To unlock building-slots: housing vs. POPs

[Kayden_II]

Situation:
Currently, each colony gets +1 (unlocked) building-slot per +5 POPs ...

Problems:
01. You have to wait for +5 POPs on a colony ...
02. You have to resettle 1 (unemployed) POP from colony B, 1 from C, 1 from D, 1 from E and 1 from F to A in order to have +5 POPs on A ...
03. You have to repeat point 01 / 02 until all building-slots on a colony are unlocked ...
05. You have to extend point 01 / 02 / 03 to all the other colonies ...
06. City-districts, housing, infrastructure ? PFFF ! Just be fruitful and multiply my little sweethearts ! ...
07. placeholder(s) ...

Opinion:
Instead of POPs, it's better to unlock building-slots via housing ...

Reasons:
01. Since you're able to queue the construction of districts (the primary housing-source) and buildings (a secondary housing-source), it would be possible to minimize the buildup-process of a colony into a 3-steps-one (01. Queue and wait for the construction of the districts, 02. Queue and wait for the construction of the buildings, which provide additional housing and 03. Queue and wait for the construction of the remaining buildings). The current buildup-process of a colony plays more like a 15-steps-one since there're 15 (not 16) building-slots to unlock (since the first one is already unlocked for the capital), so that you only construct a single building every time you get +5 POPs ...
02. Basically, this concept (in favour for housing) would work identically like the original idea of the devs (in favour for "infrastructure"), that way more unlocked building-slots are provided by way more city-districts (instead of (for example) way more agri-/mineral-/energy-ones). The current approach is, at least for me, way too unintuitive since, especially due to the overpopulation-feature, any colony, even a "dirty" and underdeveloped agri-world (with way more agri-districts than city-ones), is somewhat qualified to unlock all of its building-slots to become (for example) a "clean" and developed tech-world (with a lot of research-buildings).

 

[Zergor]

Meh, not very useful and would probably destroy new player's economy.

There is already the trap of making building too fast, removing pops from districts that need them, tanking the primary ressourses production.
I know that some people really don't like having empty slots on their planets but the truth is that most of the time you want to keep them empty until you have a bit of unemployment (and at that case you have largely enough pops to unlock buildings)

 

[EvilTom]

This is a difficult one...

The number of facilities and the complexity of those facilities you can support will be based around both the population and supporting infrastructure you can provide. At the extreme, A tiny village of 500 people cannot support a whole supply chain of a car factory.
But if I built empty housing for 1,000,000 people, but I still have those 500 people... does it mean I can still support a car factory in my little village? No... unless I can get some significant automation and roboticism, but I still don't have the supporting people like governors, administrators, shop keepers, street sweepers, teachers, etc etc etc.

But... I believe I understand what you're thinking of. You're trying to put in an "infrastructure" of sorts. In the case of POPS we're taking of many more than just small towns... the number is abstract but most people think of one POP being a lot of people (some say up to 1 billion), but it could be quite low. Really it's irrelevant. It's just a section of population who are enough to work a facility. Behind the scenes it doesn't matter if you have billions, millions or hundreds of thousands... it just represents a proportion of your available population to work in a certain area. So what represents this "infrastructure"? Is it the planetary capital building? The number of people? The amenities score? It's just a mix of a few of them, and the number of facilities/buildings you have is represented by the support you gain from extra populations. Remember you still have to pay for the buildings with energy or other means... so that's factored in too!

I think moreoever in this game, is that you can have POPS with less housing... eg: robots or slaves, so you can get higher population counts than housing... fairly easily. So this is a less of a problem than maybe it should be.

But in short... the number of buildings should not be represented by housing. Population is probably imperfect though but it is a proxy for the support you need for extra buildings.

 

[Kayden_II]

There is already the trap of making building too fast, removing pops from districts that need them, tanking the primary ressourses production.

To be fair, there're already player-demands, that PDS has to implement a proper priority-system for POP-jobs, so that this trap would be solved by that ...

I know that some people really don't like having empty slots on their planets but the truth is that most of the time you want to keep them empty until you have a bit of unemployment (and at that case you have largely enough pops to unlock buildings)

It's true, that it's reasonable to wait until you have enough POPs to operate what-ever, but the actual thing is, that the "+1 building-slot for +X housing"-approach wouldn't hinder you to pre-build a colony since the "+1 building-slot for +5 POPs"-one does this. It's a new option.

 

[Kayden_II]

The number of facilities and the complexity of those facilities you can support will be based around both the population and supporting infrastructure you can provide.

It's true, that it's reasonable, that you have to have enough people / POPs to operate what-ever, but people / POPs are mobile, which is why I don't really like this "+1 building-slot for + 5 POPs in this specific location"-approach. On the other hand, infrastructure (aka the network (nw) of transportation (like the nw of roads as a part of this) + the nw of water-supply + the nw of sewage / canalisation + the nw of energy-supply + the nw in regards to communication etc. pp) is pretty much im-mobile, which is why a "+1 building-slot for +X infrastructure in this specific location"-approach makes more sense. I'm simply assuming, that a city-district provides more infrastructure than an agri-/energy-/mineral-one, which is also why I'm also assuming, that a city-district provides more housing than an a-/e-/m-one, which is why I'm taking the "+1 building-slot for +X housing"-approach ...

