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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.

stellaris_dev_diary_09_01_20151116_planet_tiles_2.jpg


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.

stellaris_dev_diary_09_02_20151116_build_station_2.jpg


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
food.png
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.

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

energy.png
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.

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

stellaris_dev_diary_09_03_20151116_galaxy_view.jpg


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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You do realise that Victoria style pops in a space game with hundreds of planets would produce a great amount of lags and bugs?
Victoria 2 had 3246 provinces. There are up to 1000 stars in Stellaris. Even if every system has ten planets that is still only three times the number of provinces a six year-old game can handle.
 
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I don't see why you would need millions of pop but the granularity of Pop seem to be rather narrow and each one needs to be several hundreds of millions of people.

I could see smaller planets with rather low populatio of perhaps a few million at best and super huge ones with tens of billions of people. I do hope that this is not all there is and assigning pops to areas seem like a micromanagement nightmare to me.

I also don't like the food resource that much. I don't think that food would be much of an issue for a space faring race and should just be part of the energy resource. I also don't see the connection of food and population growth (outside agrarian societies) to begin with, that is just a Civ myth...

I get sort of a bad Civ5 vibe from this sprinkled in with the GalCiv type planet management which also is micro heavy and a bit boring. I had hoped for a more abstract planetary management with edicts and laws to govern them rather then pure numbers very much like Civ5 and most other shallow 4x games.

Well... I really hope that excess energy and materials are not magically teleported to the empire treasury, that would be a bit sad and simple. I hope that planet govern their own development and that they are taxed. I really can't see democratically elected planets diverting all their excess resources to the imperial treasury instead of reinvesting as much as possible into the local economy.

To me this whole tile business seem a bit to detailed for a grand strategy title.
 
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I don't see why you would need millions of pop but the granularity of Pop seem to be rather narrow and each one needs to be several hundreds of millions of people..
One POP for every four people like Vic2 isn't necessary, but five for an entire planet is pretty restrictive.
I also don't like the food resource that much. I don't think that food would be much of an issue for a space faring race and should just be part of the energy resource. I also don't see the connection of food and population growth (outside agrarian societies) to begin with, that is just a Civ myth...
So long as it is just a mechanic to provide a soft cap to the population a planet can efficiently support, I'm all for including food generation, but I do agree that the idea that food is the major factor in determining population growth is silly.
I get sort of a bad Civ5 vibe from this sprinkled in with the GalCiv type planet management which also is micro heavy and a bit boring. I had hoped for a more abstract planetary management with edicts and laws to govern them rather then pure numbers very much like Civ5 and most other shallow 4x games.
I'm hoping that the POPs will assign themselves to tiles based on their own preferences rather than relying or allowing the player to manage them directly, other than by constructing buildings and enacting policies. That would make more sense and remove the burden of micromanagement from the player.
 
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Hate to be so negative, but this is the first big disappointment of this game for me. The Civ style pops are the one thing I particually hoped this game would not have. Also, with just Food, "Minerals" and Energy, the economic system seems so dulled down and unfun. Those cheasy Icons on the map, too(I know, alpha). It apears to me that with this system, one can't just do an economic run without getting bored. What are we left with for peace time mechanics then? Pop-up events from discovering things and the not yet revealed "big diplomatic part" of the game.

Hate me all you want, but this is the first DD that really dampend by hopes for this game.
 
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Yeah i expect something more indepth for the planetary view and stats.

So far it looks really like Endless space (with more depth since there are tiles and pops, of course)


Something that has always bugged me is that I can't believe actually no game use science for this and we always get stuck in the classic paradigm of "arid planet", "barren planet" or "temperate planet" etc. which doesn't really mean anything, is unimaginative, and basically this is not how planets or space work.

Everyone that has been to school (i hope) knows about this :

1103-matte.gif


Why not use actual planetary science to make a game set in space ? It doesn't have to be really complicated compositions but basic stuff everyone knows about like CO2, O2, etc. etc.
 
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Overall, this is the DD that has enthused me the least so far, though that might be because it's not clear how all these things will fit together. The resource deposits, for example, are they actually individual types of resources with specialized functions, like canned goods in Vicky 2, or are they like Civ and each one gives a different bonus to the three basic resource units?

