Aquatic / Ocean World ... need help with some basics?

[Hazduhr]

Gave myself the extension pack for Christmas. So maybe it's old news to everyone else, but I'm trying that background with that *HUGE* Ocean planet homeworld right now. Since everything not oceanic gives me the creeps (continental still has decent habitability, didn't find a tropical planet yet, everything else starts out with 0 % habitability), I already guessed I would need *money* (for terraforming costs), so I chose Xenophile / Materialistic for this one. Yes, I'm absolutely positively swimming in credits, maybe it was a bit over the top. The price is having to stomp on a traditionalist/spiritual faction that keeps popping up every few years. Anyway ... is it normal with that approach that I needed *almost 40 years* to be able to found a colony? Because I needed to research terraforming 1st, the only Oceanic planet in the vicinity already was inhabitated (and with playing Xenophile, I can't possibly take the planet from them), and then I had to wait for the terraforming from a dry planet (that's what the majority was, Arid + Desert) to Ocean to complete, that by itself was 10 years.

And it was ages ago that I played last, then I played a machine empire recently who for whatever reason always had enough building slots for whatever I wanted, although the population growth was a problem. That Nexus thing came with 7 additional pop slots, but also 3 jobs, so overall I had like 4 additional places for population from building one. I could find jobs for 4 people.

Now with these Aquatics that thing gives me *6* people I need to find jobs for, and I have almost no room to build anything, so currently it looks like if I want to build structures on my colonies (for which I'm going to need some blue districts) I'm going to have a really serious unemployment problem. Something like a crystal mine just has 1 job, not 6. Labs also start out with just 2 jobs without upgrades. Or I don't build much of anything (who needs research laboratories anyway. They just need that green gas stuff that I also don't have much of because I can't produce it big time without building slots :P).

Overall, I get the feeling that playing these machines before and not having played for years before that put me completely out of touch with playing a normal civilization with mortal leaders (yes, I feel like I barely begun and already these scientists start dying off ...). Is there any preferably written guide that would help me with addressing these problems? If I had any competition (which I don't, for this test I made sure that I don't, I just wanted to know how it feels before putting up with competition), I never would have made it anywhere with needing *40 years* before getting started with anything ... I probably would have gotten wiped off the map long before that. :P

Where can I find help? Aiming for 50 % unemployment probably isn't the course that leads much of anywhere ...
(Languages: English in writing more or less only, native language is German, I also play in German)

[Bishi]

Well this is a lot of text and questions for an initial post. Ocean Paradise origin can played in a number of ways. You either play tall with a diplomatic build, and get migration treaties to settle the worlds your race can't, or you tech rush terraforming. Alternatively you can play wide using robots or conquered pops to populate low hab worlds, Rulers jobs of your race are much easier to keep happy and less or a burden on your economy. Later in the game you can even get a Worldcracker type ship that can turn worlds into ocean worlds during war.

As for how to play the game in general, your first mistake was playing the game mostly as a Machine Intelligence. Gesalts are very easy in comparison to individualistic biological empires, with MI even easier than Hiveminds. The biggest hurdle for most beginners is learning how to manage consumer good production and not over-producing food. Treat these jobs like you would maintenance drones as a Gesalt and you should see your economy grow much faster.

Also, as a P.S., Xenophile does not equal Pacifist nor is it Egalitarian. You can love war and slavery and still be appreciative of other cultures, just look to the Romans. I say this only to help you open up your RP horizons.

[Ban, the Fox Sin of Greed]

Teethling has some solid advice. Also, the Ascension Perk to mine ice (I think thats what it is, been a minute since I played) to expand your planet size is potentially useful, especially paired with terraforming.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Teethling:

Alternatively you can play wide using robots or conquered pops to populate low hab worlds,

From my experience, pops don't actually grow on planets with 0% habitability.

You can see the growth bar progressing very slowly, but eventually it goes empty (no pop growing) and starts over.




