Planet design leads to sameness everywhere

[Ferrus Animus]

And this would put a balance pressure on giving them higher bonuses on higher difficulties, to match the relative shift in potential player output.

When you raise a median that is a median by definition, all other values increase to reflect it. Rising tides lift all boats, not just the small ones, and all that.

Given those modifiers are still not enoguh by some metrics...they mgiht not be the appropriate tool to "balance" the game.

This is only a good choice to make if the geothermal plant building allows more energy output a pop to make up for a difference in building slot cost. Ergo, an economic output and efficiency modifier.

Why does it have to be a good choice? It can be a neutral choice.
Building slot cost is an opportunity cost and the relevant questions is what alternatives are available.

This is, again, an economic output and efficiency modifier. Moreover, it's a bad one, because no one who understands the nature of the game's pop-efficiency meta will choose more of a bad job instead of using pops on other planets to provide food without a penalty and using pops on this planet to provide something without a 30% modifier. Pops, not jobs, are the limiting factor in Stellaris economics.

At the moment. Stellaris has had a long lifetime where resource per pop was not the dominating factor. And it is not that popular of a meta either.

This is an economic output and efficiency modifier.

You lsoe the resource and industrial output of the planet in question. Is it a worthwhile trade?

Straight production bonuses are economic output and efficiency modifiers.

Yes, I didn't contradict that, I said they can still provide interesting gameplay choices.

One of the most well received developments in Stellaris in the last few years has been the Custodian team, who have been re-balancing old things as much as making anything new. Including many generally recognized as appropriate nerfs.

I frankyl do not know how that is a response to the quoted section.

 

[Bundeswag]

I think it’s another symptom of stellaris’s ongoing ambivalence about how planets fit into the game. The core of the game currently is a planet management sim, but it seems like it was intended to be a grand strategy/rpg hybrid. There’s a constant tension between wanting things to be on a grand scale and be about relations with aliens, sweeping societal changes, etc. and enabling fine-grained control over what each pop is doing. I’m not sure there’s a good solution within this framework. Adding more detail and distinctiveness to planets will just make things even more unmanageable and overwhelming when you have 30 of them.

I think this is especially true if it is done with the event system. The only way I see this working would be having to actually delegate sectors to sector governors, but that would require a huge rework of a lot of game mechanics.

 

[fourteenfour]

Frankly, I would really like to see planets become a lot more rare, but substantially more unique. Having 30+ planets is completely unmanageable.

then play on smaller maps. it really is that simple.

@HFY to go further....

ISo say you can have five or six of them main fully developed planets full of people, factions, alloy factories, etc. "Shitte, there are 49 other colonizable planets on my territory, what a waste!". Not so fast! On those you can put the lower-tier thingy, the.... oh damn how do we call it? Colony? Outpost? Whatever the name, it is also a presence in the planet. But with a mere symbolic interface, like the one we have with stations. You would use it for the simple management you intend for that planet, like "agricolony" which yields say 25 food if the planet is suitable - see they are still the same planets as before, with the same modifiers, some are suitable for some things and some for others.

Again, play on smaller maps.

I am not sure what type of game people are actually aiming for at this point. The simplest method to reducing how much management you have to do in this game is to play on smaller maps. For everything else either reduce how much agency the player has. Which is, how much control do they have over the game they play in.

Agency, as seen in Stellaris, is pretty much fully granted to the player. Having the option to assign that agency to the AI with regards to planetary management would be nice to have. Colony designations should have fulfilled that role. However this runs afoul of the OP who was upset that planets were too specialized, the players simply had too much control and of course being players most tend to go for the most beneficial outcome. Myself I like setting up colonies but I would not mind a designation the AI used to expand upon what I have already built or an option to have the AI convert it. The issue here is we cannot enforce a budget on our AI planet governors -they just grab resources as they see fit.



What it really comes down to is some players want the game to work a certain way, a way the game already fully permits, but instead of doing so would prefer the game force them and others to do so.

No one has to play the game as optimally as possible. I certainly have more than a few non optimal empire designs that I play with rules I made up that lead to play others would comment on as, no you should be doing that instead. I have had games where my ships never had shields and or I only used kinetic weapons. Games where I had dedicated worlds and games where the worlds were all self sustaining; that one was my imaginary feudal empire. Games where all plantoids must be eaten; we were cows and plants were delicious so the outcome was predetermined.

 

[HFY]

then play on smaller maps. it really is that simple.



Again, play on smaller maps.

I am not sure what type of game people are actually aiming for at this point. The simplest method to reducing how much management you have to do in this game is to play on smaller maps. For everything else either reduce how much agency the player has. Which is, how much control do they have over the game they play in.

Agency, as seen in Stellaris, is pretty much fully granted to the player. Having the option to assign that agency to the AI with regards to planetary management would be nice to have. Colony designations should have fulfilled that role. However this runs afoul of the OP who was upset that planets were too specialized, the players simply had too much control and of course being players most tend to go for the most beneficial outcome. Myself I like setting up colonies but I would not mind a designation the AI used to expand upon what I have already built or an option to have the AI convert it. The issue here is we cannot enforce a budget on our AI planet governors -they just grab resources as they see fit.



What it really comes down to is some players want the game to work a certain way, a way the game already fully permits, but instead of doing so would prefer the game force them and others to do so.

No one has to play the game as optimally as possible. I certainly have more than a few non optimal empire designs that I play with rules I made up that lead to play others would comment on as, no you should be doing that instead. I have had games where my ships never had shields and or I only used kinetic weapons. Games where I had dedicated worlds and games where the worlds were all self sustaining; that one was my imaginary feudal empire. Games where all plantoids must be eaten; we were cows and plants were delicious so the outcome was predetermined.

The thread is about how planets feel too similar, and how empires don't play differently enough.

Your response looks like it's about tall-vs.-wide and you may be correct -- the game has never really supported tall -- but your answer of "play on smaller maps" does absolutely nothing to solve the thread topic, which is that planets feel too similar, and empires don't play differently enough.

Planets being distinct enough to actually justify building to the planet's strength would require changing the game, but it's not about harming your playstyle, and it's not about the size of the map.

Games where you have to play the map -- like the various Civ games -- do support wide play. This is not an attack against wide play.

 

[Derp]

planets aren't boring because there's not enough numbers glued on to them, they're boring because they don't have any real presence in the game world.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

But then theres no character no culture or personality to anything.
Leaders are the same. Its the GURPs problem. Stellaris tries to be the game that lets you make any empire.
But the devs dont articulate ther backed in assumptions on play style ( leading to the best way to get a good MC experiance being to start as anything else and switch) and everything you do build feels like extruded game product pressed into a differing mold.