Phidi and the ocean

[Chasm]

Why would ocean worlds not be fertile for phidi, they are literally their primary biome type? From a balance standpoint, it would balance out the fact that the gremak can now use arid (like the humans, and ashdar) and the ortin can use iceballs. Phidi would still be down a usable world type (they can use nether arid nor iceballs), but they would have an extra world type that was fertile.

[zolobolo]

How about getting rid of the overall planet designation according to a specific Climate Zone it has
All planets have several Climate Zone as is. Arid planets have Arid, Steppe or Ocean or something else

If there is already a Climate Zone system in place, why not use that as a basis for both habitability and max pop values and display it instead of the planet type value?

The planet type value makes sense if it is something more high level then the existing Climate Zones like: Hive World, but is not useful otherwise

[Arioch]

Ocean is not the primary Phidi biome. Phidi prefer shallow water (reef), of which there is none on Ocean worlds (the oceans are hundreds of kilometers deep). Ocean worlds are marginal for Phidi, similar to Arid for terrestrial races. Island worlds are their ideal choice.

[sven]

If there is already a Climate Zone system in place, why not use that as a basis for both habitability and max pop values...?

In the current balance, I think the one place where Climate Zones and habitability restrictions are "out of sync" is the Arid biom. Phidi, Gremak, and Orthin all have identical affinity scores for the "Arid" biom, but Phidi and Orthin can't colonize Arid worlds, while Gremak can. I'm willing to concede that this is perhaps wrong. Either Phidi and Orthin Arid affinity should be even lower, or Gremak should perhaps be a bit higher. My first instinct is to buff the Gremak affinity a bit; but we've been handing out a lot of Gremak buffs in the last week, so I feel a little hesitant about this.

edited by sven: As I think about this, I'm starting to feel that *both* adjustments make sense. I.e., the Orthin and Phidi should get a minor decrease in their Arid affinity, while the Gremak should get a minor buff. Taken together, that creates some noticiable seperation between the behavior of the aquadic and amphibious species on fringe worlds, and I think that's a good thing. I'm pushing these changes in r18442.

... and display it instead of the planet type value?

Re: display, it certainly wouldn't hurt to show more prominent biom data in addition to planet types names. We do have a few old mockups for this kind of data, but have had trouble working them into the current UIs.