Stellaris Dev Diary #257 - Summer is Coming...

[LucasG21]

It's very nice that you're looking at expanding the number of tradition trees. I do hope there's still room for improving existing ones as well: Domination, in particular. It's kind of sad that I play mostly Auth empires but never use the tradition set specifically themed for them.

Also, did you mean to write Javorian Pox, rather than Jovian Pox in the relics section?

 

[Eladrin]

I do hope there's still room for improving existing ones as well:

Yes, of course.

Also, did you mean to write Javorian Pox, rather than Jovian Pox in the relics section?

Yes. It appears that we blindly accepted spellchecking.

 

[Strangedane]

Nom?

NOMNOMNOMNOM!

 

[Tamwin5]

I'm a big fan of all of the things you want to include for combat! Even if only a few of those are achieved, it should make fleet designs much more interesting. One of the things which I'm noticing isn't mentioned though is doomstacking. It's more of a strategic/warfare issue than a tactical/battle one, so it would probably have to be addressed in a different way... but you do you think it's a problem at all? And if it is, do you think it's something worth addressing, or if it's like ground combat in that it's not worth the substantial amount of work that would be required?

 

[Liggi]

All sounds great. I'm really excited about a space combat rebalance. Will really give something more to do in the late-game.

Am I right in thinking there's military AI improvements planned for the next patch too (ie. getting fleets into position before declaring, etc)?

I am super excited about revisiting Traditions.

 

[Obeliskkai]

New tradition trees focused on origins and ascension choices is the most interesting notion here.

A question, could ascension focused tradition trees see different outcomes added to the ascension system?

For example, Synthetic ascension as a biological has my ultimate destiny as a machine race. Should I not have the choice to instead become the perfect cybernetic fusion, as valid and as a equal a choice to becoming a machine?

Or if I take Psionic (still hoping for a rework), besides becoming a race of telepaths, couldn't we have a sort of 'ascension' towards becoming energy beings as an outcome(shameless plug for an energy being species pack)?

I just think that the paths having set outcomes is a bit of a missed opportunity.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Relic Balance​

Iggy has asked to look at relics and has written up proposals for a balance pass upon them. In his own words…

Relics are meant to be fun and game-changing. They are supposed to be powerful and unique items that can change the course of your empire. The issue, however, is that they are not all equal. So with a future update, I hope to at least narrow the gap between the relics a bit. I have mainly split the relics into three sets.

• Event-based ones that are fine to have a niche and semi-powerful effects, think Omnicodex and Blade of the Huntress.
• Precursor Relics should be strong and useful for every single empire. I am not promising that the Jovian Pox will be top tier for pacifists or that the Psionic Archive will be the best machine relic. But they will at least have neat effects.
• Crisis Relics which are awarded for defeating the crisis should be a bit of a victory lap. You have won! It should not give you 30 society research.

With these in mind, I will be looking at every relic and attempting to bring them in line if needed. There will be a lot of buffs and a few nerfs, but hopefully, they will feel more rewarding!

I expect that we’ll post a list of the changes when we start the dev diaries up again after the summer for feedback.

I miss the original effects of the Cybrex relic, the pop assembly buff was a great boost to machine and robot-focused empires.

Traditions​

With the flexibility in how empires can choose traditions that we introduced in 3.1 "Lem", @Alfray Stryke is planning some experiments looking at introducing new tradition trees.

These are looking at how gating tradition trees behind various triggers might influence the game. There have been some ideas suggested about introducing tradition trees that are locked behind ascension perks or origins, and we're interested to see where these may lead.

Will we get more tradition tree and ascension perk slots? With how many traditions trees and ascension perks we have now, the current setup feels somewhat limited, and if more are about to be added, I think it'd be neat to be able to select more traditions and ascension perks during the game.

 

[Tamwin5]

Yes. It appears that we blindly accepted spellchecking.

Quick! Put one of the interns on making a UNE specific event chain where Jupiter catches a cold.

 

[Masked Ermine]

One thing I keep noticing and I hope you are looking into is targeting prioritization for different ships. I find that I lose a lot of large to mid-sized ships in combat because A: they don't target their similar sized counterparts thus allowing enemy battleships to continually get extra X-class weapons shots off, when those ships should've been taken out by my own and B: are very keen to target Destroyers and Escorts which they almost always miss with their X-class weapons.... I presume this is some sort of 'threat assessment' calculation error where because there's forty escorts and only four Cruisers/Battleships the game assumes the escorts are the larger threat and thus targets them first...or that because the Escorts hit the target range of your fire first it results in your ships getting locked into targeting them....

I know it will probably bog the game performance, but it'd be nice if ships with large or X-class weapons would target you know...large or X-class targets (like battleships, cruisers and space stations), and clear the field of them before targeting the small ships that they usually can't hit worth a crap....

I know in a similar precurser game (Space Empires) there was and expansive 'prioritization queue' that allowed players to ostensibly customize their fleets to do precisely what they wanted even in autocombat scenarios because you could tell individual ships or flight wings 'target this sort of thing, at this range in this order of ranking prioritization'.

 

[TranscendentalDragon]

Not the younglings, Swolephin!

 

[Yuhki2020]

Yes. It appears that we blindly accepted spellchecking.

A noble contribution to Forum society.

