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

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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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!
 
This update looks really good and is starting to address many of the issues I still have with the realism of how an intergalactic society is modelled in the game. One example is habitats. A society must have a reason to build habitats. Be it to provide extra housing for overpopulated planets or a playground for the rich over inhospitable planets (like the Glitter Belt over Chasm City). Another is to access resources more efficiently or research spacial anomalies more efficiently.

Not in the sense of getting it as a resource on the habitat itself, but they'll probably automatically 'mine' the planet like a mining/research station would.

Wouldn't it therefor be logical to give resources mined by a habitat a bonus against ones mined by a regular mining or research station? There is a reason asteroids were turned into habitats in the Belt of the Expanse universe.
 
@Wiz All this changes look very interesting, i look forward for the release date of the patch. The machine empires are my favorites, so this changes... um, now gestalt consciousnesses are more specialized. I have but two questions:
1- There are plans for some kind of psychic gestalt consciousnesses?
2- With this patch, and probably companion DLC, if you would compare the two economics systems, pre and post patch, which one will be the "easiest" economy for players?

Also, but this questions is more for the art department, with all this changes to buildings, have anyone considered making special buildings art just for the hive mind? you know, more organic and less constructed.

Tanks for the answers and the great job :)
 
It depends if the migration is deterministic. If you can determine it, then there are rules. If you can't determine it, then it is random, or it is based on their own free will.

you don't choose where your blood cells go, do they have free will?
 
Hydroponics Farms is a building you can build on both planets and habitats to get some farming jobs. It's less efficient than farming districts, though.

Wouldn't it be more plausible that farms on habitats/ringworlds would be better than on planets, since the environments would be specifically tailored to the species' environment? Or is this a balance thing to prevent it getting too OP? What if when you build a habitat, you have the option to make it perfectly habitable, so you can grow more food and such, but it's more expensive and takes longer. Or it's not as habitable (Flat 80% maybe), if you don't need it for farms, or just want a cheaper, faster habitat.

Regarding self-sufficiency, how hard is it for normal empires to be sufficent on their own? Will Xenophobes get additional resource output because of it too?
 
Im liking it, especially the habbitat changes oddly enough. Im feeling the urge to play a rough and ready scattered ramshackle capitalist trader republic that clings to the fringes of space via habbitats and a few worlds. I like being the underdog in this game. Especially now actual meaningful trade looks to be in.
 
Wouldn't it be more plausible that farms on habitats/ringworlds would be better than on planets, since the environments would be specifically tailored to the species' environment? Or is this a balance thing to prevent it getting too OP? What if when you build a habitat, you have the option to make it perfectly habitable, so you can grow more food and such, but it's more expensive and takes longer. Or it's not as habitable (Flat 80% maybe), if you don't need it for farms, or just want a cheaper, faster habitat.

Regarding self-sufficiency, how hard is it for normal empires to be sufficent on their own? Will Xenophobes get additional resource output because of it too?

I think its simply the idea that the Hydroponics Farms building is just a "building" whereas the district represents something much larger in scale in the game.
 
I'm a bit confused that habitats will have research district while normal planets won't. I was pretty okay with the idea that scientists job comes only from buildings and now it's messing me up. Anyway, glad that habitats are mostly specialists oriented. Will it cost alloys or just minerals to construct them?
 
All of these mechanics make Hive Minds ideal for a 'wide' playstyle, expanding rapidly and claiming huge swathes of space for the Hive.

Really love all the dev diary info, thanks for putting these out.

After reading this i wondered about creating more mid game crisis options. Like a hive mind discovered by a science ship and once found triggers a rapidly expanding and aggressive hive mind that must be contained or dealt with. I feel like there is potential for more mid game crises beyond the Great Khan...
 
Is there any possibility that you guys are heading in the direction of making it possible to have a fairly socialist economy or a semi-anarchistic "government" set up? An environmentalism mechanic?

As an example, I'd *really* love to play as the Culture from the Iain Banks novels. They were an insanely scientifically advanced, anarcho-communist civilization with ludicrously powerful AI taking over many of the humdrum functions of society with a fraction of their attention.

What you guys are doing is absolutely wonderful and I've logged entirely too many hours in Stellaris but, honestly? I wish there were more options to explore different society types.

