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Stellaris Dev Diary #213: Ship Previews Experiment and PDXCon Q&A Transcript

Hi everyone!

Today I want to talk about two things - one is a new experiment that we are running for an alternative ship appearance browser in empire generation, and the other is the Q&A session that we held during PDXCon.

Ship Appearance Browser

Currently in Empire creation, when selecting the appearance of your ships, we display a preview of a sample ship utilizing your empire's colors.

Current Ship Appearance Selection


We have a bit of an experiment coming that will be rolling out to a portion of you soon that temporarily replaces this with an in-game ship browser that lets you switch between any ship and manipulate them so you can get a better look at them from different angles.

Cropped 3D Ship Preview



In our quest to constantly improve Stellaris we want to measure what impact a change like this can have, so that it would be easier for us to know how to prioritize these kinds of changes in the future. If everything goes well, the change will become permanent for everyone going forwards.

If you end up in the trial, we'd love to hear what you think of it!

PDXCon Q&A Transcript

During PDXCon, we hosted a developer Q&A session on the PDXCon Discord server, with seven of us answering almost a hundred of your questions. It was a tremendous amount of fun and we hope to be able to schedule more of these. (Most likely on the Stellaris Official Discord server. Join us!)

Here's the transcript of the questions and the answers.

Question
Are you working remotely at the moment or do you work in the office?
Answer
Yep we have been working from home since March of last year. It was kind of amazing to watch happen. The decision was made and within 2 days everyone had got themselves set up at home, with kit being sent out from the office. It's not been easy but we're all very fortunate we could do it
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Not a Question, just wanted to thank the Stellaris team for such a great game
Answer
This isn't an answer, but thank you for the praise!
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
when will we get brighter color customization for empire?
Answer
No plans at current, but it's certainly something we'd consider. Just a case of finding the time to do the groundwork so it applies to all the shipsets in the right way etc.
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Can we have something like Private Gates that only our empire (or those we choose to allow) can use?
Answer
I believe we recently changed Gateways so they're only usable by your empire (or your allies)
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
I for one like our new pop overlords! The nemesis dlc made me actually finish a game for the first time as the win condition made that possible without mopping up all of the map. Are there any plans for different nemesis types in the future or is that somehow moddable?
Answer
If you mean, do we want to add more content to Operations, Becoming the Crisis etc. Now we have the features in and know what works best it's something we'd like to consider, plenty of new cool operations we could add for example.
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)

Question
Is the faction system going to be reworked? It's sadly a minor feature that could be much more interesting
Answer
I see a lot of potential ways we could expand in the sphere of factions and internal politics. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see it as something we explore in a future release.
Answered by
Stephen "Eladrin" Muray (Designer)


Question
Necroids was excellent, and Caligula is my favourite content dev on Stellaris. Can we have more like Necroids from him soon please?
Answer
Why thank you! Necroids was, to be honest, a blast to make for all involved, so - without promising anything specific - such content is likely to come in future. Also, I can neither confirm nor deny reports of attempts to clone me.
Answered by
Caligula


Question
Any chance of expanding the diplomatic options for dealing with, for example, the Khan or other NPC only factions?
Answer
Nothing on the books right now, but a solid candidate for something we can revisit and expand upon. Even if it's just adding more Khan death events
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
any plans to revisit the Origins? I feel there's so much more potential for interesting and unique starts
Answer
We agree! Since they were introduced, Origins have indeed become a valuable part of our storytelling toolbox — see also, Necrophage in "Necroids". I can't speak to any future plans with them, of course, but Origins are always at least under consideration.
Answered by
Gemma Thomson


Question
What is your favorite piece of Stellaris music?
Answer
Historically my favorite piece of Stellaris music is Synthetic God!
Answered by
duplo


