Can someone explain how metal density/clusters are supposed to work?

I've been doing some tests and this is not working out how I thought at all. I thought clusters = the number of places metal would spawn around the planet and density was how many metal would be in each cluster. So in a solar system with the same planet copied 5 times and the following setup, there is not "concentrations" of metal deposits. They're just sporadic no matter what:

5 Density x 50 Cluster = 81 metal deposits
50 Density x 5 Cluster = 61 metal deposits
2 Density x 20 Cluster = 58 metal deposits
20 Density x 2 Cluster = 47 metal deposits
50 Density x 20 Cluster = 61 metal deposits

All this on the exact same tropical planet with a radius of 800.

I was messing around with this too, and I decided that it seems the 'Metal Cluster' setting only applies to planets that are set as a starting planet. With a value of 100 I get clusters of 4 metal. I suspect the number of clusters depends on the size of the planet. Density seems to work on any planet.

I can't comment on the exact meaning off the top of my head, but I do know that there will be variations regardless, as it doesn't allow metal to spawn in inaccessible areas.

I've been exploring this aspect too, and found one thing for sure, that metal clusters spawn X metal per possible spawn point.
In my tests, if I set cluster to 25, I'd get 1 per spawn point, 50 = 2, 100 = 4. Or something like that, but it was proportional. Planer size might or might not affect these values, I didn't have that much free time to find out.

What this means, is if you have two players, and metal cluster to 50 and density 0, and each player has 2 spawns at start, there will be 8 total metal on planet, and each player will have 2 metal at their start. However, if you'd do 10 player match on same planet, planet would have 20 metal, 2 metal for each player and only one possible starting spot. In this special case, metal spots will give away starting positions of every player.

So, metal clusters are affected by number of players you have.

Still, both those sliders work in mysterious ways.

The planet it broken up into sectors. Those areas are basically the size of a landing zone.

Metal density is the chance in which metal will show up in that sector.
Metal clusters is the chance for higher metal that will show up in that sector.

So density == 100 and clusters == 100 then there's a high chance to get metal in every sector and get max metal (5 metal spots) in that sector.

Also note: Every true landing zone has a Metal Clusters / 4 number of metal spots on it.

Thanks!

In my head I had convinced myself that clusters would affect the uniformity of the distribution and density would be metal count. I'm not sure why I thought that.

Then I recently hit a bug where I had zero metal spots near my landing zone.

The reason I care so much about how this works is I want to have a planet with just 3 distinct zones that hold ~1o metal deposits. That way in a 3-player game each player would have nearly the exact same number of metal deposits that they can wall off for their base. This would allow a game that I like better of "turtle up and defend". Those metal deposits become critically important and would force a much lower unit count (which I also prefer).

So what values would I use to make the above happen?

Ehm Ace63, thats not a bug that happens to basicly everyone all the time. The info about the 4 metal spots was about previous patch i believe, thats not in the actual game for weeks anymore. If you want to play on a system with plenty of metal you should definitly check out Gandalfs Metal Wars 800 system. Its a moon full of metal!

Can anyone tell me what the values should be to get the results I want in post #8?

I think with a little les then 10 it might be possible, i don't know the exact values sorry.

If your clusters are under 25, that will happen.

Please PLEASE PLEASE give us grid mex placement!