Stellaris Aquatica

[Ezumiyr]

Stop suggesting gameplay effects or restrictions for portraits.

Not for aquatic aliens in the current state of the game, yeah. But portrait packs limited to certain types of worlds no one else hass access to, why not.
Like an energy/gas beings pack linked to gas giants, for example. That's something I could see in the far future of Stellaris.
And even for aquatic aliens : if they are definitely aquatic (that means, they are swimming in the water in their diplomatic rooms, and their cities in the background are clearly underwater), there's no reason to be so strongly opposed to their existence. It would only bring more diversity among the portraits.

Aliens stuck on a certain type of worlds unless they terraform them is not per se a bad idea, and you'll need arguments to prove otherwise.

 

[DavetheGreat]

More phenotypes and portraits would be great, but more planets are unnecessary. If you look at the new system you propose, then an aquatic alien couldn't habitat on a continental world. A world that's roughly 70% ocean...

I see what your thinking but you have to keep in mind it can't be perfect. Being able to chose submerged cities would be awesome but you can't leave any planets out because everyone has their own stories they want to tell. Maybe someone here thinks that their species should live in underground oceans on dessert worlds, if they don't get their cityscape it's kinda like telling them no.

You can play as aquatic aliens you just take the approach star wars does. Think the selkath and admiral akbar - they are clearly fish people, but they are on board star ships and have surface spaceports like everyone else.

As far as having an aquatic themed set, that would be awesome! A few more molluscoids, arthropods, and then the new category of icthyoids. Have evil space dolphins, ugly lung fish people, and what I personally really hope we would get - clam aliens. They could look like this ugly pink thing with eye stalks coming out of a shell. Pearl optional.

 

[Ikael]

Restrictions for different phenotypes? Naw.

New traits so we can roleplay different habitat-oriented species? Hells yeah.

For example:
Aquatic: +10% habitability, +10% food output on wet world types (mutually exclusive with airborne, subterranean)
Airborne: +10% habitability, +15% unity output on arid world types (mutually exclusive with aquatic, subterranean)
Subterranean: +10% habitability, +10% mineral output on frozen world types (mutually exclusive with aquatic, airborne)

Something along these lines would be a little tad restrictive, yet flexible enough, I think.

 

[DavetheGreat]

For example:
Aquatic: +10% habitability, +10% food output on wet world types (mutually exclusive with airborne, subterranean)
Airborne: +10% habitability, +15% unity output on arid world types (mutually exclusive with aquatic, subterranean)
Subterranean: +10% habitability, +10% mineral output on frozen world types (mutually exclusive with aquatic, airborne)

Something along these lines would be a little tad restrictive, yet flexible enough, I think.

For all 3 examples, in the interest of "role play" you would just pick "non adaptive". Otherwise we will have at least 3 traits that mean the same thing.

Now what would change that would be if they added some new planet modifiers - like "flooded" or "barren". Example: A race with the aquatic trait can colonize that Svannah world over there because it's flooded.

Probably too much work for too little result though.

 

[Aurtose]

I really like the tile-based habitability idea.
Pick a preferred biome rather than planet type on race creation.
Planet types are reworked to contain multiple biomes, adding more diversity, maybe with some special "biomes" based on planetary modifiers (for instance, a tomb world could have the modifier "secure bunkers" which would add a few "bunker" biome tiles that would have high habitability, arctic planets could have "geothermal activity" adding continental tiles, gas giants could have "abandoned sky cities" etc.)

Add in a few techs along the lines of:
Climate controlled habitats - allows buildings to be built on uninhabitable tiles for extra cost, rendering them inhabitable.
Local terraforming - allows individual tiles to be terraformed (only with the base terraforming tech, local atmospheric manipulation seems ridiculous).
Stabilised planetary biomes - Allows a planet to be terraformed into a single biome type instead of a planet type, requires a stabilisation station in orbit of the planet.

I feel that a system like this would render far more planets colonisable, while keeping the amount of colonisable space the same. Planets would need investment to be fully habitable and that could go a way towards balancing tall and wide.

However, this would be a lot of work and probably change up the game enough that it would better be left to a mod.

 

[Ikael]

Tile-based habitability would be great, but it would need a huge system rework and I am not sure that developers are interested in making the game micro-intensive like that.

For all 3 examples, in the interest of "role play" you would just pick "non adaptive". Otherwise we will have at least 3 traits that mean the same thing.

The idea is more to offer you an extra bonjus to your home planet types, rather than inflicting a penalty for your non-home planet types, which is kinda how the current system works now.