Let's Play(test): The Vangaan Republic

[Tyrel Lohr]

Let's Play(test): The Vangaan Republic
Welcome to a live playtesting thread, where we walk through the rules as they currently exist in order to get a feel for where 2E is headed and isolate any immediate problems and get them corrected prior to the release of the draft rules. A lot of the rules only currently exist in scattered note form, so this is definitely going to be a "touch and go" affair.

As the thread title indicates, this isn't a one-way information dump: you, the reader, will be invited to determine the fate of our test empire. You will take on the role of one of the Republic's elected representatives, which means that periodically you will be given the opportunity to vote on a course of action for the Republic.

I will answer rules questions as we go, and I am sure we will get into some spirited discussions of what rules seem to work, which don't, and so on. That is all part of the reason for putting this thread together: we need to get a feel for what does or doesn't work, and your feedback and participation is very important to us.

Now, to kick things off, let me describe the basic rules we will be using in this campaign. It is going to be a Captain Campaign, which means that we are going to be a step in detail above the basic Commander Campaign as far as star system detail is concerned but still not at the same level of detail as a Commodore or Admiral Campaign. There will be at most one planet per star system we visit, we will not be worrying about star types, but each planet can have climate values that will affect our ability to live there.

This campaign is also using an exploration campaign in which systems are connected via jump lanes rather than a hex-based starmap. Jump lanes are a more familiar option, and is better defined for purposes of this playtest. Furthermore, I will be using an experimental two-dimensional coordinate-based mapping option that should offer similar results to the exploration option from the Companion in 1E while being a bit more versatile.

So, without further ado, let's learn about our home star system and our homeworld:


Vangaarden
Single Star System, Coordinates (0,0)
Adaptable World, Climate 7/7/7/10
4 Census, 10 Morale, 1 Productivity, 2 Agriculture, 1 Tech
RAW 3, Carrying Capacity 6, Biosphere 4, Moons 0
No Survey Results

This planet was generated randomly using the system generation rules from 2E. My first result on the chart was for a Dead World (equivalent of Hostile in 1E), so I rerolled and ended up with an Adaptable World. We can make do with one of these, so I kept it and finished rolling out the stats.

The first thing you should notice is that our home system is a "Single Star System". You will always roll on the Star System Configuration Table regardless of the system detail level you're using. The rules have been changed so that a system's configuration will affect the types of planets you can encounter. It also allows us to present the possibility of discovering star systems that are either empty (Starless Void) or contain stellar-mass Black Holes.

Looking at our Climate values, Vangaarden is not a very hospitable planet from a Human's perspective. The four values, presented in slashed notation, represent Temperature, Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, and Gravity, respectively. The temperature and atmosphere are a bit more severe than Earth standard, and the Gravity is extremely severe. We Vangaani, being native to the planet, absolutely love this type of climate, and these are our preferred climate values.

Note: If we were using the Menagerie rules, the Vangaani would receive 9 species design points to spend on traits.

The "colony line" lists all of our colony's current stats: Census, Morale, Productivity, and Agriculture are all present on our planet right now. Morale is currently set to its maximum value of 10, but it has a minimum value of 0 (for those keeping score at home, allowing your Morale to fall to that value would be very bad).

The only infrastructure at our colony are 1 Productivity, 2 Agriculture, and 1 Tech. I will get into the ramifications for this and why we don't have any Supply, Intel, or Commerce infrastructure present later. Originally I wasn't going to give us any Tech infrastructure to begin with, either, but during generation I decided it would be a good idea to give us a head start in this area.

The next stat line shows our planet's intrinsic stats, including RAW, Carrying Capacity, Biosphere, and Moons. Our homeworld ended up not being very mineral rich or spacious, but I am sure we'll manage. The bigger worry is our low Biosphere stat -- it might become hard to feed our people unless we find a good colony site with a high Biosphere value.

For further review, I am going to hand you off to your government ministers to describe specific conditions:

Economic Report
The Republic currently controls a single colony, our homeworld. This world has a normal economic output of 4 Census x 3 RAW = 12 EP. Unfortunately, we are still an Industrial power -- which means that our economic output is quartered, giving us all of 3 EP per turn in income. This will obviously have a drastic effect on what we can do each campaign turn, and will also necessitate the first few "game turns" be played out in year-long intervals, just to allow us to gain enough Economic Points to be able to afford anything.

Note: I started us out as an Industrial power so that we could experience what it would be like on our way towards becoming an Interstellar nation.

