Sucky planets galore - bad luck or bad gameplay?

[Dorian Ertymexx]

Then good planets would be considered mediocre. When you find a good planet, it should be something worth fighting over, "billions of cat-dog soldiers died over planet Bonesun with the crab people because we wanted that planet."

Almost all of them should be bad, otherwise nobody is going to use bad planets, so why have them in the game at all?

They are great for slave- or Tourist-planets. And some people like to minimax their planets, I understand.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

When you say self-reliant, do you mean each planet producing all the food/minerals/energy it consumes or something else?, because if it's the first then that's kinda silly lol

I mean just that. Just as Earth does, for example. Planets are huge. Even the small ones.

 

[Maethendias]

why not play exterminators, bomb every colony to a tomb world, and use that?

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

why not play exterminators, bomb every colony to a tomb world, and use that?

Well, right now I am trying to do the achievements. "Gotta catch'em all", you know. Mostly because of that. Otherwise I'd mostly play Machines, love those guys… Machines... things…

 

[Maethendias]

"achievements".... i have played the game for 700 hours.... and not even got 30% of them, since ironman just SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCHS SOOOO MUCH

its not the thing that "i cant savescum"... its that IT CONSTANTLY SAVES.... like.... i hate that "small" pause every month that just.... breaks the flow of the game (especially on fastest)


and doesnt let me use ANY mods, even stuff like ADVISORS

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

why not play exterminators, bomb every colony to a tomb world, and use that?

Wait, how do you bomb a planet into a tomb World? I have bombed planets like crazy and never had that happening! :-O

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

"achievements".... i have played the game for 700 hours.... and not even got 30% of them, since ironman just SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCHS SOOOO MUCH

its not the thing that "i cant savescum"... its that IT CONSTANTLY SAVES.... like.... i hate that "small" pause every month that just.... breaks the flow of the game (especially on fastest)


and doesnt let me use ANY mods, even stuff like ADVISORS

I am actually closing in on 80%... but the ones that remain are the most annoying. Like getting a gift from a FE. I have yet to even see a FE in my games, no matter how few normal empires I have on the map…

 

[Maethendias]

^when you play any ethic that is able to use "armageddon bombardement", and you kill off the last pop on a planet VIA said bombardement, it will become a tomb world

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

^when you play any ethic that is able to use "armageddon bombardement", and you kill off the last pop on a planet VIA said bombardement, it will become a tomb world

Wow, never even knew such a thing existed… Gonna try it out at some point. 3

 

[Maethendias]

^try it with nihilistic aquisition, suck the planet dry till 1 pop is left, then switch to armageddon, the best way to play exterminators

 

[Astax]

I gave up on trying to play on few planets. The new economy is not even remotely balanced for this. If only they slashed everything by 5 when it came to buildings/districts/pops, it would make it alot more managable.

 

[Retry]

I have yet to understand the point with the Ecumenopolis, or Ringworld for that matter… to me they just seem like huge resource-gobblers without giving much in return. Like huge planets with zero mine-districts. What's the point when mines are the by far most important resource!?

Mines aren't the most important, alloys are. Of course, minerals are also very important by extension because alloys are produced with minerals, but an empire with 1,500 alloy production and only 100 mineral production should be expected to easily beat an empire with 1,000 alloy production and 2,000 mineral production, all else being equal, presuming that the latter empire cannot shift his minerals to alloys fast enough.

Anywho, Ecumenopolises, even small ones, are way more efficient than regular planets at creating alloys. Ecumenopolises can actually save you minerals, unless you're converting a mineral-rich planet, which you obviously shouldn't do.

• Ecumenopolises have a +20% bonus to production inherent to them, which means more alloys per pop
• Ecumenopolis Civillian goods and alloy districts give 10 jobs for only -5 energy, whereas upgraded building variants require a building slot and -2 rare resources, plus other things.
• Ecumenopolises have 100% habitability by default. By default, "ideal climate" planets have 80% habitability, close matches 60% habitability, and mismatches 20% habitability.

Okay, so what's that all mean in the greater picture, and how's that saving minerals?