Question
Should I open this Shielded World we just found in some unimportant outer spiral arm of the galaxy?
Answer
Always open sealed worlds, nothing will ever go wrong!
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
Are you planning on adding more customisation options for aliens like we can see in humans, maybe even done by freelancers?
Answer
Customization is one of the best parts of Stellaris, which also sets it apart from other games that are similar. Adding new customization options is something we like to do with most new DLC releases. This Question seems to relate mostly to cosmetics like costumes for the characters, however, and for that topic I can only say that it's something we've wanted to do, but never really got to with other priorities in mind.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Can we expect more separatist forces within own nation, like it happens sometimes with AI?
Answer
At the moment, the AI has the same separatist mechanics as the player, but it is worse at dealing with it. So partly, we want to make the AI better at keeping itself stable, but also, the separatist mechanics are quite old and in need of reworking, so hopefully at some point in the future we'll be able to revisit it (no promises there though!)
Answered by
Caligula


Question
Whats your perfect Sunday look like?
Answer
Waking up at 12:50 and start answering fan Questions
Answered by
Moah


Question
How did Fallen Empires and Crises came to be?
Answer
End-game crises were an idea that was born long ago, before the initial release of the game. A lot of ideas are based on common sci-fi tropes. Having the galaxy be invaded by a hostile force is something that makes sense, and is a really good rough edge to shake things up. By a similar token, Fallen Empires is just something that really makes sense considering out leading motto of the galaxy is ancient and full of wonders.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Are we getting music pack made by some band/music guy like in Hearts of Iron 4 game?
Answer
Well with this Question you have started an argument as to who the music would be by. We like the idea! But Trying to figure out who the artist would be without gladiatorial violence seems tricky. duplo Does have a lyre though...
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Will you be investing more in the Cloning Caligula project that you can neither confirm or deny exists?
Answer
REDACTED
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
Hello ! Do we have any chance to get full-sized portraits ?
Legs, tail and other limbs. Not important to gameplay, but really funny could be.
Answer
Any suggestion that our Starfish aliens have legs is strictly non-canonical. (In all seriousness, yes it would be quite cool, but not plans at present)
Answered by
Caligula


Question
Were there any mechanics or features that players ended up using in a way you didn't intend, not necessarily due to exploits but functionality or interactions you didn't anticipate?
Answer
All of them.
No, really.
The players are much better at finding edge cases and hilarious combinations than we are.
Gemma specifically mentions "People strip mining Wenkwort Artem and turning the utopia into an industrial hellscape." It was the first thing she did and it was enlightening.
Answered by
Stephen "Eladrin" Muray (Designer)


Question
Which feature that you added to the game are you most proud of?
Answer
I have worked a lot on the new intel system, from the investigation on the performance implications to the actual code architecture of it. It was a challenging and continuously evolving task, but I am definitely proud of it, how it changed the game, and how scriptable and flexible it ended up being.
Answered by
duplo


Question
Any thoughts on the technology card system? It's one of the few systems unchanged and I wonder if there are any exciting future plans for it?
Answer
It's very unlikely that we'll make any significant overhauls to the tech system. The tech system, if changed, is something that would be more likely to change in a sequel. That doesn't mean we wont make any changes, it just means that large changes are very unlikely.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Whats the meaning of life?
Answer
42
Answered by
Moah


Question
Could we see a map with multiple galaxies that open up earlier or after end-game, maybe Prethoryn Fleets home galazy, Unbidden's dimension/galaxy, etc
Answer
Multiple galaxies is a very cool idea that would be fun if it could be possible, but due to the realities of being constrained by computing power, it would be very difficult to pull off if we want to have much depth.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
are there ground combat reworks/improvements planned for the future?
Answer
No current plans that we can share, but any system can attract the gaze of game design at any time. We're unpredictable children of chaos.
Answered by
Stephen "Eladrin" Muray (Designer)


Question
Can we see more galactic shapes or setups in future? Like, twin galaxies, or clusters connected through wormholes, etc.
Answer
don't have current plans, but I'm not gonna lie, it would be super cool!
Answered by
Caligula


