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Stellaris Dev Diary #9 - Planets & Resources

Greetings Earthlings!

We have spoken earlier about how the galaxy is generated, and today I aim to expand on that somewhat by telling you about the planets and how they differ from each other.

Planet Tiles
Each habitable planet has a number of tiles on its surface, representing the planet’s size. Some tiles might be blocked by natural barriers, such as mountains, and can be cleared to open up new space. When the galaxy is generated, each tile generates a random number and checks if a deposit will be spawned there. A tile can be worked by having a Pop placed in it.

Buildings can also be constructed in tiles, and they often have adjacency bonuses for the resource they are producing. Therefore it will be advantageous to construct your power plants in proximity to each other, to achieve optimal efficiency.

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Planet Modifiers
Celestial objects come in many different sizes and shapes, and planet modifiers are a part of what can set two planets apart. In the example above, Omaggus III has particularly large lifeforms on it, which could prove fruitful to study.

Deposits
Resources are generated as deposits and they spawn on planets depending on the type of planet, and which modifiers can be found on the planet. Certain resources are also more likely to be found in systems that lie in specific parts in the galaxy, like inside a nebula. All resources cannot appear on all planets, and some planets have a higher chance of hosting certain resources. Asteroids are very likely to have minerals on them, for example.

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Orbital Resources
Planets that cannot be colonized do not use surface tiles, but they can still generate deposits. Each planet has an orbital resource slot that can be worked if a Mining Station or Research Station is built in orbit around that planet. Sometimes you encounter planets that you could potentially colonize, but that is not habitable enough for you to want to colonize it. In those cases you may also want to construct an orbital station.

The Basic Resources
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Food is a requirement for Pops to grow. If there is plenty of Food, Pops will grow faster. If there is a lack of Food, Pops will be unhappy.

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Minerals are used to produce most things in the game. If Minerals represent matter, Energy Credits represent work.

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Energy Credits represent all liquid assets and energy produced by our Empire. Actions, such as clearing tiles, cost Energy Credits to perform. This resource is mainly used for upkeep, and although it can be hoarded, that might not be the best way of handling it.

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Physics Research, Society Research and Engineering Research are used to advance technologies in different fields of science.

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Here, have a bonus screenshot! As an interstellar rogue I'm used to breaking the rules.

Join us again next week when we will be telling you about Rare Resources and the Spaceport.
 
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This may not be answered, but I am curious to ask. Do the tiles play a role in a POPs evolving ethos? (Aside from that tile being some great distance to the home planet)
 
Important question about resources. Are they gathered on per-day, per-week or per-month basis?

(assuming time scale is measured in days, weeks and months instead of more abstracted galactic units)

(I still hope time scale won't go down to hours, it would be way to detailed for an Interstellar Civilisation Game, this is not WW2...)

Would be interesting if they did that on a planetary basis... 'How many days?' 'Two sol earth days, or 5 alpha centuri hawking days'
 
Hello developers and Comunity!

I am following this upcoming Space Strategy Game since a couple of months. I am very excited and I hope this will be as good as it sounds.
Thanks for the developer diaries!
I just wonder how final the graphics and animations are that we see? Will the be changes or is anything we see already final?

It''s a bit simple that the colony structures are just displayed with simple pictures.
It would add much more to the game atmosphere if the colony would be displayed like in Master of Orion 2
Considering how old this gane is, it still is THE Space Strategy game, if you ask poeple who play Space Strategy Games.

Here how a Colony looked on MOO2:

colony.jpg
 
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Hello developers and Comunity!

I am following this upcoming Space Strategy Game since a couple of months. I am very excited and I hope this will be as good as it sounds.
Thanks for the developer diaries!
I just wonder how final the graphics and animations are that we see? Will the be changes or is anything we see already final?

It''s a bit simple that the colony structures are just displayed with simple pictures.
It would add much more to the game atmosphere if the colony would be displayed like in Master of Orion 2
Considering how old this gane is, it still is THE Space Strategy game, if you ask poeple who play Space Strategy Games.

Here how a Colony looked on MOO2:

colony.jpg

MOO2 is still the space 4x champion 20 years after its first release..
 
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  • 3
Reactions:
Hello developers and Comunity!

I am following this upcoming Space Strategy Game since a couple of months. I am very excited and I hope this will be as good as it sounds.
Thanks for the developer diaries!
I just wonder how final the graphics and animations are that we see? Will the be changes or is anything we see already final?

It''s a bit simple that the colony structures are just displayed with simple pictures.
It would add much more to the game atmosphere if the colony would be displayed like in Master of Orion 2
Considering how old this gane is, it still is THE Space Strategy game, if you ask poeple who play Space Strategy Games.

Here how a Colony looked on MOO2:

colony.jpg

It would be nice, but I'm not sure it'd work with the current mechanics they have set up. In MOO2 you could build every single building in your list. In this game you'll be limited to the amount of buildings each planet can support. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have visualization of the planet's surface, but it seems like a lot of work to implement it, and I'd be more comfortable if they focused on how the game works right now, than how the game looks.
 
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That screenshot is ridiculous. It looks like a tiny village with about 26 people living there. Not a colony.

If you look at the screenshots you can see you can see your colonies growing: on the night side of the world, there's all lights and stuff representing cities and the more developed a world is the more lights you see.

Now, if instead of tiles with pictures of landscapes they wanted to an, e.g., pseudo-satellite map with tiles on it which has more and more visible built up areas on it as the colony grows that'd be pretty cool.
 
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Oh yeah, and I'm putting this in a separate post because of all the respectful disagreement that will ensue but I just have to say this:

I bloody hate Master of Orion 2. Awful game. Can't think of a single good thing about it.
 
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That screenshot is ridiculous. It looks like a tiny village with about 26 people living there. Not a colony.

If you look at the screenshots you can see you can see your colonies growing: on the night side of the world, there's all lights and stuff representing cities and the more developed a world is the more lights you see.

Now, if instead of tiles with pictures of landscapes they wanted to an, e.g., pseudo-satellite map with tiles on it which has more and more visible built up areas on it as the colony grows that'd be pretty cool.

I agree, what the pictures like to tell me and from space it looks like what I would expect, but I ment something that shows a good visualisation of the colony itselfs and not just some "pictures" that represent what I have builded.
I don't expect a "Cities Skylines" in Space, just something that looks better than some pictiures that represent my colonies buildings.

@Ornlu Wolfjarl: It's not that I need to see every building Ican build, juts something the looks more "3d" instead of some pictures and "feels" like a real city.
Of course it's more impotant that the game works, but it gives much ti the atmosphere if it also looks good! ;)
 
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I really love the idea of having specific mining planets via orbital stations!