New features or species you'd like to see

[xds41895]

I played some decent mods that added species and civics to the game one I was always interested in was subterranean species and or aquatic. Is that something you think paradox could squeeze in at somepoint or something others would like? I'm all for new, civics governments and unique specie play styles. Thoughts or opinions?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

maybe subterranean species can have up to, say, twice as many districts and buildings depending on the demographics of the planet.

not loving the aquatic species idea. never have. but there seems to be a demand for it.

 

[Methone]

Give me fish.

 

[HFY]

Aquatic species would have made a lot more sense back when Tiles were around. You could have big oceans which would normally be empty tiles until you found Aquatic species (or gene-modded yourself one of your own, or Bio Ascended into something that could live anywhere, etc.).

Right now they don't seem like they'd do anything interesting.

Plus there's already a Necroid which lives in a fishbowl so "Aquatic" might technically already be in the game, albeit in a way that has no mechanical implications.

 

[DanielPrates]

With all the important things waiting in queue, sad as it is, i can totally predict the devs could spend a semester developing an entire underwater species pack.

Exciting huh? Six more portraits! A new civic with a 7%-plus-something modifier! A shipset!

 

[Pancakelord]

I saw an Aspec video on youtube, he spoke with the design lead who - in passing - mentioned the idea of pop-less machine empires (likely both to diversify how they play and to improve performance).

Whilst that's interesting - and technically already doable (hackishly) with mods (its just a lot of effort) - I think it could pave the way for an extremophile (probably gestalt) nation.

• One that can only settle, live on, and govern molten worlds (hardcore lithoids), toxic worlds or gas giant worlds - which, due to the way galaxy spawns work, are so numerous that using pops on them would kill your performance in a heartbeat.

Fish in-and-of themselves arent too interesting if i'm honest, anything they can naturally do on/under an ocean world, any other advanced empire could do too.
And I cant imagine subterranean empires being too special either ... maybe they get the ability to build special habitats "in" barren planets rather than "over" them?

Edit: this might not actually be such a bad idea if it gets some sort of perk, they could even recycle the old terraformer (v1-v1.2ish) ship icon for it's megastructure icon:​

 

[HFY]

I saw an Aspec video on youtube, he spoke with the design lead who - in passing - mentioned the idea of pop-less machine empires (likely both to diversify how they play and to improve performance).

I'd love it if there were ways to upgrade a planet into Fallen Empire-style technology (i.e. unattended buildings just doin' stuff for you).

But then the game would need a way to transition my job-hungry pops into some kind of Ascended Hedonists.

Whilst that's interesting - and technically already doable (hackishly) with mods (its just a lot of effort) - I think it could pave the way for an extremophile (probably gestalt) nation.

• One that can only settle, live on, and govern molten worlds (hardcore lithoids), toxic worlds or gas giant worlds - which, due to the way galaxy spawns work, are so numerous that using pops on them would kill your performance in a heartbeat.

I guess you'd need to make different subtypes of those worlds as different kinds of Habitable (or not habitable, just like some "Goldilocks" worlds are Toxic class).

Just like regular rocky worlds, a Habitable Gas Giant would need to be the right distance from the star, and might need some special compositional conditions (i.e. so half the "Goldilocks Gas Giants" might still not be habitable). Variance in ionization, radioactivity, and specific gas composition might make for more subtypes.

Molten worlds might be salty (good or bad), might be composed of weird metals (mercury atmospheres, lanthanide reefs, iron oceans, etc.) -- again, good or bad for the species -- and might or might not have much oxygen. Magmoid species could terraform their Molten worlds between these conditions.

 

[Pancakelord]

But then the game would need a way to transition my job-hungry pops into some kind of Ascended Hedonists.

"Ascended Hedonists" indeed.

I'd just make the upgrade (E.g. Tech lab 1 -> 2 > Ascended Techlab) consume #pops = #jobs from the prior level, whilst adding base upkeep of said pops to that building directly (doable - though might be messy to track without some extra work), which totally takes those pops out of play, any leftovers are dumped in a new hedonism/asceticism living standard (or form "Hedonistic Commune" planet blockers, that disable those pops [a reverse of the sleeping lithoids or shanties at game start] and buff other stuff on the planet).

Other issues with DipWeight might appear too (unless the building itself gives dipweight - in excess of whatever econ weight it provides). But DipWeight is already overtuned in favour of fleet power, so this probably wont make a difference.

I guess you'd need to make different subtypes of those worlds as different kinds of Habitable (or not habitable, just like some "Goldilocks" worlds are Toxic class).

Just like regular rocky worlds, a Habitable Gas Giant would need to be the right distance from the star, and might need some special compositional conditions (i.e. so half the "Goldilocks Gas Giants" might still not be habitable). Variance in ionization, radioactivity, and specific gas composition might make for more subtypes.

