Concern about the 7 planet types and a proposed solution

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

It's actually less about symmetry than it is about underlying criteria.

I think I used a term which you did not appreciate the meaning of, for which I apologise. Let me explain.

"Symmetry" in science means "let's take these unconnected things and arrange them so that patterns form." This is exactly what you have done: you've taken seven types of planets, arranged them so that a pattern forms, and then added another one to complete the pattern.

The gobi and antarctic are also deserts. The description of a desert world would mention that it has cold polar regions. Desert is about dryness with both extremes in temperature. Savanna worlds are hot and dry

I understand the meteorological definition of a desert. However, this is not a game about scientific rigour. (It features planets orbiting O-class stars, after all.) This is a game which sacrifices rigour for "what feels right." To most people, what feels right meteorologically is that deserts are hot places full of sand and baked rock.

If your desert planets are not like this then people will be disappointed, because they wanted Tattoine and you didn't give it to them.

Yes, a concern is too many cold types. Glacial description would include mentions of global oceans and equatorial wetlands, Ice would have smaller oceans, and tundra would have deserts.

This brings up another common problem in game design: flavour text is not a bandaid. If your system is unintuitive then you can't use flavour text to fix it, you need to go back and change that system so that it becomes intuitive.

Interestingly, World of Warcraft has done studies on flavour text (don't ask me how) and has confirmed that most players like having it there but don't even glance at it. It could be lorem ipsum for all they care.

Yes, this is sort of going to be an issue. In MoO2 for example, aquatic races loved pretty much any planet with an ocean and it was a powerful perk. The idea here is that the wetland planet has more water coverage and the glacial planet has more floating ice in it's oceans, and the people from the ocean planet might be used to living in the polar regions.

Aquatic subterranean was a fun combo. Wow, remembering back, MoO2 was fun. I should play it again.

Forget about Gaia on the grid. It's a circle of 8. You can put Gaia on the center and note that everyone likes it.

Then why bother having the grid at all, if not every spot is filled?

 

[Brownbeard]

Nice to see elaborate fixes for issues that do not exist yet and probably will not be an issue when the game is released.

 

[Eldorian]

Forget Gaia, it has 100% habitabily for everyone for some "magic mistery".
What you may do would be, for example, mod the game in order to
- increase the percentage of "extreme" planet , to respect rule.1
- add some bonus to "extreme homeworld" to compensate the rarity of similare planets
- forget rule.1 : do you born in a very hot ocean world? Bad luck, there aren't around, you have to die
- mix and match all the above as you like

An idea would be to restrict the section of hotspot worlds to species with a perk that makes their homeworld a hotspot. Perhaps the adaptable perk. We're getting somewhat far afield, however. Making a center of the grid that isn't Gaia is beyond the scope of my original suggestion.

It's also worth noting, perhaps, that Earth isn't the best possible planet for humans. It has too much desert and could stand to have a lot more fresh water and coastlines. A perfect world for humans wouldn't necessarily be perfect for other forms of life, though.

 

[Zarine]

The issue with the circle based on the grid is that it consider a moderate dry world as being the opposite of a moderate wet world (because of circle) when it would be wet cold and dry the real opposite.

It's as bad as PI choice.
And if you concider the number of move along the axis and not a circle, all those in moderate would be at most 3 away from the others while the corner one are 4 away.

 

[Eldorian]

I think I used a term which you did not appreciate the meaning of, for which I apologise. Let me explain.

"Symmetry" in science means "let's take these unconnected things and arrange them so that patterns form." This is exactly what you have done: you've taken seven types of planets, arranged them so that a pattern forms, and then added another one to complete the pattern.

Symmetry is a mathematical concept and I am a mathematician. I know what it means, and it's not that. And like I said, it's not about symmetry, it's about underlying logic. There could be gaps in the symmetry (as I said, it's not necessary that there be 8 planet types, as long as you can arrange them in a loop on some sort of plane).

