We should add an additional element to planet type, and by extension habitability: gravity

[Bezborg]

Hi all.

As the title says... we should include Gravity as a habitability consideration when discovering and colonizing worlds.

And I don't mean the current high and low gravity modifiers, which are rare. I think every planet should have this, and every species should have a range of tolerance.

With this, I think self-modifying should become more relevant - and common - as well, after some decades.

Low gravity might be nicer for void dwellers, as an example of how this system can be cross-integrated.

Just an idea, discussion welcome.

 

[Me_]

You could break down habitability into any number of separate values. The question is: would it make the game better?

 

[Ryika]

To me gravity as a game mechanic seems like a pretty boring concept at first glance.

What do you do with it, other than have it higher or lower for different planets / species just to introduce new variables into the mechanic? How does it lead to interesting storytelling? How does it create interesting gameplay, that could not be had with much more thematic alternatives?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

You could break down habitability into any number of separate values. The question is: would it make the game better?

only if it affected things besides species e.g. buildings might be more upgradable in lower gravity? districts could be cheaper when it's higher? i dunno...

 

[Aepdneds]

There are already low and high gravity modifier in the game.

Edit: No idea why I haven't seen that OP mentioned this in the initial post...

Planet modifiers - Stellaris Wiki

stellaris.paradoxwikis.com

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

There are already low and high gravity modifier in the game.

Planet modifiers - Stellaris Wiki

stellaris.paradoxwikis.com

He specifically mentions this in his post...

They really don't offer the kind of modifier that you would expect and can honestly be ignored.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

I like the idea of having more planet diversity instead of the current system. I don't know if gravity is the wasy to go but I like the concept.

 

[Pancakelord]

With this, I think self-modifying should become more relevant - and common - as well, after some decades.

Imo self modifying should be a feature that becomes more controllable by having a gene clinic on the planet. Or a robo assembly for synths.

Either

• let some hard coded script mod pops on the planet for one of 3 options [set via planet decision or a policy]
  • its habitability, or
  • their current job or
  • weight it for the planet's designation (e.g. pops likely to become intelligent on tech worlds, strong on mining and fortress worlds etc - with some traits gated by tech or Gene AP).
• Or add a quota planet decision (the decision kills itself once X/x% pops converted) to focus on some trait, at some cost, overriding the auto script.

Problem with pop traits is, the species screen just dies whenever num species -> large. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to cull or hide species with 0 pops from the game, keeping the list somewhat clean.

 

[Mastikator]

The problem I see is that either medium gravity is objectively better OR low/high g preference can't tell apart medium from their opposite. I don't think either of these options are good. The way Master of Orion 2 handled it was pretty good though, where high gravity preference was a costly and powerful trait that basically made you able to live on all gravity types and gave the strong benefit. And low g preference was the opposite: only good on low g worlds and weaker soldiers.

But we kinda already have that, it's called Strong and Weak, Adaptive and Nonadaptive. You could add that (very) strong negates pop penalties from high g worlds.

 

[Bezborg]

You could break down habitability into any number of separate values. The question is: would it make the game better?

What’s your answer?

Mine is yes. I want the game to be more than a map painter with streamlined mechanics to build and blow up ships.

 

[Bezborg]

To me gravity as a game mechanic seems like a pretty boring concept at first glance.

What do you do with it, other than have it higher or lower for different planets / species just to introduce new variables into the mechanic? How does it lead to interesting storytelling? How does it create interesting gameplay, that could not be had with much more thematic alternatives?

Well we see how anti-gravity architecture leads to an ecumenopolis.

Perhaps we can use our imagination and figure out other ways how lower or higher gravity could influence planet and population management? What if we could use our imagination?

 

[Ryika]

Well we see how anti-gravity architecture leads to an ecumenopolis.

Perhaps we can use our imagination and figure out other ways how lower or higher gravity could influence planet and population management? What if we could use our imagination?

Sure, what I'm saying is that I did use my imagination, and couldn't really come up with anything all too interesting.
That's why I'm asking you to sell your idea to me.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

What’s your answer?

Mine is yes. I want the game to be more than a map painter with streamlined mechanics to build and blow up ships.

Yes.

