FTL Discussion Thread

[DizietSma]

I know however I have been told the DEVs [in a Diary from way back] said otherwise. I know I can recommend a system end-to-end that SOUNDS perfectly doable but I don't know about engine limitations, if the coding for the game is so poor that tweaking things are MUCH harder than expected, if there was a zero concern for upset customers, etc.

Basically if all the mad customers continue to buy DLC then any changes would have questionable ROI [short term].

I haven't even so much as looked at this game - let alone buying DLC - since 2.0 when my beautiful Star Trek New Horizons mod I used to love playing with my friends suddenly developed persistent, unsightly "space roads" and I now had to laboriously cross each and every system at sublight speed because...... reasons. The game has been deleted from my hard drive since then.

I'm not sure how many customers they've lost, due to the removed content but they've sure as hell lost me, and most of my friends think it totally ruined the game too. The ST:NH mod just doesn't feel like Star Trek without warp drive.

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

I haven't even so much as looked at this game - let alone buying DLC - since 2.0 when my beautiful Star Trek New Horizons mod I used to love playing with my friends suddenly developed persistent, unsightly "space roads" and I now had to laboriously cross each and every system at sublight speed because...... reasons. The game has been deleted from my hard drive since then.

I'm not sure how many customers they've lost, due to the removed content but they've sure as hell lost me, and most of my friends think it totally ruined the game too. The ST:NH mod just doesn't feel like Star Trek without warp drive.

If you're playing the game purely to play it with a conversion mod, you technically didn't even want Stellaris in the first place, you wanted a star trek game that had mechanics similar to vanilla stellaris. If you wanted to play star trek, go buy a star trek game. They're not "space roads," they're subspace corridors between star systems that can be breached by hyper-drives to achieve superluminal speeds, but are disrupted by gravity wells, meaning you have to transition back to realspace to travel across the gravity well at sublight speeds before moving onto the next leg of the journey. I respect your opinion and your right to have it, but I've honestly played more after 2.0 than before, and considering I have 1300+hours, that's a lot of enjoyment. The only times I've every looked back are to reminisce on the fun I had on my first game (space communists, who I have even more fun with from their new civic), and my first game as a machine empire, which remaines my favorite pre 2.0 game, only surpassed by my 2.0 gaia start wormed IP game, and my 3rd post 2.0 driven assimilator run. You can think what you want, but I know the game I love, and it sure as heck wasn't star trek.

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

Just trawling a bit farther back in the thread and found these:

Fixed this for you.

wow... I had to reread this. And then process what you did. That's just toxic. I can't describe it any other way. You can't just change what a person is saying to something you like more. That's like changing a person's speech against racism to one in favor of racism. What you did is outright disgusting, regardless of his argument.

Let's be honest, your argument was pretty nonsensical :

Disregarding the argument entirely, he just rewrote what the guy said completely, giving it a completely different meaning, tone, and point than what he originally wanted. How would you feel if someone took your post, and edited certain words to change the entire message you said into something more/less extreme that what you intended to say without your permission? I was appalled by what he did, and surprised by the fact that the person whose message he edited was mellow enough not to react far more violently to that post and report him, because that's what I would have done. If he had argued against my points, I would have debated back in a calm and clean manner to my heart's content, but what he did was genuinely rude, offensive, abrasive, and toxic.

Hi.

Hello. That post gave me a genuine laugh for where it was. Have fun on the forums, my man. Or woman. Or whatever you identify as. I won't judge.

I was appalled by the FTL changes, and at Paradox for wrecking my favourite game. Rage-delete game-files. Months later, bored: Reinstalled. Turns out the new FTL mechanic makes for a far, far, better campaign experience after all. Who woulda thunk?

I was shocked, and while wormhole was my favorite FTL, I also heavily enjoyed hyperlanes, and often played only with them. I decided to wait for the update and test things out to form my own opinion. Loved everything since. Only difference between you and I is that I stayed calm and formed my own consensus, and also kept playing those months you were gone. I'm not making fun of you for raging, I'm only noting that that's the only real difference. Welcome back, and I hope you have fun. I feel like there are a lot of people out there like you, who still haven't come back, who never even gave 2.+ a try, and that they really lost out because of it. Really, what's a few hours out of your life to make an informed choice, rather than blind reaction?