What about a civilization obsessed with the value of biological life that leaves vast tracts of land unworked and derives benefits from doing that? What about an ecological devastation mechanic? A straight up technophobic civilization a la Dune? You can't do everything and please everyone. I completely get that but the civilizations I've always most wanted to play are the least viable to do under current mechanics and the re-work that you guys are pursuing really gives me hope that my technologically advanced space hippies or my life worshiping rampant life-seeders might be on the horizon.
 
Bit disappointed we cant have non hive pops that are in a kind of subordinated status to the hives. but otherwise the new planetary management is good for making the alien feel of these civilizations more alive and appropriate.
Not sure if it was mentioned but can we make a merchant machine empire so I can deck out my robots with gold plating.
 
Will you make planet climates a bit less uniform? Since you're reworking the tile features and art there is an opportunity to mix things up somewhat. For example a continental world could have some desert, ice and kelp tiles too. Or arid worlds are actually described as having some forests. These could be present in small numbers along with mostly dry features. Same on tundra worlds. Tropical worlds can have ocean tiles too
 
@Wiz don't you think that habitats are kinda misrepresented in Stellaris? Even in the future DLC they still kinda look like poor-alien's planets rather than an alternate way for a civilization to grow.

Imagine if a species fails to find gravity wells with compatible atmosphere (Gaia/Tomb Worlds preference) and decides to build large space habitats instead of terraforming?
 
@Wiz All this changes look very interesting, i look forward for the release date of the patch. The machine empires are my favorites, so this changes... um, now gestalt consciousnesses are more specialized. I have but two questions:
1- There are plans for some kind of psychic gestalt consciousnesses?
2- With this patch, and probably companion DLC, if you would compare the two economics systems, pre and post patch, which one will be the "easiest" economy for players?

Also, but this questions is more for the art department, with all this changes to buildings, have anyone considered making special buildings art just for the hive mind? you know, more organic and less constructed.

Tanks for the answers and the great job :)

Just checking, but are you not able to take the Psionic Ascension path as a Hive Mind?
 
Why does it have to be "their own free will"? I can imagine a hive mind subconsciously redistributing its drones based on regional needs.

Yeah, exactly.
 
Here is an interesting thought. While Gestalt empires themselves may not have any use for luxury goods. They could still make it to use as trade goods, if they see there is a high demand for it.

Like think outsourcing to China.
 
Is there any possibility that you guys are heading in the direction of making it possible to have a fairly socialist economy or a semi-anarchistic "government" set up? An environmentalism mechanic?

As an example, I'd *really* love to play as the Culture from the Iain Banks novels. They were an insanely scientifically advanced, anarcho-communist civilization with ludicrously powerful AI taking over many of the humdrum functions of society with a fraction of their attention.

What you guys are doing is absolutely wonderful and I've logged entirely too many hours in Stellaris but, honestly? I wish there were more options to explore different society types.

What about a civilization obsessed with the value of biological life that leaves vast tracts of land unworked and derives benefits from doing that? What about an ecological devastation mechanic? A straight up technophobic civilization a la Dune? You can't do everything and please everyone. I completely get that but the civilizations I've always most wanted to play are the least viable to do under current mechanics and the re-work that you guys are pursuing really gives me hope that my technologically advanced space hippies or my life worshiping rampant life-seeders might be on the horizon.

They annouced a Civic a few weeks back called 'Shared Burden' that flattens out the colony Strata - making all pops cost the same luxary good amount - this was intended to replicate the socialism aspect.

For the others - all you'd need are a few key buildings like "Nature Preserve" that eats up a farming disctrict or two, and only provides unity. For strip mining, I'd like to see an edict that produces tile blockers as you mine.
 
@Wiz, do you plan to introduce even more race differences, for example, in techs? It's unlikely, that some space amoebas could invent and properly use exactly the same lasers and missiles, as humans do?

Assuming your answer will be "for multiplayer balance's sake of course no", I have other question - do you ever plan to allow turning multiplayer balance on and off?
 
Yeah, exactly.

Can't we get some non-hive pops that are not food that might be good for hive mind in their own multi-mind? ;)

Also will it be taken under consideration the idea of "you will see only the next POP to show up on a planet but all are growing"? never seen your replay in previous dev diary.