[MOD] The Final Frontier

[primem0ver]

@terrycloth.
That is true. That was also an objective of mine but this change may make them far more common. As long as the AI uses them appropriately it may not matter. However my experience with the AI makes me wonder if anything with the AI work the way it should. There is a fix I can do if minerals are too common that will make them less frequent on regular worlds. I can remove a change I made to the initialization code for each world type.

Also... No there isn't. I don't like that either. I would also like to get people's opinion on that.

@everyone
Terrycloth brings up another thing I need some feedback on. I had to remove minerals from the "strategic" resource list. There are both benefits and drawbacks to doing that. I believe I can manage making the AI still not build the seedlife farms either way with the new AI weight code. Let me know what you think of my removing the "strategic" category for terraforming resources.

 

[terrycloth]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1127616193

Frozen Ocean worlds can have the terraforming candidate modifier, but don't get a terraform button?

 

[primem0ver]

@terrycloth
I don't think I have seen that before. If so, it has been a long time. Very strange. Can you post your save? What mods are you using?

EDIT: I will check this myself but I am wondering if for you this happens with all frozen ocean or just some? I don't think I intended frozen ocean to be terraformable. I will check the utility code.

 

[primem0ver]

I have decided that minerals are just too plentiful in the current version and I am scaling them back some by removing some customized deposits and scaling back others. The game became way too easy in that I could build anything I wanted whenever I wanted way too early in the game. My mid to late game that is somewhat reasonable but not after @40 years of game time.

 

[primem0ver]

@terrycloth
I found the problem. Actually I thought of it pretty quickly. As I said above, frozen ocean worlds are not supposed to be terraformable and are marked as such in my utility code. This means there are no terraforming links (my utility now auto-generates all terraforming links). However, I copied the "iced ocean" event code in my game start code that places resources. I am not sure why my utility might have flagged this with a terraform flag that I use in that event code at the start of the game but removing the copied section that converts it to a terraformable planet if the flag exists will keep this from happening regardless. So... ignore that particular modifier. It isn't supposed to be there.

 

[primem0ver]

I am curious what people following this mod would think of the following things:

• Changing the name of the mod. While I really like the name "Final Frontier" it doesn't really convey the intent of the mod and some might say it is even misleading since people associate the "final frontier" with Star Trek.
• Implementing the new habitability system (land based habitability only) for the official release. I cannot think of an easy way to implement the changes necessary for marine species at the moment but the land based species should work fine.
• IF I decide to implement the new habitability system, migration between worlds that don't support a specific type of life might present a problem since it would mean fewer species per game can actually inhabit your worlds. This might be too big of a negative to compensate for the fun of having species that can inhabit currently inhospitable worlds.

 

[terrycloth]

I'm not sure what you mean by the third bullet? Do you mean pops would still migrate to worlds they can't live on?

(Also, I noticed that Master of Nature removes the cost for the second-stage terraforming... this should fix itself with 1.8 since it won't be a 100% discount anymore, though.)

 

[primem0ver]

I can't recall offhand if migration is a big plus in helping improve relations with another empire. If so, this could be a problem. I need to look into this. There are several annoying things with terraforming that are caused by the game not behaving the way it should. It is really annoying that the price for terraforming beyond energy is never removed from your inventory.

 

[primem0ver]

After doing a bit of research on different "atmosphere" types capable of supporting life, I have learned that there are many who have ruled out ammonia as being a type of world that could support life. Sulfuric acid is still on the table. The only other atmosphere that has any chance of sustaining life, according to what I have read (oddly enough), is methane. The problem here though is that methane is only a liquid at very low temperatures (planets in the Jupiter-Saturn range). So low that I am thinking it would be impossible for plant life (who get their energy from the sun... which would be rather small and ineffective at such distances).

The above info means that the production of cellular energy would be very limited. Life on the scales in Stellaris would be highly unlikely on a methane world. Such life, if it could exist would have to have a very low (and slow) metabolism. I will have to do more research on both this and sulfuric acid but a mod based on realism should be realistic regarding the likelihood of life supporting environments.

 

[Linred]

The name is fine.

 

[Idhrendur]

The name is fine, no thoughts on the other points.

 

[primem0ver]

Currently there are six basic common types of planets represented in this mod.

1. Barren - small terrestrial
   
2. Fringe - medium terrestrial
3. Greenhouse - large (earth sized) terrestrial
4. Large gas giants
5. Smaller ice giants.
6. Kuiper objects (surfaces made of ices of various volatile substances with very low melting points)

I just watched an interesting documentary on extra-solar planet types that have been discovered and I learned a few things. (The video seems to be shorter than what is there as it repeats itself at around 45 minutes).

