I have a question about the PBP-System:...

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126 days, 17 hours, 38 minutes ago

theclerk

I have a question about the PBP-System:...

I have a question about the PBP-System:
https://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/priority-build-points

If I understand the docs correctly, the system acts in a way that makes fighting before the ship limit is reached a dumb idea (contrary to its stated intention).

https://planets.nu/#/sector/294805
In this game I've earned 47 PBPs so far.

But next turn, when we are over 450 ships, I need PBPs for every build while players with less than 21 PBPs can build for free? So 26 PBPs go to waste or I have to build Swifts instead of Darkwings?

This seems not to be the intention of the system and I cannot recall that this is the way it was handled in the original version of the game.

Or did I misread the docs here?

126 days, 17 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

No im afraid you are right, with the old priority queue, big stacks of PBP earned before the limit will go to waste.
If you remember it differently, its probably because it is rare to gain so many PBP before the limit.

126 days, 17 hours, 9 minutes ago

talespin

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

I don't think your points go to waste.

Regarding pbN: "This Friendly Code will set the starbase to be a priority build base, spending PBPs or PPs in order to build a ship."

With all the extra PBPs you have earned, you are able to choose which ships get built. That is good for you. You set the pbN code on SBs where there are ships you want built. You get to choose more ships to be built than anyone else.

For everyone else with less than 21 PBPs, they cannot choose which ships get built. They only get builds from standard builds, in order of ID#.

How you make the best of your PBPs is up to you. Build what you want to build. Use your PBPs in whatever combination of ship builds as you want.

*I think that's how it goes, but I'm not an expert with the Classic system. I'm just replying so I can see if I have it figured out for myself, and I was checking the documentation for clarification.

126 days, 17 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

With the exception of the Feds (and even with them it is still useful) I have found PBP's to be an invaluable tool as the game progresses. The more you have the better it is but never sacrifice constructing a good ship during the ship building phase of the game. It is always better to collect 2 pbp's rather then building a useless ship that can only be rcycled for 1 pbp.

I fight whenever I think I can win at anytime in the game to collect more PBP's to be used later when I have the proper resources and tech to build a good ship where I need it.

126 days, 16 hours, 33 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

@Forger, you talk about PP and production queue. The question refers to PBP and classic queue.

@TheClerk, unfortunately you are right. In former times this rarely happened because often the ship limit was reached before anyone got 20+ PBP, e.g. around turn 25. Your game is already at turn 38 and the limit stll isn't reached. I think the reason for this is that no one cares to build a SDSF every turn on every base which can't do better. E.g. your Borg has 25 bases but has built just 0-1 ships (maybe you destroyed a Bio?) this turn. So he missed to store 25 PBP in form of SDSF. The PBP can be cashed by recycling the ships.
Anyway, you're right, even for the time after the ship limit. When the game continues and you are near 20 PP it's important to always have some bases on PBx which build very PP-efficient ships, not your big guns. Otherwise ... from Donovan's:

---
If a player that is awarded a priority build does not have a PBx code on any of his bases, his first base that would have gotten the build in the normal queue will build a ship, costing priority points.
---

126 days, 16 hours, 15 minutes ago

rexe

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

@Forger I would disagree ... watching one of my starbases gain 2 PBP instead of a ship makes my skin crawl. It's not about the 2 PBP -- it's about the warship count -- and possession of one more ship slot that can't be used against me. Every 2PBP I gain feels like one more Rush or Golem that I have to fight.

There's typically three phases to the ship limit in a build queue game -- before the ship limit, over the ship limit (where people burn their PBP for a bigger fleet), and then endgame is played at the ship limit when the regular queue restarts. Utilizing PBP on smaller support ships during the over-the-limit phase is generally recommended as it causes the biggest denial of enemy growth.

126 days, 15 hours, 48 minutes ago

theclerk

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

Thx Emork, so I got it right. That is really a pity.

But it is true, the shiplimit is going to be hit very late in this game.

126 days, 15 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

Sorry I did not realize we were discussing a classic game. Emork is correct in his analysis.

126 days, 14 hours, 59 minutes ago

talespin

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

Just thinking aloud...