But... I believe I understand what you're thinking of. You're trying to put in an "infrastructure" of sorts. In the case of POPS we're taking of many more than just small towns... the number is abstract but most people think of one POP being a lot of people (some say up to 1 billion), but it could be quite low. Really it's irrelevant. It's just a section of population who are enough to work a facility. Behind the scenes it doesn't matter if you have billions, millions or hundreds of thousands... it just represents a proportion of your available population to work in a certain area. So what represents this "infrastructure"? Is it the planetary capital building? The number of people? The amenities score? It's just a mix of a few of them, and the number of facilities/buildings you have is represented by the support you gain from extra populations. Remember you still have to pay for the buildings with energy or other means... so that's factored in too!

I hope, that I've already clarified, what I've meant. Long story short: Yes in regards to the "infrastructure"-thoughts, but rather no in regards to the POPs.

 

[Peter34]

That's similar to how 2.2 worked initially, during pre-release testing. There was this planetary stat called Infrastructure, and you mostly gained it from City Districts. Every X Infrastructure would unlock 1 Building slot, and so during pre-release testing they found that the testers felt strongly compelled to build lots of City Districts very far in advance of any actual Housing need, just in order to unlock more Buildings slots.

And so the mechanic was scrapped, and Building slots were changed to be unlocked by POPs.

 

[permeakra]

Every X Infrastructure would unlock 1 Building slot, and so during pre-release testing they found that the testers felt strongly compelled to build lots of City Districts very far in advance of any actual Housing need, just in order to unlock more Buildings slots.

And so the mechanic was scrapped, and Building slots were changed to be unlocked by POPs.

I wonder why they need to be locked in the first place?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

The devs tried this with infrastructure and it didnt play well. Not as good an idea as you think.

 

[Ryika]

I wonder why they need to be locked in the first place?

A few obvious ways to abuse the system come to mind - settling a new planet and sending just enough pops over to run 16 tier 1 Alloy Foundries instead of having to upgrade existing ones, or just stacking 12 Luxury Residences in those empty slots to inflate Amenities for Production Bonuses and Housing for Immigration Pull for example.

They also serve as a guide for new players and the AI.

 

[anamiac]

I think that the game should disable unworked buildings instead of destroying them.

 

[permeakra]

A few obvious ways to abuse the system come to mind - settling a new planet and sending just enough pops over to run 16 tier 1 Alloy Foundries instead of having to upgrade existing ones, or just stacking 12 Luxury Residences in those empty slots to inflate Amenities for Production Bonuses and Housing for Immigration Pull for example.

You're saying it like there is no ways to abuse the system now.

Let's hypothetically assume that the devs actually though that "sending just enough pops over to run 16 tier 1 Alloy Foundries instead of having to upgrade existing ones" should not be a thing. Basically, this means that the devs wanted that only a fraction of pops could work in advanced production jobs and that increasing the ratio required advanced resources.

This was done in an extremely retarded way, leaving much space for abuse.
We have hard cap on 16 buildings/planet, but no hard cap on population and variable number of districts with drive to reduce total number of districts. This means that I have same maximum number of buildings on a planet with size 9 and on a planet with size 25. Furthermore, If I get creative and abuse housing mechanic for slaves, I can pack about 3-4 pops into 1 housing unit (maybe more). This means, that even with existing system I can open all building slots with 3-4 districts or in some cases with no districts at all. Furthermore, relative value of buildings varies with planet size, since energy grid on 25 size planet with half of energy districts and on 9 size planet with half of energy districts clearly have different effect on your empire. Yet they science labs they compete with for one of 16 building slots has the same effect regardless of the planet size.

That's quite ridiculous. The system both have problems with scaling with planet size and doesn't cut abuse. It does, however, cause excessive micro. It needs to be redesigned. Badly.

 

[Kayden_II]

That's similar to how 2.2 worked initially, during pre-release testing. There was this planetary stat called Infrastructure, and you mostly gained it from City Districts. Every X Infrastructure would unlock 1 Building slot, and so during pre-release testing they found that the testers felt strongly compelled to build lots of City Districts very far in advance of any actual Housing need, just in order to unlock more Buildings slots.

