Sucky planets galore - bad luck or bad gameplay?

[Dorian Ertymexx]

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.

Exactly, IF you specialise your planets like crazy. I don't. I go for self-sufficient planets. That is to say, every planet should have its own production of goods and food and energy, and ideally also generate enough rare Resources to cover the upgrades of the planet. Now, in this style a planet is only worthwhile if it can produce at least one fully upgraded forges Worth of Alloys. If it cannot, then the planet is useless, as it serves no purpuse. It then adds absolutely nothing of Worth.

 

[Defiler99]

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I tend to have won the game by the time I have anything filled up enough to convert to an Ecumenopolis.
Once I get one, I dismantle various alloy factories and replace them with research labs to speed up research of repeatable techs.

 

[mcolder]

Every planet is useful.

Ones with few production districts turn into Ecumenopolis and generate a mass of Alloys and Consumer Good to sustain your empire. Not to mention Trade Value. Ecu produce a ton of Trade Value and small worlds filled with Commercial Megaplexes can yield you several hundred energy credits a month. That’s a big deal.

When you can, specialize planets because the bonus to production is worth it.

Ring worlds are Energy or Food tanks with again the ability to spam Megaplexes and generate 4-500 Trade Value Each section. Because of their huge district count, you can also produce all your rare resources on a section since you don’t really have to fill the building tiles with much.

Habitats are great for offloading Research and Commerce as well as for Alloy and Consumer Goods production to free up building slots on raw resource producing planets.

There is really not many reasons not to colonize a world... If you’re stuck on raw materials spam Commerce on small worlds so you can buy anything you can’t produce. And minerals are dirt cheap these days

 

[Badesumofu]

Exactly, IF you specialise your planets like crazy. I don't. I go for self-sufficient planets. That is to say, every planet should have its own production of goods and food and energy, and ideally also generate enough rare Resources to cover the upgrades of the planet. Now, in this style a planet is only worthwhile if it can produce at least one fully upgraded forges Worth of Alloys. If it cannot, then the planet is useless, as it serves no purpuse. It then adds absolutely nothing of Worth.

That's not a 'style' so much as just a really, really inefficient way to play. Not saying you can't or shouldn't play that way, but we're no longer discussing the quality of usefulness of planets, just whether they fit well into the way that you personally want to play.

It's a fact that the planets you are ignoring are potentially valuable and useful to a more efficient empire.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

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?

It prevents you from building your own Ecu, but I play agrarian Idyll all the time, and finding the first league Ecu is both possible and amazing.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

Exactly, IF you specialise your planets like crazy. I don't. I go for self-sufficient planets. That is to say, every planet should have its own production of goods and food and energy, and ideally also generate enough rare Resources to cover the upgrades of the planet. Now, in this style a planet is only worthwhile if it can produce at least one fully upgraded forges Worth of Alloys. If it cannot, then the planet is useless, as it serves no purpuse. It then adds absolutely nothing of Worth.

Yep, you're doing it wrong mate. A self-sufficient empire is valuable, aka one that needs the galactic market very little, but Self-sufficient planets have almost zero added benefit. Even if you consider the most economically self-sufficient countries in the world, they have highly specialized parts of their of their country, rural parts and urban parts which focus on different jobs.

Specialization in stellaris is OP, because you can get more resources/production out of thin air, with a percent bonus. If you feel like you never have enough minerals, it may be because you're ignoring these bonuses that can give you +20% or more bonuses resources for zero extra cost.

 

[DeathSheep]

Exactly, IF you specialise your planets like crazy. I don't. I go for self-sufficient planets. That is to say, every planet should have its own production of goods and food and energy, and ideally also generate enough rare Resources to cover the upgrades of the planet.

Like everyone above me said, the game's going to punish you for this playstyle. Like @Stars_and_Bars said, you should be aiming for a self-sufficient Empire, not self-sufficient planets. While Le Guin has made this a lot more prominent, even back in the 1.x days it didn't matter if one or two planets in your empire had food, energy, or mineral deficits as long as the other planets were producing a sufficient surplus.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

That's not a 'style' so much as just a really, really inefficient way to play. Not saying you can't or shouldn't play that way, but we're no longer discussing the quality of usefulness of planets, just whether they fit well into the way that you personally want to play.

It's a fact that the planets you are ignoring are potentially valuable and useful to a more efficient empire.

Not sure why it would be more inefficient than minimaxing Worlds... if a planet gets taken, I am not completely cut off from food, energy or whatever. In fact, it makes Little difference where you build your factories, as long as you have the materials for them. Which, again, brings me back to the problem with Galaxies filled with low mine-district planets. Which was and is my issue here.

 

[KingAlamar]

If it matters, optimal or not, I also like to diversify my planets where reasonable. For me I prefer to settle almost anything, harvest as many base resources [Food, Minerals, Energy] as I reasonably can. Most of the time I'd like to see enough population to throw up some useful buildings. The more buildings I can get without causing problems in other areas the happier I am.

Now I will tend to prioritize those resources so I may not build the same number of food, minerals, or energy districts depending on needs. If I can get bonuses (5% or more) easily then I will. If I only wind up with 2% to everything then I tend not to worry about it much.

While not optimal it's good enough for "Admiral" difficulty. Playing better is likely needed for Grand Admiral though ... YMMV

 

[kirell]

Not sure why it would be more inefficient than minimaxing Worlds... if a planet gets taken, I am not completely cut off from food, energy or whatever. In fact, it makes Little difference where you build your factories, as long as you have the materials for them. Which, again, brings me back to the problem with Galaxies filled with low mine-district planets. Which was and is my issue here.

