Stellaris Dev Diary #156 - PDXCON

[Ecervele]

But a devouring swarm doesn't use espionage...

Only to leave the tastiest bit till the end...

 

[Rabid Ice Weasel]

But a devouring swarm doesn't use espionage...

Well, since nothing official has been mentioned about espionage yet, we don't know for sure. Certainly a DS couldn't conduct any face-to-face espionage, ala trying to pump a leader for information. But I can't see why a DS couldn't conduct espionage via computer hacking, or planting a virus in another empire's computer network to gain information or cause other kinds of disruptions, etc.

 

[Isilanka]

Well, since nothing official has been mentioned about espionage yet, we don't know for sure. Certainly a DS couldn't conduct any face-to-face espionage, ala trying to pump a leader for information. But I can't see why a DS couldn't conduct espionage via computer hacking, or planting a virus in another empire's computer network to gain information or cause other kinds of disruptions, etc.

I mean the Tyranids in 40K are pretty good when it comes to infiltrating stuff, so "Devouring Swarms can't use espionage" wouldn't even have a scifi trope excuse.

 

[ShardOfSoul]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but since planets no longer contain space ports, and systems now do, is it possible we will get entirely spacebound civs with either no pops/habitat pops only? Or at the very least have the KO condition for a faction changed to 0 systems rather than 0 worlds?

 

[Methone]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but since planets no longer contain space ports, and systems now do, is it possible we will get entirely spacebound civs with either no pops/habitat pops only? Or at the very least have the KO condition for a faction changed to 0 systems rather than 0 worlds?

I think it was mentioned that one of the new Origins (Possibly one added with Federations?) will be a Habitat start.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but since planets no longer contain space ports, and systems now do, is it possible we will get entirely spacebound civs with either no pops/habitat pops only? Or at the very least have the KO condition for a faction changed to 0 systems rather than 0 worlds?

Habitat start has been confirmed as an Origin (you can also try my attempt at making it work as a mod for 2.3, updated to 2.4 soon).

Note that, to the game code, colonies on Habitats and Planets are the same kind of thing. It's possible to distinguish which you're on (which is used to, for example, control what buildings and districts each one gets), but the game makes no actual distinction between colonies on planets, habitats, or ringworlds for any kind of question like "who owns this system" or "is the system occupied". I'm actually pretty sure it never has, in fact; every kind of celestial body that shows the planet-like interface - be it a habitable or uninhabitable planet, moon, asteroid, habitat, ringworld section, or even a star - are all considered "planet" objects in the game's modding language. (Yes, in theory, this means you could create an empire who could colonize stars.)

 

[Monturiol]

Paradox designers need to finally get together and create interesting civics and playstyles for Hiveminds. Biological Asencion, Psionic Ascencion are nothing compared to Synth ascencion in terms of power - because of pop growth. How has Synth Ascencion been allowed to have 2 to 3 times as much pop growth as anything else in the game since 2.2.6? Who allowed the addition of a 50% pop growth relics for Robots only? Machine empires are utterly overpowered since 2.3 - an unacceptable state for a game that calls itself "strategy". You pick Machines - you win.

This is a very odd thing to be angry about from my perspective. You pick 1444 Big Blue Blob France, you win. You pick 769 Byzantium, you win. Pick X -> Win is kind of a calling card here. This is a Paradox grand strategy game. Y'know, the genre where you can - SHOULD! - choose to start as Ryukyu instead of France. That there are incredible power differentials between different strategies is almost the whole point.

It feels like you're complaining about a feature rather than a bug. If this sort of thing makes you tear your hair out, then I think grand strategy is not the genre for you.

Now, Stellaris has many actual bugs where clearly things are not WAD, and yes, those should be fixed. But "Game-start option X is more powerful than game-start option Y"? Really? That's the hill you want to die on, in a grand strategy game? From a studio where 1444 Byzantine Restoration is like, their most beloved meme? Scratching my head at you tbh.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

This is a very odd thing to be angry about from my perspective. You pick 1444 Big Blue Blob France, you win. You pick 769 Byzantium, you win. Pick X -> Win is kind of a calling card here. This is a Paradox grand strategy game. Y'know, the genre where you can - SHOULD! - choose to start as Ryukyu instead of France. That there are incredible power differentials between different strategies is almost the whole point.

