Stellaris Dev Diary #132 - Ecumenopolis and Megastructures

[scarfacemperor]

With specialised planets and internal trades routes, will it be possible to starve food-importing planets by raiding trade lines ?

 

[Twogs]

Food is a global resource like most resources. You can't prevent that.

Trade routes are a sperate thing and have nothing to do with the other resources.

 

[scarfacemperor]

Food is a global resource like most resources. You can't prevent that.

Trade routes are a sperate thing and have nothing to do with the other resources.

But it could be implemented.

Food was managed per planet in the first versions of the game, if a planet needed more food than it produced, then its population starved. It was replaced by the current global system, but what about a mix of the two ? Since planets will be linked with trade routes, it would be interesting to see resources being physically transfered from one planet to another, with losses in case of piracy or enemy raiding or blocades. Same for other resources, if you have 1 big mining planet and 1 big manufacturing planet, keep the way safe between them lest the minerals produced do not reach the manufacturing world. This would also encourage splitting your fleet into raiding fleets and pirate-hunting fleets (as well as main battle fleets of course) instead of still having just one huge doomstack that is still the reality of war in Stellaris.

 

[Butlerian]

Since planets will be linked with trade routes, it would be interesting to see resources being physically transfered from one planet to another, with losses in case of piracy or enemy raiding or blocades.

You and I have vastly differing notions of the word interesting.
I can't think of anything I want to see less of in Stellaris than food micro economic spreadsheets of shipping tonnage lost to pirates.

This is a game with dimensional horrors, tachyon battleships, and (imminently) retiring to your ecumenopolis penthouse for hot catgirl-on-human Xeno Compatibility action... but what you want, what you think would be interesting, what you think would be a good use of dev time, is "to see resources being physically transfered from one planet to another, with losses in case of piracy or enemy raiding or blocades"!?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

This is a game with dimensional horrors, tachyon battleships, and (imminently) retiring to your ecumenopolis penthouse for hot catgirl-on-human Xeno Compatibility action... but what you want, what you think would be interesting, what you think would be a good use of dev time, is "to see resources being physically transfered from one planet to another, with losses in case of piracy or enemy raiding or blocades"!?

Yeah. We have that baked into 2.2 with Trade Value, wouldn't be a huge leap to include other resources.

Kind of makes the layout of your empire important, gives more tactical considerations during war, provides good hooks for internal politics and more complex military considerations...

 

[James Fire]

Yeah. We have that baked into 2.2 with Trade Value, wouldn't be a huge leap to include other resources.

Kind of makes the layout of your empire important, gives more tactical considerations during war, provides good hooks for internal politics and more complex military considerations...

I don't think we should quite go to the length it seems the guy wants to go, at least for food, but more complex mechanics for that, like starvation on blockaded planets that don't produce enough food, that would be good.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I don't think we should quite go to the length it seems the guy wants to go, at least for food, but more complex mechanics for that, like starvation on blockaded planets that don't produce enough food, that would be good.

Global food is something I was against since it was introduced. The Trade Value/trade routes mechanic finally provides a workable system for us to actually have to worry about collecting resources.

 

[Enska]

I don't think we should quite go to the length it seems the guy wants to go, at least for food, but more complex mechanics for that, like starvation on blockaded planets that don't produce enough food, that would be good.

That would be sufficient. Anything more would be overengineering. It's a strategy game, not a simulation.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

That would be sufficient. Anything more would be overengineering. It's a strategy game, not a simulation.

Suffering a malus to resource production in unsecured territory and not getting resources from territories that have been cut off is hardly "overengineered".

 

[John Rusher]

Planets under enemy occupation and planets under bombardment don't produce and don't grow pops.

 

[Aarontheshirt]

Planets under enemy occupation and planets under bombardment don't produce and don't grow pops.

Basically this.
If you bombard an enemys agri worlds for long enough you can force starvation... unsure why you would want todo this however as bombardment does the job much faster.

 

[SnakeInATopHat]

Borehole in a black hole.
What could go wrong?

 

[faljen_isus]

well basically from a gameplay standpoint there can be a mechanic be made there, ill list some points below