Production Report
Our current production output is 4 Census x 1 Productivity = 4 EP per turn. That means we can spend at most 4 EP per turn on unit purchases. Luckily, infrastructure improvements do not count against this limit! Right now we probably won't have to build too many units, so the 4 EP limit won't be too constraining.

Agricultural Report
Our Home Minister reports that our Census currently requires 8 Foodstuffs to survive. The current Agricultural Output at our homeworld, Vangaarden, is 2 Agriculture x 4 Biosphere = 8 Foodstuffs, or exactly the amount required to meet our immediate needs. Before the empire's population can expand, we will need to purchase additional Agriculture infrastructure at our homeworld.

Tech Report
We are in fact a Late Industrial power, having completed some of the research required to advance to the Interplanetary stage. Our current slate of technologies look something like this:

Anti-Ground TL 1
Anti-Air TL 0
Attrition TL 0
Carrier TL 1
Command TL 1
Defense TL 0
Mobility TL 1
Sensors TL 0
Shipyard TL 0

[I rolled 89% for tech completion, and because I have not finalized the chart of techs required I just kind of winged it for the purposes of this list]

We are currently lacking the following techs to become Interplanetary: Anti-Ship, Anti-Fighter, Engines. Once we unlock these technologies, we will advance to the next ETL.

Now, we have 1 Tech at Vangaarden, and this point of Tech infrastructure will generate 1 Tech Point per turn, for 12 Tech Points per year. Now, if we wanted to unlock one of those techs we need for Interplanetary ETL, the cost would be:

(0 + 10) x 10 = 100 TP

So, barring the construction of some extra Tech infrastructure, it will take us 8.4 years per field unlocked. That is a long time. If we wanted to increase our Tech to 2 at our homeworld, it would cost us 20 EP, an amount we can earn in just 7 turns. In other words, if we wanted to, we could plow all of our available income (after maintenance) into Tech to allow us to close that gap a bit more rapidly.

Census Report
Our empire contains 4 Vangaani Census at our homeworld. To keep things simple, our empire has a Population Growth Requirement (PGR) of 100, which means that we have to bank 100 Population Points into our Population Pool before we will experience population growth. 1 Population Point is banked per turn for each Census in your empire. Now, because we are still Industrial, our PGR is doubled to 200. It will take 50 campaign turns before we have enough Population Points banked to allow us to place an additional Census.

When the time comes, placing that additional Census will increase both our economic and production outputs, because both are tied to our Census stat. So population growth is definitely a desirable thing, especially for a crappy little empire like ours.

Ground Unit Report
Even a Republic like ours requires some ground troops to enforce the peace. I will design a ground unit and throw a full write up in here about it tomorrow.

In any event, 1 EP of our income is going to end up being required to pay maintenance on a group of these ground units, which will leave us 2 EP per turn to spend.

Comments thus far? Questions? Sorry for leaving everyone at a "to be continued" sign -- it took longer to assemble this than I had thought (it took all of 5 minutes to generate, but much longer to write!).

-Tyrel

[MarkG88]

So far so go Tyrel. It was a tad late for me when I read this. My question is: you mention game turns and game year, so will we have a carryover of 12 turns (months) per year a la VBAM 1.0 or will 2.0 move to something more abstract (but playable) in a 10 turn per year game system? I like the idea of 10 turns per year myself which is why I'm focusing on that point at the moment. I'll have more later when I've had time to focus and ponder a bit.

-Mark

[Gareth_Perkins]

Looks really good,

I must confess that this interests me far more than the ship-building discussion (not that that isn't good too - but we all have priorities ), I'm also very much looking forward to seeing how you plan to handle Intel and Diplomacy,

First off-the-cuff question for you: It always slightly bugged me that you get more information at the Admiral end of the scale... Shouldn't the Admiral get condensed information about a lot of planets while the Captain gets lots of detail?

How does the agriculture/biosphere stats work? What are the effects of not being able to feed your population? Is there a minimum of 1 in Biosphere on habitable worlds and does the biosphere rating vary with the climate ratings (a biosphere might be toxic to my race and its food sources, but fine for yours)? Can food be transported between colonies (might be essential for starting new colonies),

Tech Level seems to interact with a few areas of the systems stats - is this tracked by the planet or the empire (if my interstellar empire seizes Vangaarden will it be immediately be upgraded to "Interstellar" and gain boosts to its economy, population growth, etc? Does the Tech stat in effect adds to the Empires Tech pool each turn, or have some other effect?