It feels like you're complaining about a feature rather than a bug. If this sort of thing makes you tear your hair out, then I think grand strategy is not the genre for you.

Now, Stellaris has many actual bugs where clearly things are not WAD, and yes, those should be fixed. But "Game-start option X is more powerful than game-start option Y"? Really? That's the hill you want to die on, in a grand strategy game? From a studio where 1444 Byzantine Restoration is like, their most beloved meme? Scratching my head at you tbh.

Except that asymetrical starts are the core of EUIV, when they aren't, or at least not as much, in Stellaris - and a head-start should carry some penalities later if only because civics will less punch in the early game scale better than the rest.

 

[Monturiol]

Except that asymetrical starts are the core of EUIV, when they aren't, or at least not as much, in Stellaris

Says who? And on what basis?
Just because everyone starts on one planet doesn't mean everyone starts equal and doesn't mean everyone is intended to start equal.

and a head-start should carry some penalities later

Says who? And on what basis?
I am quite happy to play a civ that has a harder time permanently, and I am glad that Stellaris as it is right now includes that facility.
(What lategame advantages do you think Ryukyu has to make up for its pathetic start position?)

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Says who? And on what basis?
Just because everyone starts on one planet doesn't mean everyone starts equal and doesn't mean everyone is intended to start equal.

Idk, the devs?

Dev diary
Stellaris diverges from all of our other games in certain key respects:

• It is not historical.
• It features a symmetrical start.
• You start out small.
• Most of the world is unknown.

 

[Monturiol]

Idk, the devs?

Dev diary
Stellaris diverges from all of our other games in certain key respects:

• It is not historical.
• It features a symmetrical start.
• You start out small.
• Most of the world is unknown.

You'll pardon me for not being convinced based on a 4-year-old dev diary from a game that had 3 FTL types and internal politics.
That game is not this game.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

This is a very odd thing to be angry about from my perspective. You pick 1444 Big Blue Blob France, you win. You pick 769 Byzantium, you win. Pick X -> Win is kind of a calling card here. This is a Paradox grand strategy game. Y'know, the genre where you can - SHOULD! - choose to start as Ryukyu instead of France. That there are incredible power differentials between different strategies is almost the whole point.

I'm not playing CK2, I'm playing Stellaris. Stellaris doesn't offer options like "start with 3 extra planets" or start as an empire with 10 planets (but maybe that will change with origins that start you inside a federation).

What I am getting at is that Stellaris offers an about equal starting position for all empires. 1 Planet, roughly same number of pops, roughly same number of ressource income etc. But due to Machine empires being vastly more powerful than other empires since 2.3, every game plays out the same which creates boring and forseeable games. Its also not fun to play them yourself after having already done this a couple times because it takes almost no effort to dominate your enemy (while it does take some effort if you are using Starnet AI and not playing Machines yourself).

Same goes for Hiveminds in the opposite direction. Look up the patchnotes past 2.2: Reduced pop growth from policies for Hiveminds, reduced amenity output from maintenance Drones and even more nerfs. After that, only Machine empires received huge buffs in 2.2.5/2.2.6 while Hiveminds have been neglected entirely. Their stats are simply worse than every other empire at many instances. They are still missing a big civic rework. But we have been repeating and explaining these issues in detail for months now. I'm looking forward to the next patches, hoping Paradox will do proper changes like they did for Synths and Machine empires in 2.2.5/2.2.6.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

You'll pardon me for not being convinced based on a 4-year-old dev diary from a game that had 3 FTL types and internal politics.
That game is not this game.

