Colonizing planets

Finding a planet

While traveling throughout the galaxy, use sector scans to see if your current sector has planets. There can be between one and nine planets in a sector (including wormholes), however with default settings this is usually limited to five (MAXPLSE).

Inside a sector with planets, use planet scans to check on the planet's attributes. Generally you want a planet with the best attributes ("good" or "very good"), as these planets can hold more items and produce items more quickly than planets with worse conditions.

Other things to consider when picking a planet:

• Some unclaimed planets are already inhabited with small quantities of men and food, making it easier to get started.
• Planets closer to the center of a sector are more difficult for attacking ships to escape from, if the planet is equipped with sector-firing ion cannons.

Claiming a planet

To

Abandon a planet

The ABANDON command will renounce your claim to a planet. You must be orbiting a planet that you own to issue the command. The planet will revert to having no owner, and can then be claimed by anyone. The planet will be removed from your list of planets, and you will lose any points you have been allotted for the population of the planet.

The command has no options. Simply enter:

ABANDON

or

ABA

(TO DO: what effects does this have on a planet's administration)

Production cycle

1. One food case is consumed for every 100 troops.
   • If there is not enough food for the troops, 1/8th of all the troops perish and the amount of food on the planet is set to zero.
   • If there is enough food for the troops, one food case per 100 troops is subtracted from the food amount on the planet.
   • If there are fewer than 100 troops, no food is consumed and no troops perish regardless of the amount of food.
2. If there is not enough food for the men (one food case per 100 men), then 1/8th of all men perish.
   • If there are fewer than 100 men, no food is consumed and no men perish regardless of the amount of food.
   • Due to an apparent oversight, men don't consume food.
3. The amount by which to reduce production based on the planet's tax rate is calculated by dividing the tax rate by 120 and subtracting from 1. If there is a 0% tax rate, production is 100% of maximum. If there is a 100% tax rate, production is 16.66% of maximum.
4. Gold on the planet is converted into cash for the planetary bank, based on the base price of gold (by default, 1000).
5. Production begins. For each item:
   1. The quantity to produce (before being adjusted by other factors) is determined by:
      • The individual production rate of each item is divided by 10,000.
      • The amount of men is multiplied by the effort rate set by the planet owner (divided by 100 to be a percentage), then multiplied by the production rate as determined on the line above, then divided by 6.
      • This result is divided by 7.
        • Example: on a planet with 100,000 men, where the owner has set 10% of production to go toward torpedoes, where the production rate of torpedoes is 500 (the default in MBMGEMSG.MSG), the amount would be calculated like this: (100000×(10÷100)×((500÷10000)÷6))÷7 = 11.904761.
        • There are technical reasons the game does it this way, but it can be simplified like this: men × production rate × effort rate as integer ÷ 42,000,000.
   2. How the planet's environment and resources affect production are then considered. The environment value plus the resources value plus 2 (Poor is 0, marginal is 1, good is 2, and very good is 3) is divided by 4.
      • Example: A good/marginal planet is 2+1+2 (5), divided by 4 which is 1.25.
   3. The tax factor determined in step 3 is then multiplied by the environment/resources factor.
      • Example: A good/marginal planet (2+1+2=5, 5÷4 = 1.25) with a 10% tax rate (10÷120 = 0.0833, 1-0.0833 = 0.9166) has a factor of 1.145833 (1.25×0.9166).
   4. The planet's cash reserves are lowered. The environment value (0 to 3) and resources value (0 to 3) are added, subtracted from 6, and multiplied by 10 to get a value between 0 (VG/VG) and 60 (P/P). This amount is subtracted from 95 to get the percentage of cash to keep. VG/VG planets keep 95% of their cash reserves, P/P planets only keep 35%.
      • Keep in mind this process is repeated for each item, so it happens 14 times each cycle, and remainders are always rounded down.