• The increased production bonus means you can use less pops to get the same target alloy or consumer goods production, which means you're using less pops. Since pops need consumer goods, that means you need less of those, which means you need less minerals to make those.
• The favorable upkeep on Ecumenopolis districts means that even once the teams of conventional planets manages to match the output of a single Ecumenopolis, they'll need a load of upgraded T3 C-Goods and Alloy buildings, which will require a lot of rare resources which will need to either be bought or synthetically produced, and in the case of synthetic production that requires jobs and a very non-trivial amount of mineral input (-10 minerals per synthetic production job to create +2 rare resources at base). So you're using even more minerals just to keep your regular alloy foundries running, whereas the Ecumenopolis takes those mineral inputs into alloy outputs far more efficiently.
• Every -1% habitability is a +1% increase in a pop's consumer goods consumption, amenities consumption, and food consumption. This means that, even if you could match the mineral output of an Ecumenopolis with the same amount of pops sprawled across different conventional planets, they'd still cost more to upkeep than the Ecumenopolis pops. This means you have to divert more pops to consumer goods production (or trade with the proper policy), local amenity production to stay above negative, and food (not really an issue but it's still useful for that local planetary growth modifier decision). So really, you're still using more pops to get the same result.

In practice you're never going to say "Oh I hit my target alloy production, I guess I'll just stop developing my Ecumenopolis," so instead of just producing the same output for less, in reality you're going to be consuming roughly the same materials for a far greater output.

So what's the hubbub on the Ecumenopolis? Well, they simply make more from less.

 

[KingAlamar]

This may sound really dumb but if I'm an organic, find a 20+ sized planet but it has poor resources I'm still OK with it ... I just plan to make this my future Arcology Project.

If it matters I've given up with my 1.x way of deciding what to colonize. I pretty much grab everything I can [planetwise] and plunk down a colony. Get what resources you can ; grow as fast as you can ; then hope for the best. EDIT: Don't forget to carry a big stick to keep jealous empires from taking what you've built

Note: I think my first game in 2.2.x I played with "Sol" as my starting system. Alpha Centauri was a crap system and my other guaranteed colony was 14 hyperlane hops away. There were two civs both [effectively] closer to my own guaranteed planet than I was.

 

[Badesumofu]

Those 'bad' planets aren't as bad as you think. Even if there are few mining districts, the other resources are useful too. They all have building slots - if there aren't many deposits make it an urban world.

Plus when you do find great worlds it makes it more exciting.

But really if you want to find more good planets then turn the habitable planet dial up. It doesn't make sense to me to complain about not finding enough good planets when you've set your galaxy up in a such a way as to minimise the likelihood of finding them.

 

[Derp]

unless you're playing on the hardest difficulty settings, you should be able to pull ahead anyways.

i mean i don't like crap starts either but at the same time, it's also a challenge to overcome

 

[Xrybnix]

Wait, is that the new bug? You're not supposed to lose anything on terraforming planets.

I'm not so sure about what you mean by "new", but the fact that terraforming has a high chance of completely ruining a planet has been around since Le Guin came out. I think it has more to do with weather/eco modifiers rather than terrain though. I am also not sure if it is actually a bug or working as intended.

I mean if you terraform a world with heavy storms into something more pleasant, and the generator districts are tied to the storms, it somehow makes sense for the districts to go away. Hence I think it is actually intended for terraforming to make your planets suck.

Unfortunately from a gameplay perspective it just leads to world preference genemodding being superior to terraforming now, which makes the game even more micro-intensive (like most other decisions of Le Guin did as well).

 

[Arutar]

Now, I am not saying that every planet has to have a six districts in every resource, but when the bad planets are in the majority, the game becomes more of a frustration than a joy, at least to me. Of course there must be planets that are less than perfect, I would just urge to make those planets more rare.

I don't want to be over simplistic, but by definition bad planets can hardly ever be the "majority". Because if they are the majority, they are by definition not bad, but mediocre planets, at least compared to the Galaxy.

What I mean is that it is all relative and maybe you should just adjust you expectations accordingly?

 

[Maethendias]

This may sound really dumb but if I'm an organic, find a 20+ sized planet but it has poor resources I'm still OK with it ... I just plan to make this my future Arcology Project.