Molten worlds might be salty (good or bad), might be composed of weird metals (mercury atmospheres, lanthanide reefs, iron oceans, etc.) -- again, good or bad for the species -- and might or might not have much oxygen. Magmoid species could terraform their Molten worlds between these conditions.

Yep theres two ways to take it, either what you suggest (which is probably the best way -Endless space 2 does something similar, too) , or ripoff void borne and just let the player "build-colonise" directly on any molten etc world - though this would get out of hand fast without some extra limiting factor "hivemind mental focus" or whatever, to stop mass-colonisation of everything.

 

[Dragatus]

The only new feature I'm really interested in is expanded internal/faction mechanics. Other than that I'm more interested in refining what we already have.

 

[HFY]

Let's see, new features I want:

- Internal Politics, hell yes.

- Accessories for portraits, like a hat / slave collar / cyborg monocle / psi halo / flower symbiote crown / brain slug / glowing eyes / etc. which could serve to (a) distinguish upgraded pops, and (b) distinguish same-portrait pops from different empires ("Oh you're the YELLOW HAT empire, sure let's make a treaty against those BLUE HAT jerks over there.")

- More ship sets, and better "Menacing" ships which aren't just pirate junkers.

- Better Caravaneers, including better pathing and diplomacy setup (no more pathing into and then jumping back from Marauders endlessly), but also including better random deal choices. Don't offer me the same UNAVAILABLE option. Don't have only one option for a deal. They're the worst merchants. One easy fix would be to show me a selection of deals, and I can pick up to one of them. If one is unavailable (e.g. because I already bought the Governor or the Tech) then there would still be other available options. Also change the Verminous Triad to have some better options, or just remove them from the game. Their choices were not great in 2.8 but with how housing changed in 3.x they are worthless now.

- Make Missiles great again.

- Make M-slot great... at all.

- Do something nice for Cruisers, and (to a lesser extent) Destroyers.

- Basic rules fixes, like MegaCorp Liberation War should not create a new MegaCorp. Guess that's not a new feature though.

- Templates, for example let me specify a template for galaxy generation. Rules like:

• 2-3 MegaCorp empires
• 0-1 Criminal Heritage civic
• 2-4 Genocidal empires
• 2-3 Machine empires
• 0-2 Hive empires
• 0 Common Ground origin
• 2 Hegemon origins
• 5 Doomsday origins
• 1 Sol starting system (choices are 0, 0-1, or 1)

Ranges mean randomness, but the game will not exceed whatever limits you set.

Your empire fits into these limits. If you specify MAX 3 MegaCorp empires, and you play a MegaCorp, there will be at most 2 other MegaCorp empires in the galaxy at creation.


Uh... that's probably enough for now.

 

[Zagreb 887]

You guys should play with Gigastructures and ACOT, half of the stuff you talk about is already in those 2 mods: habitable gas giants, Ascended society with automatic buildings and hedonism...

 

[Orphalesion]

Aquatic species would have made a lot more sense back when Tiles were around. You could have big oceans which would normally be empty tiles until you found Aquatic species (or gene-modded yourself one of your own, or Bio Ascended into something that could live anywhere, etc.).

Nope. You never had oceans. You just had some awkward arrangement of tiles with holes in it and the "toxic kelp" which should have denoted ocean, just turned into another generic tile upon removal.

But I definitely want aquatics.

 

[HFY]

Nope. You never had oceans.

Thanks for repeating my argument while thinking you disagree with it.

With the tiles system, you could have had planets with oceans (and other biomes) specifically for aquatics (and other habitability preferences).

That would have been a place for an aquatic species add value.

But you did not have those things, and now there is no place for them in the UI.

 

[DanielPrates]

The only new feature I'm really interested in is expanded internal/faction mechanics. Other than that I'm more interested in refining what we already have.

AMÉN

 

[fourteenfour]

I played some decent mods that added species and civics to the game one I was always interested in was subterranean species and or aquatic. Is that something you think paradox could squeeze in at somepoint or something others would like? I'm all for new, civics governments and unique specie play styles. Thoughts or opinions?

I would love a true rock eater like MOO 1/2 Silicoids which existed on molten worlds - they are influenced by Star Trek's Tholians. However I do think we just need some work on colonization, race traits, and such, as much of it doesn't seem to have been adapted properly for the game we have now

 

[spacefiddle]

The new things I want to see are improvements of the current things. Hopefully the "custodians" team will make some headway there. There are just too many weird omissions, or things that were glossed over, broken or superficial stuff that got left behind and never fully fleshed out, etc. I'd rather see serious, dedicated passes made over existing content, mechanics, AND AI and get them rock-solid before bolting on any new stuff.