You mention that the Vangaani get 9 Menagerie points - is there any particular reason why, or is that just the intended default? 9 points sounds like a lot to me - the old menagerie suggested a limit of 2 if memory serves - is this due to the rewriting changing the system or is it intended that races have a lot of (or a few large) positive traits?

What does the "Survey Results" line hold?

Really looking forward to more discussion on this topic!

[nimrodd]

So far so go Tyrel. It was a tad late for me when I read this. My question is: you mention game turns and game year, so will we have a carryover of 12 turns (months) per year a la VBAM 1.0 or will 2.0 move to something more abstract (but playable) in a 10 turn per year game system? I like the idea of 10 turns per year myself which is why I'm focusing on that point at the moment. I'll have more later when I've had time to focus and ponder a bit.

-Mark

I think Tyrel answers that under the tech report section:

Now, we have 1 Tech at Vangaarden, and this point of Tech infrastructure will generate 1 Tech Point per turn, for 12 Tech Points per year.

It looks like still 12 turns (months) per year.

[Tyrel Lohr]

So far so go Tyrel. It was a tad late for me when I read this. My question is: you mention game turns and game year, so will we have a carryover of 12 turns (months) per year a la VBAM 1.0 or will 2.0 move to something more abstract (but playable) in a 10 turn per year game system? I like the idea of 10 turns per year myself which is why I'm focusing on that point at the moment. I'll have more later when I've had time to focus and ponder a bit.

Unless something drastic happens, I think we are going to stick with the 1 turn = 1 month pattern. That is not to say that it couldn't change, or that there couldn't be an optional rule provided that allows the player to establish the length of a campaign year to be modified to be either shorter or longer.

One thing that is worth pointing out that is that 2E by design is going to have much fewer annual checks (possibly none at all). Tech checks are gone, as players now just accrue Tech Points and then spend them on advances (maximum of one tech advance per turn). Population checks are also gone, as population growth will only occur once enough Population Points are in your Population Pool.

Essentially, while on the surface it looks like we have added a lot of extra detail, we are also eliminating a lot of the busy work that can slow a campaign down.

-Tyrel

[Tyrel Lohr]

I must confess that this interests me far more than the ship-building discussion (not that that isn't good too - but we all have priorities ), I'm also very much looking forward to seeing how you plan to handle Intel and Diplomacy,

The "nuts and bolts" stuff like tech and ship building are pretty mundane, and hard to get working "just right" -- which means it has eaten up more time and concern than I would have liked.

Diplomacy is one section of the rules that I do have largely rewritten, but will likely need some changes to reflect some subsequent changes in the rules.

That does remind me, however, that we still need to assign AIX values to the Republic, as ALL EMPIRES now receive these values in 2E, as they are used to provide modifiers to various diplomatic activities -- as well as some modifiers outside of diplomacy, too, as appropriate.

The goal with the new diplomacy rules has been to make it easier to integrate the NPE option into normal diplomacy, so everyone now operates similar to a NPE, with the exception that players have full control over guiding their empire's diplomatic relations with other powers where NPE actions are a bit more randomized.

First off-the-cuff question for you: It always slightly bugged me that you get more information at the Admiral end of the scale... Shouldn't the Admiral get condensed information about a lot of planets while the Captain gets lots of detail?

I have to admit that the organizational detail level that each officer rank would deal with was never considered when writing the rules -- rather, the higher rank does just indicate a greater level of detail. Yes, it is likely backwards, but it probably isn't going to be changing at this juncture. We might still be convinced, but my gut reaction is to leave well enough alone, especially as 1E followed that pattern and reversing the order would add extra confusion when trying to compare or contrast the two rule sets.

How does the agriculture/biosphere stats work? What are the effects of not being able to feed your population? Is there a minimum of 1 in Biosphere on habitable worlds and does the biosphere rating vary with the climate ratings (a biosphere might be toxic to my race and its food sources, but fine for yours)? Can food be transported between colonies (might be essential for starting new colonies),

Agriculture and Biosphere multiply times one another at each colony to calculate the number of Foodstuffs that are produced at the colony. Each Census eats 2 Foodstuffs per turn. Originally I had infrastructure require Foodstuffs, too, but that was just a pain in the butt to have to calculate by hand, whereas Census x 2 is much easier.

Foodstuffs are instantly transported to your colonies so long as the colonies are in supply in a Controlled system, so there is no need to transport food from system to system or colony to colony.

