[WIP] More Flavourful Habitable Worlds

[Velho e Bom Joe]

Or "Down with Carbon/Water Chauvinism" : )

An aspect of Stellaris that I've always found bland was the way habitable planets classes were done.
To start with, the Continental already contains every other class inside it. I find it silly that a "continental" species would have difficulty settling a desert world. Hell, we are a continental species, yet we have colonized almost every part of the planet, including tropical, desert, tundra... and we are not even in the technological level that a Stellaris species has at the start of the game -- surely in 200 years technology will allow us to colonize even antarctica.

But my biggest gripe is that being a Science Fiction game, we could have way more interesting, exotic homeworlds. Ammonia-based ecosystems in cold temperatures, Silicon-based life in hot worlds, Carbon rich homeworlds with methane seas, that kind of stuff. Now THAT is a challenge for carbon-based, oxygen-addicted waterbags to settle ; )


I've researched (i.e googled) a bit about the subject, and have picked some interesting possibilities. I don't intend it to be 100% hard science, I want to take some liberties(Just like Stellaris isn't 100% realistic either), but still want it to be believable. Since I'm an Artist, so not really knowledgeable on Chemistry or Biology, input from someone who is would be great.

-Obviously, an Earth-like planet, Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere with Water.
-A world for organisms that use Ammonia as its solvent. Would apparently have brownish seas, and dark vegetation, as it has to be cold to maintain ammonia as a liquid. Reference
-A Carbon-Rich world for beings that use Hydrocarbons as solvent. I'm kinda combining Carbon-rich worlds with Titan Methane lakes. Not sure if it is actually possible, but the image of dark plains with occasional diamond mountains, with methane seas is pretty awesome!
-The obligatory Silicon-based life homeworld. I admit that I don't really know which solvent such a lifeform would use, but from what I've read most need high temperatures. Need some input on how it would look.
-A planet for sulphur-based lifeforms. would probably have quite interesting seas.
-According to Wikipedia, Hydrogen fluoride is also a potential solvent. How would such a world look like?
-This site/book has an interesting section on alternatives to water and alternatives to Carbon which could inspire more homeworlds.



Initially, I only intend to replace the current classes with these, changing graphics and localisation, and ending there, so as to guarantee compatibility -- everything internally would still reference as desert_planet, tropical_planet, so on.
But, that would still lead to some un-immersive sillyness, as there would still be an arbitrary habitability scale based on the original classes, which would be strange on the new classes.

What I want to say is, I need your help to design this! here are my main doubts:
-Should I also modify the habitability scales, making habitability be low on all planets except your own? if not, I would need help to rearrange the new classes according to the habitability spectrum in the game.
-I need some ideas on new homeworlds and how they would look like, and if my current ideas don't have some terrible flaw or something like that!
-What to do with Gaia worlds?
-I actually haven't played the game that much("only" 50 hours : ) ), so are there any events that would conflict with the changes? (for example, an event that says that something happened on your desert planet)

I don't intend to create more than the current 7 classes, only replace the current classes to maintain compatibility.

Well, that was longer than expected! Any suggestions and opinions are welcome!

 

[Sebor13]

I would love to help in any way that I could.

I came up with a similar idea that I put into the Suggestions forum. I am actually currently trying to make it into a mod.

With my idea, all species would be barred from colonizing worlds of different bases (as in the base of life on the world: Water, Ammonia, Sulfuric Acid, or Methane) or sources of life (what life is made of: Carbon, Silicon, Nitrogen/Sulfur/Phosphorus (functions the same, look different), and Metal-oxide).

Here's a link if you're interested:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-planets-and-species-more-interesting.964219/

 

[Velho e Bom Joe]

Well, looks like it has been some time since last time I worked on this.
But hey, this mod is not dead!
(tho maybe now it could be considered undead. ha-ha)

I was just terribly busy with other stuff. Also, waiting Paradox to update and implement the two new habitable planets (So now I'm going to replace 9, not 7 as I previously said).

So, today I implemented some retextures in-game.

Some sort of Silicon-based biosphere.

Ammonia-based homeworld. Based on that image found on Wikipedia.

Both in glorious (and probably overkill) 4096x2048 resolution.
(yes, I will release them in Stellaris default planet resolution, 2048x1024. It's just that it's easier/prettier to downscale than upscale)

I already have all retextures done (I actually have created a pretty nice planet generator on Substance Designer), so Its just a matter of exporting and saving everything in .dds (I can't get Substance Designer's .dds export to work, so I have to open in GIMP and export manually to .dds. Pretty tedious work)

Look!

up there is your default water world. Left to right, top to bottom:
Ammonia, Sulphur, Carbon/methane, Looks nice, Silicon, Looks nice, Looks nice, Looks nice.