Additionally, in the 3.10 branch i found that settling planets with robots occasionally causes the growth to be stuck permanently at 0%. Until you manually move 1 pop of the species there.

And that's even on ideal planets (80%+) for your species.

[Bishi]

Yep, that's why you use robots and a resident or lower race to grow. Resettle your own for the ruler jobs.

Edit: Something to keep in mind, just to clarify, these are stopgap measures until you get the relevant technologies eventually. I.e. Droids/Synthetic ascension or ecological adaptation on a non-rush timescale. I would go Genetic ascension on the immigration or slaving empires.

[Hazduhr]

Originally posted by Teethling:

Also, as a P.S., Xenophile does not equal Pacifist nor is it Egalitarian. You can love war and slavery and still be appreciative of other cultures, just look to the Romans. I say this only to help you open up your RP horizons.

How would you then go about bringing such a world into the fold and make sure that they at least become vassals, if not even part of the empire without violating what xenophile / materialist stand for in this game? That would be necessary for the multi-species-path that got suggested. Said Ocean planet bombed itself back into stone age by now and thus is a dead planet now, but that makes the survivors just *more interesting* :P

A way I know of is using a *pre-sapient* race, colonize the planet and force an evolution, but that needs those pre-sapients ... or pre-sentients or however they're called. Of those, I also had only one yet and also got offered the tech to do that only very recently.

And I had a visit from traders, and following a party, I suddenly got mixed children. They're still ocean people, but they're not *Aquatic*, got the 3-point strength advantage instead and thus offering some advantages too.

But being able to bring these pre-FTLs into the fold would be a big advantage ...

[Tiasmoon]

Now with these Aquatics that thing gives me *6* people I need to find jobs for, and I have almost no room to build anything, so currently it looks like if I want to build structures on my colonies (for which I'm going to need some blue districts) I'm going to have a really serious unemployment problem. Something like a crystal mine just has 1 job, not 6. Labs also start out with just 2 jobs without upgrades. Or I don't build much of anything (who needs research laboratories anyway. They just need that green gas stuff that I also don't have much of because I can't produce it big time without building slots :P).

Your big issue is not making use of districts. They are the blue/red/yellow/green squares (slots) on the left of the colony interface. Those provide building slots (blue/city district) and jobs for mineral, energy and food. (red, yellow, green)

Edit: oh and orange district these days, for alloy/consumer goods jobs.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2828195546

[Hazduhr]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Now with these Aquatics that thing gives me *6* people I need to find jobs for, and I have almost no room to build anything, so currently it looks like if I want to build structures on my colonies (for which I'm going to need some blue districts) I'm going to have a really serious unemployment problem. Something like a crystal mine just has 1 job, not 6. Labs also start out with just 2 jobs without upgrades. Or I don't build much of anything (who needs research laboratories anyway. They just need that green gas stuff that I also don't have much of because I can't produce it big time without building slots :P).

Your big issue is not making use of districts. They are the blue/red/yellow/green squares (slots) on the left of the colony interface. Those provide building slots (blue/city district) and jobs for mineral, energy and food. (red, yellow, green)

Edit: oh and orange district these days, for alloy/consumer goods jobs.

As machine race, I could use these to generate housing as well as they provided one more pop slot than jobs. For my current Aquatic approach, they each provide exactly as much housing as they need population to work properly. So I can build them to deal with the unemployment problem from blue districts *later*, but they don't *solve* the unemployment problem.

[Bishi]

Originally posted by Hazduhr:

snip...

Well, pre-ftl and pre-sapients aren't one and the same. I'm not the biggest fan of First Contact and the uplift/monitoring mechanics. I can't tell you what the most effective way to use those features diplomatically is. I can tell you however, it is much easier to just invade them and give them full citizenship/uplift afterwards. Stellar culture-shock lasts for 10 years, but often times it takes much longer to research genetic tailoring and then trying to use the Espionage actions to get them to progress faster.

