Smaller planets beneficial for science output?

[Danarcis]

Since science is tied to population, then wouldn't colonizing smaller planets, and thereby covering more space with less population, be more beneficial for science output?

Through covering more space, you get more research stations within your borders, which wold be the main source of this. Of course this is guessing that you wont be able to include a higher rate of research labs on higher pop planets which could make up for it.

My initial civ would be a curiousity and science based race, so I would love if it is possible to figure out beforehand.

 

[Brownbeard]

Why cover planets with population at all? Single non-reproducing robot is sufficient right now.

 

[Jerev]

I would say no because bigger planets have more tiles and can have more science tiles or space for science labs.

 

[stonesmasher]

Yes.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

@stonesmasher pointed out that the break-even point is 50 pops, assuming that science output scales linearly with population. That's two fully-populated max-size planets, or three starting-size planets, or more if you leave tile blockers strategically uncleared.

In other words, you can have a fair-sized little empire without running into problems.

 

[Brownbeard]

@stonesmasher pointed out that the break-even point is 50 pops, assuming that science output scales linearly with population. That's two fully-populated max-size planets, or three starting-size planets, or more if you leave tile blockers strategically uncleared.

In other words, you can have a fair-sized little empire without running into problems.

Or 50 planets, 1 organic pop on your homeworld and 49 others with a single robot pop. And a sh*tload of orbital stations doing energy, minerals, strategic resources and research.

 

[corny.1234]

Why cover planets with population at all? Single non-reproducing robot is sufficient right now.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Brownbeard]

What could possibly go wrong?

A fallen empire surrenders to you and you end up with a fully populated ringworld with 100 loyal pops and mineral/energy output greater than rest of the energy combined. But your research costs soar.

 

[Incomptinence]

Well sure being bigger doesn't quite help your science but it's a matter of practice and application. What use is the science of you don't have the minerals, energy and guinea pigs to use it on?

 

[Danarcis]

Well sure being bigger doesn't quite help your science but it's a matter of practice and application. What use is the science of you don't have the minerals, energy and guinea pigs to use it on?

Well this would be a potential way to go above the 50 optimal level of pop as mentioned above,while still maintaining a relatively high science output and deal with the realities of a hostile galaxy

@stonesmasher pointed out that the break-even point is 50 pops, assuming that science output scales linearly with population. That's two fully-populated max-size planets, or three starting-size planets, or more if you leave tile blockers strategically uncleared.

In other words, you can have a fair-sized little empire without running into problems.

Which factors were included in this calculation?

 

[Incompetent]

Mining/research stations are a huge part of your economy early on, but by the looks of it they don't scale much with tech. As you get more advanced, you start unlocking really powerful buildings and edicts that multiply the output of your pops. I don't see why this wouldn't apply to research as well as to more mundane resources. Whether these buildings are more efficient on small or large planets is unclear. For instance, your planetary capital has various levels, but you need to reach a certain population before you can upgrade, so it could be the most powerful capitals (and all the buildings, edicts etc they unlock) are only available on large worlds with a full population.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

Which factors were included in this calculation?

A) The assumption that science mana output is a linear function of population.
B) The quoted 2% penalty per pop.

One pop is 2% of 50 pops, so when you go from 49 to 50 then you are taking a 2% penalty to increase your output by 2%. Above this point each pop you add has a penalty that's more potent than the bonus it adds; below this point each pop adds more than its penalty is worth.

 

[Sir-Rogers]

It just depends on what you build and focus on, costs scale linearly with popluation growth. Small planets are actually bad, you want the biggest, so you can produce relatively more things. Unless we are talking 1 pop per planet small with a hydroponic farm to feed it ... well you know, you will have research but really nothing else.

The more planets you have the more minerals you can produce to maintain a fleet to protect you, or any agressive race will just roll over you.

 

[Sir-Rogers]

A) The assumption that science mana output is a linear function of population.
B) The quoted 2% penalty per pop.

One pop is 2% of 50 pops, so when you go from 49 to 50 then you are taking a 2% penalty to increase your output by 2%. Above this point each pop you add has a penalty that's more potent than the bonus it adds; below this point each pop adds more than its penalty is worth.

I´m sorry but that just doesn´t add up.

The base tech cost is 100 science, for this example. The more pops you have, producing the same average amount of science per pop, the easier research gets actually:

Example for 50 pops
Assume you have 50 pops producing 2 science each time unit, adding up to 100.
Due to you having 50 pops, the cost is bumped up by 100%, making it a total 200 to research.
-- Your pops will finish researching it after 2 time units.