Maybe we should just say goodbye to fixed values and the whole system could be done with a slider. Every factor could then be weighed independently and lower our raise this slider.

So a world that has the wrong climate, but otherwise good stats (fitting gravity and whatever else we can come up with) for your species could be better than one with the right climate.

I feel like a spider would just offer more and could probably be easier to implement UI wise than having a ton of modifiers.

 

[Weyird]

Since I started playing Stellaris I wanted planets to be more interesting. Gravity and atmosphere composition should be major deciding factors affecting habitability.
An oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere species would only be able to live in domes on ammonia atmosphere planets.
And 'savannah world', 'alpine world' etc is silly. Planets arent just 1 type of biome.

But with regards to gravity - planet size and gravity should def be related - the more physical space, the higher gravity. And in reality, a planet with low gravity would def have lower costs to launch mined/farmed/produced resources to space to be sent to other planets.

Invasions and Land Combat should greatly be affected - an attacking force that is fighting in a non-ideal gravity should have massive combat penalties because they aren't used to the firing range of projectiles, can't carry as much, etc.

 

[Bezborg]

Sure, what I'm saying is that I did use my imagination, and couldn't really come up with anything all too interesting.
That's why I'm asking you to sell your idea to me.

Well it’s been a long day at work, but just for you... I guess we could imagine ways how a lower gravity world would have cheaper ways of achieving a higher population density and infrastructure. We can imagine all manners of different districts or buildings for different gravitational environments.

We can imagine how gravity differences would influence the presence of different materials.

We can imagine how ground combat might be reworked to play into this element as well.

Ultimately, I’d just find it interesting whatever it is, because I find the colonization andcexpansion stage of the game the only worthwhile stage of the game. I wish to expand on this element, not on the endless drudgery of who’s a juggler and who’s a policeman.

I’d be happy to hear your ideas as well, once you’re up to it. I’m sure you can imagine how a high grav world could and should be different than Earth, and how this difference could be relevant and interesting in Stellaris.

I understand how it’s hard to break out of the constraints of the current state of Stellaris. I sympathize. But the planetary and colonization systems are incredibly rudimentary after so many years. It seems childish to have almost the same experience on a frozen world and a desert world.

Almost as childish as even having a “frozen world” and “desert world” as categories, let aline the only differentiation between planets.

Planets should be the basic “unit” of this game, that’s what I always thought. Sadly, the basic atom of this game is the individual pop...it is what it is.

But planets, in their natural state, can and should be more complex than simply “hot, 1” or “medium, 2”, or “cold, 3”

 

[Bezborg]

Sure, what I'm saying is that I did use my imagination, and couldn't really come up with anything all too interesting.
That's why I'm asking you to sell your idea to me.

Let me try to answer your question from a different perspective... what is interesting about gravity is a species’ incompatibility with it.

How would Low grav birds live on a heavy grav lithoids planet? How would they adapt in the first few decades? Or after 100 years? How would they approach infrastructure?

I find this very interesting tbh.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

We can imagine all manners of different districts or buildings for different gravitational environments.

We can imagine how gravity differences would influence the presence of different materials.

We can imagine how ground combat might be reworked to play into this element as well.

ok, now's the time and the place to put those imaginative thoughts into words and share them with the world.

 

[Pancakelord]

Well we see how anti-gravity architecture leads to an ecumenopolis.

Perhaps we can use our imagination and figure out other ways how lower or higher gravity could influence planet and population management? What if we could use our imagination?

We have anti gravity in Stellaris, I would assume gravity's impact, on anything but primitive worlds and the most basic of colonies, would be expressed as higher or lower energy upkeep (to run magical anti gravity equipment).

Pops basically fall in to

• Consumer goods
• Food/min/EC use (+anything for job)
• Amenities/deviance
• Housing
• Crime/TV production

To enhance planet differences in non-cosmetic (e.g. unlike how planetary diversity and real space do it) you either

• play with those variables (e.g. wet worlds reduce upkeep for moluscoids, whilst hot worlds increase it) or
• you add new variables and resources, stripping away some of the ambiguity from CGs (e.g. pops need 'CGs', set per their social status/class/species rights & 'Life support equipment' per their habitability rating + modifiers on the planet [e.g. acid rain] and maybe multiplied for workers Vs higher stratum pops).
  • But this leads to more "hygiene factor" resources - like food (up until recently). Stuff that you need to a point but are largely useless in and of themselves or for other things.

