Talk:Planet landing risk-reward formula

Inspiration

This is an idea that has been on my mind since I first played SC2 in July 1994. I always wanted to come up with a "simple" formula for calculating whether gathering valuables on a dangerous planet was worth it. Also, planets with no lander damaging threats but poor return on fuel spent (for example, a planet full of commons or sometimes trace or light amount of corrosives or base metals) may not be worth your time and effort. I admit, this is a bit ambitious, and someone may have already done something similar for this game, but I thought it could be a fun exercise, especially since we have access to how the game values certain lander damage, as well as hard numbers for all planetary data within the game. If the template idea is a bit much, a program could be written (I'd be willing to try if provided with the data) to read all of the game's raw planetary data (which is static) and construct a list of the top 100 most valuable planets, star systems, areas of the hyperspace map which we could then use to construct a wiki table. This program could also produce wiki table formatting for easy modifications/updates to the formula, if deemed necessary. Part of this idea was briefly mentioned while I was discussing the feasibility of the StarBox template with Svdb here.

Before jumping in and modifying the formula (which doesn't exist as of yet), I ask that we discuss some of the ideas behind it here first. For instance, I believe that the formula should produce both negative (very bad) and positive (very good) values, and that it should not simply consider 0 (zero) its lowest possible value. Rather 0 (zero) would be considered "breaking even". It's my opinion that the positives of this formula are fairly straightforward with the exception of the various Alien Artifacts. Most likely, as a group, those should be given a high positive skew since the rewards of collecting them often far outweigh most dangers. Coming up with a reasonable formula for calculating the negatives is going to be a lot more difficult. There are also other factors that may affect planet landing that I am not aware. For instance, I would like to know if a planet's tilt, atmospheric thickness, rotation rate somehow affect how closely the lander lands next to the destination initially chosen. There is always a bit of landing "drift" that the lander suffers. If this is not purely random, it may be slightly important in a more complete formula in how much it affects how quickly certain minerals can be collected. The trick about landing on an extremely violent world to get one huge exotic piece and leave immediately comes to mind. Obviously someone who is intimately familiar with the source code, such as Svdb, would play a vital role in answering many of these questions, providing insight, and showing us how to access the raw game data (though I'm sure it's been mentioned repeatedly somewhere else, such as the various forums). Thanks in advance for any interest (even if you tell me this is a really bad idea), and your participation. --PsiPhi 15:49, 16 October 2007 (CEST)

Excellent idea in my opinion, maybe when I'm not quite so busy I'll be more helpful, for now my only suggestion is to put it in the game mechanics category, like the Lander Hints page. - Zeracles October 17 2007