If you do come across a pre-ftl in the atomic or early space age sometimes they don't blow themselves up and will eventually ask for the system back. If you do, assign an envoy and eventually if you aren't too different you'll have the option to propose subjugation. Or you can just go to war with them to subjugate them after the initial ease-fire is over. (Are you seeing a common theme with pre-FTLs yet?)

[Hazduhr]

Originally posted by Teethling:

(Are you seeing a common theme with pre-FTLs yet?)

Hmm ...

#1 Survivors from nuclear war
They're xenophile just like me, but spiritual (as opposed to my materialist approach).

#2
They're not only xenophobic (with me being fanatically xenophile) but also fanatically spiritual, so about as opposed to my values as can be.

Not to #3 and #4 yet, so no observation post and no idea what they believe in.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Hazduhr:

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Your big issue is not making use of districts. They are the blue/red/yellow/green squares (slots) on the left of the colony interface. Those provide building slots (blue/city district) and jobs for mineral, energy and food. (red, yellow, green)

Edit: oh and orange district these days, for alloy/consumer goods jobs.

As machine race, I could use these to generate housing as well as they provided one more pop slot than jobs. For my current Aquatic approach, they each provide exactly as much housing as they need population to work properly. So I can build them to deal with the unemployment problem from blue districts *later*, but they don't *solve* the unemployment problem.

I think you misread what I wrote.

Orange districts provide consumer good/alloy jobs.
Red districts provide mineral jobs.
Yellow districts provide energy jobs.
Green districts provide food jobs.

You can build the orange districts up to the planet size.

So yes, they do solve the unemployment problem.

By the way, Ocean Paradise (and the gaia origin) are considered more challenging starts as you have much lower habitability on warm/cold planets and no guaranteed 2x same type planet nearby.

[BigTurnip]

explore space meet a friendly race do diplomacy get a migration treaty colonize planets, rinse and repeat, its easy to colonize planets and have at least 80% habitability.

[Hazduhr]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

I think you misread what I wrote.
(..)
So yes, they do solve the unemployment problem.

No, the problem I was talking of is that I need to build *blue* districts to increase the number of buildings on a planet. Laboratories, planetary facilities to create strategic resources, institutions to increase the effectiveness of the various district types etc. As materialist empire, I will want research laboratories. But each blue district comes with +6 increase of maximum population and +1 increase of available jobs.

Every other district comes with +2 increase of maximum population and +2 increase of jobs. So, if I have 1 job for 7 additional people before, by building orange, yellow, red or green districts I increase the numbers to 3 jobs for 9 additional people, still leaving me with the difference of 6 people to somehow create jobs for. To get work for *those*, I need to build structures on the planet, and I can build additional buildings only by building more blue districts, further increasing the problem of unemployment as I'm nowhere near of being able to provide 5 jobs on average for each build slot.

[Hazduhr]

Random additional info, I specifically said I don't want other empires. I allowed pre-FTLs and ancient empires as they don't usually grow.

But the long time I needed to get started must have been enough for one of the pre-FTLs to discover FTL. And of course the empire they started is fanatically xenophobic, militarist, and expands far faster than I can. Very proud of myself that I managed to get them to accept an embassy, enabling me to increase the relations with them faster than they can *decrease* them (as they're apparently actively trying). I hate diplomacy. But I don't want to go to war just yet. :P

[adobo]

You can safely use other "wet" planets like continental, tropical and gaia with no penalty. You don't get the bonus though. So you're not exactly stuck till you find another ocean world.

[Hazduhr]

Originally posted by majikero:

You can safely use other "wet" planets like continental, tropical and gaia with no penalty. You don't get the bonus though. So you're not exactly stuck till you find another ocean world.

In theory at least. It *does* require such wet worlds in the vicinity, they are (or have been) rather scarce here. Got a ton of dry ones. Bad luck I guess.