Some bold concepts regarding planetary development.

[DreamCye]

As a professional animation designer who has played various game genres, I can’t offer technical programming insights, but I might contribute ideas about art direction and gameplay mechanics. In my work, generating creative solutions to meet client demands—including expanding concepts or completely reimagining them—is routine. When presented with a theme, my mind instantly floods with possibilities. I’ve showcased a few here, refined by developer input, which might spark innovation… or not. So please forgive me if I challenge existing ideas—ultimately, developers hold the reins. I’m merely illustrating potential paths forward.

When planning a planet, I envision its bustling vitality, which drives my desire to make the construction process more tangible. A 2x2 building might represent clustered structures or massive complexes—perhaps developers could expand this concept with 4x4 or even 6x6 megastructures. Building a sky-piercing tower on a future planet would hardly be impossible. If a civilization sought unity, they might erect a 10x10 colossal monarch statue. Alternatively, to assert dominance over their galaxy—or even neighboring systems—they could construct a 10x10 planetary cannon. Modders, too, could unleash their creativity on this flexible district grid.

English is not my native language; these translations are from AI, so the wording might be a bit direct. Please don't mind.

 

[Red Death]

You might want to look into the tile system from release-version Stellaris. It was abandoned, among other things because the adjacency system was found annoying, and in order to allow more population to live on each planet.

In specific, I think the system you envision is completely unmanageable when we're talking about dozens of planets.

It looks fun though!

 

[DreamCye]

You might want to look into the tile system from release-version Stellaris. It was abandoned, among other things because the adjacency system was found annoying, and in order to allow more population to live on each planet.

In specific, I think the system you envision is completely unmanageable when we're talking about dozens of planets.

It looks fun though!

Thank you. I did integrate some ideas from version 1.0, the concept of "districts" from version 4.0, and the city-building philosophy of *Cities: Skylines* to make players truly feel like they are building on a planetary scale. The auto-management system might need to be designed this way: prioritize expanding districts into 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4 building slots, and prioritize constructing a certain type of district. This might require completely overhauling all the current version’s AI design. Auto-management would indeed be quite challenging.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Seeing v3.99 has made many people yearn for a better planet UI.

I wish the UI designers back in 2018 had ideas similar to yours. There are many things I miss about the early Stellaris UI: being able to see population, happiness, planet features, buildings, outputs and adjacency effects all on one screen were some of the positives for me.

v2.0.5 starting planet surface UI. With pops, buildings, happiness, blockers, output etc all visible at a glance.

Spoiler: More screenshots

The same planet with more slots added from mastery of nature. With food excess automatically being converted into pop growth empire-wide, I miss resources having unique mechanics.

Alien pets are cute, I would have liked to collect more different types of pets, just like all the different named ores and crystals back then.

Super-advanced Fallen empire worlds... but with manageable output numbers.

A xeno preserve that actually looks like the planet has been given over to nature.

The bad aspects of v2.0.5:
Annoying Pirates
No Automation of surveys, or of constructors other than giving planets to the sector AI to manage.
No Advanced resources. No Alloys, Consumer Goods (it was just a mineral upkeep cost for pops), Trade Value, Amenities, Crime, Housing etc.
Upgrading required lots of clicks (due to fast pop growth and 5 tiers for each mine or farm and no reasons not to upgrade)
No DLC content or quality of life features from the last 7 years

The good (for me):
Visible planet Terrain and Tile blockers. Things like Migrating forest providing research to labs nearby, or xeno preserves filling the world.
Visible planet features and icons like for Alien Pets and Betharian Stone.
Visible Population, Happiness and Job outputs.
Visible buildings and branching upgrades (Mines/Generators/Farms were all turned into district squares).

I wonder how Stellaris would look now if it had grown along a different path.
The population system could have been expanded in many different ways and still fit into the tile system.
Adjacency could have boosted Industry from nearby Mining. Amenities could boost happiness in an larger area. Overcrowding could reduce happiness but provide output and adjacency bonuses etc.
Additional build slots could have been added in thematically appropriate layers like Sky, Underground, City, Sea etc. each with special new build options.
Planetary megastructures, wonders and similar concepts like a Space Elevator/Launch Loop would all have been interesting to develop as part of each DLC.

TLDR: playing v3.99 for a few weeks has actually made me install v2.0.5 for a bit of nostalgia

 

[Nyrael]

Seeing v3.99 has made many people yearn for a better planet UI.

I wish the UI designers back in 2018 had ideas similar to yours. There are many things I miss about the early Stellaris UI: being able to see population, happiness, planet features, buildings, outputs and adjacency effects all on one screen were some of the positives for me.

View attachment 1278963
v2.0.5 starting planet surface UI. With pops, buildings, happiness, blockers, output etc all visible at a glance.

Spoiler: More screenshots

View attachment 1278968
The same planet with more slots added from mastery of nature. With food excess automatically being converted into pop growth empire-wide, I miss resources having unique mechanics.

View attachment 1278967
Alien pets are cute, I would have liked to collect more different types of pets, just like all the different named ores and crystals back then.

View attachment 1278999
Super-advanced Fallen empire worlds... but with manageable output numbers.

View attachment 1279002
A xeno preserve that actually looks like the planet has been given over to nature.

The bad aspects of v2.0.5:
Annoying Pirates
No Automation of surveys, or of constructors other than giving planets to the sector AI to manage.
No Advanced resources. No Alloys, Consumer Goods (it was just a mineral upkeep cost for pops), Trade Value, Amenities, Crime, Housing etc.
Upgrading required lots of clicks (due to fast pop growth and 5 tiers for each mine or farm and no reasons not to upgrade)
No DLC content or quality of life features from the last 7 years

The good (for me):
Visible planet Terrain and Tile blockers. Things like Migrating forest providing research to labs nearby, or xeno preserves filling the world.
Visible planet features and icons like for Alien Pets and Betharian Stone.
Visible Population, Happiness and Job outputs.
Visible buildings and branching upgrades (Mines/Generators/Farms were all turned into district squares).

I wonder how Stellaris would look now if it had grown along a different path.
The population system could have been expanded in many different ways and still fit into the tile system.
Adjacency could have boosted Industry from nearby Mining. Amenities could boost happiness in an larger area. Overcrowding could reduce happiness but provide output and adjacency bonuses etc.
Additional build slots could have been added in thematically appropriate layers like Sky, Underground, City, Sea etc. each with special new build options.
Planetary megastructures, wonders and similar concepts like a Space Elevator/Launch Loop would all have been interesting to develop as part of each DLC.

TLDR: playing v3.99 for a few weeks has actually made me install v2.0.5 for a bit of nostalgia

Man, I miss aspects of the tiles. Not for the Planetary Government mechancis mind you, but because it made me know every species in my empire (who was who, and who was good at what) and I often designed buildings on my Planets based on who lived there. Nowadays, they are just numbers and it doesn't matter who lives on the planets, just how many.