I understand the meteorological definition of a desert. However, this is not a game about scientific rigour. (It features planets orbiting O-class stars, after all.) This is a game which sacrifices rigour for "what feels right." To most people, what feels right meteorologically is that deserts are hot places full of sand and baked rock.

If your desert planets are not like this then people will be disappointed, because they wanted Tattoine and you didn't give it to them.

I think people could deal with Desert planets having cold parts.

This brings up another common problem in game design: flavour text is not a bandaid. If your system is unintuitive then you can't use flavour text to fix it, you need to go back and change that system so that it becomes intuitive.

Interestingly, World of Warcraft has done studies on flavour text (don't ask me how) and has confirmed that most players like having it there but don't even glance at it. It could be lorem ipsum for all they care.

It's not my fault English doesn't have good words for planets that are like a giant ocean with big ice caps. We don't even have separate word for hot deserts and cold deserts. We wouldn't even have singe biome planets if we had more worlds for different planets.

Then why bother having the grid at all, if not every spot is filled?

The grid is underlying the ordering of the planets so they match up logically. So that people living on a savanna planet are fine in desert and continental, leery about tundra and wetlands, skeptical about oceans and ice, and give glacial a big NOPE.

 

[Vasious]

I really hate threads where the OP decides anyone who disagrees with them is either too stupid to understand their "genius" idea, or too apathetic to care.

How about when the game comes out you mod in your plan and see how it goes and tell us about it.

Rather than try to fix something you haven't tried and tell anyone who disagrees with you they are wrong.

As If I had an issue with what planet was next to what on the 1 to 7 planet types ring, it'd just change the text description to suit my views but leave the system in place.

 

[Kliwarrior]

An idea would be to restrict the section of hotspot worlds to species with a perk that makes their homeworld a hotspot. Perhaps the adaptable perk. We're getting somewhat far afield, however. Making a center of the grid that isn't Gaia is beyond the scope of my original suggestion.

What the devs did was exactly to remove (not just restict) the center.
Think about it: in your initial grid you have 8 "periferical" classes, all of them somewhat "extreme" according to the rule of your X and Y axis.
Don't give a name to those extreme planet, just call it Class.1 , Class.2... Class.8 .
Well, you can find that if no "central" planet exists, you have exactly the ring of planets that is in place.
Given that no "hotspot planets" exist, the rule.1 (balancing of habitability) is respected, as well as a sort of classification, according to some rule (X and Y).
So the only thing to do is to use "sexy names" instead of "Class.# planet"
We can discuss a lot about those names, and also we can try to guess the reason why Pdox used *seven* planet classes instead of eight.
I think that a good reason would be that seven is the perfect number ...

Symmetry is a mathematical concept and I am a mathematician.

galois groups anyone ?

 

[dezuman]

Saying that everywhere on the body is "Hot 81%, Wet 96%" is proof you're treating your girlfriend right exactly as much a single-biome planet as is saying that everywhere on it is "Tropical".

Stolen and put in signature because reasons.

 

[Leonick]

While I have some issues with the current circle I don't think we can really improve things a whole lot while keeping the concepts of that circle. We'd need a different way of arranging the planets (or needs of a species) so they can be more properly arranged but this would also make the system a lot more complicated.

If we're going to complicate things we'd really be better of just selecting a preferred biome and and have multi-biome planets implemented.

---

My issues with the current circle are mostly with the Ocean and Arctic worlds.
As it stands the species we make are pretty much implicitly land living creatures, amphibian could work I guess but sea creatures just doesn't work. Ocean worlds are really just Continental (Earth-like) but with even more of it covered with oceans.
The problem with Arctic is that it should be the opposite of the Earth-like continental planets. If you're used to a nice average temperate climate then Tundra and Arid aren't going to be particularly pleasant but they'd both be preferable to Arctic, Desert just might be as well. But Arctic is problematic no matter where in the current wheel you put it, move it in between Tundra and Arid and it's properly placed for continental but becomes just as good as continental is for a species coming from a desert planet and, well...