Question
Over the last year we got more options for our empire flags, which is one of those things that seems small but can actually add surprisingly much to the game. In fact I built several custom empires specifically around cool flag designs. Any chance we could also get more color options? I'm particularly missing white.
Answer
No immediate plans but something we are aware people want, there's quite a few flag pack mods out there and the like. Just a matter of finding a good time to tackle it.
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
I love all the small stories my hapless explorers stumble upon, dig up or get eaten by in the vast void. Any chance there will be more of them?
Answer
It's quite likely, yes! We often look into means of reviving older content, similar to how we added more events and such for space fauna (space crystals, tiyanki, etc.) for last year's anniversary patch. Space is certainly rife with mishaps! Always wise to keep an eye out for new and surprising hazards.
Answered by
Gemma Thomson


Question
Are you planning on adding new species archetypes? Like Lithoids
Answer
We're always having new ideas and working on new content, but we cannot give a specific answer
Answered by
Moah


Question
We've seen a lot of amazing mods and additional content made by the community, especially stuff for the ModJam which was amazing! I noticed that Cities Skylines does Content Creator Packs, is there a plan at all for something similar to Stellaris? Personally, I think it would be a great way to support some of the amazing members of the modding community.
Answer
User-generated content (UGC) is something that has a lot of potential, and it's very neat to be able to include community content in a more supported fashion. A reason why I think it's hard to make work well for Stellaris is due to the simple fact that our games tend to change quite a lot. What happens if you have bought a piece of content that was community created, but it stops working due to changes in the base game? It would be impossible for us to guarantee that anything you bought on the community market would still work. Although I certainly like the idea itself, I'm very weary of the potential risks and problems. To sum up, its something that makes sense, but we're not sure how to properly support it in a fair way.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Do you consider reworking the Shroud? I, as a spiritualist enjoyer, fell that psionic ascension is a little underwhelming
Answer
Maybe not a full rework but we are certainly aware that Psionic Ascension is feeling a bit anemic. We've got some ideas!
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Where did the idea of Stellaris first arise from? Was it a mish mash of other space games or something completely new?
Answer
The concept of Stellaris was originally created by Henrik Fåhraeus (aka Doomdark). The vision was to create a space 4X game with a lot of focus on exploration. The galaxy is ancient/vast and full of wonders.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Has the QA team had any Bizarre Adventures while testing the game?
Answer
My boss dresses strangely and strike poses, please send help
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
Any plan to redesign the gal market price curve, because currently in end game more than half of the minerals of the galaxy can come from it and the price still stays low?
Answer
It's very likely that the galactic market price normalizes too fast. Prices should probably return to the average slower, and it's something I've been thinking about doing a balance pass on.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
What are your thoughts on Stellaris' election/succession mechanics? Would you like to eventually expand on them?
Answer
Very much in the "okay" pile, it's an older system that might be worth a revisit but they do the job.
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Can we expect to see another improvement on the diplomacy system - something more in line with EU4 maybe adding features like forcing religion, forming trade leagues, making marches, warning people, threatening war and even maybe royal marriage if the right govt type? (I feel like EU4 is miles ahead on diplo and should be emulated ASAP)
Answer
We would certainly like to improve the diplomatic options in Stellaris, and I think EU4 is a good comparison for something like that. I share your sentiment that it's something I'd want to strive towards, but I can't make any promises for what that might entail.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Galactic Emperor cannot wage wars against members of the Galactic Empire atm. Not sure if this is a bug or feature? For now galactic custodian seems to be much more flexible, as he can do almost everything as Galactic Emperor, but can claim and annex territory of other empires, humilate them, or whatever. Are you planning to change this for the Galactic Emperor?
Answer
as long as pax galactica is effect this is fine, if not. bug report on the forum plz!
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Does the AI utilize intel in decision-making? For example, is the AI more hesitant to declare war if it doesn’t have any or very little military intel?
Answer
The AI does take Intel into account for war declarations.
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
Do you consider to create something like the Legacystuff in the boardgame for the pc and console versions ?
Answer
It would be incredibly cool but we don't have any plans right now. (I personally think it'd be super cool to see the empire you won a game with show up as a fallen empire in the next one.)
Answered by
Stephen "Eladrin" Muray (Designer)


