Stellaris Dev Diary #234 - Aquatics and 3.2 are out, now what?

[Lucy-sama]

At the top of my list for Gestalts: they have problems with scalability in mid-late game, solely because of the population model changes.

Basically, among the Gestalts, only Driven Assimilators come out swinging because they integrate conquered populations. Regular Machines can integrate droids, but that depends on A) droids existing there, and B) in significant quantities. Hive Minds require Genetic Ascension and Hive Integration to do anything. For all other Gestalts, the population curvature mechanics horrifically impede them later on. They essentially wipe out planets then start growing from fresh, with mid/late game pop growth penalties slamming their whole empire.

I'm not sure how to do the math, but play experience has shown me getting outscaled by everyone else population-wise at those points. Even when I own half the galaxy's planetary territories and/or have dozens of habitats, I do not have the population growth to get a lot of my worlds near cap. Even if that cap is like, 20 pops just for mining. I can maintain relevancy by microing population on specialist worlds (alloys, namely) and treating 95% of my total empire as just rural production. Maybe that's intended, but it feels awful to work with.

Since the end goal is reduction of superfluous pops, maybe retooling Gestalt research to make per-pop value better is the goal but ... well for Machines it makes sense. Hive Minds are always about numbers so lol

 

[bernkastello]

I think you should add large-scale civil wars similar to war of the machines mechanic, but with factions, the game really lacks it. Also you can add something like form of territorial organization like federations or unitary states that would affect how governors will be appointed. For example in federation the governors are elected by the colonies, in unitary states they're appointed directly by ruler, and resigning the governor can have a some consequences depending on territorial organization. Faction system also needs an expansion, for examples some faction can demand something via events, and leaders can be aligned with factions, which in case of civil war can, for example, can make some sector rebel because governor was supporting disloyal faction. Besides that great work, guys

 

[jevin2500]

Buffing the Backlog
In terms of adding new content to older DLC, the priorities going forward will be to buff Nemesis and Necroids. We have no concrete plans we’re ready to share yet, but if you have thoughts for additions you’d love to see, please let us know!

I love that you are taking another look at Nemesis!

While I like the content that came with the DLC, it always felt like there was so much more potential content that we missed out on.

The consensus among players seems to be that becoming the crisis and waging war against the entire galaxy is fun....once. I remember that you wrote in one dev diary that you originally planned to implement 3 different types of player crisis, and that you ended up meshing them together into one perk, due to time constraints. Maybe 3 totally different approaches to dominate the galaxy (apart from becoming the emperor) could be the variety that this feature of the DLC needs. It would be so cool to control and manipulate the galaxy from the shadows

The Imperium is a neat idea, but right now it all seems a little bit superficial. In all the many games I've become the emperor, both in single player and MP, there never really was a credible threat of rebellion, and honestly, why would you even try to topple the Imperium? So far, there are only minor benefits to it. The one really useful perk that comes with becoming the emperor is the immunity to war declarations. I've used this in MP to shield myself from potentially aggressive players. Your options to become authoritarian or tyrannical, to the degree that people would wanna dispose of the Imperium, are quite limited. Maybe some new resolutions, like a tithe from imperial member states, could give the members some more incentive to weaken the imperial authority, and add to the power fantasy of the whole mechanic.

There are already some mods that add new operations to the game. The vanilla operations are okay in concept, but they are mostly situational. IMO it would do the whole espionage mechanics a lot of good, if there were more and more impactful operations, like resource raids. I understand that you don't want operations to be too annoying for the target of these operations, but maybe giving players more tools to protect themselves from them would be the more engaging, hence fun, approach? How about giving the player the option to build up spy defense against specific empires? The "Espionage Extended" mod adds two operations that grant extra encryption against the target. Maybe this could be another approach? As of right now, most players effectively seem to forget that the whole espionage mechanic, including operations, even exists, because it has such minimal impact.

 

[Edorath]

Is the Custodian team considering adding more Titan sections? Not being able to customize your empire’s flagship is pretty underwhelming.

 

[Helicopter200]

Resistance on planets when you conquer enemy planets would be cool

 

[Shadowstrike]

I am looking forward to Unity reworks, but i am also wondering if bureaucracy will be rebalanced?

