Any advantages from planet type or atmosphere?

For atmosphere type? No, not really. Well, if you choose the "none" atmosphere type you can take advantage of all those no atmosphere moons ...

As for planetary types, I would think Rock and Ice would give you more worlds if you count in the moons too. Gas giants will give you less but they are generally larger worlds to compensate. I will typically go with either Rock or Ice and (whatever) atmosphere, though I never take the "none" atmosphere.

I avoid "none". Why? it means not colonizing gas giants, since they cannot spawn with none. I also avoid Oxygen. Why? Overused.

I usually go with Gas. Why? 25% of them will be breathable rather than 20%. I avoid Rock due to it being over used.

All planet types appear in all sizes; gas giants do not appear in any larger size on average than ice or rock. The only skew is the lack of none gas giant planets, and the forcing of a few tiny none planets in regular systems as moons (5 / 31 planet objects in such systems).

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On average then there are 5 more worlds to colonize per system if you choose rock or ice. Exactly what I intimated - they are more plentiful than gas.

As for planetary types, I would think Rock and Ice would give you more worlds if you count in the moons too. Thats a quote from my original post.

Neener. Heh.

Lets look at a 100 system Mid-life Quadrant to get some numbers involved. Following is a count of moons and total planets, by system type. A "moon" is defined as a planet with specified size of tiny, atm of none, and type of any. All other planet entries are "non-moons."

Standard 1
0 moons, 9 planets

Standard 2
2 moons, 11 planets

Standard 2
3 moons, 12 planets

Binary 1
0 moons, 6 planets

Binary 2
0 moons, 5 planets

Binary 3
0 moons, 6 planets

Binary 4
0 moons, 6 planets

Trinary 1
0 moons, 4 planets

Trinary 2
0 moons, 0 planets

So, in our system, we would expect to have:

20 Standard 1:
0 moons, 180 planets

20 Standard 2:
40 moons, 180 planets

20 Standard 3:
60 moons, 180 planets

4 Binary 1:
0 moons, 24 planets

4 Binary 2:
0 moons, 20 planets

4 Binary 3:
0 moons, 24 planets

4 Binary 4:
0 moons, 24 planets

2 Trinary 1:
0 moons, 8 planets

2 Trinary 2:
0 moons, 0 planets

In grand total, we have:
100 moons
640 non-moon planets
740 total planets

Now, we have two possibilites: either the game engine picks atmosphere type first, or planet type first.

A) Atmosphere, then type
If atmosphere is first, it will be evenly distributed amongst Any planets. All of the None planets will then have to be divided amongst rock and ice. This will lead to balanced atmosphers and skewing towards fewer gas planets.

B) Type, then atmosphere
If the planet type is first, rock, ice and gas will be equally distributed. The atmospherers on rock and ice planets will be equally distributed, but those on gas planets will only be able to be distributed between the 4 other atmospheres. Thus, we would get balanced types and a skewing away from None atmosphere.

We can examine the mathematic results of both scenarios, then try to guess which one better fits the game.

A) Atmosphere, then type
Of the moons, we have 50 planets that will be none/rock, and 50 none/ice.

Of the remaining 640 planets, there will be 128 of each atmosphere. For non-None, there will be 42.66 planets of each type. For None, there will be 64 rock and 64 ice. Thus:

Oxygen: 128
Hydrogen: 128
CO2: 128
Methane: 128
None: 128 + 50 + 50 = 228

Rock: 42.66 * 4 + 64 + 50 = 284
Ice: 284
Gas: 42.66 * 4 = 170

B) Type, then atmosphere
Of the moons, we have 50 planets that will be none/rock, and 50 none/ice.

Of the remaining 640 planets, there will be 213.33 of each type. For non-gas, there will be 42.66 of each atmosphere. For gas, there will be 53.33 of O2, CO2, H2, and CH4.

Oxygen: 42.66 * 2 + 52.33 = 137
Hydrogen: 137
CO2: 137
Methane: 137
None: 42.66 * 2 + 50 + 50 = 184

Rock: 213 + 50 = 263
Ice: 263
Gas: 213

C) Insanity
There is always the possibility that Aaron coded something entirely different from a simple function as I have imagined, so the numbers could be all wrong.

Given my estimates from the planet window in-game, I'd lean more towards scenario B being the correct functionality. Number of planets by atmosphere seems to be generally balanced. Gas seems to be under-represented, but not quite in such a large gap as seen in A. These numbers are all rough estimates, and I have no access to the actual algorithm the game uses.