But there is an article on the xbox website written by Daniel which says:

As we’ve never developed a PDS game for consoles, we brought in the expertise of Tantalus Media who are helping to translate our popular sci-fi title. Stellaris, which of course is the latest of our GSGs, was a natural choice to be translated to console platform first. Since it is a symmetrical strategy game (where every player starts on equal terms), as opposed to most of our other games that are asymmetrical (France vs Ulm in EU4), we believe it is easier for beginners to get into and more suitable to introduce people to the genre

That was written this January.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

I'm not playing CK2, I'm playing Stellaris. Stellaris doesn't offer options like "start with 3 extra planets" or start as an empire with 10 planets (but maybe that will change with origins that start you inside a federation).

What I am getting at is that Stellaris offers an about equal starting position for all empires. 1 Planet, roughly same number of pops, roughly same number of ressource income etc. But due to Machine empires being vastly more powerful than other empires since 2.3, every game plays out the same which creates boring and forseeable games. Its also not fun to play them yourself after having already done this a couple times because it takes almost no effort to dominate your enemy (while it does take some effort if you are using Starnet AI and not playing Machines yourself).

Same goes for Hiveminds in the opposite direction. Look up the patchnotes past 2.2: Reduced pop growth from policies for Hiveminds, reduced amenity output from maintenance Drones and even more nerfs. After that, only Machine empires received huge buffs in 2.2.5/2.2.6 while Hiveminds have been neglected entirely. Their stats are simply worse than every other empire at many instances. They are still missing a big civic rework. But we have been repeating and explaining these issues in detail for months now. I'm looking forward to the next patches, hoping Paradox will do proper changes like they did for Synths and Machine empires in 2.2.5/2.2.6.

Agreed 100% with the expectations being different between Stellaris and CK, etc. This actually goes right back to some of the early dev diaries, where they pointed out that - unlike Paradox's existing games - Stellaris is to be essentially a pseudo-real-time 4X, and that means balance is important. There can be some variation - strategies that are high-variance, like genocidals, for example, or strategies that have a significant random factor like Psionics - but there shouldn't be anything that's just reliably better. It's sort-of acceptable - though not ideal - in single-player, but it's just game-breaking in multiplayer.

Personally, I actually think Stellaris is a little too high-variance all over the place. With the default number of players for a galaxy size, you can sometimes explore for 20 years without making contact with another player, and sometimes you find another capital literally three jumps away (at least, that's the closest I've personally found). Or have your Quick Learner life-term ruler get Arrested Development at level 3, or even just start with worthless traits/agenda. Some variation is both unavoidable and desirable - after all, otherwise you get the same problems that deep imbalance brings, where each game feels the same - but it sucks when a promising game gets kicked in the teeth by the RNG, even in single-player; it's worse in MP.

Also, for what it's worth, machine civics suck too. They at least have three gameplay-changing civics, vs. only one for hives, and DE aren't totally locked out of diplomacy. However, that's the only meaningful variation they have and a lot of their civic options are still the utterly boring/lame ones they had pre-2.2. They also don't even have a real ascension path. Obviously they don't need any buffs, but they could stand to be a bit diversified, given a new option or two. I'm hopeful that Origins will achieve this, but I expect that, as usual, the gestalts will largely be ignored.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Stellaris is to be essentially a pseudo-real-time 4X, and that means balance is important.

Exactly. This is why we have things like Robot factories be capped to 1 per planet. Apparently before megacorp was released it was possible to build multiple of them and during testing they decided to not allow this because growth would become too high.

We all agree that balance is in a very bad spot at the moment, much worse than 2.2.7 when it was clearly far from perfect but Machine empires weren't totally dominating everything. So we are expecting a big patch similar to what 2.2.5/2.2.6 did for Synths/ Machine empires when they were in a tough spot.

Big changes for Hivemidns are needed to fix all their inferiour stats and economy problems like having to unemploy synapse drones and being forced into habitability traits and Spiritualists also need buffs. Same goes for Biological Ascencion as nothing can compare to Synth Ascencion because of multiple reasons. Overall growth needs to be more equal than it is now. The different ascencion types should specialize in different kinds of ressource output and not be so vastly different in strength just because Paradox decided that Synth Ascencion needs twice or even three times as much total growth as everything else in the game. (12 Synth growth + organics growth) vs Hiveminds not even getting 10 growth and Spiritualists being even lower than that.