(note that they all used the same random seed, so continents are identical. I will obviously use different seeds for variation).

You will notice that half of them can be classified as "looks nice". That's because I'm no chemist, physicist or Biologist, So beyond the most commonly talked about possibilities like Ammonia, I have no idea how a "Hydrogen Fluoride" world would look like. Thus I created some aesthetically interesting variations. I would probably name them with the more exotic possibilities like "Hydrogen Chloride". They probably don't make sense, So if anybody suggests something plausible, I would certainly take a look (It's really easy to change colors, so don't be shy!).

Any sources and opinions would be welcome. I'm attempting to wrap my head around all the scientific content, But as much as I find it interesting (really, no joke, It's fascinating to see the interplay between the molecules, temperature, pressure and I DIGRESS), I still have difficulties in imagining how such worlds could be depicted.

I expect to make some progress tomorrow.

 

[primem0ver]

I like some of your ideas. I have considered some of them myself for a mod I am creating (originally I wanted to create a gas giant species). My mod (as well as many others) deal with the idiotic habitability concept that Stellaris used. This focuses on a different aspect. If you can find a way to make this work... I would be interested in joining forces. From what I can tell, there are a few problems with this approach that are inherent with Stellaris' oversimplification of the "home world" concept (and anyone can correct me if I am wrong... I am new to modding Stellaris and am only really familiar with the planet and galaxy building parts of modding).

The problem is that Stellaris designed "homeworlds" so that they could be used by all species and treated as a supeficial, easily interchangeable feature. This was a STUPID mistake on their part for several reasons. For one, it is completely unrealistic. An oceanic species (or plantoid, or fungoid species for that matter) should NOT be able to easily inhabit a desert or tundra world. Yet any ocean species (mollucoid) can make a desert world their native location. This entire approach has made realism on the part of habitability and species a complete nuisance. Introducing new environments where a species prefers a new type of chemical environment makes this more realistically interchangeable in some ways, but also much more complicated in others. I am not certain that the oversimplified nature of a home environment as far as Stellaris is concerned is going allow this to be feasible (in any way that makes sense).

 

[Velho e Bom Joe]

Indeed, vanilla Stellaris planets kinda wasted the science-fiction possibilities, the idea of truly alien worlds. I mean, what is the difference between a Gaia and Continental world?

My initial idea is to just replace the current planets with those alien worlds, and make habitability of planets other than your chosen one 0% or something really low. That would make you REALLY value your (or well, your neighbour's, if they are similar) planets, which is an interesting prospect. It does make things harder for Xenophile civilizations, though, So perhaps I could include a technology and building that raises habitability on a planet by, say 60%, representing domed cities or something like that -- thus allowing aliens to live on your planets.

I would probably maintain Gaia worlds, but justify it on grounds of "precursor-ultra-advanced-tech-almost-magic", that changes itself to its denizens. It is an interesting gameplay concept, especially if planets are rare commodities and/or your civilization is xenophile.

The other alternative would be to create an habitability axis like current game, but translated to a more scientific flavour. But as you said, It's complicated. You can see I have some planet types (water, ammonia, methane, sulphur, silicon), but where to put them in a grid, and say "Water species can kinda live on ammonia worlds because reasons"? Maybe something could be done with pressure/temperature/thalassogen/biochemistry. The Sulphur-world guys will probably have some difficulties on attracting xenos though

I've found this and this interesting sources.


Your mod does sound very interesting. I can't help much beyond making textures for (habitable, at the moment) planets, though. But I intend to release my mod with open permissions, so you will be free to use my textures

 

[Velho e Bom Joe]

I just need to replace the Savanna and Ocean worlds.
I've just changed the cosmetic side, still have to deal with localization and gameplay.
Also, change the atmosphere and cloud cover.

Here's a water world.


