Talk:List of top mineral planets

This is extremely useful. Would it be possible to add a column with the planet types? It'd be nice to know whether a planet is a gemstone world, for cargo space consideration. --Elestan 05:01, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, what would be even more useful would be to have a single table containing every planet in the game, with the following sortable fields:

Cluster	System	X	Y	ΔSol	Enemies	Planet	Type	RUs	BioUnits	Risk	Weather	Tectonics	Temp	Fuel
Sol	Sol	175.2	145.0	0	No	Jupiter-A	Radioactive	1176	0	2	1	4	0	0.74
Sol	Sol	175.2	145.0	0	No	Mercury	Metals	1060	0	2	1	3	3	0.35

• ΔSol is the distance from Sol in Hyperspace units.
• Enemies is "Yes" if the planet's system is within Illwrath, Spathi, Thraddash, Mycon, Yehat, Kzer-Za, or Kohr-Ah space, otherwise "No".
• Risk is a number equal to the sum of the points greater than 2 in each of the three hazards.
• Temp is scaled into a 1-8 range to match the other two hazards. From a glance at the code, the surface hazard breakpoints for temperature are at <50,<100,<150,<250,<350,<550,<800, >=800. For reference, the orbital color breakpoints appear to be <-150, <-50, <50, <150, >=150.
• Fuel is the lander round-trip cost, equal to (PlanetDensity * PlanetRadius)/5000, with a max of 3.0. (this appears to be what the code uses)

For more bonus points, add a column for the total cargo size of the planet's RUs. --Elestan 07:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks good. I would personally prefer to keep the 'hostile territory' column and remove the 'race territory' column, but no qualms otherwise. You've got my vote of confidence. It would be nice if Zeracles and/or CyberSoul could take a look at your proposal, but I can't guarantee they'll be available anytime soon. --Shiver 15:28, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

For spoiler reasons, I presume? That works...I've changed the column to Enemies. --Elestan 17:38, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like this new format is just about ready to go. Could you wait a few days for other admins to give their input if they so choose? --Shiver 23:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Certainly. I wasn't actually sure if I'd be doing it myself or offering this as a suggestion to CyberSoul. Do you know what program he's been using to extract the planet data? --Elestan 00:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Nice. I'd only suggest renaming the first column to constellation, with a link to List of constellations. --Zeracles 16:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

BioRisk

How about also adding a column to note the danger from life forms? Looking at the Table of bio types, I would suggest the following BioRisk values:

Name	Image	Type	Awareness	Value	Hit Points	Speed	Danger	BioRisk
Penguin Cyclops		Coward	High	15	2	Fast	Low	2
Chicken		Coward	Low	1	1	Fast	Low	2
Bug-Eyed Bait		Coward	High	4	2	Slow	Low	2
Splort Wort		Sessile	N/A	3	1	0	Low	3
Goo Burger		Sessile	N/A	8	5	0	Low	3
Whackin' Bush		Sessile	N/A	5	3	0	Moderate	3
Evil One		Sessile	N/A	1	1	0	EXTREME	3
Bubble Vine		Wanderer	N/A	6	2	Slow	Low	3
Glowing Medusa		Wanderer	N/A	3	8	Slow	Moderate	3
Blood Monkey		Wanderer	N/A	2	2	Med	Low	3
Amorphous Trandicula		Wanderer	N/A	9	12	Med	EXTREME	4
Deluxe Blob		Hunter	Low	2	2	Slow	Low	4
Carousel Beast		Hunter	Moderate	10	15	Slow	EXTREME	5
Mysterious Bees		Hunter	Moderate	3	3	Med	Low	5
Crazy Weasel		Hunter	High	3	1	Fast	Low	5
Yompin Yiminy		Hunter	High	4	6	Med	Moderate	6
Fungal Squid		Hunter	Low	7	8	Fast	Moderate	7
ZEX's Beauty		Hunter	High	15	15	Fast	EXTREME	8

Rationale:

• Anything not listed is Harmless (can't hurt you), and would be hazard level 1.
• Anything with the 'Coward' type is going to run from you, so you're unlikely to hit it even accidentally, thus hazard level 2.
• Anything with the 'Sessile' or 'Wanderer' type could hurt you if you accidentally run into it, thus hazard level 3.
  • The Amorphous Trandicula gets +1 because despite not being actively aggressive, it's fairly fast, hard to kill, and very damaging.
• Anything that's a 'Hunter' will deliberately attack you, making them far more dangerous; thus hazard level 5.
  • The Deluxe Blob gets -1 because it's slow, weak, and does little damage.
  • Yompin Yiminy gets +1 because it's fairly fast and hard to kill.
  • Fungal Squid gets +2 because it's really fast and even harder to kill.
  • Zex's Beauty gets +3 because it's just sick and wrong.

