So when are we getting space nomads?

[STABBY5]

I am a CK2 and EU IV player and just recently got Stellaris and have been enjoying it greatly. I know paradox's business model is to develop games over time with dlc. It seems inevitable for this kind of game to have space nomads at some point added into the game, playable or not. So I was wondering if this is an idea already investigated, planned or previously suggested?

 

[Sibericus]

There already are non-playable space nomads in-game. They just don't always spawn, and even if they do, space is big and sometimes you'll never encounter them before they move on to the next galaxy.

 

[STABBY5]

There already are non-playable space nomads in-game. They just don't always spawn, and even if they do, space is big and sometimes you'll never encounter them before they move on to the next galaxy.

Well that's cool, now I wonder if they'll make them playable...

 

[Kain2K]

Well that's cool, now I wonder if they'll make them playable...

I don't see how playing nomads could be implemented in a way, that playing as one, would be fun. At least with the current gameplay mechanics. Pdox would have to revamp nearly the whole game to make that work.
For starters: we would need a way to get new ships, that would have to be on par with at least a middle sized empire.
And what would be the goal? To conquer a planet for your people? To colonise a world for your people? To survive as long as possible?
The first two things would just be the same as we have now, only with a different origin story and a potentially heavily handicaped start. The last would make no sense whatsoever in a 4X game.
I really don't think Stellaris is the right game to have playable nomads, cause that would mean that Pdox would kinda have to develope a completly new game inside of the existing game.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Endless Legend made nomads okay-ish by simply giving them the ability to pack up and move their cities. At first you'd do what any other empire would, you'd settle your first city asap, you'd get explorers out, drop a few more cities while you find the borders of your neighbors. Then what I did was pack up my cities and forward settle my neighbors via relocation of my cities, and then back settled the districts that they had been territory locked out of. After that one trick was done though, my mid to end game was as static as any other. Regions were full, expansion was easiest by conquest not settlement and relocating cities meant losing a lot of resource accumulation. By mid to end game though empire was as static as any other.

I'm not saying it wasn't interesting, it was. That one dramatically different early game opened up problems and opportunities not available to entirely static factions. Plus the nomads in Endless Legend couldn't declare offensive wars, but could raid and harass via 'anonymous' mercenaries, so that added to the urgency of early expansion and increased the likelihood of over-extension.

I could see something similar to that working in Stellaris. But I can't really wrap my mind around how you'd play nomads that remained nomads the entire game. Too much of this game is based around territory expansion and territory exploitation.

 

[Zavaleta]

Has anyone here played the nomadic space faring vampire race in Endless Space 2? Is it fun? Is the mechanic unique enough to warrant the time needed to implement it?

 

[WhiteWeasel]

Has anyone here played the nomadic space faring vampire race in Endless Space 2? Is it fun? Is the mechanic unique enough to warrant the time needed to implement it?

You mean the Vodyani? I think the bigger issue is that the would the mechanics of stellaris even support nomadic factions?

But I can't really wrap my mind around how you'd play nomads that remained nomads the entire game. Too much of this game is based around territory expansion and territory exploitation.

In stellaris your faction mechanics are determined by your ethos, never being able to colonize a planet and live on huge arc ships would somehow have to be shoehorned into that. And before someone says something about the nomadic trait, no that does not determine your playstyle or tech pool. Traits are often picked to complement one's faction, but are not strictly tied to the playstyle or factions mechanics. After all, having very strong citizens does require you to invade enemy planets, nor does having intelligent population give you access to exclusive techs on the research deck, etc... Having the nomadic trait alter the way a faction plays would be breaking continuity with the other vanilla traits. So being nomadic would have to be shoehorned in on the ethos branch. So do we have a 5 way ethos branch now? And this post is getting too long winded for me to dive into the ramifications about that.

This suggestion shows one of Stellaris's downsides. The faction system is extremely flexible and customizable, but it's wide and modular reach means it cannot go very deep. While In the endless franchise there is no such restriction and each faction's gameplay is custom tailored to their lore and meant to be totally unique from the get go. And in the case of the roving clans (Endless legend nomads) and the Vodyani, their games respective mechanics were designed from the ground up with them in mind since they were debuting factions. Like the sheriff said, a Stellaris nomad would have no such support.

