New rules for spawning Civilian mining complex?

[Noriad (OP)]

In VB6 a civilian mining complex could spawn if a body had sufficient Duranium OR Sorium.
I recall that for C# this was changed to Duranium only.
But now I had a civilian mining complex spawn on a comet that had neither Duranium nor Sorium !? Playing with version 1.13 .

I want to know what planets and moons  I can expect civilian mining complexes on, so I can postpone putting a colony there until the first CMC is built.

So...what are the exact spawning rules now?

[Droll]

In VB6 a civilian mining complex could spawn if a body had sufficient Duranium OR Sorium.
I recall that for C# this was changed to Duranium only.
But now I had a civilian mining complex spawn on a comet that had neither Duranium nor Sorium !? Playing with version 1.13 .

I want to know what planets and moons  I can expect civilian mining complexes on, so I can postpone putting a colony there until the first CMC is built.

So...what are the exact spawning rules now?

IIRC It is now Duranium OR Gallicite OR Sorium now

[nuclearslurpee]

Per StevePost™ here:

• CMCs will only spawn in a system with a colony of at least 10m pop.
• A suitable CMC location must have at least 10,000 tons of duranium or gallicite (see undocumented post here) with accessibility of at least 0.7. This is not an exclusive-or check.
• A suitable CMC location must be within 80 AU of the system primary, or meet some other restrictions which are similar in spirit.
• The dev post indicates that a scoring system is used and the highest-scoring body is selected. I have attempted to verify this in multiple campaigns without success, and I believe the scoring is a random weighting factor, but this is undocumented if true.

In general, I would suggest that you simply place colonies where you would like them to be, and let the CMCs take "the best of the rest". With the way CMCs work there is not really a disadvantage to doing this, and the better diversification of your mining ventures will help maintain resource stability as you exhaust Sol and expand outward.

E:

IIRC It is now Duranium OR Gallicite OR Sorium now

This is incorrect, sorium is not included in the CMC check as a target resource.

[Elminster]

I want to know what planets and moons  I can expect civilian mining complexes on, so I can postpone putting a colony there until the first CMC is built.

So...what are the exact spawning rules now?

I don't really see an advantage in knowing the rules. If you are actually going through the bodies, why bother with calculating if a CMC is possible or not? Just create a colony on the bodies YOU are interested in and that's it.

Or is there something else I missed?

[Noriad (OP)]

I don't really see an advantage in knowing the rules. If you are actually going through the bodies, why bother with calculating if a CMC is possible or not? Just create a colony on the bodies YOU are interested in and that's it.

Or is there something else I missed?

Once the first Civilian mining center (CMC) is established, and you establish your own colony afterward, civilians can still build additional CMC's on the same body with periodic random rolls. If you however plant a colony on a body with no CMC, no CMC's will be placed afterward. That means that if you find a particularly valuable mining planet, it is beneficial to make sure an initial CMC is established before colonizing it. Bodies that can be colonized tend to be big and have lots of minerals. A CMC is 10 mines, and random rolls can increase the initial CMC to hundreds of mines in the course of the game. This is especially valuable in situations where you are short on Corundium, or lack spare production capacity to mass produce automines, as in a conventional start.

[skoormit]

I don't really see an advantage in knowing the rules. If you are actually going through the bodies, why bother with calculating if a CMC is possible or not? Just create a colony on the bodies YOU are interested in and that's it.

Or is there something else I missed?

Once the first Civilian mining center (CMC) is established, and you establish your own colony afterward, civilians can still build additional CMC's on the same body with periodic random rolls. If you however plant a colony on a body with no CMC, no CMC's will be placed afterward. That means that if you find a particularly valuable mining planet, it is beneficial to make sure an initial CMC is established before colonizing it. Bodies that can be colonized tend to be big and have lots of minerals. A CMC is 10 mines, and random rolls can increase the initial CMC to hundreds of mines in the course of the game. This is especially valuable in situations where you are short on Corundium, or lack spare production capacity to mass produce automines, as in a conventional start.

Furthermore, if you know the ranking rules (which I believe are working as documented), you can force the first CMC in a system to appear on the (qualified) body of your choosing, by creating colonies on any bodies that are more highly ranked. The civvies will ignore the bodies with colonies. You can remove those colonies later, of course, after your juicy desired CMC is already established.

I believe the CMC score for a body is just the total quantity of minerals with a concentration of at least 0.5 (and counting Duranium quantity twice).

