Why Players build Hyper-Focused Planets: design goals & incentives mismatch, and ideas to fix it

[NorseGod]

Self-Indulgent Preamble

I've seen parts of this topic discussed in many threads, so I thought I'd discuss the issue directly. I've been through enough Sales and Corporate Teamwork meetings that I felt I could explain it reasonably well. And I've played enough board games that the system patterns are pretty easy for me to identify. The Devs have stated that part of the design goals for 4.0 is for players to create less hyper-focussed worlds that spam a single building, and they want to see more mixed builds in empires. The problem is that many of the incentive systems in the game go directly against it.

First, a story. taken from a Business Success type book, the name of which escapes me right now:

A Business Consultant was brought into a car dealership by the Sales Manager. The Manager told the Consultant that he didn't like the work culture in the Sales Department. Experienced salespeople were aggressive, protectionist, and refused to help new hires. He wanted them all to operate together as a team. The Consultant sat in on a weekly sales meeting where the Manager berated the Salespeople for their selfish behaviour, and told them all that this Consultant was going to give them ideas about how they could work together. But first, he had an update on their individual sales numbers, and turned their attention to the giant board in the conference room showing who was in the lead. The Managet said, "Remember, Top Salesman at the end of the year get's a Paid Vacation to Hawaii!!!" The consultant's shoulders slumped, this was going to be a tough job.

The point of the story is you can try to argue people into a set of behaviours all you want. But they won't actually change until you change the incentives involved. The Salespeople were all being rewarded individually, and there was a single winner-take-all contest incentivising them to work against each other. You cannot create a cohesive team environment while incentivising those people to work selfishly. When the incentives change to reward teamwork, you get more teamwork. So what's the point of all this pre-amble?

How Stellaris Incentivises Hyper-Focused Planets

There are several systems and situations in 3.14 and 3.99.x that push players into the "problem" of only using Planets and Habitats hyper-focused on one resource/job. Systems like the current implementation of Planetary Specializations, Advanced Buildings, and the new Zones system feed into this.

One way to combat this to add costs and "punishment" until you reach a sort of balance. The can work, although using it too often can lead to lowering enjoyment in the game, making players feel like things are no longer fun. Another way is looking at the system of incentives as they exist now, and adjusting them to create newer, wanted behaviour. If the Sales Manager from the story above moved from a "Best Salesman gets a Vacation" system to a "If total Sales grows by 10%, everyone gets a bonus" incentive, they wwould more likely see the Sales group operate as a team. I think we can do the same thing for Stellaris. I think the base unit we need to work at is what is going on with Jobs. Spamming the same buildings, and the same Zones, creates the net result of spamming the same Job.

So why are players so focussed on making single-job worlds? I see two major aspects at play, one is the way Planetary Specializations give a boost to single jobs, and the second is how the new Zones system along with Buildings also makes single-jobs more efficient.

(Edit: to be clear, I am not suggesting that they implement ALL of these ideas, or that my specific examples are perfect fixes. These are just examples of various options. My goal is to show ways that these systems can be adjusted to make mixed worlds more viable, not to remove mono-resource worlds entirely. I'm also Autistic and controlling my tone via text is hard. I've been told my writing comes off as pretentious. I'm sorry if it does, I do not know how to fix it. Please take these as ideas for ways to balance things out.)

Planetary Specializations

Let's look at a couple examples in the current build:

Agri-World: Agriculture District Build Speed +25% Farmer Output +25%

Rural World: Generator/Mining/Agriculture Districts Build Speed +25% Worker Output +10%

Factory World: Artisan Upkeep -20%

Incentives: "Build a whole bunch of whatever grants this one job/stratum on this planet, and you get rewarded with efficiency!"

Behaviour: "I build nothing but Alloy Foundries and City Districts with Foundry Zones on this one planet, to get as many Metallurgists as possible!"

Ways to Fix This: Better Incentives

If you want to see more pluralistic worlds, you need to change those incentives. Let me give you an idea of what I mean, following the idea of vertically-integrated supply chains. These are some additional planetary designations that could be added to the game:

Materialist World: Focussed on the Research Stream (Metals > GCs > Reseearch points) Mining District Build Speed +25% Miner Output +10% Artisan Upkeep -20% Biologist/Sociologist/Engineer Upkeep -20%	Fortress World: Focussed on Military and Defences (food, metal, CGs, alloys) Mining /Agriculture District Build Speed +10% Miner/Farmer Output +10% Artisan/Metallurgist Upkeep -10% Army Build Speed -25%
Habitat World: Focussed on creating happy, reproductive Pops (Food, Exotic Gasses, Pop Growth Speed) Agriculture District Build Speed +25% Farmer Output +25% Exotic Gasses from Farmers Output +10% Gas Refiners Upkeep -10% Medical Workers Upkeep -10%	Administrative World: Focussed on bolstering the Empire (Metals, Alloys, Crystals, Unity) Mining District Build Speed +25% Miner Output +10% Artisan Upkeep -10% Translucers Upkeep -20% Rare Cystals from Crystal Miners +10% Bureaucrat Upkeep -10%

Incentives: "Build whatever makes a given vertical stream of resources and you get rewarded with efficiency!"

