discovering other empires, ideas, fog of war

[VerKer]

Hi all,

I would like to discuss about the discovery of other / new / neighboring empires: Why in the world does discovering your neighboring race equal knowledge about its whole space, borders, colonies and starbases? Especially so if you havent bothered to investigate them, but are being hailed by them?

"Sire, the Blorg are hailing us. On screen. We are the Blorg, we want nothing but being friends. Hereby we transmit all information about our space expansion, about the number of our starbases, and where our homeworld is, plus how many colonies we got and where they exactly are. Come hug us!" - doh...

Wouldnt it be a lot more immersive to discover only, that neighboring system XYZ is already occupied, and you have to find out by whom? Once you find out, yes you will have contact with them over the incoming comm, but they would do the hell but inform you, how big there empire is, or where their colonies are, or where the homeword is - on the contrary! You would see the nearest system neighboring you, with all the other space behind covered in a fog of war. Wouldnt be much more immersive if you had to find out all details, like sensor access (ofc they block you / jamm you first) or even hyperlane distribution and routes, once you negotiated access to their space or got their sensor link? This way, diplomacy or good relations with other empires would become so much more important.

Receiving 1st contact on comm and immediately have all knowledge about that race is so unimaginative, comeon PDX, you can do better. Anyone ideas to help them out?

 

[Aneegrae]

This! And also, your empire wouldn't know about their strength (fleet strength/numbers, economy, tech levels) relative to yours.

 

[VerKer]

As a starting point for a little more immersion during game start, I wrote a very basic mod lowering hyperlane detection range at game start, you will find it in the steam workshop here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1628752272

 

[Coconut_Cookie]

Exactly stellaris gives you a lot of perfect information very easily. Maybe it shouldn't even be possible to see all that is happening in a system within sensor range, but only have a rough idea on what will be inside it. That could even go for your own systems where you only have a small outpost. If you couldn't see outside a certain range it would allow for surprise attacks if fleets could sneak past such a system. I also liked the old sensors better that just had a range instead of a range based on the number of jumps, this can lead to strange cases when you have either a giant sensor range or a very small one.

 

[VerKer]

@Coconut_Cookie

true, there could well be 2 different types of sensors, ones with a simple detection radius, and ones detecting hyperlanes. Some of them could be combined in later tech, not to speak of probes introduced for wormholes and hyperlane detection (which sane scientist would ever fly through such a thing without sending a probe first). I also agree that in general, Stellaris (or the species in Stellaris) hand over way too much information way too quickly. I have strong hopes for a diplomatic DLC to completely change this approach.

 

[VerKer]

@Aneegrae

yes, who wants to know the other empires strenght in advance? Results in zero immersion. Hell i even dont want to see fleet strenght in numbers. Yes, there is a mod to remove them, but i would prefer a switch in game creation to make this an achievement compatible choice.

 

[Razor Feather]

I actually think that the level of information that Stellaris gives you about other empires is fairly reasonable. Stuff like "where are their colonies" "what systems do they claim" and "where do they come from" would all be pretty common knowledge throughout any given empire, and thus would be very easy for any outsiders to learn, provided they already know the language and basic information encoding scheme of their neighbor. Essentially all it would take would be a few hours spent translating the star empire equivalent of Wikipedia. The star empire equivalent of Wikipedia would probably also contain loads of information on what sorts of technologies exist, and how much materials are being moved around on a regular basis, at least to the extent required to say "they are probably more advanced than us, but they have a smaller economy and military".

The only kind of empire I could see as an exception to this would be something like a xenophobic authoritarian materialist, which would be sufficiently paranoid about getting bombed by aliens to want to conceal even basic geographic information, and also have enough control over the flow of information in their society to keep anyone from accidentally or intentionally leaving the radio on wide cast while giving directions to the nearest fueling platform. Even then though, it would only take one person with a strong transmitter to leak all of that information.

Finally, if an empire wants to be friendly with their neighbor, why hide such basic information? Sharing data on where borders and colonies are would make sense if for no other reason than to make sure someone doesn't accidentally start using high energy scans on a populated world and freaking everyone out for a few days before realizing those big mineral rich structures are in fact cities and probably not valid mining targets.

I will say that the score screen is probably a bit too generous in the amount of information it gives, since it provides an exact numeric value rather than a more vague comparison, but that is at least in a location where not looking at it is pretty easy.

 

[Coconut_Cookie]

I actually think that the level of information that Stellaris gives you about other empires is fairly reasonable. Stuff like "where are their colonies" "what systems do they claim" and "where do they come from" would all be pretty common knowledge throughout any given empire, and thus would be very easy for any outsiders to learn, provided they already know the language and basic information encoding scheme of their neighbor. Essentially all it would take would be a few hours spent translating the star empire equivalent of Wikipedia. The star empire equivalent of Wikipedia would probably also contain loads of information on what sorts of technologies exist, and how much materials are being moved around on a regular basis, at least to the extent required to say "they are probably more advanced than us, but they have a smaller economy and military".

