Please add tile graphics to building backgrounds (maybe as an option for those that prefer simple backgrounds)

[Pancakelord]

So all stellaris buildings use one of 3 background tiles:

This can be good for readability... but it doesn't help the planet screen feel any more alive... or colourful.


Here is what the planet screen could look like if it started using climate-specific tiles for building tile backgrounds.

This could be something players could toggle on / off in graphics or gameplay settings "Simplified building backgounds", for those that prefer the more spartan look we currently have.

 

[annulen]

This looks nice, but hides important information: which buildings are planet-unique and which are mass-constructible. Of course, this information doesn't have to be conveyed with background color, it could be shown e.g. with border color or overlay icon. In this case "Simplified building backgrounds" setting won't be necessary, and those who still don't like it will be able to mod it out easily.

 

[annulen]

It may also require some adjustments in building textures to look good on different backgrounds, e.g. in your example bordering pixels of some building are very light and somewhat blend into light background tile. (Though this little issue can be solved by modders)

 

[Pancakelord]

This looks nice, but hides important information: which buildings are planet-unique and which are mass-constructible. Of course, this information doesn't have to be conveyed with background color, it could be shown e.g. with border color or overlay icon. In this case "Simplified building backgrounds" setting won't be necessary, and those who still don't like it will be able to mod it out easily.

True, a border would show this well, and it might actually be more obvious this way (I wonder how many newer players actually realise what those 3 backgrounds mean - I wonder how many experienced ones do too lol ).
Planet features use this system, but use more obvious glowing borders for rare things.

It may also require some adjustments in building textures to look good on different backgrounds, e.g. in your example bordering pixels of some building are very light and somewhat blend into light background tile. (Though this little issue can be solved by modders)

Yeah slightly darkening tile textures (i.e. apply a black background over the tile layer, but under the building, with ~20% opacity) would be a really fast fix.
Another one is applying a black radial shadow/icon around the icon via a shader.

 

[annulen]

I wonder how many experienced ones do too lol

I'm not an experienced player and I was sure there were only 2 backgrounds of buildings. Is the third one just selected version of the first, or it has a different meaning?

 

[HFY]

This looks nice, but hides important information: which buildings are planet-unique and which are mass-constructible. Of course, this information doesn't have to be conveyed with background color, it could be shown e.g. with border color or overlay icon. In this case "Simplified building backgrounds" setting won't be necessary, and those who still don't like it will be able to mod it out easily.

Yeah it'd be nice if planet-unique buildings had a visual tag.

I'd like empire-unique or empire-limited buildings to have a special visual tag, too. (Ancient Clone Vats or Ministry of Culture for example.)

 

[klopkr]

This kinda harkens back to the old tile system. I kind of really like it. It's not like it wasn't already like that originally. I could even see some of the special planetary features art there too.

Just use a border to give the info the backgrounds currently give.

 

[AUSTINZ]

I really like this idea. It helps to at least suggest (from a narrative vs game mechanics perspective) that your buildings exist on a planet, rather than being powerups or stat modifiers floating in an empty void.

 

[Pancakelord]

I was browsing the art guide that comes with the game, saw this section with a side-by-side of 7 planet climates, and wanted to share it.
The different background colours really make planets look visually distinct.

 

[Navar]

This would be so cool!

Are there backgrounds like these for Ecumenopolis, Habitats, Relic worlds, or Tomb worlds? If not, I'd imagine Ecumenopolis would be challenging.

 

[Pancakelord]

This would be so cool!

Are there backgrounds like these for

Every planet has at least 1 background, as the tiles *technically* still exist - each pop *is* a tile, when you open up detailed view and see a pop on the job screen, it has a background that matches the climate, and has a building. That is literally a tile. The tile system didn't technically go away, rather they made it uncapped - from a gameplay point of view (if not a technical one).

Ecus and relic worlds came post tiles so they only have 1 tile type each, And machine / hive worlds it seems only ever had 1 tile type (referred to as "AI worlds" in game script), I cant remember when hive worlds were added as habitable types (rather than a prethoryn only thing). Probably was post tiles.

Below are the existing tiles/images, in the game's directories (file path in images if you want to go take a look, just start from your Stellaris folder and go digging in to GFX/...)

Habitats,

See highlit ones, habitats came pre-tile rework with utopia so they have 4 possible backgrounds that could be (re)used

Relic worlds, or

There is a single one for relic worlds, if it was flipped horizontally, the image looks like it would blend as a background for most buildings nicely.

It may be possible to generate a few more relic tiles easily, without drawing more art, by cropping other areas of the relic city scape - there are a few flatter looking parts of the relic world that could be made in to tiles. Dont mind the rough boxes below, just an example:

Ecumenopolis,

There is one for ecus (highlit) as they came with the post-tile rework / 2.2. Its serviceable I guess, though not ideal relative to how other tiles perspectives are drawn.