 

[LeanneKaos]

I was shocked, and while wormhole was my favorite FTL, I also heavily enjoyed hyperlanes, and often played only with them. I decided to wait for the update and test things out to form my own opinion. Loved everything since. Only difference between you and I is that I stayed calm and formed my own consensus, and also kept playing those months you were gone. I'm not making fun of you for raging, I'm only noting that that's the only real difference. Welcome back, and I hope you have fun. I feel like there are a lot of people out there like you, who still haven't come back, who never even gave 2.+ a try, and that they really lost out because of it. Really, what's a few hours out of your life to make an informed choice, rather than blind reaction?

FWIW, I gave 2.0 about 80 hours before walking away from it. And that was with about... I'm guessing 1600 hours invested pre-2.0
It literally bored me out of the game. People keep saying they're "objectively better" but for me they're about on par with playing a tic-tac-toe marathon.

I came back for 2.2 because the economy changes looked interesting, and despite some issues they've been engaging enough to make up for the fact that hyperlanes still bore the hell out of me. But then I see how many threads there are that boil down to people complaining that it's *too* engaging, and it's enough to make me weep.

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

FWIW, I gave 2.0 about 80 hours before walking away from it. And that was with about... I'm guessing 1600 hours invested pre-2.0
It literally bored me out of the game. People keep saying they're "objectively better" but for me they're about on par with playing a tic-tac-toe marathon.

I came back for 2.2 because the economy changes looked interesting, and despite some issues they've been engaging enough to make up for the fact that hyperlanes still bore the hell out of me. But then I see how many threads there are that boil down to people complaining that it's *too* engaging, and it's enough to make me weep.

I disagree with you, but hey, that's your opinion, you at least tried, and I can respect that. I'm also disappointed by the people who say the game is too complex, as I honestly have more fun playing Stellaris as an economy simulator with a side of war than actually playing the game. I like trying different civics and seeing what changes and how to work with it. I'm gonna say, if I hadn't read the Dev Diaries, I would've had no idea what to do at all, but I did, and it only took me an hour to figure out the basics, 3 more to get the hang of it, and I hopped onto the learning curve so fast in my first campaign that I can honestly say that there were some youtubers I could outperform simply by virtue of knowing what I was doing better than they did at the time. Obviously that's no longer the case. That 1st campaign only has the wait for the endgame left, so I probably sunk 30 hours into it (I pause a lot midgame while managing 20+ planets, and endgame actually slows down the game enough that I don't have to pause), but it really wasn't that much of an issue to adjust, and it kinda makes me sad that people don't want to bother relearning the game.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

If you wanted to play star trek, go buy a star trek game.

I guess if there was an adaquate licensed Star Trek game s/he would have done so. Afaik there currently is none. The last I am aware of is Birth of the Federation from '99.

wow... I had to reread this. And then process what you did. That's just toxic.

While you're objectively right it is a quite common thing in Internet forums. Maybe not very polite, granted, but an easy way to express that an opinion is contrary to one's own. My advice: Keep calm, deal with it and take it with a grain of salt.

Really, what's a few hours out of your life to make an informed choice, rather than blind reaction?

I can only speak for myself (obviously) but I don't have to (and don't want to) invest these few hours because I already know from past experiences with other games (i.e. Ascendancy, MoO3 among others) that I don't like the concept of hyperlane only games. I don't need to try another game to show me that again. If you don't like broccoli you don't like broccoli despite different other ingredients.

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

I can only speak for myself (obviously) but I don't have to (and don't want to) invest these few hours because I already know from past experiences with other games (i.e. Ascendancy, MoO3 among others) that I don't like the concept of hyperlane only games. I don't need to try another game to show me that again. If you don't like broccoli you don't like broccoli despite different other ingredients.

I can understand that, and there's probably a buch of people who had a similar thought process, but there's probably a bunch of people who didn't have an opinion like that who left, wheb they might have ended up liking it. My post was more directed towards them, though I can respect your reasoning.

 

[DizietSma]

you wanted a star trek game that had mechanics similar to vanilla stellaris.

Exactly! I wanted the game we were SOLD, before core content was abruptly removed out from under us in a patch, 2 fricking years after full release and purchase! The ST:NH mod was built around those existing mechanics.

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

Exactly! I wanted the game we were SOLD, before core content was abruptly removed out from under us in a patch, 2 fricking years after full release and purchase! The ST:NH mod was built around those existing mechanics.