Question
Any plans to change how leaders work? There's multiple things that could use improvement, from how easy it is to get immortal leaders to how low value +% exp gain to the scientist/governor macro to be "optimal" etc.
Answer
See another answer. Leaders are fine right now, but we're open to giving them a once over.
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Is there any more plans to reduce the lag on late game in large/big or even medium maps after the pop growth update?
Answer
Work on performance is never over. We're pretty happy with the performance as of Nemesis but there's still work to be done.
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
would it be possible to expand upon Precursor events? They feel as though they don't contribute as much as they could. Great potential for Halo level catastrophes
Answer
We have added to precursors in the past with Ancient Relics adding the Baol and Zroni, so it's certainly the sort of thing that we could imagine adding to in future.
Answered by
Caligula


Question
2 parts Question, What's the weirdest/funniest bug you guys encountered? and what was the hardest bug to track down and fix? What language is Stellaris programmed in?
Answer
Funniest bug encountered in my opinion? During the development of Federations, we encountered a peculiar issue: some AI countries started sending envoys to asteroids. Even now we do not know if they were trying to convince the asteroid not to crash on their colony or maybe to rival them for some easy influence. The hardest one I have encountered? Some ships not being destroyed during a battle and following the attacker fleet as some sort of pets: sounds harmless and easy, but it's not.
Answered by
duplo


Question
can the IA become the galactic emperor by itself and how to make it happen, I'd like to collect all the steam achievement?
Answer
It can and does!
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Do you think there is intelligent life out there somewhere? Or are we alone in this vast and wonderfull cosmos
Answer
Sometimes I think the best proof there's intelligent life out there is that they haven't contacted us
Answered by
Moah


Question
What is your favourite blorg colour?
Answer
Octarine.
Answered by
Stephen "Eladrin" Muray (Designer)


Question
When you finish an anomaly there's sometimes a follow up special project which requires you to stop what you're doing to click it to start it. Any plans to make this a smoother/automatic action for the player from the event window?
Answer
If you can forgive a vague answer as I attempt to speak on behalf of our UX colleagues: quite likely! Refining the UX and generally improving the quality-of-life of the game is an ongoing project for our user experience team. How events play out in the UI has been a part of that, and continues to be so. We content designers love to see that sort of thing smoothed out, too!
Answered by
Gemma Thomson


Question
do you considere having more tools to dicriminate (the mathematical sense) our pops so we can have an easier time modifiing their traits or giving them different rights?
Answer
I'm not sure I understand what you mean exactly. Can you expand on your Questions, please?
Answered by
Moah


Question
Any new DLC planned this year for Stellaris?
Answer
There is plenty of cool stuff on the way! Can't talk about it just yet but keep an eye out
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Any chance for leviathans and fallen empires getting power sliders just like endgame crisises? Those seem to fall behind for players who already crush the grand admiral difficulty.
Answer
Not sure, adding new options like that can be quite a bit of work and in this case it'd only really benefit a small section of players who can smack around FE's with ease, but maybe!
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
In the Stellaris universe, was the Roswell incident a alien empires nations ship or scout sent to earth, or just a "weather balloon"
Answer
By asking that you already know too much.
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
If there is Alien life out there and they come to Earth and see all the movies we have made about blowing them up etc what do you think their reaction will be?
Answer
On the one hand, I'd be just as intrigued to see how they react to the stories we tell about us blowing each other up. On the other: almost every one of those alien invasion films also begins with exposing glaring deficiencies in our planet's defenses! So who knows — maybe said aliens can simply work out how to exploit those, and improve where our fictional versions of them failed.
Answered by
Gemma Thomson