1. the same way they make fortification levels on planets they can make food stockpiles on planets, that basically drop when the system gets blockaded or the planet itself bombarded, leading to pop decline
2. food levels decline in the following order and effect: global food / lower pop growth -> planetary food / drastically lower pop growth -> planetary food empty / negative pop growth that starts killing of pops
3. systems can be blocked if all outbound hyperlanes are blocked (both ends of the hyperlane can work), but you cant blockade system of empires wielding jump drives, you can only blockade and bombard specific planets
4. systems with gateways need to have all hyperlanes blocked and the gateway blocked to be blockaded
5. blockading a system with agriworld(s) would remove its production from the global pool and if there is not enough supply from other sources events follow Point 2 from this post
6. a bit of micro would come into play as you could manually make planets be priorities on the literal food chain, otherwise the default prioritization (who gets fed first) would be: agriworlds (they make the food thus have to be kept alive to make more of it) -> primary production (you cant build and maintain farms if you dont have anything to build and maintain them with) -> capital (the rulers have to eat) -> research and other worlds
7. differing ethics could adjust the default food chain, ie authoritarian would have higher priority for capital, fan spiritualist for shrine worlds, synth ascended empires would simply put highest priority to generator planets
8. pop decline and death would probably be based on pop rights: if you have full rights you would be the first to be fed and last to die, if you are a simple slave you would be the first to die, workers would probably be the first to die as the rulers would let them starve, on egalitarian or shared burden planets it would probably be random

 

[Lanrete]

Look man, is the paywall the problem for you or the AP lock?

The paywall is from the art and development time for a brand new feature.

The AP is balance, same as colossus. You can get mods to give you more AP slots, or just mod the ecumenopolis in as a tech.

The fluff is that you build an entirely new city structure across the planet. And there are no ecumenopoli on earth, and there could be only one if there was! You are talking about a megalopolis, and for all we know in stellaris, a planet full of city districts is just a bunch of disconnected megalopoli.

"The ap is balance"- what balance? If a large empire can't build thousands of ecumenopoli and dyson spheres so it wan't be stronger than a small empire, perhaps, we should forbid the "larger fleet limit" stuff and forbid to build anything a small empire doesn't have? It would be "balance". The ability of a powerful empire to build thousands of battleships to conquer hundreds of planets and become even more powerful=the ability of the large empire to build some ecumenopoli instead.

The balance is smth when we talk about one exclusive ascension branch compared to another, one ethics-civics combo compared to another, not just some basic tech/ascension stuff like battleships, ecumenopoli, that is not exclusive. We can discuss how a psy and synth ascension is more powerful/has more fluff than the bio ascension, but we can't discuss "should a larger empire be stronger than the smaller one" as it is against the games nature. BTW, the game actually nerfed the "size=strength" thing to an unrealistic level, like the fact that the more planets you have= the less science you produce. While realistically, a larger empire can have more money for science and a larger population can spawn more high-level scientists or even genius-level.
Balance can be used so that one branch of ascension or one ethic won't feel underpowered, or, for the players to deside who is the better player. But removing the ability to become stronger as the game progresses (limiting ecumenopoli and making the limit the same for any empire=limiting the ability of a large empire to build more battleships than a small empire) is not balancing. And balancing is not required, except in the parts which I mentioned above. You want the game hardcore? Play as an UN-op build with an enemy having a headstart. Want it easy? Play as an op build with an op gameplay and use the proper pre-game settings. Thats it.

"same as colossus"- nope. A colossus is a planetbuster, so, blocking it prevents the game from ending the moment some agressive AI empires start pumping out collossi. (edit: I didn't protect the colossus limit, so, kinda weird to use the colossus limit as an argument to me)

"you build an entirely new city structure across the planet"- after fully urbanising it. So, the "new structure" is actually an upgrade, paintjob and remake of the old structures.

"there are no ecumenopoli on earth"- so, we don't have blorgs on earth, we don't have fanatic purifiers on earth, we don't have void dragons on earth.

"a bunch of disconnected megalopoli"-nope, if two cities on a geoidal planet grow forever, at some point, they will meet.

 

[Lanrete]

I wasn't disproving what you said, I was quite clearly backing it up.

The things that produce air for consumption (electrolyzers, deox-ers, NOT nuclear fission as O2 isn't a byproduct) would just be called "Generators". Again, regenerators are an entirely different thermodynamic concept. Regenerators take the heat of the fluid near the end of the machine's cycle (such as a power-producing turbine) and runs it near the cold fluid that's coming into the cycle. The cold fluid takes in some of that energy so the combuster doesn't need to input as much energy to heat the cold fluid to the desired temperature level, which means the combuster doesn't have to burn as much fuel to heat the fluid to the desired temperature level, which means higher fuel efficiency.

What you're talking about is just an air generator, taking some non-O2 stuff and turning it into different stuff + O2. An air "regenerator" doesn't exist.

As I said, we are speaking about different regenerators then. Turning some non-02/none0 stuff into o2 stuff is generating, but turning an o2/o stuff into a proper air-gas is actually REgenerating, as it "returns" the o2 into it's airy ''default'' condition.

 

[Egodeus]

Yes, machine worlds have new mechanics in 2.2. Hive Minds may get some sort of hive world, not yet decided.

As a lover of the Hive, I wish that you would implement something similar for Hive minds. It is a feature that is a trope in Scifi, but still missing from the game.