Behaviour: "I build planets with a mix of raw resource districts, and various Zones/Buildings, to try and keep this entire supply chain on one world."

------

Or here's an idea where you focus the world around a set of resources, not just single jobs:

Extraction World: Focussed around extracting base resources and getting them off world (Energy, Metal, Food, Trade) Generator/Mining/Agriculture Districts Build Speed +25% Worker Output +15% Traders Upkeep -20% Traders Output +10%

Refinery World: Focused on extracting and refining Advanced Resources (Motes, Crystals, Gasses) Generator/Mining/Agriculture Districts Build Speed +25% Strategic Resources from Workers +10% Gas Refiners/Translucers/Chemists Upkeep -20% Strategic Resources from Strategic Resource Gatherers: +15%

Incentives: "Build whatever generates the various related Resources on this world, and you get rewarded with efficiency!"

Behaviour: "I build planets with a mix of raw resource districts, and various Zones/Buildings, to take advantage of the natual features, while maintaining high efficiency."


Zones & Advanced Buildings

Right now Zones and Buildings come with a pretty direct set of incentives from these formulas:

1. (Number of City Districts) * (Zone type) = Number of Zone Jobs
2. (Number of Jobs) * (Jobs Output Multiplier) = Total Output
3. (Number of Jobs) * Upkeep * (Jobs Upkeep Reduction) = Total Costs

Incentive: "Build the most City Districts and Zones to get the most of the same job as possible, and you'll maximize the efficiency of the Buildings job multipliers and output reducers!"

Behaviour: "Forge World with all City Districts, and multiple Foundry Zones, with just enough Amenities to prevent riots."

Ways to Fix This: Better Limitations

I see a couple options that could be tried:

1) Implementing a system of Diminishing Returns on Zones: The first Foundry Zone gives +100 Metallurgist Jobs, the second one gives +80, the third +60. There's only so many places in the City appropraite for a given Zone, adding more and more makes it harder to find the space to do so.

2) Implementing Diseconomies of Scale on Zones: The second and third Foundry Zone on a planet still adds +100 Metallugist Jobs, but the second comes with a +5% Upkeep for all Metallurgists, and the third Zone adds +10%. It's harder to get more of the exact same worker on a given planet. The more to employ in a single space, the higher the costs get.

3) Building Limitatations to Zone: Advanced Buildings (ex. Alloy Mega-Forges, Alloy Nano-Plants) only apply to Jobs in the Zone they are build in. Each Zone operates semi-independantly, and Buildings can only be used by so many Pops. (This one might be tougher to code, depending how they calculate jobs)

4) Zone Ban Hammer: No repeating Zones on a planet! Might break some builds and shatter some dreams, but this is the easier one to code for sure.


Other Ways to Promote Mixed Planets

1) Trade and Planetary Deficits - Fix the UI
This is a pretty simple and relatively elegant way to represent the fact that trading between planets should have some kind of cost, without implementing a complicated Logistical system in the game, Although, the big problem with it currently is I have no idea how this is calculated, and there's nothing in the Planetary UI that indicates how much Trade is being used to fund the Defecit on my Specialized Worlds, outside of an Empire-Wide "Planetary Deficits" value in the top bar.

Pros: Fairly easy to implement, and it does fit into the fiction pretty well. Think of it like Amenities for Interstellar Logistics.

Cons: Needs more UI and tooltips to explain how it's calculated. This counts as a more punitive way to fix it, as opposed to an incentive-based one. Players will whine about being held back by a new system, like Amenities when it first arrived.

"This seems like it should be really inefficient, I guess. How much is this costing me? I can't actually tell..."

------

2) Rework: Move to a Zones > (Districts and Buildings) System
Change the way Zones work, to limit the ability to Spam multiple Zones. Instead, Zones are now the boxes that contain both Districts and Building Slots. You start a planet off with a City Zone and the 3 base resource Zones (Energy/Metal/Food). Then you can pick a certain amount of Zones to add to each planet, limited perhaps by Planet Type, Unique Features, Tech-Unlocks etc. Each of these Zones will have their own Districts, which provide Jobs. This becomes a sort of customizable 2.xx system, where Districts still dominate.