Question
are you satisfied about the pace of the different mechanics of the game (battle and destruction vs fleet rebuilding time, tech curve vs lengh of the game, ship speed vs speed of a war, ...)
Answer
I think snowballing is a bit to fast right now, especially tech. I also don't like that Unity is so easy to gain without really having to focus or think about it. A lot of it these issues are compound by the fact that we never got around to properly complete the intended design for empire sprawl / admin cap etc. I have some ideas for how we want to improve that in the future.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
There will not be an anniversary update this year, right ? (If you do not count the 3.0.3 Patch (altough you said its the last update for 3.0 so who knows ?))
Answer
no Anniversary patch, the timing didn't quite work out with wrapping up work on Nemesis. The art we did put out in celebration is pretty damn sick (the one with Jeff i currently my desktop background)
Anniversary patches aren't dead just bad timing this year.
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
have you ever thought of doing a cinematic for when the game boots up to showcase some of the stuff
Answer
It's certainly a neat idea, but its not something we've chosen to prioritize.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
If a blorg becomes part of a hivemind (via assimilation), does the hivemind count as a friend?
Answer
Hivemind is the friendliest way of being friends.
Answered by
duplo


Question
Are there plans on adding new victory conditions?
Answer
If our future content fits in with adding a win condition to go along with it. Yes! But also maybe something we can do independently (Science victory anyone?)
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
ever since the release of stellaris 3.0, repeal resolutions and breaches of resolutions have been broken beyond compare, are there plans to fix this for 3.1, or to hotfix them for 3.0.3?
Answer
I'm not aware of any resolution being broken to the extent you're talking about. Can you give us a bug report on the forums with a save and we'll give it a look.
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
Any chance for an expansion of the diplomatic system? Especially for influencing the stance AI-Empires have on each other. Starting wars with clandestine skullduggery is fine, but I want to make my friends also love each other (and strengthen my federation) ...
Answer
We've discussed "matchmaking" between empires, and it's possible that we'll see ways to improve relations between two different empires somehow in the future.
Then the discussion degenerated into the theoretical design for a Blorg Dating Sim.
Answered by
Stephen "Eladrin" Muray (Designer)


Question
Moah when I want to change my pops trait, I would like to only change my farmer to be agricultural and my technicians to have the energy generation bonus, but curently I can only select pops by planet and I waned to know if you will put more selection category (like jobs or social class)
Answer
Nothing like that is planned at the moment
Answered by
Moah


Question
What Stellaris mod(s) have impressed or inspired you the most?
Answer
To give a full (and not completely serious) answer:
- All of mine
- There are some insane mods out there that do things we didn't even think was possible by sheer force of will (and thousands of lines of scripting). On occasion, the modders showing me their scripts has even persuaded me to make time for adding code support to make their work easier!
- I always love seeing total conversions like AlphaMod and Star Trek. And the visuals on the likes of Real Space are awesome.
Answered by
Caligula


Question
do you take in account the most OverPowered build in the balancing process of the game?
Answer
No. We consider it to some degree but only to a point. Simply too many variables when it comes to build optimisation and the vast majority of players don't play that way.
Answered by
JoJo (Stellaris QA Lead)


Question
Are there any plans to add espionage operations that aren’t obviously hostile or even beneficial to the empire that the operation is being conducted on? For example, having decryption codes for a rival empire being mysteriously “found”?
Answer
We have plenty of ideas for additional Operations for future DLC, but I can't promise when that would be. Something I've wanted, as an example, would be to have an underground railroad kind of Operation that could increase the chance for you to rescue pops that are being purged, and move them to your empire.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
So, about that Blorg-dating-Sim .... asking for a friend here ...
Answer
I really want to do that!
Answered by
Moah


Question
when will we get a stereotypical "little green men" race of aliens to create an empire with?
Answer
We have some green lizards that are absolutely perfect for that purpose - and I can tell you that having a species with the adjective "Little Green" can be pretty hilarious!
Answered by
Caligula


