Things that DON'T matter, but break immersion just a little or don't make sense

[OnyxAbussos]

This thread is not for like a "List of Grievances (tm)."

Its fir stuff that doesnt make sense, but that is also not important. Like my motive in creating this is that Im hoping itll be at least a little entertaining or something.

An example to give you an idea:
* For me, mining asteroids. Getting 3 minerals per month from it makes sense... for a while. Feels like it should run out, man (stoner voice). Like... I've gotten 4000 minerals from this one asteroid... and that FE has been mining that one asteroid for a hundred thousand years now... thiiiiiiiink abouuut iiiiit...

 

[EpicCanadian]

This thread is not for like a "List of Grievances (tm)."

Its fir stuff that doesnt make sense, but that is also not important. Like my motive in creating this is that Im hoping itll be at least a little entertaining or something.

An example to give you an idea:
* For me, mining asteroids. Getting 3 minerals per month from it makes sense... for a while. Feels like it should run out, man (stoner voice). Like... I've gotten 4000 minerals from this one asteroid... and that FE has been mining that one asteroid for a hundred thousand years now... thiiiiiiiink abouuut iiiiit...

It's not mining a single asteroid. It's mining a whole region of the asteroid belt.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

OTOH something like 70% of all cobalt humanity has ever mined comes from one nickel iron meteorite that impacted what is now Canada, and the deposits that resulted are in no way played out yet. The game only takes typically about half a millennium on default settings? that's probably not long enough to run out any mineral strike worth exploiting on an industrial scale.

 

[Mitchz95]

- When moons are referred to as planets in the event text.
- Planets with the "High Gravity" modifier are more likely to have titanic lifeforms. In reality, titans would make more sense on low-gravity planets due to the square-cube law.
- Building a Dyson Sphere around a red dwarf is not cheaper than building one around a blue giant.
- Some binary systems have a red dwarf primary with a G-type secondary. Red dwarfs are lower-mass and should be the secondary in that kind of system.

 

[Dr. B]

It takes 4 years for my fleet to travel from one end of the empire to the other.

It takes 4 seconds for my admiral to do the same thing.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Pretty much every event/anomaly text when playing as gestalt.

 

[Fenris_SE]

This thread is not for like a "List of Grievances (tm)."

Its fir stuff that doesnt make sense, but that is also not important. Like my motive in creating this is that Im hoping itll be at least a little entertaining or something.

An example to give you an idea:
* For me, mining asteroids. Getting 3 minerals per month from it makes sense... for a while. Feels like it should run out, man (stoner voice). Like... I've gotten 4000 minerals from this one asteroid... and that FE has been mining that one asteroid for a hundred thousand years now... thiiiiiiiink abouuut iiiiit...

This one may be a bit of an outlier:

"The asteroid 16 Psyche, one of the most massive objects in the main asteroid belt orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, could be made entirely of metal, according to a study published this week.

Even more intriguing, the asteroid's metal is worth an estimated $10,000 quadrillion (that's 15 more zeroes), more than the entire economy of Earth."

Had to look it up because I couldn't remember the name lol. But even without this one, there is a LOT of metal in space.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

This one may be a bit of an outlier:

"The asteroid 16 Psyche, one of the most massive objects in the main asteroid belt orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, could be made entirely of metal, according to a study published this week.

Even more intriguing, the asteroid's metal is worth an estimated $10,000 quadrillion (that's 15 more zeroes), more than the entire economy of Earth."

Had to look it up because I couldn't remember the name lol. But even without this one, there is a LOT of metal in space.

 

[rubert]

* For me, mining asteroids. Getting 3 minerals per month from it makes sense... for a while. Feels like it should run out, man (stoner voice). Like... I've gotten 4000 minerals from this one asteroid... and that FE has been mining that one asteroid for a hundred thousand years now... thiiiiiiiink abouuut iiiiit...

I also find that the asteroids and other space resources are poorly presented in the game, but for the opposite reason than you: they give far too little resources than what the asteroids in reality are likely to give. Instead of the strip mining planets with pops the empires (or least some of them) should be able to build massive asteroid mines and manufactories which mine and refine the ore from the asteroids and turn them to the ships or whatever.

edit: From different books I have found David Weber's Honorverse to describe space mining and manufactories quite "realistically". Eg. Manticore system itself has huge shipyards and "rich asteroid belts" which are used for the raw materials.

