Stellaris Dev Diary #42 - Heinlein patch (part 3)

[Summin Cool]

Your idea, whilst interesting, makes the colonisation rules and habitability non-transparent. People might want to know *why* a particular world has a different habitability rating to another of the same "class" - especially new players - and why a given planet with a habitability of (for example) 44% takes a different time to terraform compared to another planet of the same class with the same habitability.

Simple is (usually) better in a case like this, unless there's something major to be gained.

It's easily explained with a simple tool tip.

Some planets take longer to terraform than another planet because it's more different than the intended terraforming result. In other words, a hotter and dryer planet will take longer to terraform than a hot and wet planet if you want a cold and wet planet.

for the first point, Why not point out in the tutorial that all planets are different and some are more optimal for a species than others even if two planets belong to the same class of planet?

 

[Orinsul]

Will you be able to mod the climate wheel back in so if you dont find it complicated, you can still have it?
or will it be too big a change for a easy switch back?

 

[Summin Cool]

No it's perfectly fine, you should be able to mod it back in.

You will need to grab the galaxy generation and the species traits files. I know the species traits file is in stellaris/common/traits/00_habitability_traits.txt

Anything affecting the planets will need to be looked at as well.

 

[si1foo]

@si1foo And you can also change the amount of resources they take for their own development, by raising/lowering their taxes.

the changing percentage doesn't help because you cant take 100% back

The sector gets 50 resources in that example, and your central pot gets 50 resources. The sector then stockpiles and spends its pile of resources as it sees fit.

when it has max storage because it is a really old sector with nothing new to upgrade then the resources disappear because they dont have unlimited storage

 

[Pchang]

By then, you are producing so much, who cares?

 

[Nyrael]

Not to sound all negative here but I'd have preferred alliances, federations, pacts and such to be reworked so that they are all viable depending on the circumstances. No matter how sensible it all seems in a nuts and bolts sort of way, a grand strategy game in which a player can't create something called an alliance strikes me as a little odd.

Stellaris HAS alliances:
- Defensive Pact is literally an Defensive Alliance
- DoW inviting is how Aggressive Alliances work

could there be a tight alliance that is more unifying than these two and still less than a Federation? Yes, but until Federations get properly expanded, they are gameplay-wise a pointless feature because they are too similar to a Federation (which is currently more of a military alliance than a federation) and thus redundant and a pointless waste of your compute's resources.
But as Devs said several times, expanding Federation mechanics is something left for the future as other features, including fixing current Federation and diplomatic mechanics, take priority.

To be honest this rather concerns me, I quite like a bit of complexity as it adds flavour not unlike adding taste to a meal. If a game Is too simple when it honestly lacks the action/entertainment to be interesting it's pretty much a bad game. Similar to having a potato (unmashed!) on your plate without the beans or gammon. While you can have too much food on your plate, Stellaris looks like a dinner meal for a child compared to (on release) Sins of a solar empire or Civilization 5.

Complexity is fine as long as it brings something to the table. Complexity for complexity's sake is just annoying micromanaging that will make the game a chore for majority of players.
Planets and Habitability can be made more complex and interesting at the same time. However, you need to create a system that is interesting and fun to use.

PDS has been making Grand Strategies for a long while now. The futility of non-rewarding complexity is something they learned a long time ago.

 

[Borgrabbit]

Nice major changes. it is great to see game is keep changing into something.

 

[Soranya]

Dry / Wet / Cold ?!

a planet can be cold and dry, can it?

Yeah the new classification System (Naming) does not make anysense.

From a game Mechanic Point of view its perfectly fine, but the names and appearance of Planetclasses and their Categories just seem to be way off.
Also i wished Differen (earth) climate zones and "everyclimate zone at once aka continental" would not be used as the basis for so many habitability classifications in SciFi Games.

 

[huyderman]

What I think should happen the system I thought up in my other post. Where a scale is made with 0-150 "Wetness" Or "Humidity" and 0-150 Temperature with RNG deciding where the planet lies.

80 - (((Temperature - Species optimal)^2 + (Wetness - Species optimal)^2)^0.5)/1.5 = Habitability

I like what you propose, but probably mostly because I'm a software developer and pseudo math-geek. But it appeals more from a simulationist perspective than as a gameplay mechanic. The purpose of the change is to make it easier to know at a glance which planets are suitable. Your solution would basically force you to individually inspect each planet to determine suitability, even more so than with the current wheel.

It would be cool as a mod or a gameplay option, but it would make hunting for planets more tedious and I would prefer an more abstract approach for general gameplay.