Question
Any ideas about what could be done about ground combat to make it more interesting, if possible?
Answer
Ground combat is very unlikely to be a priority for Stellaris. I wrote a bit about it on the forum: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...irecting-nemesis.1464165/page-7#post-27394635
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Has there been any thoughts of adding more relics in the future? I love uncovering them!
Answer
Yes! Relics are great.
Answered by
Stephen "Eladrin" Muray (Designer)


Question
What's your favorite origin and why?
Answer
I really enjoy playing Scions. I love when I'm dying and daddy comes and saves me!
Answered by
duplo


Question
Any plans to make xenos more alien? They feel somewhat human at the moment, although the descriptions in the custom empires hint at interesting variations.
Answer
In a way, that's a tricky one to answer! We try to leave as much of the xenos' personality and stories to you, the player's, imaginations — and try not to intrude too much on that. The preset empires are one way we try to provide the foundation of some more alien stories, as you say, and we ensure that every event text we write can suit as many species as possible. It's a delicate balance, though! Too alien may be just that — too alien to relate to, being the human players that (most of us) are.
Answered by
Gemma Thomson


Question
Is the artificial intelligence going to be reviewed/reworked in the next updates? Thanks!
Answer
We're constantly working on the AI and the feedback we gained from the AI open beta was incredibly useful. There's a lot of investigations and experiments we're trying internally with the AI. Can't give you a timeline, but more improvements are coming.
Answered by
Byron "Alfray Stryke" (QA)


Question
If a blorg had to choose between a friend and a friend and one was not going to be a friend afterwards anymore. Which friend would the blorg choose?
Answer
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. - By putting off the decision until the heat death of the universe, they will both remain the Blorg's friend.
Answered by
Stephen "Eladrin" Muray (Designer)


Question
Are there any plans to add a larger selection of weapons to the game?
Answer
No current plans to add more weapons, even though its always cool.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Have there been any sci-fi franchises in particular that inspired certain elements of the game so far and any plans for cross-overs/collabs with other franchises/games in the future?
Answer
We have fans of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Hitcherhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Philip K. DIck on the team. Of course Star Wars is always a big inspiration, and we all have our obscure scifi stuff we like (CL Moore is mine), and there's Animé as well. So in conclusion: all of them pretty much
Answered by
Moah


Question
Ok hear me out, tripods they worked in war of the worlds why cant we use them for conquering other planets?
Answer
There happens to be a giant tripod statue in an English town I used to live in, and I'd be lying if I said I'd never fantasised about it coming to life and conquering that part of Surrey. I am totally on board with that idea — so long as they're not every bit as susceptible to toppling over as an AT-AT. That.. could make an invasion awkward. ;D
Answered by
Gemma Thomson


Question
what about system modifier (like pulsar negating shield), do you plan to add more of this kind?
Answer
No, once we added those, we decided we'd never ever touch that again. Wait, wait, that's not right. Maybe, maybe not, I can't say for certain (it's the sort of thing I could imagine us adding). But at the moment there's a significant problem with their visibility, in the sense that you really need to know about them to know that they are having an effect (I say this having once spent 20 minutes trying to work out why my fleet had no shields in a certain system!), so personally I have hopes that we'll be able to improve the UI for system modifiers, if we ever add more of them. (Also, I've had modders poke me quite a few times asking for megastructures and the like to have system modifiers, which seems like a cool idea)
Answered by
Caligula


Question
when we will get XL and T missile weapon like asteroïdes launcher?
Answer
No current plans, but it's something I've wanted to do forever. It's just lower priority than other things.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
whatever happens to all the space junk we have in Earths atmosphere? Was it harvested for materials or still floating up there causing troubles
Answer
How do you think the caravaneers got started?
Answered by
Moah


Question
I know you will not promise anything, but what would you think about an aquatic species pack ?
Answer
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1153460015
Answered by
Caligula


