A Plea to Paradox about Syncretic Evolution

[DickerSandmann]

Hey guys, before I start to whine and mumble around I want to first say thank you! You are by far my most favorite game developer and maker and I've spent over 3000 hours in your games since HoI II came out. Stellaris is one of the best by you so far, maybe even better then ck2. After that has been said back to the matter at hands: Syncretic Evolution.
I don't know wether that has already been asked and answered but I would really like to see that you can choose the portrait anhd name of your subject species yourself and not by a random algorithm. I like to develope storys in my own head and being able to control the start of this story is for me an important part of the immersion of the play-through. Therefor I would like you to implement this option into the Utopia dlc.
But lets be frank: Utopia is going to kick ass no matter what and I can hardly wait to get my hands on it. Even though please consider the idea. With much love and respect, a german Fan for life.

 

[ColZimin]

Just curious: has there been a statement that you can't set the appearance etc. of your secondary species? Otherwise I'd hold off on the begging until we know what the empire generation interface looks like on launch.

 

[DickerSandmann]

I know, but I've the fear noone bothered about that I idea so far...

 

[Emraldis]

It states in the dev diary where the syncretic evolution was first revealed that the portrait and name is random.

 

[ColZimin]

Ah, too bad then.

 

[Emraldis]

Indeed.

 

[Horror In The Deep]

It states in the dev diary where the syncretic evolution was first revealed that the portrait and name is random.

And It has been shown in the current stream((

 

[Azhcristokos]

This sounds like something that they will improve later on. Wiz already said he wants to add in more AI portraits and fixing this minor issue with syncretic evolution would not take nearly as much work.

 

[The Founder]

Stellaris is one of the best by you so far, maybe even better then ck2. After that has been said back to the matter at hands: Syncretic Evolution.
I don't know wether that has already been asked and answered but I would really like to see that you can choose the portrait anhd name of your subject species yourself and not by a random algorithm. I like to develope storys in my own head and being able to control the start of this story is for me an important part of the immersion of the play-through. Therefor I would like you to implement this option into the Utopia dlc.
But lets be frank: Utopia is going to lick ass no matter what and I can hardly wait to get my hands on it. Even though please consider the idea. With much love and respect, a german Fan for life.

We do know a few things as official word of god:
There is a tooltip to name your Ascension Species during Robot Ascension. My last information is that it will not be avalible by default, but that might have changed and is at least modable:

* Added rename_species effect that can pick randomly from a list or prompt the player for a custom name

The Synchretic Evolution Species is generated during Galaxy Creation. That is why they added a bunch of new Events:

* Added empire_init_add_technologies on-action. Used during galaxy generation
* Added create_capital_initial_Pops on-action. Used during galaxy generation
* Added empire_init_create_ships on-action. Used during galaxy generation

So the species is generated before you even take control of your empire. In order to affect it at that time, a change to the empire creation screen/saving routines would be nessesary.

You may get the option to rename any species in your Empire.
It is doubtfull that you can also select the portrait. Last I heard name and portraits affect Xeno-interaction between pops.

 

[DickerSandmann]

We do know a few things as official word of god:
There is a tooltip to name your Ascension Species during Robot Ascension. My last information is that it will not be avalible by default, but that might have changed and is at least modable:


The Synchretic Evolution Species is generated during Galaxy Creation. That is why they added a bunch of new Events:


So the species is generated before you even take control of your empire. In order to affect it at that time, a change to the empire creation screen/saving routines would be nessesary.

You may get the option to rename any species in your Empire.
It is doubtfull that you can also select the portrait. Last I heard name and portraits affect Xeno-interaction between pops.

thx for the info. I do still hope my idea makes it into Utopia, they got a week left...

 

[Diezy]

After 1.5, there might be mods that might let the player choose name and appearance of the species through a Day 1 event, or even in the setup menu.

If 1.6 is quality of life changes, I hope choosing the second species will be among them!

 

[DickerSandmann]

After 1.5, there might be mods that might let the player choose name and appearance of the species through a Day 1 event, or even in the setup menu.

If 1.6 is quality of life changes, I hope choosing the second species will be among them!

I think you will be right about the mod and maybe even 1.6 but it would be nice if paradox do this from the get go

 

[Emraldis]

I think you will be right about the mod and maybe even 1.6 but it would be nice if paradox do this from the get go

They've worked a lot of stuff into this update. I'm just glad we had this in the first place.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Yeah, it's been asked for before. Everyone agrees it would be a welcome addition to the game. But as far as the best way to resolve it, dunno.

I'd think, rather than clutter up the race creator, if they could add a day one splash page that let you pick picture and name that would be a solid solution. A similar page has already been created for synthetic ascension and adding the ability to pick a race picture would be good to have for when they, hopefully, get multiple pictures for robotic populations.

 

[DickerSandmann]

Yeah, it's been asked for before. Everyone agrees it would be a welcome addition to the game. But as far as the best way to resolve it, dunno.

I'd think, rather than clutter up the race creator, if they could add a day one splash page that let you pick picture and name that would be a solid solution. A similar page has already been created for synthetic ascension and adding the ability to pick a race picture would be good to have for when they, hopefully, get multiple pictures for robotic populations.

that would be totally ok as well

 

[swiftsvre]

thx for the info. I do still hope my idea makes it into Utopia, they got a week left...

The update and the DLC are in code freeze by now, which means that there won't be any changes to them. Anything they do will have to come with a future update.

 

[Diezy]

I thought of a Day 1 splash page at first too, since I know various processes involved, of spawning a pop and choosing portrait/name can be done right now through console commands and events. Merely adding a splash with a choice of portraits would get it done nicely for a player.

The only issue with the Day 1 splash would be if your custom civ is played by the AI. In the notepad file perhaps it can be made to always generate a preset with such looks and such name if you know the portrait ID's, buut if you can't do that, it'll spawn a random species for your custom civ, when controlled by the AI.

If it's in the menu, it probably breaks the game or gets in the way of some galaxy generation stuff.
Otherwise, it'd be just a matter of where the extra button or tab is located. This would be more user-friendly than going to the notepad file to force it to always generate that species, but if pressed for time at 1.6, Day 1 event+support for customization in notepad would be the fast way.

 

[Lord Milutin]

I support this idea!

 

[Me_]

I remember one of the Devs saying something about some being pre-scripted. I assume its primarily something for humans on Earth, but it's too early to tell.

 

[elitesix]

Great idea. Would be awesome from a RP perspective and just all around fun.