So could they shoehorn in nomadic gameplay? Sure. Will they be able to pull it off effectively in the constraints of Stellaris game mechanics? I would not have high hopes for it.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

I could see space nomads being the merchant republics of Stellaris, but any interesting way of implementing them would be difficult to fit in with the setting/lore of Stellaris. It would also be hard to avoid them being horribly under-powered. If they could make it work, though, I would love it. I have some ideas but none that are particularly good.

 

[Vishaing]

There's a mod that allows you to play as basically an End Game Crisis level Nomadic Fleet that Eats Planets to build new ships.

 

[terrycloth]

The main things nomads need are a form of income and a way to build ships.

Movable spaceborne habitats? The effectiveness of their mines, power stations, and labs could depend on the system they were in. You'd have the habitats build each other and then fly into any star system that you had open borders with and take it over by projecting your own borders, temporarily stealing any mining stations there. Since no one would like you doing that, you might have to have a custom Nomad passage treaty that paid them for the privilege? Or else you could fight them and demand open borders.

Maybe other races could capture your habitats using war goals, but wouldn't be able to move them or build new ones.

Hmm, you'd also need a reason to leave a system behind. Maybe a fading science bonus for a habitat being in a new system, and an increasing mineral penalty as you snatch up all the easily available asteroids (not counting the ones that anyone can mine forever of course)?

 

[Vishaing]

Stealing systems is a pretty bad idea in my opinion.

I think instead what they should have is a special class of ships named "Mining Vessels" which they can place over any unclaimed celestial body and which extracts resources from it. This ship would have a Mining Policy, similar to Bombardment Policy, with heavier settings getting you more stuff faster, but causing ecological damage to the body, applying temporary modifiers. These modifiers can lower habitability on planets, or temporarily or even permanently removing Mineral/Energy/Science Deposits. These are what would cause issues.

If the Nomads are at war with a country, then they can destroy their mines (possibly getting a lump-sum of minerals for doing so to represent that they live off salvage) and move their Mining Ships into place, encouraging a Raiding Strategy that targets Empires that are in some way distracted. Since Nomads cannot take a planet, their permanent damage is limited, so Empires in a major war that they would risk losing territory in would be inclined to ignore them.

Pops would live on Mobile Habitats, that's fine, which could produce Energy and Science, but not Minerals. This allows more diplomatic Nomads to instead trade their Surplus Energy for Minerals, since currently the only thing Positive Energy is really used on is for Terraforming and clearing Blocks, things that Nomads obviously don't care about. The Nomads could still have Science Vessels, with these Vessels, when Surveying a ship, possibly extracting some Science from it, again adding a temporary or perhaps permanent modifier or removing the Science Deposit. Again this would be a Policy like with Mining, allowing Nomads to be nice.

This could then also serve as the foundation of a possible Piracy System. Pirates would, however, instead of having Mining Ships and Mobile Habitats, would establish Primitive Orbital Habitats, like the one created by the "Birth of Piracy" event.

You could then also have a diplomatic agreement which allowed Nomads to mine inside a Nation's Borders, possibly with some payment like an Implied Tributary Arrangement. So they get to mine, but pay 25% of the Minerals they extract. With this, they could even mine areas which already have Mining Stations, allowing an Empire with a good relation with Nomads to actually get more from their mines than is otherwise possible. If you pacify and establish mines in the Crystal Hive System, Nomads would really start being interested in you.

Which could THEN serve as the foundation for a system to handle Private Industry and Mega-Corporations because such agreements would allow them to build Mines in the land of their home country, thus mean they wouldn't need to necessarily project their own borders, because that causes problems in my experience.