Pros: Retains more of the granularity of the 3.xx economy, allowing players to make more minute adjustments to total jobs on the planet. It also allows the Devs to introduce new Zones through unique features and DLCs. Also allows Buildings to retain their 4.99.0-4 status as "Job multipliers" without making things too crazy, if other fixes are implemented.

Cons: Another rework, will cost Developer time to implement. Might mess with plans for future DLC. Still includes Building Slots within seperate Zones, a change that some players do not like it.

-----

I think a version of the Zones system can be a really great addition to the game, and I hope at least a few of my suggestions might be able to help with some of the growing pains we're seeing as it develops.

 

[Newbee53]

I think there is a fundamental flaw in your suggestion. As i understand it, the goal of this update and zones is not to flip the meta from mono-planets to mixed-planets. but instead to make both equal.

Unless I'm way off base, the devs do not want to make mono-planets a bad strategy. but instead make it that either strategy would work equally well.

Your suggestions look designed to flip it so the meta strategy is mono-planets.

Some of those seem like they could be mixed, to give a real choice. like having colony designations that are both mixed and mono so that players can choose. But overall it seems your post might be focused too much on making mono-planets the go to strategy.

 

[Ryika]

One thing I don't like about this is that by bundling things into planet designations, you're essentially just creating new blueprint layouts for each planet. If you focus on creating incentives through empire-side mechanics, you'd almost inevitably just create new best planet designs and they'd become as boring as what we have currently.

I think the approach with having to pay trade value for a local deficit is a much better starting point. If doesn't force you to do anything, doesn't push you towards specific designs, but really just tells you: You might benefit from making use of the natural resources of your worlds, and those worlds can be very varied - which is where actual decision-making comes in.

Assuming this is balanced well, the one thing that i think would need to be changed is how currently a lot of planet modifiers that increase mineral output for example also give extra mineral districts. This was very useful in the past when a 4-district mining world with +40% was a useless mining planet, but I think now that such a planet could serve as an industrial world with its own mining production, the devs should probably consider perhaps changing these modifiers or add new modifiers to bring more variety and allow more worlds with significant boosts on a small number of rural districts. Such worlds would make non-hyperspecialized planets - even just individual ones to make use of an opportunity in an otherwise specialized empire - a lot more viable.

 

[NorseGod]

I think there is a fundamental flaw in your suggestion. As i understand it, the goal of this update and zones is not to flip the meta from mono-planets to mixed-planets. but instead to make both equal.

Unless I'm way off base, the devs do not want to make mono-planets a bad strategy. but instead make it that either strategy would work equally well.

Your suggestions look designed to flip it so the meta strategy is mono-planets.

Some of those seem like they could be mixed, to give a real choice. like having colony designations that are both mixed and mono so that players can choose. But overall it seems your post might be focused too much on making mono-planets the go to strategy.

Yes, you are way off base here. Nothing in my post is about making mono-planets a bad strategy. If you look at the details of the example additions that I have suggested, all they do is also give ways more mixed planets to be viable. I'm not advocating we rip out and remove all the other options, but add ones.

For example: adding new Planetary Designations doesn't mean you have to rip out the old ones, and the mono-planet ones could be beefed up, or my suggestions toned down, to fit. And something like adding more upkeep when you double up on Zones can balance out the advantages you gain.

What counter ideas do you have?

 

[NorseGod]

One thing I don't like about this is that by bundling things into planet designations, you're essentially just creating new blueprint layouts for each planet. If you focus on creating incentives through empire-side mechanics, you'd almost inevitably just create new best planet designs and they'd become as boring as what we have currently.

The current problem is that the system incentivizes people to only build planets that spam a single-job. Anything else is a temporary inefficiency, and the only long-term solution are mono-planets. My idea to improve this is that we'll end up with multiple different builds that are viable, including ones that focus on putting multiple jobs on planets. Single-resource or single-job planets will still be viable and the correct answer on some worlds, but it won't be the only efficient solution ALL the time. What I'm suggesting isn't perfect, but it's mostly to add options that give incentives and rewards for things other than mono-planets.

I think the approach with having to pay trade value for a local deficit is a much better starting point. If doesn't force you to do anything, doesn't push you towards specific designs, but really just tells you: You might benefit from making use of the natural resources of your worlds, and those worlds can be very varied - which is where actual decision-making comes in.

