Stellaris Dev Diary #193: Signal Discovered

[Mojo1987]

The best thing is, based on the screens, that it seems like there is finally fog of war and not this woohoo I can see everything in another empire shenanigans that killed the whole exploration fun.

 

[Panzerslothen]

ESPIONAGE IS COMING
I AM SO [REDACTED]

 

[Ch4rybde]

How this will work with special empire like marauder, enclave or Fallen empire ?
Will we have special option, special event ?

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

It will become evident in due time.

Naturally. I look forward to it with anticipation. All these changes should really breathe new life into the galaxy.

Also, while you're here, and since you're the game director, I'd like to take an opportunity to reiterate a prior comment about a key bug that's breaking a paid-DLC feature:

Could you strongly consider putting out a 2.8.2 beta patch with bug fixes? The "breach of galactic law" mechanic of the Galactic Community is not working in 2.8/2.8.1 [no one is ever considered in breach of galactic law no matter how flagrantly they violate it], which undermines not only a key diplomatic mechanic in the Galactic Community but also the paid-DLC resolutions from Federations. I know your QA team is aware of this issue, as they've acknowledged it in response to the communities bug reports.

If you (@grekulf ) could arrange for your team to have this feature returned to full functionality as soon as possible that would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DrNukeLear]

It's easy to see how envoys could be fun, but its also easy to see how it would be really annoying to have to manually adjust which envoys are working on what. Especially with a re-assignment cooldown. I think a better option would be to be able to specialize your foreign office somehow. No promises!

I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree wholeheartedly. Specialising your foreign office gives more control and easier control of the optimisation of your empire. However that level of leader micromanagement you are looking to avoid is already present in stellaris and engaging with it is optional. We can spend time ensuring we have the right scientist with the right traits for the right exploration/archaeology/technology research job at the right time, or we can simply ensure that we have a blue tech scientist researching physics etc. Similarly a player could choose not to micromanage and simply send any envoy on any assignment.

However giving envoys traits and levels gives identity and attachment to your leaders. This is why certain events give special traits to leaders. It transforms the leader of a fleet from a level 7 admiral with scout to your admiral who defeated the stellar devourer. Traits are not just a mechanical device, they are an important hook to the narrative flow of the game. Imagine how much better the random envoy events could be with traits (positive and negative) to gain, but also to potentially change the outcome of these events.

Currently The deployment cooldown isn't much of an obstacle 90+% of the time while "Do I put my level 5 envoy in charge of negotiations or wait 3 months and use my level 7?" is a good example of a meaningful game-play decision. Do you want the deployment cooldown to be a complication or obstacle to be overcome? In it's current state it may as well go and join Empire Cohesion which had a larger role in gameplay, but was discarded due to irrelevance.

Without traits and levels you may as well replace envoys portraits with a number available and plus and minus buttons to assign them.

Furthermore envoys as full leaders makes them potential rulers with further RP potential.

Do the right thing. Envoys are people too.

 

[DimensionalHorror]

That's really cool.

Wouldn't be surprised if envoys replaced generals as the fourth leader type at some point.

Also, I hope there's special interactions making first contact with enclaves or the caravans. Wonder how that weird "Tastiest Aliens" anomaly will work.

 

[Liggi]

A few questions:

- How does this system interact with Marauders and Fallen Empires?
- How does this system work if you are meeting members of your own species in a different empire? Say the first empire you run into is the empire you are a Lost Colony of, or Commonwealth of Man meeting the UNE, or just simply two Empires with the same species portrait and name? Will it have unique events / outcomes?
- Does this system interact at all with meeting Primitives if they are the first aliens you encounter?

EDIT: Also, I've pushed hard since the beginning to make Envoys full leaders. It's worth it! You're reducing micro elsewhere, and it'll make the galaxy feel far more interesting. Imagine an Envoy that first established contact with an important ally later become President, and forming a Federation with said empire? Awesome emergent stories.

