Colony type more flavour than useful?

[TheGrouch91]

Hello there,

quick question what you guys think about the topic. In my opinion the bonuses you get for specializing a planet are laughable. 2% or 5%... great yay. I really only view them as a flavour text which really pains me as I love to min-max but even that love has it's boundaries. It's even additive not multiplicative. With all the other increases you get it makes almost no difference at all.

Am I just crazy or ungrateful?

 

[Surimi]

Why is flavour text bad?

I was quite surprised on release to discover that the world types had any mechanical benefits at all. I'd assumed they'd just be helpful in identifying planets (particularly since, with many namesets, planets often have names which are difficult to keep track off).

Given that, the main problem I think is that due to the deposit system it's very rare to see fully developed mining or agri worlds, as they tend to become rural worlds over time. If anything were to be changed, I think rural world should require a more balanced production rather than not building anything but a single type of resource district, making specialised planets more normal.

 

[Sinister2202]

I am ungrateful about but only because I still don't understand what changes the flavor text. I have 2 colonies that have exact same buildings and district layouts, but one is refinery world and the other is urban. I am so confused.

Other than that, I like it. Except for the fact that one of my world is called a rural world when it clearly is not.

 

[Dalwin]

I am ungrateful about but only because I still don't understand what changes the flavor text. I have 2 colonies that have exact same buildings and district layouts, but one is refinery world and the other is urban. I am so confused.

Other than that, I like it. Except for the fact that one of my world is called a rural world when it clearly is not.

I believe the order of building things is the key. There is a point where it is going to decide on a planet's specialization. I don't know if this is at a certain population threshold or perhaps after a certain amount of time has passed. It would be convenient if this was the same 10 years (I think) that the recently colonized penalty to growth stops being in effect. I am not sure that I have ever seen the specialization on a planet change after it has been set.

In other words, even though those two planets are identical now, they may not have been at the point when their specializations were determined.

 

[Sinister2202]

I believe the order of building things is the key. There is a point where it is going to decide on a planet's specialization. I don't know if this is at a certain population threshold or perhaps after a certain amount of time has passed. It would be convenient if this was the same 10 years (I think) that the recently colonized penalty to growth stops being in effect. I am not sure that I have ever seen the specialization on a planet change after it has been set.

In other words, even though those two planets are identical now, they may not have been at the point when their specializations were determined.

Okay. I believe the buildings were built in same order for both planets, except for the districts. That's probably why then.

 

[TheGrouch91]

Why is flavour text bad?

I was quite surprised on release to discover that the world types had any mechanical benefits at all. I'd assumed they'd just be helpful in identifying planets (particularly since, with many namesets, planets often have names which are difficult to keep track off).

Given that, the main problem I think is that due to the deposit system it's very rare to see fully developed mining or agri worlds, as they tend to become rural worlds over time. If anything were to be changed, I think rural world should require a more balanced production rather than not building anything but a single type of resource district, making specialised planets more normal.

Who said it was bad?

 

[Namfuak]

I believe the order of building things is the key. There is a point where it is going to decide on a planet's specialization. I don't know if this is at a certain population threshold or perhaps after a certain amount of time has passed. It would be convenient if this was the same 10 years (I think) that the recently colonized penalty to growth stops being in effect. I am not sure that I have ever seen the specialization on a planet change after it has been set.

In other words, even though those two planets are identical now, they may not have been at the point when their specializations were determined.

I thought it stopped being a colony once you upgraded the capitol past reassembled ship shelter. That is why it's a good strategy to resettle 8 more pops to a colony right away, since it lets you upgrade the shelter and get rid of the penalty. Personally, I'd like it if the system chose the top 3 planet specializations and let the player pick one (maybe with a 10 year cooldown). That said, it definitely is not set permanently, I've had worlds change from e.g. Agri-world to research world after I built more research stations, even though in that case I didn't reduce the number of farm districts.

In terms of the OP, there are already significant benefits to specializing worlds - the most obvious is that city districts give way more housing than the other districts, so on any worlds that are going to be working buildings that provide a lot of jobs (manufacturing, alloy production, megaplexes, etc) you want to focus a lot more on housing. I'm guessing PDX didn't want to make the bonuses so powerful that you are forced to hyperspecialize to keep up - this would have a lot of negative effects, like making tall empires much weaker, making the capitol kind of bad (since it's stuck with a specialization that doesn't affect output), and most of all screwing players that get bad RNG on colonizable planets even more.

 

[Dalwin]

I thought it stopped being a colony once you upgraded the capitol past reassembled ship shelter. That is why it's a good strategy to resettle 8 more pops to a colony right away, since it lets you upgrade the shelter and get rid of the penalty. Personally, I'd like it if the system chose the top 3 planet specializations and let the player pick one (maybe with a 10 year cooldown). That said, it definitely is not set permanently, I've had worlds change from e.g. Agri-world to research world after I built more research stations, even though in that case I didn't reduce the number of farm districts.