 

[huyderman]

To be honest this rather concerns me, I quite like a bit of complexity as it adds flavour not unlike adding taste to a meal. If a game Is too simple when it honestly lacks the action/entertainment to be interesting it's pretty much a bad game. Similar to having a potato (unmashed!) on your plate without the beans or gammon. While you can have too much food on your plate, Stellaris looks like a dinner meal for a child compared to (on release) Sins of a solar empire or Civilization 5.

Also Pythagoras's theorem (and through that square root) is absolutely fine and completely simple. It's literally finding the longest side of a right angle triangle you really can't get more simple than that in terms of geometric mathematics.

Not to mention the only details the user will certainly see is the habitability rating for a species (or several species) and the terraforming cost to make it optimal for a species. If they want to then they can click on the details tab or button and view how hot/cold and how watery a planet is, It wouldn't be a bad idea simply to have it on the main overview instead, it's literally 2 lines of text with 2 numbers.

If that's too complicated Think of the scale as a square, with one axis or side being Wetness and the joining side being temperature. Your species range of colonize-able planets is a circle in that square. I'm so angry I made a graph in .png

View attachment 201842

I both agree and disagree with you so much. I can totally geek out on all the crunchy details and love simulationist details.

But sometimes simulationism conflicts with enjoyable gameplay. It's undeniably cool with a laundry list of details and stats, which you can inspect and discover the many ways they interact. But a lot of the time, I just want the answer to a simple question, like "Which worlds can I colonize?" or "What do I need to colonize that world?".

Adding a lot of details the player never really sees often just become a sort of simulationist self-indulgence. It just adds development time, and often it will at best don't add anything to gameplay, and at worst ends up obfuscating things and just make the systems more difficult to understand.

I actually think a GS, 4X and other god games is often some of the worse types of games to add this kind of extra details to because the players in these games need to have an overview a lot of different things. You need to have an idea of what your game pieces do, and what options you have for them. If the underlying systems interact in unpredictable or unclear ways, this generally leads to frustration. You really don't want the answers to the questions "If I do this, what will happen?" or "Why did this just happen?" being obfuscated behind unnecessary complex systems, especially if they don't add to the gameplay.

You really have to decide if you're making a strategy game or a simulation. Stellaris is a strategy game with a Space Opera theme, not a space simulation. If a feature or system don't add to either the desired gameplay or the theme, it probably isn't right for the game.

 

[Amor_Fati]

Yeah the new classification System (Naming) does not make anysense.

From a game Mechanic Point of view its perfectly fine, but the names and appearance of Planetclasses and their Categories just seem to be way off.
Also i wished Differen (earth) climate zones and "everyclimate zone at once aka continental" would not be used as the basis for so many habitability classifications in SciFi Games.

This is why I (and a couple other forum'ers here) suggested to rename it to "Dry, Wet, Frozen". This way you keep the same classification but remove the temperature/humidity mix.

 

[Wizzington]

This is why I (and a couple other forum'ers here) suggested to rename it to "Dry, Wet, Frozen". This way you keep the same classification but remove the temperature/humidity mix.

Sure, can do.

 

[Summin Cool]

I like what you propose, but probably mostly because I'm a software developer and pseudo math-geek. But it appeals more from a simulationist perspective than as a gameplay mechanic. The purpose of the change is to make it easier to know at a glance which planets are suitable. Your solution would basically force you to individually inspect each planet to determine suitability, even more so than with the current wheel.

It would be cool as a mod or a gameplay option, but it would make hunting for planets more tedious and I would prefer an more abstract approach for general gameplay.

But don't you do that anyway to look at the size of the planet, what tile blockers it has and what modifiers it has?

I both agree and disagree with you so much. I can totally geek out on all the crunchy details and love simulationist details.

But sometimes simulationism conflicts with enjoyable gameplay. It's undeniably cool with a laundry list of details and stats, which you can inspect and discover the many ways they interact. But a lot of the time, I just want the answer to a simple question, like "Which worlds can I colonize?" or "What do I need to colonize that world?".

I honestly understand your point but I don't see how it will conflict with enjoyability, the way I see it is that It gives each planet a bit more uniqueness in that this planet is a bit more wet than this planet. It makes it a slight more interesting, that's it.

Adding a lot of details the player never really sees often just become a sort of simulationist self-indulgence. It just adds development time, and often it will at best don't add anything to gameplay, and at worst ends up obfuscating things and just make the systems more difficult to understand.

I can't really argue with this to be honest, I suppose that having different habitability values results in some worlds having more value than others but the main aim of the system is to promote immersion in the game and RP. It's the little things that tend to go a fair way in immersing the viewer.

