Colonisation question

[devoncop]

For the veterans out there...

I never played DW1 but am trying to get clued up on the mechanics of DW2 which looks amazing and have been watching numerous streams.

In the latest Stream on You Tube by Realm Builder Guy he is unable to colonise Kilanun 3 in the same system as his homeworld despite it having a 43% suitablity and instead was forced to attempt a colonisation on a neighbouring system. Regardless of the strategic merits or otherwise of colonising within the same system as your homeworld is there an actual bar on doing so as otherwise I can see no reason why the option was not available to him ?

Many thanks for any help on this

Ian

[zgrssd]

This is one of the rarer mechanics that did change a lot in DW2.
I too would thinkg that with 43% suitability you should be able to colonize a planet easily.

My best idea on the spot:
He has multiple species, only one of which has 43% on that planet.
Another species with poor habitability was already loaded into the colonyship
He never tried colonizing by selecting the planet and just asking for a colonyship to be build.

If you could show us the stream with a timestamp that would help a lot.

[zgrssd]

I am guessing this is the video, watching it now.
https://youtu.be/DaSw-AnQB4s

[devoncop]

Yes I was thinking your point 3 may be the issue and it may be he got distracted by the 0% suitability it was showing on the planet re research bonuses ?

The antagonism between the Mortalens and the Ackdarians was certainly an issue I would have thought with his failure to succeed with his alternative colonisation attempt at the end of the episode

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

I am guessing this is the video, watching it now.
https://youtu.be/DaSw-AnQB4s

Cheers. Will be interested to see what you think.

[zgrssd]

I found it at 18:00
And you missunderstood.

Suitability is what decides if you can colonize it. And that Rating was 0. The suitabiliy tresholds for Mortalan on Ocean Planets is propably pretty high.

Quality "only" decides on max population. There is some basic formula like "Size x Quality = Real Population Capacity.

[devoncop]

Thats really helpful. Many thanks...

I will get there

[zgrssd]

So as I said before:
Suitability decides on if you can colonize it. DW1 used a binary switch here.
Each Colonizer could Colonize Specific Colonisation tech Unlocked + Colonist Species Native Colonytype.

Quality seems to be the same as DW1. Quality * Size = Maximum Population

Development should also work similar. Development * Population * corruption = the maximum possible taxable income.

[devoncop]

Yes , that makes sense.

Cheers

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm pretty sure that Quality is also calculated into the Suitability score of all planets as well... I think but are not sure that the base suitability of a planet is the planets quality -50 then you add whatever suitability the race has for that planet type. This is why some races have a very high suitability score on some planets as those planets usually have a rather poor quality. Races who like to live on planets that generally have high quality don't get much bonuses. This is also why few species have penalties to worlds such as Volcanic worlds as these worlds already have such poor quality.

In general you want a total suitability of 20 as this is where your cost for supporting the planet starts to drop significantly, but you can colonise anything at zero or above (I think). The higher the suitability the lower the support cost. This means that you need at least quality of 70% in order to gain a suitability of 20 on a world without any bonuses to suitability, but you can colonise them already at a Quality of 50%.

Someone who knows the exact formula might step in a tell me, but I saw it explained in one of the Streams, don't remember where.

[devoncop]

Thanks Jorgen...sounds like I will need to RTFM on that mechanic when we get to see it

[DasTactic]

Looking at that spot on the video, Realm Builder Guy is definitely confusing Planet Quality with Suitability. By default, factions have a 50% colonisation threshold for most planets. He is playing as the Mortalens so have a lower threshold for different desert planets. Then, on top of that factions can apply colonisation modifiers to boost them along and again, Mortalens have desert bonuses.

Each planet type has a range of quality it can be formed with so Continental Planets, for example, tend to have high quality while Volcanic Worlds tend to have low quality.

