Stellaris Dev Diary #124 - Planetary Rework (part 4 of 4)

[Black Onion]

There are a bunch of really nice mechanics in this Update, that makes it very interesting.

But if I take a look at the none final screen shots: It's looking over filled and therefore ugly. I like to see the minimal resolution should take a step forward or better the dialog system should get a few build in resolutions for the inside windows not only the low resolution version. I can't be, that you have to wait/install a mod to get a usable surface for the game.

 

[Verx90]

I think habitats should still produce minerals. the best way to conquer the galaxy is by claiming vast regions of territory than spamming habitats

Unless hive minds are gonna get a resource mining mega structure you're effectively neutering them late game.

And the fact they can make energy is worthless because you can just make a Dyson sphere

Besides that the Latoid Conciseness approves of the god's plans


I recommend a building for mining the planet below. (Unless there is a colony below) I understand you're trying to balance it but, you just made how my hive mind works worthless

i don't realy understand why you think raw minerals are so important ... if you are going for devouring swarm you just have to eat more galaxy , if you are a more pacific hivemind , you just can use the galatic market to take more raw materials for energy(or whatever money they will make), but i can't see you realy need that .

 

[boboverlord]

I think habitats should still produce minerals.

the best way to conquer the galaxy is by claiming vast regions of territory than spamming habitats

You have a contradicting argument here. If you can claim vast regions of territory and lots of planets, you can just build more mining districts on them

Also, if no empire can have mining districts on habitats, no empire is nerfed

 

[michaelpetska]

I'm obstinately refraining from playing yet another game of Stellaris while I wait for Le Guin. I am stoked, and this dev. diary is delightful. Please write another one and exacerbate my excitedness further, soon.

I especially like that there will finally be some appreciable mechanical difference between hive mind, machine, and conventional biological pops. Also, I really enjoy playing tall, so the changes to make habitats a more efficient, less damaging move in terms of penalties, is much appreciated.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

I think habitats should still produce minerals. the best way to conquer the galaxy is by claiming vast regions of territory than spamming habitats

Unless hive minds are gonna get a resource mining mega structure you're effectively neutering them late game.

And the fact they can make energy is worthless because you can just make a Dyson sphere

Besides that the Latoid Conciseness approves of the god's plans


I recommend a building for mining the planet below. (Unless there is a colony below) I understand you're trying to balance it but, you just made how my hive mind works worthless

Everything is going to be different anyways, how can you evaluate a ‘nerf’ to your late game with such a massive update? The comparison seems like apples and oranges to me, of course your hive mind won’t work in the new system, it’s completely different!

Also, they never said how matter replicators work in the update. If they are buildable on habitats, then you may be able to spam minerals, regardless.

 

[Yosko]

let see what it brings to the game !

 

[PaxHadrian]

Any word on when Le Guin DLC will be out?

 

[locklyve]

I'm really glad for this update. I posted a thread a while back about how AI would starve themselves on Gaia planets, so hopefully this helps them out.

Please keep the direction of allowing more types of civilizations I think that is what really makes Stellaris interesting and different from other strategy games. One thing it could do immensely better is making civilizations passively influence each other aside from the migration mechanics. The game feels too much like a stack of resource modifiers still so I hope the game continues to become more interactive between empires.

 

[UltimateTobi]

true, they flee a not further descripted enemy, thats why they live mostly on their ships and leeving the planets empty of any resource....
i wouldn't wonder if they will make another "sins of..." that discribes this enemy more and continues the "storry" but thats another thing xD
but that gameplay of the vasari would be interesting in stellaris^^

But... gameplay Vasari VS Human or the other race is no different. All three build up their planets, research, build fleets and kill each other.

Or do you mean that PDX should implement gameplay similar to Vasari's story? If that; yes please.

Also kinda like Quarian's Migrant Fleet from Mass Effect.

 

[stilgarpl]

But... gameplay Vasari VS Human or the other race is no different. All three build up their planets, research, build fleets and kill each other.

Or do you mean that PDX should implement gameplay similar to Vasari's story? If that; yes please.

Also kinda like Quarian's Migrant Fleet from Mass Effect.

In Rebellion, Vasari Loyalists can play without planets. They can have Titan as a capital and their capital ships produce money and research.
Oh, and Vorastra can spawn stargates which can create more ships.