It seems to me that this feature exists because it levels the playing field for when the Ship Limit hits. By the time the Ship Limit hits, there are no huge stockpiles of PBPs. You then have to earn them. It's easier to get PBPs before 450, because you could build SDSFs and recycle them. Potentially, you could spend the entire early game just building up your PBPs. This feature insures there are no huge stockpiles, at least not on the board. (I suppose you could consider a horde of SDSFs to be a stockpile of PBPs.)

Production Queue seems to do the opposite. The entire goal is to stockpile production points.

It seems to me that having a 21 point max for build points is a good thing. It forces you to engage. I wonder how it would look to give Production Queue a similar setup: force points to be used 50 ships before the Ship Limit, and include the 21 point max.

126 days, 14 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

What? No sorry, it's just a bad system. That's why the new PBP system in Standard games is so much better. If you know the system, you simply do not recycle anything before the limit hits. This lets the whole game hits the limit way earlier because everyone is building SDFs on every freaking base. Furthermore, there is the even more serious Merlin "exploit". The old system completely penalizes early or midgame aggression.

It's basically the same then the old one, instead you don't have to build ships and block the queue. You just build a base and get free PBP.

126 days, 13 hours, 49 minutes ago

theclerk

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

The whole system would work just fine if this PBP spending at 450 was skipped. Just build in the normal queue until 500 ships are hit before combat and then go on like now.

126 days, 13 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

@The Clerk, I know it's fairly unfortunate in your situation that you'll lose PBP over the last 50 builds. One technique I would suggest is to set all your bases to build ships that cost low PP right now using pb1 - so that you get the most value for those PBP. If you did this with Swifty's (for example), you'd lose 6 pbp per turn until the ship limit hits. It's possible that the ship limit could land next turn (although Unlikely, looking at the charts.) You can still probably enter the ship limit with 30+ pbp that way. (Also, if you don't build - you won't lose pbp.... so you could also sacrifice building in the short term if you want to hoard the pbp.)

@Rudel, FWIW: both systems have flaws.

I think the classic queue actually works really well when you have 11 players of a similar skill competing. An early ship limit makes it hard (even with plenty of early game aggression) to "lose" pbp in the last 50 builds. But it's fundamentally not a forgiving system when one player has a stronger understanding of it than the others. The biggest benefit of the classic queue is the hard limit - banking all those SDSFs and recycling them later means that you are opening up ship slots in the late game to the queue or other players. I know it *feels* arbitrary to have planets build in id order - but that gives players a chance to fight for regular queue builds (adding some strategic significance to planets). Honestly, the hard limit itself is fairly democratic given the distribution of planet ids.

But ya know, the production queue has benefits as well. Mostly, it's a lot more forgiving of poor early game logistics. The ideal situation hasn't changed - you still want to build usable ships with each base, each turn.... but just getting the base up give you some value when you can't quite produce a usable build. That SDSF hogging a ship slot still blocks a Golem in the regular queue... so it's not really true that there is no value in building those slot-fillers. The soft limit gives people some ability to build those Golems..... but the cost is that without the hard limit - the system can exploited to prevent all late game building. Just make sure that PP gets used to keep the total ships over 500 and nobody will ever see another regular build. And even without a perfect stranglehold, with random build order, it can be even tougher to see a regular build due to regular bad luck.

And of course, the Merlin exploit works in both.... it's just a a tad bit more efficient in the classic queue.

/shrug. They both have their flaws....

126 days, 13 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

The only real flaw I see is that the production queue makes it very valuable to build SBs on every planet before the limit, regardless where and whatever that planet is. As far as I remember a recycled SDF is only worth 1 PBP while the base without a build produces 2 (which is a major upgrade). So you only build them for blocking, not for gaining/storing PBP.

An easy solution would be to give an attacker more than 2 PBP for each base destroyed. Make it count. Only build Starbases where you can defend them. 10 PBP would be good. That also promotes aggressive, offensive gameplay. That will result in shorter games. And a lot more focus on fleets rather than stationary fortresses / turtleing. A lot of advantages here.

What makes the new production queue much better is that early aggression is not penalized but awarded (as this is the main issue in this thread).

126 days, 12 hours, 23 minutes ago

rexe

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

Classic Queue (turn 34):

Beginner: WTF? Why can't I build any ships?
Casual player: Building my 12th heavy carrier, cool.
Expert: Have 82 SDSF and 12 Merlin -- my plan is coming together perfectly!!

