Stellaris Dev Diary #130 - New and Changed Technologies in Le Guin

[Banditks]

@Wiz
Are Machine empires always going to be hostile to organic pops and primitive species? Being limited to, destroy, forcibly assimilate, turn them onto battery's, or stick them in really nice hotels is not really fun. Organic empires can grant full citizenship to machine pops, and make a coexisting space empire, having that option completely stripped from machine empires is a bit of a bummer. I always liked finding pre-space species and uplifting them into my empire, cant do that as a toaster.
Would be nice if the Industrial Production Core type of machine empire could research, or learn the ability to play nice and treat organics as equals.

 

[WealthyAardvark]

@Wiz What do you think about having surplus research points when you finish researching a technology overflow into stored research points? It kills me every time I see that the majority of a month's work is being wasted, and more than once I've found that only a single digit number's worth of my triple digit output will be used. As someone compelled to micromanage these sorts of things, it's a constant mental drain when I play.

 

[Drinko]

Will there be special (and expensive) prison buildings(or district) on the prison worlds?

Maybe they produce something based on a policy?

Guard jobs that reduce crime?
Prisoner job for prisoners?

 

[ilikegoodfood]

Balance mainly, as their effects would stack.

How about giving them diminishing returns instead: 1 give 100% bonus, 2 gives 150%, 3 175% etc. It'll trend towards a fixed value that way, something near 200% (I don't have time to calculate it exactly right now).

 

[henzington]

@Wiz
Are Machine empires always going to be hostile to organic pops and primitive species? Being limited to, destroy, forcibly assimilate, turn them onto battery's, or stick them in really nice hotels is not really fun. Organic empires can grant full citizenship to machine pops, and make a coexisting space empire, having that option completely stripped from machine empires is a bit of a bummer. I always liked finding pre-space species and uplifting them into my empire, cant do that as a toaster.
Would be nice if the Industrial Production Core type of machine empire could research, or learn the ability to play nice and treat organics as equals.

Both hive minds and machine empires have no regard for individuals. If you want to have robots then just build them as a normal empire

 

[Blackjack_222]

24th oktober is my birthday. Better make the announcement a good present!

 

[Col. W. T. Philmore]

Penal Colonies have vastly increased crime, but get an increase to immigration pull

Why? It represents desire of all people to live in ghetto?

 

[Minuro]

Why? It represents desire of all people to live in ghetto?

Represent that people dont travel for plesure, but they are condemned to live there.

 

[Col. W. T. Philmore]

Specialized world status is cleared if the planet changes owner.

Does it mean that if you capture enemy's prison planet, it immediately loses it's crime level?
And what happens if enemy re-capture it?

 

[Calvax]

Does it mean that if you capture enemy's prison planet, it immediately loses it's crime level?
And what happens if enemy re-capture it?

Pretty sure it means it’s penal planet status is revoked but the crime and everything else is the same. It’s just now it doesn’t have the same stat boost to crime or immigration pull.

 

[Dan_Daniel2000]

@Wiz
Organic empires can grant full citizenship to machine pops, and make a coexisting space empire, having that option completely stripped from machine empires is a bit of a bummer.

Thats not true, organic Empires never could grant full rights to machines, they just break down if their planets get conquered.

 

[208]

"Arcane deciphering", we are getting magic in Stellaris?

Arcane Deciphering: +50% speed to understanding Stellaris dev diaries & teasers.

 

[smile444]

@Wiz

will there be an specialized planet option to improve ecumenopolises ? I mean, the way i see it, you build them because you want to build a maximum of buildings on them and maximise output of buildings that scale with population. But you said habitats have more efficient disctricts, so i guess habitat housing districts will give more housing, so it is actually better to do that on habitats. Plus habitat have districts (trading science and leisiure) that are more efficient for producing some ressources than the building piling strategy.

On secound tought, will there be ways to specialise habitats the way you specialise planets ?

In the images you showed, only city districts will see their housing improved by technology (like the weather control thing), will there be the same type of technology for habitat housing district ?

 

[Varren]

Will there be special (and expensive) prison buildings(or district) on the prison worlds?

Maybe they produce something based on a policy?

Guard jobs that reduce crime?
Prisoner job for prisoners?

Coliseums where they fight for freedom and the amusement of the elite?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

@Wiz

will there be an specialized planet option to improve ecumenopolises ? I mean, the way i see it, you build them because you want to build a maximum of buildings on them and maximise output of buildings that scale with population. But you said habitats have more efficient disctricts, so i guess habitat housing districts will give more housing, so it is actually better to do that on habitats. Plus habitat have districts (trading science and leisiure) that are more efficient for producing some ressources than the building piling strategy.

On secound tought, will there be ways to specialise habitats the way you specialise planets ?

In the images you showed, only city districts will see their housing improved by technology (like the weather control thing), will there be the same type of technology for habitat housing district ?

From the teaser screenshots we've seen, Ecumenopolis worlds have the same districts as Habitats, actually. So they presumably get similar or the same bonuses, but with the added benefit of being planet-sized.

 

[Carinyc]

@Wiz Maybe once you conquer another empires prison planet you get some negative or positive effect? For instance if you conquered a prison planet of a slaver empire or a prison planet of a xenophile empire

 

[Orphalesion]

Coliseums where they fight for freedom and the amusement of the elite?

Well, as long as they never actually get their freedom. Instead inmates that "win" their freedom through combat should just be euthanized quietly.

Not a good idea to make a criminal more adept at violence through constant gladiatoral combat and then throwing them back into society...

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I understand that this is a major update that sets up a lot of groundwork for potential future systems. The potential of these systems is very impressive. That said, I was definitely hoping for 'more' with regards to a few things, specifically these last two DDs.