 

[OwlOfSpace]

Megastrucutres while looking fantastic looking, give us like less than 1% of its power.

I get it is due to balance reasons..... But then I argue building such game changer thing like fully cased Dyson Sphere should have been waaaaaaaay more difficult to achieve but be Wonder victory thing.


And almost complete lack of Orbital Infrastructure, things like Space Elevator, Orbital Ring, Artificial Moon etc, which could actually help making your core planets matter more by choosing to develop the extra Infrastructure in unique ways

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

I also find that the asteroids and other space resources are poorly presented in the game, but for the opposite reason than you: they give far too little resources than what the asteroids in reality are likely to give. Instead of the strip mining planets with pops the empires (or least some of them) should be able to build massive asteroid mines and manufactories which mine and refine the ore from the asteroids and turn them to the ships or whatever.

edit: From different books I have found David Weber's Honorverse to describe space mining and manufactories quite "realistically". Eg. Manticore system itself has huge shipyards and "rich asteroid belts" which are used for the raw materials.

Which is why I think that the basic unit of management should be the system, not the planet. Habitability can still influence living space, manned asteroid mines and research stations are a staple of space opera.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

- That Mercury is a molten planet whereas in real life its surface looks more like our moon's.
- Ceres and Pluto use the generic asteroid model instead of being spherical.

 

[rubert]

Which is why I think that the basic unit of management should be the system, not the planet. Habitability can still influence living space, manned asteroid mines and research stations are a staple of space opera.

That actually sounds pretty good idea (for Stellaris 2 anyways). Currently the planets are mostly the same with the available agri/mining/energy districts giving some customization if you need basic resources and the planet bonuses are fairly weak for most part.

If the smallest controllable area would be a star system it might give more way to make more unique systems, eg: system rich in minerals but no habitable planets would be expensive to colonize and would have relatively low population which might be harder to keep happy (nobody but voidborne wants to live on habitats all their life), minerally poor system but habitable planet would be great for agriculture or pops for science etc but would require resources from outside, moon orbiting the habitable planet would give easy access for low-g research and manufactoring and so on.

 

[aroddo]

When an abandoned alien amusement park gives you research bonuses until the end of time but an inactive gateway to the other side of the galaxy is scientifically irrelevant...

 

[Fenris_SE]

Oh yeah, just remembered one of my favorites. Don't know if it's been patched, but with Driven Assimilators I used to trade food to Determined Exterminators for whatever. Since they don't produce food I'd always get good trades, at least early to mid game.

Speaking of Driven Assimilators, I find it funny when the galactic market is located in their space. Who want's to fly through Borg territory willingly, I mean just how good are the sales? The fact that they can even be part of the galactic community I find odd as well.

 

[Zenicetus]

It takes 4 years for my fleet to travel from one end of the empire to the other.

It takes 4 seconds for my admiral to do the same thing.

Not just scientists and admirals, but envoys moving around too. We can also instantly move physical resources around the galaxy with trade deals and the market. Clearly, we have interstellar teleporter technology! It's a shame our ships can't use it.

Speaking of envoys, it's odd how rare they are. Unlike other leaders that you just need to be able to afford, you only get a tiny handful of envoys in a starfaring civilization with millions or billions of citizens. You'd think that a fresh contact with a new alien civilization would spur a little more interest in signing up for the gig.

Amenities are weird, have to be produced locally and can't be moved off-planet as part of the empire economy for some reason.

Galactic natural selection apparently favors the Earth-like biological framework of torso, limbs, and one head on top. Not exclusively, but often enough that it seems to have some adaptive advantage.

 

[Dr. B]

Speaking of envoys, it's odd how rare they are. Unlike other leaders that you just need to be able to afford, you only get a tiny handful of envoys in a starfaring civilization with millions or billions of citizens. You'd think that a fresh contact with a new alien civilization would spur a little more interest in signing up for the gig.

