Stellaris Dev Diary #73: The Čapek Update

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Wizzington

Game Director (Victoria 3)
Paradox Staff
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Nov 15, 2007
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Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Now that the 1.7.2 update is out, we can officially start talking about the next update, which has been named 1.8 'Čapek'. This update will include the reworked AI crisis and other changes to crises outlined in Dev Diary #72. More information will be forthcoming in future dev diaries on the exact nature and release date of 1.8, but for today we'll be going over some changes and improvements to Habitability and Terraforming coming in 1.8.

Habitability Changes
Ever since the changes to the habitable planet classes and habitability back in Heinlein we have continued to discuss habitability, and in particular, the frequency of habitable worlds in the galaxy. A general feeling among the designers has been that habitable planets are too common and do not feel special enough, but that reducing the base number of habitable worlds wasn't really feasible while most empires only had access to colonizing a third of them at the start. We also felt that the sheer abundance of habitable worlds that become available to you when you do achieve the ability to colonize/terraform other climate types also meant that there is little pressure to expand your borders - not when you can triple your planet count simply by utilizing the planets already inside your borders.

For this reason we've decided to make a number of fundamental changes to habitability. First of all, the habitability at which Pops can live on a planet was reduced from 40% to 20%, meaning that by default, most species will be able to colonize most habitable worlds in the galaxy from the very start. We have also changed the actual effects of habitability: Rather than acting as a cap on happiness, it now acts as a modifier on it (in addition to affecting growth, as before), with each 10 points of habitability below 100% reducing happiness by 2.5% (so at the base 20% habitability, a Pop would get -20% to their happiness). This means that while low-habitability planets are possible to colonize, it may not be a good idea to do so unless you have ways to compensate for the negative effects of low habitability.
OcmNsiP.png


With these changes, we have cut the base number of habitable worlds in the galaxy in half. For those that prefer to play with more (or even fewer!) habitable worlds, there is of course the habitable worlds slider in galaxy setup as before. Overall, the changes should result in habitable worlds and terraforming candidates feeling like more significant finds in the early game, and contribute to mid and late game friction as empires run out of worlds to colonize inside their borders.


Planetary Deposits
Along with the change to habitability, we have also changed the way resource deposits are generated on habitable worlds. Rather than all habitable worlds having the exact same chance to generate the different kind of resource deposits, we have now broken it up a bit by climate as follows:

Wet Climate planets (Continental, Ocean, Tropical) are more likely to generate food and society research deposits.
Frozen Climate planets (Arctic, Tundra, Alpine) are more likely to generate mineral and engineering research deposits.
Dry Climate planets (Desert, Arid, Savanna) are more likely to generate energy and physics research deposits.
Gaia planets are more likely to generate mixed deposits and strategic resources.

Of course, this does not mean that you will *only* find those types of desposits on such planets - it simply means they are more likely to be found there.
2017_06_15_1.png



Terraforming Interface Improvements
Also coming in 1.8 are a couple changes to improve Terraforming and Terraforming Candidates. First of all, we've introduced a concept called 'significant planetary modifiers'. This is a flag (accessible to modders) that can be set on any planetary modifier, and will result in that planet appearing in the Expansion Planner even if it not of a habitable planet class. For now, the only significant modifier is Terraforming Candidates (such as Mars), so you should no longer find a Terraforming Candidate only to forget which system it is located in, but we expect to make more use of this functionality in the future.
2017_06_15_3.png


We also spent some time cleaning up the Terraforming interface in general, hiding the button for planets where it is never applicable (such as non-Terraforming Candidate barren worlds) and improving the sorting and style of the actual terraforming window.
2017_06_15_4.png


That's all for now! Next week we'll be talking about some significant changes coming in the area of genetic modification.
 
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How will Migration work with the new habitability? Currently pops won't migrate to and will actively migrate off low habitability world. Don't want my pops to move from their pristine capital world buildings to unimproved tiles on Robot-Excavation-Colony Daleth.

Generally Pops won't migrate to low habitability worlds still, but they won't migrate away either unless forced away (<20% habitability) or the planet is getting full.
 
I'm having mixed feelings about this, on one hand I'm glad the planetary environments are being made more unique, but from the other hand these changes seem to gear some planets types towards certain playstyles too much

Keep in mind that you'll now be able to colonize most types of worlds from the very start. The balance effects should be fairly minimal.
 
I think that for this to work, current low happiness effects not severe enough. And -20% Happiness (most severe case) isn't that hard to combat, even with different happiness bonuses nerf.
And what about POP growth affected by Habitability?

