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Incidentally it does sound like if pops no longer affect tech costs then Habitats are going to be even better for science and make the research array look worse by comparison. Edit: Numbers tweaking is of course something that will happen a lot before release so that's not exactly something to get terribly excited over. It does make me think of what potential implications there are Re: Habitat effectiveness with this system though. Magil Zeal fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Dec 7, 2017 |
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Dec 7, 2017 20:20
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ulmont posted:That's very definitely in play. I have never gotten all of my traditions unlocked before the Crisis in any playthroughs. Speaking of the one-planet strategy... Slashrat posted:Even though Wiz states in the DD that the intent isn't to invalidate tall empire strategies, I don't see how how the change to how research/unity costs are calculated wouldn't. Tall empires still need comparative mineral/energy income in order to compete, and the only source they will have left for that after the change are tributaries. Rapid tech/policy advancement isn't very useful when the cost of the buildings/ships they unlock outpace the vertical development of mineral and income sources that they enable. Frankly I think the change to unity/tech costs is absolutely necessary with the move to claiming systems one by one instead of border pressure from planets/outposts. Without needing a specialized build for the frontier outpost upkeep, it will probably even easier to keep claiming systems instead of colonizing. And you'll be able to conquer even more uninhabited systems. And the current main disadvantage of the one.planet strategy - only having one space port - will be eliminated. It would probably become a degenerate strategy in Cherryh without this change. Also, I'm not convinced colonizing would have helped you stay on schedule mineral-wise. Spending 500 minerals on a colony ships, several hundred energy in maintenance for that ship/the colonization process, 100 (or is it 200?) on monument to keep up tradition gain rate, 350 for the planetary administration, then 60 minerals for every tier I building would take a good while to pay itself back early game. Remember that (without any modifiers) e.g. a mine built on a 1-mineral tile gives you 3 base minerals, but costs you 1 energy in upkeep, 1 food/energy for the pop, and a bit above 0.5 minerals for consumer goods for the pop. So without any modifiers, with organic pops a set of 1 power plant, 1 farm, and 1 mine all built on +1 tiles has a net production of 1 energy, 0 food, and 1.5 minerals. That's not really great, considering you paid 180 minerals for those buildings, and probably colonized the planet for the privilege. Later on you'll get a bunch of modifiers that will make buildings /pops far more profitable, but they're pretty low-margin early game. And for non-power plants, upgrading to level II costs you 90 minerals for +1 something -0.5 energy, which isn't a great return on investment without getting modifiers on that +1 something. A typical mining station is either 90 minerals for +2 minerals -1 energy or just +2 energy, after all. (Of course, you'll probably have a few non-blocked tiles with +2 on each planet, which helps. And you can get trait/civic boosts to at least some outputs even in the early game. But planets are still a long-term investment.)
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Dec 7, 2017 20:30
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Really don't understand the penalising wide strategies to make tall strategies viable in 4X and grand strategy obsession some people have. Just expand as much as you can and then smack people down to expand into their land as needed is the default best strategy period because it's how the game works at its core. The core systems are where you get resources based on the land you control and the ability to get more land. So the main strategy is get more land to get more resources so you can get more land so you can get more resources until you've taken all the land or gotten strong enough to smash everyone/make them surrender/fulfil the victory condition/gotten bored. You can't change this without changing or expanding the core systems. All you do otherwise is make it really annoying having to figure out the optimal amount of land to take based on whatever formula is being applied to the penalty for playing in what would otherwise be the right way. The only natural way to make tall viable is to make it so you have high expense advantages you can't afford at the same time as spending on expansion. That way you're giving players a different way to expand by expanding upward instead of outward. Instead of essentially trying to balance expansion against sitting on your rear end and not expanding. Tech is one way to do this but of course Stellaris doesn't allow you to do this because, like every other game that didn't address building tall until after the systems were in, research is based on resources you gain through getting more land so expanding also increases tech. You also can't build up via buildings because the building tree is super shallow until you research it through tech points so you literally can't build tall until you bring in enough tech points that you get through land. So your options are expand to get more resources or... sit on your rear end. That's it. So if you want tall strategies to work under this system you need to penalise wide strategies until they're functionally as powerful as doing nothing. Why do it? It's dumb on the face of it. You you want going tall to be viable? Then make the game such that you can actually build tall. Put in ways to invest in your one/few planets that cost too much to do it at the same time as going wide. Don't just make a go wide game and then poo poo on going wide until it's balanced with not going wide.