 

[Aries666]

I don't see how playing nomads could be implemented in a way, that playing as one, would be fun. At least with the current gameplay mechanics. Pdox would have to revamp nearly the whole game to make that work.
For starters: we would need a way to get new ships, that would have to be on par with at least a middle sized empire.
And what would be the goal? To conquer a planet for your people? To colonise a world for your people? To survive as long as possible?
The first two things would just be the same as we have now, only with a different origin story and a potentially heavily handicaped start. The last would make no sense whatsoever in a 4X game.
I really don't think Stellaris is the right game to have playable nomads, cause that would mean that Pdox would kinda have to develope a completly new game inside of the existing game.

You just lack imagination. Inside a nomad fleet you could have habitat ships (each one equalling x planet tiles) amongst the military ships, add things like mining and refining ships (mineral and energy income) and you have set up a mobile planet system. As for goals that's up to the player and to be fair there isn't much in the way of goals for any race you play. You could then throw in some unique mechanics such as having a ship captains council who make requests/demands that failure to fulfil may result in their ships leaving the fleet. There's so much scope for nomads and really wouldn't require any sort of overhaul just some new mechanics to make playing nomads different.

 

[Untrustedlife]

You mean the Vodyani? I think the bigger issue is that the would the mechanics of stellaris even support nomadic factions?



In stellaris your faction mechanics are determined by your ethos, never being able to colonize a planet and live on huge arc ships would somehow have to be shoehorned into that. And before someone says something about the nomadic trait, no that does not determine your playstyle or tech pool. Traits are often picked to complement one's faction, but are not strictly tied to the playstyle or factions mechanics. After all, having very strong citizens does require you to invade enemy planets, nor does having intelligent population give you access to exclusive techs on the research deck, etc... Having the nomadic trait alter the way a faction plays would be breaking continuity with the other vanilla traits. So being nomadic would have to be shoehorned in on the ethos branch. So do we have a 5 way ethos branch now? And this post is getting too long winded for me to dive into the ramifications about that.

This suggestion shows one of Stellaris's downsides. The faction system is extremely flexible and customizable, but it's wide and modular reach means it cannot go very deep. While In the endless franchise there is no such restriction and each faction's gameplay is custom tailored to their lore and meant to be totally unique from the get go. And in the case of the roving clans (Endless legend nomads) and the Vodyani, their games respective mechanics were designed from the ground up with them in mind since they were debuting factions. Like the sheriff said, a Stellaris nomad would have no such support.

So could they shoehorn in nomadic gameplay? Sure. Will they be able to pull it off effectively in the constraints of Stellaris game mechanics? I would not have high hopes for it.

They are working on adding more playstyles for banks and utopia, with hive mind empires and the fanatical purifier civic, and improving tall play . Alternate starts (eg starting as a nomad) are great if they are implemented well. Wiz has expressed interest in a nomadic/ rebel AI start aswell.


Hivemind gameplay is tied to a special ethic.

While purifier gameplay is tied to a civic.


I feel a civic is more appropriate for nomads.

 

[Riftwalker]

In stellaris your faction mechanics are determined by your ethos, never being able to colonize a planet and live on huge arc ships would somehow have to be shoehorned into that. And before someone says something about the nomadic trait, no that does not determine your playstyle or tech pool. Traits are often picked to complement one's faction, but are not strictly tied to the playstyle or factions mechanics. After all, having very strong citizens does require you to invade enemy planets, nor does having intelligent population give you access to exclusive techs on the research deck, etc... Having the nomadic trait alter the way a faction plays would be breaking continuity with the other vanilla traits. So being nomadic would have to be shoehorned in on the ethos branch. So do we have a 5 way ethos branch now? And this post is getting too long winded for me to dive into the ramifications about that.

This suggestion shows one of Stellaris's downsides. The faction system is extremely flexible and customizable, but it's wide and modular reach means it cannot go very deep. While In the endless franchise there is no such restriction and each faction's gameplay is custom tailored to their lore and meant to be totally unique from the get go. And in the case of the roving clans (Endless legend nomads) and the Vodyani, their games respective mechanics were designed from the ground up with them in mind since they were debuting factions. Like the sheriff said, a Stellaris nomad would have no such support.

