What will the next Phenotype DLC be?

[WhaleThemedMercandise]

I'd like to have an expansion to the Humanoid phenotype. With more portraits and their own cities and ship types, perhaps inspired by some old 60s-80s styled Sci-Fi. Think the Interstel Starships from Star Flight.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Robots. I'm tired of my synthetics always looking the same.

 

[MateuszS]

Crystalline lifeforms maybe?

 

[Vanhal]

Actual animes would look goofy next to the hyperreal portraits of Stellaris.

Animated anime portraits would be just good. And i rather wouldn't call Stellaris portraits hyperreal.

 

[monsterfurby]

We can play D&D all we want, fact is these things will exist just in our heads and not in the game.

It's interesting you mention D&D, because D&D is also what I would have used to give the counter-example. Basically, in D&D, character CONCEPT creation is rarely a very creative process if one also tries to "play" the game. Although this was somewhat toned down recently, until 5E there were near-necessary "optimal" combinations of race, class, and stats. D&D invented the concept of a "dump stat", after all.

That's the danger I see with giving certain appearances specific traits. Suddenly, you are encouraged to minmax your stats by making cosmetic choices. Sure, you don't have to pick the space squids to play a psionic race, but if their traits are mostly good for that, why would you pick anything else? This leads to not only a potential clash of what designers believe certain physiques to be good at, but also to a certain repetitiveness.

HOWEVER, and I agree with you here, *events* for certain appearances could be interesting. Maybe a furry race would see a popular trend of coloring the fur in bright hues among the youth and could choose to suppress the trend, make money off it, or try to leverage it to have people wear the national colors and encourage patriotism. Maybe the relationship between an aquatic race and a land-dwelling one could be strained by the notion that the land-dwellers "came from the sea" and consequently consider themselves more evolved than the fish-people. Added bonus if species developed nicknames for their neighbors. Would be cool if events that dealt with other races suddenly spoke of "the squids" instead of the "United Directorate of Xyvyxxyz" once tensions mounted with their race.

 

[Kilmantor]

• More Humanoids (!!)
• Silicioids/Crystal-Lifeforms
• Robots would be cool though I don't know how to explain, why the robots would research the robot-tech then
• Energy or gas-entities

 

[pieman]

Considering we got a DLC with cuties, I wouldn't mind one about uglies. I could definitely see vultures in there.

get some kronenberg level stuff in there if you include uglies.

 

[Rotkohl]

Would be cool if events that dealt with other races suddenly spoke of "the squids" instead of the "United Directorate of Xyvyxxyz" once tensions mounted with their race.

In a way, from the other species' perspective, that's already in the game. My neighbors call my species dragons if they like me, lizards if they don`t. The same goes for other phenotypes as well, the positives are scarabs and phoenixes, for example, can`t remember the negative versions for that from the top of my head.

 

[TheAtreides84]

It's interesting you mention D&D, because D&D is also what I would have used to give the counter-example. Basically, in D&D, character CONCEPT creation is rarely a very creative process if one also tries to "play" the game. Although this was somewhat toned down recently, until 5E there were near-necessary "optimal" combinations of race, class, and stats. D&D invented the concept of a "dump stat", after all.

That's the danger I see with giving certain appearances specific traits. Suddenly, you are encouraged to minmax your stats by making cosmetic choices. Sure, you don't have to pick the space squids to play a psionic race, but if their traits are mostly good for that, why would you pick anything else? This leads to not only a potential clash of what designers believe certain physiques to be good at, but also to a certain repetitiveness.

HOWEVER, and I agree with you here, *events* for certain appearances could be interesting. Maybe a furry race would see a popular trend of coloring the fur in bright hues among the youth and could choose to suppress the trend, make money off it, or try to leverage it to have people wear the national colors and encourage patriotism. Maybe the relationship between an aquatic race and a land-dwelling one could be strained by the notion that the land-dwellers "came from the sea" and consequently consider themselves more evolved than the fish-people. Added bonus if species developed nicknames for their neighbors. Would be cool if events that dealt with other races suddenly spoke of "the squids" instead of the "United Directorate of Xyvyxxyz" once tensions mounted with their race.

