Darwinian Amplification Sending over Aligned Radar (DASAR)

[Dazer]

Greetings.

I am requesting comments additional information on use of "D.A.S.A.R." method (Darwinian Amplification Sending over Aligned Radar) to increase number of green darwinians that can be directed at an enemy island in Biosphere level or Temple Level.

Here is the D.A.S.A.R. Method:

1. align two radars/transporters for two way transmission between two islands, one you control and one you want to control.
2. Direct all darwinians from the island you control into the radar/transporter.
3. At the terminal end on the receiving island, place an officer re-directing the emerging darwinians back into the radar/transporter.
4. At the original end, place another officer re-directing the re-emerging darwinians back into the radar transporter.
5. Allow darwinian input and re-transmission back and forth across the radar/transporter link to continue until the Incubators on the source island stop producing new darwinians.
6. When new darwinians are no longer produced on the islands you control, use the officer on the target island to direct the darwinians coming from the transporter at your enemy of choice. Many may die, but they will eventually overwhelm the enemy.

THEORY OF OPERATION:
Darwinians suspended in the transporters are not counted against population control limits for any particular island. By continuing to bounce darwinians back and forth between islands you can store up darwinians to greater numbers than would normally be allowed on any one particular island then unleash them at full capacity.

The carrying capacity for any transport link is reached when the rate Darwinians can enter the transporters is exceeded on one island or another and the darwinians waiting to enter the transporters exceeds the Island's population limit.

Again, this method only applies to levels with Incubators which are Biosphere and Temple levels.

So, anyone in this forum with knowledge of the population limit settings for Biosphere or Temple level, and any carrying capacity limits set on the transporters willing to confirm, deny or illuminate this theory?

We do enjoy this game!

Thanks,

KC

[xander]

The population of an island is controlled by a building called a PopulationLock. PopulationLocks have two modes -- call them active and inactive. When a PopulationLock is active, no SpawnPoint or AISpawnPoint under the PopulationLock will produce units. When the PopulationLock is inactive, SpawnPoints and AISpawnPoints may produce units. A PopulationLock becomes active when the number of units under the PopulationLock reaches a certain number, which can be set when the PopulationLock is created.

So, a simpler method for creating more DGs: Send them from island A to B. The DGs that are created on island A will count against the population limit as long as they are under the PopulationLock that encompasses island A. When they leave the area of that PopulationLock, they not longer count toward the limit. Thus, if they are on island B, they are not counting against island A's population limit. Therefore, if every DG created on island A is sent to island B, island A will be able to produce DGs forever. The one problem with this is that there seems to be a global limit -- a level may contain no more than x DGs at any one time. I am unsure of the actual size of that limit.

xander

[Dazer]

Thanks for your analysis, xander, That is insightful.

My theory is that darwinians suspended in the transporter beam are not counted against any particular islands PopulationLock (except when they land, until they return into the transmission beam) therefore, by using the DASAR method, you are able to create more darwinians than the sorce and target islands would normally be allowed to hold before the Populationlock is triggered.

So, you get population limit of island one, plus population limit of island two plus the souls in the transporter beams (which is a substantial, but yet unknown number)

I haven't figured out a way to count these little fellows on the fly to test any of these theories.

So, do you know if the Darwinians suspended in the transporter beams are counted against any one islands Populationlock total? If so, then this method doesn't produce any additional troops, if not, then we have an effective tool against the enemy!

Thanks,

kc

[xander]

So, do you know if the Darwinians suspended in the transporter beams are counted against any one islands Populationlock total? If so, then this method doesn't produce any additional troops, if not, then we have an effective tool against the enemy!

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. As soon as a DG leaves the bounds of a PopulationLock, it is no longer counted toward the limit of that lock. Thus, if you just send the DGs to the second island, the first island will continue to pump out DGs until the global population limit is reached. There is no need to go through the complication of bouncing them back and forth. If you have two islands captured, you can send them to a third island, and have two islands producing a ton of DGs. In Biosphere, I tend to only have two islands going at once, because any more than that tends to create more DGs than my system can handle, and are more than enough to get the job done.

xander

[trickfred]

AFAIK, if the DGs in the beam are still within the PopLock area, they still count towards the island's limit. Once they get far enough along the beam that they are out of the PopLock range, that is when they no longer count. Bouncing them all back and forth in the beam is highly inefficient. Just send them all via Officer to the next island, as xander has described. I've been using that technique for a year and a half, so I know it works. ;D

[Dazer]

This makes sense, If the Darwinian souls in the transport beam count against the global population limit then there is no advantage to DAZARing as opposed to simply moving them to another island and redeploying from there.

All evidence indicates that darwinians in the beam do count against that limit since production eventually ceases.

I also appreciate Xander's comment that you don't need that many Darwinians to get the job done in the first place.

Any hint as to what the actual Global Polulation Limit number actually is?

Thanks for your insight!

kc

[xander]

This makes sense, If the Darwinian souls in the transport beam count against the global population limit then there is no advantage to DAZARing as opposed to simply moving them to another island and redeploying from there.

All evidence indicates that darwinians in the beam do count against that limit since production eventually ceases.

I also appreciate Xander's comment that you don't need that many Darwinians to get the job done in the first place.

Any hint as to what the actual Global Polulation Limit number actually is?

Thanks for your insight!

kc

No idea.

xander

[Dazer]

Hi,

A few bits of imperical data on the subject of PopLock settings and affect of DG's suspended in Radar Transmission in the Biosphere level.