If it matters I've given up with my 1.x way of deciding what to colonize. I pretty much grab everything I can [planetwise] and plunk down a colony. Get what resources you can ; grow as fast as you can ; then hope for the best. EDIT: Don't forget to carry a big stick to keep jealous empires from taking what you've built

Note: I think my first game in 2.2.x I played with "Sol" as my starting system. Alpha Centauri was a crap system and my other guaranteed colony was 14 hyperlane hops away. There were two civs both [effectively] closer to my own guaranteed planet than I was.

thats exactly the problem between bioempires and gestalts.... the massive issue of trade and how op it acutally is (or how EXTREMLY punishing the lack of it is in comparison)

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

Mines aren't the most important, alloys are. Of course, minerals are also very important by extension because alloys are produced with minerals, but an empire with 1,500 alloy production and only 100 mineral production should be expected to easily beat an empire with 1,000 alloy production and 2,000 mineral production, all else being equal, presuming that the latter empire cannot shift his minerals to alloys fast enough.

Anywho, Ecumenopolises, even small ones, are way more efficient than regular planets at creating alloys. Ecumenopolises can actually save you minerals, unless you're converting a mineral-rich planet, which you obviously shouldn't do.

• Ecumenopolises have a +20% bonus to production inherent to them, which means more alloys per pop
• Ecumenopolis Civillian goods and alloy districts give 10 jobs for only -5 energy, whereas upgraded building variants require a building slot and -2 rare resources, plus other things.
• Ecumenopolises have 100% habitability by default. By default, "ideal climate" planets have 80% habitability, close matches 60% habitability, and mismatches 20% habitability.

Okay, so what's that all mean in the greater picture, and how's that saving minerals?

• The increased production bonus means you can use less pops to get the same target alloy or consumer goods production, which means you're using less pops. Since pops need consumer goods, that means you need less of those, which means you need less minerals to make those.
• The favorable upkeep on Ecumenopolis districts means that even once the teams of conventional planets manages to match the output of a single Ecumenopolis, they'll need a load of upgraded T3 C-Goods and Alloy buildings, which will require a lot of rare resources which will need to either be bought or synthetically produced, and in the case of synthetic production that requires jobs and a very non-trivial amount of mineral input (-10 minerals per synthetic production job to create +2 rare resources at base). So you're using even more minerals just to keep your regular alloy foundries running, whereas the Ecumenopolis takes those mineral inputs into alloy outputs far more efficiently.
• Every -1% habitability is a +1% increase in a pop's consumer goods consumption, amenities consumption, and food consumption. This means that, even if you could match the mineral output of an Ecumenopolis with the same amount of pops sprawled across different conventional planets, they'd still cost more to upkeep than the Ecumenopolis pops. This means you have to divert more pops to consumer goods production (or trade with the proper policy), local amenity production to stay above negative, and food (not really an issue but it's still useful for that local planetary growth modifier decision). So really, you're still using more pops to get the same result.

In practice you're never going to say "Oh I hit my target alloy production, I guess I'll just stop developing my Ecumenopolis," so instead of just producing the same output for less, in reality you're going to be consuming roughly the same materials for a far greater output.

So what's the hubbub on the Ecumenopolis? Well, they simply make more from less.

They are. Because ore is used for Alloys, but also for civilian goods, which is not only a must for a high pop, but also directly necessary for research Buildings (unless you are a hivemind, in which case you pay directly with ore instead). Alloys are vital, yes, but are directly dependent on mines. No mines, no Alloys.

So if all you find is a number of 1or 2 Mine-district planets, those planets won't barely have enough ore to fuel the need for its own populations, let alone have enough to produce Alloys or Research. They will, in short, be a net loss no matter how good they are in energy or food.

Same with ecumenopolis, as I see it. Nice that it is cheap to build on it, but since they produce no ore, it is a net loss since the upkeep of the pops won't produce the vital resource you need. Just a cost of the same.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

Those 'bad' planets aren't as bad as you think. Even if there are few mining districts, the other resources are useful too. They all have building slots - if there aren't many deposits make it an urban world.

Plus when you do find great worlds it makes it more exciting.

But really if you want to find more good planets then turn the habitable planet dial up. It doesn't make sense to me to complain about not finding enough good planets when you've set your galaxy up in a such a way as to minimise the likelihood of finding them.

They are in fact horrible. Because a planets pops need civilian goods, which are fueled by ore from mines, such planets become a net loss. You have to use ore to "feed" a population that will not contribute with any research or Alloys in return. They will simply cost without bringing anything of the most needed Resources to the table. Utterly useless.