For the scientifically inclined, here are the Planet types I'm planning to do, many based off the table at the end of this section, as well as this table.I still have to create a more standardized nomenclature.
Water: well, Earth-like. We live in one.
Ammonia: Oceans of ammonia, undecided on atmosphere composition. I've seen conflicting opinions on wether it would be deep blue (ammonia alone would be like that), or brown (I've seen another artist concept that made it so, due to some deal with metals that I can't remember). I decided on making it brown, as it looked more unique.
Sulphur: oceans of liquid sulphur, sulphur dioxide atmosphere. yellow-red oceans, very hot.
Methane: Methane oceans, some sort of carbon atmosphere. very dark planet, and very cold.
Chlorine: Cl2 Oceans, HCl atmosphere. Lacking much in the way of reference, I've made it kinda greenish. Cold planet.
Hydrofluoric Acid: Now that's metal. Oceans of of Hydrogen Fluoride (If I understood right, Hydrofluoric Acid is what you call it when mixed with water), with Fluorine atmosphere. I've made it a pale yellow-green. Again, not scientifically based (beyond seeing "Oh, Fluorine is yellowish!"). cold planet, too.
Silicon: I've made this one quite some time ago, so I can't really remember what source I followed (If any). oceans of molten Silicons stuff, Very, very hot. Ocean is orange, I'll see If I can make it glow(Oh it would be so beautiful if I could).

There's still room for two more planet types. Preferentially Unique ones and not variations of the current ones. From the Xenology book these two sound interesting:
the one involving bromide (ignoring rarity issues -- or perhaps even embracing them for more asymmetrical gameplay?)
and the one with Hydrogen Cyanide.

 

[Velho e Bom Joe]

@primem0ver , Is it possible to change the probability of planet spawning depending on its type? It would make more sense to have the Sulfur planets spawn really near their stars, while Methane ones spawning in more distant places.

 

[primem0ver]

The other alternative would be to create an habitability axis like current game, but translated to a more scientific flavour. But as you said, It's complicated. You can see I have some planet types (water, ammonia, methane, sulphur, silicon), but where to put them in a grid, and say "Water species can kinda live on ammonia worlds because reasons"? Maybe something could be done with pressure/temperature/thalassogen/biochemistry. The Sulphur-world guys will probably have some difficulties on attracting xenos though

@primem0ver , Is it possible to change the probability of planet spawning depending on its type? It would make more sense to have the Sulfur planets spawn really near their stars, while Methane ones spawning in more distant places.

With my mod this is possible because of the utility I built to create the initializers. You could do it with the vanilla game as well but it wouldn't be quite as easy. My mod already does what you suggest... though I haven't quite put it in those terms. Hot greenhouse are usually sulfur based and those are located in the "hot/very warm" region in my utility that generates scripts to place worlds. Methane on the other hand would be very cold and have a low chance of appearance because most of the time they show up around gas giants that are fairly distant from their suns OR on carbon planets that only show up around planets whose suns are almost dead.

Ammonia based worlds are covered by my "toxic" worlds (which are modified to be more specific in my mod). Toxic worlds are more general than ammonia and are found in warm to cool regions. However, I could adapt the toxic worlds to be more specific. Ammonia based "toxic" worlds would need to be located on the cooler end because ammonia is very volatile (evaporates quickly) at room temperature and pure ammonia has both a metling point of -77 degrees C and a boiling point of -33.4 degrees C. This would mean that an ammonia based life form would have a significantly narrower habitable zone around its star than life on water based worlds.

Indeed, vanilla Stellaris planets kinda wasted the science-fiction possibilities, the idea of truly alien worlds. I mean, what is the difference between a Gaia and Continental world

Honestly, I think the main difference is that a Gaia planet is more ecologically mature, partially taking advantage of GMO in order to make lifeforms that are more efficient and take care of some of our modern concerns such as waste products. However, I think the Stellaris concept of Gaia is complelely flawed given their wide selection of starting environment types (and would be even more flawed in your mod). As I say on my mod intro... one species' heaven is another's hell.

My initial idea is to just replace the current planets with those alien worlds, and make habitability of planets other than your chosen one 0% or something really low. That would make you REALLY value your (or well, your neighbour's, if they are similar) planets, which is an interesting prospect. It does make things harder for Xenophile civilizations, though, So perhaps I could include a technology and building that raises habitability on a planet by, say 60%, representing domed cities or something like that -- thus allowing aliens to live on your planets.

