Rare Resources from All Basic Resource Districts

[Mila34]

First off, I'm really enjoying the change to rare resource extraction from having to build specific buildings to being able to generate them from Miners. My favourite build has the Life Seeded origin and it has made it far more powerful to play now I don't have to spend all of my building slots on my homeworld on rare resource extraction buildings.

My suggestion is that this can be pushed further - rather than (or perhaps in addition to) Miners generating all of the rare resources, Technicians and Farmers can be included as well. Maybe a High Energy Storms deposit could allow Technicians to capture Volatile Motes, and a Gas Emitting Fungus deposit could allow Farmers to generate Exotic Gases.

This would add an extra factor into what you specialise your planets into and add even more variety into the Rare Deposits available.

 

[GhostDanny]

I really dislike how my pearl diving + catalytic empire need to have redundant mining jobs just to harvest unique resources!
As such an empire, I can get almost ALL of my minerals just from mining stations!

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I really dislike how my pearl diving + catalytic empire need to have redundant mining jobs just to harvest unique resources!

You don't.

It's much more efficient for you to run refiners that generate rare resources than to have redundant mining jobs, unless you have zero building slots available. A single catalytic refiner can produce as many rare resources as 10 miners (in 5 districts) on a planet with +0.2 strategic resources.

 

[GhostDanny]

You don't.

It's more much more efficient for you to run refiners that generate rare resources than to have redundant mining jobs, unless you have zero building slots available. A single catalytic refiner can produce as many rare resources as 10 miners (in 5 districts) on a planet with +0.2 strategic resources.

Still feels bad when I don't make use of a planetary feature, though.

 

[Aid7en]

If rare resources are mined in the base areas, then what is their rarity?
It would be much more logical not to allow resources to be extracted at all without a specialized source. This would increase the meaning of wars or trade for resources, would increase the sense of trading empires. Now the offer of trade empires in +5 of a rare resource seems ridiculous.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Still feels bad when I don't make use of a planetary feature, though.

I didn't use them before (since they were less efficient than Ancient Refinery). Now I use some of them, if I'm planning on mining anyway. It's a lateral change; it shifts around which situations you want to use them in, rather than a straight increase/decrease.

You don't have to use every opportunity the game throws at you just because it's available. It's a normal part of planet generation (just like the other e.g. mining district granting deposits, which often go unused), not some unique event deposit.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

If rare resources are mined in the base areas, then what is their rarity?
It would be much more logical not to allow resources to be extracted at all without a specialized source. This would increase the meaning of wars or trade for resources, would increase the sense of trading empires. Now the offer of trade empires in +5 of a rare resource seems ridiculous.

Unlike e.g. Civ, which has alternative, strategic-free units and buildings if you get unlucky/fall behind, Stellaris has no viable alternatives for having no e.g. mote deposits.

If refineries were removed (or restricted to planets with mote deposits), then an empire with no motes would either have to wage war to claim some before anyone got alloy boosting tech, or else just lose. "Empires that didn't start with motes have to win a war, with their weaker alloy and mineral production, with a empire that can get full benefit from production tech" is a tough sell.

The same goes for building slot density for research (gas) or unity/CG (crystal) production.

Wide empires could survive not having the density, but they would have to be extremely unlucky not to have deposits within their borders. Tall empires would both be the only ones likely to have no deposit and the ones who need that density most.

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I could get behind refiners getting severely nerfed, though (e.g. -20 mineral upkeep, or only +1 output for the same -10 mineral upkeep). They're a weirdly efficient job, producing +20 energy equivalent output for -10 upkeep. That makes their base more powerful than a fully buffed artisan, and nearly as powerful as a fully buffed metallurgist.

 

[Thiend]

Unlike e.g. Civ, which has alternative, strategic-free units and buildings if you get unlucky/fall behind, Stellaris has no viable alternatives for having no e.g. mote deposits.