Question
Any data on how many non-human players there are?
Answer
there are only other fellow humans like us, fellow human.
Answered by
Moah


Question
[Will we get the origin that makes you start on Hive World, Just like, there is one already for Machine World?]
Answer
It's something that makes sense. If memory serves right, the reason why we didn't add it for Federations was that it felt a bit uninspired. It's something we'll take with us and see what we can figure out.
Answered by
Daniel Moregård


Question
Planet modifiers and planet expeditions/away teams DLC when? ;)
Answer
We tried to do some field research for that, but the last team we sent out has not reported back in quite some time... I'm sure nothing bad has happened and it is not at all connected to the "HAK HAK HAK" that seems to be resonating across our comms systems.
Answered by
Caligula

Next week we'll give an early peek at our autumn plans, after which we will take a break from dev diaries for the summer.

See you next week!
 
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Most of the questions chosen are not softball tosses, but more like the baseball is resting on a tee to be hit. That was a real opportunity missed to address a lot of questions/concerns brought up. I really hope there's more (and I don't mean new content) cooking for the next dev diary. Like a roadmap.

Does this mean development stops over summer break? I know Sweden has a lot more vacation time than America. 25days/year base.
 
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Interesting idea and I think it would be good.

Personally think it was a little bit of a mistake to explicitly label each ship set after a matching type of race, would have been nice if the set names were more holistic allowing you to mix and match without that niggling feeling your Reptilian race SHOULD be using the Reptilian ship set and not the Avian one.

Just a personal annoyance of mine.
 
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Oh boy, please tell me we are not back to complete out of touch Dev diaries again.

Also, since you seem to be asking the community about how we feel about a change that has 0% impact in gameplay, here is my take.

1. This would be very marginally useful
2. Even though the manpower being put into this feature is one that could never really be used to address the other big problems (AI, for example), even talking about spending development time on this is very tone deaf.

There is only one thing I want to know:
What is a reasonable amount of time that I can expect to go back to play Stellaris again, a game I paid a whole bunch of money for, because since 3.0 the AI is just so freaking bad it removes any semblance of a challenge for even a bad player like myself.
 
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I think snowballing is a bit to fast right now, especially tech. I also don't like that Unity is so easy to gain without really having to focus or think about it. A lot of it these issues are compound by the fact that we never got around to properly complete the intended design for empire sprawl / admin cap etc. I have some ideas for how we want to improve that in the future.
Click to expand...

That question/answer was encouraging. Hidden in a lot of fluff.
 
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For me, personally, I wouldn't find the ship viewer useful at all. But I could see how some might, and I can't imagine it's a super difficult feature to implement given that all the UI already exists elsewhere and it's just a bit of a patchwork. So I don't really see the harm in doing it!

I wouldn't be concerned about this taking development time away from other features... this is largely a UI exercise and I'd imagine that just after a major release, the UI developers are probably fairly free to work on smaller things like this because they will be waiting for larger features to be shaped and prioritised. The people developing on this couldn't be working on AI instead anyway, so chill.
 
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huh. There's a lot of good suggestions for minor things in the Q&A. Particularly a question about expanding the number of colours for empire flags. The response to that was that there isn't enough time and there are mods for that....yet this DD advertises a feature that would at best be mildly useful for first time players.

I'm not normally negative about dev diaries and I know that with nemesis, the updates, and PDXcon things would be light. But there are serious issues with this game that we have paid for, and rather than using the little time to do small QoL improvements (like something as small as a colour wheel better than MS paint) we get a way to visualise ships in the menu. Really feels like a bizarre and tone deaf choice in priorities.

What kind of information is this trial meant to look for? Whether or not people spend more time in the menu? Does it gather data on people looking at a specific ship type, then choosing another pack, as a way of gathering data on what ships might be due an art update? I'm struggling to think why this would be a useful or prioritized feature for the players or the developers.
 
