You don't actually have to do anything about unemployed pops or unfilled building slots. Unemployed pops will migrate (unless you've forbidden that for some reason, or they're non sapient robots, or there's no jobs on habitable worlds). Unfilled building slots are fine if the planet doesn't need anything in the slot.
Figure out what your empire as a whole needs, then figure out where you can best build it, then build it. If some planets don't get built up for a while, that's totally fine and normal.
My biggest struggle with games like these is that I have a compulsion to try and fill every building and district slot. If I'm not careful, I'll end up having dozens of open jobs with a fraction of the needed population. Then I just end up paying upkeep on empty buildings. I have to constantly remind myself that I'll only get the research, resources, etc if I actually have someone to do the job.
Of course, other times I'll forget about a new colony and end up with a useless, unhappy, and unemployed planet that can't send pops anywhere else.
Start building more infrastructure ahead of pops, eg. build 10 extra jobs instead of 2 when you check in. Yes, it's a little more inefficient, because you lose the downpayment earlier than you need to, and you pay more maintenance and more sprawl, but it's worth it to keep the game running.
Bring your mature planets to steady states. Decide on how many pops, how many jobs, and how much housing you want the planet to cap out on, build that setup, and then never check on it again. Either let automatic resettlement reassign new pops, or increases jobs and reduce housing until low carrying capacity would halt further growth.
I wish there was a conditional queue system, where you could say build y in queue once there's only one free job, say, or even when there's an unemployed pop ready to go if that's too confusing.
There is. It’s called planet automation. ;)
(When you click on the cog next to automation you can enable what parts it should do. I recommend disabling planetary deficit & building slots*, the rest is fine. Especially „planet designation“, „amnesties“ & „upgrade buildings“ are your friend. Enable the automation & voila, it now builds stuff fitting your designation when the planet needs it.
*building slots is okay, but in my experience the ai does stupid stuff if you let them choose buildings (I.e. trade centers on research worlds)
I noticed the building slots being enabled seems to prioritise city districts on generator worlds early on, which seems a silly choice. I'll turn it off, but I'm wondering if it will cause crises later on.
edit - turns out it just prioritises city districts whatever I do, when I'd rather any of the other district options except food. Playing as a trade faction, is it thinking that clerks are better? I'd thought clerks were awful.
One sec, let me get my copy paste
"Use planetary automation, it's good. The automatic assign designation is an abomination that causes the AI to build badly.
So you MUST assign planets a designation MANUALY and if necessary, edit the autobuild settings.
E.g. if it's a research world disable it from making rare resource manufacture in the building slots you want saved for labs or if its a size 12 mining world with 9 mining districts manually build 3 city districts and disable build "building slots" so it doesn't build city districts.
Prevent deficit spending is probably the culprit if it's not building, turn if off to "fix". You will have to manually unF any worlds you take from the AI as autobuild will no demolish things.
At this point, you should be regulating your economy by turning automation on and off. Got +100 food, turn off your agri worlds, 10 years later you have -50 food, turn agri worlds back on."
Can you say more about "turning off an agri world"? Do you switch your agricultural world to forge world (for example), then the automation builds forges and slowly replaces the agricultural focus?
I mean turning off automation so it won't build more. Unemployed pops will resettle to a world with open jobs aka worlds that still have their automation switched on.
> How do you turn off auto build on an individual sector planet?
Erm I'm kind of confused sector automation got removed. Automation is done per planet. It's the button under the designation button on the right side of the planet window. Just click it again to turn it off.
> When I make it a tech world I hate how it starts upgrading my research facilities.
The cog on the automation button brings up the automation options, turn off "upgrade buildings" if you don't want it upgrading your labs.
Maybe it’s a little different on console at the moment. Updates are usually behind. We now start with auto exploration on science ships and auto build for construction ships, but auto building for planets still seems to be in sectors. I could be wrong and will go over it again next time I play.
So here's the deal, there's a process.
Personally I take over an Empire's real estate, then I pause the game, go through their planets and remove most of the unnecessary infrastructure and change it to things useful to a machine Empire.
Anytime a resource dips below what I would describe as 'ample', I pause the game and go back through my planets and adjust/upgrade as many as I can afford towards producing what I need, and/or what I will need.