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Dec 7, 2017 20:36
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Super useful if you use a bunch o' mods like me. https://github.com/WojciechKrysiak/SCModManager
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Dec 7, 2017 20:50
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Futuresight posted:Really don't understand the penalising wide strategies to make tall strategies viable in 4X and grand strategy obsession some people have. Just expand as much as you can and then smack people down to expand into their land as needed is the default best strategy period because it's how the game works at its core. The core systems are where you get resources based on the land you control and the ability to get more land. So the main strategy is get more land to get more resources so you can get more land so you can get more resources until you've taken all the land or gotten strong enough to smash everyone/make them surrender/fulfil the victory condition/gotten bored. You can't change this without changing or expanding the core systems. All you do otherwise is make it really annoying having to figure out the optimal amount of land to take based on whatever formula is being applied to the penalty for playing in what would otherwise be the right way. Especially given the new movement options I think that you really don't need any sort of motivation to make tall a desirable possiblity. You've already got ample motivation to build up a few systems because you can then defend them all and travel between them easier. And you can just spam habitats all over if you want to.
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Dec 7, 2017 20:54
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Stellaris doesn't seem like it's pushing to make tall empires more viable, rather it's trying to address the unsatisfying narrative issues 4X games tend to have. You have an exciting struggle at first, and then you've won or lost and there's a long, long slog to the finish. That's not a particularly fun pattern, but it's the most pure and natural way for one of these games to play out. Seems like Stellaris is trying to strike a balance between making your progress meaningful and also making it so you are still challenged even after conquering your neighbor, and alternately still somewhat competitive if one of your neighbors conquers another. It's as simple as trying to make the game more even and challenging for longer, without making progress feel bad. Seems like they're doing an okay job. Maybe it's going to make the pure curbstomp you think you deserve with your massive empire more difficult, but putting some mild breaks on a snowball is a shortsighted thing to complain about. Magil Zeal posted:Incidentally it does sound like if pops no longer affect tech costs then Habitats are going to be even better for science and make the research array look worse by comparison.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:01
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you know what would make stellaris 200% better? more and better peacetime events and poo poo to do (immersion)! while you're peaceful and building up, give us more events, and large event chains like you can get in CKII but about the internal poo poo going on in your empire.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:02
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Given that Stellaris seems to aspire to be an emergent narrative experience in many ways, it kind of has to provide some degree of tall options to at all validate the various options like xenophelia/pacifism. There's a wealth of options for Not Being An Imperialist, and sure you're probably gonna kick the rear end of some slaving despots, but eventually you need something internal to do.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:14
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Eiba posted:I assume they'll count as inhabited planets which also penalize you so, pending specific numbers, I wouldn't assume the balance there has been changed in any particular way. The main reason I brought it up was because of this line: quote:...and planets overall having less on an impact on tech costs than before. Granted, that's somewhat ambiguous ("overall" could mean "obviously this planet has overall less impact because the pops in the planet are no longer counted") but my initial impression was system count would increase tech costs by more than simply colonizing planets. Meaning systems with tons of colonized planets are more efficient tech/unity-wise than the alternative. Which does seem to be a boon for habitats.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:16
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Eiba posted:Stellaris doesn't seem like it's pushing to make tall empires more viable, rather it's trying to address the unsatisfying narrative issues 4X games tend to have. I'd prefer they slow power creep by just making wars much more costly and less rewarding. They kinda wasted the potential of the war system they more or less brought over from their other games. The way it is now you basically have the usual total war with only being able to take so much from your opponent. Instead I think they should have made it so that total war is super devastating so both sides are better off jostling about until it's clear one side will win and then peacing out with a system or two. So expansion is slow and winning one war doesn't mean too much if you do these kinds of wars. Then if you do press all the way the war is super costly by maybe making planetary defences a major pain that will take huge chunks out of your fleet or fleet battles to the end are very undesirable because ships are hard to replace. And all the planets you get are smashed to poo poo so while you got a whole lot of land potentially, it's of little immediate benefit and you paid a huge price for it. Meanwhile your opponents are spending their resources building up their empires instead of setting their resources on fire to win a bunch of lovely ruins. Right now it's of course you're going to snowball when wars are smashing the enemy deathblob with your deathblob and then chain-invading their planets until they give you all the fully-developed planets you want while your opponents are either trying to do the same or sitting around twiddling their thumbs because they can't build tall. Futuresight fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Dec 7, 2017 |