But you didn't. You wanted Star Trek, you wouldn't have been playing Stellaris without STNH in the first place. You were only using Stellaris and its content so you could play your own game. That's like a person getting Hoi4 only to play while the Equestria at War mod is on. That person doesn't want hoi4, they wanted World War Ponies. In your case, you didn't even want Stellaris in the first place, you just payed for it so you could play a Star Trek game because Star Trek hasn't actually put out a grand strategy game of their own. You're not even complaining about Stellaris, you're complaining that a change to a base game you don't even play has killed the other game you used piggybacking off the original. I won't bother even trying to imagine how many times it was said, but when you buy a game, you agree to the user terms and agreements, which includes the developers changing game mechanics however they see fit. If you didn't like the fact they could remove FTL, you shouldn't have payed. It's like all the people on DBD who are complaining about dedicated servers (who are likely all the lag-switchers and MLGA morons). They brought the game, so they agreed to the user agreements. You don't like it, either deal, or uninstall and stop paying for new stuff. You did the later, so stop complaining about terms you agreed to.

 

[LeanneKaos]

But you didn't. You wanted Star Trek, you wouldn't have been playing Stellaris without STNH in the first place.

Speculation.

You were only using Stellaris and its content so you could play your own game. That's like a person getting Hoi4 only to play while the Equestria at War mod is on. That person doesn't want hoi4, they wanted World War Ponies.

Weren't you the one complaining about people putting words in your mouth earlier? This is like taking a strawman and trying to smash it with reductio ad absurdum...

In your case, you didn't even want Stellaris in the first place, you just payed for it so you could play a Star Trek game because Star Trek hasn't actually put out a grand strategy game of their own. You're not even complaining about Stellaris, you're complaining that a change to a base game you don't even play has killed the other game you used piggybacking off the original. I won't bother even trying to imagine how many times it was said, but when you buy a game, you agree to the user terms and agreements, which includes the developers changing game mechanics however they see fit. If you didn't like the fact they could remove FTL, you shouldn't have payed. It's like all the people on DBD who are complaining about dedicated servers (who are likely all the lag-switchers and MLGA morons). They brought the game, so they agreed to the user agreements. You don't like it, either deal, or uninstall and stop paying for new stuff. You did the later, so stop complaining about terms you agreed to.

You have an argument against demanding a refund/compensation.

What you don't have is an argument against providing negative feedback. The user agreement may include language to the effect of 'developers will change game mechanics' but it doesn't say "so stifle your criticisms or gtfo."

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

Speculation.



Weren't you the one complaining about people putting words in your mouth earlier? This is like taking a strawman and trying to smash it with reductio ad absurdum...



You have an argument against demanding a refund/compensation.

What you don't have is an argument against providing negative feedback.

You have a right to shoot down my entire argument.

I have a right to ignore you. Both literally, and on site.

Good day.

 

[DizietSma]

But you didn't. You wanted Star Trek, you wouldn't have been playing Stellaris without STNH in the first place. You were only using Stellaris and its content so you could play your own game. That's like a person getting Hoi4 only to play while the Equestria at War mod is on. That person doesn't want hoi4, they wanted World War Ponies. In your case, you didn't even want Stellaris in the first place, you just payed for it so you could play a Star Trek game because Star Trek hasn't actually put out a grand strategy game of their own. You're not even complaining about Stellaris, you're complaining that a change to a base game you don't even play has killed the other game you used piggybacking off the original. I won't bother even trying to imagine how many times it was said, but when you buy a game, you agree to the user terms and agreements, which includes the developers changing game mechanics however they see fit. If you didn't like the fact they could remove FTL, you shouldn't have payed. It's like all the people on DBD who are complaining about dedicated servers (who are likely all the lag-switchers and MLGA morons). They brought the game, so they agreed to the user agreements. You don't like it, either deal, or uninstall and stop paying for new stuff. You did the later, so stop complaining about terms you agreed to.

Your argument makes zero sense, its impossible to play the ST:NH mod without Stellaris as its base, they're irrevocably linked so wanting a stand-alone Star Trek game - or not wanting it - is irrelevant, I cant have it and we either had to compromise and use Stellaris as a mod base or go without. As somebody previously pointed out, there are NO modern ST strategy games out there, if you can point me to one with true warp travel and most importantly, multiplayer capability, I'd happily forget all about Paradox and never post here again. But it doesn't exist.

We were sold a game with certain core features that influenced our purchasing behavior. The fact that those features were then suddenly removed, not replaced, REMOVED 2 whole years after many people already purchased the game based on those exact same features is absolutely reprehensible business practice.

