(mod/released) Colonization Unlimited

[neusaap]

Greetings all,

Let me first introduce Colonization Unlimited.

Colonization Unlimited quite simply, will allow one to colonize any rockbased planet, although it currently only works on barren ('Mars'-like) planets and toxic ('Venus'-like) planets. The habitability on these planets is in vanilla 0%, that has not changed *cynical*, but it is possible to land a colonyship on these planets and therefore you can have robots work the tiles on these planets. Also you can now actually terraform Mars and Venus-like planets, I'll leave a couple of screenshots to illustrate this.

To cut a long story short, I'm quite happy with what I had achieved thus far, and I would like to know what you all think, please ignore the dates. I made all these techs required to bring dead planets alive tier 3 (as in very late game), so to reasonably be able to test it and make screenshots, I had to cheat.

Download: here!

Picture time :

Spoiler

Before terraforming:

After terraforming:

Be aware that I still have to fiddle a bit with the balancing, I want toxic worlds to be focused on energy on their tiles, (energyrich gases) and barren worlds on minerals)

Spoiler

Robots working the surface of Venus in another test game, notice that uninhabitable world do not naturally grow food, (they're uninhabitable after all), and terraforming will not remedy this. So you should consider building farms if you colonize them with organic pops.

Spoiler

The moon can be terraformed too now, two planet types to go...

Thank you for your attention, I'd like to ask you all again to say what you think!

 

[glorioso2011]

Awesome

 

[Cruxador]

Wait, there aren't techs to do this in the base game? That seems like an oversight.

 

[Anjwalker]

Awesome. I did think it was silly you couldn't terraform toxic and dead plants, as we are not so far from the tech to terraform Mars and Venus in real-life.

 

[GrafKeks]

Wait, there aren't techs to do this in the base game? That seems like an oversight.

There r techs which allow you to colonize barren at least

 

[TFL_Lion]

This mod looks interesting. So, this mod will add new technologies that allow the terraforming of those planet types? Or are you adjusting existing techs for it?

 

[neusaap]

Wait, there aren't techs to do this in the base game? That seems like an oversight.

PDS doesn't want the game the game to end with every single planet terraformed, but I will make sure it happens...

There r techs which allow you to colonize barren at least

No there are not, at least not without my mod, otherwise you could see it in the tooltip. Plus, uninhabitable planets do not have tiles normally, only one or two resources that can be orbitally mined. Tomb worlds can be colonized however.

This mod looks interesting. So, this mod will add new technologies that allow the terraforming of those planet types? Or are you adjusting existing techs for it?

New techs to terraform uninhabited planets to habitable planets (as of yet you can't do it the other way around, will see if I'll add that >) and one cannot colonize the uninhabited planets unless one has the first robots tech (makes toasters useful), after that you can send organics, but I wouldn't recommend it, because even if you have very adaptable as a trait and both habitability increasing techs, you'll still have only 30% habitability.

The basic version is done, I'll be uploading it to the workshop...

 

[neusaap]

Uploaded, get it here!

 

[Cruxador]

otherwise you could see it in the tooltip.

Unless you can't because it's a special exception, perhaps requiring a rare tech. I think it would make sense to actually check the game files before making this assumption.

 

[neusaap]

nless you can't because it's a special exception, perhaps requiring a rare tech. I think it would make sense to actually check the game files before making this assumption.

I'm completely sure of it, because I had to make those tiles the barren planets (and toxic and frozen and molten) have myself, so without this mod, no tiles = no colonization.

 

[HawkSeraph]

The fixed file, as promised on the steam page

 

[catweaselcrow]

Found one little issue with this mod..

Started a new game with "random" race selection, and the empire it spat out had frozen planet preference (for which there was no valid icon - it just showed a blank green trait icon). that's fine.....but when I surveyed a frozen planet, it shows as having 0% habitability for me (my home frozen world has 100%). It also shows all other world types as having 0% hab (e.g continental, arid etc). So there are no planets I can colonize.

Don't know if possible to prevent the mod from allowing the 0% planet types from being chosen for a random start.....or if AI empire can/will be similarly effected.

 

[neusaap]

Found one little issue with this mod..

Started a new game with "random" race selection, and the empire it spat out had frozen planet preference (for which there was no valid icon - it just showed a blank green trait icon). that's fine.....but when I surveyed a frozen planet, it shows as having 0% habitability for me (my home frozen world has 100%). It also shows all other world types as having 0% hab (e.g continental, arid etc). So there are no planets I can colonize.

Don't know if possible to prevent the mod from allowing the 0% planet types from being chosen for a random start.....or if AI empire can/will be similarly effected.

Yep, and AI empires may be affected, there is hope however, no species start on gaia worlds, so it's possible to ban planets from being species home.

 

[gerishnakov]

Great mod @neusaap. Are you aware of the bias Stellaris has when initialising your empire? I.e. you are always given three neighbouring systems around your starting location that will contain colonisable planets of your preferred type and the first tier below, which sort of makes this mod redundant, at least in the early game.