My orgiinal ideas were rather different. I am of the opinion that life-capable planets are fairly commonplace (even if it is on a minority of stars... which is why my mod focuses on "stars of interest"). However, that doesn't always mean that life develops on them. My approach to a mod similar to yours would have been to add more diviersity in the kinds of planets an alien species could inhabit (similar to yours but for a different reason). Many people hated Master of Orion 3... which I understand but in their hate they blinded themselves to some of the things that MOO3 got right...so the space 4X games have largely ignored these amazing innovations. One of them was this diversity. One REALLY fun thing about MOO3 (in spite of its many flaws) was that species no longer always competed for the same worlds... because they were not always interested in the same kinds of planets. Xenophiles (myself included) would LOVE this kind of enviornment because it means that several different intelligent species could co-exist in the same system peacefully without competing for real-estate (though natural resources could still become a point of conflict). This was the approach I wanted to use in my original plans for a Stellaris mod. However, the mentality behind the modding capabilities of Stellaris make this very difficult to do realistically. So I focused on things I could improve.

I've found this and this interesting sources.

I will have to check these out in more detail later. Right now I have too much to work on

Your mod does sound very interesting. I can't help much beyond making textures for (habitable, at the moment) planets, though. But I intend to release my mod with open permissions, so you will be free to use my textures

Well when I say join forces... I meant that we could merge our ideas... but that may not be as inviting to you as I first thought since you seem to have a different opinion regarding the frequency of habitable worlds. However.... your ability to create skins is something I very much need. I have found plenty of resources for non-habitable worlds but I also have a large amount of "greenhouse" world types and finding appropriate skins for both these and habitable worlds has been somewhat difficult.

 

[OneiricRose]

I am glad to see some people bring this up as this easily my greatest disappointment with Stellaris (I still love the game as it is but that is its main flaw).

 

[primem0ver]

Here's a water world.

Nice job! That is amazing. Would you be able to turn the green continents brown? I need another graphic for my "Ocean greenhouse" world.

 

[primem0ver]

I mentioned my "utility" a few times above.

Hot greenhouse are usually sulfur based and those are located in the "hot/very warm" region in my utility that generates scripts to place worlds.

I created this thread a while back that explains what it does and how it works.

 

[Velho e Bom Joe]

With my mod this is possible because of the utility I built to create the initializers. You could do it with the vanilla game as well but it wouldn't be quite as easy. My mod already does what you suggest... though I haven't quite put it in those terms. Hot greenhouse are usually sulfur based and those are located in the "hot/very warm" region in my utility that generates scripts to place worlds. Methane on the other hand would be very cold and have a low chance of appearance because most of the time they show up around gas giants that are fairly distant from their suns OR on carbon planets that only show up around planets whose suns are almost dead.

Ammonia based worlds are covered by my "toxic" worlds (which are modified to be more specific in my mod). Toxic worlds are more general than ammonia and are found in warm to cool regions. However, I could adapt the toxic worlds to be more specific. Ammonia based "toxic" worlds would need to be located on the cooler end because ammonia is very volatile (evaporates quickly) at room temperature and pure ammonia has both a metling point of -77 degrees C and a boiling point of -33.4 degrees C. This would mean that an ammonia based life form would have a significantly narrower habitable zone around its star than life on water based worlds.

Oh, that's nice!
And yes, Ammonia worlds are kinda hard due to the narrow temperature range (though maybe at different pressures it could be more feasible?). Ammonia of all my planet types are actually the most plausible, I think, comparing to, say, the HCl or HBr worlds

I'm kinda being generous on the question of rarity. But, were I to embrace that as having an effect in-game, that could certainly make an interesting asymmetrical gameplay, as living on a rare Bromine-based world would make expansion a challenge, but if there are trade-offs, it could be nice.
I mean, my Methane worlds are supposed to be quite Carbon-rich, so maybe they could have Mineral advantages, but the frigid temperatures might make slower metabolism, with other effects.

My orgiinal ideas were rather different. I am of the opinion that life-capable planets are fairly commonplace (even if it is on a minority of stars... which is why my mod focuses on "stars of interest"). However, that doesn't always mean that life develops on them. My approach to a mod similar to yours would have been to add more diviersity in the kinds of planets an alien species could inhabit (similar to yours but for a different reason). Many people hated Master of Orion 3... which I understand but in their hate they blinded themselves to some of the things that MOO3 got right...so the space 4X games have largely ignored these amazing innovations. One of them was this diversity. One REALLY fun thing about MOO3 (in spite of its many flaws) was that species no longer always competed for the same worlds... because they were not always interested in the same kinds of planets. Xenophiles (myself included) would LOVE this kind of enviornment because it means that several different intelligent species could co-exist in the same system peacefully without competing for real-estate (though natural resources could still become a point of conflict). This was the approach I wanted to use in my original plans for a Stellaris mod. However, the mentality behind the modding capabilities of Stellaris make this very difficult to do realistically. So I focused on things I could improve.