Yup, that's why I included it in my list. But the UI needs a lot of work, because making it a blind choice doesn't work, And I'm not sure if you can put expected extra costs in a tooltip, like "If you build one more City District, and those jobs fill up, it will cost you X Trade" is such a weird calculation. It's an effective solution, but a bit of a cloudy one in terms of UI and player expectations.

Assuming this is balanced well, the one thing that i think would need to be changed is how currently a lot of planet modifiers that increase mineral output for example also give extra mineral districts. This was very useful in the past when a 4-district mining world with +40% was a useless mining planet, but I think now that such a planet could serve as an industrial world with its own mining production, the devs should probably consider perhaps changing these modifiers or add new modifiers to bring more variety and allow more worlds with significant boosts on a small number of rural districts. Such worlds would make non-hyperspecialized planets - even just individual ones to make use of an opportunity in an otherwise specialized empire - a lot more viable.

My goal is to make lots of types of Planets viable, especially so that you can take advantage of Planet Modifiers in different ways. They can also leave in things like "Mining World" which gives a +25% bonus to Miners, compared to the 10% bonus for my mixed-designation suggestions. Then both options become viable.

I mean in your situation, the one on the left is clearly a better choice, and let's you build a focussed mining world just fine. Unless I'm missing something?

Mining-World: Mining District Build Speed +25% Miner Output +25%

Extraction World: Generator/Mining/Agriculture Districts Build Speed +25% Worker Output +15% Traders Upkeep -20% Traders Output +10%

 

[Newbee53]

What counter ideas do you have?

The only real thought is that it will take a mix of things. Logistics upkeep works to help encourage some mixing. Designations that focus on both mono-planets and mixed ones as well, but that would require no 'missing designations.' If players feel like one important designation is missing then things are going to go one way or the other. Other inclusions are more odd and harder to figure out.

I think in the end you need to find something to reward mixing planets--not just provide bonuses--otherwise the easy of going 'metal world', 'food world', and or whatever will win out.

Mono-plants have two things going for them, they produce big numbers and are much easier to manage. You need more minerals you go to mining world and mine. A lot of people also enjoy the maxed-out worlds as the dystopia themed empires.

Mixed worlds only really have 'realism' and an economy less susceptible to the loss of planets.

I'd suggest some kind of bonus for having two different zones on the same planet. but it needs to be something that people find worth hunting, and it can't really be something that is stronger enough to overwhelm the mono-planet incentives and desire.

Finally, we need to accept that 'good enough' is in fact all we can manage. the balance will never be right, but hopefully 'good enough.'

 

[NorseGod]

Mixed worlds only really have 'realism' and an economy less susceptible to the loss of planets.

Mixed worlds are also likely much easier for the AI Empires to handle, long term. And in wars, it's likely a lot easier to take over mixed worlds without them affecting the economy too much. I imagine that the AI taking over or losing specific planets can cause Empire death spirals, which makes all sorts of headaches for the Dev team on the AI Empire side.

 

[HowlingKestrel]

Another way to address this could be to add Vicky 2 style ego throughput bonuses for jobs. Each miner job would give a small throughput bonuses to metallurgists and artisans, so that with enough miners you would be producing more alloys and CG on the planet than with just a pure output build while still getting other resources. With the new system you might aim for 100 of a job gives a 10% throughout bonus to the jobs that use the produced good.

Artisans could give researcher and administrator throughput, metallurgists soldier throughput. etc. for any resources consumed by the job product as well as one or two thematically adjacent jobs.

This would help to counteract the incentive to stack modifiers for just one job and have almost every pop on the planet work that job by providing bonuses for diverse production chains. Because it’s throughput, it makes each individual pop more productive without exponential output growth as more and more inputs are needed.

 

[NorseGod]

Another way to address this could be to add Vicky 2 style ego throughput bonuses for jobs. Each miner job would give a small throughput bonuses to metallurgists and artisans, so that with enough miners you would be producing more alloys and CG on the planet than with just a pure output build while still getting other resources. With the new system you might aim for 100 of a job gives a 10% throughout bonus to the jobs that use the produced good.

Artisans could give researcher and administrator throughput, metallurgists soldier throughput. etc. for any resources consumed by the job product as well as one or two thematically adjacent jobs.

This would help to counteract the incentive to stack modifiers for just one job and have almost every pop on the planet work that job by providing bonuses for diverse production chains. Because it’s throughput, it makes each individual pop more productive without exponential output growth as more and more inputs are needed.

I haven't played Vicky 2, so that's a new idea for me. I like it, gives an incentive for pushing single supply chains.

Though it's might depend on how they're coding the jobs system. I could see it maybe adding a bunch of calculations similar to the trade lanes system. But if it's pretty straightforward, it could work.