A planet would get the BioRisk value of the nastiest critter present.

That also looks excellent. I would personally go so far as to lower the Deluxe Blob's hazard level to 3 using the same rationale you did. The Crazy Weasel's value might be worth decreasing as well, but my memories of planet crawling with that critter involved are very hazy so I'm unsure. So far so good in any case. --Shiver 23:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to keep it at 4, just because it's actually trying to collide with the lander. Not real dangerous if you can see it coming and are undistracted, but I think that makes it more dangerous than say, the Bubble Vine, which has the same stats but moves randomly. Let's see if anyone else has an opinion. --Elestan 00:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Take 2

Okay, I made another pass through this, to try to come up with good rules for assigning values algorithmically, rather than ad hoc. The rules I ended up with are:

• Harmless: Automatic 1 (no further modifiers)
• Coward: Automatic 2 (no further modifiers)
• Sessile/Wanderer: Base of 3
• Slow Hunter: Base of 4
• Medium Speed Hunter: Base of 5
• Fast Hunter: Base of 6
• Weak (HP 1-2): -1
• Strong (HP 6+): +1
• EXTREME Dmg: +1

And the resultant risk values are:

Name	Image	Type	Awareness	Value	Hit Points	Speed	Danger	BioRisk
Penguin Cyclops		Coward	High	15	2	Fast	Low	2
Chicken		Coward	Low	1	1	Fast	Low	2
Bug-Eyed Bait		Coward	High	4	2	Slow	Low	2
Splort Wort		Sessile	N/A	3	1	0	Low	2
Bubble Vine		Wanderer	N/A	6	2	Slow	Low	2
Blood Monkey		Wanderer	N/A	2	2	Med	Low	2
Goo Burger		Sessile	N/A	8	5	0	Low	3
Whackin' Bush		Sessile	N/A	5	3	0	Moderate	3
Evil One		Sessile	N/A	1	1	0	EXTREME	3
Deluxe Blob		Hunter	Low	2	2	Slow	Low	3
Glowing Medusa		Wanderer	N/A	3	8	Slow	Moderate	4
Amorphous Trandicula		Wanderer	N/A	9	12	Med	EXTREME	5
Mysterious Bees		Hunter	Moderate	3	3	Med	Low	5
Crazy Weasel		Hunter	High	3	1	Fast	Low	5
Carousel Beast		Hunter	Moderate	10	15	Slow	EXTREME	6
Yompin Yiminy		Hunter	High	4	6	Med	Moderate	6
Fungal Squid		Hunter	Low	7	8	Fast	Moderate	7
ZEX's Beauty		Hunter	High	15	15	Fast	EXTREME	8

Interesting. Some of those properties look to me like they would have a multiplicative (rather than additive) effect on their BioRisk. For example, a critter with twice the hit points will last twice as long and have the potential to inflict twice as much damage on the lander. The danger value could be used the same way. Actually, now that I think about it, probable damage to lander could be used as a basis for an objective BioRisk value. But I'm sure there are other good ways to describe the risk. --Zeracles 17:31, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the multiplicative effect, but I think that the 1-8 hazard scale is already nonlinear (i.e. an 8 is more than twice as dangerous as a 4). That's why harmless and cowardly critters don't get any further modifiers at all, and speed only matters for hunters, since the others aren't trying to move toward the lander. I think probable damage would be pretty hard to calculate, since the skill of the player enters into it a lot, as would any enhancements to the lander. --Elestan 18:12, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Carousel Beasts aren't that dangerous. --Shiver 15:32, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, but remember that these threat ratings are vs. an unimproved lander, against which Carousel beasts can be pretty nasty; they do swarm you, and you can't shoot fast enough to keep a herd of them at bay. And while you can still outrun them, you're not so fast that they won't catch up to you fairly quickly. Maybe reduce "Slow Hunters" by one? --Elestan 16:13, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that such a classification would always remain subjective. I'm actually in favour of keeping this page with just the facts. This classification could then perhaps find a place in the Walkthrough. — SvdB 19:09, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, considering this more, the subjectivity is in the measure's arbitrariness. Arbitrariness in the specifics and in how sophisticated to make the measure. Not only is the player's skill not taken into account, but also the level of lander upgrades and the number of hostile bios. Additionally, I suspect that the ranking of bios by risk value could change depending on the upgrade levels. For example, increased lander mobility reduces the hazard from mobile bios but not so much from, say, the carousel beast. So I move that the biorisk column be excised from List of planets, along with the derivative overall hazard column. Having said that, it would be possible to include more facts by simply saying what bios are present (most efficiently done as a string for each planet, I'd suggest) and let the player decide how it looks. Good work with the rest of that page though! Anyone else have an opinion? --Zeracles 00:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)