Colonizing-Climate zones need to be made more clear

[SmaugTheDragon]

Apparently you can load your colony ships with pops other than your main race but then the ship won't colonize.

Actually figuring out in witch order to prioritize colonization of planets is confusing. The climate zones panel should only show habitability rankings for species that are in your empire and that are actually transferrable.

I do not need to know what is the ranking of Scavengers on Arid because Scavengers are non-transferrable.

So instead of 4 separate tabs I have click trough (on Garden worlds: Ocean, Forest, Reef, Vents) give me straight numbers on pops I can actually transport to the planet, growth and if the max pop size is limited (-3) or do I get a bonus max size (+3).

(After 4 games and 10h I still am confused by how the system actually works)

[bjg]

Apparently you can load your colony ships with pops other than your main race but then the ship won't colonize.

In my experience a colony ship with the replaced "passenger" will colonize. Are you sure you've loaded the population to that ship? Which race was it?

So instead of 4 separate tabs I have click trough (on Garden worlds: Ocean, Forest, Reef, Vents) give me straight numbers on pops I can actually transport to the planet, growth and if the max pop size is limited (-3) or do I get a bonus max size (+3).

It's actually complicated, because each race can occupy every climate zone (with some density). It's also not +/- 3 (I think). Perhaps we can eventually get some "emulation" interface, maybe together with a (promised) terraforming one. Wondering if it can be done before the release.

[Chasm]

Actually it sorta makes sense, not being able to colonize a world even if the captured ships race can. Even if a race can live in a desert, without the correct equipment the colony would fail.

[Arioch]

Colony ships can operate with any race of colonist, as long as that race doesn't have a characteristic that makes them unable to operate a ship or a new colony, such as being Discontent, Primitive, Unruly, or having no production capability (like the Spice Mongers). The game will auto-populate Colony Ships with whatever the largest eligible population is available on the constructing planet, even if it's not the faction majority race.

The important thing to understand about the habitability model is that adding a different race to a planet may increase the population cap if that race is better suited to one of the biomes than the current race there, but it will never decrease the cap. So there's no need for an emulator or to worry about racially perfect planets, because there's no game benefit to having one; the max population of a medium Iceball in an Orthin empire is still going to be 12 whether or not there are some non-Orthin on it.

We will continue to work with the UI to figure out ways to better inform the player about habitability (and there's hidden information that the player could benefit from), but short of providing a full-screen spreadsheet, there will still be some unknowns.

[SmaugTheDragon]

Going by your explanation I assume it's a bug.
This is my situation:


I am playing as the Gremak


Trying to colonize this planet.


With these non-slaved Teros.

I also found out during testing that I can steal pops from independents with the "Embark Colonists" action on trade ships (if I try to do it on a native population of a non-colonized world I get a Lua error).

[Arioch]

Gremak need to research Habitat Domes to be able to colonize a desert world. Gremak colony ships observe Gremak environment restrictions, regardless of what colonist type it's populated with. That's intentional, whether or not it may seem logical. I think we need to provide better feedback on what planets can be colonized and why, but I'm not yet sure how to work that into the current UI.

I noticed your colonist-stealing bug report in the other thread. That's a cute one.

[bjg]

there's no need for an emulator

Very often there is a need to know in advance if particular race adds to the particular planet's population cap (before you start searching through 50 systems for that race). Less often there is a need to know in advance if 2 (or more) particular races add more than any of them alone (currently can only guess).

[sven]

there's no need for an emulator

Very often there is a need to know in advance if particular race adds to the particular planet's population cap (before you start searching through 50 systems for that race). Less often there is a need to know in advance if 2 (or more) particular races add more than any of them alone (currently can only guess).

If you click on any of the bioms of a planet, you'll get a ranking of each races' affinity for that biom. Adding a race to a planet that's higher ranked in one of the bioms than any other race currently on the planet will always increase the pop cap. In some cases, the increase won't be by a full point, but in such cases, you may still get a slight increase to certain production numbers, depending on how the rounding works out.

(It might be worth admitting that this wasn't actually true in earlier versions of the beta. But relatively recent changes removed the rules that caused planet population caps to be clamped to integer values -- with the result that it's now always true that adding a race with a higher affinity for some biom to a planet will increase the cap.)

[bjg]

If you click on any of the bioms of a planet, you'll get a ranking of each races' affinity for that biom. Adding a race to a planet that's higher ranked in one of the bioms than any other race currently on the planet will always increase the pop cap. In some cases, the increase won't be by a full point...

Those cases are quite common (specially among small planets). Such a "case" will get "overpopulated" with harsh morale penalties.

[sven]

If you click on any of the bioms of a planet, you'll get a ranking of each races' affinity for that biom. Adding a race to a planet that's higher ranked in one of the bioms than any other race currently on the planet will always increase the pop cap. In some cases, the increase won't be by a full point...

Those cases are quite common (specially among small planets). Such a "case" will get "overpopulated" with harsh morale penalties.

Yes, I'm not hugely happy with the way small-planet population management is working out. The rules for a small world are identical to the rules for a larger one, but that means that racial mixes that are useful on, say, a Large Arid world won't actually work on a Small Arid, where there may not be enough space to cram in representatives from all the various species that may help increase the cap.

My hope would be that situations where the small planet population management proves frustrating and fiddly are relatively rare. But, clearly, at least one tester is finding those cases troublesome.

One thing I've considered is to create some late game social techs that would simply enable immigration of various races throughout your empire. So, if another 400,000 Yoral could fit on some small Arid planet somewhere, there'd be a chance that they'd just move there by themselves, without the need for any tedious optimization from the player.

It's dangerous to add features that effectively remove gameplay mechanics from the game; but when we get into the late game, I think it may sometimes be appropriate. SOTS had a similar 'migration' tech that I feel worked fairly well.

[Arioch]

You don't have to optimize every planet (especially small ones) to play effectively, but if you want to, you can. Having a button that optimizes everything for you serves, in my opinion, no purpose.

[bjg]

Is the number of votes in the Galaxy Council based on the population? If yes, a bunch of optimized small planets can turn the scales.

[Arioch]

Is the number of votes in the Galaxy Council based on the population? If yes, a bunch of optimized small planets can turn the scales.

Yes, but I think it's a very unlikely case in which an extra .4 population on a few small planets would put you over the top. But even for a case in which it did, I don't see that as an argument that the computer should manage it for you.

[bjg]

Is the number of votes in the Galaxy Council based on the population? If yes, a bunch of optimized small planets can turn the scales.

Yes, but I think it's a very unlikely case in which an extra .4 population on a few small planets would put you over the top. But even for a case in which it did, I don't see that as an argument that the computer should manage it for you.

I was asking for a planning tool, to add 1-2 population (not .4).

[sven]

I was asking for a planning tool, to add 1-2 population (not .4).

There's an old thread related to this topic where I floated the idea of adding a green glow around any planets in the planetary report that would get a slot increase from moving the currently selected colonist type to that world. I still think something along these lines would probably be a good thing to add. Even with additional UI hints, it would still require a bit of experimentation to see what races could help on what planets, but it would be much quicker and simpler process than the current method of needing to actually select a colonist for transport, then hover over each possible destination planet in turn.