This reads rather like the typical first-experience-playthrough-mistakes a player would actually do before he / she knows it better, which means, that this concept (with infrastructure) wasn't necessarily flawed itself. I could also imagine an alternative, that city-districts (respectively agri-/energy-/mineral-ones) provide a lot of (respectively not so much) infrastructure, but no housing at all, so that it would be necessary to use building-slots for housing-buildings. It's also worth to mention, that currently (and even in the past playthroughs of these testers), the worth of the building-slots / buildings are somewhat distorted since a building-slot / building provides up to 10 POP-jobs in the long run through (building)-upgrades, whereas an agri-/energy-/mineral-district only provides the initial 2 POP-jobs forever since (district)-upgrades aren't possible.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

This reads rather like the typical first-experience-playthrough-mistakes a player would actually do before he / she knows it better, which means, that this concept (with infrastructure) wasn't necessarily flawed itself. I could also imagine an alternative, that city-districts (respectively agri-/energy-/mineral-ones) provide a lot of (respectively not so much) infrastructure, but no housing at all, so that it would be necessary to use building-slots for housing-buildings. It's also worth to mention, that currently (and even in the past playthroughs of these testers), the worth of the building-slots / buildings are somewhat distorted since a building-slot / building provides up to 10 POP-jobs in the long run through (building)-upgrades, whereas an agri-/energy-/mineral-district only provides the initial 2 POP-jobs forever since (district)-upgrades aren't possible.

It would be a mistake if there was a significant downside- a reason people should "know better". There wasn't.

 

[AlanC9]

It's also worth to mention, that currently (and even in the past playthroughs of these testers), the worth of the building-slots / buildings are somewhat distorted since a building-slot / building provides up to 10 POP-jobs in the long run through (building)-upgrades, whereas an agri-/energy-/mineral-district only provides the initial 2 POP-jobs forever since (district)-upgrades aren't possible.

So different things behave differently? I don't see any particular reason why one should work like the other.

 

[KingAlamar]

While I'm not sure I agree with the OP's exact position I understand the root of the argument.

The current system STRONGLY encourages a "just in time" building philosophy. The problem with that is that it takes a TON of [micro] management compared to when you could just pre-build a planet, hand it over to the sector AI, and then move on to something else.

Specifically I would agree that deciding what to build, where to focus your resources, etc. are "good" types of decisions in a strategy game. My problem is the lack of automation so you also have to time the WHEN part of your decision not just empire wide but on a planet by planet basis.

Here's where I consider the current system a problem. Because there are so many timed interactions between housing, stability, amenities, jobs, upkeep costs, population demographics, habitability, etc. -- and these are just local issues this doesn't incorporate the state of the empire as a whole ... the system we have now may simply have too many moving parts to come up with a good set of tools / automations to fully support it. So while it may be an awesome system for a few planets if it can't scale to 10, 20, 200 planets without becoming a micro nightmare ... then it may not be a good system for Stellaris.

 

[AlanC9]

Well, I think it scales to 30 or so planets just fine. But yeah, I don't think I'd like to try 60. (Not a problem for me since I never liked grabbing that many planets in any version of the game, but that's just me.)

 

[Kayden_II]

Every X Infrastructure would unlock 1 Building slot, and so during pre-release testing they found that the testers felt strongly compelled to build lots of City Districts very far in advance of any actual Housing need, just in order to unlock more Buildings slots.

It would be a mistake if there was a significant downside- a reason people should "know better". There wasn't.

So, these testers "felt strongly compelled" to build more city-districts in order to get more infrastructure in order to unlock more building-slots in order to build more buildings, altough they hadn't even enough POPs ("very far in advance of any actual housing need") to operate these buildings ? This sounds like a mistake by these players and even if it's so, I still prefer this possibility to have this option to pre-build an entire colony at once since this sounds pretty comfortable to deal with the zillion of colonies I have to handle in the mid-/ or late-game.

It's also worth to mention, that currently (and even in the past playthroughs of these testers), the worth of the building-slots / buildings are somewhat distorted since a building-slot / building provides up to 10 POP-jobs in the long run through (building)-upgrades, whereas an agri-/energy-/mineral-district only provides the initial 2 POP-jobs forever since (district)-upgrades aren't possible.

So different things behave differently? I don't see any particular reason why one should work like the other.

I've the opinion, that it's pretty unbalanced, that an agri-/energy-/mineral-district provides 2 POP-jobs, whereas a building-slot / building provides up to 10 POP-jobs since this encourages pretty much the behaviour to build as many city-districts as possible in order to unlock as many building-slots / buildings as possible.

 

[AlanC9]

You're not explaining why these two different things ought to be balanced; saying that they put up different numbers is true, but you haven't given me a reason to care that it's true. So I don't.

Like your pic says, change my mind.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

So, these testers "felt strongly compelled" to build more city-districts in order to get more infrastructure in order to unlock more building-slots in order to build more buildings, altough they hadn't even enough POPs ("very far in advance of any actual housing need") to operate these buildings ? This sounds like a mistake by these players and even if it's so, I still prefer this possibility to have this option to pre-build an entire colony at once since this sounds pretty comfortable to deal with the zillion of colonies I have to handle in the mid-/ or late-game.

You seem to be operating under the assumption that not having a need for housing is the same thing as not having POPs to work buildings, which isn't really a sound one.

Buildings take far less POPs to work than city districts provide housing for.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

Agreed with the premise, but I think buildings should be unlocked by cities on your planet. If your planet is a rural world, why does it have just as many universities as an equally populated urban world?

I wonder why they need to be locked in the first place?

I agree with this too.