Acquatics and Ecumenopoli/Habitats?

[Quinzal]

Was it ever stated what the interactions between the Aquatic trait and Ecumenopoli and Habitats are? Are they treated as Ocean, Wet, Non-Wet, or something in between for the modifiers the trait gives?

Who says I can't fill an arcology or space station with water?

 

[DeanTheDull]

Was it ever stated what the interactions between the Aquatic trait and Ecumenopoli and Habitats are? Are they treated as Ocean, Wet, Non-Wet, or something in between for the modifiers the trait gives?

Devs didn't say anything directly, but implicitly they would have impacts... but the impact should only affect the Habitats.

Aquatic gives a -20% habitability/30% housing malus. Habitats, starting with 80% habitability, should go down accordingly, the same as other habitability malus pops.

Ecumenopoli, however, operate with the Gaia world special rule of 100% habitability for all pops. It's innate to the world, not the pop. Even if it didn't, basic habitability techs would mitigate the 20% malus with a 20% boon, and Ecus have so much housing that the capacity implication is irrelevant. Maybe there's a net negative you also take Hydrocentric, but otherwise nothing major.

Who says I can't fill an arcology or space station with water?

Who says that isn't accounted for in the space and habitability penalty?

 

[Methone]

While we're on the topic, what about Gaia or Ringworlds? I don't remember seeing anything on those.

 

[Mattwae]

All "perfect" worlds would presumably have 100% habitability, but still have the 30% housing malus. Habitats and relic worlds would suffer from both the habitability and housing penalties.

 

[TrotBot]

All "perfect" worlds would presumably have 100% habitability, but still have the 30% housing malus. Habitats and relic worlds would suffer from both the habitability and housing penalties.

If tropical planets are considered "wet" and therefore come with no malus, then the same should be true of "perfect" worlds like gaias, rings, and ecus.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Based on what I've heard, it's most likely to be no debuffs from being non-Wet, but no Ocean advantages either.

 

[Ryika]

If tropical planets are considered "wet" and therefore come with no malus, then the same should be true of "perfect" worlds like gaias, rings, and ecus.

"wet" is a technical term that refers to the biome a planet_class is classified as. Only continental, ocean, and tropical worlds have climate = "wet" defined in their planet_classes, not even gaias fall into that category.

The way the tooltip is written very much suggests that all other planets gain the malus, since it does not limit it to "non-artificial worlds" as similar effects do. Of course ideal world types like gaias and ecus are generally locked at 100%, so they really shouldn't be getting penalties there, unless the system has been changed.

Whether that's just tooltip inaccuracy, or whether it really means that aquatic species gain penalties to habitability on those other worlds remains to be seen.
Either way, I think it would be quite bad if they did from a gameplay perspecitve, but flavor-wise it does make sense - except for Gaias maybe.

/edit: I'd guess the most certainly gain the penalty on habitats though.

 

[Elth]

To be fair thematically spealking all artificial planet classes built by aquatic creatures should benefit from aquatic buff (you can argue balance-wise... but let's be honest balance is kind of a weird concept on this game anyways), habitats are literally huge pools with ocean inside, and what sense will make for your own species to build planets they can't live on confortably?. Ecumonopolis should be enclosed with a huge underwater (bioshock rapture-like) city under the surface, and same could apply to ringworlds.

It kinds of cuts off some of the endgame things to do if you can't take advantage of the trait (and potentially ascension if you pick the new one) that defines your main species.

P.S. maybe make it so they can only turn ocean planets into ecumonopolis to balance off a bit (?)

 

[klopkr]

How are habitats not the ideal place for aquatics and normals living together? Just pump half the rooms with water and the other half air.

 

[acthsb]

Based on the way the define files set up planets, ring worlds and habitats should be fine for aquatics. Some but not all planets have a defined climate, i.e. frozen/dry/wet. These include the nine base planet types, as well as relic and ecuminopolis worlds (which are defined as dry climates in the files). Other planet types do not have defined climates, and so they will not satisfy the "wet" requirement for bonuses from the Aquatic trait, but they also will not offend the "dry or frozen" requirement for the penalties from the Aquatic trait. This does mean that Gaia planets are a sidegrade at best to Aquatics rather than a bonus because they are not "wet", and that Aquatics do very poorly in ecuminopolis planets because they count as "dry".

 

[TrotBot]

How are habitats not the ideal place for aquatics and normals living together? Just pump half the rooms with water and the other half air.

i agree, but if some apartments are wet they have to be fully sealed, so i suppose that could make them "bulkier" for housing. i'd rather they did something like the opposite, habitats are wet, and it's the landlubbers who gain a housing malus on wet habitats built by aquatics.

 

[Elth]

i agree, but if some apartments are wet they have to be fully sealed, so i suppose that could make them "bulkier" for housing. i'd rather they did something like the opposite, habitats are wet, and it's the landlubbers who gain a housing malus on wet habitats built by aquatics.

The latter makes more sense, since if you look at aquatic ship pack habitats they literally are filled with water unlike others where you can (in most) see the land inside the habitat model

 

[Zenicetus]

How are habitats not the ideal place for aquatics and normals living together? Just pump half the rooms with water and the other half air.