I think I may have phrased things wrongly, but this kind of thing (world exclusivity) is something I would like. Humans wouldn't care for the Chlorine worlds of the Starfish-People, and the Starfish-People wouldn't care for those toxic, hot and disgustingly blue H2O worlds. Humans would have 100% habitability on Water worlds, but 0% on any other.

Though in my opinion Xenophiles would love to have multicultural worlds with species regularly interacting with others, so having some way to bring the Starfish-aliens on Earth would be needed for Xenophile humans, thus my domed cities/arcologies idea. BUT, thinking of it now, it does make Ringworlds (and habitats? I haven't played with them) VERY attractive to them, so maybe it would not be needed -- It would create an incentive for Xenophiles to create Multicultural Utopic Ringworlds. For them, Ringworlds would be their Ascension.

Genetics would need to be redone though. You can't simply make a Human, a carbon-based creature breathe sulfur dioxide and survive temperatures 100ºc or more higher than they evolved to, just by juggling some genes around.

Honestly, I think the main difference is that a Gaia planet is more ecologically mature, partially taking advantage of GMO in order to make lifeforms that are more efficient and take care of some of our modern concerns such as waste products. However, I think the Stellaris concept of Gaia is complelely flawed given their wide selection of starting environment types (and would be even more flawed in your mod). As I say on my mod intro... one species' heaven is another's hell.

I would be willing to give them a chance, as they would serve an interesting gameplay function:
-Multicultural worlds for Xenophiles who don't (or will not) have Ringworlds;
-Worlds valuable to any species, thus making them hotly contested planets.

They certainly don't make much sense in the way of science, yes, but neither does the Extradimesional horror or psionics for that matter. I dunno, maybe Gaia worlds have intelligent, self-changing biomes separated by wall on higher dimensions or other such oddity?
I also like that soft sci-fi side of Stellaris, it makes the galaxy feel more "ancient and full of wonders", as is the game's main concept.
And for that matter, that's why I don't like the current planets. A Sulfurous planet with its unique ocean colours is way more wonderful than a giant, spherical, glorified Sahara.

Nice job! That is amazing. Would you be able to turn the green continents brown? I need another graphic for my "Ocean greenhouse" world.

Yup, it's certainly possible. I'll do it later. If you have other variations, do tell, and I'll send the textures. You will need to convert them to .dds with Gimp or Photoshop (or something else I don't know) though, as my planet generator can't output in .dds.

 

[Velho e Bom Joe]

I am glad to see some people bring this up as this easily my greatest disappointment with Stellaris (I still love the game as it is but that is its main flaw).

Thanks! Indeed, I was pretty disappointed with that design decision.
They probably thought that the average player would find the differences between water, ammonia or silicon worlds something quite esoteric. It's a missed opportunity to generate interest on such things however, even if it ended up not truly 100% scientifically correct. I learned much of Medieval History from Crusader Kings II, so games are an excellent medium to introduce advanced stuff without being "boring".

 

[primem0ver]

Oh, that's nice!
And yes, Ammonia worlds are kinda hard due to the narrow temperature range (though maybe at different pressures it could be more feasible?). Ammonia of all my planet types are actually the most plausible, I think, comparing to, say, the HCl or HBr worlds

LOL. Yeah.. those latter environments would be rather bad for intelligent life. Not sure how that could happen.

They certainly don't make much sense in the way of science, yes, but neither does the Extradimesional horror or psionics for that matter. I dunno, maybe Gaia worlds have intelligent, self-changing biomes separated by wall on higher dimensions or other such oddity?
I also like that soft sci-fi side of Stellaris, it makes the galaxy feel more "ancient and full of wonders", as is the game's main concept.

Personally, I am convinced that our modern brand of science does not explain everything in our experience. In addition, there is now scientific evidence this is so on two different fronts of physics (if you accept a quantum physics explanation of gravity where gravity is a fundamental force and not just the result of warped space). The concept of dark matter suggests that there are forces that are part our universe/reality that are not accessible through ordinary matter. So who knows... maybe something like psionics is possible (though I would agree in regard to the "extradimensional horror"). The other new theory that suggests this is information theory/holographic principle. Both of these theories result from unusual observations that have been made regarding matter and energy in the universe (though I was convinced of this even before I knew about these theories).