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Stellaris Dev Diary #128 - Decisions and Planetary Bombardment

Hello everyone! We’re back yet again for another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue talking about the 2.2 'Le Guin' update, and as promised last week, the topic will be Decisions and Planetary Bombardment.

And before we get right into it I of course have to reiterate that we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ is coming out, and that screenshots may contain placeholder art, interfaces and non-final numbers.

Decisions
Planetary edicts are gone - long live Decisions! Decisions is a new feature that will replace the old Planetary Edicts. We’ve always wanted to do more with planetary edicts, and Decisions now allow us to do a lot more cool stuff. Some Decisions can be enacted on any planet (colonizable or not) in your empire’s borders. Decisions can cost any resource, and can also require a certain amount of time to pass before the effect will take place. For example, the Mastery of Nature Ascension Perk now allows you access to Land Clearance – the Decision (see image below). Some Decisions will have toggle options – like for example Martial Law. Enacting the Martial Law Decision allows you to later on Revoke Martial Law should you wish to do so.

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The system will be fully moddable and we’re looking forwards to seeing what cool stuff the community can come up with.

Planetary Bombardment & Devastation
To better fit with the new systems, bombardment has been slightly reworked.

When a planet gets bombarded it will suffer Devastation. Devastation ticks up from 0 up to 100, and is a direct penalty to your planet’s housing, amenities, trade value and pop growth. Clearing Devastation will take time and cost resources, as one would expect.

Fleets, as you know, have different Bombardment Stances – each with its own effect on how fast Devastation ticks up and how large chance there is for a Pop to be killed during bombardment. The higher the Devastation is on a planet, the higher the chance is for a Pop to be killed. When a building slot becomes invalid due to no longer having the amount of Pops required for it to operate, the building occupying it will become Ruined. A Ruined building may be repaired once the requirements of the building slot are once again met.

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For those concerned that Devastation is too punishing, rest assured that we will be looking into that. Recovering from Devastation should never feel like an impossible task.

Next week our we will continue covering the features of the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update with the topic of Tradition rework. Because this week’s dev diary is a bit shorter, I’ll leave a teaser for next week. Enjoy!

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So that Judge Dredd tradition seems like it would feel a little out of place for some ethics choices (Pacifist/Fanatic Egalitarian, say). And while "tradition rework" would suggest bigger changes than just changing some traditions a little, the tradition screen doesn't seem particularly different otherwise. Is this a hint that your available traditions will be modified by your ethics in 2.2? E.g. Authoritarians get the Judges and Egalitarians might have an entirely different tradition in the corresponding part of the tree?
 
Devastation ticks up from 0 up to 100, and is a direct penalty to your planet’s housing, amenities, trade value and pop growth.

How does it affect Migration? If a planet has a huge migration pull and even a major devastation won't reduce it, then we may have a situation when POPs move to that planet just to get themselves killed in ongoing bombardment. In many situations this is not what we may want ;)
 
I hope they change the text on this. It just seams backwords and a regress from what we have today in our laws.

I would prefer it if there was more choices in what traditions to embrace - rather than just what order to embrace them.
For this sounds like a great tradition to my slaver empire, but not so great for United Earth...
 
Its a Domination tradition, which are all about subjugating populations both inside and outside your empire. The text is also clearly a reference to the Judges from Judge Dredd, a totalitarian police force that maintain order in sprawling, industrialized mega-cities with billions of inhabitants.

In other words, its supposed to sound regressive and dystopian.

Still hope that something else is there for egalitarian and/or democratic empires. The traditions are already adaptable to your civics, hopefully this is a tradition that follows that pattern.
 
So that Judge Dredd tradition seems like it would feel a little out of place for some ethics choices (Pacifist/Fanatic Egalitarian, say). And while "tradition rework" would suggest bigger changes than just changing some traditions a little, the tradition screen doesn't seem particularly different otherwise. Is this a hint that your available traditions will be modified by your ethics in 2.2? E.g. Authoritarians get the Judges and Egalitarians might have an entirely different tradition in the corresponding part of the tree?
Again, its part of the Domination tradition set. The one that increases Authoritarian happiness, and which up til now was about extracting every last possible drop of utility from subjugated vassals and tributaries. Its not supposed to sound "nice".
 
A question about questions: If I have questions regarding the subject of a previous DD (districts and buildings), what would be the best way to get answers, that hopefully doesn't require making a twitter account?
 
I'm really curious about the devastation mechanic. The current bombardment just feels like a time dump without any real feeling of accomplishment.

Still, as excited as everything else has made me (plotting me first run or three right now), I'm super disappointed there are still only 8 ascention slots. There really needs to be a way to add more slots for mature empires. Like, with the time/resource requirement of a full ringworld plus 2x the normal unity should let you unlock a 9th
 
Again, its part of the Domination tradition set. The one that increases Authoritarian happiness, and which up til now was about extracting every last possible drop of utility from subjugated vassals and tributaries. Its not supposed to sound "nice".
Read that again. You missed what he was saying entirely.
 
A question about questions: If I have questions regarding the subject of a previous DD (districts and buildings), what would be the best way to get answers, that hopefully doesn't require making a twitter account?
Ask now. Before wiz runs away.
 
Read that again. You missed what he was saying entirely.
Plenty of the Traditions are out-of-place for certain Ethics already. Its not really a new problem.

I'm all for Traditions getting a more complex overhaul with more tradition swaps or mutually-exclusive trees or something. But until we know more, complaining that that Tradition is "out of place for pacifists/egalitatians" or "regressive" sort of misses the point.
 
Ask now. Before wiz runs away.
Well, here goes: With regards to modding, is it add alternate districts, requires the same deposit? So a farming deposit unlocks both "Farming District", and "Green Arcologies", and building either takes up a deposit. Secondly: is it possible to mod in upgrades for districts and buildings? So that for example a farming district could be upgraded to a "Green Arcologies" district?
 
Plenty of the Traditions are out-of-place for certain Ethics already. Its not really a new problem.

I'm all for Traditions getting a more complex overhaul with more tradition swaps or mutually-exclusive trees or something. But until we know more, complaining that that Tradition is "out of place for pacifists/egalitatians" or "regressive" sort of misses the point.
Yeah, but I was addressing your reply to it.
 
These changes for 2.2 are getting bigger & bigger. Thanks Paradox.