   5. If there is any cash in the bank, the production factor for this item (calculated above based on environment, resources, and tax rate) is increased by 1.5×.
      • Example 1: A good/marginal planet has 10000 cash in the planetary bank. For each item, 65% of the value in the bank remains, and 35% is lost. Men are produced with a 1.5× bonus to production and maximum, and cash reserves become 6500. Next, missiles are produced 1.5×, and cash reserves become 4225. Torpedoes 1.5×, 2746. Ion cannons 1.5×, 1784. Flux pods 1.5×, 1159. Food cases 1.5×, 753. Fighters 1.5×, 489. Decoys 1.5×, 317. Troops 1.5×, 206. Zippers 1.5×, 133. Jammers 1.5×, 86. Mines 1.5×, 55. Gold 1.5×, 35. Spies 1.5x, 22. All items have a 1.5× bonus and 22 cash remains in the bank.
      • Example 2: A poor/marginal planet has 5000 cash in the planetary bank. For each item, 45% of the value in the bank remains, and 55% is lost. Men 1.5×, 2250. Missiles 1.5×, 1012. Torpedoes 1.5×, 455. Ion cannons 1.5×, 204. Flux pods 1.5×, 91. Food cases 1.5×, 40. Fighters 1.5×, 18. Decoys 1.5×, 8. Troops 1.5×, 3. Zippers 1.5×, 1. Before jammers are processed, the bank goes to zero. Jammers, mines, gold, and spies do not get a 1.5× bonus in production and maximum.
      • For 95% (VG/VG), making sure you have at least 15 cash in the bank before every cycle will ensure you get the bonus on all items. For 85% (G/VG or VG/G), the amount is 37. For 75% (VG/M, G/G, or M/VG), the amount is 115. For 65% (VG/P, G/M, M/G, or P/VG), 865. For 55% (G/P, M/M, or P/G), 6170. For 45% (M/P or P/M), 106012. For 35% (P/P), 2732598.
      • However, no matter the planetary conditions, it only takes one unit of cash in the bank to make sure you at least get the production bonus on men.
   6. The new quantity of the item is determined by multiplying the item amount calculated on line 5.1 by the factor calculated on lines 5.2 (env/resc), 5.3 (tax), and 5.5 (cash bonus), and adding that amount to the existing item quantity.
      • Using the example on line 5.3: 11.904761 torpedoes is multiplied by 1.145833, for a total of 13.6408 or thereabouts. Therefore, the amount of new torpedoes created is 13 (everything after the decimal point is discarded). If there is cash in the bank (1.5× bonus), it would be 20.4612 or 20 torpedoes created.
   7. The planetary maximum for each item is considered, based on the maximums as defined in MBMGEMSG.MSG. This value is multiplied by that same factor.
      • Using the example from line 6: the default max amount of torpedoes is 59833. 59833 multiplied by 1.145833 is 68558.6458 or so. Therefore, the maximum amount of torpedoes is 68558, or 102837 if there is cash in the planetary bank.
      • VERY IMPORTANT: Changing your tax rates or allowing your planetary bank to run out of money can massively affect your planetary maximums. If you have any items at or near the maximum, you can lose massive quantities of items by not minding these values!
   8. If the amount of an item before the production cycle began is less than the newly determined maximum, but will be over the maximum after the produced amount is added, a message is sent to the player that item has reached its maximum.
   9. Finally, the item's quantity is updated to the new value. If the new value would go over the newly determined maximum, the value is changed to the maximum.
   10. Everything in step 5 repeats for each item. Keep in mind that men are processed first, so the updated value of men will be used to calculate the remaining items.
6. After all items have been updated, the amount to add to the tax bank is determined. The tax rate specified by the owner of the planet is divided by 1200, and then multiplied by the new amount of men. This amount is added to the tax bank.
   • Example: A 10% tax rate with 100,000 men would add 833 Cs to the tax bank per cycle (10÷1200×100000=833.33).
7. Revolt odds are calculated. The tax rate (as an integer) set by the user is divided by 120, and that result is multiplied by 0.35. This value is multiplied by the amount of men. If this value is greater than the amount of troops, there is a 10% chance of a revolt. Since this occurs every cycle, a revolt will happen eventually if the ratio of men to troops remains too high.
   • Example: With a 10% tax rate, the factor is 0.029166 (10÷120×0.35). As such, having 2917 troops for every 100,000 men will ensure there is never a revolt.
   • If there is a revolt, a random amount between one half and 1/9th of the troops are kept under the employ of the newly freed planet, and the rest perish.