Play Vasari Loyalist against 10 AI Insane empires in one big alliance. They will destroy your planets quickly... unless you flee with your Titan, rebuild in some distant nebula and with some hit and runs fight against them.
So, it's basically Battlestar Galactica

 

[Archael90]

What about late-game lag?
constant shifting pops to jobs seems like more lag than tile-system
and what about sectors?
I know lot Roleplayers that wont expand bcs they dont want creates sectors xD do we really HAVE to do that? cant be changed some way that allow it, giving small bonuses, but not forcing us bcs of penalties?

 

[Oscot]

I know lot Roleplayers that wont expand bcs they dont want creates sectors xD do we really HAVE to do that? cant be changed some way that allow it, giving small bonuses, but not forcing us bcs of penalties?

I don't want to respond to this with "You are literally crazy", but... aversion of sectors is pathologically unreasonable and you can't expect Paradox to pander to your extremely odd, inexplicable bugbears in this regard.

 

[Zlutz]

Will "our" luxury goods be called just "luxury goods" while all other luxury goods are called "alien luxury goods"?
Then we can have xenophobes requiring only normal ones and even get mad if you import alien goods, while xenophiles require larger portion of alien goods to be happy!
That would be brilliant! We could even do bootlegged alien (home) goods to fool our pops or something...:-D

 

[Phoenix32]

I respectfully disagree regarding immersion with 1 huge coherent ring rather than 4 standard-size planets. For me at least, the 4 divisions of the Ringworld not only made it feel "real" in terms of regional variations within the massive ringworld, just seeing four different sections to colonize was a constant, immersive reminder to me that the Ringworld was bigger than any individual planet could be expected to be.

To me it screams "technical limitation", and it makes them feel like no more than 4 gaiaplanets. I think it cheapens both gaia and ringworlds to the point that they feel the same.

 

[The_Draco]

In Rebellion, Vasari Loyalists can play without planets. They can have Titan as a capital and their capital ships produce money and research.
Oh, and Vorastra can spawn stargates which can create more ships.

Play Vasari Loyalist against 10 AI Insane empires in one big alliance. They will destroy your planets quickly... unless you flee with your Titan, rebuild in some distant nebula and with some hit and runs fight against them.
So, it's basically Battlestar Galactica

thats what i mean, including the option to mine down the planet while evacuating and turning it to a simple, empty rock in space
bad thing - you wouldn't be able to close borders but other civs also can't cose borders to you, cause you're like nomads, just flying trough the galaxy
a vasari idea for planetkiller-weapon: melting down a planet with all dead and living on it and extracting all resources it contains and add them as huge ammount of minerals, credits and some % of whatever special produced on it (strategic resources, luxury-goods etc) to the Vasari...
also an titan idea like the titan of the vasari loyalists (i prefere its desing against that of the rebels) in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion that can "eat" enemy ships (a bit a weaker version as special Titan-Weapon for Stellaris-Vasari would be nice too)
...well Vasary would be a special empire if i think about, at first fanatic materialists, but at same time traders (cause they don't really take planets) or xenophobes (cause they don't care about any living exept their own and maybe would eat their enemys, but i'm not sure about that point), or authorians cause they are slaving everyone if they can, even their own perople...
i'm not sure about that, what could Vasari be in Stellaris?

 

[Ghrathryn]

Not sure if this has been asked already, since there's 15 pages on this thread to wade through, but a few questions regarding the planets for this update.

1) How does planet size affect buildings? I know each size gives 1 district, but I've seen a few screens with different sized planets each having 12 building slots available.
2) Other than unlocking slots, does infrastructure affect the max buildings a planet can handle?
3) How does planet size affect population capacity? In the previous builds you could infer that a single pop took 1 tile's worth of space, however big you believed that to be in actual area, but I saw at least two screens in the dev diaries that had half again or more pops than size of the respective planet
4) Do planets have or get surface to space or orbit to space defences? Pre-2.0 I used most of my space ports as planetary defences but since then if you've got a smart opponent, they can either draw off your fleet if there is one or avoid your platforms out from the space port since that's in orbit of the star and its platforms might not be spread far enough to cover an inhabited planet's orbit, particularly in relatively freshly claimed systems
5) Bringing up something most people want to ignore, but MoO3 (yes, I know, crud is being kind to it) had districts for its planets, usually 2 per size, and had specialised buildings for said districts, is there any potential plans for that to occur here?
6) Why the specialisation in districts for planets vs habitats? Why shouldn't a habitat have an agro district where it keeps 'ponics bays or a mining/refinery district for miners to drop their chewed up asteroid chunks or whatever they've pulled from the surface of the local barren world that nobody wants? Likewise shouldn't a inhabited planet have markets and places to trade or big university campuses for research, or heck, casinos, beaches, arcades and such in a leisure sector?
7) What's with the size drop on habitats? Also, would it be potentially possible for late game species to be able to build up habitats or build larger ones than the 6 size versions around?