 

[MadCrow96]

men, I wish that devs could see some value in reworking ground combat.... since reanimated armies and newer traditions system, I've found ground combat to be more useful and impactful than ever. Could be improved, but I don't understand why so much hate to that system.

So much that they always reply exactly the same high cost no value thing. Is the system so hard-coded that no one is willing to touch it? xd

 

[Jaxck]

Do we have a timeline for Factions being made functional? Ethics swapping also needs to be made functional.

* Ethics & Faction should be carried by planet not by pops. This massively decreases the number of things one needs to pay attention to while also making the game run faster since you don't need hundreds of pop calculations, only a small handful of potentially fixed planetary decisions. This also creates for some interesting decision space, and leads to the development of Dune-like worlds with long standing reciprocation between political climate, environment, and function.
* Factions should not always be associated with a particular Ethic. Most political entities are political first, policy second. In other words, their ethics will align with what gives them the most political power not with the true feelings of the politicians. Some factions will definitely be associated with particular ethics (Warhawks & Green parties), but most should be indistinguishable from one another except along political lines (Democrats & Republicans).
* Leaders should be tied into the Faction/Ethics system. Maybe a leader is a great scientist, but is also an Egalitarian so not ideal to be leading your research in an Authoritarian empire.

 

[king of AR]

are there any plans to add more unique features to other groups ?(reptilians,molluscoids,Avians ETC.)an example for reptilians would be clutch born ,whenever a pop would be created for this species three are created instead ,but growth rate is 30% slower due to gestation time.

 

[Millbot]

At the top of my list for Gestalts: they have problems with scalability in mid-late game, solely because of the population model changes.

Basically, among the Gestalts, only Driven Assimilators come out swinging because they integrate conquered populations. Regular Machines can integrate droids, but that depends on A) droids existing there, and B) in significant quantities. Hive Minds require Genetic Ascension and Hive Integration to do anything. For all other Gestalts, the population curvature mechanics horrifically impede them later on. They essentially wipe out planets then start growing from fresh, with mid/late game pop growth penalties slamming their whole empire.

I'm not sure how to do the math, but play experience has shown me getting outscaled by everyone else population-wise at those points. Even when I own half the galaxy's planetary territories and/or have dozens of habitats, I do not have the population growth to get a lot of my worlds near cap. Even if that cap is like, 20 pops just for mining. I can maintain relevancy by microing population on specialist worlds (alloys, namely) and treating 95% of my total empire as just rural production. Maybe that's intended, but it feels awful to work with.

Since the end goal is reduction of superfluous pops, maybe retooling Gestalt research to make per-pop value better is the goal but ... well for Machines it makes sense. Hive Minds are always about numbers so lol

This pretty much comes back to the need to do something about how braindead expansion can be. It really doesn't take that long to bring conquered worlds into a state where they are a net gain. Like less than a year in the best case scenario and more than a few years if it was a fresh colony or you had a scenario where all the pops where going to be purged. Heck, you can snowball to a point where you don't even need to finishing digesting an empire and can more to take multiple ones on for conquest.

There isn't a need to make gestalts better at snowballing. There is a need to make it so that it takes much longer for people to reap benefits from conquered worlds and only if they manage them well. So that the gulf between gestalts and normal empires is less gaping. Does mean they'll need to probably come up with some mechanics for the scenarios where a world is conquered by a driven assimilator or a gestalt takes over a world full of compatible pops. I think regardless of whether one is a gestalt or not, that a conquered planet should always be a thing that requires a reasonable amount of investment to make it productive and not a drag on your empire.

Right now, it's take system station. Land armies and then once you control the colony boost stability up high enough to prevent revolts. Then redevelop the world into a setup that suits your needs or leave it be if you've snowballed to the point where it's just not worth the hassle.

 

[Ovan]

Question by ArmoredHero11:
Do you have plans to add in more internal affairs like cults, governmental branches, etc to the game?
Answer
No concrete plans, but we totally agree it's something we'd love to do.
Answered by
dpgb

This is like, the one thing I want left for Stellaris. If we got a big internal rework and the addition of institutions, government branches, religious organizations, etc. and the game was left to be updated by the Custodians for the rest of it's life I'd be satisfied with the end of Stellaris.