The best place for both Ocean and Arctic would be outside the wheel. Ocean either removed completely or left as OK habitability for everyone but few habitable tiles and Arctic just having a low habitability all around. But that might leave the home planet selection feeling a bit limited.

 

[tobias.mb]

There is some weirdness in the pdx wheel (like continentals preferring arctic over tundra or tropicals preferring desert over ocean). But it mostly makes sense - especially for adjacent ones and opposites.
And the problems you can usually "explain away". e.g. continentals like arctic worlds better than tundra since both may be cold, but arctic worlds at least have an abundance of water.

 

[Eldorian]

What the devs did was exactly to remove (not just restict) the center.
Think about it: in your initial grid you have 8 "periferical" classes, all of them somewhat "extreme" according to the rule of your X and Y axis.
Don't give a name to those extreme planet, just call it Class.1 , Class.2... Class.8 .
Well, you can find that if no "central" planet exists, you have exactly the ring of planets that is in place.
Given that no "hotspot planets" exist, the rule.1 (balancing of habitability) is respected, as well as a sort of classification, according to some rule (X and Y).
So the only thing to do is to use "sexy names" instead of "Class.# planet"
We can discuss a lot about those names, and also we can try to guess the reason why Pdox used *seven* planet classes instead of eight.
I think that a good reason would be that seven is the perfect number ...

Yes, you could just give the planets numbers or arbitrary classifications. In fact, that is how they currently function as far as I know. Each planet type is indistinguishable from the others save species preferences and superficial description. My goal was just to make the descriptions a bit more apt.

Also, I think a reason they might have used 7, or at least an odd number, is so that terraforming is always a one way path to preferred world. For that reason it might be necessary to use an odd number, though you could just have terraforming pick a direction like clockwise when you terraform the opposite planet.

galois groups anyone ?

Not an algebraist.

 

[Mikokami]

(First post)

Hello,

mostly i am reluctant to share my opinion or ideas on forums and i prefer to observe solely, but this thematic concerns me since the early days of MOO. Many thoughts have gone into this and with Stellaris this thoughts may become real. So i like to share some of my ideas about this topic.

My actual concept about planets in 4X-Games, albeit somewhat complex is this:

Habitable Worlds
Classification 1
Watermass & Temperature

------------- | --- Hot ------ | - Temperate - | --- Cold ---
Wet ------- | Tropical---- | Oceanic-------- | Arctic
Moderate | Savanna----| Grassland----- | Tundra
Dry --------| Desert------- | Arid------------- | Barren

Closer Range to Homeworld equals more habitability.

Base Terrain Tiles: Plains, Hills, Forests etc.
Example Terrain Tile: Tropical Beach, Arctic Plain, etc.
Example Standard Terrain Tile Blockers: Mountain, Swamp, etc.
Biome Unique Terrain Tile Blockers: Desert Dunesea, Tropical Jungle, Oceanic Kelpfields, Barren Waste, etc.


Classification 2
Atmospheric & Geologic Activity

---------| -- Instable-- | - Moderate- | --- Low---
High---| Inferno------ | Primodial--- | Tempest
Low--- | Vulcanic----| Continental- | Tomb

More Atmospheric Activity equals more energy credits
More Geologic Activty equals more minerals

Chances of Special Terrain Tile Blockers that influence addjective Terrain Tiles too: Vulcan, Magmafield, Stormzone, Magnetic Disturbance

Classification 3
Biodiversity & Ecosystem

-----------------------| -- Hostile-- | - Balanced- | --- Peaceful---
High & Thriving---| Predator-- | Flourishing--| Gaia
Low & Extincting | Death-------| Collapsed-- | Dormant

More Diversity equals more Foodstuff productivity. Peaceful Ecosystems are better for population growth, while hostile ones giving certain bonuses to Armys build here.

Chances Of Special Terrain Tile Blockers that move to other tiles: Hostile Wildlife,Migrating Animalherds, etc.