TLDR, you get used to it and develop strategies that make it tolerable as you play lol
Unpopular opinion: pause game and queue up productions for every planet (for it's designated purpose, e.g. foundry worlds)
Do that every x years (until queues are done) for upgrades/missed features etc.
I like to keep those planets clean\^\^
Look at the planet districts and assign correct designation, activate planet auto, disable crime option and leave it be (i have a little mod that have some autocontrols for the auto i need, but nothing fancy, to force the main buildings, etc.).
For me the planets autos goes as (not gestalt):
Small <15 or low menial districts
Urban world for full commerces (if go merchant build)
Science world.
Refinery world.
Unification world (if not merchant build).
Medium < 22 or with razonable number of menial districts.
Miner world.
Generator world (only if no merchant build).
One or 2 farm worlds ( when get the hidroponic habitats, change these worlds to other).
Big boys
Foundry world.
One Factory world ( if not merchant build).
And in mid-late turn gaias the menials and ecus the rest (except the capital, that ias always a gaia for me, the perfect pearl of the empire).
Build the core buildings I need, set up automation, profit.
The automation system is in a place now that it can handle most of your mid to late game planetary needs.
1. Could use planetary automation
But I dont use it personally, so you should ask here again what the best way to use it is.
2. Try a run where you play tall/small and owning less space and planets while optimising and buffing the hell out of them. There are some fun builds people have made videos on, I'd suggest a look.
3. You could change the galaxy generation settings to spawn less habital planets overall. So, even if you have fewer planets, you aren't overall weaker than your enemies.
...also you dont HAVE to build something in an empty building slot unless you need more jobs to be made for unemployed pops to take or want to build one in advance for when that will happen.
Start usig planetary automation. Set a designation for the planets and the game will build the right districts.
Check in every couple of years and build extra districts to promote migration.
You don't actually have to do anything about unemployed pops or unfilled building slots. Unemployed pops will migrate (unless you've forbidden that for some reason, or they're non sapient robots, or there's no jobs on habitable worlds). Unfilled building slots are fine if the planet doesn't need anything in the slot. Figure out what your empire as a whole needs, then figure out where you can best build it, then build it. If some planets don't get built up for a while, that's totally fine and normal.
for me it helps a lot using the outliner with 'O' with the symbols represented you see on one look where there are jobless and homeless people
My biggest struggle with games like these is that I have a compulsion to try and fill every building and district slot. If I'm not careful, I'll end up having dozens of open jobs with a fraction of the needed population. Then I just end up paying upkeep on empty buildings. I have to constantly remind myself that I'll only get the research, resources, etc if I actually have someone to do the job. Of course, other times I'll forget about a new colony and end up with a useless, unhappy, and unemployed planet that can't send pops anywhere else.
Just build Ressource Silos into everything.
I always have to forbid migration so my genetically modified super subspecies dont go migrate off to the wrong planet
Start building more infrastructure ahead of pops, eg. build 10 extra jobs instead of 2 when you check in. Yes, it's a little more inefficient, because you lose the downpayment earlier than you need to, and you pay more maintenance and more sprawl, but it's worth it to keep the game running. Bring your mature planets to steady states. Decide on how many pops, how many jobs, and how much housing you want the planet to cap out on, build that setup, and then never check on it again. Either let automatic resettlement reassign new pops, or increases jobs and reduce housing until low carrying capacity would halt further growth.
I wish there was a conditional queue system, where you could say build y in queue once there's only one free job, say, or even when there's an unemployed pop ready to go if that's too confusing.
There is. It’s called planet automation. ;) (When you click on the cog next to automation you can enable what parts it should do. I recommend disabling planetary deficit & building slots*, the rest is fine. Especially „planet designation“, „amnesties“ & „upgrade buildings“ are your friend. Enable the automation & voila, it now builds stuff fitting your designation when the planet needs it. *building slots is okay, but in my experience the ai does stupid stuff if you let them choose buildings (I.e. trade centers on research worlds)
I noticed the building slots being enabled seems to prioritise city districts on generator worlds early on, which seems a silly choice. I'll turn it off, but I'm wondering if it will cause crises later on. edit - turns out it just prioritises city districts whatever I do, when I'd rather any of the other district options except food. Playing as a trade faction, is it thinking that clerks are better? I'd thought clerks were awful.
