Why can't we build normal planets in place of "tiny" once?

[bjg]

We can build huge planets in place on Gas Giants. We can build medium planets in an empty places. Why can't we build anything in place of (a bunch of useless) "tiny" planets. Is this just something overlooked/unfinished?

[silverkitty23]

You can turn an tiny planet into a medium planet if you can get one of your enemies to colonize it once you have Stellar Surge Beam tech

I think one of my favorite things about Artificial Planet construction is that you can mine the planets you make in empty spots. So you had nigh-infinite metal available, but instead of just using it for ships, you surrounded it with dirt so you can do work to dig it back up again. Like one of those jobs programs that involves digging and filling in the same ditches over and over.

[bjg]

You can turn an tiny planet into a medium planet if you can get one of your enemies to colonize it once you have Stellar Surge Beam tech

I am not talking about "small" planets (may be I should though, but it would be a different subject). The (recently introduced) "tiny" planets can't be colonized at all.

[akkamaddi]

I'm curious why the tiny planets cannot be colonized. My only guess is that the reduction in living space would too quickly hit zero.

Personally, I would take them if they could only hold 2-3 colonists.

Long ago, playing the game Ascendency, the game would also generate tiny worlds which could only hold a few population units. Once I got the tech "Automation", I would grab all the tiny worlds I could and make "beehives". I would automate everything on the world to just have a small, reasonably happy population. I would then fill all orbital slots with shields and weaponry, along with a cloaking device. They were basically tiny weapon platforms.

I could see tiny worlds filling a similar role here. Just drop a factory or two, then fill out the planetary defenses and put two pure combat orbitals in place.

[Arioch]

Tiny worlds were added to reduce the number of colonizable worlds. As with gas giants, the idea was that this would be preferable to just having more empty orbits.

A small barren world usually has a max pop of 2, so a tiny world would logically have a max pop of 1 or less than 1. This might be useful at some point in the future if we add more special resources, but it's deliberately not useful at the moment. The new space habs allow you to create a 1-pop colony around tiny planets or gas giants if you so desire, but there's not currently much benefit to doing so.

The ability to construct new planets out of nothing (and the terraforming system in general) is a game element that I didn't have much to do with and don't pay much attention to, as in my opinion it's mostly an endgame sandbox thing that doesn't much affect gameplay, so I don't worry about it. When we revamp terraforming with changes to make it a more gradual set of bonuses that are available earlier, (most likely in DLC2), we can take a look at the artificial planet construction system and see if we can make it both more logical and compelling gameplay-wise.

[bjg]

2 Arioch
Sorry, but your answer isn't helpful (and somewhat factually incorrect).
Around midgame small barren planet fits up to 5 "units" (6 Yorals), even more if you find "right" natives. Also some tiny planets are iceballs, not barren (but still not colonizable).
My question again - are you purposely not allowing to do a Planet Construction in place of Tiny planets (like we can do with Gas Giants) or it's just an oversight (will be fixed)? If purposely - is it because of some reserved functionality (incompatible with Planet Construction) or you just trying to make player's life harder?

[silverkitty23]

"Tiny worlds were added to reduce the number of colonizable worlds." (emphasis added)
They wouldn't serve that function if you could colonize them or replace them, I guess

[akkamaddi]

I could see Planet Construction turning a tiny world into a small world.

Apparently I'm too much of a bourgeois prole to have the beta for the new DLC, so I'm not entirely sure what is in it. If the space habitats let you build / purchase-build other orbitals, then it could be another defensive "beehive" in your system, or a staging ground for Planet Construction if the system had no other colonizable planets.

Another thing to consider would be another star base design, but with fewer weapon/bay slots and more system slots. You could throw on a Warp Well and a few science bays. A new tech that creates an "Orbital Market" could turn a tiny world into a space bazaar that sucks up money. There could also be a very expensive Babylon 5 type "diplomatic superstation" that takes two orbital slots, and generates +1 clout point per turn.

Tiny worlds could be good anchors for highly specialized mega-structures, leaving the two orbital slots of planets free for defense and shipyards. Or, back to my original comment, it could be a beehive invaders have to deal with.

[fonzosh]

I could see Planet Construction turning a tiny world into a small world.

Apparently I'm too much of a bourgeois prole to have the beta for the new DLC, so I'm not entirely sure what is in it. If the space habitats let you build / purchase-build other orbitals, then it could be another defensive "beehive" in your system, or a staging ground for Planet Construction if the system had no other colonizable planets.

Another thing to consider would be another star base design, but with fewer weapon/bay slots and more system slots. You could throw on a Warp Well and a few science bays. A new tech that creates an "Orbital Market" could turn a tiny world into a space bazaar that sucks up money. There could also be a very expensive Babylon 5 type "diplomatic superstation" that takes two orbital slots, and generates +1 clout point per turn.

Tiny worlds could be good anchors for highly specialized mega-structures, leaving the two orbital slots of planets free for defense and shipyards. Or, back to my original comment, it could be a beehive invaders have to deal with.

Really, I like all the ideas for a use of the tiny worlds. Military installment, super embassy, market aso seems like good use for these almost asteroid size planets. I think they could more or less be like a super space station with more "slots" available (Maybe with some sort of long range super missiles that protect the entire star system or fighter squads that does the same).

[fonzosh]

The ability to construct new planets out of nothing (and the terraforming system in general) is a game element that I didn't have much to do with and don't pay much attention to, as in my opinion it's mostly an endgame sandbox thing that doesn't much affect gameplay, so I don't worry about it. When we revamp terraforming with changes to make it a more gradual set of bonuses that are available earlier, (most likely in DLC2), we can take a look at the artificial planet construction system and see if we can make it both more logical and compelling gameplay-wise.

I think we can come up with a plausible scientific explenation to this. If the planetary construction is some sort of gravitational well, it would pull gases and small objects in from for example an asteroid system to create a planet. The "planet" would be mineable (actually often mineral rich sine most asteroids have a high content of metals) and easier to mine than several hundreds asteroids. The only scientific problem with this is the creation time and cooling period.

With this said, I would like to have asteroid belts (since our solar system has 2, it would be plausble to say that other star systems have these) that you can actually create planets from so thta you dont use the small particles in vacuum that would take ages to create a planet from. These would also be some sort of obstacle in space battles of course.

[jtrowell]

I think that it would be better if the artificial planet needed a base :

- with a gas giant you would be able to construct a medium to huge planet
- with a tiny planet (or an asteroid field like in MoM) you would ne able to construct a small to meidum planet*

* if it is seen as too little, maybe the tiny plantes serving as core for the new articifial planet might have a small random chance to get some planet specials like mineral rich or debris ring ?

Bonus point if we can build a special outpost component that can be used to make an artificial planet in a system without any colonizable planet