The only kind of empire I could see as an exception to this would be something like a xenophobic authoritarian materialist, which would be sufficiently paranoid about getting bombed by aliens to want to conceal even basic geographic information, and also have enough control over the flow of information in their society to keep anyone from accidentally or intentionally leaving the radio on wide cast while giving directions to the nearest fueling platform. Even then though, it would only take one person with a strong transmitter to leak all of that information.

Finally, if an empire wants to be friendly with their neighbor, why hide such basic information? Sharing data on where borders and colonies are would make sense if for no other reason than to make sure someone doesn't accidentally start using high energy scans on a populated world and freaking everyone out for a few days before realizing those big mineral rich structures are in fact cities and probably not valid mining targets.

I will say that the score screen is probably a bit too generous in the amount of information it gives, since it provides an exact numeric value rather than a more vague comparison, but that is at least in a location where not looking at it is pretty easy.

For the mid and late game I would be okay with such an explanation but a space wikipedia would probably not be a priority in the hypothetical case of an empire that has dicovered ftl and finds something truely different. It could be an idea for any diplomacy expansion, set up a mutual knowledge project in the mid game that is somewhat similar to wikipedia. Maybe the rough imperfect information can be something that is slowely gained with open borders and faster when there is trade (also via other empires) but most things should remain hidden if an empire is closed to you and everyone you know. I also think that open borders should provide a huge boost to any trade deal you have with another empire, maybe it would be too restricting to make it a prerequisite.

Wouldn't it be more exciting if nations that don't want to have anything to do with outsiders could remain largely hidden? In the earlier builds of stellaris you couldn't always see inside most of the systems of a fallen empire, making it far more spooky because of what lurked within. Perhaps mid and late game sensors could give a basic idea of what is inside a system, but what if another empire could also block that vision with special buildings on their starbases?

 

[LeanneKaos]

Hi all,

I would like to discuss about the discovery of other / new / neighboring empires: Why in the world does discovering your neighboring race equal knowledge about its whole space, borders, colonies and starbases? Especially so if you havent bothered to investigate them, but are being hailed by them?

As far as I can see, it's largely a concession to a side effect of how they eliminated 'corvette scouting.' If they turn hostile, close borders and go to war on you... you can't actually move your fleets into any of their systems without sending a vulnerable science ship in first. Also, something to do with surveying systems that have already been surveyed creating problems, so the game just gives you the survey information on contact. (Can't recall the details, just that it happened back in 2.0 and was one of many things in that update I was skeptical of their rationalizations for.)

Basically, mechanical 'necessity' trumping immersion.

 

[Coconut_Cookie]

As far as I can see, it's largely a concession to a side effect of how they eliminated 'corvette scouting.' If they turn hostile, close borders and go to war on you... you can't actually move your fleets into any of their systems without sending a vulnerable science ship in first. Also, something to do with surveying systems that have already been surveyed creating problems, so the game just gives you the survey information on contact. (Can't recall the details, just that it happened back in 2.0 and was one of many things in that update I was skeptical of their rationalizations for.)

Basically, mechanical 'necessity' trumping immersion.

This was done because of the way surveying works, it has a certain chance to get an anomaly and this in turn can result in changing the resource of said celestial body. Apparently this created some issues. Also you can still survey celestial bodies that have been surveyed before and generate new resources if the empire in question has been removed via: marauder, tempest or crises. However this information could still be hidden from the player, there is no real reason to give it to the player.

 

[VerKer]

Still - there is this point somewhat in midgame, when you are being hailed by more or less all races because you are already in contact with 30% of the galaxy inhabitants - and then the complete galaxy unfolds before you within one year, even the stars on the very other side of the 2 arm spiral you play.

I dont give a damn about mechanical necessity (then its designed badly, period), because in a 4x space game immersion is everything. This is why we have thousands of mods on steam, is it not? We try and create an immersive experience for ourselves, sinking into out computer chairs, while our brains drift away into space... For me, popup of two thirds of the galaxy within one year of playtime, this just wakes me up from that dream.

This should at least be limited to neighbouring races, and even then, i dont want to know about their strengths and weaknesses, borders and all that in one instant. I would also rather like to find out, what kind they are and not them telling me, hey, we are the hegemonic imperialists.

 

[Aneegrae]

I have a possible solution to the quandary. The utilization of a different type of ship - a 'stealth ship' of sorts can be used to gather data on a given star-system over time. Such a technology will not be available immediately and must be researched. Such a vessel can be treated in the similar manner as spies where in earlier 4X games i.e: MoO II. If the ship is detected, this can have negative diplomatic effects.