 

[Masked Ermine]

I think part of the problem with mixed worlds pre4.0 is it creates instability in resources, particularly base resources. IE Industrial/Research jobs steal from farmers/miners/technician jobs; thus you can get these wild swings in economies if you maintain a 'mixed world only' strategy. It is more stable to streamline that so that mining worlds only have miners (and a few accessory jobs). Now some of this I suspect will be fixed with the new 'pop mechanics' and 'workforce' things. But even in the upper echelon jobs, most people don't use Industry focus because the game biases (IME) towards filling Consumer Goods before Alloy production...which means you have to either fiddle with it, or forcefully migrate individuals. Not to mention as it stands now, it's better to have two worlds (one doing specifically alloys, and one doing CG) with two populations growing, than it would be to have 1 world doing a combination of the two even if the number of Alloy and CG jobs are the same. Heck one of the primary problems I sometimes have early game is my economy choking on itself as it tries to fill jobs stealing from Peter to pay Paul, and you get this sort of pop sniping between either upper echelon jobs and lower echelon jobs or equally annoying job competition for pops at similar levels, with the game at times constantly shuffling the bias (this was a regular problem I remember having in the past) where you were have wild swings in deficits as month by month the calcs would shuffle pops around from the mines to the fields to the generators....and you either had to take a firm and micromanaged grasp of the situation or watch your economic bar becomes a twirling cycle of deficits followed by surpluses followed by deficits. Once you had worlds down doing one thing, that stopped...because well...no one was sniping miners to work in the fields...and no one was stealing tractors to convert them into forklifts.

And even in real life, very rarely does the city that smelts the steel get the iron from the same place. Cities hell entire national regions trend towards some economic specialization.

Also....some of these worlds, let's be honest many of the worlds in Stellaris, are designed to be exploited monoculturally. Some worlds have high organic resources some worlds have high level basal mineral resources some have extensive capacities for energy production and some...apparently have wide open spaces ripe for development into industrial zones, housing or laboratories. To the extent that building a mine or a farm field on said worlds would be waste of real estate.

 

[-Marauder-]

Finally, we need to accept that 'good enough' is in fact all we can manage. the balance will never be right, but hopefully 'good enough.'

Why? Especially when we had a superior system already.

The current system is the culmination of 10~ years of refinement and progress. 10 years of filing of edges and smoothing out issues. And it works. You can build generalist planets right now, you just chose not to. Because they're not efficient. They do work, they do produce, they just aren't optimized.

If that's the reason why the people who proclaim to love them and want them aren't using them, it's also basically an admission that the new approach isn't an improvement it's a punishment seeking to force an outcome preferred by some people. An outcome which will have less player decision, less ability to impact things, less ability to do "well and stand out" as it forces the lowest common denominator.

Who really benefits from this? The Ai? The Ai isn't whom the game should be made for. The Ai exists to fill in slots and give players to play someone with. New players? Tooling the game around new players while simultaneously taking away their ability for growth and adaption via forcing their kind of play style as the baseline isn't really something that should be seen as desirable. The folks who hide their profiles, never contribute to any discussion, never bring up anything tangible, as they mass downvote stuff?

 

[GnoSIS]

I still have to ask what is the problem that you are trying to solve?

And the theme of efficiency through specialization is not just part of sci fi, but also part of what created the modern world, for better or for worse.

If anything, I would like the devs to add a scaled specialization bonus, based on the number of jobs.

Even if we didn't have any bonuses, I would still specialize planets, just to have mental seperation in managing the empire.

 

[-Marauder-]

I still have to ask what is the problem that you are trying to solve?

And the theme of efficiency through specialization is not just part of sci fi, but also part of what created the modern world, for better or for worse.

If anything, I would like the devs to add a scaled specialization bonus, based on the number of jobs.

Even if we didn't have any bonuses, I would still specialize planets, just to have mental seperation in managing the empire.

Yeah, even factories tend to produce one good and one good only more often than not. Most workers also specialize on a single step. Rather than having some manufactury where a single worker does every step.

 

[HowlingKestrel]

I haven't played Vicky 2, so that's a new idea for me. I like it, gives an incentive for pushing single supply chains.

Though it's might depend on how they're coding the jobs system. I could see it maybe adding a bunch of calculations similar to the trade lanes system. But if it's pretty straightforward, it could work.

I figured that given jobs already exist that boost other jobs on the same planet, it wouldn’t have too much more of a performance overhead than building a psicorp etc. on every planet. The system should be simple, so just adding I.e. increased metallurgists throughout as an output for miners.