Production Queue (turn 34):

Beginner: Oh, I have to set the friendly code to "pb1" to build a ship now.
Casual player: Hmm ... why are all those guys with 30 planets now talking a big game in diplomacy when I have 70 planets?
Expert: Now that I have 20 heavy carriers, time to burn some PBP on some support ships.

126 days, 12 hours, 1 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

Rexe >> Expert: Have 82 SDSF and 12 Merlin -- my plan is coming together perfectly!!

Fact or fiction? Easy to look up. From the game in which Merlin build control became famous:

Classic queue
Ship Limit T23
Expert Lizard

War ships:
7 Gorbie
5 Madonzilla
5 T-Rex
4 SSD
17 LCC
4 Loki
1 Reptile

Freighters:
1 STF
10 LDSF
2 MDSF
1! SDSF

Utility ships:
4! Merlin
18 Eros
6 Serpent
5 Pl21 Probe
3 Q-Tanker

126 days, 11 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

^^

126 days, 11 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

@Rudel
"The only real flaw I see is that the production queue makes it very valuable to build SBs on every planet before the limit, regardless where and whatever that planet is. As far as I remember a recycled SDF is only worth 1 PBP while the base without a build produces 2 (which is a major upgrade). So you only build them for blocking, not for gaining/storing PBP. "

The thing is, In both versions, it's very valuable to build SB's on every planet before the limit. That's not changed as we move from classic to production queue. And while the PP gain of 2 for a SB is more than 1 for a recycle - but the raw value of the build points isn't the only value of the SDSF. There is another value to that SDSF - it takes "1 Ship Slot." Building for "blocking" is perhaps more important than building for PBP storage. The return on your PBP's is important when you want to build warships out of them.... but "Merlin Queue Control" was effectively about dictating when a ship (any ship) could be built, not really about returning a good investment in ship building.

Anyway, the simple truth is that "# ship slots" is one of the most important economic indicators in the game - under both systems. You want to own as many ship slots as you can in this game. Everyone would be well replaced to keep that in mind in the production queue... speeding up the soft limit via SDSFs (or Eros', or Falcons, or Swifty's, etc...) is still an effective way to prevent having more big carriers from entering the game.

p.s. As Emork demonstrated - in the classic queue, you will find expert players are not building a bunch of "slot fillers" - they build usable ships. And that strategy doesn't change when you switch the production queue.

125 days, 16 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

One big difference. In My current game I am playing the Colonials. I did not worry about building Virgos with heavy phasers before the 500 ship limit. I got several star bases up and running banking pbp. I then used those pbp after the limit hit to build my heavy phaser virgos. This allowed me to have a nice assortment of support ships to get my economy rolling. I knew I would be the big combat ships later.

125 days, 16 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

I hope your enemy is the Crystal or I'm really questioning the strategy behind Virgos with HP. ;)

@J-Zan I agree that ship slots are a valid strategic thing. In fact I love the ship limit. I'd never play in a game without one. Regardless of how you use them, I think that the production queue is a serious improvement to the game.

By the way, of course is a Liz not building STF, why on earth would he? He's building super cheap hissers that fulfill both purposes.

125 days, 15 hours, 29 minutes ago

wrathofgod

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

As Donaldworrell stated, this depends, ur race, ur neighbours, the build strategy of all players, ur style, prefering a tight game with short supply lines or early agressive space grabbing...in fact there is no general strat that works only a good advice-dont loose ships at all-look carefully what compositon the nr2,3,4 are driving, are ur forces ready to rip them? The control of the cycle is worth thinking closer, lets say in ur 50planets short before limit u have 20 between 400-500, 30 1-400, then u build those 20 bases and plan to move the cycle 1st hand with an attack on ur 1st target and his losses move the cycle towards 400, cash out, build up the coming ids but still concentrate ur efforts for 400-500s and then dear lizking the sdsf has a useful function u overplay the still young bases with them and its 400-500 cash out again, this can be done within 5-10 trns after ship limit-

125 days, 12 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

Rudel. I am building Virgo's with Heavy Phasers after the 500 ship limit with pbp. Things have slowed done ship build wise and I can wait till my merlins catch up and build Virgo with HP. Before the ship limit they have disrupters. A lot less minerals that way.

125 days, 12 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: I have a question about the PBP-System:...

There still comes a point when every body runs through there pbp and combat has to happen.