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

[SeraphAscending]

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.

Do you think you could give test builds to selected known community members that are experts at the game?
Maybe ask them to playtest it, try to break/exploit it and gather feedback.

Should be significantly easier to setup than a full public beta, which comes with a lot of logistical overhead.

 

[xor]

regarding accessibility:

Please please please let us rebind keys ingame! I've been asking this since 2016, it's insane to me that there are still games out there which don't allow this.
Why do we need to use 3rd party tools like autohotkey? (which is a great program, but it's so stupid that it's necessary just to rebind some keys)

 

[matteeeo91]

Regarding precursor relics only, are you considering adding a casus belli for stealing them from another empire if they get them before I complete the event chain?
Ans, as someone mentions, would you give the possibility to acquire relics in general via integration or total conquest rather than raiding only?

 

[Pancakelord]

Regarding fleets, I like mechanics that differentiate empires. I miss the choice at empire creation of picking between lasers, kinetic, or missiles.
I propose adding an empire creation choice between corvettes, destroyers, and carriers. Your starting fleet would be 4, 2 or 1 of these, respectively. You could eventually get the other hull types, but you would always be better in some way with your starting hull. No one starts with battleships and everyone has equal access to getting them.

I'm not even sure why we still have starting fleets. They just exist as a free alloy micro thing and serve no real purpose anymore.

Given the first contact rework and general passivity of AIs in first contact (they wont actually attack you, outside of the odd event to nuke a science ship), and the (much older) commenting out of roaming fauna fleets (the whales and other critters used to roam from system to system with a lot more frequency, but I think that was disabled ages ago as i've not seen it in a long time), starting fleets just suck up resources - and provide free alloys for those who downgrade them.

I do agree with specialisation across 3 categories though

1. Weapon type: Energy | Kinetic | Missile & Strikecraft (as missiles cant really be spammed via G slots)
2. Defense type: Armor | Shield | Evasion (& sublight speed - turning them in to fast glass cannons).
3. Hull type: the basic 4 types.

Ideally specialisation would be over 2-3 tiers, with the first tier being a straight buff in your chosen (e.g.) weapon type, whilst tier 2 and 3 further buff (e.g.) energy weapons, whilst penalising kinetic/missile/sc stats.
So for example, you could specialise in to 1 Missiles & Strikecraft, 2 Cruisers, 3 Evasion / speed -- leading to fast, lightly armoured strike fleets.

 

[Slaughter]

Talking about Tradition Trees based on origins and ascension, why not... Ethics trees?

(would be cool if we could get more Tradition Tree space to go with that, too)

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.

Supporting this hard.

I have been wanting to be able to become a perfect meld of biology and machinery for a while, too. I'm thinking something like J.C Denton or the Infinite Energy Androids from Dragonball Z.

Being able to become shroud beings would be awesome as well. Ascension towards godhood? Or perhaps, rather than become mere energy beings, become Living Ideas, stranding the idea between Living Being and Concept - essentially, turn yourselves into the New Gods of the Fourth World. Neither flesh nor shroud, but somewhere between both. Imagine a Fanatic Pacifist Xenophile ruler becoming a Highfather-like figure, Peace and Love Himself. Or a Fanatic Materialist somehow getting psionics and becoming a Metron-like figure that incarnates amoral science and experimentation. Or a Fanatic Authoritarian/Militarist figure becoming a Darkseid-like God of Order and Tyranny.

 

[A2ch0n]

These examples aren't comprehensive, there are many other things being worked on that aren't listed here (like previously mentioned Espionage improvements).

I really can't wait for those improvements! Can you give us a sneak peak? I think we have enough intel to ask you for this

 

[DeanTheDull]

Accessibility Improvements
@MonzUn has been leading a drive for improved accessibility options in Stellaris. Some of the things we’re looking at include adding more functionality for mouse side buttons, possible text-to-speech for events, and functionality like hotkeys for zooming in and out.

At his suggestion, some of us have also started playing the game with various color reshaders active to simulate different color vision deficiencies, to help find the worst issues and ways to resolve them.