The main thing with this, to address a couple of the other posts, is that it wouldn’t be nerfing planet specialisation. I agree with the premise of the original post, in that specialist or generalist planets should be a matter of player choice, with generally balanced trade offs, rather than the only sensible way to play being one or the other. Specialist planets are strong - there just needs to be some upside to generalist ones.

I think the new trade system helps there to be some trade offs to specialised planets, so adding a small upside to generalist ones will help. I don’t think the new building system makes a huge difference to the ability to specialise, especially given that it’s somewhat easier to stack certain types of job (researcher) than under the previous system.

 

[vulcan7200]

Finally, we need to accept that 'good enough' is in fact all we can manage. the balance will never be right, but hopefully 'good enough.'

I'm sorry, but no. "Good enough" is not acceptable for a complete overhaul of a system that has been working fine for years now. A complete overhaul like this needs to land on "Great" to have any reason to take resources away from development of other systems the game could use like a Ground Combat and Internal Politics rework.

 

[Newbee53]

Why? Especially when we had a superior system already.

Its not superrior. it might be better at some things, but the 3.14 isn't superrior. Problems with the 3.14 system that the beta one does better in my opinion is.

1. Choices in what you build on a 3.14 planet do not impact future choices. making each one done in isolation and thus much less interesting.
2. 3.14 planet building is dominated by buildings, so it feels like you are making a single city not a planet. zones and districts--for all their problems--sound and feel more like regions being developed.
3. building slot do not compete with each other in 3.14, so they are kind of boring. you are never deciding what you don't want on this planet, only what you don't want. this is also boring.
4. 3.14 planet building was very static. any change to the system was always going to break things and any attempt to change the problems here would effectively change over to another system anyways. regardless of the paint job given it. This is possible due to the years of tweaking in the system.
5. 3.14 provided no incentive to build mixed planets. I did it all the time, but only because I preferred it, knowing I was effectively shooting myself in the foot. Which I never liked and always felt like I was being punished just by playing the game. This last one is not perfect in the beta, but at least its much improved. Mixed planets are still weak, but at least they aren't punished.

If that's the reason why the people who proclaim to love them and want them aren't using them, it's also basically an admission that the new approach isn't an improvement it's a punishment seeking to force an outcome preferred by some people. An outcome which will have less player decision, less ability to impact things, less ability to do "well and stand out" as it forces the lowest common denominator.

I don't see how this system limits player decision in the way you are suggesting. As far as I can tell, mono-planets are still insanely powerful. The impact of the logistics isn't crippling and you can cover it easily by building a trade planet. If you want mixed planets, you are not punished for it because planet designations are no longer as powerful as they used to be, and you aren't losing as much. Plus, the overhead for increasing your mixed planet economy is now on par with that of a mono-planet economy.

Decisions are a lot more important, with what has been removed being poor decisions for games anyways. If you build a zone, you have less zones you can build on that planet. if you want all of the buildings for a certain planet, go mono. if you don't think its worth it--like i don't--than you can use whatever building you think is best for whatever planet you are looking at.

You can decide which buildings you want, and that decision limits future building choices, and can be reversed so you aren't locked into bad ideas. These are good decisions. Good decisions have impact on future related decisions.

Even if we didn't have any bonuses, I would still specialize planets, just to have mental seperation in managing the empire.

This is why mono-planets have not been nerfed. if anything they are more powerful in the current beta, with the insane way they stack triple job increases and allow you to build all the related buildings.

The main thing that this system does--on the mono vers mixed debate--is make it less punishing to go mixed. And provide a very basic almost uninteresting malus to mono. Honestly, the trade logistics barely effects things, once I remembered that its a resource you need to focus on now. At least that's been my experience when playing the beta. When not a megacorp I tended to ignore trade, so it was a bit of a reminder to deal with it.

I'm sorry, but no. "Good enough" is not acceptable for a complete overhaul of a system that has been working fine for years now. A complete overhaul like this needs to land on "Great" to have any reason to take resources away from development of other systems the game could use like a Ground Combat and Internal Politics rework.

1. This assumes the devs felt they had good ideas that could be expanded on in the future to fix the other systems. or even wanted to work on it, ground combat has been dismissed sense the first military rework as of minimal importance.
2. This also assumes the dev teams had the resources to fix the other systems. Perhaps the best ideas they have for internal politics requires some skill set the team doesn't believe they have enough of. so can't currently fix to their own satisfaction.
3. This assumes the devs were equality excited about the other fixes to this change. I'd much rather have a developer team that enjoys the work they are doing, than a developer team that is 'fixing my pet problem' but isn't enjoying it. the final product is better in my experience.

