Stellaris Dev Diary #229 - Aquatics Species Pack

[Critical Ethics]

I agree with your points, but I also believe that's exactly what makes it 'excess.' In my recent splurge of unmodded playthroughs, I've come to appreciate just how RNG planets with 12 districts of a single type can be. I've recently had playthroughs were half of my starting empire's mining districts were on my homeworld, a number where no district type had more than four or five districts to use, some where blockers blocked huge nominal district advantages, and so on. What Angler gives you is consistency, which means that your farmer output is going to be far more reliable and far less vulnerable to bad RNG.

Yes, but if you're going with catalytic converters or other excess food based strategy you don't care about miners, you care about farmers, and farmers are already reliable because you can build them with hydroponics.

Relatedly, even as the worlds produce less food on districts alone, the food-pop efficiency is going up, especially when you start using building slots for the farm buildings for the same dynamic, which in turn will help with pop-capacity growth. Even when you can provide 12 farm districts on a size 12 planet, for example, you rarely want 24 farmers because that would reduce your pop capacity ratio to below 1/2, which triggers the inferior growth curve. By the time you're reaching any ocean world's limit on natural farm districts, you can/should be using building slots for the hydroponics building, while building slots keep your capacity above the 50% capacity metric.

The production-per-pop point is very valid, I suppose it comes down to whether you run out of pops or run out of space first, which is pretty circumstantial.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Yes, but if you're going with catalytic converters or other excess food based strategy you don't care about miners, you care about farmers, and farmers are already reliable because you can build them with hydroponics.

Ish- you still need significant minerals to pay for districts and building, and then significant energy support to them. It's something like 900 minerals and 4 energy upkeep to get 2 farmers, which is not always an economical trade, since every 2 catalytic technicians would require 5-ish pops behind them providing upkeep support in energy and food. 900 minerals needs a fair number of miners, even as you're obligated to have a nearly 2-pops-to-producer support ratio, which is a heavy tax on your early empire's pop economy. Especially not when the comparison is 1 angler for 250 minerals and 1 energy. That's far cheaper to afford, quicker to build, and requires fewer pops behind each technician.

But hey- say you still have building slots. Now considering that hydroponic bays on wet worlds will be producing Angler jobs...

The production-per-pop point is very valid, I suppose it comes down to whether you run out of pops or run out of space first, which is pretty circumstantial.

Catalytic-Anglers win at both. In terms of space, they're solely limited by planet size for both farmer and industrial distircts- you never have a RNG roll where your guaranteed worlds have only 4 food districts between them. In terms of pops, Catalytic technicians will need less than one farm-world angler pop to produce 3 alloys, while pearl-divers will beat the pop-efficiency of homeworld CG work. You'll need fewer pops for the same Alloy the entire game, and for CG for most of the early game.

 

[Maethendias]

Ends? What are you talking about? I assumed it was a reference to old time maps?

look up scp-1762

 

[TheDungen]

look up scp-1762

I googled it but I still don't understand.

 

[makapse]

What does happen to the frozen planets/asteriods after you mine them to expand your ocean worlds?
Also, let us allow random terraforming of cold planets(they should become either hot/wet) which takes twice as long/expensive as normal terraforming and which would increase the counter of available expand planetary sea decisions. Basically, you are mining away all the ice in the cold planet forever changing its ecology. I know this could become a ice farm via switching it back to a cold planet, but that requires a lot of energy and it can become a valid use of all the late game energy for that very small increase in planet size

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Huh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_snail

Like I say, I'm not convinced that they're ideally suited to being aquatic, but I'm not going to object too hard. They on't exactly work for me, but they might work well for other people.

The trait specifically refers to being waterbreathers. The dolphin people doesn't prove anything. If dolphins grew arms and legs, they'd move on to land and live there because its easier to build civilization. They're at least an ocean habitability, not aquatic. An air breathing dolphin isn't going to have a 30% increase in housing because they need to live inside a water dome and take up more space because they breath air and not water to actually live.

No it doesn't.

It says they're adapted to living in the depths, but that could be a deep diving whale or other species. Technically it could also be a non-breathing species.
A dolphin would potentially need more housing compared to a human on a "dry" planet because they need the water volume for support, as well as the water purification works needed to keep the water clean.

