Looking for suggestion

[Exemplar Voss]

which is most easily boosted and controlled in one's core worlds

What is this based on? We've seen exactly one happiness producing building, and it was rare tech (and considering it was the virtual combat arena, probably tied to the militarist ethos). Well, and enlightened monarchy, but then you're throwing a lot of resources and free tiles at the park bonus, and only gradually over the life of the empire as leaders die.

Most happiness modifiers are species based or government based, or otherwise universal. (Spiritualist, communal, moral democracy, war penalties, xenophobia penalties- and the latter are controllable by forbidding migration.) And are capped by habitability, which is planet dependent, but again, not core/sector dependent.

If you really want to control happiness, go fanatic spiritualist, pacifist, communal trait, and moral democracy. Boom: +25%

 

[Oscot]

Core worlds are a thing. Worlds have tiles. Core tiles are effectively a thing.
The amount of resources produced by tiles is affected by pop happiness, which is most easily boosted and controlled in one's core worlds, granting numerical benefits accordingly.

Even if this is true (which I'm not sure it is, but I suppose the ability to spam happiness buildings and force-resettle annoying pops might make it true), it's like saying "If I tie one hand behind my back, I will fight more effectively with a light sword than with a heavy one".
Because you know what's a better way of boosting happiness to get more resources? It's actually running a government that gives you a happiness bonus, rather than opportunity-costing yourself into the floor trying to be cute with minimaxed core worlds.
Just run Moral Democracy. Then EVERYWHERE is happier and EVERYWHERE gets what probably amounts to a better productivity bonus than the one you're going to spend hours and hours micromanaging towards.

 

[Turin the Mad]

Doesn't the player's happiness in playing their game matter most?

Besides, we've yet to see a direct democracy, or any other gov't besides the Blorgstream, in a player's hands over a decent-length game.

We'll all be surprised.

 

[Turin the Mad]

What is this based on? We've seen exactly one happiness producing building, and it was rare tech (and considering it was the virtual combat arena, probably tied to the militarist ethos). Well, and enlightened monarchy, but then you're throwing a lot of resources and free tiles at the park bonus, and only gradually over the life of the empire as leaders die.

Most happiness modifiers are species based or government based, or otherwise universal. (Spiritualist, communal, moral democracy, war penalties, xenophobia penalties- and the latter are controllable by forbidding migration.) And are capped by habitability, which is planet dependent, but again, not core/sector dependent.

If you really want to control happiness, go fanatic spiritualist, pacifist, communal trait, and moral democracy. Boom: +25%

We'll see. There are other ways of happiness besides the starting ones on the wiki...

Edit (to revisit):

That'd go a long way to making things seem "idyllic" on directly compatible colonies!

I was figuring Fanatic Spiritualist with Communal would be almost as good (base 95% happiness on directly compatible planets - improving to 100% with the Atmospheric Filtering tech) with a dash of Materialist to permit Direct Democracy.

If one is fortunate enough to snatch up 9 directly compatible planets of the requisite tile count, once that tech is unlocked you're golden across 9 core worlds instead of 5.

 

[Turin the Mad]

But number of core tiles is not a number that has any meaning in the game. It's like trying to maximise the number of planets you have that begin with "Z". It does nothing.
This isn't CK2. You don't only get resources from your core worlds.

I still don't understand why you think that. Having extra core worlds has literally no effect on your growth rate.

At present all of this is pure theorycraft.

I don't recall saying that extra core worlds does a thing on growth rate.

Growth rate, as we've seen in the Blorgstream, quickly fills even 16 tile planets by early mid-game as is. Having more core worlds with lots of tiles to fill gives them longer-lived growth potential. It doesn't seem that pops die off (save perhaps by heavy orbital bombardments and purging, not accounting for any 'events' and presumably starvation).

You get all resources from your core worlds, all science from your sectors, all taxes upon surplus energy and minerals from your sectors and nothing from vassals.

The more core worlds, the more raw resources you get across the board.

Sectors add to your science directly, but they do not deposit anything beyond a taxed surplus into your repositories/silos/whatever they're called. If you really want them to focus on [insert focus here], they're going to do best at it if you don't tax them at all except in times of need.

You can guide your sectors, but you can't micromanage them unless you do all of the investing upfront before releasing them into sectors. Then you have to prohibit them from demolishing your stuff. This does not prevent them from reassigning their pops to attempt to do what you task them to do, which could net a significant loss of both time and assorted resources.

 

[Turin the Mad]

My sole friend. Good to see you.

A wonder to come across you once more in this vast ocean of stars and probably lethal radiation, Friend.

May we someday each discover ... a Second Friend.

 

[Drethtarr]

Totally agree with Turin the Mad.

Maybe I'm wrong, but managing core world will grant you more ressources in my opinion.

At present all of this is pure theorycraft.
You get all resources from your core worlds, all science from your sectors, all taxes upon surplus energy and minerals from your sectors and nothing from vassals.

The more core worlds, the more raw resources you get across the board.

Sectors add to your science directly, but they do not deposit anything beyond a taxed surplus into your repositories/silos/whatever they're called. If you really want them to focus on [insert focus here], they're going to do best at it if you don't tax them at all except in times of need.

You can guide your sectors, but you can't micromanage them unless you do all of the investing upfront before releasing them into sectors. Then you have to prohibit them from demolishing your stuff. This does not prevent them from reassigning their pops to attempt to do what you task them to do, which could net a significant loss of both time and assorted resources.

By managing core world, they will be more efficiient then sector.