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

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.
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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.
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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!
 
Short and sweet. It's good to know that I can't find anomalies in other empire territory, I hadn't known that at all. Plus it's nice to be able to trade communications and get access to other empires quicker, I feel like that will speed up finding the enclaves for sure.
 
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??
 
I'm pleased to see that you want to improve ascension perks. But, speaking about ascension perks.

Have you considered adding change to Psionic/cybernetic/biological ascension perks? I mean how can't an empire be cyborg/gene enhanced (space marines) or latent psionic/gene modded. I know that cyborg/latent psionic can be quite confused and seems to be unique ascension path with ethos drift and i'm okay with it. But why can't an empire purchase a level 1 cyborg and a level 1 bio instead of a level 2 synthetic ascension?

In another hand are they plans to overhaul the existing ascension perks?
 
I'm confused as to the explanation of the planets in another factions borders. They will all be automatically surveyed and your science ships won't need to do anything?

But what about certain bonuses that trigger on surveying, they will become incredibly limited/useless later on?
 
Have you considered removing the 'additional anomaly discovery rate'-trait, as this can give you a permanent boost to the space you own and seems another one of those aspects that is not obvious to the casual player?
 
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.
 
Thank you @Team :)

Will communication opened influence Trading Rote income (via Starbases)? Of course if the route is possible.

A thought regarding perks and megastructures - have you considered making megastractures dependent on traditions tree finished (Ring Worlds for Harmony/Machine Worlds Synchronisity; Habitats for Expantion and so on)?
And another connected one - does the Team looks through the Suggestions forum? :) Because often its better not to spam unrelated but connected to update things there, but with no response or reaction from the team its difficult to say how tuned suggested vision is with the Teams vision.
 
and I was all excited for anti-doomstack
oh well
 
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??
You can discover anomolies in neutral, non-owned territory. It is just that now, only neutral territory counts as unknown, while you can see all owned territory. Essentially, open communications, know all the stars, which you could not find anomolies in anyways.
 
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.
 
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!

Victoria III confirmed!


Also one little suggestion - I think comms exchange deal should be move to main diplomacy screen, like you did with open borders some time ago.
 
I thought Stellaris goes the same way as CK2 and EU4 - putting essential features into expansions, balancing the game around them and pretending base game is OK without DLC.

But now with Ascension Perks being upgraded to a core feature I'm fine again. It's not that I didn't want to pay for DLC (already did), it's just it's painful to see how EU4 Development and Estates feature work horribly.

Great job, Wiz.
 
If a system ends up in an enemy empire that you do not have communications with, and then they lose that system via war, selling a outpost or border range changes, will it still be possible to find anomalies there, or do they immediately become impossible to find the first time the system enters an opponents (excluding fallen empire) space
 
Great dev diary, cant wait to see whats to come next week :rolleyes:

On another note: I hope there will be some changes to the border system so that small open space pockets between two empires or inside one empire are evened out. (Like for example between the Hegemony of Tycor and that dark blue empire, or that small pocket inside the latter)