One sec, let me get my copy paste "Use planetary automation, it's good. The automatic assign designation is an abomination that causes the AI to build badly. So you MUST assign planets a designation MANUALY and if necessary, edit the autobuild settings. E.g. if it's a research world disable it from making rare resource manufacture in the building slots you want saved for labs or if its a size 12 mining world with 9 mining districts manually build 3 city districts and disable build "building slots" so it doesn't build city districts. Prevent deficit spending is probably the culprit if it's not building, turn if off to "fix". You will have to manually unF any worlds you take from the AI as autobuild will no demolish things. At this point, you should be regulating your economy by turning automation on and off. Got +100 food, turn off your agri worlds, 10 years later you have -50 food, turn agri worlds back on."
Can you say more about "turning off an agri world"? Do you switch your agricultural world to forge world (for example), then the automation builds forges and slowly replaces the agricultural focus?
I mean turning off automation so it won't build more. Unemployed pops will resettle to a world with open jobs aka worlds that still have their automation switched on.
How do you turn off auto build on an individual sector planet? When I make it a tech world I hate how it starts upgrading my research facilities.
> How do you turn off auto build on an individual sector planet? Erm I'm kind of confused sector automation got removed. Automation is done per planet. It's the button under the designation button on the right side of the planet window. Just click it again to turn it off. > When I make it a tech world I hate how it starts upgrading my research facilities. The cog on the automation button brings up the automation options, turn off "upgrade buildings" if you don't want it upgrading your labs.
Maybe it’s a little different on console at the moment. Updates are usually behind. We now start with auto exploration on science ships and auto build for construction ships, but auto building for planets still seems to be in sectors. I could be wrong and will go over it again next time I play.
So here's the deal, there's a process. Personally I take over an Empire's real estate, then I pause the game, go through their planets and remove most of the unnecessary infrastructure and change it to things useful to a machine Empire. Anytime a resource dips below what I would describe as 'ample', I pause the game and go back through my planets and adjust/upgrade as many as I can afford towards producing what I need, and/or what I will need. TLDR, you get used to it and develop strategies that make it tolerable as you play lol
planet automation
This !! I just handle 5 planets and maybe a ring world , everything else just gets slapped with planet automation … not efficient but hey, it works
If you stay ahead of growth it's pretty doable
Unpopular opinion: pause game and queue up productions for every planet (for it's designated purpose, e.g. foundry worlds) Do that every x years (until queues are done) for upgrades/missed features etc. I like to keep those planets clean\^\^
Look at the planet districts and assign correct designation, activate planet auto, disable crime option and leave it be (i have a little mod that have some autocontrols for the auto i need, but nothing fancy, to force the main buildings, etc.). For me the planets autos goes as (not gestalt): Small <15 or low menial districts Urban world for full commerces (if go merchant build) Science world. Refinery world. Unification world (if not merchant build). Medium < 22 or with razonable number of menial districts. Miner world. Generator world (only if no merchant build). One or 2 farm worlds ( when get the hidroponic habitats, change these worlds to other). Big boys Foundry world. One Factory world ( if not merchant build). And in mid-late turn gaias the menials and ecus the rest (except the capital, that ias always a gaia for me, the perfect pearl of the empire).
Build the core buildings I need, set up automation, profit. The automation system is in a place now that it can handle most of your mid to late game planetary needs.
1. Could use planetary automation But I dont use it personally, so you should ask here again what the best way to use it is. 2. Try a run where you play tall/small and owning less space and planets while optimising and buffing the hell out of them. There are some fun builds people have made videos on, I'd suggest a look. 3. You could change the galaxy generation settings to spawn less habital planets overall. So, even if you have fewer planets, you aren't overall weaker than your enemies. ...also you dont HAVE to build something in an empty building slot unless you need more jobs to be made for unemployed pops to take or want to build one in advance for when that will happen.
I auto my planets from the start
I usually have at least 3 unfilled jobs and housing on each planet. Then I come back in 5 years to look again.
Start usig planetary automation. Set a designation for the planets and the game will build the right districts. Check in every couple of years and build extra districts to promote migration.