If your empire produces more Foodstuffs than needed, then you're safe and you can actually trade away the excess Foodstuffs if you so desired (I will provide a mechanism for tacking those provisions onto existing Trade Treaties). If you don't have enough Foodstuffs, however, one Census is affected by starvation for every 2 Foodstuffs (or partial thereof) that are unavailable (Agricultural Output - Census x 2). Once you know how many Census are affected, you then select a number of colonies whose total combined Census is equal to or greater than this number and run a morale check at each to determine the effects of starvation. The worst case scenario is a major Morale loss coupled with Census loss.

So, to answer your question, food shortfalls translate into morale checks. It is as simple as that -- you just check to make sure you have enough Foodstuffs to feed everyone, and so long as you do then you're golden. You only have to worry about starvation if your food requirement exceeds production.

As for the abundance of the Biosphere stat, you can find Biosphere at most planets, but it is far more likely on Adaptable and Hospitable (old Terrestrial) Worlds. Hospitable Worlds have the highest chance of possessing Biospheres.

For the sake of playability, all species are assumed to be able to eat the local Biosphere of any world they colonize. However, relating to your questions about possible toxicity of the local flora and fauna, this is somewhat simulated (albeit very abstractly) by the fact that Agriculture infrastructure costs are affected by climate variance the same as any other infrastructure type. To calculate climate variance, you take the absolute value of each of the planet's climate values minus your own preferred values, total them, add one, and then square them. The result is the amount of additional EPs that are required to build infrastructure at that site.

There is an optional rule that will appear either in the Campaign Guide or Companion that also adds Biota Threat Levels to planets with Biospheres > 0. That way players might encounter hostile Biota that will require ground units to be present to contain the threat, lest the native lifeforms begin predating on your colonial populations and destroying valuable infrastructure.

Example: Our Vangaani discover Earth (5/5/7/5), colonize it, and decide to increase their colony's Agriculture infrastructure to 1. The normal cost to increase the stat is 1 x 10, but the climate variance is 2+2+0+5 = 9 => (9 + 1)^2 = +100%, so it would actually cost 20 EP to increase Agriculture to 1.

As an aside, this climate variance system applies to colonization costs, too, as the Colony Fleet is gone in favor of using Cargo Rating to establish colonies. I forget the default cost in Cargo Rating to establish a colony, but at Captain level or higher this cost is increased using the same formula as above. So if the default cost to establish a colony was 20 Cargo, then it would instead cost the Vangaani 40 Cargo to establish a colony on Earth due to the climate difference.

Note: Trade Fleets and Transport Fleets are also gone. Civilian Fleets, which we may just rename Convoys to shorten it, are still around and fairly cheap, but they end up essentially being no-maintenance units that are built and stored in a Convoy Pool, and each effectively has 1 Cargo Rating available to be used for the various tasks that civilian fleets were used for in 1E.

Tech Level seems to interact with a few areas of the systems stats - is this tracked by the planet or the empire (if my interstellar empire seizes Vangaarden will it be immediately be upgraded to "Interstellar" and gain boosts to its economy, population growth, etc? Does the Tech stat in effect adds to the Empires Tech pool each turn, or have some other effect?

By default, it is tracked by empire. I have thought about providing a colony-based tech advancement option in the Companion for those that wanted to track that extra level of detail, but I don't have anything concrete written on the subject yet. Similarly, I also plan on offering a simplified tech system that just levels all tech families evenly rather than researching individual technologies (not sure how that will play out).

In your example, if Vangaarden was invaded and taken over by an Interstellar empire, the planet's output would be immediately increased to Insterstellar output levels. Now, we do need to include some rules for what happens should the empire break off again, either through rebellion or some other means -- though that is such a specific situation that it might be better left as a series of basic guidelines (which would include giving the breakaway blueprints for the invaders techs, but having actual tech level increases be tied to the length of time that the empire was invaded).

You are correct that each point of Tech infrastructure simply provides 1 Tech Point per turn to its owning player. None of the "military infrastructure" types, including Tech, Intel, and Supply, are tied to Census in any way. As a result, they can be built at 0 Census colonies (military bases or small civilian outposts, essentially). This allows for an empire to expand without necessarily establishing full colonies on the frontier.

You mention that the Vangaani get 9 Menagerie points - is there any particular reason why, or is that just the intended default? 9 points sounds like a lot to me - the old menagerie suggested a limit of 2 if memory serves - is this due to the rewriting changing the system or is it intended that races have a lot of (or a few large) positive traits?