And yes as LeanneKaos helpfully pointed out, there's nothing in the user terms that says we cant post negative feedback when a company screws us over. What they've done may be legal but is without a doubt one of the most outrageous, immoral, anti-consumer practices I've ever been on the receiving end of. And I wont be forgetting any time soon.

 

[Prince Ire]

Just trawling a bit farther back in the thread and found these:



wow... I had to reread this. And then process what you did. That's just toxic. I can't describe it any other way. You can't just change what a person is saying to something you like more. That's like changing a person's speech against racism to one in favor of racism. What you did is outright disgusting, regardless of his argument.

Lol at the dude constantly cussing and telling people to GTFO saying somebody else is toxic for pointing out somebody's opinions are opinions, not facts.

I was shocked, and while wormhole was my favorite FTL, I also heavily enjoyed hyperlanes, and often played only with them. I decided to wait for the update and test things out to form my own opinion. Loved everything since. Only difference between you and I is that I stayed calm and formed my own consensus, and also kept playing those months you were gone. I'm not making fun of you for raging, I'm only noting that that's the only real difference. Welcome back, and I hope you have fun. I feel like there are a lot of people out there like you, who still haven't come back, who never even gave 2.+ a try, and that they really lost out because of it. Really, what's a few hours out of your life to make an informed choice, rather than blind reaction?

I meanwhile played 2.0 for a few hours, hated it, uninstalled it, and haven't felt any real desire to play it sense.

 

[Ciderglove]

In the run-up to the release of 2.0, I actually pre-emptively made Hyperlanes the only form of FTL travel in all my games. I had previously exclusively used wormholes, which I loved. But, in hyperlane-only galaxies before 2.0, I had a great time. The AI was competent and could fight wars well, and there was also a bit more comprehensibility and strategy to wars. Hyperlane generation hadn't been changed yet, so the map wasn't full of choke-points which condemned everyone to trench warfare. Rather, the main advantage of using Hyperlanes was that war was no longer a tedious game of whack-a-mole in which you had to chase down enemies who could range freely around your whole empire.

But then, when 2.0 came out, I was astonished to find (after two games to understand it) that the game had become tedious and boring. The AI seemed less competent than before (this seems to have become even worse with 2.2), the system of Starbases turned the whole game into predictable trench warfare, and hyperlane-generation itself had been tweaked, leading to many more chokepoints than before. The effect of all of this was that, after falling in love with 1.9 Stellaris, I never finished a game of 2.0.

Interestingly, when I played 2.2, I found it much, much more enjoyable than 2.0. Why is this, given that the AI and the chokepoint-trench-warfare have got even worse? I think the answer is that the new economy and planet systems create so much busywork for me that I don't notice how dull the rest of the game is: how balls-to-the-wall terrible the AI is, and how absurd the 'wars' are. In fact, I hardly dare call them 'wars' in 2.2; having an economically-defunct neighbour declare a pointless 'Humiliation' war on you every fifty years, only to then do nothing at all, is not what I would call a war.

 

[KingAlamar]

In the run-up to the release of 2.0, I actually pre-emptively made Hyperlanes the only form of FTL travel in all my games. I had previously exclusively used wormholes, which I loved.

<snip for brevity>

I was doing the same. In 1.9 I felt that it was too easy to "out claim" the AI with Hyperlanes so it made it easier to snowball. Overall though I also had fun back in 1.9 with hyperlane only games.

While I'm not sure I'd call war in 2.x boring per-se I did notice that I've been constantly tweaking up difficulty levels. I think I was a "Captain" type of player before and now I'm on Admiral no scaling with AI mods and normal empires still pose no threat past "early game" phase.

For me the game has devolved into:

• What can I do to avoid excess micro-management
• What "new mix" of ascension, government, play-style, etc. can I run
• How to best prepare for Khan, War-in-Heaven, or Crisis events as those are pretty much the only things in mid-to-late game that provide any challenge.

 

[Marasmusine]

Your argument makes zero sense, its impossible to play the ST:NH mod without Stellaris as its base, they're irrevocably linked so wanting a stand-alone Star Trek game - or not wanting it - is irrelevant, I cant have it and we either had to compromise and use Stellaris as a mod base or go without. As somebody previously pointed out, there are NO modern ST strategy games out there, if you can point me to one with true warp travel and most importantly, multiplayer capability, I'd happily forget all about Paradox and never post here again. But it doesn't exist.