 

[LeSingeAffame]

1. Planet size affects the maximum number of districts, districts give some infrastructure depending on their type, and the infrastructure affects the number of building slots available
2. Infrastructure also affects some building's efficiency, like some will have +1 resource and then +1 resource for every 30 infrastructure
3. Same as 1, disctricts give some amount of housing depending on their type, and each pop needs some housing. Their needs depend on their strata, traits, citizenship type, that kind of stuff
4. Don't understand the question, sorry
5. See 1., your planet will get one max district per planet size
6. You don't extract minerals from your habitat tho. If you want to have several pop worth of resources on a planet, you need to colonize it
7. Habitats' disctricts give much more housing space since they're much more efficient, so you can house a high number of pops on them don't worry

 

[Pointyearedgit]

To add:

1). “Hive worlds” with lots of city districts will get to the max buildings. The buildings get jobs based on the amount of infrastructure, so these worlds specialize in advanced resources and research at the cost of not producing many basic resources. Those planets will only get some buildings.

3) you can totally overcrowd your planets. Wiz console commanded in 1000 pops in the stream. This overcrowding causes a lot of problems if it gets out of hand. But in general, it can supply pops to your colonies through migration, making it an asset at lower levels.

4). No new planetary defenses that we know of. Soldier pops give defensive armies and naval capacity now, so that’s cool.

5). There are specialized buildings to boost districts.

6). I think they wanted habitats to be special and unique so you were not mining minerals out of ... well whatever. You can add a hydroponics farm as a building to get farmer jobs (both buildings and districts give jobs). And heck, I’ll bet the matter replicator is still in so minerals on habitats may still be a thing we just know they don’t get the districts.

7) 8 size habitats are possible with master builders. With the new tech penalty system, habitats are looking like efficient trade/research/advanced resource centers. Big planets may outperform them individually, but you can’t spam big planets (unless you accept the worm as your lord and savior, of course).

 

[Diettinger]

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue on the topic that we started on in Dev Diary #121: The Planetary Rework coming in the 2.2 'Le Guin' update. As this is a massive topic that affects many areas of the game, we've split it into four parts. Today's part is the last one, in which we'll be talking about how some special empires and planets such as Hive Minds, Machine Empires and Habitats will work under the new planetary rework system.

Gestalt Consciousnesses
One of the aims of the Planetary Rework was that we wanted to be able to present the different kinds of societies in Stellaris as actually being different on the planet. Under the old system, the planet of a Gestalt Consciousness feels very much like the planet of any other empire, save for a few minor differences such as the fact that the pops don't have happiness. Under Le Guin, this will change considerably, with Hive Minds and Machine Empires getting their own districts, buildings, strata, jobs and planetary mechanics. Hive Minds and Machine Empires share some mechanical differences with normal empires - they do not produce Trade Value and have no internal trade routes (more on this in a later DD), their pops lack Happiness, and instead of Crime they have Deviancy, representing Drones that malfunction or go rogue in some manner. Instead of the normal Strata, pops are generally divided into Simple Drones and Complex Drones, with the previous producing amenities and raw resources and the latter producing research, unity and finished goods. Amenities for Gestalts represents the necessary maintenance capacity required for planet to be functional, and impacts Stability directly instead of affecting Pop Happiness. Stability is still a factor for Gestalts, representing how smoothly the planet is functioning as a part of the collective. A low-stability Gestalt planet will not experience revolts if there are only drones present on it, but it will be impaired in other ways, such as resource production penalties. Gestalts also not produce or require luxury goods, with the sole exception of Rogue Servitors that need it for their bio-trophies.
View attachment 401880

