Sucky planets galore - bad luck or bad gameplay?

[Dorian Ertymexx]

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?

Good or bad is relative and subjective. Mediocre, as I mean it, are planets with 5 or 6 districts in Resources.

 

[Whitecold]

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.

The intention is not that a planet fuels their own mineral needs. Mining stations produce minerals that don't have any real purpose but fuelling those planets, same with mining planets. If you have a mining heavy planet, you likely can't build the heavy industry to use them on the same planet. Planets are supposed to be specialized to a degree.

Also, please note each habitability type has a preferred deposit type. So if you colonize only planets like your homeworlds, deposit distribution will be skewed.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

The intention is not that a planet fuels their own mineral needs. Mining stations produce minerals that don't have any real purpose but fuelling those planets, same with mining planets. If you have a mining heavy planet, you likely can't build the heavy industry to use them on the same planet. Planets are supposed to be specialized to a degree.

Also, please note each habitability type has a preferred deposit type. So if you colonize only planets like your homeworlds, deposit distribution will be skewed.

Dude, this is what I am saying - I have had a whole load of playthroughs with NO mine-heavy planets, and pretty much only planets with bad or really bad districts. I am talking Galaxies with almost only planets with 1-3 mines per planet, and often just as bad with other resources. Planets that have mediocre or even good Resources are not just rare, but VERY rare. Which is my point - it makes the game very hard to play with a low number of planets setting, and since it takes time to find that out, it becomes a tedious waste of my time. It isn't exciting or interesting when it is the norm - it is just frustrating and boring. I would be fine if it was a matter of bad luck, that one or two playthroughs had this issues, but when the absolute majority of plays lead to this annoying end, it is just testing the limits between fun and frustrating.

 

[Xrybnix]

I don't know HOW low you set the habitable planets slider, but I find what you are describing rather odd.
Sure, I always wish for more great mining planets, but planets with 4-5 mining districts are definitely not super rare. If you have a couple of planets, you will have some with a couple mining districts as well.

If you set the habitable planets slider super low and only have 4 planets total, it might be a realistic outcome to have virtually no mining districts. Especially if your species' preferred planet type does not favor mining districts.

Have you tried a species with alpine preference?

 

[Badesumofu]

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.

This is just wrong. By that reasoning an Ecumenopolis would be a terrible planet since it has no capacity for mining. In fact they are borderline OP. You do not need mines on a planet to have it be useful. Only taking into account the ability to produce CGs from scratch is an insane way to determine value, not to mention that literally any inhabited planet can produce CGs from scratch via trade value.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

I don't know HOW low you set the habitable planets slider, but I find what you are describing rather odd.
Sure, I always wish for more great mining planets, but planets with 4-5 mining districts are definitely not super rare. If you have a couple of planets, you will have some with a couple mining districts as well.

If you set the habitable planets slider super low and only have 4 planets total, it might be a realistic outcome to have virtually no mining districts. Especially if your species' preferred planet type does not favor mining districts.

Have you tried a species with alpine preference?

Lowest planet setting. No, never tride alpine, didn't know it made a difference, I will try it.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

This is just wrong. By that reasoning an Ecumenopolis would be a terrible planet since it has no capacity for mining. In fact they are borderline OP. You do not need mines on a planet to have it be useful. Only taking into account the ability to produce CGs from scratch is an insane way to determine value, not to mention that literally any inhabited planet can produce CGs from scratch via trade value.

It is horrible. It produces nothing, only refines and sucks other production. Trade value does not produce minerals, and minerals is where it is at. You need it for Goods, for Alloys and for Research.

 

[Badesumofu]

It is horrible. It produces nothing, only refines and sucks other production. Trade value does not produce minerals, and minerals is where it is at. You need it for Goods, for Alloys and for Research.

You also need food and energy.

Also you *can* produce CGs without minerals. Consumer Benefits is serious business.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

It is horrible. It produces nothing, only refines and sucks other production. Trade value does not produce minerals, and minerals is where it is at. You need it for Goods, for Alloys and for Research.

The Ecumenopolis is amazing, I don't think you know what you're talking about. To produce alloys, you have to refine minerals. The ecumenopolis is THE BEST at that. It's also far stronger for the manufacturing of consumer goods than any other planet and than trade. If you think the ecumenopolis is supposed to extract raw resources like minerals or food, then you must be severely confused. The point of the ecumenopolis is specialization of labor. Autarky.

