Stellaris Dev Diary #106: 2.0.2 patch notes and the Road Ahead for Cherryh | Page 43

Infinitea&Biscuits · Mar 5, 2018

I have encountered a game breaking bug unfortunately in 2.0.2, not sure if it has been reported before but i am getting constant alerts (as in every second) that an empire has the Stop Colossus Casus Belli against me. Not only are they constant but I also have not even researched destroyers yet, let alone Colossi! Checking their empire they do have the Casus Belli listed against me, but only once.

This seemed to start whilst at war with them, which they declared, after i captured their capital. Their war goals were conquest of four of my systems, mine in response was Absorption (hunger) as my only option.

I am a Devouring Swarm so I am not sure if this may have something to do with it, it is only 2259, the only ascension perk i have is mastery of nature, so i don't meet any of the three requirements for the Colossus Project Ascension and I have not yet researched any ship size (not even destroyers) so i couldn't really be further from getting a Colossus.

The only other bug i noticed in the play through is missing text for the middle top row supremacy tradition - tr_supremacy_natural_order and tr_supremacy_natural_order_desc (I did pick this perk if it is relevant to possibly causing the issue, although i assume it is just a missing text reference.

Saryn · Mar 5, 2018

Matt516 said:
Yeah this is a sorely needed UI element. Even if it's just individual to each opposing empire (aka you can view their claims screen as yours appears) that would be better than what we've got now.

As is, when I see that the opponent I'm fighting is trying to get "system X, system Y, and 30 others" I have zero way of knowing exactly what he's going for or how bad it would be for me to surrender.

Would be cool to have this both in some sort of itemized report, and by hovering over the system name in the system view.
Example System
Colony
Claimed by Evil Alien Empire

Matt516 · Mar 5, 2018

Saryn said:
Would be cool to have this both in some sort of itemized report, and by hovering over the system name in the system view.
Example System
Colony
Claimed by Evil Alien Empire

IIRC there already is something similar to that mouseover, maybe only in the claims screen though? My gripe is there's no way to concisely view all the claims any given enemy empire has in one place.

Zabik · Mar 5, 2018

FailFailWin said:
What I mean, is quite simple. When building outposts, you will never pay more than the bordering influence cost, as you build one, then the next one, then the next one, your border moving each time.

With claims, wars don't work like that. You need to take larger chunks to make the war worthwhile, and so you end up claiming systems multiple jumps away, by virtue of the fact you have already claimed everything on your border (which is a pretty thin strip of nothing to go through a whole war over).

With claim costs as they stand, it is near impossible to conquer even a small empire without CHEESING (just pointing out there is a way around this, and one I doubt the devs want to encourage) by claiming only planets, and then outposting everything else once the rest of the empire vanishes upon victory.

Well your argument sounds to me like you just don't know how to make claims worth while prefering war over peace. On my side i am a warmonger too but I know some tricks which make claiming way cheaper than building outposts. In the midgame this results in influence cost of less than 40 for bordering systems and ~100 for deep systems with colonies. Which overall is way cheaper than buildng your own outposts for 75 influence. There are still systems with 200+ influence if it is a large empire, but the point is that you shouldn't be able to conquer a wide empire in single strike.
So what do you need is to rival enemy empire, this will give you a 20% discount. Then you need to get the perk from supremacy tradition tree, which is another 20% discount. Also if you get the possibility research in society the reduce of claiming, which is 2 upgrades, each 10% discount. This is already a 40% discount making claiming ridicuosly cheap. But if you want it even cheaper get the extrem xenophobe for further 20% discount.
I never play xenophobe, but with this perk claimng bordering systems would cost u less than 30 influence! So a border war (not a total annihilation war) would be like 3x cheaper.

Also another trick if you plan to attack on a really large empire, is that in first war you claim single expensive deep system. So that in the second war all enemy systems will have short distances.

Zabik · Mar 5, 2018

FailFailWin said:
What I mean, is quite simple. When building outposts, you will never pay more than the bordering influence cost, as you build one, then the next one, then the next one, your border moving each time.

With claims, wars don't work like that. You need to take larger chunks to make the war worthwhile, and so you end up claiming systems multiple jumps away, by virtue of the fact you have already claimed everything on your border (which is a pretty thin strip of nothing to go through a whole war over).

With claim costs as they stand, it is near impossible to conquer even a small empire without CHEESING (just pointing out there is a way around this, and one I doubt the devs want to encourage) by claiming only planets, and then outposting everything else once the rest of the empire vanishes upon victory.

Oh and by the way, eating all planets but not systems is the most inefficient way to claim systems. Because of all the reductions to claim systems but not to deploy an outpost.

YberDC · Mar 5, 2018

You realize you don't have to wait to compile a bunch of fixes when there are game breaking bugs like the machine empires not being able to vassalize people or the AI empires not getting pirate spawns like the player does, right?