I'm sorry, but I don't think we can possibly know enough as to make the question about weather or not any system that hasn't been reworked could have been reworked in stead of this one.

A finite number of people can only have a finite number of ideas after all.

 

[NorseGod]

I still have to ask what is the problem that you are trying to solve?

And the theme of efficiency through specialization is not just part of sci fi, but also part of what created the modern world, for better or for worse.

If anything, I would like the devs to add a scaled specialization bonus, based on the number of jobs.

Even if we didn't have any bonuses, I would still specialize planets, just to have mental seperation in managing the empire.

Thebproblem is that the game gives heavy incentives to build hyper-focussed planets, without the costs associated with that. This is a behavior the Devs want changed, they think the game would be better if both focused planets and generalist planets had ways to make them efficient. I think likely this may be tied into the AI Empires and problems coding them as well.

Resources produced on a planet move to another like magic, there should be an infrastructure or logistics cost to this. In the same way that Amenities was a way to add realism and limit the "all laboratories" type builds.

My post is about various ways the Devs can add new options to make multiple-industry worlds also viable in the game. Both for players, and so AI Empires work better.

 

[NorseGod]

Who really benefits from this? The Ai? The Ai isn't whom the game should be made for. The Ai exists to fill in slots and give players to play someone with. New players? Tooling the game around new players while simultaneously taking away their ability for growth and adaption via forcing their kind of play style as the baseline isn't really something that should be seen as desirable. The folks who hide their profiles, never contribute to any discussion, never bring up anything tangible, as they mass downvote stuff?

I'm advocating they add more options to the game, make their "trade cost" more visible, and maybe put some diminishing returns on spamming the same Zone multiple times.

Mining Worlds would still exist for those Size 16 planets with 15 mining districts. You can still build a Forge World with only City Districts and Metallurgists as far as the eye can see. They just won't be so much more efficient than mixed worlds that it's all anyone ever builds.

If those additions allow AI Empires to function better, gives players more options in how to build planets, and tweaks this new Zone system to better work as the Devs intended, I see that as an improvement.

If both of these are available as Planetary Designations, what have you lost?

Mining-World: Mining District Build Speed +25% Miner Output +25%

Extraction World: Generator/Mining/Agriculture Districts Build Speed +25% Worker Output +15% Traders Upkeep -20% Traders Output +10%

 

[NorseGod]

The only real thought is that it will take a mix of things. Logistics upkeep works to help encourage some mixing. Designations that focus on both mono-planets and mixed ones as well, but that would require no 'missing designations.' If players feel like one important designation is missing then things are going to go one way or the other. Other inclusions are more odd and harder to figure out.

I think in the end you need to find something to reward mixing planets--not just provide bonuses--otherwise the easy of going 'metal world', 'food world', and or whatever will win out.

Mono-plants have two things going for them, they produce big numbers and are much easier to manage. You need more minerals you go to mining world and mine. A lot of people also enjoy the maxed-out worlds as the dystopia themed empires.

Mixed worlds only really have 'realism' and an economy less susceptible to the loss of planets.

I'd suggest some kind of bonus for having two different zones on the same planet. but it needs to be something that people find worth hunting, and it can't really be something that is stronger enough to overwhelm the mono-planet incentives and desire.

Finally, we need to accept that 'good enough' is in fact all we can manage. the balance will never be right, but hopefully 'good enough.'

I dunno, it's kind of a bummer that you only have some vague ideas about how to fix things, but you had no problem mischaracterizing my suggestions as ruining mono-planets, when literally what I suggested were more options, and maybe a slight diminishing returns on either less jobs or higher upkeep for spamming the exact same job on one planet.

Can you be clear in why you think that adding more options for Planetary Designations, adding some sort of diminshing returns when you put the same zones on a single planet, and making their new "trade cost" for planetary deficits much more visible and granular are: "Making mono-planets a bad strategy"?

 

[vulcan7200]

Its not superrior. it might be better at some things, but the 3.14 isn't superrior. Problems with the 3.14 system that the beta one does better in my opinion is.

1. Choices in what you build on a 3.14 planet do not impact future choices. making each one done in isolation and thus much less interesting.
2. 3.14 planet building is dominated by buildings, so it feels like you are making a single city not a planet. zones and districts--for all their problems--sound and feel more like regions being developed.
3. building slot do not compete with each other in 3.14, so they are kind of boring. you are never deciding what you don't want on this planet, only what you don't want. this is also boring.
4. 3.14 planet building was very static. any change to the system was always going to break things and any attempt to change the problems here would effectively change over to another system anyways. regardless of the paint job given it. This is possible due to the years of tweaking in the system.
5. 3.14 provided no incentive to build mixed planets. I did it all the time, but only because I preferred it, knowing I was effectively shooting myself in the foot. Which I never liked and always felt like I was being punished just by playing the game. This last one is not perfect in the beta, but at least its much improved. Mixed planets are still weak, but at least they aren't punished.

