Stellaris, Distances, and Cosmology

[espana33]

As a fan of pdox games from the very first Europa, it's extremely exciting to see the studio put out a space game where the game's best mechanics can really run wild. That said, the concept brings some questions and I'm wondering the community's thoughts.

Space is a very big place so at the starting point, does it really make sense that all starting races are the same technology? How likely is it that all these disparate lifeforms in the galaxy would have progressed exactly the same way? (so flavor between nations is probably a lot more important in this game than other pdox games). Even before a race achieves FTL type ability to explore the galaxy they would have reached out with all kinds of sensors and experiments such that they would have discovered each other if they were really just a solar system away.

If the game or a mod made it so that the early game involves mostly exploration and development before discovering other races, would that be something that interests you all in the community? (if we think of early mid and late as definitions, in this case the early game would be about really defining your nation as a galactic polity within a much bigger galaxy before even discovering other nations, kind of like a game within a game).

I think distant worlds has an interesting concept for this, although it's so cumbersome in it's execution it isn't really fun or even playable. Just curious about people's thoughts out there, bit of a long-winded post.

 

[FelixG]

there is a slider option at the start of the game that lets you decide how advanced or (if I recall) the possible disparity between the races at the start.

You could also explain it away as a Hunters of the Dawn scenario, where there was a race that hunted advanced life forms one they get too big (Some of the Fallen Empires) and you are just the latest batch of people who entered ascendancy around the same time, while most of the older powers got themselves blown out of existence thousands of years ago.

 

[espana33]

there is a slider option at the start of the game that lets you decide how advanced or (if I recall) the possible disparity between the races at the start.

You could also explain it away as a Hunters of the Dawn scenario, where there was a race that hunted advanced life forms one they get too big (Some of the Fallen Empires) and you are just the latest batch of people who entered ascendancy around the same time, while most of the older powers got themselves blown out of existence thousands of years ago.

I did see the slider, do you know if that means some races get more planets than others? It'd be kind of interesting to start the game as an established race or an upstart race which I'm unsure if they plan to incorporate into the stock game. I definitely agree we can abstract using whatever explanation we want to justify the game mechanics but it seems like in the real universe that time and distances/space are so vast that there should be some gap where you really do feel all alone, the blorg playthrough seemed a little quick to discover neighbors. Like by the time you get to FTL, you would have a pretty good understanding of your own solar system and probably already have pretty large inter-solar system fleets to gather resources/colonize, it seems a little whacky to just start with FTL and have only one fleet of destroyers magically all of the sudden.

 

[FelixG]

I am not sure what exactly the slider does, as I have seen the same streams as everyone else.

And the reason the Blorg were so quick to discover neighbors is because they have the max number of races packed into a (if I recall) medium map, so pretty much everyone is sitting on everyone elses laps. If they had 1/4th that number it likely would have taken a lot longer to run into their neighbors, but would have made for a more boring stream, and made for a LOT more spoilers.

 

[Oscot]

X species all over the galaxy all gaining warp capability on the same day is a perennial headcanon problem for any space civ game. The best I've ever been able to come up with is something like... there's some experiment you inevitably do when researching FTL, and it always sets off some sort of omnidirectional subspace ripple, which is both easily detectable and easily reverse-engineered. So anyone who sees it can infer quite easily how to GO FAST.
So in Stellaris you'd say that only one of the starting empires was getting close, but then they performed Experiment Z, which was essentially the same as projecting a big "Do this to go fast" message into every astrophysics laboratory in the galaxy.
Having 3 mutually exclusive FTL methods in Stellaris makes this harder to swallow, but it soothes my autism better than "Everyone just invented 'em at the same time"

 

[FelixG]

X species all over the galaxy all gaining warp capability on the same day is a perennial headcanon problem for any space civ game. The best I've ever been able to come up with is something like... there's some experiment you inevitably do when researching FTL, and it always sets off some sort of omnidirectional subspace ripple, which is both easily detectable and easily reverse-engineered. So anyone who sees it can infer quite easily how to GO FAST.
So in Stellaris you'd say that only one of the starting empires was getting close, but then they performed Experiment Z, which was essentially the same as projecting a big "Do this to go fast" message into every astrophysics laboratory in the galaxy.
Having 3 mutually exclusive FTL methods in Stellaris makes this harder to swallow, but it soothes my autism better than "Everyone just invented 'em at the same time"

Its all a wager between the Fallen Empires man. They picked their 'champions' and slipped them each the technologies they thought would fit them best, and now the younger upstarts get to duke it out for their galactic entertainment. Those decadent old fucks...

 

[erez87]

Since different starting empires can start with different travel tech, it isn't all that far fetched. Also this are only the empires of one era of the Galaxy. There are the older fallen, and younger prespace planets...

 

[Amightypie]

the slider just gives the ai certain number of techs to give them a head start.

the reason all the empires have the same starting point is for a symmetrical start if you really want to more time exploring than encountering other species just set the number of starting empire to as low as possible and have fun exploring space

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

Space is a very big place so at the starting point, does it really make sense that all starting races are the same technology? How likely is it that all these disparate lifeforms in the galaxy would have progressed exactly the same way?

The only real answer to this question is "because it's a genre trope." You can write lore to explain it, or can come up with all sorts of headcanon for how it could have happened, but once you start to question those then you're quickly back to "because it's a genre trope."

Let us accept this and move on.

 

[puggle999]

I think Wiz said 'Reapers' as a sort of easy explainer

 

[Simaimch]

Space is a very big place so at the starting point, does it really make sense that all starting races are the same technology?

There are the ancient empires and the pre-warp-civs. For the rest you actually have to make something up. Maybe one of the ancient empires just lifted its "kill all minor warp races"-policy.

