Greetings Earthlings!

Today’s dev diary is an important one, because it deals with something that makes Stellaris stand out, something that really defines the early stages of the game: the Science Ships. These bad boys are necessary to survey unknown planets and other objects in space, finding out which resources they contain and making sure habitable planets are actually safe to colonize. Although a Science Ship can operate without a Scientist character as captain, it is strongly discouraged because skilled Scientists are required to research many of the strange anomalies you will find out there...

I like to compare these intrepid explorer-scientists with the questing heroes you might see in an RPG. They fly around the galaxy exploring, having little adventures, gaining experience and perhaps picking up some new personality traits. The galaxy is, after all, ancient and full of wonders. The way this works in the game is that when a Science Ship completes a survey, it might uncover an Anomaly of some sort. Each Anomaly has a difficulty level, so you often want to delay researching some of them until you have a Scientist with a high enough skill. Researching an Anomaly takes time and may result in success, failure, or, sometimes, catastrophic failure… For example, if the Anomaly consists of some strange caves on an asteroid, the Scientist could find out their origins and learn something of value, come to a wrong conclusion (the Anomaly would then disappear forever), or accidentally trigger a fatal explosion which might knock the asteroid out of orbit and put it on a trajectory towards an inhabited planet.

Anomalies are thus quite like little quests, and usually require some player choices (exactly like the “events” you’ve seen in our other games.) Some options are only available under certain conditions. For example, a special option might require that the Scientist or empire ruler has a specific personality trait.

The biggest challenge we face when writing these Anomaly events is to provide enough variation that players keep getting surprised even after several complete playthroughs. Therefore, we work with rare branches and having multiple start and end points, so that you might initially think you’ve seen the Anomaly before, only to find that this time it plays out differently...

There are other important tasks for Science Ships as well; they are required for many special research projects and for analyzing the debris left behind after a battle, perhaps managing to reverse engineer some nifty technologies (the subject of a future dev diary…)

That’s all for now folks! Next week Henrik "GooseCreature" Eklund will talk about the “Situation Log” and special research projects.

 

[tman144]

Never trust the science officer.

 

[LoneBluPaladin]

Great Dev Dairy

 

[B3ndolf]

This sounds like a really bad design decision. Can the developers explain what this "gamey" system adds to the game, vs being able to start research on an anomaly right away, and getting qualitatively varying results depending on skill level? It's completely unrealistic that a civilization would find something and decide not to research it for a few years, until they got better skill. How would they even know that their skill wasn't high enough?

This sounds like really lazy system/mechanic design, and is the first thing I've read about Stellaris that I've truly disliked.

race discovers an anomaly which defies all their attempts to scan or interact with leaving them no choice but to leave it alone until they come up with different/more advanced means of scanning. then when the head scientist of said nation (who is a genuine genius (read high skill level)) hears about it
he says did you try scanning with insert techno babble here and manages to come up with a way of studying it.

our history is filled with examples of us discovering anomalies and not having the science/technology available to properly investigate it so we just labelled it as some form of god or some effect made by god and left it alone for hundreds or thousands of years until we developed the science to be able to better explore and explain it, why should this cease to be the case once we get to space? ok so we may not label it as god any more but if we don't understand something and cant make any progress studying it we would leave it alone until we make progress in other fields enough to actually help with understanding that anomaly.

granted this should be more a function of the overall level of science of the empire in question rather than the skill level of the individual scientist involved but even then there are many examples of people in our history who have been way ahead of our society in understanding some aspects of the universe.

 

[Asherett]

race discovers an anomaly which defies all their attempts to scan or interact with leaving them no choice but to leave it alone until they come up with different/more advanced means of scanning. then when the head scientist of said nation (who is a genuine genius (read high skill level)) hears about it
he says did you try scanning with insert techno babble here and manages to come up with a way of studying it.

our history is filled with examples of us discovering anomalies and not having the science/technology available to properly investigate it so we just labelled it as some form of god or some effect made by god and left it alone for hundreds or thousands of years until we developed the science to be able to better explore and explain it, why should this cease to be the case once we get to space? ok so we may not label it as god any more but if we don't understand something and cant make any progress studying it we would leave it alone until we make progress in other fields enough to actually help with understanding that anomaly.

granted this should be more a function of the overall level of science of the empire in question rather than the skill level of the individual scientist involved but even then there are many examples of people in our history who have been way ahead of our society in understanding some aspects of the universe.

