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Stellaris Dev Diary #9 - Planets & Resources

Greetings Earthlings!

We have spoken earlier about how the galaxy is generated, and today I aim to expand on that somewhat by telling you about the planets and how they differ from each other.

Planet Tiles
Each habitable planet has a number of tiles on its surface, representing the planet’s size. Some tiles might be blocked by natural barriers, such as mountains, and can be cleared to open up new space. When the galaxy is generated, each tile generates a random number and checks if a deposit will be spawned there. A tile can be worked by having a Pop placed in it.

Buildings can also be constructed in tiles, and they often have adjacency bonuses for the resource they are producing. Therefore it will be advantageous to construct your power plants in proximity to each other, to achieve optimal efficiency.

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Planet Modifiers
Celestial objects come in many different sizes and shapes, and planet modifiers are a part of what can set two planets apart. In the example above, Omaggus III has particularly large lifeforms on it, which could prove fruitful to study.

Deposits
Resources are generated as deposits and they spawn on planets depending on the type of planet, and which modifiers can be found on the planet. Certain resources are also more likely to be found in systems that lie in specific parts in the galaxy, like inside a nebula. All resources cannot appear on all planets, and some planets have a higher chance of hosting certain resources. Asteroids are very likely to have minerals on them, for example.

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Orbital Resources
Planets that cannot be colonized do not use surface tiles, but they can still generate deposits. Each planet has an orbital resource slot that can be worked if a Mining Station or Research Station is built in orbit around that planet. Sometimes you encounter planets that you could potentially colonize, but that is not habitable enough for you to want to colonize it. In those cases you may also want to construct an orbital station.

The Basic Resources
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Food is a requirement for Pops to grow. If there is plenty of Food, Pops will grow faster. If there is a lack of Food, Pops will be unhappy.

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Minerals are used to produce most things in the game. If Minerals represent matter, Energy Credits represent work.

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Energy Credits represent all liquid assets and energy produced by our Empire. Actions, such as clearing tiles, cost Energy Credits to perform. This resource is mainly used for upkeep, and although it can be hoarded, that might not be the best way of handling it.

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Physics Research, Society Research and Engineering Research are used to advance technologies in different fields of science.

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Here, have a bonus screenshot! As an interstellar rogue I'm used to breaking the rules.

Join us again next week when we will be telling you about Rare Resources and the Spaceport.
 
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YES! A picture of a feline Species! Best DD EVER! :3
 
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I am fascinated by the economic system without typical 'money'. Dividing basic income on 'matter' and 'energy' is so cool. It also makes sense on a deep level - why different interstellar civilisations should value each other's currency (local mineral, biological assets, symbolical stuff) so highly? Civilisations need suistaining population (food), resources (matter), energy, intellectual capital (research) and sociopolitical capital.

Yet another reason why Stellaris will be more intelligent and plausible that usual 4x games.

Now the question is, what is this Purple Icon 590+5? It looks like a tiny torso and head, so I guess it's some kind of socio-political meter.

There are also two upper meters, these two white arrows (no idea) and green globe (2/4 - I guess it's something with colonized/colonizable planets)
 
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Will the "night lights" adjust dynamically depending on how much population & development is present or by type of race?
Yes, it will. Was said in an other DD I think.
 
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Yes! First

Can we ban these stupid posts like in the EUIV forums?

On topic, looks cool. Is there a way to auto-allocate pops (for example, by setting resource priorities and the game will place them as required)? I can imagine if you've got a fairly large empire the amount of micromanagement would become quite time-consuming.
 
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Great dev diary!

Quick question, if your Food on a planet goes into negative, then I assume you will lose Population as well as gaining Unhappiness?

Cheers!
 
Really impressive stuff.

Will the "Surface" tab always be known as Surface? What if my race live in some underwater Space-Atlantis? They won't be on the surface.
 
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How many habitable planets will a player have by late-game on a large map? If each planet can have dozens of tiles, that's an awful lot of tiles to manage: shuffle pops between tiles, select buildings for each tile and prioritize upgrades among them, choose which tiles to unlock and in which order. I think doing that for my 457th planet in the game will have me ready to shoot myself.

So, there will be governors, yes?
 
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Important question about resources. Are they gathered on per-day, per-week or per-month basis?

(assuming time scale is measured in days, weeks and months instead of more abstracted galactic units)

(I still hope time scale won't go down to hours, it would be way to detailed for an Interstellar Civilisation Game, this is not WW2...)
 
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How many habitable planets will a player have by late-game on a large map? If each planet can have dozens of tiles, that's an awful lot of tiles to manage: shuffle pops between tiles, select buildings for each tile and prioritize upgrades among them, choose which tiles to unlock and in which order. I think doing that for my 457th planet in the game will have me ready to shoot myself.

So, there will be governors, yes?

Stelaris have POPs, so maybe we also get some policys that allow/disallow Pops/goverment to build things, just like in VIctoria 2
 
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