Suitability = (Planet Quality - Colonization Threshold (default 50%)) + Colonization Modifiers

So the Ocean planet he is looking at, at 45% quality, is actually a -5% suitability - and so you don't even have the option of colonizing. Planets aren't worth colonizing unless they are above 20% suitability (70% Planet Quality without modifiers).

Personally, I hope this mechanic gets changed in the future to make it more intuitive.

[Galaxy227]

ORIGINAL: DasTactic

Personally, I hope this mechanic gets changed in the future to make it more intuitive.

The simplest solution would be to simply color quality as green when suitability is positive, but red when negative. Better yet, just make the value of suitability visible to the player.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: DasTactic


Personally, I hope this mechanic gets changed in the future to make it more intuitive.

Thanks Das.

A definite +1 from me(and probably realm Builder Guy[:)] )on that suggestion.

[zgrssd]

I'm pretty sure that Quality is also calculated into the Suitability score of all planets as well... I think but are not sure that the base suitability of a planet is the planets quality -50 then you add whatever suitability the race has for that planet type. This is why some races have a very high suitability score on some planets as those planets usually have a rather poor quality. Races who like to live on planets that generally have high quality don't get much bonuses. This is also why few species have penalties to worlds such as Volcanic worlds as these worlds already have such poor quality.

It does make a lot of sense that suitability is based on quality + preference. I did not even know that.

Looking at that spot on the video, Realm Builder Guy is definitely confusing Planet Quality with Suitability. By default, factions have a 50% colonisation threshold for most planets. He is playing as the Mortalens so have a lower threshold for different desert planets. Then, on top of that factions can apply colonisation modifiers to boost them along and again, Mortalens have desert bonuses.

Each planet type has a range of quality it can be formed with so Continental Planets, for example, tend to have high quality while Volcanic Worlds tend to have low quality.

Suitability = (Planet Quality - Colonization Threshold (default 50%)) + Colonization Modifiers

So the Ocean planet he is looking at, at 45% quality, is actually a -5% suitability - and so you don't even have the option of colonizing. Planets aren't worth colonizing unless they are above 20% suitability (70% Planet Quality without modifiers).

Personally, I hope this mechanic gets changed in the future to make it more intuitive.

I found suitability perfectly intuitive. Mortalans have higher suitability on desert worlds.
It was one missread, that can propably be fixed by looking into the Galactopedia.

But why that planet class dependant quality range?
The whole point of the system is to limit that some planets are more suiteable for some races.
Will they change that once we get a species with Volcanic preference?

[DasTactic]

ORIGINAL: DasTactic

Personally, I hope this mechanic gets changed in the future to make it more intuitive.

The simplest solution would be to simply color quality as green when suitability is positive, but red when negative. Better yet, just make the value of suitability visible to the player.

I think it needs to be more than that. I think there should be icons to show desirability. For example Suitability could be shown as:
<0: No colonization
0-9: Subsistence
10-19: Poor
20-29: Adequate
30-39: Good
40+: Great

...
But why that planet class dependant quality range?
The whole point of the system is to limit that some planets are more suiteable for some races.
Will they change that once we get a species with Volcanic preference?

Volcanic Worlds have a quality range between 10% and 40% (but I have seen higher in the game). So unless you have modifiers you really can't colonize these planets. BTW, there are now three types of Volcanic planets in the game now but let's just look at the basic Volcanic type and let's assume the planet we are looking at has a quality of 35%.
Taking Boskarans as an example, they start the game with a Colonization Threshold for Volcanic Planets of 40% and Colonization Modifiers for Volcanic planets of +30%.

Suitability = (Planet Quality - Colonization Threshold (default 50%)) + Colonization Modifiers
= (35 - 40) + 30
So for Boskarans they would have a suitability of 25 - which would be Adequate in the above list.

[Rafkin]

Why is everyone using percentages when describing suitability?

The only percentage I see is for QUALITY.

Suitability just has a number like +23

You're confusing the hell out of me.