If you have suggestions or accessibility problems that you face while playing Stellaris, please let us know.

Thank you, this is much appreciated.

If there's a way to increase the font size of event text, that would be appreciated as well.

 

[Pale Blue]

Does this mean adaptility will go back to be a diplolimited tradition tree or will there a new one? Originally it was pretty good if you wanted to stay a single species empire and the finisher for farmers to also produce minerals was very unique. Could we get something similar for one of the new trees?


Not sure if locking tradition trees behind ascension perks is the way to go. Imho it should be the other way. Locking certain ascension perks behind a tradition tree. Your empire slowly focuses on something and the pinnacle is an ascension perk at the end. It could also allow to buff some of the rather uninteresting t1 and t2 ascension perks since they would become less accessible.

Will you experiment with the suggestion to move megastructure unlocks to the finisher of tradition trees?

 

[revolver275]

It's all great wished the custodian team also fixed some small stuff that has been in the game forever.. I sometimes see new players so confused with the starbase tooltip which says it can be increased by pops which is not true it has been there for atleast 3 year please fix it's like 1 minute of work.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

On the topic of Traditions, I would like to repeat a suggestion I have made before, concerning the problems that result from the current implementation of technological gating of half of all the Ascension Perks. Unity-focused empires are essentially punished with an inferior selection of Ascension Perks, forcing them to either delay that pick so they can get what they want (with gamey quirkiness and less Unity from their Monument buildings), or to settle for worse rewards for their Unity investment than what Research-focused empires get. In the case of the AI, this can be especially problematic.

My suggestion (Ascension Perk picks should never require technologies to pick, but instead...) is basically that the ability to pick an Ascension Perk should never be locked behind technologies - only their full effects. Picking an Ascension Perk should also result in gaining research options for the necessary technologies, once their prerequisites are fulfilled (similar to what Voidborne does for Habitat technologies).

Ascension Perks that are still relatively futuristic when picked would become like the Lunar Program - which is a good thing for the atmosphere of a sci-fi game.
Or, if we prefer Stellaris analogies, they would become more like "Become the Crisis", which also requires progress to be completely realized.

 

[A2ch0n]

Unity-focused empires are essentially punished with an inferior selection of Ascension Perks

What? Can you explain what you talking about? For me is a unity focused empire the absolute king in case of AP's

 

[Stellar Game]

Love it! Please consider reverting the galatron, the current effect is crushingly bad! It should be a real game-changer. I always adore new achievements, please keep them coming! Loving all the initiatives.

 

[Stellar Game]

Everything is great!

I think Relic balance is really "needed".

About Ships :

Ships rework would be incredible! Ships are like 80% of wars (maybe even more), and could be so much better!

I add some minor ideas:

- Allow every event ships to be merged to fleets, it's so sad when you cannot.

- Add a button to "reequip" event ships, it would put modern equipments if some weapons you have are higher tier than what the ship currently have.
This is VERY important for early event ships that do not have Jump drive, so you basically have to delete them (very very sad )

- It would be nice if the automatic ship designer made coherent ships (like not having penetration weapons with Laser canons) , it would greatly help AI

For sure agree with the event ships. They usually end up orbiting my capital as trophies

 

[nebulous0]

as Obeliskkai said

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

merging ascention perks and tradition trees could be interesting and it could be changed in many ways, some ascention perks feel very mandatory like galactic wonders and arcology project which could be merged with or changed to traditions instead.

these 2 are obvious examples that could be changed but others like void dwellers, colossus project and mastery of nature feel like they could use some work as well,

• void dweller could have a tradition tree that works with the perk,
• colossus project could be added to something like the supremacy tree or at least add the total war cause to that tree so we dont need a colossus to do it,
• mastery of nature feels too weak and could be merged with the harmony tradition tree to buff that

adding galactic wonders to a tree could be part of general change to megastructures