If refineries were removed (or restricted to planets with mote deposits), then an empire with no motes would either have to wage war to claim some before anyone got alloy boosting tech, or else just lose. "Empires that didn't start with motes have to win a war, with their weaker alloy and mineral production, with a empire that can get full benefit from production tech" is a tough sell.

The same goes for building slot density for research (gas) or unity/CG (crystal) production.

Wide empires could survive not having the density, but they would have to be extremely unlucky not to have deposits within their borders. Tall empires would both be the only ones likely to have no deposit and the ones who need that density most.

---

I could get behind refiners getting severely nerfed, though (e.g. -20 mineral upkeep, or only +1 output for the same -10 mineral upkeep). They're a weirdly efficient job, producing +20 energy equivalent output for -10 upkeep. That makes their base more powerful than a fully buffed artisan, and nearly as powerful as a fully buffed metallurgist.

I simultaneously dislike their low job density and their extreme efficiency.

I would honestly prefer if their efficiency went down and they became an industrial district swap, thus more of them. Actually I think I suggested this once, so I'll suggest the rest of it; make refineries planet-unique, designation swaps industrial jobs, and each different refinery type you have shifts the output. So on a base of, say, 1.5, each refinery divides the base income and then adds a small amount like .1 of that type just to make up for costing a building slot. You would then have 1.6 of one type, or .85 of two types, or .6 of three types.

This would make them no longer weirdly per-job efficient, no longer a designation that generally caps out at around 10 applicable jobs, and no longer tedious and decentralized. Like other resources, you'd be able to centralize them in a few places, with their equivalent of upgrading buildings being to build the other types of refinery simultaneously.

Or something. I'm not that attached to that idea, I just don't like how it plays out so decentralized unlike everything else but is simultaneously ridiculously efficient per the amount of such resources actually needed.

 

[GhostDanny]

I didn't use them before (since they were less efficient than Ancient Refinery). Now I use some of them, if I'm planning on mining anyway. It's a lateral change; it shifts around which situations you want to use them in, rather than a straight increase/decrease.

You don't have to use every opportunity the game throws at you just because it's available. It's a normal part of planet generation (just like the other e.g. mining district granting deposits, which often go unused), not some unique event deposit.

You can have to wait forever for you to finally get to research an ancient refinery.
I sometimes never been able to get it, till well into the late game.
And if I'm forced to build the regular ones, they take up at least 3 building slots per planet.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I simultaneously dislike their low job density and their extreme efficiency.

I would honestly prefer if their efficiency went down and they became an industrial district swap, thus more of them. Actually I think I suggested this once, so I'll suggest the rest of it; make refineries planet-unique, designation swaps industrial jobs, and each different refinery type you have shifts the output. So on a base of, say, 1.5, each refinery divides the base income and then adds a small amount like .1 of that type just to make up for costing a building slot. You would then have 1.6 of one type, or .85 of two types, or .6 of three types.

This would make them no longer weirdly per-job efficient, no longer a designation that generally caps out at around 10 applicable jobs, and no longer tedious and decentralized. Like other resources, you'd be able to centralize them in a few places, with their equivalent of upgrading buildings being to build the other types of refinery simultaneously.

Or something. I'm not that attached to that idea, I just don't like how it plays out so decentralized unlike everything else but is simultaneously ridiculously efficient per the amount of such resources actually needed.

Moving them to districts changes their role drastically, from building slot tax to pop tax.

• High density (ultra tall, or Sovereign Guardianship wide) loves it. If you'd overflowed your Ancient Refineries and were really feeling the tax, being able to pay more pops to free up all those building slots would be a win.
• Medium density hates it. If you were happily within 100% ancient refineries, you're paying the same number of extra pops as high density, but only getting back 1/3 of the building slots.
• Low density doesn't care. They're already using the new mining features and space deposits to provide all the strategics they need, so refinery changes don't affect them one way or the other.

I have no opinion on whether that's good or bad, just describing the effects.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

You can have to wait forever for you to finally get to research an ancient refinery.
I sometimes never been able to get it, till well into the late game.