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Cymsdale said:
That question/answer was encouraging. Hidden in a lot of fluff.
Click to expand...

That answer is VERY encouraging. Making unity harder to gain will give Spiritualists a little bit more of an edge (particularly if they improve Psionic Ascension).

Toning down the way tech can just be steamrollered through will be fantastic for the game's health also.

As did the one or two references to the anemic faction system and how it can be improved.

You can almost see the outlines of an expansion with those answers, at a great distance though.
 
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guiskj said:
2. Even though the manpower being put into this feature is one that could never really be used to address the other big problems (AI, for example), even talking about spending development time on this is very tone deaf.
Click to expand...
Liggi said:
I wouldn't be concerned about this taking development time away from other features... this is largely a UI exercise and I'd imagine that just after a major release, the UI developers are probably fairly free to work on smaller things like this because they will be waiting for larger features to be shaped and prioritised. The people developing on this couldn't be working on AI instead anyway, so chill.
Click to expand...
Calvax said:
I'm not normally negative about dev diaries and I know that with nemesis, the updates, and PDXcon things would be light. But there are serious issues with this game that we have paid for, and rather than using the little time to do small QoL improvements (like something as small as a colour wheel better than MS paint) we get a way to visualise ships in the menu. Really feels like a bizarre and tone deaf choice in priorities.
Click to expand...

The ship appearance browser was developed separately from the game team and did not take resources from the core game development.

HistoricalScore1 said:
Most of the questions chosen are not softball tosses, but more like the baseball is resting on a tee to be hit.
Click to expand...

There were very few questions rejected from the Q&A, from my understanding. :)
 
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Please just one request:

Fix the AI not building a single research lab before mid-game (and very few after that).

You can't leave the AI completely useless and uncompetitive for months. Even the 3.0.2 AI with its economic death spirals was better than this - because at least you could play on Grand Admiral and its bonuses would keep the economy afloat.
 
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I will echo what I said on Reddit:

Not gonna lie, reading that Q&A portion made me feel worried about the Stellaris. The amount of things you want to work at ranging from very big changes (unity and admin capacity/empire sprawl), through some medium-sized to even the smallest of small (more colours, more flag emblems) that you simply don't have the time for, is staggering and make me feel worried about this game future.

Especially since I felt that while 3.0 changes were fantastic, the Nemesis DLC felt mediocre - especially the Custodian position that I felt was really half-baked and all the work hours were put into Crisis and Imperium.

Maybe it's time to get some more people on the dev team or something, I dunno.
 
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This change to empire creation seems like a nice-to-have but honestly if I end up in the test group, I'll probably putz around with it for 30 seconds and then never look at it again.
 
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The Ship designer UI tweak is very minor but nice. Unfortunately I spend most time in the galaxy map and don't see my ships that often. Some low-effort UI tweaks with a far bigger impact for me would be:
  1. Add a "swap leader" option, so that when starting a new tech and changing scientists to take advantage of their bonus I don't have to pause, hunt down the science ship that's now leaderless, and manually put in the scientist I took out of research.
  2. Re-scale the sidebar to something more akin to the tiny outliner mod so that you don't have to scroll as much when you get more than a few planets.
  3. Do a pass on notifications to remove ones that spam uselessly and add new ones that could be handy.
  4. Improve UI scaling.
 
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That being said I do find the ship preview really nice QoL change. Many times I try to make my ships look good and I realized that what works on Science ship in the preview doesn't necessarily mean working on Cruiser. It's especially notable for Avian ships.

Maybe this could also mean more colours in the future for ships, rather than just accents here and there?
 
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MrFreake_PDX said:
The ship appearance browser was developed separately from the game team and did not take resources from the core game development.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the answer. My feeling is still that this is a bizarre decision to prioritise, surely this other department could have worked on more than just this. Which begs the question again of why this was chosen. But I acknowledge I have no idea about the internal structure of PDX.
 
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