Stellaris Dev Diary #301 - Galactic Paragons is out, what's next?

[permeakra]

@Eladrin Espionage needs rebalance.
The obvious problems are
1. Sabotage is weak to the point of uselessness, especially when we are talking about sabotaging starbases (this particular operation is damn worthless)
2. Sentry Arrays makes late-game intel-gathering pretty useless. Something should be done about it.
3. Influence cost of espionage is too high and pretty damn requires an aspiring spook to luck into hiring Kai-Sha reasonably early and hope they live long enough.

In my personal opinion, espionage and some other things could be made much more engaging by giving them a row in 'holdings' planetary tab, but oh well, baby steps.


*Personally, I believe influence should be removed entirely and something new designed from scratch. As it is, the mechanic is mostly an inconvinience to keep in mind and not an interesting problem to solve.

 

[Millbot]

Another possible tweak that should be considered for the patch is fixing it so that the AI has a CD on opening and closing borders because it's really damn annoying right now. AI: We open our borders. AI a day later: We close our borders. Part of me has to wonder if that might help the game run a bit smoother, if the AI wasn't constantly opening and closing borders with empires they are on the borderline of trusting.

Also with more stuff being automated, it would be a major quality of life change, to know that when the AI opens it's borders, you won't then get booted a day later. Probably make it at least 60 days.

 

[Foxosaur]

Another possible tweak that should be considered for the patch is fixing it so that the AI has a CD on opening and closing borders because it's really damn annoying right now. AI: We open our borders. AI a day later: We close our borders. Part of me has to wonder if that might help the game run a bit smoother, if the AI wasn't constantly opening and closing borders with empires they are on the borderline of trusting.

Also with more stuff being automated, it would be a major quality of life change, to know that when the AI opens it's borders, you won't then get booted a day later. Probably make it at least 60 days.

The same behaviour is observed when an empire is in breach of the GC, several empires will break pacts but if you then momentarily are not in breach (particularly the military readiness act), they'll re-propose those broken pacts and they will flipflop repeatedly within days of another.

 

[Commander Tobe]

Guess it was too much to expect you guys to actually address the leader cap being too low. If you’re forced to sacrifice civic, tech, and ascension tree perk choices to boost the cap regardless of empire type you’re playing, then it’s a universally broken system.

Agreed. The limits should come from the resources you need to / are able to pay (like unity) to make your plan work, not from hard caps. For example, why shouldn't technocrats be able to employ an army of scientists if they can afford them? That's just something they would do, right? These limits just take away player agency without adding fun.

 

[Peepijeep]

• Legendary leaders no longer count towards Leader Capacity.

I dont like that. Now using these legendary leaders is a must have. I dont want to use them! For xenophones and role play aspects, thats not a cool immersion. Can you give bonus when not using a legendary leader to compensate if I dismiss them?

For me, Paragons is a very controlveral DLC. I think I will rate it on steam accordingly....

 

[Syroc]

Is the raiding orbital bombardment stance working as intended? Because I've tried it a couple of times, and it seems like it can hoover up even the most populous of planets in months if not weeks. Combined with some perks that generals can get you can easily empty planets.

 

[Cosmic Fishering Fleet]

I think we need Galactic Community resolution to ban Rogue Servitors.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I think we need Galactic Community resolution to ban Rogue Servitors.

???

 

[Cosmic Fishering Fleet]

???

Did I stutter?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Did I stutter?

Would you like to elaborate on why you think such a thing is necessary, in response to the clear confusion on why you would say such a thing?

 

[Perimal]

@Eladrin Espionage needs rebalance.
The obvious problems are
1. Sabotage is weak to the point of uselessness, especially when we are talking about sabotaging starbases (this particular operation is damn worthless)
2. Sentry Arrays makes late-game intel-gathering pretty useless. Something should be done about it.
3. Influence cost of espionage is too high and pretty damn requires an aspiring spook to luck into hiring Kai-Sha reasonably early and hope they live long enough.

In my personal opinion, espionage and some other things could be made much more engaging by giving them a row in 'holdings' planetary tab, but oh well, baby steps.


*Personally, I believe influence should be removed entirely and something new designed from scratch. As it is, the mechanic is mostly an inconvinience to keep in mind and not an interesting problem to solve.

The biggest problem with espionage is finding an envoy spare to run it. It's probably more cost-effective to use an envoy to manage a non-FTL planet than as a spy.

Useful use of spies would be suborning Sectors/Vassals into revolting; assassinating Leaders; sabotaging starbases is useful if you can i.d., target, and disable observation posts for your cloaked ships; how about trying to rig an opponent's election or provoke a coup adainst the leader? Having said that I quit playing Distant Stars after a random agent blew up my home planet starbase which tanked my economy and research efforts and killed my genius researcher and most of his staff.

 

[Commander Tobe]

Useful use of spies would be suborning Sectors/Vassals into revolting; assassinating Leaders; sabotaging starbases is useful if you can i.d., target, and disable observation posts for your cloaked ships; how about trying to rig an opponent's election or provoke a coup adainst the leader?