Habitability already has a major effect on the time it takes for pops to grow.
 
This sounds very cool! Only problem I have is from an immersion perspective: I would swap energy and minerals. I think it makes more sense for hot, dry planets which get a lot of sun to have more energy than cold ones.

EDIT: This is actually the case, I read the file wrong when writing the DD. Fixing!
 
20% is equivalent to the penalty for being enslaved. Any higher would make settling 20% habitability worlds completely unfeasible and thus remove the entire point of opening them up in the first place.
 
I like the changes! I second MatthieuG7's point on the minerals and energy, he beat me to it ;) I was also wondering why the research is split - from a gameplay point of view, it makes sense, but I can't think of a real life 'scientific' reason :p
 
I think this is a brilliant idea. It keeps the same dimension of strategy.

I'm disappointed to see no changes to combat balancing and missile targeting behaviour.

Dev diaries focus on one or a few topics at a time. The posts of 'why isn't this dev diary about what *I* wanted it to be about?' are entirely pointless. There's plenty of threads to discuss combat balancing and missile behaviour in, this isn't one of them.
 
Is it just me or does this read like landgrab being made easier?

Sort of, in the sense that you can settle more planets by default, but there's less planets overall to settle, and the penalties are more severe than if you were to say play a very adaptable species in 1.6.
 
What about weapon balance? Targeting logic? Defensive structures? Ship roles? What about the fleet combat/military/strategic aspect of stellaris?

Every dev diary I am somewhat happy to see you work on new/improving features, but I truly cannot understand how you can prioritize Terraforming higher than improving the combat core mechanics of the game. The forum is full of threads that prove in detail how desperately this is needed! When will you be ready to talk about this?

Something being posted in a dev diary doesn't mean it's higher priority than anything coming in dev diaries after it. Combat balancing is a major priority but it's also a huge, ongoing undertaking and isn't something we're gonna throw together in a week and then be ready to post about. We're working on it, and we'll talk about it when we're ready to talk about it. Please keep this thread on topic, there's at least a dozen other threads to discuss combat balance in.
 
That wasn't my attitude at all.

Sorry if I was a bit brash there. Every single dev diary there's always several posters who rush to exclaim their disappointment that the dev diary isn't actually about something else, and it gets a bit tiresome.
 
In relation to the happiness penalties (again), while I really don't think a higher happiness penalty is a good idea, I'm considering adding in a resource production penalty to represent the difficulties of extracting resources in a hostile environment. Going to see how the balance of that plays out.
 
1.7.2 contains the 1.6.2 fixes that were the promised fixes for 1.6.
 
No, it doesn't. It contains a small list of fixes that were tested for a couple of weeks and still leaves a large amount of work to be done. Not to mention you pushed it live before fixing the crash on launch bug, what was the point of the beta if you aren't going to fix these things before releasing it.

If this is what you call being done with 1.6, this is what I call being done with Stellaris and any future DLC.

What precise fixes were promised for 1.6 that aren't in 1.7.2?
 
That sounds exiting. I hope the "Robust" trait will cost one point less, so I could uplift and bioengineer a ruler race - the most longlived species in the galaxy. Seven points is just too damn expensive. Sadly right now you can't give irradiated presentients both robust and venerable for a crazy 207 "natural" lifespan.

Couldn't you get both by adding a negative trait?
 
Without the irradiated, sure, but not with it. I double-cheked just to be sure and it's exactly one point too much. Theoretically this would work if there were multiple negative traits that cost two points, but the only one is unadaptive which is the opposite of robust.

View attachment 276718

I'll lower the cost to 6.
 
Tomb worlds already have basically only science deposits.
 
Ah, so starting planets are exempt to the new planet balancing changes? Was that reaffirmed by Wiz or the DD? I didn't see that written anywhere, and I didn't assume it would go unchanged, since they're actively talking about how planets will be different.

Not exempt, but starting planet resources are mostly prescripted so it's unlikely to have any significant effect.
 
Gaia planets should give an additional buff.

There's more (and better) mixed deposits that can spawn there now, but I don't disagree regardless. Any ideas for what that buff might be?
 
If not already in existence, could the player who settles a tomb world have a chance to discover a lost "vault" of remnants from the prior civilization that lived there, who would then be incorporated into the finder's civilization?

Would be a fun "easter egg" to a certain RPG series :p

Already a thing you can find on tomb worlds!