Machine empires don't want to fly in crude inefficient organic boxes - *nor would they need to*. The Necroid shipset, brand new, was given serious Goth-flavored character (whether you like it or don't, it's definitely unique and distinct), and yet Machine Empires been waitin' for something that reflects an Empire that *isn't little squishy things trying to protect themselves from vaccum in a metal box.*

Machine world origin is beyonc meh. I get a tooltip that says this rectangle gives me 25 minerals. Of course having all the slots unlocked feels nice at first but it's not like you can use them all right away anyway. It should do Nifty Stuff the way Remnants adds some goodies and flavor from their Relic World. Stuff like that.

The ship AI needs to learn how to apply the breaks and stop flying right up the nose of the target when it's not set to Swarm, maintain distance, learn basic Naval station-keeping, and a whole list of things that won't fit here.

Event ships, each and every last one of them, needs to be updated to be merged into Fleets properly. Not just leaving some working and some broken and ignoring the whole thing, They also need to auto-update core modules just like your Science and Constructor units do. I'm looking at you, Nanite Interdictor with your crazy advanced magic tech and..... level 1 Hyperdrive. You're why we're always late to pick up the kids.

Someone needs to grab the new dev, or intern, or something, and sit them down and have them make a pass over ALL event text in the game. I've lost count of how many broken variable substitutions there are. It's silly and looks sloppy (and sometimes confusing...).

And so forth.

This is a great game; don't let it decay from orbit and fall into the gas giant core by the all too common trap of charging ahead always with new stuff and hype and never going back and fixing what wasn't finished or didn't work right or could use improvement. The more you add, the more it magnifies existing issues, until what seemed like "eh no big deal not a priority to fix" becomes a glaring embarassment.

 

[Orphalesion]

With the tiles system, you could have had planets with oceans (and other biomes) specifically for aquatics (and other habitability preferences).

That would have been a place for an aquatic species add value.

No, not with the way it looked. If that was supposed to be continents then every planet in Stellaris, including Earth had a single super continent.

and now there is no place for them in the UI.

Yes there is, with the planetary features they could add planetary features that provide special housing districts for aquatics and/or subterraneans.

 

[HFY]

No, not with the way it looked. If that was supposed to be continents then every planet in Stellaris, including Earth had a single super continent.

There was room in that UI to add oceans. There weren't oceans, but they had a place to put them in the tiles UI.

There is no such place anymore. Nobody lives on anything specific in the new UI.

Yes there is, with the planetary features they could add planetary features that provide special housing districts for aquatics and/or subterraneans.

Like the special housing UI for Bio-Trophies?

The one which doesn't exist?

That's hilarious.

 

[Orphalesion]

Like the special housing UI for Bio-Trophies?

The one which doesn't exist?

That's hilarious.

So because some other, completely unrelated feature doesn't exist this one can't either?

That's ridiculous.

 

[Pancakelord]

Yes there is, with the planetary features they could add planetary features that provide special housing districts for aquatics and/or subterraneans.

Like the special housing UI for Bio-Trophies?

The one which doesn't exist?

That's hilarious.

This isn't so ridiculous as an idea. Right now, every planet has uncapped housing districts (and thus building slots can always be maxed, provided its over a certain size, given certain techs that give extra slots).

It might well be interesting if cities were capped [cap shared with industrial districts?], much like farms, they would be dictated by planet deposits (e.g. "stable ground" "river delta" or whatever. which give +X urban/indust districts). Whilst Oceanic worlds could have some deposits "Sturdy Reefs, Rocky Oceanic-Shelves" that give +Y "Oceanic City Districts" - However this would require a re-work on how housing works [debatably, needed anyway, given the introduction of carry capacity] if you wanted fish people vs land people (so X/Y land housing, J/K fish housing etc). So for this specifically it might not be a great idea, given time vs payoff ("impact analysis").

But I think there could be some interesting things coming out of capping city districts, beyond tying it to phenotypes, too. At least, it could lead to a few more useful Soc techs (something like unlock Dry/Wet/Cold/Tomb city development [with gaian worlds always being uncapped for cities], opening more housing up in the midgame), and a few less cookie cutter planets (if cities are capped, building slots are rarer, and you cant always carpet them in labs... which probably ought to be rolled in to cities somehow, or a planetary tech district anyway tbf - as the last heavily spammed building).

Also, if cities are capped, and you find a planet that has the potential to max out industrial/cities districts (due to a good arrangement of deposits) this could have a special AI planet_flag, prioritising it for ecumenopolis development + picking the ecu AP if it has one of these worlds in its borders, to semi-compel the AI to focus itself.​