But sure, let's exclude some of the aquatic pack from the aquatic trait shall we?

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Fix? Why would you fix that? That's one of the things Planet Size affects.

Why wouldn't you?

Increase Planetary Sea (and the other decision that increases planet size whose name escapes me right now) should not make the planet physically larger. Ideally, how large a planet is and how much usable terrain it has would be two different stats. Failing that, a workaround would be to make it so that changing the planet's size after it's generated doesn't change how large the model is.

 

[HFY]

Hello everyone!

Today we’re back to talk a little bit about the recent news that has no doubt sent ripples throughout the community by now, namely the newly announced Aquatics Species Pack!

Please mix these portraits into the existing categories instead of making a new category.

Dolphins are mammals, and belong in the Mammal portraits, same as the current Sea Otter mammal portrait (which can also count as Aquatic) -- the zero-point trait already does the work of designating which is aquatic.

Thanks!

 

[Druplesnubb]

Please mix these portraits into the existing categories instead of making a new category.

Dolphins are mammals, and belong in the Mammal portraits, same as the current Sea Otter mammal portrait (which can also count as Aquatic) -- the zero-point trait already does the work of designating which is aquatic.

Thanks!

What about fish?

 

[Tamwin5]

Please mix these portraits into the existing categories instead of making a new category.

Dolphins are mammals, and belong in the Mammal portraits, same as the current Sea Otter mammal portrait (which can also count as Aquatic) -- the zero-point trait already does the work of designating which is aquatic.

Thanks!

I want to be able to easily find the portraits I want to us. Mixing the new portraits in with all the others will just make it hard to find them. Plus, what robot people use is based on archetype, and we are getting a new aquatic robot. So mixing them doesn't really work.

 

[James Fire]

Why wouldn't you?

Increase Planetary Sea (and the other decision that increases planet size whose name escapes me right now) should not make the planet physically larger. Ideally, how large a planet is and how much usable terrain it has would be two different stats. Failing that, a workaround would be to make it so that changing the planet's size after it's generated doesn't change how large the model is.

So those things shouldn't increase the planet size. They should add a deposit or modifier to add more district slots. You're looking at the wrong thing. Planet Size and District Cap are two different stats. You can change how many districts a planet has completely separately of increasing the planet size.

 

[Pleonast]

Looks great! Next up: gas giant species?

 

[Critical Ethics]

What about fish?

No such thing

 

[Ixal]

Also, congrats to the art team to make a dolphinoid look like someone a loan shark (will this be in the DLC, too?) would send to someone who refuses to pay his debts. That takes some skill.


...

Great, now I really want to play a Syncretic Evolution Criminal Megacorp with sharks at the top and dolphins as muscle

 

[Orphalesion]

I'm really glad that the Aquatic trait isn't tied to the Aquatic portraits! There's so many portraits in the other categories I'd like to play as aquatic species, so it's great to hear that I can.

 

[safe-keeper]

That is one beautiful starship. Loving the origin and civics, too.

 

[Pale Blue]

Can you please use the same shade of green for every civic and trait! It triggers me more than it should, but why do you do this? Is it too hard to have a guideline for the icons that mentions the hex code of the background colour or to have a blank green icon as a template? Just why does every new icon has to be slightly different in colouration?

 

[Tamwin5]

Can you please use the same shade of green for every civic and trait! It triggers me more than it should, but why do you do this? Is it too hard to have a guideline for the icons that mentions the hex code of the background colour or to have a blank green icon as a template? Just why does every new icon has to be slightly different in colouration?

Oh god I just noticed that. I think they might have accidentally used the trait background rather than the civic one. For sure report this as a bug if it's still in when release comes. Literally Unplayable.

 

[Yurichenko]

This looks like it could have the human lords of the seas!
Let the piracy begin!

 

[rodgerdavies]

I know this is a bit of a split one and I completely get each point of view, but personally I'm a big +1 in the "please tie species traits to portraits" column, especially when generating AI for the game. How it was done with Lithoids was perfect for me personally, but I'd happily let the player choose if there was a way to lock the AI factions in - I have control over my choices, but not how they are generated.

Other than that, super useful diary thanks - pack is looking thematic without being too OP at this point - looking forward to seeing more about the shipset next time.