Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Now that the 1.7.2 update is out, we can officially start talking about the next update, which has been named 1.8 'Čapek'. This update will include the reworked AI crisis and other changes to crises outlined in Dev Diary #72. More information will be forthcoming in future dev diaries on the exact nature and release date of 1.8, but for today we'll be going over some changes and improvements to Habitability and Terraforming coming in 1.8.

Habitability Changes
Ever since the changes to the habitable planet classes and habitability back in Heinlein we have continued to discuss habitability, and in particular, the frequency of habitable worlds in the galaxy. A general feeling among the designers has been that habitable planets are too common and do not feel special enough, but that reducing the base number of habitable worlds wasn't really feasible while most empires only had access to colonizing a third of them at the start. We also felt that the sheer abundance of habitable worlds that become available to you when you do achieve the ability to colonize/terraform other climate types also meant that there is little pressure to expand your borders - not when you can triple your planet count simply by utilizing the planets already inside your borders.

For this reason we've decided to make a number of fundamental changes to habitability. First of all, the habitability at which Pops can live on a planet was reduced from 40% to 20%, meaning that by default, most species will be able to colonize most habitable worlds in the galaxy from the very start. We have also changed the actual effects of habitability: Rather than acting as a cap on happiness, it now acts as a modifier on it (in addition to affecting growth, as before), with each 10 points of habitability below 100% reducing happiness by 2.5% (so at the base 20% habitability, a Pop would get -20% to their happiness). This means that while low-habitability planets are possible to colonize, it may not be a good idea to do so unless you have ways to compensate for the negative effects of low habitability.

With these changes, we have cut the base number of habitable worlds in the galaxy in half. For those that prefer to play with more (or even fewer!) habitable worlds, there is of course the habitable worlds slider in galaxy setup as before. Overall, the changes should result in habitable worlds and terraforming candidates feeling like more significant finds in the early game, and contribute to mid and late game friction as empires run out of worlds to colonize inside their borders.


Planetary Deposits
Along with the change to habitability, we have also changed the way resource deposits are generated on habitable worlds. Rather than all habitable worlds having the exact same chance to generate the different kind of resource deposits, we have now broken it up a bit by climate as follows:

Wet Climate planets (Continental, Ocean, Tropical) are more likely to generate food and society research deposits.
Frozen Climate planets (Arctic, Tundra, Alpine) are more likely to generate mineral and engineering research deposits.
Dry Climate planets (Desert, Arid, Savanna) are more likely to generate energy and physics research deposits.
Gaia planets are more likely to generate mixed deposits and strategic resources.

Of course, this does not mean that you will *only* find those types of desposits on such planets - it simply means they are more likely to be found there.

Terraforming Interface Improvements
Also coming in 1.8 are a couple changes to improve Terraforming and Terraforming Candidates. First of all, we've introduced a concept called 'significant planetary modifiers'. This is a flag (accessible to modders) that can be set on any planetary modifier, and will result in that planet appearing in the Expansion Planner even if it not of a habitable planet class. For now, the only significant modifier is Terraforming Candidates (such as Mars), so you should no longer find a Terraforming Candidate only to forget which system it is located in, but we expect to make more use of this functionality in the future.

We also spent some time cleaning up the Terraforming interface in general, hiding the button for planets where it is never applicable (such as non-Terraforming Candidate barren worlds) and improving the sorting and style of the actual terraforming window.

That's all for now! Next week we'll be talking about some significant changes coming in the area of genetic modification.

 

[Milten]

Along with the change to habitability, we have also changed the way resource deposits are generated on habitable worlds. Rather than all habitable worlds having the exact same change to generate the different kind of resource deposits, we have now broken it up a bit by climate as follows:

That sounds like a nice flavor addition. But what about differences between planet types in same group?

 

[Noctiluca]

Is it just me or does this read like "landgrab being made easier"?

 

[Cat Crusade]

So... I guess this means play Tundra and spam corvettes?

 

[keytium]

Food being more common on wet, and minerals being more common (or more commonly accessible) on dry both make sense.

Energy being more common on cold planets feels like it was only matched up because they were the resource and climate left over after the others had been matched. Perhaps they could be a balance of food and minerals, with none of the planet climate types being better at minerals. Or perhaps some other deposit bonus, energy just doesn't seem like a good fit.

EDIT: Nevermind, apparently cold generating energy was a mistype.

 

[LiberiusX]

Hmmm, this is great and all, but as you state, this is still focused on creating "friction". Creating more reason to go to war is fine, but hardly what most players think is a major problem.

It would be nice if you would develop some other victory conditions or made war itself more interesting.

 

[Wizzington]

Is it just me or does this read like landgrab being made easier?

Sort of, in the sense that you can settle more planets by default, but there's less planets overall to settle, and the penalties are more severe than if you were to say play a very adaptable species in 1.6.

 

[Weedes]

Very interesting stuff. I too with my personal mods have wondered how to fix the abundance of planets/no need for war issue. Opening up full scale colonization earlier is definitely going to make an impact.

 

[klingonadmiral]

EDIT: This is actually the case, I read the file wrong when reading the DD. Fixing!

