Planet Value

[Shakiko]

Not sure if anyone except Maniac knows aboiut this, but perhaps someone can enlighten me with the more delicate stuff of the flowering counter system in Planetfall, please ?


What I (think to) know so far:
a)
- Every improvement you build raises the global "planet" counter (right next to your money in the global screen)
- As soon as the global coutner reaches certain values, Fungus may spread in certain tiles, according to the tooltip when you hover over the tile.

b)
- In the city screen, you can see your City's "local" planet value
- Some Features (like Fungus) or improvements (mines,e.g. ?) affect these values in a positive or negative way
- your population adds negative values.
- Also, some buildings affect this value.

--> If your base planet value is positive you might get some culture boost from it.



So, my questions so far:

@a)
- Is there any chance to see how much an improvment will add to the global counter ? (Like boreholes add more than mines , eg. ?)
- Does the global counter affect the base counter in any way or vice versa ?


@b)
- is there a way to calculate your negative base planet value from improvements ? (So how much "bad planet" does that Mine add for that base ?)
- What exactly does it stand for ? It seems to be the equivalent of eco damage from SMAC, but I'm not 100% sure.
- Do just worked tiles count for this ? Or is it based mainly on your total production output like the eco damage system from smac ?

- What exactly are the effects of a positve value ? (sometimes I get culture, most of the time, I won't, when a base has a positive planet rating)
- What are the effects of a negative value ? (Fungus spreading more likely in that one city ? adding the value to the global counter ? Or something totally different ?)


Cheers,
Shakiko

 

[Maniac]

Not sure if anyone except Maniac knows aboiut this, but perhaps someone can enlighten me with the more delicate stuff of the flowering counter system in Planetfall, please ?

Here's a thread on the subject. Somewhat outdated though.

Basically at the moment the only things affecting the Flowering Counter are how much fungus/sea fungus/hybrid forest there is, and how many Centauri Preserves and Spawning Spots there are.
If you have a fungal bloom event, but there's no spot available for fungus, the counter will increase too. But I'm gonna remove that.

For the local City Planet value, you can just hover over the icons in the city screen, and you'll see the breakdown of the Planet sources, just like you can see with health or happiness.

- Every improvement you build raises the global "planet" counter (right next to your money in the global screen)

Nope. See above.

- As soon as the global coutner reaches certain values, Fungus may spread in certain tiles, according to the tooltip when you hover over the tile.

Yep.

--> If your base planet value is positive you might get some culture boost from it.

The free culture starts with +3 Planet.

- Does the global counter affect the base counter in any way or vice versa ?

Indirectly. The Flowering Counter is mainly determined by the percentage of the map covered in fungus, so if you have a fungal bloom (caused by a negative city planet value), the Flowering Counter will increase because of the extra fungus.

- is there a way to calculate your negative base planet value from improvements ? (So how much "bad planet" does that Mine add for that base ?)

The Datalinks. Or look at the Planet widget in the city screen for the total of all improvements.

- What exactly does it stand for ? It seems to be the equivalent of eco damage from SMAC, but I'm not 100% sure.

Just like eco-damage, negative Planet causes fungal blooms. Positive values give you culture and extra XP for native life built in that base.

- Do just worked tiles count for this ?

All tiles with certain improvements. Don't know how else to code it.

Or is it based mainly on your total production output like the eco damage system from smac ?

Production has no direct effect. Of course indirectly, all the mineral-producing terrain improvements give negative Planet to your base.


In response to the comment that fungal blooms are too annoying, I was thinking that fungal blooms could from now on only happen next to already existing fungus. That way you could create a fungus-free interior, and not need to heavily garrison all your bases, but just the borders of your empire.

There should be a penalty for having negative Planet bases though. I was thinking perhaps each player could have their own Planet-attitude value. This could be mainly the sum of the Planet values of all bases added together each turn, but also affected by some other stuff like using a Planet Buster.

The player's Planet-attitude could affect a combat bonus all native life units get against you. The worse your Planet-attitude, the higher the combat bonus against you. So your interior would be the safe, but your borders would need more protection.

A positive player Planet attitude could affect how many native life units you can capture in the wild.

Two concerns though: at first sight this psi combat bonus against you alone doesn't really seem enough penalty to me to an anti-Planet strategy.

Also having a third Planet-related value besides the city planet value and the flowering counter might be confusing. Perhaps the current positive effects of city planet (free culture, native XP) could be moved as an effect of the player's planet-attitude)? Then there wouldn't be a real need to keep an eye on each individual base's planet value.

Hopefully your icons will help though.

