[Tietäjä]

That's a good piece of statistics. It'd be interesting to see a view of the previous rounds too, but those probably aren't very available.

Originally Posted by Monroe

Interestingly enough as a relative percentage of the universe etd and cath have stayed right about where they should (within a reasonable statistical margin) while the other three have been not.

I'm not sure how to model it, as I haven't been collecting any dumps, but given top300 (assuming it represents a good share of the "better" doing planets of the active universe), a nearly 40% relative bump off the "ideal" isn't really fitting into the margins. The difference from the "ideal" 20 is rather large if you've got 12.6% inbound. Well, I don't think it's "about where it should be", it's not "horrible" like the terran number, but it's definately not good either. It probably has to do with the cathaar as a race, and the fact that they're at the moment - as last round - probably experiencing hard time holding on to roids because they're forced to spread wide, with only one killship and overlapping attack fleets.

Factors as to why include:
1. Higher percentage of unskilled players choose terran
2. High percentage of skilled players choose zik

These factors all come down to anticipating and reading the statistics, though - and if the statistics seem, by default, so that terran is ackwardly bad, you'll end up with less terrans in top ranks. The problem remains that terran are too weak, and the small amount of "skilled" players choosing terran is a symptom of that, not the other way around. This is because, if terran was stronger, or say, appeared equally strong to xandathrii, a largely more significant amount of players would choose terran. Round 19, when terran was relatively strong, there was a large amount of terran planets in the top ranks. Obviously, that was influenced by skilled players picking terran, but that's not because they'd be particularily fond of terran - but because it was a valid choice, what it really isn't this round either.

4. The stats balance gives etd a strong incentive to build rangers to steal terran BS to have a balanced roiding fleet. Because rangers have a -2 eta bonus defensively they are very powerful against ter relative to the power of syrens/investors against etd

The ranger is a complete puzzle to me. It's really unarguably the best steal ship in the statistics, and yet it's not a zikonian one - in fact, even zikonians themselves are unable to steal ships for their inbound attack fleets with the brutal efficiency the ranger packs (added with the increased salvage, one could argue it's perhaps the best ship of the round!). I guess the ranger alone, especially last round, can be a reason why terran seems unattractive, and experiences some trouble with the battleship fleet. There's usually "always" an eitrades with rangers eagerly sending them in hopes of dragons and wyverns.

5. Terran DE has become very difficult to attack with late in the round with the large number of banshees in the uni

Terran destroyers were piss poor last round too. Then there's zikonians that are immune through rogues, terrans that are immune through wyverns, and eitrades that are just piss difficult through brokers. In fact, cathaar is the only race that doesn't mutilate terran destroyers before they get to take a breathe, and they do EMP a share too. Someone said on the PS, that if pegasus wasn't the only anti-fighter, he wouldn't be building destroyers at all.

Are these problems surmountable? Obviously one planet has figured out how, probably mostly through good luck.

One planet in top ranks is really very neglible. It's been said all over, that the galaxy puts a lot of input to it. Generally, top galaxies (the three highest or so) always host fat, large planets - this has to do with multiple factors. The round back, when terrans were crap as hell, Alki managed to turn up with a solid terran planet - later lokken commented, that he was a massive drag ingalaxy for very long. This is trying to imply that, with a large enough degree of support and help, any race can rank high. What should be looked at, is the aggregates, because they tell the whole story.

Are the stats tweakable to fix these problems? Probably, but we're not going to find out as we will have a fresh set of stats for r23 by some new people who have hopefully learned from my mistakes.

Were the stats from last round tweakable for this round to fix these problems? Probably, yet we're not going to find out as, at topmost, the terran problem persists. Let's see what Game turns up with, it probably can't be too much worse irregardless.