This mod also makes changes to the empire_initializers and prescripted_species_systems files, like yours, but it removes the biased neighbouring systems; this makes Colonize Unlimited so much more valuable! Perhaps you could include those changes, as a balance against the fact that you can colonise all planets with this mod?

On another note, I believe you currently have to researched Droids before you can colonise barren/frozen/molten/toxic (BFMT) planets? I think you should be able to colonise them with your own race, after researching a new, early game tech, which requires New Worlds Protocol, but perhaps under industry rather than society. You could call itm something along the lines of 'Planetary Outposts'. This tech could increase the habitability of those worlds, if it's possible to do that on a type by type basis. It would always still be better to send a droid colony ship, but this change would allow you, for instance, to settle just 1 pop on a planet, as a kind of 'admin' pop, then build basic robots to mine and such.

Race builds that include Adaptable or Extremely Adaptable traits would also expand early game usage of BFMT planets with this change. You'd probably still have to use some combination of resettlement, slavery, and migration prevention to make colonising them worthwhile however. The colonies wouldn't grow naturally, but you could manually resettle pops there, and imagine that the are all in some sort of exo-suits, or in atmospherically sealed mining facilities. Imagine a situation where you are an Adaptable humanity, and have found no colonisable worlds nearby, but you need minerals. You could drop a settlement on the moon or Mars and rule them with an iron fist, i.e. have a lot of troops garrisoned there to counter the inevitable uprising.

Furthermore, the proposed 'Planetary Outpost' tech could be expanded into multiple techs so that each perhaps BFMT planet type had a separate tech, given the differing challenges of settling on such worlds. They could just be separate at the same tier, of perhaps Barren comes first, given it's relatively 'neutral' conditions, and then maybe an 'Advanced Outposts' tech for the harsher conditions of molten, frozen, and toxic worlds.

A long post, I know, but I put a lot thought into it. Please give your thoughts

 

[neusaap]

This mod also makes changes to the empire_initializers and prescripted_species_systems files, like yours, but it removes the biased neighbouring systems; this makes Colonize Unlimited so much more valuable! Perhaps you could include those changes, as a balance against the fact that you can colonise all planets with this mod?

I understand your concern, problem is though we do have to edit these files, we'll have a look what we can do though, but I can't promise anything...

On another note, I believe you currently have to researched Droids before you can colonise barren/frozen/molten/toxic (BFMT) planets? I think you should be able to colonise them with your own race, after researching a new, early game tech, which requires New Worlds Protocol, but perhaps under industry rather than society. You could call itm something along the lines of 'Planetary Outposts'. This tech could increase the habitability of those worlds, if it's possible to do that on a type by type basis. It would always still be better to send a droid colony ship, but this change would allow you, for instance, to settle just 1 pop on a planet, as a kind of 'admin' pop, then build basic robots to mine and such.

You can set up pops on BFMT planets, but they'll be so angry you'll have a hard time to keep them inside your empire, at this point though you can setup enclosed biospheres that will allow to bring up habitability quite a bit, making it possible to send your guys there, but you'll likely still need to send robots first.

Furthermore, the proposed 'Planetary Outpost' tech could be expanded into multiple techs so that each perhaps BFMT planet type had a separate tech, given the differing challenges of settling on such worlds. They could just be separate at the same tier, of perhaps Barren comes first, given it's relatively 'neutral' conditions, and then maybe an 'Advanced Outposts' tech for the harsher conditions of molten, frozen, and toxic worlds.

We'll see, it's quite a lot of work to implement all those new techs and they also take the place of existing techs making it potentially unviable to take them.

 

[gerishnakov]

I understand your concern, problem is though we do have to edit these files, we'll have a look what we can do though, but I can't promise anything...


You can set up pops on BFMT planets, but they'll be so angry you'll have a hard time to keep them inside your empire, at this point though you can setup enclosed biospheres that will allow to bring up habitability quite a bit, making it possible to send your guys there, but you'll likely still need to send robots first.


We'll see, it's quite a lot of work to implement all those new techs and they also take the place of existing techs making it potentially unviable to take them.

Okedoke. Thanks for reading, and for replying. It's your mod at the end of the day, and it's a damn fine one.

 

[gerishnakov]

Me again, can I ask precisely what changes this mod makes to the empire_initializers and prescripted_species_systems files? I'm looking at the versions in your mod now and I can't for the life of me see any differences between them and the vanilla versions!

 

[neusaap]

Me again, can I ask precisely what changes this mod makes to the empire_initializers and prescripted_species_systems files? I'm looking at the versions in your mod now and I can't for the life of me see any differences between them and the vanilla versions!

In empire_initializers, we've made edits to prevent all planets in a system to be gas giants and in prescripted_species_systems we've edited lines so that planets such as Mars and the moon don't stay Mars and the Moon after being terraformed, I mean, as entity...