This is all well and good, but I NEVER asked for archetypes to be tied to portraits. I asked for biological archetypes which can be found among different species, as eusociality, deep sea adaptation, reptilian brain, flight, and so on. Those have a far more radical impact than traits and actually determine the evolution of a species. You can call them with the same name of phenotypes (because let's face it, avian species are generally better at flight than bats and pterosauruses) or how the hell you want, you can randomize them for the AI if you want. But them non being in the game is a glaring issues of replayability, because the races feel remarkably more similar than in other space strategy games.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

This is all well and good, but I NEVER asked for archetypes to be tied to portraits. I asked for biological archetypes which can be found among different species, as eusociality, deep sea adaptation, reptilian brain, flight, and so on. Those have a far more radical impact than traits and actually determine the evolution of a species. You can call them with the same name of phenotypes (because let's face it, avian species are generally better at flight than bats and pterosauruses) or how the hell you want, you can randomize them for the AI if you want. But them non being in the game is a glaring issues of replayability, because the races feel remarkably more similar than in other space strategy games.

Surprise surprise, the game's customization is more focused on your civilization than your species. That's not so much a "glaring issue of replayability" as a difference of priorities.

I still fail to see how these "archetypes" couldn't just be handled through expansion and refinement of the Traits system, though. We need more traits like Decadent, that's all.

 

[Mcwynne]

This is all well and good, but I NEVER asked for archetypes to be tied to portraits. I asked for biological archetypes which can be found among different species, as eusociality, deep sea adaptation, reptilian brain, flight, and so on. Those have a far more radical impact than traits and actually determine the evolution of a species. You can call them with the same name of phenotypes (because let's face it, avian species are generally better at flight than bats and pterosauruses) or how the hell you want, you can randomize them for the AI if you want. But them non being in the game is a glaring issues of replayability, because the races feel remarkably more similar than in other space strategy games.

With the risk of going too much off topic.

How would these archetypes translate into game terms? How would for exaple a "flying" species differ from a "reptilian brained"?

 

[TheAtreides84]

With the risk of going too much off topic.

How would these archetypes translate into game terms? How would for exaple a "flying" species differ from a "reptilian brained"?

Being a flying species implies a particular understanding of space and dimensions that could easily be translated in ship combat. The reptilian brain differs from the mammalian brain in a whole lot of thing, including empathy, and it would be very interesting for the game to represent a reptilian society like that of the Ylané in West of Eden. A civilization rises at the crossroad between its biology and its culture. Can you think humans without their opposable fingers, their unique mating habits and their unusually long childhood? It would be a totally different civilization. At the moment the game represents just the culture, and that's a big weakness.

 

[Primarch Victus]

Crystalline lifeforms maybe?

No way! these guys broke like glass...

 

[St. Just]

As always, I care significantly more about ship and city models than portraits (I rarely run out of portraits, but entirely independently civilizations having identical starships is basically a given.)

Even beyond that, I'd much rather more clothing/phenotype/hair/whatever variations within most portraits than new ones. If only to contribute slightly to making leaders more unique and easier to distingush.

That said, currently the portrait packs I'd most like are
-Monstrous. Giger/xenomrphs, Tyranids, that sort of thing. The spider-things from Creatures of the Void is a good start, but moreso and more of please.
-Brutes. Things that look like they deserve the 'extremely strong' trait, basically-I went looking for a portrait to fit a Krogan/Ork style race recently and all the options were pretty lacking.

 

[Artaios Greybark]

Mostly I don't care enough to keep arguing, but lemme just leave you with this: it's almost like on a site with really generic avatars and long, drawn-out threads, I lose track of who posted what talking point sometimes.

I completely agree with regard to keeping track of who posted what. Because many people use the same avatar, it is really hard to differentiate between different users. I really don't understand why they will not let us upload custom avatars.

 

[Primarch Victus]

As always, I care significantly more about ship and city models than portraits (I rarely run out of portraits, but entirely independently civilizations having identical starships is basically a given.)

Even beyond that, I'd much rather more clothing/phenotype/hair/whatever variations within most portraits than new ones. If only to contribute slightly to making leaders more unique and easier to distingush.

That said, currently the portrait packs I'd most like are
-Monstrous. Giger/xenomrphs, Tyranids, that sort of thing. The spider-things from Creatures of the Void is a good start, but moreso and more of please.
-Brutes. Things that look like they deserve the 'extremely strong' trait, basically-I went looking for a portrait to fit a Krogan/Ork style race recently and all the options were pretty lacking.

Even the Nomouko in the Alien Suns (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689601294) mod?