I do think that planets need more variety, and I personally think that several rare resources could be added to help there (turning betharian stone in to a more general "Rare minerals", with additional effects on power, turning "alien pets"[rename to alien fauna] in to a rare form of food + additional worker output [beasts of burden] or ruler output [exotic animals trade). More manufactured resources could be added too - with some sort of empire wide production settings (so you can skew factories between CGs or life support equipment for pops, to use my earlier example, and military arms for army production and marauder bribes or espionage ops). But Manufactured resources run afoul of the hygiene issue I mentioned before, whilst not really adding to planet identity themselves, in a way that more 'Primary/augment' resources aren't as likely to.

But I doubt that'll happen as the game has trended towards a streamlined macrobuilder [without any actual macrobuilder or automation functionality]. I'm surprised we still have habitability types at all, let alone trying to model gravity or humidity etc. Even the planet differences we do have right now, very quickly stop mattering, arbitraged away by stacking various CG output modifiers, or Omni +habitability modifiers (rather than something like "+10% habitability on species ideal planet type / planet class"), usually.
E.g. type = continental, class = wet,

The one area I would like to see enhancements in is in district icons. We can change anything about districts at runtime except the icon and the colour. This alone would lead to dynamic districts -- such as using minor artifacts to enhance a industrial District, turning it into an FE-equivalent one -- without having to edit/duplicate and switch out vanilla ones, a clunky process.

 

[Hunnuli]

Yes.

Maybe we should just say goodbye to fixed values and the whole system could be done with a slider. Every factor could then be weighed independently and lower our raise this slider.

So a world that has the wrong climate, but otherwise good stats (fitting gravity and whatever else we can come up with) for your species could be better than one with the right climate.

I feel like a spider would just offer more and could probably be easier to implement UI wise than having a ton of modifiers.

All this talk of sliders reminds me of Stars!. I did so love making races in that game.
https://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Chapter_2:Basic_Race_Design#Specify_Habitability

That said I don't mind Stellaris Biomes much. They may not make as much sense as a slider for everything, but they look nice and work well enough to represent that not everything is colonizable without tech prowess(unless you are a Lithoid). More would be nice, but at a certian point you would be better off with sliders, because the whole point of the biome system is to be relatively quick and easy to understand. Anyways I am good either way. Though it would be nice for traits to interact more with the planetary modifiers(strong and weak adding advantages/disadvantages with the gravity modifers for example).

 

[malakhglitch]

I play Seedship on my phone and it has several broad criteria for habitability: Atmosphere, Gravity, Temperature, Water, and Resources.

• Gravity – As this thread is about gravity, let me lead off with this one. In Stellaris the baseline gravity is Earth-standard. The high and low gravity planetary modifiers would probably indicate a ± 30% variance from baseline. Beyond that level of variance it is assumed that reproduction will not be possible or would cause catastrophic birth defects. This assumption is absolutely boring and yet removes one, maybe two, levels of game complexity. First we have to make sure each planet has a gravity planetary modifier when it is spawned. Then we have to give each species a species trait that governs gravity habitability.
• Atmosphere – In Stellaris it is assumed that all species are Nitrogen-Oxygen breathers. While it is a boring and broad assumption, it does eliminate several magnitudes of complexity. Implementing this would require a new game. Stellaris 2 anyone?
• Resources – This is a totally different mechanic in Stellaris and can be safely ignored for the sake of habitability.
• Temperature & Water – I bundled these two together because Stellaris already has a workable, but not optimal, method for this in planetary habitability in the form of the planetary types broadly categorized via Cold, Mild, and Hot. I use Reworked Planets to come closer to an optimal approach with its two-axis approach using Temperature (Cold, Mild and Hot) and Water (Dry, Mild and Wet).

...let's not get into the headache that is Gaia planets, which IMO should be a planetary modifier (+20% habitability modifier, +10% happiness, +10% resources and +6 capacity per unblocked district slots) for those species with a matching planetary habitability.