It's a tier 3 tech. But sure, you may not roll it for a while.

And if I'm forced to build the regular ones, they take up at least 3 building slots per planet.

This is the expected ratio of refinery::non-refinery building slots. If a refinery makes ~3, and an upgraded building takes 2, then roughly 40% of slots will be refineries. And, notably, the gatherers before this change were also using building slots.

None of this makes it a good idea to burn pops on useless miners, unless you've already completely filled up every job and every building slot on every planet, and you have absolutely no other way to get strategics. In which case: you should absolutely love this change, since it's freeing up building slots previously spent on gatherers.

There are very few scenarios in which you have an incentive to mine useless minerals to get more strategics and also were harmed by the change.

 

[FleetingRain]

There is absolutely *no reason* to use Miners if you go Catalytic+Angler. Like. None. Just go refine those hot pockets. And if you want Exotic Gases from Farmers, there's always the Advanced Bio-Reactor.

I do feel we're missing a Mote-Energy connection, however. I just don't know how they'd do it.

 

[mrt1212]

I didn't use them before (since they were less efficient than Ancient Refinery). Now I use some of them, if I'm planning on mining anyway. It's a lateral change; it shifts around which situations you want to use them in, rather than a straight increase/decrease.

You don't have to use every opportunity the game throws at you just because it's available. It's a normal part of planet generation (just like the other e.g. mining district granting deposits, which often go unused), not some unique event deposit.

Once again, nothing but net on sizing it up. It has been absolutely painful reading post after post that seems like they're guessing this is the only way to get strategic resources now, instead of being an additional way amongst all the others. Like walking into a wall sarcastically while ignoring the door, the window also available to get to the other side.

 

[Wilmfe92]

First off, I'm really enjoying the change to rare resource extraction from having to build specific buildings to being able to generate them from Miners. My favourite build has the Life Seeded origin and it has made it far more powerful to play now I don't have to spend all of my building slots on my homeworld on rare resource extraction buildings.

My suggestion is that this can be pushed further - rather than (or perhaps in addition to) Miners generating all of the rare resources, Technicians and Farmers can be included as well. Maybe a High Energy Storms deposit could allow Technicians to capture Volatile Motes, and a Gas Emitting Fungus deposit could allow Farmers to generate Exotic Gases.

This would add an extra factor into what you specialise your planets into and add even more variety into the Rare Deposits available.

Bad idea. Rare resources should be just that; rare. They should be things you trade for and fight wars for cause only a few planets have them.

 

[GhostDanny]

Bad idea. Rare resources should be just that; rare. They should be things you trade for and fight wars for cause only a few planets have them.

I'm inclined to agree, how ever, pretty much all building upgrades and advanced weapons require them.
Thus you cannot really do without a substantial amount of them, while still staying relevant.

Also, they're more called STRATEGIC resources, not rare ones.

 

[FleetingRain]

Bad idea. Rare resources should be just that; rare. They should be things you trade for and fight wars for cause only a few planets have them.

Remember Neutronium?

 

[HFY]

My suggestion is that this can be pushed further - rather than (or perhaps in addition to) Miners generating all of the rare resources, Technicians and Farmers can be included as well. Maybe a High Energy Storms deposit could allow Technicians to capture Volatile Motes, and a Gas Emitting Fungus deposit could allow Farmers to generate Exotic Gases.

Yeah a mix of more access would be nice. There could be a bunch of different features:

Supervolcanic Caldera (+3 generator districts, +0.2 crystals from Technicians)
Crystal Forest (+3 agriculture districts, +0.2 crystals from Farmers)

Dust Desert (+3 generator districts, +0.2 motes from Technicians)
Volatile Vegetation (+3 agriculture districts, +0.2 motes from Farmers)

... etc.

Keep a lot of the features focused on Miners, and for cases like Relic World all 3 from Miners is okay.

Might be cool to have a new rare world type where all 3 come from Farmers ("Mega-Flora World").