Larger Example Base
900 pop, 1800 science, 1900 cost - 1.05x
500 pop, 1000 science, 1100 cost - 1.1x
200 pop, 400 science, 500 cost - 1.25x
100 pops, 200 science, 300 cost - 1.5x
75 pops, 150 science, 250 cost - 1.6x
50 pops, 100 science, 200 cost - 2x
25 pops, 50 science, 150 cost - 3x

The formula is simple (As long as you are above 10 pops) Tech cost = base_cost * (1 + pops * 2 / 100), whilst your Research production = pops * average_science_per_pop
As you see it´s more expensive at the start due to the "+ 1" on tech cost, as our pops is smaller, as pops approaches infinity, with both values converging towards infinity at the same speed, the difference starts to even out, and your most efficient research will be at the largest amount of pops you can possibly have.

( That is not taking into account how efficient you are at building, what ethos/traits and government you have ... generally speaking, there are science governments that can focus down on tech, whilst there are militarist governments that focus on conquest. The tech govs will probably be ahead due to their internal focus and resource allocation - and cards they draw )

 

[barny]

As long as the "more" pops also include more pops that do research, the diminishing return from the cost should lead to an increase of relative science speed, should it not?

 

[Sir-Rogers]

As long as the "more" pops also include more pops that do research, the diminishing return from the cost should lead to an increase of relative science speed, should it not?

Yes, as long as you keep the same relative amount of pops assigned to research your relative science speed will increase. Quite drastically actually. You see the most noticable increase by hitting the 200 pop cap. From 3 time units down to 1.25 time units do to research, that´s almost a 3x increase in speed. But then again keep in mind what I wrote below, reality will be if you conquer that much most of your tiles will be on minerals and energy, and you will likely not have many research tiles. Whilst a smaller empire may have the exact number of research production without having as much territory, with you having an X-times higher cost to tech the same thing.

 

[Frank327]

I think in practice a bigger empire will mean more science *eventually*, especially because the new planets will be in sectors and you might as well put those sectors on research focus because you get 100% of the research unlike minerals and energy. However, if you don't have any room to expand anymore you can instead spend your energy/minerals on science immediately and get ahead of bigger empires really quickly.

Just like that it seems that if you focus a bit on science early on instead of REXing you can easily double your early science compared to what it would normally be, but it might hurt you in the long run.

 

[Sir-Rogers]

I think in practice a bigger empire will mean more science *eventually*, especially because the new planets will be in sectors and you might as well put those sectors on research focus because you get 100% of the research unlike minerals and energy. However, if you don't have any room to expand anymore you can instead spend your energy/minerals on science immediately and get ahead of bigger empires really quickly.

Just like that it seems that if you focus a bit on science early on instead of REXing you can easily double your early science compared to what it would normally be, but it might hurt you in the long run.

Definitely, early you gotta grab stuff - explore and build. I´m actually thinking you should expand fast early, then once you have grown to an acceptable size - either keep going and conquer everyone, or shift inwards and go for a techboom - it really really always depends, it´s such an adaptive game, you can´t tell from just forum posts.

 

[Danarcis]

There are so many unknown variables in this, it is really hard to know what would provide a higher average science output per pop. It is basically whether it is possible to maintain the same level of science output per pop, which would be highly dependent on the individual game.

Definitely, early you gotta grab stuff - explore and build. I´m actually thinking you should expand fast early, then once you have grown to an acceptable size - either keep going and conquer everyone, or shift inwards and go for a techboom - it really really always depends, it´s such an adaptive game, you can´t tell from just forum posts.

I am actually thinking to do a start where I focus my resources on sending out science ships (4-ish), so I can get a good view of where the planets with high potential science per pop are. As well as getting started on as many anomalies as I can possibly grab. Despotic hegemon of course, for the survey speed. Still unsure of which FTL. Then have a secondary focus colonising suitable planets. Due to the focus on early mass surveying, I will have to build up a force to deal with space cows, which will put colonisation behind. This would be perfect if the optimal was around 50 pop, but assuming a higher research rate by higher levels of pop, then I would have to first take the planets with high pop/science rates and then fill in my empire later (a bit like the shell in the multiplayer game.). I think it would be the most suitable for a high research empire.

 

[moglus]

A) The assumption that science mana output is a linear function of population.
B) The quoted 2% penalty per pop.

One pop is 2% of 50 pops, so when you go from 49 to 50 then you are taking a 2% penalty to increase your output by 2%. Above this point each pop you add has a penalty that's more potent than the bonus it adds; below this point each pop adds more than its penalty is worth.

Well its not that simple tho, the first 10 POPs are exempt from the 2% per POP penalty, additionally a large sum of your research output will come from stations, which can only be built in controlled territory, the majority of which is projected from populated planets