroid) and data is collected without enemy interference, and collected until the small asteroid is used up (so that is the time interval. Is around 1 minute). Data is collected at intervals of ~15 metal, and then is normalized with respect to energy production (as in lag is taken into consideration and does not affect the results). High stdevs are due to the fact that I am modelling the quadratic/linear rates with a linear model (this will not affect comparing the data though)

DATA:

Standard Miner-Fighter Income Rate: Average = 2.222 metal/second. Standard Deviation = 0.107.

Miners with a 20% range bonus (upgrade): Average = 2.389 metal/second. Standard Deviation = 0.136. 6.9% efficiency increase

Miners with a 20% fire rate bonus (upgrade): Average = 2.230 metal/second. Standard Deviation = 0.049. For all intents and purposes, zero efficiency increase.

Miners with a 20% fighter spawn bonus (2 techs): Average = 2.578 metal/second. Standard Deviation = 0.126. 16% efficiency increase.

CONCLUSIONS:

Range is better than fire rate. This is due to the fact that most miners will only get 1 shot off on each pass of an asteroid so fire rate increases of just 20% literally do not matter.

And for techs your best bet is still the 10% bonus metal income rate tech. :D

ALL METAL/PROCESSOR ECONOMY

So due to some extensive testing, I found that unlike the shown rate change from the processor, what the processor actually does is it exchanges 2.5 metal for 5 energy every second. And if you do the math, excluding bonuses an economy that relies on energy from miners and processors is pretty much exactly dead even with an economy that relies on energy from just generators, it gives no benefit.

HOWEVER, this changes when you account for the upgrades on a miner. As we showed before you can increase mining rates with things like range, and this will therefore also increase your energy production and you will actually have a stronger economy than someone relying on generators for energy.

CONCLUSION:

Generators = Miners + Processors, and Generators < upgraded Miners + Processors