That's exactly my point: "not having the science/technology available to properly investigate". The suggested game design implies that you would then never again have a chance to investigate it, because you "used it up", and therefore it will be gone for all time. What I think is much better is exactly the same as you, that you discover something, you start to investigate/analyze it, and you realize see it's "beyond you". But it doesn't disappear!

A silly but analogous example: The new finds at the Pyramids. In Stellaris's model this would be impossible, since we already researched the Pyramids in the 1900's, and they're now "gone" forever. It the proposed Stellaris mechanic, presumably Howard Carter would be told to "hold it off" for a couple of hundred years since technology was not yet advanced enough...?

 

[Safehold]

So, what do anomalies actually do?

They let you get more research cards, I would surmise. As well as some other benefits, potentially. Also big lore check, for backstory and story events.

 

[Botox]

That's exactly my point: "not having the science/technology available to properly investigate". The suggested game design implies that you would then never again have a chance to investigate it, because you "used it up", and therefore it will be gone for all time. What I think is much better is exactly the same as you, that you discover something, you start to investigate/analyze it, and you realize see it's "beyond you". But it doesn't disappear!

Well perhaps you studied it and ruind it with your effort?
You pressed that irrisistable little button on the side which you shouldnt have cause it made the ship go boom
or you opened up the tomb, let in some oxygen cause you did not airlocked it first and so the delicate mummies all fall to dust
or it was just this one little, realy tiny piece of hardware you found and during your metallurgy tests it just dissolutes cause you tried it with Aqua regia first...

 

[Spidee]

Actually that just encourages savescumming but at earlier date. If your late-game traits are determined by early-game traits, then you want better early-game traits and you reload till you get them.

Let me draw a parallel from CKII - your wife is pregnant, the gender was determined at the birth. However if the gender of your next child with this wife was saved and carved in stone, then you would have to either divorce, kill wife or load a save prior to the marriage. Similarly if you have a great anomaly, which can give you a big boon, the outcome of the individual choices, set in stone....well yes, you can savescumm, but who wants to replay the last 5 years?

 

[chopak]

When you said traits, i assumed visible traits. By your example it would mean that instead of Pregnant trait, women would get PregnantWithSon or PregnantWithDaughter trait. And then you would reload the moment she gets pregnant instead of the moment she gives birth.
If you meant hidden traits, then it might work.

 

[Safehold]

Some of the DNA splicing bonuses I saw in one screen shot may imply that a race's DNA traits selected at startup and perhaps improved by tech, can allow selective editing of leader traits. Rather than merely the random percentage chances gained through events and guardian mentorship in CK2. That would be a pretty powerful micro management tool for leader traits, such as scientists or generals.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Some of the DNA splicing bonuses I saw in one screen shot may imply that a race's DNA traits selected at startup and perhaps improved by tech, can allow selective editing of leader traits. Rather than merely the random percentage chances gained through events and guardian mentorship in CK2. That would be a pretty powerful micro management tool for leader traits, such as scientists or generals.

Can you cite link this screenshot?

 

[Safehold]

Can you cite link this screenshot?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...llaris-dev-diary-6-rulers-and-leaders.888500/

It's the one with the policy check list on the left and racial modifiers on the right.

 

[Carewolf2]

Science ships demand science officers.... Commander Spock will be in his element!

Vulkan support confirmed.

 

[Atlantians]

Vulkan support confirmed.

Vulcan.

 

[kreissig]

So I'm not sure if this question has been asked in any of the forum pages....but here it comes. It seems as if one can change the scientist "on-the-fly"...is that the case?

