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Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. As mentioned in last week's dev diary, we're currently in an extended post-launch support period, and so there won't be any feature dev diaries coming for a while. Today's dev diary will just be a quick update about a couple of the issues we're currently aware of and working on for the 2.1.1 rolling beta. This is just a select few items, not a comprehensive list of everything we're working on!

L-Cluster Variety
The first issue we're currently addressing is L-Cluster balance and variety. We've had some feedback from players who got a 'positive' L-Cluster outcome that it felt a bit underwhelming, and while we definitely do not want every L-Cluster outcome to be negative, we do acknowledge that we could have done more in regards to the flavor and detail of some of the outcomes. As such, we'll be doing an extended second pass on this feature, adding more flavor and more outcomes, and also looking into the balance of when the L-Cluster is accessible and AI-related issues for some of those outcomes. We expect to have balance and AI fixes with you sooner rather than later, with the second content pass likely a few weeks away as we have decided to invest a fair amount of additional time and resources into it.

Performance
Another problem we're aware of and working on is the issue some users are experiencing with decreased performance and stuttering in 2.1 compared to 2.0. All I can say about this at the moment is that our coders are looking into it and have already made some progress on the problem, and that we consider it to be a very high priority issue that we absolutely intend to resolve.

Finally for today, a picture showing off a little modding support feature we'll be putting into the rolling beta - when you name objects in script (such as naming a newly created fleet or using the set_name function) the script will now take a scope, meaning that you can for example create a ship named after a leader, or renamed a planet dynamically after the species living there.
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That's all for today! Join us again next week for... you guessed it... more post-launch support!
 
Thats actually a clue? i thought it was part of the research and everyone all the time got that. scrap that first part then :p
Some stuff will give unrelated Insights, but a lot of the things that specifically give Insights are anomalies to do with ancient, abandoned nanotech, like the "skyscrapers", the nano-sand, or the gas giant medical facility. Combine this with the L-gates themselves being "built by nanotech"...

It's given all the time, yes, but the point I was making is that you shouldn't get to know if it'll be good or bad beforehand- you should prepare for the "bad" anyhow based on common sense.
 
Unless you want to see shooter sections in Stellaris this video does not contain any suggestions applicable in a strategy game. It's just a repeat of a point made many times before (and one I symphatise with) of all challenge in Stellaris being excludively combat-focused, but without any solutions to the problem.
It brings shooters up as an example it doesn't give specific suggestions on them either, it talks about game design in generalized terms.
 
Unless you want to see shooter sections in Stellaris this video does not contain any suggestions applicable in a strategy game. It's just a repeat of a point made many times before (and one I symphatise with) of all challenge in Stellaris being excludively combat-focused, but without any solutions to the problem.
>Does not contain suggestions applicable to strategy games.

Stellaris already does differences in kind including in ways I've not seen in other strategy games (marked with an *asterisk).

Let's look at differences in mind present already:
  1. Planetary construction/population Management- The way you build resources and how you assign pops to the most efficient manner could be considered a strategy game in and of itself. Get the happiest pops to the buildings you want to produce most which are built on tiles that amplify the building resources.
  2. Fleet combat- The arguable bread and butter of the game, there's not as much in the way of meaningful choices for how to move our order your fleet once in combat, but things like pincer plays or trying to bait an opponent into a fight above a starbase are game elements themselves.
  3. Strategic Ship Movement- picking your battles in the course of a war, moving your fleets here just plain /FEELS/ different than looking at them put in system, and you're faced with things like where to move what doomstack, or if you can risk splitting then to try and take a run of systems.
  4. Research- semi randomized choices but part planning, part luck as you try to predict what of your choices best benefit your empire.
  5. Diplomacy- a boarder conflict may not be in your interest, and trying to bribe, coerce and conquer your way to being one of the big boys while not getting eaten by one of the /BIGGER/ boys is something else entirely.
  6. Factions- Keeping little happy is a full time job, especially when they're at cross odds and slightest misstep threatens to sew unrest throughout half your civilization.
  7. System claims and colonization*- unique here is the expenditure not just for the colony unit but for the land it occupies. Influence in the early hand is a previous commodity, and I doubt you'll have your first purchase be on policy. Which system is more important, the one with the resources or the choke point? Can you afford both? Which comes first?
  8. Ship Creation/Fleet Management*- I've seen games a plenty with the 'ideal' mix of units (SC2 Protoss 'Deathball' comes to mind) in debate, but never once where you could customise each individual unit to such level. And yet, the mix of ships and pays and fleets represent agency over meaningful choices to improve your chances in the next engagement.
The important part is one that Each each of these /FEELS/ different from the others. Each can be made into a game, or lesser games be made from them. Sins of a Solar Empire doesn't have the planetary population management or ship builder. Other PDX games might have you managing a family lineage. Grand strategy games may not offer tactical points of view. The Flash game 'Falafel King' is about keeping a growing group of people happy, some of whom have needs different from the others. Each one of these points is a different mode of play and could theoretically be games unto themselves, but instead integrate with the other features to various levels to form the Stellaris we know and love.
Yes there are 'differences of kind' that can be had in strategy games, several of which are already present here.
 