 

[Tibi088]

That should never be the case anymore.

Fanatic purifiers? Why would they need them.

 

[Jman5]

How this will work with special empire like marauder, enclave or Fallen empire ?
Will we have special option, special event ?

Important question. If an aggressive empire goes hostile against these sorts of established empires they're going to get wiped out. Would kind of suck to see a caravaneer fleet glassing the AI's homeworld on year 10.

 

[Krein81]

We all know what is "redacted"

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Fanatic purifiers? Why would they need them.

In case you force-spawn in a same-species Purifier?

 

[grekulf]

Fanatic purifiers? Why would they need them.

To be able to set up a REDACTED and engage in REDACTED.

 

[MrFreake_PDX]

To be able to set up a REDACTED and engage in REDACTED.

Best quote ever.

 

[PhantomDerp]

Internal politics and Midgame content when? Abducting purging xeno scum is nice though

 

[Industrious81]

Three quick things off the top of my head that i'm concerned about before the hype train fully leaves the station.

Is it possible to play a game past 2350 on a 1000 star galaxy without horrendous slowdown yet? How is the AI pathing during wartime doing? Any sort of automation improvements?

Still in a holding pattern until some of the major issues brought up over the last few months are sorted out.

 

[LostInACave]

I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree wholeheartedly. Specialising your foreign office gives more control and easier control of the optimisation of your empire. However that level of leader micromanagement you are looking to avoid is already present in stellaris and engaging with it is optional. We can spend time ensuring we have the right scientist with the right traits for the right exploration/archaeology/technology research job at the right time, or we can simply ensure that we have a blue tech scientist researching physics etc. Similarly a player could choose not to micromanage and simply send any envoy on any assignment.

However giving envoys traits and levels gives identity and attachment to your leaders. This is why certain events give special traits to leaders. It transforms the leader of a fleet from a level 7 admiral with scout to your admiral who defeated the stellar devourer. Traits are not just a mechanical device, they are an important hook to the narrative flow of the game. Imagine how much better the random envoy events could be with traits (positive and negative) to gain, but also to potentially change the outcome of these events.

Currently The deployment cooldown isn't much of an obstacle 90+% of the time while "Do I put my level 5 envoy in charge of negotiations or wait 3 months and use my level 7?" is a good example of a meaningful game-play decision. Do you want the deployment cooldown to be a complication or obstacle to be overcome? In it's current state it may as well go and join Empire Cohesion which had a larger role in gameplay, but was discarded due to irrelevance.

Without traits and levels you may as well replace envoys portraits with a number available and plus and minus buttons to assign them.

Furthermore envoys as full leaders makes them potential rulers with further RP potential.

Do the right thing. Envoys are people too.

I fully agree with all your sentiments. I would add that the idea of implementing "institutions" would still be very welcome. I would personally love to see a a number of institutions added that are fundamental to most kinds of governments, such as Foreign office, Departmend of Defense, Education and Healthcare etc... You could then have it so that Leaders become even more important as they fill up the roles of Ministers for each institution.

My only wish on top of that would be to then make the link of leaders to factions even more apparent so that there is some political infighting between various leaders, factions and the populations they represent.

I'm kind of hoping that we will see some kind of internal politics update within the next expansion, but if it requires a big hefty one down the line then so be it.

Really happy to see First Contact get some love and for what is coming in the near future with Espionage.

 

[V-Metamorph]

Hi, I was just wondering, can we take planet hostage?
we very hungry you see.

 

[C.N.]

Very nice changes!
But, shouldn't Xenophobes be unable to use Proactive first-contact protocols?

 

[Deshiba]

(Envoys do still currently not have traits or levels, but it is something we are actively discussing.)

Discussion over?

 

[V-Metamorph]

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That is all for this week! Next week we’ll be showing you some new features that allow you to explore maps like the one posted here below.

View attachment 656152​

That image show great promise, but it really need some reworking. You can hardly tell what's going on here.