While Gas is under-represented, the difference is not phenomenal, and it isn't that difficult to acquire other colony techs by the time the difference starts to add up (even if you have to research them). Particularly in multiplayer, trading colony techs and breathers tends to be easy to accomplish.

While None may have more planets in both scenarios, many of them are tiny, resulting in less resource potential than one might expect.

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Impressive...

Hmm.... Needs empirical testing me thinks. I think I did a statistical survey of this at some point in the past but I don't remember whether it was case a or case b.

Interesting but all I was saying (and you just proved) is that there are more rock/ice than gas. I wasn't commenting on utility or what have you, though simply by sheer numbers you would have more facility spaces thus more resource production even though some are tiny and could perhaps only fit 1 facility slot.

Impressive study Fyron...
But what about size distribution....
(Actualy, I think that info is in one of the set-up files....)

For all "any" planet entries, the sizes are evenly distributed (20% tiny, 20% small, etc.). Since everything scales linearly (huge planets have exactly 5 times the space of tiny), let's just assume space values of 1-5 for planet size.

A) Atmosphere, then type
Oxygen/Hydrogen/Carbon/Methane: 128 planets
space = 1 * 128 * 0.2 + 2 * 128 * 0.2 + 3 * 128 * 0.2 + 4 * 128 * 0.2 + 5 * 128 * 0.2
space = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5) * 128 * 0.2
space = 384

None: 128 + 50 (ice moon) + 50 (rock moon) = 228 planets
space = 384 + 1*50 + 1*50
space = 484

Rock/Ice: 42.66 * 4 (O2/CO2/H2/CH4) + 64 (None) + 50 (Moon) = 284 planets
space = (1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5) * (42.66 * 4 + 64) * 0.2 + 50 * 1
space = 755

Gas: 42.66 * 4 = 170 planets
space = 1 * 170 * 0.2 + 2 * 170 * 0.2 + 3 * 170 * 0.2 + 4 * 170 * 0.2 + 5 * 170 * 0.2
space = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5) * 170 * 0.2
space = 510

B) Type, then atmosphere
Of the moons, we have 50 planets that will be none/rock, and 50 none/ice.

Of the remaining 640 planets, there will be 213.33 of each type. For non-gas, there will be 42.66 of each atmosphere. For gas, there will be 53.33 of O2, CO2, H2, and CH4.

Oxygen/Hydrogen/Carbon/Methane: 42.66 * 2 (rock/ice) + 52.33 (gas) = 137 planets
space = 1 * 137 * 0.2 + 2 * 137 * 0.2 + 3 * 137 * 0.2 + 4 * 137 * 0.2 + 5 * 137 * 0.2
space = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5) * 137 * 0.2
space = 411

None: 42.66 * 2 + 50 (rock moon) + 50 (ice moon) = 184
42.66 * 2 = 85.3
space = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5) * 85.3 * 0.2 + 50 * 1 + 50 * 1
space = 356

Rock/Ice: 213 + 50 (moon) = 263 planets
space = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5) * 213 * 0.2 + 50 * 1
space = 689

Gas: 213 planets
space = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5) * 213 * 0.2
space = 639

Assuming we stick with scenario B, we can see that planet types get about the same amount of space, with Gas having slightly less (7%). Atmosphere is also fairly close, though biased against None (13%).

Overall, the number of each planet type is exactly even in the SystemTypes.txt file. There are several variations of each system by number of planets (where tiny offset planets are moons, and not counted for this purpose). For example, there are 3 systems with 5 planets:

Standard 1: 2 rock, 1 gas, 2 ice
Standard 2: 2 rock, 2 gas, 1 ice
Standard 3: 1 rock, 2 gas, 2 ice

The distribution of systems in QuadrantTypes.txt is based on planet number (excluding moons). If its determined that there should be, say, 0.9% of systems with 5 planets, that will be split evenly amongst the 3 variations.

Thus, the end result is that planet type and atm are almost exactly evenly balanced. Size has some skewing towards tiny and huge planets, but it is not biased towards any planet type or atm. On average, maps come out almost exactly evenly balanced in FQM (and thus, BM).

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I misunderstood when you said (5/31 planet objects in such systems). Thats where I got the 5. But 1 or 5, the only point I made in my OP is that there were more. Its an advantage, little or large. Thats what he asked in his original OP.

Homeworlds are normally added to empty sectors. All HW-related behavior is hard-coded.

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