• changing the megashipyard and maybe the strategic coordination center so that they relace the starbase in the system and become it, the scc should also have a garrison
• ring world, dyson sphere and matter decompressor shouldnt be locked just expensive, matter decompressor should be a normal structure like all the others just much more expensive, dyson spehere could be part of a tradition tree dedicated to megastructures in general, ringworld could be part of both void dweller and world shaper

some traditions could also be changed in general to reflect your empires ethics and the state of the game, expansion and discovery could be taken in the early game when there is stuff to discover and space to expand but as you move later into the game those traditions lose some of their purpose so maybe they would lose representation somehow in your empire and become inactive and eventually lost to be replaced by something more relevant.

traditions like supremacy or diplomacy could be tied to your empires ethics (supremacy militarist and diplomacy xenophile) and if you dont have factions to represent those ethics then you could lose their attached traditions. but this could also be part of a change to factions and ethocs in general where you could use traditions to promote ethics in your empire, as you progress down a tradition tree that is not represented very well if at all in your empire then the tradition could create a faction and promote its ethics



for military stuff bigger ships should target other ships of their own size or larger before attacking smaller ships that they might miss, this could negate stuff like corvette spamming to shield your battleships (although that should still be possible in some way, if there was a way for a corvette to recieve an attack that was meant to hit a battleship) and give and advantage to ship fire rate modifiers to be able to get first strike against your opponent.

more ecosystems of weapons which would be generally equal but all have good counters by other types, based on mods but for example gravity, nanite, crystaline ecosystems of weaponry in addition to the basic energy, missile (which could be expanded) and kinetic as well as organic and electrical for hive minds and machine empires, they would give different advantages but be difficult economically to produce maybe being locked behind mutually exclusive event chains to force different empires to specialize differently to each other, especially if the different ecosystems of weapons are more effective at different ship sizes. this would make late game more interesting, every empire would have access to energy kinetic and missile but also one of these extra ones, this would force player to think differently about they design their ships instead of making the exact same design from memory every time you unlock a new ship class you would have to look at the special weapons you have and have to choose what ship class is best for you and how to design it.



also for relics i feel like fallen empires should have some less powerful but unique relics that you would get for defeating them.

ive also been playing some starsector and the mechanic of finding less unique relics and installing them on planets to buff them felt pretty interesting, for example while progressing down the cybrex event chain at some events or archeology sites you could find some cybrex forges that could be installed in alloy foundries which could buff some of the workers



this wasnt meant to be so long and i might make a normal post on the forums from this idk just some ideas

 

[BorbiBoy]

Rebalancing fleet warfare is nice, but what would help even more, is asymmetric warfare.

At the end of the day, the empire with the most ships and the most resources/technology wins. And no matter how the balancing will look like, at the end of the day a meta and a best ship type will probably prevail until the next balancing (although I would of course be happy to be proven wrong here).

However, if human history has taught us anything, it is that David vs. Goliath scenarios are possible through (and only through) asymmetric warfare.

 

[apples951]

Talking about Tradition Trees based on origins and ascension, why not... Ethics trees?

Because unlike origins and ascension, you can change your ethics.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

This all sounds really good, especially the fleet combat stuff. Hopefully you can change the "blind charge into melee" problem sooner rather than waiting for the overall combat overhaul.

In regards to Traditions, now that vassals are much more important, could we have some vassalization perks added back to the Domination tree, like it used to be? That tree basically lost its entire theme at some point.

 

[CometBliss]

I hope Iggy’s relic balance gives me a higher chance to roll master archives

 

[cerberus189]

if u are going to add more traditions i think some nice thematic ones where u can pick one or the other would be a gd idea to mix and match. you could have one about exploiting the planet and getting the best out of it vs building a sustainable world that everyone can live on.

u could even have some trees based around the ascension perks so they work as a gd bonus to them but not directly linked like say have one that unlocks gene modification and adds points working well with bio ascension but also allows robots to modify the people under them and psionics races. if u want to go a step more u could also do one build around building technology's that allow for more jobs from buildings or more output from the buildings vs picking the tree that makes ur pops better

 

[Cordane]

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.

"Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."

It's like you've been reading my posts or something...