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I would not like this. I think it should always spawn as its a trademark of Distant Stars. That would be like saying that sometimes Enclaves shouldnt spawn for Utopia owners. WOuld be silly imo.
He said option. I would like this, too, actually, same way I prefer that not all Leviathans spawn every game. If you see, for example, the L-Cluster only in some games, it remains a "special" thing for longer. When every special feature is in every game, they lose their "aura" of mystery.

I don't know I'm not a game deisgner but these people are
^^Good point (the video's content).

Extra Credits seems applicable to most every thread on game design, btw :p .
 
L-Gate Spoilers.
Make the "nothing there result" more like tomb raider. So you go there and your presence has a chance to reactivate the nanites and you have to shut the gates or at least escape.

The Grey Tempest result needs to be able to convert worlds to nanite worlds and cause their fleet making output increase.

Dragons haven't worked for me yet. They just kinda go places and no event fires, but I suspect it has to do with my mods.
 
and still you havent fixed the UI so you can dynamically add stuff like new traditions without hardcoded position that requires you to use dumb compatability patches if you want more than one.... come on
 
@Wiz

Could we please add a QoL improvement to the Leader Level cap? There are now lots and lots of different combinations that result in leader levels higher than 10. Unfortunately, the hard cap of 10 prevents any of those combinations from actually functioning.

Can you please increase the hard cap to 15 and modify the xp charts as necessary so we can experiment with some of those combinations.

Thanks!
 
Can you please allow us to choose wether or not L gates will spawn with something bad in them at game setup. Out of 6 games I started so far all of them had nanites behind L gates. Its tedious.

Second, can you allow us to preserve unique planetary resources when building a ringworld in a system with a unique resource (L cluster uniques or livig metal etc) and let it spawn on the ringworld as a resource? After all ringworlds are made by using materials from the systems planetary bodies
 
What I'd like to see with the 'good' outcome is at least some resolution. The insights and anomalies hint at nanites and gray goo and so forth. Then you get there and there is gray dust and so forth, so I'm guessing the nanites just died or something. Something there that told more of the story of the now-departed nanites would be nice at least. Ideally, there should be something cool and interesting there 100% of the time. And also it would be great if that something was related to the nanites somehow, or there's some story of why the nanites are now gone and replaced by whatever is there.

I'm enjoying the new anomalies, enjoying the new systems, I like the new leviathan that I've seen, and I'm intrigued by the cylinder that floats above one of my worlds. But the L-cluster seems a little hit and miss. It's not quite there as a feature. And since it's the core feature of the story pack, I'm very glad it's going to get more love.
 
Wait. Is there even other result in L-cluster than having nanite invasion? I played three games and always got this (first time it was in around middle game, so i got wrecked totally).
 
hey guys loving the updates.
I did want to ask is the issue with fallen empires also being looked in to. I have been experiencing since the patch that fallen empires are not spawning properly. I often have vast areas of the galaxy empty with no empires in and I'm still missing 2-3 fallen empires in most cases although I have selected 5
is it possible with all the jump calculations to ensure that the empires done start next to leviathans and space creatures ect ect that this is now impacting the ability for fallen empires to spawn properly as the galaxy is "seen" but the empire placement algorithm as full ?
 
Wait. Is there even other result in L-cluster than having nanite invasion? I played three games and always got this (first time it was in around middle game, so i got wrecked totally).
IIRC 50% chance nano-swarms, 40% chance "empty" and you get a bunch of free strategic resources, 10% chance dragons come out.
 
Can you add a feature to reinforce armies similar (but not necessarily exactly) to fleets?
Something like where you click a button to queue up another army unit from the nearest planet and have it automatically move to merge once it's done being made.
 
Dragons haven't worked for me yet. They just kinda go places and no event fires, but I suspect it has to do with my mods.

Nope, they really do nothing, they're docile. According to the wiki there's an event/project to tame them but I never got it and even then I got one tamed lol.

Still, they're 101% useless. Their fleet power is around 5k and have no Jump Drive, so yeah.
 
@Wiz Any ETA on the performance fix for restored L-Gates? I am dying to get back into my game is all. Was kind of hoping to hear something today though I know that is probably unrealistic but never the less, I love Stellaris and am anxious to finish exploring the new DLC without making a new game. If it is going to be a while to apply the needed fixes I will just suck it up and make another game lol. Thanks!