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Dec 7, 2017 21:18
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Splicer posted:Planet size goes from 10 (12?) to 25, the difference between a big and small planet can be pretty big. Big planets were already better, but now it's a much more linear betterness. I have a 9-slot planet in my current game. can't even upgrade the planetary building since I can only have 9 pops. 
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Dec 7, 2017 21:19
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Fututor Magnus posted:you know what would make stellaris 200% better? more and better peacetime events and poo poo to do (immersion)! while you're peaceful and building up, give us more events, and large event chains like you can get in CKII but about the internal poo poo going on in your empire. Hopefully they'll get to this after the Cherryh, which sounds like it's basically polishing/rejiggering up all the other components of the game.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:20
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Demiurge4 posted:I get that, but it does mean that a player will feel penalized for settling a small planet. If small planets are just as valuable as large planets, then what's the point in even having different planet sizes at all?
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Dec 7, 2017 21:37
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Don't you pretty much have to colonize every available planet if you want to expand, take over a good chunk of the map and get a decent fleet?
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Dec 7, 2017 21:39
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Main Paineframe posted:If small planets are just as valuable as large planets, then what's the point in even having different planet sizes at all? Large planets are already superior by the virtue that they get better value out of %-based modifiers on buildings. IE a single mineral processing plant gives more value on a planet that can fit 14 mines as opposed to 8. A large planet already provides more value out of a single colony ship (and all the resources required in construing it and sitting through the colonization process) than a small planet. There are lots of reasons to favor large planets over small ones.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:42
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The problem isn't that small planets are worse than large it's that small planets are worse than large and you're penalised for having more planets. The combination makes it go from you preferring to colonise larger planets first to you not wanting to colonise smaller planets at all. So what's the point of having small planets?
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Dec 7, 2017 21:43
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If there weren't sub-optimal choices in the game it wouldn't be a game, it'd be a movie that keeps pausing on it's own. And there are rare reasons to colonize small planets that make a portion of them viable, such as betharian stone deposits or being close to an enemy's valuable border system.
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Dec 7, 2017 23:23
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I think the more subtle solution would be to make sector planets produce less science. That would also adress how there isnt much point to large core sectors.
Baron Porkface fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Dec 7, 2017 |
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Dec 7, 2017 23:35
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Ideally though sub-optimal choices should come from circumstance rendering those choices sub-optimal rather than them being permanently sub-optimal (aka Richard Garfield is wrong  ).
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Dec 7, 2017 23:42
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But without trap choices how can I easily identify & ignore the filthy casuals?
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Dec 8, 2017 00:20
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Nevets posted:But without trap choices how can I easily identify & ignore the filthy casuals? Don't forget to develop smug sense of superiority from the amazing skill of "googling the choice I should make" you displayed.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:22
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The correct method is to make the failures at least really funny.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:24
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Shugojin posted:The correct method is to make the failures at least really funny. This Goon gets it.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:31
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quote:Although since corvettes don't have a PD slot (I think) and will likely evade a lot of missiles, I guess there's not much point. You're right, they don't have Point Defence. They also won't be dodging. Most weapons have enough tracking and accuracy that corvette dodging is not a thing early and mid-game. It only comes up at end-game, if at all.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:44
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Don't lasers target missiles, they're just not great at it?
