Possible social spec/ kostura interaction issue? Also, population weirdness.

from Sins Forums

So I'm playing a random huge game, invaded an enemy system, took some planets, and started getting a foothold. The AI did not like this and fired a Kostura at a Terran planet bordering the star, where i had specced for social and constructed a bunch of media hubs to push back culture faster/ make it harder for the enemy ai to do anything. I figured it was no big deal, since they would just start spreading culture again after the disable wore off, right? At first, they didn't, which I thought was weird, but I decided to wait, figuring maybe they were and it just hadn't updated on the planet info sheet yet. However,my culture began to be pushed back from the sun, which didn't make any sense for a full social spec Terran planet with 5 culture centers in orbit, so I decided to scuttle a few of them and rebuild and see if that helped.

Coincidentally, before this decision I got hit by a second Kostura. My 2 remaining media hubs (which I had decided not to scuttle for some reason) began spreading culture again after the second disable wore off, and the planet sheet updated accordingly immediately. Just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, I scuttled them as well, and the culture spread rate dropped. So in otherwords, it seems that Kostura warheads will sometimes, but not always mess up culture spread from a planet specced into social.

Also, population values are still weird with social spec, some of my full social spec terrans have 900 pop, some have 742 pop, and one has 1222 pop, with no apparent differences between the planets that I can see. (this is after 1.51, I know I have the patch installed correctly because my Envoys are in fact 4 pop.)

18,095 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I don't know about the social spec/kostura thing, that does indeed sound like a [minor] bug. As for the planet population, though, I've noticed that homeworlds can never have as much population as non-homeworld terran planets for some reason - those with 742 are the homeworlds maxed out on social, and those 1000+ ones are non-homeworlds. I'm not sure if this is a bug or intended, I think it's weird letting homeworlds have lower population in either case. The 900 vs 1222 you describe is weird, though. Are you sure there is no explanation for the 900 vs 1222 case, such as planetary modifiers, playing a different race or something else?

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I was the same race, and no there weren't any planet bonuses, which was actually kind of weird, but hey. I have a weird theory that it's based on distance from the star, since my highest pop one was one phase jump away at 1222, though I don't have any proof of this...

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Culture has always been flaky...

 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Regarding the 742 vs. 1222 pop difference, here is the reason.

1. The population increase researches (eg. "Full Terran Lockdown" for Vasari) only affects the pre-specialization population (eg. max 280 for Terran planets).

2. Terran planet and Terran planet home are two different planet types (PlanetTerran.entity and PlanetTerranHome.entity), and they yield different social specialization bonuses (!).  At level 6, Terran planet gives +900 max pop, while Terran Home only gives +420 max pop.

So if you are Vasari with "Full Terran Lockdown" researched to level 2 (+15%),

Terran Home: (280 * 1.15) + 420 = 742

Other Terran planets: (280 * 1.15) + 900 = 1222

I am not sure about what happened to the 900 max pop Terran, but like Alpheirox said, check the planet bonuses.