Yes, I glossed over that. In the new version of the Menagerie, you take the absolute value of each climate value minus 5.5 and total the result to see how many species design points you have available to spend. That way, the closer you are to the "average" stat, the fewer species design points you will have available. This provides species with extreme preferred climate values to still be competitive compared to those that picked middle-of-the-road climate values.

To balance out this change, most of the common stats from the original Menagerie that offered +-10% modifiers per level will be ratcheted down to +-5%, with natural rounding instead of automatic rounding up/down. The traits with too extreme of results that don't blend well will either see their costs sky rocket or else they may just be removed from the game.

What does the "Survey Results" line hold?

I added that as a placeholder to allow me to know what stat bonuses the planet received following a planetary survey. The Planetary Survey Table replaces the Planetary Special Table from 1E, and all planets roll on the table -- once per planet, and then once again per moon. This can lead to stat increases, special discoveries, etc. An optional rule is provided that forces players to spend Science Rating to conduct a survey before these results are realized, but by default you just roll and apply the results when the planet is generated.

-Tyrel

[wminsing]

Oooh, this should be interesting.

-Will

[wminsing]

Yes, I glossed over that. In the new version of the Menagerie, you take the absolute value of each climate value minus 5.5 and total the result to see how many species design points you have available to spend. That way, the closer you are to the "average" stat, the fewer species design points you will have available. This provides species with extreme preferred climate values to still be competitive compared to those that picked middle-of-the-road climate values.

Ah, excellent- it did always bother me that 5/5/5 under the old rating system was almost always the best choice- there might not be many planets that are 5/5/5 but the absolute difference between any given world and 5/5/5 was likely to be smaller then any other rating.

-Will

[Tyrel Lohr]

Ah, excellent- it did always bother me that 5/5/5 under the old rating system was almost always the best choice- there might not be many planets that are 5/5/5 but the absolute difference between any given world and 5/5/5 was likely to be smaller then any other rating.

Someone brought that up on the mailing list a year or two ago, so I have kept that in mind this time around. It forces players using the Menagerie rules to make a real decision as to whether they want to be able to purchase more traits or if they want to be able to have cheaper colonization costs.

A species that goes for a preferred climate of 1/1/1/1 or 10/10/10/10 would receive 18 design points when designing their species, compared to the 2 design points that a 5/5/5/5 species would receive. Considering that each design point can translate into a +5% bonus (max +50%), that 18-point species could afford some hefty bonuses -- +45% Anti-Ship, +45% Defense, what have you. If those extremophile species are handicapped by colonization difficulties, they would receive enough of a bonus to other areas of play to keep them competitive.

-Tyrel

[MarkG88]

Note: Trade Fleets and Transport Fleets are also gone. Civilian Fleets, which we may just rename Convoys to shorten it, are still around and fairly cheap, but they end up essentially being no-maintenance units that are built and stored in a Convoy Pool, and each effectively has 1 Cargo Rating available to be used for the various tasks that civilian fleets were used for in 1E.

-Tyrel

Woohoo! I like this change very much.

[Gareth_Perkins]

I'll second that,

Civilian fleets where always a touch too expensive (compared with the military alternatives for transports, and compared with the payback for trade fleets) to be worthwhile,

However, relating to your questions about possible toxicity of the local flora and fauna, this is somewhat simulated (albeit very abstractly) by the fact that Agriculture infrastructure costs are affected by climate variance the same as any other infrastructure type. To calculate climate variance, you take the absolute value of each of the planet's climate values minus your own preferred values, total them, add one, and then square them. The result is the amount of additional EPs that are required to build infrastructure at that site.

That makes perfect sense to me, and is abstract enough not to be a pain,

I take it the cost is per infrastructural item (it will rapidly make planets unaffordable, as the squaring means that planets with variances of say 4+ (16+ extra cost) are just too expensive - and with four stats that's increasing likely variance as well),

But that's good too - it means that many planets will simply not be worth it, but might be good to "trade" with races that can colonise,

[nimrodd]

However, relating to your questions about possible toxicity of the local flora and fauna, this is somewhat simulated (albeit very abstractly) by the fact that Agriculture infrastructure costs are affected by climate variance the same as any other infrastructure type. To calculate climate variance, you take the absolute value of each of the planet's climate values minus your own preferred values, total them, add one, and then square them. The result is the amount of additional EPs that are required to build infrastructure at that site.

