Was the new Sea of Consciousness a preview of Aquatic planets?

[Me_]

When the Sea of Consciousness got a new look in the latest patch it seemed a bit random, although nice. Now that Aquatics (shoudn't it be Aquatoids to keep up the theme?) have been announced, the preview screenshots seem to be showing planets looking like the Sea of Consciousness.

This got me thinking that the Aquatics won't be using Ocean planets as their home, but instead will use a new "Aquatic" planet type (using the same model as the new Sea of Consciousness) that is supposed to be almost entirely ocean. And their core mechanic will be terraforming planets into "Aquatic" ones with the big spaceships from the trailer and screenshots.

 

[ZeeHero]

should also be able to live in habitats, either normal ones in special sections full of water, or have their own. maybe both. more options = better

 

[Echo Candor One]

The Sea of Consciousness got a new look, I believe, because of Stanislav Lem's novel Solaris, upon which the Sea of Consciousness anamoly is loosely based.

 

[Surimi]

Yeah, the event is a pretty overt reference to Solaris, which is about humans trying to communicate with an intelligent ocean. I wouldn't read too much into it.

The visuals for the sea of consciousness planet in particular wouldn't make a huge amount of sense for aquatics because, keeping with the Solaris theme, the ocean is clearly not made of water.

 

[Bezborg]

should also be able to live in habitats, either normal ones in special sections full of water, or have their own. maybe both. more options = better

They should have ecumenopolis and ringworld options too. But they should be very different

 

[ZeeHero]

Theres a big problem with that idea. All species are designed to be able to live on the same colony, except gestalts being seperate, assuming you can get habitability within reason.

Aquatics being the only type to break this rule would just be awful and upset a majority of the playerbase including me, since restricting how you can play that hard is bad.

Normal planets very often have oceans aquatics can live in. there is no reason why they would need special aquatic only habitats.

Sure it would be nice to have the option of using them, especially playing xenophobe, but it should just be an added option they get. nothing more.

 

[Bezborg]

Theres a big problem with that idea. All species are designed to be able to live on the same colony, except gestalts being seperate, assuming you can get habitability within reason.

Aquatics being the only type to break this rule would just be awful and upset a majority of the playerbase including me, since restricting how you can play that hard is bad.

Normal planets very often have oceans aquatics can live in. there is no reason why they would need special aquatic only habitats.

Sure it would be nice to have the option of using them, especially playing xenophobe, but it should just be an added option they get. nothing more.

But don't we have enough generic generalist species already? Isn't it time for UNIQUE playstyles with UNIQUE creatures? You just want a new skin on the same old thing? What's the point of the species "types" if they're all the same, just serving as DLC "folders"? I find your idea extremely boring

 

[ZeeHero]

Just becuause it plays by the basic rules of the game doesn't make it generic. it can have unique mechanics without being made incompatible with the rest of the game...

Just give it some actually interesting AND useful and good traits unique to aquatics, mechanics that they benefit from that don't break the rest of the game.

 

[Bezborg]

Just becuause it plays by the basic rules of the game doesn't make it generic. it can have unique mechanics without being made incompatible with the rest of the game...

Just give it some actually interesting AND useful and good traits unique to aquatics, mechanics that they benefit from that don't break the rest of the game.

Well, let's hope we both get what we want, and it's actually interesting and not just a skin for the same old thing

 

[ZeeHero]

Worst that can happen is it's Aquatic specific traits/civics that suck..

 

[Pancakelord]

Theres a big problem with that idea. All species are designed to be able to live on the same colony, except gestalts being seperate, assuming you can get habitability within reason.

Aquatics being the only type to break this rule would just be awful and upset a majority of the playerbase including me, since restricting how you can play that hard is bad.

Normal planets very often have oceans aquatics can live in. there is no reason why they would need special aquatic only habitats.

Sure it would be nice to have the option of using them, especially playing xenophobe, but it should just be an added option they get. nothing more.

They'll probably behave like voidborn with a mild triggered effect. On ocean world? Get X buffs. Not on ocean world? Get Y debuffs - big enough to notice but nothing you really have to deal with unless OCD min-maxing, or have insufficient cg income to offset habitability.

I can't imagine it'll happen, but having a different carry capacity for different species could be a good way to distinguish pops without hard locking them. So if a tomb world has a carry cap of 50, and a lower "non-fungoid/non-tomb-adapted" (for example) carry cap of 20. So up to 20 non-fungoids / non-survivors can always easily grow there, but to get the most out of that planet - and get the remaining 30 possible pops - you'd need to get some fungoids. This would force you to consider gene modding or terraforming. (Though still has the weakness of gaia/robots being best)

This might be doable using conditional growth modifiers (either in the planet scope or species/triggered-trait scope) though. So a specific species' growth reduces faster if it's on a 'non-artifical' or 'non ideal' (≠trait) planet type and population>S-median.

 

[ZeeHero]

If we used a carry cap system like that we'd need at least another 3 world types, probably more. so we'd have more worlds "in between"

 

[anro15]

should also be able to live in habitats, either normal ones in special sections full of water, or have their own. maybe both. more options = better

Agree there are ways of making it work for all planet types through tech, let alone the possible terraforming options. Though unsure why this would not work with some of the existing planet types without modification? You could argue our planet is better for water based lifeforms than land based (roughly two-thirds of the earth's surface is oceans). With that example, I don't see why it would need anything to specific say only aquatics can use, as clearly we are doing just fine also for the smaller land bits.

 

[Echo Candor One]

The planetary diversity mod taught me that I really don't want more world types.

 

[kwheeler]

The planetary diversity mod taught me that I really don't want more world types.

Oh, I had a very different reaction. The planetary diversity mod made me really appreciate how varied and flavor-filled worlds could be. For me, that novelty was more than enough to offset other issues with colonization.

 

[Pancakelord]

If we used a carry cap system like that we'd need at least another 3 world types, probably more. so we'd have more worlds "in between"

I'm 100% down for more worlds - provided each one has some "unique factor" as I just feel like worlds for the sake of worlds is a bit bland.

Whatever that unique factor ends up being:

• if it loosely correlates to giving bonuses to some phenotypes (like ocean to fishies and tropical to plantoids), or
• confers their own niches via resource yields (e.g. continental farmers have the highest base yield for food, whilst tomb worlds offer the best military training grounds for troops - soldiers, or even all citizens in the amy, provide some naval cap).
• or if each world gets one "planet-class based district" - as a swap of an existing one
  • e.g. oceans swap cities for sub-sea habitats that also provide food, in addition to housing, or desert worlds swap mining districts for "spice mines" (yes i'm so original) that yield low levels of volatile motes in addition to minerals.
  • This would also play in to the argument that something other than Gaia ought to be a viable terraforming target- with Gaia essentially being the "boning" planet..

For reference, this is how the game's habitable worlds stack up vs species types (phenotypes), now:

 

[Echo Candor One]

Oh, I had a very different reaction. The planetary diversity mod made me really appreciate how varied and flavor-filled worlds could be. For me, that novelty was more than enough to offset other issues with colonization.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I love the flavor. I just didn't like how it cluttered species creation and gene modding.
I really like the Real Space approach, where these cool planets all exist, but as subclasses of the main three.

 

[ZeeHero]

The planetary diversity mod taught me that I really don't want more world types.

I actually like that mod, but it causes a stupid amount of lag and it and related submods are the ones that most often crash or have issues.

 

[Derp Throat]

They should have ecumenopolis and ringworld options too. But they should be very different

That would be an ecumenopolitan matter!

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

the dominion-jem hadar syncretic evolution fanatic purifiers confirmed