World Shaper is now useless/harmful, as Terraforming to Gaia Permanently Destroys Planetary Features

[WhapXI]

EDIT_MOD_SUCCESS_01 = { I have created a mod to patch this bug, at least until a proper fix can be created by the devs! Link to the thread in the mod forum! }

This is probably a bug so here's a PSA about it. Terraforming.

From what I can gather, planetary features can give +1/+2/+3 resource gathering district slots, or +1/+2 rare resource deposits.

When terraformed, all of these features and the districts built upon them carry over, but the flavour changes. The hot springs (+1 generator district) on an Arctic world become an arid highland (also +1 gen) for a Desert world. Most planets will be made up of numerous +1 district features, a handful of +2 district features, and maybe one or two +3 district features.

When Gaia worlds generate they don't (appear to) generate with any +1 district features. Only +2s and +3s. This certainly makes them powerful worlds. Unfortunately this also means that they physically cannot have some +1 district features at all. This has some fairly tragic consequences when terraforming your planets.

When you terraform a non-Gaia world into a Gaia world, some planetary features providing +1 district will be immediately and permanently destroyed. Districts will be demolished if this puts you under the new lower cap.

I've just ruined a game because I simulatenously terraformed my most powerful resource worlds into Gaias with the aim of that sweet resource output boost, but instead most of my workers are now unemployed and those planets are permanently ruined. You cannot reterraform a Gaia world once it's become a Gaia world, for some reason, and even if you could I don't imagine those destroyed features would return.

But don't take my word for it! Here's an example!

Find here the Continental world of Deteenal II. Its features are as follows.

• Dust Caverns, giving +1 Motes
• 3x Hot Springs, giving +1 Generator Districts each
• Toxic Kelp blocking a Rushing Waterfall, which would otherwise give +2 Generator Districts.
• 2x Ore-Veined Cliffs, giving +1 Mining Districts each
• Prosperous Mesas, giving +2 Mining Districts
• Dense Jungle blocking a second Properous Mesas, which would give +2 Mining Districts.
  
• 2x Rugged Woods which give +1 Farm Districts each
  
• Fertile Lands which gives +2 Farm Districts

In total, five generators, two of which are blocked, six mines, two of which are blocked, and four farms.

Now let's terraform it to a Gaia world.

Compared to the above:

• Dust Caverns, giving +1 Motes
• 3x Hot Springs, giving +1 Generator Districts each have gone
• Toxic Kelp has gone unblocking the Frozen Gas Lake formerly the Rushing Waterfall, giving +2 Generator Districts.
• 2x Ore-Veined Cliffs, giving +1 Mining Districts each have gone
• Prosperous Mesas, giving +2 Mining Districts
• Dense Jungle has gone unblocking the second Properous Mesas, giving +2 Mining Districts.
  
• 2x Rugged Woods which give +1 Farm Districts each have remained
  
• Fertile Lands which gives +2 Farm Districts

The tile blockers clear as they should and presumably the farming district features are universal, but the generator and mining district features likely have no Gaia world counterpart, and as such are destroyed. Note the terraform button is now greyed out, and this world is stuck like this.

I'm assuming this is an oversight. Gaia worlds were stated by Wiz to have been buffed, but as it stands they can only reliably be quite good agri-worlds. If this is intentional then this is a huge nerf to World Shaper. In unintentional, then it's currently broken, and you should avoid it.

 

[Nirmara]

Seem's like an oversight. You should report it in the bug report section. It shouldn't be hard to fix so hopefully it will make it in the beta before the vacations.

Thanks for the warning.

 

[Longprao]

Seems like a bug, I love World shaper (although I think it is mostly for coolness rather than much worthwhile), hope they will fix this.

 

[WhapXI]

Seem's like an oversight. You should report it in the bug report section. It shouldn't be hard to fix so hopefully it will make it in the beta before the vacations.

Thanks for the warning.

No problem. Reported as a bug. I’m like 99% sure this isn’t working as intended, but it could be some misguided attempt to make Gaias into a more agri playstyle.

 

[Highmongrel]

Actually managed to completely destroy my economy doing this as well. Was making so much money I thought, why not convert my agri world and mine world into gaia worlds. Agri world lost 5 possible farming districts, and all built ones were destroyed flipping my food output from +15 to -220 and minerals had a similar result. Managed to ride it out due to producing a good amount of rare resources to sell, but crippled me for a long time.

Thanks for showing how it worked though

 

[stumason]

In previous versions, terraforming always cleared any planetary special tiles, didn't it?

 

[henzington]

In previous versions, terraforming always cleared any planetary special tiles, didn't it?

Blockers not tile deposits except machine world which removed all food deposits

 

[stumason]

Blockers not tile deposits except machine world which removed all food deposits

I think there's the problem then, for all intents and purposes, these are "blockers" and "special tiles", not deposits.

 

[WhapXI]

I think there's the problem then, for all intents and purposes, these are "blockers" and "special tiles", not deposits.

I'm afraid not.

I'm looking at the code and surmised as follows.

Deposits can only exist on planets that they're allowed to generate on, if that makes sense.

For example, d_arid_highlands has the following:

    terraforming_swap_types = {
       d_hot_springs
   }

    planet_modifier = {
       district_generator_max = 1
   }

    potential = {
       is_dry = yes  
   }

and d_hot_springs has:

    terraforming_swap_types = {
       d_arid_highlands
   }  
  
   planet_modifier = {
       district_generator_max = 1
   }
  
   potential = {
       OR = {
           is_cold = yes
           is_wet = yes
           is_planet_class = pc_nuked
       }  
   }

This means that hot springs can only exist on dry planets, and arid highlands can only exist on wet, cold, or tomb planets, but these two deposits are set up to swap between one another when you terraform.