That makes perfect sense to me, and is abstract enough not to be a pain,

I take it the cost is per infrastructural item (it will rapidly make planets unaffordable, as the squaring means that planets with variances of say 4+ (16+ extra cost) are just too expensive - and with four stats that's increasing likely variance as well),

Tyrel, is this correct? You gave conflicting info in your examples.

For the sake of playability, all species are assumed to be able to eat the local Biosphere of any world they colonize. However, relating to your questions about possible toxicity of the local flora and fauna, this is somewhat simulated (albeit very abstractly) by the fact that Agriculture infrastructure costs are affected by climate variance the same as any other infrastructure type. To calculate climate variance, you take the absolute value of each of the planet's climate values minus your own preferred values, total them, add one, and then square them. The result is the amount of additional EPs that are required to build infrastructure at that site.

Example: Our Vangaani discover Earth (5/5/7/5), colonize it, and decide to increase their colony's Agriculture infrastructure to 1. The normal cost to increase the stat is 1 x 10, but the climate variance is 2+2+0+5 = 9 => (9 + 1)^2 = +100%, so it would actually cost 20 EP to increase Agriculture to 1.

According to the first paragraph, for the Vangaani to colonize Earth, the cost for one infrastructure would be 100 EP greater. In your second paragraph, you state that it is 100% greater. I am assuming that the last sentence of the first paragraph should have read, "The result is the percentage of additional EPs that are required to build infrastructure at that site."

[Gareth_Perkins]

Aha - a percentage might make more sense, and 100% for a variance of 9 (across four stats) seems reasonable (max variance is 36, (36+1)^2 = +1369%, which is still pretty unaffordable),

[Tyrel Lohr]

Civilian fleets where always a touch too expensive (compared with the military alternatives for transports, and compared with the payback for trade fleets) to be worthwhile,

The current idea is to allow players to build Convoys at 1 EP each and then place them into a Convoy Pool. Then, when they are needed, they can be ordered out of the pool and placed in any Controlled system, where they will function as if they each had 1 Cargo Rating. Their Engine and FTL speeds would be based on that of their empire, though they probably won't be as fast as military ships (not sure the multiplier, but I just wanted to make note of the fact). You can then use the Convoys to establish colonies, trade links, move cargo, etc. Any remaining Convoys can then be moved back to the Convoy Pool for redeployment later on.

I take it the cost is per infrastructural item (it will rapidly make planets unaffordable, as the squaring means that planets with variances of say 4+ (16+ extra cost) are just too expensive - and with four stats that's increasing likely variance as well),

But that's good too - it means that many planets will simply not be worth it, but might be good to "trade" with races that can colonise,

The cost increase applies to all infrastructure built at the colony. That means that colonies that have climate values close to your preferred values will be very valuable, and something worth fighting over. It also means that high RAW values might not be accessible simply because the environmental conditions are so hostile to your species.

As Jimmy pointed out afterwards, it is a percentage increase -- I screwed up one of my examples without knowing it. Yes, the increase is not a flat increase but rather a percentage penalty. If your climate variance is 9, the increase is (9+1)^2 = +100%, or double the normal infrastructure improvement cost. Sorry about that!

As Gareth followed up in his following post, that does mean that planets with absolutely extreme climates will be completely uninhabitable for your empire, and you will have no business trying to live there.

On the flip side, this change to climate variance makes terraforming a much more palatable and cost-effective endeavor. If you have a variance of 9, reducing the variance to 8 would reduce the penalty from +100% to +81%. If we are talking increasing a stat to level 5, that would be the difference between 50+50 = 100 EP and 50+41 = 91 EP. It is only a 9 EP savings for that one stat, but since we have more colony infrastructure types to upgrade, the savings can really start to add up.

-Tyrel

[Gareth_Perkins]

On the flip side, this change to climate variance makes terraforming a much more palatable and cost-effective endeavor.

Excellent news!

And looking at your numbers, it sounds like it's even worth closing up the last few points of variance on your bigger worlds if you plan on preforming several expensive projects (even variance 1 -> variance 0 is a 4% saving),

This might mean that a lot of care needs to be taken when constructing a game, as you need to ensure that there are a reasonable number of colonisable planets for each empire to grab (with a suitable spread of resources),

Of course in Star Trek/Star Wars/Babylon 5/Farscape and a lot of other sci-fi settings every race is going to have climate stats within a point or so of human stats, so I guess in many games it won't matter that much