Right now I mostly play as an inward perfection agrarian idyll. The most significant event I can receive in my game is the first league precursors. Normally, I need two or 3 world for all my manufacturing needs. With the first league ecumenopolis, I can offload all my manufacturing to one planet.

Now obviously you need a whole bunch of minerals in this game, but WHY do you needs minerals? For manufacturing obviously! Which the ecumenopolis is the best at.

 

[Retry]

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.

If all you're finding is 1 or 2 mine-district planets then you won't have much to go off of and probably have to set trade to the consumer goods policy by default and prioritize taking other planets and using all of your space-borne minerals, yes. That's a very specific situation that I've never encountered, and I've found 1-2 mineral planets to be about as rare as 10-15 mineral planets, with 3-6 deposits being the norm. And no, planets that go negative in one or a few resources are not a net drain; 3 theoretical specialized planets, one with 15 minerals, one with 15 food, one with 15 energy is equivalent to 3 "well-balanced" planets with 5 of each deposit, but arguably slightly better since there's specialization planet bonuses and the concentrated resources makes the amplifying buildings (energy nexus etc) relatively more efficient.

It takes 12 ecumenopolis districts to make 120 metallurgist jobs. It takes 15 T3 alloy buildings to make the same amount of metallurgist jobs on conventional planets. Each of these T3 buildings require 2 rare resources, which you need to synthetically produce after your few natural deposits are being used, which is fairly easy to do for conventional planets relying on T3 buildings. So, you'll need 15 synthetic resource buildings and jobs to cover for those 15 T3 alloy buildings and jobs. Each of those jobs require -10 minerals, so -150 minerals are not going directly to alloys, just to run the alloy plants.

In this setup with equalized metallurgist jobs, the Ecumenopolis is actually making +72 extra alloys over the "conventional" method due to its natural additive +20% boost. The "conventional" method, meanwhile, costs 150 more minerals and 15 extra pops to run while making less alloys. If you're producing most of your consumer goods by factories instead of trade, it'll cost even more minerals to supply the extra pops, since there's both more pops and those pops are at a lower habitability rating on average than the automatic 100% of a Ecumenopolis.

Note that the analysis doesn't take into account food, amenities, energy, or trade. If I did, it would be even more in favour of the Ecumenopolis.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

The Ecumenopolis is amazing, I don't think you know what you're talking about. To produce alloys, you have to refine minerals. The ecumenopolis is THE BEST at that. It's also far stronger for the manufacturing of consumer goods than any other planet and than trade. If you think the ecumenopolis is supposed to extract raw resources like minerals or food, then you must be severely confused. The point of the ecumenopolis is specialization of labor. Autarky.

Right now I mostly play as an inward perfection agrarian idyll. The most significant event I can receive in my game is the first league precursors. Normally, I need two or 3 world for all my manufacturing needs. With the first league ecumenopolis, I can offload all my manufacturing to one planet.

Now obviously you need a whole bunch of minerals in this game, but WHY do you needs minerals? For manufacturing obviously! Which the ecumenopolis is the best at.

But that just brings me back to my original point - in my games there is a constant lack of mineral-rich planets, and lots of planets with 1-2 mining Districts. So, again, the Ecu becomes ueseless, because what little ore I have must go to Goods to satisfy the population, and nothing else - making the planet a net loss.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

You also need food and energy.

Also you *can* produce CGs without minerals. Consumer Benefits is serious business.

True, but they are more direct. They are not needed for anything other than maintaining Buildings and pops respectively.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

But that just brings me back to my original point - in my games there is a constant lack of mineral-rich planets, and lots of planets with 1-2 mining Districts. So, again, the Ecu becomes ueseless, because what little ore I have must go to Goods to satisfy the population, and nothing else - making the planet a net loss.

I don't know about you, but I like to take the mineral bonus trait for my species, and that helps me always have an abundance of minerals. Plus, you should also be getting minerals from mining stations, but also the Ecu is still not a net loss even with the scenario that you mention. The Ecu is better at producing consumer goods and alloys than any other planet. If you get an Ecu, you can literally offshore all the consumer goods production you were using on your mineral producing worlds. In case you didn't know, there's thing called planet specialization. Now specialization can basically just give you extra stuff out of thin air.