• The planets currently included in this mod are fairly spot on with research and what has been discovered (though white dwarf planets were not mentioned). This includes the newly added "water world" types which the video makes special mention of (and I found particularly fascinating).
  
• However, the average size of discovered planets, even terrestrial ones is somewhat larger than Earth. I do have two "super earth" class planets but in this mod they are only found around pulsars and neutron stars ("exotoxic" and carbon planets). I have concluded then that I should add two more sizes, since super earths are more common than I understood previously; one for terrestrial and one for gas giants. (Water worlds could technically also be subdivided into two types, "pure/non terrestrial" and regular terrestrial).
  
• The new categories are "super-earth" terrestrial planets and gas dwarfs. Technically I am also missing one type of "hot" giant that was mentioned in the video (the first type mentioned). The other type of hot giant (the second mentioned in the video) is already represented and they are called "puff giants"; both on the website I learned about them and in my mod.

I am still trying to decide what to call the "super-earth" types since "super earth" is very generic and IMO doesn't work well with the naming system currently being used. The best idea I have come up with so far is calling them "grand" planets... such as a "grand desert" world or a "grand ocean" world.

Let me know if you have any other ideas.

One thing of note is that I am probably going to make the "super-earth" planets habitable, but not at the beginning of the game. Inhabiting them will require technology and they will also suffer penalties represented by a modifier. Since we are limited in the number of tiles a planet can have, all "super earth" sized worlds wiill have between 21 and 25 for their size. (Current habitable worlds will continue to range between 16 and 25 for standard planets and 12-20 for moons). I will address the issue that they should be larger in the following ways:

• They will have the same habitability as their smaller counterparts (I was originally going to lower habitability since the high gravity would make life there more difficult).
• There will be a script that randomy makes the resources on the world about bit (25-50%) larger.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

I got curious when you posted this and found something about Mega Earth planets here and here. Are they important enough to include in the mod as well?

About names, "Super Desert" and so on sounds like it'd work. It's not the most exciting name, but it gets the point across.

Also, thanks for posting the documentary you watched.

 

[terrycloth]

'Super' and 'Grand' both sound kind of silly, honestly. If the problem is intense gravity, maybe something like 'heavy' or 'high-mass'?

 

[primem0ver]

I got curious when you posted this and found something about Mega Earth planets here and here. Are they important enough to include in the mod as well?

Originally I didn't think so. I was already aware of them but thought they were fairly rare. Now it seems they appear to be more common than I once thought. Perhaps that is simply because we can't detect worlds that are significantly smaller than Earth so that throws off the "average." However, since we are trying to be realistic in representing solar systems and even most of the terrestrial planets we have discovered are more massive then Earth, I am starting to think that we should.

EDIT: Wow... that planet in the first link is HUGE for a terrestrial world.

 

[primem0ver]

NOTE: I was originally going to release an update over the weekend (today). However, since the new update is coming out this week, I am going to postpone that release so that I can incorporate the changes to 1.8

 

[primem0ver]

Čapek Update Issue

There is one basic problem with the 1.8 update in regard to the realistic focus of this mod. While I may end up liking the changes being made to habitable worlds in terms of certain resources being more abundant on certain types of worlds (since this is realistic), they have chosen which worlds get more of which resources in ways that are inconsistent with geology and biology (by primarily using temperature as the decisive factor). Therefore I will most likely be altering which worlds get which emphasis. Let me explain.

The location of resources has more to do with humidity than it does temperature (which is currently being used). Foods, biological resources (society research due to presence of plants with medicines) are going to be most prevalent on worlds with lots of vegetation, particularly vegetation in wet environments, while minerals and sources of energy are going to be more prevalent in environments with less humidity and more land. High humidity worlds (arctic, "ocean" (archipelago), and jungle worlds) should be the worlds with the most food. Some people might think that arctic is a bad choice for food; I would agree. But if we are going to divide this into three sets, then arctic works better for food than it does for anything else.

Next, with the exception of uranium deposits, energy deposits such as coal, oil, and natural gas require a lot of variety both in climate, and climate change to create fossil fuels. Seas are also still plentiful on worlds with a medium level of humidity (which is where frozen methane can be found in abundance due to the sinking remains of life that settle on the ocean floors). Therefore, mid level humidity worlds are the most likely to be plentiful in energy (continental, savanna, and alpine).

Lastly, when it comes to pure minerals, dry worlds are the best. For one there is less water to leach minerals out of the soil and rocks and into the ocean where they are harder to obtain. Second, it is much easier to mine land than the ocean. Certain minerals are best found in cooler, and wetter environments because they don't occur unless they are deposited and cooler environments slow down processes that might ultimately remove the minerals. However, if we are going to keep things simplistic and "more fair" then we should probably ignore this fact and put minerals on dry worlds by default.

