Stellaris Dev Diary #94 - Ascension Perks & Surveying in Cherryh

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Wizzington

Game Director (Victoria 3)
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Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today's topic was supposed to be ship balance and doomstacks, but because certain things weren't ready to show off yet, we're instead going to be doing a smaller dev diary talking about some changes coming to Ascension Perks and Surveying. We'll get back to the doomstack topic in a couple weeks.

Ascension Perks
Ascension Perks were added in Utopia as the paid component to the Tradition system to create a set of interesting choices for the player to take as they went through the Tradition tree, choosing between simple but powerful bonuses and more elaborate 'unlocks' such as the ascension paths and Megastructures. However, since then we have noticed that this is a system we keep wanting to build on (for example by adding unique Ascension Perks for Machine Empires as we did in Synthetic Dawn), and found the requirement to depend all of this on Utopia too limiting. For this reason, in the Cherryh update, we are going to make the basic Ascension Perks such as Mastery of Nature, Defender of the Galaxy and so on free for everyone. Biological/Psionic/Synthetic Ascension Paths and Megastructure Ascension Perks (including Habitats) will still require Utopia and Machine Empire Ascension Perks will naturally still require Synthetic Dawn (but not Utopia). The core system itself however, will become part of the base game, so everyone will be able to get at least the basic set of Ascension Perks even if they don't own a single piece of DLC.

Surveying & Communications Trading
The way surveying, anomaly generation and star chart trading works has never really worked very well. For one, it's very unclear to players that for example, you cannot discover anomalies in other empires' space, or that star chart trading can actually be a bad idea since it can in some cases stop you from finding anomalies in those systems. For this reason, we've decided to make some changes to the way surveying works. In Cherryh, any system inside the borders of an empire you have communications with will automatically be considered surveyed, without any need to send a science ship into it and waste a bunch of time scanning planets that have no chance of yielding anomalies aynway. There are some exceptions to this, such as Fallen Empires, whose space will need to be surveyed manually and can in fact yield anomalies.

As part of this we have decided to remove Star Chart trading as well as the ability to buy Star Charts from Curators, and instead replace this with the option to trade Communications with another empire - acquiring Communications from an empire in a trade deal will automatically put you in comms with any empires they have comms with that you do not. This should mean that there are no longer any 'traps' in surveying, while also requiring the need to explore every little nook of the galaxy even when that nook is held by your ally since a hundred years back.
2017_11_16_1.png


Terra Incognita Changes
Finally, I just wanted to mentioned that we have done some changes to Terra Incognita to make it more clear and make it work properly with bypasses (Wormholes and Gateways). Instead of Terra Incognita being based on which physical pixels on the map your ships have 'seen', it is now based on which systems are considered visited. Visited either means that you have been to the system with a ship, or that the system is inside the borders of an empire that you have communications with. As such, Terra Incognita no longer needs to be manually lifted on empires you have met in order to not make them appear grey and washed out on the map, also making it easier to see important galactic features such as nebulas.
2017_11_16_2.png


That's all for today! I know it was a short one, but don't worry, we still have a long way to go and plenty of major things to talk about for Cherryh. However, next week we're actually going to be talking about something that's§ unrelated to Cherryh, but exciting nonetheless. I'm not allowed to spoil what just yet, but stay tuned!
 
I am confused. Now when you have communications with another empire, you automatically see everything within their space? The systems outside of their space you have to explore yourself, or wait until they are inside someone's empire? What *are* the rules for finding anomalies??

Anomalies can't be found in other empires' space because then you could end up changing the deposits on their planets. You do not automatically see everything, you just have survey data on their planets. You don't get sensor of their ships automatically.
 
Can you confirm exactly how communications and active sensor link will differ?

Active sensor link gives you access to their sensors.

Communications is a one-time trade of comms.
 
Planetary Survey Corps will likely need tweaking, that's something we'll look at during the balance/polish phase of the update.
 
Does this mean that when you make contact with an empire, you will get their systems surveyed? If that is so, why would an Isolationist willingly tell you about it's bountiful system?

Yes. In the future, the ability to hide data on your planets is something we'd likely add as part of a general intel/espionage system but right now there's no mechanics to support such a thing.
 
Hmm, I wonder how exploring the center of the galaxy will work? That one can be quite the eye-sore, showing up as unexplored. As is said in posts above, tiny or even larger areas between stars remaining unfilled by explorations and borders can look pretty weird!

The center becomes visible once a certain number of systems adjacent to it are visible to you.
 
That's ... Incredible. Thank you for that !

But does that mean that you'll never work again on the Ascension Paths ?

No, it's not that we don't ever go back and update paid features, it's just a matter of dependency issues.
 
I probably don't understand but the anomalies are one of the most fun aspects of the game and doesn't this drastically reduce the amount of systems I can survey and get anomalies ?

No, it does not. What it does is make it so you don't have to survey systems where you can't get anomalies anyway.
 
No, it does not. What it does is make it so you don't have to survey systems where you can't get anomalies anyway.

Well, it kinda does. In Stellaris as it is, if I defeat an empire and explore the systems I have just conquered, I can get anomalies from them. This would not be the case if I have survey details from having been in communication with them.
 
Good decision. Avoids the issues that CK2 has with the retinues.



So instead of "Never trade Star Charts" it is now "Never trade Communications"?

There is no advantage to not trading comms in regards to surveying. You can't generate anomalies in other empires' space even if you haven't met them (because, again, this could result in deposits in your space wildly changing without you being able to control it).