Planet Baen: Web Game for free eBooks

[ATDrake]

I've a 2 million Energy surplus. But I keep my population small and have only once ever cashed in one of those regular Pop gifts to add to it. Without any other intervention by me (aside from occasionally taking pop-reducing Whacks), they've stubbornly grown from 1000 to 50,000 people in just over a month's time.

I suspect if this kind of 2% per cycle growth is allowed to go on, players will have billions and billions of Pop by the end of the year, if they haven't all cannibalized themselves for lack of Energy and Food and Bliss, making Planet Baen one of those nightmare apocalyptic colonization failure scenarios.

[koland]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

I suspect if this kind of 2% per cycle growth is allowed to go on, players will have billions and billions of Pop by the end of the year, if they haven't all cannibalized themselves for lack of Energy and Food and Bliss, making Planet Baen one of those nightmare apocalyptic colonization failure scenarios.

At which point, I'd buy the book ....

[ATDrake]

Well, they do say on the Freehold page that they're planning an anthology of stories set on Planet Baen…

[Freeshadow]

AT better use that energy surplus for population growth and get money to level up.
It will get you no book having a high power stat when the beta ends
As for now it seems they go live at the 15th.
Probably resetting.

[ATDrake]

I'm fine with my population and income where it is. I only need 1 more ally to get the 5th book, and then 3 more levels to get the 6th if I decide to bother.

Even if the cost of levelling goes up by about 1/3rd each time, at > 1 million Bucks per cycle with natural growth and increased asset income with uplevelling, I'll probably be able to get to 20 before then anyway.

Besides, at 2% per cycle growth for ~50,000 people, I get 6000 extra Population every day without even having to redeem any gifts, much less surge.

[koland]

You must have had a lot of crows visit, as once I got up around level 7 or 8, natural growth alone pushed my population to exceed power pretty much every cycle it hit (followed by three cycles of catch-up).

[ATDrake]

The crows must visit when I sleep. Normally I get Amok Fever, Maximum Ringo, and Generation Ship, which I pay off. Bloodsport, Rogue Agent, and Obnoxious Official I usually take (though the latter two seem to have no noticeable effect; lazy incompetent Obnoxious Official doesn't take away my Bliss like he promises).

[Freeshadow]

AT: It might inded be we aim at different final goals. I made my 29th ally before I stopped trying to get more books out of this method and hope now I manage to get from 20 to lev 25 at least before the reset. After I climbed out of the 2ook pop 3mln energy blackhole I'm stable now with 8ook pop and a 17,7 million bucks per cycle
I'd even try to use small pop gifts but won't change the request since the energy super gifts are really damn helpful as koland pointed out.

[ATDrake]

I freely admit I'm a lazy player and the thought of having to spend a couple of days hovering over my freehold to dig myself out of the Bliss and Energy holes due to overpop that people have been describing would make the game not-fun to me.

You can have all the system/regift Pop gifts I get in the future if you like. Pretty much everyone in my alliances has set their preferences to Energy or None accepted and I don't care to dump unwanted stuff on random strangers, even if they may be technically asking for it (they're probably hoping for a giant super-Pop gift anyway).

[Freeshadow]

The super pop pushing players operate on bliss not energy. They even managed to turn around several of their ingame counters by exceeding the maxint limits

[koland]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

The super pop pushing players operate on bliss not energy. They even managed to turn around several of their ingame counters by exceeding the maxint limits

Yeah, I especially like the one that crashed the energy so low it started paying him energy (then again, it also said it was taking away from his actual bucks hoard, too, not just stopping his income).

[kaleissin]

Ahh, whacks sure are lovely. A round of Blood Sport made my freehold Energy Positive.

Level 20:

Baen Bucks: 18,342,641
Baen Bliss: 974,828
Population: 303,187
Food: 1,315,449
Energy: 6,340,930
Military: 1,993,524

Surge Pts Left this Cycle: 0/100
Total Bucks per Cycle: 7,068,170

from Assets: 1,004,430
from Pop.: 6,063,740

Political Adj to Asset Bucks: +40%
Bliss - Base Need: 662,141
Low-Bliss Cost: 0
Energy - Base Need: 277,190
Low-Energy Bliss Cost: 0%
Food - Base Need: 1,012,262
Low Food Bliss Pct Penalty: 0%
Famine Population Loss: 0

[orlok]

Here are my Level 21 stats. I have gone for Population at the expense of Energy, and am at the moment trying to recover my position on that, topping up with Bliss gifts whenever Bliss goes negative and eats into Bucks.

Baen Bucks:320,522,073
Baen Bliss:1,714,817
Population:1,142,558
Food:4,837,355
Energy:19,664,683
Military:6,519,770

Total Bucks per Cycle:24,199,396
from Assets:205,678
from Pop.:23,993,718
Political Adj to Asset Bucks:-75%
Bliss - Base Need:562,259
Low-Bliss Cost:0
Energy - Base Need:-4,329,035
Low-Energy Bliss Cost:-18%
Food - Base Need:3,694,797
Low Food Bliss Pct Penalty:0%
Famine Population Loss:0

[Elfwreck]

My new account, Elf the Sock, seems to have a bug: the grid isn't growing. It's level 5 and still a 6x6 grid, so I have to sell off almost everything from previous levels to get space for new resources. (Also, only 12 quick charge spaces, which I'm rapidly filling with Radiation Shields until I can get Thorium Reactors. I'll probably set 1 quick-charge space for food and one for bucks for a while yet.) I've reported the possible bug.

I'm going to try something different: get to level 10 as quickly as possible, to get access to the Thorium Reactors & the city planners--and stop. Increase population as much as possible, using the reactors & super-gifts to pay the energy costs; see if I can get a 10mil/cycle income going and then jump several levels at once.

I considered staying at level 5 for this (5 energy per person is, wow, *easy* to cover) but I want the thorium reactors. 10 energy per person should also be easy to cover with the super-gifts. Right now, the Elfwreck freehold has a pop of 873,825, and regularly gets one or two energy gifts of 200,000.

ETA: Not a bug. Grids no longer automatically grow; going from 6x6 to 7x7 costs 100,000 bucks (it's a bug that that isn't visible before you have the money, and Bob's going to fix it); going from 7x7 to 8x8 will cost 1,000,000. Which means, wow, early adopters got an advantage there.

[Freeshadow]

A warning about the posthuman guys
Their bucks/cycle value has been lowered. The level 2o planners no longer give 26k per cycle.
Ansibles are the best passive asset again