Even before a race achieves FTL type ability to explore the galaxy they would have reached out with all kinds of sensors and experiments such that they would have discovered each other if they were really just a solar system away.

There are actually several thousand lightyears between the systems. Most of the star systems are not represented in the game. And maybe the other races haven't been found because they communicate in a way that is hard to discover.

If the game or a mod made it so that the early game involves mostly exploration and development before discovering other races, would that be something that interests you all in the community?

Depends. There are actually sliders for that. You can make a galaxy with 1000 stars and 10 empires. Then it takes potentially quite a while before you meet somebody else. But sure, if there would be a mod that enhances that even more in a way these sliders could not that might be very interesting.

 

[Wolfshield156]

I just go with the species did just invent FTL around the same time. Around the same time could mean something along the lines of 20 years of each other, with the game starting around the point where everyone is ready to start the actual exploration.

 

[Ark Evensong]

Yeah, I find it pretty hard to accept that a whole bunch of races more-or-less simultaneously invent FTL travel and enter a mostly empty galaxy together.

So, head-canon time:

Galactic FTL Pulses.

Usually, FTL is impossible. Planetary civilisations rise and fall all over the galaxy all the time, but without FTL are destined to fall long before managing to escape their solar system.
But every now and then, the galaxy 'pulses' - changing the laws of physics. This change in physics is obvious to any civilisation that has reached the Space Age, and would let them discover a means for Faster Than Light communication and travel on short notice. This pulse lasts maybe a millennium, after which it's back to Slower Than Light for several more.

Fallen Empires, then, are those few survivors of a previous pulse who managed to retain their civilisation and technology during the long period of STL.

 

[Amightypie]

do you really need to explain the start of the game ? why cant people just take it as a gameplay balance reason and just leave it be without having to go full on attempting to explain it?

 

[barny]

do you really need to explain the start of the game ? why cant people just take it as a gameplay balance reason and just leave it be without having to go full on attempting to explain it?

Yeah, sometimes it is a bit silly what people want to explain with made up nonsense.


If there would be full on advanced empires they would just crush the player constantly making for a very frustrating game, specially if you are new to the game. They already spiced it up more than most other games with fallen empires and pre-warp civilizations anyway, that has to be enough for now.

 

[Tim_Ward]

It is extremely unlikely: given the size and age of the universe, the speed of the development of life and a technological civilisation here on Earth we can reasonably expect that any species we encounter will be either millions of years ahead or behind us in technology; they will be primitive hunter-gathers or too busy bending the fabric of space-time and moving their entire civilisation into a giant TARDIS to notice us as anything other than a passing curiosity.

The coincidence of species happening to invent FTL at the same time is nothing compared to the coincidence of them even being around at the same time and of even remotely comparable levels of development. Therefore, given that the whole premise is bollocks from a strictly scientific perspective they might as well make it balanced bollocks.

 

[Ark Evensong]

Oh, I accepted the symmetrical start for gameplay reasons a long time before I even started considering narrative reasons.

Still, Stellaris looks to have a lot or narrative elements, and seems to take these seriously (Fart Aliens notwithstanding), so I think it's fair to ask questions about the narrative that leads up to the start of the game.
Less fair to demand answers, or even changes, though.

I'm quite happy with my head-canon - I think it nicely plasters a pretty big 'plot' hole, not perfectly, but good enough to not ask much further questions. I'll happily discard it if the game offers another explanation, even if it's (to me) a less satisfactory answer.

Personal preference for the type of (narrative) explanations for the symmetrical start:
(Very) Recent Catalyst > No Answer > Lampshade Hanging > Ancient Catalyst
and even that last one I'll accept, if a bit begrudgingly.

 

[BrokenSky]

As a fan of pdox games from the very first Europa, it's extremely exciting to see the studio put out a space game where the game's best mechanics can really run wild. That said, the concept brings some questions and I'm wondering the community's thoughts.

Space is a very big place so at the starting point, does it really make sense that all starting races are the same technology? How likely is it that all these disparate lifeforms in the galaxy would have progressed exactly the same way?

Very unlikely. This is a choice for gameplay purposes because if they did a more likely scenario (like one or two big empires owning everything and killing any upstart race who might ever grow to challenge them, or humans being basically alone in the galaxy) the game wouldn't be particularity fun. This is the reason mod-able scenarios are supposed to exist; so that the game isn't always like playing as Byzantium in the jaws of the ottomans.

They did also mention a possibility to make some of the AI races start with slightly better tech and stuff than the player, as well as the fact that we know races can start later (the bird people in the blorg stream for example).

 

[Laiders]

I believe you can allow AIs to start with more tech and planets in galaxy set up can't you? I don't know if you can do it for each AI individually but that might help if you want a more 'plausible' scenario. Just don't complain if you get headstomped by super-advanced AIs the first ten times you start. There are some 4X games that do asymmetric starts such as Horizon (now a suprisingly good game after they fixed it) and the upcoming Dawn of Andromeda (EA this month and full release a month or two later so a competitor to Stellaris but we have enough love for them both ). The problem is getting it set up so players don't get ROFL-stomped right out of the gate in single or multi player because no-one is going to play your complex strategy game for many hours if half the time they just die an hour or two in through literally no fault of their own.

 

[Ark Evensong]

I believe you can allow AIs to start with more tech and planets in galaxy set up can't you? I don't know if you can do it for each AI individually but that might help if you want a more 'plausible' scenario.

Yeah, there's a slider to give a number of alien civilisations a head start - although I believe it's just a Tech/Resource/Pop(?)/Infrastructure head start, not more territory. (They'd be able to expand quickly, though.) Just my understanding of it - I don't think we have enough information to be certain.