Expansion Planner - Missing Volcanic and Ice - Problem identified

[Gid73]

Edit: After playing a few minutes with the changed settings as shandar the problem is still there so it is not solved for me...

Since I have bought the game (which I enjoy very much) I had the problem, that volcanic and ice planets and moons did not show up in the expansion planner for colonies (of course I had the right race for them). Only volcan/ice planets that are visible at the very beginning can be found there but no more will be added with exploration. I couldnt find an answer in the forums and after playing a huge map with over 80 colonies (which was a little frustrating to colonies with this bug) I tested some things.

Finally I found the answer (edit: NOT - i thought it was the language setting of my german windows vista..)

And thanks for the 1.0.3 beta patch, I like the changes so far.

Edit: After playing around with a few new games as shandar the behaviour of the expansion planner with volcanic planets it strange. In one game a planet shows up and a few minutes later it disapeared from the list. But nothing has changed with the planet. And in most games not all volcanic planets show up in the list at the very beginning (but more than half normaly). I played with other races and there is no problem with oceanic planets, but with ice. (all the planets that do not show up can be coloniesed through right-click directly on the map)

Has somebody the same issue?

[sbach2o]

ORIGINAL: Gid73

Only volcan/ice planets that are visible at the very beginning can be found there but no more will be added with exploration.

Has somebody the same issue?

I in fact do have the same issue, see here. In my case I received enough of a race's population with the ability to colonize volcanic planets through migration, about 10 years into a game. I was perplexed when Expansion Planner showed volcanic planets, but only those in my home system.

Finally I found the answer (edit: NOT - i thought it was the language setting of my german windows vista..)

In my case an XP SP 3 with German language settings.

All the planets that do not show up can be coloniesed through right-click directly on the map.

Still very annoying, having to comb through the galaxy map by hand in search for those volcanic planets. I don't think the dashed circles around a system which indicate a colonizable planet make an appearance either (unless there are other such planets present, of course).

[elliotg]

The Expansion Planner does not necessarily show you every single colonizable planet - the planet must reach a minimum threshold before it's considered a worthy target. Because volcanic and ice planets are quite low-value to begin with, they may not always be included here, even when you think they should be.

But I can understand your frustration here. Playing as Shandar you would want to see as many volcanic planets as possible. For the next patch we'll lower the threshold at which planets are considered worthy colonization targets. This will include more of these planets in the list.

[Fishman]

The problem with the colonization "worthiness" is that it can decide NOTHING is worthy, even though we know something is. Clearly, the minimum worthiness threshold should be dynamically set so that there always are at least some if any exist at all.

[Gid73]

Thanks for the replies. And sorry for my bad english, its not my native language. Glad that you understand me.

I cannot understand the algorithm to determinate which planet is valuable enough to show up in the planner. E.G. volcanic planets without resources at all and a size of 17k are shown, but not a planet with size 23k and valuable resources. Therefore I have thought this may be a bug.

It would be a great addition to the already great game to have the ability to show all coloniesable planets. Because I use the colonisation of "not so good planets" to expand the borders of my empire and "not so good" planets inside my "region" must wait till I cannot expand further.

Greatings

[sbach2o]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

The Expansion Planner does not necessarily show you every single colonizable planet - the planet must reach a minimum threshold before it's considered a worthy target. Because volcanic and ice planets are quite low-value to begin with, they may not always be included here, even when you think they should be.

But I can understand your frustration here. Playing as Shandar you would want to see as many volcanic planets as possible. For the next patch we'll lower the threshold at which planets are considered worthy colonization targets. This will include more of these planets in the list.

It still looks odd. Why are all the planets in my home system shown in Expansion Planner, and absolutely none outside? Are those created with a especially high value, to stand out from the crowd of unworthy worlds?

I should probably check. I was accustomed to ignoring the 'quality' property of planets because I always started out with races fit only for continal planets. And there the value invariably seems to default to 100%. Or if there is some variation, I didn't notice.

ORIGINAL: Fishman

The problem with the colonization "worthiness" is that it can decide NOTHING is worthy, even though we know something is. Clearly, the minimum worthiness threshold should be dynamically set so that there always are at least some if any exist at all.

In my case I had masses of desert and ocean planets in my reach, so filtering out worlds with a systematically lower value would make sense. I cannot speak for Gid73, though.

ORIGINAL: Gid73

I cannot understand the algorithm to determinate which planet is valuable enough to show up in the planner. E.G. volcanic planets without resources at all and a size of 17k are shown, but not a planet with size 23k and valuable resources. Therefore I have thought this may be a bug.

Planets have and explicit 'Value' property. When I checked, it always seemed to be 100%. And I do not know what it does. Maybe it factors into the maximum population that can be reached just like I expect the 'Size' of a planet does?

Maybe make the value threshold in the filter for colonies explicit, let it be set by the user (and be it from a list of predefined values, "show 80%, 50%, 25%, 0% and above").

Edit: Sorry about the confusion, but what I called 'Value' above is supposed to be 'Quality'. That seems to be 100% unless a planet's environment was harmed by bombing. As it stands, I have yet to find a Desert, Ocean or Marsh planet that doesn't show up in Expansion Planner, once they're colonizable, and a Volcanic planet outside of my home system that does show up there.

ps: I have verified that the dashed circle around a system, that indicates the presence of colonizable worlds, does indeed show up everywhere where there is a volcanic planet, even if it is not shown in Expansion Planner. So it isn't so bad after all when Expansion Planner doesn't show them.