Homeworld reveal

[NilsFabian]

During the Stream on Monday we have seen the first glimpse of the new first contact and the unusual way we gain informations about the other race.

DJ contacted a fallen empire, a xenophobic on.
Afterwards we only knew where their Homeworld is but had no idea where the border itself is. This feels wrong.
I know it is too late for the release but could you please consider a patch, that would change it that way, that we would only know the border system next to our ships and not how far the homeworld is away from the contact system.

 

[Liggi]

Many people pointed this out when it was first revealed, and people continue to, but it seems like the devs are sticking with this decision for now. I'm guessing maybe it's difficult to reveal them on the map without showing at least one planet, and it'd be hard to decide which world to show otherwise. For example: what if all their colonies are really far away from the location in which you first encounter them?

I do see what you mean, that their homeworld being revealed instantly doesn't make a whole lot of sense, though. I would prefer it not be the case.

 

[NilsFabian]

I can see that there might be a problem. But I do hope that if the players point out a problem persistent enough they might reconsider there stance and try to make it possible.
It might be complicated but it just feels wrong that we know which star is their homesystem but the actual border star is only pointed out by a red hyperlane if this empire has it's borders closed.

 

[Mealya]

(...)
I know it is too late for the release but could you please consider a patch, that would change it that way, that we would only know the border system next to our ships and not how far the homeworld is away from the contact system.

Totally agree on this. Further more I can say that this idea would be a great improvement for small & defensive empire (which they really need)

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Afterwards we only knew where their Homeworld is but had no idea where the border itself is. This feels wrong.

You know exactly where the border is: you get contacted next to it, and if that's not a dead giveaway, inaccessible hyperline turns red.

 

[NilsFabian]

You know exactly where the border is: you get contacted next to it, and if that's not a dead giveaway, inaccessible hyperline turns red.

yes but the system itself looks like an ordinary unsurveyed star system on the map
And that offends my sense of order

 

[UltimateTobi]

So technically your empire doesn't know where their border is, but knows not to cross to that star because said, unknown borders are closed?
I can't shake the feeling this whole concept wasn't thought out or just doesn't work with the way borders work.

 

[Libertine Angel]

Yeah, this was one of the biggest discussions in the DD where we first heard this and I'm surprised it's had no acknowledgement at all. Keeping the location of Earth a secret was one of the critical plot points in Halo, and given how fond the devs are of letting us play out sci-fi staples I'm surprised that isn't a consideration.
I think it should be a policy decision whether First Contact reveals the homeworld or the closest border system, both of which I think would make sense for different ethical contexts.

 

[NilsFabian]

I think it should be a policy decision whether First Contact reveals the homeworld or the closest border system, both of which I think would make sense for different ethical contexts.

The border system should be a given.
You send your ship to a system and recieve a message. This is a system of the Blorg Communality please leave.
So you might be able to "map" the other empire borders by sending your ship along the system next to it.
I am in full agreement that the information about the location of your homeworld should be based on your First contact decisions.

During most of the times the Homeworld / Capitalworld is your most important system. Losing this is always a guarantee to loose a war.

It also feels weird that a xenophobic empire would be okay with us knowing where their homeworld is.
So yes. As said before. I hope the Devs reasses their decisons and implement an according patch.

 

[A2ch0n]

I may be wrong but to hide the home system is only a problem story wise isn't it? The gameplay relevant systems are those at the borders so that it's unknown what way to expand next, especially in the early game. And to declare a war (that threatens the home system) is a claim neccessary (genocidals ignored here). Do we know actually that this revealed home system is possible to claim at low intel?

 

[Olterin]

I may be wrong but to hide the home system is only a problem story wise isn't it? The gameplay relevant systems are those at the borders so that it's unknown what way to expand next, especially in the early game. And to declare a war (that threatens the home system) is a claim neccessary (genocidals ignored here). Do we know actually that this revealed home system is possible to claim at low intel?

There has been no indication that low intel would prohibit placing a claim - however, I do not know if it's even possible to lay claim to a system you know of, but have no knowledge of hyperlane connections to.

