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Stellaris Dev Diary #128 - Decisions and Planetary Bombardment

Hello everyone! We’re back yet again for another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue talking about the 2.2 'Le Guin' update, and as promised last week, the topic will be Decisions and Planetary Bombardment.

And before we get right into it I of course have to reiterate that we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ is coming out, and that screenshots may contain placeholder art, interfaces and non-final numbers.

Decisions
Planetary edicts are gone - long live Decisions! Decisions is a new feature that will replace the old Planetary Edicts. We’ve always wanted to do more with planetary edicts, and Decisions now allow us to do a lot more cool stuff. Some Decisions can be enacted on any planet (colonizable or not) in your empire’s borders. Decisions can cost any resource, and can also require a certain amount of time to pass before the effect will take place. For example, the Mastery of Nature Ascension Perk now allows you access to Land Clearance – the Decision (see image below). Some Decisions will have toggle options – like for example Martial Law. Enacting the Martial Law Decision allows you to later on Revoke Martial Law should you wish to do so.

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The system will be fully moddable and we’re looking forwards to seeing what cool stuff the community can come up with.

Planetary Bombardment & Devastation
To better fit with the new systems, bombardment has been slightly reworked.

When a planet gets bombarded it will suffer Devastation. Devastation ticks up from 0 up to 100, and is a direct penalty to your planet’s housing, amenities, trade value and pop growth. Clearing Devastation will take time and cost resources, as one would expect.

Fleets, as you know, have different Bombardment Stances – each with its own effect on how fast Devastation ticks up and how large chance there is for a Pop to be killed during bombardment. The higher the Devastation is on a planet, the higher the chance is for a Pop to be killed. When a building slot becomes invalid due to no longer having the amount of Pops required for it to operate, the building occupying it will become Ruined. A Ruined building may be repaired once the requirements of the building slot are once again met.

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For those concerned that Devastation is too punishing, rest assured that we will be looking into that. Recovering from Devastation should never feel like an impossible task.

Next week our we will continue covering the features of the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update with the topic of Tradition rework. Because this week’s dev diary is a bit shorter, I’ll leave a teaser for next week. Enjoy!

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" When a building slot becomes invalid due to no longer having the amount of Pops required for it to operate, the building occupying it will become Ruined." - Sounds very weird. Dont you think that the building ruined/not ruined shall be dependent on planetary bombardment and not people who live/hide/not hide in it?
I assume that there is a certain amount of abstraction here - the building is constantly repaired until the firemen are all dead...
 
Is it possible to make decisions like encourage pop growth to have both toggled (where you pay over time) and one off version?

Sometimes I would like to boost the planet/empire one off, but most often then not I want to keep the bonus running until I make a decision of not wanting it anymore. Coming back to all of the planetary decisions/empire edicts every 10 years to click them again is a bit annoying.

Ideally for every periodic one we should have option of "automatically renew on end".

Only problem I can see is that someone who checks it on and forgets it might be very confused 10 year later when their influence randomly just disappears. So some kind of notification would be in order like "within next 12 months following decisions will get renewed" and a list.
 
Ideally for every periodic one we should have option of "automatically renew on end".

Only problem I can see is that someone who checks it on and forgets it might be very confused 10 year later when their influence randomly just disappears. So some kind of notification would be in order like "within next 12 months following decisions will get renewed" and a list.
it would be better to have a pop up saying "this decision has expired. renew now? Y/N"
 
Ideally for every periodic one we should have option of "automatically renew on end".

Only problem I can see is that someone who checks it on and forgets it might be very confused 10 year later when their influence randomly just disappears. So some kind of notification would be in order like "within next 12 months following decisions will get renewed" and a list.

I would rather preferred cost over time so I can managed the economy. If I see that food is going down critical I could quickly find out "-100k from growth planetary decision" instead of being surprised in 5 years.
 
Nice, can't wait to see what all decisions are after the update rolls out.
 
Hi @Wiz! I know this isn't the topic of this Dev Diary, but I never got a response on the earlier thread.
Have you considered on adding price fluctuation graphs to the Galactic Market screen? In the provided screenshots it looks a bit empty, and price graphs would give it a bit more flavour, allowing us to better roleplay galactic Wall Street (think of the possibilities, an actual "space gekko" Gordon Gekko!), as well as giving players an insight on how currently expensive a resource is compared to recent times, should you buy now or choose to wait untill the price drops, etc.
Cheers!
 
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So infrastructure is gone and replaced by popcount?

Yeah, the planetary rework mechanics have gone through some iterations since the dev diaries. I'm going to talk about it more on stream today.
 
So, there's no more infrastructure as it was announced?
Or amenities somehow is taking the role of infrastructure?

Edit: @Wiz just answered.
 
I know interface is placeholder, but I must say about that.
Planetary type, habitability, planet size, modifiers, and devastation...there are too many information, so they hide planet landscape. Could you make special space for them?

I'm expecting Le Guin patch. Thank you!
 
Nice diary, everything sounds like an improvement to me. I'm really stoked to see what modders do with the decision system.

I really look forward to any rework on Traditions, though it's probably too much to hope for that the system will be altered somehow (more trees, unity cost changes, anything) so that every empire wont have every tree filled out by late game. I realize that Ambitions are supposed to help out with that but I feel pretty strongly that if my choices felt more permanent regarding traditions (I won't be able to get them all, so I better choose wisely) I'd enjoy the whole system more.

Anyways, looking great.
 
Great stuff on devastation!

Could I ask though if you guys could return the tile backgrounds for the buildings area? The backgrounds of the buildings are just grids.
 
I have been thinking that minerals are too much important in the game, and you can not "role" designs of planets and exotic societies, because is not worth.
In fact, the priority of each game will always be to obtain a lot of mineral, and if you build power plants or farms, it is for pay the maintenance of the mineral factories.

In EuropaUniversalis, money is very important, but it acts more as a brake on your development that you need manage, because the pace of expansion of your empire is different, more slow and limited.
In Stellaris the mineral is like the resources of Starcraft. Almost all decisions are based on expanding fast, getting a lot of mineral, and everything else is less important.
Does anyone think like me?
Should Stellaris adjust the rate of obtaining minerals?

In the mod "Stellaris: Realism", the uninhabitable planets do not normally give energy or mineral, but produce concrete raw materials like ice, silicon, etc. This detail, combined with certain adjustments in construction costs, can make interstellar expansion more strategic and less mechanical, and change the pace of the game to be less 4X and more "grand strategy".

I believe it's just a matter of playstyle. I've hardly ever had a high reliance on minerals, and I don't constantly feel mineral shortage. In fact, during non-crisis times it is quite common for my minerals to overflow and I can't even export them because I've got so much. What I feel is always in short supply is influence.
 
I'm a bit skeptical on ruination of buildings being depended on the Pop count...

How is that going to work with a planetary bombing policy that aims at destroying strategic targets while attempting to avoid civilian causalities?
 
what happens if a planet is at 100% devastation? There wouldn't be any more housing. will people just leave or will this maybe turn the world into a tomb world?

Do Bombardment Stances maybe have a maximum amount of devastation they can produce? So with a lite bombardment stance, does devastation cap out at 50%?
 
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I hope they change the text on this. It just seams backwords and a regress from what we have today in our laws.
Its a Domination tradition, which are all about subjugating populations both inside and outside your empire. The text is also clearly a reference to the Judges from Judge Dredd, a totalitarian police force that maintain order in sprawling, industrialized mega-cities with billions of inhabitants.

In other words, its supposed to sound regressive and dystopian.