Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we're going to continue talking about the 2.1 'Niven' update accompanying the Distant Stars Story Pack. Everything mentioned in this dev diary is part of the free update, not the story pack.

Space Creature Research
In the Niven update, we've gone back to the space creatures (Amoebas, Crystals, etc) and improve on their special projects and rewards. Instead of the wildly inconsistent and unbalanced rewards we have now, we have changed the space creatures so that upon discovery and completion of the initial contact project, you will now generally get up to 3 options, depending on your ethics and the type of creature:
- Hunt: This will grant a permanent damage bonus towards this type of space creature, and rewards in the form of resources on killing them.
- Research: This is the most similar option to the old events, and unlocks a special project for detailed research of the space creature that will yield a reward in the form of technology and/or permanent empire buffs.
- Pacify: This will unlock a more expensive special project that allows you to turn the space creatures non-hostile, allowing you to co-exist with them and share their space, as well as potentially unlocking the ability to research special components or weapons that they use. It is not possible to pacify certain kinds of space creatures, such as mining drones.

Strategic Resource Discovery
Another thing we've tried to improve on in Niven is the discovery and exploitation of Strategic Resources. Previously, while exploring, you would not know if you had discovered any strategic resources unless you first had the related technology, which generally meant that you would explore, eventually research the tech, and suddenly discover a bunch of resources on places you had already built orbital stations on - not the most rewarding or strategic feeling. We've changed this so that strategic resources are now always visibile from the start, and you will get an event informing you when a science ship discovers a new strategic resource for the first time.

Some strategic resources will be able to be exploited immediately, while others will require a technology to be researched before you can build a mining station around that planet and gain access to the resource. Strategic Resources have generally been buffed and made more rare - we've removed their tendency to spawn in large clumps in certain areas of space, so if you find a particular resource and fail to claim that system before someone else does, you can no longer be assured that there will be another of its type nearby, and generally there won't be enough of any one strategic resource for every empire in the galaxy to have access to it.

Experimental Subspace Navigation
Lastly for today is a new order we've added for Science Ships called Experimental Subspace Navigation. This order is unlocked by a mid-game tech and allows the science ship to travel to any system which you have any level of intel on (that is, has been in sensor range at least once, or is part of another empire you have communications with) while ignoring the hyperlane network. The science ship will be considered MIA for the journey and simply arrive in the other system at the end of the order, bypassing any hostile creatures or closed borders along the way. This allows even empires that have been boxed in by hostile neighbors to continue exploring the galaxy and complete event chains that might otherwise require a war. Certain special systems (such as the L-Cluster) will not be possible to travel to using this method.

That's all for today! Next week is PDXcon, so there won't be a dev diary. There will, however, almost certainly be something related to Distant Stars talked about at the event itself, so stay tuned!

 

[Mastah Jedi]

OMG, Wiz, you telepathically read my mind!

I always thought, why do I have to kill those ancient mining drones, who where obviously ancient and created to mine rocks. Why could I not take them over, at the very least, just leave them be in my own borders. Perfect ! I finally can!

 

[ShyFlamingo]

OMG, Wiz, you telepathically read my mind!

I always thought, why do I have to kill those ancient mining drones, who where obviously ancient and created to mine rocks. Why could I not take them over, at the very least, just leave them be in my own borders. Perfect ! I finally can!

Actually mining drones will be the the only(?) one you can't pacify. Wiz is worried that it would block mineral rich planets as you wouldn't be able to build a mining station yourself. However there has been some good ideas to make them, when you pacify them, your mining station, which would be a neat idea. We'll have to wait and see if paradox implements this idea. I wouldn't be surprised if they did, i imagine it depends on how difficult it would be to code in.

 

[FleetingRain]

I dunno. Imho when there is a (sound by itself) global mechanic but then I have to workaround it because it is not consistent with world I want to represent (like "uneven fights", "experimental subspace travel"), the issue is that the good global and sound mechanic is actually wrong in the context.

But hei. A fix is better than no fix. It's good to see some love for eXploration in 2.0 so I like the changes.

Tbh I find it even weirder because, in my opinion, there isn't anything to fix. Why is having your exploration blocked by space creatures or hostile empires bad? It's consistent with both the mechanics and the "lore" anyway.

 

[uberion]

I dont like Experimental Subspace Navigation. Please disable this tech for AI

 

[ShyFlamingo]

I dont like Experimental Subspace Navigation. Please disable this tech for AI

if you are going to make a demand like that at least have the courtesy to elaborate your position.
You cannot possibly expect anyone to listen to you when your only argument is "I don't like it."