Well I almost only play Xenophobes, so for them it is simple: Only a couple of individuals in the entire galactic nation can stand living among the unworthy Xeno filth.

For Xenophiles (yuck!) it is more difficult to find an explanation though.

 

[DukeLeto42]

I also find that the asteroids and other space resources are poorly presented in the game, but for the opposite reason than you: they give far too little resources than what the asteroids in reality are likely to give. Instead of the strip mining planets with pops the empires (or least some of them) should be able to build massive asteroid mines and manufactories which mine and refine the ore from the asteroids and turn them to the ships or whatever.

edit: From different books I have found David Weber's Honorverse to describe space mining and manufactories quite "realistically". Eg. Manticore system itself has huge shipyards and "rich asteroid belts" which are used for the raw materials.

I think the best explanation is that space resources are mining "stations" - they're largely autonomous, probably only staffed with a handful of people (by "handful" we could be talking about hundreds or thousands, but still way less than a pop's worth). Stellaris really seems to sit in the "large populations generally only live on planets" school of SciFi stories.

I'd love to see a Stellaris 2 where space settlement is reimagined and we can watch as that 2-value mining station slowly is built up over the course of the game into a vast asteroid mining colony with population and production to rival the local planets.

Speaking of envoys, it's odd how rare they are. Unlike other leaders that you just need to be able to afford, you only get a tiny handful of envoys in a starfaring civilization with millions or billions of citizens. You'd think that a fresh contact with a new alien civilization would spur a little more interest in signing up for the gig.

Making envoys named characters but also not true leaders was a strange decision. It makes them feel like they should be drawn from an endlessly refilling pool and subject only to your budget, when really they behave more like EUIV diplomats and simulate something more like "diplomatic slots."

Amenities are weird, have to be produced locally and can't be moved off-planet as part of the empire economy for some reason.

This one makes sense to me - "consumer goods" are the material and moveable part of what we in reality think of as "amenities," while Amenities are more like the on-site service jobs (postal, utility, and retail workers, as some examples).

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Amenities are weird, have to be produced locally and can't be moved off-planet as part of the empire economy for some reason.

This one makes sense.

Amenities represent physical locations like amusement parks, movie theaters, and other quick sources of entertainment on a Friday night. They're not empire-wide because they're meant to be what your pops do with their families on the weekend, not vacation destinations halfway across the galaxy.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Well I almost only play Xenophobes, so for them it is simple: Only a couple of individuals in the entire galactic nation can stand living among the unworthy Xeno filth.

For Xenophiles (yuck!) it is more difficult to find an explanation though.

It takes a very rare combination of neurodiversity and extraversion to not only want to socialize with aliens, but also to be good at it enough to be more good than harm and so worth sending.

If you are neurotypical (I'm Autistic) you have all this unconscious stuff in your brain observing and interpreting human body language, you don't even notice it you just get handed the conclusions by your unconscious. Which is fine... Until you start dealing with the Squeebs of Eled 9 who see baring one's teeth (we call it a smile) as a threat display, and take eye contact as a challenge. And it will be hard for NTs to stop heeding that unconscious wetware.

OTOH, if you are autistic, you are well-used to checking your biases, verifying your interpretations, and consciously watching and interpreting other people's non-verbal communication. You even learn how to present it in yourself as part of a deliberate attempt to blend in. (we call it masking). Autistic people having far less of the unconscious bias would make us great xeno-diplomats, we know we know nothing, and we know how to learn this stuff deliberately. It's also tiring, a constant cognitive fatigue I've likened to constantly sitting a verbal exam, even if the stakes are 'politely changing the subject because I don't follow sports' not 'avoiding a war between 50 quadrillion sentients on both sides'.

Getting someone neurodiverse enough to not bring species bias into alien diplomacy, but with the mental stamina to do a useful amount of it is threading two very different needles with the same thread.

Afterthought: Xenophiles may get more envoys not because they have better diplomatic agencies or a willingness to spend more on them, but because in embracing differance they are able to celebrate and nurture this rare and to them valuable set of neurodivergant traits, and be more willing to make accommodations to make life easier on the Neurodivergent so lowering the bar of needed cognitive stamina.