Also no sign of fixing the gamebreaking invincible scourge planet bug. Back to back gamebreaking bugs just after purchasing the game in the first 2 playthroughs, feelsgoodman

blaadjesboom · Mar 5, 2018

what i found to be a obvious problem was the way the new ship designs handle energy distribution:

you do no longer have a clear control over the amount of energy you want to invest in, you do not have the choice between small medium and large reactors ,
leaving you with surplus energy all the time without a choice to avoid this , forcing you to take shields reducing variety in the early game.

having the choice between small medium and large reactors for each reactor tier might resolve this problem slightly, there might be more to it but i wanted to mention at least this aspect.

the higher tiers are more cost efficient and produce higher total energy,
and reactors of course scale for each ship type.
but this isnt enough to differentiate between players within the same tier, making it harder to fully focus on whether you want to go for shields armor or a combination of the two, especially in the early game.

i thought about how the different reactors should work and this is all i could come up with in the short time:

a small reactor on a corvette would be the cheapest and produce the least energy, just enough in order to fill in each weapon slot;
the large reactor would allow to max out on the amount of weapons and shields but would be significantly more expansive;
the medium reactor being a middle ground between the two.

i think that it will increase variety and the ability to customize your ships in the early game and while doing so differentiate yourself from your fellow players, increasing player agency without forcing players to learn the intricacies of it because auto-design is always a thing, therefore more possibilities/ options for more familiar players should be a good thing.

after all countering through ship design is an intended part of the game but i think it is lackluster because the game is in some aspects hindering this and that should not be intended.

forgive my grammer a bit
and also the explanation
it is more about the idea and i am wondering if more people consider this something that should be looked into

Jazerus · Mar 5, 2018

blaadjesboom said:
what i found to be a obvious problem was the way the new ship designs handle energy distribution:

you do no longer have a clear control over the amount of energy you want to invest in, you do not have the choice between small medium and large reactors ,
leaving you with surplus energy all the time without a choice to avoid this , forcing you to take shields reducing variety in the early game.

having the choice between small medium and large reactors for each reactor tier might resolve this problem slightly, there might be more to it but i wanted to mention at least this aspect.

the higher tiers are more cost efficient and produce higher total energy,
and reactors of course scale for each ship type.
but this isnt enough to differentiate between players within the same tier, making it harder to fully focus on whether you want to go for shields armor or a combination of the two, especially in the early game.

i thought about how the different reactors should work and this is all i could come up with in the short time:

a small reactor on a corvette would be the cheapest and produce the least energy, just enough in order to fill in each weapon slot;
the large reactor would allow to max out on the amount of weapons and shields but would be significantly more expansive;
the medium reactor being a middle ground between the two.

i think that it will increase variety and the ability to customize your ships in the early game and while doing so differentiate yourself from your fellow players, increasing player agency without forcing players to learn the intricacies of it because auto-design is always a thing, therefore more possibilities/ options for more familiar players should be a good thing.

after all countering through ship design is an intended part of the game but i think it is lackluster because the game is in some aspects hindering this and that should not be intended.

forgive my grammer a bit
and also the explanation
it is more about the idea and i am wondering if more people consider this something that should be looked into

Extra reactor power gives a small damage boost. You do not have to use only shields if you don't want to - the extra power saved by using armor is still useful.

Hyomoto · Mar 5, 2018

You can also choose a smaller reactor. Not as precise, sure, but not entirely static either.

krios41 · Mar 5, 2018

Northernwwater said:
It's a strategy game. You are supposed to struggle. That's the idea.

Correct, i'm suposed to struggle
not suffer

SuiciSpai · Mar 5, 2018

Keanon said:
If only you could play 1.9 if you wanted to

But I don't want to

. I really like 2.0, much more than 1.9. But I will wait for the fixes I guess.

ius · Mar 5, 2018

What if certain changes to War Exhaustion would depend on the type of War Doctrine policy a civilization adheres to?

Joni Festus · Mar 5, 2018

Matt516 said:
There is - if you see your empire's logo in the system, you control the outpost. If you see 4 little spikey things coming out of the logo, you control the whole system.

Thanks! This is good to know, I will see if this helps on my next war.

Matt516 · Mar 5, 2018

Jazerus said:
Extra reactor power gives a small damage boost

Well, it nominally does. This boost, like the attack range boost and many other small boosts to ship stats, actually doesn't affect real combat stats at all.

Northernwwater · Mar 5, 2018

Matt516 said:
Well, it nominally does. This boost, like the attack range boost and many other small boosts to ship stats, actually doesn't affect real combat stats at all.

Do you mean that the degree of contribution is insignificant?

Northernwwater · Mar 5, 2018

krios41 said:
Correct, i'm suposed to struggle
not suffer

Making difficult choices is not suffering. It's the game.

Alzara · Mar 5, 2018

long_fella said:
imho that's a terrible idea.

Yep it is (outposts now costing energy to maintain)! I just tried loading my game with a large empire using the beta. Went from +33 energy a month to -27.
This is a pretty prohibitive change for larger empires.

Matt516 · Mar 5, 2018

Northernwwater said:
Do you mean that the degree of contribution is insignificant?

No, I mean the boost literally does nothing. See OP here and @Torakka 's post 11 down: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...e-range-as-they-should.1072933/#post-23887887

Northernwwater · Mar 5, 2018

Alzara said:
Yep it is (outposts now costing energy to maintain)! I just tried loading my game with a large empire using the beta. Went from +33 energy a month to -27.
This is a pretty prohibitive change for larger empires.

If you had started with the new rate you would have made different choices and budgeted differently. Hard choices is a good thing.

Supreme Director · Mar 5, 2018

Devs!

Great update. I have a few questions. Are you (or anyone else for that matter) experiencing bugs with the fleet manager? It seems to accidentally create new fleets when I use the reinforce button (which helps with fleet production/logistics like nothing else ever could). Also, I keep spending exorbitant fees to upgrade my fleets only to have the overall power of the fleet reduced!! Are you working on ship design at all? Thanks for your quick work

Recruit

Hoplite

Lt. General

Second Lieutenant

Second Lieutenant

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Second Lieutenant

Major

General

Random People

Second Lieutenant

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Lt. General

Lt. General

Lt. General

Captain

Lt. General

Lt. General

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