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Dec 8, 2017 00:47
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Missiles are also (as of right now anyway) innately capable of countering evasion.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:49
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Splicer posted:Don't lasers target missiles, they're just not great at it? Nope.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:49
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there shouldnt be relative penalization for colonizing small planets. there should be more tall development options to (at least partially) make up the difference in raw number of planets.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:51
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GunnerJ posted:Nope.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:58
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Yeah, I'd honestly rather see the tech penalty based purely off population. It feels more natural. Big planets are ALREADY better. They hold more dudes, produce more, get you more bang for the influence/colonization cost, and get bigger benefits from percentage based boosts. Like, if I'm deciding what worlds to sector, I'm going to want to keep bigger planets for myself generally. Why? They're better.
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Dec 8, 2017 01:28
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The best way to improve tall is to supecharge the capital and maybe a few other colonies. Like civ V tradition tree.
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Dec 8, 2017 01:29
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Futuresight posted:The problem isn't that small planets are worse than large it's that small planets are worse than large and you're penalised for having more planets. The combination makes it go from you preferring to colonise larger planets first to you not wanting to colonise smaller planets at all. So what's the point of having small planets? Right now, star port locations- the end is coming and you always need more ships
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Dec 8, 2017 01:29
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Eiba posted:Stellaris doesn't seem like it's pushing to make tall empires more viable, rather it's trying to address the unsatisfying narrative issues 4X games tend to have. I don't really think the research/unity malus actually does much about that though because if you conquer an enemy world you have to, basically, keep it, unless you want to be forever at war with everybody for genocide. And there's still very little reason to not do so anyway because it's unlikely that any given world is going to be a net negative before you've conquered half the galaxy. All it really does is just make expansion kind of unintuitive and give small empires a relative bonus in tech/traditions thus making tech at least overall kind of irrelevant cos even lovely empires can keep up really easily.
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Dec 8, 2017 01:32
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Lum_ posted:Super useful if you use a bunch o' mods like me. Mmm yes that's the good poo poo right there thank you goon for bringing this to my attention, you've earned your species another year of existence.
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Dec 8, 2017 01:35
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OwlFancier posted:I don't really think the research/unity malus actually does much about that though because if you conquer an enemy world you have to, basically, keep it, unless you want to be forever at war with everybody for genocide. TBH I feel like the biggest part of tech bonus actually comes from the 5% bonus to energy/min production as those gains are marginal, and don't require the minerals like upgrading the structure does, nor the increased maintenance cost from upgrading through the tiers. Even the ship tiers increase cost and maintenance. I'd also say that the stuff like needing bigger borders, or a higher naval cap is incredibly rare compared to just plain needing more minerals and energy, and stuff like consumer goods, maintenance and building the planet infrastructure cut into growth really hard in a way that increasing the value of the ships and infrastructure you have through research doesn't, and therefore makes it more optimal for growth.
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Dec 8, 2017 06:44
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Wiz posted:Because large planets should be better than small planets. They are still better in a pop only cost increase world as others have stated. It also has the benefit of making a new planet always a good choice, regardless of it's size, up until a pop size that makes it not anymore. It also evens out the starting costs for empires that get poo poo planet size rolls in their vicinity, whereas a #of planet system penalizes empires that get smaller than average ones near then.
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Dec 8, 2017 07:06
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I just got the Horizon Signal chain for the first time. That was awesome.
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Dec 8, 2017 07:23
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LordMune posted:Are you implying that a player who ignores one of the four exes in "4x" would be at a natural disadvantage in a 4x game?
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Dec 8, 2017 09:22
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Or, in the case of Stellaris, fiddling with galaxy generation to allow you to play tall.
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Dec 8, 2017 09:49
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ConfusedUs posted:I just got the Horizon Signal chain for the first time. Always love the worm.
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