Note that none has is_planet_class = pc_gaia. This means that these deposits literally cannot exist on any world that isn't cold, dry, wet, or tomb. This makes sense when terraforming to pc_city and pc_machine because you want the deposits to be destroyed, but it doesn't make sense to lack this for gaia.

The solution is simple. Add is_planet_class = pc_gaia and also add

       modifier = {
           factor = 0
           is_planet_class = pc_gaia
       }

to the drop_weight, so that these deposits don't spawn on naturally spawning gaia worlds.

I've whipped up a mod to do this. Having intense difficulty actually getting it to load though. For some reason it isn't overwriting the 01_planetary_deposits.

If I manage to get it to work I'll happily upload it until a proper fix can be patched in.

 

[stumason]

Fair enough! Makes sense now

 

[Zaras]

Either this is a bug or the developers haven't thought this through. It makes the world shaper perk and the life seeded civic much less useful. It this is intentional, at least put it in the tool tip, that Gaia Worlds have less resources.

 

[WhapXI]

life seeded civic

I think Life Seeded is still working fine (if you're doing a one-planet challenge) because the home planet is scripted to spawn with a shitton of deposits and resources anyways. If you actually want to terraform and colonise as a Life Seeded empire then you're out of luck.

 

[Bobylein]

I tried Life-seeded and got around 6 mining and generator districts, not something I would call a shitton.

On the other hand, I found in one game an AI empire which had Life-Seeded but its capital planet was an arid world size 25 with all three district types fully maxed out plus special resources

 

[MK1980]

they should add the missing +1 features to the gaia world definition or convert the +1 features into existing +2 features to make the gaiaforming more of an actual bonus and not just a 1 to 1 conversion.

 

[VI Imre]

It is ridiculous when you convert deserts into fertile green fields -- fields that can bear the fruits of your home planet -- you get to produce less food.
My suggestion is that the developers add basic "card package" for all planet types which include different amounts of energy and food features, for example a 16 sized Continental planet would have a base 5 food and 3 energy (large fertile fields) production while a similar sized desert would get 5 energy and 3 food (large deserts for possible solar power plants) production districts. Mineral deposits shouldn't change upon terraformation, you change the surface and not the crust of the planet.

In conclusion terraformation in general is not olny ridiculous at the moment but destructive in the long run. And Gaia formation is completely useless.

 

[dezzmont]

It is ridiculous when you convert deserts into fertile green fields -- fields that can bear the fruits of your home planet -- you get to produce less food.
My suggestion is that the developers add basic "card package" for all planet types which include different amounts of energy and food features, for example a 16 sized Continental planet would have a base 5 food and 3 energy (large fertile fields) production while a similar sized desert would get 5 energy and 3 food (large deserts for possible solar power plants) production districts. Mineral deposits shouldn't change upon terraformation, you change the surface and not the crust of the planet.

While I agree Gaia worlds, defined by their ability to house any sort of life from any biome more perfectly than alien versions of that same biome, shouldn't lose food tiles, it wouldn't be fun at all if different planet types produced different resource mixes by default.

 

[SteelCrow]

This hasn't been a major problem for me because the 3 planets I terraformed into Gaia were either <13 planet size or I was going to turn into a Resort World anyway (a redundant decision, I know, but aesthetics yo).

But it's not cool. Or hot. It's just bad. Thanks for enlightening me on why this is happening.

 

[RyanDA]

I'm afraid not.

I'm looking at the code and surmised as follows.

Deposits can only exist on planets that they're allowed to generate on, if that makes sense.

For example, d_arid_highlands has the following:

    terraforming_swap_types = {
       d_hot_springs
   }

    planet_modifier = {
       district_generator_max = 1
   }

    potential = {
       is_dry = yes 
   }

and d_hot_springs has:

    terraforming_swap_types = {
       d_arid_highlands
   } 
 
   planet_modifier = {
       district_generator_max = 1
   }
 
   potential = {
       OR = {
           is_cold = yes
           is_wet = yes
           is_planet_class = pc_nuked
       } 
   }

This means that hot springs can only exist on dry planets, and arid highlands can only exist on wet, cold, or tomb planets, but these two deposits are set up to swap between one another when you terraform.

Note that none has is_planet_class = pc_gaia. This means that these deposits literally cannot exist on any world that isn't cold, dry, wet, or tomb. This makes sense when terraforming to pc_city and pc_machine because you want the deposits to be destroyed, but it doesn't make sense to lack this for gaia.

The solution is simple. Add is_planet_class = pc_gaia and also add

       modifier = {
           factor = 0
           is_planet_class = pc_gaia
       }

to the drop_weight, so that these deposits don't spawn on naturally spawning gaia worlds.

I've whipped up a mod to do this. Having intense difficulty actually getting it to load though. For some reason it isn't overwriting the 01_planetary_deposits.

If I manage to get it to work I'll happily upload it until a proper fix can be patched in.

\

The solution should be that when you terraform to gaia, it will change the planetary deposits to the gaia type ones, but always ensure that it keeps at least the same distrubution as a minimum.

 

[glee8e]

This means that these deposits literally cannot exist on any world that isn't cold, dry, wet, or tomb.

This doesn't look too mod friendly when adding additional planet types.

 

[Astax]

Well. I hate losing specials I added to a planet when turni gn it into hiverworld. Though I guess it's not as bad as what happened to you.