 

[banderolas]

More traditions and combat rebalance sound awesome! Especially with the new modular tradition trees playing without mods like "extra stellaris traditions" is an impossible task imo, with this, I would be able to get some achievement after 6 years of playing : D.
I know none of this is set in stone (though the combat rebalance has been talked about previously so my bet is, it's the most set of all of these experiments), by i do hope that combat and traditions will be the ones that make it out of experimental phase.

 

[grisamentum]

Fleet Combat Balance
Meanwhile, my planned experiments primarily have to do with fleet combat.

Things I’m looking forward to looking at include:

• Providing a late game role for Destroyers and Cruisers, and providing incentives for mixed fleets.

As much as this seems like a good idea, please don't do it. Please. Micromanaging fleet composition is already annoying enough with a couple types in endgame (titans and battleships), and I don't want to spend more time making sure every fleet has the correct composition, or building the same fleet template over and over.

It was fundamentally a design schema mistake to have locked ship size classes, but here we are.

• Increasing the length of fleet combats, reducing the dominance of alpha strikes.

But, why? Will this make the game better or provide interesting stuff for the player to do? The meta will just shift to whatever the new spreadsheet solution is.

• Experimenting with existing counters, tracking, evasion, and accuracy mechanics.
  • This may also end up providing a role for smaller weapons.
• Improving ship behavior based on the roles assigned them by combat computers.
  • Yes, Carrier Battleship, I know you have a point defense laser and you're very proud of it. That doesn’t mean you should charge into melee to use it.

This would be great, as it seems like the ship AI behavior hasn't done anything for... years? Glad to hear we are fixing it in our spare time.

 

[Mealya]

• Yes, Carrier Battleship, I know you have a point defense laser and you're very proud of it. That doesn’t mean you should charge into melee to use it.

lmao, this totally killed me.

But all of theses ships combat modifications are good to hear ! A very good thing for the game.

 

[SephirothWS]

Achievements​

When can we see achievements accessible outside of non-modded ironman games? As a Stellaris Player that utilizes plenty of gameplay mods, I don't get the ability to unlock achievements, yet I still perform the same operations and requirements to unlock them, but because I've modded the checksum and/or decide to not play ironman, I'm completely locked out of achievements.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

Factions, ethics and government authority types could use some love, too.

 

[Archael90]

Relic Balance
Iggy has asked to look at relics and has written up proposals for a balance pass upon them. In his own words…

Relics are meant to be fun and game-changing. They are supposed to be powerful and unique items that can change the course of your empire. The issue, however, is that they are not all equal. So with a future update, I hope to at least narrow the gap between the relics a bit. I have mainly split the relics into three sets.

Event-based ones that are fine to have a niche and semi-powerful effects, think Omnicodex and Blade of the Huntress.
Precursor Relics should be strong and useful for every single empire. I am not promising that the Javorian Pox will be top tier for pacifists or that the Psionic Archive will be the best machine relic. But they will at least have neat effects.
Crisis Relics which are awarded for defeating the crisis should be a bit of a victory lap. You have won! It should not give you 30 society research.

With these in mind, I will be looking at every relic and attempting to bring them in line if needed. There will be a lot of buffs and a few nerfs, but hopefully, they will feel more rewarding!


I expect that we’ll post a list of the changes when we start the dev diaries up again after the summer for feedback.

Its weird that relics that was found by empire A are lost forever when it became part of empire B, via conquest, integration those relics should become property of empire B. There also should be a way to trade with them, or special CB to get them from empire A.

Fleet Combat Balance
Meanwhile, my planned experiments primarily have to do with fleet combat.

Things I’m looking forward to looking at include:

Providing a late game role for Destroyers and Cruisers, and providing incentives for mixed fleets.
Increasing the length of fleet combats, reducing the dominance of alpha strikes.
Experimenting with existing counters, tracking, evasion, and accuracy mechanics.
This may also end up providing a role for smaller weapons.
Improving ship behavior based on the roles assigned them by combat computers.
Yes, Carrier Battleship, I know you have a point defense laser and you're very proud of it. That doesn’t mean you should charge into melee to use it.

These are likely the experiments most ethereal in nature at this time and are unlikely to bear fruit in the short term.

In my signature there is a suggestion about space combat Armament change.
There was also a suggestion to make fleet a fleet - a single "unit" rather than mold of single ships, and depending on empire ethics, politics, and ascension perks those compositions could be different.

 

[Obeliskkai]

Will we get more tradition tree and ascension perk slots? With how many traditions trees and ascension perks we have now, the current setup feels somewhat limited, and if more are about to be added, I think it'd be neat to be able to select more traditions and ascension perks during the game.

Well the entire point of choosing tradition trees is that it specialises your empire, and limits on how many helps reinforce the importance of the choice. More trees coupled with the cap of seven choices should increase distinction over time.

I think some ascension perks could be consolidated though. Create two or three tradition trees instead that allow you to specialise within your ascension rather than having two perks (Teachers of the Shroud is powerful precisely because you get to save on an ascension perk slot).

The Ecumenopolis and Galactic Wonders are so important I think they are mandatory, and a choice that is mandatory is not a choice.

I would make the Ecumenopolis a technology everyone can get BUT make the corresponding ascension perk allow you to build more than one (otherwise you are capped).

As for the Dyson Sphere, Ring World and Matter Decompressor, they should just be techs. Rare and taking a long time to research, but definitely techs.

 

[LordNarvi]

About tradition trees; do you think it's viable to lock traditions behind in-game requirements? As is to say, you can't take an Expansion tradition without starting a new colony, or you cannot take Supremacist tradition without conquering an enemy world.