[nuclearslurpee]

Furthermore, if you know the ranking rules (which I believe are working as documented), you can force the first CMC in a system to appear on the (qualified) body of your choosing, by creating colonies on any bodies that are more highly ranked. The civvies will ignore the bodies with colonies. You can remove those colonies later, of course, after your juicy desired CMC is already established.

I believe the CMC score for a body is just the total quantity of minerals with a concentration of at least 0.5 (and counting Duranium quantity twice).

I've tried tracking CMC generation in multiple campaigns and have never been able to verify that the CMC selection worked as documented, i.e., according to a deterministic scoring system based on mineral concentrations and/or accessibilities - and I did try a few different variations in each campaign.

[skoormit]

Furthermore, if you know the ranking rules (which I believe are working as documented), you can force the first CMC in a system to appear on the (qualified) body of your choosing, by creating colonies on any bodies that are more highly ranked. The civvies will ignore the bodies with colonies. You can remove those colonies later, of course, after your juicy desired CMC is already established.

I believe the CMC score for a body is just the total quantity of minerals with a concentration of at least 0.5 (and counting Duranium quantity twice).

I've tried tracking CMC generation in multiple campaigns and have never been able to verify that the CMC selection worked as documented, i.e., according to a deterministic scoring system based on mineral concentrations and/or accessibilities - and I did try a few different variations in each campaign.

I've never noticed a time when a CMC spawned on a body other than the one I thought it would spawn on.
To be fair, most of the time I'm not paying that close attention--just when there's a particularly good spot and I put colonies on the higher-scoring bodies.
Maybe I've just had good luck?

EDIT: The following is incorrect. See my post below for details.
Keep in mind, the system is selected (from eligible systems) first, and then the CMC is placed on the highest scoring body in that system.
In other words, its not that the highest scoring body in all eligible systems is selected.

[gpt3]

Per StevePost™ here:

• CMCs will only spawn in a system with a colony of at least 10m pop.
• A suitable CMC location must have at least 10,000 tons of duranium or gallicite (see undocumented post here) with accessibility of at least 0.7. This is not an exclusive-or check.
• A suitable CMC location must be within 80 AU of the system primary, or meet some other restrictions which are similar in spirit.
• The dev post indicates that a scoring system is used and the highest-scoring body is selected. I have attempted to verify this in multiple campaigns without success, and I believe the scoring is a random weighting factor, but this is undocumented if true.

I do wonder if the "80 AU of the system primary" limit should be revisited now that v2 has eccentric orbits. If a planet has a highly eccentric, comet-like orbit, then should it be eligible for CMCs? A good example of this would be the dwarf planet Eris:

• Aphelion: 97 AU (not eligible for CMC - this is also its orbital distance in v1.13)
• Semi-major axis: 68 AU (eligible for CMC)
• Perihelion: 38 AU (eligible for CMC)

Compare to say, comet Hale-Bopp:

• Aphelion: 371 AU (not eligible for CMC).
• Semi-major axis: 186 AU (not eligible for CMC)
• Perihelion: 0.914 AU (eligible for CMC)

My own fantasy would be to replace the constant limit with a variable based on "distance to the home colony" and "racial engine technology"; but that would likely have unexpected side effects on gameplay and construction cycle performance.

[skoormit]

I am necro-ing this thread to post some additional clarifications that might save someone else (or future me) some head scratching.

First of all, I was mistaken above about the algorithm selecting a system first, then selecting a site in that system. That logic was in VB6, but not in C#.
In C#, all qualifying sites in all systems are ranked by their score (per above), and the selection is made from that list.

Second, Steve clarified later that:

The program orders the list of potential CMC sites by score and then goes through the list with a 1/3rd chance for each to be selected. Therefore the best option is not always selected and in a system with only a small number of possible sites, none of them may be selected. You are more likely to see CMC appear in a system with more potential options.

So, don't expect deterministic results.
In fact, there's a ~44% chance that the top two sites will be skipped over.
And a ~20% chance that the top four sites will be skipped over.

[nuclearslurpee]

Second, Steve clarified later that:

The program orders the list of potential CMC sites by score and then goes through the list with a 1/3rd chance for each to be selected. Therefore the best option is not always selected and in a system with only a small number of possible sites, none of them may be selected. You are more likely to see CMC appear in a system with more potential options.

So, don't expect deterministic results.
In fact, there's a ~44% chance that the top two sites will be skipped over.
And a ~20% chance that the top four sites will be skipped over.

An angel from heaven comes bearing the word of God Steve! I have been wondering about this for so long...