When I send DG's from Green Controlled Island A to the Center Island without re-transmitting DG's back into the transmission beam
Approx. 600 "souls" pass on the wire at the first distribution post going to Island A's Incubators.

When I DASAR these guys, (sending them back into the radar transmission, and bouncing them back and forth,)
Approx. 800 DG souls pass on the wire by the first distribution post.

(This is starting from 0 free/loose DG's on Island A with a Red Darwinian population of approx. 1200, and assuming there is a one to one relationship with the soul blips on the transmission lines and the DG's produced)

Therefore, I am confirming/advancing these theories.

1. The Darwinians suspended in Radar Transmissions do not count against any one island's population limit,
but they do count against the Global Population Limit. (as Xander and Trickfred have said)
2. The Center Island has a population limit, that when reached, will halt production on a source island contributing to its population.
3. That the Global Population limit (both RG and DG's) is around 2000

I am sure someone with knowledge of the code can confirm or deny these points.

But, I am submitting that by using the DASAR method, you can generate Darwinians up to the available global population limit as long as your source island does not exceed its local PopLock limit. Based on the counts cited above, that can exceed what you could generate simply sending DG's to a second island.

I agree with Xander that having that many DG's around pushes your CPU into overdrive, and slows down your frame rate a bit and far exceeds what is strategically necessary for victory, but This creates a force that is simply overwhelming for the hapless RG's and great fun for the gamer marshaling a thousand or more troops across the plains of battle... It can be costly to the DG's fighting in those concentrations, a grenade in that mass of troops creates quite a loss. So sad... But, they are quickly replaced.

I appreciate your insights on this.

kc

[xander]

1. The Darwinians suspended in Radar Transmissions do not count against any one island's population limit, but they do count against the Global Population Limit. (as Xander and Trickfred have said)

This can easily be tested and refuted by firing up the editor. Create a map with two radar towers and a PopulationLock that covers both of them. Then, put an AISpawnPoint or SpawnPoint under that PopulationLock, with a reasonable limit. Use your method. The population will reach the limit of the PopulationLock, but will not go over. Darwinia does not handle population on an island by island basis, but on a PopulationLock by PopulationLock basis. In Biosphere, it looks like it is island by island because the PopulationLocks only cover one island each. Unless it has been fixed, Temple has a SpawnPoint that will create an infinite number of red DGs, because, unlike the other SpawnPoints on the island, it is not under the PopulationLock. Bonus points if you use a SafeArea to count the population.

2. The Center Island has a population limit, that when reached, will halt production on a source island contributing to its population.

Um... I don't think so.

3. That the Global Population limit (both RG and DG's) is around 2000

No, it is quite a bit more than that. Again, fire up the editor and create a map with an AISpawnPoint that creates DGs at a reasonable clip. Then, put 2,000 instant unit DGs on that map. If 2,000 is the limit, then the AISpawnPoint won't make any units. However, you will note that it will quite happily make quite a few units. The limit is much more than 2,000. Again, bonus points for the SafeArea.

xander

[Shwart!!]

1. DGs in a radar do not count toward the SpawnPopCap limit.

3. The global cap is well over 10000.
From what I've read, my box is on a par to or superior to almost any machine you guys have... and with 10000 entities, it lagged like my brother after the ten-mile. Theoretically, you will never need or use that many guys. I could not reach the cap, due to lag. Thus, I have no way of knowing whether Radared DGs affect the cap.
Also note that my copy is on a Windows XP. The programming may be different on another OS, however unlikely that is.

BTW, I have a lot of bonus points coming to me.

-Shwart!!

[KingAl]

Hmmm... très intéressant. What are your specs? In both temple and the biosphere it appears that I have reached a global maximum, having placed all Darwinians on a single island, and I have very little lag.

EDIT (wrt to following post): Hmmm, interesting. Do separate levels have lower global maximums? In my Biosphere, all DGs are on a spawner-less island, and yet all the souls travelling along the 'powerlines' stop at the main distributor.

[NeoThermic]

The one problem with this is that there seems to be a global limit -- a level may contain no more than x DGs at any one time. I am unsure of the actual size of that limit.

xander

In general, you'll never reach that limit in normal gameplay. Here's me stress testing Darwinia (of which I need to do again for the new beta!):



That is 50,000 DG's. It brought my 3GHz, 1.5GB RAM, ATi 9600 Pro (256MB) to 3fps.

The falloff of your FPS when creating DG's is rather quick. If we call 25fps or better a "playable" framerate, you can just about pull out 10,000 DG's.


NeoThermic

[KingAl]

Well, you could interpret the graph as indicating that as Darwinians increase, the change in framerate slows - as it practically plateaus between 20 and 30 thousand.

Hooray for misleading statistical interpretation!

[NeoThermic]

Well, you could interpret the graph as indicating that as Darwinians increase, the change in framerate slows - as it practically plateaus between 20 and 30 thousand.

Hooray for misleading statistical interpretation!

We can prove it takes longer per frame with more DGs by doing 1/fps:



If all things were perfect, that graph should be somewhat close to a straigth line, possibly even a nice log curve. Note that it is somewhat the latter, but past about 15,000 DG's, it doesn't follow what one would expect.

You'll also note that this graph gets rid of the `plateaus` between 20k and 30k. I love how one can use graphs to make people look wrong. (however, this graph was plotted ages ago (last year I think), so I didn't just make it for you )

NeoThermic