It's not Paradox's fault that there are no modern Star Trek strategy games, and they're under no obligation to make sure that a particular mod continues to be supported in later patches.

We were sold a game with certain core features that influenced our purchasing behavior. The fact that those features were then suddenly removed, not replaced, REMOVED 2 whole years after many people already purchased the game based on those exact same features is absolutely reprehensible business practice.

Forgive me if I'm wrong (I can't check right now), but can you not just revert to a previous patch version using the BETAS menu?

 

[DizietSma]

It's not Paradox's fault that there are no modern Star Trek strategy games, and they're under no obligation to make sure that a particular mod continues to be supported in later patches.

But it most certainly IS Paradox's fault that they abruptly REMOVED 2/3 of the core movement mechanics in a game which - up until that point - was doing an absolutely fine job at acting as a mod-base for a modern Star Trek strategy game and changed it so that it suddenly sucked horribly at being a modern Star Trek Strategy game. And they didn't do it in early access, they did it two whole years after we already purchased the game with just that purpose in mind.

In other words we would never have parted with our money unless we were certain Stellaris could do the job we required of it, and originally it could and did.

Once again your argument is that they cant be legally pinned down, that they did nothing technically illegal. I get that, but it doesn't mean that removing core game mechanics in a fully mature game, years after people already purchased the game based on that (now suddenly missing) content, is not totally immoral and abhorrent business practice. It most certainly is.

Forgive me if I'm wrong (I can't check right now), but can you not just revert to a previous patch version using the BETAS menu?

Sure, I hear that's possible, it was suggested by a guy in my group but the consensus was that nobody really wanted to play a dead mod where all the existing bugs - and there were many - would never be fixed, no new content would ever emerge and nothing would ever change. Would you?

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

Sure, I hear that's possible, it was suggested by a guy in my group but the consensus was that nobody really wanted to play a dead mod where all the existing bugs - and there were many - would never be fixed, no new content would ever emerge and nothing would ever change. Would you?

Maybe do it yourself? I'm no modder by myself but all I read and hear it's quite easy. That is, of course, if you or some of your group are willing to invest some spare time.

Don't get me wrong here, I totally agree to you since I stopped playing when 2.0 was announced, too.

(Reading your post again I figure that the bug part is maybe about the base game and not the mod. Of course you cannot fix base game bugs within a mod but only mitigate them)

 

[DizietSma]

Maybe do it yourself? I'm no modder by myself but all I read and hear it's quite easy. That is, of course, if you or some of your group are willing to invest some spare time.

I honestly wouldn't even know were to start, I suck with mods and even needed help installing ST:NH. The mod team did as much as they could to mitigate the problem, they maxed out the starlane density to get rid of Paradox's cherished space-choke-points and made the whole unsightly mess invisible - certainly more than my group or I could ever hope of doing....... but the removal of warp was a huge problem, and the "solution" - while clever - is still pretty bad.

Why? because all ships still have to laboriously crawl at sublight speed through each and every star system on the now very dense invisible lane network, and it takes absolutely forever to get anywhere. All these ships spending 99% of their time crawling around in-system at sublight speed totally blows my immersion out of the water. Its just not Star Trek. I'm sure the mod team did the best they could with what was available, but its just not the same as before warp was removed.

I honestly dont know how you guys who play the base game can stand it, I know the lane network is not as dense as in ST:NH, but really the movement system still seems pretty horribly broken and I'm surprised there hasn't been a mass rebellion by now since movement is so painfully slow. A standard game in a huge universe must take literally weeks, comprised of mostly watching ships slooooowly crossing solar systems. What a mess.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

The mod team did as much as they could to mitigate the problem, they maxed out the starlane density to get rid of Paradox's cherished space-choke-points and made the whole unsightly mess invisible - certainly more than my group or I could ever hope of doing....... but the removal of warp was a huge problem, and the "solution" - while clever - is still pretty bad.

Why? because all ships still have to laboriously crawl at sublight speed through each and every star system on the now very dense invisible lane network, and it takes absolutely forever to get anywhere. All these ships spending 99% of their time crawling around in-system at sublight speed totally blows my immersion out of the water. Its just not Star Trek. I'm sure the mod team did the best they could with what was available, but its just not the same as before warp was removed.

I was more talking about a mod based upon 1.9 not 2.0+. I thought that would have been clear from context (switching to older versions of the game). Sorry for the misunderstanding.