You need to have an idea of what your game pieces do, and what options you have for them. If the underlying systems interact in unpredictable or unclear ways, this generally leads to frustration. You really don't want the answers to the questions "If I do this, what will happen?" or "Why did this just happen?" being obfuscated behind unnecessary complex systems, especially if they don't add to the gameplay.

You really have to decide if you're making a strategy game or a simulation. Stellaris is a strategy game with a Space Opera theme, not a space simulation. If a feature or system don't add to either the desired gameplay or the theme, it probably isn't right for the game.

I see your point with the obfuscation but I don't really think that it's that complex with the basis of understanding being that your species likes a planet being this wet and this hot, a planet being different from that will reduce the habitability value accordingly.

The fact that the equation uses a square root doesn't matter, it's only a part way of calculating distance across two axis, the user won't even care because you get the habitability value calculated for you. For terraforming you should have a shortcut to your species or you can move two sliders around to where you want them, the game tells you the cost, and you decide if you want that cost by pressing yes or cancel.

In practice it's fairly simple similar to driving a car compared to understanding how the engine works.

Lastly I agree with your last point but I don't want Stellaris to be fully obsessed with gameplay or simulation. I personally want a blend between the two as the genre has a hell of a lot of possibilities where you can take the game but what Stellaris needs right now is depth and complexity as it doesn't have much in either and those two, if not overdone becomes a very fun game where feel like you are mastering the game and honestly exploring new stuff. It's only good for a single play-through where this occurs and after that it feels very small and shallow. I know this because I've had about 400 hours into this, and only roughly my first 30 felt interesting.

 

[Gaen]

Speaking of defencive pacts, think it was mentioned in the coments of a previous dd that you where going to tone down unnecessary war invites. But what about spam invites from pact members?

 

[Alex_brunius]

Also i wished Differen (earth) climate zones and "everyclimate zone at once aka continental" would not be used as the basis for so many habitability classifications in SciFi Games.

One cool way to do this would be to have a minor and major climate type for bigger planets ( say above size 12 ).

2/3:eds of the tiles are the major type, and 1/3:ed are the minor type, so that way different species can habitate the same planet "optimally" even if they don't share type. And the variations of planets are changed a bit so each become more unique.

 

[Philthy]

One cool way to do this would be to have a minor and major climate type for bigger planets ( say above size 12 ).

2/3:eds of the tiles are the major type, and 1/3:ed are the minor type, so that way different species can habitate the same planet "optimally" even if they don't share type. And the variations of planets are changed a bit so each become more unique.

Interesting... though tile habitability vs. planetary habitability would make it more confusing. This is still a simpler solution than "yup, so we have some arctic, some desert, some tropical, something for everyone!" It's more like. We have Desert... but also a few arid tiles. It's not as simple as current system, but it is much better than some proposals that have been thrown around.

 

[TheGrinningMan]

Yeah the new classification System (Naming) does not make anysense.

From a game Mechanic Point of view its perfectly fine, but the names and appearance of Planetclasses and their Categories just seem to be way off.
Also i wished Differen (earth) climate zones and "everyclimate zone at once aka continental" would not be used as the basis for so many habitability classifications in SciFi Games.

I've always liked dealing with this with a bit of sleight of hand -- replace "continental" with, say, "arboreal". This strengthens the implication that every planet is named for a dominant biome, not possessed of a singular biome -- when you accept from experience that the "arboreal" planet Earth is not in fact a giant forest, and likewise not notable for any special level of diversity, it's easier to imagine other worlds possessing similar diversity, regardless of exact classification.

 

[talt]

I know Heinlein's features are probably locked down but will something be done about Stone Age primitives to stop them being so aggravating, especially for individualist/non-xenophobic empires?

talt

 

[Philthy]

Would make for fun event lines if some of them stole one of your ships, activated the drive and then flew to an open planet far away and created a "machine age" pre-ftl empire or something.

 

[Reaperdamo]

still think there is something missing - ships and planets are nice and all that, but at the moment this game is still very one dimensional on the most important matters. There is also a significant lack of meaningful and tough decisions. Even the events are becoming slightly predictable - for me this is the biggest challenge. In civ every game is different - the map is different, the civs are different, there are different ways to win, some civs peak early, some civs peak late, there is religion, culture, diplomacy i.e. galactic council if you want, laws, trade, embargoes, meaningful resources that you need to build units and maintain them - thus limiting army size of good units, special units, special buildings.......I could go on and on about it, but you could have stolen a few of these ideas at least........it isn't that hard to look at some other 4x games on the market and see what makes it good and what makes it good for one game and then predictable. I am so gutted that this game is no where near where it could have been and it shouldn't have been that hard to do. I can only hope that in time you understand that it is hard to make a replayable game that starts out as a 4x game - history has helped you in the other games. Good luck.