Out of curiousity- what's the difference in biome distribution between garden and paradise worlds? Both are listed as containing forest, reef, ocean, and vents biomes, so what specifically changes is not immediately obvious. (Off the top of my head, I'd assume that forest and/or reefs are expanded somewhat- at the expense of ocean, maybe?) Why does Verrold support a higher Yoral population than other medium glacier worlds? Does this mean the biome distribution for the different homeworlds diverges from the 'standard' distribution for their world type in other cases? If I already have Phidi on an arid world, which has nothing but arid territory, and I relocate air-breathers onto the planet, are the Phidi holding the population cap back, or do things compensate? The help text for biomes as things stand is a little cryptic, and I'm interested in digging into the 'guts' a bit.

Each planet type has a list of biomes, characterized with a biome size as well as a biome type. A Paradise world (of which Gaia is one) has similar biomes to a Garden, but they are larger, even on the same type planet.

The current biome values per planet look something like this:
Verrold is a Glacier type, but it has some open ocean, which a normal Glacier does not. (I honestly can't find where in the code it's defined.)

Each population type (race) also has habitability and growth rating based on both planet type and biome type, so the formal for max population can get complicated when you have multiple races on a planet. Sven can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that if you have Phidi on an Arid planet their ability to fully inhabit the arid biome will be limited, and so if you add a race with a good affinity for arid biomes (such as the Ashdar), the max pop cap should increase.

This info can and should be better explained in the UI, but things are still changing at the moment and there's a whole bunch of new minor races about to be thrown into the mix.

Arioch wrote: Each population type (race) also has habitability and growth rating based on both planet type and biome type, so the formal for max population can get complicated when you have multiple races on a planet. Sven can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that if you have Phidi on an Arid planet their ability to fully inhabit the arid biome will be limited, and so if you add a race with a good affinity for arid biomes (such as the Ashdar), the max pop cap should increase.

That wasn't quite what I was asking. I'm aware adding Ashdar will increase the population cap in that circumstance. What I'm not certain of is if relocating all the Phidi after Ashdar are there will increase the total planetary population cap, because the Ashdar take advantage of the Arid terrain more efficiently.

That said, thanks for answering a bit about how biomes are set up on planets- that helps give a clearer picture of things.

nweismuller wrote:What I'm not certain of is if relocating all the Phidi after Ashdar are there will increase the total planetary population cap, because the Ashdar take advantage of the Arid terrain more efficiently.

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think you will get any benefit from removing the Phidi in this case.

Arioch wrote:

nweismuller wrote:What I'm not certain of is if relocating all the Phidi after Ashdar are there will increase the total planetary population cap, because the Ashdar take advantage of the Arid terrain more efficiently.

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think you will get any benefit from removing the Phidi in this case.

Removing population from a planet can never cause its population cap to increase. (Bonus points for realizing that this question is worth asking -- because this is actually one of the core principles that SiS's multi-species population model is designed around.)

sven wrote:

Arioch wrote:

nweismuller wrote:What I'm not certain of is if relocating all the Phidi after Ashdar are there will increase the total planetary population cap, because the Ashdar take advantage of the Arid terrain more efficiently.

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think you will get any benefit from removing the Phidi in this case.

Removing population from a planet can never cause it's population cap to increase. (This is actually one of the core principles that SiS's multi-species population model is designed around.)

That's good to know- thanks for the response.

nweismuller wrote:Does this mean the biome distribution for the different homeworlds diverges from the 'standard' distribution for their world type in other cases?

Yes: All the homeworlds with unique planet art also have unique biome distributions, varying a bit relative to "vanilla" worlds of the same type. Specifically, Rastaban III is more Arid than a standard Garden world, Tendao has more reefs and vents than a standard Island world, Bacabs IV has more vents than a standard Iceball world, and Verrold has an Ocean biome, unlike the standard "Glacier" types.

This is all really cool. I think the biome concept as you guys have implemented it is the most interesting and easiest to grasp solution to "who can live where and how well" that I've seen in a 4X. Just sayin.

sven wrote:Yes: All the homeworlds with unique planet art also have unique biome distributions, varying a bit relative to "vanilla" worlds of the same type. Specifically, Rastaban III is more Arid than a standard Garden world, Tendao has more reefs and vents than a standard Island world, Bacabs IV has more vents than a standard Iceball world, and Verrold has an Ocean biome, unlike the standard "Glacier" types.

Someday down the line, a DLC which mixes up the biomes on non-special worlds a bit and categorizes the planet by which baseline it is closest to would be an awesome addition. A slightly unique mix on any given world would help make them feel more unique beyond size, location, and mineral richness.

On the topic of biomes- is there any particular reason Yoral have better habitability for Ocean than Reef biomes? It seems odd for an airbreather, which otherwise find Reefs friendlier habitats.

nweismuller wrote:On the topic of biomes- is there any particular reason Yoral have better habitability for Ocean than Reef biomes? It seems odd for an airbreather, which otherwise find Reefs friendlier habitats.

Well, for game purposes, what really matters are the relative numbers. The Yoral can make as good use of reefs as any other land dweller. But they're better at making use of harsh, empty environments, of which deep oceans are one more example. Quirks like this are one of the reasons that in-game, what we show you are just the consequences of the model, and the relative rankings of each population type in each biome; the only way to get the hard numbers is to dig into the scripts.

The reason I gave the Yoral a boost in oceans, rather than reefs, is that I didn't want them to have a higher max pop on Paradise worlds than any other terrestrial race. (The Yoral's perk is supposed to be colonizing harsh worlds, so having a bonus on a Paradise planet seemed out of character.) And the reason the Yoral's ocean affinity is 2.0, rather than, say, 1.5, is that I try to limit the number of of distinct affinity scores that are out there, as too much variety in the numbers can lead to excessively finicky game-play (see also the long comment in pop_growth.lua for more commentary on this point).

All that said, I'll admit it's a bit weird

Fair enough, and understood. It just roused my curiousity and I wanted to double-check that it wasn't an oversight. Thank you very much for the insight you've provided.

I do want to say that I didn't fully wrap my head around the implications of biomes and moving population around until my last few plays, but it is a VERY cool and fun sub-system to the entire experience.

-Will

wminsing wrote:I do want to say that I didn't fully wrap my head around the implications of biomes and moving population around until my last few plays, but it is a VERY cool and fun sub-system to the entire experience.

-Will

Glad you like it!