Water (or liquid methane, whatever the Aquatics need) is much denser than gas so it's heavier. A lot heavier. Aquatic habitats should cost more resources to lift out of a gravity well, and more resources to move around once you're in zero-G.

That's real-world physics that shouldn't necessarily apply in Stellaris and is largely ignored. I think by the time a spacefaring civ can build habitats they'd be able to push enough mass to build anything they want. so I don't see a logical reason for the limitation with Aquatics.

 

[klopkr]

Water (or liquid methane, whatever the Aquatics need) is much denser than gas so it's heavier. A lot heavier. Aquatic habitats should cost more resources to lift out of a gravity well, and more resources to move around once you're in zero-G.

That's real-world physics that shouldn't necessarily apply in Stellaris and is largely ignored. I think by the time a spacefaring civ can build habitats they'd be able to push enough mass to build anything they want. so I don't see a logical reason for the limitation with Aquatics.

Why would any space faring civ collect water from a planet rather than from space?

But yeah in game they just have special propulsion to the point that gravity doesn't matter for transport.

 

[Colonizor48]

Was it ever stated what the interactions between the Aquatic trait and Ecumenopoli and Habitats are? Are they treated as Ocean, Wet, Non-Wet, or something in between for the modifiers the trait gives?

Who says I can't fill an arcology or space station with water?

An aquatic eucemenopolis would be really cool tbh.

 

[Franton]

Why would any space faring civ collect water from a planet rather than from space?

Because there is so little of it that not even current space faring tech has considered it a good alternative to bringing water along for e. g. a trip to Mars. Space is mostly a vacuum, and in fact a better vacuum than anything we can create on Earth!. Don't trust all those science articles that tell of the vast amounts of hydrogen that can be found in space. Yes, these vast amounts are there - but they are spread over such huge distances that it's not worth collecting!

To give you some numbers:
- The most common particle in the universe (>90%) are atomic hydrogen iones, not H2. There is on average 1 hydrogen atom per cm^3, with a range of 0.1 to 1000. See e. g https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/DaWeiCai.shtml .
- There are 2 hydrogen atoms in a water molecule. And one oxygen molecule that is much heavier, but let's disregard that for the moment. Anyway, there's virtually no oxygen in space, so you have to bring it from a planet.
- One gram of water consists of 3,455,000,000,000,000,000,000 water molecules (see https://www.live-counter.com/water-drops-atoms/ )

Ignoring the oxygen atoms, we need 6,910,000,000,000,000,000,000 Hydrogen atoms for 1 gram or 1 cm^3 of water, so you'd need to scoop 6,910,000,000,000,000,000,000 cm^3 of space, or 6,910,000 km^3. Even if you're near the galactic core with 1000 hydrogen atoms per cm^3, you'd need to scoop up all hydrogen atoms from 6910 km^3 of space for 1 gram of hydrogen. Alternatively you can bring up 1g of hydrogen from a planetary gravity well. What do you think takes more energy?

 

[klopkr]

Because there is so little of it that not even current space faring tech has considered it a good alternative to bringing water along for e. g. a trip to Mars. Space is mostly a vacuum, and in fact a better vacuum than anything we can create on Earth!. Don't trust all those science articles that tell of the vast amounts of hydrogen that can be found in space. Yes, these vast amounts are there - but they are spread over such huge distances that it's not worth collecting!

To give you some numbers:
- The most common particle in the universe (>90%) are atomic hydrogen iones, not H2. There is on average 1 hydrogen atom per cm^3, with a range of 0.1 to 1000. See e. g https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/DaWeiCai.shtml .
- There are 2 hydrogen atoms in a water molecule. And one oxygen molecule that is much heavier, but let's disregard that for the moment. Anyway, there's virtually no oxygen in space, so you have to bring it from a planet.
- One gram of water consists of 3,455,000,000,000,000,000,000 water molecules (see https://www.live-counter.com/water-drops-atoms/ )

Ignoring the oxygen atoms, we need 6,910,000,000,000,000,000,000 Hydrogen atoms for 1 gram or 1 cm^3 of water, so you'd need to scoop 6,910,000,000,000,000,000,000 cm^3 of space, or 6,910,000 km^3. Even if you're near the galactic core with 1000 hydrogen atoms per cm^3, you'd need to scoop up all hydrogen atoms from 6910 km^3 of space for 1 gram of hydrogen. Alternatively you can bring up 1g of hydrogen from a planetary gravity well. What do you think takes more energy?

I feel like you're purposefully trying to misunderstand. Why wouldn't they just mine ice from asteroids, and small low gravity moons rather than a planet with lots of gravity.

Nobody is suggesting that we should ram jet water particles... though in stellaris considering they're going ftl they probably could if that doesn't cause massive explosions in this world.

 

[Franton]

I feel like you're purposefully trying to misunderstand. Why wouldn't they just mine ice from asteroids, and small low gravity moons

Not purposefully. You pretty clearly stated "from space".

If you imply other sources, asteroids and moons don't have that much water for all we know, although it would obviously be better than scooping atoms from space. Whether it's better than fetching water from planets I don't know: it depends on a lot of factors that we have no information about.

In the solar system, I would suggest the Saturn rings as a source of water however. We know they largely consist of water ice. And they're nicely concentrated in one place. If I were to build a habitat fpor aquatics here, I'd put it in orbit around Saturn.