 

[slugwalk]

I've been playing version 8 as the Hive, without the planetvoice religion, and I've found I spend all my effort trying to reduce my planetvalue and deal with fungal blooms. It seems to me that an advanced civilization, such as the factions after a few levels of tech levels, should realistically be better at reducing the ecological effect of population. If you think about it in reality, we do the most harm to the environment when we spread out in suburbs, and in devoting large areas of land to food production. My idea would be to include base facilities that would reduce the effect of population on planetvalue. They could be named after the Habitation facilities (complex and dome if I remember right) from SMAC. This would also help to balance the Voice of planet religion, since the boost in planet value also has effects like boosting influence at high averages. This makes it much more useful than the Eden religion.
Overall I like that Planet has a bit more punch; for all the talk, it was really submissive in SMAC. I think there just needs to be more ways to raise planetvalue. However, they should be expensive enough that there's still a point in choosing Gaians and Voice of Planet.
I also have thoughts about the flowing counter, so I'll post in that thread.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I've been playing version 8 as the Hive, without the planetvoice religion, and I've found I spend all my effort trying to reduce my planetvalue and deal with fungal blooms. It seems to me that an advanced civilization, such as the factions after a few levels of tech levels, should realistically be better at reducing the ecological effect of population. If you think about it in reality, we do the most harm to the environment when we spread out in suburbs, and in devoting large areas of land to food production. My idea would be to include base facilities that would reduce the effect of population on planetvalue. They could be named after the Habitation facilities (complex and dome if I remember right) from SMAC. This would also help to balance the Voice of planet religion, since the boost in planet value also has effects like boosting influence at high averages. This makes it much more useful than the Eden religion.
Overall I like that Planet has a bit more punch; for all the talk, it was really submissive in SMAC. I think there just needs to be more ways to raise planetvalue. However, they should be expensive enough that there's still a point in choosing Gaians and Voice of Planet.
I also have thoughts about the flowing counter, so I'll post in that thread.

I like the idea of bringing the Habitation facilities back for this purpose Each of them could reduce the negative influence of a population unit by 0.25 - would mean that you get halve the negative impact if you have both. Would be still not enough to bring you in the greens alone (also the Dome came quite late with a lvl 10 tech in AC), but somehow reduce the penalty (which I feel would be good, as any non-planet approach is currently punished too much)

 

[Maniac]

I've been playing version 8 as the Hive, without the planetvoice religion, and I've found I spend all my effort trying to reduce my planetvalue and deal with fungal blooms.

I think the problem is your strategy is wrong:

In a separate argument, I think that the flowering counter and planet values are pushing the player in opposite directions, the player wants to leave any fungus they can because this raises planetvalue, making fungal blooms less common. On the other hand, the player wants to get rid of as much fungus as possible, so as to reduce the flowering counter and make the native life weaker. The best player response in this set up would be to clear all the fungus, except what's in their base radius, which seems to me like it should piss Planet off.

Fungal blooms can only happen next to already existing fungal plots. So as it is now, you basically have two choices: 1) embrace the way of the fungus consistently, making sure a base and all its nearby neighbour bases have a net even or positive planet value, or 2) don't give a damn about your planet value, pollute all you want, but make it an absolute priority to remove all fungus in sight, especially in your base radius.

If you remove all fungus, it doesn't matter how many or few ways there are to increase your bases' planet value.

I have long thought of adding a Hab Complex building which reduces the effect of population on planet. If I do so though, it would be added to an Enclosed Biosphere themed tech, and not readily available to Terraformers.

 

[slugwalk]

Fungal blooms can only happen next to already existing fungal plots. So as it is now, you basically have two choices: 1) embrace the way of the fungus consistently, making sure a base and all its nearby neighbour bases have a net even or positive planet value, or 2) don't give a damn about your planet value, pollute all you want, but make it an absolute priority to remove all fungus in sight, especially in your base radius.

Maniac, I see your point, when I played that game I had yet to learn or realize that you could prevent fungal blooms that way. However, I would then feel that it would probably be too effective if, in this manner, you could completely eliminate any reason to worry about Planetvalue. I would think a developing Planetmind would find ways to attack such a faction.
Also, the way its set up now, it's difficult to achieve a middle ground. I know that the Enclosed biosphere civic is supposed to be a middle ground, but I don't feel that it's competitive with the hybrid civic.

 

[Ahriman]

Are you saying eradicating fungus helps because you can only get fungal blooms on tiles adjacent to existing fungus tiles?

 

[slugwalk]

Yes, it's a recent change I think. It helps if you're anything other than a very high planetvalue faction that doesn't have to worry about fungal blooms.

 

[Maniac]

Maniac, I see your point, when I played that game I had yet to learn or realize that you could prevent fungal blooms that way. However, I would then feel that it would probably be too effective if, in this manner, you could completely eliminate any reason to worry about Planetvalue. I would think a developing Planetmind would find ways to attack such a faction.

LOL, a 180 degree change in opinion? Anyway, removing all fungus does require a higher investment in formers and military, minerals which planetfriendly guys could be using to build more colony pods for instance. So there is an opportunity cost. Also, while you may be safe inside your territory, a negative Planet attitude gives you a combat penalty against native life, and life is more dangerous in uncolonized areas of the map.

 

[slugwalk]

LOL, a 180 degree change in opinion?

Actually more of a change in my understanding of the mechanics than my opinion.

You make a good point about the opportunity costs of removing fungus. I am warming to the idea of removing fungus helping to reduce the harm from heavy polluting, but I'd still like to see a rare chance of fungal blooms away from existing fungus. Especially at high Flowering Counter values, if the paradigm of an increasingly intelligent Planetmind is used.