So could they shoehorn in nomadic gameplay? Sure. Will they be able to pull it off effectively in the constraints of Stellaris game mechanics? I would not have high hopes for it.

I think nomads could fit well enough, they were shunted off their planet in a doomsday event, you collect resources from sites you'd set up stations at, and eventually research the capability to colonize planets(let's go the Mass effect way and say they have evolved space station esque habitability by the time they invented stellar travel.). It'll be a start that is harder than other empires for sure, but paradox has always played the uneven start thing well. You'd have motherships instead of planets, maybe starting with 3. they'd act like mobile habitats and would likely be the ships used to collect resources.

Also they'd likely should be allowed to never have their border's closed until they "settle"(gaining negative opinion while they stay in anyone's space with xenophiles losing half or full based on their xenophile level), Settling would be like nomads in CK2 adopting feudalism, it'd need a big push. I imagine mother ships should house extremely small population sizes, such as 3-5 and thus would be best suited to specializing for collecting specific resources. The option to go another route and start making permanent habitats for them would also be possible maybe as another transition they could go down.

As for war, I don't think you can declare WAR on them in the same way you can't really declare war on the Romani. You'd simply have a government policy for dealing with nomads where I think only fanatic xenophobes, or maybe just all xenophobes can attack them on sight. Some civs might be willing to trade at the cost of the ethics of a planet will more heavily pull towards the Nomad's Ethics, etc. their settings woudl determine how much they impede you at different opinion modifier values, so if you did stuff to help them you'd naturally gain access to better options and maybe even get some resources from their world production, etc, which woudl be a great deal of stuff. or you can steal it, the old tried and true romani way. This would lower opinion of the area's overlordin the area and increase unrest of local planets.

The Nomads would also have to be open form multiple play styles. There's the pirates, roaming slavers, Traders, Explorers, Pilgrims, Mercenaries, while most would start off as just survivalists, Maybe even space faring overlords, whom collect money from subjugated nations like the mongols. etc.

Paradox has added in huge new mechanics in DLC for their other games, I wouldn't put them past them to pull it off.

I feel a civic is more appropriate for nomads.

I feel it'd be better selected as your homeworld type, and this forces you to pick a specific government type later, just like the hivemind ethic forces the hivemind government type. This would give you access to new civic options tailored for nomads.

Also when you transition to another play style heading to end-game you'd reform your government

 

[LastLeviathan]

Wiz spoke about it during his AMA on reddit recently.

2) Do you plan to add in a expansion Space Nomad mechanics? With big unarmed mother ships as Homeworld, like the Migrant Fleet of Mass Effect Quarians. Immune to Close Border but result of diplomatic penalty if stand in.

2) This is something I see as 'would be cool'. I think it could be an interesting new playstyle, perhaps an idea for a Story Pack, but it's not terribly high on my priority list. So maybe!

 

[Meneliki]

I am a CK2 and EU IV player and just recently got Stellaris and have been enjoying it greatly. I know paradox's business model is to develop games over time with dlc. It seems inevitable for this kind of game to have space nomads at some point added into the game, playable or not. So I was wondering if this is an idea already investigated, planned or previously suggested?

They exist in game, they're.. not... super.. interesting atm. They basically introduce you to all the other empires in the game. Beyond that... they don't do a whole lot. Would be interesting to see 'nomadic' goverment types.. but it seems lke the kindof thing they should wait on... let the game evolve slowly and smartly, rather than throw all kinds of crazy stuff into the mix and wreck it completely.

 

[STABBY5]

Well for those confuse on how they would get news ships, why not a mothership that builds other ships? Subjugating, pillaging(destroying planet buildings) and scavenging for resources and tech. Perhaps make them a plight by having them create blockers on habitable planets to harvest resources? Give them a chance to settle down if they desire. I am drawing quite a bit from ck2 if anyone can tell.

 

[Ezumiyr]

Meh.
Space Nomads are not an uncommon trope in science fiction, but they are probably better as an AI (just like corporations, religious orders or mercenaries would be).
I could see Space Nomads as a transitory stage for empires, though. Like refugees. They would need to find new homes. Or as Wiz said, as a part of a story pack.
But I don't really see how they would be interesting.