 

[Exasperation]

I suspect it's a technical limitation in the engine. In EUIV, if you discover a province belonging to another country you haven't encountered before, any attempt to interact with them diplomatically will immediately reveal their capital province. It may be the same thing here.

 

[Annihilat0r]

It's been a while that I saw a post that gets uniformly upvoted. I really hope the devs see this and take it into consideration. Revealing the homeworld immediately should not be the standard behaviour for first contact.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

I'm of the opinion that if you have established diplomatic relations you SHOULD know the capital. All of these civilizations have the radio or equivalents, and the radio bubble they've been giving off has been expanding for a few hundred years. Granted, that's only a few hundred light years, and the radio signals get faint/indistinct to modern technology, but we're in a game where hyperlanes exist (which might let the signal travel intact for far longer) and Stellaris nations have far better tech that us.

As such, I'd expect each capital to stick out like a sore thumb due to its radio bubble signature by the time you were close enough and had studied enough to make first contact with them. They wouldn't need to tell you; it would be obvious.

NilsFabian wrote: It also feels weird that a xenophobic empire would be okay with us knowing where their homeworld is.

But as I've argued, I think the thing is more that they wouldn't have a choice in the matter. We'd easily figure it out either way, without their help.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

I'm of the opinion that if you have established diplomatic relations you SHOULD know the capital. All of these civilizations have the radio or equivalents, and the radio bubble they've been giving off has been expanding for a few hundred years. Granted, that's only a few hundred light years, and the radio signals get faint/indistinct to modern technology, but we're in a game where hyperlanes exist (which might let the signal travel intact for far longer) and Stellaris nations have far better tech that us.

As such, I'd expect each capital to stick out like a sore thumb due to its radio bubble signature by the time you were close enough and had studied enough to make first contact with them. They wouldn't need to tell you; it would be obvious.

NilsFabian wrote: It also feels weird that a xenophobic empire would be okay with us knowing where their homeworld is.

But as I've argued, I think the thing is more that they wouldn't have a choice in the matter. We'd easily figure it out either way, without their help.

I disagree, from both a mechanical and storytelling perspective it's strange to assume that all empires would give away the location of their Homeworld intentionally or accidentally. One example of accidental being a long history of radio communications and coincidentally being close enough to other empires for those faint, weak old transmissions to be easily spotted against background noise. Perhaps it would indeed make sense for empires to gain a bonus to intel gathering based on proximity (telescopes x lightyears away would show what the empire was doing x years ago, could be implemented as each point of border friction giving also granting an intel bonus as you have more ways to sneak in and eavesdrop or whatever you do to gather intel) but it should still require work and time to gather all that intelligence.

But importantly not all empires would use radios, while we know that ALL empires have laser technology advanced to the point of it being weaponized and used as the default weapon on all military ships. As lasers are tight beams with little energy lost to space there is little that can be reliably detected from dozens of lightyears away. Any empire that fears aliens would also take great care not to accidentally reveal themselves to potentially hostile advanced races. Radio would be one of a long list of banned, extremely stupid and dangerous technologies to cautious xenophobes.

You could argue that it's relatively easy to spot biosignatures like atmospheric gasses (we are doing that with our current technology)... but mechanically it's no easier to spot habitable planets in-game than it is to identify any other planetary body. If Homeworlds are to be visible then it would be logical for all habitable planets to be visible at the start of the game, logical but extremely boring if you remove most of the exploration by saying that empires should already have mostly mapped the galaxy and have rather advanced knowledge of all nearby systems long before the start of the game (If you wanted something like that as a sort of Quick-start option you could make a suggestion about it).

Personally I just want to keep my Homeworld hidden from hostile empires so they aren't beelining towards it with huge fleets or setting up criminal branch offices on day 1 of meeting them. When I'm playing as a mysterious hostile race I want to be extremely mysterious and not give out postcards with my name and address on them saying "wish you were here! UwU". It's fine for such secrecy to have a cost like how the Isolationist stance reduces diplomatic weight, and for intel the enemy gathers to eventually uncover the Homeworld location just like any other piece of secret information can be revealed. It's just a terrible implementation to make revealing the Homeworld the ONLY option.