If we are going to be totally realistic, then we should probably divide these groups further into more than 3 categories (adding a "balanced world" category as well for example, and dividing the worlds as 3 balanced, and two worlds for each of the 3 main resource sets). Let me know what you all think.

 

[primem0ver]

Another Čapek Update Issue

According to the 1.8 release notes Pardox:
- Reduced the output of power and food-producing buildings, but made large planetary deposits of these types more common

I believe this was done to balance things a bit more in terms of these resources. I am ok with this as far as the food goes. However, I have already compensated for the excess power in the game. As far as power goes, do you guys want things to be kept the way they are, or do you want me to go with the changes Paradox has made? Note that keeping things the way they are will make it necessary to override the vanilla buildings files.

 

[terrycloth]

Čapek Update Issue

There is one basic problem with the 1.8 update in regard to the realistic focus of this mod. While I may end up liking the changes being made to habitable worlds in terms of certain resources being more abundant on certain types of worlds (since this is realistic), they have chosen which worlds get more of which resources in ways that are inconsistent with geology and biology (by primarily using temperature as the decisive factor). Therefore I will most likely be altering which worlds get which emphasis. Let me explain.

The location of resources has more to do with humidity than it does temperature (which is currently being used). Foods, biological resources (society research due to presence of plants with medicines) are going to be most prevalent on worlds with lots of vegetation, particularly vegetation in wet environments, while minerals and sources of energy are going to be more prevalent in environments with less humidity and more land. High humidity worlds (arctic, "ocean" (archipelago), and jungle worlds) should be the worlds with the most food. Some people might think that arctic is a bad choice for food; I would agree. But if we are going to divide this into three sets, then arctic works better for food than it does for anything else.

Next, with the exception of uranium deposits, energy deposits such as coal, oil, and natural gas require a lot of variety both in climate, and climate change to create fossil fuels. Seas are also still plentiful on worlds with a medium level of humidity (which is where frozen methane can be found in abundance due to the sinking remains of life that settle on the ocean floors). Therefore, mid level humidity worlds are the most likely to be plentiful in energy (continental, savanna, and alpine).

Lastly, when it comes to pure minerals, dry worlds are the best. For one there is less water to leach minerals out of the soil and rocks and into the ocean where they are harder to obtain. Second, it is much easier to mine land than the ocean. Certain minerals are best found in cooler, and wetter environments because they don't occur unless they are deposited and cooler environments slow down processes that might ultimately remove the minerals. However, if we are going to keep things simplistic and "more fair" then we should probably ignore this fact and put minerals on dry worlds by default.

If we are going to be totally realistic, then we should probably divide these groups further into more than 3 categories (adding a "balanced world" category as well for example, and dividing the worlds as 3 balanced, and two worlds for each of the 3 main resource sets). Let me know what you all think.

The climate categories are based on humidity already. They're already doing food = wet (jungle/ocean/continental). Arctic is 'frozen' which is why it's in the 'cold' category. Not good for food.

Then they did Dry = Energy (because most sources of non-fossil-fuels are enhanced by an energetic weather system? Which is more likely on hotter planets) and Frozen = Minerals.

So, the current behavior already follows your logic a little. Alpine/Tundra/Desert/Arid/Savannah are all in your mineral category which would leave Arctic getting nothing because it sure doesn't make sense for it to get food.

But okay. If we're counting fossil fuels as deposits, then Arctic/Ocean are the ones with the biggest seas and make sense to get the energy. Food on Jungle, then, and also Savannah (you're giving it seedlife so it has to be good for plants). Minerals on Alpine and... Desert? That leaves Continental, Tundra, and Arid to get the mixed deposits.

Also... I don't think it's worth messing with the buildings just to undo a change they're making ahead of time. You've got plenty of other places to balance energy income if you need to.

 

[primem0ver]

@terrycloth
You have a point with "natural" sources of energy; though dams are going to be more prevalent on worlds with lots of land and lots of water (continental worlds for example). With fossil fuels though "biggest" seas aren't the issue. Land surrounding seas and climate change are. Coal is formed when large swampy and forested areas areas are trapped under fast deposits of soil ultimately buried deep enough where pressure can heat it. Oil forms in similar ways except that oil is made of microbes and small plants and animals in shallow seas. These deposits are then buried by mud from land, generally of an impermeable variety (shale). Shale forms when water is still due to a lack of wave action such as in barrier reefs and lakes. It doesn't form on beaches or in areas where water experiences turbidity (such as near the edges of continental shelves). In other words, oil is most likely to form where there is lots of land originated deposits covering large sea life deposits, causing the region to become shallow waters, either due to a large amount of sediment over a short period of time "filling" a sea, or due to the lowering of sea level (such as during an ice age). I think adding "balanced" type worlds would be the most realistic approach. I will break it down later this evening.