Example Planets

Example Planet 1: Arrakis (12) – Medium sized Death Desert Tomb World
Special Resource: Zro
Terrain Tiles: 9x Desert Plain, 3x Desert Hill
Terrain Tile Blockers: 4x Desert Dunesea, 3x Gargantuan Sandworm

Example Planet 2: Earth 2054 (12) – Medium sized Collapsed Arctic Continental World
Special Resource: Scientific Anomaly
Terrain Tiles: 5x Arctic Plain, 4x Arctic Forest, 3x Arctic Hill
Terrain Tile Blockers: 2x Mountain, 1x Vulcan, 5x Irradiated Landscape

 

[Stormcow]

Can we get a big shout out to the methane breathers!

what i mean by that is that its all well and good discussing hot vs cold and wet v dry but what about the atmospheres gas mixture? where do you draw the line. Paradox could spend ages building a planetary simulation engine taking into account a vast array of variables but would it help the game?

personally i don't think so

 

[MasterOfGrey]

I think at some point people missed the point that Paradox's system does have two axis. They're just not perpendicular...

 

[Koplin]

You do realize that we already know everything there is to know about the relationship between the seven starting world types, right? I mean, it's not that complicated. Which, perhaps, is the source of the problem.

While we might know everything about the planets themselves, I feel like there are still quite a few unknowns that should cause us to perhaps take a step back and look at what those unknowns could do. While the seven planet system might be perceived to be a well known commodity, I'm a champion for seeing and experiencing things yourself before championing a movement of change.

However with that being said, I am not closed to the idea that some things could need an adjustment. But none of the arguments made here (or in the other thread) did a good job of convincing me (or the majority) of a needed change. And I think that's the most important part of the rhetoric that goes on in this forum.

Perhaps my response my too sarcastic and didn't convey my point well enough. Which is another fair point to make. But at the end of the day, I trust PDS to make a system that's whole point is balance, not accuracy or anything else. And if it isn't balanced after "x" amount of weeks of play by (hopefully) millions, they will reevaluate said system and make the necessary changes.

 

[Eldorian]

I think at some point people missed the point that Paradox's system does have two axis. They're just not perpendicular...
View attachment 173788

The problem with that is the problem I pointed out in the first post. It puts Tundra and Continental near the same point on the wet vs hot scale and places arctic between then, which is both drier and colder than both.

 

[MasterOfGrey]

The problem with that is the problem I pointed out in the first post. It puts Tundra and Continental near the same point on the wet vs hot scale and places arctic between then, which is both drier and colder than both.

A suggested alternative is below but note it puts the continental a whole category higher on the wet scale, and water is a great mass for storing heat.

Also you mistake what the water scale means. Arctic has less precipitation, but that is only because the water cycle is frozen in place. It has far more water than a tundra world, it's all just sitting on the surface as ice. If an appreciably larger portion of the water on earth froze we'd be an arctic world, NOT a tundra world, because we have a fair bit of water.

If you go with the alternative axis proposed to me then tundra is a whole category colder as well as a whole category drier, which makes a lot of sense.

 

[Ijiero]

Was reading this thread during my break at work and all I can say is this: "Realism does not necessarily a good game make!" (Yes, that grammar mistake is intended)

And for all of this talk about logic by the people wanting grids, I say: "Gaia worlds do not exist! If there is a center point, it's continental."

I swear, if I see anyone else posting about "Gaia planets" I'll have a seizure...

 

[Bladrov XII]

Some of you people realize you bought a video game, not joined a cult, yes? It strikes me as a good idea, and I'd love to see it tested in actual gameplay, perhaps in mod form.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

Some time ago, I was convinced by a thread on this forum that the only change that actually needs to be made is as follows:

A) Swap the position of Tundra and Arctic.
B) Swap the position of Arid and Desert.
C) Done. You now have a "wet" vs "dry" and a "hot" vs "cold" divide.

As a bonus, Arctic and Desert are next to one another for extremophiles to enjoy.