Hive Minds
In Le Guin, the planets of Hive Minds are focused around rapid growth. Instead of City districts, Hive Minds have Hive districts that provide a very large amount of housing, and each of their raw resource districts provides three jobs where a normal empire only gets two. Hive Minds use the normal biological Pop Growth mechanic, and can also make use of migration mechanics internally - drones will emigrate from overcrowded worlds and immigrate to worlds with free housing. Hive Minds also have a special building, the Spawning Pool, that provides Spawning Drone jobs which use a large amount of food to increase the rate of pop growth on the planet. Furthermore, Hive Minds have their own set of capital buildings that lack the 'colony shelter' level - a newly colonized Hive Mind planet has a fully functional capital present from day one. All of these mechanics make Hive Minds ideal for a 'wide' playstyle, expanding rapidly and claiming huge swathes of space for the Hive.
View attachment 401881

Machine Empires
Machine Empires share some similarities with Hive Minds, but rather than being focused on rapid growth, their primary focus is efficient use of resources. Like the Hive Minds, they have their own version of housing district, the Nexus District, and their resource extraction districts also provide three jobs where normal empires get two, but in addition to this they also have substantial bonuses to finished goods production, with jobs such as the Fabricator being a more efficient and productive variant of the regular alloy-producing Metallurgist. However, this comes at the expense of being unable to naturally produce new pops, having to rely on costly Replicator jobs to construct new drones. Machine Empires are ideal for an empire that wants to be self-sustaining, and truly shine when they have access to numerous kinds of natural resources.
View attachment 401882

Habitats
Finally, another mechanic from a previous expansion that is changing considerably in Le Guin is Habitats. Habitats are still acquired and constructed in the same way as before, but rather than being size 12 planets with a handful of unique buildings, Habitats are now a mere size 6 (8 with Master Builders), but have their own entirely unique set of Districts. Rather than building City, Mining, Farming or Generator districts, Habitats have the following districts available:

• Habitation District: Provides housing
• Research District: Provides researcher jobs
• Trade District: Provides trade value jobs (Non-Gestalt only)
• Leisure District: Provides unity and amenities jobs (Non-Gestalt only)
• Reactor District: Provides energy-producing jobs (Gestalt only)

No matter the type, each District built on a Habitat provides a fixed amount of infrastructure (currently 5, or 1 building per 2 districts). Habitats can support most regular planetary buildings, and so can be further specialized towards for example trade, goods production or research, but lack virtually all ability to produce raw resources. Since research and unity penalties scale towards an empire's number of districts rather than planets in the Le Guin update, they are also highly efficient for tall empires, as Habitat districts provide a larger amount of housing, infrastructure and jobs compared to regular planet districts.

(NOTE: This interface is extremely WIP, the finished version will have non-placeholder art and better district number display, among other things)
View attachment 401883

That's all for today! Next week we're finally moving on to the rest of the Le Guin update, starting with the Galactic Market. We may be done talking about the planetary rework (for now), but there's much more to the update we've yet to even begin showing you!

Another interesting idea is that each planet is a polyhedron object with each facet have neighbouring facets. Some facets may be unusable due to terrain, etc. Or perhaps a facet has a mixed percentage of various terrains limiting it use or making development more expensive.
The benefit of this is that players can choose where to set their colonies and it would affect the future development. A railway is too expensive yo build between point A and B so I build a small smelter at both mine sites instead of one larger more efficient smelter.
Another perk: the enemy lands an army on a rail exchange and suddenly supply or ore is cut off without the costly battle to capture the main habitation site. This forces the player to send an army there.
Plus... now there is more groundwork to customized armies... wheeled, caterpillar tread, hover, GEV, merh all perform differently based on the terrain and there are bottleneck defence points to be held...

 

[Diettinger]

One other thing: planets are huge. It is usually not about how may people a planet can hold. Every planet can hold an infinite number of hair dressers...
It is about holding the locations which are the most prosperous. Deposits. Safe harbours. Fertile fields... And dependable sites.
What makes Earth such a problem is that those locations are now largely populated. The fertile spots and mines are being worked out. Housing is being build on flood plains and hurricane zones. Different cultures are being squeezed together and feel threatened. And too many of everyone is degrading the environment.
It is not really absolute space ever.