Let's list them and their bonuses so that you understand, I'll only talk about the ones for normal empires.

Empire Capital +5 Stability, +10 Amenities, +100% Government Ethics Attraction

Rural Planet +2.5% Worker Output

Urban Planet +2.5% Specialist Output

Mining Planet +5% miner output

Farming Planet +5% farmer output

Generator Planet +5% technician output

Foundry Planet +5% metallurgist Output

Factory Planet +5% artisan Output

Refinery Planet +5% refiner/translucer/chemist Output

Research Planet +5% researcher Output

Fortress Planet -10% Orbital Damage, +10% Defense Army Damage

And then there's Resort worlds, Penal worlds, Thrall Worlds, etc.

These are bonuses for specializing your planets but then you also can research tech that you allow you to produce buildings that specialize even more.

For Food and Minerals you can build buildings that give +15%, and then upgrade it to +25% with more tech

You can build a building that gives +15% Artisan output and +15% Metallurgist Output

There's a building that gives you +15% Researcher Output

There's a building which gives +20% Trade output, another that gives +5% Slave output.

But here's my most important point

All Ecumenopolises have +20% Output for ALL jobs and +50% growth speed.
And you can build ANY or ALL of the buildings you can build on a normal planet on an ecumenopolis.

If you specialize your planets like crazy, you get stack some multipliers and get a whole bunch of resources from thin air.
If you really wanted to, you could produce a small amount of food or minerals on an Ecu, because of the buildings which gives +15/+25% to food and minerals also give +1/+2 jobs, respectively.

But my whole point is that you can produce 20% more everything on an ecumenopolis for ZERO extra cost. On a normal planet, you could specialize it to produce +20% Consumer goods and 15% alloys, or +20% alloys and +15% consumer goods. On an ecumenopolis, you can produce +40% consumer goods and +35% alloys or +35% consumer goods and +40% alloys.

Plus the districts on an ecumenopolis are special, there's one for +15 housing/trade, one for consumer goods/+10 housing, one for alloys/+10 housing, and for one unity/amenities/+10 housing. and you can STILL BUILD normal factories. If you're still not convinced, then you've stuck your head in the sand.

 

[Roddo]

That's because ecus are unbalanced as hell, as with most new features released in DLCs.
There's no way you can have a game without one of them, if you don't use them it's because you are either a masochist or just don't understand how the game works.

 

[Retry]

That's because ecus are unbalanced as hell, as with most new features released in DLCs.
There's no way you can have a game without one of them, if you don't use them it's because you are either a masochist or just don't understand how the game works.

Or you're an Agrarian Idyll build, a Gestalt Consciousness, otherwise want to RP as a less concentrated empire, or simply don't have the Megacorp expansion?

 

[Roddo]

Exactly, in any other case you'd go for it. Or are you saying you wouldn't?

edit: wait, why not Idyl? does it prevent you from taking the ecu perk?

 

[Retry]

Exactly, in any other case you'd go for it. Or are you saying you wouldn't?

edit: wait, why not Idyl? does it prevent you from taking the ecu perk?

I'd go for it as Megacorps or standard empires if I had Megacorp. What I'm saying is that someone not going for Ecumenopolises isn't necessarily a masochist or someone who doesn't understand how the game works.

Agrarian Idyll prevents you from taking the Ecumenopolis perk. Some people get around that by taking the perk and then switching to Agrarian, but that's quite cheesy.

 

[Roddo]

Alright, let's say I'm wrong and no, it's not needed to be a masochist to take ecu.
Now, would you be willing to say yourself that ecus are not currently overpowered?

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

That's because ecus are unbalanced as hell, as with most new features released in DLCs.
There's no way you can have a game without one of them, if you don't use them it's because you are either a masochist or just don't understand how the game works.

I actually do just fine without them. A few good planets and the ecus are meaningless. No good planets and the ecus are useless.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

Alright, let's say I'm wrong and no, it's not needed to be a masochist to take ecu.
Now, would you be willing to say yourself that ecus are not currently overpowered?

I suppose that depends on your gameplay, but since I have never found myself enticed to use them, I couldn't say. If a planet doesn't have a good mining production, I ignore it. Including ecus, rings and habitats.