Species planets preferences

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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LienRag
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Species planets preferences

#1 Post by LienRag »

To help fine-tune Stability on different planets (which I believe adds diversity to the game, and if it adds some management, it's not micro-management as it doesn't need to be repeated often), maybe we should have Species like and dislikes Planet environment differently ?
I mean, Humans would probably have the same difficulties and abilities to settle Desert and Ocean planets, but would certainly prefer to live on Ocean ones : where one can fish, spearfish, swim, dive, waterski and whatever.

So I'd say for Humans :
Terran : +3 Stability
Ocean : + 2 Stability
Swamp : - 2 Stability
Toxic : -3 Stability
Inferno : -1 Stability
Radiated : - 3 Stability
Barren : - 1 Stability
Tundra : + 0 Stability
Desert : + 1 Stability

Since it's fluff-oriented, we can have that for each Species.

Either, we can just have Humans like Terran and Ocean Planets and Dislike Toxic and Radiated ones, that may be simpler ?

Obviously that should not affect Human colonies outside of the planet that is liked or disliked (the inhabitants of earth don't care than Venus is toxic nor Mercure radiated).

wobbly
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Re: Species planets preferences

#2 Post by wobbly »

I don't see a good reason to overcomplicate things. If environment is going to modify stability it's less confusing if it follows the existing: good, adequate, poor, hostile.

I also think if the game goes this route that the stabillity penalty should be reduced by the relevant growth techs.

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Re: Species planets preferences

#3 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:49 am I don't see a good reason to overcomplicate things. If environment is going to modify stability it's less confusing if it follows the existing: good, adequate, poor, hostile.
how about good +1, adequate +0, poor -1, hostile -2
wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:49 am I also think if the game goes this route that the stabillity penalty should be reduced by the relevant growth techs.
simplest thing there would be taking the same steps as with environment.

good +3, adequate +0, poor -2, hostile -4
as a rule of thumb every time you improve pop max (size*step) you also improve stability (step).

there may be techs where this does not happen. e.g. fluff wise those which allow simply more people on the planet subterrean, Orbital Hab, N-dimensional,
that mainly leaves (planetary eco&symbiotic bio), Xeno_Genetics, Xeno_Hybrids, Cyborgs and Gaia (3)
bringing it up up to

good +3 (+6 with gaia), adequate +2, poor +2, hostile +2
(steps for techs in the wiki EffectsGroup_Priority_Standard_Values )

growth focus could actually decrease stability.

another idea: give a stability boost as long as growth does not decrease (that is about half the max pop).
pop growth has currently always the same curve (just multiplied by max pop) no matter what planet.
So e.g. +3 stability until you reach half-max-pop, then let it decrease slowly +2 +1 +0 when getting closer to max pop.
this is simple to implement, and gives feedback about where you are in the growth curve but this is bit redundant with bootstrapping. There should be a way to regain that stability (e.g. megalopolis)
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LienRag
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Re: Species planets preferences

#4 Post by LienRag »

wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:49 am I also think if the game goes this route that the stability penalty should be reduced by the relevant growth techs.
I expressly designed my proposal so that it separates habitability and desirability.
So no, growth techs should not reduce the stability penalty (except maybe for some whose fluff would justify it).
Basically, it means that if you want to rely on good stability, your range of planets is more limited; if you want more planets then you use the growth tech to boost habitability, but then you'll have to do with lower stability and find a way to manage that.

Two different strategies, so more game diversity.
wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:49 am I don't see a good reason to overcomplicate things. If environment is going to modify stability it's less confusing if it follows the existing: good, adequate, poor, hostile.
I see a good reason, but maybe it's not worth it, I'm not entirely certain.
The good reason is to add diversity in the Stability of planets, so Policies/buildings consequences towards Stability are less black-and-white.
If you adopt a Policy that one Species doesn't like, it won't put ALL your planets of that Species below whatever threshold is important at that period of the game, but only a subset of them.
Also, if you know that you'll adopt a Policy they don't like, or build a building they don't like, you may choose to not colonize certain types of planets (without being reduced to only Good ones).
Overall, more strategic finesse - an important goal for the game.

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Oberlus
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Re: Species planets preferences

#5 Post by Oberlus »

What about this:

- Base stability malus based on environment tolerance: 2, 0, -2, -4
This is enough to achieve what LienRag says in above comment.

- Species trait Intrepid/Adventurous gives better stability in harsh environments: +0, +1, +2, +3 (totals 2, 1, 0, -1).
Makes species better for multi-environment strategies, barely useful early game but interesting later. I would not put any malus to compensate.
I don't think we need an opposite trait to give extra maluses to other environments, but it could be named Environmental Susceptibility or something like that (homebody sounds lame, cautious is too general).

I would not link environment resistance techs to environment stability malus because one thing that needs to be encouraged (viable) is terraformation, and the stability gain is a good perk for it. But maybe one or two of those techs could give a small bonus. Xeno Hybrids could give +1 stability to poor and +2 to hostile. Together with Intrepid trait it would make for a base stability of 2, 1, 1, 1; or 2, 0, -1, -2 without the trait.

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Re: Species planets preferences

#6 Post by wobbly »

LienRag wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 11:25 am
wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:49 am I don't see a good reason to overcomplicate things. If environment is going to modify stability it's less confusing if it follows the existing: good, adequate, poor, hostile.
I see a good reason, but maybe it's not worth it, I'm not entirely certain.
It's an extra set of planets to memorize for each species. Complications for the sake of complications. I'd refer you to Thinksomes's complaints about needing to memorize an encyclopedia to play FO but I can't seem to find them, maybe it was in chat.
Oberlus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 12:32 pm What about this:

- Base stability malus based on environment tolerance: 2, 0, -2, -4
This is enough to achieve what LienRag says in above comment.

- Species trait Intrepid/Adventurous gives better stability in harsh environments: +0, +1, +2, +3 (totals 2, 1, 0, -1).
Makes species better for multi-environment strategies, barely useful early game but interesting later. I would not put any malus to compensate.
I don't think we need an opposite trait to give extra maluses to other environments, but it could be named Environmental Susceptibility or something like that (homebody sounds lame, cautious is too general).

I would not link environment resistance techs to environment stability malus because one thing that needs to be encouraged (viable) is terraformation, and the stability gain is a good perk for it. But maybe one or two of those techs could give a small bonus. Xeno Hybrids could give +1 stability to poor and +2 to hostile. Together with Intrepid trait it would make for a base stability of 2, 1, 1, 1; or 2, 0, -1, -2 without the trait.
yeah that might be ok. I was mostly just worried about bad planet starts being punished even more.

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Re: Species planets preferences

#7 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 1:54 pm I don't see a good reason to overcomplicate things. ....
It's an extra set of planets to memorize for each species.
+1
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LienRag
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Re: Species planets preferences

#8 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 12:32 pm What about this:

- Base stability malus based on environment tolerance: 2, 0, -2, -4
This is enough to achieve what LienRag says in above comment.
It is not, but it's an acceptable compromise.
And it's true that having more peculiarities to learn is in the range of "needing an Encyclopedia to play FreeOrion" so maybe having a compromise is necessary (though we do have a Pedia).

Note though that liking Planet Environment is more intuitive than liking Policies or Buildings (Abbadoni can like Deserts, Barren and Radiated because there are caves in them, and dislike Swamps and Oceans because all caves are immediately filled with water).

Also we don't have to have all Species like and dislike environments, and we can make only those whose fluff make it intuitive have those preferences.

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