Example: My scientist (Jurnu) has a Physics specialization and he is six stars distant from our home world, when he discovers an anomaly that falls into the society realm. Now my society specialist...Kira, is currently back home. There is a button labeled "Change Scientist". Can she be whisked away to the science ship right then? Is there some kind of a time delay before study can begin, due to the change - where as it could proceed immediately if I used Jurnu? What is the thought behind the mechanic?

 

[JohnnyBeGoodNot]

Researching an Anomaly takes time and may result in success, failure, or, sometimes, catastrophic failure… For example, if the Anomaly consists of some strange caves on an asteroid, the Scientist could find out their origins and learn something of value, come to a wrong conclusion (the Anomaly would then disappear forever), or accidentally trigger a fatal explosion which might knock the asteroid out of orbit and put it on a trajectory towards an inhabited planet.

^Sounds like I'm going to be the cause of a lot of planets disappearing from star systems.. *whistles innocently and pilots ship away from exploding planet.*

 

[dsteve3]

The science ship (scout ship from other 4x) is ALWAYS too vulnerable to ambush unless its movement is micro-managed. After playing a new game for a few hours, moving each scout/science ship every turn gets seriously laborious.

In most 4x games, it doesn't matter because those little scouts are very disposable. If the Science Officer has quality that the player wants to keep, this makes the science ship valuable as well.

There will have to be built-in defenses; for example: stealth-Lite, EZ escape, can see 'enemies' in prospective go-to systems.

It is inevitable that Perma-war will creep into the game. The value of uncolonized systems makes that inevitable. There is ALWAYS a "race" (species) that utterly hates you from the moment they meet you.

If not that, then certain play-styles will exploit the lack of aggression with more of their own.

There will have to be some serious mechanic to protect the science ships, and barring that, something that is so overwhelmingly powerful to prevent the Bully Empire from squashing every lone ship that isn't accompanied by a massive Killer Fleet.

 

[kreissig]

If the Science Officer has quality that the player wants to keep, this makes the science ship valuable as well

It has already been stated that all ships will be quite valuable in the game, such that we will have to watch all our fleet movements. It sounds opposite of SoSE.

 

[Super-Soviet]

Vulkan support confirmed.

Vulcan.

Vulkan lives!

 

[dsteve3]

It has already been stated that all ships will be quite valuable in the game, (...)

Ya see, that's how it should be.

Even in a highly advanced society, the requirements of ANY industrial/military space vessel will ALWAYS make them extremely valuable. Considering that the vacuum of space also has no resistance and meteoroids are encountered only rarely, space vessel hulls should last a very, VERY long time.

The other side of this is the fact that space debris is LETHAL to space-faring societies.

I decided a long time ago that if I ever made a strategy space game, I would make it utterly anathema to destroy 'enemy' vessels. One, they are much more valuable captured; two, its far too expensive and dangerous to clean-up after the fact; and three, everyone in space has the exact same issues and criteria in this regard.

Everyone can re-purpose old or captured vessels, everyone has to worry about space debris, and tactically, one captured ship is better than two(+) destroyed ones.

There simply is no excuse for destroying space ships in battles. Space battles should be all about (#1) capture enemy ships and stations, and (#2) force those you can't capture to flee. Ships will still die, occasionally, but that should be a rare event.

 

[SIEGE-109]

I decided a long time ago that if I ever made a strategy space game, I would make it utterly anathema to destroy 'enemy' vessels. One, they are much more valuable captured; two, its far too expensive and dangerous to clean-up after the fact; and three, everyone in space has the exact same issues and criteria in this regard.

Everyone can re-purpose old or captured vessels, everyone has to worry about space debris, and tactically, one captured ship is better than two(+) destroyed ones.

There simply is no excuse for destroying space ships in battles. Space battles should be all about (#1) capture enemy ships and stations, and (#2) force those you can't capture to flee. Ships will still die, occasionally, but that should be a rare event.

Yeah but isn't destroying a ship much easier? I've been thinking about how pirates would need special weapons for capturing even civilian ships. If you want a dynamic like that to work you need to figure out what kind of tech would make it more practical to capture rather than destroy.