It's quite long so I put it in a spoiler.

Spoiler

With regards to the trade system, the automatic formation of the galactic trade station on a first come first serve basis, without choice to reject it, feels like a first draft. The way that this then tied into the enclaves was also a slight disappointment.
At the very least, I would have liked to see a choice for the empire to reject the construction of the GTO (Galactic Trade Organisation) in their space, or, if they accept, the choice of which system it goes in.
What I would have really liked to see there, is for the GTO to request a system from the empire, along with materials to help establish themselves. This system would belong to the GTO faction and the founding empire would get certain bonuses based on how favorable the system is (habitable worlds, total orbital resources, etc.). It would make the GTO an Enclave, a country that is entirely surrounded by the territory of another country, that grants bonuses to that empire. If enemies make it through and attack the GTO, for instance, you'd have failed to provide protection and your market prices might go up slightly.
You can then also attach a wide variety of events to that system, effecting anyone with a direct jump-line to it, including requests for resources or protection from an incoming pirate raid. They may pay to make a technology available to them, and allow them to sell it other empires (granting a sizable research boost to those who buy it), or any other number of things.

With regards to the Traditions, I agree with others that they shouldn't all be available to everyone. Each tree should be 10+ Nodes long and some trees should be locked behind or changed based on your empire's traits.
A Spiritualist empire would have access to a spiritualist tradition tree, granting social cohesion, reduced crime, and similar things. A materialist empire would gain access to a materialist traditions tree, with focuses on wealth and research. Since each empire has three points to spend on Ethics, we could get three additional trees, with fanatics in any field getting two trees related to it, the more moderate one and a more extreme one that may come with negatives as well as positives for over-specializing. You could even have a few nodes swap depending on certain combinations. Fanatic Militarist materialists might get access to a DARPA style research tradition.
Also, they could really be renamed. Traditions sort of work, but they are about the past more than the future. Maybe even add a traditions slot to empire creation, like an extra set of species traits that do very different things.

And finally, for specializations, I was hoping that we would have more types of specialized world, degrees of specialization and no hard caps on their numbers. For instance, maybe a penal world is only available to authoritarian and militarist empires and only grants bonuses while the population is still growing, but they don't stack. Once you have filled one up with your 'criminal elements' you then have to make another. You could also add additional edicts to such a world, such as population control, preventing local births from clogging up your prison world and limiting planet population growth to immigration only.
An egalitarian empire might instead get rehabilitation centers and rehabilitation colonies, that specialize in retraining people to live in society. It would cost a lot in goods and energy to maintain, but it wouldn't fill up like penal colonies do.
A Fortress world specialization, with a planetary shields and surface-to-orbit weapons systems, fighter bays and advantages to troop training, would be fantastic for military empires with on-going wars along a fixed part of their boarder. Such a world would have a reduced birth-rate and next-to-no immigration attraction, buildings would be expensive and so forth.

Ultimately, there is an enormous potential here that, at least in this update, hasn't been tapped very much yet at all. I can only hope that this is a framework update and that the rest will follow, the sooner the better.

And don't get me wrong: I've not been stoked for a Stellaris update since release and these last few have just been getting better and better. Keep up the great work.

I find this "they give an inch, you ask a mile" attitude exhausting and I'm not even a dev.

Time is money, and everyone needs to be paid. I'd rather get a "first draft" with the potential for future reworks and expansion than wait for ages and maybe never see any updates because the scope was too great and they ran out of funding.

Even the stuff I explicitly agree with in here- things like wanting a reworked Traditions mechanic- are things I'd expect to be nowhere near as elaborate/demanding as you've outlined if they ever got done. Trees with 10+ nodes? Christ.

 

[ilikegoodfood]

I find this "they give an inch, you ask a mile" attitude exhausting and I'm not even a Dev.

Time is money, and everyone needs to be paid. I'd rather get a "first draft" with the potential for future reworks and expansion than wait for ages and maybe never see any updates because the scope was too great and they ran out of funding.

Even the stuff I explicitly agree with in here- things like wanting a reworked Traditions mechanic- are things I'd expect to be nowhere near as elaborate/demanding as you've outlined if they ever got done. Trees with 10+ nodes? Christ.

I seem to have given off the wrong impression, and that is clearly my fault.
I love what they have and what they are doing with it. I recognize that this is a foundation, that they only have so much time and money and work-hours. They have to get the core features in first and fine tune or expand upon them later.
I did not intend to say that what they're doing now isn't enough or right or anything like that.

I do feel that they missed a trick with the traditions, but I also felt that about when they first came out and I do believe that they will get to it eventually, when they have the time and money to do so. I suppose I was trying to express a hope for what sorts of things might come of this in future updates, beyond the current one/ones that are already going on and to display an excitement for the systems they're implementing.

My wording is very poor with regards to that and I'm sorry. I'll work on editing it to make my intent clearer.
Also, while I am far from a developer, I have tinkered with coding myself and am all too aware of how a minor thing can take unreasonable amounts of time to implement. I recently spent some 70 hours trying to get one line of very specific code working and still haven't solved it.

Sorry for not being clear enough. The feel of that post is completely wrong.

EDIT:
Sorry again. It was very badly written on my part. I have heavily edited it and hope that my original intentions are more apparent in it's revised form.

EDIT 2:
I've gone and removed it outright. This post shows what I trying to say better than that one, even after the edits.

 

[Tindalosihound]

Well, as long as they never actually get their freedom. Instead inmates that "win" their freedom through combat should just be euthanized quietly.

Not a good idea to make a criminal more adept at violence through constant gladiatoral combat and then throwing them back into society...

They win their freedom by getting to leave the planet.

In a penal legion.