Please, just do an internal rework already. You've done excellent at reworking external diplomacy, now we need an internal rework.

 

[Zenicetus]

This is like, the one thing I want left for Stellaris. If we got a big internal rework and the addition of institutions, government branches, religious organizations, etc. and the game was left to be updated by the Custodians for the rest of it's life I'd be satisfied with the end of Stellaris.

Please, just do an internal rework already. You've done excellent at reworking external diplomacy, now we need an internal rework.

This is an area where I think the devs may have wished they had never added Gestalt Consciousness to the game.

I wouldn't mind seeing a little more internal management, but I also don't want too much micro unless it pays off somehow. And there has to be some compensating mechanism that stops Gestalts from being OP because they don't have to deal with any of this.

 

[Sian]

Might just be the pitch and the start, but I'm getting heavy 'Sugaan Essena' vibes from the song

 

[Ovan]

This is an area where I think the devs may have wished they had never added Gestalt Consciousness to the game.

I wouldn't mind seeing a little more internal management, but I also don't want too much micro unless it pays off somehow. And there has to be some compensating mechanism that stops Gestalts from being OP because they don't have to deal with any of this.

I want it to be more fluid, less based on resources and directly managing/controlling.

Think how government is handled in Vicky 2, or how Factions work in current Stellaris. Except they'd be able to actively vy with each other for their chosen ethics and laws that they want in place. You, as the player, would have more of a macro control over the situation, and less micro. If you accept a lot of pops that believe in one ethic, expect to see an emergence of that ethic. If you do x, expect y to start happening, essentially.

It would be a very delicate balance, though, and I recognize this. I'd also like to see some major differences between the governing authorities. Such as, democratic authorities don't have direct control over their laws, but they have a stability boost and less chance for revolts. Where as dictators would have direct control over everything, but they'll have more of a chance for people to have uprisings.

As for Hiveminds, yeah they're kinda boned in a way. I'm not really certain how it'd be handled for them. One could make the argument for the Hivemind having separate "personalities" I guess? I'm not sure. I think of the Borg in Star Trek, and how Hugh gave them the ability to think as individuals.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

another question, can we get catalytic processing for rogue servitors? i find i've become pretty addicted to it for my consumer goods heavy builds, and I have not played servitors since it came out

Catalytics should be available to all machines unless they have the Resource Consolidation origin.

 

[TrotBot]

Catalytics should be available to all machines unless they have the Resource Consolidation origin.

omg you're right! was this always the case? did I simply imagine that rogue servitors were banned from using the civic? i could have sworn I'd seen it somewhere that servitors couldn't do it?

anyways, as soon as I'm done with this aquatics build, onto testing out the new ecu servitors!

 

[Blackadder23]

I'm concerned about this. I think both the unity and admin cap systems are working just fine right now and only need some spicing up (making Unity more useful in the late game for one). A complete redesign runs a great risk of leaving us with an imbalanced game with awful AI for a long time, like what happened after 2.2.

Obviously that is what will happen. The #1 reason that Stellaris has a lousy AI in the first place is because of the constant upheaval in basic game mechanics. People always like to say "Different devs are working on the game mechanic changes, so it won't affect the ones working on AI!", but that misses the point. Constantly changing the most basic game mechanics every time the devs get some random idea in their heads creates a moving target for the AI devs that they can never hit. It's especially ridiculous when you think of the older games that never changed their basic game mechanics, if for no other reason than the fact that they were sold on physical media and didn't have an easy way to deliver the changes. But the devs for modern games have the capacity to constantly tinker with the mechanics, so they do - regardless of how ill-advised it is. I have to laugh and laugh when people on this forum demand changes (the whole "internal politics" thing comes to mind) that would throw the game design into complete turmoil and plunge the AI even deeper into the toilet. The devs are going to do this just because they can, guys; don't encourage them! There should be a complete moratorium on any major changes to game mechanics until the AI is rock solid, and any changes after that point should only happen if thoroughly tested to make 100% certain the AI can handle them. But what will happen is that players will continue to demand major changes and continue to complain about the fact that the AI can't keep up, and the devs will continue to tinker with everything just because they can. And I'll continue to laugh and laugh.