 

[Kakotheres]

The balance is smth when we talk about one exclusive ascension branch compared to another, one ethics-civics combo compared to another, not just some basic tech/ascension stuff like battleships, ecumenopoli, that is not exclusive. We can discuss how a psy and synth ascension is more powerful/has more fluff than the bio ascension, but we can't discuss "should a larger empire be stronger than the smaller one" as it is against the games nature. BTW, the game actually nerfed the "size=strength" thing to an unrealistic level, like the fact that the more planets you have= the less science you produce. While realistically, a larger empire can have more money for science and a larger population can spawn more high-level scientists or even genius-level.

We can discuss balance for any two comparable affects, regardless of scale. One AP purchase is arguably ideal for this; the cost-benefit analysis is super straightforward, as the cost is identical for all but a few Ascension Perks (one point) and has very clearly defined outcomes.

Theory aside, it's pretty clear that while some of the affects are exaggerated for the purposes of gameplay, there's no real evidence behind 'larger = better' being more logical in the real world either. There are many comparatively small countries that have done very well for themselves through strong, centralized institutions, such as pre-Empire Britain, Japan or Venice. The large empire costs on Unity and Science are pretty clearly supposed to represent the very real costs of decentralizing your institutions.

As an example, if you had 15 scientists in one building, aware of each others' research and capable of bouncing ideas off of each other, or the same 15 scientist spread out among 15 different planets, who do you think would have more success in their research?

While I'd like for this to be more clearly represented in-game, and perhaps some flexibility for Empires with highly developed core worlds and terrible outer planets, I think the penalties are pretty clearly founded in both realism and better game balance.

Balance can be used so that one branch of ascension or one ethic won't feel underpowered, or, for the players to deside who is the better player. But removing the ability to become stronger as the game progresses (limiting ecumenopoli and making the limit the same for any empire=limiting the ability of a large empire to build more battleships than a small empire) is not balancing. And balancing is not required, except in the parts which I mentioned above. You want the game hardcore? Play as an UN-op build with an enemy having a headstart. Want it easy? Play as an op build with an op gameplay and use the proper pre-game settings. Thats it.

The argument that not all game styles don't need to be balanced against each other is not a good one for reasons you have already talked about: the expected way for you to make your experience more or less difficult is to adjust the game settings, not to play tall or wide. Those decisions should be cost-neutral (so the playstyles are balanced), as they're not the design levers used to govern the difficulty of your experience.

Also, you know, you should be able to play how you like without feeling like you're shooting yourself in the foot.

"same as colossus"- nope. A colossus is a planetbuster, so, blocking it prevents the game from ending the moment some agressive AI empires start pumping out collossi.

"you build an entirely new city structure across the planet"- after fully urbanising it. So, the "new structure" is actually an upgrade, paintjob and remake of the old structures.

"there are no ecumenopoli on earth"- so, we don't have blorgs on earth, we don't have fanatic purifiers on earth, we don't have void dragons on earth.

"a bunch of disconnected megalopoli"-nope, if two cities on a geoidal planet grow forever, at some point, they will meet.

Ecumenopolis are also supposed to be representing a cultural movement (thus they're a Unity outcome), not just an outcome of industrial output. Arguably, I'd expect strong pressures on migration (A New Life Awaits On The Off World Colonies!) rather than perpetual urban sprawl. Most Empires could be expected to want to retain at least some of each world's natural environment, either for nostalgia, religious purposes, or research purposes. I think the conclusion that they are inevitable is wrong-footed and shallow.

 

[sortulv]

As a lover of the Hive

Hmm - we really do need a Xeno-compatibility for hives, don't we?

 

[Varren]

I guess we can at least point out that a majority of the buildings that used to scale jobs with pops no longer do

When was this?

 

[Greenslade]

Yeah. We have that baked into 2.2 with Trade Value, wouldn't be a huge leap to include other resources.

Kind of makes the layout of your empire important, gives more tactical considerations during war, provides good hooks for internal politics and more complex military considerations...

I had an idea like that in this thread https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/big-idea-developing-systems.1126341/

Basically a merger of the current "global resource" system, as in everything was technically instantaneously going where it needed to go, with the idea of localising things via "shipping routes" (as distinct from trade routes) and sector stockpiles.

So, basically, if something needs a resource, be that a planet needing food or a shipyard needing alloys, it has to be able to find a physical path to a supply of it. You don't need to worry about trade ships physically picking up 100 minerals and sending them across the space, this isn't "Factorio in space," it's just about making resource layouts matter and giving you tactical trade offs in between specialising things to maximise output vs diversifying production across your empire in order to keep yourself resilient in the case of a system being attacked and lost.

ETA: as it is now, if you have a planet producing lots of food and someone invades and cuts you off from it and closes their borders, it makes no difference. It kind of feels like it *should*.