It does make a considerable difference. Its not about the (relatively minor) planet specialization bonus, but about the other modifiers. If one planet is specialized on research, you can have your highest level researcher on assist research mission for +20% bonus and a research center for another 15% and the 5% planet bonus for 40% more research output total per lab than a planet that only has one research lab. In other words, if you don't specialize you will need to build 14 research labs spread out for every 10 labs with a specialized build. Similar for farming, minerals and energy (25% building, 5% planet). This is before planetary modifiers. A planet with Hazardous Weather will have +20% extra energy, so +50% total with specialisation. Similar modifers (also tile-based ones) exist for most areas of production. Basically 3 non-specialized planets will have the output of 2 specialized planets...

 

[Badesumofu]

Even if you're doing only moderate specialisation, there is absolutely no need to have every planet be totally self-sufficient. That's is ridiculously inefficient and even more so if it means you're not settling perfectly good planets. There is exactly zero benefit to having the minerals that fuel a factory be mined on the same planet as the factory. If you're planning on losing planets against the dumpster fire that is the current AI then that should just tell you how abysmal your strategy is. If you're talking MP then you'll get stomped by anyone playing anything like an efficient style.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

Even if you're doing only moderate specialisation, there is absolutely no need to have every planet be totally self-sufficient. That's is ridiculously inefficient and even more so if it means you're not settling perfectly good planets. There is exactly zero benefit to having the minerals that fuel a factory be mined on the same planet as the factory. If you're planning on losing planets against the dumpster fire that is the current AI then that should just tell you how abysmal your strategy is. If you're talking MP then you'll get stomped by anyone playing anything like an efficient style.

What is it that you do not understand? It doesn't matter if there are no mine-districts to mine the ore from. Anywhere. On any planet.

 

[DeathSheep]

What is it that you do not understand? It doesn't matter if there are no mine-districts to mine the ore from. Anywhere. On any planet.

Just out of curiosity, are you playing 2.2.3 or 2.2.4 beta? Because I don't think the bug that caused planets to end up with next to no districts is fixed in 2.2.3, but it is fixed in 2.2.4 beta.

 

[Mauer]

"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

Get a SSD, it makes a world of difference.

 

[Badesumofu]

Just out of curiosity, are you playing 2.2.3 or 2.2.4 beta? Because I don't think the bug that caused planets to end up with next to no districts is fixed in 2.2.3, but it is fixed in 2.2.4 beta.

That bug was in the first version of 2.2.4 but not the current version. Actually in 2.2.4 now I'm finding minerals very plentiful from space mining. To the point that I'm leaving some M deposits unused on my planets early on. They'll probably get used later, but minerals aren't feeling scarce at all in the current build.

 

[AlanC9]

Exactly, IF you specialise your planets like crazy. I don't. I go for self-sufficient planets. That is to say, every planet should have its own production of goods and food and energy, and ideally also generate enough rare Resources to cover the upgrades of the planet. Now, in this style a planet is only worthwhile if it can produce at least one fully upgraded forges Worth of Alloys. If it cannot, then the planet is useless, as it serves no purpuse. It then adds absolutely nothing of Worth.

Why are you doing that? What's the point?

 

[KingAlamar]

Get a SSD, it makes a world of difference.

I also hated the pause. SSD helps a lot with game load but I was having some type of "mega pause" intermittently on the first. I think that was a bug or something weird that was patched in the BETA fix or Glavius????

As it turned out the the following helped me a lot in "time per month" - which includes the pause to save:

• Fixed two different video config issues on my side. One was careless and one I should have known better. Caused extreme video bottlenecking & stutter.
• Started using the beta branch & Glavius AI mod [IIRC both claim to help with speed issues in some way or another]
• Got an SSD [was using standard 7200 RPM SATA 3 drive]
• Changed game settings to reduce habitable planets
• Went from 20-30 seconds per month [usually 25 ish] down to 7-8 seconds per month in 2400+.

Unfortunately I did a lot of those changes at the same time so I don't have exact measurements on which updates contributed what.. From memory my best guesses are:

• Config changes: 40% improvement
• Beta + Glavius: 14% improvement + elimination of some weird "mega stutter" that came & went.
• SSD: 2% improvement?? Helps on game load a TON but I don't think as much month-to-month once the game is running.
• Low Habitability: 14% improvement

Because game pause, stutter, slowness, etc. issues seem to be difficult to pin down the things that helped me may not help you

For reference I've got an old rig but it's surprisingly decent for its age ...

 

[stumason]

It's just chance, but I've noticed that planets tend to be quite crappy in regard of district distribution. A size 16 planet with only 1 mining district and you just want to flip the table with pc on it and all.

Haha, yeah and that planet will have a bonus to mineral production as well...

 

[Retry]

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?

Certainly not. Ecus are insanely strong.

 

[Badesumofu]

Haha, yeah and that planet will have a bonus to mineral production as well...

Well not anymore - the planet modifiers that give a bonus to mineral production now also give extra mineral districts.

Just in general minerals are quite plentiful on the current build (77D7) certainly enough for the early game, and 'how to get enough minerals in the late game' is an interesting problem with a few different viable solutions so I don't think there's any problem here at this point.