 

[KNakamura]

There should be a complete moratorium on any major changes to game mechanics until the AI is rock solid, and any changes after that point should only happen if thoroughly tested to make 100% certain the AI can handle them. But what will happen is that players will continue to demand major changes and continue to complain about the fact that the AI can't keep up, and the devs will continue to tinker with everything just because they can. And I'll continue to laugh and laugh.

This sounds like a great idea for a game that will never get new features. Most of us would rather Stellaris gets new features.

 

[Hasturs]

Will the pleasure seekers civic ever do something interesting with shroud ascension?

 

[Cabiell]

Hi All!

Thank you for the great DLC!

I am pleased to hear about the Situations system is being considered. Earlier I had a suggestion about operations, I think it could be integrated with this.

Suggestion 1:

what I would really like to see is where I could see all the ongoing things in my empire in a unified system. That I would call Oprations. There could be different kind of operations represented in different tabs. Some of them already exist, but this could be generalized into one system. For example:

• Scientific Operations: situations emerge from anomalies (like Precursor sites), Archeological sites, uplifts and species modding, digging into mysteries, terraforming etc.
• Espionage Operations: well, it is kind of straightforward, but it could have further omestic effects, like influencing factions of another empire
• Diplomatic Operations: this is where the mentioned situations could fit. Also, see below for further details
• Domestic Operations: revolts, factions, enslaving etc.
• Military Operations: military exercises to get more experienced armies and fleets without war, making raids and incursions without declaring war, or assisting another empire without declaring alliance, effectively waging proxy wars.

Regarding diplomacy, I think you could really flesh out the diplomatic scene by implementing a diplomatic conflict system. In real life, a diplomatic convention takes a long time to negotiate, and you could do a similar system either like War Score or the Galactic Community. Like in case of wars, the "opponents" will have "Diplomatic Goals" instead of wargoals, and they can use their resources (money, envoys, influence, favours, claims, espionage etc) to get a better stance. Then they can settle the thing either as a compromise (White Peace/Status Quo), or one can force a deal on the other if they have enough score. This way a standard diplomatic negotiations can become an allout game in itself, similar to waging war, and not just "here is some money, give me some other money".

If this could be implemented in one general system, I think we could even get to the point where one effects the other, like a scientific operation (e.g terraforming) can have a domestic result, or an archeological site can turn into military operation as some careless scientist accidentally wake a robotic army (or reanimated army). Or a domestic affair with some espionage solution (internal investigations, purging the heretic).

This may affect the leader system, which I think can be chiseled a bit as well. I always have way more sientists in the early and mid game than any other type of leaders. A two tier system would be a bit more intricate, where the second tier would be like the envoys. So there would be one science leader for all research, and you could assign second tier scientists for specific fields, so you can have e.g. 1 on Physics and 2 on Society, and 1 on Engineering. Similarly, you can have one leader for explorations, and the scientists in the ships would be the second tier leaders, one again for the Archeology etc. Domestic leaders would be the governors, and envoys (and spies) working for them handling the domestic situations. The base philosphy would be: the first tier leaders provide the bonuses, representing the philosophy by which they lead, and the second tier leaders would be the front line and handling the situations/operations. With this leader and situation system, you can also tackle the situations where scientist work outside research. Each reserach itself would be actually an ongoing operation, and if you have free scientist, you can assign it to e.g. a species modification or a "delve into the mystery of" situation while keeping the other on the research operation.

I know it would be a large scale redesign, I just had to write it out of my head.

Suggestion 2:

About my last example, to the Necroid DLC I would really like a storyline similar to Mummy on the Orient Express episode of Doctor Who. Basically, it would be a "curse of the mummy"but in space, where we find an archeological site of a forgotten empire, with their reanimated army slumbering. In the end, you may either get some army, or they turn against us and start to fight with the colonists. Or something like that.

Thank you for reading this, hope I could provide some inspirations.