I hope I don't sound rude when saying this, but your reasons are basically two reasons split up into 5 different points to make it sound like there's more than it is.

1. I don't even understand this point fully. Yes the choices of what you build in 3.14 impact future choices, and it's disingenuous to say otherwise unless you're misspeaking here. Every building you build, effects your future in Stellaris as they all contribute to your Empire in some ways, and in some cases directly effect and enhance your planet.

2. This point is just a "I feel this way", which is not an argument for or against a system. I personally never felt like I was building a single city, so this is obviously not a universal experience. It's also more of a "roleplay" argument and not a mechanics argument. While I do think there is some merit for arguments about how something feels "in universe" it's not nearly enough of a reason to justify a completely overhaul of mechanics.

3. Building slots absolutely competed with each other in 3.14. Again, this is disingenuous. You only had 11 free Building Slots in 3.14 as max. While that's a healthy amount, that is not nearly an "infinite amount" that has no competition with each other. Considering Eladrin has already said they may bump the Zones down to 2 and just give you 6 Building Slots (5 free ones if you could the Capital Building), then this argument further deflates as the new system will have nearly half the Building slots as the old system now anyways.

4. Planet building was not static compared to the 4.0 system, and I'm curious if you're using the wrong word here. 4.0 is MUCH more static than 3.14. 3.14 had Districts which you could build between 5 Choices up to your District Limit, and then 11 Building Slots, meaning a lot of options towards building your Planet. While specializing planets was the best way to run a planet, it was not the only option it was just the most efficient. 4.0 you build 2-3 Zones (Depending on the potential change mentioned by Eladrin) and then you just click "Upgrade District" for it to give more of those set and unchanging jobs. 4.0 is objectively more static than 3.14.

5. Most strategy games tend to fall into specialization being the best way to build, and 4.0 reinforces this either the same or more than 3.14 due to how Zones work. Because Districts now give you Zone Jobs per District, a planet specialized in 4.0 is going to have a significantly higher output than before depending on the final numbers. If you want a Research World, you plop down as many Research Zones as you can, which gets multiplied by the number of Districts, which gets further buffed by the Planet Designation and specialized Buildings to give you the highest output for the cheapest cost. 4.0 doesn't do that much to help mixed worlds over what you could do in 3.14.

1. This assumes the devs felt they had good ideas that could be expanded on in the future to fix the other systems. or even wanted to work on it, ground combat has been dismissed sense the first military rework as of minimal importance.
2. This also assumes the dev teams had the resources to fix the other systems. Perhaps the best ideas they have for internal politics requires some skill set the team doesn't believe they have enough of. so can't currently fix to their own satisfaction.
3. This assumes the devs were equality excited about the other fixes to this change. I'd much rather have a developer team that enjoys the work they are doing, than a developer team that is 'fixing my pet problem' but isn't enjoying it. the final product is better in my experience.

I'm sorry, but I don't think we can possibly know enough as to make the question about weather or not any system that hasn't been reworked could have been reworked in stead of this one.

A finite number of people can only have a finite number of ideas after all.

1. If the Developers don't have good ideas on how to fix core components of the game like invading and taking over planets or Factions and how they operate I would argue they're failing as Developers anyways.

2. This assumes they CAN'T put resources elsewhere so it's a moot argument. Neither of us know if they could or couldn't so there's no point in bringing it up. If they couldn't they could hire someone who has the skill set, and if did then they could have started brainstorming ideas.

3. I'd much rather have developers who are excited about adding to the game, and not doing complete overhauls of a working system for reasons they only vaguely elaborate on. I don't care how excited they are for this overhaul if it doesn't end up good.

The only thing we DO know is this system didn't HAVE to be re-worked making your argument almost pointless. We don't know if they could have worked on something else, but they didn't HAVE to work on a Planet Development overhaul as it was not something the game was in desperate need of. The forums were not full of people clamoring for a complete re-work of Planet Development. The game has gotten pretty solid reviews (With a few bad DLC exceptions) with the current Planet Development, meaning it was not hurting anyone's enjoyment of the game.

Yes a finite number of people can only have a finite number of ideas, and if those finite ideas are bad then you don't implement them just because you don't have another idea ready at the moment.