I'll counter the point made by the other poster by mentioning that Earth ran the whole gamut from Ocean World to Arctic World to Tropical World and having for the moment settled on Temperate World. I however still disagree with the changes to planet deposits. A massive amount of "food" can by found in the arctic oceans, whereas our tropical rainforests are actually kinda horrible for intensive farming as once the thin alyer of fertile top soil (which is generated by the rain forest itself) is exhausted, things get very bad very fast.

 

[Wizzington]

What about weapon balance? Targeting logic? Defensive structures? Ship roles? What about the fleet combat/military/strategic aspect of stellaris?

Every dev diary I am somewhat happy to see you work on new/improving features, but I truly cannot understand how you can prioritize Terraforming higher than improving the combat core mechanics of the game. The forum is full of threads that prove in detail how desperately this is needed! When will you be ready to talk about this?

Something being posted in a dev diary doesn't mean it's higher priority than anything coming in dev diaries after it. Combat balancing is a major priority but it's also a huge, ongoing undertaking and isn't something we're gonna throw together in a week and then be ready to post about. We're working on it, and we'll talk about it when we're ready to talk about it. Please keep this thread on topic, there's at least a dozen other threads to discuss combat balance in.

 

[Deronium]

I like habitability changes - always have strange feelings about "human cant live on desert or tundra planet" when we actually can, with troubles of course, live in deserts and tundra... on earth, yes, but still..

But i think happiness malus must be increased. -20 for absolutely wrong planet? it can be balanced with only another life standarts and temple. or high approve rating from faction.

Also genetic self-improve event must be changed. It will be very very big problem for ai and players now. And if players can prevent it, or change in game with genetic ascension... Ai will be a problem.

Also i think that maybe there must be more local-strategic resources? I dont asking something like in alpha mod... but atleast 3-5 instead of 2? It will be nice - if every climate type can have(or havent) specific types of it. Like some crystals of cold, or xenofauna on wet, and maybe betharian on dry. Or something new on each of this climate types. And with possibility of any (or all) of them on gaia...

Update - and migration will be broken. That climate habitability change must also change and migration whole mechanism. Or there will be a lot of problem for egalitarian-xenopfiles...

 

[Madzai]

Habitability already has a major effect on the time it takes for pops to grow.

No, i mean will it be reworked from current state? And how everyone colony rush will be deal with? Tech cost increase isn't an answer, while you need only a handful of traditions before starting max expansion.

 

[The-Doc]

This sounds great. I'd been playing around with all these ideas previously and was working on a mod for it. This will be a lot better than what I was doing!

 

[yiome]

love the proposed changes. I do love the play the current low habitable % game but it scaled with FE/crisis strength making end game stuff a bit weak for my liking.
Although this probably need to come with some alteration to the current gene modding system. As I understand current system making gene modding your species to fit different climate type a bit too easy. Hopefully future balance change can address this.

 

[JeremytheJedi]

With regard to the changes to habitable worlds, are the teraforming candidates going to become more plentiful? To date, it seems the only teraforming candidates I've found have been worlds destroyed by the Unbidden. There's a host of worlds with modifiers such as catbon planet or cthulu planets, but teraforming candidates seem to be few and far between.

 

[Cat Crusade]

I like habitability changes - always have strange feelings about "human cant live on desert or tundra planet" when we actually can, with troubles of course, live in deserts and tundra... on earth, yes, but still..

But i think happiness malus must be increased. -20 for absolutely wrong planet? it can be balanced with only another life standarts and temple. or high approve rating from faction.

Turns out the only thing stopping us from living in the middle of a desert is a tradition in harmony and effective propaganda.

 

[Viscin]

I did not understand just one thing ... but how did we go straight to 1.8? It was like Adams 1.6, then 1.6.1. And then immediately 1.7.2 ... emmm? Or did I miss something?

 

[Pyramid_Head]

Maybe we should at least look for Endless Space approach to planets? Ho step away from climate and have a separate planet effects. Like volcanic - providing huge mineral output, or lush, providing farming paradise etc. Not just by +50% mineral modifier but affecting entire shape of how pops live there. In a way of investing into habitation means to be able to live on volcanic planets, not just habitability, but certain tech for it.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

Dev diaries focus on one or a few topics at a time. The posts of 'why isn't this dev diary about what *I* wanted it to be about?' are entirely pointless. There's plenty of threads to discuss combat balancing and missile behaviour in, this isn't one of them.

That wasn't my attitude at all.

Something being posted in a dev diary doesn't mean it's higher priority than anything coming in dev diaries after it. Combat balancing is a major priority but it's also a huge, ongoing undertaking and isn't something we're gonna throw together in a week and then be ready to post about. We're working on it, and we'll talk about it when we're ready to talk about it. Please keep this thread on topic, there's at least a dozen other threads to discuss combat balance in.

I'm insulted by the difference in your tone and the respect implied to the poster between these two responses.

 

[FabiusBile]

So, this will probably increase the values of megastructures somewhat. I Support the changes to make planets matter more and less frequent. It would also be great to have some more extreme (but rare) modifiers to make each planet very Special and thus have less of a sandbox type of tile management (Tile yields currently nudge the direction you'll go ith a planet, but only slightly).

 

[Wizzington]

That wasn't my attitude at all.

Sorry if I was a bit brash there. Every single dev diary there's always several posters who rush to exclaim their disappointment that the dev diary isn't actually about something else, and it gets a bit tiresome.