Whilst it would be mammalian only, in much the same way as the relic world, you could generate a few tiles easily by cropping some of the level 6 (i.e. highly populated or ecumenopolis) city art, carefully. Whilst you could do one set of 4 per each city type (avian, toxoid etc), i dont see that as too likely, given that city district art always looks the same as-is.

Tomb worlds?

See highlit ones, tomb worlds have exists pre-tile rework so they have 4 possible backgrounds that could be (re)used

 

[CometBliss]

Bravo... your two suggestions has kinda changed the way I view on tiles, planetary background and everything I already did make a post about backgrounds but your logic and pictures has made me up vote both of your posts... This is something that does need to be applied and so does your other post.

 

[WoodenP]

You know, on the topic of these small environment thumbnails, with AI generated art taking the internet by storm I'm sure perfectly adequate new tiles could be churned out in the hundreds very effectively. I don't mean that for Paradox themselves to do, necessarily, but modders if these suggestions ever made it in (think how Planetary Diveristy or GPM would go nuts with cool planets if this suggestion made it and was moddable).

I'm still massively in favour.

 

[Pancakelord]

You know, on the topic of these small environment thumbnails, with AI generated art taking the internet by storm I'm sure perfectly adequate new tiles could be churned out in the hundreds very effectively. I don't mean that for Paradox themselves to do, necessarily, but modders if these suggestions ever made it in (think how Planetary Diveristy or GPM would go nuts with cool planets if this suggestion made it and was moddable).

I'm still massively in favour.

You know, I was just looking in to RTX remix this morning, to see if I could get it - it can apply to DX9 pipelines.
I'd love to see what Stellaris space battles with fullblown raytracing looks like lol.

It is technically possible to do this right now, the problem is the massive headache of organising it all.

1. Take every building in the game [7.3MB and 235 files, if I check the building icons folder], and feed it in to a photoshop macro, overlaying it over N planet backgrounds (however many planet types there are), output them as building_name_IDSUFFIX.
2. Then you need to clone each building object (i.e. the actual building file that contains upkeep etc) and have it match the icon suffixes. This should be fast to do via literally copy-pasting the building directory contents N times and doing find-replace.
   1. 
3. Then somehow, you need to add restrictions to only make it buildable on its matching climate type (this is the slowest part, perhaps it can be done with a conditional find and replace pointing to 1/N scripted triggers. Perhaps there is some spot in the game files similar to country_customisation that i'm unaware of that can dynamically suppress buildings)

It would work but it would be a big undertaking.

It would be much much faster if PDX would just allow for dynamic building backgrounds in the UI.

Such as by updating the buildings background sprite to reference the pop_background in the pop screen. [guibounds console command shows this extra tooltip]

planet_view.gui.

 

[CometBliss]

Is there any way to change this stuff without altering the checksum?

 

[Pancakelord]

Take every building in the game [7.3MB and 235 files, if I check the building icons folder], and feed it in to a photoshop macro, overlaying it over N planet backgrounds (however many planet types there are), output them as building_name_IDSUFFIX.

Did a quick test of this using a photoshop image processor macro, which ive never tried before, got a weird colour gradient applied to the buildings, probably an error in setting up the macro,. though I kind of like it, it makes them blend even better vs the background (was only testing alpine). The dimensions were incorrect too.

Is there any way to change this stuff without altering the checksum?

As a mod? No probably not. How I outlined doing it above would add several hundred new buildings (technically) to the game, that'd definitely void the checksum.

 

[CometBliss]

As a mod? No probably not. How I outlined doing it above would add several hundred new buildings (technically) to the game, that'd definitely void the checksum.

I thought so, because I thought that giving unique city districts to each empire such as lithoid city district and stuff... Each background would have to be unique to planet city type i.e mammalian and so on.

 

[HFY]

Reject checksum, return to aesthetics.

 

[WoodenP]

You know, I was just looking in to RTX remix this morning, to see if I could get it - it can apply to DX9 pipelines.
I'd love to see what Stellaris space battles with fullblown raytracing looks like lol.

Hah, that's all very impressive. I'm guessing you saw the Morrowind showcase? But in truth! All I meant with my comment about AI is that people could churn out the actual tile art for planetary deposits and population/building backgrounds very easily. You had mentioned that relic worlds only have one tile and produced that mock-up with the red squares, for example.

If I remember correctly there was an old mod on the workshop filling in new tomb world tiles and things as well from before 2.0. That sort of stuff used to be very much in vogue and it would be again if your two suggestion threads were implemented by Paradox!

Looking at a mod like Planetary diversity, even with that many planet types, they could easily have full sets of tile graphics for all of them in no time at all by AI generating them because these graphics really don't have to be super detailed or coherent.