 

[Miesha]

Given they block very valuable mineral deposits in their systems even if not hostile, we didn't really want to introduce an option that is obviously inferior to the others.

What if they give resources when they're neutral? Like the places they're mining give the same amount of minerals as they would if you destroyed and took the location for yourself? Sort of like neutral mining stations that swap alignment along with the starbase in the system? Hunters would still destroy them but if Pacifier empires were at war with each other, they would ignore the mining drone stations and just get the benefits if they took the starbase. Similar to how some mining stations survive wars and just swap alignment, right?

 

[SolSys]

Except, you do, right now. All those resources' deposits are distinctively unique. You can tell them apart by a single glance.

I think you may have mis-quoted or misunderstood the quotes meaning

 

[Preston241]

Is the new option not a bit the same as how jump drives work currently or am I mistaken? Also, someone willing to tell a noob what MIA means?

 

[Frenchie]

What if they give resources when they're neutral? Like the places they're mining give the same amount of minerals as they would if you destroyed and took the location for yourself?

What would stop the players to take the ressources when pacify them, then kill them after that for a double bonus ?
The only option i can see when we pacify them would be they give at our empires a little but regular amount of ressources with time, like does mining stations everywhere. But with with a slightly better number of ressources every month. Slighty.

 

[Druski]

I have always hoped that the visual and fleet strength aspects of the space creatures would be initially obscured in such a way that upon first meeting them, you are uncertain if you are looking at a creature or an empire or what- until you did the research to find out more. After all, just because that thing looks like its a space-whale, who's to say it's not the vanguard of an intergalactic empire bent on destruction of all sentient life? The whole point is you've never encountered something like this before, so you dont know what it can do

 

[Risa]

I think you may have mis-quoted or misunderstood the quotes meaning

Pardon if I did make mistake, even though I don't see any.

Zro comes with 2 soc and 2 phy (the only natural deposit that has 2 kinds of 2 research), only on gas giant. Dark matter comes with 5 phy, only on black hole. Living metal comes with 5 eng, not on star. They all can be identified as soon as you complete survey, long before having correct tech to mine them.

 

[Matt516]

Subspace navigation is brilliant. Solves the "teleporting scientists" exploit in the best way - by concluding that's not really very unbalanced so might as well make it a feature! Well done, well done indeed.

 

[shadow737]

Looks good.

Any idea when this DLC might be coming out?

The one thing I'd love to see come back though is the ability to design our own science ships.

 

[~Robbie]

EDIT: Oops.

 

[Guilliman88]

Is experimental subspace navigation a paid feature or with the free patch?

All of the stuff in this DD is for the free update.

 

[balmung60]

Why we can't have constraction ships with Experimental Subspace Navigation?

Because then you could poof a construction ship over, start claiming territory, and drop a jump gate, thereby getting out of being boxed in without either conflict or diplomacy

 

[blackchoas]

Given they block very valuable mineral deposits in their systems even if not hostile, we didn't really want to introduce an option that is obviously inferior to the others.

maybe pacifying Mining Drones should be like hacking their systems so that they think we are their original masters so that if you control their space their stations will be delivering minerals to you.

 

[Miesha]

What would stop the players to take the ressources when pacify them, then kill them after that for a double bonus ?
The only option i can see when we pacify them would be they give at our empires a little but regular amount of ressources with time, like does mining stations everywhere. But with with a slightly better number of ressources every month. Slighty.

You completely misunderstand me. I mean, what if the mining drones function as neutral mining stations that shift owner along with the star system. If you kill them, you lose the mining station effect and have to build your own, so you get no double up bonus. You're essentially suggesting the exact same thing I was suggesting to begin with because you didn't understand what I had written.

 

[terrycloth]

Because then you could poof a construction ship over, start claiming territory, and drop a jump gate, thereby getting out of being boxed in without either conflict or diplomacy

Yeah. That would be a feature -- allowing pacifists to peacefully expand instead of forcing them to fight. It would cost a ton of influence.

 

[Mad Ossor]

I understand Experimental Subspace Navigation is for Science ships only. I do like this change because it solves problems with research ships. However it sounds a little bit unrealistic to me that no other space vessels can make use of that technology. I do understand that would kill game mechanics, but I am missing an explanation for it. This sounds to me like: "Hey our research ships magically can do this sensational kind of space travel, oh well but only the science ships, we're too dumb to implement this technology in other space vessels."