Stellaris Dev Diary #236 - Happy Holidays and thanks for all the fish!

[jose2534]

Happy holidays for you too Stellaris team <3

 

[MathyM]

>barges into the dev diary
>drops a mention to Edicts Fund
>refuses to elaborate further
>leaves

 

[Aexrael]

Had hoped for a hotfix before the holidays.

 

[Pancakelord]

I'm assuming from the wording that's a civic?... Could we run privy council, and shadow council together? Creating a society in which some are privy to a... puppet ruler taking their orders from someone else anyway lol.

 

[Veras]

I'm assuming from the wording that's a civic?... Could we run privy council, and shadow council together? Creating a society in which some are privy to a... puppet ruler taking their orders from someone else anyway lol.

It's a tradition from the Domination tree

 

[Pancakelord]

It's a tradition from the Domination tree

Ah good to know.. I haven't bothered with the domination tree in a long time.

 

[WindingArc]

Nice work this year.

Are there any plans to rework the Galactic Market Hub nomination mechanics? The "nomination" process isn't a nomination so much as a glorified RNG outcome, and it's one of the few smaller old features I'd like to see redone. (I'm hoping it will be put off until a trade rework so that the market hub can be made to spawn in an actual trade hub planet. That would be pretty cool.)

 

[Ridixo]

Thanks for the patches, the bug fixes and the work you have put on them. Enjoy holidays and get back some energy for all the great things you will do on the next year

 

[gamerk2]

My initial thought is that Admin Offices are now dead to me. If I need the Unity production, I'll just go with Holo Theatre (or equivalent) since Amenities are also a necessity and Trade Value is just *meh*. Unless the importance of Unity (both early and late) is really jacked up, I don't see how the building is remotely useful.

We'll see how the re-work goes I guess.

 

[Nerisande]

Ah, edicts rework. That is fine.
I hope there also will be influence and factions rework if next major update is all about internal politics.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

View attachment 784440​

I hope you aren't going through with removing Culture Workers. I think this whole "bureaucrats give Unity" thing is a big mistake, especially if Culture Workers get removed. Flavor and roleplaying potential is an important part of Stellaris and it just makes no sense for Unity to come from bureaucrats of all things, and it's especially tragic if culture, such an important part of any civilization, is no longer represented on planets.

The Unity and Admin Cap systems work perfectly fine as they are now that you can no longer easily get all the Unity you need from switching your Trade Policy at the start of the game. The whole rework seems a bit like change for change's sake when the game is already in a good place right now. Yes, on default settings technology snowballs too hard, but the fix is as easy as setting the midgame and endgame dates earlier or increasing the tech cost slider. It doesn't need a game-mechanical rework.

 

[GuildenSpur]

Thanks to the Stellaris team for the continuous effort and support! Some great changes that will make the future of Stellaris bright.
I hope the team is brave enough to continue to rework Stellaris where necessary such as the Unity rework and explore new fun ideas.
cough *buff the starbases along the way* cough

I have enjoyed Stellaris from the start and must say that the Custodian Initiative brings a new well needed boost to making Stellaris greater and more fun.
6140 hours and counting

 

[Ch4rybde]

I am very happy with the turn stellaris took this years. Even if a lot of work is remaining, a lot of important issue had already been solved or are on the way to beign solved. The AI and performances has clearly been improved, more late game content had been added, several rebalancing has been made and old content has finally been updated once again.
Oh and I forget all the very annoying bugs wich had been fixed.
Really hope Stellaris will continue on this way this next year.

I wish you a good Christmas break, you clearly deserve it.

 

[MathyM]

I hope you aren't going through with removing Culture Workers. I think this whole "bureaucrats give Unity" thing is a big mistake, especially if Culture Workers get removed. Flavor and roleplaying potential is an important part of Stellaris and it just makes no sense for Unity to come from bureaucrats of all things, and it's especially tragic if culture, such an important part of any civilization, is no longer represented on planets.

The Unity and Admin Cap systems work perfectly fine as they are now that you can no longer easily get all the Unity you need from switching your Trade Policy at the start of the game. The whole rework seems a bit like change for change's sake when the game is already in a good place right now. Yes, on default settings technology snowballs too hard, but the fix is as easy as setting the midgame and endgame dates earlier or increasing the tech cost slider. It doesn't need a game-mechanical rework.

Administrators and Executives already provide some Unity, so it's not an entirely new concept.

 

[Juboboman]

Enjoy your vacation. Merry Christmas!

 

[MonzUn]

Not as a bug report but I totally get that pathfinding pain, but very solid work has clearly been dong - I've had fleets take gateways to L-gates because it's just a bit faster than doing one jump from where they are in the system.

Thanks! Pathfinding is a tricky subject to work with since it's used so extensively and is quite expensive in terms of performance, so changing it is scary.
The work we did in 3.1 fixed a lot of issues, but introduced (more like uncovered actually) new ones.

One of the great strengths of the Custodian initiative is how reactive and adaptive we can be and how that allows us to take risks like scary changes to pathfinding, which risks creating issues, but after we fix those, we end up in a much better situation than we had before we started.

Let me also spoil what's going on in that picture, because cycles in the paths aren't actually allowed!
I was working on how the AI uses jump drives and when the AI figures out that it can shortcut the path by using their jump drives, it adds the jump drive order to the front of the queue. In this case, it still had the order to move to the next system in the queue, which meant that it wanted to go back to where it came from, to go where it had already gone xD

 

[Jaxck]

Not as a bug report but I totally get that pathfinding pain, but very solid work has clearly been dong - I've had fleets take gateways to L-gates because it's just a bit faster than doing one jump from where they are in the system.

Same. It ends up making the L Cluster the most important transit point in the galaxy, since a single Gateway placed next to any L Gate ends up routing all the traffic through Terminal Egress.

 

[Skoryyy]

It's been a great year for Stellaris, thanks a lot!
Btw, are you planning on adding more planet types in the future? In my humble opinion, the game lacks a lot without "planetary diversity mod".

 

[baraterek]

(...) so changing it is scary.
The work we did in 3.1 fixed a lot of issues, but introduced (more like uncovered actually) new ones.

Feel sorry for you in gamedev, that it's not so easy for you to have e2e/integrity tests. Tests adds - as probably you know - courage, and makes you more confident about what you're doing ... that's why I'll never be a gamedev - not for my nerves
Good job by the way

 

[HighKings_Ruin]

You guys are amazing, the improvements to communication with the community are also among my favorite things recently.