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.

 

[nathelbiya]

The issue I see with even fewer habitable planets is, that one needs even more outposts to keep a connected border. Even with the current settings often habitable worlds are so far apart that you have to connect them by outposts if you don't want others to put their outposts in the middle of your empire.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

How exactly does it helps the terraforming issue? Will the resourses tiles be redistributed according to planet type after the terraforming?

 

[AlphaAsh]

Calling it. Goodbye performance eating dysfunctional pop_environment_tolerance on buildings, hello yet more happiness boosting buildings instead of actual habitability improving buildings. Place your bets that the Visitor Centre gets a happiness bonus.

Keep on killing that mod flexibility instead of fixing stuff, you pioneer @Wiz .

Yeah not impressed chap, sorry.

 

[Mrakvampire]

"Balance. Balance never changes"

This whole idea with mineral/energy/food deposits for climates is BAD, really BAD idea.
This basically shoehorns your species towards particular playstyle based only on species preference.

I don't understand why Stellaris designers don't understand this... I'm sad, really. It's really dissapointing to hear such "brilliant ideas" being implemented.

If you really want to make climates more special, then this should be something like this:

Arid,Continental,Alpine = Minerals
Savannah,Ocean,Tundra = Food
Desert,Tropical, Arctic = Energy

 

[Emraldis]

Arid,Continental,Alpine = Minerals
Savannah,Ocean,Tundra = Food
Desert,Tropical, Arctic = Energy

(Tropical has lots of wind and rain, As others have already mentioned, not so abundant for farming purposes)

Edit: I mean you could argue it any way you like. I'd like some horizontal characteristic too, I'm just not sure what.

While true, I would suggest that ocean worlds would have more sources of power (wind, solar, tidal, etc.) and more open space for them. And while ocean worlds probably have a good quantity of food as well, (Honestly wet worlds were the hardest to organize) I think that tropical worlds would have the best luck growing things. But it doesn't really matter in the end lol.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

Rather than continuing to make them rarer and rarer to try to force players to care about them. Why not massively boost modifiers that we can get on planets. You want me to fight over a planet? Give it a 200% mineral modifier. Give it a -35% ship cost modifier. There are so many ways you can make planets valuable without making them so rare that you end up with 5-6 continental planets in a quarter of the galaxy which is nuts.

This is true too, however you'd have to have colonised planets in the expansion planner. Otherwise you wouldn't be aware of most of the modifiers in your galaxy unless you manually checked them.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

Two questions. First, how does the AI handle the new happiness penalty? (including both sector AI and other empire AI) They tend to grab up every planet they can once they reach a certain point but with the penalty to happiness, that could be dangerous, as the diary mentions. Will this lead to more internal conflict for the AI empires? I can see this causing problems if it does. Also, if you have sectors set up to colonize planets, can you limit them to a certain level of habitability?

Secondly, if you terraform a planet from one type to the other, do the resource deposits change to reflect the chances for the new climate or do they stay the same as they were generated with the original climate? I am intrigued by the idea but I have to say I am a little leery of having different climates having different resources because that can make choosing your starting planet a tactical decision rather than a RP, story or aesthetic one.

 

[thisisbossi]

RE: Terraforming Interface
thankyouthankyouthankyou // I'll now have fewer stars named Terraform Me.
Though I'd also love if the F5 menu could include modifiers so that I have fewer planets called Titanic.

RE: Habitability
What if there was also a continuous resource cost to living on worlds with lower habitability? Presumably significant energy (providing habitable shelters), a smaller amount of minerals (building upkeep), and perhaps delayed growth (who wants to live there?) and build times (it's difficult being outside). I'd think this might help make Terraforming really really worth it, as in its current form I very rarely bother... but it'd still technically allow people like me to live by the ethos of Colonize Anything and Everything, just without being so care-free.

[edit: just making things a bit more coherent]

 

[Brent15]

I think I like this, as I can see Humans colonizing artic and desert worlds. If each empire starts with two other nearby planets of their type though, this is going to look very unnatural. Few habitable planets in the galaxy but every empire just happens to have two good ones of their type nearby. It was an immersion stretch before - fewer habitable planets makes it that much more unlikely.

