Just for a lark, I wrapped the sector influence counter!

from Stardock Forums
I was playing a huge map and was in 2nd place in most stats when the Torians, in 1st place, got the "increasing power every day" event. We were close, but not allies, and I didn't have the military to take them down fast, so I sent a bunch of constructors over into an empty sector in the middle of his core worlds, and laid down 10 culture starbases (with all cultural improvements except Party Palaces, which I was researching). Figured if I didn't take him down, that would hurt him enough that I'd have time to stomp him properly.

My influence in that one sector hit 20 million, and I quickly flipped a system in an adjacent sector. So far, so good. Possibly because I now had a system much closer, culture in that sector shot up to 150 million. Fun. So, for the fun of it, as soon as I finished the research, I added Party Palaces to all 10 starbases. I expected to reach unheard of levels of influence. Instead, the sector turns green and I start loosing systems that had previously defected to me! I pulled up the numbers, and my influence was down to about 4K in that sector.

So, I disbanded 3 of the starbases, and my numbers popped back into the multi-millions. I don't know if it was the fact that I suddenly had closer systems, or the party palaces, but something broke there. If it was the closer systems, it would have been fun watching a cycle or two of "planets defect to me, culture drops, planets defect away from me, repeat." :)
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmm...perhaps we need to put a cap on sector influence  ;)
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Kiwi Greq,

Not directly, but if you group your constructors with a normal ship and put that ship in sentry mode, it works.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Ahh thanks a million!!

I could never build a fleet of constructors without screwing up my ship moves - this will help heaps!
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Constructors also respond to keyboard commands: "G" will put them into guard mode, while I believe "S" will put them into sentry mode, although I am not sure that is the correct keystroke. Check the manual for these shortcuts. The constructor doesn't have the appropriate graphical button, but the commands work just like they do for any other ship. :HOT:
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
forceinfinity: I think the limit is currently that of a signed 32 bit integer, or just over 2 billion. The reasoning is as follows: Assuming that what I've heard is correct, that cultural starbases multiply rather than add together (which makes sense, as without multiplication, I couldn't have hit 150M in a single sector), the change of adding the Party Palaces would have been a factor of (4.43/3.43)^10, or 12.91. 150M * 12.91 comes out to just short of 2B, and it wouldn't have taken much (either in my not remembering correctly, or not knowing the exact formula) to push the results over 2^31-1.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
1: It should be additive, not multiplicative. Or at least that's how most of the SB modules work.
2: max signed long is 2^32/2-1==2.1 billion, not 2^32-1==4.28 billion.
~SDC~
[Message Edited]
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
forceinfinity: I think the limit is currently that of a signed 32 bit integer, or just over 2 billion. The reasoning is as follows: Assuming that what I've heard is correct, that cultural starbases multiply rather than add together (which makes sense, as without multiplication, I couldn't have hit 150M in a single sector), the change of adding the Party Palaces would have been a factor of (4.43/3.43)^10, or 12.91. 150M * 12.91 comes out to just short of 2B, and it wouldn't have taken much (either in my not remembering correctly, or not knowing the exact formula) to push the results over 2^31-1.
End of quote


Thanks for the clarification. That would make some sense based on what you're saying.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Arturus: Agreed, all the other SB modules seem to be additive, but the culture modules definitely are not strictly additive. I'm not convinced they're multiplicative, but they're closer to that than additive. I'll probably play around with it to test it this weekend, using a saved game from that last one.

Also, I did say 2^31-1, which is the same as 2^32/2-1, which is, as I said, just over 2B.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Played around with it, and SB culture modules are additive within a starbase, but seem approximately multiplicative between starbases.

I started off in a sector that had just over 600 influence with a single starbase, no culture mods. It turned into just short of 1800 when I fully culture-upgraded the starbase. It jumped to just over 6000 when I added a second fully upgraded starbase, and about 23000 after a third. No way is that additive. I would have continued testing, but the last system I didn't own culture-flipped to me at that point, so I won.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
This looks like a critical bug if cultural victory is turned on but I haven't tested it yet. What happens if you stay on the sidelines building starbases with culture mods???

I had 4 terror stars in a sector with all cultural mods. One of those status screens popped up saying I had 99% of the total culture. Had cultural victory been turned on... There's a wrap in the calculations, the 5th terror star did not wrap the sector but did wrap the percent of total culture I had.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
I had cultural victory off, so the victory wasn't a bug, at least.