I think we have seem the resource deposits in the screenshots, actually. They are just the basic resources (including science). Notice how some tiles have a base production of 1 or 2 of some resources, but not all of them. I think that is what he meant by deposits. Furthermore, in the second screenshot you can see a Physics Research icon bellow the planet, which I think it is the orbital deposit.

I think there will be a bit more of flavor about the deposits other than just the icons. Something like "interesting wildlife" or "unique metals" when you select the tile/planet at very last.
 
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If the pops really are such small numbers, I'm a bit disappointed. Maybe we haven't seen the full depth of things, but larger numbers make things more flexible, which is usually better.
 
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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.

View attachment 142990

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.

View attachment 142991

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
View attachment 142998 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.

View attachment 142997 Minerals are used to produce most things in the game. If Minerals represent matter, Energy Credits represent work.

View attachment 142996 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.

View attachment 142994 View attachment 142995 View attachment 142993 Physics Research, Society Research and Engineering Research are used to advance technologies in different fields of science.

View attachment 142999

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.

I love you. Can I have your space babies?
 
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I don't understand the problem with tiles. They are just holdings like in CK2. Have a sprawling metropolis on one tile (city barony) and have a big military instilation/spaceport on another (castles).
What's the big deal?

It's boring and doesn't really fit with the space theme.
 
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It's boring and doesn't really fit with the space theme.
The problem is that they're ugly, at least from my perspective. I'd so much prefer having a planetary map of some sort on which to watch the colony grow. Hell, even a mediocre hex map on which I could actually visualize the geography of the colony would be preferable to a couple of cards with pictures on them. When I think of an entire planetary civilization, I feel like they deserve a bit more depth to them than this.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

And of course its ugly, it isn't pretty in CK2 either. But the level of wich people are complaining about it is crazy for such an unimportant part of a part (not a typo) of the game.
Also, are not the cosmos so much more beauteous?
 
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It's boring and doesn't really fit with the space theme.

What I'd want is the option to transport things. Not just have the magically appear in some magic storage.

Say a Planet produces food, you build a trader and that trader ships that food to a planet that needs it. Other empires can target these with say piracy like EU4 trade where you could designate a fleet to be pirates basically. Naturally at war trade intersections such as thing become huge strategic point for defense and offense. Late game sure make resources teleport around once you build some expensive building but that early and midgame should have stuff like this.

Naturally this won't be in the game but I wish it was.
 
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And of course its ugly, it isn't pretty in CK2 either.

So? This game is much older, it should strive to be better than everything that came before it. I don't think that's an unreasonable ambition for a video game, or any work of art.

But the level of wich people are complaining about it is crazy for such an unimportant part of a part (not a typo) of the game.
Also, are not the cosmos so much more beauteous?

I don't think it will be a small part of the game. When your empire gets huge, with possibly dozens of planets, and you're checking all of them to see how to maximize production or science, you're going to be staring at that ugly little rectangle for a long time. Plus, I want the entire game to be beautiful, not just the background.
 
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Dear Platypi Overloards,

I've noticed what could be, possibly, maybe bugs in that final sneaky screenshot. Now, I can't be sure, but I'm sure that you want the best possible quality game when the time comes. This potentially represents a serious challenge for your venom-footed waterinesses.

But fear not, for I have an excellent, and even better, easy solution. Let me join the alpha/beta testing immediately, and I promise to search out and report any bugs for you!

I mean, it's a total win/win. Right?

Sincerely,

Xavori.
 
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banned - Had a dad

Of course, that's just my opinion.Dude if you wanna have a perfectly pretty game , go play Rome II. I lkike the system. i mean its a Paradox,: Complexity over visablility

Eidzt: Can someone ban taht guy? I just realized his Avatarname... waht an idiot.
 
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So? This game is much older, it should strive to be better than everything that came before it. I don't think that's an unreasonable ambition for a video game, or any work of art.



I don't think it will be a small part of the game. When your empire gets huge, with possibly dozens of planets, and you're checking all of them to see how to maximize production or science, you're going to be staring at that ugly little rectangle for a long time. Plus, I want the entire game to be beautiful, not just the background.

Well beautiful is completely subjective
 
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