 

[Maethendias]

Yeah, this was one of the biggest discussions in the DD where we first heard this and I'm surprised it's had no acknowledgement at all. Keeping the location of Earth a secret was one of the critical plot points in Halo, and given how fond the devs are of letting us play out sci-fi staples I'm surprised that isn't a consideration.
I think it should be a policy decision whether First Contact reveals the homeworld or the closest border system, both of which I think would make sense for different ethical contexts.

it would be especially important for gestalts too, to not have their homeworlds revealed instantly

 

[beleester]

I suspect it's a technical limitation in the engine. In EUIV, if you discover a province belonging to another country you haven't encountered before, any attempt to interact with them diplomatically will immediately reveal their capital province. It may be the same thing here.

Also, the "talk to this empire" button appears only on systems with planets.

I'm of the opinion that if you have established diplomatic relations you SHOULD know the capital. All of these civilizations have the radio or equivalents, and the radio bubble they've been giving off has been expanding for a few hundred years. Granted, that's only a few hundred light years, and the radio signals get faint/indistinct to modern technology, but we're in a game where hyperlanes exist (which might let the signal travel intact for far longer) and Stellaris nations have far better tech that us.

The Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light-years across, so STL observation of radio waves a few hundred years old would let you detect civilizations in less than 1% of the galaxy (maybe a hyperlane or two at most). But FTL sensors and communications exist - all your ships have them from the start of the game - so I would imagine that a science vessel can detect where the FTL comms are coming from with a similar method.

 

[NilsFabian]

It's been a while that I saw a post that gets uniformly upvoted. I really hope the devs see this and take it into consideration. Revealing the homeworld immediately should not be the standard behaviour for first contact.

It might have something to do with the fact that for the first time we have actual seeen how this mechanic works. All discussions before we could only imagine. Now we know.
and most of us disagree.

 

[TrotBot]

Yeah, as a fanatic egalitarian xenophile one of the biggest reasons I've been excited about nemesis is fog of war tbh, and revealing the homeworld basically gets rid of that benefit.

It's like that episode where the borg figured out where earth was, it should take kidnapping or infiltration to discover that. Reveal only the discovered system at first, please.

On the plus side I 100% guarantee there will be a mod if the devs don't fix, and I will continue my "not a single achievement won after hundreds of hours" run since I always run mods.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Also, the "talk to this empire" button appears only on systems with planets.

The Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light-years across, so STL observation of radio waves a few hundred years old would let you detect civilizations in less than 1% of the galaxy (maybe a hyperlane or two at most). But FTL sensors and communications exist - all your ships have them from the start of the game - so I would imagine that a science vessel can detect where the FTL comms are coming from with a similar method.

To clarify, I know the size of the Milky Way - I am an former astrophysics student. Of course its not tenable in a real life setting. HOWEVER, my point was that hyperplanes exist in Stellaris, so if it turns out that our radio signals could seep into the hyperplanes, then perhaps they would end up with FAR greater range than is possible in the real world.

Perhaps that could also explain how the Blorg were able to get human TV transmissions.

But importantly not all empires would use radios, while we know that ALL empires have laser technology advanced to the point of it being weaponized and used as the default weapon on all military ships. As lasers are tight beams with little energy lost to space there is little that can be reliably detected from dozens of lightyears away. Any empire that fears aliens would also take great care not to accidentally reveal themselves to potentially hostile advanced races. Radio would be one of a long list of banned, extremely stupid and dangerous technologies to cautious xenophobes.

Building on my idea, even if they have a policy of not using radio now, if they EVER used radio for a meaningful period in the past (such as the analogue to our own 1900s) then they could have a radio bubble, even if they no longer send out such signals. And if (and its a big if) the radio waves can enter the hyperlanes, it may have propagated far too distant for it to be contained away from other powers.