 

[Serenity84]

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,

Obviously that's only in because I suggested it here

 

[sarcuthy]

I don't mind the changes to planets generating more energy/minerals, but having certain types of planets generate more food seems... illogical. why should a dry planet with a fully developed ecosystem, which incidentally birthed a spacefaring race, generate less food than a wet one? The species is adapted to that one certain planet und should get the most food from their planet type/class and less food from less ideal climates; The food they are adapted to doesn't grow as well or the available food on that planet is more toxic or whatever...

as i am not an english native speaker, i don't know if i brought my point across the way i meant it.... just my two cents i wanted to point out

edit: that's just thinking within our knowledge of earth, but for all we know, the kind of earth climate could be the moste hostile to creatures in the galaxy and we're just some biological oddity, adapted to some sort of hostile climate...

 

[Gregorovitch]

Given that minerals are the most important resource, it follows that species favouring arctic type cold worlds will be at an advantage. Always play as one bascially.

 

[Princess Stabbity]

As if they weren't annoying (and relatively improbable) enough already. I used to avoid researching the corresponding tech just so I wouldn't have to deal with this, and that's not good design in my book.

Saaame! I wish there was some policy I could set to forbid my citizens from genemodding themselves. I wouldn't mind it as much if it was just habitability that changed but the random (and completely nonsensical) traits they get annoy me to death.

Or at least some way to punish them for it/purge them/revert their changes and merge them back into the main species.

 

[LameoveR]

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.

Well, i see this like after those changes all would chose Frozen Climate planets at start.

 

[Sian]

Given that minerals are the most important resource, it follows that species favouring arctic type cold worlds will be at an advantage. Always play as one bascially.

Eh, to be perfectly honest, at the moment I always play a arid species, as to get free, right-environment planets from Grimacing Planet

 

[TheDarkMaster]

So terraforming candidates are still only barren planets? No toxics that can turn into wet or frozens that can turn into cold?

 

[Deronium]

Well, i see this like after those changes all would chose Frozen Climate planets at start.

Maybe not. if there is 10 deposits and 5 of them is minerals, but on planet is bad modififer... it isnt better than arid world with 5 deposits and 3 minerals, without modifier.

actually it time for modifiers matter. We need more of them! like here https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=865040033&searchtext=modifiers
When you have planet with -75% for minerals - you doesnt care about type.

 

[Stavr.V]

Nice to get less planets. Although i'd prefer to see additional increase in consumer goods costs based on habitability rather than big happines minus.

 

[jazzglands]

I'm having mixed feelings about this, on one hand I'm glad the planetary environments are being made more unique, but from the other hand these changes seem to gear some planets types towards certain playstyles too much

I don't think it would be too much at all, even if the planets' resources were very heavily weighted. Right now, the choice of homeworld type isn't really a real choice. You can't know the consequences of your choice in your randomly-generated galaxy until you've already made it. Making certain world better at making certain resources will not only give you a mechanics-oriented reason to choose a particular homeworld type, but it'll make different species have different kinds of resources in different ratios. They'll be different from one another in meaningful mechanical ways, AND this could potentially be a reason to do actual trade.

Not only that, but it makes you give a shit what type of planet you are colonizing/fighting for. Early game, you know "colonize" vs "can't colonize" but that's not a choice; just a situation. It's based on a decision that you make with no information before the start of the game. Late game, you have enough +hab or robots or alien citizens and +food/+growth buildings that habitability doesn't really matter to you at all. You can choose to have a world with 70% max happiness or 80% max happiness. Sure it's different, but not compellingly so.

If I'm at war in 1.8, I can use the planet type system to know at a glance where the enemy's farm worlds, mine worlds, etc are. Now I can use that at-a-glance information to make actual strategic choices. I need to think about what resources I need or what I want to deny the enemy. I may also need solve the problem of my own pops not being able to efficiently extract resources on planets where they'd be unhappy or take a long time to grow new pops. You could eat the unrest/inefficiency, move in aliens (and deal with the political consequences of that), spend energy for terraforming, spend minerals for unrest-mitigating defense armies, do some special thing because of your ethics/traditions, etc etc..

Without context, a choice can't be strategic.w

 

[Wizzington]

In relation to the happiness penalties (again), while I really don't think a higher happiness penalty is a good idea, I'm considering adding in a resource production penalty to represent the difficulties of extracting resources in a hostile environment. Going to see how the balance of that plays out.