In Endless Space, the Pilgrims are supposed to be nomads, but there isn't really any gameplay associated with their condition. I believe there's a purely spaceborne faction in Star Ruler 2, though, and there are the Vasari from Sins of a Solar Empire who have the "planet stealer" playstyle. Technically, the Cravers from ES2 too, since they basically exploit planets until they are not usable anymore.
The problem with spaceborne factions in Stellaris is that there wouldn't be something to motivate interactions with the other empires. They don't have planets, they are just a fleet. You only have reason to pay attention if they are stealing your ressources, and I don't see how nomads could work this way since they would either be some kind of end game crisis (with a fleet too powerful to be fought until several empires unite against them) or incredibly weak - in both cases their fleet is all they have, so they can't really lose a war and go on.
And the problem with planet exploiters is that it needs to be a rare thing to the galaxy isn't empty after a few decades.
So in any case, nomadism needs to be a rare condition.

That's why I don't find the idea very exciting. This is material for games with fixed factions, not randomized ones. So maybe a story or a rare event would be good ideas, but full nomad/horde mechanics like in CK2 or EU4 is very unlikely, I think.

 

[Hail Blorg]

Theres a page suggesting playable nomads, https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/playable-non-empire-nomad-fleet.997720/

 

[Untrustedlife]

Meh.
Space Nomads are not an uncommon trope in science fiction, but they are probably better as an AI (just like corporations, religious orders or mercenaries would be).
I could see Space Nomads as a transitory stage for empires, though. Like refugees. They would need to find new homes. Or as Wiz said, as a part of a story pack.
But I don't really see how they would be interesting.

In Endless Space, the Pilgrims are supposed to be nomads, but there isn't really any gameplay associated with their condition. I believe there's a purely spaceborne faction in Star Ruler 2, though, and there are the Vasari from Sins of a Solar Empire who have the "planet stealer" playstyle. Technically, the Cravers from ES2 too, since they basically exploit planets until they are not usable anymore.
The problem with spaceborne factions in Stellaris is that there wouldn't be something to motivate interactions with the other empires. They don't have planets, they are just a fleet. You only have reason to pay attention if they are stealing your ressources, and I don't see how nomads could work this way since they would either be some kind of end game crisis (with a fleet too powerful to be fought until several empires unite against them) or incredibly weak - in both cases their fleet is all they have, so they can't really lose a war and go on.
And the problem with planet exploiters is that it needs to be a rare thing to the galaxy isn't empty after a few decades.
So in any case, nomadism needs to be a rare condition.

That's why I don't find the idea very exciting. This is material for games with fixed factions, not randomized ones. So maybe a story or a rare event would be good ideas, but full nomad/horde mechanics like in CK2 or EU4 is very unlikely, I think.

I'm pretty confident in paradoxes ability to implement new play styles and I honestly hate it when people say "this is not possible with procedural generation" that's the kind of thing I would react to if I were a stellaris dev by saying "well now we neeed to add it just to prove these people wrong" or at least I would attempt to prototype it to see if we could make it work in a fun way and not just assume we can't.

As a person who works in the new methods (more every day) involving procedural generation quite a bit.


You can already play as a mega corporation as a government type, so I wouldn't put that beyond paradox either.
Also I don't see why you couldn't do religious orders/religions like in ck2 in stellaris you would just allow players to found new ones and randomly generate a couple.otherwie they would work almost exactly like in ck2 with holy sites, popes holy wars etc.

Perhaps implement a nomadic play style by allowing them to build free floating stations like habitats that can also build ships.So they are more like pirates then nomads for example. And scan the galaxy for an empty portion to start them in to give them a decent start.

They are adding hive minds and a special play style for fanatical purifiers in utopia so they are already adding new ways to play.


Just don't write off guided procedural generation so fast. It's a very powerful tool. Also they still have to design the play style to fit in the available systems.