In terms of the OP, there are already significant benefits to specializing worlds - the most obvious is that city districts give way more housing than the other districts, so on any worlds that are going to be working buildings that provide a lot of jobs (manufacturing, alloy production, megaplexes, etc) you want to focus a lot more on housing. I'm guessing PDX didn't want to make the bonuses so powerful that you are forced to hyperspecialize to keep up - this would have a lot of negative effects, like making tall empires much weaker, making the capitol kind of bad (since it's stuck with a specialization that doesn't affect output), and most of all screwing players that get bad RNG on colonizable planets even more.

You could be right on all counts. Then again since much of this is not clearly labeled and there are usually better things to be paying attention to, it is hard to be certain.

 

[Incompetent]

I am not sure that I have ever seen the specialization on a planet change after it has been set.

I've seen it change plenty of times - it will happen if you go far enough away from the existing specialization. But you're right that there seems to be some sort of inertia to it.

Edit: The tooltip for 'Rural World' is a bit misleading - it's actually a 2.5% bonus rather than 2%, so it's better than a more specialized mod as long as no more than half of your rural districts are of the same kind. So it's actually fine for planets with all three kinds of rural districts. It's still not worth worrying too much though.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

I modded them to be more significant, doubling the bonus. I like specialized planets.

Oh, the specialization can and will change if you keep building on it.

 

[Etrutian]

Flavor is why I play this game. MORE FLAVOR PLEASE.

Bonuses are a nice added bonus. Can always ask for more though I reckon.

 

[EvilTom]

I think the descriptions are good, but the fact they give bonuses is alright, but not necessary.

I'd prefer to see us be able to apply specialisation to a planet as part of the decisions... say a mining planet must have mining districts, and gets a bonus to mining yield, but at the expense of say agricultural output. This could then be make further excessive with further malus but deminishing returns, so only in extreme circumstance will you do a hyper-specialised planet. Reversing this would obviously have to cost resources (time? energy? influence).

These specialisations should go toward guiding an AI governor in what to build and how to manage the planets (if you choose to let them do it).

 

[Alastor]

There is an explanation of the weights in the wiki. Districts matter, buildings matter. I personally like those flavours quite a bit. Would like to see more, like a bureaucratic center or cultural center or sth. My wish would be to be allowed to override the categorization manually if needed though. Sometimes I just need to focus on minerals for instance and wouldn't want to let my generator and farm districts unused so that my planet doesn't turn into a rural world.

 

[Xeorm]

Certainly more flavor than not. 5% bonus towards stuff doesn't matter much either way, but it can impact decisions for those that really care.

As far as the system goes, it's a simple weighting. Districts and buildings have weights towards a certain colony type. Whichever colony type weighting is highest wins. Simple.

 

[Sigma 582]

This is flavour text and is supposed to reflect how you actually use/develop the planet, not what you want it to be. Having any bonus behind it at all was a bit surprising, but can be explained as local expertise: i.e. if local authorities mostly manage mining complexes they become slightly better at managing mining complexes, and so on.

 

[Armed Avacado]

I believe the order of building things is the key. There is a point where it is going to decide on a planet's specialization. I don't know if this is at a certain population threshold or perhaps after a certain amount of time has passed. It would be convenient if this was the same 10 years (I think) that the recently colonized penalty to growth stops being in effect. I am not sure that I have ever seen the specialization on a planet change after it has been set.

In other words, even though those two planets are identical now, they may not have been at the point when their specializations were determined.

It's chosen based on a weighted "points" system. Each district and building contributes a certain number of points to be one type or another type, and the type with the most points is the world type. For example, a civilian industry building might add 5 points to being a manufacturing world and 2 points to being an urban world (not real numbers). In SInister2202's case, maybe there was an exact tie, so the world that began as an urban world never made that switch to refinery world because the points toward refinery world never surpassed the points toward urban world and vice versa. At this point, I'm only guessing though.

 

[Less2]

There's already the Mineral Purification Hub and similar that gives a +25% bonus. Those buildings are both powerful multipliers and very expensive since they take up a slot that could be running 8 scientists or 8 metallurgists, so you don't want to squander more than 1 or 2 of these multiplier structures per planet. Consider that your "specialization" with the planet type a slight bonus on top of that.

That said I wouldn't object to it being increased to 10%/5% from 5%/2.5%.

 

[wtface]

5% more stuff without paying more inputs or consumer goods or pops or districts is pretty decent. It does help squeeze out more stuff, and specializing planets makes the micro easier imo

 

[AlanC9]

In terms of the OP, there are already significant benefits to specializing worlds - the most obvious is that city districts give way more housing than the other districts, so on any worlds that are going to be working buildings that provide a lot of jobs (manufacturing, alloy production, megaplexes, etc) you want to focus a lot more on housing.

Note that switching district types is fairly painless, so you don't have to worry about the city districts until you actually need them.

 

[Peko?]

Hello there,

quick question what you guys think about the topic. In my opinion the bonuses you get for specializing a planet are laughable. 2% or 5%... great yay. I really only view them as a flavour text which really pains me as I love to min-max but even that love has it's boundaries. It's even additive not multiplicative. With all the other increases you get it makes almost no difference at all.

Am I just crazy or ungrateful?

It's a small bonus, but if you wish to really min/max it could be the thing that makes that little extra bit of difference. Otherwise it's mostly flavour, but you know, still a bonus.