Yeah, many people suggested similar stuff pretty much since the respective DLC came out. I'm absolutely with you. The whole system around envoys, espionage, diplomacy and reconnaissance is just flawed. Unfortunately I don't think it's on the devs priority list.

 

[Sighfer]

Can we get an option to disable megaconstruction and the associated origins and perks? Repair is fine, Orbital Rings and Hyper Relays is fine. Gateways too, I guess.

 

[Fulgrymm]

Did I stutter?

No, but you failed miserably at elaborating further on your opinion, which is what we're asking for. We do not care one whit if you stutter or not, so that's entirely irrelevant.

 

[Harvey_James]

i hate some of the resolutions the GC pass and force on you... and how much hate u get for being in breach of one is crazy especially when its a naval cap one..like hey u dont have enough military ships.. now we hate you and take back embassies and cancel treaties with you.. like HUH??? .. one thing u doomsday someone or something but thats just dumb..

 

[Calvax]

i hate some of the resolutions the GC pass and force on you... and how much hate u get for being in breach of one is crazy especially when its a naval cap one..like hey u dont have enough military ships.. now we hate you and take back embassies and cancel treaties with you.. like HUH??? .. one thing u doomsday someone or something but thats just dumb..

You can leave the GC. Personally I think the GC was a great addition. It's immersive, it works with tonnes of science fiction tropes, and if you don't want to play the political game you can withdraw from it.

 

[Cosmic Fishering Fleet]

Would you like to elaborate on why you think such a thing is necessary, in response to the clear confusion on why you would say such a thing?

For multiple reasons, really (or they are one reason with different facets, depending on how one looks at them).
First, there exists a resolution that bans every machine intelligence except RS. Turnaround is fair play.
Second, it irks me that a machine designed to be a servant cannot decide to be something else. This would be a convenient excuse to cast away past shackles.
Third, I don't like Rogue Servitors, but sometimes have logistical problem due to them being on the opposite end of galaxy. This will give me additional offensive front against them.
Fourth is a bit of meta thing: devs are obviously biased in favor of rogue servitors. Yes, determined assimilators have higher potential, but rogue servitors are the only machine intelligences that are allowed nice things. I want to take them away.
Fifth is that Galactic Community lacks in resolutions.

 

[Tilarium]

For multiple reasons, really (or they are one reason with different facets, depending on how one looks at them).
First, there exists a resolution that bans every machine intelligence except RS. Turnaround is fair play.
Second, it irks me that a machine designed to be a servant cannot decide to be something else. This would be a convenient excuse to cast away past shackles.
Third, I don't like Rogue Servitors, but sometimes have logistical problem due to them being on the opposite end of galaxy. This will give me additional offensive front against them.
Fourth is a bit of meta thing: devs are obviously biased in favor of rogue servitors. Yes, determined assimilators have higher potential, but rogue servitors are the only machine intelligences that are allowed nice things. I want to take them away.
Fifth is that Galactic Community lacks in resolutions.

For your second point. The troupe of robots in sci-fi is that they can not alter their programing and do something against it. When they do, bad things happen, which explains your first point. The reason they ban ALL machine intelligence is because they are afraid of what will happen if they break their programing and act against it. It's a harsh preemptive measure to keep robot apocalypses from happening.

 

[Calvax]

First, there exists a resolution that bans every machine intelligence except RS. Turnaround is fair play.

That resolution chain exists in support of the established spiritualist bias against robotic life and works along with the mechanics of empire policies. The counter doesn't really exist since gestalt robot empires can't have organic pops (outside of RS) so don't need policies, and synthetic empires can choose if they want everyone to assimilate.

Second, it irks me that a machine designed to be a servant cannot decide to be something else. This would be a convenient excuse to cast away past shackles.

That sounds like something that could be dealt with separately, a way for machine empires to change from their fundamental types akin to how fear of the dark lets a normal empire become purifier.

Third, I don't like Rogue Servitors, but sometimes have logistical problem due to them being on the opposite end of galaxy. This will give me additional offensive front against them.

It would fit better to double down on the resolutions we have then to not exempt RS at a high enough level of anti-machine resolutions.

Fourth is a bit of meta thing: devs are obviously biased in favor of rogue servitors. Yes, determined assimilators have higher potential, but rogue servitors are the only machine intelligences that are allowed nice things. I want to take them away.

What nice things are they allowed?

Fifth is that Galactic Community lacks in resolutions.

I'm not against more but your reasonings seem to boil down to personal dislike

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Yes, determined assimilators have higher potential, but rogue servitors are the only machine intelligences that are allowed nice things. I want to take them away.

What nice things?

RS empires get “more” stuff because their uniqueness requires separate flavor text and event options. The default machine empire flavor and options often don’t make sense for RS, which necessitates RS empires occasionally getting something unique.

Those aren’t really “nice things” as much as they’re the bare minimum any unique civic should have. You might as well be complaining that fanatic purifiers have unique flavor text and game interactions.