Followup question that I couldn't figure out for myself from your excellent thread - how do I relate trade gains to the population-based influence cap?
More concretely - let's say I've looked up the faction I'm interested in in
Jane's table, so I know what their maximum gain is for the day. How would I figure out
how many trade lots of, say, 150t @ 1000cr/t would fill that cap? I'm clearly missing some key piece of information that would let me map between the two.
i'll try to answer step by step (and note where we get to assumptions)
a) turners max influence change, which, as far as i understand is drawn from recorded maxinums, has 2 values taken into account:
- Population (which is fixed)
- starting influence.
b) starting influence is important, as the maximum influence change is lower for a high influence faction, than for a low influence faction.
c) that means, the same action will yield a higher influence gain for a low influence faction, than for a high influence faction. e.g.: 5 missions with 10+ inf will gain more for a faction starting at 10%, than for a faction at 50% influence.
d) but if we want to compare influence effects between factions of low and high influence, we need to calculate the "raw influence gain", the "gross", "influence points", "brutto influence gain" - the number before that influence gain is "normalised" or "mapped" as fdev calls it to stsrting influence and total system influence of 100%.
d) while fdev probably does it a bit different, a well established model for this is (for positive actions for one faction only):
new_influence=(old_influence + influence_gross)/(100+influence_gross)*100
e) turners table follows broadly aboves formula. if you punch in for a system of one population size for any starting influence max inf as new_influence and starting inf as old_influence, you'll see that influence_gross is the same.(because the gross is capped due to max inf change mechanic).
f) our test tabled gross for a set of trades. for exampel:
your gross will be 2,0 at ~1250 cr/t profit with 540t of 1 commodity.
so, if your starting influence is 40%, with aboves formula you can calculate your new iinfluence:
new_influence = (40 + 2) / (100+2) = 41,1765.
WE ARE NOW LEAVING THE TESTED SECTOR
g) it's a long standing thinking, that the max inf change from turners table is implemented by different +inf buckets. for various reasons people assume (me as well), that there are 3 or 4 of them: trade, exploration, combat, missions.
h) i don't know of any test trying to test the size of each bucket. is it the same for each? or is for exampel missions half of the max inf change, while trade, combat and exploration are each 1/6 of it? i also don't know of any test , whether e.g. trade missions add to the trade bucket, or whether they add to a seperate mission bucket (i assume so, but - untested!). are the buckets calculated seperately at the end? is there a kind of overspill applied - for exampel, if there are only trade actions, you can gain more than 1/4 of the max inf change by trade only? is the starting influence for calculation changed for the next bucket after one bucket is calculated?
i) our working assumption is there are 4 +inf buckets (trade, exploration, combat, missions). we also assume each of the buckets have the same size.
which means, at a 1 mio pop system and starting influence 40% - according to turners table - the max inf change is 48,3-40=8,3%.
if we assume each bucket get's one fourth, that means trade is capped at 2,075%. so, no matter how much you trade, you'll sit at 42,075% the next tick.
GOING BACK TO THE TESTED SECTOR
j) using aboves formula, we can calculate the gross needed for going from 40->42,025. it's 3,5.
k) looking at the thread linked above, we can see, that 540t @1300 cr/t profit will gain 2, and 540t@500 cr/t profit will gain 1,5. together that's 3,5. after that you shouldn't gain more from trade (in a 1 mio pop system and starting influence of 40% - if the trade bucket is in fact 1/4th of max inf change)
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does this answer "how much will i gain from 100t@367 cr/t profit, 322t@1387 cr/t profit and 200t@855 cr/t profit? No, because the testing was done on round numbers, to draw curves.
does this answer "how much do i have to trade, until i have filled the trade bucket?" - no, because
a) size of trade bucket is unknown and untested (I'm happy to read somebodies testing on it!)
b) the concrete combination of tonnage and profit each varies the gross from trade.
but it allows educated guesses as i have done above: "in most cases it should anyway burn down to not more than 4-5 single commodity 150+t python runs, and 2-3 4 commodities t9 runs at ~1000-2000 cr/t profit each. (if unopposed) "
take it as a hint why turner and her group, who take care of a few hundred systems afaik, work with a guesstimate formula of total profit. because that is actually practical.
even if it does not match the mechanics of the game, drawn from experimental testing with edge cases, which you can read in the thread linked above
